中元节

又是一年一度的中元节了！每一年拜拜这个节日时会特别兴奋因为都会买了好多饼干，水，水果，等等等。当然还有中元节的小旗旗！

记得以前还有柑蔗，不过已经好久没柑蔗了。

Safety First

Here's a message that is applicable to wherever you are, not just in construction site.

Upgrading Update - Handover (20 Aug 09)

The upgrading works for my unit was finally completed on 20 Aug 09. It ended with the supervisor and a whole lot of others coming into my house to do a final inspection and to patch up things that were not properly done.

Anyway, they fixed my two bathroom taps wrongly. The master bedroom tap fixed in the kitchen toilet and vice versa. Told them to help change it back. Well, supervisor needed me to buy a two-way tap and inform him, so that he can get his guys to fix it back for us.


Pipes done. The cabinet had since been reinstated into its original position. Been busying cleaning up house these two days and forgot to take pics of the finished work.

Under the basin. Also been covered. Forgotten to take pics too. Heehee...

Here's the cabinet which were removed for the installation of pipes and had been put back to place.

Look at the dust above. Gosh. We spent Saturday spraying water on all our floors and cleaning all the utensils which were exposed. Spent this morning mopping the floor twice. Hopefully the home is now cleaned!

7.36pm

8 months and still missing

My Chantek Xiaohei had been missing for eight months today and still no sound, no sight of her. Still missing her very badly. Couldn't help it but she keeps sneaking into my mind anytime, anywhere. Always makes my eyes wet.

Where are you, Xiaohei? I hope you are still well, and happily settling in somewhere near us.

9.21pm

Upgrading Updates (Last 2nd day)

These 3 pictures below are actually updates for yesterday. Blogger pic was down again so I couldn't post them. The wall tiles, the floor tiles and the essential pipes were all ready, waiting for the main casts to appear.....tomorrow! Every day looks much better than the previous.

Today's Updates!

This is the kitchen toilet...Used to be the squatting toilet bowl. So refreshing and bright now.

Shower fixed as well.

Master bedroom toilet. Changed the position of the cabinet. Feel it's a little low but on second thoughts, maybe good to leave it at that height too.

My new mirror and shelf! Our own chosen items (same set for the other toilet too). I love roundy things so the mirror definitely suits me fine.

This is a bi-fold door. When open, the two half doors become attached to each other via a magnetic field. Interesting leh. And to lock the door from inside, just turn the handle down.

The whole toilet looks much, much brighter now. Even the light at night makes it a lot more brighter than our earlier greyish background. Colour of tiles make a hell of a difference! I think these tiles help to reflect (or refract light). Makes our mood brighter too!

Was actually hoping I can turn the mirror horizontally (ie 90 degrees to the left) so that it will look like a kitty's head. But the screws behind do not allow it to be attached horizontally. Well, this way's fine with me too. :) How's this mirror? Simple...but I like! Thank goodness the original longish one that I had set my eyes on was not available. Blessing in disguise.

Had actually chosen a shelf with an ovalish side. But we broke the only piece we brought and there was still no stock today. The workers needed to fix it up today so no time to wait. This one's fine by me too. I love anything glass and round. So both the mirror and the shelf fits my bill. :)

Tomorrow's the final day. They are left with my kitchen cabinet to reinstate. And the water pipe to the washing machine seems to have some problem. Other than that, everything should be fine.

And whoa, they have removed the cardboards flooring and swept and mopped the floor after today's work. That's nice. They cleared most of the sandy stuff. Sigh, why can't they mop the whole house? :p

Will check out tomorrow! The HANDOVER!

8.53pm

National Day Rally 2009

PM Lee delivered his National Day Rally on 16 Aug 09 (Sunday). Traditionally, National Day Rallies used to be 2 weeks after National Day. However, since PM Lee took over premiership, I noticed he had brought forward the rallies.

There is also an evolution in the way the last few rallies were held. Multimedia and technologies were introduced. In contrast to all the 'dead' charts we used to see, we now have clips, sounds and other forms of animations, etc. Nice change. I guess even the rallies are trying to catch up with times to catch the younger group, I suppose?

Last night's rally was one of those that I enjoyed most because of the straightforwardness of the messages and it was not as 'heavy' a topic as previous rallies. I don't mean the messages were 'light' in terms of trivality. On the contrary, the focus of the night, ie religion, is one of the most difficult and sensitive issues to address in public. One has to be very mindful of what is said and I think PM has managed to bring his points forward in a very candid manner, even in his attempt to be transparent.

I meant 'light' in the sense that I don't have to absorb all the statistics about incomes, bonuses (esp baby bonuses), health care costs which were the highlights of previous rallies. Perhaps I am not a number person. Those were 'heavy' and complicated topics which I find extremely hard to absorb. Last night's topics were more easily 'absorbable', though I must say the issues at hand were very critical to our survival. Easy to understand, but takes the whole nation to act appropriately in order that we do not derail.

In fact, I am glad PM spent a great deal of time (about an hour, I noticed) talking about religions.

Though we have not reached a point where we see major clashes in the different believes, I am sure minor 'hiccups' and incidents have happened on the ground, like those examples PM had shared. It is understandable that these incidences have to be solved amicably and sensitively in low key manner. However, we can't always rely on MPs, town councils, etc to help resolve these when we can prevent it from escalating in the first place. I don't know how many more of such incidences that we do not know about that have been resolved 'silently'. The thought is scary because we may be living in 'near-misses' when a real 'accident' may lead to unimaginable repercussions.

I really hope we can watch our words, our tongues, our acts now, before we have to watch our lives!

The Swan Analogy

In his speech on government settling religions 'conflicts' on the ground in a low key manner, PM used an analogy of the swans - describing how graceful and beautiful when you see the swans sailing across the water when you view them from the top of the water but they are paddling furiously beneath. I fully appreciate this analogy.

He was trying to make a point that what we see is a picture of a 'peaceful, calm, of Singapore harmoniously progressing' which we are. But we don't see the tireless effort that is trying to keep this nice picture going. I think if this is not addressed, we are in the danger of taking a lot of things for granted, thinking we are really living in a perfect world. One doesn't get a nice picture automatically, but it takes effort, not by one person or one group of people, but everyone.

The apt swan analogy reminded me of the swans in botanical gardens when I visited them in 2007. What PM said was exactly what I saw then. The swan were very very graceful and I walked closer to the pond trying to capture them on camera when they were near the side of the pond. When I was very close to them, I noticed the feet working real hard below the water! That was the very first time I saw what had been hidden from us all these while. You can't see it unless you are real close! So hearing PM's analogy brought memories back to my botanical garden trip in 2007 (http://mihovale.blogspot.com/2007/11/graceful-swans-and-their-way-of-life.html)

I hope we can continue to live peacefully in our little red dot. We have mostly what we need, let's not create big problems for ourselves when we can prevent them.

National Day Rally 2009 can be viewed via http://www.pmo.gov.sg/

Happy National Day!

9.40pm

Upgrading Update

Double Ups! How's this for today?? Getting more excited for tomorrow...The completion date is getting nearer and nearer...

8.29pm

Murphy's Law - Robbin's Rule

One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone.

Upgrading Updates: All about toilets and dust...

I have never been so passionate about toilets. But what can I do since this upgrading is mostly about my toilets (at least that's what I will see the most physical changes).

Yes, Irene, maybe I should do a toilets warming after the works are completed. What can we do leh? Order buffet, take turns to visit the toilets?

Today's work completed at 4 pm.

Up one notch, the toilets sure look much better today. Yeah, the tiling work will start next week. My peachy toilets will be ready soon!

While idling in the house waiting for the workers to come, we (KH and me) entertained ourselves with the dusty floor. Mostly me. Can read or not?

And this is KH's work! I say 'Dirty'...he say 'I like'! Grrrrrr...............

That's all for today folks!

6.39pm

Upgrading Updates

Major works are still the two toilets. Tests after tests, coating after coating, I suppose. They have 'flooded' the toilet with water for a couple of hours. Testing on something I don't know - leakage? slope? I wonder.

Looks like a little swimming pool to me. Was visualising some guppies and goldfish in it. Heh heh heh...

Yeah!!! The tiles are waiting outside to be pasted onto the toilet walls. Based on schedule, this will be done next week. Mmmm....am really waiting to see the final outcome of my toilets. Have just bought a set of toilet mirrors and shelves for the guys to help install next week.

Another completed item! The refuse chute. At least look much much better than the old and cranky one. YES!

Will go a-visiting later again to see what else has been done. :)

10.45am

I vow not to be vexed - Fiona Chan (Sunday Times)

Read this from 9 Aug 09's Sunday Times. An interesting article to me and would like to post it to share with interested folks.

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By the time you open this newspaper, dear reader, I shall be a happily married woman - if all has gone well.

If, that is to say, I have managed to finish writing my wedding vows in time for the solemnisation yesterday.

You see, in the spirit of making our wedding personalised and unique - just like every other couple out there - my new husband and I decided to come up with our own version of "I do".

It seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, we'd already custom-made our bridal outfits (four for me), wedding invitations (that look like concert tickets), table favours (bookmarks with our favourite quotes) and photo album (created from scratch in a single night).

In other words, we'd already thrown tantrums at each other, screamed at inept wedding vendors and threatened to call the whole thing off several times.

Compared to that, how difficult could it be to write a couple of sappy lines?

It's not like we didn't consider just using the traditional texts provided by our Justice of the Peace and the thousands of wedding websites out there.

But it's diffcult to take your soon-to-be spouse seriously when his vows rhyme like a boyband song: "In sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, no matter what you do, I will always love you".

So given that both my husband and I make a living using words - he's a lawyer, I'm a journalist - we figured it would be a piece of cake to create our own lovey-dovey oaths.

What we failed to realise was that it would be nearly impossible to agree on what to say because, well, I'm a journalist and he's a lawyer.

Whenever I tried to be sensational and stirring, there he was being pedantic and practical.

Me: "I will love you always and forever!"

Him: "Define 'forever'."

It soon became obvious that our vow vexations simply reflected the fundamental problem of any relationship: trying to balance romance with responsibility.

It is undeniably poetic - and very easy - to promise someone that you will be truly, madly, deeply in love with him or her forever and ever, no matter what happens, even if you both get struck by lightning and are paralysed for life.

But can you really deliver on a promise like that? Being struck by lightning is all well and good, but what if, for instance, your husband starts to take on the personality of Homer Simpson? Or if your wife - horrors - turns into her naggy mother?

Then again, if you play it too safe, your wedding vows could well end up thus: "Okay, I really love your today, but I'm not so sure about tomorrow. We'll see."

It doesn't help that my generation is more likely to SMS "hi i luv u" than to write a real love letter. I can't remember the last time Iput pen to scented paper, although my husband did surprise me last week with a handwritten card. It didn't mention forever, but it came pretty close.

Even if you've found the perfect sentiment to express, you have to be careful about what words you choose. Saying your vows in front of a few hundred guests is a bit like performing stand-up comedy, without the comedy (hopefully).

What's the point of beautifully written vows if, struck by performance anxiety on the day itself, you end up taking your partner to be your "awfully wedded" spouse, through "bitcher and through poorer", "till debt do us part"?

With so many things to worry about, it's little wonder I had serious writer's block the whole of last week.

Up until Friday, I was in real danger of saying: "Dear husband, I, like, promise to, you know, love you...and stuff."

Increasing desperate, I turned to my most constant and reliable source of wisdom: TV shows.

There I found that even the most articulate TV characters run into trouble with their fake wedding vows. On the sitcom Friends, Chandler spends an entire episode coming up with this: "Dear Monica," he practises. "There are no words..." (pause in which he tries to think of what to say next, and fails) There are no words."

Fortunately, while I also had no words, I have many DVD box-sets. And so, after a long but entertaining search, I decided the best thing to do was to keep it simple.

Professions of unconditional and endless love are meaningless, but I can at least promise to do the right thing.

Which is to stay by my husband's side, for better or for worse, and to treat him with all the affection and loyalty he rightly deserves.

It won't be easy, but what fun would it be if it was? Marriage is, after all, nothing but a set of promises - and I'm looking foward to keeping every single one of them.

Upgrading works on 3rd day

The toilet works continues...Looks a little nicer that the first day when they knocked off everything. I am waiting for the completion, stage by stage. Waiting for my new toilets! And the toilet doors!

And the greatest highlight for today's work is.............the new grille door!! Wah, they have changed ahead of schedule! I hope they don't spoil it along the way. Another eye sore down! Cool. I love this grille. Looks more 'spacious' and 'clear' than the earlier aluminium kind. Really was an eye sore!

Waiting for more good things to be completed! But then, I think I will break my bones, my nerves and my sanity when I have to start cleaning up the dust and wash everything, as though I am moving into a new home! A bit scary to think about it. But with nice toilets, I will bear with it.

8.32pm

Upgrading has kicked off

The 'game' started on Saturday, 8.8.09 at 8am. At the end of the day, when I returned to locked the door, my two toilets were being recognition.

Part of my kitchen cabinet was hacked off in order for the workers to change the pipe. Well, we have agreed to pay $250 for them to place the cabinet back in place. Hope they will do a good job.

This is the bedroom toilet. The grey tiles and maroon toilet bowls and sinked are gone! Beyond recognition. Tis....my house?

Great. They are even changing the old ventilating windows in the toilet.

This is the kitchen toilet. Similar state. I have a very funny (uncomfortable) feeling whenever I look at the remnant of that toilet bowl. Dunno why. A very unpleasant feeling.

This one lor. It reminds me of those statues buried with Emperor Qin. I mean...those ancient stuff dugged from the ground. Yeeeks!

Covered whatever we can to prevent the dust from getting into places. Can you see the layer of white dust on the black floor (from the last second pic)? I am wondering how on earth am I going to clean up after the reno! Oh no.

End of day, the corridor is packed with rubbish from the reno. But the contractors are very professional nowadays. They made sure everything is cleared and out of your way by the time the work is done at end of day. Tomorrow's the second day. Ahhh....10 days!

8.27pm