So, you got where you need to be...

Please remember the people who helped you to where you are now. Not to mentioned those who wish you well despite the hurtful things you did to them. Be grateful they did not curse you or try to backstab you when they could have.

Take this moment and look back for awhile...

Have you forgotten to thank someone?

After one year of being Mrs..

Exactly a year ago, we were in Taiwan taking our bridal photoshoot after ROM. That was still the relatively carefree part of our lives. Then, I did not know the wedding reception was going to be even busier than the ROM.

It has been a year since we said our vows (the very last minute vow which we just copy and paste from the internet the night before the ROM). So how is this newlyweds doing? Still loving and arguing every now and then like any other couple. 

I decided to blog about what I have been battling with since half a year ago.

The hormone treatment is a horrible process! I am at the last lap of the second 3-month dosage, but I probably need to wait another painful half a year or more before we can try to have a baby. The mood swing is terrible. I feel like snapping at every single person who pissed me off. I perspire once the temperature hits 24 degree C. Sometimes, I feel I will melt even if I am at the middle of North Pole. The worst part was the depression which I hate to admit I have it. I will cry over blunt comments and take offense in every criticism.It is as if the whole world hates me.

And the worst of the worst issue is the thought of having a baby. I feel like I can wait no more and I want to give up. To make matter worst, friends around my age or younger are getting married. The Facebook newsfeed shows their happy faces of "positive" news and beautiful baby bumps - and most of them were married less than 6 months or were married after me. 

Don't get me wrong, I am really happy for them and I pray for their happiness and their new journey into parenthood. However,moments later, I will be pouring bucket of tears on the bed. When my husband comes home, I will cry and beg him to delete the facebook account for me or reset the password (which he never do despite agreeing to it). Why I did not delete the account myself, you ask? Hormones should be a good answer. As I mentioned, I cry over shittest-illogical matters.

I prayed every night, asking God will we be ready once this whole horrible injections stuff is gone from my body. I stare at the calender everyday. The wait is painful.

I am very thankful for my colleagues. They knew I wanted a baby and assured me all these I am going through is pretty common. The teachers welcome me to carry the babies in the infant care. The Aunty will carry the cutest and fattest baby and say my baby will look chubby too next time if I always carry them now- if I want a girl carry a girl, if I want a boy carry a boy, if I want twins carry twins (how I wish such choice were so easy to get). They were concern for my health and despite the leaves. I always fear I would be sacked if I continue falling sick but the director and principal were very understanding. I never lost a single temper at work or with the kids despite the sever mood swings, because everyone there is always happy.

My husband wants the baby, probably looking forward more than me. He is a lot more patient in waiting and handling my mood swings at the same time. I cannot ask for a better husband than him. While people say there is a honeymoon period after marriage, we have been struggling with my nightmare tantrums and nothing was honeymooney about our first married year. We focus on the bright side of life and use this as an opportunity to make full use of our time together to bond and know each other better.

If you are reading this and you are going through the same thing as me right now, I am the one who is also praying everyday for a baby, you're not the odd one out amongst your friends.

Fast forward

Never update since the proposal because we were so busy with the new house, wedding preparation and work projects.

It has been two months since the customary wedding. Despite us not putting a lot of time in the planning, everything went surprisingly-smooth that day.

Our wedding - 1 March 2014, Saturday

5am - woke up (bridesmaids did not have enough sleep because they were preparing the materials)

6am - Gate crash (they were late but managed to play almost all the games)

The very beautiful bridesmaids and "poor" groomsmen (they had to fork out a lot of money that day).

7am -  left for groom's house

8.30am - head to new house to take pictures

Changed into the kua for second tea ceremony at MBS

12.30pm - Change hair style and back to white gown

1.15pm - Our grand march-in

1.50pm - Change gown and hair style. 

MBS brings food to the bride and groom who are waiting for the second march-in. AWESOME!

My mua is Yoovy Tan. She is so pretty and patient. Everybody loves my hair do that day!

 Quickly take some shots in my favourite gown.

 Our thank-you speech. I had to pause a few times and rush through at the end because I was close to tears.

 Who is the next bride?

My nephew stole the limelight that day. He was super duper cute; running up and down the stage in his suit.

Photographer of the day was Leon Tham. He is very friendly and he managed to capture important moments even though he was alone. My sister in law's boyfriend took some amazing pictures too.

Our pre-wedding pictures...

5 gowns and 5 suits for 1-day photography. Very friendly service and memorable trip to Taichung, by Star Asia.

See the 5 different looks I had for one day of photo-taking session.

Local Photoshoot

By French Bridal

 This was our "main" wedding picture. We love this picture so much!

Bride's regrets

You don't get to plan wedding everyday. It is a once in a lifetime moment. There's bound to be regrets if you do not plan properly. God heard our prayers and our actual day was pretty smooth. Here are some which I hope no bride has to go through

1. I put work above anything else - Maybe this is the main reason that led to other regrets. I was trying to be good at everything but started to perform badly at work for some reason. I was so frustrated and decided to put all my energy on work. In the end, I was too tired to plan for my wedding. It led to many bad decisions, mental breakdowns, poor health, a lot of arguments...
2. I just walked into a bridal shop and sign a package - Only during the wedding planning you will get to try the gowns and dresses. This is the most FUN part of the wedding preparation. My advice is to try gowns at different shops till you find the gowns you love and the service you are comfortable with. Trying gowns is FREE, and not to mention.. FUN!
3. No theme for the wedding -  Hollywood movies, fairytales, Disney, Save-the-Earth, Blue, Gold and pink, storybook, music, games, Mario... These are the many themes we thought of, BUT... we did not have any theme in the end.
   Usually the package has the basic things covered and my husband want to stick with those. Sticking to a theme usually becomes "ala-carte", which also means more money. Well, since we have no time to plan according to budget and we do not want to spend too much money so we just went with what the hotel and bridal shop provided.
4. No wacky videos or did anything extraordinary - My wedding was just another customary wedding. I like exciting stuff and wanted to create memorable reception for our family and guests. I wanted the wedding to not focus on the bride and groom, but a time to celebrate love.
   I initially wanted to do a funny music video with friends, or to record short love stories of family and friends and showcase on the wedding day. We didn't even have a videographer that day (Thank Goodness our photographer was pretty good).
   I had the bridesmaids and groomsmen to join us for the second march-in. I asked my friend, Grace, to sing during the second march-in, which everyone enjoyed her singing. Appreciate their efforts to participate in this, at least a tiny-special something for our wedding to remember by...
5. Engaged the worst photobooth service ever - Brides have this gut-feeling whether things will be good or bad... I knew they were terrible, but hubby insisted because they came together with the package. I was ready to pay $400 for another photobooth service with unlimited print and they have different layouts for guests to choose with props. The one we engaged go by number of photo papers used instead of the number of hours. The up-side is that they allow us to customise our frame design for free. They wanted us to pay more, because only 100 photo papers included in the free package but hubby insisted that they should give what they promised. They gave in to us. On the actual day, they hid at some corner and did not set up the backdrop, giving the excuse that the backdrop was too small (or big) for the area. Only a few pictures were printed because not many people knew there was a booth and all of us were too busy with the tea ceremony to usher relatives and friends to the booth.

Random wedding facts: 

• The bridesmaids did not meet up till the wedding itself.
  
• First march in music was composed by Jonathan Priest. He sent me the music and did not ask for anything in return. Amazing musician... it was a 1 minute 30sec video and it ended just as we reached the stage (no rehearsal!)
  
• Second march in walking timing screwed up during the rehearsals and we had no time t perfect it. However during the actual march in, the song ended when we reached the stage too. The song my friend sang was "hei bai pei" by Fan Wei Qi

Despite the regrets, my wedding is perfect, and I could not ask for a better one... just being married to the man I love is already the best day of my life. Our family members, bridesmaids and groomsmen did everything to ensure our big day was perfect. Looking forward to the next phase of life...:)

Project Proposal

 He proposed!

In the Singapore Zoo!

It was such a big surprise and I was thrilled to see my friends witnessing the day I say "yes", or rather I whispered "okay" through my tears.

2 months ago he searched for the ring and was trying to plan a proposal. Then a month again he collaborated with the girls to plan how to execute this in the Zoo. 

We both had a really busy, stressful week, staying up late almost every night. I was looking forward to our date in the Zoo for some fun time together.

Of course, things do not go as planned. Initially I was supposed to feed the giraffe and he would poke me with the stuff toy giraffe and asked me to feed him with love, then pull out the ring.
 

When the Zoo keeper announce only four trays left, my boyfriend decided to let the tourists behind go first, explaining that they will only be in Singapore once, but we can come back anytime again. So I eagerly agreed as the lions were roaring and I wanted to see what they were up too.

I rushed to the lions, not noticing I passed people I know and a group of friends frantically shuffling behind the bushes, trying to stay out of my sight.

He came to me and took out (the sweater first, it was placed inside incase I decided to open his bag) the stuff toy giraffe, and said "I'm sorry you did not feed the giraffe. Do you want to feed this one?" Then he took out a ring box.

I thought he was joking or being sarcastic and laughed. Then I saw my friend jumped out with flowers and the photo board and I screamed "You serious arh?!!!!"

So to my friends and his sisters, thank you so, so, so much for this sweet surprise.

Plan A failed, but Mission still accomplished!

And thank you to my dearest boyfriend, now officially my fiance. You planned this despite your busy work schedule and gave up a lot of your birthday treats so you can spend time and money on this proposal.  And most importantly, I know you took great effort not to leak any information out with such great planning. Thank you, dearest!

They all came at once...

And so, the wedding preparation just pops out suddenly.

Our new home is to be ready by this year, as much as I do not want a rushed wedding, I do not want the ROM to be far from the customary wedding too.

So girls, we all have dream weddings. My initial plan was...
1. to have a beautiful but simple ROM. Then officially married!
2. ROM and then dinner. Then officially married!

(When I said "officially married" you know what I really mean.)

So if you have less than a year to prepare, just let go of everything that you dream of and just enjoy the last lap of singlehood.

Enjoy. Hah. You have no idea how this sweet girlfriend who never quarrels with her boyfriend before suddenly turns into a monster. This is what happened when you cannot bear to let go of your initial plans and when nobody believes you need at least one year to plan a wedding properly within your budget.

Last weekend, I learned to let go of my simple but beautiful wedding plan and just go with the flow. Since no plan C so just keep adding more and more things...

Within a month, we spent a total of $10,000+++. It is so difficult to find a place to hold a lunch or dinner reception on the date we want, so my boyfriend just throw in the deposit even before discussing with me first.  So we paid deposit for the lunch reception, a photography package in Taiwan (food + accommodation), and another deposit for bridal package in Singapore. Why Taiwan? Because as I said, the initial plan was supposed to be simple, so I thought why not spend more on a trip to Taiwan. We found a really really good deal on their last day of Roadshow which we can tie-in with the Japan trip.

But apparently, my mum said local is compulsory so can rent gown. I was thinking just buy cheap cheap one online, but in the end buy package cheaper and more worth it. Then just get someone take pictures using digital camera. Haha! Fat hope.

So, we had to choose a local bridal shop in the end. Generally, I think the total we paid for is really worth it. Nowadays bridal shops for 4 gowns, 46 pictures can go up to $5K. With two separated packages for $6500, we will have two photo albums with about up to 9 gowns to wear >< I fork out this part of the money because the bridal shops tend to focus more on the brides.

We are also going on a pre-wedding honeymoon trip to Japan and Taiwan soon. I do not look forward that much because I know I will be dead tired even before the trip, not to mention AFTER the trip. With  that, we spent another few thousands. No wonder boyfriend said his account numbers red already.

___________

While our fellow future neighbours are talking about looking for IDs, hacking down walls, the sizes of the rooms, and worrying about delays to get the keys, we are busy planning our "honeymoon" trip and wedding.

Now we have to worry financially if we can afford the house upon collection of the keys. Now just working hard, burning midnight oil to meet deadlines, make sure I don't screw up or take any leaves... Cannot lose my job now.

Juggling work and wedding is not simple, especially when PTC and school events are coming up. So gave up a bit of sleeping time, delegated the jobs... and I will do the fun part of choosing photoshoot locations and later int he year just go and choose some gowns. There are tons of other things to do but I will just hold it first. And since we are not an interior designers, we will just research for a trustworthy ID, engage one and let them do up the house.

___________

Not putting any names of the wedding locations and companies we engaged yet, because we have not experienced the services so far. Once we are more confident of our choices will share here.

My goal

Is it a silly goal for 2014?

Embracing Play

My Wheelock College juniors wrote an article about the importance of play in the educational process

Nice article that summarizes the importance and how children learn through play. Hoping it will create a positive shifts of the mindsets of parents who still believe in academic works to prepare for primary One.

 In this article, it seems like a lot of credit goes to the government, we still need to find the root problem of why some parents and principals are viewing play a separate activity from school's curriculum.

"If they keep playing in preschool, they will have a hard time adjusting to the work they get in Primary School"
During the new KCF training, many parent-teachers feedback about how difficult the primary school's curriculum is. hence, creating a big gap between preschool to primary level. See, everytime we talk about early childhood curriculum, we all tend to somehow link to primary school, because one of the "imaginary" (not stated but we all want to achieve) goals is to prepare them for Primary One.

And why do I have such a imaginary goal as a teacher? Is just the everyday conversations with parents, listening to what primary school teachers have to say and the culture of the schools set by the leaders. Day by day, it somehow instill to me I need to get my students ready in Primary One and they MUST SHINE.

Guilty, guilty...

I have a bit Kiasu parent syndrome even before having kids of my own.

A lot of parents I met understand the importance of play, they want their children to play, believe they need to have memorable childhood experience. Ironic thing is, they also ask me about phonics, readings, mathematics... AT TODDLER AGE!!!


"I will just set more time for Play"
There is a requirement of 45 minutes outdoor time for children daily. But fortunately, my principal has always encouraged us to go outdoor as frequent as possible. There's countless of things to do during outdoor, and I get grouchy if I don't go outdoors to play.

In one of the comments for the article. the reader urge the government to give preschools a minimum amount of time to play, after observing that some schools do not even bring the children outdoor. So if all preschools need to set aside 2 hours for play, wouldn't all of us start to view play as a "outside" curriculum.

No, no... play is the curriculum, and curriculum is playing.

In fact, as a teacher, I still struggle in providing quality play for my students while trying to fit all activities into the time table given. Many time is given to routine care, but can I make routine care enjoyable and educational  for children too?



While I am still learning about providing play for young children, I also hope one day parents, educators and the government will work closely together to set a healthy learning atmosphere for children studying in Singapore.