Desert Flower (Book) & An eventful day

I finished reading this book in the wee hour of Sunday morning. Saturday after lesson I met Huijun for dinner @ Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. We went for the international buffet.

We are their “first” customer, as the buffet start at 6.30 but we reach there at 6pm. The buffet was sumptuous. There’s a lot of cuisine to choose from.

We stayed till 12am. It was a nice to eat & indulge in the atmosphere without worrying about food and drink. When it was time to foot the bill, I was shocked to see that the buffet costs $64.25 per person, and we are not entitled to any discount. We do not have any AMEX or M Hotel membership card.

Sadly, I passed my card to the manager. Suddenly, he came back and told us he’s giving us 50% membership discount but we have to pay cash as the membership’s name and my credit card name won’t tally.

We’re abit confused by the sudden turn of event, and asked him for more details. Apparently the manager gave us member’s discount out of goodwill. The membership fee costs $300, and we are grateful to the manager for his generosity. Huijun and I are contemplating whether to apply for the membership since we love eating buffet.

I was in total good mood when I reached home that I’ve difficulty falling asleep. Thus I decided to finish my book where I left off few days ago.

The book was about the transformation of this Somali model, named Waris Dirie. She’s from a nomad family in Africa. The hardships she experienced as a child just dwell on me that I’ve a blessed childhood.

At a tender age, she already tending to camels & cows and helping her mother to look after younger siblings. I’m definitely unable to do all these when I’m her age.

She also detailed the agony of female genital mutilation. It was horrid whenever I visualize the scene, and she’s only 5 years old back then.

In their culture, girls undergo circumcision is like entering womanhood, and considered “clean”, more “market value”. After the circumcision, urinating & later menstruating became a torture for her. The gypsy woman sewed “it” way too tight, till the “water” can only flow 1 drop at a time. It was later when she started becoming a model then she had a surgery to rectify the pain.

At the age of 13, her father had arranged a marriage for her to a much older man. She fled the arrangement. During the fleeing process, she almost got raped and had a few brushes with death encounter. She went to her sister, then from relatives to relatives seeking shelter and worked for them. Once she overheard her auntie’s conversation, and pleaded earnestly to allow her to work as a maid in London for one of her auntie.

She got her wish granted, and she went there. Throughout she worked as a slave for her auntie, till one day her uncle position as ambassador has ended and they are all going back to Somali, and she refused. Using her wits, she finally stayed in London alone. To survive, she started working as cleaner in MacDonald.

Later she was discovered by a renowned photographer, and as they say the rest is history. Gradually she embarked on her journey to become a supermodel. On the peak of her career, she quit to devout full time to charity work, especially in the area of female genital mutilation…..

It was a nice book worth reading. I just couldn’t put it down. While I’m enjoying my book, a guy sent a message to me. I was shocked when I read the content, it was very offensive and disrespect. We aren’t that close, more like acquaintances than friends, I find his message very rude.

I ignored him and guess what he message me again yesterday morning to apologize for his message. I told him off and asked him to show some respect to gal. I start to be very cautious of guys. They seems to have a motive… It's demoralising whenever I encounter this type of incident….

My Feudal Lord

I finish reading this book yesterday. This book was about Tehmina’s bravery to publicize her ordeal living with her political husband.

I don’t really enjoy reading it, no doubt I pity her ordeal but there’s too much emphasis on political, which doesn’t interest me.

Even though I don’t like political story, but it does provide certain insight to the country political stability.

Eventually, she breaks away from the marriage and found new meaning to her life…..

Enough of Weirdos~~~

Yesterday finally I got some well needed rest. I was so tired from the consecutive night out that I couldn’t take it.

After church, I went home and skipped my lunch, jumped straight to bed and napped. I felt rejuvenated from the nap, and decided to cook dinner. I’ve not cooked for very long….

I prepared all the ingredients and started cooking when my phone rang. I thought it was my mum, but it was Aaron. I was cautious. My experiences tell me that it’s never any good new whenever Aaron calls.

The moment I answered he started questioning me, and demanded to know if I’ve a boyfriend and I ever bring any guy to “his” flat…..

I scolded him and reminded him that he’s in no position to know my personal life. Whether I’m dating or not is none of his business, we are over and he can’t accuse me of anything.

I did tell him that I’m not dating but that doesn’t mean I won’t date in the future. I told him this will be the last time I will reveal my personal life to him, and asked him to always remember we are no longer related to each other…..

Saturday one weird guy, and yesterday another, I was really thinking are they sharing some kind of telepathy….Both of them must ruined my day. I started off fine but ended up frustrated….

One get unhappy over me busy meeting friends, another get upset over me going out with guys….I don’t know what is wrong with both of them and I’m not interested to know…I just need them to give me peace…..

Relaxation end up ruin~~~

Saturday (19/06/2010), I meet Huijun again to dye hair in the evening. I was still tired from the previous day. I hardly catch sufficient sleep. I woke up early for my dental appointment.

We went to Far East Plaza (her regular hairstylist). The plan initially was to accompany her, as she wanted to do hair treatment. Later I was tempted to dye my hair, and I joined in as well.

The whole process was long. I was hungry and tired while waiting for it to finish. Later we went to TCC for dinner. I seem to encounter bad service whenever I’m with her. As usual, we always chat after our meal but never the staffs chase us out. Anyway if we see crowds, we will quickly finish our meal and off we go….

But that day no crowd and this waiter came to our table and asked us for any last order (the TCC opened 24 hours). When we said no, he cleared our glasses without asking. I was flabbergasted with this type of service, and feedback to the manager.

We went to Xin Wang @ ION feeling all frustrated from their service. We saw our secondary school classmate, and expectedly he ignored us. I suspected he has self-esteem problem.

There’s this young waiter who is very interesting. He served us our drinks, and suddenly told me he remembered me. To be polite, I said I remembered him too. I do have a vague impression of him. (We first came there last year, and Huijun keep finding our ex-classmate familiar so she asked this same young waiter to verify for us.)

So here we are again me & Huijun. He said he remembered my smile, I was taken aback and later asked Huijun whether I laughed too loud, that’s why he remembered.

Anyway out of courtesy, I asked him his name and age. He’s nice keeps reminding us if we need to order can tell him. Compared to TCC, this service is definitely much better.

We stayed till 1+am, and left for home. While on my way home, I remembered to reply Guolin’s msn (he sent the previous day).

Our conversation seems to side track a lot. He kind of made me regret replying him. I should have ignored. Honestly I was hesitant in replying initially, but on the account that we are classmates, I replied.

It will be better if our conversation be normal and not him asking me some weird question….Let our past be buried and not bring it up again…..

Excursion + Movie (The Karate Kid)

Friday (18/06/2010), I took leave to spend some quality time with the girls. Naomi & Natasha’s childcare have organized an excursion to Jurong Birds Park. It has been ages since I last went there. I’ve included Dinah & Cora for the trip. I wanted it to be our time but I need an extra pair of hands to handle Natasha.

It was a good opportunity for me to recollect my childhood memory as well as to spend some joyous time with them.

It was raining quite heavily in the morning. I was still concerned about the trip. I was thinking that we might not see the birds at all, if it continues raining.

Thank god, it was all shine and bright when we reached the destination. We went to the amphitheater to see the birds performing various acts. Dinah & Naomi just watch in awe at the performance but Natasha was overwhelming excited and keeps volunteering her for the acts. Thank god, they never picked her since she’s too young….

After the performance, we have picnic lunch, and later we just explored the bird park by foot. Later we took the tram ride for an overview of the bird park. The last destination is the water play, the kids’ favorite.

It was while they are splashing the water and playing wildly, do I then get to rest a while. I find it more tiring then working. Working is mentally tiring but this is physically tiring.

They got to play for 45 min then changed and headed home. The aftermath was abit chaotic and I helped to look after some of the kids - too little adults and an overwhelming of kids.

Suddenly, I find myself looking after Naomi’s friends too, especially one of the boy. I find him quite poor thing, so lonely, so I keep him company and look after him…..

We are so exhausted that we all collapsed in the bus. Back home, I’ve to rush again, as I’m meeting Huijun for movie.

We went to Vivo City for dinner & movie. We watched the 11.45pm movie. We picked “Karate Kid”.

Both of us realized that Jackie Chan’s movie mostly is a fusion of East meets west and comedy action. Basically, it was about Jaden Smith moving to China with his mum. While in China, he offended a thug (school bullying), and coincidentally Jackie Chan saved him from one of the bullying.

While trying to help Jaden Smith to settle the dispute with the thugs, it ended up with Jaden Smith joining the Kung Fu competition.

So Jackie Chan faced with an uphill task of training Jaden Smith for the competition. Quite a hilarious movie that we enjoy….

By the time I reached home, I was dead beat, really drained off all my energy….

Toy Story 3

Last Thursday (17/06/2010), I brought the girls to see Toy Story 3. It was actually an event for single mother provided by Wecare, thus all the tickets were free, it was like a support organization to single mother. All this I’ve to give thank to my neighbor, as she’s the one who introduce me (she’s actually volunteering for Wecare).

We started for in haste, and I was fuming mad with Cora, as she failed to follow simple instruction. So before we got to watch the movie, I was already in a foul mood.

But thank god, the movie was jovial and lightened the fuming mood of mine. Even if one never watch the part 1 & 2 of Toy Story, will be able to catch the plot, as it’s unrelated.

The story was all about toys rescuing their friends from evil toys. Basically everything is all about toys….

Most importantly, the girls enjoy the movie alot, as it touched on something that all kids love the most - TOY....They are so excited over the show till they forgot all their hunger (we have not taken our dinner). For me, it's simmply tiredness that made me forget my hunger....

Still I enjoy the movie, as I can just laid back & relax the movie…A very good after work relaxation movie….

Killers

Ching and I watched this show yesterday evening at 7.10pm. I feel so long never watch movie. Lately not many shows capture my attention.

This movie was average and I find the plot boring. I will say lack of creativity. It’s similar to Mr & Mrs Smith except that it has an added sense of humor.

Due to it’s lacked of storyline, that’s why it’s a good de-stress movie after work…..