Finally met my swimming target this year: Sep-18

I had been consistently swimming for a few years now, every time 20 laps, and tried to maintain at least twice a week.  My average timing ranges around 28 to 30 minutes each session.  Earlier this year, I set a personal objective to improve to less than 26mins by end of the year. I watched many YouTube videos, consult friends and then practice to improve myself. On 17-Sep, I finally made it thru a few things like  a good pull thru’ and a 4 strokes breathing. So happy!

My last dental surgery : Sep-18

After deciding to embark on the journey to get my missing 'teeth' fixed earlier this year, I had finally completed my 6th and last dental implant surgery, this time implanting 3 screws to my top left jaw.  Each experience was painful but I am sure that they will be rewarding when all my implants are in place coming December. :-)

Shape Run, I Finally Made It : Aug-2018

The only mass run I’ve ever participated in was the annual Stanchart run with Victor many many years ago. Although the experience was rather pleasant, somehow I still don’t like the idea of paying to wake up so early on a Sunday morning, travel to a place to squeeze with thousands others juz to begin a run. 

Nevertheless, when Sharon jio Kristie, Huili & me to join the Shape run last year, I got pretty excited and actually looked forward to the company of my buddies!! Especially since all of us had left PD and hardly had a chance to get together. In fact we were all so charged up on the run that we even trained on our own and together!!

I met Betty as I was jogging in Punggol Park!

We met to train at Hougang Stadium!!

Despite my anticipation, I did not make it last year as my right foot was in serious pain from plantar fasciitis; I could barely walk in ease, let alone run! In fact I even made my virgin visit to a podiatrist 3 weeks before the run, before going back countless times to a chinese sinseh all in the hope of being able to recover in time to join my buddies for the Shape run!! But guess it was not meant to be, my foot did not recover and on the weekend of the run, it was so bad that I didn’t even dare to attend the run to walk as I was afraid that my injury would become permanent!! 

😢

Each visit, I was given anti-inflammation pills ..

.. and told to return on alternate days to steam my foot over a herbal concoction.

Thus I could only drool over their pictures and their sharing of fun & laughter.. ) :

This year’s Shape run was also held in August. In fact when we were notified to register for this year’s run, I was glad that it would not coincide with our Soka Youth Summit, but I got hesitant when I realized it’s a zadankai Sunday.. Sharon was the first to say she would go for the Shape run regardless. Kristie shared from experience that the run would end rather early and even if we were to go for breakfast after our run, we should be able to return home before noon! Even my SNCO practice on a zadankai Sunday would end at 12 and I would still need to travel home from jurong thereafter.. Shape run on zadankai Sunday sounded manageable after all! Hence we all registered and even jio Susan to join us this year!! (:(:

Between registration and the run itself, Huili went Japan for a leaders kenshukai in July and did a sharing session at Kristie’s kaikan juz for us!!

Huili personalized and wrote us each a bookmark !!

Our happy faces upon receiving Huili’s bookmarks !!

Finally our Shape run was here.. 

We met at Hougang MRT platform to go Shape run together!!

Golden hour outside Stadium MRT station.

After alighting at Stadium MRT, we need to walk over to the flag-off point. Gotta pose a pic at the beautiful Tanjong Rui Suspension Bridge!!


More and more ladies in the same pink singlet.. nearer & nearer to the flag-off point!!

Our running shoes!! Heard this is one must-take pic before each run!! 😄😄


We were pretty far from the front of the flag-off.. but who cares! We were there to have fun!! 😄😄


The race has been flagged off but we’re still walking to the Start point! See how tall my buddy is...🤩


Yaayy!! See our medals? We finished our 5km run & walk!!


Our girly finisher medals for a ladies’ run!!


Sharon treated all of us to a well-deserved breakfast!! ❤️❤️

**********

Prior to the run, I actually felt my left knee and left foot acting up.  I was so afraid that I would also be unable to take part in this year’s run too, that I totally refrained from jogging.. Even when Victor wanted to do evening jogs, I told him I could only walk!! 

Guess it paid off and I got to savor the joys of doing the Shape run with my buddies!!❤️❤️

On how I fare for the run, I was one of the first 200 who came in & given a cold wet towel for my sweat!!

End August, i was sent an url link to check my run time.. not bad at all, 5km in 33mins!! 😄😄

My first dragon dance experience and competition : Aug-18

Earlier this year, Adrian asked me if I could helped out in their coming dragon dance competition.  As I was rather free then and also without any dragon dancing experience, I agreed that I would help out in the percussion.  However later in May, Adrian persuaded me to try out dragon dancing instead, just for the fun and so I agreed.

We started practicing in June, twice a week and then increased to three times a week when nearer the competition.  It was a wonderful experience to participate in this competition, the teamwork, the spirit and the friendship.

Our team age ranged from 15 to 59 years old and there was a female member too.  On the actual day, we steadily did well to secure a silver medal and only 0.12 points to gold!

My first event photography outside gakkai: Aug-18

I had been doing event photography only for Gakkai activities.  This time, Hong asked me to help out in one of his drama performance in a big charity show.  Thus, giving me the opportunity to try out an event photography outside Gakkai events.  This experience was quite similar, except because
of the size of the event, I need to use my fisheye lens to capture the audiences along with the performance.

Leading Up to the Youth Summit : Aug-2018

When I first heard of the upcoming youth summit, I was a lil’ excited.. and a lil’ determined.. that all my 3 girls must participate in it by hook or by crook. From experience, I had thought it should not be too difficult, but that didn’t seem the case! Now that Qi and Xuan are older and have more activities of their own, time became a scarce resource.. and I had to get them to commit their precious resource, ie their time! Which may be a lil’ challenging..😅 Anyway, i started to pray for Qi, Xuan and En to have a most joyful and victorious youth summit experience!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

As I hear from faith buddies how they reached out to their district youths, and even their ex lion cubs to participate in the youth summit, I also wanted to do more and began to explore which youths in my life can I invite.. Faces of nieces and nephews began to pop up in my mind and in my prayers. As someone who has always been very passive in keeping in touch with relatives, I think they must have been a lil’ shocked to receive my WA messages!!😬 After a couple of attempts, I realized I wasn’t going to succeed. Hence I changed my approach and prayers — I began to pray that Qi and Xuan would be able to invite their friends to watch their performance instead. However that wasn’t easy too. I was soon informed by my ywd leader that my girls were not inviting anyone and our district has more tickets available for distribution! 😔 I continued with my prayers and even embarked on a 2-hours-a-day daimoku campaign! But the fact is, there was hardly 2 consecutive days which I managed to chant my 2-hourly daimoku.. Nonetheless, I plough on and continue my daily attempt towards my goal.

Time passed very quickly. And before long, July was over and August was whizzing away in front of my eyes too.

Much as I wanted it to be otherwise, Youth Summit really wasn’t My Youth Summit. Despite vested interest in having 3 daughters, as well as 3 other district youths as participants, it’s still not my youth summit. However bcoz SNCO has been tasked to take on a performance at a book launch at SMU one day after the youth summit, and I was one of the 4 performers for the flute quartet.. I was able to chant for focused and personal daimoku for the total victory of that youth summit weekend, including our performance at the book launch! In fact, after the flautists met for a rehearsal one week before performance, I was downright flustered and at a loss.. despite practising by myself, my skills were really not up to par and I may even spoil the show!!

At the eleventh hour, there really wasn’t much I could do but chant. Hence I set a personal target to chant 10 hours of daimoku that weekend, the absolute victory of the youth summit, as well as the absolute victory of our flute performance. Also for my youths’ joyous and victorious youth summit journey. And also that my girls would invite their friends to join the youth summit as spectators.❤️🙏🏼

Of course this wasn’t the first time I gave myself an impromptu daimoku target, but this was surely one of the very few times I actually challenged myself hard and achieved it!! I fought hard against the Zzz monster and won some lost some battles.. Ultimately, I accomplished my 10 hours!! ✌🏻✌🏻

A new toy, folk guitar! : Aug-18

After going to Sungha Jung concert with Ling, I couldn't tahan anymore and went to buy a folk guitar  the next day and inspired to play like him, would be very happy if I could achieve his 20%. :-)

My new folk guitar

Xuan’s Birthday : Aug-18

It's sweet 17th birthday for Xuan! Celebration was simple as everyone was so busy and with a packed schedule, there were youth summit rehearsals, discussion meetings, dragon dance competition practice, tuition, school events, shape run, etc etc.  Just us, we had dinner at Jack's Place, followed with our usual cake cutting at home with papa and mama after they returned from mana’s discussion meeting.  Just to be fair, Ling also bought a pendant for Xuan like she did for Qi on her 17th birthday. So fast, my little 'angmo' looking girl has grown into a pretty lady now.

En’en had a ‘fierce’ wound : Jul-18

When En’en got a slight fever and bad flu in mid July, we took her to the nearby GP where the doctor had the same conclusion.  However after a few days, we also noticed En’en’s legs started to develop small reddish spots and rashes and her flu did not get better.  We thought it could be chicken pox or maybe HFMD, so we brought her back to the GP again.  It was another young doctor, Dr Lee, who was also puzzled after looking at En’en rashes and could not confirm his diagnosis. After he ‘consulted’ uncle google, he told us that En’en symptoms were very similar to HSP (Henoch-Schonlein Purpura), an immune system virus which usually happened in children, with symptoms like purple rashes and severe stomachache.  And, it would take 4 to 6 weeks to recover!  

En’en was given antibiotics to fight the virus, on top of that, she also got ONE very bad and fierce rash which later got inflamed and became very ‘ugly’.  En’en was lucky to recover much faster from her HSP, but this bad wound took her more than 3 weeks to heal, and had to repeatedly visit the doctor to dress the would every other day.

It was a scary experience for us, but we were also very grateful that we had the good fortune to have a doctor who could quickly identify and treat the illness correctly.  And also grateful that En’en did not suffer any severe stomachache and was able to recover faster than expected.  We later came to know that HSP was uncommon in Singapore and even some patients in KK were unable to be diagnosed accurately in their early stages.  We could not imagine how things would turn out if we discovered it later. NMHRGK

QQ’s Birthday : Aug-18

Our beloved QQ turned 61 this year and we celebrated with durian feast + cake, surrounded with many grand-nieces and a grand-nephew!