Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

#2 on my list was to try boxing. After surfing around for some boxing gyms, my friend Pei gave me the contact to a personal trainer (PT). (Pei! He sure as hell remembers you and thinks you would be excellent for a pro boxer!) I chose to go with a PT because I wanted proper attention for my session. And if I liked it, I would go back for more.

I must say, it was a good move because the PT pushed me harder than I normally would have done for myself. I went running at the track with my friend yesterday. My original plan was to go for 5km (the last time I did 4km), then while running halfway, I thought, Maybe 4km instead. Then after running some more, I decided to stop at 3km. Heh. I even ran last week, to Zouk and back, and I think it was about 3km too.

So today, the PT put me on a brisk walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes while he asked questions about my lifestyle and eating habits, got me to box for another 20 minutes, and on the stairmaster for 20 minutes. My body is A-C-H-I-N-G right now.

I really enjoyed boxing even though I could barely keep up with the drills, especially my left arm, which is the weaker arm. After some encouragement from my PT, I finally managed to pack some solid punches and it felt gooooooooood.

As what my PT says, boxing is good for oneself because it helps one focus. And after a particularly good session of hitting out, it realigns oneself and all the world’s peaceful again.

I’ll definitely be back for more. Who knows, I might even train up to be the ultimate killing machine (ala one of Monica’s boyfriends in ‘Friends’). Haha!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Counting down the days till I become a single mum (for real), this article made its way into my inbox in good timing.

These are the highlights on ways to make your child feel special:

Create little morning moments
Snuggle and cuddle
Make up special stories
Ask for help
Break the rules
Have fun at bedtime
Get silly
Use your words
And just pay attention to the little things

Actually, Clare and I do most of these fairly regularly — we snuggle and cuddle in the mornings, I play too much with her before bedtime (and paid dearly for it when she had really bad nightmares a few nights ago), make up silly stories, give each other funny nicknames and I get her to help around a little in the house.

It’s always nice to know that I’m somewhat on track and not headed towards an epic disaster, yet!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Advertorial

A Maternal and Child Health nurse showing a mother how to bathe her newborn. Circa 1960s.

Do you still remember your first visit to the school dental nurse? Did you queue for nutritious food rations at community health clinics? Were you there when the Great Singapore Workout was launched?

The Health Promotion Board celebrates 50 years of health promotion with an online retrospective and exciting contest. Submit your old photos showing your experiences with public health and you could win flat screen TVs, iPods and more!

Simply scan your old photo or snap a picture of it using a webcam or camera and submit it online at 50strongyears.sg. Closing date is 27 July 2009.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

This is not new, and I’m sure many others are doing this. I want to do a list of 30 things before I turn 30. 30 challenges, that take me out of my comfort zone, or to accomplish things that I’ve always wanted to.

I’ve listed a few things now, and does anyone have any contributions? You can view the list here.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

For the curious, I did go down to A&E at Singapore General Hospital today to get my head checked out. Been experiencing tension headache all day. I’m in the clear for now. As long as I don’t convulse over the next 24 hours, I’ll be alright.

Btw, thanks for all the love shown over the past few days. I really appreciate it. :)

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

In my haze this morning, I walked into the corner of the car door. Was making a mad dash in because it was raining, and BAM! When I finally realised what was going on, I could feel the blood rushing from my head, I started seeing some stars, and all I could think of was, OMFG MY HEAD HURTS! AM I GOING TO PASS OUT?! PLEASE DON’T LET ME PASS OUT!!!

I was OK a few seconds later. Not without a lump forming almost immediately though. I can’t make expressions on my face now without hurting so no frowning (YAY!), no yawning (NAY!) and no smiling (BOO!).

Honestly the smack on the head was a good wake-up call metaphorically. It’s as though everything was knocked back into perspective for me. I do feel much better, although I do look like such a sorry sight.

P.S., My head hurts. Please come for my body if you don’t hear from me in a few hours. TIA.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

If there is one thing that this separation has taught me, is to learn to pick one’s battles. Things that mattered heaps a long time ago, seem so trivial now in the grand scale of things. I’ve learnt not to care about things that are inconsequential.

So you don’t like my work because you think our show’s crap, I can’t please you. So you want to throw our friendship because you weren’t part of my bridal party, I can’t fix it. So you don’t want to acknowledge my presence because I dated your boyfriend, I can’t change that (believe you me, I wish I could).

I’d get upset, of course, I’m only human. But I learnt to let go, move on and not care.

I’m trying to remind myself of this mantra now. Of the person I’ve become through the years. Because, despite spending a good three hours with my counsellor yesterday, I’ve a growing sense of anger in me. I’m so angry with so many things/people/situations it’s all in a haze at the moment.

Most of all, I think I’m angry with me.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Honestly, when I mentioned earlier that if you’ve anything to say or ask, to email me, I meant it. It does not include hassling my family. Yes, I’m talking about you who went speaking to my parents.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

This isn’t something that is going to be easy for me to blog publicly. Some people have been privy to this information sometime back, but I guess now it’s time for us to be open about it, since there is going to be (and has been) a fair bit of lifestyle changes.

Terence and I are separated. We actually have been separated since December last year, after spending some time in counselling. Our issues have been long-standing and it finally came to head end of 2008. For the past seven months, we’ve been living together, albeit in different rooms. But that will change soon too.

We still remain good friends, however. We actually do get along splendidly well, but things just aren’t working out. We still enjoy spending time together as family and have been handling this as well as we can, especially for Clare.

It wasn’t an easy decision to come to, but it is what we feel is for the best currently. The decision is amicable (really, and not the atypical Hollywood style of amicable). And we would really appreciate that no one take sides/speculate/lecture either of us. If you have anything you want to say/ask, send me an email.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

This was a challenging photoshoot because both children are pretty shy, kinda like their parents. :P But we had a rather good session in the end, and it was particularly victorious squeezing a slight smile out of the littlest one.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Remember the famed Afghan girl picture on National Geographic? The man who photographed her is Steve McCurry and he currently has an exhibition here at Asian Civilisations Museum, as part of Month of Photography. He was also here the past week, conducting a master course.

My friend, Pat Law, scored an interview with him and invited me along to photograph him for the article. Needless to say, I was stoked! However, on the morning of the shoot, I started panicking over the fact that I was going to photograph a world renowned photographer. I was terrified of being judged on my technique, style, etc, because as my friend Dan says, I’m a photographer with a small ‘p’ and Steve’s a PHOTOGRAPHER (in all caps!). LOL!

But my fears flew right out of the window when I met him because he was pretty warm and started oogling at Pat’s tattoos. Which led up to a discussion about tattoos and I ended up flashing him my lawnmower man! Awesome moment!

He did art direct my photographs though, and apologised for it. I had a picture in my mind and was all ready to execute it when he started moving me and himself around, saying, “OK, let’s do a pose like this because I want to capture the eyes, …” and “You have to move here because the light is coming in this way, and I have to be here so that I can catch the light …” So I just said, “OK, just tell me when to press the button!”

It was good fun and the half hour we had really reminded me of the days when I was working as a photojournalist at The New Paper. Truth be told, I miss it so much.

Photograph by Paul Seow, my awesome party + commercial photographer friend who was there attending the master class.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Some time ago, Andrea asked me to photograph her family. This was one of the more heartwarming (and amusing) photoshoots I’ve been on because of the wonderful relationship their family dog has with her parents.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Clare discovered the Wii over the weekend, when we had a gathering at Meng Choo’s place. After most of the older kids left, I asked Megan, Meng Choo’s eldest kid, if Clare could have a go at a simple game. That sweet girl chose a running game for Clare and suddenly my daughter was bursting with excitement. My heart melted to see her finally able to play with some other kids, and especially, enjoying it so much! Thanks Angelia for the pictures!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

My grandmother celebrated her birthday yesterday. She turns 88, going by the Chinese calendar. I think it’s so lovely that she has very many great grandchildren to help her blow out the candles, not that she needs much help in the first place. Even with a sprained back, which she suffered a lot from over the past two years, she won’t be slowed down!

I’ve no idea what my dad (in red) was exclaiming about.

Great grandkids helping to blow out the candles.

My favourite photo of the lot.

Clare and Taipo (great grandma in Cantonese).

Especially for the birthday girl. Happy birthday Mama!

Talking about family love, I bought this CD box set to surprise my dad, on a tip-off by Kevin Matthews. It’s a box set of 5 CDs featuring the music of Singaporean bands in the 60s. My dad’s band, Cells Unlimited, is in it too, and when Kevin told me about it, I quickly picked one up from Borders. The minute I bought it, I rang my dad to congratulate him, only to find out that he already has 26 copies at home (for distribution in the Leong family, LOL!). He said, “How can you not expect me to know about them wanting to put our music in the CD?”, which kinda made sense. D’oh!

Go get your copy today! :) And I can arrange to have your copy autographed by my daddy, if you’re interested.

UP FOR GRABS: One autographed box set to giveaway! Leave a comment or send me an email (at joanATvalskaDOTcom), telling me why you love the music of the 60s. The person with the best entry will be the proud new owner of 100 Greatest Singapore 60s: The Definitive Collection.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

This is Clare’s ill morning face. She woke up with a 39.2 deg celcius fever.

And this is what Clare does when she has a whole bunch of stickers, despite being sick. I have become her sticker book.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

In the episode of Desperate Housewives where Bree’s first husband, Rex, dies, we see Bree sitting in the dining room, holding on to the phone, and waiting for the clock to strike 10am before telling her friends that her husband had passed away.

While this is a rather extreme case, I firmly believe that there should be appropriate times in contacting people. Whenever I receive calls before 9am and after 10pm, I panic a little because I start worrying about it being an emergency.

My dad once rang me at 7.30am, gruffly looking for Terence on the phone. Worried, I asked if everything was OK and it turned out that he was just trying to purchase something over iTunes.

The same rule, I feel, applies to IM. I had this MSN conversation at 4:09, this morning:

Friend: joan
Friend: clicknetwork.tv
Friend: are you associated with it?
Friend: in the past?
Friend: or now?
Me: (thinking there was a problem with the website, or something major based on the ‘tone’ of his messages, or perhaps he has a business proposition for the website) Yes, why?
Friend: sonia is one hot chick man
Friend: hahahahahahaha
Me: You msged me this at 4am to tell me that?

I’ve got to learn to log off, or switch off the sounds to my phone before I sleep at night.

—

What said friend was referring to, was the new show on clicknetwork.tv — Bored in Bikinis. It stars Sonia and Xuesha (who were in S Factor), as two bikini babes who get up to random stuff when they are bored. I helped them out with the photos:

Catch the first episode, ‘How To Ace A Reality Show Audition’, here! It’s hilarious because it’s so true to life!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Back in 2004, my dad and I actually did offroad cycling a fair bit. We used to go with his friends to Mandai and needless to say, we were always the last of the group. But it was fun and something I always enjoyed doing together with my dad. He was very excited about it and spent a lot of time kitting out both our bikes.

I’m sure most of you have activities you do with your dad, so in this photoshoot, we want to capture that. Send me an email at info@joanleong.com or call me at 9477 1444 if you’ve any queries.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Celebrating Dinky’s 4th birthday last month

The past month has been terrible for me, health wise. Strangely, the moment I start exercising, I start falling ill. Terribly ill, for that matter. Couple of weeks back, I was hit by a flu bug that gave me a fever, cough, cold and bodyaches. I finally recovered after a week and was just celebrating how nice it feels to not be ill, when out of the blue, I got hit by the flu AGAIN! This time, the doctor loaded me on meds so powerful, I was constantly groggy and spent almost the entire weekend in bed.

I’m finally well enough to sit upright without feeling like the world is spinning madly around me today, and hence, am going to make a feeble attempt to do some work. I’m still coughing up a storm and I’m trying to take in shallow breaths because any attempt to fill up my lungs more sends my body into a major coughing fit.

Clare’s at her grandmother’s and I suddenly miss her so much. I had a strange feeling wash over me during the weekend, where suddenly all memories of being pregnant and giving birth to her seemed to have disappeared. And it feels like I stole this cute little toddler home instead.

She’s finally completed half a year in school and is on the start of her school holidays. One that even I appreciate. No more dragging her out of bed, packing her stuff, trying to stay on top of school related matters, and it’s nice to have her around at any time of the day. I really hate that her school hours are right smack in the middle of the day, which [a] makes me start my day really late at noon; [b] leave no time for after school activity if I decide to take time off to bring her out. We are still on the waiting list for the earlier session next year and I think I’m going to have to beg them to try to transfer her to the earlier session, if not, it’ll be very hard for me to cope business-wise.

We got her progress report some weeks back, and had our first Parent-Teacher-Conference. Generally, she’s doing alright in school and is displaying most of the milestones of a 2-year-old. Some of the drawbacks of being an only child is also apparent in her behaviour in school, such as, not being able to share. She is rather bossy (although her teacher did not phrase it in those words), and I’m guessing it’s because she’s used to ordering her dogs around the house.

One thing that really took me by surprise in her progress report is her almost non-existent manners — apparently, she doesn’t really say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. This horrified us because we always thought we enforced it on her, but upon hindsight, we enforce ‘thank you’ more and always forget about the ‘please’. Her manners scored as well as her chinese, by the way, which is something else we have to look into. Anyone’s got recommendations for chinese enrichment classes for pre-nursery kids?

Overall, her teacher was most impressed by Clare’s independence, marvelling at the fact that Clare’s always first to get ready, on her own, when it comes to water play. She also wants to do a lot of things by herself, like going to the toilet and washing her hands, and that just makes me beam with pride because I don’t want Clare to be overly dependent on others to do things when she can very well do it on her own.

Her teacher also noted that Clare has since learned to defend herself. She now holds her own in class and stands up against bullies.

I must also say that I’m very impressed by the level of patience and care the teachers have in this school. Clare’s been diaper free for at least a month now and it’s by no means any credit of mine. When I came back from Bali, one day, Clare decided that she didn’t want to wear diapers anymore. Her father was a little apprehensive about it but I told him that we’ve got to back her up in decisions like this to show that we are confident in her. Since then, she’s had a couple of accidents but that’s mostly because she was having too much fun and only realised her urgency to pee at the last minute.

My little girl is growing in leaps and bounds. She can now hold logical conversations with me and tell me about her day (in bits). I love how she can be headstrong, but is also reasonable. With explanation, she’ll be willing to accept why I say ‘no’ or ‘later’ to certain requests.

She’s also an amazing animal lover: Jaws bit her hand pretty hard last week, which left Clare shocked and crying from the pain. No doubt, having the Princess plaster on her hand made he feel heaps better, but still, she never fails to either pet or hug Jaws every day since.

I relish spending the end of the day with her because that’s our time together, when she wants to be with me, hugging me, before she sleeps.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I can’t believe I’ve not updated this blog for two weeks! Sorry for the radio silence — I guess I have been a lot busier than I expected to. I’ve photo jobs from February onwards to share and never seem to be able to find the time to put them up!

Anyway, here’s a small set. My college mate, Jamus, had a really small, intimate and simple wedding at the Registry of Marriages. We did a very quick and casual photoshoot at Fort Canning later. Quick because as always, it was really hot and the poor couple were roasting while trying to look comfortable for the photos. The few of us had drinks afterwards at Novus, which was nice. I count myself lucky to be one of the few at the wedding.

Stealing a kiss before going into the solemnisation room.

Jamus’ mother with the marriage certificate number to buy 4D!

The marriage certificate number.

© Joan Leong Photography