after school today, i went out to meet miak to pass him the photos, we had a good long chat about starting out for endurance events such as the marathon and bi/triathlon. also told him about the 8 days article about jeanette and company, as well as the straits times interview featuring fong (who's a friend of debra), victoria and liz kim. walked over to meet colin to pass him the photos taken during the saca road race #5.

took a train over to kembangan, and walked over to cannasia. marco was inside, to my surprise, but i wasn't so surprised to see him spinning away. seems that he was doing a massive brick workout... details of which i don't know. daniel treated me to a packaged chin chow drink, and it was pretty... fun to slurp! seeing the clouds building up, i hurried off to board the train to meet yong siew, for the photos of the team time trial back in july...

funny thing is, where was jo? gave her a couple of calls because i was around marine parade (frankel avenue isn't that far from marine parade), but there wasn't any answer. lest le babe thinks i'm harassing her, i stopped calling, because i need to get some decent amount of rest!...

took 2-6 today for a while, and the reality that could only be up to 3 adhd boys in the class. messaged sha-en querying whether she and jo learnt anything specific as to adhd management, but the reply was pretty negative.

i need to find some professional level help regarding managing adhd kids. it's not exactly their fault that they want to misbehave, but my direct instinct tell me that i have to mete out a certain form of punishment on them for misbehaving.

went down to cmpb to hand in my letter from nie to extend my disruption. then i went over to canon singapore to pick up some brochures for canon's stuff, including, eos-1v, eos-3, eos-1ds, eos-10d, eos-300d, and g5, along with some recommended pricelists. i'm setting my sights on a cps (canon professional services) membership, so hopefully if i need some lens loan, i can pull it off... (fat hope!) i went to sportz and fitness team to browse, but bought one more pair of shorts suitable enough for pe/beach/cycling for $21 and another pair of trunks for $20. in case you're wondering about the brand, it's tyr. also learnt that lawrence had just married "big sista" stacey for about two months now!

walked back to bmtc (bukit merah town centre) because i thought that cheryl would be nearby, but in the end i walked over to patio's store and chatted, and took a good look at her marine aquarium. poor thing said her mom didn't allow her to do scuba diving, so she'd only gone snorkeling at best. and i must admit, her big-eyed dogs were cute!

went to the airport to give a surprise to jo, but somehow or other, i must have been NOT able to recognize her, and i waited all the way to 4pm to no avail... feelin' a little deflated.

on a sidenote, on the other end of the arrival hall, were local fans of s.h.e. - but i couldn't care less. good luck to the film slr-wielding fans... low light conditions without flash!

update:
by a twist of luck (fate?), i managed to get sha-en's phone number, so she'd too get jo soon, i *think*.

can the boys really think for themselves? what do they see themselves in 10 years' time? imagine, after asking him to copy his composition one more time for submission, jeremy from 5-10 can actually choose to talk his time away - and not bother to lift a pen/pencil to do the job. i had just proofread his composition, which was suffering from a massive lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes - and since there were so many for his really brief composition - i'd asked him to copy it out again. but his following inaction really saddened me. similiarly, the boys from 5-8 still can't learn how to behave, although most of the while they seemed to miss me for pe - it's just because i allow them some action time during pe time. like animals, they only have a preference to me compared to arthur taking them because i don't smile nor allow them to do any form of small-sided games.

thankfully i'm going to switch to the morning session w.e.f. tomorrow. that means that i no longer have to cater to a bunch of all-the-time-dreaming primary 1 boys who can't follow instructions during pe. soon before, the term would be over.

last night i gave a buzz to cheryl (the es4e camp facilitator), and she didn't mind going through me to liaise with cannoncal for freelance modelling talent. on top of that, at about 11pm, i gave michelle (the canoepolo player) a call on the phone, and we just had a massively long talk for one and half hours...

by the way, jo "the babe" sze is touching down in probably another 30 to 40 hours' time. yaay!

from the desk of the waxing-lyrical poet, daphne,

"Sun is rising
I look at the timing
seven O five in the morning
Glad I went running


Sweat on my flesh
Am back and refreshed
Boy am I glad to say
Thank you Lord for this day."

she's pretty much a natural, i think!

yesterday, i spent a good hour or so to reformat my computer, all because my icq couldn't work. in the end, after restoring from my backup, i still had the same problem! in the end, i resolved it by running the icq database convertor... argh. but now my computer sure feels fresher after the reinstallation. earlier in the wee hours, i gave dear mei anne a lesson on trust... hope she makes full use of it.

ennie just found me through friendster, after i thought she was lost on the net. thankfully she remembers me... i will be linking up to her site once again soon. andy and his dad popped by my place today, and we agreed to watch kill bill one day of this week after work... cool. zeuss then gave me a call, asking me to go shoot the f1 uim powerboat race, but with such a short lens, what was i gonna be shooting?...

the most important thing that i got start on with doing, was to start clearing up my room. it's a whole load better than who it was just hours before, though right now it's still far from perfect.

after some desperate searching for the device, i finally bought a digital hygrometer from space electronics from basement 1, sim lim square. the scary was, when i walked around basement 1 of sim lim tower, it was as if they were the anchor tenant - it was practically their signboards all over!

made my way over to yishun and met chris, and learnt that he's right now in pess pgde year 1. as i was talking to him, lydia (i mistook her for my primary school classmate, liqing) passed by and i had a problem trying to recall where i got to know her. some sports event, i'm sure, but which one? not long after she went off, my polytechnic lecturer sunny low walked past too! oh man... small world? i mean, it's deepavali, not chinese new year, how come i'm meeting so many people i know at one place? and to top if off, i met roy loy whom i acquainted with during my oeti days...

right now, the hygrometer is undergoing the salt test so that i can verify its accuracy...

and i must watch kill bill - i love spoofs!

this seniorly man whom i met in the amk-kodak shop, taught me something new - shoot a picture, crop it to 3r print size, mount it onto a black 4r card, and the human eye will see the photo in a totally new way... cool tip!

was helping strawbere to forward her photos to cannoncal, since he's building up his own list of talents (not models ar!) in case he has some other jobs to shoot. he also sent me some of his works - pretty high profile - but sadly, i can't share them with anyone because of potential legal issues. but it's good!...

i'll be going down over to sim lim tower to purchase another hygrometer to help calibrate my drybox's inbuilt hygrometer - apparently it's not good to store the equipment at too low a humidity level - apparently 40-50% relative humidity is best...

anyone who wants to be on cannoncal's talent list can email him direct at his personal email or call him at 9790-7944, or you may want me to be your middleman in case you're paiseh like our dear strawbere...

met ken yesterday, he was a senior of mine from np ccs years ago.

while going back home via the nel, i met smitty and his wife peipei at the farrer park mrt station. and on the train, i saw one of my students along with his dad...

sajc open house would be on this saturday, 25th october. maybe i should go over and find out what's there to shoot...

just came back from dr koh's and got my medication for stye in my right eye, along with antibiotics as part of it! too bad by the time i was done, strawbere had already gone out... on the topic of good relations with a shopkeeper, it was a pretty hilarious time at the amk-kodak shop around my area when i complimented one of the younger ladies that she looked good with her new hairdo... in the end? two other ladies, including the lao ban niang joined in and chirped and laughed for a while, and i left with a wide happy smile.

sunday was essentially a lazy day - woke up late, then went to aunt's place to evaluate her computing needs - one of her systems. there is also a need to get a router, but the quotations will have to wait for a little while. after discovering initial signs of fungus on my primary 24-85mm lens - it was red alert for me to purchase a dry cabinet. it was a visit to mscolor to place an order for the digi-cabi db-066, which is essentially a 60 liter capacity drybox. not long after i transacted $190 for the device, i met huaquan from hall 10, whom i know to also be a photographer as well. we had a short chat, and i learnt that he had a friend who lent him a eos-300d for this overseas trip he just came back from... lucky chap!

today was a typical marking day environment again - except when some girls from the jc and the secondary school came down to assist/lead my boys for this art project. met this photographer from zaobao called spencer, and he was very cordial and candid about his shooting background - and he sure shared a lot of information regarding photography.


a well-weathered work lens... a canon ef70-200 f/2.8L


students touching up on the work...


perspective of the day

the world must be pretty small. especially in singapore. i didn't go out with ash today, since she was recuperating when i gave her a call yesterday.

just before entering peninsula plaza, kona was right there walking into my direction! his loaned eos-d30 had a problem with the internal flash that wouldn't fire. thankfully, the external 380ex speedlite works with it. having no stock of the 50mm f/1.8 II lens at cathay, i crossed the road with kona and bought the lens from tcw for $165. a tad on the high side, but since andrew was so candid about it, and since it's inevitable that i would have to shoot low light events, so why not? as i was walking around stephanie's work area, her reply to my sms was that she doesn't work on saturdays - so i replied that i might pop by the area anytime from monday to wednesday. it was then a trek down to fort canning park, where i met bala, one of the swift aa runners - he was off to give another yoga class. not long after he left, this is what i saw...



i was leaving the building then, after having visited music plaza after checking out the not-so-massive carrefour... i walked to kinokuniya, then to borders for some books. bought lance's every second counts, bicycling and fhm. it was a trip to spoil myself with some rhumba frappucino at starbucks, but before the entry, i met budiman, the drummer who taught the nie-sif group drums...

and when i was about to board the bus to head for home, i actually bumped into mom waiting for the same bus at the same stop as me. coincidences!

morning was coincidental - mrs yew popped onto the same bus as me. later on, in toa payoh, it was poledra, and she's gonna have her 'a' levels in about a month's time.

went out with two of my fellow colleagues, wendy and ms loi, to sakae sushi, for my first time ever. must have been me, but i couldn't exactly find out the tastes of the sushi served, except a slight saltish flavor for the rice. hmm. what did you expect from a person who slept at 3am, woke up at 6:30am to go to school?

there was plenty of clothes to sort out through - it was part of a donation by a student's parent.

this is interesting - surfing with the alien. been listening to a lot of satch songs of late. here's the dreams i just had over the last few hours during my r.e.m. phase... here they are, not in order...

the matrix (reloaded) - jumping off the top of a very tall building that seemed endless in height. i had to have to believe i can make it if i want to survive and not die in the dream. if i made it, i wouldn't hit the floor that was really waaay down.

fighting baddies using a coca-cola bottle wrap that gives power to ???. i can't remember what power it gave.

being able to fly high using a 4xaa battery powered device/ring? indeed. i was thinking of my maha charger, really!

spiderman appearing out of thin air, as i'm watching tom cruise imagining the powers he can have if he did something bad to spidey. the webbed one gave tom a knock on the head when he materialized from thin air.

dennis, my primary 1 student, setting up this trap for some monster in a carpark. and the boys from the class were pretty incredibly strong too!

power from yakult bottle covers? yes, indeed. i remember collecting the tinfoil tops from yakult bottles, taking great care to ensure they remain in perfect circles without tears, washing them clean, and pressing them flat in between books. guess kids of these days do this no more...

climbing the top of a very tall building on a hillock, to access a swimming pool. scary to descend down to the rooftop level again...

while walking over to toa payoh, i saw this lady who was unknowingly putting herself at grave danger by cycling on pie! fortunately she stopped, and i told her about the dangers of doing so, while i helped her to carry her bicycle over the pedestrian bridge.

timothy was going "MR NGOH! MR NGOH!" at the older toa payoh ntuc store, when he saw me. or rather, when i called him when i spotted him there. oh man... anyway, after some hunting here and there, i bought two sets of the energizer wheelie flashlights from ntuc hdb hub.

and since it's mom's birthday, i bought a piece of cake for her, along with a bottle of zappel when i was heading home.

the 1-1 boys were simply not listening to instructions at all. even kok yuan was caught up in offtask behaviour although i demonstrated the movement right in front of him. argh.

i'm having recess break now; was reliefing 5-10 for helen. the boys - i'm sick and tired of having to yell at them, to get them to do work. they don't seem to be able to think for themselves, even at this age. with my back turned, the boys can actually start to fool around.

i've already told 2 boys - that i can choose to ignore them and let them continue, or just pull them by the collar to give them a dressing-down, but that's not going to help in the long term.

went out in the morning to ubin with zplus to shoot the saca downhill race #4. it was consistently drizzling, and frankly, i wasn't sure if i was going to be able to shoot or not - with some assistance from gary, we put up the poncho i tore up to use as a basha, and we were both camping underneath to carry on - gary to view, and me to shoot. thankfully i persisted, and i put up the better shots on a new thread on clubsnap.org, while i was able to upload all the shots over to my personal clubsnap webspace. just a few quick samples...







the best part of the shoot? being able to see strawbere in person... and the best thing for the night? talking 20 minutes over the phone to michelle (the canoe polo player)

this morning, a particular vip from the m.o.e. hq side paid a visit to the school, and her suggestion that when the three schools move together, it would be particularly wonderful if we could teach the boys admidst a "kampong" environment. hmm. sounds really great to me!

i have just taken helen's class, this boy, yy really makes me wonder. when i was just pointing out his mistake in his english composition, he just blurted out laughing for no reason. i thought so too, that it was funny, but no more when seconds later, he went behind the ohp screen, somehow managed to get an eraser and threw it at the class fan. subsequently, the class was in chaos after that.

earlier before recess, in the same class, i took over her class and i saw yy holding on to an eraser and flung it out of the class, despite having one classmate trying to get it back from yy. surely, if the eraser belonged to yy, he wouldn't have thrown it out of class - so why was he misbehaving? the boy would suddenly giggle for no apparent reason - i know better now, after listening to dream theater's six degrees of inner turbulence.

the most shocking thing was when i had to go out of the class, which i was reliefing, to run over to the library to check if i could bring the boys there - when i came back, yy was crying because i'd left him in his class and his classmates would surely bully him... *sigh* but he wasn't a saint himself, what can i can that is fair? he'd be laughing off again in merely minutes, that i'm very sure of. *shrugs*

talk about good service.

went to tiong hin, i swapped a 26 x 1.95" presta tube for a 26 x 1.25" presta tube, free of charge. both are unused, of course! where else can you bargain for a direct swop, although the item was not bought from the store?

this is a quotation from lai wan's email -

Here's an appeal for talented bikers to be part of cast in movie about bikers (actually, to be more precise, drama involving teenage biker lurrve storyline)....starring Sylvia Chang and Martin Yan (from HK) and produced by Ground Glass Images, an independent production company in Singapore together with Kenbiroli Films of
Hong Kong. They are preparing to shoot the feature film in Singapore in November and December this year.

For details on the casts needed, pls refer to the attachment!

They are conducting auditions at their office, located at 251 South Bridge Road #04-01 (opposite Sri Mariamman temple in Chinatown) Mondays thru Saturdays 10.30am to 6.30pm.

Interested persons can contact Chuo Cher Shing at 62277756 or 98361803 to fix a time for an audition.

Know of anyone who fit the bill? Hey! Tell them the good news now!

roles required:

Roles For Feature Film "Hainan Chicken Rice"


1. Chinese male, 17 yo ; 5'8'' to 5'10'', healthy and fit; pleasant and wholesome looking; studious high school student and good cyclist; youngest of three children in the family; speaks Mandarin and English.
   
   
2. Chinese male, 20 yo ; 5'10''to 5'11'' athletic build; hip and trendy, a bit flamboyant, outgoing yet vulnerable, sensitive and emotional; middle child in the family; speaks Mandarin and English.
   
   
3. Chinese male, 22 yo ; 5'10'' to 5'11'' good looking with nice manners; straight-laced guy who works as a flight attendant, sensitive and soft spoken; eldest child in the family, dutiful son; speaks Mandarin and English.
   
   
4. French female, 18 yo ; 5'6'' to 5'8''; pretty, vivacious, smart, mystical; a French exchange student from Paris; speaks French & English with a French accent.
   
   
5. Male of any other Asian nationality, 18 yo; 5'8''to 5'10'' athletic build; street smart, very manly for his age, best friend of the youngest son; high school student but doesn't like school; good cyclist who is also enthusiastic about charity work; has a sense of justice, courage and leadership; speaks English.
   
   
6. Female of any nationality, 17yo; tanned, healthy looking, with an attitude; very keen on sports, wakeboard type of girl; speaks English.
   
   
7. Old Male Chinese Cook, 40-60 yo, someone who has been through a lot in life, wrinkled & weathered face, someone with a lot of
   wisdom to spare for his close friends; needs to speak English & Mandarin.
   
   
8. Chinese Female, mid 20s early 30s, a bespectacled no nonsense type of teacher, stern but not overbearing lady; speaks English
   very well.
   
   
9. Male & Female students 17 yo, can be a real actual group of friends; school mates of the youngest son, they taunt and bully
   him; speaks English.
   
   
10. Male, 25-30 yo, a little on the blur side; bespectacled clerk who processes applications at a polytechnic; speaks English.

the boys from 1-1 are still as finicky as yesterday. what is exactly driving them to this behaviour?

i also discovered an odd trait about my computer now - with the addition of the 120gb, hitachi 180gxp drive to my existing mix of 3 hard disks (1 ide, 2 scsi), i found out that to backup my data on the 80gb ide drive, i cannot transfer it straight over to the 120gb drive - the computer will lock up. instead i have to transfer the data over to an immediatary 18gb scsi drive first before i can move it over to the new drive... urgh!

and i have just gave cheryl a surprise call using my unlisted home phone... when she asked if i expected her to by a psychic to tell me who i was, i saw that i expected her to be a psycho...

went to sim lim in the evening to pick up a new ibm deskstar 180gxp 120gb hard drive from skylet for $188. while paying, i met medhi and who i assumed was his girlfriend in the same store too. and while on the nel (north east line) back home, i bumped into sljm and his sister - the guy's really into medium format stuff now!

went in the mid-afternoon to macritchie to do some shooting, since it was the mr25 time trial today. had a fair share of a workout while i ran probably 1/4 the distance with my camera in hand - i wasn't too confident about the traction i could get, and it sure was tricky and required a lot of concentration.


my mentor during my formative running years, mr lim lian hock

at the end line, i saw teck heng with his big nikon and his 70-200 vr lens shooting away. the much mentioned terry nair cleared the time trial, with more than 30 seconds to spare. spent some time with teck heng's family in the park where i hardly remember spending time to appreciate - sadly, two giant trees within the park were cut down. on the bright side, we saw what i think were two brahimy kites as close as less than 100 meters above us, soaring in the sky. i had a snap-fest! when leaving macritchie, i also got to talk to elliot lewis, who's also on the anza yahoogroups - recognized him with his open-top vintage mg car...


what comes out after a rain somewhere

earlier in the day, i confirmed with ash that one day later this month (maybe next?), we'd be walking around town on one of my photo-tours. hope she doesn't get sore feet walking the way i did yesterday...

started off the day by going out with my boys over to turf city, where we took part in the centaur rfc rugby mini-tourney. i got too caught up taking photos, so don't ask me about the scoreline.

when we got back to school, it was a fair rush over to the shop at beach road market - upon reaching there and asking for the particular colours of the wide-mouth nalgene bottles that handbag, dylan and i wanted - i realized that the service still has plenty of room to improve on - nevermind selling the product a full 20% cheaper than campers' corner. so what to do, i walked from beach road over to campers' corner to buy myself a sage green, wide-mouth nalgene bottle. while on my way there, i saw a silver nissan skyline gt-r r34... *drool* after buying the bottle, i made a little trip over to peninsula plaza, said hi to bigbelly, who incidentally know who beivied was. popped by cathay (as usual) and took a good look at all the lowepro accessories, but was a little disappointed - the smaller pouches did not have an all-weather cover - and the "smallest" that had it was the s&f pouch 50aw - which would be far too big for me. good thing was, michael showed me how i can make use of the cinch/compression straps on my setup - which would be even more helpful now that i have the nalgene bottle. handbag finally gave me a return call, and he was alright with a ruby red, narrow-mouth nalgene. so out i went back to campers' corner, picked up one for him as a birthday present (we share the same birthday, difference being only 3 years), and proceeded to trek my way over to the oriental, where he was.


the children representing the japanese association in the rugby tourney

when i finally got "lost" at trying to navigate my way into the oriental wearing bermudas, i gave handbag a call, and we agreed to meet at... cathay photo marina! met up the whole group instead - familiar faces being mohktar, colin, and doreen (who was my senior at nie/pess) - and new faces jeffrey and ??? (can't remember her name). after a short shop-around at aqua n' leisure, we broke off - and i continued on my urban trek - before i could even get to the esplanade, i spotted the heartbus that my school donated to the cause - and i took snaps of it.

crossed over to the road, and pondered for a while at the waterside. argh. walked over to the esplanade park - not before being talked to a practitioner of falun dafa. sure looks peaceful enough, i guess. but for me? nah.

surprise, surprise, the two ladies whom i met earlier in the morning at turf city helping to officiate... i met them again while i was at the padang watching rugby. how coincidental can one get in a day?... as i walked around the pitch, i met this photographer called esmond who is the official photographer for the singapore rugby union. interestingly, he was using a kodak/canon eos-1n/dcs2000 with a canon ef 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 "l" is lens. woot!

when i was leaving the city hall area, i was stunned to find fabian calling out my name behind me - and sis was with him too! talk about coincidences... we hopped onto svc 195, where i chose to go to queensway, while sis and fab went to ikea. i was pleasantly surprised at how much better the shopping centre now looked, compared to the dingy image i had of it in the past.

happy 27 to handbag and 24 to me.

took over wendy's class because she was apparently ill, i guess. i do not know about her class boys, but the lessons went on alright. forgot to mention that 3-7 had a bumper crop of 5 periods of pe continuously, because i was taking them in absence of rakesh. but i' expected more from some boys' behaviour...

buying some nalgene bottles tomorrow afternoon - anyone wants me to help you buy? daniel said there's a place selling them for 18 bucks apiece... sms me 9640-8500 to let me know...

watched the new paper new face 2003 finals at takashimaya last night - i was enjoying viewing the cameras more than viewing the contestants. met up espn (?), joe, clown, magixshoe, harlequin, garion, zplus and some more other folks. can't remember the winners' names - really, i was more fixated by the 400mm f/2.8 lens that was on display at this shop in lucky plaza...

went out around noon today to deliver photos. here's just a summary of who i met when.

first of all, i went over to nus to meet derek - i passed him the photo of geraldine free. some walking done, i reached uwcsea. paula was having lessons, so i passed the photos over to the pe secretary and soon left. it's a very very nice looking place indeed!

went into singapore poly, to hunt for cannoncal to pass him his photo. found him in biz ad block 22. he said that he would give me the op/tech strap for my "personalized service" of delivering the photos to him. left, went to the train station, to leave for tanjong pagar. as the train was moving off, i noticed a very attractive girl who had just alighted the train - she was having these white headphones, some canvas sneakers and also had this pink nalgene bottle hanging off her slingbag. i immediately sms-ed out - and indeed, it was the ever-so-attractive vicki!

had a little difficulty of locating dughall's office, but it wasn't that hard. he's absolutely a gentleman - and he did made me feel at ease in his office. he offered me a lobang regarding the singapore marathon - i'll try to get back to him regarding it. interestingly, he's of scottish descent. it was my first time walking along yan kit road, where there is this pretty famous open-air "fishtank" style swimming pool at this particular private residence. next to meet - gab - for the photos from the saca mtb race held in bukit timah.

when i left, i took a slow, but looong walk over to peninsula from smack right in the tanjong pagar/keppel road area. first stop this time - cathay photo, where i bought a lowepro s&f bottle bag for $8.50. good thing now that i need not struggle to carry a water bottle when i'm shooting in the future! even before i reached the building though, i met xin hui from vjc - she hasn't changed a bit at all.

got off the train, and ended up seeing chee ping smack in the station. then it was off to meet frankie at the heeren, but while he was searching high and low for me and consequently ended up chatting with 2 long-lost (?) friends, i had a double-take when i saw munn coming. happens that they were meeting up anyway. present was, timothy, a fellow churchmate of timothy and later, frankie's gf. off to muddy m's, and there i spoke for the first time to amy in person. she certainly doesn't sound too aussie to me - but she's indeed "dinky-die" as she mentioned in a previous mail to me.

the day (or night?) ended as i went to meet luke for guess what? - his photos...

forgot to mention last night there was a nut who sat beside me in the svc 105 bus, spewing all the hokkien vulgarities at some unknown person. everytime he opened his mouth, you'd expect "nbccb" or a derivative of it to be spewed... what is this - the works of the devil?