Soon Hwee's Fortune Baby : Jan-11

Let us join hands to welcome Soon Hwee and Lina's fortune baby!! Baby Le'tian, who was delivered on 20 January 2011, was a hefty 3.6kg. When I first saw him on his second day, he was already a most adorable bundle of joy - energetic and actively absorbing all that was happening around him.. A multiple-million daimoku baby indeed!



Look out for baby Le'tian's charming dimple in the above clip..

Being the very first fortune baby in our district, many of us in the district, in fact chapter, shared Soon Hwee's joy and exhilaration. It was only in July last year that Soon Hwee shared his testimonial on what Lina and he went through in order to conceive a child, and how when they least expect it, Lina got pregnant.

To recap, this was Soon Hwee's sharing during July 2010.

Car undergo 'surgery' : Jan-11

In many aspects, I think car is very similar to how people treat their own bodies...
Car: When a car is able to fetch you from places to places, many will assume it is supposed to be that way, after all, it is the function of a car!
Human Body : When we can enjoy eating, drinking and sleeping, we assume things are supposed to be that way too!
But what we normally forgotten is the various kind of stress we are imposing on the car and body if we 'abuse' them unnecessarily.

Yesterday is a good example when a tiny screw struck on a Tyre had caused it to deflate and unable to properly function as a car anymore. Of course, in this case i did not 'abuse' the car but it just makes me wonder, if such small object can cause the malfunction of a object many times bigger... what about all those unhealthy stuffs people is taking and unhealthy life style people is leading, do they have any negative impact to our bodies? Think about it... dun assume anymore.

Archive Art Pieces : Jan-11

Recently when Mama was performing spring cleaning, she found a self-portrait which I had drawn in 1988, 23 years ago! It actually brought back some 'artist' memories.... I had enjoyed drawing since young, and loved the feeling of sketching things out, refining them until I got something satisfactory. Although I did not draw very well, I had deliberately not to pursue Arts in my study, been afraid of risking my interest in drawing. I wanted to follow my heart and draw when I wanted to, and draw what I wanted to... instead of stressing myself in delivering art pieces for assessment. This worked out well till date, I still loved drawing and still drawing poorly, i guess this is what we call "give and take".


1988 - self-portrait


1990 - Tortoise Village

Qi Pursuing Her Rhythmic Gymnast Dream : Jan-11

All Russian and Chinese gymnasts began their rigorous, torturous training at a young tender age.. two or three years old bah. A few made it to become renowned gymnast athletics. Qi could have lamented why she did not discover rhythmic gymnastics graceful and beautiful years ago, but she is definitely one go-getter. YouTube has become her inexhaustible resource, and she tries to contort and stretch her body juz like those rhythmic gymnasts in the clips.. to which she practices and trains everyday! She had also aspired to enter a secondary school with rhythmic gymnastics as CCA, but alas, that fell right thru as there were simply too few schools to choose from. 

Nevertheless, as parents, we are rather encouraged and touched by her enthusiasm and daily stretching routine. Not wanting to be a wet blanket, we enrolled her into a rhythmic gymnastics class. Although she seems to be the most mature student there, we surely hope her skills and techniques will catch up with those little girls' soon.. 

 

This is but the very first lesson, let's hope we have more impressive clips to upload henceforth! ;)

First Day of School : Jan-11

When you are a student, a new year usually holds much significance as you would also begin a new school year with new books, possibly a new class, new teacher, new classmates and even a new school.

This year, 2011, is an especially exciting year as both Qi and En are entering new schools - Qi, now a secondary school student, into Nan Chiau High; and En into the nursery class at Soka Kindergarten. With Xuan still in Holy Innocents', all three girls are in three different schools!

Now showcasing the three girls, their respective uniforms & more brilliantly, their mega-watt smiles....

Qiqi's Orientation @NCHS : Jan-11

I was impressed that NCHS actually held a 3D2N camp for all secondary 1 students to quickly and more effectively induct their new students into the school! This Orientation camp started from their third school day, which was a Thursday, and ended on Saturday. To involve parents, the school also invited parents to the school on the second evening for a parents' talk as well as to witness class spirit and bond their children have built with their classmates over the past two days - see the presentation of the respective class cheers. 

Though it was juz Qi's new school and camp and only parents were invited, Xuan and En refused to be left out and insisted on going with us! Therefore all of us, including En, forgo our dinner at the usual dinner time and trodded down to NCHS juz to catch a glimpse of Qi. Vic & I were pleasantly surprised at how much En missed her eldest sis.. plainly evident from the video. En even cried hard when she realized her jiejie couldn't go home with her at the end of the event!! 

 A little episode took place when En needed to go to the toilet halfway during the event.. As I brought En back from the toilet into the hall, the walkway was filled with all the secondary one students waiting to enter the hall to present their cheers. Finally identified Qi from the sea of almost-identical students wearing their PE attire! En then ventured forward calling out to her jiejie whose back was facing us. Qi's typical reaction would have been to show off her cute little sister to her nearby friends. However Qi's reaction this time was radically different from before - she appeared to be embarrassed by her meimei and almost didn't want to acknowledge her!! En had been missing her dajie at home and had wanted to go up to hug her dajie, but seeing Qi's reaction and not wanting En to be hurt, I quickly pulled En away. Boy, that was a drastic change of attitude in juz one camp.. or was it juz entering secondary school? What other idiosyncrasies should I expect from Qi who's plunging into her adolescence?

Happy Birthday Victor : Jan-11

Almost the whole world celebrates Victor's & Papa's birthday on Jan 1!

Part 1..
Mummy used to buy 2 cakes for the celebration - one for Pa to cut, and another one for Victor to cut. How thoughtful, right? Well.. mummy & most of us enjoy eating cakes too, so celebrating two birthdays was also the perfect excuse to buy two different flavored yummy cakes to gobble! (;

Hong, Flo & Dor bought & decorated this year's special cake - cute uncle cake! for both Pa & Victor. It's a chocolate cake.. no it's actually a black forest one, my favourite; mummy would have eaten too..


Part 2..
This year, Jackie & Benny invited us for their New Year get-together. Not only that, Jackie even prepared a surprise birthday cake for Victor! However, Victor's proudest moment must be when his nieces & nephews sang him a spontaneous & resounding Happy Birthday song the moment he stepped into Benny's house!! Boy, wish I'd captured that moment.. Thereafter he said, "It's the first time my nieces & nephews celebrated my birthday for me! (: It's also since a loong while I am the only birthday guy!" (;

Kids Mischief : Jan-11

You could not imagine what kind of monkey tricks your kids would invent when you were not around at home. On the new year eve, Shin Yang and myself decided to catch a movie and requested Qiqi to be in charge of En'en. So, being the 'commander' of the house, instead of maintaining 'order', she started to style her sister's hair, took out my camera and captured shots with her sisters jumping on the trampoline! Typical characteristic of Miss Boon Ki, with her reputation like a "Monk Ki"...

En'en sings and dances to her beat : Jan-11

Xuan took this clip on En'en with her hand-phone one evening. Throughout the video, I was in the background, preparing for an exam the next day... But En'en never stops singing and dancing to her own beat throughout the entire 4 minutes. Such pure demonstration of high energy level in expressing her enthusiasm and happiness. So envious...

SSA celebrates Soka Gakkai 80th Anniversary : Jan-11

The last time SSA held a big event was in 07-Jul-07, we were unable to attend as our fortune baby, En'en was born on that day! 3 years had since passed quickly, during which I had resolved to begin doing my part for Kosen-Rufu to repay gratitude for Enen's good health. In these few years, many aspects of my life started to change gradually towards the positive - life style, relationship, career, financial...

In 25-Dec-2010, SSA held our last 2010 meeting in Indoor Stadium again, this time, to commemorate Soka Gakkai's 80th Anniversary. The SSA theme and target for 2010 is "Victory in my district, Victory in my life" and 20k discussion meeting attendance. In this meeting I represented our district to receive an award in appreciation of our efforts in accomplishing of this target.

Everyone in the family was present on this special occasion. Being there, I was touched by the thousands and thousands of people who similarly practiced Nichiren Buddhism to create the greatest potential in our lives.