Friends or Colleagues

It's 11:06 pm now. And I'm thinking about recent happenings regarding my friends / Colleagues. Why couldn't I decide whether they are friends or colleagues ?

One of them has a 5 year old son and a less than a year old daughter, similar to me. I used to think we have common topics to talk about, until recently I'm became wary of her. She began to aggresively look for school for her son and began to tell me how well her son does. She asked me lots of questions regarding HHK and affliations, and when she knew that I am not hoping for CHS anymore because of certain reasons, she began to ask me questions which makes me rethink my decision. She went for family photoshoot and emailed her beautiful pictures to everyone she knows.

The other colleague, has a 1 year old son and she engaged a babysitter (my cousin-in-law)from my recommendation. However, my colleague would feedback to me when she or her husband thinks that the babysitter shouldn't have said. Now that this colleague is preggie, she goes around asking for 2nd hand maternity clothes (even though she has some). I took my maternity clothes to her house, and on Tuesday, she told me over the phone that most of the clothes are too big for her.

I think I'm a bit oversensitive, but I couldn't help thinking the following:
1) I'm being made use of by colleague #1, to join the HHK and also to buy a reader set for her son (until last minute she changed her mind)
2) I'm also being made use of by colleague #2. Shouldn't have passed her the clothes, as I could've sold them

For colleague #2, whatever my CIL told her is not unfounded. My CIL warnings are from her years of experience of being a mother. However, my colleague #2's husband just brushed off her warnings as untactful and superstitious comments.

Why are there such people in the world ? Don't they feel embarassed asking for help from people ?

Maybe I'm just too sensitive. Maybe I should change to become like them, anyway 在家靠父母， 出外靠朋友. But it's really not my nature to be like that. I would rather spend a little money to buy the things I need, than to owe people a favour.

Congratulations to my Bro and SIL!

My nephew managed to enrol into Ai Tong Primary School without balloting !

How to grow a social website?

I'm now the admin of a social portal. Today, I just had a discussion with my boss on the strategy of the social portal. Maybe because we just took over, he is very kan cheong about the pageview rates of the portal, especially it dropped in May and only increased 100K in June.

I showed him other competing websites, plus my plan, however he was still not satisfied, citing no breakthrough as a reason.

Until I threw him this question. How do you measure the success of the portal ? Is it only pageviews ? Is that a narrow view ?

I believe the portal has a higher calling, and I shall persist to convince him!

Hello after a long break !

Today is 22 July 2009. I've left the blog for about 1.75 years.

Now I'm back to pick up blogging again. Partly for my work and partly for self expression I guess.

Hope I can sustain this time round. Also hope to put in some important backdated entries, like our Beijing and Perth trips in 2007, the new addition to our family last year etc etc.

Stay tune..

Inaugural Baking Attempt - Cupcakes!

I kept reading blogs of other mummies who can bake and has been envying them ever since. Especially when one of my customer-converted-to-goodfriend can bake and cook extremely well, I've been itching to try doing that myself too. So, throwing my other task aside, I bought a cheapo hand-held mixer on Friday and all the ingredients, then I baked on Saturday !

Here are the results:
Chocolate Cupcakes:


Damaged ones (cracked and erupted ones due to not-so-good control of the temperature):


Not too bad lah hor? but I find the cupcake sizes a wee too big, so I went to Phoon Huat and bought smaller ones and bake again on Sunday !

Mini Vanilla Cupcakes:


Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cupcakes:


Double Chocolate Chip Cupcakes:


Here's the cupcake recipe:
150g unsalted butter - softened
150g castor sugar
175g self raising flour
3 large eggs or 4 small eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C
Crack eggs into a cup and beat lightly
Place all ingredients in a large bowl or mixing bowl
Beat for 2 minutes or until mixture is light and creamy
bake the cakes for 18 - 20 minutes --> Varies according to oven and size of cupcakes

It's super easy, if mamemo can bake, so can you !

Lot's of Blogging to Catch Up

Oh well, all because I procastinated ! OKAY ! I must write it down so as to stop this bad habit of mine! I want to blog about before 2007 ends :

1. Beijing Trip in June
2. Winston's Year End Concert
3. Perth Trip in November
   

Photos of Winston in School

It's been about a year since Winston entered Nursery 1. Think both my husband and I are glad to see that he likes school. He likes the teachers, his friends and even the aunties who cooked and did the general cleaning.

I'm glad he has changed from a whiny, crying baby to a happy preschooler who looks forward to school everyday, even after a 2 week holiday to Perth.

Some Serious Work:


A Cruise:


Outing to the Goat Farm:


Playing Masak Masak