Every year, Mind Stretcher (Tuition Centre) will celebrate and recognize the achievements of their students in the hope that these prizes can be an inspiration for the students to continuously improve and soar to even greater heights in the years to come. Students who achieve a certain Achievement Level (AL) in PSLE will be eligible for the awards. Following is the programme and this virtual event was conducted via Zoom.
Based on Javier's PSLE results, he's eligible for the awards which consists of $250 cash and a $150 Mind Stretcher voucher. Though the event was held virtually, all the students had to wear their current school uniform and sit through the 2+ hours event. While attending the event, Javier was busy finishing up his homework.
Once again, congratulation to Javier and all the award recipients!
Over the past few months, Jerlene has participated in a music programme called "Songwriting for Hope @ Bowen", which is organized by Esplanade, in partnership with Diamonds on the Street. Songwriting for Hope is one of Esplanade’s ongoing community engagement programmes that harnesses the power of songwriting to provide a safe and empathetic outlet for reflection, expression and healing. The programme enables vulnerable youths to express their life stories, emotions, hopes and dreams through songs.
Today marks the end of the programme and the showcase was held at Esplanade Theatre. With the guidance of her buddy who is a volunteer, Jerlene wrote the following song lyrics, with the song title "Find My Own Light". Seeing the words, it seems to reflect the same thought within me when I was at her current age. All I can say is that, Jerlene, I understand how you feel.......
Recently Javier had published his newest project "Azurus" on the Scratch platform and immediately got into the trending list. In less than a week, the project had already garnered more than 30K views. This is an improvement over his previous project "Fish Up", which was also very popular among the Scratch community.
He had spent about a month creating this project and we are very glad that his effort was all worthwhile. This is a tile scrolling game that requires the use of keyboard. Due to that, he had received quite a lot of feedback asking him to produce a mobile friendly version. I am in fact one of his followers and based on insider info, I can announce that he's currently working on a new project which is mobile friendly. So stay tune! :-)
"The Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Art Exhibition is an annual event organised by the Ministry of Education to provide students with opportunities to showcase artistic talents and to promote art appreciation in schools. The exhibition celebrates the artist in every student and signifies access to art for every student in the art curriculum in schools. The 2022 exhibition features artworks from Secondary schools, Junior Colleges and Millennia Institute."
As such, Javier and his classmates came together recently and created a Stop Motion Animation to submit to this event. Stop motion animation (also called stop frame animation) is animation that is captured one frame at time, with physical objects that are moved between frames. The basic process of animation involves taking a photograph of an object, moving it slightly, and taking another photograph. When you play back the images consecutively, the object appears to move on its own. Movies such as "Chicken Run" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" are in fact stop-motion animated movies.
Below is the animation created by Javier and team.
This year's exhibition theme is "Artist and Sustainability", which is why the animation above is about saving marine life. I find that it's quite nicely done, especially in such a short time. Hopefully their artwork will be chosen to be presented for public view at National Museum Singapore. All the best!
After picking Javier up from MOELC, we drove to Bishan Sports Hall which is just next door. Tracy introduces us to a restaurant called Good Bites which served pasta, burgers, baked salmon, thai dishes and many more. We did not make a reservation as we did not know this place is so popular. We waited for about 20 mins before we got a seat in the cafe.
The dishes are great and below were what we ordered.
In 2 days' time, Javier will turn 13 so this is an early birthday dinner for him! :-)
We wanted to try some new place for our lunch today and I decided to take a look at New Tech Park @ Lorong Chuan. I heard from colleagues that there are quite a number of good dining place there. The place has a very huge carpark which is very empty during weekend. Though it's a business building, the eating place is like a little mall. We walked one round and decided to go for Tim Sum at Clan 7 restaurant. This restaurant looks a bit "high class" but the price is quite ok, after the 40% discount for Tim Sum with a min spend of $40.
After lunch, we bought some drinks from FiNE Tea (找茶!) before driving home. Another makan place checked! :-)
We had some great fun today before school holidays end in a few days' time. First we had an adventure at Lost Escape Room where we tried out the game "Exodus". We spent 60 mins trying to escape from one room to another using our observational skills, analytical and logical reasoning as well as lateral thinking. Eventually we were at the last puzzle before the 60 mins was up. It was really fun.
After which, we went to Punggol Golf Range to hit some balls.
As usual, our dinner was at the TenderBest restaurant located just next to the golf range. We were there quite early but the place was filling up with people very quickly.
Now that our nation is slowly moving into the endemic phase, hopefully we will be able to travel overseas in the next school holiday. :-)
Both Tracy and myself had already taken our booster jab. Jerlene and Javier will be taking theirs today at Serangoon North CC. I registered for them today because it's the start of the 1-week March school holiday. So even if they feel unwell the next few days, we will not be missing any lesson.
After the vaccination, I brought them to a nearby cafe (Kooks Creamery) for some ice-cream. We passed by this place many time but have not tried it till today. As we were all very anxious to try out the ice cream, we missed the chance to take some pictures of it. By the time we realized, it's all very messy. Lol....
It was pouring heavily in recent days and today seems the worst. While we were driving home from our lunch place, we passed by a road where the water level went above the center of our car's wheel. We had to drive very slowly through that stretch of road. It's the first time Jerlene and Javier had experienced such a "ride".
Tracy was tested positive this morning after having flu symptom. Immediately, the rest of us (Jerlene, Javier and myself) proceeded to do our own ART test and fortunately, we were all tested negative.
Tracy then started her isolation in the bedroom. For the coming week, we will all be wearing masks at home when walking around. As Jerlene and Javier are worried that they may get infected, they have decided to wear masks even while sleeping. :-)
Both Tracy and myself were pretty busy at work recently but today we managed to take a short break for our Valentine's Day lunch @ Wimbly Lu. We have come here quite a few times in the past and we both love the dishes.
Today is my mom's birthday and we had a small celebration at my sis's place. Due to the current covid restriction, I alone was there representing my family. Hopefully all these restrictions can slowly be relaxed as we moved into the endemic phase.
This afternoon I went 拜年 at my cousin's place which is opposite of Javier's current school, TJC. From the living room, I was able to have a good view of the entire school compound.
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