Visiting

A, my hairstylist, has been transferred to Ang Mo Kio hospital for intensive physio, or occupational therapy, whichever it is. I visited him today, and the first thing his mum said was: "Nice hair!"

To which, A, his mouth full of lunch, said: "Chey, I do a better job!"

Trust him to still have a sense of humour. And well, I couldn't agree more with him, though I am pretty pleased with my current cut.

Reality has set in for A, as he is slowly coming to terms with the fact that he has gotta relearn all the basic functions that we humans take for granted, like sitting up in bed. He tells me that he's classified as a tetraplegic, someone who experiences paralysis in all four limbs, though not necessarily total paralysis. And therapy has been depressing. In his words, he now has to learn "dog tricks".

I'm glad that being there to just chat with him appears to cheer him up. Yeah, anything including his candid revelation that FHM magazine is the closest he has to sex now. Err...even when I point out that his mum is there listening to us, he just laughs it off.

We go into a discussion on moles, and we all point out that his mum and I are full of moles. His mum points out a big one on her back near her neck and A jokes that the mole is his mum's burden, which is him. We chide him for saying that, reminding him that his mum never sees him as a burden cos she loves him.

And he is quiet.

And it's really these sometimes jovial and sometimes sombre moments that punctuate our hour-long conversation. And I'm sure they parallel the mood swings that he experiences when people he knows are not around.

I can only say, keep rejoicing in the Lord for He is with you.

Social Worker's Day

Today is Singapore's first Social Worker's Day. I'm so happy that ST ran so many stories on social workers, with the main theme being low pay and low recognition!

It is also rumoured that there'll be good news released later on at the Social Worker's Day celebration. I really hope the good news has to do with pay! :)

Back to school

Yes, I'm back to school. Back to a secondary school to conduct workshops for the Sec 1s, that is. I've forgotten how it's like to have to drag myself out of bed at 6am to reach school on time. Then again, it seemed much easier in the past to wake up for school. Now, it's simply sheer torture.

In just three consecutive days, I've encountered the most well-behaved class, as well as the most hyperactive class. In the hyperactive class, I had four girls and one boy who ended up crying! HIYOH!!! They were uncontrollable. Girl and boy push each other, girl cries. Boy plays with girl's wallet, ends up spoiling it, and girl cries. Two girls get gastric pains and cry. Big boy picks small boy up and spins him around on piggyback, only to have another boy push small boy down and small boys hits his knees on the ground and ends up crying.

In the end, hyperactive class has to go for pep talk with discipline master after the workshop. This, only on the 7th day of school. And I heard, on the 8th day of school, a group of boys from this class had to visit the discipline master again, cos they were too rowdy.

If I could have my way as principal of the school, I would love to divide this class of 40 up into two. They will definitely be more manageable, because their attention span is too short. Sigh...I pity the teacher! It's just impossible to handle so many of them at one time! Sometimes adminstrative constraints just prevent you to teach holistically...

First trip out of Singapore in 2007

For the last six years, I've been saying I would like to visit belle's hometown in Batu Pahat, Malaysia, but I've never made it there. And she chides me for making empty promises. So I decided to do the next best thing: hang out for a day with her and her bf in Johor, where her bf lives.

My oh my, seems like the entire Singapore decided to head north together with me on the first day of Jan 2007! The Johor customs was SUPER crowded. And, because of the not very clever layout of the counters, I ended up joining a queue that I'd thought was moving the fastest, but was NOT. Because the counter was the furthest away from the other counters!!! I wasn't tall enough to see far enough beyond the crowds in front of me (see above pic), so I couldn't tell that my queue was actually very very long.


One big reason we could hang out together was cos belle got her new car - a grey Toyota Vios (see above pic). Heh heh heh. No car in Malaysia = very boring, cannot move around easily.


What an irony too, that a Malaysian got a car plate number with the letters SGP. SGP is sort of an acronym for Singapore. Apparently her car agent told her that these letters are very hot with Singaporeans. Not like she cares! I couldn't resist posing with her car, in front of the row of houses where her bf lives.


Of cos, we took pix in her bf's house too. Check out his huge collection of comics! Got ladder some more ok! Donch pray pray :)

Ethan roars in the new year

(turn the volume up!)

HAPPY 2007 EVERYONE!!! :)