Piggy scare

As I just returned from US, I'm constantly under the suspicion that I might be a carrier of the piggy flu with no symptom. Paranoid I guess. Regardless, I religiously monitored my temperature- no fever. Wore a mask when YS and CY came to visit me.. (Ya I looked like a terrorist, according to YS...) But I had a bad sore throat which later became a runny nose and cough on the 7th day since my arrival- I almost went berserk!

Anyway although I recovered from the runny nose, the cough stubbornly refused to go away. When I went back to work on Monday, I was totally taken aback by the situation in the office. The entire office is now coughing and sneezing... GOSH! I'm almost 1000% I'm the CARRIER... Although my boss and colleagues painstakingly told me otherwise. (Oh they are SOOO SWEET and Trusty of me...)

Anyway, silly me literally JUMPED at every cough and sneeze- AIYO!!! So since I cannot concentrate on my work without noticing the cough/ sneeze and going around asking, " HUH! Did you get this cough/sneeze before my return???", I took time off to see the company doctor...

Guess what the doctor said????

1) piggy flu's incubation period is 3-4days- You are WAYYYYYY passed it.

2) No fever? - Even more sure...

3) Overtime the moment you are back to work?- Your immunity to local flu is down

Conclusion: You came back to Singapore and caught the local flu instead.... What an irony....

DUH!!!! I almost cried out of relief man... Yippie!!!!!! I can finally spare my heart the unnecessary stress...

Clean UP!!!

Spoken with YS early last morning and she gave me a piece of advice:
Clean up your room.
I felt a wave of procrastination swept all over me.

Guess how did I reply her? Hee.. I told her,
" hmm.. but I'm not a Capricorn like you..."
(in my opinion Capricorns are super uber systematic, and YS is a excellent example of a systematic clean up person). I think YS gave up on me immediately...

Well, I did force myself to tidy a portion of my wardrobe after that.. (that's a good start isn't it?!? ).

Just to add: I also cleared half of my mountain of snail mails... (that's a LOT ok...) Well, that sums up my total effort to clean up the room yesterday and I happily went to bed.

This morning, I was awoken by CY's call... I spent most of the conversation with my eyes closed and when I finally opened my eyes... I saw:
GOSH!!! My room= a pigsty. SHUCKS! I'm officially an oink-oink now... All the post-vacation fats accumulation and now my room has remodelled itself overnight to suit my new look!?! OF course it did not happen overnight.

As I scrutinise my pigsty, I realised that my room looked different in daylight and in moonlight. Apparently the morning daylight has allowed me to see the heap of crap on my keyboard and my supposedly computer table, a molehill of washed laundry amongst my bags (waiting for the past month to be packed into the wardrobe) etc...

so I spent the whole day like this..

NOT!!!!!! nah... I wish ah! but in reality i looked more like this auntie below...

Morale of the story: Always listen to YS and clean up the room...

Music is THE universal language

I just love languages and music... Friends know that I have a voracious appetite for music (Remember my Korean craze...) A month ago, in the attempt to brush up my Spanish, I've turned to music for help.

With my very limited Spanish, I conjured these 3 words: "Aqui"= Here "Yo Estoy"= I am and viola! It brought me to this MTV in YouTube and guess what! I've totally AMOR it! The music and the lyrics... Enjoy :)



I loved it so much... I pestered Marian to bring me to buy this album in El Paso. Marian recommended Wal-Mart- hmm a very unlikely choice in my opinion. But she was right! CDs were impossibly cheap there. Much cheaper than those in CD Rama.

She was such a darling. As we were choosing which albums to get, she subconsciously gave a me a remedial lesson on Spanish! I felt that I learnt more Spanish than I ever did in class... (it must be the Spanish speaking environment.)

After an afternoon in Walmart. I finally made my purchase on Luis Foni's Palabras Del Silencio ="Words Of The Silence" (OF COURSE! I flew half a globe to get that!)


Julieta Venegas's Si= "YES"

I told Marian that I like soft rock and she recommended this Grammy awards winner album.
Apparently Julieta Venegas is a Mexican alt-rocker, so it's quite a sight to see her posed demurely in a wedding dress, against a pink background, on the cover of Si.








Maná's Arde El Cielo = "the sky burns"
(Marian taught me that the stress was supposed to be on "NA" as the sign was above "a" so in Hanyu pinyu it sounds something like ma1 na4)

Marian's favourite band...

Kids say the darnest thing!

thanks to Ling, I had the rare opportunity to be
the ambassador of Singapore to the kids from <=Lincoln Middle School during my vacation in US.











<=Wow they even had a street named after our country. :)
ok i side-tracked...

















Anyways, we started off at 7+am to Lincoln Middle School.Ling has "warned" me a little about the American school culture so I found myself a little jittery during our drive there... (all the horrible scenes from the American High School dramas were just replaying inside my mind...)

Well, apparently I was being over-paranoid.

When I reached the classroom, I remembered awkwardly presenting my hand for a formal handshake (well, that was the international right thing to do isn't it?). Ha... But warm and fuzzy Ms Munoz (teacher) just went straight to give me a big bear hug... That hug definitely quelled my jitters.
<= Me warming up to the American culture with Ms Munoz :)






Ling quickly got started with the Powerpoint presentation on Singapore (Thank GOD! cos i hadn't had time to prepare anything since i left in a rush).

Halfway through our presentation on the infamous topic on the chewing gum ban, a smart alec questioned us about the authenticity of the statement as he read in Youth Geographics that the ban was lifted in 2001. HUH! (now, we are really awake!)

Luckily we managed to salvage the situation with the explanation that only certain gums like nicotine gums or oral medical gums are allowed. Which later i checked, HENG AH! My memory served me right...


There was also a part where my worst fears happened... The kids asked me about the significance of the crescent and stars on my flag. SHUCKS!i forgot!!!!!
Ling tried to help me by saying that the crescent signify an Islamic country... Which luckily i remembered that it's NOT and quickly corrected the statement. Cos for our country, the crescent means a young country. PHEW!!! (but thanks Ling!) Well, the stars totally got me dumbfounded... (I clearly need more gingko nuts...)

Kids: Do you have any actors from Singapore???
Me: Of course we have (but who?!?)
Kids: Name us one....
Me: Erm... (i'd never imagine that i will have to thank her one day) Fann Wong from Shanghai Noon.
Kids: OHHH... (GOSH she is indeed global!!!!)

THANK YOU FANN for helping us earn a place in Hollywoods.





We presented to 2 different classes and the experience was AWESOME!!! Yes Kids do say the darnest things.. But I loved em!

They totally LOVED the postcards and keychains that I specially bought in Singapore...









One group picture for momento sake!!!!
Where's me???








The kids had to fill up a feedback form before we leave and this is one of them... Ow... aren't they sweet...

Finally on blogspot!

finally!!! after failing (like a million times) to upload any picture on my previous blog, I've finally heeded ling's advice to set up one on blogspot. anyways... i need to get started on a first topic...

wall-e speaker shall be it!

it was love at first sight at Yukiko's graduation party! (even momo agreed...)

then there was a sign from the fortune cookie I had during lunch:

seriously, i didn't think much about the note other then the fact that i should really try my hands on the 6million El Paso Lottery... (which i did buy)

well this is the outlet, and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do at the outlet: SHOP!!! (duh! what else???) anyway, i totally "worked" myself out at New Balance and the Adidas until I accidentally bumped into Belle then did i realise that i've hit the Disney Store...

thanks to the swine, i missed my chance to visit the real Disney store in Anaheim. whichever the case... it was a pleasant bump! :)

anyway, Ling and I went "LET's GO!" and quickly checked out the store.
Ling found herself instantly busy with the "class of 2009" Mickeys, Minnies and other soft toys so i roamed to the other end of the store...

then LO and BEHOLD! something caught my eye.... wall-e

ERM...but this wall-e looks a wee-bit different from the one i saw in Yukiko's house. Hmm... a little chuckier than i remembered...then as i frantically examined this wall-e i found the answer:
aiya! alarm clock not speaker leh... But i was surprisingly encouraged by this find. I thought that it MUST BE a sign that my speaker wall-e is near...

well, like the taiwanese serial suggest: 《轉角＊遇到愛》, I found my wall-e speaker right at a turn!

Needless to say...I bought it! and there it is! posing with Ling's bro (Zunhan's) transformer speaker... Muahahaha... all the celebrity speakers in the house unite!!!