Mmmmm.... exams!

XiaoMao got some mysterious messages on LINE!

XiaoMao has a question...

Wow! Bar fight in Singapore!

XiaoMao on Strike!

PSI Cat Makes a PSIchic Prediction of the Weather

XiaoMao challenges you to a new challenge!

I'm not dead! Just real busy!

In case any of you are worried about me being dead in some ditch, I'm perfectly fine. I've just been extremely busy and sick. The haze and 7th month period always suck for me cuz it's a double whammy on my allergies with all the dust and burning and whatnot.

Anyways, a week or so back, I was over at Rice&Fries, helping them to draw on their glass boards and chalk boards, to prepare for the upcoming baby shower of their lady boss. Pretty nice place with a really nice vibe to it. You should all go check it out!

It's located at 484 Changi Road Singapore 419896, just 5 minutes walk from Kembangan MRT Exit A. Just follow the canal and cross the road. You can't miss it!

So this is me drawing dinos on their glass wall.

Here's the concept.

Here's the translation onto a few of their glass walls. My favourite's the Venn Diagram... though the little dino looks more like little diabolos. Haha!

So I drew a photo-booth thingum on their chalk wall too.

This classy lady who's pretty darn good at typography jazzed it up.

Now it's all snazzy and ready to operate.

I ordered some a waffle with a scoop of Hokkaido milk ice cream. The perfect snack after some creative output.

That's about it for the day.

A few days later, it's the big day! Open house with free-flow buffet!

This is me with one of the kids I brought down.

This is the lady boss and very proud mom. Photo's courtesy of Rice&Fries official Facebook page.

This is the star of the show. Photo's courtesy of Rice&Fries official Facebook page.

Pretty nice buffet spread! All cooked in-house and specially prepared by the head chef and owner of the establishment.

 Teaser shot of their desserts. I'm not much of a sweets person though, so I skipped out on this. 

The Gratefulness Challenge

So I went cat hunting...

I'm just gonna leave these here for you.

I have a burning question...

I saw chinchillas being squashed. :(

This is what a chinchilla looks like when it's sleeping. 

 This is what a chinchilla looks like when it's smooshed against a wall.

You may now go back to your boring, chinchilla-less life.

Am I a cat molester? Oh yes, I am!

All that's on my mind, right now, is to rub her cute fluffy tummy...

CHANGE Concert

Pinky Cheung

Here. Have some Jil Vidal singing a song. :D

The River Mat II

The river stones mat has been my little pet project for the past few days. So, previously, I got 2 whole bags of river stones and tried to hot glue them to the non-slip mat. Which ended up with them all popping off after the glue dried.

I then tried super glue - which was quickly abandoned cuz the glue began biting into the foam material.

After scouring the convenience stores in the neighbourhood, I popped by the hardware store. They recommended this glue.

The Power of Nails in Liquid Form

I was a bit skeptical at first. I mean, after having my hot trusty glue gun fail, what made them so sure that this glue would work? I gave it a shot anyway and bought 1 pack.

Lo and behold. This is the glue of the gods.

It worked like a charm. The glue took about a day to set but the stones were all securely stuck onto the non-slip mat. The sad thing is that I only had 1 tube of Selley's Liquid Nails Glue so I wasn't able to finish the mat. I was pretty happy though.

The next day, I popped by the hardware store to buy 2 more.

And oh! Before I forget! One thing I like about this glue is that it's pretty solid - well as solid as glue gets - like liquid putty. So it doesn't get all over the place like super glue or hot glue does. Pretty nifty.

Finally completed one. It kind looks like a foot reflexology mat. I like!

And two hours later...

Almost completed and ready to be brought to church! I ran out of glue, though. :( Time to buy some more tomorrow...

So I heard you were sick...

And I made this for you. :)

Well, okay. Here's the story. I heard, on Friday morning (1AM) that a close friend of mine had a kidney infection, and was hospitalized. So I decided to wait up till 6AM to go pick the freshest wildflowers and herbs from my garden instead of buying non-lasting flowers from the hospital.

Come 9AM, when I'm about to head over to the hospital, that I receive a message that she's been discharged. I'm happy that she's okay now... but... am I a bad person for being disappointed that she couldn't have been discharged later, so that I could have passed her this bottle of flowers? :(

Marking my students' essays and ACTUALLY reading the contents of their essays at this hour is what reminds me of why I love my tutoring job.

Topic: Write about why a giant chicken crossed the road.

Scenario 1: The giant chicken hates all of mankind and runs across the road, smashing all the cars out of the way. <------ primary school

Scenario 2: A girl finds a giant rooster and starts stroking it. <----- primary school

Scenario 3: A hen went across the road to have a sex change. <------- secondary school

Are Singaporeans Really Ugly?

I don’t mean physically, mind you. Are we ugly in character? We’ve had lots of stories lately – ranging from shrieking aunties with a vendetta against ZARA tees to Singaporeans laying a literal shitstorm outside some of the more populous MRT stations. *coughHollandVillage*cough*

It’s easy to lose faith in our fellow Singaporeans in light of all these.

I’d be ashamed of being one if all this continued, trust me.

Something happened last Wednesday night that restored my faith in our fellow countrymen 

(and women. Yes, AWARE. I have not forgotten the women.)

So here I was happily riding home on the Mass Rapid Transit on a quiet Wednesday night, minding my own business and listening to my own tunes, when someone puked onto the ground next to me.

It wasn’t retching either. It was the threefold chunky waterfall of vomit. The kind that splattered all over the ground.

Here is a photo for your reference:

Instagram filter to make it prettier!

Some puke also happened to splatter on the surrounding ladies (and my hapless bag). Needless to say, there was a whole lot of feminine shrieking from the ladies – and some rather manly ones from the guys.

I’ve also never seen an entire crowd move to the centre of the train that fast. Maybe SMRT can take a leaf out of this guy’s notebook!

Anyways, the entire train carriage smelt of rancid fluids and the guy was still vomiting. After setting my bag a safe distance from the vomit radius, I was dishing out wet wipes to the guy like a sugar daddy at a strip club. (Okay… bad comparison)

Some of the aunties who got splattered on were shooting poisonous glares at him while the vomiting guy continued… well… vomiting. It took THAT long.

So there’s this guy getting all embarrassed and everyone’s avoiding him like the plague and STOMP: Terrorist Projectiles Stomach Acid at Civilians as Act of Terror.

Story ends here. Right?

It didn’t.

While I was being tissue free-flow uncle, a gentleman came over, supported the guy (and got splattered) and brought him to sit down. It seems like this simple open act of kindness opened up a dam for more kind souls to pour in.

A middle-aged lady came forward to offer him some of her medicated oil. Then another young lady (in her twenties, I think) offered him a drink and sat beside him, so that he wouldn’t be embarrassed by himself.

We get a whole lot of bad press in the media, talking about how millennials, and youths and wizened folks and governments and everything in Singapore is pouring down the drain in a perpetual mire. It’s easy to get convinced that this nation and its people are disgustingly hopeless.

Until you actually get to see people coming together to act in kindness. And I was given the privilege to see it all in action.

It all starts with a simple act of kindness.

The River Mat

For those of you who know me, you'll know that my hobbies go waaaaay beyond gardening. I happen to love DIY as well.

A few weeks back, I was checking out the church toilet and noticed the incredibly yucky floor mats in front of the toilets. Those had been there for at least 6 years. So... pretty moldy and nasty.

Surfing the interwebz for ideas, I chanced upon this fairly nifty tutorial on creating your own river stone doormat.

Pretty cool. You'll see the beginnings of my attempt to create it. All I just need now is to find that glue...

Dem nuts.