Day trip to Malaysia

What is a holiday without stepping out of Singapore? Since we don't have the luxury of time to travel to faraway places such as Korea and Europe, we decided to cross the causeway and enjoy 1 day of pigging at Malaysia:)

First stop for lunch: This place in city square basement selling shabu shabu, I think it's called Arashi Japanese. The steamboat pot may look small, but it is super filling and worth for money! Mine's V.Special Tofu Shabu Shabu. It then dawned on me the "V" stands for "vegan", not "very" :P Feeling adventurous, I went for the spicy milk soup base which turned out to be the best I feel:D It may sound weird, but it actually tastes like laksa or curry. Other food items on the table included beef teppanyaki, herbal soup shabu shabu, tom yum shabu shabu and vegan tom yum shabu shabu. All these amounted to approximately SGD$80, with 5 super full adults. Bet if this is in Singapore it would cost at least a hundred bucks.

V. Special Tofu Set 

Saw this super kawaii corn at one of the shops! It's sooooo cuteeeeee! I had to resist myself from buying it:/

Mr Corn says hi!

A wide array of polaroid cameras with pretty colours^^

Polaroid cameras with pretty colours

For dinner we ate at this soup restaurant called Tang Shi Fu. Apparently it is quite famous in Malaysia with quite a number of franchise branches. Sorry for the bad photography skills but don't be deceived by the photo. The food is really good. Dishes include ginseng chicken soup (which was too bitter for my liking because of the addition of authentic ginseng), some luxurious soup with all the treasures including scallops and fish maw inside, herbal braised duck, pu-er stir fried french beans and drunken chicken. The concept of the shop revolves around rejuvenating the body, thus all their food items are herbal based targetted at benefiting the body. All the food are yummy and we're all happy:P Pu-er stir fried french beans was the most creative dish, for in Singapore we only heard of sambal or garlic stir fried french beans. Integrating tea leaves with veggies added sweetness to the dish, quite a good combination! The herbal braised duck was also worth the try as it was really soft, making me reminisce the good old CNY days when we have braised duck at my ahma's house:) Bill totalled to about SGD$80, which was once again a good deal considering they were all high end tonic food:)

5 tired souls returned back to Singapore, with bags of clothes and cookies. I am really glad to have this one day trip, at least it takes my mind off some stuffs and I just eat all that I want:) Therapeutic day today, be it in terms of spending quality family time or retail therapy or food therapy.

Back in Singapore, back to harsh reality.

It's not going to be easy, but it's gonna be worth it

Tuesday again and it was tuition day. However somehow I felt that the spirit and enthusiasm of the class was heightened judging from the class participation. They seemed more interested in the class and involved in the lesson. This is possibly due to 2 very simple questions that I asked at the start of the class.

The moment they stepped into the class, I asked each of them "Did your parents ask you to come for tuition or were you the one who wanted to come?" Second question "On a rating of 0 to 10, 0 being you don't give a shit about what is happening in the class, 10 being you really want to learn something out of the class, what would you give?"

Simple as it is, yet it had a deep impact on my teaching approach. In my opinion, undoubtedly I am paid to do my work as a tutor. As long as a student steps into my class, I have the duty to ensure work is delegated to him/her and I attend to his/her educational needs. However according to my own principles and understanding that they are already young adults who understand their own priorities, I will dedicate more of my energy and focus to those who are truly interested in learning. Should you be uninterested in learning, I will not expend extra energy on trying to ignite the passion of learning in you. Instead, I will use this energy to teach those who sincerely want to takeaway some things from my lesson. I am only 1 person, who have this amount of time and this amount of energy to teach the class, which has that many people and that much amount of work which needs to be cleared. 

Thankfully, even though there were a few tutees who were sort of forced by parents to come, all the students rated their passion to learn in class as a 5 and above, even up to 9 and 10. This was heartening for me as I could see their passion in learning evidently displayed in the lesson after the questions. It was quite late of me to ask this question given that I am only left with 1 lesson with them but I hope they maintain that passion in learning and hopefully this will motivate them to work harder:) 1 student even told me that he passed his recent Maths test and I was really happy when I saw the broad and proud smile on his face:) Such joys and sense of accomplishment in life is what makes me feel like it's all worth it and makes me want to improve more so that I can make an improvement in their educational paths. 

Credits: http://www.iliketoquote.com/img/35.jpg

A happy sister:)

Brother returned with this cute bucket of cookies for me^^ A sweet (or rather, salty) treat that totally cheered up my day and pushed me on for the long night of work:)

Really grateful to have such sweet and random funny brother who makes my day:)

On a side note,  I'm finally done with the designing of IBG poster! After much complaints and frustration, it's finally done even though it's super cui and 100 x away from what we wanted. Time for a short rest before moving on to marking of my students' papers in the morning!

Good nite world:)

Although Brazil has lost once again, I'm happy to see them putting in their hearts and souls into the match. Last few minutes with a score of 3-0 where there is evidently no sign of catching up and they still poured in 101% effort into the game. I'm really proud of the players effort and the supporters who take such great pride in their national sport:) I can't say it's a good job but their courage and perseverance skill is definitely worth commending:)

Here's to all the Brazil players and their suporters:) And of course, well done Netherlands who have proven their worth:)

Happy Girl Today:)

Shopping trip at Orchard with mum today:) Really grateful to my mum for jio-ing me to orchard for dimsum high tea and being the ATM machine for today haha. I really felt super guilty as she is always so selfless, saving food for me for fear that I'm hungry and always paying for every single thing that I want to buy even though I insisted I'm working and I have pay. I will really miss eating lunch with her once I move back to hall, which is one major reason I'm contemplating staying at home instead of hall for my final year in NUS. 

Anyway, I was quite lucky that there happened to be a food fair at Takashimaya today where they sell alot of different kinds of food including korean, japanese, nonya and typical singapore food haha. 

I wanted to buy a cup of tea but ended up buying a cup of milkshake thanks to the handsome angmohs at the milkshake booth:P The power of marketing strategy which made me succumb to it. Think my skin is getting thicker as I buay paiseh and asked for a photo with one of the cute angmohs xP Oh well, YOLO ^^ $6 worth of happiness to make my otherwise depressing demoralizing week better:)

Matcha Azuki Avocado Milkshake

Had a sucky tuition, so here's a happy sweet milkshake to make my day:)

Matcha Azuki Avocado Milkshake

Makes 1:

200ml of milk 

1/2 avocado, fully ripe

1/2 tsp of matcha powder, dissolved in 2tbsp of hot water

3tsp of azuki bean paste

A drizzle of honey

Throw all ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth

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The best smoothie I've made so far:) Happy how it turned out to be of a thick milky consistency with no taste of avocado:) Now I can make matcha milkshake at home with low costs and low fats! :P

Post-internship nua day: Treated myself to banana+Choco chips+ milk smoothie:) Life's good without having to wake up early in the morning and squeezing with people on the mrt.

 

Appreciate the little things in life. For it's these little jigsaw puzzles that makeyour life complete.

Treat to self

The cute army collection

Loving my new loots from yesterday's mini shopping trip:) Got all these from The Paper Stone on a discount. I love the army collection so much I got a mini series:P

On a side note, I noticed alot of guys changing their profile pictures on facebook in recognition of SAF day. I'm grateful for all the hard work put in by these guys in protecting our countries and how supportive they are of this national duty:) Thank you guys:)