Spread the Love – October 2015

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Skai

During our meet-up at Bishan after my interior shoot at Sky Habitat, Gilbert tried to give a dinner treat again. He chauffeured everyone to the next location “Wimbly Lu” for dessert and selflessly sent me home after that. Eventually, he got fined for probably parking at the wrong spot and remained calm instead of grumbling.
On the very same day, Wanling had given Gilbert and I our advance birthday presents. One of the items was a very well ergonomic coin pouch, which I would be keeping it until my existing one, made by my mum, decides to die on me. She also gave me another keychain with a picture of a Dachshund, which was very thoughtful of her.
Both of them are my rare buddies who are always ready to share their joy with me.

Spread the Love – December 2014

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Skai

During my photoshoot with Lurvelle, Kelvin Sim joined in and offered very great assistance. He was able to even get safety pins during late night at Clarke Quay. During the entire shoot, he had been taking other great initiatives to offer his help. It was a culture shock for me because “escorts” of models were usually not more than “security guards”. I was very impressed with his courtesy and humbleness.
While helping Lurvelle with her three young models for their portfolio shoots, Kelvin Sim, Lester and Jacky joined in. Apart from rendering help, the presence of the three great guys made me feel heartwarming. It was good to hang out with people who were sincerity nice and had no secret agenda.
Mingfa’s youngest son, Elnathan, turned one year old. Weitat was too busy with his work could not make it down. Despite he was the main “organiser” for our usual outing, his absence did not hinder our trip down to attend the party. Gin, the great one took over the role and made arrangements. His timings were good and I was very impressed. Jingjie was another hero who actually took the trouble to ferry us (Gin, Bernard and I). It was an enjoyable trip with them to collect the cake for Mingfa. He also dropped me at Clementi MRT at the end of the day. Besides, it was illegal to stop at the bus-stop and Jingjie actually made a round by dropping me at the car park instead. Last but not listed, Jingkun also made his offer to fetch me from Bukit Batok, even though I took Jingjie’s car instead.
Mandy and Sharon Yeo were the hair and makeup artist and assistant during the couple shoot with Terry and Lynwen. They were very kind and easygoing, and also, literally strong. They rendered great helps during the shoot, including carrying of my heavy camera bag at times when we were shifting locations.
Terry, the man who made both Lynwen and I laughed throughout the shoot was the man who really made the shoot a success. Since the couple did not want any posing during the shoot, Terry had to make his wife smile in order to get natural photos. It was to the point that I forgot to snap photos while I was too entertained by him as well. He also gave us a treat at the end of the shoot.
During Christmas Eve, Gilbert asked me to go downstairs to meet him. I knew he was “up to no good” but gladly abide to his request. As expected, he passed me my Christmas present. While I had been spending all my time on work and photography, I did not leave any room to plan what to get for my friends during their birthdays and festivals. Gilbert was the only person who did not mind not receiving anything from me and instead, kept giving the little “smiles” and support that I needed.
While most of the time when I messaged Tricia Lee, it was for the sake of my photoshoot stuffs, she was glad to help me. Over time, guilt piled up but I continued to disturb her. She was always there for me, even during Christmas Eve.
It was Kachua’s wedding dinner, the sixth and last wedding for the last three months of year 2014 that I had to attend. Gim Young texted me and offered to give me a ride. Since he was staying in Holland Village, Orchard was actually very near his place. He ended up taking a much longer route to the hotel eventually because of me.

Spread the Love – November 2014

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Skai

It was my birthday month. Other than the advanced birthday present given by my best friend, Gilbert, my sister-in-law had given me a present – a bottle of perfume.
Max, the cute little dachshund, was migrating out of Singapore with his parents. His mum organised a farewell party for some of the closest sausage dogs and their parents. This Japanese lady was so generous that all the guests were very well fed with good human food in the pet friendly cafe.
It was Jingkun’s wedding month and he asked for playing of indoor volleyball for his “bachelor night” since we had not played on the court for years. Weitat ended up arranging for it by himself. He took the trouble to find an indoor volleyball court, paid for it himself and also gathered the large number of players.
Jingkun’s gate crash was in the early morning. Weitat had to work overnight and thus did not want to house me since it was quite inconvenient (I did stay over at his house before when we both teaching at ITE Clementi). Besides, he wanted me to rest properly on my own bed and not having to carry extra items (clothes, toothbrush etc) along. Therefore, instead of I took the trouble to travel to his place the night before, he actually drove over to my house to pick me up in the early morning. His place was nearer to Jingkun’s house and he had to wake up much earlier to travel all the way to central to pick me up and drive back to the west.
Tricia’s maid had left Singapore and she had finally decided that she was too jinxed to own a proper maid after changing around three to four of them within a year. She was very unlucky. Hence, she had become the new maid of the Foo family for the first time after over ten years of being a “tai tai”. Due to her detailed character, she became very busy. Despite this, she helped me to look through some of my photoshoot work.
While I was too cheapskate to get a flash band to tie my colour gel on the flash head, I thought of doing one by myself. To be honest, the main problem was I was afraid of getting a wrong one through eBay. With a mum who was working as a seamstress, other than having to live in a poor family, it was easy to get some rubber and sew one properly to cut cost.

Spread the Love – October 2014

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Skai

– My wrist rescuer
It had been long since I injured my right wrist due to an event shoot for JGC and the injury gave me problems during my Sunday volleyball games. I started by using my old wrist guard but it was bulky enough to prevent me from playing. Desmond lent me his wrist band and it helped a lot during the game play even though it was not as strong as mine. When I told him it was difficult to get the wrist band, he tried helping me to get one as well.
– Birthday came early
Gilbert asked me to go downstairs my house to pass me something. At first, I thought it was a souvenir from overseas since he had just returned from his holidays. After meeting him and receiving the small item, he told me it was because he was going overseas again the following week. It took me a few minutes to realise it was my birthday present.
The present was a piece of magnet with my photo on it. It was a brilliant gift, which I could do it for other friends in future. However, it also made me feel so guilty and helpless that I was not able to think of anything creative in return for him.

Fixing up the New Router

Posted on December 5, 2010 by S

[Tuesday, 30 November, 2010]

Right after settling the lighting at the front of the gym, all of us moved up to the second level to fix the webcam. However, it took us a couple of hours to give up before 3am. We left without packing up the place.

After reaching home, I was proud to present the new router that Bobby gave me to my elder brother. He started configuring it and we faced some problems at first until we switched the WEP encryption to WPA. I was so hungry that I took noodle for supper before collapsing. I continued with my blog and tuition agency website until 8am.

I woke up at 4pm and spent the rest of the day with my tuition agency website.

Early “Christmas” Birthday from Bobby – Router

Posted on December 2, 2010 by S

[Monday, 29 November, 2010]

I was quite exhausted when Yaozhong came online. I messaged him to ask him to review my new design for the tuition agency website and he asked giving suggestions. He even tried to help me to touch up the main topmask. I continued to work with the Home Tutor Singapore page and eventually went to sleep at 8am.

I woke up at 4pm and continued with my work. It was near 8pm when I was about to have my dinner, Tze Khit dropped me an SMS to go down to the gym to collect a present from Bobby. Since he told me to bring my laptop along, I thought it was just a hoax.

Anyway, I went down to the gym right after having my dinner and Bobby passed me a new set of Aztech N-wireless router with 300Mbps speed. I was stunned and my brain went numb. I supposed it was because I had been helping them with work and that was why I was worth the money. However, for as much as I was too awkward to demand for any fee for all the freelance work, the router made me feel uneasy. They were rich and successful people and I did not want to have anything to do with money when associating with them. If only I were a rich guy, I would return bigger presents to all my good friends but I could not afford anything at the moment.

Anyway, my laptop was useful for they indeed had some amendments to make for the flyer I did for them quite some time ago.

Bobby was busy for the entire night. He impressed me badly for he handled everything by himself. He certainly had the money to get professional helps to fix all the leakage of water, router and even lighting outside the gym. He knew everything. The led flashing lighting looked ugly though they did attract attentions. Anyway, when they were rejoining wires for the lighting, I recalled that during my national service days, I did learn about doing similar thing but I had forgotten the steps to do a proper one. Alas, I tried on one and realised it was more difficult since all the wires inside were very thin copper.

Elder Brother was back From Thailand

Posted on May 12, 2010 by S

[Monday, 10 May, 2010]

On Monday, my elder brother finally returned to Singapore from his Thailand trip. I was not sure if my mum was aware of the messy situations at Thailand but I was sure that she was very pleased since she had started waiting since before midnight and she came home from work earlier.

I was the happiest man after all because of the laptop backpack he and his girlfriend bought for me at Thailand. It was a nicely designed black colour compact bag and I would say that was the best bag I had ever owned even though I had not brought it out.

In the day, I started gearing up for another fleet of Facebook marketing. I would probably gather more arms first before striking. I started tidying up my blogs. Some alignment problems cracked my brain badly and finally I realised it was due to the size of embedded Youtube video.

It was an extremely boring day.

I went for a jog before midnight and was quite satisfied that my timing had improved by half a minute but the lower back was giving me some slight problems during the jog.

Mum’s Birthday and Setting up Tze Khit’s New Gym

Posted on April 27, 2010 by S

[Sunday, 25 April, 2010]

I reached home at around 4am after Weiye dropped me near my house. I went to withdraw money and three Malay guys approached me to transfer two bucks over to one of their bank accounts because he did not have enough money inside his account to withdraw the minimal amount. After the guy passed me the two dollars worth of coins, I felt quite unsafe. It was in fact very dangerous to do it since they would get to know my account number.

After reaching home, I got my mum to search for her birthday present which I placed on my younger brother’s table. After that, I gave her a hundred bucks. She was pleased with both the present and cash. I was satisfied with myself for the first time for getting a present which she liked. I was, however, still quite frustrated over getting Jingkun’s present since the volleyball group knew what they needed and would get everything by themselves; moreover, I had much different taste from them somehow.

I had late lunch with my brother and his girlfriend at Subway at Amara hotel. After that, we went up to the newly opened Sportslink shop at level three. We were not very satisfied with the prices of the stuffs even though they claimed everything was on sales. After that, I went to Tze Khit’s new gym to pay him a visit but he was not around. His colleagues and friends did not question me even though I stood inside for quite long before Tze Khit returned. Since my family was having early dinner, I did not stay there for long.

The couple and I went to Kampong Bahru Road. We decided on the coffee shop there so that my aunt would join us for the dinner since it was near her place. My mum came over with my aunt and we started ordering from the seafood stall. I knew I would be using quite a bit of strength at night and somehow my appetite was better than usual. The entire meal including the drinks cost me over forty bucks.

After reaching home, I cleared my email before going down to join Tze Khit at his gym. My first task was to get the six strong men dinner inclusive of twelve drinks. They suggested chicken rice but later, told me I could get them anything. It was already nine o’clock. I rushed over to Maxwell food centre and as I had expected, nothing there could really fill the six guys’ stomachs. I went to Chinatown Complex food centre but the chicken rice stall was closed. In the end, I went across the street to the shophouse to get the chicken rice. While waiting, I went to CK departmental store to get six cans of coke. I collected the food before going to Maxwell food centre to get six cans of cold drinks from the drinks stall. The uncle gave me a small packet of ice.

I realised I made a blunder in getting the food as I did not insist on getting breast meat. In the end, there were bones and Tze Khit hated the chicken wings. I remembered that the shop’s name consisted of “boneless” and thus I was too comfortable with them. At least, I was quite satisfied in myself for saving some bucks for Tze Khit by getting cheaper drinks. The rush to get the stuffs back fast weakened me quite a lot.

Tze Khit went home after having his dinner to get some stuff. I stayed behind to help fix up some of the gym machines. It was tedious to tighten up the screws. I almost thought the gym machines came in one piece until I went over to help out.

Some people would probably think I was stupid to spend my time helping others while I could at least spend the time playing game to relax myself even if I did not start looking for jobs. I thought the culture of helping one another should be spread because nobody knew he would need helps as well in future. Helping others did bring myself happiness.

Virgin Visit to St. James

Posted on April 27, 2010 by S

[Saturday, 24 April, 2010]

I had supper at Maxwell food centre with my family. The noodle was at quite reasonable price at two bucks each bowl. The iced lemon teas from both drinks stall were disappointing. The night was still young, or rather, the morning was too early.

I met up with Irwin in the afternoon at Vivocity. We went to Burger King where Irwin took his early dinner. I got a birthday present for my mum, which was a moving display plant, ran by solar energy. I was almost trapped at the Cannon shop, dwelling on the cool cameras, which I needed quite badly. Eugene joined us at White Dog Café and Irwin took his second dinner. I did not enjoy the fish and chips as much as previous time.

Next, we went to St. James. We tried the Smoke Lounge but only to sit around the bar since we had to open a bottle in order to get a table. We waited patiently for the live band while Irwin treated me to a glass of Singapore Sling. I did not really enjoy alcoholic drinks including cocktail. I tried to slip as much as I could but I could never catch up with Irwin’s speed.

During the band’s performance, an uncle in his white hair and polo tee stood right in front of the low platform to harass the sexily dressed Latin singers. I thought it was a good interaction until the second song started, the man went back to do the same disgusting actions of pointing to the girls and pinching his index finger and thumb together to form a hole. Irwin got very disgusted and ordered us to leave. Since I wanted to stay conscious, I did not bottom up the remaining of my drinks before leaving, wasting more than one-third of the drinks.

After that, we met up with Huiling and her boyfriend back at Vivocity. We went to one of the bars to chill while waiting for Weiye. He reminded me of Kachua’s happy-go-luckiness and I was so glad to see him after so many years since we graduated from secondary school. The couple left while the remaining four of us went to Party World to battle against each other. It was one of the few times I would heck care about my out-of-tone singing.

The Three Best Friends Met up after more than a Year

Posted on January 24, 2010 by S

On Sunday morning, I went to meet Gilbert and Peh for a swim at Ang Mo Kio. We were supposed to meet at 10am but I was late for half an hour. Nevertheless, I was still earlier than Peh, who arrived in his girlfriend’s van.

We started off chatting by the corner of the pool. It was crowded like usual and we went to the middle lap and slowly, shifted towards the other end. I stopped after the first lap to adjust my swimming trunk and proceeded on a non-stop swim for the next twenty-one laps. The two of them claimed that they took only ten laps.

Swimming was never as easy in the past for I was never able to keep my mind calm, dashing towards the end of the lane every lap; by the second lap, I would have drained myself like during competition. It was ever since I went swimming with my younger brother, I managed to give up every thought of trying to impress all the other swimmers around – his non-stop swim forced me to do it. By relaxing myself, saving strength for the next stroke after each pull, I was able to sustain my strength to swim at constant speed for uncountable laps.

Perhaps, I had been acting like a bull over certain jobs and tasks since young. I pushed myself without proper planning and I did not know my limit. Regardless of my own stuffs such as web building and playing sports, or helping of others, there were always times I took actions more than I used my brain.

Nonetheless, working beyond my limit was not totally disastrous, for at least it kept me fitter than many other people, except that I was plagued with injuries.

I was lucky to have a driver around for it saved me from quite a distance of walk. Peh sent Gilbert home to get changed before the three of us went to Ang Mo Kio Hub for our lunch. We went to “My Desert House” where we filled our stomachs while taking photos.

Peh could not join us for the walk in town for he had to meet his client, which was a letdown. He reminded me of the days when I worked as a property agent, which I considered “no life”. He was much luckier as a financial advisor now for at least he had his transportation somehow.

Gilbert rushed to Takashimaya to meet his friend before we started walking around, looking at expensive leather shoes that turned me off. We proceeded to Ion soon to shop for my jeans. I got him a pant as his belated birthday present at Uniqlo. He got me a polo tee at Topman and the cost was shared between him and Peh. Eventually, I still owed Peh two birthday presents, which was so pathetic of me.

I was completely destroyed soon for the lack of sleep, water and rest. Gilbert continued his journey to Cityhall to get his stuffs before going for Chingay rehearsal while I made my way home directly from Orchard MRT. I was thinking of going to Marina Barrage for a jog but I dropped onto the mattress soon after I cleared my email.

Dear Dreams

Skai Chan

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