I took this last night before sleeping around 11.30pm. The sky was cloudy and I wanted to capture the sky and the brightly lit HDB flats but my camera does a better job in taking daytime instead of night shots.

A visit to Slushy's house

I visited Slushy and her family at her place for a few hours in the afternoon yesterday. I wanted to give her a belated birthday present. I have wanted to give her but I was sick that day and couldn't join her and her family and Fairy Godmother @ the zoo.

I took some photos of Nimbus and that was before I started following him around, trying to get him to settle down and let me comb his hair. I was happy that Nimbus let me to carry him for a short while to remove the loose hair. I also carried Ainsley when Slushy needed to prepare some milk and food for her. Ainsley has grown bigger but I find it easier to carry her now than when she was a tiny baby.

Mummy's soft toy

Mum has this cute hamster soft toy at the side of her bed.

Doesn't it look more adorable without hiding in the black sack? :)

Dinner @ Cappadocia Cafe

Yesterday, I spent a lovely evening with my good friend, Joan. We had dinner @ Cappadocia Cafe @ Robertson Walk. This was our 2nd time there. We ordered appetizer first as we were hungry and couldn't make up our mind on our main course. The hummus dip (made of chickpea) and pita bread were yummy.

Both of us wanted to try the salmon instead of other meats and we didn't regret our choice as the salmon was fresh and the salad was refreshing. The potato tasted good in just its natural flavour. The cold turkish apple tea was also great with a tinge of cinnamon flavour.

And we couldn't resist from ordering dessert and we had some warm crepes with chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Joan said the crepe was a bit disappointing as the crepe was frozen instead of freshly made.

I enjoy catching up with Joan. We talked about the things we are learning and I'm happy that she is enjoying her flute lessons. We discussed about our future plans, aspirations. It's always nice to have a friend whom we can sound out our ideas and Joan has always been encouraging and has a positive outlook about our lives :)

Feeling great again!

For the past week, I was either having a sore throat, feeling feverish or had an unsettled stomach. Today, I feel great. I have the energy to explain to someone some work I have been doing for about 2 years, so that he can take over when I am posted to do another job on 15 Aug 2005.

Feeling sick really gets me feeling down and I will start thinking about issues like serious illness and death. If small little illnesses like fever and flu make me feel miserable, won’t I feel even more terrible if something more serious hits me? Should such unfortunate event happen, it requires one to have a strong will to survive the ordeal, test or suffering. I’m not sure if I have the strength in me to encourage myself to live my day to the fullest instead of feeling sorry for myself. I guess my solutions are to improve my immunity, have more hours of sleep and believe in the power of mind over body and also not forgetting the support of my family and friends.

I spent the whole morning baking pretzels with cheese, raisins and chocolate chips. They look nice and their taste still needs improvement.

Bright Sunday morning

This was taken at 8.45am . Such lovely blue sky but it feels really hot indoors.

Be happy!

The above painting may look complicated but it is just made of 3 simple paint strokes of different colours overlapping one another. I have been filling up most of my free time after work with my hobbies and many activities - like exercising, reading, blogging, meeting friends, etc. Sometimes, my parents said I may end up with nothing if I keep trying out new things and not settle down. I disagree with them as I hope to learn new skills and things that I'm interested in before I hit an age where I'm too tired to do so. Even though my mind may be a colourful mess like the painting, the experiences I have gone through are enlightening and have made me who I am today. I may not be the world's nicest person because that is not my goal. However, I hope to touch the lives of my family, friends and people/animals around me, so that we can all be happy :)

Me getting old

This morning I was supposed to join Slushy, her baby Ainsley, her hubby and Fairy Godmother for an outing @ the zoo. However, I have to miss that and a kayaking activity organised by my company in the evening because I woke up with running nose. I don't want to spread whatever weird virus I have to my friends. On Tues evening, I had fever of 37.3 degree celsius. I took a fever tablet and turned in @ 10pm. Yesterday morning, I felt alright with no fever. Last evening, the fever came back to haunt me. My temperature was 37.7.

This zoo outing has been planned a few weeks ago and I have taken leave and been looking forward to it. Today is also Slushy's birthday. Happy Birthday, Slushy! Hope you all enjoyed yourselves @ the zoo. Anyway, I went to the nearby clinic and got a MC for today and 5 different types of medicine (antibiotic, sore throat, flu, phlegm and fever). My GP is only interested in treating my symptoms and I'm still clueless how I fell sick. I also managed to go for a haircut nearby. I can't stand my unruly hair, so it's time for a trim.

Mum cooked her yummy porridge with crabstick, carrot, peanuts and cabbage, coriander, oat and also brewed some chrysanthemum tea. Mum and I suspect it's because I have been only getting 6 hours of sleep on the average and I'm not as strong as before. It's kind of disappointing that my body of 27 years is ageing so quickly but I will work with it to see how I achieve optimal hours of sleep. Hee. Gone were the days where I was healthy and not take mc for the entire year until 3 years ago.

Hope I will be almost as good as new tomorrow. I have already made plans to meet some friends for dinner tomorrow and lunch on Sat and I hope I don't have to cancel them.

A cat among the grass

I realise I like the blue sky and green grasses or trees but the picture will look very boring if there is no human being or animal. So I added a cat :)

Interesting dinner cum meeting

On Mon evening, I met the fundraising committee of Cat Welfare Society and Dawn too for dinner @ Aiwo Restaurant @ Raffles City. It was nice to meet Dawn in person and some of the people she mentioned in her blog. Dawn brought the Real Singapore Cat coffeetable books and I bought 2. Some of the others took 10 copies to help sell to their friends. We ordered from the ala carte menu instead of going for the buffet dinner. I had the tower soya pancakes and it was yummy with diced veggies and some sweet salty sauce.

After dinner, we went for drinks @ Starbucks to continue our discussion until 11.30pm. I'm not from media or advertising companies and also do not have any good contacts with suppliers, so I hope I can help out in other ways based on my work and life experiences :)

Inspiration from ET

Last evening, I was watching Steven Spielberg's ET with sis and mum and we were crying a little at the end where ET, Elliot and his siblings were saying their goodbyes. The forested area where ET phoned home has inspired me to draw the following where my imaginary cat and I are camping under the starry sky. Sis actually laughed when she read that I wrote the cats in my earlier painting are my imaginary adopted cats. She must be thinking I'm quite pathetic to imagination/painting since I can't adopt a cat. Hee.

Juicy recipes

I borrowed this book from the library as it has some interesting recipes like fruit ice blocks with buttermilk froth, papaya & banana smoothie, red berry smoothie. I shall copy down the recipes and try them one day.

Sailing @ Changi

I was inspired to paint/draw this after going for yacht sailing @ Changi Sailing Club yesterday afternoon with some friends. I also didn't bring my camera, so I couldn't share photos of the yacht and the nice scenery. We sailed around the area to a tiny island called Frog Island near Pulau Ubin. We didn't bring our swim wear but some of us jumped off the yacht to swim a short distance to the frog island where some Malay family camped there to fish. The beach was filled with dead coral and shells and we had to be careful not to step on sharp pieces and occasional glass shards. We explored the other end of the island which has algae covered rocks. We found some oysters sticking on the rocks. With the help of a rock, one of the guys managed to open the shells and we had a little feast of oyster flesh after washing with salty sea water. It was an enjoyable and interesting experience.

Running out of time?

Yesterday morning I was telling mum and sis that time passes quickly and it’s Friday again. Mum of course used that opportunity to tell me and sis that we should work hard to look for our Mr Right. Haha. I sort of expected that but right now, my priority is more to find my purpose in life, learn interesting things and if on the way, I find that someone, it will be nice. If not, I'm happy with the friends I make and how I live my life.

I am reviewing how I have been spending my time after work. With my swimming and tennis lessons, it means 2 weekday evenings gone. My friend is arranging for tennis practice session possibly every Mon and I will normally meet friend(s) for dinner on another evening. This means I’m left with a weekday evening to go home for dinner with parents and help mum to clean hamsters’ homes (or mum claims I’m more of a hindrance since I like to pick them up instead of picking up their little droppings). Luckily there is still the weekend. Sometimes I will stay @ home to relax, read, bake or go out with friends or family.

Hopefully after 6 more swimming lessons, I can swim front crawl as well as my breast stroke for a few continuous laps without feeling exhausted . Coach taught us the leg and hip movement for butterfly style and maybe I could fly across the pool after the lessons. Hee. Tennis has been an expensive sports to learn after buying myself a $270 racket and investing $240 in 8 group lessons with Singapore Tennis Association. My friends and I are going for another 4 lessons @ $120 to correct/improve our strokes. With their encouragement and my determination, my ball sense has improved slightly and I hope I will be able to play a good rally with my friends soon.

In about 2 months' time, I could practise what I have learned and lead a healthy lifestyle of swimming and playing tennis regularly. I will keep a look out and see how I can use what I have learnt and my work experience to help people/animals around me :) I'm not letting time run ahead of me. I will keep in pace!

What should you do when you see an animal being abused/abandoned?

This topic was explored in Dawn’s blog. SPCA also has a short write up on their website.

Dawn has also provided the links to the relevant sections of the Animals and Birds Act that make abuse and abandonment of animals a crime and the police is authorised to arrest the person committing the crime and investigate the case. Or you can click here to go to Part IV on Prevention of Cruelty of Animals of the Animals and Birds Act directly.

I think it’s good to arm ourselves with such knowledge, so that if we do come across incidents of animal abuse/abandonment, we know we can approach the police directly or when we see people on the verge of abusing or abandoning an animal, we can tell them it’s a crime and this may prevent them from doing further harm to the animal. For such potential cases, it will also be good to report to animal welfare groups like SPCA and AVA to investigate since a crime has not been committed. They can help to re-educate the person or persuade the pet owner to find a home for the pet instead of abandoning it.

Do you know that HDB dwellers are not allowed to have cats as pets?

3 of my lunch mates didn’t know about that until I talked about it over lunch 2 days ago. They were surprised that dogs are allowed but not cats. I have recently commented in Dawn’s blog about the discrimination in the treatment of cats in our public housing policy.

There are 2 archived news (16 May 2002 and 14 Oct 2002) about Cat Welfare Society (CWS)’s proposal and consultations with MND, HDB and other authorities. Personally I feel that the suggestions put up by CWS are sound and can be implemented, especially since CWS is prepared to help HDB to work with residents. Why should we not let the actions of some irresponsible cat owners penalise cat lovers who could provide a good home for cats in their HDB flats? If cats are allowed in flats and there are some people who break the rules, we can educate them and if they are recalcitrant, we can then disallow them to keep cats in their flats. This is more logical than a complete ban of cats in flats. It is ridiculous that most Singaporeans are staying in flats and they can only keep small dogs and not have the options of keeping cats open to them.

If you have any good suggestions that you think CWS could consider adding to their proposal when they float it up to the authorities again, please let me know or forward your comments directly to CWS at info@catwelfare.org. Thanks :)

Chubby hamster

I just drew this using ArtRage. I definitely need to get the graphite tablet and stylus if I want to do such sketches. My eyes feel very tired after staring into the monitor and trying to coordinate and execute the mouse movement with the cursor on the screen. I'm quite satisfied with how this hamster turns out. Chubby and cute just like my winter white hamster girl, Zap :)

Membership

Today I mailed my application forms for membership in SPCA and Cat Welfare Society. This is another way of showing my support for these animal welfare groups besides buying their merchandise. I also hope to get news of upcoming events more quickly, so that I let friends know, post it here and help out if I can.

Good things must be shared
and we save some of the yummy food for Dad who went down to East Coast with auntie and uncle to look for the Straits Time's car (which I wasn't interested to know the contest details). Anyway, they didn't win the car or any prizes but Dad can reward himself with the food when he is back :)