The food hurdle

In the past, when people ask me what I do for a living, I always have to attach a long explanation to my reply of "research assistant" because I don't research--I meddle in editorial work. At last I've resolved that incongruity by joining a publishing company. Hello, I'm an editor.

The process of moving on to a new workplace has been a long one, somewhat less terrifying, but rather harder than I anticipated. But I can hardly complain because I had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself and say bye-byes. After the numerous farewell lunches and messages and thank-you cards and presents, I felt slightly weary, emotionally.

For people who change jobs on a regular basis, I must seem like a bleeding heart. Well I don't quite understand why it has to be so hard for me too, except that the research centre is just too comfortable, and therefore difficult to leave. The people are exceptionally helpful (and smart), the work was stable, culture was free 'n' easy aussie-style, and food was plentiful. There was just this little problem of my "career" and "professional growth" stagnating.

The new place needs a bit of getting used to. New colleagues are typically overworked Singaporeans--need time to open up. I needed to be reminded of this obvious fact after 3 years of general affability. I have to get used to the unsmiling part too.

I was quite excited about the job scope though: it was exactly what I wanted to learn, although I realise that my work would actually be quite mechanical, seeing a book through all stages of production. I can imagine anyone in India doing the job equally well (i.e., not outsource-proof, but which job is, anyway?)

I was complaining to friends about the lack of culinary choices due to our remote location: most people bring their own food, or they order in, but there're only 2 (unhealthy) choices everyday! After 2 days of sandwiches, I decided to cook some instant noodles and was I grateful for eating something hot at long last, even if it was just a handful of precooked noodles and dried peas swimming in watery, MSG-flavoured soup. I was feeling very sorry for myself, after being so spoilt for choice, with the numerous canteens dotted around the campus.

The next day, I ordered in and it was mixed rice: lots of white rice with a small piece of omelette, some tofu, vegetable, and a thin slice of very tough meat. As I told Hong, it felt like I was eating lao fan (prison rice). Just earlier in the morning, my former colleague was still raving to me about the fantastic food they had at the post-conference appreciation dinner. Oh, the indignity!

I get the feeling that once I get past this hang-up about food, things should start to look up. In the meantime, I'm going to feast this weekend.

Reminiscences

I'm supposed to be churning out a report by next Monday about the journal that I've been managing but it's not any easy report and I don't feel like starting.

Anyway, just came back from a night out with the gals. So fast, but we've known each other for more than 10 years. Over coffee, we were reminiscing about our school days happily, now that we can look back on the horrors and tedium of those days from a safe distance: how teachers used to terrorise us, how we dreaded art and music lessons, snooty classmates, our grades and (non)aspirations, and fights that we had with each other.

It's curious how we became good friends: I think some of the bonding came from simply being close to each other during assembly, or chemistry class etc since they went by alphabetical order in those days and 4 out of 5 of us have a T surname .

It feels nice, and safe to have a bunch of friends who have a shared history. I have periods in my life whereby my memory is quite patchy, sometimes because I didn't want to remember. There're so many things that I forgot, and to hear about them again from friends now and to be jolted and remember all over again, I feel thankful. I feel like my memories would be safe with them. Nothing beats old friends. :)

Return of the baking virtuoso

I've gone back to baking! After halting for about 10 months (due to discouraging results), I decided to bake again after colleagues suggested I do it again before I quit the place. These people must be some sort of masochists but since they asked for it, I, of course, obliged!

I decided to make an orange cake, after my mother found this real simple receipe in the Chinese newspapers. She tried it and it smelled good! So I wanted to have a go at it too, for another colleague's farewell lunch. The cake is made with the all-natural goodness of real orange juice and orange peel. Yummy!

I know it doesn't look very good, with that jagged little hole there (Someone said it looks like a donut), but it tasted OK, really! I kinda like the orangey tang, and my colleagues all said it was quite good. That's the thing with my cakes--they're edible, just that they don't look fantastic, especially since I don't like the idea of smothering them in whipped cream. I shall try lemon next. :)

Another conference that came and went

So the conference that has kept us busy for the past few months has finally ended. We had a similar one 2 years ago, and I blogged about how exciting and exhausting it was. This time round, it was, well... a bit lacklustre.

I was looking forward to it actually, because it is the last major event of the centre that I would be part of and I remember how all of us worked so hard together to make it work for the last one.

The centre was only 2 years old then and it was to be the biggest, most international conference held at the institute for more than 2,000 delegates. I remember on the Friday before the conference, a few of us were still toiling away in the campus at 11pm to make sure everything goes smoothly during the conference. I had emailed the dean to ask if we could take the cab home and claim for reimbursement. He replied immediately and gave us his number in case we needed him. Shortly after, he sent out an email as a rallying call to the whole centre to remind us how far we have come as a centre and how he knows everyone is working hard to make that conference a success.

At the end of it, many of us went for the conference dinner at Sentosa where we dined at the beach, open-air style and accompanied by singing and dancing. We sat back and enjoyed ourselves while watching the crazy dean really let loose with his friends on the beach.

The closing ceremony then was rousing, with a touch of triumph, the feeling that we really pulled it off. There were high-fives, hugs on the stage and the deans couldn't stop smiling. This time round, it felt so uneventful. The auditorium was strikingly empty, and the ceremony was short and quiet. At the night safari conference dinner, there was only a handful of us but we were made to feel like second-class guests, because the bossy hospitality committee head (who is not from the centre) ensured that the paying delegates had priority in everything, from seating to food to the tram ride. There was a bit of annoyance and irritation all around, but I was still glad to be there, enjoying the cool night ride on the tram with my colleagues, ooing and ahhing at the lions, tigers, giraffes and elephants. It felt like a school trip with a bunch of excitable primary school kids, which is quite funny because some of them were actually the admin "aunties" (I use that term affectionately) . :)

Maybe because the dean is gone now so things are very different, but the centre is still a good place, with good people. As the dean himself said when he left, the centre has made a difference in many people's lives, including his own.

I survived jet lag!

Woohoo! I survived what I would consider my most gruelling trip ever.

Let's start with the time spent on the flights and transits alone: 51 hours! It's changed my opinion of air travel forever. Going there was more punishing and in a way makes the coming back seem more bearable. It entailed 3 transits: Narita, Portland, and Minneapolis. By the time I was on the final leg, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I used to be one of those people who think flying was part of the fun of going away. I used to get all excited about the idea of going to the airport, about making full use of the flight entertainment, and I actually ate up all the food they serve. Well, not anymore! They kept running out of chicken which means I had to eat beef stew. Urgh.

And you meet with all sorts of people on the plane. On the longest leg back (from Minneapolis to Narita), I sat with this nice lady from Minnesota who was accompanying her husband to Shanghai. She hoped I have a safe journey back home and that the conference was worth all this travelling (erm, nope). On another short (thank goodness) flight, I had to sit beside this PRC man who swore and spit in the barf bag and put it back in the seat pocket, twice! But most of the time I don't talk to the people simply because I was too tired. It's going to take at least a few months for me to get over this flight fatigue. And no more Northwest, if possible. One flight attendant actually chit-chatted with the passengers while chomping on chewing gum while there was another matronly one who looked like she would stare down any passenger who dares to misbehave on her flight. It was actually quite a funny sight when you juxtapose it with the Sin8apore Girl. :)

The weather there was, too, a new experience. The temperature was between -1 to 4 c (the wind chill was probably colder) and it snowed. :)

The wind was so strong that the snow was falling horizontally and hitting you straight in the face. The brutal wind also battered my umbrella as I was walking along the river and I had to buy a new one, whose spokes were also slightly bent by it. It was really an effort walking in that kind of weather, and I had to occasionally stop and seek refuge in nearby buildings. I couldn't capture the falling snow on camera, but did take a picture of an area covered in snow while on the plane.

The buildings below are the Wrigley Building (left) and Tribune Tower, which are the landmarks I use to navigate around the city. They are the home of the chewing gum company and the newspaper Chicago Tribune respectively, and the newspaper founder got his correspondents to collect stones and bricks from all over the world and embedded them in his building. Which is a cool idea, except that I don't think they always got the bricks through entirely legal means. Some were after all, from very important sites where they don't give out pieces for free, like Taj Mahal and Great Wall of China.

Because the weather wasn't great for photo-taking, and I didn't feel like whipping out the camera too often since I was walking the streets by myself most of the time, I don't have many photos, and most were of buildings.

The above is an interesting edifice though, called "The Bean" and must be the most photographed structure in Chicago. It's one of the numerous sculptures to dot the city. I also went to the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the must-visit museums there with a strong collection of works by famous people like Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh. I'm just a curious tourist and not art aficionado though, and so walked through the galleries fairly quickly, in about 1 1/2 hours. Some people just stood in front of the paintings in this deep, appreciative silence, but I was busy snapping away!

The food there is nothing to write home about. I had mostly sandwiches and wraps. The most delicious thing I ate there was actually a US$1.70 pipping hot teriyaki chicken bao which I devoured in seconds, so cold and tired I was. They seem to take their pizzas seriously though.

Chicago's specialty is deep-dish pizza, or stuffed pizza. Essentially, they make their crust deep and fill it with lots of cheese and other ingredients. I tried the mushroom and shrimp combi at Giordano, 1 of the recommended restaurants but I've never been a big pizza fan so I can't really rave about it. Their garlic bread was nice and toasty though.

All in all, I wish I was able to stay a few more days in Chicago and maybe the city would grow on me a bit more. The weather was just too severe when I was there and because of my hypervigilance and jet lag, I was a bit too tense and disoriented to thoroughly enjoy myself. Many a times I was walking around the city by myself and there were many people begging on the streets but they seem generally harmless. I was even tempted to give them the coins that I didn't know how to use. Still, I decided to veer on the side of caution and walked away quickly.

One of my favourite moments in the city was during the last morning, just before I went back to the hotel to check out. The wind had stopped and the sun managed to beat the gloom, finally. I walked among the brisk peak-hour crowd, just enjoying the cold weather while sipping on some delicious hot chocolate. Ah, this is the life!