This week was quite a fulfilling one. Initially, I thought that it would just be one of those typical weeks where I have all the time in the world to slack at home and watch movies and fill my stomach with whatever that's in my fridge but it has proven to be quite well-spent.

I tried to cook dinner for my family after a looong hiatus from the kitchen and it was quite alright except that the soup tasted a little bland. Maib liked the onion egg a lot and The Blob did his part and wiped up ALL the vegetables [all 2 packets of it!] and it seriously gave me some much-needed encouragement cos my mum was acting like a culinary Simon Cowell.

Celebrated San Yi's birthday on Sunday. (Can't believe she's actually past the 40 mark already!)

Also, Ai Ping, Duc and I were "busy being Nigella" for FOUR days until my hands smelt of garlic,flour and soap! Actually, I think it feels kinda worn out, as if it has endured the friction of the pots and pans and the water and soap from this week!

Hmm...but it was actually quite good cos it kept my mind busy due to the many dishes we came up with from scratch,really kept my brain working...

See! The Fried Rice we created for the very first time after improvising. Throw in a couple of tempura nuggets, spicy chicken wings and last night's leftover sardine and you get a meal fit for a King! [heh heh!]

Saw a lot of Cuiwen this week too. Sigh..sometimes I still can't accept the fact that she's really gonna go overseas to study soon. Will definitely miss her like crazy man...no more heart-to-heart phone conversations at any time of the day, no more random meeting-up sessions,etc...I can imagine the scenario 3 years later when she comes back to Singapore after getting her degree. By then, she may not come back alone but we will see a hot,hunky and brainy Aussie guy dangling his arm around her and Cui might be dressed in her nice Aussie clothes with expensive Aussie makeup and have a high-class Aussie slang,etc...

Baked a fruit cake with Joan today and it was nicer than the one I did last year cos it had a nice brownish look to it. [Joan! I'm waiting for your pictures!]

Had a pleasant surprise at Tampines Mall after that cos Louis and I bumped into Shannon, Evatte and their secondary school friends so we talked over dinner with them and stuff. Felt much better, knowing that they were not just going to be attending the same faculty as me but majoring in the same degree too! :)

Blood donation's tomorrow, followed by medical checkup as well as orthodontist appointment the following week...better to cherish these precious few weeks before school starts proper in about 3 weeks' time!

Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (A CAPPELLA!?)

A Techno/Funk song sung a capella, everyone! Just imagine how it will sound like!

FINALLY, this long-awaited day has arrived. I'm done with my job. Seriously, KK promised one week but it turned out to be a month. Hmm...it might probably be due to me actually. I keep procrastinating but when they asked me to extend I said OK [after much thought].

I didn't want to leave feeling that I didn't complete my job, which was to hand over my responsibilities to the replacement staff. Everyone around me has been telling me to forget about them and just leave cos the company has not been very fair and stuff but my conscience prevents me from doing so...sigh...anyway, the only reason worth staying would be due to a few special people in the office who never fail to make my day in office a little brighter.

As promised, I baked American Carrot Cake for them:

Straight from the (spoilt and faulty) oven

Behold the Titanic!

looks like tasty forensic evidence don't they?

I reduced the amount of sugar this time and they liked it although I found that it was not sweet enough.


Anyway, they treated me to a farewell lunch at "Ocean Fishhead Curry" near Amoy Street. Although dining was al fresco [aka coffeeshop], the food was really good. We had to wait quite some time for our seats but it was worth the wait. Joan, take note!


As there were 9 of us [Emma,Wendy,Sarah K, Yi Si,Cassandra,Evelyn,Joyce, CT and me] we could order more dishes. In total, everything added up to 12 bucks per person including me but I had it FOC, yay!! [can imagine Joan rolling her eyes at me already man...]

Woah...this post is starting to look like an entry solely on food so, for the record, let me introduce you, my dear readers, to this:


This dish here, enlarged for your convenience so that you can see the different condiments in their full glory, is THUNDER TEA RICE! ROAR!!!

Haha...Yi Si was influenced strongly by Emma the health freak to buy this for lunch. I tried a spoonful of the thing (and I seriously felt like vomiting).

It's too green and healthy for me but it certainly aids your stomach in the digestive process (cos this looks like partly digested stuff already).

Anyway, those who like Basil should try it but I would seriously turn to Ai Ping's mother's cooking anytime. Hers is healthy AND delicious, unlike this...heh heh...

friday the 13th

Back to work after my 3-week short hiatus where I was happily living my life to the fullest at home.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M BACK!!

And I'm saying this in a happy and "Pek Chek" way. [Happy first, then pek chek when I see reality piling up on my desk]


It's good to see familiar faces again, especially Wendy, Emma and Yi Si back at the office. The only difference is that I have a new Boss, CT, and the temp staff Sarah Kim [different from the other Sarah].


This week would be my second week, which is WAYYYY past the date that KK promised and now it's gonna extend to month end due to circumstances that could have been prevented if action was taken earlier. Sigh, that's all I can say. Forgiveness is crucial in this dog-eat-dogs, cats and everything else world.


To cheer myself up, I'm gonna talk about my latest conquest! I baked a semi-successful batch of blueberry muffins for my colleagues from scratch!

The reason why it's semi successful is because it has a texture similar to kueh. The only reason why it can have such a hybrid combi may be due to the following reasons:

(1) I mixed 2 different types of butter, 1 of which might be margarine.

(2) I was quite stingy on the butter.

(3) Why must it ALWAYS be the turntable of my microwave? It's ruining my delicate creations!

Speaking about muffins, I finally got a chance to savour the Oreo-flavoured muffin from "Missy Muffins" at Amoy Street Hawker Centre. I'm gonna reach that standard one day...haha...

Anyway, I'm gonna bake my all-time favourite American Carrot Cake tomorrow for my colleagues. Actually, come to think of it, it's not that bad going back to work again, mostly cos of my colleagues. They're seriously so warm and welcoming, even the underwriters and the people at Cross Street who called were asking about my whereabouts and stuff.

Besides, I have something to look forward to now...heh heh...my mood booster :D

Hmm...was just wondering something these past few days:

WHERE HAVE ALL MY FRIENDS GONE?

Everyone's so caught up in their lives now that we barely have time to meet up, even phone conversations are becoming shorter and sweeter. Hope everyone's doing fine.

To the important people in my life who are overwhelmed by the mundane routine they have to face everyday, not to mention the stress and depression incurred while immersed in such a lifestyle, cheer up! You're not the only one feeling like that. You'll definitely emerged stronger than before in more ways than one, serious!

All of you are very much on my mind :)

I wish this would stop...

All of us were at the court preparing for a court game with the Juniors who were at least 4-5 years younger than us. The seniors thrashed them, of course but we almost lost to them cos we had a disadvantage due to the lack of a Goal Defence (Ai Ping). Jiao Lian kept shouting at me and asking me to cover ALL positions in the defence area but although the mind was willing to do it, the flesh was weak. Moreover, I have not been exercising for almost a year. Jiao Lian was clearly unhappy with me and I don't know why but she seemed to overlook the fact that there was no GD to help with the defence around the central court.

Anyway, the girls were so hot and exhausted that they decided to be topless to cool down [in front of the volleyball court of all places!] I don't know why but suddenly I found myself topless too so I covered my bare essentials with my Adidas Bag and clothed myself.


Suddenly, Faisal came [out of nowhere] and we went up to the highest storey of a HDB block nearby to have a bird's eye view of the girls who were now playing [fully dressed by now]. We talked for quite some time until I saw G and M crouching nearby so I beckoned to Faisal to head to the lift and go down cos I don't wanna see them at all but it was too late. They tried to pry open the lift door but thankfully we were faster than them in escaping.
When we reached ground level, I had a bad feeling that something was not right and the moment we stepped out of the lift, a SWAT-looking police officer used a gun and shot a flying needle at me. I was stunned and Faisal realised that there was a countrywide curfew at this time and there would be SWAT teams going around shooting ANYONE they found loitering outside.

As we were not near our homes, we tried to ask residents nearby to be led into their homes temporarily but suddenly the police were hot on our heels after being alerted by G and M about our whereabouts and so we dispersed in different directions. I was finally able to take refuge in a house but it was no different from outside cos the mother of the house suddenly pointed some Red-Indian looking pipe at me and blew a needle, which was previously dipped in some hot liquid at me. I winced from the pain and made my way to another house but the SWAT team saw me and surrounded me.

It was at this time that I woke up and realise that it was another nightmare. This was the third one I had in three consecutive nights. [First one was the one with Sam and the Gnomes]


The previous night was about my Boss pretending to be wheelchair-bound so that people would not suspect that he was gonna intercept some NASA satellite signal from space and burn Central Mall down but I caught him in time when Louis and I were still deciding on where to go for dinner cos his accomplice was standing at some conspicuous staircase and was lighting a match to throw on the alcohol-doused staircase.
So I thought that in order to catch him, I could take a photo with him and his sidekicks so that I could show to the police later on. [It was quite funny cos all of them were making funny poses and flashing peace signs at the camera] But one of his baddies, was smart enough to realise my plan and so he stuffed his hanky into the camera viewer part so that the photo would not be captured but when I requested to see how the photo looked like [in order to make sure the photo was taken], it was there.

Then suddenly, I don't know why but Louis and I were helping my boss to escape from us [quite stupid but it was a dream so anything can happen]. We were lifting his wheelchair down 20 over storeys to ground level from another flight of staircase cos everywhere else in Central Mall was burning and because he was quite heavy, we employed a maid to help us [don't know how on earth she got there but she did] and it was so much faster.

When he reached ground level, he ran away and we were beating our heads and banging walls with our fists cos we were quite stupid to help him escape.


What a stupid nightmare. I wish this would stop....

All in a day's work

Ever since I stopped working, I've been trying to occupy my time with things that I always wanted to do when I'm free as I may not have that much time when Uni starts and I'm quite happy that I got to finish a cross stitch in 3 days [a record for me!], read through my whole bunch of Time magazines and did some housework [not that it was something I always wanted to do but I thought I should do something more productive for the family].



Tried out some recipes from Mum's cookbook too and I have to say that 95% of it was a success. The Macaroni Bake was not bad and the Minestrone Soup [not those canned versions,mind you!] was OK but the Sacher Torte, some kind of Chocolate Layered Cake which was on the cover page of the "100 favourite cakes" book looked too good to resist so I set out on my adventurous journey to make it. The recipe was more complicated than the others and I took almost 2 hours for everything to be done and I have to say the end result was a little different than the one on the cover, like this:

The black patches are supposed to be the icing but because I didn't have enough chocolate, it became like that and before you come to any conclusion about my cake-making abilities, let me tell you the challenges I faced:

1. I didn't have an electric mixer so I had to manually whisk the mixture to "perfection."

2. The turntable in my microwave oven did not live up to its function.

3. Some of the ingredients were improvised, like the jam which was actually a substitute for red currant jelly, for the layering of the cake.

So, if you wanna make a chocolate layer cake in the future, make sure:

1. you plan what you are gonna do and have sufficient ingredients.

2. you have an electric mixer.

3. that the turntable in your convectional microwave is working (!!) I had to open the oven door and turn it from time to time so that the mixture would be cooked evenly.

4. that you grease the baking tin well so that the cake would not stick to the tin when you take it out to do layering.

Anyway, I acquired new books cos Times Bookshop was having a 30% discount for members and I am done with "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time." It's quite interesting cos Christopher [the narrator] gives a lot of fresh insights on things which we tend to overlook/simplify and we get to be in his shoes and how he thinks and stuff. Sometimes I don't really agree with how he thinks. For example, when he decides to head to London for his mother's place after he discovers that his dad lied to him about his mum being dead and also cos his dad killed Wellington, the dog. But his dad had a reason for doing all this cos his mum committed adultery and decided that she was not capable of handling Christopher cos of his disability. But then again Christopher's still quite young so he doesn't see the real picture:he only chooses to focus on the part where his dad lied to him and killed Wellington so, we can't really blame him.

Anyway, it's both a good thing and a bad thing that he can be so logical and sometimes, devoid of emotion at times cos it ensures his sustainability [he would not be so worked up that he starts screaming and being sick] but it might not enable him to understand why his dad is behaving that way and such.

Anyway, the world is so complicated and if only families would stay together, even through tough times, I'm sure people like Christopher wouldn't have to have it that hard.

"I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!"

I always had doubts about Samantha's belief that there were garden Gnomes around her estate until that day. Yen Ming, Sam and I were making our way cautiously to Sam's brother's car which was quite a distance from Sam's workplace.

On that day, Sam wanted me to check out where she worked cos I was considering a career switch due to bad job prospects. She was working with children of low IQ at an old, ramshackled schoolhouse near her estate. Sam was one of the teacher mentors there. The children were quite rowdy but obedient when Sam gave them instructions. Unlike normal schools, the classrooms that the children had were dimly lit with one orange incandescent light bulb that swayed whenever the wind blows.
Classes were held in super-tight container spaces which were as small as a mini bus but the children made the most of it. Sam said that I could get a better view of the class if I sat at the back so I pushed my way through the children as there was barely enough walking space and it was there that I met Yen Ming. He was a teacher-in-training who was assigned to sit in and observe the teachers before he could start teaching proper.

When the day finally ended, Sam offered to fetch Yen Ming and I home but we refused. She insisted and told us that it was not safe at this time to go back alone as this was the time in which the garden Gnomes came out in full force. Both of us agreed as she was so full of conviction when she said it so the three of us made our way hastily to Sam's brother's car.

Sam was right. The atmosphere around us had a different feel: It was heavy with tension but it was very still. All of a sudden, Sam gave a little screech under her breath. We looked in her direction and saw a parked car but it was not the car that mattered. We saw a figure crouched on the other side of the car and it was tapping its feet, waiting patiently: a Gnome.


Sensing that something was amidst, the Gnome pounced up from behind the car and lumbered towards us, as quick as his massive legs could take him. We ran towards Sam's brother's sports convertible. As its hood was down, Yen Ming and I jumped into the back whilst Sam clambered to the front and Kelvin (Sam's brother) whisked us away from the lumbering Gnome.


Prior to my imagination, I thought Gnomes were small, elvish-looking creatures that had pointed hats and shoes but this Gnome looked like any ordinary human being except that it was a little bigger than usual and its facial features were slightly different -you could say a little elvish.


Anyway, Kelvin drove us to their house. It wasn't like Sam's real house at Simei but it looked like a place fit for Richie Rich to stay in, complete with manicured gardens and sprinkling fountains. I remembered Kelvin saying that it was getting more dangerous nowadays and he feared for the safety of his girlfriend as the Gnomes these days were getting smarter.


Anyway, to cut the story short, a few days later, the 3 of us [excluding Yen Ming] met another guy who was victimised by the Gnomes so we took him out for a night of fun, only to find out that he was a Gnome. So we threw him out of the car and he followed us all the way to Sam's uber-rich house and I don't know why but Kelvin decided to go easy on the car engine and that means that the "victimised Gnome" was very close to the car that I almost freaked out cos I was the only one at the backseat and Kelvin HAD THE HOOD OF THE CONVERTIBLE DOWN. So after a painful, nightmarish journey, we reached Sam's place again and I don't know why but we suddenly possessed the ability of werewolves and the car flew up into the night sky and into her well-kept gardens [no use for the door anymore except to keep out Gnomes]. And Sam's family decided to reinforce their doors to become bullet-proof and Gnome-proof. Such a weird dream right? I was really scared ok...this was supposed to be a nightmare and I think it came about due to me watching "Van Helsing" the previous night.

Speaking of "Van Helsing", I didn't know that it was such a good movie until now. The special effects were really good although I was a little disturbed by the fact that Dracula had an aunty-looking hairclip on his hair which made him look a little less scary and more laughable.