Saturday, February 03, 2007

i see that we haven't been updating on our lives for a little while now. i shall take the lead and hopefully more will follow (:

wednesday was the first time i became the mastermind behind a vlog. we were supposed to interview two guys who had their own vlog - the tim and ben show - and i suggested making the interview episode 3 of their vlog. so we had the stomp crew filming while we asked questions frm behind the cam. cool huh? the guys were very sporting given how we dropped the bombshell abt the filming roughly fifteen minutes before they arrived for what was supposed to be an interview. if you're interested check them out at www.timandben.blogspot.com to catch their first 2 episodes.

thursday i went to the autism resource centre. a pretty little place housed in pathlight school, a school for autistic children run by the centre. it made me feel safe and welcome the moment i stepped in, because of the lovely wooden covered walkway, the playground surrounded by a short fence, the many plants, the students' artworks on display, the boxes marked out by tape on the assembly ground floor, the cabinets outside classrooms for students to put their bags in, and the peace and quietness of the grounds.

i spoke to their president ms denise phua. and didn't realise she was actually an MP and a full-time volunteer (doesn't get paid a cent) until she told me later. must have looked like the most ill-informed journalist ever. but she was a really nice lady, as was everyone i met there. i got a free t-shirt and cards designed by the children. and enjoyed a lovely nasi lemak for lunch at the cafe run by their students. i'm determined to write a good article for them. this journalist can be bribed by goodwill heehee.

friday was the day i made my first big mistake. i covered the shaw hongbao giveaway in the morn (really really boring non-event) and since my editor wasn't in when i went back to the office i didn't debrief her right away and promptly forgot all about it. until later when i was on a ship docked at raffles marina (more later) doing another interview and two editors called and said they couldn't find my story. cos i hadn't written it yet. and i was holding up the page cos everything else had alr been done.

so followed the fastest article i had ever written, 15 min of frenzied scribbling in the capt's rm (only quiet spot). luckily kym was in the office and could type it out for me while i dictated over the phone. thank goodness for kym. (: lucky too that it was a short and boring article that didn't need agonizing over.

on the bright side i got to tour the SV Concordia! it's a floating campus for 48 lucky students who spend 4-5 months sailing around the world and docking at 20 over ports of call. it's aimed at college prep students and they're big on experiential learning. so if you're taking marine biology you get to see whales and dolphins, and catch your own plankton. how cool is that. the only downsides were the cramped quarters, no internationally recognised exams available and the super expensive fees.

and the other silver lining today was when my editor (a third one) decided to hold over my article so i didn't have to camp out at the office while waiting for the graphics people. so i went home at the relatively early time of 2130, instead of some unearthly hour like 2am.

saturday i went back to the office to interview a parent and her autistic child cos they couldn't make time on weekdays. nice people all over again. trooped to j8 to get orange socks, then to roxy square for a haircut. boy do i miss being a student - i paid $13 ($2 extra for cny period) instead of last year's 8. also bought three lovely lovely slices of banana pie from the divine dona manis cake shop in katong mall. and returned home to bake choc chip and raisin muffins. lesson of all time - never substitute sour cream with oil and milk. bad bad bad decision. it makes your muffins not rise and rather oily. so they're more like cupcakes than muffins.

dinner will be in five minutes. me is a contented girl. (: