Wish List

New year, new things to look forward to.

1) Complete assembly & painting of my 4 Warhammer Fantasy Armies (Vampire Counts, Lizardmen, Wood Elves, Chaos Daemons) (this is quite challenging)

2) 2 identical bookshelves to house more books

3) A plastic box to contain majority of my PC games >.<

4) A 3-storey bungalow complete with a war room (Warhammer, D&D RPG, boardgames), open dining space with water feature beside, perimeter surrounded by bamboo and stone pebbled steps, open concept rooftop with outdoor table & chairs + shower/wash point & surrounded by ferns (this is near impossible...)

5) A walkthrough for the quests on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

6) Starcraft 2 (the complete set of 3)

7) Complete Neverwinter Nights Series 1 & 2 (Time, gimme more time!)

8) Glass cupboard to display Warhammer armies

9) Cupboard to store boardgames

10) Students to enjoy my lessons and be motivated to improve their Chinese Language and learn more about Chinese culture and history. Every cohort should have a few to carry on the interest and spread their love of the language, culture and history to even more younger generations. (my lifelong ideal!)

11) A new pair of working shoes & pants

12) Some new colours and designs for tshirts and shorts/berms/3 quarter pants

13) Find myself someone to shower my care and concern...

Another Hellish Week

One might think that after last week, things could not be any worst.

Mon: 3 lessons back to back, Cluster Meeting, Buy HansWare & preparations for CNY
Tue: 3 lessons back to back, CNY Concert Rehearsal
Wed: 3 lessons back to back, Staff Training Workshop, Buy CNY Goodies
Thur: CL Dept FGD, Running through CNY Concert, CO Practice
Fri: Preparations for CNY Concert, CNY Concert

It's times like these that makes you think twice about celebrating something so early in the year.

Spring Cleaning

Well, after such a long time, the stuff in my study requires some cleaning & tidying up as well. Hence, 1 Saturday was spend just sorting out and disposing the unwanted documents. Another Sunday was spent sorting out my entire collection of DVDs and some noteworthy VCDs. Hence, now my DVD/VCD collection is divided into:
Animation - English, Anime, Chinese
English Movie - Fantasy, Sci-Fic, History
Chinese Movie - Wuxia, Modern
Serial - Japanese, Chinese, Korean
Documentaries

The next mission would be to sort out my printed materials collection, namely my novels, reference books, magazines and gaming resources.
Novels - Wuxia, Fantasy, Epic+History
Reference - Mammals, Birds, Ecosystems, Language Reference
Literature - Classic novels, Reference Materials
History - Chinese, Egypt, Incas, Greek
Chinese Mixed - Geomancy, Wushu, Traditional Chinese Medicine, War Strategy, Customs & Traditions
Travel - Countries, Islands, Visited Locations, Maps
Magazines - First, National Geographic, PC Gamer, White Dwarf
Gaming Materials - D&D, Warhammer, PC Game Guides

Everything About Me

Horoscope: Aries
Blood Type: AB+
Order of Language Acquisistion: Mandarin, English, Hokkien, French, Cantonese

Favourites

Colours: Blue, then (in no particular order) Black, Red, White

Local Delights: (in no particular order) Wanton Char Siew Noodles, Roasted Chicken Rice, Char Kway Teow, Oyster Omelette, Minced Pork Noodles, Lor Mee, Beef Ball Noodles, Fried Bee Hoon, Xing Zhou Bee Hoon, Kan Qia Mee, Fried Hokkien Noodles in Black Soy Sauce, Vegetarian Food, Lor Duck Rice, Prawn Soup Dumpling, Chinese Rojak, Laksa

Drinks: (in no particular order) Passionfruit Soda, Milo, Milo Dinosaur, Passionfruit Green Tea with Black Pearls, Green Apple Green Milk Tea with Green Apple Jelly, Milk Tea, Longjing Tea, Osmanthus Tea, Chrysanthemum Tea, Jasmine Tea, Hazelnut Frappe, Nougat Frappe

Fruits: Longan, Honeydew, Rockmelon, Duck Pears, Papaya, Durian

Dessert: (in no particular order) Black Porridge with Vanilla Ice Cream, Cold Bobo Chacha, Grass Jelly with Longan, Ice Jelly, Praline Chocolates, Ice Cream

Ice Cream Flavours: Vanilla, Hazelnut, Oreo, Tiramisu, Black Porridge

Precious Stones: Blue Sapphire, Amethyst

Jewellery: Rings

Animals: (in no particular order) Wolf, Raven, Owl, Octopus, Whale, Tarantula

Ideal Home: 3 storey bungalow surrounded by bamboo

Comic Characters: Storm Ororo, Magneto, Omega Red, Banshee, Phoenix, Dr Strange, Green Lantern

Genre for Stories: Fantasy, Wuxia, Detective

Non-fiction: (in no particular order) Ecology, Palentology, Climatology, Astronomy, Astrology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Archaeology, History, Classical Chinese Literature, Languages (French, Russian, Italian, Spainish, Latin)

Magazines: (in no particular order) National Geographic, First, PC Gamer

Fantasy Races: Elf, Half-elf, Humans

Fantasy Character Classes: Cleric, Wizard, Druid, Sorcerer

Fantasy Undead: Vampire, Lich

Fantasy Creature: Dragon, Elemental, Unicorn, Griffon

Strategy PC Game:
(in no particular order)
Medieval Total War
Rome Total War
Medieval 2 Total War
Heroes of Might & Magic 2
Heroes of Might & Magic 3
Heroes of Might & Magic 5
Universe at War: Earth Assault
Starcraft
Broodwar
Warcraft 2
Warcraft 3
The Battle for Middle Earth
The Battle for Middle Earth 2
Disciples Series

RPG PC Game:
(in no particular order)
Baldur's Gate Series
Icewind Dale
Planescape: Torment
Neverwinter Nights Series
Neverwinter Nights 2 Series

Action PC Game:
(in no particular order)
Diablo
Diablo 2
Nox

Online Game:
(in no particular order)
Guildwars
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Boardgames: (in no particular order)Puerto Rico, Kingsburg, Age of Mythology, Mare Nostrum, Marvel Heroes, Werewolves of Miller Hollow, Betrayal at House on the Hill

Wonderful Week

Mon, 12th Jan - Release of 'O' Level Results cum finalising details of CCA Showcase
Tue, 13th Jan - School Management Committee Meeting
Wed, 14th Jan - Staff Contact Time, Parents Support Group Meeting
Thurs, 15th Jan - Social Emotional Learning Workshop
Fri, 16th Jan - CCA Showcase, Sec 1 Parents Teachers Meeting

I need a drip with Brand's Chicken Essence as the solution...

Wat luck!

Dec 2008
Sometime before Christmas 2008, my desktop aka gaming-cum-communication device has been acting up. On bad days, it would refuse to boot up, preferring to hang and pout at me.
I got a backup harddisk to help save important documents and by the time I sent it to the pc repair shop on 23rd Dec, it had close for the day. So my dad had to be the one delivering.
After prelimnary tests, the harddisk was the one giving the problems so had to be returned to the manufacturer. When it is returned, it will have to be reformatted and the OS (Operating System) had to be reinstalled.

1st Jan 2009
I decided to get myself a brand new handphone to make myself happy and also get a prepaid card to maintain a line for the Sec 2 camp. After breakfast on 1st Jan, I went over to West Mall Singtel. Seeing the long queue, (yes, I can be impatient at times) I gave up and head home. Not giving up, I went over to IMM to check out, but they had no prepaid cards and there was this lady who was almost hogging the salesperson, so I simply left. After dinner with relatives, I rushed to West Mall again to get the prepaid card. The model I wanted was out of stock, so I went to a nearby Sony Ericsson shop to get a brand new G900 without being able to renew my hp contract. On 3rd Jan, I went to get my phone contract renewed and gotten a free Sony Ericsson (old model) phone.

Yes, I probably could have gotten the phone I wanted at IMM with my contract renewed and the prepaid card at some 7-11 store and probably saved over $400. No point getting upset over my obvious lack of patience and clear planning here.

9th Jan 2009
The premiere of Red Cliff Part 2. Everyone who knows me well knows I'm a fan of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. After watching part 1 with my Secondary School friends, we decided to watch part 2 together as well. Hence I became the organiser via Facebook for this round of movie-watching. Coincidentally, my colleagues (those who were well at least) also wanted to watch on the same day, but at a later time. Since I agreed on the 1st appointment long ago, I went ahead with my ex-classmates.

I thought I could leave office by 3-4pm, get some rest and go downtown leisurely, but I was wrong. When I was almost done with the day's work, I received an sms reminder to submit some stuff, so had to think through, type out and email. By then it was already 6:15pm, so getting dad's car to fly down to orchard would be the best solution. Grabbing the laptop & power adaptor but missing the 3-pin plug, I rushed home to get the car, realised my folly and went to school to pick up the 3-pin plug, but the office was already locked. As time was short, I left in a hurry and went on PIE to get caught in the after-work jam. 4 sms sent to the rest received no reply whatsoever, which was quite unusual.
When I reached my destination 15mins late, I still had no idea which level or which cinema my friends were at. At least 3 phone calls were made with no response, and the $700 odd phone simply died from no battery after that. Faced with destiny, I chose to end the day with a 7:40pm KFC dinner and drove back home to sleep.
It was only on the next morning after the phone was fully recharged that I know my phone missed 4 msg and attempted to receive over 12 phone calls.

10th Jan 2009
It was a dull day with some concerned friends asking if I was alright since I missed the show and could not be contacted throughout the whole night. I also got to know my poor desktop didn't accept my old OS product key and decided to change to Windows Vista and have Windows Office 2007 installed to prevent conversion problem with official documents from workplace. All in, it would cost me another $700. I thought of going to Kbox to release my pent-up frustration but decided to complete the spring-cleaning of my study instead.

11th Jan 2009
Unable to vent my frustration the day before, this had to be the day to go Kbox to burst my lungs and burn my throat. Acting on impulse, I smsed to some but understandably, all were either too sick or busy to go. In the end, I went to the supposedly location, but found out Kbox was gone when the mall underwent renovation. Apparently, fate didn't even want me to de-stress.

Life had been good.

Month Long Ailment, a Sprained Ankle and 5 kg less

This tale began from late Nov 2008, when it was a hectic time to sum up 2008 in reports, plan for activities for Jan 2009, pack personal stuff for moving and preparing for the China trip.

After the long days and late nights, a cold was brewing even on the night (20th Nov) when my group and I had our year end makan gathering at my house. After an incredulous 8 hours of packing 14 boxes (21st Nov), the cold decided to come out of hiding and necessitate a visit to my doctor before flying off to China the next day (22nd Nov).

In the coolness of Chinese winter, the cold bided its time. With a combination of cold mineral water, oily and salty food, the environment was taking its toil on the digestive and immune system. Cough and a mild gastric flu, both accomplices of the cold, came in defiance of the amount of herbal tea consumed, (22nd Nov - 4th Dec) with a sprained right ankle to top it up (2nd Dec).

Upon touch down (4th Dec), things weren't exactly fine, so another visit to the doctor was necessary. Since the long planned chalet was due (5th Dec - 8th Dec), there was no way to stop the inevitable, but only prolonged suffering. A 5 days' dose of stronger antibiotics was prescribed but was accidentally consumed in 3 days as I forgot to bring the box with instructions attached. Of course, with little rest and late nights, the cold/flu continued unabated. The feeling of the sprained ankle lingered as well during the chalet.

Returning to work in a weakened state (9th Dec - 19th Dec) would only mean less than optimum performance and slower rate of recovery. True enough, the flu shifted into high gear and devastated the entire system in the form of a long, silent and mild gastric flu with lungs full of phlegm attached. The cough also sounded bad and although there was no ache with the application of medicated wine, the feeling of a weakened ankle persisted. With a delicate digestive system due to the gastric flu, recovery would be even much slower since the system cannot take too much stuff at any one time.

The infrequent dosage of panadol flu tablets, lacto fort and some tablets for phlegm meant a long and slow process of recovery. Till now (4th Jan), the feeling of a sprained ankle can still be felt even though the ankle has healed, and the occasional dry cough with some phlegm will still rear its head to remind me that my body succumbed to the flu virus relatively unchecked. Yes, the spoils of the war between the virus and my immune system was a loss of 5kg and a frail look as a result.

Maybe next time, I would be better prepared and my immune system would be stronger without much assistance from antibiotics.

Footnote: The main reason for my resistance to see the doctor a 3rd time was due to my incorrect intake of the stronger dosage of antibiotics, which resulted in incomplete recovery and the possibility of the virus gaining resistance/immunity towards it. Besides, my body needed to learn to fight the virus the slow and natural way.