This episode of Sarah Does Singapore is pretty action packed. In fact, this time there’s 10 co-stars plus 1 super special guest star!

The cast:

• Tiramisue + her brother
• Lovelypuddle
• Mintea + Pri
• Kentang Jambu
• Joelyn Alexandra
• Naddie
• 4DPencil
• Avariel

Guest starring: DUKE ORANGE!

When the day started, heh I figured what the title of the post would be considering the most of us are girls (except 4dpencil and Tiramisue’s brother). If you’re because of Dukey, his appearance is at the last bit of this post so you’d want to scroll there. For everyone else, the day started at Harbourfront MRT!

We got on the tram to Sentosa and kinda got lost in search for Victoria’s Secrets at the new Sentosa Resorts World area. There’s a huge Universal Studios globe there but unfortunately, the rides aren’t open yet so oh well. Anyway, after wandering for a bit, we found the information counter where the lady was dressed in a safari explorer uniform. If you look at the first pic, it’s past a set of escalators and then ANOTHER set of escalators, through the glass doors, to the left, past the casino and down.

We arrived 10 minutes before it opened at noon. Good grief. So we looked at the shop across it where they sold cosmetics and perfumes. Just a few minutes before opening, we stood in front looking at the flat screen TV that showed the runway models showcasing the line at VS and then a random middle aged man stood in front of us to stare at the screen too. It wasn’t a “Oh, this is interesting! A new shop!” kind of look, it was more of a pervy one instead and we just gave the =_= or face palm look at him.

The shop opened and hurray! Anyway, It’s only the girls for this part of the day, Tiramisue plus her brother came a bit later. The rest of us went in and checked out the goodies. It’s not very big and while they have the Pink line, they don’t have much range of lingerie of the bra type. Oh and there’s no changing room too. I hope they bring more stocks in the future since they just opened this recently.

Look awaaaay if you don’t like seeing girly underoos for the next three pictures.

Right, they have a few patterns for their paper bags depending on what size products you buy and oh, I have no idea if they’ve NETS or not since I didn’t see the machine for it. The lot of us pretty much paid with our credit cards or debit cards masquerading as credit cards since it has Mastercard on it. Anyway, after the VS bit, pitstop to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf! Kentang Jambu said goodbye to us after that since we were going to the Megazip adventure next!

Switching cast! 4dpencil met us here since he wasn’t for the VS adventure. To those who read and remembered last year at the Megazip Adventure Park, yesssss…. Tiramisue and I went there before it opened officially. It’s much more complete now!

For one thing, yes you still should book online if you want to go for the complete adventure! Okay, quick stats. Get the combo and you’ll do 1 level of climbmax, parajump and Megazip! Truthfully, one level of climbing is enough indeed.

I paid all the stuff before that day so they expected us and gave us our tags. Meanwhile, they have a proper system about the bags now! You put your belongings in a big blue bag and then they’ll tie it up and send it down to the bottom landing area once you finish the Megazip at the end! This is much reassuring and you don’t have to go back up the hill to just get your stuff and all.

Also, this time there’s MORE sizes to the harness so no squishy times for me in this episode. Sadly, there’s no lanyard for cameras yet even though they state it on their website. FORTUNATELY, I have asked this of them and have packed a few screw type carabiners because the Adventure Crew are cam whorey.

The procedure this time is as such: Get your tags, put your belongings in the bag, get yourself weighed there (for the Megazip requirements, under 50kg = tandem, max 120kg = single, over 120kg and you shouldn’t be doing this for safety anyway) and write/sign your name with contact number just in case, onwards to be briefed and to wear your harness!

Okay, the 4 of us who had the Megazip voucher from when we won during the Hatpy Party had a different combo from uh those who took the regular combo. We paid for Climbmax which was actually 2 levels of fun and the parajump plus the free Megazip due to the vouchers. Not much diff except that we got to do an extra level of climbing.

It made me go “WHY AM I DOING THIS?” in the second time I was climbing though because I did level 2 +3. Level 2 is okay but as usual, level 3’s rope dangly things which you can see in the photo is evil. So yes, one level of climbing is enough. Also, it was a hot day. Stupidly, I skinned my finger at the dratted part with the ropes there because I was in a rush! A rush to complete the course and get on the Megazip where we would finish everything so I can go see DUKE ORANGE. I usually don’t get skinned for ROPE adventures so that was very silly.

Oh yes, before I did the climbing, unlike last time the parajump was not under maintanence so we got to do it! HUZZAH! (Not to mention we paid for it in advance anyway.)

The parajump was scary.

Fun but scary.

Hahahahaaha, okay it’s not as scary as Forest Adventure’s last ending  which I won’t spoil you what it is exactly (I’ve done that at least twice and THAT one is very fun too) but the bit that’s scariest in parajump is not the landing, it’s the first step of getting off the platform and stepping into air. Once you just step off, it’s fun falling down to land safely below!

So it went like this for me: Parajump, the climbing and to end off things… THE MEGAZIP.

And then we all said goodbye to each other except for Joelyn and Tiramisue’s brother! We headed off to meet Avariel so we could get to… DUKE ORANGE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!

More more on the Megazip, you can check Mintea’s and Joelyn’s take on it since it’s their first time there.

Dum di dooo, met Avariel at the Flirting Point in front of the Singapore Arts Museum and off  we searched for the office where Duke Orange worked at as a performing artist. Don’t know who Duke Orange is? Tsk, tsk. Read here to see 10 reasons why he’s famous!

His minion showed us in and told us where his grace was! (All those romance trashy books are very useful in knowing what nobility to call.) Le squee! And thus, we petted him.

And then we stopped petting because we got refreshments! There was orange pudding too, heh. It was all very orange themed. Mind you, we got to the party quite late but there were still a lot of people!

We got to see pictures of Duke when he was first adopted and other random facts including a list of what his name should be before settling for Duke Orange! For those who don’t know, I asked and apparently he’s three years old! That’s 34 years old after I used a cat year calculator… Ooh my, you’re older than me, Duke!

To those wondering, Duke’s blingy collar is a present from Paw Glam! They do pretty collars for kitties and doggies. Well, if you have a huge husky then, well, I don’t know.

And then we petted him some more. BWURHURHURHUR.

We each got a goodie bag too! Oh and I did remember there was a stray kitty fund donation thing going on during his party so I donated some money too! (This is essential to the epilogue for this post. Yes, this post actually has an epilogue.) Before we left the party, I took a video for Raven Silvers since she was in Taiwan and couldn’t come, so here it is!

Hurray! And then we left… And that’s the end of the day. A really packed Saturday it was.

EPILOGUE

On the following Monday, the minion of Duke Orange had counted and recounted the funds that was collected during the party! This was the result:

I waited since the announcement was going to be at 5pm and that’s when I usually left from work, heh heh. (I come in REALLY early though.) If you want to watch Duke, his channel is actually here. Okay! ANTICIPATION, MUCH! How much was it in total?

After minion kept showing the sub totals, like the collection jar, the envelope of late comers (which I put in), the polaroid collection money and some secret bid on Duke thing, THE TOTAL WAS $851! YAY! In the meantime, you can notice Duke being all casual there as the announcement was typed out.

And then, the end. OH REALLY?

Yes, the end. Duke gave a satisfied look and that was it, back to his usually scheduled performance.

Hellooo, it’s been a while since I did this. Nonetheless! I figured I’d just focus on the comics that I’d go gah over more out of the lot in every shipment. Less picture editing then. Major spoilers for BtVS because I am all grah over the plotline.

• Girl Comics No. 1 (1 of 3)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer #33

Let’s start with Girl Comics No. 1! For those reading just the title, no it doesn’t mean that the comic features girl characters although they are inside the book. It means that these limited 3 issue series is done entirely by girls! Writers, pencillers, inkers etc. Actually, I’m not sure about the inker and colourist if they’re girls (whoops, if you are? Cause I can’t tell if it’s a gender neutral name). But anyway, the ladies of comics creation!

The intro to this anthology of stories by the ladies is pretty inspiring. Cause you know, it makes you feel that these girl heroines in stories do it because… Well, their speech sums it up! Try to name all of them if you can!

Anywho, lots of different art styles in this first issue. I quite like it since the storylines aren’t so typical and some characters make you go “OHHH” once you realize who they are. There’s about six different stories in here and in the first one (excluding the intro with the speech), Nightcrawler looks like Desire from Sandman, only you know, blue.

There’s also pages with info about some ladies of Marvel who worked there and they certainly created history! Overall, I liked this! I’d be getting the next two issues (hopefully, unless it sells out).

Firstly in Buffy the Vampire Slayer #33, Xander got to cheer up Buffy. No biggie, Buffy is Buffy. She’s got the whole “ARRGH, IT’S MY FAULT” thing going on and she’s currently getting all the powers from dead slayers and so yeah. Still, she’s being dramatic. It’s okay, Willow knows this too and got Xander to do the whole speech thing to B so up we go! B is happy, hurray or at least wanting revenge to stop all this Twilight nonsense and getting Giles, Faith and Andrew back.

Meanwhile, everyone from CSN and every other comic news website knows who the heck Twilight is.

THIS, this actually made me go, “What?” because he’s beating up Faith. Giles recognizes the voice but FAITH, she should have known too. If you follow the TV series or read fanfics or the wiki, Faith did save Angel (ha ha, spoiled you if you haven’t been spoiled yet) and GOT INTO HIS HEAD. This is so freaking weird for her not to know so.

And then Andrew helped to stop Angel smacking Faith by hitting him with a frisbee. This is pretty cool and Andrew-like. He may not have powers but he certainly would help his friends out. For Buffy/Faith fanficcers, there’s a point where B says that she can feel Faith hurting too, so haaaaaaa and off she goes to rescue them when waiting for Willow and Amy to finish a spell to find them.

Randomly, I did wonder how the heck did Andrew get all the gear and where from if he sneaked away?

Okay, the Buffy/Twilight fight. It’s… Oh man, ANGEL ACTUALLY READS TWILIGHT? He must have or he was being ironic! I would peg him as being ironic since I doubt he’d read it. Or so I hope.

Besides Xander, Willow actually has the best original lines in this issue.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH. This is so annoying. It’s all true lurve soul joining crap or something. It’s just so… AUGH.

Really.

Willow has the best lines in this issue. Also next issue is called “Them F#@%ing plus the true history of the universe”. There’s got to be explaining to do! For one thing, Buffy + any romancy love person = KABLOOEY. Now Angel is… GAAAAAAAAAAH. Well, there has to be a good reason or else I hope that Faith is gonna smack his face if Buffy doesn’t any more. I half expected that THIS Angel was a hoax but we don’t really know… ARGH, we’ll see.

Okay! I read via Yahoo News (that took from Channel News Asia) this:

SINGAPORE: Singapore citizens who have yet to check their names in the Registers of Electors are advised to do so before next Monday. (That’s 8 March by the way.)

That is the last day for making claims and objections to rectify any errors in the Registers.

The Elections Department said about 13,000 names have been checked as of Monday, since the registers opened for inspection on February 23.

It has received 12 claims and two objections.

Ninety—three applied to be restored as voters.

There were also 619 applications for registration as overseas electors.

Registration as overseas electors is ongoing.

Okay. So I was reading that short bit there and was thinking, “Huh, okay HOW DO I DO THAT? Like there’s no info on it”. Thus, it’s a simple thing of doing a websearch.

They have a website! You can log in at http://www.elections.gov.sg/. Either using your NRIC or your Singpass. I checked my info and it was pretty easy and correct.

Just check the info there on who can vote and how to do so. It’s thankfully pretty understandable!

Yeah, click there and that’s it. Considering you’re reading this online, I’d think you want to do this online. If not, you can check the list of physical inspection centres for the register in this list. If it’s all good, that’s it! If not, quick! Settle it before next Monday.

Co-stars of this episode includes: Avariel and Mintea.

Now, this episode had me thinking, should I write nicely or should I just say it as it is in Sarah form. Hmmm. And when I mean nicely, I mean in a semi generic manner without putting my take on it. However, then it wouldn’t be a Seriously Sarah posty so HECK THAT. New readers, those who don’t know my style, note that being ridiculous and chic-lity is my forte so that’s what you’re going to get. Oh for a MORE comprehensive general outlook for this event, Mintea has posted here.

This is all going to blow up in my face somehow sooner or later since I’m involved book-wise here and in the end, I’m SO gonna see these people once more but eh, whatever man. It’s not mean… Just CHIC-LITTY once you read what I mean.

SUPER WARNING: This is gonna be wordy as all heck.

The registration for All in! Young Writers Seminar at The Arts House actually started at 9.30am and I arrived that just a little before that which was pretty sad since I DIDN’T EAT ANYTHING IN THE MORNING. I thought, “Heh, maybe I’ll get something from Earshot Cafe or something” but uuugh, that opens at 11am(??) and that Avariel and Mintea were there telling me that it was going to start later. Well gee. Okay, that’s alright at least we were all early and not late!

I registered at the counter and then got a blue plastic file with the programme schedules and the bios of the speakers for the day including some paper for us to use to take notes with. Unfortunately (or fortunately considering my lack of breakfast?!) the first speaker of the day for the plenary session : Writing and the New Media: Redefining the Author/Reader/Text Relationship was cancelled as the speakers couldn’t make it due to something.

Alright, the first session was cancelled, no biggy and thus the organizers were nice enough to tell us that we could go and have the tea first while setting up for the concurrent sessions instead. The concurrent sessions were: The Age of Blogging – “Why We Write: The Future of Content-Creation” by Ivan Chew and Lucian Teo and Comics by Otto Fong and Jerry Hinds.

I stuck around for the Age of Blogging since I didn’t need to go for the comics panel.

For seriously, I’ve been to quite a bit of them and it’ll be like a rerun for me.

So thus after tea, it was time to sit down to listen to Ivan and Lucian!

I made sure not to wear something obvious for that day, like to show who the heck I was but MISSION FAILED! Ivan spotted me. BWUAHAHAHA. Oh yeah, actually I pretty much knew the info for the whole day but just that I wanted to see what were the discussions or questions asked since it was a young writers seminar.

What do these young writers want to know?

Not to be TOO utterly braggy but when I read the programme contents I was like, “Huh, I could actually do a panel at this seminar” but then I don’t think I could because I might be evil. OH before I go on, I’d like to say ALL the speakers were pretty good in giving advice to the audience and they are so nice and tactful and understanding.

And I mean REALLY, they’re good and nurturing.

No one’s paying me to say this but this should be a great hint of how evil I could be if I did a panel. Well, not that evil since I’d be polite enough to answer questions and people have asked me questions before so I’m not that evil, DON’T LET THIS CHANGE YOUR MIND IF YOU WANNA INVITE ME TO GET ON A PANEL.

Um, right.

Anyway back to Ivan/Lucian’s panel. They talked more about Creative Commons and other ways on how collaboration online could work and how blogging is like a way you can also showcase your stuff AND have other people helping out etc. Basically, don’t knock off blogging or online collaboration before you try it, mmkay? Soooooo many comments I could say when they presented but I was being a good girl plus, when I looked at the audience, I knew that I was going to be in for a ride.

For that guy was there.

The guy who asks rambling questions that I can’t get the gist of unless I wrote them down and disappears after eating the food.

In fact, he’s the reason why I have a “Please ask me questions in 10 words or less” policy because I’m a ditz who can’t remember long questions unless they’re written down. (I can answer long questions when it’s written but I can’t do it when it’s asked audibly because I’ll FORGET.)

In the midst of their panel, Ivan or was it Lucian, well one of them asked the audience who wanted to be a writer when they graduated and a bunch of them raised their hands up. The following question was something to the point of who wants to make money out of their writing or live on it or something and they raised their hands up too.

MAIN POINT IS THAT THE THREE OF US WERE TRYING NOT TO LAUGH EVILLY BECAUSE WE WERE SO FREAKING CYNICAL.

As stated, this was a young writers seminar and really, we could see hope bubbling in their eyes  as they confidently raised their hands up when asked that question. Joelyn says it best in the blog post here regarding the matter actually.

Some of the audience, I knew were gonna be trampled when the harsh realities of being a writer once it hit them with a 2 by 4 while the others I knew in that bunch were gonna be stubborn people who’ll make it work somehow. Still, tsk tsk, to think we were young and full of dreams back then like the young writers there and now we’re  the cynical biyatches of literature.

Hmm, that sounds like a good band name somehow.

We still write and want to make those dreams true but ya know, still cynical.

Anywho, the questions after the presentation that were most memorable for me for this panel was about copyright and creative commons. Check out what CC can do for you, it’s like giving people specific permission to use your stuff.

Next up was lunch so the three of us hit Funan to have some sandwiches at Delifrance. After lunch was a plenary session called New Media and Creativity – the Great Leveller? by Paul Rae.

It was interesting in a sense that it was to engage the audience into thinking, are all these media things actually good for us?

For sure we have access to Wikipedia and such information at our fingertips but do we actually use it?

Kinda like does hoarding books make us smarting if we don’t read it properly? So indeed, it was also a session that informed us how the use of spreading info with the use of  media helped in the past, present and perhaps how it could be in the future. So it’s like the pros/cons of how media could work.

And then another tea break! Amusingly that guy disappeared after the first session so oh well! Next concurrent session was about Online Journalism by Ravi Philemon and Quak Hiang Whai and Publishing and the New Media by Lance Ng and Sean Elwell-Sutton.

The three of us went for Publishing and the New Media.

I am so glad I went to that one even if I knew the contents of their talk.

Mr Darcy Sean is on the most left while Lance is on the most right. Just so you know they’re both publishers, Sean manages the digital publishing solutions for education and language teaching products for Cambridge while Lance is a romance book publisher at Renaissance while looking like a romance hero himself.

So Mr Darcy Sean presented about new media and the future of publishing in regards to the whole Kindle issue and electronic formats of books. It wasn’t specifically about ebooks but he did present about what more can be available too as they also publish online educational games.

OKAY SO I KINDA FORGOT WHAT HE SAID, OKAY?

I know he was talking about something something ebook contents and that their main staple of publishing is academical books and that Cambridge has been around for hundreds of years and they know what they’re doing. Also that it was informative and stuff that I knew from reading articles about e-publishing.

What I remembered was:

Ha ha, Cambridge, that’s kinda in the UK… Like where Mr Darcy is. He looks kinda like Mr Darcy and he’s a publisher. That’s so hot. I wonder how it would be like the scene where Mr Darcy comes out of the lake but more like the Lost in Austen version since I’m a modern day girl. This is inappropriate to think in a writing panel. I should pay attention. Oh here’s Lance’s turn now!

Right.

Okay, his presentation, I remembered because he had a power point! I remember things when they’re written down more also for the fact that he actually did state to the audience the process of how publishing works here. This was very good since what he said was SO totally true.

Heck, if you were wanting to know how to publish a book in Singapore, his presentation was pretty much it. Well, it’s actually the same thing what I’d answer so it was good he lay it out in a tactful way of saying, don’t quit your day job, if you want to write, WRITE but you won’t make the big bucks yet.

It was a process of manuscript to distributor and to post distribution. Since he’s a publisher, he did get reactions from his own writers that they’re too shy to go on tours around and book signings and such and to ME that’s appalling (of course to him also).  See, you actually DO need to go around to doing this and not be “shy” since you’ll need to be marketable else heck, who’s gonna publicize for you?

You may be a writer but after writing your story, it doesn’t just end there for you. There’s still much work to be done after that. You want to know more, go check out his website with the guides there. Just know it’s a tough stubborn process to get your book out and I know it from my experience too.

And then I zoned out and thought of dragonboat rowers paddling up next to Mr Darcy and how this would all fit in a romance book.

WELL, I PAID ATTENTION TO THE IMPORTANT BITS ANYWAY.

Then it was the last bit of the day with a discussion forum entitled: Career Options for those with Writing Skills and Aptitude to Write. I had no idea what this one was going to be about because remember? Cynical much?

Though vaguely, I was sure you can make money out of some freelance work in writing since yes, some of us do that but besides that? In Singapore… Not so much unless you wanna be a journalist or copywriter etc.

This session had Koh Juat Muay, Chua Hong Koon, Adibah Isa and Anita Prakash.

It was good because they laid it out what the options were and in the end, it summed up to: Don’t quit your day job. Well for fiction anyway. Anita Prakash was so good at this since she did say it logically to the audience who were those bubbling hopeful things that they needed to be sensible and all for our current market etc. You can do it but you need money to support yourself still.

Oh and that writing would still be a good skill for you in any type of job related to media or whatever. I agree with this because you still need your communication skills and it would win over anyone who has none at all. Lastly, there was just a tiny bit from Adibah that if you wanted to write travel stuff, go check out Guide Gecko, hahahah!

In the end, nothing I didn’t know since after all, it’s a young writers seminar for those who didn’t know nothing at all. It’s a VERY good seminar for beginners to know what on earth the obstacles they’re going to face. I hope to those who went, well it’ll equipt them with the knowledge that they’ll be facing that 2 by 4 of a reality plank to the face and they’ll be able to roll with the punches as they get on with their dream of being writers.

I’m mixing metaphors but heck that, write on, right on!!

Newsflash: Apparently not everyone got the eflyer etc about this but anyway, catch Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet In Heaven and more on 26th February (day of this post):

Location: {prologue} Ion Orchard level 4

Time: 1pm

Also, if you’re the first 50 people from 12pm, you get a complementary {prologue} welcome pack (ONLY with proof of purchase of his books from any Popular/Harris/{prologue} store). Also enjoy 20% discount of his books OR get a 2 for 1 for these titles: The Five People You Mean In Heaven, Tuesdays With Morrie and For One More Day. ONLY on the 26th Feb.

Can’t come in the afternoon due to work? IT’S OK.

Catch him at:

Location: Kinokuniya Ngee Ann City

Time: 7pm

EDIT: TOUGH LUCK! The sources said it was yesterday and they sent out the wrong info. SO, just 1pm today only!

That’s it for the 26th. If he has any other appearances after this date, well it’s probably for private events or something around here.

The first ever Design Society Conference (of Singapore) was in January this year. It was held at the National Library, drama centre which is pretty much the 3rd floor as you can plainly see from the sign.

Tickets for members were $25 and $50 for non-members. Well for now, membership is free. I got the programme for the day and also a book magazine thingy!

I took this picture in the auditorium so it’s pretty dark. See the circle thing on my hand? Hahaha, it’s a red stamp once you get in and show your ticket.

So the day technically started at noon with the emcee being Graham Perkins. The sessions featured Lim Sau Hoon and Jay Phua from 10AM Communications, Lim Chong Jin the deputy director of  project and capability development in Temasek Polytechnic School of Design, HUNK Studio, Kelley Cheng from The [Press] Room, Kun of Make Studios and Theseus Chan of WERK Magazine.

Considering it’s the first conference by the Design Society, it was pretty crowded! The audience filled the upper floors too.

The talks were pretty interesting, Kelley Cheng inspired me to make my own magazine or periodical. Well, eventually anyway since I have been meaning to do so. Kun was pretty amusing too and heck, everyone in the panels from the start to the end of the day was pretty informative.

Considering this was a design event, those on twitter would have notice me saying that it’s the only place where you’d find people wearing so much black besides a funeral. Or that there was an unspoken dresscode there. Jeans and any monochromatic top. There was of course colour in the audience but really, majority of the people there were wearing jeans and any monochromatic top. Like I did too… Haaaa.

Well, the sessions ran a bit late because there were quite a bit of questions and that the panelist were very engaging when they showed us their works and problems they faced for a particular project or so. There’s too much of it to summarize because it was an experience you need to learn for yourself if you’re interested in design. Heh, best sign up as a member at the Design Society and perhaps whenever the second conference comes about, you can attend it too.

Okay I forgot the exact name of this exhibition but it showcased the 100 most memorable symbols/logos in Singapore. The opening ceremony for the exhibition was after the conference ended. So to sum it up, the whole conference was pretty good! I’d go to the next one whenever they have it. We must indeed increase design knowledge in Singapore.

Or at least enough so that people know what designers exactly do and what they can’t do in terms of being freaking psychic to read the minds of wibbly clients who don’t know what they want.

Um, right. ANYWHO, Design Society, wooooooooh.

Hullo, hullo indeed! Science Chronicles 2010 is a science fiction writing competition! Only thing is that it’s not for everyone but more for students. Nonetheless, if you’re 18 and under and currently in Singapore, check it out! Oh, currently it says nothing about poly students but we’ll see since I hit them up with a question on that. Deadline is 11 April 2010.

There’s 2 categories for students to be exact. They are:

Category A:

• Secondary 3 and 4 students
• IP schools year 3 and 4 students
• 15-16 years of age international students studying in Singapore

Category B:

• Junior College 1 and 2 students
• IP schools year 5 and 6 students
• 17-18 years of age international students studying in Singapore

Here’s the brief rules/outlines. For more details check their website here.

EDIT: Polytechnic students are qualified to enter this! They replied to me via email so just make sure which age category you’re in.

Essays must be:

• Typed in English
• Font type: Arial
• Font size: 12 point
• 1.5 line spacing
• 1 inch margin on all sides and A4 page setting

Administrative Procedures

• Do not write your name on any part of the manuscript, other than on the cover page.
• Online submissions will be made available from 5 February 2010.
• Have a separate cover page for your name, title of your essay and name of school.
• Write the title of your essay at the top right hand corner of each page of your manuscript.
• State the total number of words written at the end of your manuscript.
• Number each page of your manuscript.
• Complete the on-line entry registration fields during submission of manuscript.
• Attach your manuscript in either Word Document or a PDF copy of Word Document.
• Each entry should have between 1,500 words to a maximum of 3,000 words.

Okay part 2, the unstitching! I had no idea what was going to happen. I mean, sure, I knew that they were going to take the stitches out but I had no idea how they were going to do it. Like, what tools or whatever will they use to take it out?

So it took around less than 15 minutes. The whole process of unstitching, that is. I went to the clinic early so I had to wait quite a bit. I was under subsidized if you remember from my first part of The Tooth Fairy Maths. The dentist was pretty nice and unwrapped the sterilized tools as I sat on the chair.

Well, unstitching was pretty much it. He used tweezers and a small scissor-like tool to remove them. They were pretty sharp looking so don’t go moving around too much. Bit by bit, he snipped and removed the unneeded sutures (he used that word to an assistant dentist since he needed her to help with the light since the last bit was pretty hard to get). It just made me ache a TINY bit cause he had to remove the sutures way in the back due to the wisdom tooth and then that was it!

THE END.

Until the next tooth checkup or something. I don’t feel too weird now with the stitches removed but it’s getting back to normal.

This is pretty much a list of books I’ve read so far. At least from what I remember since I figured I might as well see what books I read in a year. There’s a meme going on back then in my friends list in another online blog about reading 100 books in a year but I definitely went over that.

Too many books to hotlink to their amazon/author pages so just check it out on your own if you think it looks interesting. This is just a list, not a review but if you want to know more, you can always comment to ask about any of the specific titles.

The list so far:

1. Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot
2. Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley
3. Magic in the Shadows by Devon Monk
4. Miss Woodley’s Experiment by Katherine Greyle (I reread this cause it was nice and I read it just a FEW days before the end of 2009 so I’m counting it in this list.)
5. No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Crap. I forgot the rest! I read some other fantasy books besides that list. Arggh, nevermind! I’ll just continue onwards next time and write the titles somewhere.

Just a reminder for those going to the Young Writers’ Seminar that it is this Saturday! Don’t be late for those who have registered! And if you want to say hello to me, I’ll be there sitting around with some of the writer crew being not so obvious. Hopefully so anyway.

This was a slightly impromptu adventure. Well, in reality, it was just after episode 1.5 of SDS since it was the same day. Heh. We were heading towards Rowell Road to check out the Post Museum there (exact address is 107/109 Rowell Road). It’s not really a museum but more of a building with independent arty stuff or whatever events that decide to rent the exhibition area for the day.

It was quite a walk since from Farrer Park MRT station, we needed to get to the other end of Rowell Road. Like REALLY the other end. It’s not that far but eh… There’s quite a few interesting sites there and stuff that we didn’t know about that would actually appear in the afternoon. Um, indeed.

Anyway it was the Really Really Free Market day at the Post Museum. It was like a flee market but free! As in really, EVERYTHING was free there.

It depended on who contributed with the free stuff. There were books, clothes, manga… Etc. Also free organic toothpaste and coffee.

You could actually contribute too in giving away things you don’t need that are still good to use. We pretty much took the toothpaste given to use including the jars of coffee and I took a Harry Potter bookmark somewhere from in the room.

If you went even further in, there were tarot services, a person teaching Weiqi and a health screening. It was very bohemian in a way. It was interesting, we haven’t been to places like these before. In any case, we wanted to hit the cafe since it was a pretty hot day and we needed drinks!

It’s just next door really. After we took some stuff from the free market (and donated to the jar thing near the door) we got a table at Food#03, it’s a vegetarian/vegan cafe.

Mintea and Raven figuring out what to get while Avariel and I are sitting opposite them. Heh, in the end we got the house tea which tastes pretty interesting in a minty/lemongrassy way with a lychee in it. After that, we ordered Bundaberg’s lemon and bitters except a ginger beer for Mintea. We totally camwhored here. They two of them are looking nonchalantly cause I asked them to and it didn’t look like Singapore when you were in the cafe. It’s just totally… THE PLACE for artists and stuff like that!

Since we freaking walked all the way and did want to sit down for quite a bit to check the place out, we ordered a grilled vege pizza with vegan tofu topping instead of mozzarella. It’s really yummy and sheesh, the rest didn’t try out tasty vegan food until now. WELL, now they have! It’s quite good and oh… The main reason to scope out the place? It’s to check out the studio area since they’re leasing it out for rental. However, you need to have an appointment to check that out. Nonetheless, we also wanted to know the exhibit area since THAT one is pretty cheap rental and would be good for book launches and other stuff too! So yesss, support this place, pleaaase since it’s so cool and I don’t want it to disappear! It’s held up by donations and stuff currently so yeah, have a little visit to the cafe. It’s like something out of an indie movie.