Ween!!

Do catch this movie on DVD: March of The Penguins (rated 95% on rottentomatoes.com). Our dear daughter Iffah was so fascinated by it that she bought a penguin soft toy in KL and carried it along with her almost everywhere she go (mostly at home). She even said "Ween" (as in Penguin) and Baby ... Mummy ( referring to the Mother child relationship between the penguins) when I returned back the DVD. At that point I knew I had to buy it...

The KL Trip

Just came back from our KL trip. Touched down SG at 6pm 15th December. Although we stayed there for 2 nights, it's been a really fruitful one. And I'm glad cos everyone had lots of fun, including Iffah.

First and foremost, I had not been to KL for a really long time ( around 9-10 years) and I'm surprised at the changes and advances that KL had achieved eg with the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) etc.

Here's some snippets of the trip:

1) When we touched down at KLIA, after getting off the plane, there's this sign/notice everywhere saying that KLIA is the World's Best Airport (15-25million passengers category). Now that's something Malaysia can be proud of. And with the ultramodern and quite aesthethic architecture, I think it deserved that award.

2) We took the KLIA Express train to Sentral train station in the city centre. It took around 28 minutes. And I'm quite impressed with its speed (even though it's around 176km/h). I've not taken train trips overseas much and will do so more for future overseas trips.

3)Our accommodation was at Berjaya Time Square Hotel and underneath this building there lies the shopping centre (more on shopping later on) and also the famous theme park where they built a 3 story roller-coaster in it! I managed to see the roller-coaster ride and I think it's quite a rough and bumpy ride with twists, flips and turns. Maybe next time I can ride in it ...

4) The shopping experience in KL is very much different than in Singapore. I'm very much impressed with the shops' lineup and the merchandise which they stock. The high-end haute couture stores are better than what Singapore has to offer (even though I don't shop there). Even the mid-range stores like Metrojaya (in Berjaya Times Square) and Parkson Grand (in Suria KLCC), the setup and range of merchandise is much like Paris's Gallery Lafayette.... many times better and they all beat Singapore stores like Robinson's and Tangs hands down. Now I know why people prefer to shop overseas.

5) KL must be a halal food consumer's paradise. There's lots of food to try down here than what you can try in Singapore. So far I've tried American (Kenny Roger's Roasters, etc), Italian (pasta, etc), the hotel's continental breakfast (getting tired of this though) and also BreadTalk!! Tried the Hot Chic bun (a chicken floss bun). Azlina mocked at me when I tried it for the first time.. hehe..

I will definitely visit KL again soon. Next time we will stay longer so as to visit the other places like Putrajaya, etc. Till next time.

Some pictures that we took:

Our first flight with Iffah. She's such a gem at the plane.. hehe
















Us reaching KLIA airport



















Inside the KLIA Express train heading for Sentral station.


















At KLCC. It was raining in the area before this pic was taken.

















Me and Iffah at Aquaria. It's like Sentosa's Underwater World in Singapore but with a mermaid swimming around!! Had to handheld this shot and didn't use flash in this pic so as to capture the blue colour of the aquarium better.

















Us having a meal at A&W in Suria KLCC. A&W is extinct in SG!! And the glass root-beer mugs are way retro as SG used to have those glasses long time ago when A&W was around.

I also took pictures using my Holga camera. But alas... I made a fumble when taking out the finished roll... The exposed roll was exposed to some sunlight before I could safely tape the roll!! And I just got to know from the film shop that the roll is damaged and could not get good images... Argh!!!

PS: I don't know that the SG-KL shuttle flights are really that short.. heheh..

Our forthcoming KL trip

This coming Wednesday will be our first trip as a family on board a plane and it will be Iffah's first plane trip and my 3rd plane trip (after Bangkok and Paris). Even though it's a short distance but we feel that it will be a good chance to test her on a plane ride (she had gone through 2 ferry trips before and maybe she's not suited for 4-5 hour coach rides). As such, we paid quite a premium for convenience sake and hope that it will be worth it. Some details about the trip:

Duration: 3 days and 2 nights
Accommodation: A suite in Berjaya Times Square Hotel, Kuala Lumpur
Flight: SQ !!!

Pictures will be up soon.

Next family holiday? Will it be Florida, California, London ? I really wished that I could go to these places with my loved ones soon. Bet Iffah will have loads of fun there too

PS: The call-centre of Singapore Airlines sucks.. you can't get a person to attend to your call even though I tried calling it numerous times. Singapore Airlines... not a great way to call...

Zoo outing today

We went to the Singapore Zoological Gardens today as I'm on a one week break / leave. It's quite an enjoyable experience as Iffah is now able to walk around but more importantly she knows quite a number of animals (from picture/story books) such as the lion (yen as she would affectionately say), bear, giraffe, etc. It's her 5th time to the zoo and my second time with her. The last time I was with her was when she's around 5 months old. Glad that she can appreciate this outing better and it's definitely one of our enjoyable and memorable outings. We went in the morning, just in time to see a couple of animal shows (the sealion and elephant shows), had a wonderful North Indian lunch and enjoyed a wet play session with her at the children's play corner.

Iffah in front of the lions' den

Some daddy - daughter bonding time at the wet play area

Outings to the Singapore Zoo can be fun with kids around, especially when they can appreciate the animals that they see / come across in books or from the television. Hope we can visit the San Diego Zoo when she reached 5 yrs old.

Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2006 and beyond

This year's Ramadhan and Aid celebrations in Pasir Ris is quite hectic for both of us due to work commitments. Azlina had her numerous assignments to hand in and me with my tough shift work schedule, made this year's celebrations quite short. Even though we had a month to celebrate the Hari Raya celebrations and visitings, our schedules are pretty tight and my weekends are burnt most of the time with work. I felt quite bad for both of us especially Iffah who did not go for Hari Raya visitings to our friend's homes. I would love us to visit our friend's homes with Iffah tagging along. That would hopefully improve her social skills as she's quite shy and insecure with people beyond her social circle.

Our new home in Blk 486 is not quite ready yet and as such we can't have friends who would want to visit us for Hari Raya. Perhaps next year. It'll be more than ready by then. We also decide to have both our bathrooms renovated. The whole renovation process can be tiring when we tried looking at various contractors' quotations, their showrooms, etc. So far only Chew Interior Design was the only inspiring showroom that we've been and we were AWED by it's extravagance in everything; it's decor, furnishings etc. But to have that design involves quite a big price tag and we can't commit to that yet. So in the end we chose the company U Home for our bathroom renovations for it's moderate pricing. Let's see how their service turn out during the next few weeks.

Three of my friends are getting married back to back from next week onwards, starting with Ahmad Jaya. Then it's Azron (who was my best-man for my wedding couple of years back) and finally it will be Jeffridin. I'm very happy for them as they had been very nice to me in one way or another. Congrats to all three. *salute*

Mid-life career crisis

I'm approaching the age of 30 soon next month and am now contemplating hard on the future prospects of my career..

It's been almost 5 years since I started working in 2001 and alhamdulillah I've survived well. It's just that now I need a career switch. Perhaps do something I really like to do (eg photography or maybe music production). I know that there might not be much of a demand out there for budding photograpers or music producers but it's something which I would want to venture into.

In Singapore we have been indoctrinated to be good citizens by following the traditional path of primary, secondary, JC/Poly/ITE, maybe University and later contribute to the economy. Our parents wanted us to become engineers, lawyers, accountants, etc... So I did follow that path, been through some difficult times in University and managed to land myself with an OK job 6 months after graduation. Now come to think of it, I don't really like what I'm doing. Computer hardware and software somehow does not appeal to me anymore.

During the past few years, I managed to learn some photography skills. Only thing is that now when I'm married, with a kid, etc it's quite difficult to sustain the interest (I very much would like to!!!) I do have dreams of having my own photo studio, working as my own boss to my company, etc. I hope to achieve this dream some day.

With regards to music, sometimes I wished that I could learn the piano when I'm young as it would be the basis to a good music education and maybe a music career. Learning the trumpet since secondary school is not enough. And now, I'm currently exposed to good music from radio, internet and my record/CD purchases... I'm not satisfied being just a listener!! I would want to make music myself and market myself as a music producer! (after learning some software and hardware of course)

I'm also currently learning French (advanced level) and would love to apply what I've learnt overseas. That means working in francophone country or any other country where the job scope utilises the French language. But that means we could only do so after Azlina's teaching bond and by then Iffah would be quite old enough. Living overseas for some time would definitely open up my senses and perhaps give my career a much needed boost. We'll definitely consider it when such opportunities come knocking at my doors..

Some things I learnt during my reservist period for the IMF season

Officially, the IMF is over today and my reservist duty for the IMF period ends yesterday. It had been a hectic 1 and a half week or so with little rest plus me getting our new house this Monday. But hey, here's some quirky things that I've encountered

1) I've been brainwashed by TV Mobile!!!! Imagine having to sit in a bus escorting delegates with the notorious TV Mobile screening unnecessary stuff eg "Planet's Funniest Animals", "Singapore Idol", trailers of Little Man (urgh) and John Tucker Must Die, etc... Funny thing I noticed is that the foreign delegates were just simply bochap with our new bus technology...

2) Referring to above, I happened to watched an episode of a current Arts scene related program called "Front" on TV Mobile hosted by Eunice Olsen, Kumar and Debbie Wong. There was this segment on the Singapore Biennale 2006 . More specifically, the program has a puppet segment called "Arty Farty" and in that episode, Arty and Farty critised the spate of the mascots of the Singapore Biennale, "Mocmoc and Mermer"... Hmmm wonder who came up with such stupid names and stupid designs which looked like the Teletubbies hah. Anyway, here's an image of those mascots in this blog. Now look closely at the middle of Mermer... and what do you see? Heheh....

3) The notoriously long bus rides which the lengthens a short trip from their hotel to Suntec City made a female delegate from France blew her top. Apparently they were quite late for the meetings but yet the route that the bus was supposed to go is SO long that they insisted to be taken to Suntec City ASAP!!! They said that they don't want to go for sightseeing and just wanted to go there to work pronto... So planners of the IMF for SG please take note of this when doing such plannings...

After the HDB second appointment... finally the house is ours...

The wait for our new flat was finally over last Monday. Despite of my busy IMF schedule, we managed to get the keys to our flat from the owners. I almost blew my top when our agent Adi, told us that not all of the listed previous tenants of our flat could come to HDB Hub for the appointment! Apparently one of them just got discharged from hospital that day and prefarably all of them don't want to come down for the appointment! Adi informed me that I might have to come down again on another day for the completion of the HDB legal process. Urgh.. These people caused me plenty of inconvenience ever since we signed the option to purchase agreement. Also Adi said that their agent did not control them well. We had waited for them for around three months until they managed to secure a deal for their new flat.Then came the 8 weeks wait for the second appointment date... Macam macam dugaan sey!!! Luckily for us, neither of us need to come back to sign any papers.

Then came the second flat inspection later in the evening. It seemed that the family did not take good care of their flat. The walls are full of scribblings by the children, kitchen sink has leftover food at the water outlet (yikes!!), place not cleaned up properly and just today I found some cracks near the kitchen sink... I guess from this day onwards we are definitely going to renovate the toilets and perhaps the kitchen too. The living and dining area looks ok. *sigh* I thought I would not want to spend much on renovation works but it seemed otherwise now. Oh well...life begins on a new chapter for us. Hope that Iffah will be happy with us in our new home and can adjust well to soe new arrangements; like waking up in the morning and make our way to Atuk's place across the street before me and Lina make our way to work..

Our new house...what's it like now

Geesh.. it's been a pretty long wait for our new house. And finally the waiting period will be just one week and from 18th September onwards the flat in Blk 486 is ours. Some general info:

1) A 5 room improved (5I) apartment on the 3rd floor
3) Cost is less than $300K
3) Floor space is approximately 121 square metres (I really treasure big floor space apartments rather than having to squeeze into those 'new' flats in Sengkang or Punggol)

Now the question is, how far are we going to refurbish or renovate the apartment? Typical renovation packages nowadays would cost more than $20K and definitely you can get the look of your dream house with that kind of budget.

But I think we would do things slowly instead of renovating everything in one shot. Here's some images taken from the apartment 'inspection' that I went just now.

Here's the dining area facing the kitchen (those kids are the children of the current owner!)





















Here's the view of the dining area facing the kitchen:


















Lots of work need to be done. Painting, repairs, etc. But all that can be done slowly and most importantly both of us must love the finished product. So looks like any form of open-house can be done much later.. haha.. I hope that Iffah would adjust easily to our new home. Hopefully I can post some pictures of our house after we moved in and done some touchups. Till then...

NTU and NIE

Yesterday me and Azlina went to NTU to purchase a laptop. NTU had this laptop fare where sales people from various brands like IBM, Fujitsu, Toshiba, etc.. Hehe first thing which caught my eye when I entered the bazaar is the Apple Macintosh's booth. The Mac Book Pro 15"... yummy ... heheh... Too bad that they don't have the 17" model on display.

Anyway Azlina purchased an Acer Travelmate 3010... for portability reasons. Never mind that the optical drive is an external device... It's very light (as compared with my old iBook or my office HP laptop) ... Love the wide-screen-display of most modern laptops nowadays. But the waiting time for the purchase to complete, urgh.... extremely horrendous!!!

We went there in the morning. Had to get a queue slot to collect it. No available queue in the morning so had to come back in the afternoon at 3:30... I went back home (yes... to Pasir Ris!) and came back again at 4pm to join the queue. Thought that since the queue was short, but I was deceived... It took me one hour in the queue for me to reached my turn!!! There were like 3 people manning at the counter but what were they doing??? Not efficient I would say. But hey, I had my Sony DVD Walkman to occupy my time on the queue.. heheh. Watched the second disc of Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam 2 at that time...

Azlina gave me a short tour of NTU and NIE in the afternoon. Noticed that in NTU there's not many power points for laptop usage (unlike NUS where students made use of their laptops for online LAN games among their peers... hehe). And hey, there's a bridge linking NTU to NIE (similar to the Engine bridge at NUS .. *wink wink*) . It's been a long time since I stepped into a university campus ... feels nice that I'm out of the uni system now... yay!!

Time filler for bus and train rides

Thanks to Starhub, I can now watch DVDs/VCDs and Divx movie files on the new Sony DVD Walkman below
Got this from the Starhub reward points plus top up some cash. I've been eyeing on portable DVD players for some time as I would want to watch movies on the go, especially borrowed French DVDs from the Alliance Francaise library. The player above can practically play all region discs (hurray!!) which means you can pop in any DVD and wham out comes the video! I had this fear when I got back home with it as it stated in the manual that it would play only code 3 discs. Here's a features list from Sony's website:

Feature List


7" Widescreen1 LCD is large enough to view movies in theatrical 16:9 while still being portable.

Unique slim one piece design allows you to easily pack and take anywhere you go.

Built-in Lithium-ion Battery gives up to 3 hours2 of battery life on one charge and is un-obtrusive.

Multi-Format Compatibility3 Able to playback multiple formats of both audio and video discs. Supported formats includes both dual and single layer DVD-R/R DL/RW, DVD+R/R DL/RW, Jpeg CD’s, MP3 CD’s, CD-R/RW.

High power speaker/charging cradle has 450mW + 450mW of power which can turn any space into your own personal theater.

Selectable Video In/Out allows you to connect external video sources such as your game system, camera or VCR and use the unit as a Monitor. The video and audio out ports allow you to hook the DVD player up to a full size TV and sound system.

Twin headphone jacks make sharing a movie with family and friends easy by allowing two people to listen to the same audio at the same time and share the enjoyment.

Wireless Remote controls playback and volume functions.

Kick Stand and ergonomic grip add convenience and ease of use while on the go by providing a comfortable and easy way to hold or display the unit while on the go.

Le Héros

Here's something which I got from a French AvantGo mobile webpage. Managed to download some French stuff for my reading pleasure at my PDA. The stuff below is about the myths of a 'hero' ... I'll upload a translation of it soon.

Le Héros

Donnez-moi un héros, j'en ferai un mythe.
II portera une armure brillante, ou peut-être pas,
un héros ne craint pas les coups.
II sera empêtré dans une sombre histoire,
avec des morts évidemment cachés dans les placards.
II s'en sortira sûrement, ou peut-être pas,
on peut mourir en héros si l'opportunité se presente.
II aura un cheval, pas le choix.
II aura à sa disposition un millier de situations convenablement construites afin qu'il puisse y briller.
II aura mille occasions de se conduire en héros.
II sauvera quelque chose, une femme, le monde, voire sa seule peau,
mais un héros se doit de sauver - ne serait-ce que les apparences.
II prononcera de grandes phrases dramatiques,
les yeux mi-clos et le mégot rouge vif.
II aura des signes particuliers, comme une cicatrice et l'héroïsme.
II verra souvent le trépas de tres prés mais pas trop.
II aura un nom, que je lui aurai choisi.

Donnez-moi un héros, il sera remarquable.
Des héros comme lui, il n'y en aura pas deux au monde.
II fera l'Histoire des lors que je ferai la sienne.
Et l'on dira de lui : "Ce type-là, nom d'une pipe, c'est un héros".
Sans doute, même, je serai fier de lui.

Weekend getaway at Royal Plaza on Scotts

We had a cosy weekend getaway in town to celebrate Azlina's birthday today (Happy B'day dear!). Twas quite a good deal after we could not get to book a room at Hilton after finding out that the Starhub Rewards program for the offer had just been discontinued. Thus we had to find an alternative and a room at Royal Plaza suited us fine. For $160 (after taxes), we can get a basic room in the heart of Orchard Road with Far East Plaza just a stone's throw... heheh...


The hotel claimed that it was the only hotel which throws in FREE broadband connection for those with laptops... Now that's something.. Too bad we didn't lug our laptops in. Room occupancy during that time was at 100% and we were quite disappointed that we had to be contented with a smoking room as there's no more rooms available in the non-smoking sections.

Lunch was at Far East Plaza and we did some shopping at Paragon kids section on the 6th floor. Boy dear Iffah just wondered in and out of the shops... Had a wonderful time the three of us.


Dinner was at Cafe Vienna. Now the last time I went there was some years back with Azlina on her b'day as well. Now with Iffah along it's quite an experience. Dining with our baby in a buffet setting.. We had to take turns eating. And we need to watch her as well. Now that she can walk easily it's even a challenge as she sometimes would want to walk around the restaurant or outside.

Long wait for our flat

Finally!! After months of waiting we're finally starting to make the HDB transactions for our future home!! It's been a long wait and a roller-coaster one too as we were contemplating of abandoning the transaction at one time as the sellers were SO CEREWET in searching for the new flat!!! And now we would have to wait 8 more weeks before the transaction is finally complete. Well at least we're getting somewhere. Just in time for a Hari Raya open house? Hope so...

Underwater World

I've not stepped into Sentosa's Underwater World for a long time and it's a first for our dear Iffah. She's mesmorised to see all those fishes in the tanks. And she looked lovely in her new summer dress. It's a pity that the weather's scorching hot in Sentosa and I must have been feeling dehydrated during the later part of the day. Here's a short video clip in the viewing gallery.

Wigglee woops!

Video of our daughter taken by my wife. Heheh.. she's a darling

Malay mat who does not play soccer

World Cup games finally over and since I'm a student of the french language, naturally I would want France to win. They had a good second half match in the final with Italy but threw their chances away with an unnecessary red card after Zidane headbutted the Italian. Such a shame for him. Maybe he was verbally insulted by the other party which caused him to blow his top. ..Hope he won't be remembered with slogans like "Headbutting It Like Zidane"... much respect to Zizou !!!


I'm not a soccer fanatic and neither do I play soccer/football. I know that it's a bit unusual for a Malay Mat like me who does not play it. Well I tried during my primary school days and also during my teenage years. I played on the fields around our neighbourhood and also at our void decks. But I just don't have the knack of tackling, passing, dribbling, etc. I just don't know why.

I also don't watch much soccer. Not English Premiere League, Italian League, Spanish League or Malay Mat League across the Causeway. But I watched the World Cup Finals from beginning to end just to soak in the atmosphere (sad to say that I was working that night but I managed to sneaked out to Buangkok for a a public screening) hehe.. My office place in Changi had the Frech drapeau hanged outside Thales Avionics Managing Director's office and I was quite proud to see the French expats in SG who were quite patriotic of their football l'équipe... Allez Les Bleus!!!

Things to listen to during an east - west train ride

Last week I had reservist training at the new Home Team Academy located at Old Chua Chu Kang Road, which is all the way in the western side of Singapore. Since Lina had experienced the journey from east to west (bus - train - bus) to NIE, I told myself that I'm not going to be bored on such a long journey (can be close to 2 hours in total!) As such, I loaded my ipod with long mixes to listen to during the journey. A particular current fav of mine is the Essential Mix by Masters at Work. Two more would be Z-Trip's Live @ The Beta Lounge and his Anti War Mix set to protest the Iraq War in 2003

Enjoy folks :)

Phone vid of my daughter

We went to Pasir Ris's Explorer Kids last Sunday morning (my first time down there). The place is meant for kids below 13. There's 2 ball pits and a giant obstacle-cum- maze for big kids. Our daughter, Iffah, had a fun time playing in the ball pit and the slide as you can see in the video here:



She's such a gem when comes to playtime. I'll post more quality vids from our video cam instead next time.

Happy Father's Day

Wishing all fathers out there a Happy Father's Day.

A father's presence to a child can really make a difference to me. I do not get much (in terms of his presence, guidance, love) from my father last time (my siblings experienced the same thing also). What I wanted to give now to Iffah and my other children later on (God willing) to give all the love, guidance, warmth of a father. Iffah now is growing up to a sweet toddler and watching her grow from the time she came into this world on 17th February last year to now gave me lots of joy and excitement.

Any presents for me? hehe... I got myself a HP ipaq 6515 to replace my old Tungsten E. Got this after renewing my Maxonline and upgrading the service.

Iffah is getting more confident in her walking nowadays and I was lucky enough to see her walking about in our house last Thursday when I'm on off-duty. This enough makes my Father's Day gift complete this year. :)

Bouts of consumerism.. hehe...

Firstly thanks to Lina who bought for me my first ipod (see previous post)... I'm also waiting for the arrival of my first Birkenstock (bought cheaply on an online spree from her contact) ... hehe A Florida model like the one below


She bought a Papillio Florida Field of Flowers model. Hmm will Iffah buy a Papillio or a Betula? Or maybe a yellow Croc sandal... hehe she will look darn cute in Crocs or Papillios... hehe

Here's other stuff on my wishlist. Will I or will I not get one of these in the near future?? Only time and my pocket will tell:

1) An Apple Mac Book Pro (17")!


A headturner and crowd puller anywhere... A marvellous upgrade from my old clamshell iBook.

2) Any good LCD TV which can display HD video... It'll be good for movie viewing at home later on... Having a projector is a bit out of the plans as it involves having a dedicated room with black curtains, etc


Enough for now... hehe

I shall not lose my ipod.. i shall not lose my ipod...

A rather boring day yesterday at work which folded to a panic state situation and a relieve. I was on a work site when I realised that I had misplaced my ipod (a birthday present from Azlina)!! This resulted in a frantic state where I tried to recall the places which I had been for the past half hour ranging from MRT toilet to the HDB office.. At the same time, I began thinking what my wife would say to me if I broke the news to her.. sheesh.. That alone occupied a great part of my afternoon during work. Thougts of her nagging at me, being disappointed, etc ...came racing to my mind. Sheesh I even dropped by Funan to check out the current prices of the ipods now and even contemplated of buying one.

Things started to pick up for me when I found out that I had left it at my office (in a plastic bag with my CD). A nice ending to a long day...

Talking about losing things, I'm prone to losing my stuff due to my carelessness and forgetfulness. Sometimes it costed me lots of money. Some of the stuff I lost:

1) My IC (twice!! The second occasion costed me $300)
2) My CD player and headphones. Together with a bag of CDs (some of them could not be found in SG due to their limited availabilty...) Lucky bugger must be grinning ear to ear.
3) Handphones when leaving out of taxis (twice!)

Sigh... I hope I don't lose more things next time.

PS: Azlina lamented that I may lose her next time when I go out with her (like .. leaving a place without her) .. hehe . I don't think it can happen lah... how can I lose her like that...

View in black and white

After a sleepy morning during French class (slept throughout the break. That's not normal of me to sleep during that time), we had a rare treat of exploring a photo exhibition at Alliance Française titled À l'imparfait de l'objectif'. The special thing about this exhibition tour is that 2 of our tutors were there to give some insights on the photographer, Robert Doisneau, and commentaries on his famous works; his major themes of his photos, his style, etc. Here's an excerpt below from Alliance Française Singapour's website:

A l’imparfait de l’objectif comprises photos Doisneau took throughout the course of his life, in which he attempts to illustrate his visions of beauty and goodness, and to share with us moments of happiness found in daily life. Witness to a tumultuous history, haunted by the inevitable passage of time, Doisneau endeavours – by capturing superfluous and unfinished expressions – to make each and everyone of us aware of the temporal nature of life.

Here's some phone cam pics which I snapped at the gallery (I got a casual c'est interdite! remark from a professeur after snapping a shot of his most famous work Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville.. hehe)

Here's the phone cam pic of Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville.



Our current tutor Étienne

Another one of our tutors Jerôme explaining to us the photo. I wouldn't want to explain what is the content in the photo about.. hehe... hit me if any curious buggers out there want to know...

Hairdressers 'lepakking' in a Parisien café in the 60s

Thanks to Jerôme and Étienne for lecturing us througout (in french)...

Ouch my feet!

I have this problem with my feet. It stinks! Hehe... this problem of mine, I don't know how to resolve it permanently. My feet is prone to blisters and also fungal and bacterial infection. This infection was the worst in April where it had infected my leg and groin muscle and as a result I could not walk properly. It happened again this week. Decided to see a specialist at National Skin Centre. Didn't think that the total cost of consultation and medication would exceed $100. But alas, it went up to around $160!. Checked that one of my medication costs ard $63 for a box! Now I know why they say medical costs in SG is rising and only the well-off can get good medication. As of now, I really need to take care of my feet. Wouldn't want such thing to happen again.

First week in temporary home

It's been 1 week since we have moved to our temporary home in Pasir Ris St 21. It's my in-laws' place; an Executive Apt which has a huge living room but small bedroom (for us). A slight inconvenience for us as our room is small for all three of us. Plus, going to places like Orchard Rd, etc for shopping is a bit of a hassle considering the longer distance that we have to travel. Moving out from Marsiling Rise last week to Pasir Ris was a lil bit tiring and the change in living space needs time to get used to. Also this is considered as my 4th moving house for the past 29 years of my life (1st in Clementi, 2nd to Hougang, 3rd to Ghim Moh).

Having our own personal space means a lot to me as we could have our own privacy in our own abode. Just earlier this week we contemplated of having voiding our contract with the seller of our choice flat as they were taking their time to find their flat. That pissed me of as we waited for almost 3 months for it after signing the agreement. Now that we are back on track waiting for our HDB apointments (1st appointment due on 24th July). Urgh I really can't wait to have my own space. Space to listen to my music. Space to watch DVDs privately. Space to watch my French programmes on cable (without having to share TV with in-laws). I really value such privacy so that me, my wife and Iffah can enjoy quiet moments together. Perhaps we can try cooking our dishes together later... hehe

Of carnivals and Simmons

Carnivals are meant to be a place of enjoyable atmosphere where there's good food, maybe some live music (eg at WOMAD), interesting stalls selling accessories, knick-knacks, etc. A place where one can busk in the food, music and maybe get a cool souvenir (I used to buy cool WOMAD T-Shirts last time). Yesterday's carnival was run by students of Millenium Institute (my sister's current place of study) and it was not that bad except for some hiccups. Throngs of students from both MI campus congregate yesterday at the Toh Tuck campus for an afternoon of food, fun, games and some music (live band and from a DJ console playing cheesy dedications.. urgh). Thought I could get some good food and drinks but with the packed-like-sardines-crowd in the canteen, I could hardly get some decent stuff. When I bought drinks, the vendor told me that they ran out of ice and had to bear with one cup of bandung with ice and the other without ice (each costing 2 bux!). Then came the queue for the Ramlee burgers. I was hungry during and needed food asap! But with amateur vendors haggling with impatient customers who request 4-10 burgers at one time, I managed to get mine after 15 min of waiting. Quite a scene to see students cooking up burgers on the spot; In that stall alone, there's 2 cooks, 1 chap to put mayo on the bun, another to put chilli sauce on it... must have been an experience for them...

Went shopping at Robinsons today as it was the last day for their mattresses sale. We test drived the US 's no 1 and 3 mattresses (Sealy and Simmons) and was quite impressed more with Sealy's range. Simmons' mattresses had to rely on their heavy marketing (the one where the lab technician plonked a bowling ball and it does not disturb the other bowling pins.. ) and we weren't impressed when we lied on them... Knowing that it was the last day of sale for the mattresses at Robinsons, we decided not to purchase them today as there's not one that we wanted to plonked more than 1.5K for a mattress on that day and decide to wait for another round of test drive at IMM for the Serta mattress that we aimed for. Hope it's worth the wait so that we can pass our current mattress to Iffah ...

What's next?

My wife, Lina had just found out that I started my own blog. I told her not to make fun of me or snigger at me. She had been blogging on her site since our daughter Iffah was six months old last year. The site is her personal space where she writes on her experiences as a mother to our Iffah. And it's been a good read on how our daughter grows up now.

As the title of my personal space here is on the flipside of me, I'd start with some personal intro about myself first.

Name's Tasha, 29 this year, working with a french firm for more than 3 years now, father of a lovely daugther Iffah Aqila.

Things that make me go hmm.. :

• Lina and Iffah are the 2 darlings of my life right now.
  
• La musique (I count the music beats in bpms). Currently have more than 2ooo tunes in my ipod and having a hard time sorting 'em out! Love collecting 'em.
  
• La photographie (I belong to the old school of thought favouring the 35mm or 120mm film media over digital). Did not take photos often nowadays. Just got a contact print done using Ilford B/W film recently.
  
• La langue française (the french language).Currently I'm an advanced student with the Alliance Française de Singapour and love learning the language. It's something which I wanted to do during campus days but do not have the chance. Proudest moment during my learning experience? It's when I got 4th place in the Tan Sri Dr Runme Shaw Cup organized by the Alliance Française for the best student award 2006. First prize was a sponsored trip to Paris and learning french at L'institut National de Rabouillet for a week ... *sigh*

First toss...

Folks.. this is my first attempt of yanking my ideas/thoughts/ramblings out of my head to be published in cyberspace (in other words, my first attempt of blogging.. haha) I know that I'm quite slow in embracing this hybrid cyberspace tech.. but hey.. I'm joining the bandwagon too haha..