I'm back!
I just read a friend's blog about "one of those balances in life" :P. She's going to be a journalist and she writes well so I kop from her. Haha. I think it's cool cos it's something that a lot of us should or must learn. The art of sharing... indeed a delicate balance because it can easily become boasting/bragging or complaining/griping. When you talk about yourself all the time and tell about your wonderful experiences and holidays and shopping trips and exciting jobs and money making schemes... it may often come across as bragging. And then ppl will want you to shut up or they just drift off. But when u say ur life is boring and mundane and nothing interesting is happening, then ppl think you don't know how to appreciate the joys in your life. So how? That's where the art of sharing comes in!! I don't think I'm particularly good with that myself, but maybe, sharing is kind of like talking about yourself but with a huge dose of humility. Gotta keep that listener interested, at the same time giving him or her the opportunity to comment or talk. Cannot make them feel lousy about not having done what you did, or not understanding things you're talking about. Because the truth is, they have done things you don't have a chance to do too!!! Tough hor. But that's such a valuable skill to learn cos it's so key to relationships.
Anyway... so here's what happened the past 5 days! My birthday was on Thursday, and festivities started on... Tuesday!!
Tuesday
Dinner at Ocean Wealth. Friends from MIT celebrated my birthday for me!! Got lobster , soft shell crab, eggplant, dou miao, crispy tofu etc etc... AND chocolate mousse cheesecake!!! MIT ppl damn nice lor. Not just cos they treated me to dinner but they are one of the the most down-to-earth bunch of scholars/super-intelligent people I've met ever. So smart and so humble!!! I like!!!
Chocolate mousse cheesecake from Cheesecake factory!
Wednesday
One whole day of super-piaing work for meeting on Thursday. Although Joe Coughlin my prof is very nice, every Wednesday my panic level goes up by a lot because I meet him on Thursday and I always want to produce good enough work for him to see. But then I play too much before Wednesday and as a result Wednesday is like my cao-piaing write things like siao plot many graphs day. Dinner at Bartley's Burgers!! With Shan and Jayne and Tony. We had burgers named after famous ppl like John Kerry and Bush.... I had a Professor's Skip Gates (some prof from Harvard) which was a teriyaki burger with grilled pineapple, and onion rings. Yum. Tony just got back from Zambia so he entertained us with his stories and photos and even movie clips!! After that we went to Burdick's, a cosy little cafe that sells hot chocolate that tastes more like melted chocolate and wonderfully crafted chocolates. I had a Nuss Torte which was (i think) a nut tart with thick caramel inside. Yum again. They gave me a journal!!! I was looking ard for one, to write down lessons from church or bible study... and they got me a lovely one!!!!
outside bartley's with Jayne (beside me) and Shan
Wee Lee came down on Wednesday night and he surprised me with a huge block of Belgian chocolate fudge! Yum again again. Too bad my bday present was not a surprise anymore cos I knew what he was getting me... but I love it anyway!
Thursday
On my birthday I woke up at 6am to do work. Hahahaha... siao right. But then no choice the meeting was at 1.30 and I had a lot of ideas and stuff I wanted to tell him or show him so I had to get my act together. The meeting went really well though :) Old people are getting lucky cos I'm here to help!! HAHAHA
We didn't really have lunch cos we wanted to go to this Jap restaurant called Osushi for dinner. I had a $25 voucher and I also had a liking for Jap food... so we went downtown to gai gai before having dinner. We walked around the shops for awhile, tried to look for a cinema but ended up in the park where we watched the end of a beautiful performance by a high school church choir!! These kids had such big hearts for God and they travelled from Dallas to sing in Boston and other cities ard here.
The high school choir in the background
Anyway after that we went to Osushi, which was near to Chinatown. We had.... soft shell crab, shrimp tempura and Neo-maki (cream cheese, salmon, avocado roll). Yum yum yum.
Our flight to Philly was supposed to be at 8.30, but when we got to the airport we realized it was delayed till 10. So we tried to switch to the 7.30 flight which was delayed till 9.30. We did that, and like 10 min later found out that that flight was cancelled. So we chop chop switch back to the 8.30 flight. At 10pm all the passengers were looking through the glass at the plane we were supposed to board and then suddenly, poom! the emergency door near the cockpit opened and out rolled the emergency slide. HAHAHAHA. A lot of ppl were very angry but I found it quite hilarious leh. Some cleaner apparently forgot to disarm the door before opening it. Since they can't pack the slide back in within a short time, the flight was delayed again... in the end we left about 11 and reached Philly about 12. Weelee was zzzzzing already. Hahaha.
US airways plane with inflated slide. Hehe at least we know it works right? :P
Weelee's apartment is HUGE. It's about the size of a HDB 4 room flat except that it has one room only (with 2 queen size beds??!!). There's a gigantic living room cum dining area, and so much closet space which I probably can never fill up in a lifetime.
Friday
Weelee went to work. I woke up and went to Chinatown... like Tai-tai right? But no lah more like maid. Hahahaha... I bought groceries cos we were planning to invite Living Water ppl over on Saturday for the whole day. I also indulged in Dunkin Donuts Hot Chocolate, which is the best hot chocolate around!! (Jayne will agree with me!!!) I also bought some char siew and roast duck as a treat for my hard-at-work bf. Went back to posh apartment and cooked shuay gow noodles for the boy... but this noodles cannot find in singapore one cos it came with char siew and roast duck and meatballs! Heh After that I went to Penn to meet Steve Meng the monster (aka my small group leader in Living Water) and Chris the funny man. We had crepes in Houston Hall and after that Steve dropped me off at Freshgrocers where I bought more stuff for Saturday. I proceeded back home but by that time my boy had left to play golf with Steve. Boo. But its ok lah I also not interested in golf cos its too expensive a game for me. Give me shoes plus ball or badminton rackets can liao. hahaha... so I watched TV until 6 something and fell asleep until 9pm... got woken up and we went over to Hirou's place for the evening!! I went to see Christina too... she's subletting my apt in Philly for the summer! So weird leh to be back where i've stayed for the past 2 years of my life.
Anyway... Zhan baked a cake for me!! It was delicious.... banana cake... he even arranged the candles in a 22 shape. After that we watched Shakespeare in Love for like 2 minutes and decided that playing Mafia was a better use of our time. Zhan and I were mafias in one round and we won. HAHAHA... although Z got caught earlier... I killed everyone in the end. Muahahaha.
Zhan holding the cake he baked for me and Christina lighting the candles
Saturday
Live 8 concert!! We went to eat dimsum in Chinatown and to buy the rest of the groceries for later. There were soooo many ppl in Philly, all headed to the museum area for the concert. Live 8 is a free concert that's meant to raise awareness about poverty in Africa. The organizers hope to put pressure on the G8 summit later this week, to urge the G8 leaders to help the poor African nations financially. There were altogether 8 concerts (Paris, Berlin, Rome, Barrie, Tokyo, Moscow, London, Philadelphia, Edinburgh, Johannesburg) and the London and Philly ones were concurrent. Philly had... Will Smith, Destiny's Child, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, Sarah Mclachlan, Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, Alicia Keys and more.... If u want to sign the Live8 list, go to http://www.live8live.com/list/ .
live 8
The living water gang came over about 3 in the afternoon and stayed till about 10. We watched much of the concert on TV, live broadcast... it was just way too crowded outside and too hot. After that we watched more movies! Addams Family... haha such a cute movie. Weelee and I made dinner for them... which consisted of... Chicken Wings, Fried Wantons, French beans with dried shrimp, Honey Glazed Spare ribs and Agar Agar.
Dinner!
Sunday
Church!! Wow the new Vine St site is huge! But I still like the sanctuary in Chinatown... I like the cosy old feeling more :P Lunch at the hand-drawn noodle restaurant... and then in the afternoon we went to... COSTCO!! I love costco. Heavily Discounted Food in bulk quantities. Too bad there was only one freebie food tasting stall open. Stupid Z tempted me to buy a huge Raspberry sundae which was only $1.50, extremely delicious but definitely extremely fattening too.
I made Chicken Rice for dinner at night for the boy and me... and then after that we watched TV till zzzzz.
Monday
Time to go back to Boston! To cut the long story short...we had coconut shrimp and stir-fried noodles for lunch, I took an earlier flight back to Boston to avoid the evening crowd, had dinner with MIT singaporeans at East Ocean restaurant in Chinatown, and then squeezed to the front of the river to meet the church gang and wait for THE highlight of the day. FIREWORKS. Best fireworks I've seen in my life!!! They lasted about half an hour, and there were designs like boxes and smiley faces and star-shapes... I love the glittering ones the most though. They look like God was pouring out diamonds from heaven :)
----------
Ok that was a long account of the past few days. God gave me a good treat the past week... great company of friends from Philly and Boston.... delicious food every single day... gorgeous weather... smooth journeys.... He certainly treats me well huh? :P
Now... BACK TO WORK. Much to do...read and write. :)
I just read a friend's blog about "one of those balances in life" :P. She's going to be a journalist and she writes well so I kop from her. Haha. I think it's cool cos it's something that a lot of us should or must learn. The art of sharing... indeed a delicate balance because it can easily become boasting/bragging or complaining/griping. When you talk about yourself all the time and tell about your wonderful experiences and holidays and shopping trips and exciting jobs and money making schemes... it may often come across as bragging. And then ppl will want you to shut up or they just drift off. But when u say ur life is boring and mundane and nothing interesting is happening, then ppl think you don't know how to appreciate the joys in your life. So how? That's where the art of sharing comes in!! I don't think I'm particularly good with that myself, but maybe, sharing is kind of like talking about yourself but with a huge dose of humility. Gotta keep that listener interested, at the same time giving him or her the opportunity to comment or talk. Cannot make them feel lousy about not having done what you did, or not understanding things you're talking about. Because the truth is, they have done things you don't have a chance to do too!!! Tough hor. But that's such a valuable skill to learn cos it's so key to relationships.
Anyway... so here's what happened the past 5 days! My birthday was on Thursday, and festivities started on... Tuesday!!
Tuesday
Dinner at Ocean Wealth. Friends from MIT celebrated my birthday for me!! Got lobster , soft shell crab, eggplant, dou miao, crispy tofu etc etc... AND chocolate mousse cheesecake!!! MIT ppl damn nice lor. Not just cos they treated me to dinner but they are one of the the most down-to-earth bunch of scholars/super-intelligent people I've met ever. So smart and so humble!!! I like!!!
Chocolate mousse cheesecake from Cheesecake factory!
Wednesday
One whole day of super-piaing work for meeting on Thursday. Although Joe Coughlin my prof is very nice, every Wednesday my panic level goes up by a lot because I meet him on Thursday and I always want to produce good enough work for him to see. But then I play too much before Wednesday and as a result Wednesday is like my cao-piaing write things like siao plot many graphs day. Dinner at Bartley's Burgers!! With Shan and Jayne and Tony. We had burgers named after famous ppl like John Kerry and Bush.... I had a Professor's Skip Gates (some prof from Harvard) which was a teriyaki burger with grilled pineapple, and onion rings. Yum. Tony just got back from Zambia so he entertained us with his stories and photos and even movie clips!! After that we went to Burdick's, a cosy little cafe that sells hot chocolate that tastes more like melted chocolate and wonderfully crafted chocolates. I had a Nuss Torte which was (i think) a nut tart with thick caramel inside. Yum again. They gave me a journal!!! I was looking ard for one, to write down lessons from church or bible study... and they got me a lovely one!!!!
outside bartley's with Jayne (beside me) and Shan
Wee Lee came down on Wednesday night and he surprised me with a huge block of Belgian chocolate fudge! Yum again again. Too bad my bday present was not a surprise anymore cos I knew what he was getting me... but I love it anyway!
Thursday
On my birthday I woke up at 6am to do work. Hahahaha... siao right. But then no choice the meeting was at 1.30 and I had a lot of ideas and stuff I wanted to tell him or show him so I had to get my act together. The meeting went really well though :) Old people are getting lucky cos I'm here to help!! HAHAHA
We didn't really have lunch cos we wanted to go to this Jap restaurant called Osushi for dinner. I had a $25 voucher and I also had a liking for Jap food... so we went downtown to gai gai before having dinner. We walked around the shops for awhile, tried to look for a cinema but ended up in the park where we watched the end of a beautiful performance by a high school church choir!! These kids had such big hearts for God and they travelled from Dallas to sing in Boston and other cities ard here.
The high school choir in the background
Anyway after that we went to Osushi, which was near to Chinatown. We had.... soft shell crab, shrimp tempura and Neo-maki (cream cheese, salmon, avocado roll). Yum yum yum.
Our flight to Philly was supposed to be at 8.30, but when we got to the airport we realized it was delayed till 10. So we tried to switch to the 7.30 flight which was delayed till 9.30. We did that, and like 10 min later found out that that flight was cancelled. So we chop chop switch back to the 8.30 flight. At 10pm all the passengers were looking through the glass at the plane we were supposed to board and then suddenly, poom! the emergency door near the cockpit opened and out rolled the emergency slide. HAHAHAHA. A lot of ppl were very angry but I found it quite hilarious leh. Some cleaner apparently forgot to disarm the door before opening it. Since they can't pack the slide back in within a short time, the flight was delayed again... in the end we left about 11 and reached Philly about 12. Weelee was zzzzzing already. Hahaha.
US airways plane with inflated slide. Hehe at least we know it works right? :P
Weelee's apartment is HUGE. It's about the size of a HDB 4 room flat except that it has one room only (with 2 queen size beds??!!). There's a gigantic living room cum dining area, and so much closet space which I probably can never fill up in a lifetime.
Friday
Weelee went to work. I woke up and went to Chinatown... like Tai-tai right? But no lah more like maid. Hahahaha... I bought groceries cos we were planning to invite Living Water ppl over on Saturday for the whole day. I also indulged in Dunkin Donuts Hot Chocolate, which is the best hot chocolate around!! (Jayne will agree with me!!!) I also bought some char siew and roast duck as a treat for my hard-at-work bf. Went back to posh apartment and cooked shuay gow noodles for the boy... but this noodles cannot find in singapore one cos it came with char siew and roast duck and meatballs! Heh After that I went to Penn to meet Steve Meng the monster (aka my small group leader in Living Water) and Chris the funny man. We had crepes in Houston Hall and after that Steve dropped me off at Freshgrocers where I bought more stuff for Saturday. I proceeded back home but by that time my boy had left to play golf with Steve. Boo. But its ok lah I also not interested in golf cos its too expensive a game for me. Give me shoes plus ball or badminton rackets can liao. hahaha... so I watched TV until 6 something and fell asleep until 9pm... got woken up and we went over to Hirou's place for the evening!! I went to see Christina too... she's subletting my apt in Philly for the summer! So weird leh to be back where i've stayed for the past 2 years of my life.
Anyway... Zhan baked a cake for me!! It was delicious.... banana cake... he even arranged the candles in a 22 shape. After that we watched Shakespeare in Love for like 2 minutes and decided that playing Mafia was a better use of our time. Zhan and I were mafias in one round and we won. HAHAHA... although Z got caught earlier... I killed everyone in the end. Muahahaha.
Zhan holding the cake he baked for me and Christina lighting the candles
Saturday
Live 8 concert!! We went to eat dimsum in Chinatown and to buy the rest of the groceries for later. There were soooo many ppl in Philly, all headed to the museum area for the concert. Live 8 is a free concert that's meant to raise awareness about poverty in Africa. The organizers hope to put pressure on the G8 summit later this week, to urge the G8 leaders to help the poor African nations financially. There were altogether 8 concerts (Paris, Berlin, Rome, Barrie, Tokyo, Moscow, London, Philadelphia, Edinburgh, Johannesburg) and the London and Philly ones were concurrent. Philly had... Will Smith, Destiny's Child, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, Sarah Mclachlan, Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, Alicia Keys and more.... If u want to sign the Live8 list, go to http://www.live8live.com/list/ .
live 8
The living water gang came over about 3 in the afternoon and stayed till about 10. We watched much of the concert on TV, live broadcast... it was just way too crowded outside and too hot. After that we watched more movies! Addams Family... haha such a cute movie. Weelee and I made dinner for them... which consisted of... Chicken Wings, Fried Wantons, French beans with dried shrimp, Honey Glazed Spare ribs and Agar Agar.
Dinner!
Sunday
Church!! Wow the new Vine St site is huge! But I still like the sanctuary in Chinatown... I like the cosy old feeling more :P Lunch at the hand-drawn noodle restaurant... and then in the afternoon we went to... COSTCO!! I love costco. Heavily Discounted Food in bulk quantities. Too bad there was only one freebie food tasting stall open. Stupid Z tempted me to buy a huge Raspberry sundae which was only $1.50, extremely delicious but definitely extremely fattening too.
I made Chicken Rice for dinner at night for the boy and me... and then after that we watched TV till zzzzz.
Monday
Time to go back to Boston! To cut the long story short...we had coconut shrimp and stir-fried noodles for lunch, I took an earlier flight back to Boston to avoid the evening crowd, had dinner with MIT singaporeans at East Ocean restaurant in Chinatown, and then squeezed to the front of the river to meet the church gang and wait for THE highlight of the day. FIREWORKS. Best fireworks I've seen in my life!!! They lasted about half an hour, and there were designs like boxes and smiley faces and star-shapes... I love the glittering ones the most though. They look like God was pouring out diamonds from heaven :)
----------
Ok that was a long account of the past few days. God gave me a good treat the past week... great company of friends from Philly and Boston.... delicious food every single day... gorgeous weather... smooth journeys.... He certainly treats me well huh? :P
Now... BACK TO WORK. Much to do...read and write. :)
1 Comments:
well done! what an exciting weekend! certainly a lot more interesting than mine, though i wouldn't trade in my saturday lobsters for anything... hehe
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