Group Swimming Lesson 7

Practise previous lessons, back crawl and front crawl.

Back crawl - stressed on face up, body straight.

A few laps on breast stroke.

Mr Hooi came super duper late today! 1 hour late...

Convo Dinner 2007

Dinner with all the lao pengs at Mumbai House, Crystal Point which costs RM40 per pax. Quite pricy in my opinion... since it's not exactly well-known and not in a hotel. Previous dinner while I was head of S&R was at Berjaya Georgetown Hotel and the attraction was Haagen Daazs ice-cream also included. But this one here... the only ice-cream served was this funky tasting jagung-like ice-cream with bits of raisins.

Interior

Anyway, curry was good, especially the naan with mutton curry and mint sauce. The environment was not bad too, though lighting may be way too soft and bit too dark to eat in. They serve drinks in this cute container.

Some kind of cordial

Fish curry

Curry mutton

Khumb of potatoes and button mushrooms

Veggie kurma

Po Koon, back from Japan bought the load of us gifts. I got this cute pair of Jap socks and fan.

Figurines for the guys

Now feeling heaty after all those curry...

His Convocation

I would have been so proud, except that I did not exactly do anything to help him in completing his Degree in Management.

My red graduation present to him.

Thinking that the ceremony ends at noon, I asked Soon Wen to pick me up around 11.15am so that I can get the bouquet of flowers that I have ordered beforehand.

Mana tau.....the ceremony ended early!!!$(&$(&@^@&^# Make me so kan ciong rush here rush there plus Soon Wen arrived a lil bit late. Then as I was paying for the flowers, TY gave me a call saying his parents wanna balik dy. Very disappointing.... Was hoping to take some pics with the parents and the bro and the sis... Oh well...

The bear bear in my flower bouquet makes people feel sad looking at it

As I arrived, no other LGs were to be seen! Really really make people kan ciong.... others also did not expect the ceremony to end so early... But slowly, more and more of them came and finally:

Actually there was more who came later on, but this was the only largest number of people in a single photo that I have. So. As soon as there was enough guys willing to do some lifting and tossing, ...

...suddenly, amidst of all the purply-robed graduates suddenly one of similar species just flew out of nowhere.

The hood has a purpose.

That will be all for today... feeling tired after jalan-ing around Penang the whole day.

It's Our Job

3 days ago, I was finally tested on my skills of lifesaving.

I had changed duty slots with Chin Teng, and then changed positions on high chair with Hong En, so there I was on the pool deck.

Just a short time later, I can see those two big-sized Middle-Easterners creating quite a splash some distance away. I can see the bigger of the two struggling and actually pushing his friend down. That bulky guy is drowning.

I did what I could think of first, grabbed a kickboard and went down into the water. I pushed the kickboard to the drowning guy, but he was too busy pushing his friend down and trying to stay afloat that me doing so could be as significant as making hand signals at him.

Seeing that my kickboard plan failed, I did the next best thing I thought then. I went forward, and tried to get him out onto the surface, his whole head was already submerged in the water. He was so huge, that I could only get him out for a max of 3 seconds, then HE PUSHED ME DOWN WITH HIM. I must admit, I was pretty darn terrified. Next thing I know, I was down the water and feeling my eyes getting blurry as I wear contact lenses.

Did my best to pull him to the side of the pool and just as I was about to reach the side, luckily Cau Cieh took hold of the guy and gave him a final pull to the side.

I am so glad nothing worse took place, to me I mean. Anyway I learnt two things. Have done the kickboard maneouveur thing, and two times out of two times the victim was not able to catch hold of the board. Next time I swear, I'm not going in without something as solid as a pool buoy. Second, this is what I learn in the first case, never do plunge in, it will actually confuse your coordinate. That one time I did that, as I resurfaced, I had to search back where the victim was. I would suggest straddle jump as a better alternative.

I don't know why some lifeguards take pool duty so leniently. We deal with lives, and some of them are very much not alert on the pool deck.

As much as I blame myself for my mistakes, knowing that I could have done much better, I had to give myself a pat on the back, that I managed to save someone triple my size. Later on, looking very shaken, he thanked me. Oh, I was real modest about it, told him, "No problem, it's our job :)".

Group Swimming Lesson 6

New lesson on back crawl (back stroke)

Back to the wall, lean head on deck, and perform back flutter kick. Kicking supposed to keep body horizontal.

Floating face up with flutter kick, hands at sides. Face tilted to sky, stomach in. Also try floating, with toes above water surface, hands sculling.

Hand movement: Lift hand up, touch ear, twist wrist till little finger faces backwards, and let fall into water. Push underwater, elbows bent, palms to the side. Repeat.

Practise, alternating with front crawl and back crawl.

Group Swimming Lesson 5

Still on breaststroke.

Breast stroke swim with hands at side, only kicking, to encourage lifting of head to breathe.

Breast stroke hand pulling with flutter kick.

Water treading, hands in circular motion: opens to the side and U-turns back, cyclic motion of legs, one at a time.

SP and Pickles

Got to cure a bit of homesick-ness during the weekend and grandma's famous perut ikan! No other dish can beat this one.... and no other person can make it better than her.

World's best cook

And then dim sum in the morning,

SP's best Indian mee goreng. Nowhere in Penang can beat this uncle.

And lastly, my favourite picture of the day, such a cute expression.... (Pickles la I mean)

Nite world!

Group Swimming Lessons 2, 3, 4.

Lesson 2

Flutter kick, streamlined position.

Hand movement. Drawing a small 'S' shape towards the centre of body, and pull till thumb touches thigh. Practise walking in water while pulling. Then later on pulling and kicking without breathing

Lesson 3

Pulling with breathing. Practise walking in water while pulling and breathing. Then kicking plus breathing plus pulling. End of lesson on front crawl.

Lesson 4

Breaststroke style. Kicking, ending with feet straight and closed. Relax, stiff feet does not work. Kicking without pulling or breathing. Then kicking with pulling, minus breathing. Hands pulled halfway then elbows touching, return to position. Gliding, approximately 2 seconds. Pull, kick, glide.

Group Swimming Lesson 1

Registered myself for Ko-K swimming, real lucky to be able to get myself in the class, very limited number of students accepted. Although only 1 unit of credit, but requires 4 hours of lesson a week. Many laughed when I informed them of my new 'subject', but for me, I take this up not only to learn the correct method of swimming, but also to learn how to teach a group of people how to swim.

Just as a record of each swimming lesson.

Started off with a little bit of simple exercises. Walked on water (high resistance), walked backwards on water (direction). Then did star float, arrow float, mushroom float and streamlined float.

Flutter kick, streamlined body.

Virgin Attempt at Kari Kay

When I told my grandmother and parents about my intention of making Curry Chicken, all parties were supportive, although they were a tad skeptical about me wanting to make the spice paste from scratch. My grandma said that even she herself does not make spice paste using mortar and pestle, instead, she has gone all modern and uses ready-made packaged curry powder.

I was keen on making curry chicken from scratch, since I kind of already know how (from my cooking bible, hah!), thus, if I were to make things simple and buy curry powder, then I might as well buy the whole of the curry chicken from some mamak stall, correct?

Spices

Shallots : Cried when I cut them up... boohoo

Done like a pro!

Some chilli landed on me while grounding them that I ended up with chilli burns:

Sigh, the sacrifices

And thus, I made it! I'm such a genius :D

Although my mom said that there’s definitely room for improvement, I’m already very much proud of myself. My dad marked me with 89 points. Good thing was, the whole thing was finished for lunch. Better thing was, none of us ended with diarrhoea.

Simmer

Not bad for a girl who can’t differentiate between kailan and bak choy veg, huh?

Housewife Jr.

I have a newfound passion.... cooking!

Was never really interested in how food that goes through my mouth was made. In fact, the only reason that I've ever been made to do any sort of cooking in the kitchen was to either heating up some leftovers or good ol' maggie mee.

I suppose one of the reasons that triggered this interest is the sudden awareness of how eating outside too much may not be healthy, thus knowing how to cook can be a real asset. Cooking can also be very fulfiling, I mean, literally and also, to have people who actually enjoy them.

Recently purchased a cookbook (omg!)... it really was not intentional. As it was the holidays, I thought that I might as well get some book to read. So there I was browsing around in Popular bookstore when this particular book caught my attention.

I find the book most interesting... as it includes plenty of recipes of dishes that I love, which my grandma seldom prepares nowadays. The photography on the dishes presented in the book also looks cool and the book's about one-and-a-half centimetres thick of glossy paper, for RM38 which I thought was pretty cheap. And hence, purchased :)

Cooking is actually very simple... it's just the preparation and the post-cooking cleaning that are very troublesome. Been cooking several times this week, simple stuff like stir-fried veggies and omelettes and things like that. But the expression on my dad's face! It's as if I had whipped up some bombastic French dish or something like that. Oh well, at least he likes it and anyways home-cooked stuff is healthier. Oh yeah, I found out that the chef in Pekaka Restaurant (behind Subaidah) smokes while he cooks. He cooks in an area visible to customers and IF he does that openly, God knows what other chefs can do when we can't watch them cooking.

Trying out a curry chicken recipe tomorrow! Hope it works.... :)