Month: September 2006

Categories
Diary My Favorite

Oh Dear … I Need to Come Up With a Warm-up Fast!

Towards the end of the first day’s Facilitation class, our trainer divided us into 4 groups and asked each group to prepare a warm-up / energizer for the next day. Our group rolled the highest score so we would go first and do the warm-up first thing in the next morning. When the day ended, the lady who rolled the dice for us got up and said to me, “I have got a tender to do now so …”. I was like … and then another lady got up and said, “I have never done energizer in my life before so …”. And I was like … Need not to say, my 3rd lady member also got up and said, “Well, you and I run retreats all the time but we always get help from our associates. So I have no clue on what to do.” All 3 ladies walked out on me and I was like, “Huh? I am supposed to do this?!”
On my way to my car, I thought about it briefly. During dinner, I forgot to think about it. I was supposed to research from the Internet but I did not bother with it. Before going to bed, I did not even want to think about it.

In the morning, I started to panic about it. When I started the car, I started to think about it. At the first junction, I turned to Cynthia and told her that, “Look love, I need some help.” I explained what I needed to do in less than 60 minute’s time and we were like … starring at the traffic just thinking … or the lack of it.

At the second junction, I suddenly screamed, “A quiz!”. “A what?!” Cynthia asked. “Do a quiz as warm-up!”. I was so excited that I asked if she has paper with her. No, she answered. I tried to search through my wallet (while driving) and before I found a nice piece of paper, Cynthia dug up 2 pieces of petrol receipts from nowhere. I passed her the pen and we went … blank.

“Hey, you read a lot of Life section right?!” I inquired (Life section is the entertainment section of a local newspaper).

She: “Err … ya but …”
Me: “Can’t you think of something?!”
She: “Err … no …”
Me: “…..”
She: “…..”

Well, it was actually quite a fun thing for us to do and I have even forgotten to monitor my speed when I went pass the speed camera. Anyway, we have come up with 15 cool questions in the category of current affairs, sport, entertainment, movies, and books for the groups and they were (see how many questions you can answer!) as follows.

  1. How many years of independence does Singapore have?
  2. Husband of Britney Spears?
  3. What nationality is tennis player Roger Foderer?
  4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is written by?
  5. Name the 2nd and 4th runner-ups of World Cup 2006.
  6. Who is the main actress in the TV series Ghost Whisperer?
  7. Name the Singapore Idol judge who was previously a radio DJ.
  8. Name the President of Indonesia.
  9. Who is the female Malaysian singer who just got married?
  10. Name the 2 main actresses in The Devil Wears Prada.
  11. Dave Grohl is the vocalist of which band?
  12. Name the latest album from Justin Timberlake.
  13. Name the new baby boy of Britney Spears.
  14. JK Rowling is the author of which series?
  15. Name the Asia actress in Miami Vice.
  16. Who are the 2 finalists left in Singapore Idol.

Footnote: The quiz went well. I think everyone was thoroughly entertained as we have lots of laughters. I immediately texted Cynthia, “The quiz was a blast, thank you”.

Categories
Experience Sharing

DIY – Silicon Gel

The contractors who reattached my cabinet that covers the rubbish outlet have done a lousy job. Crawling insects kept visiting my home. So I have decided to take matter into my own hands. My task was simply to remove the (transparent) silicon gel and reapply the more tasteful white silicon gel sealing up every possible gaps.

I have seen my dad done it zillion times back in Hong Kong (but never have done it myself). Knowing exactly what I needed, I visited a hardware store and bought the right tools (see below).

Just looking at those things, how much do you think it costs? Cynthia thought the “gun” was sold at S$20 and the gel itself is S$10. I thought likewise to be honest. When the boss told me that the “gun” cost S$3 (and the gel for S$3.80), my initial reaction was, “Huh? 30 dollars?”, and was about to pull out the ten dollar bills. He repeated, “3 dollars, 3 dollars!”.

After I got home, I gave my dad a call. Anyway, to share the experience with you, step one is of course to attach the gel into the “gun”.

Step 2 is to attach the nozzle and cut it diagonally.

Step 3 is to slow depress the trigger and you can see silicon gel starting to ooze out of the noozle. Steadily apply the gel to the gap.

Step 5 is to cover your nose … kidding … alright, the acidic smell could be overwhelming but the last step is important. I suggest you wrap your finger with a small piece of cling wrap and trace the gap steadily. Rub the excess gel off a paper kitchen towel.

Allow a full day for the silicon gel to harden and there you are! You can be the next DIY Expert!

Categories
Whacky Thoughts

Of Elephant and Duck

Day 1 of the Facilitation course at British Council, as icebreaker, the trainer asked us to think of an animal that best described ourselves and why (the activity was called “Animal Magic” by the way). So, some said dog, cat, lamb, hamster, cow, and some said lion, tiger, and eagle (I chose eagle because of the sense of freedom and the love for bird-eye views). And we were divided into two groups – the wild animals and the domesticated ones.

Then we were given the exercise of choosing an animal that best described our own company and some other questions such as the animal’s habitat, what this animal needs in order to survive and so on. Our group – the wild animal group – almost immediately associated our company to the most ancient animal on Earth (due to our company’s size and its legacy). We chose an elephant in the end and talked about how elephants left the footprints on all corners of Earth (well we did have some dispute with someone who think of himself as a lamb to start with and how the lamb ended up in the wild animal group was due to number imbalance).

The domesticated animal group, on the other hand, chose a duck to represent our company and talked about how ducks survive by keep peddling and feeding on small fish.

It did hit me at that moment through “Animal Magic”, perhaps how we see the world begins with how we see our own self.

Categories
Diary

So We Became Paul Twohill Fans?

Yesterday, in the middle of the day, Cynthia screamed, “Look, it’s snowing!”. I was playing computer game when suddenly I heard the howling of wind through the gaps of my door. The raindrops were so heavy that they did look like ice. Coupled with the strong wind, seeing the granularity of the rain swirled downwards was quite a scene. I took some pictures using my phone.

… and a close up …

Back to the main story. Cynthia and I traveled to Jurong (West of Singapore) to attend the birthday lunch of my Godmother. And over there, we have met the aunt of one of the Singapore Idol’s contestant Paul Twohill. This aunt of Paul is really a super-aunt-fan-club-leader and she passionately shared with us the details of Singapore Idol.

(Cynthia in red dress and Paul’s aunt in white jacket … she really does look a bit like Paul, ya?)

Anyway, talking about Singapore Idol, some friends of mine knew that I have got all the prediction of the results correct from Rahimah onwards (that is 6 correct guesses so far as I usually announce my guess on Wednesday). Between Hady and Jon, it is a hard choice and have to see the performance of the final. According to Paul’s aunt, Jon was handpicked by some of the judges (or organizers?) to participate the competition and Hady’s boss (a rich guy who own this big club) is going to pump in S$100,000 to buy the votes. Quite some kind of conspiracy theories.

Oh, Cynthia and I am invited to Paul Twohill’s private party in November (school holiday supposingly) and Paul will sing during the party. Well, it is as though over lunch, Cynthia and I became a new fan of Paul. Reality is that I did vote for Paul during the very first round while Cynthia did vote for him the episode before Paul was eliminated. That was all the “support” we gave.

Categories
Diary

Sept 11 – An Eventful Day

Had I not lunched with my cool friend next door, I would have missed a great opportunity to attend to a pretty high level meeting. I don’t normally blog about work at all but this one is a more inspiring one for me at the personal level.
I will save the story of our lunch for later. Upon returned to office at 1pm (pretty rare for me as I usually take a more leisure approach if you know what I mean), my partner dragged me into a meeting that I had no idea what it was about. Before I knew it, I was driven in her S-class Mercedes to HP and met the top guns from HP as well as a 3-Star General (and a 1-Star too). In my course of work, I have not met anyone beyond 1-Star so it was a big deal to me. The Managing Director of HP as well as the Asia Pacific Japan MD are both ladies. They are both very charismatic and articulated, especially the APJ MD. Just listening to them sharing their experiences made the trip worthwhile.

Then we traveled to SingTel and met the CEO and his team. A totally different feel and it was very business like. And the top floor of SingTel’s Comcenter has a great view of Singapore.

Now, back to my lunch with this cool friend JD (his picture below). I met him during the training at British Council. JD is a Vietnamese who works in Singapore for a couple of years and he took me to this wonderful Vietnamese restaurant just behind Boat Quay.

I let him made the order and the food was delicious. We had two starters and the main course was a dry beef noodle with soup that has a raw egg! He scoped the egg up and took it down in one gulp. I was like … oh wow … you do that?! And I followed suit.

And to round up to story, I can’t help but to post the picture I have taken on the way to lunch.