Entry @ 12.08.2026

On Monday morning .... 

L's homemade grass jelly ... tasted natural and so refreshing! The plant grew verdantly in her backyard and she often made grass jelly with it! Just boil in water, add a bit of sugar to sweeten and custard powder to thicken. Easy, she said.

Then came a bouquet for Dr. T .... this is a bouquet from her former students, some members from the class of 1998 ... these students are now 48 years old! These flowers arrived one day early since her retirement was on the next day, Tuesday .... 

In the afternoon, I went to buy a gift for Dr. T. I was thinking of getting her a gift for a long time, not really knowing what to buy for her. But suddenly on mid-Monday morning, I thought I'd buy her a crystal bracelet. So I headed to Silver Point - a notable crystal shop in Kuching. 

The staff was very helpful and friendly, and helped me to select the bracelet. They also helped re-adjust the size and re-thread the stones. When I got home however, I looked at the bracelet and thought the colour looked so dull. How come it had looked so colourful at the shop? Only then I realised that they had very powerful lights at the shop to highlight the color depth of the stones. I should have taken the photo of the bracelet in the shop before I left. Sigh. Anyway, I'm glad I bought Dr. T something .... 

On Tuesday, Dr. T's big day. Surprise! My friend K gave me a scrunchie ... 

She made it herself using the scraps from our new staff batik .... she gave it to me because the scrunchie was too big for her and thought I could have use for it since my hair was rather thick! She had made a smaller one for herself and gifted me this big one. 

Dr T had not come to work yet, since the special retirement event for her would only begin after 10.30am ... so I went around taking photos of the various bouquets of flowers that came for her. 

This was from former colleagues from another school ... 

This was from former students 

This one was so cute! 

This was from our current batch of students, now in Semester 1. They bought veges and had them wrapped in a bouquet ... I'd say they are quite thoughtful! 

This bouquet of roses was from us teachers ... 

The special assembly took about an hour and a half. I liked her speech - simple but with messages for the school administration, for us colleagues and also for her students. A lot of former students also came back to say goodbye to her - I saw a few from the class of 2023, 2024, 2025 ... Student A had promised he would come and he did come, bearing her a gift which he quickly put inside her car ... heh ....

Despite her insistence not to accept gifts, she went home with her car full of presents for her big day. 

Retirement luncheon .... 

Normally, we had a small makan after retirement functions.

This round, we had rice with lemon chicken, mixed veges, stir-fried cangkuk manis, sweet and sour fish, okra with belacan,  tofu and egg soup, and a cup of milk tea. 

After everything was over, a few of us went back to our staffroom ... and we did a simple and unofficial post-mortem of the event. It was because we very quickly would have to organise another retirement! In a month's time! For Madam N! I did not see it but my colleagues said Madam N was overcome by emotions during Dr T's event and was seen to be crying. Well, Madam N is Dr. T's partner-in-crime, both teaching the same subject. Madam N has a different approach in teaching, but she is equally capable of producing many A's like Dr. T. After Madan N retires, we will be in deep trouble since there will be no one else teaching the subject. My school admin is really having a headache over this issue. Heh. 

Unlike Dr. T though, Madam N knew what she wanted on her retirement day - she had told her close friends about her plans, and we would co-operate to realise her plans. Halfway discussing, we were all distracted ..... 

We could see the Form Four block from our office, and we saw this very cute lion and had good laughs over it! Lol! We assumed that the kids were trying out their costume for next Saturday's fundraising event at our school. However, that evening, the school issued a notice to cancel the event because of the bad air quality we are experiencing currently. Our API Index hovered around 162 - 170 the whole day! 

Wednesday morning ... I checked the API the instant I got up. It stood at 170. I made sure I brought my face mask with me since the air stank. My colleagues brought fried rice! They had taken home the leftover sambal and the leftover rice from yesterday's luncheon, and cooked fried rice! There was so much rice left that they came with 3 containers full of fried rice this morning = enough to feed about 25 pax. Another colleague brought fish keropok to eat with the fried rice. 

As I am typing now, the API is 177 ... it is cloudy, hazy, hot and humid, and the air smelled really bad. I really hope the situation improves soon.