The Shallow Frog Prince

I was reading "The Frog Prince" story to Ethel a few days ago when it struck me that the story is so shallow and that I should stop reading it.

Anyway, in case some of you who have never heard of the story (what happened to your childhood?!), here's the summary of "The (Shallow) Frog Prince".

There was a beautiful princess who dropped her golden ball into a pond while playing with it one day. She sobbed over the lost of her ball when suddenly, a frog popped up and struck her a deal. It would retrieve the ball for her provided that she would allow it to eat, play and sleep with her. The princess promised though she had no intention of keeping her promise. The frog managed to retrieve the ball but to its dismay, the princess ignored the frog and ran back to the castle. In the evening during dinner, the frog appeared at the castle. Under her father's pressure, the princess condoned the frog to eat from her plate. She kept crying and was very ungracious over the whole thing. In the end, when she dropped the frog onto her bed (also part of the deal), the frog turned into a handsome young prince. They fell in love and lived happily ever after.

WHAT A SHALLOW STORY!! What was the author propagating?? That one should focus on looks to have a happy marriage??! When the prince was a frog, he was exposed to the ugly side of the princess. She went back on her promise and found him ugly. When he turned into a prince, she IMMEDIATELY fell for him! What a superficial bitch. Wonder why the prince still wants her to be his wife?? Oh I forgot. The princess is beautiful, remember?

So now I have got a clue why most people go for looks. If this is the kind of crap we listened to when we were young, then it is of no wonder that we are instilled with the idea that looks are that important. (Honestly, I am also a shallow person who prefer guys to be good-looking. And yes, I read this story when I was a child.)

This story is going to be in my black list. I will never ever read this story to my students or child(ren). Ever.

Sneezing Panda

This video is sooooooo FUNNY!!! You really got to check this out!

Competition!

My piano teacher told me to sign up for piano competition!! My first reaction was "No Way!" And then, the performer in me took control over my mind and made me say yes.

I am going to take part in a piano competition!

Woohoo! Can't believe it. Seriously, I am not very good in playing the piano. But I'm itching to give the competition a try, to see how far I can push myself.

It will add colours to the competition though, wouldn't it? A adult playing grade 2 music among the teeny ones. =P

I must practice, practice, practice! Now that I have agreed, there will not be any half-hearted efforts.

This is so exciting! Haha!

Give Me the MONEY!

I am so broke right now. Realised that I overspent around $1000 last month! As a result, I have become more frugal these days. The first improvement is to kick the habit of taking cabs. On Wednesday, I took the MRT from Clementi to Pasir Ris alone during peak hour! On one hand, I'm proud of myself. On the other hand and ironically, I am rather embarrassed that I am feeling proud of this small "achievement". Bleagh...

Anyway, I still have a list of things I want to buy!

1) Braces ~$4500
2) Paper Cutter ~$50
3) Children Classics ~$100 (for now)
4) Vacuum Cleaner
5) Mini Notebook ~$700
6) Electronic Keyboard ~$500

Argh! Give me the MONEY!!

Bangkok Trip (Last Day)!

Last Day

Last day. Last minute rush to all the shopping centres. Last minute shopping for souvenirs. Last breakfast at Samram Place. Last cup of Black Canyon coffee. Last meal at A&W.

Last group photo at Bangkok.





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That was how our luggage was transported to the airport. Every creak and groan from the boot made my heart skipped a beat.

Bangkok Trip (Second Day)!

Second Day

We made it in time for breakfast the 2nd day! Nothing fantastic though. However, a feast awaited our eyes in the dining room. A group of very good-looking caucasians were sitting next to our table. Slurps~ Keke!

Look at how happy Xiao Pang was.

Our tour guide, Jaws. She is really good with the map and at leading us around BKK. We decided to walk (again) to Platinum Mall and the wholesale place opposite it.

The crazy girls with our Hotel in the background.

After walking for around 15 minutes, we reached Platinum Mall. It was a shopping paradise!! Much, much better than Chatuchak!

Quickly took some spastic pictures before the shopkeeper spotted us.

Food! The best thing about dining in Thailand is that the food always come so cheap and delicious!

Look at my "rewards" after a hard day's work. =P I need a huge plastic bag to put all my shopping inside.

We went back to our hotel after shopping to get dressed for part 2 of day 2. It was the highlight of our trip.

We dolled ourselves up because the place we were going to has a dress code. But before that, we went to Suam Long Night Bazaar to fill up our stomachs first. At first, I thought that that place is like a market. I was uncomfortable going there with us all dolled up. I did not want to invite unwanted attention. To my surprise, the place Birdie introduced is not like a market at all! It had a live band and a romantic ambience. We love that place.





Of course, we could not resist taking photos.

After a satisfying meal, we decided to make our way to BANYAN TREE HOTEL!! Yes, that was the highlight! You will know why when you see the photos.

On our way to the 59th floor.

Look at the view!! We went to this fine dining restaurant, on top of Banyan Tree Hotel, called Vertigo. It is an outdoor restaurant which means that there is no shelter on top of our heads! On the 60th floor! It really, really took our breath away. We could see lights sparkling and stretching into the darkness, feel the breeze that made me feel weightless for a moment, feel the vastness of the sky above us... It. Just. Took. My. Breath. Away.











No collage of pictures here. The view was just too good to cram into collages.

The service from that place was fantastic. They even took a complimentary photo of us and gave EACH OF US A COPY OF THAT PHOTO!! They were damn generous! The photo really touched us. It really made our day.

Words just cannot describe the feeling I had that night. It was beyond amazed, surprised, touched, grateful, appreciative, happy.....

Let me end Day 2 on this happy note.

Bangkok Trip (First Day)!

First Day

We woke up freezing cold. I underestimated the aircon in our room and set it to 15 Degrees Celsius the night before. =P


Looking out of the windows, the weather was perfect! Warm sunlight flooded our hotel room. It really felt like holiday has finally arrived.



We quickly washed and dressed, wanting to make it in time for the hotel's breakfast. But... Breakfast was over when we reached the lobby! Bleagh.. We thought breakfast ends at 11am but it actually ends at 10am. And so, we turned to A&W for breakfast! Yeah!!



How I have missed A&W's root beer! I just could not get enough of it. =) The funny thing about BKK's A&W is that it was empty most of the time. Turns out that fast food is actually more expensive than the local food and thus, few locals actually prefer fast food. We had the whole place to ourselves that day. I really like that place. It really made me feel like I'm on holiday, watching the vehicles zoomed past the place while we sat happily eating our breakfast.

After breakfast, we set off to Chatuchak, Bangkok's most famous market. There was no photos taken because the place was too crowded. I do not like that place. It was packed, hot and smelly. I just could not stand the food smell. The food smell is forever present in the roadside stalls and hawkers. I do not know how to describe it. I just know that that smell stains the memory of Thailand.

Finally, we could stand it no more and decided to return to our hotel. It was a wise decision as it started to rain when we were in the taxi.

After resting, we decided to hit MBK Shopping Centre next. According to the map, it was a short distance away and thus, we walked there despite the rain. Adventurous sia~ =P

It was a haven for fake goods! We actually wondered whether the Thai actually know that they were buying fakes and whether they actually know that LV, Burberry, Raphl Lauren ,etc, exist with exorbitant prices. The shops actually "anyhow" slapped on the brands onto different items without care. You can see the horse symbols on slippers, LV design on the sole of shoes, etc. Really crazy!




We ate our dinner at the MBK foodcourt. The meal was good and of course, the price was definitely affordable. After dinner, we decided to go for Pedi and Manicure. And after that, Thai massage. Shiokness!! Especially after shopping for the whole day.

At last, hotel sweet hotel.

Bangkok Trip (First Night)!

All of us are so efficient this time round. All the photos from our Bangkok trip are up! And so... I can blog all about my trip now! Yesh! Erm... This is going to be a long and detailed post so bear with it. I wanna capture everything single moment down in my blog so that I can read about it over and over again and relive those moments over and over again. =)

First Night (Friday Night)

Our flight was on the 7th of November 2008 at 1135pm. I know, the flight was super late! We checked in at around 930pm. Wan Yi, Jiang Hao and Jian Wei were there to send us off. Farewells were said, hugs were exchanged and photos were taken. It looked like we were going away for three years instead of three days. Haha!



Look at our big suitcases! Can you believe those were for a 3-day holiday? Haha! We were thankful for the humongous size of our luggages later on though.

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I had only taken an aeroplane once when I was very young. Therefore, I do not remember much about the inside of Changi Airport after checking in. On Friday, I was amazed and mesmerised by the whole place. It was like Christmas!! There were lights decoration, people queueing at the cashiers, people shopping, etc. A festive mood was definitely in the air! I love that place. =)

We shopped around and then decided to take the train to Terminal 3 for more shopping. (We checked in at Terminal 1.)

In the end, we had to run for our flight cause we miscalculated the time. We really sprinted all the way to the gate. We made it with only a few minutes to spare before boarding the plane. Phew...

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We took Thai AirAsia and surprisingly, the plane was in quite a good condition.

Our first encounter with a Thai. Look at that joker behind us.

The ride was smooth and uneventful. We arrived in Thailand at around 3am. We decided to take the Airport Taxi as both Jaws and me heard that it was safer that way. The price they quoted was HORRIBLE! 1500 baht per journey!! It was around S$50! Siao! In the end, a very nice man told us to take the meter taxi at counter 10. Told us it was safe and everything. He even wrote us our Hotel Address in Thai. I was very suspicious of his kindness at first, thinking he had some ulterior motive. I was so wrong. That was the introduction to the kind of service we were going to receive throughout our stay.

There was a long queue at counter 10. So... The best form of entertainment we had.

Finally, we reached our hotel, Samran Place at around 4am. The cab driver who drove us there thought that we were Japanese. Haha! He even said "Arigato" and "Sayonnara" to us. A bell boy helped us with our luaggage. Actually, he was more of an uncle than a boy but I never heard of bell uncle before. So for convenience sake, I shall stick to bell boy throughout my entries. He was a funny man! He offered to take a picture of me and Xiao Pang. He said, "One, two, three, ACTION!", laughed at his own joke and took a super blurred photo for us. -_-"....

It didn't escaped the Hotel's attention that we had 4 people and thus, we had to pay for one more person. On the bright side, we each had a bed (Jaws and Birdie shared a King size bed).

Time to sleep!

Back from Bangkok

Hello everyone carp~ I am back from Bangkok. I had a great time there, especially with my girlfriends. They were the ones who made the trip such a enjoyable and fun one. Love them~

My ear is still blocked! It is so uncomfortable. I just came back from the doctor. He told me that my ear couldn't balance the pressure when taking off and landing and that caused a tear in my left ear. It bled and a blood clot was formed which blocks my hearing. Nothing very serious though. At least it won't affect my ear drums, which is a BIG relief to me. Next time, I will have to take more precautions when taking flights.

I will post about my trip after I have sorted out all the photos. Will take some time. Can't wait to blog about my trip!

Bangkok wooh!

Tomorrow at this time, I will have just arrived at Bangkok's airport. Wooh! Can't believe we're flying off tomorrow! Wish me safe flight and good luck!

Life after work?

I've just read one of my NIE friend's blog. She locked it and I have to ask her to invite me in. Once I saw her latest entry, I knew why she locked her blog. It is to safeguard her blog from prying eyes. It is not because she wrote controversial stuffs in her blog but rather, it is because she is a teacher. And teachers have no personal life.

What I say is true. Putting aside the dreadfully long hours teachers work, teachers have to conduct themselves properly in public areas. We may never know when or where we will bump into colleagues, principals, parents or students. What happens if we are in shorts, tube tops, bikinis or are drunk, laughing madly, crying hysterically, picking our noses when we bump into those group of people mentioned?? There goes the "professional image". The ironic thing is that we are not working at that moment.

Sometimes, I just feel that we are in the same predicament as celebrities. Our personal lives are also put in the limelight and the students and parents are the paparazzi. Ever gossip about bumping into teachers in public areas? I have. I recalled a funny incident. One of my friends, a guy teacher, went swimming at a public swimming pool. He was about to enter the water when suddenly, a child shouted his name across the swimming pool. Turned out that the child was his student. Needless to say, all eyes were on him in his swimming trunks. Poor guy couldn't decide to cover his face or his.........

That is why I always tell people who are choosing teaching as a career that they need to think carefully and don't make hasty decisions. Do not say things like "no university wants me so I'm left with only this choice", "teachers have long holidays", "the pay is good" (dunno where they got that from), etc. The only thing that sustain you through teaching is not money but the passion. It is the only thing that drives us to be better teachers and to sacrifice many things. And passion will start to ebb away after years and years of teaching ungrateful children and nasty parents. When my passion is used up, I will go.

If you do not have the passion, don't even think about going down this road.

Pardon my whining.

Spastism and Cuteness

Spastism

In an act of spastism, we decided to play with the straw hat that was given to me in one of my Social Studies fieldtrips.




My brother and his spastic smile... Which sort of resemble.....











Him! Haha! The character in anime "One Piece".







Me as a Hokkien RnB singer. Haha!


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Cuteness


On to something cute. Another picture of Ethel.





I love this picture. I like the rainbow of colours. Brightened up my day. =D

Holiday Cheer!

I am officially on HOLIDAY!!! YIPPEE~!!!