WHINE- Sick. Sore throat again. I guess, all the biscuits during work and tom yum got to me. Today was bad... my throat was hurting, but I still had to drag my arse down to Curtis to teach piano to little kids. Was so tempted to cancel, but I already missed last week's lesson!Teaching was fun... my three favourite kids (out of 4) came, so it made teaching less torturous. My most difficult student didn't turn up, and I was internally jumping for joy.

Well, and the good news is, NicNic is coming back tomorrow! So happy! Really missed my best friend in Biz School through this whole semester so much! Life is just not as fun without someone to laugh with me, drink coffee in the lib with, and just go totalLEE crazy. Welcome home cheong cheong when you see this! Berry and Lemon reunited, happy ending to the fruit story.

Gosh, just the fact that my crapping partner is on his way back on a plane now is making me more crappy already.

This week has been alright I guess. CP completed... caught up a bit with Kebs over dinner... met Linda for lunch... stayed over at Mouse's place last night... and had dinner with Erwin and his buddy Wee Siong last night, which made me laugh til my cheeks hurt.

Oh, a visit to Mizuho Bank yesterday afternoon showed me how un-adept I am to cultural differences. Just to give some background to this, thanks to the business school admin staff, I've gotten myself landed with the honour to put up a short recital at Mizuho Bank's new year party. So, yesterday, I made a trip over during lunch to collect some scores which they wished me to consider playing....but no, I was caught by surprise when the lady I was supposed to meet (Miya) led me to a room with sofas, bowed at me, and served me tea. And she spent the next half an hour making courteous conversation with me, praising me (for god knows what) and telling me about the event. She was so polite and formal that I felt a bit out of place... small little me being served tea in a big bank! And when I thought it was over, she said, 'My boss is coming to meet you now'. And then it was yet another round of formalities, pleasant talk, praises about how special I am because of the bank's special relationship with business school... and when I left, the boss and walked me all the way out, and bowed at me from outside as the lift door closed. Which made me want to cry at how helpless I felt being treated like that.

Haha, I'm not complaining... I was really impressed by how polite the Japanese are. I have long heard and read abot it, but have never experienced it to such a degree. An eye opener, I have to say. Which also means... I better be more prepared for the event. God knows what embarassing things I might do due to my lack of similar standards of politeness...