http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/cna/20090520/tap-461-singapores-all-women-team-succes-231650b.html

My initial elation upon reading the headlines of this article was swiftly replaced with one of anger and indignation by a comment by a staff from Republic Polytechnic, David Lim. I quote here his words, "It really represents that if women put in the time and effort and they set their objectives right, they can achieve things on par with men."

I put this in here to remind myself why I hate Singapore. The gender bias in the country is so worked into the nation that the media actually printed his quote thinking it was an encouragement. Fiddlesticks! It couldn't have been more disparaging and condescending in the midst of such victory.

Yes, I hate the Singapore culture. The rampant pompous attitudes and false modesty that has become so innate that the people do not even realize what they are or have become. The Singapore life is like a matrix that has been created for the people by the people. And no, the government is not to be blamed. Foreign media can criticize all they want about us having a socialistic government, but really, the people were the ones who chose to live that way. The government didn't force them to do anything they didn't want. The people chose to live their lives dictated because they believe in that style of management.

True socialism in a country would not have allowed its citizens to leave. But the Singapore government has not once ever stopped any citizen from leaving. If anything, they'd established diplomatic ties and pushed hard for the Singapore passport to have easy access to all countries in the world so its citizens need not fuss for visas to travel.

On that account, Singapore is definitely not socialistic. It's a free country. Free for its citizens to leave if they didn't like the management and free for any country's degree-holders (I must qualify that it's only degree holders that we want!) to enter! And plenty are coming. People choose their way of life.

Those who do not like the Singapore culture leave ultimately.

Therefore, the government is not to be blamed for the people are the ones who want their lives run that way. They want someone to tell them what to do so when things go wrong, they have someone other than themselves to blame.

Yes, that's the horrid truth about the mass cowardice in the average Singaporean. The only ones that are courageous instead I believe work in the government who are daring enough to make choices to try and lead an immature nation.

Oh I just realized I've digressed from my earlier feminist subject. But from what I've written, it's suffice to summarize that Singaporeans are latent anti-feminists (without themselves knowing!) and cowards when it comes to living true to reaching their dreams or desires.

Greatness is measured surely by others for it is what other people say that determines how great you are. However it's very hard to live life relying on what other people say. Then you'll be tossed and turned by whatever that's cast in your path of life. So it's probably best to believe that life is great as long as you think it is. Who cares what others think when you are the one who live with yourself all day long? It's strange how people end up living with other people's words in their minds all their lives instead of living with themselves for who, what or how they wish to be.

Would I be able to live just with myself though and my own words in my mind, reminding myself of how loved I am by my heavenly Father and how great I am in His eyes simply because I have Jesus' blood running through my veins?

THIRTY-FIVE, AND GOING STRONG...

I'll be 35 this Friday. It's scary when I look back and wonder what I'd done with my life, and worse when I wonder what I want to do with my life after.

It almost seems as if every direction I take is going to lead me to some form of regret. It's terrible. I hate regrets. The reason I'd got so far in life all the time is because I'd always known exactly what to do that would not lead me to regrets. Or at least, i think so. But this time, I'm judiciously stumped.

Very confused.

I'm good at a lot of things, for that I'm grateful. But that doesn't mean I have a passion for the things I delve in, be it cooking, sports, singing, dancing, acting, performing concertos, reading, writing and anything else I've tried. It also doesn't mean I'm a master of any of it.

My Mum could have called me Jack when I was born, so then I would truly be a Jack of all trades.

What does it all mean?

That I'm accomplished, but not developed enough, or that I'm developed, but not accomplished enough. Which way should I see it?

In the movie, "I am David", one scene really touched me (I'm not quoting this verbatim, but the essence is here). It was when Joan Plowright (Sophie) says to Ben Tibber (David), "You look like you're going to be someone great," to which Ben replies, "I don't want to be someone great!". Then Sophie comforts him with the wisest words: "That's ok. Then be happy knowing that you could be if you wanted to be."

I think I really needed to hear that. I always wanted to be someone great. Someone who've touched the world in some way, changed someone's life for the better, made a difference somehow to renew mankind.

I think now, in a way, it's really vanity. Meaningless vanity, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. I never thought of it as vanity before though, cos vanity to me had always been a chasing after money, promotions, good looks, a gold-and-silver type of pursuit. But really, all my altruistic ambitions have well-cloaked my latent need to feed my self-ego.

Today, I feel the need to run. To run free, without burden, without care, without thought to what another man might say or judge.

I wonder if that's what heaven would be like. To run free, light as the wind, fast as lightning, through lolling, lush hills and over mesmerizing, blue oceans. Till I visit heaven myself, I can only imagine.

The Jerusalem Cricket At Our Doorstep

Okay, this was really creepy for me, especially when I've been watching tons of alien shows recently. Anyway, I've since googled and come to the conclusion that it's not an alien but a Jerusalem Cricket. It was huge though, and definitely moving in a baleful way to me. I hate anything that staggers, no matter what size.

And it staggered about on my doormat forever. Tibby wanted to eat it immediately, of course, but I guess it must have smelled foul. Joy confirmed that crickets give off offensive smells to protect itself from being eaten. So even though I didn't go near enough to the anathema to smell it, I bet it really was rank. And it certainly looked putrescent anyway. Ugh*

Well, first thing first. You know, of course I had to feed Tibby to distract her from any further thoughts on making the prey a side dessert for lunch. Next, I took out my camera to snap away and record its actions. Totally National Geographic instincts taking over.

Here it is:

Jerusalem Cricket 1 from Katherine Soh on Vimeo.



Jerusalem Cricket 2 from Katherine Soh on Vimeo.


Jerusalem Cricket 3 from Katherine Soh on Vimeo.


Jerusalem Cricket 4 from Katherine Soh on Vimeo.


Jerusalem Cricket 5 from Katherine Soh on Vimeo.

At age 33, I became a mother to the girl standing next to me.

Since I got to know Joy last fall, and started going places together, many have mistaken me for her mother. Like when we go to SCAD functions, the security guard at the door would often ask if I were her mother.

Then the other day, we were at Tybee Island enjoying a social nights out with all the home group's families and children. A friend's teenaged son asked her innocently, "Where's your mum?", to which she replied quizzically, "Who? My mum's not in America."

Turned out he meant to ask her where I was.

I told her the boy was probably hitting on her with the most popular opening liner for teenagers, "Where's your mum?".

I choose to believe that the muddled identities were because Joy looked too young, and that surely, it was not a reflection of my youth, or maturity, in this case, which I reluctantly add. Moreover, the more I look at our pics, the more I see some similar features, like our noses have the same sharp angles and our smiles were of the same cheer.

Steph said we have the same chub on our cheeks, I wasn't sure if I was happy to hear that, and I'm sure Joy would not appreciate the comment. Still, perhaps when she slims down, we'll look less like each other.

A dear friend of ours has just become first-time mother and father! Look at the dear little thing with a full head of blond hair! Awesome! I wish we could visit them, but they're about 10hrs' drive from us.









May the Lord bless them, Heather and Will, and their little one (also called Will!), and keep them, and make His face to shine upon them, bestowing extraordinary wisdom upon Heather in motherhood, and supernatural shalom peace upon Will even as he returns to serve the US army in Iraq in 2 weeks' time, and let His glory be upon their faces always and in everything that they do, AMEN!

Five months into the Southern American life, we got immersed in the American culture when we got invited to a Christmas-cum-graduation party in a local Savannahian's home. The invitees were to wear gordy Christmas sweaters and the guy in the white pullover sitting in the front on the far right won first prize for the tackiest outfit...he had sewn stockings and multi-coloured rubies all over his woolly..haha! Good one!

The food was great too. A huge spread of cheeses, cookies, brownies, cakes, nuggets, tortilla chips and cheesy seafood dips -- ooooh, all the sinful delights on earth, my kind of food: cheesy stuff -- it was a great start to our trip to Florida after the party. We were going to set off after the party at about 10pm. It would be a five hour drive, but the food would fuel us most of the way!

The guy in the centre of the photo is Joo Sung, a humourous character from Korea. We're fast becoming good friends despite our language barriers as he is really funny and easy-going, no airs and flairs. He is learning to speak English from us, whilst we're learning Korean from him.

I can't believe it's already a year passed since we surprised Don on his 35th birthday last year. Yes, 14 Aug in 15 minutes' time (at least for Don and I in Savannah) will spell his reaching the ripe young age of 36.

This picture brings to mind many fond memories of people we care and love, not excluding some who are not in the picture, of course! We love you all...and thanks for all the well wishes that's been sent.

This is my dearest friend Amy's firstborn son Josiah. I'm so proud of her----oh, not that I'm not proud of the rest of you who gave birth to kids, but---I knew her for so long, and we practically grew up in college together. It's kind of strange to see her turn mother, 'cos I can't help remembering our days together when we were still college kids.

Now, seeing her son just makes my heart melt. He's so cute! A cross between mother (who is so cute herself) and dad who is the spitting image of Andy Lau. I miss them both really. And definitely missing out on being there for them whilst they're going thru all the early stages of parenthood.

To Amy: I wish I'm there! Would have loved to hug Josiah, and pinch his cheeks---heehee! No guesses where that urge comes from...haha! Just keep on enjoying life, don't give up on yourself...all mothers go through that phase. I might not have been a mother, but I have enough mothers around me to tell me so...haha. I luv ya!

Hey Everyone! I just learnt to make a movie on my powerbook with my photographs! Heehee, check it out!

These are some of dishes I've been whipping up since Saturday. We had beef ghoulash to start with; ate out at Wendy's on Sunday; then beef stew on Monday; beef steaks on Tuesday; and finally, today we had spagghetti fried oriental style with fish fillets of Alaskan Pollacks. Yumm-mo! Spot the dishes---I simply love cooking! And not the extraordinarily difficult to prepare sort of food and definitely not extravagant, but all under 30 minutes and
under $5 for a dinner for 2!

Alright, I was really bored yesterday. I was without internet for the whole day and it felt like I was in the desert. Gosh, now I know one more basic need that I have to ensure the quality of my life----internet access!

Anyway, I switched to playing with my webcam, to excite myself and shake off the boredom overwhelming me. Didn't know I could make a video with it until I accidentally clicked on this strange looking icon next to the photoshoot icon. Haha.

So this is me, in the depth of my boredom.

Best shots taken this morning at Tybee Island. After weeks of being cooped up in my rented room with the only outing being to Kroger's (grocery store) every day and church every Sunday, my feelings of boredom were beginning to get to me. Just yesterday, I was reduced to counting the number of times I bit my lip throughout the day. So when Tracy sent me an email to ask if I were to go to Tybee Island for a few hours to chill out, it was like "Hallelujah, I am getting out of here!"

For those of you who know me, I've hardly ever spent a single day in Singapore at home. Now, without a car, I'm suddenly behaving like a handicapped person. I suppose I could take a bus, but it will be so boring to go anywhere alone. I guess, it's not only just the going out, I needed to talk to people. Thank God He heard me!

Don didn't come with me as he had class, but I needed to get a life! I always loved the beach, the sea and the whole idea of people lying half-naked exposing themselves to the deadly sunbeams----it just gives me a kick. I was running all over the beach, chasing unsuspecting egrets, frightening tiny fishes swimming at my legs in the shallow waters and posing for shots whenever I saw a stranger who looked like they could take a good photo. Before all that, of course, I had first smeared myself with my Sun Play Perfect Shield boasting a good SPF130. I hate getting sunburnt, and nothing less than SPF130 will do for me despite all that people say SPF 30 was good enough. If they haven't gone out in the sun before, they don't know what they are talking about. Believe me, the SPF130 is what you need under the sun, and SUNPLAY is a really good brand to use.

True enough, I was hardly scathed under the scorching sun that afternoon, except for my lower back, which I, unfortunately, failed to reach properly and went rather red from all the floating around in the sea on my belly whilst chirping happily to Tracy.

At this very moment, I still can't believe how much fun and relaxation I had at the beach today. This is a naughty Kat's life, indeed! I can't wait for the next outing. I'm going to plan for a trip to Jekyll Island next. Till then....

Above is a nice photo of our family taken at the airport before Don and I left for America. I'm so glad we had a chance to take this photo cos it's pretty hard to get everyone together. I can't even imagine another time where my paternal grandmother could possibly meet up with Don's family.

I have actually never liked my own folks very much, but I love them because they are my blood-ties, and nothing can change that. You see, sometimes, you just don't like someone because they have such a different personality from yours and you find yourself not getting along. But love is not about liking or getting along even. It's about respecting the other person's point of view and giving each other space to have your own views. I find that I do that best in a distance from my family, so that's what I'd done most of my life. Stay away from my family, visit regularly but live in a distance so I could have my own space. Perhaps my favourite family member would be Patricia and Rueben, my brother's wife and son. Though Pat and I meet something like twice a year during Chinese New Year and perhaps Christmas, I find I get along with her much better than anyone else in my family (I can see some of your shocked faces!). Basically, we can talk better and longer together, most likely because we give each other a lot of respect and space to be different. This is so impossible with my parents and brother, whom I feel somehow never understood the way I did things in life because they refuse to. They want me to follow them, be like them. They want me to be fearful of life, to worry, to know that the world will swallow me up if I don't first make myself ugly and bitter so that the world wouldn't dare have a taste of me. They felt I was too care-free and gullible.

But I'm not like them. I've been different all my life. I can't help believing in God, and having my pinciples rooted in love, in helping other people, in daring to give people chances at the cost of making myself vulnerable. All my life, as though the minute my mind was aware of the spirit realm, I had believed in a loving God and in Jesus to save me. I can't remember who it was who first preached to me. And I don't remember being given a choice. It's like I was born a Christian. It's really strange. I don't even recall a significant initial moment when I gave my life over to God (although I do remember many incidents of giving my life to God over and over again later as I went on my life journey with God, haha).

I remember this strange occasion when I was six years old, and I'm sure I have never come across the bible yet, or known about Jesus at that time. I was kneeling on the floor of this huge Taoist temple, in front of a mega-sized, golden buddha statue. My parents were kneeling beside me and making their prayers in all sincerity, joss-sticks held high. I looked up at the statue and the wierdest thought came to my mind. If I were to throw a stone at the statue right now, would it not all shatter to ground? Why do my parents choose to put such faith in a statue that would all but be destroyed by a mere stone? As I continued to kneel there whilst waiting for my parents to finish, I pondered on the reality of the god before me. How could this be god?

That very moment in my heart, I knew I would never be the same as my parents in their beliefs. Later on, I think I must have first heard about Jesus in primary school. By a strange twist of fate, I failed to get into Haig Girl's Primary School even though my brother was already in Haig Boy's Primary School. Instead, I ended up in Kuo Chuan Girl's School, a missionary school (The school has since changed its name to Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Primary School when it became co-ed).

So my life carried on further and further away from my family it would seem. Whilst they prayed, burned their daily joss-sticks, sacrificed their countless animals to their gods and folded innumerous paper money for the spirits in exchange for blessings on the household, I grew in my daily secret prayers and worship of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I didn't go to church then for I respected their wishes. But I spent nights tinkering on my piano making melody in my heart to God. Nobody told me then that that was worship. But I just wanted to. Felt like it, and did it. When I was lonely, I talked to Him. When I could not understand life's difficulties and pains, I asked Him straightforwardly. God was, and is, always with me. I never doubted His presence. I didn't even know that was called prayer at that time. I even ended up singing in tongues one night without knowing what I was doing. A foreign word escaped from my mouth and I shut it quickly, stunned. I was singing praises to God, whilst lying in bed at that point, so what was this strange word that had come out in the middle of my chorus? I thought I might have overdone my singing in praise to Him that night. I thought perhaps that I might have been too tired since it was already about 2 a.m. in the morning. I apologized to God immediately and told Him I was going to sleep as I must be tired. It was much later on, whilst studying at the University in Manchester up north of England, that I learnt about such things as speaking in tongues from a preacher in one of the churches. I laughed to myself whilst the preacher exhorted the congregation to speak in tongues. So that was what it was...it had puzzled me for so long, I never understood what had happened until then.

England taught me many things about God. I happily attended the Manchester Chinese Christian Church, I learnt more about singing in tongues and I served in every ministry there was in church. I was a Sunday School teacher every Sunday morning; I was the pianist during service; and I was also the conductress of the church choir when we had special presentations. I arranged music for the choir enthusiastically; I attended prayer meetings faithfully; and did just about everything there was to do in the church. I loved it all, I loved the church, I loved the people and I wanted to give my all to God. Whatever talent I had, whatever breath I had left of my waking life, I would give it to God. That was what I felt so deeply called.

Of course I know now that I must have been overdoing it. Perhaps too much thoughts of trying to repay God for His love for me. I know now that I can never repay God for His love. Still, I enjoyed it all thoroughly. I never felt tired and was never unhappy about any of it.

There was also a rather significant incident that happened in England that I know will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was staying in the halls of residence during that time. It was a convent hall only for girls, but during the vacation times, the halls would be opened for some of the public to rent the rooms and justify the costs of running the place. It was during one of those times that the strangest thing happened to me whilst I was playing the piano and worshiping God on my own in the chapel.

You see, I did that every night for hours in the chapel, so it was not a special night of worship for me. But there was that one night, after I finished singing one of the worship songs, I heard a loud but spaced out applause. I turned my head sharply to see who it was. The sight of the man who had clapped frightened me quite badly as I could see immediately from his reddened face and rolling eyes that he was drunk. I noticed that the exits of the chapel were far behind the man and I could not escape if he were to attack me. It did not help that he was dressed completely in black. He had on a neatly pressed, black shirt, fully buttoned, and matching black pants. He had a dreadfully receding hairline, leaving mostly only hair on his sides.

As if noticing the fear in my eyes, he knelt down in the middle of the chapel and tried to explain why he was there, listening to me sing. Meanwhile, I thought to myself that he was either a drunkard man or worse, the very devil himself manifested before me. God help me, I screamed inside of me! If he opened his mouth then and said he was satan himself, I would probably believe him. He just looked so mysterious and had seemingly appeared in the middle of the chapel out of nowhere! Maybe I was too deep in my own praise and worship to notice his entrance, but still, his appearance baffled me.

Thank God he said he was human (ok, he didn't say this first bit, I did in my mind) and was in the bar downstairs when he heard my playing and singing. He said he couldn't help himself but come upstairs. He begged my pardon for intruding my privacy but he beseeched me to come with him downstairs and play on the piano in the bar for them as they all wanted badly to hear me sing. I wondered if this was all a bad joke. I told him I only sang worship songs, nothing secular, and he said that was exactly what they wanted. Of course, I asked God in my mind immediately, and all I got was,'what harm could there be?'. So moments later, I found myself clad still in pink pyjamas track pants and a black-and-white sweater, hesitantly following the dark, mysterious man down the stairs to the bar.

The bar where about 15 well-dressed people gathered was blaring loud music and most of the people were sitting around chatting when I appeared. Thank God the only one drunk was the one who came up to fetch me. Apparently, they had really heard me above all their blaring music and thought it was the most beautiful music they had ever heard. Their story was that after some egging around, they sent the drunkest of them all in search of me.

After their explanations had been done, I reiterated that I could only play praise and worship songs, and that I couldn't play secular music. They actually said that was what they craved. One lady called someone to turn down the bar music. Another lady started saying she remembered hearing such singing when she was in church as a child, but it was so long ago. I started sharing a bit about myself, my Asian background, how I became a Christian and the persecutions I faced from my family. They were all intrigued that a Chinese girl would become a Christian, when they themselves bring born into the religion, had somewhat watered down their faith in God. I could see light flickering in their eyes, as though trying to kindle a long-forgotton faith.

As I sang the night away, the group of them gathered around my piano listening quietly and joining in when they could remember the words. It was such a crazy night for me. Totally unexpected. It was like God had called me to witness to a group of at least 10 people who had needed to remember Him again. I recalled one of them said they were Norwegians from Norway. I had no idea where that was, and still am a bit fuzzy about the landmark and its culture. But the real significance of the country came unto me when I later heard that Pastor Prince felt the calling to go and preach in Norway. I felt absolutely honoured. For perhaps I had been a part of a bigger plan of God to save the people in Norway. That I might have paved the way for one among the group to be revived, or maybe all. That would be so exciting. I would never know I suppose. There were no exchange of names and addresses that night. Whoever they were, God bless them all, especially the drunkard.

There were a few things I learnt that night. One was that you never know when you'd be called. Just get yourself ready by continuing to invest in your talents, whatever they may be. So when He calls, you're ready. Secondly, never think yourself too small to be used. Even drunkards can be called to His kingdom and be put to good use! As for voice quality, whether you sing loudly or not, and angelically or not, is not a factor God considers when He calls you to worship. Some might dispute that but I know I did not have a good voice. And whatever the Norwegians heard of my singing, they really only heard God whispering to them in their hearts. Thirdly, I was reminded that when we sing in praise and worship, every word is significant to God. I was singing in my normal voice and my normal nature, I'm sure my voice was far from being angelic. But God uses whatever we have, and brings it above our physical understanding. I'd never understand how my paino and my singing could have been heard from the bar downstairs whilst it blared its music so loudly. Sound travels upwards right, so how did my voice go downstairs and above all, entice them enough for them to ask me to go down and play for them? Therefore, the final thing I learnt was this: somethings cannot be explained. The ways of God cannot be limited by our human ability to understand. He is far and above, beyond that. We would never scarcely even been aware of how we have been part of His plan. And I love that about God. It makes Him God. It makes me safe. Praise the Lord!

Don and I teamed up and came up with the above greeting card. You might have to click on the card for a magnified view to read the words. He first did the dino drawing for fun. I thought it was so cute and after some chirpy bantering between the two of us, we came up with the prose for the card. Most appropriate for guys needing to make a proposal. Hmmm, who among us still needs a proposal act? Haha, perhaps Alex?

This is my darling little cat, tibby. She's no longer little I suppose, but I always remember her as the weak and forlorn little kitten tied by the neck with a rafia string to the pipe on the second floor of our 4-storey shophouse. She was so pitiful, not even daring to meow, but just standing there shaking in fear next to the pipe. Whoever tied her there had cruelly kept the string short so she could not even sit. My heart was lost to her the moment I saw her teary eyes and shivering legs. Untying her, we took her home with us to our 3-room flat on the 4th floor, cleaned her up and warmed some milk from the fridge for her. We were not even sure what cats ate then, but as she lapped the milk and gained strength steadily, we relaxed our gaze on her and thought further of what to do for her. We would have wanted to bring her to the vet's for a check-up in case of any diseases, but night had fallen fast and we weren't sure where the nearest vet was.

That night, we placed her in a cardboard box lined with a towel gently, wandering if she would understand the box was meant for her. She circled the inside of the box slowly, looked at us through half-slit eyes for approval before lying down finally to rest the night.

Tibby was really a sweet kitten. She was always very loyal to us in her affections and would come towards us all the time. She was also very intelligent and would know instintively that some behaviour was wrong. Whenever we rumble,"Mmm!" to instruct her not to do certain things, she would stop and lower head to apologise for her behaviour. Sometimes, we would spank her with a ladle if she was wilfully jumping on furniture or dirtying the floor with her kitty litter rebelliously. She would slink away most times, but within the minute, if we were to call her name, she would come out crouching on the ground and inch towards us, in remorse yet obedience to the call.

That was what made Tibby so special. Not all cats are like that. We were later to learn from books that Tibby is an American Shorthair, tabby cat. Her species are known for their affection towards human and friendly temperaments. No wonder she was always making her presence around us, unlike other species of cats who would independently strut their own ways. In fact, Tibby functions more like a dog and was more like a watch cat than a lazy, self-centred one. See the photograph of her with Don? She was screening the environment outside the door for suspicious looking people, and Don could not help quickly posing with her for the shot! Ingenious, haha!

Tibby was a wonderful pest killer and still is everywhere she went. She rid our 3-room flat of all cockroaches living or passing by and I lived happily ever after. When we first moved in, there was already a family of four elderly roaches I unmercifully killed under the stove. Their children no doubt had scattered in fear, and I had occasionally had to make my territory clear to them with much screaming and beating about the rooms. But ever since Tibby came to be part of the household, I honestly never saw another cockroach in our flat, at least, not alive. Occasionally, there might be remnants of some carnage, a leg here, a wing there, but never any live whole ones.

You see, we used to also see many cockroaches that would mistakenly crawl into our flat in a state of stupor, no doubt in a daze from over-eating. There was a huge hawker centre downstairs, and it was there that the cockroaches lived like kings and queens, holding feasts everyday on the abundance of crumbs from the hawkers. But they would never live to see another day if ever they creeped into our 3-room flat. If they could only read, I would surely help them out by sticking a sign up that says,"Beware of cat. Trespassers would be eaten alive."

Three years later, we moved to the 24th floor of a new block of flats and that was so cool! There were no cockroaches to start with and the rubbish chutes were structured outside the flats. So we had none climbing up regularly to enter our domain. I did remember there was an occasional one or two that did trespassed. I suspected they came from the rubbish chute and crawled in to our flat through the kitchen window, which was about 1 metre away from the chute, although really, I must take my hat off to these determined creatures. I mean, climbing 24 floors up must be like climbing Mount Everest to them. Where did they get all that energy? Perhaps they camped at each floor daily, and made their way up after 24 days of steel iron determination. Anyway, their end was a rather tragic one. Tibby had them performing for her endlessly like a king would have his court jester. She let them die a slow and painful death as she insisted to play with them for as long as they could last. You must understand she must have been pretty bored since moving to such a cleaned out place compared to our previous flat that provided her endless, exciting pursuits. The 3-room flat was like her amusement park!

Well, I must say she is now returning to her days of thunder as Savannah is a haven for cockroaches. Exactly the same, big, brown, juicy ones from Singapore. Actually, the ones in Singapore are of the species: American Cockroach. So guess what? They're natives here in Savannah, and move in swarms as opposed to those in Singapore, that are usually at most 3 or 4 feeding together. The ones here are really in swarms of at least 10. Their families are big and healthy, with generations to boast. I daren't step out of the house by nightfall as I know what lays outside. It's really a frightful sight.

Ray, my landlord, told me to get used to them as they are very much a part of life in Savannah. I could not close my mouth when he said that to me, tongue-in-cheek. He also continued to tell me facetiously that ever since he had an encounter in Mexico where a Mexican cockroach he sprayed some shaving cream on screeched to its death, he had never found those in America challenging. I felt ill as I imagined the Mexican species with its hideous screams. Somehow, I couldn't see myself surviving a face-to-face encounter with such kind. There were no happy endings for me in my imaginations of such an episode. I could only look to Tibby for comfort. Suddenly, having her with us in Savannah bore another meaning for us, apart from our affections for her.

And yes, Tibby has already busied herself with nightly heavy patrols to the bathroom. The wooden window sill cracks that we sealed up were no longer providing a route for the cockroaches to come in, but the bathroom wooden panels still had many crevices for them to sneak a peek. Still, after I showed Tibby one in the bathroom a week ago, she seemed to have awakened from her bored-to-death, belly-up poses in our room and gone back to her nocturnal hunting spirit. Every night, she goes out for her snack in the bathroom. Whenever I see her come back licking her lips, I actually do want to show approval of her actions by petting her or giving her a good rub on the belly, but the thought of her wolfing down one of those creatures and possibly having splattered some juice around her mouth stops me in action.

Perhaps my best way of showing approval would be really to feed her with more catfood, although she probably wouldn't need those with all her midnight snacks. Or should I say, heavy suppers? Oh Tibby, my dearest Tibby!

Going to Tybee beach on 3rd July was one of our first outings in Savannah. It was a glorious day. I must say one month into living in Savannah without anything to do but watching television and cleaning the room we stay in is just about doing me in. I needed to go out----I'm an extrovert! I need to socialise...gosh! It was so good to go out with others, meet new people and chill out. Besides, I'd been so looking forward to going to Tybee Beach even before coming to Savannah. I'd been really pleased to hear during Don's orientation programme for international students that they were including a trip to Tybee, but then Don had a last minute extra class included in his schedule and we had to miss the trip :(. I was rather disappointed then. Don had said I could still go ahead, but I'm never really interested to go anywhere without him, much as I'd like to go out. So when Tracy, another new-found, American friend we met during Don's orientation, emailed to ask if we wanted to join her on a trip to Tybee and watch the fireworks, of course, I said, "Yes!". So there we were! And did I mention I love the sea and the beach? That's why I stay in Telok Blangah Heights. It's 5 minutes from the South-West coast of Singapore...sigh* I missed our flat yesterday with our 24th floor view of the Telok Blangah hills and Pasir Panjang Harbour, not to mention Mount Faber and Sentosa. Oh well...2 years...hmmm...Sandra, Siew Chin, William and little Joseph can enjoy it all for us...