Eating durians

I've never eaten so much durians in my entire life. Durians are suppose to be full of nutrients and good for babies. So in my bid to increase the babies' weight quickly, i am downing durian puffs almost everyday. I have to increase the girl's weight by 300g and boy's by 700g in 20 days.
I have always liked durians, but avoids eating them cos they are heaty and gives me bad sore throat and cough, illnesses that I can't afford to have when i'm teaching. But now, since I'm on leave and babies need to grow, there is no more reservations.

Active babies

Gynae injected steriods to help babies' lungs to mature, in case I go into pre-term delivery. I suspect it wasn't just their lungs that developed quickly. The injections were supposed to take effect in 48hrs and during these period, the babies got into some growth spurt too and was very "high". Their movements became very strong and painful, went on non-stop for 2 days and nights. It just felt like they were having one great dance party in my tummy.

So Miserable

Pregnancy is making me feel so miserable. Other than my hair that does not hurt, nothing else on me is well. I have
1. headache - cannot sleep properly at night cos have to wake up for toilet, and can't find a comfortable position to sleep.
2. Left leg muscle ache - from an early strain which never completely recover.
3. Right leg calf muscle ache - from leaning over to my right too much to compensate the left leg problem.
4. Backache - tummy getting too big for back to bear.
5. Tummy strain - babies getting bigger. so scare I'll get stretch marks soon.
6. arms ache - using more of my arms to support myself while seated to give my back a break.
7. Fingers swollen - water retention.
8. eye strain - somehow vision getting more blur nowadays. dunno if it's due to lack of sleep, too much TV or some crazy pregnancy hormones.
9. Heartburn and nausea - even drinking water irritates my system and makes me retch. I hate that metallic taste in my mouth.
10. Giddiness - from the slightest hunger. But food makes me sick. And I have problems with food smell in an enclosed area. Smell from my mom's cooking, packet food in the car, food from VJ's bedroom make me sick.
11. Brainlessness: I can't remember what I did/said a minute ago.
12. Fatigue: On a non-working day, I sleep for 14 hrs a day. Rather amazing how much sleep I am getting. Even then, I am still tired.
13. Breathlessness: I become out of breathe so easily. Had to breathe so hard that I seem to be hyperventilating.
And these are physical discomfort only. haven't mention the teaching stress and unfinished marking of scripts. and there is also the demanding daughter, money problems, and unfinished nursery room for the babies.

I am 35

It's my birthday. I turn 35. My birthday celebrations started two days ago when I watched the National Day preview fireworks. I don't know why I like fireworks and why it's such a big thing that I would want to have for my birthday. Guess I am one of those lucky few whose birthdays fall within this National Day period and there will always be fireworks. Through the years, I had the privelege to enjoy fireworks on every of my birthdays.
Ed treated me to a birthday lunch yesterday. It's one day before my birthday but we decided that I may be too tired after work today to enjoy the food so we ate earlier.
Today I went to my classes in an exceptionally happy mode. I am tired and back is aching, but I smile and put on a happy front. The students got the happy vibes too and at the end of it all, I can say I had a good time in my classes today.
Just received an SMS from a girlfriend who delivered her baby girl this morning. Now I have 1 more person to share the joys of my birthday with me! But on this special day, I do missed an ex-student. His birthday is also today. Where ever you are dear D, hope you are happy today.
Now looking forward to a buffet dinner at Raffles hotel with my best leo friends.

Lazy Fri

It's a lazy friday. End of the week and my energy is almost gone. Printed worksheets for single period and scheduled tests for double period classes. Kids have been restless all week as they are looking forward to their 1 week camp at Pulau Ubin. So shall not force them to study too much, give myself a break too.
XX has been pressing on a nerve and causing shooting pain down my entire left leg. Pain to sleep, sit, stand, walk.... just no position is right to take the pain away. Can't sleep properly too. Feels so tortured and Ed had to keep sayang me while i cry miserably.

My helper

She came to Singapore in September 2009 to work in another family but was later transferred. I took her cause she looked humble and friendly and willing to learn. QQ seems to like her too, picking her out from 2 other transfer maids.

She was humble, so much that I wonder if there is any pride or integrity in her. I cannot stand the way she bends her knees and lowers her body to a bowing, submissive pose everytime she walks past us.

She has very poor command of English and miscommunications between her and my family had caused alot of mistakes in her work. It's exasperating. I asked her to cook plain porridge but she mixed vegetables and prawns, which are meant for a separate dish into it.

She couldn't understand " boil xx amount of water, then put this packet of food inside. DON'T CUT open the bag". We understand that heating food up by immersing the packet in hot water is new to her so we gave detailed instructions and even show her how it's done. We gestured to her how much water is needed with a pot, took the food packet and simulated the "put the packet into water" action to show her, and stressed DON'T cut the packet. What she did..... boiled xx amount of water, cut open the packet and empty all the contents into the huge pot of water. Our much anticipated, brought back from Shanghai pork knuckle stew became nothing but tasteless meat soup.

Ok, maybe she is not used to our chinese way of cooking. I asked her to prepare some common Malay/Indon food. She blended 20 pieces of chilli paddis to make a little bowl of dip. Do Indonesians eat such tongue burning, spicy dips?

I gave her mangoes to cut. I assumed mango is a tropical fruit that should be common in Indonesia. She should know how to cut a mango. sigh..... First she tried to get rid of the skin by cutting it thinly, like the way we peel apples. I had to tell her to cut off more of the skin. Then she tried to cut the mango into half, through the stone and all. I give up. Conclusion: she had never seen a mango. No point teaching her, cos half the time she don't understand what I'm saying. Cut it once to show her.... then watch her clumsily try to cut the rest of the fruits.... by then I already need the fruit for cooking. So end up, I cut the mangoes myself.

For 7 months she knew to collect enough dark coloured clothings to form one washing load and to wash the whites and light coloured ones separately. Ed and I wore so much blacks that it is easy to collect one load every few days to wash. Recently I acquired 8 pieces of dark blue maternity clothings. Suddenly her routine of black-in-one-load got complicated. The programming in her mind says"dark blue is not a dark colour". So she mixed the dark blues with the rest of my whites and pinks.... QQ's sweet pink clothings are all an even shade of blue now. In defence of her actions, she told me she had put the QQ's whites in the laundry bag, meaning to say the bag can prevent the blues from staining the whites. She would have seem less idiotic if she had use plastic bags.

I think she is from the stone age cos she has no common sense of our civilisation. Ed was shocked to see her use the handle part of the wok turner/spatula to stir the cordial in my pitcher. A spoon or fork would have serve the purpose. Anyway, we rationalised that so long as she didn't use the broomstick or her arm to stir the drink, we can live with it.

She didn't know how to store my food. Cartons of fresh fruit juice and fresh milk were left in the open. Yogurt was stored in the freezer. Fresh prawns and meat which I told her were meant for lunch that day also went into the freezer. Frozen crabsticks and sotong balls that were suppose to be in the freezer ended up in chill compartment. She had gone to the supermarket with me to pick up these items. Didn't she see for herself where the supermarket store these stuff and she should probably store them the same way too?

Then I taught her about food preparation and the need to be hygenic -- use different chopping boards for cooked and uncooked food. I specifically show her where I store these boards, basically the cooked and uncooked boards cannot mix together. In some effort to save space and make my shelves look neat, she stack all of them together. Ok, no concept of bacteria can cross contaminate. I can accept this, science no good. My breaking point came when she used the uncooked food board to cut my fruits. Then it occured to me that she never understood the words 'cooked' and 'uncooked'.

I am sending her back to the agent. If I have to go down to the last detail of matching food to chopping boards for every edible items in my house, I will be happier doing the chores myself.

malacca trip

My Malacca Trip
Date: 11-14 Jun

A&W Restuarant! Long disappeared in S'pore, I was all nostalgic about their food. Order a bit of everything, root beer float, ice cream waffle, curly fries, coney dog, fried chicken, to relive the memories again.

A shop selling chinese calligraphy stuff at the heritage site.

Dinner for 7 adults at Old Newton Hawker. We spent less than RM100 for:

- 20 sticks otak otak

- satay

- fresh fruit juice for all

- half steam chicken with bean sprouts

- claypot rice

- mixed pig's organ soup

- 2 slabs sambal stingray

- sambal sotong

- 10 BBQ chicken wings

- fried carrot cake

- chee cheong fun (this one is shiok, smooth and thin skin, with lots of shrimps and charsiew fillings)

- herbal chicken soup