Enlightened over the weekend

It has been a crazy busy long weekend. It kicked off with the 14th MCCC last Thursday. I wasn't attending but Daalin did and we are also hosting a participant from India. (present tense because he's still here and only leaves tomorrow).

I was working till Thursday and then on Friday my MDA/FDI dental conference started at the KLCC. That's the convention centre. Not the shopping mall. I had to leave home at 7am, just after Joe woke up but Joy was still asleep. And I hate having to leave before the kids wake up.

I want to be there to greet them, hug them and smother them with kisses and pray with them when they open their eyes.

So anyway, I went downtown by LRT. Found my way to KLCC (first time to the convention centre!), registered and found a seat in the plenary theatre. I tried listening and paying attention to the oh-so-boring-speaker but restlessness and sleepiness got the better of me. So after a short nap, I sneaked out and went to check out the trade exhibition instead. Walked around collecting all the freebies from Colgate, Listerine, Sensodyne etc and then found the free internet terminals.

Thereafter I spent most of the rest of the day catching up with ex-coursemates and friends and stuffing myself with smoked salmon at the buffet lunch. Then I bought 2 rotiboy on my way home, for Joe, and got home just as Joy woke up from her nap.

On Saturday, I decided to gate-crash the MCCC instead of going downtown. There wasn't much of a programme besides the Opening Ceremony and the AGM. I didn't fancy hearing boring VIP speeches (by the DeputyPM) and neither did I quite care about who sits in the MDA committee.

I'm so glad I went to DreamCentre instead of KLCC. Hearing Pastor Dr Daniel Ho, Pastor Dr Chew Weng Chee and Pastor Dr Philip Lyn speak was so much better. Three fantastic senior pastors in ONE session!

In the afternoon, we went from DC to Sentul for Timothy's 4th Birthday Party. His mummy is one fantastic party-planner!

She had helium balloons all over the room, and individually wrapped & labelled party packs for the kids.

She even had a bouncing castle! But the kids didn't play in there long because it was leaking air so they sank instead of bounced.

And the cake... it was really good chocolate fudge cake inside. It's a pity all that good-looking fondant (which I'm sure took a long time to put together and which cost so much!) ends up in the trash.

Joe didn't need to eat. He was happy playing in the pool! He enjoyed this shallow pool so much! The pillars had knobs that you push and water squirts out horizontally.

After the party, Nana, Joy and myself went home first while Joe accompanied Daalin to go back to church to fetch our guest and take him out for dinner. They had a good time eating Hokkien Mee, Satay and Or Chien at Jalan 222. I think Joe felt very important because it was an all-guys dinner.

Sunday morning - they all went to church while I had to go downtown again because I had to collect the attendance certificate.

Again, the speaker was so boring. His content may be interesting. But the monotony of his speech could just put me to sleep. So I decided to take a stroll in the mall. I went window-shopping.

The mall was so full of people paying homage to all the brand names which I can pronounce. I don't know what's so attractive about walking around KLCC. Everything is so expensive! I did pop into Kinokuniya but had to quickly make my exit because my eyes were popping out just looking at the prices!

I saw this swimsuit at Gap. RM99 for the rashguard and RM129 (I think) for the shorts! Who in their right mind would spend so much?

It's USD20 for the top and USD22.50 for the shorts online. I'm sure that you can get it for much less at the outlet store. And YeeTeow says Gap is disposable clothing. Very expensive disposable clothing!

Over buffet lunch at the conference, I chatted with a group of much older dentists one of which was shocked to find out that I got married before I graduated. He told me that if I were his daughter, I wouldn't be alive!

Then I bumped into Jean on my way out and ended up chatting some more. Jean kindly gave me a lift home after that so I was spared having to walk up the hill from the LRT station.

It sucks that I have to work today after a long weekend. I would much rather stay home and do stuff with my kids.

Attending the conference was not really in vain. I did learn a one thing - and that is that I'm sure I do not want to do dentistry for the rest of my life. The other thing is that I would much rather be with my kids than anything else. I had so much 'me time' at KLCC. I suppose I could have really shopped or gone for a manicure or a massage or whatever else it is that 'tai tais' and mak datins do. But even with window shopping, I was only in the kids departments looking at stuff for kids.

So I'm thankful for the busy weekend. Because it was enlightening!