Her first piano performance

Lynn's music school organises student recital once every year.  The purpose is to expose the students to performing on stage.  Last year, Lynn did not participate, for reasons that I can't remember.  This year, I encouraged her to attend.  At first she is reluctant, but after some "negotiation", she agreed. 

I was happy that she picked a piece from the book that I bought her, instead of the easy songs from her lesson books.  She picked "Autumn from 4 seasons (simplified version)", as she likes it's lively tune.  I helped her practise the song last weekend.  I am very glad that on quite a few nights last week when I went home late, she practised by herself. 

Yesterday, which is the recital day, we dressed up as indicated on the instruction letter (dress, dress shoes, with neatly tied hair).  The recital was held at the school's Serangoon branch.  It was a rather small room with a capacity for 50 audience and a stage. The students were asked to assemble in the room next to the stage entrance, where they were taught to bow to the audience before and after their performance. 

In all, 18 students performed.  Some are children and some are teens.  Some are beginners, others are quite advance.  Some are very well prepared, and one or 2 fumbled quite a bit.  I thought I will be bored, but surprisingly I enjoyed it. 

Lynn played reasonable well.  She missed a note here and there, but the pieces were completed without glaring errors.  After the performance, WK asked if she felt nervous on stage.  Her answer was "Of course lah! What do you think!!".  

It was a good experience  The greatest reward from this is that, Lynn actually enjoyed it! 

Before the performance:

Lynn likes this hairstyle.  She requested that I tie this style when school reopens:

Lynn did a nice bow, played her 2 pieces steadily, and did another nice bow to thank the audience.  Well done!

Candid shot

The performers were all given a certificate of participation.  The MC told them to "smile for 30 seconds..." while the parents snapped away....

Update - money talk

CNY came and went.  I'm so lazy to do any update in the past 1 month.   [But right now, nothing came to mind when I'm trying to do an update.]

I shall start with an update on my 2015 resolution on cutting my monthly expenses.  Perhaps I should explain why I wanted to do that.  I'm seriously contemplating taking on a lower pay job (not now, but in a year's time), with less responsibility, less hours, and less "shit".  I don't know if such a job exist, but I hope it does.  On the other hand, I need to plan and test out if I can really survive with a lower pay cheque.

Cutting back on spending is about changing lifestyle.  I failed miserably in Jan and Feb; spent about 1300 in each of both months.  What I learned are

(i) eating out is expensive.  A hawker meal can easily escalate to $5.  For example, a bowl of "mixed fish soup noodle" is $3.50, plus a teh-c-kosong at $1.10.  If once a week, lunch is fast food or at food court, the spending can be as high as $7 to $12 (eg, $4.50 yong tau fu + $2.50 fruit juice).

(ii) basic transportation, meaning either petrol cost or daily MRT commute to work, is expensive.  Thus food + transport is easily $500 - $600 per month

(iii) There are always "ad-hoc" expenses every month, and these cost more than food + transport.  For example in Jan, I
renewed my passport for $70,
ate out with ex-colleague only ONCE during that month ($35),
took the taxi on another Sat night out to celebrate birthday with my friends ($30 for taxi fare, dinner's on them),
bought a new lap top bag for my biz trip in Feb, MUJI brand as I like the quality ($100),
bought a dress for CNY ($60),
stock up my beauty product (eg cleanser, make up remover) as there's discount on my BD month ($160), and
printed my blog books ($150)

And in Feb, I spent almost the same amount on ad-hoc items.  Feb is mainly due to CNY (eg 肉干as gifts, reunion dishes, angbao for the elders).  And I paid for my mum's yearly health insurance premium ($100).

Conclusion is that it not about changing once's life style and habit alone; $800 is attainable only if I live frugally.  Hmm...

 

Korean drama for my family too?

http://aplus.com/a/twin-sisters-grew-up-on-different-continents-without-knowing-about-one-another-then-a-youtube-video-happened

This is a story about a pair of twins separated at birth who accidentally found each other over internet/social media.  I'm touched by the story. 

I don't have a twin out there, but I have a sister, 9 years younger than me (born during CNY in 1983, year of the pig], who is adopted by a couple at birth.  It's a legal adoption, as my parents didn't think they have the ability to bring up a 3rd child.  I always fantasize about finding her through the power of internet/social media. 

I want my blog to stay private; please do not share this posting over social media.  But if you spot someone/something, let me know please :))

Good Morning

It had been awhile that I got flowers from Far East Flora. Went yesterday, got some new items for CNY; will blog about that soon. Here's a bunch of deep purple for this Monday morning.

Just some pictures

4th Jan, Sat. I squeezed some orange juice for sweetie. She wanted to post some pictures on her FB account. I took few pictures of the juices, of her, and of us.  But I didn't allowed her to post the one with me, and she complained on about that on FB :). Here's the picture:

11 Jan, Sunday morning.  Tied up her hair in a slightly different style.  Happy birthday to myself..

11 Jan night, after dinner.  WK took a few pictures of the homely celebration. 

This is the "surprise" that they got for me.

17 Jan, Sat night out with the gals.  We stay out till 12am.. Up to this morning (Mon), I still exhausted

Just the 3 of us

Random thoughts:

糟糕，不知是否人越老越孤僻，昨天生日，过得非常平淡和低调，因此而感到开心！

I set the access to my birthday on FB to only myself; my FB was so peaceful yesterday!

Ok, just for the record, I am not shy or afraid of letting people know my age.

"Set low expectation, and you will be delighted".  

The above 4 points may all be true, but the main contributor to my very happy day yesterday is my sweetie.  She and WK "secretly" bought a cake and gave me a "surprised" celebration.  Haha...  I just play along lor.. pretend I didn't see the empty cake box on the dining chair, pretend I didn't see the cake in the fridge, pretend I didn't know they are setting the cake up when she kept popping into my room to check my progress while I'm bathing....

And also, the pair of shoes she bought for me as my birthday gift.  It cost her $10, from the money she made from selling loom bands and doing housework.  I may have been the one who planted the idea in her to buy something for me and WK's mum from her earnings because we help to sell her products (as appreciation).  But it was she herself who decided to buy me a pair of shoes as birthday gift.  Whenever we go shopping in these past 2 months, especially when we visit TPY HDB Hub, we will pop into shoe shops to take a quite look.  Finally at the beginning of this year, we decide on a pair in the shop just above TPY MRT.  I wore it for the first time on Sat, and a row of purple beads came off.. 

I just got a earful from my boss on eating supplement.  He is 50, but he hardly look so.  He said that I must be those who don't eat much fruits, cos I got freckles.  Sign...  who (which woman) doesn't want to look young and pretty forever.  Who doesn't know the functions and purpose of Vit C, Vit E, acai berry, ginseng extract, etc.... The one and only reason that all people live "lousy" lives is due to: "inertia"..

Pictures will follow shortly.

Happy New Year 2015 !!!!

Must put a lot of exclamation mark, cos I'm quite excited about 2015.  Ready to set my resolution:

1) Change spending habit, reduce monthly expense to $800
Tough goal!  Setting up a big challenge for myself :)  Tonight, I'm meeting my ex-colleague from GF, so don't think I will be able to meet the challenge this month.  But, I have a  year to achieve this, so I'm upbeat about it!

2) Drink enough water every day
Bad habits die hard.  Had been a constant challenge the whole of my life. 

Simple, yet meaningful resolutions :)

Going to be a good year, so looking forward to putting these 2 goals into action!!