24 Aug - 29 August 2009

24 Aug - A new school term starts today, yipee for Sam and yipee for me too. This year, Sam's taking Honors Chemistry, AP Euro History, English Honors, Bible, Spanish I, Music/Worship Band B and Algebra Honors. All pretty tough subjects for Sam coz they are all totally new to her. But, with hardwork and lots of prayer, the Lord will see her through. No tennis today coz no one wants to play with me, sob! sob!

25 Aug - 1st day back at tennis. Played doubles with Mary Nunes/Jaya/Yodi. Still having trouble with stepping into the ball on my left foot as my timing's all wrong and having trouble adjusting to my semi-western grip. But, the serves are coming in pretty solid so, that's good. Broke my racquet strings today, sigh. Talk about bad timing coz had it broke in Penang, would have cost me less money to get it restrung. Over here, restringing with my own strings costs US$12. Oh well, can't have things going my way all the time...

26 Aug - Played tennis with RR today. It was good to be able to play with him as he hits with pace and I loved that. Today's a pretty hot day with temperatures in the high 80 F. Poor Sam must be basking in the sun for her tennis training. Poor Sam has training everyday from 2.30-5pm, rain or shine (half the time, it doesn't rain here, that's why we're suffering from drought. Oh rain...where art thou when we needed u most?).

27 Aug - No tennis again? Oh no....Well, gotta cancel my lessons with Larry coz the window cleaners are coming by at 7am and they won't finish the job till 11am. In a way, it was good. I was able to finish most of my paperwork and updated my blog. Had the Old Town Teh Tarik this morning for breakfast. The after effect of being "allergic" to caffeine is not too good coz the whole day, I felt queezy and uncomfortable. OK, no more teh tariks for a while, sigh. What a drag!

28 Aug - A very tiring day for Sam and me. I played 9 rounds of doubles matches today at BALL practice. We all had to play with different partners with each player serving once. I am so very happy that out of the 9 rounds, I won 8 and even the match I lost, I held serve so, that's a good thing (I hope). With all the excitement for tennis, any thoughts of eating breakfast went out the window and I totally forgot about eating until I reached Belinda's house to give her the jiu hoo see, Cote D'or and curry fish. I was wondering why my stomach was making all the funny noises. Now, I know. Went home and cook lunch of fried char choi and bah kut teh. Ms H'ng gave me 2 packs of the Klang bah kut teh and it was really good. Fetch Sam from tennis at 5pm, took her back to main campus to get her Chemistry book coz last minute, her teacher assigned homework, which luckily, her friend told her about it. Came home close to 5.40pm so that she can take her bath and eat her dinner and rush out to bowling training at 6.30pm. Ed was nice to tag along to accompany me. Reached Homestead at 6.53pm, went to Home Depot to buy my watering can coz needed that to water the lemongrass plant which Belinda gave me (thanks BB) and saw Tim, the beekeeper who incidentally, was clearing a beehive just outside the tree of Homestead Lanes. He did it very professionally without the bees flying everywhere and when he finally took the hive down, it was actually nestled nicely into a box and the fascinating thing is that, the bees didn't fly away at all. I told Tim that this is the 1st time I've seen a bee terminator at work but he corrected me and said he's a keeper, not a terminator. Whoops...ok, I am learning! So, I guess his family will be happy that there will be more honey in the offing!

29 Aug - Today is the position round for Sam's Summer League. Her team came in 4th. Anna, Jen and Sam tried very hard but, it was not meant to be. Sam bowled not too badly with scores of 220, 182 and 177, hitting an average of 193 today. She was very tired in the 2nd game onwards and her body language shows. Last night, she went to bed crying coz she didn't understand the concepts of Chemistry and that frustrates the heck out of her. That must've caused her sleepless nights thus, causing her to lose concentration in her bowling today. Well, Sam, advice for you - school's always difficult the first few weeks coz all subjects are new, teachers are new and classmates are new too. U gotta hang in there, stop complaining and PERSEVERE and work around it. Then, you'll ace it in no time. Shou Kham is visiting me today after her trip to Gilroy, yipee!