Happy 牛 (Niu) Year!
May the mighty ox bring forth a bullish year and beef up your health and wealth!
For now till the 15th day of the Chinese New Year, set your gears in mooootion and party till the cows come home!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Happy 牛 Year!
Just a quick message:
Happy 牛 (Niu) Year!
May the mighty ox bring forth a bullish year and beef up your health and wealth!
For now till the 15th day of the Chinese New Year, set your gears in mooootion and party till the cows come home!
Happy 牛 (Niu) Year!
May the mighty ox bring forth a bullish year and beef up your health and wealth!
For now till the 15th day of the Chinese New Year, set your gears in mooootion and party till the cows come home!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
A Milky Affair
Warning: this entry contains mumsy details that only breastfeeding mums will understand. And yeah, some details could be too much for some of you to handle.
But after struggling to fill one bottles of milk at work (I used to easily fill two, or at least one and a half.) I caved in and bought two bottles of Fenugreek capsules from GNC and put them to the test.
Did it work? Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but there was some slight improvement. Still, I wasn't satisfied and got even more stressed over the situation.
Out of sheer desperation, I resorted to manually expressing the milk from the breast with my bare hands - and viola! Milk!
Over the past week, I've been using the double electric pump (it's kept in the office now that I've got an extra breast pump) at work and when the electric pump can't extract the milk efficiently, I use my hands.
The only drawback is that manual expression by hand can be very time-consuming and absolutely tiring.
At my first try, both hands were trembling after half-an-hour's work. But at least I can help empty the breast, which in turn prompts my body to produce more milk. Hopefully my milk supply will stabilise soon because I refuse to feed formula milk to Wei.
On a lighter note, I know this is completely irreverent, but hey! I can now imagine how a cow feels like during milking time!
Ever since I fell ill about a month back, I noticed that my milk supply's dwindled somewhat. It's also a combination of stress, fatigue and lack of sleep that led to this. I don't have any problems feeding Wei directly but when I'm at work, I experienced difficulty in expressing my breast milk into the bottles. The absolute worse hit me when I realised that my frozen supplies were depleted.
My initial thought was that my Medela pump or power adapter (bought in 2005) wasn't working well so I bought a second hand double pump from ebay. But I still encountered difficulties expressing even though I could still "feel" the milk in my breast and couldn't experience the "letdown".
So I did some research on what else I could do/eat to increase my milk supply. My new colleague Sherrie, a fellow BFD mum, recommended I take Fenugreek supplements. I was hesitant at first because I never liked the idea of consuming too many vitamins and supplements, particularly when I'm breastfeeding.
But after struggling to fill one bottles of milk at work (I used to easily fill two, or at least one and a half.) I caved in and bought two bottles of Fenugreek capsules from GNC and put them to the test.Did it work? Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but there was some slight improvement. Still, I wasn't satisfied and got even more stressed over the situation.
Out of sheer desperation, I resorted to manually expressing the milk from the breast with my bare hands - and viola! Milk!
Over the past week, I've been using the double electric pump (it's kept in the office now that I've got an extra breast pump) at work and when the electric pump can't extract the milk efficiently, I use my hands.
The only drawback is that manual expression by hand can be very time-consuming and absolutely tiring.
At my first try, both hands were trembling after half-an-hour's work. But at least I can help empty the breast, which in turn prompts my body to produce more milk. Hopefully my milk supply will stabilise soon because I refuse to feed formula milk to Wei.
On a lighter note, I know this is completely irreverent, but hey! I can now imagine how a cow feels like during milking time!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Connexion 2009
Last friday I attended Connexion 2009 - it's a networking session for educators and National Education practitioners and the focus was on how new media and technology can be harnessed for National Engagement, especially among the younger generation of web and technology-savvy Singaporeans.
The full day event was held at Singapore Management University's Conference Hall 1 and the guest-of-honour for Connexion 2009 was the Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, Dr. Ng Eng Hen.
Following the keynote address by the G.O.H. was an interesting presentation by Dr Michael Netzley, PhD, (Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication Practice, Singapore Management University) entitled: Chalkboards, Whiteboards, and now the Internet: How Gen Y is Ushering in an Age of Digital Learning. The topic was adequately covered with relevant examples, and I enjoyed listening to his casual and relaxed manner of presentation.
The next speaker was Mr Raoul Le Blond, Head, Digital Practice, Hill & Knowlton (SEA) Pte Ltd. His topic, Harnessing Social Media for National Engagement, gave a glimpse of how various organisations in both the private and public sectors are actively using new/social media to reach their target audiences.
After the presentations, a panel discussion including the presenters invited many questions and comments from the audience (mostly teachers) whose concerns ranged from inadequate technical training for teachers, manpower issues, tight budgets, students' general disinterest in National Education matters etc.
Although I'm not part of the National Education Committee at work, I decided to attend the seminar because I'd really like to learn more about the new media and its effectiveness in reaching out to the Gen-Yers.
I want, no, NEED to know what makes them tick. It dawned on me that we're dealing with a whole new generation of learners, a totally different group of people who're alien to the traditional teacher-centred "I-talk-you-listen" instructional mode of education. And the session was an eye-opening experience for me as I realise how backwards we are in our teaching methods.
Yes, I do take my role as an educator seriously. I've been in education sector for 8 years now and I'm constantly trying to improve my own teaching style to benefit my students. Perhaps I've got a personal agenda in hoping to unlock the secrets of engaging the younger generation, especially now that my firstborn has stepped into primary one and I want to help her with her studies.
Don't laugh now, but that's why I'm inspired to channel my spare energies (not much left these days) in setting up a "serious" blog to help my students understand the importance of effective communication and how good communication skills can help them even after they leave school.
I know, it sounds like an incredibly boring and thankless project, but I think this experiment and is worth a shot. Will definitely update on the progress and status of my little assignment and would appreciate your suggestions and comments too. :)
In the meantime, wish me luck!
The full day event was held at Singapore Management University's Conference Hall 1 and the guest-of-honour for Connexion 2009 was the Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, Dr. Ng Eng Hen.
Following the keynote address by the G.O.H. was an interesting presentation by Dr Michael Netzley, PhD, (Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication Practice, Singapore Management University) entitled: Chalkboards, Whiteboards, and now the Internet: How Gen Y is Ushering in an Age of Digital Learning. The topic was adequately covered with relevant examples, and I enjoyed listening to his casual and relaxed manner of presentation.
The next speaker was Mr Raoul Le Blond, Head, Digital Practice, Hill & Knowlton (SEA) Pte Ltd. His topic, Harnessing Social Media for National Engagement, gave a glimpse of how various organisations in both the private and public sectors are actively using new/social media to reach their target audiences.
After the presentations, a panel discussion including the presenters invited many questions and comments from the audience (mostly teachers) whose concerns ranged from inadequate technical training for teachers, manpower issues, tight budgets, students' general disinterest in National Education matters etc.
break time!
After the lunch break, several schools presented and shared their New Media and Technology NE Best Practices. This was when I realised how progressive the primary schools are in tapping new media and technology to liven up their lessons. Pretty impressive indeed.Although I'm not part of the National Education Committee at work, I decided to attend the seminar because I'd really like to learn more about the new media and its effectiveness in reaching out to the Gen-Yers.
I want, no, NEED to know what makes them tick. It dawned on me that we're dealing with a whole new generation of learners, a totally different group of people who're alien to the traditional teacher-centred "I-talk-you-listen" instructional mode of education. And the session was an eye-opening experience for me as I realise how backwards we are in our teaching methods.
Yes, I do take my role as an educator seriously. I've been in education sector for 8 years now and I'm constantly trying to improve my own teaching style to benefit my students. Perhaps I've got a personal agenda in hoping to unlock the secrets of engaging the younger generation, especially now that my firstborn has stepped into primary one and I want to help her with her studies.
Don't laugh now, but that's why I'm inspired to channel my spare energies (not much left these days) in setting up a "serious" blog to help my students understand the importance of effective communication and how good communication skills can help them even after they leave school.
I know, it sounds like an incredibly boring and thankless project, but I think this experiment and is worth a shot. Will definitely update on the progress and status of my little assignment and would appreciate your suggestions and comments too. :)
In the meantime, wish me luck!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
a late start to 2009
oh great. it's the middle of January 2009 and this is only my first post of the year!
as you can probably guess, i still have my hands full, which greatly explains the lack of activity here since i love to write.
anyway, i had a crappy new year celebration. literally. on christmas eve and new year's eve, i was hit by food poisoning. it was a sheer waste of the holidays since i was stuck home and spent the next few days visiting the loo on a frequent (almost hourly) basis. i really don't know what i ate that made me sick, but it definitely wasn't stuff i ate at my 5th aunt's (on christmas eve) or at uncle long's (new year's eve) since i was already ill then.
a quick update: xian's started primary one at st. nicholas' girls school and she's still trying to get used to waking up at 5.40am. she's to rise early since her school bus arrives at 6.20am. wen's now in the nursery class at st. paul's church kindergarten.
unfortunately, both the older girls caught a viral fever and throat infection last week and both had to miss school for a couple of days to rest. and on wednesday night, we'd to rush wei to the paediatrician at 7.40pm as she showed signs of being the 3rd victim of the bug. the poor baby's lost her appetite and voice though she's slowly recovering.
more details will follow when i can find the time to write. in the meanwhile, here are so photos taken on new year's eve at uncle long's as we got together to usher in 2009.
xian and wei on the elephant
here's wen!
me and my girls
the new year cake (uncle long's birthday cake in the background)
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