Our friend cooked us a nice dinner of spicy chicken, dumplings, kimchi. It is JerL's birthday today too and a great opportunity for us to catch up. 

These 2 dogs, Kippie and Buffy gave us a warm welcome by barking and licking. 

Topped with the usual mashed potatoes and pumpkin and shredded cheese, the pies looked good. 

I made some mini shepherd pies to bring to my friend's place and also for my family. This time, instead of making the usual filling of minced beef, cream of mushroom soup, I improvised with chicken sausages, celery and tomatoes. 

Yesterday morning, Rebecca and I attended this conference on behalf of Cat Welfare Society. The conference was interesting as the panel speakers (from companies, VWOs and student leaders themselves) shared their experience on volunteerism and how to work with interested companies for a meaningful cause. At the start of the conference, one of the student leaders ended his welcome speech with "What do we live for is we don't make the world a better place?" It's heartening to see about 100-200 students, representatives from companies and VWOs coming together at this forum. The conference ended around 1pm and we were given the opportunity to network and mingle during lunch before everyone left to enjoy the rest of their weekend. 

Mum planned and prepared the ingredients for today's dinner and Dad, following Mum's instructions, cooked them. You can't really tell from the photo but the meat dish had some egg toufu in them. 

Mum and sis bought some Meiji chocolates from OG @ Orchard Rd last weekend. I tried this cute box of dark chocolate and like it as it's 55% cocoa. 

Before going home, around 5pm, I made a trip to the park and found White Neck resting near the stone chair. He jumped onto the chair when I sat there and I quickly stroked his cheek and neck. 

Some students were attracted by the cat trap on our booth. 2 girls signed up for updates on upcoming events and a few boys came over to ask what CWS does and walked away with our newsletters and information brochures. 

The mascot for the Red Cross Blood Bank posed for my camera. Cat Welfare Society is the only animal welfare group present at the fair. 

The students @ SMU listening to Dawn talking about volunteerism and introducing Cat Welfare Society and what the volunteers do to help the community cats. After the informative and interesting talk, none of the students had any questions for Dawn. 

I took leave today to give Dawn support for her talk on Volunteerism @ SMU's Community Service Fair at noon. 

Swimming and cat massages

After all the dreaming and planning, I finally went swimming with my friend after work today. Yesterday I sacrificed my lunch yoga session to meet my 2 friends/ex-colleagues for lunch @ Sun with Moon Japanese Restaurant @ Wheelock Place. This afternoon lunch was with my 2 colleagues @ a chicken rice stall @ Novena.

So when I hit the swimming pool in Bishan, I tried to swim more than 10 laps non-stop plus we had to walk for about 5 mins from my friend's flat to the swimming complex and another 5 mins from the pool back to her flat and another 5 mins after dinner from her flat to the bus stop where I took a bus home.

Nowadays when I couldn't join mum to feed the cats before 10pm, I would still drop by the park to see if any of the community cats are around for me to say my hellos and give them hugs and massages. Just now after 10pm, I found White Neck resting @ the pavillion and he greeted me by rubbing himself against my pants and feet. So sweet. He allowed me to touch him for a longer duration and didn't attempt to swipe me with his paws. Fat Cat also came out of hiding from the bushes and immediately went flat on the ground to indicate his readiness for a body massage.

When I walked near the carpark at my block, Noisy ran out of the truck that he was hiding under and meowed loudly. I gave him a massage slightly harder than usual and he seemed to like it and did some form of growl that demanded for more massages. He also looked at me differently and kept lifting up his head, exposing his neck and pushing his mouth into my right palm. Usually I will just use my right hand to touch the cats, so that my left hand is clean to scratch my face, take out a tissue from my bag. But on some occasions both hands are activated to give the cats hugs or more powerful massage :)

Zap looks so adorable in this photo. I squeezed my camera into her toilet and managed to capture in this pose. 

Zap looks quite ratish. She has lost some weight but still eats well. She is quite fierce at times too and will bite me (not hard enough to break my skin) when I stroke her and try to carry her. 

I let Pip walk on Sis' thighs/shorts before she explored further on the sofa. Hee.  

My cutie pie, Pip let me carry her out on my palm just now. 

Today was an interesting day. I had lunch at a Korean restaurant with my 3 friends from Cat Welfare Society and other nice people from other animal welfare groups. The purpose is to get acquainted and to informally share what we do. The Korean food was also quite yummy. I ordered the Mixed Mushroom Hot Pot Rice and it's like claypot rice with mushrooms and lettuce. After the lunch gathering, I had drinks with CWS friends before meeting my sis and parents. They wanted to have early dinner at Killiney Kopitiam. Chicken curry with french loaf for them and I had kaya toast. 

Yesterday I was having some email conversation with 2 friends about the need to exercise as I feel my metabolic rate has dropped. I haven't been really exercising due to work (I can't attend the weekly yoga lunch session) and laziness and other reasons :) Next week should be better as I resume with my yoga session. If the weather is fine, I can go swimming next Wed. I'm also thinking of jogging in the park tomorrow morning after feeding the cats :) Hopefully I can keep to my exercise plans. 

The weekend that has started me thinking

Since Fri, I have visited 3 friends @ their homes. Our conversation would touch on our continued thirst of wanting to take up a new skill or hobby. One friend who is a JC teacher has tried learning to play the keyboard, jewelry making, etc. She also shared that 2 ex-colleagues have quitted teaching to pursue a fashion design course and baking course. I always feel happy for people who discover what they want to do with their lives and dare to pursue their dreams.

Agatha is taking up pop piano on top of taking care of her baby Tin Hang. It sounds interesting to me as the teacher is teaching her to use her voice as the melody to accompany the chords played on the piano. My piano skills are quite lousy but should I consider to take up piano again, I would consider learning pop piano instead of classical piano again.

Joan asked if I want to take up taiji again or some sports. What are my interests? Sewing, baking, batik painting and pottery, etc all sound interesting to me. Driving seems like a good skill to pick up too. I have passed my basic theory test about 6 years ago but have not gotten beyond that. I'm still thinking and probably will only decide what I want to learn after my trip to Japan in August :)