I had a sumptuous classic Christmas feast complete with turkey, chicken, all sorts of ham and desserts. I wish I can eat the same again tomorrow..

Chinese New Year is another ocassion for me to indulge in all the delicious stuff.

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I don't feel like blogging anymore. I guess I am not keen in keeping a sort of diary which has no audience.

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Yvonne Lim Xiang Ping.. She's got super beautiful translucent skin I adore.

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I didn't know that it's not that expensive to go for slimming treatments. I just received my DBS Women's CArd or something. $900 for 32 slimming sessions at Marie France. I might go for it. I will never regain my pre-pregnancy weight without extra help. It's been 21 months since giving birth and I am still at 55 or 56kg.. Still wearing Large size for a bottom. Though my friends are all surprised at my weight and clothes size. I don't appear so. It's the way I dress I guess. I wear lotsa dresses and skirts.

I am a fan of the show Little Nonya. I get less rational when I am engrossed in drama serials.

I now loathe Apple Hong and one of the girls whose name I still do not know despite her starring in a number of shows. She's the one with the name Zhen Zhu in the show. I get so mad seeing them because they are portraying evil characters. Don't tell me that the fact that they get me mad shows that they have acted well and so succeeded. I don't buy that. WEll, I just said that I am less rational when it comes to my feelings towards actors and actresses.

I now have much much more favourable opinion of actors and actresses I never liked before!! They are Ou Xuan, Joanne Peh, Qi Yu Wu and Dai something. Sorry. STill don't know his name. He's from China acting as a Japanese in the show. I like the romance bits that are crafted in this show. Quite original. My words do not do them justice. My limited language ability does not enable me to word my thoughts all that well. :(

Anyway, I wish there were a man that love me so much too.

Somehow, I tend to censor what I write here. I am afraid that the contents will be read by the wrong parties and get myself into real hot soup.

My wish --- my husband to be someone I can communicate with. I wish he will treat me better so that it will be easier to love him.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I am dying to move house. STaying with my mother-in-law and all since marriage. I can't stand it anymore.

Those new houses are build to order sort. I have to wait for more than two years if I apply for one of those new houses. Darn. Can I put up with everything for another two years?

I visited the showrooms at ToaPaYoh Hub today. Visiting those showrooms and Ikea always make me feel like having my own home.

I told an old friend over msn yesterday night that I feel proud of my own achievements (work related), achievements only I know of.

Browsing through the photos of myself taken in Japan just now. Think I look kinda cute in some of the photos. It's the winter coat and the hat. Make a lot of difference.

Nownownow... you may think that I must be mad to first be proud of my achievements in work and then in my looks, to be more precise, my appearance in the photos taken in Japan, not my everyday looks.

I'm just glad that I don't suffer from low self esteem. It sucks. I sometimes slip into destructive thoughts that way.

There are a couple of things I like about living in Japan.

The toilets and smoking culture. :)

Almost all the toilets I have been to are clean. The kind you feel good using. The thing is, I don't even see a cleaner on standby for cleaning. I attribute this to the Japanese's good habits.

The toilets in the hotels come with seat warmers! So you can sit on a warm toilet seat any time of the day in winter. It feels good. The toilet bowl comes with functions that can allow you to wash up after peeing or pooing. One for washing the anus area another for the private part. Pardon me for the details. You can adust the water pressure to your liking.

Then smoking. They have vending machines hawking numerous brands of cigarettes. The guide says Japanese have one of the highest rate of smokers. But I didn't have to suffer from inhaling smoke almost everywhere I went to. I was puzzled. Then was told that there are designated areas for smoking, so almost all the smokers abide by the laws and smoke only where they can. This is so in contrast with a particular country where people smoke even in their air conditioned airports.

Oh.. and they clear up themselves after eating. :)

It's one matter to have the respective LAWS in place.. but another to have the majority abide by them.

I do have quite a lot of fond memories of my trip after all.

I have been undergoing teacher's training at NIE.

Teaching - I gather that many people find teaching a loser job of sorts. They seem to perceive that graduates go to teach when they cannot get better salary or positions elsewhere. A sort of dumping ground just like many who cannot get to go to the good faculties in university will take up engineering or arts and social science. But we all should know that this is some sort of fallacy. It doesn't apply to all.

I am trying to put across that I am one of the exception. It's not that my business didn't do well. In fact, I used to earn much more money than now. I was just frustrated with running the business. It's time for some formal training and learning.

I realise that the thing I enjoy doing most is teaching students from the primary or secondary levels. I love all the subjects. I thought I was a good tutor as after all I was rather sought after. But I felt like a failure at times. I felt bad that I could not improve some students. I was hesitant about teaching in schools because I know I will have a problem with classroom management. I don't think I can handle children with bad behaviour, ADHD etc. I don't trust myself to be on time for school every morning too! It's darn early! You can never never be late as a teacher! But you can step into the office late, at least true for many.

Anyway, I decided that I wasn't good at the business and going through the NIE training and leanring from all the teachers in school will be good. I need to learn about how to teach. Many think that as long as they can do the questions, they can give tuition. It's very very wrong. I did not know that there were techniques till I started the training at NIE. It's good training, albeit insufficient.

I have a goal to be a darn good teacher that whoever I put in effort to teach will improve leaps and bounds.

My family members prefer me to open another student care centre again after teaching for about 3 years. We'll see. I will always teach. As for whether it will be in schools, it will depend. I won't become a full time private tutor too. It's too boring!! I like to be in the company of colleagues. I enjoy socialising, sometime I have been deprived of since having a kid.

Don't feel like doing a language check for errors in typing.

I am back from Japan.

I won't claim that I have been to Japan.

After all, it's only 7 days and just a little while in Narita, Osaka and Tokyo each.

This is one country I feel like returning to again. Another one is Hongkong. Been there 3 times. I love the food and shopping most. I love the cha can ting. There are a number of such outlets opening in Singapore now. I also love the Japanese food there. Ironically, the Japanese food in Hongkong is much more to my liking than that in Japan. I didn't taste anything great in Japan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I miss the avenues lined with trees with yellow leaves.

On how education as a child affects ability through adulthood again

I was wondering about music previously.

I have also been wondering about English.

There is probably a window of opportunity and once we pass that, we have to go through great lengths and still not be able to reach the same heights as those who have grabbed that critical opportunity.

According to early childhhood studies, that window emerges before the year of 4. I don't remember the exact time frame though.

This explains why I can never be as good, write as well as some of my peers do. Oh, I only started reading when I was about 10 years old! Before that, I wasn't the least bit interested. I went to Primary 1 not even understanding English or able to add and subtract.

Ya know, my 20-month-old girl can recognise a lot of words already. I didn't even try much. Ideally I should do the word recognition stuff a few times a day, but I do it once in a few days. :) Ooops. Bad mummy. I am not doing my child justice by not realising her true potential!

Some of those peers and writers I admire can somehow always weave apt metaphors and word their thoughts so well.

Metaphors are such delightful reads. There are a lot of them in Time.

Visiting Narita, Osaka and Tokyo in Japan this Friday! Blew $8000 on this trip. Oh, can I use the verb "Blew" this way? Wonder where I came across this word.

Trying to be on a positive note

I haven’t written for a long time. More than a year!

I have been wondering how quality exposure to music can affect a child’s development and how it influences one all the way into and through adulthood.

This is to answer the question whether I should “invest” in a quality music education for my 20-month-daugther in future.

Many will agree that training in music can make a child smarter. Does that mean the child’s calibre to learn is higher than those who have not been exposed to quality music training?
Does that initial advantage transcends to adulthood?

I have been pondering and analyzing all the friends I have who have a grade 8 in piano or other high achievement in music.

For instance,

Prissie -- Mid 20s. Piano grade 8. Plays percussion instruments for 4 years.
She’s much more creative than the average person about her age. She just manages to think out of the box when others can’t.

I have been wondering if her creativity is attributed to her training in music when she was young.

I am just lacking in the creativity department.

What I do to make up for it is to search for resources and adapt from them.

If this were a GP essay to answer the questions I have initially posed, I would have flunked badly. I didn’t answer my questions.