Making a memory

Friends and family are clearly bored with how proud I am of Singapore.
They disowned me when I wanted to by ‘I Love SG’ Christmas ornaments for the tree. They make fun of me when I refer to LHL quotes. Manu knows to look for me in the "Singapore section" if I went missing in the library, even though he accuses me of being an extremist and a brand switcher. Back in 2010, I hated the idea of spending the rest of my life in Singapore. I disliked Singapore even during the transits. In my defense, How can the Singaporean attitude fair positive against the humble Japanese or ever tolerant ever best chaotic Indians ?
The exact moment when the idea of loving Singapore first struck me was on the beautiful twilight of Aug 9 2011. That is when I heard 'Majullah Singapura' for the very first time. Well, it ain't just the anthem, but the collective force of Red & white clad people assembled at the Marina Bay area, the NDP, the anthem & the grand fireworks! The emotional results were complicated and I can see your perplexed face as I am trying to put the feeling into a single sentence. I had goose bumps, I missed the Independence Day celebrations back home, I felt patriotic and missed India, but somehow that was exactly the moment I started wanting to live in Singapore. But then, the hour which sealed the deal occurred a year later, when I watched the telecast of PM Lee’s speech, which he delivered at the NDP rally at the NUS campus in 2012. I remember wishing I could run to NUS from Ghim Moh right then, and be right there at the auditorim. It is the most impressive, thought provoking speech which I have ever heard. I felt leadership, vision, sincerity, true concern for the public, integrity towards the nation.
Now that I think back about it, one of the major reasons why I continue to choose to live in this city is that touching speech & his focus on Hope, Heart and Home. Another reason is the friends who have made Singapore a ‘Happy’ place to be.
The biggest beating Singapore gave me came after this speech. If I hadn’t heard that speech, we might not be living in SG right now, I wouldn’t have decided to apply for Permanent Residency, we wouldn’t have decided to achieve what we want in SG itself. The very fact that I follow LHL on FB, walk dismissively past the Indian stalls at food courts to queue for Char Kway Teow, be extremely defensive abt SG policies, being a strong believer of IRIS, know the bus numbers and transits even in semi-sleep state, devour incredible amount of local news, politics, history and SG events is described by Manu as Singaporean traits.

So, you can imagine how privileged I felt when NLB invited to me to pledge my blog as part of a Singapore memory project. Thanks, is what I would say, to motivate the lazy bones in me to restart writing.

Ads - A world of their own!

I love Ads!

I was always noted for watching commercials in between, rather than the movies :-|
Seems the media does care for people like me. There is this program in Channel 5, "Sport Rockz",on Mondays 9.00 PM, dedicated to sports Ads :-) No irritating programs in between !!

These were my fave 2 from today's show!
First one is a dance Ad - Ballerina Vs Dancer

Second is on Football. You are gonna love this!

Am sure you are humming a tune by now :-)

My experiment with the wax!

When our parents were here, Dad found this beautiful book on candle making. He was browsing the library for a good candle making book, as Mom is very interested in this. On a weekend, we went "arts shopping" and made beautiful gel candles. I was so thrilled about it that later they sent me a big block of wax, to work on. Then on, making a square candle for our room has been in my to-do list. 

As part of making the weekend eventful, I attempted it yesterday. 

Since I don't trust myself to continue candle making, my thrifty mind does not want me to invest on 'must have' items like double boiler, wick holder or dedicated molds for candle making. 

I was saving the empty bottle of olive oil for quite a while to use as my square mold. I used a long tooth pick as wicker. Double boiler was an old sauce pan strategically held in place to get enough heat from boiling water in another bigger sauce pan! (Everyone says, never heat the wax directly on stove top)

If I continue to practice and perfect this, I will surely buy the gadgets soon. 

The only causalities were my last minute panic and screams to get assistance to keep my dummy wicker straight in the center. Of course, instantly Manu engineered a technique to solve the on-site technical glitches! (I think I made the right choice by marrying him)

It was fun making this beautiful little turquoise candle :) 

Cheer me up!

I am observing a new phenomena these days. The weekend is usually fun. But, as the week starts and we slip back into the normal schedule, I can feel the fun draining away & stress catching up. 
I attribute this to the extended commute these days. My present employer is doing quite well in Singapore. So well as to construct a new building. It has a new chic layout, compact desks, beautiful lobby, spacious balconies, all makes it good to go to work. The best part is the meeting rooms. They are spacious and bright and numerous. At least one side of the meeting rooms are full windows :-) Obviously, I am so glad because my work involves lots of meetings and it was struggle getting a meeting room booked in the old place. 
Now the 'But' part. The major issue is, the place is way too far from my home. I spend an hour each way in trains and bus. This commute directly eats into my home-time. No wonder I get so worked up. So far, Thursdays are the worst. That's when the weekly stress is max and weekend is not at the nearest. 
This Thursday, on my way back, I decided to stop by Harbor front and spend a solid hour to go see the people in the mall. I always felt that people look more beautiful  in the ambient lighting of this particular spacious mall. On the way to the cafe, I saw a small exhibition and I found this beautiful set of Kitchen towels. Its a gradient set of blue and green and turquoise & 100% cotton :-) Wasn't too expensive. Deal !! 

It was instant crush and I brought it. Immediately, I felt very happy and went home.
I can use the cafe-therapy next Thursday :-)
When I explained to Manu the reason why I was beaming when I came back home, his first reaction was disbelief! How can a person be so happy after buying kitchen towels ? I don't know, I never thought about it before.
Was it the instant satisfaction of spending money knowing that you get a desired output ? 
Is it the tangible element of the shopping results, in contrast to the intangible power inside your credit card ? 

Or was I unknowingly missing really beautiful kitchen towels ?  
What else am I missing ? Let me see where next Thursday takes me ;)

A week

I have been having a very rough week. When I look back, it seems like the toughest one I had in the whole year. To start with, not everyone back home are at the best of their health. I was also down with fever. Then, the throbbing leg pain forced me to consult a specialist. Thank God, he diagnosed it as an inflammation and nothing long lasting. But I have to spend precious weekend hours doing physiotherapy.
Then there were some totally unexpected set backs, which is still a challenge. I will have to take few tough decisions (life changing ? Naa, maybe temporary change) within the next couple of days. Finally, me and Manu were at a stage where we started thinking about our long term plans and took some.  But, the next morning we observed potential cracks forming in our 'stable' platform!
We were trying to cheer up and we prepared home-made chocolate yesterday night, to mark the weekend start.
The only good thing this week until now was that the scales showed that my weight had gone down by a Kilo :-) :-)
Today I was clearing my emails. My dear friend, Sita had mailed me the funniest link ever . It is a collection of many funny auto corrects
It made me laugh for 20 minutes plus, non-stop. Ofcourse, it took so long to read. I had to take breaks to stop myself from becoming a case of "She laughed herself to death". Literally, I could not breate, I had to grip hard to prevent from tumbling out of the chair.

Sita, you really made my weekend ultra light :-))