TVB International Talent Singing Competition 2011

Anna, a friend of Ammie's whom I met at a Karaoke session, loves to sing and participate in singing competitions. When we chatted more and she found out I used to perform during Uni days, she told me about this singing comp that TVB was organising. Anyway to cut a long story short, I decided to join for the fun of it and also for missing those days of performing in front of a live audience. Here was the video for the night: Tue 5th April, I sang - S.H.E's Never Mind.

It was the preliminary rounds and I didn't get through to the next round because I know myself. I can pull off some songs pretty well but my voice wasn't powerful enough nor was it able to hit some higher notes. Plus I felt I didn't put my 100% in that night as I did with all the performances for Uni days. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to join in the first place due to the age of the crowd which I knew were all gonna be youngsters. But I'm glad I did anyway, all for the joy of singing live again and the experience.

Group photo before all 16 of us started singing	All the supporters and audiences looking on
Thanks guys for coming to support	Girl power, ladies D & Aims who came to support
Mr. Self-Obsessed, past year's winner performing	The exciting moment announcing the 5 who get through
The lucky 5 who got through to the next round	One more final group photo of all 16 of us

It was good fun and I really felt happy being able to sing on stage and perform in front of an audience again. In the past during Uni days, I always had a friend singing beside me or friends performing acts beside. But this time was different. It was a competition and I was singing alone and you had all these eyes staring at you. It was honestly the first singing comp that I sang alone and thus was a little nervous.

But it wasn't the first one that I joined. An ex-friend and I actually came in third place in a singing comp during our Polytechnic days in Singapore. And I'm still happily holding on to our trophy till now. I would say there will be more singing days to come as it's just something that I love and hearing my favourite songs just make me wanna sing along naturally; even at work and especially in the car driving, I can sing as loud as I want! :p

My Birthday Celebrations 2011

Last year's birthday was a special one because it was the day that Tubby and I got engaged, but this year's birthday is also special because it will be the last birthday as a "status single" lady as this time next year (fingers crossed everything goes right in Oct), I'll be a wedded woman. LOL.

Because of the different groups of friends, I decided to span out the celebrations, make it last a week like the last year as well. The week before I organised a karaoke session at Party World in the afternoon. We sang crazy new songs and oldies and laughed to our hearts content. Also thanks to the gals for getting me a cake. muaks!
After the karaoke session, we headed to Cookie Restaurant on Swanston Street for dinner. Weichao, Daisy and Ed only joined us later for the dinner as they are probably not singing fanatics like us. Well then again Tubby wasn't either as he was too shy to sing, but he didn't have any choice but to follow. hehe...


We needed to tables for the 15 odd people! From my side of the table, D and gang Ming Chu and Xiao Wei, Ed, Weichao, Daisy and darling.

The other side of the table to my left: continuation of D's gang Christine, then Aims and her gang, Anna, Laisa, Brendan and Han! Thanks to all of you who made my day! :)

On the night before, Tubby gave me with the first installment of the present: a Wii Fit. Not that he thinks I need more exercise, but wants me to quit the gym and exercise at home. And then on the 23rd, he surprised me with flowers delivered to my office as I didn't take leave this year. :p
Dinner was a nice yummy treat of Japanese Cusine at Shyun from him as well. And dear Michelle also baked us cupcakes and gave me a little camera keychain as she said that made her thought of me.

The following weekend, Tubby organised a buffet dinner a Chinabar Restaurant along Springvale Rd and Burwood Highway. We had wanted to try them out for awhile now and so this was a good chance. They had quite a variety of food and I especially love their different soups and the seafood section!

The lovely friends we all got to know from tennis and I always refer to them as the tennis group. LOL.

After that we returned back to our humble abode to open the pressies they got for me as well as for some chilling out and games. Thanks for all the cute gifts! Andy joined us later because he had something on earli and he came with this funny UFO gift which everyone wanted to try out. Apparently if you twist it properly, it floats in the air for awhile.
We also finally opened my LEGO Creationary and played it for awhile. It wasn't easy having a set time and building stuff from the limited amount of bricks. In the end, people were describing what the thing was instead of building it for people to guess! Also check out "Princess" a.k.a Troy trying out this new Hawaii Beach Sports game, one of the pressies they got for me. He was doing the Hula Dance! LOL.

And that it! My week of birthday celebrations! Don't worry next year there will be an even better excuse to make the celebration a big one again. And I won't tell you why yet! Haha!

CFA Urban Senior Championships 2011 - Bendigo: 11-13 Mar

This year as usual, I worked at the Firefighter's Urban Senior Championships over the Labour Day long weekend. But luckily this year my manager relieved me from Sunday evening and so I didn't have to work the full weekend.

I got Darling to come along because I wasn't comfortable driving the 2 hours plus alone since my colleagues had already gone up earlier or were going up later the next day. He didn't have to pay for accommodation as we were all getting our own private rooms regardless. And thanks to weichao and daisy again for the last minute notification to take care of Jasper.

I didn't take much photos this time as compared to the last couple of years. Every year is pretty much the same anyway, only in different places and the set up of the display stands are slightly different.

The Online Services & CFA Connect display stand where I was based at.	This year they had more display stands like the Radio Allocation & Accessibility stands.
Great student volunteers who came along to help clean up and pick up rubbish.	The teacher of the students group who volunteered to come clean up & recycle.

Here are some of the sports called the Coupling and Ladder Eights and Section Hose, Hydrant and Pumper.Congratulations to the Maryvale fire brigade for winning the 2011 State Urban Championships.

I think the highlights for us staff working that weekend was certainly the dinner and viewing of the Torchlight Ceremony at the Shamrock Hotel on Saturday night.

30 odd CFA people at the 2 course dinner that night. We took up most of the balcony area.	The view of the the famous and beautiful Bendigo Town Hall and clock at night.
Entrance to the Shamrock hotel upper levels of the restaurant and hotel.	We stopped by Beechworth Bakery on the way back as a colleage wanted to buy stuff.

This year for the first time of the Torchlight Procession, they had these really old and vintage firefighting vehicles heading the procession at the start. It was really a good experience for darling. He was commenting on all the competitors, how they weren't marching properly, their shirt weren't tuck in etc. It was real funny!

We also met a new colleague of mine called Catherine who had just started work at Community Safety dept. She was just lovely and chatty, a nice person to hang out with. We drove back Sunday arvo around 4pm and boy did we finally sleep well again that night.

Visiting M&J with their new arrival, Baby Joshua

Welcome Joshua Chan to the world. He was born about 3 weeks ago to the proud parents of Michelle and Jason. Michelle is a friend whom I got to know from church (can't remember if I mentioned it before). They are also from Malaysia and are staying in the same suburb as us.

Josh's daddy wasn't too comfortable putting his photos on facebook and so if you're reading this, then you're a lucky one to be able to "see" him. Though I wasn't sure if they were comfortable with that too and so I chose photos that didn't show his face too clearly.

Look at how awesome Michelle still looks even though she just gave birth a few weeks ago. She took care not to put on too much weight. Michelle says he's a greedy boy and demanding in his feeds and boy did we get a taste of that when we were there! He started moving his mouth and pouting his lips when it was near his feed time! And he didn't sleep long at all!

Darling getting a taste of daddy-hood again and little Josh grabbing his finger and staring at him wondering "who's this big teddy bear!"

Jason being a "Ka-Chau" naughty daddy who put the TV controller in Josh's palm cause he left it open in a grabbing manner.

Being first time parents, they were still trying to get used to coping with Josh's irregular sleep patterns. Like all babies, he likes some sort of "movement" going around before he sleeps peacefully and so M&J resort to pushing him in the pram and going out for walks just to get him to sleep sometimes. Let's hope the little cutie gets better as time goes by - which I'm sure he will as most babies do. :) Congrats again to the couple and their little bundle.