Happy Birthday Mommy!!

Happy Bithday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday my dearest mommy!! Happy Birthday to you!!!!! And don't worry you are still as gorgeous =)

Tuition... Tuition... Tuition

A little insight on the world of tuition.... I'm currently under the mercy of 3 kids right now.. one in primary 2 and the other two in secondary.

I just dropped my other GCE 'O' level girl from vietname, basically because she kept delaying payment and everytime I asked her for her fees she would tell me "didn't I pay?".. She's vietnamese by the way, that is not to say that all vietnamese have such convenient memory loss. It got too troublesome to keep reminding her again and again and honestly I was trying to hold my tongue, I couldn't bear to tell her she won't be able to pass her O level English, because she could barely pass primay one grammer. but that is as such the mentality of overseas students (some of them)

Someone made a comment to me the other day about giving tuition being easy money for us graduates and undergraduates, and basically anyone else who feels like scrimping on the CPF funds.I must admit that many of us take upon the task of teaching for the good hourly rates ( read: 16-30 an hour) depending on how large your ego is and how huge their budgets are.

After teaching for 4 years, I find this pseduo truth of easy money, a misconception. Try explaining to a primary school kid why it is important to ignore the rules of language sometimes, in order to be more creative in your writing and to try new writing styles or try telling a secondary school boy that reading properly and pronouncing words clearly is very important.. "Mother" does not equate to "mudder" and you basically do not prnounce the letter "R" as "r-er" and heaven forbids if your tuition kid thinks Singlish is alright.. singlish is NOT alright, save for the occassionaly "lahs".

And honestly I find it insulting when an"Ang Moh" tries his very best to conscientiously contruct a sentence and end it with a forceful "lah" , and somehow or rather expects us to applaud his effortful attempt at speaking Singlish. and worse still is the Singaporean who laughs at this, sometimes making comments of "wow not bad" as though everyone speaks as such. Is it really that amusing to think that the majority of the world (yes the world beyond Singapore) find it surprising that there are a bunch of Singaporeans that can speak proper English with accurate pronounciation and when they hear them they immediately ask "did you study abroad" or compliment " you speak wonderful english" as though English isn't out first language, and seeing a singaporean speak proper english is someout out of the norm. which it is by the way. In fact when I hear that I feel insulted but on the other hand you can't really blame them can we..

Trying to articulate simple explainations to differentiate everyday objects, such as the difference betwee a "gate" and a "fence" can sometimes be quite a challenge, especially if he or she is armed with a bagful of "whys" and "how comes" ... but alas the battle continues

ok enough of my ranting, Think my brain has officially ceased functioning for the moment. More raves and rants to come =)

Things that are so over rated...

Alright, I was looking at some student magazine and at this article written by a singapore student on the things that you have to do when in Perth, a few of the items listed are over rated, them being...
1) Cicerello's 2) Billy Lee's chinese food and 3) Cold Rock (although I loved it the first time I tried, it wasen't that enticing this time round)

so since I have posted about all of my favourite things I shall post some of my "not so favourite things" and in no particular order...

1) The watered down drinks at Metro

2) The horrible drain water looking hot chocolate Scott and I had at Augusta..yuck yuck yuck

3) The fact that I didn't get to see any Whales during my Whale watching session

4) Cicerello's food, not yummy

5) Kaili's Chilli Mussels.. no gravy

6) The fact that the bus service ends so early on weekends

7) Those annoying pre-adolescent Asians who dresses like Brittney Spears when she shops at Harbour town

8) Harbour town (yucky stuff, excpet for lorna jane which is still over priced)

9) Oriel's food (especially their cheese burger)

10) Australian Sausages

alrighty.. that's about it actually heh.. oh yeah and the fact that Australia has the stronger currency, makes things more expensive.. bah!!!

These are a few of my favourite things..

... least in Perth that is. In no Particular order (cept the first entry =p )

1) Spending time with my sweetheart = )

2) Allanah Hill ( at claremont)

3) Skinny Chai Latte

4) Scones at Margaret River's Berry Farm

5) Little Creature's Pale ale in the " not so little size"

6)Fremantle's Ricotta cheese and contreau crepe

7) Little Creature's Mud cake (to die for)

8) one of Little Creature's cute waiter with cute glasses

9) Scott's Baked Beans with cheese

10) The cold feeling of clothes when you bring them in from the laundry line

11) Driftwood's cane cut semillion

12) Driftwood's Tawny Port

13) Loot botique at Subiaco

14) Scott's Char siew

15) Snuggling in bed with Harry Potter (the not so latest editions)

16) not being kicked off the bed

17) the Kebab at Broadway Fair

18) Boost's Banana Buzz (Regular please)

19) Boost's Mango Magic (Regular as well )

20) the fog that comes out when you blow into the atmosphere

21) Margaret River Chocolate Factory's Milk mocha coffee (with coffe bits)

22) Busselton's Hot chocolate

23) My Margaret River weekend

24) Voyager Estate's red grape juice

25) The Bratwurst hot dog at Fremantle Market

26) the Kakula Brothers Chocolate coated coffee beans

27) Kakula Brothers and Kakula Sister

28) Duende's food (especially their roasted beef with gnocchi and their jammon with basil)

29) Tiamo's Beef (oh so tender and succulent)

30) and last but not least... the fact that I get my GST refund at the airport = )

Avon Descent

Just returned from Bell's rapids, this forest like area which has a river running through it. (think wind in the willows) Scott and I joined the rest of WA in cheering on the competitors of the Avon Descent 2005, a two day long and gruelling white water competition which starts from Tooday and ends at Bayswater, for all those unfamiliar, check the Western Australia map!!

Su-ming and Craig was nice enough to fetch us there, su ming initially mentioned that they would pick us up at 530am (much to my horror as we had been partying the night before at Metro.) but later changed the time to 830am as the website mentioned that the boats wouldn't be coming through Bell's rapids that early. Scott and I packed a few pies and a bottle of water, if I had known we would be there till 4pm, I would have packed a whole picnic basket. Su ming and craig brought cheese, olives and crackers and other nibbles. gee and I thought it was just gonna be a 3 hours thing and we'd go somewhere else for grub!

It was a nice experience though, we parked at the Brigadoon Equestrian centre and took a shuttle bus into the Bell's rapid area, we had to pay $10 for the vehicle entrance, we were initially debating if it was 10 per head or ten per vehicle as neither of us saw the sign when we drove past.

I finally had my chance to watch a show jumping event, if that is what they call it (where horses jump over poles). I'm sure there is a proper term for it so if anyone knows, just give me a shout out. We stayed to watch about three horses do their rounds and I must say it was impressive, nothing like what you see on the television. I guess it's the same event but when you see it live, it's more interesting as you can hear the horses hooves up close and hear their breathing. and their owners look oh-so-smart in their helmet and riding boots with cropped pants. Very British!!

There were about 800 over participants this year, out of which 56 dropped out after the first day!!! we found ourselves a nice little spot by the river banks, with a good enough view of the main rapid area. The Paddle skis and Kayaks only started appearing about an hour after we got there. It was pretty exciting watching teams and solo participants manuver their way through rocks and through the rapids, something that we can never do in Singapore!! It really must take some skill to steer the boats in certain direction in order to avoid collision of capsize! Many of the competitors broke their paddles (you could see the broken shafts stuck onto their boats when they rowed past). and many of them had scraped elbows or cuts on their faces and their body suits had little tears and rips!

We and about everyone else on the rocks cheered to competitors as they rowed by, those that weren't too tired waved back or said their thank yous. I especially cheered the loudest when the female rowers went by. Most of them made fantastic timing, beating alot of their male counterparts. Even the grand daddies ( in no way a metaphor of experienced rowers but the literal meaning of a grandad i.e someone old) were makign fantastic timing!!

There were pretty interesting boats too, this double kayak put on Bananas in Pyjamas costumes and wore the blue striped pyjamas and on their kraft it read" are you thinking what I'm thinking B1?" " Yes I am B2" "Stamp out poverty".

Others had cute soft toys stuck onto their helmets (yes you need that brain bucket). My favourite was a Cow. and of course there was this female who was pink all over, her Kraft, her paddle tapes, her outfit and her helmet!!

so at the end of it all, I'm slightly burnt, the sun was pretty hot although it was cool when it got cloudy and when the wind started up!!

Need to go take care of 4 hungry stomaches in the house!!

Margaret River weekend getaway

Alrighty, sorry for the bit of absence, was down at Margaret River for the weekend, or rather for a good bit of the weekend! Was suppose to stay till Sunday but we managed to cover most of the stuff we wanted to see plus a handful of vineyards as well, therefore we called it a wrap on Saturday night and came home one day earlier!!

The trip was fantastic, the wine was great, we visited quite a few, which were...1) Driftwood estate..2) moss brothers...3) cape lavender ( ok it's more of a lavender farm but they have lavender wine as well)...4) rockfield estate...5)berry farm (to die for scones plus scary birds that attack you and your food)... 6) Leeuwin estate...7) Voyager estate...9) watershed estate...10) evans & tate and of course we visited the Chocolate factory, the cheese factory and a few other cute stores!!

we went whale watching at augusta but to our dismay we didn't spot any. but ph well the view was teriffic, reminded e alot of the great Ocean road in Melbourne, the lighthouse was very pretty, although I think it doesn't beat those greek island ones. but then again as joel mentioned i have a liking for "things that stick out of sea" hmm well ok sounds a bit crude but hmmm...

the place we stayed at was really nice, it's called Magnolia Studios which is actually a garage turned bedroom (with all the essentials, like a toaster and coffee making facilities) owned by a family, nice lady! called robyn, her daughter was so sweet as she stood out near the entrance so we could find the house. we actually had to go to Quest apartments for some help as we couldn't locate it and absent minded me had forgotten to bring the telephone number!

We were going to stay at the local bed and breakfast but we had to cancel it , the lady running that was not very nice and given a chance, I would not stay there in the future, don't think I should do any naming as she relies on the bed and breakfast for her bread and butter and she lives alone, still she was pretty nasty and by all means was I being very nice about it till I got fed up and told her off because she was insinuating that we found some place else and didn't want to stay with her, and so I pointed out that we could have drove off and not drop by to pay the cancellation fee, that kept her quiet.. sheesh Australians!!! Actually to think of it we were this close to driving off but then my conscience got the better of me, and i thought that well if she was a widow and really did rely on this to feed her then we should pay the fee but if she was lying then it would be bad karma to her, least my conscience is clear, even my cousin said I should have driven off!!!

anyway the drive back was pretty smooth, we took the inland route which was shorter unlike the coastal route which we took when we drove down on friday. W made a few stiops here and there to refuel and to qipe off the squashed and very dead bugs which were splattered all over our windscreen!

oh and I think Scott and I have found the nicest hot chocolate around, it's at the Busselton cafe, near the busselton jetty, which yes we paid $2.50 each to walk the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere. It was a cold day and my ears felt as though they were going to dettach themselves from my head!!
But still it was such a pretty sight to be far form shore and to see the seagulls, I think Mom would give this a miss come November as I think the wind would mess up her hair too much = )

oh well, going to get some rest, thank goodness scott drove most of the way, he managed to finish his 25 hour log in period for his driver's.. yay!! now all we need is that car... =p

A car, a car, finally have a car!!

Finally, I have a car in my posession!! whoppeee!!! Went down to collect it at subiaco! and it cost us $270 for seven days , it is a bit more expensive as I am still under the age of 25 and they have this policy to add an additional $6 if you were underaged!! I still think its some ploy to squeeze every penny out of the customer!!

anyway,we got a toyota hatch, 1.8L I think, or it's some statistics close to that. Now I welcome myself to the world of oil price watching, because I have been saying "ack, we can't put gas here, its more expensive" and what nots.

Just got back from Duende, this really nice spanish restaurant at leederville (See thanks to the car we can actually go there and not worry about what time the last bus is leaving)

The food was great, We had two servings of flat bread, guacamole, jammon and basil and for main dishes, had veal and roasted beef with Ginoochi cheese and with everything, we had tons and tons of olive oil and salt!! No idea why everything was so salty!!! but nonetheless it was a very nice meal!! and it was at a decent price too!

ah well, going to go and cut a birthday cake now! white chocolate from Miss Maud!! hope it's good!! yummy =)