Who wants to be a rocket scientist?

"Many people are held back in life because they think they can't do it when, in fact, many things are not rocket science."

Very wise words, if you ask me. This was spoken by a certain Mr Ang who graduated from the same journalism school as me, and who went on to become a VP of a US biomedical firm at the age of 33. Wow, super achiever.

It's quite easy to dismiss it, and gripe: "Oh, right, easy for him to say, he who was on a government scholarship and who graduated with 1st class honours". But what he says resonated--I often find that I put myself down whenever I'm thinking about embarking on something new, even for something as simple as a violin exam or learning how to drive.

I should learn more from the people around me who have that can-do spirit, like my neighbour at work whose favourite phrase is "Go (insert name) go!"

Oooh, juicy grapes

The Japanese must be voracious fruit eaters. Their local-grown fruits are so big and juicy and sweet and succulent and of course, scandalously expensive. I tried their grapes, peaches, and plums while there last year and gee, I really wonder how they do it. Is their soil more fertile, or their rainwater sweeter?

Anyway, it's a good thing I have doting sisters who lug back boxes of grapes (that was selling at 80+ bucks per box at Takashimaya) from there for me. :)

I ate these until my tongue turned blue, and I couldn't even be bothered to peel them and instead, just pop them in whole! Eating them is like drinking red wine because they contain so much of the intoxicating juice. Hmmm!

And they're big! Not a very good photo but you can see how the grapes usually sold here are totally overshadowed by those giant grapes. Yum yum. I want more!

Moderately addicted to coffee

In my own little ways I've been 1 of those people who are prone to excesses. And to think of it, most people around me has their own peculiar "overindulgence"--most, thankfully, in (somewhat) harmless things such as food or shopping etc., as opposed to harmful substances or behaviour. Our world is such that it actually implicitly encourages excessive-ness, because so many things can be bought as long as you can pay.

So what have been my excesses? I have a habit of craving for a certain food (it could be anything unhealthy, from chicken rice to coke) and eating it repeatedly until I get tired and move on to another. I used to stay up all night and sleep only when the sun rises. I listen to songs that I like almostly obsessively until I become mighty sick of them. I sleep too much, sometimes until I feel groggy and faint. And of course, I'm a coffee addict.

See, moderation is like a dirty word when we are still young. Why the restraint when you know you can afford to get away with it? But as 1 of my favourite singers John Mayer croons it: "Oh twice as much ain't twice as good", and as I get older, moderation is starting to sound like a good idea.

I was complaining that my health seems to be getting poorer. All sorts of allergies surfaced since I started working. It may seem like a bad thing, but I think it's my body's way of telling me that it's not going to overlook any more of my unthinking trespasses. It's time to take more care of myself, to be responsible for my own health. Nowadays, if I eat too much heaty and spicy food, my face breaks out in pimples. If I don't take fruits for awhile, I become sick. If I take too much of it, I get indigestion. And I struggle to stay up past 2 am.

Of course, it is not to say that I've changed for the better entirely. Otherwise I wouldn't be such a grouch before having my life-saving dose of coffee every morning, or to listen to music even as I struggle to concentrate on copyediting. But I try. Sometimes. :) Like how I restrict myself to 1 cup of coffee on most days. Sometimes I trade it for the milder tea. I'm one of those people who believe in the mind and body being 1 system and all, so it's like a vice versa thing, which means I have to keep myself in a moderately pleasant mood. Ooooh, now that's a challenge, since tomorrow is a Mon. Sigh! :)))

Pointless killing of trees

Well, I know I was supposed to blog about Perth (II) but I'm too lazy to do so and want to blog something snappy.

There's a Chinese free newspaper here called My Paper (http://www.mypaper.sg/) and when I saw its front page today, I get reminded why it's silly to study journalism in this country. I mean, where's the juicy news? Everyone is so law-abiding (and therefore uninteresting and un-newsworthy) that they resort to putting as today's leading headline: "Escalators: Some too fast, some too slow?"

It's a bit like the metrological department issuing something like: "This year's weather: some days are rainy, some days are hot".

I guess what I'm saying is: What's your point?

Perth trip (I)

As mentioned, I shall post some photos we took in Perth and describe them a bit.

So this is the skyline of Perth city which is pretty distinctive because these seem to be the only skyscrapers in the whole of Western Australia.

Anyway, I thought it looked quite similar to Sing*pore's:

And this is a typical street in Perth CDB area.

It's not very impressive architecture but I kind of like it because of that. All the steel-and-glass skyscrapers you see in the CBD here are designed to loom and cast shadows over passerbys and to give you the we-are-a-first-world-city-so-don't play-play impression.

The streets of Perth are just clean and quiet, and lined with these pleasant-looking, low-rise Victorian buildings. But as the night descends, some of the streets became very boisterous because of all the drinking places they have there. Beer-drinking seems to be their only night-time activity because everything else closes at about 5pm. No shopping, no nothing. I think in Australia, can't drink = no social life.

We didn't see any drunks, but one evening, as we were walking around, teenagers in black T-shirts (Metallica etc on them) and dreadlocks and piercings started to spill out from who knows where into the streets. H and I were both kinda nervous and walked as fast and as nonchalantly as possible back to the hotel, and with nothing to do during our self-imposed captivity, we munched on fast food and fruits and watched the infamous Busty Girls Jumping Vigorously On Trampolines on TV. I really don't think the girls should do that too often. Gravity is going to get to them and they'll sag terribly--the trampolines, I mean.

Now, let's leave booze and boobs for awhile and venture out of the city.

This photo was taken in Fremantle, a small town near to a fishing harbour and with a relaxed, resort feel. The air was crisp and fresh without the salty tang you get sometimes from the seaside breeze here. In fact, they nicknamed it Dr Fremantle because it's supposed to be so good for you.

I wanted to try the fish and chips in Fremantle but we didn't have a lot of time to spend there. We did go to their popular weekend market though, and bought bottles of honey, strawberries and stuff. Things are not very cheap but at least the market was not as chaotic or clastrophobic as the ones in Bangkok, so shopping there was a relaxing experience.

Fremantle has a lot of cafes along what they call the Cappucino Strip, all housed in 1- or 2-storey colonial buildings which my Australian manager calls the shophouses of Australia.

These buskers were playing along the street there and adds to the resort feel of the place. Usually, it's awkward when you see buskers in Sing*pore as everyone seems to be ignoring/avoiding them by giving them a wide berth but these guys look like they just decided to get together and have a good time and earn some change for a cup of java later.

We also went to tour the sand dunes on this giant 4-wheel vehicle for an extremely (and deliberately) bumpy ride which was accompanied by unbearably cheesy music with some chap yodelling about "great summer rain". What has any of this got to do with rain, I thought, but I didn't dwell on it for too long as I was too busy screaming my head off.

I did a bit of sandboarding down a slope that looked really quite steep but was actually pretty OK. It was real fun except that we were guided by this chee-ko-pek (lecherous) guide who openly molested a friendly Japanese girl by patting her bum and also tried to tickle H and me. What a crappy guy, trying to take advantage of a girl and masquerading it as harmless fun. More later.

In a different light

What exactly makes for a good vacation? I think it could be a mix of various things, like good company (thanks, H!), good-natured weather, friendly locals, plentiful and cheap shopping and food (this one is a bit hmm...), interesting places. Most of all, I think it's about a feeling. I told a colleague that Australia seems to have a curious hold over me--every time I go there I don't really have a lot of fun, but yet after a while I would always think of going back.

But this time round, I don't feel so ambivalent: Australia, especially Perth, is a great place to be if you wish to hit the pause button for a while and step back. Different things work for different people, but physical space just does it for me. And space is what Australia has, in abundance. The land, the sky, the sea, all bathed in the warm light. It's that feeling of wide expanse and openness that makes Australia so fascinating for me.

I shall write more about the trip and upload the photos we took there soon!

Swooned...for 5 mins

A guy is most attractive when he is playing a musical instrument, don't you think? I attended a lunchtime concert put up by the Sing*pore Chinese Orchestra at the university campus last week, and there was this piece that featured 2 soloists, 1 male and 1 female. The female soloist was playing the pipa while the guy was playing what seemed like a smaller, more stout version of it.

He doesn't seem like a local Chinese, more like from one of those native tribes who live in some far-flung region in China. He was totally relaxed--occasionally he would break out in a grin while listening to the 50-odd-member orchestra playing behind him, or smile at the female soloist (so cute! I thought to myself.)--and yet his playing was so intense. His fingers were shaking and moving so fast over the strings they were a blur and he looked like a case of advanced Parkinson's disease. Very, very cool.

I wanted to see on the giant screen whether he has dimples when he smiles, but the inept camera people seemed fixated with this burly, mafia-look-alike drummer who looks like he earns extra cash by playing for a lion dance troupe or has a side job as the head cook of a zhi cha stall. Dang it.

But when the piece ended, so did his aura of attractiveness. He got up to take a bow and shake the hand of the conducter etc etc, and seemed just a bit erm, too sissy for my liking? Drats. :P

Much afraid

"That's what I'm afraid of

I don't have the will to change

Not when it's so easy, to be easy"

-- Easy, Folk Implosion

That's probably the thing I'm scared of the most now. How easy it is to be lured into wrapping myself in a kind of cocooning inertia, and how hard it is to fight my own innate instinct for the comfort of sameness.

Eh, where did my weekend go?

This is going to be a terribly self-indulgent post as I'm going to whine about weekends, or rather, how I squander away the precious weekends.

I just find myself caught in this loop of wasted weekends--every week, the same thing happens: Friday morning comes around, and I heave a little sigh of relief and say a bit of thanks. By afternoon, I've already lost the will to even pretend to work, and can be found surfing the web listlessly for amusement or having empty, emoticon-filled conversations that only the idle can muster with pals via MSN.

Friday evenings are not a good time to go out as I'm pretty much exhausted by then, so I usually go straight home, intending to watch all-night TV with some potato chips or cookies. Then, I concede defeat by 9.30pm and quit for the night to catch up on sleep since I've become a weekday insomniac these days.

Saturdays and Sundays would be a mindless blur. Lots of sleeping, channel-surfing, with a dash of reading and blogging and ironing and snacking, or movies and friends and coffee sometimes. That's it. I've slept my weekends away again! On Sunday night I would suffer last-minute, where-did-my-weekend-go panic and try to repent by staying awake as late as possible to cram in some leisure reading or whatever. So when Monday morning comes, I would, bleary-eyed, heave a sigh of resignation and resolve to make the next weekend different.

How nice it would be if I could do a different thing every weekend. Organise a family picnic, attend a concert, go roller-blading. See, the pangs of guilt are starting already.

Try and try again

The grade 2 violin exam which I took yesterday, my first music exam, was something that I've been dreading for 2 months.

I was very reluctant to sign up for the exam initially, because learning the violin for recreational purposes was stressing me up enough as it was, and also because taking the exam, which I wasn't even sure of passing, require hundreds of dollars. I grumbled that I must pass it or quit learning it.

The violin is something that I wrestle with. I stumbled upon music late in life. My fingers are stiff, and my hands, too small for my full-sized violin. I don't have a good sense of rhythm and my sight-reading ability is questionable at best. I'm a nervous wreck when playing the violin and always fumble over notes. I just wasn't making any improvement, and my enthusiasm was waning dangerously.

I still wrestle with it, but after 2 months of more intensive practising, sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like I get it, like I'm really playing music. My fingers know where to go, the bowing feels smooth and loses its usual jarring quality, and I feel like I'm actually getting into the groove of it.

Anyway, the exam was a disaster. I was so nervous my mind drew a blank when I was asked to play the F major appregio. So silly of me to practise it over and over again and only to panic and forget it when it matters the most. The rest of the exam was a blur. I came out in a shocked daze, and proceeded to binge on a subway sandwich and pepperidge farm chocolate cookies.

Anyway, yah, 2 months of numbing practising have actually made me realise how much I wish to really play the violin, and not wrestle or fumble with it and make all those terrible screeching noises with it again. So even if I flunk this time, I've decided to continue learning it. Try and try again.

Places I want to go (II)

After more than a month of discussion, my friend H and I have booked that holiday thing. Perth, here we come! People have been saying that Perth is a boring place for retirees and old people but I think that's what we want: to let loose in a nice, quiet, little city (we are both, after all, spoilt, bratty city gals) with little shops, cafes, marketplaces, a nice park and surrounded by picturesque natural wonders, like what picture is showing above. Look at the sky! The water! I was telling H that I want to walk along the jetty that extends into nothingness and just jump straight into the blue water. Woo hoo! This is going to be one cool, crazy trip.

The office

We were given 3 days to move out of the current office which the 8 of us share, and we'll be scattered in 3 different offices.

It's no big deal I guess, especially since there's already been talk about us moving. But it's true that this has been my second home for more than 2 years, not because I spend so much time here, but because it feels like it. For me, home is where sleep is. I don't sleep well in strange places and the office has already passed the litmus test because I nap there all the time. And the funny thing is, my dear colleagues actually try to talk in whispers and not make noise when they see me sleeping when I'm patently NOT supposed to!

Our office has an open, communal concept: there're no partitions and we sit in 2 rows at the sides while in the middle there're 2 big common tables. So a bunch of us often talk across the office and well, everyone can hear and see everything. It feels like a classroom, only without a teacher. And instead of flinging paper planes and crunched-up paper balls at each other, we hurl mock-insults.

And the view from here is fantastic--I often stand at the windows that span from ceiling to floor, just looking at the green hills afar which turn misty on cold days, and the occasional thunderstorms. Now they're turning it into an archive room cum general office, of all things, and building in those looming, grey compactus shelves libraries use to keep books that no one would borrow anymore.

For the move, I managed to keep my immediate neighbours, which is a relief. All of them have by now shifted out of the old office, except me and my right-hand neighbour (and a part-timer who's not often in), who seems as reluctant as me though he keeps a cheerful face about it. I thought I was crazy to be sad about leaving an office, but at one point, he mused aloud that he's been here for 2.5 years, and I knew I'm not really that nutty. Now that he's out in schools, it's just me in this big office which is so quiet and still, I can hear the humming of the printer and people walking by outside.

People have been coming in and out of the office all day, carting off boxes, stock taking, putting labels on the furniture. I wanted some quiet time in the office but now, looking at the empty desks around me, I realise it's the people who make the place. This was an office built for 10 and the noises and buzz they generate, and now, it's too big for comfort for me, and the dust is making me sneeze. Time to do the packing up that I've been putting off and head for the new office.

Places I want to go (I)

One of the places that I hope I'll get to see--lavender fields at sunset. I heard that France has lots of them, but it could be anywhere in the world for me, really. I just want to run to the middle of it, close my eyes and take in a deep, deep breath of the intoxicating, sweet scent.

The problem about making lists of the places you want to go is that you're very likely to have been inspired by picturesque photos in National Geographic or some travel magazine or postcard which had been photoshopped down to its last pixel. Or the photographer had used some special lenses which made the colours more intense: the sky pristine blue and the clouds iridescent and fluffy, and the forest, emerald green.

It'd be kind of sad if you're enchanted by the facsimiles and yet be let down by the real thing--dull and raw and washed out in comparison.

Perhaps the lavender would not be a vibrant purple. Perhaps lavender would feel dry and coarse and prick me as I touch them. Perhaps the real lavender doesn't smell anything like the bottled scent. But I'd rather risk being disappointed than not having seen it at all.

I want to see the real thing, not just someone else's version of the place, no matter how artistic it is, or how poetical. Not a flawless, polished, frozen picture in a glossy magazine. I just have to find out for myself, so that even if it proves to be imperfect, I can still say that I know the real scent of lavender.

Back to school

I've been sent back to school again, Grade 2 classes, no less.

As part of a research project, I've been tasked to observe classes this month. I used to cower before teachers, and now they still intimidate me, to some degree. I'm just inherently uncomfortable with figures of authority. Typical dialogue between me and the teachers I observe:

T: What's the purpose of this classroom observation, and by the way, you look very young hah?

Me: Erm, yah. But you know, I'm really older than I look! Ha ha.

T: Oh. (Awkward silence)

Many of them are puzzled that I should be observing them since I look like a kid just out of university and so, who was I to evaluate them? The last teacher who commented on this was informed tersely by me that we're actually of the same age.

I have the utmost respect for all teachers, because they're doing a job that I could never do. But I get miffed because what has age got to do with it? And as explained many times over, I'm not there to evaluate, but to observe though I'm not very good at that because I could never pay full attention in class.

Many a times, I had to stifle yawns (got to be a model of impeccable conduct with all those curious kids staring at me) during the lessons. Sometimes, my mind unknowingly wanders, like this afternoon, when I stared out the window, watched the wind harrassing a tree and the gardener watering the plants with a hose, when I really should be monitoring the going-ons in the classroom. Hard to believe that as I grow older, my attention span actually shortens.

Nowadays, classrooms just lull me into comatose. It could be the whirring of the fans, the background drone in every school, or the constant lecturing of the teacher and chattering of the students.

I wonder how, as a student, I managed to actually stay awake most of the time (though friends tell me I napped openly during chemistry lessons) and survive the whole educational system. I remember nothing but exercises and worksheets and essays and compositions over and over again. The whole sum of my educational experience is represented by the piles and piles of worksheets that I churned out.

Classes nowadays are somewhat better--more hands-on activities like making of posters and games and less worksheets. But a poster I saw in the classroom this afternoon made me think.

The title of the poster was "Our Goals" and I thought to myself that it should be interesting to see what collective ambitions Grade 2 students have. I went closer and it was basically made up of lots of post-it notes, each written by a different student. What they did was to list down the marks they should strive for for English and Maths and the current marks they're getting. Below the marks is a section called something like "My options and what's next" and basically they wrote the same things, everyone of them. Things like, "revise the topics that I'm poor in"; "read more"; "speak good English".

Oh, well.

In a crowded country

Have you heard of the recent survey which showed that we are the least happy bunch of people in Asia?

It was given a fair amount of coverage by the local media. This is just that kind of stuff that sends journalists and social commentators in a tizzy--on a talkshow one of them even started to quote philosophers and scholars about the meaning of life etc, ad nauseum. Please.

But the media have gotten the facts wrong. It is the happy planet index (HPI), not the happy folks index. It measures "the efficiency with which countries convert the earth's finite resources into well-being experienced by their citizens". i.e. keeping a healthy balance between earth's resources and human needs and wants. The website also provides a survey to let you measure your own HPI. Mine is lower than the national and worldwide averages. In fact, the survey says that I might as well have been living in Cameroon or Ethiopia. Oops.

What can be the people be unhappy about? My totally unscientific, unscholarly, biased, and frivolous explanation for our (and especially my) low HPI is that we are cooped up in a country too small to accommodate all of us. Crowds are everywhere, and they tire me out. I went to a shopping mall last Sunday and had to jostle with others on the train, the bus, the mall, and the shops. The constant drone gets to me. I'm tired of being elbowed, pushed, bummed into every time I decide to venture into town during the weekend, or the mad rush for a seat on the train, or having to endure queue jumpers. We need more room, seriously.

I feel hemmed in not just physically but also psychologically. A colleague from a neighbouring country commented that the people here are some of the most avid travellers she knows. It's not surprising--being in the country too long without reprieve makes me feel numb, like I've been anesthesised to prevent overstimulation and encroachment from the overcrowding, noise, stress, work, info. My senses are dulled and I seem to view everything around me in a post-anesthesia, indifferent daze. Maybe this is what those sociologists meant when they say urbanites live very atomised lives.

Consider this: in the list of countries by population density in Wikipedia, Sing*p*re ranks number 4, more than 6,000 folks per km sq. Other countries that we assume are as urbanised and populated as ours have much lower numbers. Japan: 340, South Korea: 480, Taiwan: 600+. Australia, 1 of my fav countries and whose people I consider to be perennially of good cheer, has only 3 peeps per km sq.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that the Aussies are even lower down the HPI. I was flummoxed. What do those people who have a whole continent to themselves have to complain about? That's when I remember that I read recently that Australia is also the driest continent on earth, with conditions so harsh as to make most of its interiors uninhabitable. They have the room--they just can't use it. Gee. No wonder the people behind the HPI renamed it the (un)happy planet index.

What a lousy World Cup

What a lousy tournament this World Cup has been. Surprises, there were many. But no game which was really good. The Italy vs Germany game came the closest, but it sure didn't take anyone's breath away. They call soccer the beautiful game, but most of what goes on on the pitch is ugly.

Think of the things footballers get up in to addition to doing their job. They trade barbs, throw punches, spit on each other's faces, kick opponents, insult each other's mothers and sisters and religions.

I've been an Italian fan since 1994. My sister and I thought Roberto Baggio was cool then and looking at the photos of the Italian players in the present team, I realised that some traditions were worth upholding. Shallow, but how deep is football anyway?

Italy vs Germany was the 1st Italian game I watched and they were pretty swell! I was so confident that they would win the finals that I placed a bet on them. And of course, we know that they drew with France and had to win through penalties. And made me lose $ the equivalence of 50 cups of the good ol' kopi, or conversely, 25 cappucinos. Enough to last me 10 weeks at work (or 5 if I were particularly grumpy).

France was the better team. The Italians passed balls clumsily and their attacks were inept. The later part of the battle was played out mostly on Italians' side of the pitch because France was attacking so persistently. And then, of course, that Italian player whose name rhymes with paparazzi (and both of whom are equally respectable) had to insult ZZ, and hot-headed ZZ, naturally, had to use his head. What a farce.

That buffoon of a goalkeeper did what C. Ronaldo did (except that ZZ wasn't his teammate, and he had the good sense not to wink indiscriminately): he ran 40m to the officials to protest and argue.

That guy looked like he was dealt with a crippling blow and was lying on the ground for a few minutes, groaning. And yet, he was able to resume play later, fit as a fiddle. After they had won the World Cup, he donned that stupid clown hat on the trophy. Very witty. Ha ha.

Ronaldo should heave a sign of relief. 'Cos he's no longer The Villain of the Tournament. I hope they all get disciplined. And fined.

Baking virtuoso in the making (VII): No more mousse

Can I bake my cake but not eat it too? The baking apprentice is surprisingly, not a cake person and is actually kinda sick of eating her own confectionary goodies and shall lay off baking for a while after this coffee mousse cake. A colleague actually applauded my decision. Oh well.

Feedback was that the coffee cake's OK, but the mousse is not sweet enough as I forgot to counter the bitterness of coffee with more sugar.

I wanted to post the receipe here, but the thing is, I can't even tell you how many spoonfuls of coffee powder I used--I just kept adding them until the colour seems right, and the batter smelled coffee-ish enough. It was all done in a very ah-gar-ish manner. But I sure hope it gave those who ate it a caffeine rush!

"Having a good time?"

There's something about the Aussies that make them ask this question all the time. Are you supposed to give them a perfunctory "Right ho, mate!", or think earnestly about the question and dissect your conflicting emotions right there and then: "Well, you know, there's good times and there's bad times and one musn't complain TOO MUCH but what the pluck were they thinking when I already told them I don't want to touch it and they still approach the manager, asking for permission to force me to handle it? Jerks!"

Aussies are great people: always looking at the bright side, easy-going and friendly, with a ready supply of inoffensive jokes and jibes and pleasant small talk (OK, I'm stereotyping. Bad me.) but....why do I always feel the pressure to say "everything's great!" to their friendly, off-hand questions? Like if I do not, I'll be seen as a moody grey cloud that crosses their path of eternal sunshine and darkens their skies momentarily.

I should probably learn from their optimism and explain away my moodiness with a cheery: "Just doing my part to block out the ultraviolet, mate!" :P

Enjoy interactive dining (subject to cooking dexterity)

Interactive dining experience with fresh, au naturel food sans oil, fat, condiments = lots of listless fiddling with food and pointless scrapping of chao ta bits on the grill with utensils and while waiting for said food to turn "golden and deliciously crispy" = enduring with a bored sulk the "nice-try-but-u-suck" rhyming with the word Mraz = chao ta dory fish/beef/squid full of carcinogens = cough and flu.

Recommended to all who has alternative tastebuds for steamed broccoli and badly burnt barbecued food. Didn't the shockingly bad camp food we churned out at the secondary school camp teach us anything about our cooking aptitute?

Baking virtuoso in the making (VI): Father's day edition

So, you thought you've heard the last of the baking apprentice? Well, no, of course not! You underestimate my determination to churn out one confectionary fiasco after another.

But after the disaster on Mother's Day, I did tell myself that this time round I'll be meticulous and on-task and pay attention when making a cake for my father. I decided to take on a more intricate receipe: an orange mousse cake. Very foolish, but if you've read my mother's day edition post you'll know that irrationality is my guiding light when it comes to baking.

It looks not bad, doesn't it? Those yellow things on the cake are jelly diced into small cubes. It tasted OK too; at least that's what my father says. Well, the catch is, it took me 5 freaking hours to make it! From 2pm to 7pm. And my mother gleefully told me that she baked a butter cake in just 40 mins last week. ( -_-'') This includes an intermission when I polished off a packet of nasi lemak; and when I had to abandon the whole thing and scurry off to buy another packet of dairy cream after a failed attempt to whip up the mousse. Wiped out, I tell you.

I think my father ought to be touched. Maybe he'll give me a big b'day prezzie this week.

We're the summer kids

Next week is a good week, a special week. 'Cos it's my birthday and the other june baby's follows on the 23/06 and by that I mean.... J. Mraz! Haha, and WL's also lah. Aren't you honoured to be sharing your b'day with Mr. Mraz, huh? We're the summer kids, made of sunshine and blue skies and holidays and I don't know, erm, heat wave?

Anyway, I was telling H that I wanted to bake a Milo cake and courier it to him, but he's travelling for fun before going on the next round of touring so I don't know where to send the cake to. Looks like I'll have to send it to WL instead, but I don't think she would appreciate it.

Oh, I know! Maybe I'll give her an Oxford dictionary! But I think she'll just use it to whack my little head. Well, we'll make it the mini version then.

Remaking friends

As I grow older, I tell myself that I cannot afford to lose friends because I don't make them easily.

I saw quite a few of my old sec friends yesterday night at a dinner which I've dreaded, because I've made myself incommunicado to them for the past years. I wondered how they would react.

They were my closest group of friends in lower sec, and they still made the effort to reach me. Why was I so mean to them? A columnist wrote about her own experiences fighting with and cutting out friends in the papers today. She said that people change, and when friends no longer offer you what you want in life, you should decide whether to keep the friendship. Sounds selfish, but I guess my mentality was a bit like that then.

We were the model students. Some of them were in leadership roles and we were all hardworking and getting good grades. As a group, we even reported to the science teacher about how some of the students in our class got tips about an upcoming practical test. We were snitchers; I couldn't believe it now, though it seemed the correct thing to do then. I'm glad we were not ostracized by the class then.

I was the one who changed, I think. Being "model" takes effort and was just less fun. I'm not a rebel but being a bit quirky and imperfect, and failing maths, and occasionally geography, was just more me. They seemed so sure of everything while I was just fumbling along. I hate being judged and corrected.

But yesterday, spotting them in the crowd, my first feeling was relief, especially when a friend who sat next to me in class and whom I didn't know was coming was there also. I told some of them I was happy to see them, and I meant it.

I've also cut out a number of friends from JC that way, because JC left me with a lot of bad memories and I wanted to start with a clean slate: I wanted nothing to do with them. Kind of like a memory surgery. Cut out the malignant bits. I was not myself in JC and therefore the friends I made there are not really my friends either. It was not their fault that I had a difficult time, but they formed part of the experience nonetheless.

Now, I think differently. Losing friends through deliberate neglect seems very selfish to me now. I'm quite certain that friends I've ignored do not understand why. The reason, simply to sum up, was that I was unsure of myself as a person. I presented slightly different personas to different groups of people. When I became uncomfortable with a persona, I shed it, along with the friends who knew that side of me. I think, I hope, the personas are converging as I grow older, and that I can remake the friendships I've made and lost along the way.

Food, deplorable food!

I've never been fussy about food. I don't even eat much of it.

Food that I like are mostly cheap junk like instant noodles and veg crackers (I can't remember how many packets I munched through while watching a marathon of a drama series, Jewel in the Palace).

And to emphasise my apathy, my colleague likes to narrate the tale of the day when we escaped from the office and holed ourselves up at a hotel in Orchard Road for a sumptious high tea buffet that was supposed to last a few hours and test our gastronomical stamina, but I quitted after a tuna sandwich and a piece of fruit jelly. All that for 30 bucks. That was an exaggeration on her part for dramatic effect I guess, because I did recall dutifully cramming in some finger food before whinning while they soldiered on with sashimi and cakes and dim sum.

So if I say that a meal I partook irks me, you can be sure it was really irksome. I had a dory fish dish with some pretentious name at a coffee club outlet. Another friend also had dory, with red chicory(?) and anchovies. We were complaining aloud about how dry and hard the fish was. Below are the pictorial evidence of those nasty dishes with names to trip up customers' tongues.

Looks a mess, no? Pieces of dry, cardboard-hard fish with red, unidentifiable crap heaped upon them.

A sorry excuse for the use of dory fish, if you ask me. An indistinguishable mishmash of fish, potatoes, and crumbs with the gritty texture of sand. M asked me how it was and I spat kindly: "Indifferent."

H's beef whatever was no better. Pieces of suspicious-looking meat and mashed potatoes drowned in a grey-brown sauce, creating a gruesome mess. M's "excellent food award"-winning garlic prawn pasta fared somewhat better, though she blurted out that the spices were "weird".

We each had to fork out about 24 bucks for the meal, including drinks and the passable calamari. I guess what irks me so much was that our country is known for an abundance of good, local, cheap food and yet we had to pay to endure such indifferent food with phony names. Give me the food court next time.

The great ant colony sale

A male colleague commented the other day that Sing*pore girls look for monetary security above all and he doesn't blame them but what's a guy to do if he doesn't have the dough to buy a flat and car? He said he wanted to poll me about my views but then I belong to the minority.

"What do you mean?" I asked warily. He said that I'm not like those Shenton Way girls he knows who spend like crazy and in fact, that's what most Sing*pore girls are like. Is it really? I look at my friends around me and, yes, we like to spend; the GSS gets us all excited and we hanker after branded goods occasionally, but I doubt we are materialistic.

A media personality quipped the other day in the newspaper that the true religion in Sing*pore is money.

Is it because we are shallow? An explanation would be that we have a hoarding mentality like those small furry animals in Over the Hedge: the amassing of food (money and property and things) is the key to survival and the buttress against harsh winter and dangers lurking in the big, cruel world.

We've always been told that we are but a little dot on the map, surrounded by much bigger neighbours in an unstable region. Our economy can easily be trounced by big Asian giants. So the crisis mode is somewhat more heightened in us, just like small furry animals who are easily spooked by outside nosie and movement.

Then again, curiously, we are also known for our complacency, at least according to our leaders, who don't want us to rest on our country's successes. That's a dilemma, isn't it? How do you make citizens' lives so comfortable and 1st-world and yet keep them on their toes? It's like trying to make a well-fed predator hunt for its own food in the wilderness. The people are easily satisfied, but the leaders want more, faster, better! Gives it a decidedly Pinky and the Brain feel. You know, the Brain wanting to take over the world and loyal Pinky following the orders in an earnest but befuddled fashion.

I really don't think Sing*pore*ns are the most materialistic bunch if you compare them with other countries. More like, they have an instinct for accumulation, for a sense of protection and security. The aforementioned Over the Hedge furry creatures which seem to care for nothing but food, you wouldn't call them greedy, would you?

I always think of Sing*pore as an ant colony. Our people are like the tiny worker ants whose sole purpose is to gather food for the nest. Harmless but industrious, and always busy, be it carrying food back to the colony or simply running around crazily in zig-zags. What makes me uncomfortable is the feeling that the ants are so frantically on the move, but yet seem so hapless, like they are tired and harried and want to rest, but can't. When you look at the ants, don't you ever wonder, "Why don't they ever stop? What are they so busy for? And where exactly are they rushing to?"

English for beginners: We ain't the British Council but the BC ain't free

When I was young, I told myself that there are 3 professions that I would never go into: teaching, law and law enforcement.

But starting this week, I'll be teaching my mother English. Actually, this is not my 1st time tutoring someone. During my bro's 'O' Levels, I helped him with his History and he managed to score a B3 despite flunking the subject in all previous exams.

We went to the bookshop a few weeks ago to choose materials for the weekly lessons and we had to pick the simplest because my mother has no foundation in English at all. So what we bought were a book at K1 level and a packet of 40 flashcards designed for 2-6 year-olds.

Before this week, she has already picked some words from the book (man, woman, boy, girl etc.) and practised writing them on her own. I just gave her a spelling test and she scored 7 out of 10: not bad. Looking at her printing those neat, rounded words on the exercise book and muttering to herself the letters that make up each word, I realise what a difficult undertaking it is to learn a new language from nothing. Nothing to build upon, nothing to compare to, and nothing to fall back on.

Everything would have to be by memorisation. She worries about how easy it would be to forget the pronunciation of the words. She doesn't know hanyu pinyin and has no idea how each letter sounds. I worry about how I'm going to teach her grammar when I haven't even figured out the intricacies of tenses. And how do you explain why a word can mean many different things and a thing can go by many different names?

Baking virtuoso in the making: Mother's day edition (V)

I told my mother I'll bake a butter cake for her for Mother's Day. Don't be fooled into thinking that because butter cake is such a common cake, it's easy to bake. I've failed just about every time I tried. Most of the time, the cake is too dense.

Well, it takes a person of courage to post evidence of her baking failures on her blog, and I'm not that kind of person, so I'll post the picture of the butter cake mixture before it was baked.

I can tell that I'm going to have a bit of difficulty in becoming a baking virtuoso simply because I can never follow anything that comes remotely close to a formula, and you'll agree with me that receipes are a complicated form of it. For one, I often improvise. And I improvise not because of creativity but due to necessity and irrational whim.

You can see that the paper lining the tin above is not the usual "tracing paper" but an A4 computer-printing paper because we ran out and I realised that only when I was going to pour the mix in.

The receipe called for 300g of butter and I put only 250g because I felt queasy just looking at the huge amount of greasy butter that goes into it, and also because 250g happens to be the weight of exactly 1 stick of butter.

The cake rose more than it should (and I'm quite bemused that normally the cakes I bake do not rise enough and this time round, when it's not supposed to rise, it peaked, and erupted.) The top was baked to a crisp and yet the inside was gooey. I had to scrape (or prise) off the top layer and put it back to bake. It was not a pleasant sight.

My sister tried the cake first and proclaimed it to be edible and believe me, coming from her, it's an act of unstinting kindness. But I dread having to eat it for breakfast for the next few days. And naturally, my mother reminded me, only after tasting the cake, that the amount of mix I made required 2 cake tins, not 1. So I'm quite sure now, blur people cannot be good bakers.

Notes after a busy work week

If I haven't been blogging as much as I used to, it's because I've recently been snowed under by lots of deadlines that I'm trying to clear so that I can get away for a week in June.

Also, we've had a new member on our team recently, and what's more, my manager assigned her to sit next to me (thanks, manager). You know how newcomers are: eager to please, and super-hardworking. Her coming reminded me of my own initial, heady weeks at the workplace. Everything that was assigned to me, I gave the utmost attention and totally inapproriate proportion of effort. And then, of course, the enthusiasim wore off and degenerated into ennui and weariness.

When I used to blog and nap in my office like nobody's business (I mean it: when I nap, I would take another chair and put my legs on it, because as I've explained to an amused colleague, I cannot nap properly when my legs are not up), I now have to work and slog to keep up and erm, not to lose face?

Because she made me hark back to those good old days, I also cannot help but think about my entire stay here and, inevitably, when I'm going to leave. I'm afraid that I've not really made use of every opportunity here to learn and improve, simply because of the sheer amount of work. Most of my energy is spent just trying to clear as much as possible.

And when you focus on quantity, something is lost; not just quality, but also your passion for your work. And when that happens, you start to moan about why you spent so many years in university and end up in the wrong field anyway.

And I often dread those working discussions with the senior people, because they do most of the talking, and we end up with the most work. I often write the meeting minutes and when a colleague mentioned that the senior people like to have a column "Action to be taken by" for their directives, I retorted that it's redundant because the names would always be the same.

Of course you can say those senior people used to be junior staff who were also at the mercy of others, but when 1 of them tells you that a project you're working on is problematic because it's being handled by women and yet at the same time has a habit of putting his hand on your shoulder or arm and peeks at your notebook openly, you sometimes can't help but rant.

I'm trying to fight off the work fatigue, as many young working adults are. I just feel like I need to take a break to detox and flush away the toxic stress. Away from the email distractions and deadlines, I think I'll be able to better remember that essentially, I still want to work in this line.

A busful of uncles

I went to one of those mass speech events yesterday and was travelling on a bus full of uncles with tanned, weather-beaten faces. They were speaking in dialects and half the time, I didn't know what they were talking about. But you can sense the camaraderie within that crowded bus. Everyone knows where everbody is going. And I asked myself, what do I have in common with these dialect-sprouting uncles? Why am I on the same bus with them, going to the same place as them?

I think what we have in common is the belief in fair play. You don't need a tertiary education to understand it, or even a common language.

I've done my civic duty now, and as the Heineken ad goes, "Now, we wait".

Got calcium?

Went for a free health check-up during the weekend and realised that I don't have enough bone mass. People of my weight range are supposed to have 2 kg worth of bones, while I only have 1.8 kg. Well, I'm not surprised, seeing that I don't drink milk or eat tofu or take supplements. But I heard that it's important to deposit as much calcium as you can in your calcium "bank" before you hit 30, because after that only withdrawal is allowed. So friends, stock up on the cheese while you can.

And today my work neighbour, the health supplement expert, was giving me a prep talk about the different types of calcium and drawing up a diagram, the PhD student that he is (refer to image). I wonder where he gets the time to read up on all these.

Let me share some of his advice with you:

1) Taking just calcium is not enough. You need to take it with magnesium, zinc, and vitamin D3 (and not just any D)

2) There are many different types of calcium, most common being calcium carbonate. It is the cheapest, and contains the most elementary calcium (aka the calcium that our body absorbs and uses).

3)But it can be absorbed only in the small intestines and it is important that you take it with food. He said best to choose plant-derived calcium supplements, or you may get some metals in the mix.

4) Other calcium types include gluconate, lactate, and citrate and they can be better absorbed than carbonate, but are more expensive, and contain less elementary calcium. Phosphate cannot be absorbed and acts as a catalyst only (for what, he doesn't know).

Let me know you find this utterly useless. I usually don't blog such erm, informational posts.

Personality test

http://www.personaldna.com/

Quite a complicated personality test requiring lots of sliding on horizontal scales and emptying of buckets (You'll know what I'm talking about when you try it out). What does it say about me?

You are a Dreamer
Your combination of abstract thinking, appreciation of beauty, and cautiousness makes you a DREAMER.
You often imagine how things could be better, and you have very specific visions of this different future.
Beauty and style are important to you, and you have a discerning eye when it comes to how things look.
Although you often think more broadly, you prefer comfort to adventure, choosing to stay within the boundaries of your current situation.
Your preferences for artistic works are very refined, although you vastly prefer some types and styles to others.
Though your dreams are quite vivid, you are cautious in following up on them.
You are aware of both your positive and negative qualities, so that your ego doesn't get in your way.
A sense of vulnerability sometimes holds you back, stifling your creative tendencies.
You prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute.
If you want to be different:
Your imagination is a wonderful asset, but don't just dream?be bold enough to take action and explore new things!
Consider a wider range of details and possibilities when thinking about the present and the future?don't be too set in your ways.

You are Considerate
You trust others, care about them, and are slow to judge them, making you CONSIDERATE.
You value your close relationships very much, and are more likely to spend time in small, tightly-knit groups of friends than in large crowds.
You enjoy exploring the world through observation, quietly watching others.
Relating to others so well, and understanding their emotions, leads you to trust people in general, even though you're somewhat shy and reserved at times.
Your belief that people are generally well-intentioned contributes to your sympathy regarding their problems.
Although you may not vocalize it often, you have an awareness of how society affects individuals, and you understand complex causes of people's behavior.
You like to look at all sides of a situation before making a judgment, particularly when that situation involves important things in other people's lives.
Your close friends know you as a good listener.
You're not one to force your positions on a group, and you tend to be fair in evaluating different options.

I actually think that I'm a lot nastier than that. Ask my colleagues and they'll tell you that when they rub me the wrong way often enough, I can snap at them rather pointedly. Talk about being considerate and understanding. But nice people as they are, they often attribute it to a lack of caffeine. :)

Baking virtuoso in the making (IV)

OK this is the carrot bread that the baking apprentice made today. How does it taste? Well, it's not chewy like the baking instructor's and is a bit dense. If you are thinking to yourself that the bread doesn't look very appetizing, I just want to say: you're not the one who has to eat it for breakfast tomorrow, so what are you COMPLAINING about? *sob. This is always the problem with the stuff I bake as the mixer at home is not powerful enough and those really good ones cost, like 700 bucks. Makes you want to give up and just go to the nearest 7-11 and buy a loaf of Gardenia for $1.40.

Things that I like (II)

I like....

....the smell of the approaching rain, of the brewing storm.

It draws me to the window. It beckons me to slow down my strides. To smell the air that is more intoxicating than the syrupy red roses.

The dark clouds rush to swallow the sun, the thunder grumbles gently, and the cool wind tugs at my hair and whips it into a frenzy, but I don't feel uneasy. I draw deep breaths and fill my brain with the rush of nostalgia and anticipation. It's the scent of the past and the future. And it makes me feel alive in the present.

How do you describe it? It's not the smell of rain, which is a mix of clean dirt and wet cement. It's heady but not strong; crisp but not sharp. It tingles the mind, but does not deliver a buzz like coffee. It smells elemental, a very basic smell, and yet nothing comes close to it. I know what it is not, but yet I really don't know what it is.

Baking virtuoso in the making (III)

A durian mousse cake that my mother and I baked. Not very fantastic in taste (too much cream) and the upper layer is bizzarely larger than the bottom though we used the same cake pan. But still quite edible, especially if you are a durian fan. And anyway, mousse cakes are my fav. But while beating the cream, I had some of it splattered all over the kitchen and my face. Woohoo! And people had to ask what's so fun about baking.

Sister from Japan, watch out!

Playing to different rhythms

Family is a complex thing. Perhaps things were made more complicated by the fact that I have a different "temperament" from the others, as I've tried to explain to my friend H. But it's not a very good explanation at all. More like, I'm somewhat out of sync, like an oblivious violinist playing to an errant rhythm while the oboe player and the cellist and others in the ensemble roll their eyes at me in exasperation.

It's kinda hard to explain the intricacy of it all, but I attribute it to differing personal outlook. I've frequently been at odds with my parents in our opinions of well, almost everything. And I'm not even trying to be a rebel; they would be more relieved if I were, because then a neat explanation would have been available to them.

One of our biggest barriers is language; not just language itself but also the way language has tinged our outlooks into different shades. I've long discarded the idea that language is merely a functional tool. It is political, and visceral. You may say you don't really care about language use (especially if you are bilingual) but you will when your main language is at the losing end and is being seen as socially inferior. Which is why my father is dismayed that while my siblings and I (whom they think is the most recalcitrant in this matter, and come to think of it, in almost any other matter) converse in our mother tongue, we don't read or write it.

I'm saying all these because I read an interview in the local newspaper of a prominent playwright who started out writing English plays and later learned to write plays in his mother tongue. At a performance of 1 of his MT plays, looking at his parents sitting in the audience, he realised that he's been writing them as valentines to his parents.

You could say that I felt a slight twinge of remorse, especially since my mother recently decided to go to a community club to learn basic conversational English. Her English lesson is by itself another story and I shall blog about it if I have the time, and mood.

Family has been a cause for concern lately, not just the parents but siblings also. Family is a complex thing, and here I am, just trying to figure out my thoughts, and their rhythm.

Retrospection (III)

This is for all the 80's babies out there. I recently saw a trailer on Kids' Central about the retro kids' shows that they're bringing back.

Some people would consider it childhood blasphemy to not at least make a mention of Ses*me Street. But can I just say that I don't like it? The puppets are raggy and worn and maybe I discovered it too late, but what's so fun about learning and relearning numbers 1-10 with the Count Whatever who punctuates every number with a peal of fake thunder and Ho Ho Ho?

And the pair of eggheads with ambiguous orientation, the quarrlesome Bernie and Ernie? They're always arguing over nothing, which really got on my nerves.

But let's move on, and talk about my favs!

C*re Be*rs
C*re Be*r stare! Remember these candy-floss coloured bears with different symbols on their tummies to show their different super powers? They live among the clouds and spy on unhappy little children using a telescope (ewww....). I remember my parents buying me the bedtime bear when I was young.

Anyway, they have a silly quiz to let you know which bear you should be. And guess what am I?

Bedtime Bear stays up nights. He's the special bear who helps people get a good night's sleep and makes sure that they have sweet dreams. There's no better bear buddy for a goodnight hug. Bedtime has a symbol that says what he's all about: a sleepy-faced moon.
Caring Mission: Helps people sleep.
Symbol: His crescent moon symbol represents his nighttime mission. Personality: Brave and alert (at night).
Character Quirk: During the day, he's always confused or dozing off.
Color: Blue.
Motto:Sleep is what I do best!

Source: www.care-bears.com

My Little P*ny
I was quite a fan of these pastel-coloured ponies which come with thick, luscious wavy manes just inviting to be stroked and different emblems on their bums (hmm, I'm beginning to see a trend here). They live in a place called Dream Valley, under the thumb (hoof) of a queen pony and erm, basically fly around. OK, so they're not very interesting. I checked on the Internet and there are different generations of ponies, some with wings and some without and some have powers and some don't, but really, who cares? Next!

Button Moon
"We're off to Button Moon,
to follow Mr. Spoon"

There's something fishy about this show. How else to explain its hypnotic effect on so many little kids who watched it, despite its kooky plot? Friends who've watched it all remember it well, but I bet no one can give a reason why.

It's about a family of spoons who rides a tin can rocket up the sky for a rendezvous with a host of "household implements" (trash can, broom, buckets, you get the picture.) whose sole role is to clean and polish a yellow button masquerading as the moon.

Makes no sense to me, even now. Help!

Str*wberry Shortc*ke
The fav of many little girls, though it's hard to explain why. A strawberry-coloured-haired girl with no apparent personality or aptitude and who surrounds herself with equally dreary creatures with such names as Blueberry Muffin and Butter Cookie. They all live in some unimaginatively named Strawberry Land and wear dumpy hats shaped like dollops of cream or the clothed top of jam jars.

Why did we like them? How do I know? Some of these cartoons are really inane with no educational value but I realise that they were really quite effective propaganda for toy products (but not Button Moon; they don't sell toy merchandise), making us little tykes pester parents for toy ponies and figurines, believing them to be our friends because they're always shown helping out small children in trouble in cartoons.

And I remember they even had those sticker albums and each week you have to buy a packet of stickers to collect all of them. Very pointless, but kids are easily satisfied. I wish they wouldn't prey on little kids like that. I think our generation, brought up to believe that friendship and joy come packaged in a box with a cuddly bear to be picked up at the nearest departmental store, carries that attitude through to adult life. No wonder when we're upset, one of the first impulses is to shop.

Baking virtuoso in the making (II)

My mother and moi baked this cake last weekend, using the receipe that we learned at the baking class. Not bad, huh?

Conversation between my sister who works in Japan and me on Sunday

Sister (by-the-wayish): Oh, I heard from ma that you baked a cake during the weekend, and it's actually edible!

Me (caught off guard): Huh? Oh, but of course what. I mean, what do you bake a cake for? So of course it's edible. Ha ha ha!

Sister (sniggering): But that's not what I heard. The last time I was back for a visit, ma told me that everytime you mentioned about baking a cake, the whole family was scared. Your cakes were so dense yadda yadda....

Me: Erm but everytime I baked, they ate everything up!

Sister: I think because they didn't want to hurt your feelings. (twittering)

Me: Oh, is it? Ha ha ha. Let's change topic.

She's going to pay for this. Next time she comes back for another visit, I'm going to bake her a 12 x 12 inch durian (which she hates) mousse cake worthy of giving a karate-chop expert a sore hand for days.

Tea is for pansies

Tea is for pansies

fit only for babies

my drink of choice is coffee

which makes me go "yipee!"

but since I've tried to quit

I feel like a dimwit

I can't even copyedit

and life feels like a super-sized zit

Red, sore, angry

and not at all lovely

the work I've done this week is less

than what I dare to confess

when normally I'm such a slog

now I only write incoherent blogs

I'm so caught up in the agonising throes

I feel ready to bite my twitching toes

If I can just taste a cappucino I can get past any obstacle

except the snub by the all-knowing Starbucks Oracle

who actually calls me a snobbish asshat

when I think it's a stupid old dingbat

Starbucks is establishment

only losers heed its judgement

I just want back the good ol' coffee

so that life will once again agree

even if it makes me wanna pee

I'll just yell "whoopee!"

Baking virtuoso in the making (I)

Erm, OK, so I went to my first baking class at the community club. Told a friend who's known me since sec school and she says it's so unlike me to learn baking. Hmm.

I was expecting to get my hands dirty with coagulated flour and slimy eggs but all I did was to sit through a boring lecture by a roly-poly instructor. If you thought that home economics cooking lessons in sec school were fun, you are right. It just goes downhill from there. I suspect the tertiary-student-looking girl who looks like she should be hanging out in pubs and shopping malls thinks so too. I overheard her saying it's quite a disappointment that we don't get any hands-on experience. She should have suspected that something's not too right when she first stepped into the kitchen: she said a friendly hello and all the aunties just stared at her wordlessly. It sank, literally, with a thud.

Sitting next to me was this young professional who might be a bit older than me. She must have been one of those insufferable, model students who did their maths homework on time and snitch on fellow students who dye their hair. She's the first to respond to the instructor's prompts (loudly and clearly--I can almost hear a certain teacher: "That's right, girls! You should be like XYZ, speak up clearly when answering questions in class, OK! Don't mumble!") and to volunteer to help.

When the instructor remarked that we should go home and try out the recipe ourselves this week, she nodded and said earnestly "Yah, to experience it". I almost sniggered out loud except that I was having a lousy sore throat and it came out like a wheeze. I know I'm mean but for crying out loud, this is just about a chocolate fudge cake, not some Unlocking the Power Within crap seminar. Besides, she had asked me a question earlier about a step that she had missed hearing and when I couldn't answer, she sniggered. I mean, that's not fair what; I was busy looking at other people.

Overall, the participants' median (mean? mode?) age was lower than I thought. There were quite a number of erm, rich homemakers and white collars who look to be in their mid- to late-30's. I saw Rolexes being flashed and expensive shoes and bags and cakey make-up. Of course the ubiquitous HDB aunties are also represented (including the auntie who kept complaining loudly that the recipe is too difficult). So, quite a motley bunch.

If you've read Maeve Binchy's Evening Class you'll attend any kind of adult classes with a secret anticipation that you'll meet all sorts of normal people with abnormal...I mean, interesting, lives and that it'll lead to a marvellous adventure and leave everyone better off than before. But baking is somewhat different from learning the Italian language so, OK, forget it.

But in attempting to be a good student, I shall try out the choc fudge cake recipe this weekend. The class is really boring, but I want to learn the Milo cake so that the next time Mraz drops by our island again I would have an excuse to go to the airport and scream along with the teenage groupies, "Mraz! I baked this for YOoOU!!" Heh heh.

No more freakin' flu pills

I'll just say it outright: I ain't taking Cl*rin*se no more. If any doctor were to ask for allergies in future I'll state that my mind is allergic to those sugar-coated mini mentos.

You can see that I'm no happy camper here. Last night I was feeling quite bad from a combination of sore throat, runny nose, overproductive phlegm glands (to those smart alecks out there who are going "is there such a thing?": pluck off.) and general heatiness from an overindulgence in mangoes. I took some medication for the throat, antibiotics, and a Cl*rin*se pill.

I was thrashing and tossing the whole night, and whimpering in gratefulness that the next day is not a working day. It was just messing up my whole system: it makes you think you're asleep when you're not and vice versa. Worse, you thought that you were in some parallel universe alongside this one and strange thoughts just keep popping up. I kept scratching my legs which were feeling itchy for some reason. It wasn't mosquito bites as I couldn't find any tell-tale red bumps. If you don't know what I'm talking about, basically I'm saying I was sort of hallucinating last night, yah.

And then, in the middle of it all, I woke up (or not, I can't tell if I was really sleeping) with a feeling that if I don't take in some fluids immediately, I'll really be in danger of expiring. So I ran to down a mug of water, and more.

This morning, when I woke up, I felt as heavy as a rock and even now, as I'm typing away, my fingers are trembling a bit.

I mean, what the freakin' crap is this, messing around with an already precariously erm, nervy mind? A typical day would be when only 1 acquaintance tells me that I'm off the rocker.

Digression: By the way, I note that people are especially wary of those who like to make free associations: e.g. "Mondays are not blue for me, they're yellow because they remind me of lemons". Why's that? When you think about it, many works with creative input are also the result of a certain degree of free-wheeling linking. (e.g. corrupted pigs as communists, hmm.) Write about it in the western world and you get hailed as a genius. Say that out loud in China and a mob would descend on you. Who's to say who's mad and who's not?