:: Random ::

In another 14 days, I will embark on my practicum journey! Really worried and unsure of how it will be =( Have heard stories of people failing practicum and also heard people who were so stressed that they cried) ... Practicum is probably the hardest 'module' throughtout the whole NIE course. Not only do you have to prepare detailed lesson plans (of course when you become a full pledged teacher, you will still need to do this), lesson materials and the worst part is lesson observation!

After attending the practicum briefing made me even more worried..... there will be 10 lesson observations!! For those of you who does not know what is lesson observation, it is actually a lesson that you are teaching and you have 1 or 2 supervisors watching how you teach. They will assess how you interact with the class, how you manage the class as well as how you deliver the lesson. Your lesson should not solely be a powerpoint presentation style. There should be more interactions such as group work or something besides the usual teaching method.

One important thing is to establish rapport with students. However, for a normal average teacher, rapport building requires time and not in a time frame of 10 weeks (of course there will be teachers who are very effective and excel in establishing rapport (= ) I feel that this 10 weeks may be more for the students to 'test water', usually after this period, they know you better and will be more willing to cooperate with you. Thus classroom management is quite a problem for us at the beginning =(

Really praying hard that i will be able to adapt to the new environment and students as soon as possible!

Counting down.....

:: Allthingsbeautiful ::

For people who does scrapbooking or have attempted, have you ever encountered the dilemma of having to purchase materials in bulk when you only need one or two pieces?

Have you ever wished that there was a kit that have materials you need and you get to save the hassle of finding materials from store to store?

Now, you do not have to think nor look any further! We understand your difficulties and hence we have came up with a SCRAPBOOKING KIT!!!

This scrapbooking kit comprises of a cork board to be used as a base! Cool or what you call it, now you can create something different from the usual booklet form =D This kit also includes papers as well as embellishment such as buttons, flowers, felt butterflies and lace!

Shown here is a sample did by my friend.

Picture credits to allthingsbeautiful

Click on Allthingsbeautiful to access our facebook page for more information! Pass the word on =)

:: Random ::

Been reading chinese newspapers and watching news, got confused by different terms and it is getting on my nerves. For instance, from what i have learnt:

Indonesia has always been known as 印尼 and Australia as 澳洲

However, the recent usage of  印度尼西亚 for Indonesia and  澳大利亚 for Australia had really confused me.

I heard from one uncle that when he was still schooling, they were taught  澳大利亚 which is the chinese term for Australia instead of 澳洲. From from I have read from online, 印尼 is the "short form" for 印度尼西亚. Similarly 澳洲 is a short form for Australia. It is so strange that what i (or my generation) have learnt is different from what is used today. What surprises me is that I did not learn the proper term for the countries! But it could also be that now, they are trying to put in place the proper terms hence they are adopting these terms. So now you know,

 印度尼西亚 for Indonesia and  澳大利亚 for Australia  =)

:: Random ::

The most 'anticipated' moment arrived this afternoon when my friend, Eileen sent me a sms,

"Posting is out!! n u are going choa chu kang sec!!"

Haha.... hurried to my laptop and checked my posting. Yes, choa chu kang secondary. It was definitely a "shock" for me ( i mean, regardless of the school, i will still be in a state of shock haha).

It's mixed feelings.....i know that the chances of me being posted back to SPS is low but i also did not have any expectation of where they will post me too. Hence the "shock", i suppose.....In addition, it is accompanied by the worries/fears since i will be changing into a new environment. Starting to worry about my practicum 0_0

For someone who is residing in the east, i wonder how early do i have to get up and how long do i have to spend on travelling. Hopefully, i will be able to secure a flat soon so that when July comes, i will not have to travel that far.

I am so gonna miss my dear boys at SPS.......

:: Food ::

The shop i will be blogging about today is "The Cheesecake Shop". It is located near to Siglap Centre, situated at the corner of the shophouses. Shown below are two pictures of the interior of the shop. It has been revamped and right now it exudes a very vintage feel~  

As the name says, this shop is well-known for cheesecake! Being a cheesecake lover, i really love their cheesecake =D They offer a variety of flavours ranging from the usual blueberry, oreo to peanut butter and caramel cheesecake. Popped by during my birthday last year, come to think about it, been there twice for my last two birthdays haha....

Blueberry cheesecake

Decided to order blueberry cheesecake instead of my usual oreo cheesecake (; i really love their rum n raisin cheesecake too!!

Rum n raisin cheesecake

Their cheesecakes are really yummy!! Unlike some shop where their cheesecake may taste nice today but the next time you try it, it taste awful. Over here, their cheesecake's quality is definitely there! You can really taste the "freshness" of it. It always have a light weight taste that you won't feel overdose of cheesecake.

Another thing i will recommend to try is the coke float. Their vanilla ice cream is rich, creamy and smooth that compliments the coke (; What's more, i like their service and their boss! Their boss is always there and friendly too. Their waiter and waitress are also attentive and fast in their service. This shop only opens from 3pm and its always crowded at night. But if you have the time, do pop by at late afternoon before the crowd comes in. But finding carpark along the shophouses will be a difficult task. The nearest will be at Siglap shopping centre but you will have to walk abit. Nevertheless, it will be worth it! =)

:: Food ::

Went to this place called "Hatched" for brunch like 1 or 2 months back. It is located at Evans road, which is just opposite NUS Law school at Bukit Timah Road. It is a cafe-like eating place located within the building shown in the picture.

As the name reflects, this place is known for having eggs cooked in various methods like frying, poaching etc.

Tried out their egg benedict which i thought was average =x I wonder if they added sour cream as i thought the egg white tasted abit sour. I dont like the bacon as it was quite "fatty". This is my first time having brunch in such cafe and i think some people may not like it as the serving was rather small?

Besides egg benedict, I have also ordered their grilled bananas pancake that was served with maple syrup. For a moment, i thought the white stuff on the pancakes were flour "-_- it was icing sugar haha......I am not really a fan of pancake but i felt the pancake was yummy =) It was soft and fluffy. However, disappointment set in as i ate til the middle. It was uncooked with some wet batter. Thought the chef could have taken note of that or maybe it was supposed to be like this? No idea, nor did i check with the staff.

Personally, I felt the food was average and it was over hyped-up. But for those of you who are interested to try out at this place, perhaps you can google to check what are their recommended dishes before popping by (;

:: Random ::

Hi people,

it's been a long time since i blogged! Just to share with you something that i attempted to do weeks back. After learning the technique of applique, i went to buy materials and try out! =)

The first 'prototype' that is super amateur looking haha.....used the remaining napkin from my lesson and bought coasters as well as mod-podge from 'artfriend'.

Bought a stack of coasters but only used one =x painted both side with mod-podge first.

The back of the coaster

Decided to put a little beetle on the back of the coaster, so that it adds abit of fun to it =)

The front of the coaster

The front! Pasted a piece of yellow construction paper as background. If you have noticed, some of the blue background of the napkin has turned yellow =( This is because the background color was too dark. If you want to avoid such thing from happening, you can paint the area on the coaster where you will stick the napkin white. This helps to avoid "discoloration"

The rest of the coasters have been stored, will find time and do if i manage to find nice napkin!

:: Random ::

Had a 3 hours break during last week due to GESL. Popped by library to do the proposal and went to the "hotspot cafe" found in NIE library with lilian. Ordered a mocha and surprised to see heart shape on it, cute isn't it? The bread on the left is from japan and is soft and yummy!! It comes in a few flavours too such as cheese, chocolate, maple......I like cheese compared to chocolate, will try other flavours next time. Meanwhile, do try it too! (;

:: Textile ::

Finally, after months of doing sewing, it's the last lesson for textile. Shown below is the picture with all the 5 assignments that we did.

1. Draw string bag
2. Weaved bag
3. Table runner
4. Welcome board
5. Towel embroidery

Looking back, it has been a fun journey. Of course, it was not easy at the start! Sewing, for someone like me who hardly use needle and thread to do sewing, what's more using a sewing machine, was a daunting task for me. After the first few lessons of trying out, playing with the machine (threading & unthreading), complaining, "collaborative learning" with the girls, things got better =)

I have never thought that I will be able to do all this! No doubt, you just need to learn and ta daa~ you will be proficient in it. I will not say i am proficient in sewing but have definitely improved (;

:: Random ::

Less is more,
More is less,

Teach less learn more =)

Simple words....but makes so much sense isn't it?

Sometimes it seems hard to strike a balance between the 2. For instance, there's an outline for every subject or what we call Scheme of work (SOW), where we have a timeline to stick to when teaching.

We hope that our students will be able to learn and think rather than just regurgitating information. It's a dilemma, at times, i wish i could give my students more time to explore other stuffs yet i have to stick to schedule to finish up the syllabus which in a way makes the learning more rigid? I guess thats the situation where many beginning teachers will face. No doubt many of us would complain that our education system placed too much emphasis on rote memorisation. But i cant deny, some things we just have to memorise. In my own personal experience, i find myself discovering new meaning or understanding when i was trying to memorise certain things =) Of course, it does not happens all the time....

Guess we have to slowly "experiment" it.....

Just some random thoughts =)

:: Textile ::

Remember I mentioned that we have to do embroidery on the table runner? On top of that, we are supposed to do embroidery on hand towel too. We were allowed to choose the color of the hand towel. Initially i took cream color but later decided that i want grey instead. Shown below is the embroidery i did =)

I wanted to choose yellow thread for the name as it makes a good contrast to the grey background. But i decided to use blue instead, for fear that he might find yellow too "loud" haha. If you look carefully, there are some parts of the words which looked reflective. That is because, before doing the embroidery, you are supposed to line a plastic sheet. This is to prevent the embroidery from "sinking" into the towel which makes it hard to see.

Embroidery on hand towel

Those of you who have sewing machine at home, you can buy towels and embroider your friend's name. That serves as an excellent gift for him/her! I bet the person who receives it will like it alot.

:: Textile ::

Today i am going to share a new and interesting stuff we have been doing for the past 1 week! Its a hanging wooden board that allows us to write whatever we want. Some words like "Welcome" "Kitchen" "My home / room".

Never have i thought that i will do this "signboard" personally before! Shown below is the idea that i have. You can get this type of wooden blocks from spotlight or even daiso. It's so cool isn't it? Imagine you can personalized everything you can find in your house =D

The ladybug and flowers pictures shown in the previous photo were not paint or anything. You might not be able to guess where it came from! It was pictures found on napkin. Yes, you heard me right! Napkin! Those that we use to clean our mouth after eating. But of course, it's the more expensive and good quality (nice prints as well!) type. You can get those nice printed napkins from ikea, departmental stores like takashimaya and perhaps robinsons.

So after deciding that i wanted ladybug (thanks to irene for sharing with me =] ), i cut out the pictures and ready to stick onto my board. But before doing that, I have painted the board into a more cream white colour as dark background will mask away the pictures of the napkin.

Shown below is the "magic glue" we used to stick the napkin pictures onto the board. There are other types as well, for instance porcelain potch that allows us to paste pictures onto tiles or ceramic surface. You can get this from spotlight or artfriend.

After sticking on my pictures, i gave the border a brown color to add on a tinge of rustic feel. In addition, i also blotched the board with gold paint. Now left is filling in the word(s) and giving it a final finish.

This is so fun! I will strongly encourage everyone to try this one =) You can do it as birthday present, christmas present or as a nice gesture to brighten someone's day.

:: Food n Nutrition ::

Time flies! It was group 6's microteaching last week! With that, it marks the end of all F&N microteaching and cooking sessions. Looking back, it seems as though it was last week when my group was rushing for microteaching.

Their theme was on legumes and pulses and as it was the last session, think Miss Chin asked group 6 to include cake making in the recipe as well. So we prepared 3 dishes with 1 whole cake =) Shown here was a sponge cake we baked. It does look nice, isnt it? Thanks to the "teachers" who went around checking and helping us =D

Sponge cake

 After layering with cream and crushed peanuts, we diced mango and placed it in the middle. Ta daa~ Our whole mango cake, looking delicious right?

Completed Mango Cake

 We make the "dou sa" ang ku kueh instead of peanuts as dou sa is made from mung beans. I like both peanuts as well as dou sa ang ku kueh but i don't really eat it frequently. I find the process of making the ang ku kueh abit tedious as there was alot of preparation on the mung beans. You have to soak the mung beans for hours then pound and fry it..... When frying, it is also important to make sure that it does not dry out too. So, i am right in saying the process is tedious right?

Chinese Ang Ku Kueh

 Next up, we have malay lontong. We used "dou gan" and also tempeh in the lontong. I am not a fan of lontong but i thought it tasted yummy =)

Malay Lontong

 Last but not least, an indian snack. I don't like the taste as I dislike coriander haha. While i was chopping the coriander, i really cannot stand the smell. What's more the taste! But it was good when i eat with the prepared sauce.

Indian Vadai and Coriander Chutney

 Yet again, i forgot to take picture. This time round is the whole presentation argh....

With this, I would like to say "GOOD JOB EVERYONE!" I believe everyone of us have put in his/her full effort and it was enjoyable. It has definitely helped to polish my cooking skill and also friendship with classmates =) Cheers!

:: Random ::

Just to share something i like to eat with all of you. I bet everyone should be familiar with Pastamania =) Noticed that they have revamped their menu and i think they added new dishes as well.

Pastamania menu

They had a new branch at Paya Lebar singpost so i popped by to have a meal. The shop was decorated with glass display by the dining table. As shown below are the display next to my table. It reminds me of my F & N microteaching where we used different types of cereals and pastas for decoration =)

I think i first tried Turkey bacon aglio when i was in Poly year 2/3. We had a module where we were supposed to go to a shop and evaluate their products or services. My friend and i went to pastamania and he recommended this to me. Guess what? Since then, whenever i go to pastamania, i only order Turkey bacon aglio. The dish is rather simple, with diced tomatoes and turkey bacon tossed in olive oil! But it's yummy and it feels slighly healthier as it is cooked in olive oil =x

I am not a fan of cream based pasta as i will get sick of the sauce before i even finish it. Tomato based sauce is acceptable for me =) but since i have taken a liking for this dish, i have not ordered any other type of pastas haha..

Turkey bacon aglio

Went to pastamania yesterday and we ordered calamari, turkey bacon aglio and i think chicken sauage in cream sauce. Surprising the cream sauce tasted abit different. It comes with a slight tinge of cheesy taste with it (I like cheese!!) and it was yummy since it was not too overwhelming.

It is still personal preference but just want to share with you people. So next time, if you have no idea what to eat, why not pop by pastamania and try their turkey bacon aglio (;

:: Textile ::

I have showed this before where i did not reveal what i was going to make. Today i shall reveal the answer =) I am going to make a table runner. Some of you could be wondering what is a table runner, it is something similar to table cloth. Table cloth covers the whole surface of a table whereas table runner usually covers only the middle section of the table.

I have sewn the 3 pieces of cloth in the following sequence - brown beige brown, using normal straight line sewing. In addition, we will be adding pictures and even embroidery on the beige cloth. Over here, i was contemplating to put the 2 pictures, teapot and tea cup on the left or right side of  the table runner.

And i decided to put it on the left side of the table runner =) The teapot and teacup were actually prints on a fabric. We cut out the fabric and iron it on an interface that has a sticky side. After that, we can peel off the back and paste it onto the beige cloth. One more thing to do was to sew on the pictures to secure it tightly. Dr Mok suggested blanket stitch or running stitch but I decided to do the blanket stitch =) Initially i did the wrong orientation for the teacup and i had to unpick all the threads out haha...

Shown below, is my teapot with blanket stitch. Hope it doesnt look too bad =) Blanket stitch is often found on the edges as it is used to reinforce the edge of thick materials. It also acts as a decorative stitch.

Blanket stitch

We will be adding embroidery, still thinking what are some words to put on the table runner..."Tea Time" "Tea Break" ? Have to brainstorm a little more ....

:: Food n Nutrition ::

It has been a hectic week... I had ICT due on tues, bio presentation on wed, Communication speech on thurs and bio microteaching practice on fri! Hence the lack of update so sry to my readers.... I am back with massive updates =D

Shown here are the pictures from F & N microteaching 2 weeks back which was session 5. The topic was seafood. We have here sambal fish in banana leaf from indonesia. Mr Jay cleaned the two fishes for us so we did not clean the fishes. It was yummy with all the spices used =) and it's a healthy cooking method - grilling.

Grilled sambal fish

 Up next, we have Tempura prawns from Japan! If you notice, there's a lump of cream and it is actually wasabi mayonnaise we made from scratch. It was not a choking type of wasabi, in fact it has a mild taste of wasabi which definitely suits everyone =)

Tempura prawns

 Last but not least, the dish that set everyone drooling yet screaming too =X Here's sweet and sour crab from Thailand! We used small flower crabs to cook this dish...and why did i say it caused screaming from us? It was because all of us assumed the crabs are dead...so when we wanted to pull out the shell, it was still moving!! Many of us could not have the heart to kill it =( Mine was alive and i let Mr Jay to have the honour to kill the crab. To my amazement, after Jay cut the crab into halves, it was still moving "-_- But it was a new and cool experience for many of us.

Sweet and sour crabs

 Ta daa~ the final presentation of all the dishes. Please pardon the finger on the left side of the picture...

Group 5 microteaching

Looking forward to the last microteaching where we will get to bake 1 whole cake. Stay tuned!

:: Textile ::

Here comes my 3rd assignment! I shan't reveal what i will be doing yet. So i will let you have a preview of the materials and you will ponder about it! =D

3rd assignment

Just realised I did not take pictures of my 1st product which was a draw string bag =( Just a picture on the materials again. We have a blue and polka dot cloth and if you realise, i have zig-zag stitches sewed on the polka dot cloth. We even did quilting for the polka dot cloth! Interesting isn't it? I have submitted to my tutor and have not gotten back thus no snapshot.

1st assignment

I will take picture and upload it once i get back my bag! =)

:: Random ::

Went to Toa Pa Yoh on last weekend to settle some issues, happened to pass by this bubble milk tea shop at the interchange, opposite Burger king. And this shop was located a few shop spaces from the famous "KOI".

Needless to introduce, I guess everyone should be familiar with the term "KOI". KOI is probably the latest drink that many people covet. It allows you to choose the level of sweetness in your milk tea ! So you can choose 50% or 25% sweetness content. Yes, I have to admit that it tastes good and with the novelty of having to choose level of sweetness, i guess it really swept many of us off our feet. However, it is always in long queue! No branch can fight the branch located at ILUMA bugis! Oh my god! You should have seen the queue! As I am not those kind of people who is willing to queue too long for food, i cannot comprehand why some people can queue 30 mins or more for a cup of bubble milk tea.

Back to the shop I saw, it was also selling milk tea with pearls. So I decided to give it a try =) In case, it become another hit like KOI and I will need to queue for it haha.


New milk tea stall

It was having a promotion, think it cost $2. Well, was kind of disappointed after drinking it. Have pinned high hope for it as on the signboard, it shows the various countries that they have branches in. So it prompted me to have high expectation. Of course it tasted better than some other milk tea but just thought it paled in comparison to KOI (personal preference!) It did not have the strong taste you have in milk tea and the pearls were not cooked properly. However, it could be that the standard were not maintained on that day. Those of you who are interested to try and make comparison, do head down to TPY central and get yourself a cup!

:: Food N Nutrition ::

This week was Group 4's microteaching! The theme was on Proteins hence you will realise the dishes are high in protein content. We cooked Ngo Hiang with Tofu Cream Cheese Sauce, egg tart and baked fish with cheese sauce!
Short lesson =) Protein source:

Ngo Hiang with tofu cream cheese sauce
- chicken, tofu

Egg tart
- Egg, milk

Baked fish with cheese sauce
- Fish

All the food tasted yummy! Just kind of daunted by the fact that 1 egg tart contains the equivalent of 1 egg yolk! Sounds unhealthy to me.....though i like to eat egg tart, i rarely eat 2 at a time which is good! =) People who loves egg tart, remember to control the number of egg tarts you eat as it contains egg yolk which is high in cholesterol. Last but not least, a display of group 4's presentation (; It was kind of rush so did not manage to take a few more pictures.

Group 4 microteaching

Thank you group 4 for the yummy food you have taught the class!

:: Textile ::

Here comes our 2nd assignment!! A weaved bag! =) Dr Mok mentioned that there will be minimal sewing for this bag....never did we expect, what followed was not easy too!!

We were given 4 pieces of cloth, 2 coloured and 2 printed ones. All the colour combination was painstakingly matched by Dr Mok, Miss Chin and Miss Soo. There was red, green, blue and yellow (cant remember if named all!) There was 1 popular colour that ended having to vote as there was higher demand than supply. Luckily for me, there were just 5 people asking for yellow hence there was no need to vote. Chose yellow as it looks bright and cheery =)

We had to cut out the fabrics into 1 inch thick pieces. Many of us were so afraid of cutting wrong measurement as Dr Mok stressed that she did not have extra. Guess everyone of us were so worried and did a good job with cutting (; Shown below is the picture with all the strips! We had to iron some white layer thing inside the cloth to give it some shape.

Starting off with planning the design

The weaving process is kind of complicated so i will not explain here lest i confuse my dear readers =) Looking beyond the starting materials, we have a picture of the initial weaving! In the picture, i had only 2 layers of weaves. And do you know, we actually just used those white glue used for handicraft to stick the strips together! To our surprise, the glue was able to hold the strips together !



2 layers of weaving

Finally after so much time spent on weaving, we can finally see the product.


Finished the weaving!

Ta daa! My finished bag! With yellow handle strips and it also come with a yellow cloth as inner lining.

Final product =)

While doing the weaving, some thoughts went through my mind. We know that Thailand sells alot of weaved bags right? I suppose many of it were hand-woven and the price maybe slightly more expensive (of course it is still cheaper compared to singapore!) but as humans (ahem* singaporean?), we still want to slash the price despite we can afford it. After going through the process of making this bag, I really understand their hardwork and time spent on working on the bags. I can tell you, it is definitely not as easy as we thought! You have to go through the whole process to feel the strain and pain. Guess if i were to go to Thailand and purchase weave bag, I should refrain from slashing prices! Afterall, they just want to make a living with the skills they possess =)