According to Statistics Singapore, the number of divorce rates has been on an increase. There was a stage when 1 out of 3 marriages will end up in a divorce.
This trend was a concern for the Muslim organization bodies in Singapore such that for the past 15 years or so, they implemented a compulsory marriage preparatory course for all Muslim marriages in Singapore to prepare and educate future marriages for the prevention of divorces.
Recently, I’ve attended and completed the marriage preparatory course at the Assyakirin Mosque. Prior to this, I did not realise that it was mandatory till only recently. I assumed that that the course was for knowledge for keeping a happy marriage. Thus, I did not have much expectations.
When I attended my first lesson, early Sunday morning, I was greeted by the staff-helpers at the mosque and was handed a schedule, a bridal magazine as well as the course textbook. I flipped through the textbook and though it was not thick, it looked comprehensive with the different modules laid out.
In my book, there were 8 modules altogether which was presented and discussed in depth by our various coaches from Kasih Sejati.
Personality analysis
Knowing the in-laws, money matters and wedding plans
Understanding solemnization and responsibilities of a wife and husband
The meaning of love, sex and intimacy
Challenges during marriage
Preparing for a family
Communication and the language of love
Conflict and resolution
I thought that the lessons were interesting and I realised at how unprepared I was before. I learnt a fair bit of information which I think will be useful in preparing myself for my future.
The entire course ended with each of us writing a love letter for our partners with words of affection, hopes and encouragement for our future. I thought that was very sweet.
I found out later that it was a requirement for all Muslim Marriages to be certified with a marriage preparatory course certification regardless of what nationality they are. Hence Cart arrives here in Singapore in December, we’ll be taking it together before our solemnization.
I think it will be a learning experience for the both of us.
Have you heard of the marriage preparatory course before? What do you think of it?
On Friday, the 18th April and for the first time ever, I was at a press conference thanks to the awesome Brian and Tania of Ogilyv for remembering how much I love Canon products. Many of the pictures and videos in this blog itself are captured with the Ixus and 350D.
It was a classy event from the start at the regal Asian Civilisations Museum, being ushered in by the smartly dressed security guard to going up the charmingly vintage staircase. And then being greeted by a bevvy of pretty ladies in red dresses.
Soon-after, I reached the hall where the event was held. There were already a number of people mingling around.
It was kind of a strange experience and somewhat daunting being surrounded by editors of credible magazines and newspapers. Whereas I was representing the bloggers. Nevertheless, I tried to be as sociable as I could be and just smiled at the people that I saw.
I spotted out Tania who was sitting down – she was very recognizable with her short spiky hair. Lynette, whom I met earlier, swooped in and introduced me to her.
Tania was friendly and really cool we chatted briefly till the emcee stood up on the platform and announced the start of the event.
It was glitzy! It started off with Mr Andrew Koh, the director of Canon Singapore explaining about the features of the new camcorders. AND THEN there were 5 extremely tall catwalk models strutting around with the different camcorders. They were so tall that I had to crane my neck trying to look at them.
But the cherry on top of the cake was when Andrew announced the ambassador for their camcorder was what made me nearly gasp out loud. It was Wong Li Lin! I was so floored to see her. In front of me was an acclaimed actress! I throughly enjoyed her performance in Leap Years.
Unfortunately, she slipped out of the event pretty quickly that I don’t think that anyone had a chance to interact with her.
At the end of the event, the guests were invited to try out the new camcorders. I had a ball of a time, having a hands on session with the 5 different camcorders – The HF 10, HF 100, FS 11, FS 10 and FS 100.
Personally, I thought that it was rather impressive. All five of the models were lightweight and small. I can seriously stuff all the five models in my handbag and run away with it but my sense of propriety and conscience says no :P
It took me about 15 mins of fiddling to get used to the interface but after that, it was relatively easy to use. It uses a mini joystick rather than a touch screen which would probably make it preferable for people who do not like to smudge their screens.
Having been used to working with camcorders using mini-DV tapes, I liked how it uses internal built in memory which makes it faster to transfer to the computer as well as to a SD-card directly. Cool beans!
And ultimately what was the best feature of the camera was the video and audio quality. I did a quick test and recorded on my SD card. It was so clear that you could see every pores on my face. Oh my!
Screenshot from video. No photoshop edit apart from resize and additional text
I’m amazed why many the other journalists did not grope the camera models as much. They were like just touching it, flipping it around and thats it. I guess that was great cos I had ALL the time to examine and grope the equipment in close detail. I was most excited.
About two weeks ago, I was quite surprised to check my statcounter to find out that someone from the local newspaper surfing through my site. Soon-after, I received an email from a Ms Sandra Davie for a face to face interview.
I wasn’t sure if I should meet her because sometimes some journalists tend to skew the article to fit their own point of view. But in the end, I thought to myself, why not? And last Wednesday, I made an appointment with her at Geek Terminal and met her for the first time.
And I was so glad to find out that she was very nice. I had a casual and relaxed interview that before we knew it, two hours had passed by.
And this is what materialised out of the interview :
Cool!
Its interesting to note that the article is very romanticised to the point of mushyness. And I’m not 31! She made me older than I actually am. Eeek!
Regardless, I’m totally going to laminate this. I wonder how my family and friends would think :-)
Updated : It was really funny to see Mum’s reaction at her first view of the article. The next day at work, a number of colleagues and even the heads were asking about the article. One student even came up to me and told me that the article was being passed around during assembly period. Oh my! :P
It was one of the most uplifting art gallery that I’ve ever been to. There were so many gorgeous paintings of cats, that it just made me feel so happy.
Last evening, I was out with Juzzy Wuzzy, Weiren and Check in Chinatown to visit the Catopia – Oasis of Calm exhibition at the Forth Gallery.. After walking for a while, Juzzy just stopped and said that we’ve reached the place. But I did not see anything remotely gallery-ish about the area. It was very nondescript, being hidden behind this!
Nevertheless, we went up the stairs to the second floor and we were transported to a new world altogether. There were a number of people already there, admiring the different paintings being displayed.
And immediately, I was taken in by the beautiful cat paintings. There were two artists being featured there – Gwen Lim and Ng Ling Tze and it being opening night, both of the artists were there! I was fortunate enough to bugger meet them.
Below is Gwen Lim and me posing next to this incredible piece called, “Haven”
I asked Gwen, how long it took for her to paint this piece and was amazed to find out that it took her only a week to complete this. The leaves, she added, took her one morning to do.
Gwen Lim’s pieces were very expressive and focuses on the subject. I asked her, what inspires her to paint in the style that she does and she replied that she was a calm and easy-going person that takes things nice and slow, thus it reflects in her paintings, in soft, muted colours.
I love her paintings. It was very easy on the eye and for some reason, it induced calm and serenity when looking at it. It was just beautiful.
There was another artist called Ng Ling Tze and she’d done this amazing piece called, “Sweet Revenge”
Her pieces had more intense colours and it was more surrealistic – one of the genres that I love. This piece in particular, is a take on cats judging back humans who were cruel to them in real life.
Ling Tze tells me that her works were inspired by what she sees and her perception of what the cats were thinking. There were a number of cats that were living in the area that she lived and she observes them to have inspiration.
I loved this piece, “Day Dreaming”. It makes me feel as if I were lying down in a field of flowers, looking up at the sky and getting ready to float in the air any time soon. Gorgeousness!
This piece was pretty trippy! I loved how the fishes are flying out of the elevator. This piece is called, “Lift Watching” and it describes how Ling Tze would observe a group of cats, living near the lift. And every morning at about 9.30, they would always be transfixed, looking at the elevator, moving up and down.
It was an amazing evening and I enjoyed every bit of it. Its not every day that you get to a beautiful gallery such as this as well as meeting the fantastic artist behind them! If you are a cat lover, I’d urge you to go as seeing the pictures in this blog-post really doesn’t do justice to seeing the real thing.
Thank you Juzzywuzzy! If it weren’t for you, I would not even know of this gallery! And thank you Justin and Eva for kindly allowing me to use these beautiful scans :)
P.s These would be great as a wedding present! *hint hint nudge nudge*
Forth Gallery
69A Pagoda Street (2nd level)
Singapore 059228
Yesterday, I made the painful decision of not going to Italy to see Cartcart in June. This is to save some money for the both of us for the wedding at the end of the year.
This is heartbreaking because I miss him tremendously and I feel miserable. But after a while, I was inspired to do a montage of our happy times together :)
The first thing on my mind when I was there was, “Sweet mother of Vespa. I’m in two wheeler heaven!”
On the 12th of April, I was at the Singapore Expo to see the different displays of motorcycles (and a couple of bicycles) at the Bike Asia 2008 event. This event was jointly organized by the Italian festival 2008, which would explain why there were more Italian brands there.
I was supposed to meet the Vesporeans but in the end, not being able to spot any members, I decided to enter the hall by myself. There were already a large queue forming at the ticketing booth. It was about $8.50 per entry and when I was just about ready to pay for my ticket, the lady at the ticketing booth said, “Ladies enter for free today 11am – 3pm”
Hooray for womanhood!
And the first display that I headed to was the Piaggio display where the Vespas were being displayed. There were a number of upcoming models like this LXV 125. This model was physically different from the LX 150 that I was used to seeing mainly because of the handlebar.
The entire front was much smaller. Aesthetically, I think that it will take some adjusting for those who are used to the GT and the LX, as shown below.
Moving around the back of the Piaggio display, I saw a couple of Gilera scooters.
This scooter was 3 wheeler, giving it that unusual look. I’ve even seen 4 wheeled motorcycle on the road before. I guess, this would be useful to have as it wont topple during those wet and slippery days which is a motorcyclist’s nightmare. But all I can think of when I saw the face of this scooter was the Brain Bug from Starship Troopers.
Not all of the bikes had an overly unusual look to them. This one looked as if it was going to transform into a robot.
There were most certainly many Italian motorcycles from what I can see. Like this moto guzzi two wheeler, as posed by this cute kid which in my opinion is more expressive than the paid models. Why are they called “race queens”. They aren’t even riding, they are posing on stationary bikes! :P
Other Italian bikes that I saw was a large number of Ducati – which is a rather sexeh machine
All of them, though sexeh, is a little too fierce for my personal style but admittedly, they do look pretty sweet don’t they?
There were also a number of non Italian two wheelers like this adorable Yamaha Fino. I saw this bike for the first time about last year and thought that it was superbly cute. This was something that I would own, but its just that the storage compartment was really small.
There was also a scooter that I noticed and I just cant help gushing at how adorable it was. I would not mind cruising down the road with this little cutie!
This is the Demak Beetle which at first glance, made me thought that it was the Fino. But upon close examination, there were some subtle differences in them. Both Beetle and the Fino are both made in Asia - I’m guessing that these are quite affordable.
And there was the one motorcycle to rule them all.
Ph33r the official traffic police motorcycle – complete with siren! This motorcycle is even more powerful than some cars and small enough to squeeze through traffic and to catch offenders. You’d better drive carefully if you spot one of these one the road :P
Since, this is a bike display event, I’ll just put one picture up to show that I’m not too biased :P
This is a rodalink display with a simulated screen – probably the next generation of the Wii.
After gawking at the different two wheelers, I found myself at the stage area looking at two men practicing on their motorcycles. They were doing bike stunts!
These two guys, Sergio and Fergo(?) are from Italy and they called their team “Motorlife”. It was quite exciting to watch them doing their stunts, which would be impossible to do on a regular bike. I know my scooter will break :P
All in all, I thought the event was pretty sweet as I could admire the different motorcycles. But I prefer events such as the vivo vespa and the Bike Bike Festival as not only I could admire the two wheelers, I could talk to the owner of the motorcycles, which makes it more personalised and interactive. Nevertheless, I still had fun :)
Do you like motorcycles? Did you go to Bike Asia? What do you think of it?
