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!

Pa Sang at a Concert : Jul-18

In my pa’s usual modest and indirect manner, he told us he would be singing this weekend thru these pics via WA..

.. followed by these text ..

“ 28/7星期六7pm到现场没票也可以进去捧场观赏。上面是昨天最后练唱的手机录音。谢谢！”

Haha!! How could we not show support right? Especially when we have nothing going on that evening.😜

So yesterday evening, after a restful afternoon nap, Victor and I made our way to Pasir Ris East CC where pa’s concert was to be held. From the entrance of the CC we could hear loud music and muffled singing—aha, they must have been rehearsing all day!!

We managed to catch pa before the show began and took some pictures. In fact, I helped to put on pa’s black bow tie!! So I’m not totally useless there. For a 75-year-old grandfather, my pa has maintained himself very well, hasn’t he?

While waiting for the concert to start..

Pa was no. 5 on the singer list!

Whilst Victor was busy running all over the hall to take the above pictures, I took a pretty decent video clip of pa’s performance with some snapshots too. Pa especially liked this one below.. he said he looked young (and good I must add!😆)

After the 6th song, we left the CC to hunt for dinner. As we were wondering where to go and what to eat, Victor mentioned that there’s a popular durian place around!! We found the shop and bought 2 bagfuls of durian before juz taking wanton mee for dinner. 

The real feast began at home after Qi returned from ballet!!

SHIOK !! 😋😋😋 Do you know what’s the most shiok about the whole family feasting on durian? Well, at least no one can complain when I burp!! 😆😆🤣🤣🤣

Fifth and second last implant surgery : Jul-18

After my sinus lift surgery in January, I would need to rest the bone for at least half a year before I can proceed with the implant surgery.  Very fast, half a year had since past and my upper right was  ready for the implant surgery.  The X-ray taken this time was very detailed, so that the dentist would install the screw accurately and not hit my sinus.  Well, I was glad this was over, one last one to go in September.

Before - with measurements

After implant - 2 new screws

En'En and Olla Birthday : Jul-18

En'en had her birthday celebration at home and gotten her favourite Pandan Kaya Cake.  This girl, like me, dislikes creamy cake.

En'en and Olla birthdays are only 10 days, and Dor kindly arranged a buffet for everyone as we gathered to celebrate the birthday of the youngest in her and my family.

En'en birthday presents search : Jul-18

En'en had requested to have multiple small presents and a mini treasure hunt on her birthday.  So we prepared 11 presents and a game... :-)