In The Mood For Blogging

Three in a row, to make up for lost time. I'm a sucker for scenes like this. I just love shadow and light, especially when the shadows produce an interesting form, like this one I shot at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) when I was there on an assignment. Sunlight reflected off the windscreen of a small car produced this interesting and rather dramatic effect. I was busy taking pictures of a wall instead of concentrating on the assignment at hand and I'm sure the people there were wondering if I ought to be a patient at IMH.

Meg turns 6!!!

The little one turned 6 at the end of July. She finally got her princess cake which cost me a whopping $105!!! She's been asking and asking for it since she was 3 and we finally relented cos this is the last year she'll be able to celebrate her birthday with cake cutting in class. Needless to say, she was super thrilled and had a tough time dozing off to sleep the night before. We'd always told her that the princess cake was expensive and there was no need for one when a simpler, cheaper one would suffice. We also tried the "less fortunate children who could not even celebrate their birthdays, let alone have a fancy cake" line. We tried to impress upon her that having a fancy cake was not important as it could be the source of envy for the other kids who might not be able to afford one. I must say the poor girl tried her utter best to understand our point but at the end of the day, she's just a kid and all she really wanted was her Disney princess cake. We figured we could instill the moral and social obligations later and gave in to her this one time. And then in the classroom next door to hers, we saw another boy celebrating his birthday with a handful of his five or so friends attending the extra curricular Chinese class. His cake was about 20cms long by 10cms wide, and the affair was a small one. Of course that made us feel worse...

A Minor Accident

My first reaction - like most people, I believe - was, "Oh S&*^"! The second was, "OMG is the guy hurt?" as I saw him tumble off his motorbike, landing on the ground. Before I could verbally or physically react, the chap was up on his feet, tugging at his motorbike, which was partially trapped under the left side of my car bumper. I had to reverse my car a little to allow him to fully pull his bike out and in a flash, he sheepishly raised his hand to motion a 'sorry', got onto his bike and rode off.
This happened on Tuesday at a busy traffic junction along a main thoroughfare known as Jln Tebrau in Johor Bahru. I was on my way back to Singapore after visiting my friend Lea and her baby, Yuxin.
It was my first mini accident with the Subaru. The whole incident was over in 30 seconds. I did not even react to the rider. I was expressionless mostly because it happened so quickly, and cos I was more concerned that no one was hurt. I suspected that the damage was just a scrape and not a major dent, judging from the noise I'd heard when he bumped into me.
I was preparing to move off when the traffic light turned green, and suddenly, out of nowhere appeared this motorbike which swerved into my path from the left and as I put the car in motion, clipped his bike and pinned it down. There was no way I could've avoided it cos I didn't see him until it was too late. I didn't even think to get out to ask for compensation of any sort, not that I would be successful in getting any, I suspect. The rider seemed ok, since he sprang from horizontal to vertical positions rather quickly and was concerned with making a quick getaway more than anything else.
So the best thing to do was just to drive off and not hold up traffic. The guy obviously knew he was in the wrong cos he acknowledged it, and sped off quickly to avoid having to face up to any sort of compensation.
Ah well, these things happen. Luckily no one was hurt, and I was in time to pick Meg up from school. Only later when I inspected the damage did I feel a little regretful cos it looked bad enough.
My last thought was, "thank God I'm not driving a Golf!"