2 graduations in a night

QY graduated from Tiny Notes course at Yamaha. 22 lessons with a teacher named Miss Liu. Only when we proceed to the next level with another teacher that we realised how wonderful Miss Liu was. She is so patient, sweet and charming to the kids. QY definitely prefers her to the current teacher. Miss Liu's schedule is full and she can't take any more students. :(
After her graduation performance at Marine Parade, I rushed off to Pasir Ris to attend a second graduation of the night. A special 3Day course on Motivation ends that night and I was invited to attend the closing ceremony cum graduation by some of the participants there. What does their graduation have to do with me?
Well, part of the motivation process is to know who REALLY cares and love oneself. And one will be motivated to do something for that person who really cares so as not to break that person's heart. The facilitator relates a 40mins long sorrowful story of a part of his life when he didn't appreciate someone who cared. Now he regrets it like mad cos the person is dead. Moral of the story: We should all show our appreciate to those who care about us TODAY with a big hug. His story got everyone teary, weeping and thinking about who they had taken for granted. I was invited to this as I am one of those caring people around who are constantly taken for granted. I received more than 40 hugs at the ceremony.
Post-ceremony evaluation: The motivation vibes last for a while and they were to a large extent, motivated for about a week. But beyond that, the magic fizzies off and they are back to their old self.
But the secret is, I have attended this course 3 times before and know this was going to happen. So while they were still under the appreciative spell, I did all my emotional blackmailing and got everything that I asked for. *evil grin*

Cheating in Games

Recently bought a boardgame called Candy Land for the girl. Easy game, meant for kids aged 3 and above. Players take turn to draw a card. Card determines how many steps one can move. Bonus cards to accelerate but sometimes deccelerate too. First one to reach finish line wins.
QY plays it once and quickly learns the ropes. By the 3rd game, she is using all means to win, basically CHEATING. She fought to shuffle the cards, but sneakily put in the bonus cards in the order that she can draw them. She deliberately take more steps to get to the finishing line quicker. She even draw out and hide some of the bonus cards under the pillow near her, then produce the cards along the game to gain advantage.
Ed and I pretended to be angry and refuse to play with her any more. But secretly we were quite glad that she is being street smart, to the extend of cunning. Not some goody-goody girl who will stick to the rules and let everyone else win. At least we can be assured that she can fend for herself and will not easily get bullied.

Bonus Day

I get my performance bonus today. Notice about the bonus and when it will come was emailed to me last week. And since then, I have been looking forward to this day!!
Initially hoped to go shopping with my newfound wealth. Enjoy, pamper myself a bit. But I have so much work to do, and working so late, that I lost all energy to go shopping by the end of the day.
But still MUST spend some money today... Maybe bring QY out for haagen daz ice cream after dinner.

Work

It's going to be a hectic week. It's going to be uphill all the way.

Just got scolded by my gym buddy gf for my poor gym attendance. I seemed to have gradually reduced our usual twice weekly workout to just once a week for the past 2 weeks because of work and stuff. Then this week, it's I-CAN'T-MAKE-IT for all days.

Usual gym days, tues and Fri, taken over by work. Tues to accompany clients to a concert at VCH. Fri will be an overnight round island trip. Then there will be the usual mad rush to complete my work before I go for a break next week.

It's going to be a lonely week too. Ed will be going to China tomorrow for an entire week and V Jun returning to Malaysia for a month. Qy's is going to be at my mom's place. I'll be all alone at home.