I am still deeply traumatized by what happened at the pool yesterday. I haven’t swum for a long time and I thought it would be great to swim again with my new swim suit.

The pool wasn’t very deep it was 4m high towards the end, . When I was doing my second lap, I vaguely saw someone flapping hard right on my left. il. My instinct told me that he was drowning. I swam quickly towards the person with a pounding heart right in the middle of the 4m pool. When I was about 3 inches away from him, then I realised how huge he was and was flapping very hard. I hesitated. Part of me wanted to reach and grab him but the part of me told me that I will be drowned with him, because I do not know anything about life-saving except from the TV.

He wanted to shout and wave for help but his head was sinking below and barely reappearing above the surface water. Water kept rushing into his mouth. In a split second, I knew I had to look for help. I looked around and saw 2 hunky guys swimming towards him. One of them got hold of him while he was still flapping hard. Luckily the hunk was calm and experienced in life-saving. He yelled “Don’t pull!” several times to stop him from struggling further while clutching his neck. Then, he calmly took him to the edge of the pool. There were several life guards around but I guess at that time, they didn’t notice or they couldn’t tell from far if the person was drowning or swimming.

I swam to the nearest edge and my heart was still pounding. I was deeply traumatized. The same incident happened to me before when I was 14. A girl was drowning near me and I thought I could save her. I was so wrong! She was flapping and struggling hard! When I reached her, she immediately grabbed and clung around me. She continued to struggle and was pushing me down the water while I tried to catch a breath. There was no way for me to resurface with her whole body pressing and kicking on me. I thought I was going die.

I can hardly remember how we were saved. I gulped plenty of water and was traumatized for a week. I had nightmares almost every night for a week, and mom caught me kicking the bed every night. Life saving is not easy as you think and don’t be cheated by TV. When the person is struggling in the water, he/she weighted 5 times more his/her actual weight. *shudder*

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It was so great to be home for chinese new year! I could hardly imagine myself not spending chinese new year with my family until year 2005, where I spent chinese new year in Perth – without my family. Luckily it wasn’t that bad because I had friends who also spent their new year away from home. We got together for steamboat at my house and we had a great time. But still, I felt a little weird because there was no angpow spotted anywhere.

My family traditional new year dish – oyster fish ball. I called it the dinosaur egg. Its length is about 4.5cm.

The greatest thing about chinese new year is to be able to sit around and chit-chat with relatives whom I hardly meet. Undeniably, the same question is thrown to me every year. 1) Have you had a boy friend? That follows by 2) Really??!! Then, 3) How come?? After all the frowning and hoo-haaing, 4) Ah…don’t worry, you are still young! Don’t rush into any relationship. Ahh…how supportive and understanding – no pun intended, of course. But actually, I asked these questions to my friends ‘unconsciously’ too! *grin*

My maternal instinct kicked in earlier this year, just because we had 2 new babies visited us this year! Meet Wesley, the cute and handsome 9-months-old.

Followed by the 3-months-old Marcus.

I can’t get my nose off his head! He smells SO NICE and irresistible. His hair is soft! I am very good at carrying babies now. I can even carry them with one arm (if they are not too heavy).

My very-own-designed ‘red packet’

According to chinese tradition, those who are not married, are not supposed to give ang pows (red packet). But since I started working, I always wanted to give some money to my grandparents and parents as a token of appreciation for bringing me up all these years. So I thought of ‘breaking the rules’ by creating my own ‘angpows’. Mom told me that I could make all kinds of packets as long as they are not in red. Well, it is no longer called angpow anymore since it is not red. (ang = red)

I love the piggies!

I used felt to make this pinky piggy packet for my grandmother. My family thought it was a bag for my iPod. Gahh….

Tipsy Cherry

I actually lost 2 kilos during chinese new year! I guess it was because I didn’t take new year delicacies. Yup, you heard me right. I only had 2 pieces maximum a day because I am not a big fan of these cookies and pastries. What replaced my sweet tooth is red wine. I was ‘tipsy’ 4 days in a row because of RED WINE! And I had wine for lunch and dinner with my family. At the 4th day, my mom had to refrained me from having wine at the beginning of the chinese course dinner. Before any meal is served, I asked the waiter to bring in the wine glasses and my mom told me strictly that I can only have it at the 4th dish. I felt like an alcoholic who has a bad alcohol tolerance. Blame the good and smooth wine man..

The painting of a 6-years-old

My mom found a mother’s day card drawn by me when I was 6.

The front and back. The picture on the right shows me, drawing a card on the floor.

Inside

Wow, I can’t believe I can write so many chinese words back then. Of course you can spot a few mistakes if you can read chinese. Hah! Am I talented or what??!! *blush*

Sigh, I miss my family already!!! I am counting days to go back again…

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I made 120 of these little felt bookmarks (or tag, or hang-on-the-button thing) for my colleagues and students. It was again, a spontaneous thing. One morning when I woke up, I was so inspired to make gifts for many many people. And so I came up with this idea.

It was harder and time-consuming than I expected, especially the cutting of the ‘heart’ shapes. I have thrown away several that didn’t look anything like a heart shape. It took me a loooong to cut and stick and I had blisters on my poor fingers..:(

First, cut 240 squares.

Then, cut the shape out till my eyes popped .

And voilà!

When I was making this, I didn’t think of what it could be…seriously. It is up to the their creativity really. *blush* That was when I have received different interpretations such as the “shirt-button tag”, “spectacles tag”, “laptop-hook tag “…etc..

I met up with Poom and Nick in the evening for dinner. At first, I wanted to take them to “Out of the pan” at Raffles City for savoury crepes and it was all booked out with “2 pax” on the reservation list. I called the place earlier on and they told me it was a walk-in restaurant! *argh*

It was so scary and everywhere we went, we saw double! We ended up at Cosafe Maid cafe at Chijmes. Heard of this cute cafe several times where you will be served by cute chicks in Victoria maid costumes. Aww…how adorable! The concept was good and according to one of the cute chicks, we can request for entertainment such as singing and dancing. Nah…we were kind enough for not torturing the “maids”.

I have ordered one of their recommended dishes – pork ribs. I am a BIG FAN of pork ribs and I can never finish the whole slab by myself.

My friend joined us later and because it was his birthday (how many of you are actually born at Valentines’ day? Hah!), we asked the “cute maid” to prepare a cake with candle. They even wrote his name on the plate! How thoughtful!

Poom, Nick and I had so much to catch up. Seeing them again really made me feel “aging”. It just seemed as we were apart 1 year ago. I really miss those days spending countless hours at Poom’s house back in schooling years. Poom is also lecturing at university in Bangkok. Hah! In fact, a few of my classmates are into lecturing, too. We are sure inspired by our lecturers at uni.

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“Cher! You got date on Valentines’ day or not ah?” (6 times this week and still counting)

“What do you do on V-day ah?” (lost count)

“Cher! You have boyfriend o-not ah?” (Countless times in this 1 year)

“Cher! You break guy’s heart before o-not? You made them cry before o-not ah?” I have no idea why and what made him asked this question.

So I told them that my plan for Valentines’ Day is meeting up with Poom and Nick. By the way, Poom comes from Bangkok and was my classmate for 3 years back in uni days. We hung out a lot and almost inseparable!
Both Nick and Poom are my close friends and I have missed them heaps since I left Perth. Both of them used to stay over at my place and played XBOX till wee hours. *grin*
I am so glad that Nick and Poom finally come to Singapore next week for a visit and of course I won’t miss the chance to see them after so long.

So my answer to their 1st question was to hang out with my uni classmates. Most of them gave me a mischievous grin until I mentioned ‘She came from..’. The grin dissapeared and opened their
eyes widely.

One of them said:”Cher, you bluff…”

The rest nodded their heads and agreed..

…..

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I almost forgot to update on my ‘tete’. This was her before…

And fully-clothed..

I made her eyes bigger than the original plan. She is now taller than me – 168 cm.

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