-YI-

2009-03-16T21:46:00.002+08:00

Hmmm. This ancient blog template i got since 2005 (!) seems to be in conflict with my limited ability of establishing a comments link and the best i could do was play around with the recommended html (im bad at tech stuff!) and end up with my COMMENTS link on TOP of my blog entries.

Which is really dumb cos noone comments before they read! But anyhow we'll all have to put up with this format now.

Yay! Now from being a "i write as i like" blogger, i have turned into a "i write and ANTICIPATE comments that i like" blogger.

2009-03-15T12:12:00.006+08:00

I've just recovered from a nasty fever which robbed me of my appetite (it is possible!). Its near fatal effect set me thinking about my life and my achievements (namely my baking ones). HAHA. no la. I did have a fever though! Im just bored now and have time to blog about my previous baking adventures!

NAPOLEAN OR STRUDEL?

Apparently the french calls it the "strudel", since I did (hand)copy the recipe from a "French" recipe book. But i tried googling "strudel" and it turns out that most of the strudels were more like pastry wraps. The famous German Apple Strudel (or the Apfelstrudel) was just apple baked in a pastry. It didn't make sense then to have cream in it cos well the cream can't be baked? The "strudel", born from the Austrian-Hungarian empire, only seemed to have one similarity to the one i knew from Ritz Apple Strudel back in SG : the thinness of the puff pastry.

" Pertaining to anecdotes, purists say, it should be so thin that a newspaper can be read through it[9]. A legend has it that the Austrian Emperor's perfectionist cook decreed that it should be possible to read a love letter through it. " - Quoted from Wikipedia.com , under "Strudel"

It, however, didn't require chilled butter to be rolled and folded umpteen times like what we know of puff pastry now. Alas! If only i did a "Baking History" module! Then i wouldn't have made the fatal mistake of thickness in my puff. I'll get to that later.

One version of the Napolean, or the mille-feuille, i discovered (!) was much more similar to what we perceive as strudel. Layers of puff pastry alternating with cream and filling. But most of the other versions were petite slices (as suggested by its alias "Cream/Vanilla Slice") with pastries skin-thin, like the one mi friends got me for my bday this year from Gobi @ Central.

So now it boils down to what to name whatever-i-was-trying-to-emulate : as Confucius said, 名不正言不顺. I decided STRUDEL it is! Since it was Ritz who inspired. So,

STRAWBERRY STRUDEL

There's nothing much to say about the filling. It was creme patisserie + whipping cream (less so the cream had more consistency) and well strawberries! (my favorite one from Qingpu - rural shanghai). It was the PUFF pastry that almost killed me.

Many many people have remarked : the Puff pastry is the baker's nightmare. Yeah some people try to dispel this baking myth by uploading youtube videos of themselves looking all matyr-like noble(like a knight battling a dragon) when surviving through the 6 hour process. But of course there's alot of fastforwarding in between and a possibly intentional lack of camera-focus when shooting the final product. So i still believe in the herculeanity of the Puff.

The tricky part, simply put, is rolling out a piece of chilled butter in a dough and folding it and repeating above routine about 12 times, without : 1) tearing the dough; 2) melting the butter; 3) sticking dough to surface-top or rolling pin; 4) killing yourself.

I had a hell lot of problem with that. My dough was leeching madly to the rolling pin despite using maybe 500 gm of flour to dust the pin and table top! I ended up with the dough tearing up so bad , i almost had butter on the outside of the dough instead of the reverse! But then i thought, hey all they wanted was 496 layers of dough/butter , didn't need to care which was outside and which was inside. I think MY biggest problem was the butter melting prematurely. It should remain "at the same temperature with the dough" throughout. I'm lucky its winter, or i might have to return the dough to the freezer every 5 minutes (worsened by the fact i'm a pretty slow worker). Oh wait no. My BIGGEST problem was that i got my instructions wrong. *ROLLS EYES* Not only did i do the roll out and fold in like envelope routine 12 times. I did the roll-out-dough-into-cross-and-fold-in routine 12 times too! That resulted in yes alot of layers but NO-ALOT of tears.

So what i suggest is
1) return the dough after 2 turns to the FREEZER for 20 minutes to save time. Cos i figured that all they need was cold dough and not dough-resting so i save 30 minutes if i use the freezer instead.
2) Work FAST. Like godspeed.

Upon baking, roll the puff REAL thin. Like real thin. 1-2 mm. 1/8 inch. Whatever the measurements are. I think "so thin you can read a love letter through it" is a little bit exaggerating. My pastry was er... 5 mm thick so i ended up with alot of uncooked portions in between. But hey, i'm not complaining cos i was almost crazy at the end of the dough-making, and the fact that puff actually "puffed" is enough to keep me smiling. So look at the photos :

So i removed the top and bottom layer of all my puffs (since i had er 3 puffs to spare) and stacked em up to make me strudel! It doesn't really make sense though, cos if i rolled out my pastry dough REALLY thin, i would have enough pastry to make... 10 strudels? Hmm. I wonder how big a strudel the recipebook was thinking of.

But anyway, after arrangement:

Voila!

(i really should get my comments and counter up, so i know i'm not talking to myself!)

2009-02-25T18:23:00.004+08:00

"my" latest theory :

"When change = 0 , the ease of doing anything is directly proportionate to the time spent doing it."

In other words, "practise makes perfect" or “熟能生巧”.

My body is getting accustomed to the daily workload + gymming on alternate days. That is why i can update my blog again! I seem to be getting better at making my own meals. Chinese cooking is not as scary as i thought it was.

~

After getting some professionl photo-editing help, I managed to SAVE 2 of the photos my brother took of the last major-dinner i had with my family. The previous photos were either seriously over-exposed or too dark. (er i think bro can start thinking of a new hobby to pick up)

The meal was supposed to be a cook-for-my-mum's-bday feast but i realized i probably can't better her main courses so she had to do those still. But still, i managed to churn out 3 appetizers and 2 desserts for 5 of us!

The french onion soup was not spectacular. I think my mum has a better recipe (and of course she reminded me of this fact over and over again. hurhur). I liked the sprig of thyme and red wine addition but i didn't really do the baguette slice and cheese procedure properly. I baked them in advance and just plopped it into the hot soup. The bread was soaking up 80% of the soup! Should have really toasted them to dryness and then place it on the soup . THEN ADD CHEESE and then bake each bowl of soup (with bread) again. There was also the problem of using a too-generous slice of bread. Not thinking yi! Oh but melted swiss gruyere on onion soup is SO good.

AH. Personally i was much more excited about the foie gras. I was just feeling a lil generous and adventurous when i bought mini duck/goose foie gras portions at The Butchery (Holland V). When i told mum about it, she was (for the first time in a long while) apparently elated! And dad knew about it later and they decided to.... BUY a whole chunk of liver. -.-. cos they thought mine was too meagre to satisfy their craving. I was very slightly peeved cos my gesture then became very insignificant but happy too cos i get to make bigger portions of the condiments (which means more fruitful labor) to go with it!

Now, i was planning to replicate the JG foie gras i had for a loooong while and this was the perfect opportunity to share tt experience with the family. The foie gras was to be panfried by mummy who was much better at meat than i was. But i get to do the less technical cool stuff , heh.

JG's foie gras used candied pistachios, dried sour cherries and white port gelee. I had no white port or sour cherries so i had to settle for store-bought cranberries whose scent was too distinctively cranberrish that it weakened its complementing powers ; as for the gelee, i found a grape juice gelee recipe online that sounded authentic and had the most exciting steps : crushing grapes, filtering its juice, adding white port........Wooo~ i like recipes that have infinite steps! I tried it, everything went well until i was supposed to add white port wine. Erm. I din have that. Nor was i about to open an entire bottle of white wine for this. So i had to settle for mum's cooking white wine! THAT WENT BAD. for a moment it smelled like i added shaoxing wine to mi juice. i was so afraid of ruining the gelee that i grabbed additional grapes and squeezed their juices into to stop that foul wine! I think it worked. Or the heating killed that smelly thing.

One mistake i made was trying to cube the gelee before the dinner so i could cut the predinner workload. BUT it turned out that cubing it made it melt a lil, so when i put all the cubes back into the bowl in the fridge, the cubes coagulated into one odd looking lump. Next time, just cube it before u serve la! Oh and the foie gras was served straight from the pan so it melted my gelee!! The photo above captures a glossy layer on top of the liver, its my gelee melting. Next time, serve at the side, far away from mr. hot liver.

As for candied pistachios, we happened to have some leftover pistachios from CNY so it came in handy. Candying things is pretty fun actually! I didn't know we could boil pistachios without ending up with soggy nuts! So the pan-frying actually dehydrated them later. Coooooooool.

Mum, mi bro and his gf liked the little additions but DAD was being AWFULLY rude by eating the whole liver WITHOUT touching any of them. He said he liked the foie gras straight. GROSS. *rolls eyes* Coming from the man who likes his russian vodka with caviar! I think i should have just dunked his foie gras in beer and let him gulp it down.

The cracker platter was fine. Anchovies were too darned salty this time round. I wonder why. Same brand lei. The salmon, tomato puree and cream cheese went well.

Dessert was lava cake AND purin. I used my good Valrhona choc from Shermay's! (thanks to random virtual friend who left tt recommendation!) but it was a BAD idea to use paper muffin cups to substitute my pudding cups. Don't ask. But it was nice to see bro's gf scraping the dish clean anyhow. Bro loved the purin. a little too sweet though! (never add additional egg yolks, ruins the texture - so i learnt recently)

The Angus and foie gras per se was as usual good! Mum's right. Angus is much better to steak than wagyu. W is too fat. Mum has her way with panfrying meat. Must learnnnnnnn.

And finally:

Mum and i at the dinner table!
(it was funny how she was so bored right before dinner cos i was cooking and she kept pacing up and down and settling all the stuff before i could get to it, like washing dishes - thank god)

~

BTW, TMD, 30 minutes after i wrote the first part of the blog (read) , i burnt my dinner. And in dismay, ruined all the later dishes. Now im eating them. RETRIBUTION!! Cannot blog and cook at the same time LA.

2009-02-19T11:40:00.002+08:00

"How long does it take to visit all the countries in the world?"

Hmm.

I think what everyone is dying to know is :

"How much does it take to visit all the countries in the world? (in SGD please!)"

"For Singaporean permanent resident Phillips Connor, his visit to 193 countries took 33 years."

WHO CARES. WHO CARESSSSSS how long he took. We just want his account number and PIN please. I don't even know there were that many countries in the world. "Guinea Passau"? Another rodent?

"I was elated but I also felt some loss of focus. This goal has been with me for so long and would no longer be such a large part of my life. What's next?"

I can totally empathise. Like how i felt after my half maration. I felt very lost too! Poor us!

2009-02-17T16:14:00.004+08:00

I've decided to go a little bit further with my obsession au domestication. for all who already know, you already know. took awhile to get the hang of it and cooking. Compared to cooking, i find baking much more systematic and precise. Of course there are little techniques and pieces of kitchen wisdom that come in handy but its is still by and large a step-by-step logic. But Cooking is all intuition and watching-the-fire and literal salt pinches and seemingly inconsequential spoons of vinegar and soy sauce that just might turn on you in a while. I find that incredibly hard to grasp. My guess is experience pays off. Look at my mum go. 1 hr and a hearty meal of 3 dishes and 1 soup is ready to serve . I struggled to keep my dinner prep time under 4 hrs for the first 3 days without charring anything. But things seem to be getting better. For example the YAKUN Breakfast i tried to replicate:

The first 2 tries weren't abyssmal but i was basically all over the place. Forgetting my toast in the oven, forgetting to set the alarm for the soft-boiled egg, leaving toast crumbs along my trail and at one point i got SO pissed with the vietnam coffee filter (it kept overflowing at the base plate) i crashed the whole thing in the sink which resulted in coffee stains all over the sink, tabletop and wall which i had to clean up eventually. Lesson #1 : no point gen zi ji guo yi bu qu. Three things make up a Yakun toast (for my imaginary non-singaporean readers) :

1) Thin toasts made on a grill - We're saying half the thickness of a toasted white bread. I decided i shall not be too anal about it cos slicing a toast in half, just means more cuts on mi fingers (im gonna dedicate an entire blog entry to my hand injuries). I used good bread from ichido but they turned out chewy. Chewy nice so forgiveable.
As for the butter, i use cold slices of Lurpak unsalted/salted butter , so i think i beat them flat. haha. But the butter can't be too thick. we're looking at 2 mm. I use the bottled yakun kaya LH and ML got so i'm assuming we're using the same thing the shop uses. Yum.

2) Coffee - Yakun has good Hainanese coffee. Superior kopitiam coffee. But i use Trung Nguyen (Hi-5 LH!!) so i guess we meet brow to brow! I have a problem with the filters though! 5 SGD Vietnam filters just dun work too well - i always get coffee powder sneaking thru the filters. But that can be fixed with kitchen towel filtration (that sucks up some of the coffee tho).

3) Soft-boiled eggs : NOW this is what makes Yakun Yakun really. We were thinking bout getting soft-boiled egg makers - the ones where u put the eggs into a dripping bowl which , by the time it gets empty, soft-boiled the egg. But they don't have that, but they have those little steamers that cost about 60 SGD! Too pricey plus i figured that putting 2 or 6 eggs into a steamer will still affect the results so i might as well stick to old trial and error with my bowl and boiling water. I tried 4 min. 5 min. 5.5 min. They were all too raw. So i tried 6:45 today and wow, it turned out perfect! Gorgeous orange yolk clothed in its white. its like the golden timing - 6:45. But just to be sure, i'll stick with the same bowl and water level all the time.

So after a few days of making this breakfast, I finally got the hang of it and understood the principle behind chores and cooking - its all about juggling time. You preheat your oven while you switch on your kettle, and then cut the toast, slice the butter, prepare the coffee. Toast ur bread, boil your eggs, spread your kaya and serve. But i'm YIIIIrrational so i find efficient time management very taxing. I tend to be more whatever-comes-to-my-mind-first so you find me lugging a 10kg rice bag while i remove my shoes when i could have unloaded that first.Sigh.

Here are photos of the first few attempts of Yakun. None captured nice eggs but just for the record:

2009-02-17T14:51:00.003+08:00

Now that i'm back in Shanghai, i finally have time to upload the two other pics of my humpy little madeleines (read prev. entry) . Forgive the resolution, its only 2 megapixels. Had to settle for my mum's camera phone. MY M-U-M-'S CAMERA PHONE. Apparently the Teh family is terribly tech unsavvy. Anyways watch those humps!

2009-02-11T00:46:00.006+08:00

When faced with an impossible question at 11pm, spend 1 hr getting over the initial trauma, get up, remove contact lens, piss, wash face, moisturize. Tiptoe towards kitchen, stop by wine cooler, get remaining Fifth Leg bottle and wine glass, cut untidy and enormous portions of Leicester and strong cheddar, pinch a few pieces of smoked salmon leftovers, grab a buncha grapes (rinse), get big glass of water for hydration, go to bed with all of the above, watch newest episode of DH online and tuck in.

Its these little things that make ridiculous choices even more ridiculous. I will have to deal with the problem eventually. But by then, i'll have more fat to take the blow.

2009-02-05T01:37:00.006+08:00

MADELEINES.

Wikipedia says its full name is "Petite Madeleine De Commercy". A small cake named after Madeleine Paulmier originating from Commercy.

So what are madeleines really? A cake that is only slightly lighter than a pound cake, but has a crisped surface that gives it another texture. At least that is what i gather from the madeleines i made myself, tried at Delifrance and SY who tried some in the US (but from the apparently inferior Starbucks chains) and David (who's French!). The original flavor is buttery and citrusy (normally lemon). The shape is distinctive : a longish sea-shell AND, here comes the crucial part : the HUMP. HUMP. Not BUMP, so its not a gradual swell. Its a CAMEL-HUMP. a LITTLE　MOUNTAIN! the ONLY TUMOR i will ever like!

And this hump is the reason why i can only blog about madeleines TODAY. Because after two failed attempts to get this lumpy trademark, i SUCCEEDED today!

Why did I start making Madeleines? It was a month before my Toray 2008 marathon when SY mentioned that she liked madeleines alot . For some reason, i felt compelled to take on the task of making madeleines (she claimed that Shanghai didn't sell any! Ichido and Paris Baguette both do - we found out) I looked high and low for good recipes and finally found one whose author seemed honest enough to share her secrets , but proud enough to assure me of its quality.

I did my first Madeleine Au Citron! It tasted pretty yumz and although it didn't make much culinary sense, i added a chocolate coating as SY requested. BUT no hump! It was flat. SO matter-of-factly flat that i couldn't believe the kind of humps i saw on the photos!

Then i decided to try my 2nd batch of Madeleines that were Earl Grey tea flavored. This time round, i still proudly resisted adding baking powder as the online professionals made the addition out to be some anti-tradition and cheaterbuggy practice. But i added too little Earl Grey tea ( i thought 5 teabags were enough!) and it was too monotonous a taste so i found a lemon glaze recipe that didn't form that nice frost-like color as promised but was just transparent . It did taste pretty nice, soury and sweet. BUT NO HUMP. I tried adding more, i tried adding less. I tried super high heat for 5 minutes and lower heat for another 7. i tried cold batter, chilled silicon madeleine tray. I even........ *bites lower lip* tried adding little bits of baking powder in their little tummies right before putting them into the tray but NO HUMP! I was going MAD. I got really mad and resolved NOT to make any more madeleines. Especially when i made 3-4 batches and each batch took 20-30 minutes because of the small oven i used.

But I knew i had to conquer this fear of madeleines of mine. Especially since back in SG, i knew i had a better chance with that nice and big stove oven at home. I packed my madeleine tray into my luggage.

AND TODAY. 4th FEBRUARY. Despite a little mess i made by sieving my beurre noisette (heated butter) 4 times cos those darned earl grey leaves just kept going through my sieve and the kitchen towel i added to prevent that was too efficient in filtering ; Despite little flour bits being left out of the fold-in ; Despite my cold that was slowing down my brain ; there were humps. Little humble bumps at first but upon spooning more batter into each shell depression........... i got GLORIOUS HUMPS! They rose so much they BURST through the tip of the hump but i couldn't be arsed as these were the HUMPS. THE MADELEINE HUMPS!!

And the only suay thing was my missing camera. Didn't bring it back! Tried using my phone but its so wonky that i can do nothing productive with it. Tried using my backup phone but for some damned reason, it showed only a black screen when i tried taking photos. ARGH.

But i'm obsessive. I grabbed my laptop with my webcam and started taking shots using the webcam. Super lousy quality but i NEED to post these photos up! If i didn't have a webcam at that moment, i think i might have just sat down with a palette and start painting these wonderful darlings.

There. CAN YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE between Madeleine #1, #2 and this authentic little baby?! Can you SEE IT.

Yay. haha.

What did i do differently?
1) I added 4/5 tsp of baking powder for 200 gm of flour. (AHERMS. *whistles*)
2) I didn't flour my tray (don't think its a factor)
3) I used this huge oven (never trusted my small one in Shanghai to reach temps. above 180C)
4) The oven uses topfire! So instead of getting the shell-side of the madeleine browned, my tops part is browner (i personally think it makes more sense to have the shell light colored!) And it might be because of the topfire (and not the lower heat like my small oven uses) that made the top part of the madeleine so vigorous and vibrant, forcing its little hump out before it hardens!
5) I filled my little shell moulds FULLY and not 3/4 as alot of websites advised.

There are a few factors, but i'll personally vouch for the baking powder cos its quite straightforward : More baking powder means more rising, more rising means hump. The filling up of the shell probably catalysed it? But its not a control factor cos i tried filling them up fully in Shanghai to no avail, except a solidified spill-over look. The temperature might be crucial too!

Hmmm the Early grey tea aftertaste is not bad but i'll go for the Au Citron again if i had the chance to perfect it with humps!

So thats so much for madeleines. No wonder the old French saying says that Madeleines will bring you back to your childhood. Look how blissful i am! As long as i hump it. hurhur.

2009-02-02T22:03:00.003+08:00

As an aspiring epicurean, I firmly oppose the gastrocultural protectionism exhibited by the Italian government's latest ban on ethnic food! A nation must really have no faith in its cuisine if it thinks that an international breadth of food choices will erode its culture. This outright "gastronomic racism" and "culinary ethnic cleansing" might seem ludicrous at first but my heart goes out to all those foodies residing in Italy (native or not)! I cannot imagine Singapore initiating such a law which shouts absurd. I mean, take us for an example, how many of our foods and "traditions" have its roots tapping from Nonya, Chinese, Malay, Indian cuisine. Its a shame that even Italy's Agriculture Minister couldn't look beyond this narrowest definition of "tradition" and "culture".

"Celebrity chef Vittorio Castellani said: 'There is no dish on earth that does not come from mixing techniques, products and tastes from cultures that have met and mingled over time.' He said many dishes thought of as Italian were, in fact, imported.
The San Marzano tomato, a staple ingredient of Italian pasta sauces, was a gift from Peru to Naples in the 18th century. Even spaghetti, it is thought, was brought back from China by Marco Polo. "
- quoted from ST (Singapore) Feb 2nd, 2009

If bolognese had to belong to anyone, its the cow. or tomato-san.

(and to those people calling out to boycott pasta in return : I say "why let your tummy suffer!" )

2009-01-26T10:21:00.005+08:00

Nothing like a good ol' Chinese New Year.

The significance of the New Year (for distinction, the English New Year) as a festivity pales in comparison.

My family was sitting by the TV as usual to 守岁 and the countdown programme was the usual Ch 8 Mediacorp nonsense: Local artistes strutting around in ridiculously matched clothes, the women in blinding brilliant bright colors and the men this time parading in skinny pants, with a misconception on metrosexualism! Singing and merrymaking and looking silly and giving out the most generous angpows ever (how to register to be contestant!) and shouting HUAT AH! at every opportunity. On the other hand , there was the taiwan countdown on SCV which involved mega outdoor parties with huge stars staging their performances. BUT after a while, I realized CNY was meant to be 俗! All the variety shows and singings on Taiwan TV were quite pointless really since they could be conducted on any other day! CNY is the only day where our artistes can go around wearing a red packet , talking like the Singaporean they are and assuming (correctly) that everyone is only interested in 发财ing. Well-wishes can be repeated without fear of revealing how limited their language abilities are, smiles can be as plastic and exaggerated as they want and WE LOVE IT. This is why i love CNY. Its all about appearances! Spring cleaning? Having goodies at home? Giving out money in a recession AND looking like u are happy to do it? Dressing your best? Smiling till your cheekbones turn Fann Wong-ish? It makes reality seem far away and one can almost really believe that the whole year will be better because this day was good. I visualize the NY mood as a gathering of 气 (qi) that sort of dispels all misgiving, like how that er... China village chased the "Nian" monster away with fireworks! Nobody really loves New Year for ang pows, goodies and gambling (okay, maybe SOME), its reunion without being reflective, extravagance without guilt and is basically a saturation of the characteristics of a Chinese definition of a good day : toiling before, hustle and bustle and flaring celebration!

Its ridiculous to try avoiding 俗ness during CNY. I have seen attempts at being "classy" during CNY, with imported Japanese treats, English well-wishes on 春联s, exquisite and mild decorations. Stifling the whole CNY mood! So silly. I'll rather have my heaty home-baked CNY yummies in their plastic containers with red lids, 大红大喜 decorations and loud CNY songs (ok not 俗 to the extent of CT girls) . 俗 at a higher level is 雅 really!

So happy NIU year (this STILL cracks me up if people pronounce it correctly) and lets hope this CNY mood catapults us into the lunar new year and we fall into and roll around in cushions stuffed with gold dust and luck!

2009-01-25T15:12:00.002+08:00

I quote the [budget special] article "GST Credits: Enough to help out?" from The Straits Times (Singapore)25th Jan 2009 Page 3:

" Audit Associate Darrell Chia is happy that he will be getting about $400 worth of GST Credits from the Government this year, double what he received last year.

'Any amount of money would be good since I'm earning so little. It can help to pay for my holiday trips to Phuket or Bintan due to the stressful nature of my job,' said Mr. Chia, 26."

I assume that the writer of this article was trying to quote an example of people positive about extra GST credits ( who isn't? [GST credits: cash handouts meant to buffer the effects of the rising Goods and Service tax in SG]) and consequently, arguing for one side of the "exceptional" budget this year before proceeding to name its constraints. I'm totally cool with that. It is a good budget as far as myopic me is concerned. But I must say i was glad to read a few good, reflective articles by editors / in the forum that weren't blindly heaping praises for our government. They actually identified certain issues that might have been overlooked. and i don't mean the usual 鸡蛋里挑骨头 by the opposition party (refer to Friday 23rd Jan 09 papers).

But what i DON'T get is Mr. Chia (if he isn't fictional). I was looking at the above paragraphs and wondering:

"Mr Chia. Why you earn so little and you still want to go Bintan / Phuket for holiday?"

And his reason : "job is very stressful".

I'm not saying Mr. Chia's job isn't "stressful", nor am i saying that he doesn't "earn so little". I can give him the benefit of the doubt. But how am I supposed to reconcile "holiday trips" and the predicament suggested by "earn so little" ? Unless of course, the writer thought that Mr Chia's holidaying at specifically Bintan/Phuket was actually synonymous to "earning so little" and his/her point in quoting Mr. Chia's example was as valid as intended to be. That would only be more, if not equally, worrying.

I was just talking to LH that day: I really don't think most SG people (esp. the below 30s) know what "poor" is. It seems that basic living standards has been confused with the measure of affluence - "Need" and "Want" inventory list is jumbled up. The recession just means this year's holiday destination is gonna be much nearer (and no SQ!) for some of us. The not-having a PSP for a 10 year old today translates into a primary school student going to school without shoes 30 years ago, subjectable to ridicule. Yes, times have changed and we are, even in this climate of a "sharpest, longest" recession, on a lucky point in history. But are we sure we don't need thrift for a "rainy day"? Personally i think it is more important than reserves - this ability to survive with "less" when times are bad and how to save a little when we have "more". I think we are a little complacent. There is also the materialism which I find most prominent in our generations and after, is another repercussion. Dog-chasing branded labels and obsession over material goods - seemingly harmless besides being a little silly, but do they breed superficiality, mercenariness? There is also a problem of blatant wastage. At home, my mom simply pours away a bowl of lunch porridge because she thinks it isn't fresh enough for dinner. We're living like there's no tomorrow. Sure "limited resources limited resources" - its like a page from our secondary school geography textbook. Now, is it time to look at these issues in the eye? Especially in the dawn of a forecasted crisis and recent climate trouble in nearby Thailand?

All this problems with our people, in my opinion, has another side to it : the failure to empathise. I can still never understand how millions of dollars are poured into advertisements and movies when there are people dying of hunger. I know i am naive. The industry probably feeds millions today (or Sarkozy wouldn't be giving out free papers). But to me, when i consider the fundamentals, these aren't exactly industries we'll die without. This issue is far too complex, yes, but is it so complex that its legitamacy cannot be challenged? What i'm saying is : How much fun and joy and wealth are we entitled to when there are people so much much more deprived? Sure the ideology of communism died. But don't let empathy and charity die along with it.

Sure, there is always the argument of "context". We can't help it, we were born in Singapore, we were that lucky. We wouldn't eat and spend like that if we were born in a village of malnourished babies (naturally). This i understand. We don't want guilt when we're having our weekly pilgramage drinking at Clarke Quay. But what i'm asking is more contentment and more sharing: Always put your life into perspective and i believe that being born in SG , really means that we can be a little more glad; Give a little more too. There are so many people among us that we could spare that little time and money for.

For the saddest sod is one who has so much but has no idea how much he has and wants only more.

2009-01-23T12:43:00.004+08:00

In the essence of what M told L :
" If i spend another second in this house, i will go absolutely out of my fucking mind."

this black venom runs in my confucian blood and i am just dying to purge it out.

~

yay! PROFITEROLES

I have the faintest memory of my first home made cream puff. The crust was soft, the cream was smooth. That is about all i can recollect.

About a few years later, I was initiated into the Sun Moulin fan club with its Cream puffs. A tower of probably the freshest, tastiest (without an all too conspicuous added sugar-ness) Japanese fresh cream (in Singapore that is) sandwiched between two soft, slightly salty pastry shells.

Then beard papa came around. With its crispy Pâte à Choux and creme patisserie. More liquidy than ever but smooth like a smooth operator.

There was a Japanese bakery in Pudong, Shanghai which D boasted had the best cream ever. The pastry forgettable, but the cream inspired me - it had no intention of hiding their kitchen formula: Cream puff cream usually had whipping cream in it. In fact, their yellow yolky creme patisserie was separate from their white whipping cream! It wasn't spectacular but i savoured the new-found knowledge.

And finally, Liang Court (SG)'s Tampopo Cream puffs. JJ, a self-proclaimed non-cream puff fan but queue-obsessed heartlander, went to queue (he din even get to queue actually, it was empty that day) for that 40-cream-puffs-an-hr-for-4-hours-with-max-order-per-person. He is SUCH a sucker for Limited stuff. But i cannot complain since i queued hmmm 5.5 hours for LCG bakwa. I KNOW. First and last time , I swear. It was all to appease the insatiable appetite of the Thunder Gods (to no avail apparently -see above-) Anyways! The cream here was normal. But they had a very interesting choux pastry that was uber crispy AND layered somehow. I really can't say that choux pastry can get very yummy unless someone decided to add whiskey into it somehow but its all about how its texture complements the cream (and the addition of salt or not).

Then there is mine. Hohoho.

It never really crossed my mind to make profiteroles until I tried those at the Pudong bakery. It wasn't so much that it was good, but it was fun to know the cream had 2 different elements in it (i always thought it was boring whipping cream that only tasted different with random infusions and cos of the quality of milk used - silly me! i should have been able to taste the yolk!)

And very coincidentally the day after the Pudong bakery, I went to Shanghai's 书城 to look for a reference book for an exam and erm..ended up sitting off the edge of a book shelf, copying dessert recipes for an hour off a browsing copy of French Recipes. Heheh. It was too expensive! 50 sgd for it plus i had no idea if its recipes were feasible. Although i must say it had pretty full page photos that stirred both the appetite and curiosity. Anyways (I digressed again!), i saw the recipe for Creme Patisserie and Choux Pastry! What luck.

So like a day before my birthday, I attempted the great Profiterole! It was funny how the dough for the choux had to be cooked in a pot and i was lucky it didn't get burnt cos my stove fire burns bright heh. I have reservations about the accuracy of the recipe since my dough dried up almost immediately and i was so worried it'll burn that i added quite alot of additional milk (which might explain why my choux went soft quite quickly?).

Piping choux raised alot of debate online but i'm thinking "SERIOUSLY.". There were like the piping in figure of 8, piping like a coil of poo, piping inwards, piping outwards?! I'm no nitpicky cook so whatever goes. I say, if you like "cute as a button", pipe ; if you like your pastry shaped more naturally, then use a spoon. But generally, i prefer smaller choux. Cos it means more cream:pastry ratio and more pop-into-mouthy. HEH.

Then there was also the whole issue about baking the choux dry. The bottoms were browned too quickly (foil to the rescue) and i still have no idea when the choux was ideally baked. There were so many varying opinions floating in cyberspace on how to achieve the perfect baking result: Some called for pricking the pastry half way to let out moisture inside (which made sense), some called for opening the oven door for the last 15 min to let out excess moisture , others disallow opening the oven door. There was the remove-one-choux-prematurely to test if it was done. Too many methods. I pricked and opened my oven door since my oven was a non-ventilation.

I ended up with a little bit of raw pastry inside my choux which the recipe book said was normal (at least for the Choux Ring). Just had to dig it out before filling in with cream. That got a little messy as the raw pastry was limp and flappy. And it made a few holes in my choux but all in all it was quite successful. Didn't collapse immediately but 1-2 hours out of the oven (even in super dry shanghai) , it turned all soft. I'll definitely try baking it for another 10-20 minutes.

The cream however was SPLENDID. Do remember to carry out cling wrap instruction (over the cream) or the hard skin will form. I whipped it together with whipping cream and it turned out with the perfect sweetness, and smoothness without being all too watery. D said it was better than BPapa's and SY said it was equivalent to BPapa's (which i decided was a compliment!).

I tried to make two Profiterole swans. Not as easy as i thought : the neck of the swan didn't seem to expand evenly throughout so i got a fat-headed swan. And piping was tough too since i haven't gotten my nozzles yet. But i chose the better "necks" of the lot and added my favorite fruit to the body to make it prettier. Didn't get to use blanched almonds for the beak nor add the chocolate eye (too much work!). But i was pleased with the swans overall. I remember mum making it, hers were prettier but i think i have the better cream. HOHO.

Anyways, i baked into my birthday, as a resolution to improve my baking for 2009! (It was also meant to be a 好兆头, for things and our pockets to PUFF up! so 俗!)

2009-01-20T17:32:00.009+08:00

Last week was TOO much food. I think there was one day I had to eat 3 ice creams from 3 different outlets. All the nutrients (and grease) accumulated to the point beyond threshold and my body protested by throwing a fever tantrum. Which was easily subdued by having er... less lunch and dinner the next day. I am now a convert - Moderation please!

*whistles for a minute*

i'm having a dinner buffet with J on thurs.

...

I-koi! Wow after like 6 years. I'll blog if its worth mentioning!

***************

TIRAMISTER ZY!

Its tough trying to pick up the habit of food-blogging right after i'm done with the cooking. But i perfectly understand why people do that. It ssssucks to blog a month after. Its like not eating your baguette when its fresh from the oven. Actually, its worse than that! Its like trying to pick the miserably few edible morsels off a stale white bread.

But if i don't, i'll have nothing to blog about! Since i have been too busy stuffing myself even BEFORE CNY. There is a another reason actually : Mum has banned me from the kitchen cos' she's up to CNY baking. Although I did manage to make my little apple crumble cups today. But that was only cos i made it seem like an impromptu effort to use up the going-going-gone green apples and i very diligently helped out with washing. Grumble.

Okay! So i'm going to revisit my Tiramisu attempt on December 20th ( i think ). It was a pre-Xmas celebratory dessert (it was not an excuse to eat! it was cos i wont be around to bake on xmas - exams and all).

I was msn-ing J before the tiramisu attempt. She was VERY rude. First by saying she didn't love them. Then by insinuating that tiramisus were too simple and all about chocolate & coffee quality. HMMMPH. Okay there is SOME truth in that but it wasn't THAT simple. I could remember my first attempt like 5 years ago. It died a watery death and gave me watery bowels.

The Tira flowed. Yes. So the 2 things in my mind before working on Project-Solid-Tiramisu :

1) It must not flow.

2) It must not give me diarrhea.

I did my usual homework by surfing online for theory. Apparently, most people don't think cooking the egg yolks over a hot steam bath make a difference. It certainly wouldn't affect the taste and only to the cautious, did it mean better hygiene. But I should know better so a water bath was mandatory this time. (My mum just as in "just" just, told me that egg whites were the germ carriers so hmmm i don't know) This recipe called for egg whites. I went with it because i definitely wanted something lighter. Nothing like fluffy tiramisu.

The flowing bit would have to be attributed to oversoaked ladyfingers. There were different routines to tackle this : the 1-2 or the 1-2-3-4. Er basically 2 seconds in the coffee or 4 seconds with 2 on each side. I think this would be more of an experimental problem so i decided to just go ahead.

Buying mascorpone cheese was a heartache. It was 60 RMB (12 SGD) for 250 gm. More than twice the price of cream cheese. I've heard of restaurants using cream cheese as a cheap substitute. I really can't tell the difference except mascorpone was slightly lighter in both taste and texture AND it had a smell (which i hate!) that would definitely go after mixing in the yolks and whites. Anyways it was so expensive that i knew i couldn't afford to go wrong, and what i should definitely afford to get is : good quality ingredients for the rest of the recipe - ie good coffee.

I couldn't remember how much coffee was required but i definitely thought 1 cup was good enough. I was contemplating Starbucks or Costa (another rubbishy coffee chain which was slightly better than Starbucks). I know i know, i should use something better but i didn't have good coffee powder at home and wasn't about to spend another 100 RMB on quality espresso powder. PLUS D had vouchers for both and it just made sense to save costs!

LH and ML were totally against Starbucks coffee for tiramisu and LH thought Costa (she tried when she was in SH) was better (not by much tho) -- so Costa it was! So i got my ass down to Costa and got an Americano which had 3 shots of espresso already. I asked for another two (additional 10 RMB). Hot steamy coffee! Now the problem was how i was going to take that coffee home! I got the staff to seal it up tightly then i tried to position it upright in that oversized paper carrier they gave me by STUPIDLY sitting it in my wool scarf. And guess what? The moment i lifted it up, tadaaaa, coffee on scarf. TMD.

Okay so the tape that was supposed to seal the opening on the lid didn't work. I had an empty mineral water bottle in my bag. (HAH! So much for D complaining that my bag had too much rubbish - you never know when the stuff comes in handy!) So i er... made my way to a toilet cubicle. Where i took off the lid of my Costa Coffee. And in the cubicle, started to .... BLOW my COFFEE COOL. Okay i know im the least glamorous baker alive. And my OCD was really serious. But i HAD to find a way to pour steaming hot coffee into my plastic bottle! And where else to do it but the toilet! The toilet was clean thank goodness. So i was there blowing blowing blowing, ignoring kicks on my locked door by needy patrons, blowing again and finally it was lukewarm so i poured it into the bottle, ran it under tap water (lucky it was winter and SH had no heater for public toilets) and tadaa! Portable Tiramisu Coffee!

On my way back home, I decided to get strawberries! I got cherries initially as my additional ingredient. But for some reason, I had "frozen fruits!" in my mind and i froze the cherries for a week. They came out rock hard and upon thawing, turned into a puddle of smelly juice. The cherry vendor wasn't around so i had to make do with strawberries.

Tiramisu is relatively simple. Yolk over steam bath. Whisk whites till stiff. Whip cream. Mix cheese and all. Tadaaa.

Now came the arrangement. Ladyfingers are fun to soak cos they soak well as in they don't come apart immediately. Some people use sponge but i think sponge's too absorbent and might need drizzling instead. I tried 1-2-3-4 routine. It worked pretty well but i think the point is just to make sure the fingers are soaked only until the white centre disappears and the tiramisu retains the slightest firmness. I did oversoak once or twice but i decided to squeeze out the excess coffee this time. Rather they lose shape then turn my dessert into soup.

Chocolate Shavings. Some say its only a matter of preference. To me, its MANDATORY. It gives that sharper sweetness which the cream cannot provide. The chocolate taste is only of secondary importance. Dusting the top with cocoa powder is also a must-do. Some blogger worried that it would choke the eater cos its too dry but i agree with the reply he got : The wet cream will take care of that. Cocoa powder provided the bitterness and depth and it ,dissolved in the cream, was oooohmff.

My strawberries were only added to fulfill my whim of making Blackforest Tiramisus which sounded wonderful! (I should have used dark cherries since it was blackforest, i know but read above for self-defense!) I pureed my strawberries, simmered the puree with a little sugar till it turned a darker red (it would never reach the nice purple of cherries tho). And then it went in between the first layer of cream n 2nd layer of fingers. OH YUM. It was really good! It really rejuvenated the taste buds when the tiramisu was getting jelat! Added fruity freshness into a cream-coffee dessert. I always believed in the dialectic formula of desserts : ie, most of the time, they could only belong to either C or F. C - Coffee, Cream, Chocolate, Cheese : Mudpies, Chocolate Cakes, Cream Puffs ; F - Fruits : Sherbet, Cherry Pies, Strawberry Romanoffs. C is rich and divine but easily slips into a sickening monotony of taste; while F is always refreshing but never seems to please one wholly. C is an intense romantic which might disappear on a summer's day; while F is that cute little thing that can never give you an orgasm where you need it.

And then there are the rare, occasional hybrids like the Strawberry Fondue, Blackforest Cake, Blueberry Cheesecake which orchestrate the elements of C and F in harmony. (its interesting how the berries are usually the chosen ones for this job) I wouldn't say my Black(red)forest Tiramisu managed that but it was certainly meant to!

Then there was the entire packaging. I was troubling myself over dessert glasses - whether it was worth getting those nice round-bottomed glasses (like a pear!) which get slightly narrower as they go upwards , something like the curves of a bordeaux glass. I saw those at the online catalogue for Ikea and they weren't really expensive but to get them just for the infrequent parfaits, tiramisus?! Nope. This is a cook with self-discipline! (and a half-filled pocket). While i was going thru my stash of lousy tupperware, it suddenly occured to me that i could use my wine glasses instead of dessert/cocktail glasses! Hooray!

Arrangement was fun. Its the fun-nest part of Tiramisu (besides eating it) imo. Its like cherry-topping the BFC, breaking the 18 eggs for kueh lapis and whisking the no-ice-cream-maker sherbet every 2 hours. With 1 entire serving, i made 4 wine glasses and one 7 in x 4 in plastic container with cream remaining (i was out of coffee and fingers.)

Tadaaa~~~~:

(From top to bottom: 4 babies , BF tiramisu , Original tiramisu)

I know it looks like my babies are lacking fingers (LOL!) but its just cos of the shape of the glass. Was too lazy to squeeze them to the sides. And yea i had too much cream to spare. heh.

I was a little concerned bout the cocoa powder being too thick though. I need to learn dusting proper.

As for the taste, YUM. At least to me. D, SY, ZW, P tried it, i got pretty much +ve comments! But after a few more bites there was definitely room for improvement in the Taste dept.:

1) I still got a few soggy woggy fingers.
2) The cream should have been kahlua infused as well!
3) I should have just loaded the coffee with another 6 more tbsps of kahlua. Hoho.

What i thought was good:

1) Bravo to accidental milk chocolate shavings. Needed the sweetness.
2) Strawberry Puree did provide Freshness but the strawberry flavor per se didn't quite cut through. Maybe cherries would have worked out or i shouldn't have cooked the puree.
3) A smaller serving made the tiramisu much more appetising

************************

So i saw J again. I had to admit, Tiramisu was REALLY all about coffee and choc. But hey, at least it didn't turn out watery like before. That still requires skill right? About as much skill as a 13-yao on the mahjong table i guess.

2009-01-06T23:44:00.014+08:00

FIRE AND WATER: LAVA CAKE

My 7th Lava.

JG called it JG's Chocolate cake, Beard Papa preferred the french "Fondant Au Chocolat", I prefer the more common : Lava Cake. The Chinese generally know it as 溶浆蛋糕. What can more aptly describe the texture of that molten goodness oozing out of its spongy solid future than ........ "LAVA". And calling it "Half-baked Chocolate Cake" is just too unromantic even for me. But essentially the Lava Cake is a half-baked chocolate cake. Its amazingly simple (really!) but i only got it right on my 2nd attempt, or more precisely, my 8th lava cake (4 cakes per attempt, 1 cake baked at a time).

The first one was actually closest to the 8th. But it was too futuristic : ie too much future and too little present, ie too much baked cake and too little molten choc.

The second and third one was all baked. I guess you can say it was a really moist cake but i won't use it for any chocolate sponge recipe. Too airy.

The fourth was unset. The fifth, sixth had a hole in the middle which spurted out lava when i overturned it. The 7th was close to perfection, the problem was a hole in the middle of the top (sponge stuck to base), which i had to dust icing upon (refer to above photo) to 遮羞. (think adam's fig leaf)

Upon the 7th, I made a few notes:

1) The temperature was definitely off for most of the tries. They didn't manage to crisp the exterior and when they actually did, they took a long time and cooked the inside as well. I needed shorter timing but higher temperature.

2) The oven needed top fire or the whole top of the pudding cup (also the base of the lava cake) will be uncooked and when it finally is cooked, your whole cake is too.

So I did a 5 minute 220 degrees (using my oven thermometer as my oven is erratic) top-bottom fire. And my 8th baby was born :

There. Look at it! *fights a tear* , SO liquidyyyyy insideeeee.

And upon success (if i can say so), it was time to add some personal touches to my 9th baby. There were a few observations :

1) Too sweet (I reduced sugar but i can't overdo it or the overall texture will be affected)
2) A pinch of salt will mitigate the sugar overkill so i use salted butter. (As recommended by alot of fellow blogging cooks)
3) It was a little too rich for me. I was never the chocolate person.
4) I wanted to distinguish the flavor inside and outside.

So my 9th baby turned out like this :

Fresh strawberries to downplay the richness of the choc, the whipped cream serves that purpose too but helps to add depth to the dish by adding something cold to go with the hot lava. The cocoa powder (considered cinnamon but worried that it'll steal the show) er... is purely aesthetic? And finally there's a secret ingredient!

When the spoon dug into the cake, before the thick lava chocolate sauce gushed out, there was a mystery guest! GASP. A liquid! Lick lick. UNDOUBTEDLY, WHISKEY.

That gave the lava a slightly different kick from the sponge (besides the texture). What's the trick? *****internal struggle***** BE GONE NOW SELFISHNESS! *banishes it like Gandalf*

With a needle i got from the pharmacy. Injected the liquid after lava was cooked. Imagine the possibilities!! Rum, Grand Marnier, Baileys, Orange juice, caramel sauce (i'll definitely rather drizzle that on top to boast the colors),

Oh and a note, i didn't have my piping nozzles (lost the two i bought in Shanghai.hmmm) so i decided to spoon it , ending off with little peaks to have a slight meringue effect accentuated by the apparent "browning" by the cocoa powder. It stretched across the plate, hmmm my first attempt at wow-ing my desserts.

Oh and i baked Neiman Marcus Cookies after that. Will touch on that again! Too much blogging to catch up with! Yay i have something to do when i get back to sg.

2009-01-01T23:33:00.020+08:00

It took a lot of wishy-washying and googling before I could decide where to go for my birthday dinner this year. There were alot of consideration which essentially boils down to : Extravagance vs. Comfort. I definitely wanted French cos i missed having those good ol' mum-made pseudofrench festive meals back home. And since I believe in being totally sabbatical on my birthday, i refused to prepare my own birthday meal. That means I had to locate a nice french restaurant in shanghai.

On the top of my mind was JG. JG Shanghai is one of the franchises of JG Vongerichten's New York flagship restaurant. He doesn't head the kitchen but he flies there from time to time to train staff. I shan't elaborate. There's been one too many introductions of this restaurant. The problem with it was, obviously, the price. Then I (stupidly) decided to read reviews on the restaurant. Typically, there were people who swore by the place and others whose discontentment can be summed up by "disappointed-overrated". Well, its easy to be discouraged from choosing something expensive, but at the same time, its so difficult to let it go! Its just one of those places you wish to go subconsciously although you try to chuck the thought away by saying "Nah. too expensive". (But of course it has to be AFFORDABLE at the end of the day or it wouldn't even cross my mind. ) So i went to check That's Shanghai, the expat's guide to Shanghai which has quite a complete listing of French Restaurants.

There was La Platane, fine dining as well, headed by Singaporean (!!!) Chef Justin Quek , that's right beside Xin Tian Di (Shanghai's version of Clarke Quay?). It was about the same price range as JG, served fusion french (think Foie Gras Xiao Long Bao) and was kindly spared from nitpicking reviewers - "nice amiable head chef, efficient service and nice ambience". The only drawback was the dining place was more casual and fine dining rooms were only available under certain conditions (i can't remember if it was the headcount or days). So i decided to pay them a visit after an email only to find out they weren't open on 1st Jan! =( But i got to take a look at the place. it looked pretty fine actually. More on the white-out ballroom look, with tall walls and chairs and velvet curtains and all. But the reception was good. Friendly and unpretentious.

So i had to consider somewhere else! I decided that a meal shouldn't cost that much, so i decided to approach a bistro. There was Franck along Wu Kang road that was reputated for serving honest french bistro food without fancy concoctions and a humble price. The reviews seemed to suggest good food quality with a rather arrogant French Chef (duh. Franck.) and service that was going downhill due to better business. I ain't fussy with service as long as i get my food on time and they get me whatever i need in 5 minutes (isn't it just a bistro?). Alot of expats on forums are abhorrently uptight about service quality and ALWAYS attribute bad service to Chinese air/blood (e.g. "Their service is good, for Shanghai"). Hello. I don't know about you guys, but i don't think people were born to serve, so if they can't serve in an angmoh-owned restaurant, er...who's to blame? Ok ok, back to my point, i was fine with all the above problems, i had a problem with the chef coming up with the menu only er.... 1 hour before dinnertime? I needed to know that they weren't gonna serve rabbit meat or lamb cos D's doesn't eat such stuff. And i was craving for foie gras which the manager Simon assured me they had everyday but still! Bye bye Franck for now!

There was Hamilton House whose food was "inconsistent". Laris, T8 and M on the Bund which cost the same as or even more than JG and didn't have that kind of worldwide recognition which fed my vanity. And others which featured French restaurant-owners that picked on non-french customers (Reviewer: "It was fun for me and my friends! We were french!" - seriously?! what a stupid thing to say!) or places whose "food was good 3 years back".

There were like a million reviews of 20 odd french eateries in Shanghai. It was bad enough trying to make out some sense of consistency in the reviews so I could evaluate the restaurants , and they had to top it off with restaurant owners/managers sneaking into forums pretending to be satisfied customers (who happen to have a list of phone numbers, addresses of every branch in town!). People were bitching at one another. There were people recommending non-French food. Many of the expats didn't even EAT at the places, as i could tell from their reviews : "Go to JG if you can afford it". I think people should refrain from recommending places they haven't tried. Its very weird. No credibility at all! If expensive = good, there would be no need for food forums will there? I think its okay to give some feedback based on hearsay and we should at least have a nice disclaimer "I heard" or "My friend's been there" before shooting off our mouths. So at some point, i decided. PHUCK IT. I couldn't take all the cacophony of "opinions". I think there was a madeleine-epiphany at this point : All was clear and I was resolute - JG it is. So i called up, made a reservation at their dining hall and threw my that's shanghai out of the window. A peace of mind.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I decided to phone JG about the dress code. I was adamant in making this a perfect dining experience , especially for the price i was paying. I'm totally unashamed at how much this meal meant to me - wasn't going to nor could I pretend to be a frequent fine-diner, and in fact i was enjoying every minute of this uncoolness. Surprisingly they didn't have a dress code?! I thought it was rather inappropriate since it told alot about its customer selection (ie non-existent). So i went in jeans and a shirt and a black coat. D was in a casual jacket and shirt as well.

(spacejump!)

Upon entering the restaurant, I identified the logo! It was endearing to see the JG logo.

Why? Cos i've seen it SO many times when i was going through blogs and forums. *rollseyes*

like the color though. It looks like a nicely browned cheesecake top! Yum. We were ushered into a 4 seater by the window. I think it was a pretty good location besides the table beside us who had 1 more window by their table. We were facing the Pearl Tower side of the Huangpu River. Not fascinatingly picturesque but enough to distract me from staring at my food the whole night.

We chose the 588 set menu since it already had 2 of the most widely recommended dishes. The 988 taster menu was wayyyyyyyy too exorbitant. I will be completely satisfied with anything at that point of time. There were still 3 dishes to choose from a list of 15 and 1 dessert from a list of 5-6.

Disclaimer : The photos featured in this blog were not taken by us. We didn't snap photos during the meal, it just seemed too much of a waste to me to not live the moment but be concerned about preserving it (there and then, i mean) . I hereby acknowledge all the photos i took from other bloggers, including sweetsformysweet.blogspot, sinfully-munching.blogspot, ianyo on flickr , Thanks!

Before i talk about the dishes, i must commend their rye fruit and nuts bread. So good. Crisp and moist on the inside, perfect sweetness and oh so dense. It was so good BUT filling. We both had 2 cos we took the bread as a hint of how small the portions of haute cuisine will be. Haha. We were stuffed later on! The amuse-bouche was Almond puree. If that was supposed to be any sign of the craftmanship we were about to expect later on, its probably the amount of nuts used! Nothing amazing but comfortable to the tastebuds.

I chose:

1) Foie Gras Brulee, Dried Sour Cherries and Candied Pistachios

This was my first dish and i was dying to try the foie gras already. To be honest, the foie gras wasn't amazing. The other ingredients were diverting my attention! There was a Citrus jelly which i suspected was simply gelatine-tempered citrus juices - super sourish. Then there were the candied pistachios that were really good and went well with the sour cherries and the jelly. The brulee on the foie gras saved my liver (PUN!) from a soury death but all in all too many distractions. Plus, i was trying to decipher what ingredients and methods would duplicate this effect. hur.

2) Sea Bass, Parsnip Puree, Fragrant Coconut Juice

This was SPLENDID. It was one of the signature dishes according to forums. It gave my tongue a breather after that overpowering first appetizer. Fresh and 清淡 yet tasty enough to keep you going from head to tail. Yum. D was complaining that this dish was his! (cos he ordered foie gras as well only so i could try two sorts. haha) There was some topping on top of the fish that i couldnt identify :(

3) Beef Tenderloin , (can't remember but it was unidentifiable vegetables)

The beef is worth reminiscing. I asked for 七分熟 and it was still juice packed and had a wonderful texture. A little mush on the inside with a crisp exterior. Yum. It was well marinated too, so i didn't even need to get mustard! The vegetables on the side were cut in big and ugly shapes. Didn't like that at all. The sauce was forgettable. But the beef. oooohm.

4) A glass of red

D chose:

1) Fresh Picked Crab Salad , Mango, Cumin Crisps

The Crab was really fresh. So much so it was on a verge of being 腥. But lucky it wasn't! It was so seafood-sweet that it reminded me alot of the Hokkaido markets. Two balls of the crab salad with cumin crisps and some weird mustard ball (? can't remember for sure) at the side. Didn't like that much. The Cumin crisps were like really thin nachos, but if eaten with the crab and mango, was not bad at all.

2) Pan-fried Foie Gras (can't remember but it had a bread bottom and a fruity jelly)
This and the sea bass were UNFORGETTABLE. Sigh. Compared to the earlier foie gras that was too busy interacting with its domineering sweet and sour friends, this was more down-to-earth foie gras. FAT foie gras. I could feel every bite explode into fatty juices / juicy fats, but the bread bottom and jelly on top eliminated any greasy aftertaste. There was something else on top of it as well but it was mainly decorative i think (sorry chef). Its the fattest leee-baaa i've ever eaten. I could only compare it with the huge serving at Au Petit Salut at Holland Village that I can only describe as "fleshy" as compared to this goodness.

3) Cod fish with uninteresting sauce

Hmm. First bite's interesting then later on it gets draggy and boring.

For dessert, D had the signature JG Chocolate Lava Cake served with Vanilla Ice Cream (above) which i insisted was not much difference from the mine i made! Of course they used better chocs and they had a better oven and the right dishes that don't make the cakes stick to the side BUT still. I had a Praline Tart, with some Hazelnut crusty sauce and Ginger ice cream. The only mentionworthy part of this was the ginger infused vanilla ice cream. It was the only thing that gave the sweet-to-death dessert some depth. I couldn't even finish it for fear of turning diabetic overnight.

They tried to top off the night with complimentary homemade chocs and marshmallows. The chocs were so mediocre and it merely added to the sugar saturation problem my mouth was suffering from at that point. The marshmallows on the other hand , were very much worth aggravating the thirst i was having from the sugar and wine. It wasn't fluffy but almost mousse-like, and melted upon pinching. Raspberries and Citrus flavored. That was so good. Too bad i was half-distracted by the dehydration.

Recommended : Foie Gras (both brulee and panfried!) , Sea Bass and Rye Bread. Lava Cake for chocoholics. I say try the more exciting options. (i should have gotten the Mocha Brownie with Salted Caramel Icecream- yum!)

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The Ambience was good because everyone around us was well behaved. No smoking although we were in the smoking area. No loudmouths (besides us). I was much more relaxed than I expected and although i didn't start tossing cutlery all over the table, I was more or less able to shake off the pretentious side of me that was too concerned with etiquette and the impression i was giving. Towards the end i was slumped on the chair, slightly tipsy and stuffed, looking out on HuangPu river and being totally satisfied - a true gastrorganism in my opinion.

The Decor : I found the place really dark? Haha. The only color i could identify was the orangey-red of the logo above on the ceiling. The food had color only because of the candles. But i guess i don't give a damn about nicely carved chairs. The whole arrangement of the place was fine. Nicely spaced. (There was a sofa 5 seater that looked terribly cramped though). After looking at the casual dining room, I think I made a right choice. Paying for the view.

The Service : There were more waiters than occupied tables so I guess we got alot of attention. The waiters knew what they were doing. I liked the way they swooped the dome plate cover away in a concerted motion! So act sei. haha. And it was quite innovative the way they mixed n matched Mandarin and English. I think they do that to Chinese/ Chinese looking guests to give you some semblance of an overseas restaurant. I wondered why they didn't just tell me what all the ingredients were in Chinese since I did show them i could speak Chinese - hmmm maybe cos 鹅肝 and foie gras sound like TOTALLY different things. haha. I bet those unidentifiable veges by my beef were called 口水菜 or something like that. They served a lava cake to me by mistake and decided to give it to me to make up for their mistake. HMMM. I think that's over the top la. It only took them 5 seconds to realize their error anyways. I was thinking : Are there crazy snobs out there that would be totally outraged by an honest mistake like that and demand for a free lava cake to appease their anger? Hmmm I wonder. Maybe fine dining does demands a little snobbery and unreasonableness in order to distinguish its status from casual dining. But in that case, just give me my food and i'll gladly sit at somewhere less pretentious.

I had to agree with a certain reviewer's comments though : Good service but the waiters were a little cold. They were all looking so serious. I mean seriously liven up! Its my birthday! hahah. I should have demanded for a free birthday song sung by the whole crew. They'll have to shed their frostiness then! I think good service just means reading my mind and acting like my third hand. As for expressionlessness , i think i prefer a thin confident smile anytime.

All in all, I was more than happy with the entire experience. Good food, good company and good ambience! Its all you need to get tipsy a little faster than usual.

For fellow confused bloggers out there looking for reviews on JG:
Will I go back? For the Foie Gras, Sea Bass and to try a duck/lamb (if i'm not with D that is) some other year i guess.

Was it worth the money? This price will be twice if it was in Singapore so I guess yes. Top of the M wasn't even this memorable and we paid the same price.

Was it filling? Yes. Surprisingly. I could do with 1 less rye bread so i won't have to rub my tummy this hard now.

How should I decide? WHEREVER YOU WANTED TO GO BEFORE READING ALL THESE STUPID REVIEWS. SO STOP READING THIS NOW N PICK UP UR PHONE.

2008-12-19T23:53:00.005+08:00

I've decided to turn this dormant blog into my own food blog.

For the past few months, i've been unhealthily obsessive with online recipe reading (on top of my baking OCD). And yes its true, not all online information are trustworthy and therefore, not all online recipes are worth the effort but then the question presents itself:

"Which recipes are dependable for that make-it-or-break-it dinner or cook-out party?"

Before I attempt to answer the above question, there are a few issues to lay on the table:

Firstly, i think we have to give all the fellow cooks* out there the benefit of the doubt - no one posts a crappy recipe in malice. There is , however, the matter of taste, which ,as Emmanuel Kant puts it, cannot be universally correct or simply a matter of subjectivity. Because if taste was only subjective and everyone can say anything is good, there won't be any standard to begin with! With that said, in order to live harmoniously (and to explain why people still eat fast food), we have to give everyone the "right of taste" ie anyone is free to say something is delectable but similarly anyone (else) is perfectly correct when he/she disagrees.

Secondly, Man is selfish. Cooks are humans. Cooks are selfish.

I might be too cynical in saying this, but i do think that cooks will never disclose their complete recipes. That is why we see "Hilton Cheesecake" , "Jean-Georges Lava Cake" and "The Best Tiramisu Ever" recipes floating around in cyberspace. No sensible cook (especially one with 3 michelin stars) will let you know that secret ingredient they infuse into their cooking for that one little star anis or durian zest might be what makes dish A turn into Dish A+++. I further confirmed my suspicion when Katherine refused to disclose that magic herb that made her lemon meringue pies far superior to Bree's best in Desperate Housewives Season 4. But like how Mencius believed in 人性本善, I am always reassured in mankind whenever I see people share their cooking tips with the rest of the world. (like how 1 tbsp of sour cream in any cake batter makes it more moist) But o' cynical me! I am half-obliged to rationalize gracious behavior : Maybe its that confidence in one's skills (or the difficulty of the recipe) that allows a cook to be this magnanimous. I, for one, am most stingy with my recipes. I stand guilty of pettiness. Mostly because I intend to open a cafe/bakery one day. And Hey, i did spend alot of time, money and effort on wrong recipes too! Okay okay, I shall not attempt to justify my selfishness anymore, in fear of seeming hypocritical (since i do leech off the magnanimous cooks). I shall try to learn to share.

Thirdly, Recipes are like driving instruction manuals (and philosophy), what do they tell you? Everything, and essentially nothing. Too many a times I end up with dry smelly cake instead of "Peter's Granny's Old Scrumptious Classic Chocolate Cake of Sin" because of my lack of experience. So I say : read up on theory. What chemical reaction lies behind the glorious madeline hump? Why are eggs, flour and butter found in all recipes? What makes egg whites turn into meringue batter after frantic beating? But food theory is just as airy as recipes. In that sense, cooking is more of an art than a science. Try, fail, learn - Try again. Not only is cooking a mad test of determination, it SEARS your pocket. Fail that tiramisu and find yourself paying hundreds of Chinese dollars for that imported mascarpone again and again and again. But if you're as ultra-obsessive as I am, you can't play safe. I'll recurringly believe in the success of every attempt and buy that saffron for Paella #1, #2, #3...... Nothing undermines my warped sense of kitchen integrity more than being mentally prepared for failure and using less. I'm sure this will be my downfall when I embark on commercial ventures. but until then, let me trudge on in obstinance.

*cook seems more generic and gives more allowance for failures. so i prefer the term to the french "chef" whose cooking process is ooooooh- ahhhhhh-voila when mine's more of the ooo-PHUCK-shit!!!!!-huh?-cheayyyyy.

***************************

So spotting a recipe is not that easy, you need to find one that is generally agreeable to the tastebuds of your guests and yourself (No dignified cook will make something that only everyone else loves!), one that is relatively honest with all the crucial ingredients and after all that, you STILL might not succeed because a recipe, is well only a recipe. Just words and at best, step by step videos.

A few ways to reduce the probability of stepping on kitchen landmines :

1) The Potentially Good Recipes : I like my recipes off blogs. You get personal tips and honest confessions. Cook bloggers or Blog-cookers are generally a very unpretentious lot who find failures in the kitchen as noteworthy as successes (althought the latter is very much preferred!). I find those recipes from professional chefs a little bit, well, too professional, presumptious (that you know every french culinary term) and too concise.

2) The Double-checking : Cross-reference 2-4 recipes and compare the different methods and ingredients. Some call for an extra egg yolk or 0-100gm more sugar. These are fine. But sometimes there are fundamental differences like how certain recipes protests against opening the oven door when baking choux puffs while others claim that a small opening would allow steam to be released. Compare, contrast then google on the doubts you have and try to find answers in cooking forums that address more theory-based questions.

3) The Adjustments : After some trial and error, you should be able to tailor recipes to your own desire. Less sugar if its an American classic recipe, add 2 more yolks into any pudding recipe, substituting cream of tartar with lemon juice, adding citrus which is almost good anywhere.

4) The Reincarnation : If you're in a high level (which i am not but always try to dabble), you can try turning a basic recipe into a very personalised one . A few ways to do this , mix and match your favorite recipes (A mousse with B sponge), alter a crucial ingredient or combine several recipes (A says 2 eggs, B says 3 eggs. lets do a 2.5 eggs).

5) Notes notes notes : After every successful attempt, take some time to remember how you did everything and what you added to make it work. Also remember to jot down those little risks you were taking but didn't affect the overall result. These phenomena probably mean that you're lucky or those actions had negligible effect. After every failed attempt, get over your depression of dumping the whole tray of burnt babies and get a grip. What did you do wrong? If you took little risks like adding flour all at once into egg for madeleines, its very likely these were the little devils that killed your recipe. However, if after seriously backtracking , you can very surely say you followed the recipe to a tee, then its time to go through your ingredients - any thing smelly or spoilt? if there are STILL no apparent tell tale signs, then its time to suspect the RECIPE itself! This is when you're thankful for comments/feedback columns. The more people who try the recipe means : 1) People try and like this recipe 2) You have a reservoir of experience to tap from. So this comes into consideration too when you first decide which recipe to use!

Thats all for now!

2008-09-13T21:20:00.005+08:00

nobody reads this blog anymore. and here i am updating it. this is a pretty darned good gauge of how bored i am in shanghai now.
for all the uninformed (if u ever chance upon this dormant blog), i'm having a 3 day week now. On top of having way too much time, my passion for Chinese Literature is declared dead (after i failed to remember the author of the very first historical record in Chinese history) so i don't read alot anymore.

in short, im idling myself silly.

its funny how the blog writing habit couldn't really catch on with our generation. we ALL have blogs and most of us don't update it since 2-3 years ago. for some reason i can't quite articulate, i'm thankful for that. i feel that i can identify with my generation.

this blog entry is dedicated to lihui (and her friend hy) and osm and any other friends who will eventually make their way to shanghai.

just in case the above persons think i'm only giving them guidance to Shanghai because im frigging bored - I WOULD HAVE EMAILED YOU ALL ANYWAYS. but its more fun to put in on a blog cos emails always feel too personal.

THE A-Zs OF VISITING SHANGHAI

disclaimer:
1)the following "list" by no means reflect what i really characterize as "Shanghai". 2)the advice that i am about to give is not what i would tell someone who is going to stay in Shanghai or someone who wants to know Shanghai more intimately.

BUT since visitors really don't need want/need/get to know what Shanghai is like in a short trip, i decided to pinpoint the more glaring aspects. hopefully this list will buffer the cultural shock, and consequently prepare the visitors enough for them to appreciate this city i've grown to love.

A - ANG MOH
Well, we're not ang mohs. lucky us. cos it gives us the chance to shapeshift. be a foreigner ie speak english when you demand good service, especially at fancy restaurants or clubs; but be a chinese when you're shopping or you will find yourself seriously overcharged.

B - BARGAINING
My aunt ever bargained in Best Denki Singapore. She will do well here.
BARGAIN when you shop. When 襄阳路 was around, prices start out 300% more than the dealing price. You get the drift. You should be able to get 40-80 RMB less off a 180RMB clothing. (but please don't bargain in emporiums, restaurants, cabs or anywhere with a price list)

C - CABS
Cabbies in Shanghai are generally more well-mannered than the ones i've seen in sg. They might sound rude and boorish but thats just a problem with "Volume" in China. we'll come to that. But in the case where you've disclosed ur secret identity as a tourist (esp when you're going back to your hotel or not know ur road names), be wary of serious detouring. If you SENSE a longer route, or the cabbie just seems mean and all, ask for a 发票 at the end of ur ride. Don't sound even VAGUELY POLITE when u get ur 发票, just say 给我张发票. If the cabbies have been naughty, just give zy a call, he'll make a complaint using the 发票. Normally its just faster to call me when you are on the cab, he'll make sure the cabbie doesn't cheat.
Oh and don't take any cabs with BX _____ as its license plate no. or ones without the meter. Red cabs called 大众 are generally prefered.

D - DIRTY
okay okay. Shanghai is RELATIVELY clean already. But be prepared to walk on streets with litter that seems almost embedded into the dirty stone pavements. Actually i don't think shanghai is THAT dirty, its just cos the old pavements exaggerate the effects of dirt. Always look at where you're stepping cos the pavements are really narrow here (its a Shanghai characteristic), you don't want to tread upon some shanghainese aunties' legs or some doggy's poo.

E - EMERGENCY
You scream. You call 110 for the police. call ZY.

F - FAGS
*cough* I mean the cigarettes. Smoking is still very rampant in Shanghai. And w..*cough*..they tend to flick cig buds. I normally take deep breaths before i pass a CREW of SMOKERS (normally construction workers), you know how much i hate 2nd hand smoke. haha.

G - GIRLS
Some girl-related information i got off my friends:
1) Get boots here if u like them.
2) If you always wanted to wear heels on a casual occasion, here's the place to do it, cos almost all shanghainese women young or old wear them.
3) If you want a discount, call all saleswomen with black hair 小姐 and the rest 阿姨
4) A FEW cosmetic products are cheaper here so you might want to stock up on stuff but make a SG price list so you can compare.
5) Getting hit on by foreigners especially black men in clubs and bars happens quite frequently to asian girls.

H - HORN
Change your concept of the car horn. People here use it to vent frustration more than anything else. So if you stay by some huge main road, be prepared to start your itinerary by 8am. Don't jump when you hear a horn, it doesn't mean what it means in sg. sometimes i like to do a slow-mo when someone horns me. just to piss them off more. bitches. But this doesn't mean you don't look out for horns when you're doing super jay-walking ("super" cos normal jay-walking is just well... sensible).

I - ICE CREAM!
If you love magnum and cornettos, feel free to gain a few kgs during your trip. Magnum costs the same as it does in SG, THREE DOLLARS. but in RMB. *grin*

J - JAZZ BARS
Well, Shanghai's relationship with the west actually goes a looooong way back so jazz started out really early in Shanghai. Plus it is a cosmopolis. So the jazz bars are pretty darned good! Ask for recommendations :)
Trivia: Shanghai has its own genre of Jazz - Shanghai Jazz.

K - KARAOKE
Its only right to karaoke once in Shanghai even if you can count the number of Chi Pop songs with one hand. Its dirt cheap and you can byob. And it even has hip english songs er with the thrashy mtvs.

L - LANGUAGE
The Shanghainese dialect is rudely dominant in Shanghai, in other words, every auntie in the convenience stores , supermarts, emporiums and uncles in cabs will assume you speak Shanghainese. Its bloody annoying if you actually know Chinese. But they all can speak their national tongue so just give it to them. Please do not assume the phoney beijing accent with alot of tongue-curling cos people in shanghai speak chinese in the way most of the southerners do (ie the way singaporeans do) - very unaccented.

M - MIGRANTS
1/3 or more of Shanghai's current population is made up of migrants. It just means that alot of people you see aren't Shanghainese. So a good way to identify the Shanghainese: Fair, sharp noses, stuckup and speaks in Shanghainese more than Chinese. Additional tips on how to identiy the women: high heels, tiny handbags , umbrellas and the meanest eyebrows.

N - NUDGING
I'll always try to arrange a day for CROWDED STREETS for visitors. If you thought singapore was unbearable, you should check out Shanghai. Its madness. And if you get masochistic enough to try the public buses during peak hours, you might just get a few FRIENDLY nudges from the 赶着见阎王的老疯狗s who are DYING to get on the bus cos it might just disappear into thin air in like 2 seconds! Don't take it too seriously. But what i normally do, is swing to look behind and enunciate: 你-不-要-碰-我. that'll start these old shits going 哎哟那么凶啊 in the most 欠打 tone ever.

O - OLD PEOPLE
Since we were on the topic of nudging, we must talk bout old people in shanghai. Most of the old people in shanghai are locals. the non-locals look very harmless and sickly normally (hahaha). The old shanghainese are the worst of their species. Especially the women. Don't cross their paths or you'll be spat at very viciously. They can be identified by their FROWNY and BITTER faces and their agility when it involves empty bus/train seats (try not to stand in their way as they cartwheel to their seats).

P - PIRACY
Well i still have no idea what is a pirated cd/vcd/dvd in shanghai. cos they all look like pirated stuff to me. But i don't advise getting TOO many goods back home, customs will be a problem.

Q - QUEUE
Queueing, or the lack thereof, is one huge cultural shock that i have yet to digest in my 3 year stay in shanghai. They just don't get it. If you have a counter 1.5 metres wide, expect 200 queues (thank god noone can levitate). There are a few interesting queue formations : 1) The earthworm. Where both ends of the queues are the heads! That means that you can't tell where the queue starts. 2) The orgy. Where everyone just stands around and if you want to get to the cashier first means you have to start summoning some super black face, murderous looks and shouting, if necessary. not recommended for visitors. but if you're spunky enough, try 你可以排队吗 in a very demeaning tone. that usually scares off the less challenging barbarians. 3) The weeds. I came up with the name cos this sorta of queues are meant to be cut. VERY MESSY and ENTICES CUTTERS. so you will find yourself waiting forever cos people keep coming in and the person at the start of the queue is a wuss who can't speak up. scold the phisher.

R - RED WINE
Don't drink China red wine even if a bottle costs less than a bottle of vinegar in sg. In the same spirit, don't buy cheap liquor. Open bars give diluted or fake alcohol so watch out. PAY MORE LA.

S - SHOPPING
Shopping in Shanghai is a whole new experience. Say bye bye to boring brand outlets and say hi to fake brands and independant labels. Streets of cosy boutiques with their own collection spice up the whole process. Or thats what i hear from the sg girls that came over. I don't shop. And i'm gonna leave you girls alone when you shop.

T - TRAFFIC
Traffic congestion in shanghai is probably only second to Bangkok if we're talking bout Asia. oh and maybe inner city of Tokyo. So avoid peak hours at all costs. 7-9.30 am and 5-8pm. You might find yourself taking 1.5 hours to get from one place to another, chalking up a neat taxi fare. Some traffic rules you might want to keep in mind : 1) Left hand drive so look to your left first when crossing a road. 2) Zebra crossings do not exist. the pedastrain crossings might resemble our little zebras, but they don't bestow the right of way so look out. 3) Cars can turn right at a red light with or without a green arrow. 4) There are bicycle lanes which are the most hazardous roads cos sneaky motors straddle these lanes and the main road.

U - UMBRELLA
If you always wanted to be fair *winks at lihui* but can't take the ridicule of holding an umbrella in sg as well as meiling does, shanghai's your chance to flaunt that UV 100% protection brollie. Shanghainese women always put up a good fight on a sunny day.

V - VENDORS
Shanghai has alot of vendors. Selling fruits,fish,vege,dvd,vcd,raisins,nuts and god knows what. 2 pieces of advice : 1) Always try bargaining unless its like food hawkers. 2) Which Vendors are safe? Fruit vendors are cool. But i don't see why you should be dying for fruits unless you are Little Miss Vitamin C. Don't eat from the food hawkers. Smells phucking good but no point having cat meat deep fried in black tar-like oil right? right.

W - WATER
Water is NOT potable. They claim that 93% is potable but it just means that 7% of god-knows-what-makes-their-water-chalky is evenly distributed throughout the water pipes. Boiled water is not good enough if you're a fussy drinker or have a sensitive stomach. Get bottled mineral water. 农夫山泉 (red) or Nestle (blue) are popular choices. Cheap as hell anyway.

X - XINJIANG
I don't want to be xenophobic but people from this district seem to have a real smelly reputation with the shanghainese. They apparently are responsible for alot of snatch-and-run, robbery and pickpocketing cases in Shanghai cos there's a minorities-protection-law that acquitts them of all charges except one - deportation. Not all of them are criminals la. but i say, be safe and not sorry at the end of your trip, ie. stay a safe distance away from people that look like a mix of european-chinese-muslim. They tend to cluster. They sell raisins and this nice steam cake (mixed nuts and raisins) but i've heard of friends getting seriously kotoked by them and have no choice but to pay 120 RMB for a slice of huat-kweh-equivalent cake, in fear of being stabbed. And if you see them slapping or assaulting people on the train, just quietly DASH FOR THE DOOR, unless of course.... i'm the one being stabbed to death.

Y - YUCKS!
KOOOOOoooooooooooOOOORK-PTOOI! Be prepared to hear that AT LEAST 20 times over a 7 day visit. What i normally do : If i'm in a good mood, quicken my foot steps , cover my mouth, before i hear the fatal PTOOOI. Don't worry bout them hitting you but that said, i suggest walking faster underneath the staircases of overhead bridges. If i'm in a bad mood, i'll spit back. haha no la. i'll just turn around and give a REALLY FOUL LOOK. not like they care but it just makes me feel a little bit better bout myself.
SHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-drip-drip. If you're lucky enough, you might witness the public toileting displays. Normally its kids. NORMALLY. They have this cute slits in th back of their pants (where the ass crack is!) and their mum sits them on the lap, peeing or POOing on the floor of the pavement. If you're luckier, you get to see the MEN PEEING. hahha. If you see a construction worker lookalike, facing the wall, don't go and offer help or ask for directions, run before you start to hear trickling. I've seen that happen quite often. IF YOU STRIKE JACKPOT, you might actually witness the urban legend...... the LADY WITH HER LONG SKIRTS PEEING WHILE STANDING UP. lol.

Z - Zheng Yi
If in doubt, call ZY. Don't hesitate to call especially when you are being approached by strangers or the police or whoever you don't feel comfortable with. My take is ignore ALL strangers. Since you can't give directions anyways, no point stopping to help. Alot of people borrow money, NEVER give it even if its 2 SGD. They can come in all shapes , ages and sizes (i got a couple once and the guy was in a suit). As for beggars, do it only if you want to. no obligation la. not like 1 RMB will make alot of difference and there's 1 million of them out there. but if you have remnants from a meal and u KNOW of one beggar that always hangs ard outside your hotel, maybe you could do him a favour and at the same time , save you all the BAD KARMA FOR FOOD WASTAGE.

There it is! My A-Z guide to Shanghai for short-term visitors!
So happy. i managed to keep myself busy on this sad lonely saturday night.

2007-11-05T18:51:00.000+08:00

I went to wuxi again with Mum, Dad and Janice this time. tis is is me and 1-year-older haohao at the kickass wuxi rice fields. Their family plots. Talk about the riches THEY have. Oh they bought a car and spent 30K sgd renovating their double storey apartment. With marble floors, chandeliers and this huge kitchen. Man. I wanna be a farmer too.

I got to check out LIVE garlics, parsleys, spring onions, mfing huge melons, brinjaws etc. Damned cool. Mum and i were exclaiming at every sight and haohao's mum was giggling throughout (obviously saying "city bumpkins"). We should all get an excursion down and see where the things we eat were at before they were stir-fried. Oh, for those who are concerned, haohao is fine, slightly taller, very brilliant and writes nicer chinese words than i do (ie 70% of chinese singaporeans).

Oh and Janice and Dajie (her sis Clarine) came for a pigout in Shanghai. Its true. they came ONLY to eat and drink. Which is definitely what i call smart travelling. We had 100 RMB open bars , japanese buffets, sichuan food, beer at lunch, ningbo seafood and huang jiu and consequently, too much FUN!

Hmm in short, just ....... lots of booze and fun la! *BEAMS*

Yeah~ I shaved my head. For the people who saw me on msn having the poll : TADAAAA~ For the people who didn't : TADAAAAAA~~ *louder*. Haha. It looks decent in this photo. It took only FOUR shots for 1 that looked this decent. SO, according to MY standard, it isn't abyssmal. But i like how the lighting makes me look so pale that i almost look like a druggie (not to mention the seemingly perfect complexion). Well, its less than 15 degrees on average now so... its really stupid to shave my head but i still did it! Beanies and Caps! I sort of get into the punk/rocker (courtesy of wing) mode with this hair: i swagger, i wanna chew gum and i put on the dao look. YES ML,HL AND LH, i am still so pretentious! As for speculations that i was dumped (by my hairstylist), NOTHING OF THAT SORT. Its just me being attention deficient again! Like how i had my magnetic diamond ear stud, tattoo phase, le coq sportif bigf*ck glossy bag etc. since we're at it, i decided to go for a few camwhoring super pretentious photos. 3 mths of abnormal hairdo, LET ME INDULGE.

wah lau... this is classic. i look damnnnnnnnnned fisher. WOOOOOOO~

2007-09-01T09:19:00.000+08:00

i'm the obsessive sort. Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, Sekai no Chushin , Nodame Cantabile, Tao Jing Ying and now 881. Which is a very prominent "commoner" presence in my usually-alternative list of objects. however its no surprise when i think about my S.H.E. , Jay Chou phases. Hmm.

Yay. I can't wait for 881 OST 2 to come out. The show is quite crap lar. i quote the brother, "how meaningful can laser shooting out from bras be?" but well i'm the sort who digs for depth. and if to no avail, conjures depth. haha.

but the OST, ah, THAT everyone agrees is good stuff. however, they are really cunning to come up with TWO OSTs cos the first doesn't have all the good songs! grr. But to my horror, i can actually swallow the techno songs. *cringes* 难道我真的那么俗....?! And according to my mum, there won't be a dvd/vcd version for fear of privacy. HOW ELSE CAN I GET MY Auntie LIN RU PING's song!

haha. Lin Ru Ping. She seriously cracks me up. Typical 三姑六婆 face.

i like typing Chinese in my blog. Its definitely more Zheng Yi than an all English blog.

oh im tired of blogging . haven't been doing it for such a long time. no stamina. tatz.

2007-09-01T08:41:00.000+08:00

maybe love is just another extrapolation of our ego.

isn't it "all about power", mind games, countless psychoanalyses?
hasn't it always been "I'll never find some one" , "I want out" and " I'm really tired of relationships"?

could it be all about the company? all about fulfilling one of the many wants in our lives?
is it satisfying one major (socio-sexual) need in order to step off for the stars? or is it an aimless pursuit driven by conventions?

why do we yearn for something that already sounds unattainable? or have most of us already given up on that ideal and are only motivated by the inertia of older norms?

maybe one day, love will stop all operations. maybe it isn't an absolute existence.
maybe, the "3-flat-condo" will suffice x years later.

my mum once said, " 我跟你讲，爱情只是你在20多岁的时候追求的东西。它不是一切。到了30多岁，你会发现爱情不重要的...... 我这么讲不是因为我已经有一个幸福的家庭。真的。”

but why dive into Self-sacrifice , when you already know there is a chain and ball on your foot? Could you possibly desire to prove "The Individual" wrong?
Could it just be an "approaching infinity"/ never-there-but-always-in-the-process kind of pursuit? Or is it like philosophy, a self-elucidating mechanism where the process is the result?

take no comfort in the fact that all these pseudo-sublime talk dissolve at a touch of your skin, a desperate apology or a kiss from time.

2007-06-05T12:48:00.000+08:00

I stopped blogging when blogspot sold its soul to google. I mean what is up with this. Can't they just leave Change out of my blogs? Its maddening, all these signing-ups and re-registering and new formats, "NEW BLOGGER", automatic pop-ups and godknowswhat surprises awaiting to pounce on me when i click the tab "Publish Post".

But thats not the only reason i didn't blog for like 5 months or so. I'm just uninspired. I have dissolved into a mechanical component of functional rationalism. I now do things for only three reasons : one, the things fulfil a rational motive. (ie it brings me money eventually); two, they sustain my life ; three, they are habitual. I-A-M-D-5-2-3-T-H-E-R-O-B-O-T *squeaking of limbs* hehe. I'm just being angsty towards Rationalism. Don't take it personally.

Friends have begged to know why i haven't wrote my blog. They need me. My people. doooooon't cryyyyyyy for MEEEEEEEEEEEEE AR-DENT-read-ers!!!!!!!

The truth is I never left you.

hehe. I'm a bit wonky as usual. But its true that some of you do miss my blog. which probably means, you miss ME. so here i AM! *JUMPS OUT OF YOUR MONITOR* Squeeze my cheeks and Smell my earlobes! I think i'm a very different entity in my blogs, i'm more of like ...... what is popularly labelled as... SHEN JING BING. BUT. In reality, i'm very much subdued (*reassures the casual occasional readers*) but after you get to know me, my insanity actually still exists, just through a more subtle expression.

Diary Format 5th July 2007:
Today! I woke up at 7, was late for class, where the teacher guided us through Hamlet in English (yes) , and then another class where the teacher is absent cos one of his body tubes got stuck and he's in critical condition but he is fine now. But he issues an order for a thesis this end-of-term in Shi Ji (the first historical record in China). Then i went to the library and read up Habermas' "The Theory of Communicative Action", couldn't understand a single sentence (!) but managed to pretend i understood one and threw it into my thesis on the "Modernity of Chinese Literature" which i think is fantabulous by the way, and i shall be returning all 7 of my reference books for the thesis later (7 ref. books for a module that earns me 2 credits, obviously defying my 3 laws of func. rat. behavior,see above) and borrow another 10 on Shi Ji, if the entire chi fac class hasn't already ransacked the miserable Humans library. Oh. i was having dumplings when i wrote this, yummy 6 RMB ones which have like fractions of egg yolk in all 8 of them. I'm saving up so the 150RMB veg buffet tonight (that includes free-flow HD icecream --!!!) is at least negotiable.

See. why would anyone wanna write like how Ally (Mcbeal) talks. its ridiculous.
we Func. Rat. believers prefer to write in NOTE FORM. much more efficient. Demonstration A:

List of Girl Trouble events in Fudan:
1) Shanghainese Classmate
- has a crush on me
- wears hot pants (black) with web stockings (black)
- endearing glances during lessontime
- traumatizing

2) Shanghainese Girl
- fellow competitor in singing competition
- asks me if i had a gf
- INFORMS me she doesn't have a bf
- implores for my comments on her costume wistfully
- absolutely frightful

3) Chinese classmate in the same class as (3)
- doesn't attend class much
- sleeps when she does arrive 20 minutes-1 hour late
- decided to ask a FOREIGN student (ie me) to lend her all his notes so she can photocopy them for the exams
- little does she know : this foreign student does not lend his notes to people who do not wake up at 7 for lessons

4) Thai Stranger
- a classmate from the previous term
- never conversed except:
- once, i cycled past her and she gazed at me yearningly so i stopped to ask her (bluntly) : "do you know me?" (stupid move zy! STUPID)
- she said "she doesn't remember"
- one fine day, zy gets ambushed by her 2 friends who pop out at the hostel lobby and asks for his hp no. which he cleverly evaded from providing
- however, his email had to galvanize instead.
- girl sends 2 emails which are super random
- zy ignores and is living still today.

Okay. These are the more significant ones. TRUST ME : i am more horrified than flattered by such things (some of you know why). If bad tao hua summed up 2006, i think decomposed tao hua can almost describe the first half of 2007. It must be how innocent i look. Or how bewitched these ppl are by idol drama. except for the note-borrowing girl of course, her motives are clear and so is my stand. Nothing ventured nothing gained. As for the others:

WHY ME????????
the question is. do i portray myself as someone KIND? I'm sorry if i did! Moreover, where is the LL face (quoted fm shanshan) i used to have in J1? Time hasn't dissolved it ,the last time i checked!

WEI SHEN ME!!! *does an a-die cry to the heavens*

I hate having to DO sth unkind. I just want to look unkind so people steer off MY LIFE so i don't have to STEAMROLL them over. Its not even for them! I just want to be guilt-free. Is that too much to ask? I really don't like people to impose expectations on me. I can tolerate the friends doing it cos i return the favour, but all these..*goo on hands-expression* unwanted ATTENTION is unbearable.

okay. hoooo~ im cool now.

~

I have a brand new outlook towards life now. All thanks to *cough*.
Its very hard to explain what it is, though.
I thought it was like, typically, "Don't trust anyone except for your loved ones/ Reality is cruel / Human beings are inherently selfish"
But no. Its not that. Its like that but the essence of it is different.
The message behind it is not "Join it if you can't fight it." , " Don't dream. " , " Accept reality. "
Its more of, finding a balance, being at ease with it all, letting it not bother you, ditching idealism along with pragmatism, dreams along with cynicism, hopes along with despair, and all the other dialectic formulas.
Its not just surrendering to reality. Its more of, quoting Su Rui in "Wen Rou De Ye", "Kan4 Qing1 Ni3" , ie seeing everything for what it really is.
I think its still a phase, because the only thing i am quite sure of is the volatility of it all.
But at the same time, i guard this little field. The only thing untouched by my newest revelation. Something that preserved all the romantics i used to honor myself for. It flourishes.

~

A babe, diapered, ventured into black woods. He sees shadows lurking around, as if ready to pounce, as if about to attack him, as if bad. A hunter comes by and advises, "These are bad things. You should run before you get hurt." The babe can't see why these things are bad. I mean, its obvious enough but he can't be sure. And "as if" isn't good enough. So he just wants to walk right into them.

Let the babe walk into them, won't you? Its not about not preventing damage anymore. Its about letting him see things for real. Let him.

But stay around won't you? With your gun and your eagle eyes.

~
I watched so many movies recently.
I'll like to mention 3 women-centred ones :
The Queen
Monster
Notes on a Scandal

The Queen :
Helen Mirren is positively, "bloody" frumpy for a queen. Beautiful. And you must watch it just for the very subtle emotional tension in her. Her integrity as a royalty and that air of unconforming nobility. And all that humanity that lies within that (not "beneath that" though, that will suggest her role as the Queen being masquerading, when it actually is inseparable with her being simply human). My favourite among the 3, very subtle, very poignant.

Monster:
Stifling. I almost died. my friend had to pull out halfway. Its disturbing in its repititiveness : how Charlize Theron keeps convincing herself that what she does is right. how she blames everything on reality and conjures this warped philosophy on life. It reminds us how we perceive life differently, but yet dance to a same rhythm, keeping ourselves in step by some unnamed obligation. And if we for once, look beyond our glass bottle, like how we see Charlize Theron live her way of life, we are frightened by just the possibility of believing in something so wrong.

Notes on a Scandal :
Its mainly for Judi Dench. Brilliant performance. This film could be called "Monster" for her. Another instance of a cocooned life. But different from that of "Monster". In "Notes", we see Dench gradually release her grip on her private life, she gradually demands acceptance for her other self. Then how it gets out of hand, how she loses all her dignity she maintained in her 'real' life, how her two lives collide and entangle themselves together. But the pace of the show is a little odd, no dramatic climax except for that instance where she attempted to touch Kate Blanchett : it was heartwrenching how pathetic she was, at that old age, yearning for what was not to be wanted of someone her age and demeanour.

~
man. its crazy how much time i've wasted to write this blog. I DEMAND COMMENTS. I'm actually using time to provide information for all you desperate fans out there. haha. :P

2006-12-22T23:10:00.000+08:00

Today, I received an avalanche of gifts from the FAMILY.
Aunt jean and family arrived in Shanghai today with LURVEEEE from the family.
CONSEQUENTLY, i have 1Xsonyericssonwalkmanphone,1Xipod(hurrayparents!),2Xnorilay'schips, 2Xthaidurianchips, 1Xbottleofbelachan, 1Xbengawanasolokueylapis, 1Xcheesepandanswissroll, 1Xpandanchiffoncake, 3Xpacksofdurian, 1Xitaliandesignerpen, 1Xnotebook, 1XPiecebyPiece , 1Xsetoflancomecosmetics , 1Xzaraautumnjacket, 1Xnikescarf, 1X2.0GBUSB, 1Xbottleofginseng, 2XHOMEMADESTOLLENS.

All of a sudden my heart was so full it could burst out of my ears.
Of course i had to tell my aunt jean that i (regrettably) have a new handphone.
And tell my brother that i already have the Tori Amos book.
And tell my mom i haven't really "seen" their ipod yet but i already know of it. (resulting in an indignant protest: "Shui de zui ba na me da!")
And quickly ration the perishable (truly) airflown local cakes to some.
BUT
it once again reminds me that there is no place like home.

i'm a really really really fortunate kid. and just being able to appreciate this fact hopefully means that i can stay this fortunate come what may.

~

On a lighter note, FRIENDS. u see the list. U know what to and NOT to get. haha. if you guys are even reading! *ROARS* 2 days and not even a reply to my previous entry!

NAN DAO!
(the singapore rains have flooded our little sunny (rainy ) island?)

lol.

~

Trust.
Believe.
Faith.

They could be just words but darling, we know there is hell so much more to it.

And to one of the persons i love most:

love yourself, then demand someone love you.

2006-12-20T22:26:00.000+08:00

Humility died the day we got tired of feigning exuberance upon receiving less-than-desired birthday presents.

The wishlist was born.

~

grin.
Well, i do still love surprises.
But when i see the three g-strings chucked away in my drawer, my weak heart pleads for something less surprising.

Well for all the friends who love me (proof being the consistent audience to my blog. snarls), here it is, not too late since DHL takes less than 5 days (i THINK). lol.

1) MANY BOOK VOUCHERS or just bring me to kino with your fat wallet
2) Someone can get me Damien Rice's new album since i am definitely buying that when im home.
3) Sandy Lam and/or Jiang Mei Qi's latest album (not china imported ones hor.)
4) Autumn/springwear : Longsleeves or a pair of new jeans
5) Many many food treats, location at my discretion
6) Lots of love and INVITATIONS to go out when im home (you passive bums!)
(Option 6 is mandatory)

Heh. Please book first, i.e. Tell me what you getting. i don't need 20 Damien Rice's albums. I'm a fan. but not THAT fanatic. Leave a comment on ze blog and i'll strike it off the list. And for a CERTAIN GROUP OF PPL *AHHERM (w phlegm cos of winter)* , i do not expect JUST ONE CD per peeps hor, better be accompanied with your COMPANY and ANOTHER SURPRISE GIFT and OPTION 6 (value amounting to more than 50 SGD at least.woooooooooooooo~~)

What i DON'T NEED:
1) MP3 Player : i made a major hint at my mum
2) Handphone : i have a new one ler. hoho.

I never said i was meek.
So stop scowling. Ass.

merry xmas to all of my BEEEeeeeeeeeeeeLOVED friends(subject to change after 1st jan).

2006-11-30T00:44:00.000+08:00

yesterday, a small incident brought big revelations and reaffirmed my capability of "making a mountain out of a molehill". by saying so, i do not put myself down, in fact i am surer. surer that i am alive. and surer that i am good.

(speaking)the truth hurts, but not in the conventional way this time.
it hurts because there are people who doubt it.
or because they do not want to hear it.
or because they choose to interpret it in merely their own space and never as something from me.

In the English language, the word "truth" burdens too much. It is assumed to be something big, something important, something shocking, something that hurts.
But in "truth" i mean what (i presume) people say all the time. What they have eaten. What they have read. What they think. What they do. It can be trivial and casual.

But that further intensifies the shock. How some things said, so casually and randomly, can actually bring displeasure and create unsettledness. By casual and random, i mean something like "I ate fries today". However, somehow, this threatened the potato-lover in a "friend". Or maybe its something like "I saw the sun today." Again however, somehow, a "friend" thinks that i am insinuating that he is blind and unable to see the sun. The absurdity of my predicament is inherently similar to my rather laughable examples.

And the defensive (maybe even offensive) stance taken against me is even more disturbing because the "friend" was a "friend". And lo and behold, you are informed that its not only him, but a whole pack of people out there waiting to pounce at the very moment you charge them for hostility. How clever of them.

I did not mean to craft my words in such a way to suggest great detest for the 'pack'. I swear that it is neither my intention nor represents how i feel. But let me be unreasonable for once. Let me put up my defences of thorns and metal claws so i feel less vulnerable.

What is in a friend. We have seen this question umpteen times in moving proses and heartwarming sms-es. But all these were done in positive affirmation : A friend is someone who *******. But let us stand at another angle and define a 'friend' in negation.

A friend is someone who does not quote whatever the fuck you say and interpret it as something which threatens their wellbeing.

Its not very warm and fuzzy is it? But i'm afraid its true.

Now i understand why people don't send such smses. Its because non-friends do too many things contradictory to our expectations. It'll be stupid to list them all out. Much wiser to say what friends DO "do". Good one there, Fuzzy-sms-creator.

Thats all for relief of angst. But i'm not 16 anymore. The incident abovementioned should not only be just an incident to bitch and forget about, it reveals a greater truth. And boy am i a late bloomer.

People speak the truth only to those who love them. For these are the people who will listen and empathize and understand and cast off a remark like "you poor la, spend so much for what" without accusing you of being a bastard (behind your back of course). These are people who put you in their space or even remove themselves to give you their space.

But what a sad way to live isn't it? Especially in the very time before we cremate our age of wilfulness, freedom and innocence. One who has been rudely awakened as i have been, has a few paths to choose from:

I could battle passive hypocrisy (the intentional restraint of speaking certain truths in order to hide from the mouths of the vicious) with passive hypocrisy.

I could be the sacrifice. To persist in my obstinate honesty.

I could be the silent one. Forgoing the false and pretentious relationships and settle for an albeit lonely but honest two years.

I am faced with choices once again.

~

But i do not only see this revelation with the cynic eye.

It has been a rewarding lesson. thankfully painless. (which i have to thank my intuition and discretion for.)

I love you, my friends and family. Words fail me as i attempt to describe my gratitude for your kindness. Of course, you (my friend) might find this rather abrupt and undeserving, but after the emotional upheaval i went through, it only makes sense to appreciate what i have taken for granted.

Thank you when you said you were proud of me when i received a scholarship.
Thank you for supporting me (genuinely) when i made it to the finals of a singing competition.
Thank you for praising me when i "boasted" (a term the pack would gladly employ) about my results.
Thank you for loving zy and being not only unselfish, but generous to his ego.

It is undescribable. The disgust i have for the ugliness in people . And on the other hand, the respect i have for the beauty in them.

There are people out there who put themselves before everyone else. It is unfathomable but true. Yet, there is you.

You who promises me that loneliness is something far far away.

~

As for you. Stop hiding behind brambles. You might cut yourself bad. And when you do, your could-be savior might not make it through the thorns.

~

It gets a little lonely in shanghai sometimes.
i miss you guys.

2006-10-20T17:30:00.000+08:00

and with a very unbecoming drizzle, autumn deftly befell on shanghai.
a resurrected cold, long forgotten even in days of a dying summer.
a chill that burrows deep into the hearts of a tropical visitor.
and the reminder of the mercy you will never get from winter.

~

It has been a very busy week. and a very sickly one. spent most of it thinking i was (and still is) sick, working on the 3rd anniversary of Cerecare's, rushing from place to place (and to place again) and learning.

Learning not what books can offer, for once.

as i was telling ml, it suddenly dawned upon me how selfish i am. Its not momentary reflection or guilt in reference to any incident at all. Its a person-induced revelation and i most hope will stick. for now, if there is to be any reason, i decide to return to who i was in the past, it will be for a reason most unthinkable and unfortunate.

i realised i never knew sacrifice, nor did i know love.
but i think i do now. and its something we should be glad for.
Pride is most appropriately included in the 7 sins (i think) and god does it deserve to be there.
of course , i could redirect all the blame to my overindulged unhappy past, how it made it quite impossible to believe and have faith, but it won't be very helpful. so i'll choose to burden it all for now.

at the same time, something happened. it positively proved that trust and faith is as thorny as i made it out to be. but i choose to persist. its like suicide sometimes : believing in the good. really it is. of course, for some lucky ones, its a thick bed of roses to cushion that fall, for others, wham. its groundfloor. by saying this, i make believing in something sound like a constant depression. which i think is apt only because what weakens in the process is the heart. but what comes of it could be good. so next we need 'hope'.

one could be cynical forever. it takes no courage nor wisdom. you're just walking on the clouds forever. until you decide to take the plunge. if it works out, you're neither better or worse, but at least you are somewhere else.

there is nothing wrong in being a cynic besides the incapacity to believe that someone else might not be as selfish as you are.

there is the urge to leave.

~

Updates updates!

Cerecare's 3rd anniversary is coming!
well all i know is that i designed (not perfected) their publicity poster and did a hellotof translation for their presentations to some visitors that day! and i'll be singing as well. and im supposed to help out for the kids' performance (er. long story. sorry look at jan)

haohao is coming back for 3mths! like for REAL!
haha!!! hhaahahahha! oh i can't wait to see him!
he's going to be attending day school here. for THREE MONTHS! good timing haohao! cos i'm leaving for singapore after that. haha YAY! *tap dances*

i quite like sandy lam's new album but its not a good time for me to hear too many songs about being single (many cos erm. Mr. bushyface Li Zong Sheng ditched her). But there's one song i like alot : Ci2 Bu4 Da2 Yi4 (Words Fail Me, the essence of it is translated). hurhur go find a way to hear it. haha.

jiang mei qi is pretty good too. normal chinese pop lar but with her technique and voice, it elevates her to another level.

jielun is well not very exciting anymore so i shall not comment except bai se feng che is not too bad.

AND AND AND

i seriously think i am a miracle chef. i boiled chicken tonic soup that day. OH. SO. GOOD. like seriously HK bo tong standard. (whistles as xtine glares) No salt or sugar added. It had (only zy can be so irritatingly detailed bout recipes) DANG GUI, HUAI SHAN, WOLFBERRIES, DRIED SCALLOPS, RED DATES and AN ENTIRE CHICKEN! it cost me like only .... 20 RMB?! so bu3. hurhur.

and i'm making cheng teng fortnightly. Mum's kinda where u throw a whole lot of like 7 chinese grasses and roots and fruits into it and concoct this gooey (if u add too much white fungus that is) goodness.

And i can fry nice SOLID food too! (gasp) I made erm.. fermented tofu chicken which was past-mummy-style where there were tons of chup (not like her new healthy style which is like dry cos she dun want too much preservatives). hurhur. im supposed to lose weight and save $$$ by cooking. hurrah.

and after a few experimental sessions, i have to admit that housewives are probably the wisest people after philosophers.

so wise. these women. who could think of baking soda in water to soften the lotus seeds for the cheng teng? or the corn flour to make the ginger chinese wine sauce stick on the chicken for enhanced flavor? it must be an accumulation of centuries of domestic experience, trial and errors in dark smelly kitchens, brainstorming while they pretend to indulge in korean dramas, long hours of secret training of how their fingers act as precise measurement apparatus. how else can they come up with spreading toothpaste underneath the wok to prevent blackening? HOW?!

i salute u. housewives.

I pity the modern women who have forgotten the ancient art of domesticism. Female rights start from the kitchen, the hub of power and gastronomical control over men, old and young alike. And no this is not propaganda to get the obsessed feminists into kitchens, its to glorify the one-and-only MUMMY!

i love u mummy!
and dad too, if you promise not to cook.

2006-09-19T21:51:00.000+08:00

it has been a considerably long time since i last updated my blog so here i am!

besides lh and hl who i have managed to catch online, and jj who i've exchanged emails with, i haven't got to talk to the rest of you darlings. so i think i should just let u guys know that i'm good :

I'M GOOD.

and for once, this does not only pertain to my mental health (a year ago, it would be the reverse) because *drum roll*...

i bought a SLOW COOKER!

hehehe. before u let your eyes roll too much, i must explain myself.
it means that i get to have soup whenever i want! which means less oily shanghai food (trust me, the fried rice glistens) and korean food (which IS healthy but had too much of)!

i boiled corn, pork ribs and carrot soup today and shared it with shanghai-mistress SZ, and she gave RAVING comments. weeha. zy the cook is back! (swings the ladle with gusto)

And now i'm boiling ching teng, but i have a problem *furrowed brows* :

the dates, lotus seeds and gingko nuts are floating. i hope the convection really moves the flavour around. It tastes like plain water now. hmmph. but oh well, i slow-cooked it for only 20 min so i guess i'll be more patient. *sits for a second and bounces over to test it again*

Everything is good here. The weather cooled down dramatically. Like hotter-than-sg one day and cool-like-november the next day. hmm. weird but i guess its for the better. I prefer consistent weather though (even if it means scorching hot back in good ol' sg), i get sick easily *scowl*.

Well for those like oah ginj nil sinned who might be concerned with the modules i am taking :

Ancient poetry and prose studies (this is a very unprofessional translation)
Lv Xun studies
Ancient Chinese lit history
Modern Chinese lit history
Modern Chinese Linguistics
Introduction to Psychology
Food and Culture
Chinese Language
and

Guided Readings for Aesthetic Classics
haha. the last one's a bit in-ur-head. i read Plato's Republic Book X last week and started on Aristotle's Poetics today. Its quite gross i can assure u but what is grosser is i actually enjoyed it. haha. Even when the teacher teaches in substandard english and shifts suddenly to chinese. I think i have something for philo which is quite unhealthy i think.

But Plato is quite cool. I like the way he puts forth his argument while Aris should seriously go easy on length.

Food and culture isn't what you think it is, although the Harvard graduate teacher claims it was one of his more popular courses in Georgetown but he really isn't a convincing speaker. But contrary to my expectations of sharing sushi and passing curry around during class, i have to read like 30 pages of highly intensive readings. Its so..... Oxford (:P dele). Plus its english. (GASP!) I haven't read english texts in such a long time, its almost foreign to me.

Doesn't help that one of the representative sentences looks like this :

" In this agrarian system (India caste system), shares in the agrarian product were the dominant vehicle for indicating simultaneously the relationship of subordination and domination between patrons and clients, as well as the bonds of cooperation and solidarity between them. " - "Gastro-politics In Hindu South Asia" by Arjun Appadurai

And words like "taxonomic", "imbuing" , "rubric" ???

It almost guarantees i win jb at our next literati deathmatch. Esp since i found out 'iambic' IS a word , thanks to good ol' Aris.

So goodbye to sushi and curry, and hello to big words. Sigh. This term is much more taxing compared to the last two, just looking at the number of books i had to buy/borrow by the 3rd week :

Ok, 3 or 4 of them are for leisure reading but the REST?! WHY.
But cos i'm dweebie in shanghai, i actually enjoy reading , haha so i'm not complaining, i'm just TELLING u how much i have to read. Hurhur.
Everyone calls me a nerd nowadays. Or a hermit. Cos i do nothing but read when i'm in the hostel, i don't even go to MSN much cos i don't see much point in doing so (ml doesn't talk to me even tho she CLAIMS she is "ONLINE" and unBUSY and unAWAY and unON-THE-PHONE and unBE-RIGHT-BACK, *WAILS*).

I'm going to Hainan Island in October! Hurray! Do some relative-visiting and head to Sanya which is a nice beach resort kinda tourism spot. 2 more weeks! hehe. Ooh and haagen dazs mooncakes are seriously overpriced, a whopping 17.20 SGD for like a moon-cake sized ice cream coated in handcrafted chocalate coating (and a mango sherbet ball in the center to mimick the yolk). DUN BUY THEM.

My baby haohao received my bday present! Hurray! and his mum sent me this heart-wrenching, kiddy-tone sms which got me hopping in glee. Ok i dun hop, tts why im fat, but u get the idea. haha. I'll get to see him in Nov i hope, for the 2nd anniversary of Cerecare.

Nothing much more to say actually, just that everything is normal and stable for now. But as i was telling jj, i shan't curse the luck by saying it, but i am thankful really for daisies and dates, daffodils and ducks (not donald tho,lol).

Oh as for Diet. i dun like it much. haha. So i dun do it much. but i have been running and my left knee hurts like shit today. sucks. lala. shan't ruin my happy blogging mood with this *slaps the knee* imbecilic body part.

bye!

2006-06-30T14:59:00.000+08:00

Hello!

Okay this is just some updates.

I moved from my double room to a single room which is 3 doors away.

So here's the new address :

Fudan University Foreign Students' Dormitory
57 Wu Dong Road (Wu as in Wu3 Gong1 - martial arts , Dong as in East)
Room number : ROOM 814*
Yangpu District, Shanghai, China
Postal code : 200433

(note the change in room number)

My room phone number is ******** (can ask me for it personally)

My mobile remains the same.

Keep the loveletters and gifts coming in!

Zheng Yi

2006-06-28T23:01:00.000+08:00

yay. the exams are over. 9 modules 7 papers 2 thesis over in a month. frigging tormenting if u asked me. it got so bad towards the end that i couldn't bring myself to study for the very last paper. i was totally spent. not forgetting other commitments at the same time, i was studying at EVERY chance i got. not the most pleasant mug-a-thons i have ever had but well, at least its over.

but before the postexams joy could sink in and bloom, i got some of the results back and from how things are looking, i did fineeee but not as well as the first semester so oh well. sometimes i get so caught up with As and Bs that it makes me a very unhappy and angry and sometimes vicious bastard so i guess we've gotta ya know stop being a dweeb and move on from GPAs and ranking charts. BUT until the very last result is out, i guess i'll STILL be logging on to the intranet at every half an hour interval, waiting for some grade to pounce out on the screen. hurhur.
oh and the worst thing is, i've got a paper on 1st September , postponed cos of conflicts of exam dates. its the Zi exam. kong ZI meng Zi sun ZI xun ZI han fei ZI yaterdidi ZI.

so yea, the million dollar question : when are u coming back?

As usual, i keep mum. haha. if u ask and i tell, i want you to know. otherwise its obvious i want to give u a SURPWIZEEEEEEEE. haha. or i dun wanna answer to u once i get back. the number remains. 98878691. as for serangoon ave 2, i will pop up there one day lor *roll eyes*. so u dun bother asking. and i wun let any of the girls or jb know so u dun ask also. haha. all of u get SURPWIZEEEEEEEE~~~~.

midjuly lar. if u MUST know.

going to wuxi this weekend with janice. its gonna be a blast i tell u. melas and beer all day long with farms and my haohao and somemore with jaun coming along, wheeeeee~ its like cerexcursion. good ol' days man.

and then flying off to qinghai which i thot was tibet but happens to be just a neighbour of tibet's. hope i can survive the altitude that's all. its a foreign student association organised tour , plane tics - 7 days - food & lodging for 500 RMB! (which is 100 sgd) a deal to go gaga over i tell u. wooooooo~

now i'm deciding if i should take up a part-time job back in sg. as i was telling melet, maybe put strings thru plastic bags type where i can work at home. hehe. but i was thinking i only have a mth back, might as well chill. but i need the cash. sigh. any 1 mth short parttime job vacancies, do tell me. waitering job preferred.

i intend to do alot of baking back in sg before these chef hands get rusty, ya know , like can't beat up the cream (GASPGASPGASP) or spread the butter. haha. right now its good ol' cheesecakes and a trial berry tart on the list (for the gluttonous Ms. Piggy )

and i have to write. im so not working on my writing. i can feel my writing dream dwindling. maybe its cos of all the stuff i'm learning now, being more careful and demanding for whatever i put down on paper. *shrugs*

of cos i have to read and rewatch all my jap dramas. lol. and go out like mad with all the friends. SUCH A CHORE. *roll eyes*

i hope i make this holiday more relaxing than hectic. it IS my holiday ya know. but yeah , i do wanna meet up too so its just too bad for us overseas ppl. hmmph.

alrighty this's this. see ya guys SOON. :)

2006-06-12T23:59:00.000+08:00

Of all the vile things i can contaminate my blog with, i choose the most commonplace, absolutely meaningless tag surveys.

And yes, it is my exam period. (ha. ha. ha. thanks alot jb.)

Jb tagged me but since it didn't involve any curses, i was not obliged to do it (if it did, i would fly back to sg and hammer you jb).

I would not have done it if it wasn't cos of the exams, i do the darnest things during this hell phase. (like eating a 9-inch pizza, potato chips, beer and ice cream while watching like 4 hours of VCD. ahem.)

But oh well, it is a little bit different from other surveys cos i get to lunge at people around me. and i guess everyone is sick of zy-SH-trivia. plus i am going back soon so no need for updates lest i have nothing to talk to you guys about besides the *roll eyes* world cup.

Here goes!

Instructions: Name 20 people you can think of at the top of your head. Don't read the questions before you write, and tag 5 people to do the survey. (bla bla bla)

1. JJ
2. JB
3. Meiling
4. Lihui
5. Shunzhang
6. Huili
7. Christine
8. Dennis
9. Boon Seng
10. Hao
11. Janice
12. Chek Kiong
13. Mum
14. Zifang
15. Ivan Yeo
16. Bernard (e birdie one)
17. Huiting
18. Shanmian
19. Louis Tan
20. Heidegger (dun blame me, i just did 2 hours of bloody philo)

YAY!

Questions:

1. How did you meet number 14?

14 : Zifang, WELL. At a Diet Centre. haha. okokok. i'm not supposed to lie.
I sort of knew her in JC through Weizhen, and weizhen sort of introduced her and i sat beside them during physics lecture cos it was boring to sit with the class all the time. And then she became my senior in fudan and we're now all chummy. there.

2. What would you do if you had never met Number 1?

OH. WOW.

erm. toughie.
*tries to imagine*

I think i wouldn't have been half the zy you see today. and i will be so different and i will have a whole new list of friends up there. and i will be less loud. i will be more serious. i will have less nagging to do. hmm. i wouldn't be a very happy person i guess, in general.

3. What would you do if 20 and 9 dated?
20 : Heidegger
9 : Boon Seng

LOL! Considering how boon seng sleeps through our philo class... i don't think they will last very long. hahahahaha. Unless of course Heidegger is super on bed, but since he is after all someone who came up with "Dasein", he'll probably bore the sheets to death. And of course the generation gap. Like 100 plus years. Boon prob won't like the hollow eyes and white ... skull.

4. Would 6 and 17 make a good couple?

6 : Huili
17 : Huiting

Oh man. This is just hilarious. hahaha. Er. Hm. I don't think so? I mean they will be a really LOUD couple. and in that sense it'll irritate the hell out of everyone so they aren't a 'good' couple. But if u're talking bout if they would work out as a pair of dykes...i think they know each other too long to be in love . no sparks.

5. Describe No. 3.
3: Meiling. Bossy. Incredibly intelligent. One of my two wise ladies. One of the kindest people in the world that i know. A person who knows me better than i know myself (in the past at least. lol.) And a gorgeous babe.

6. Do you think no.8 is attractive?
8 : Dennis.

You know this question makes this entire stupid tagsurvey thing all WORTH IT.
*eagerly rubs the fist*
haha. Well from the exterior, i won't say he is, at least not to me.
But after knowing him, i think he is a good catch. Not the suave prince the girls want, but someone who is ambitious but down-to-earth and pretty upright.

7. Tell me something about No.7

7: Christine. She talks to her dog alot in a very very silly manner.

8. Do you know anything about no.12's family?

12 : Chek Kiong.
Why YES! he's got 2 younger siblings. And his dad owns a stationary shop.

9. What is no. 18's favorite food?

18 : OSM. Oh shit. er. She doesn't eat alot. (feigns all-knowing)

10.What would you do if 11 confesses that he/she likes you?

11: Janice. Ooooooooh~~~~ *winks at partner*.
If she is drunk, i'll just mop up the puke and send her home immediately.
If she isn't , then i'll make sure she gets so drunk she forgot what she said.

OR

I'll tell her, "Jan, you deserve someone better. Or fatter. "

11. What language does 15 speak?

15 : Ivan Yeo. He speaks Lousy English, Lousy Chinese and Lousy Hokkien and a eensy weensy bit of Lousy Hainanese.

12. Who is 9 going out with?

9 : Boon Seng. With Heidegger LAR.

13. How old is 16 now?

16 : Bernard, Same as JB lor. 22 or 21.

14. When was the last time u talked to 13?

13: Mummy! Yesterday!! yay.

15. Who's 2's favorite singer?

2: JB. Me of course. or Sun Yanzi.

16. Would you date number 4?

4: Lihui. Yes i would! I asked her out once but she turned me down. SIGH. *sniggers*

17. Would you date 7?

7: Christine. No I won't. First i'll get killed by her monkey. Second, she talks to dogs.

18. Is 15 single?

15: Ivan Yeo. Er. Tough tough. i hope not.

19. What's 10's last name?
10: Hao. ER. Zhang.

20. Would you ever consider being in a relationship with 19?

19: Louis Tan. A VERY VERY FIRM NO.

21. What school does 3 go to?
3: ML. She just graduated from LSE. So she is NOT schooling. HAH. i know my friends ok.

22. Where does 6 live?
6 : Huili. CCK lar. cannot disclose. in case her fans stalk her or something.

23. What's your favorite thing about number 5?
5 : Shunzhang. (nudges JB and JJ) *cough* His sense of humour.

YAY im done!
back to books.

2006-05-18T00:28:00.000+08:00

yi (累)
recently jiu liang not so good

yi (累)
and heart keeps pumping out of control

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
oh my

yi (累) :
could this finally be the end?

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
pls stop er drinking so much

yi (累)
no no

yi (累)
not e drinking

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
u like mom

yi (累)
sometimes its so fast i feel its gonna jump out of it

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
gdness

yi (累)
haha

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
heart palpitations huh

yi (累) :
yar yar

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
aiya. v unhealthy one lehs

yi (累) :
i wanted to use tt word

yi (累) :
but i duno wat it means

yi (累) :
msut go running ler

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
mom stll go check up. soon.

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
still RUN!

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
hello

yi (累) :
har?

yi (累) :
doesn't exercise solve it all

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
dont over do it

yi (累) :
haha

yi (累) :
ME

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
no lo

yi (累) :
OVERdo running

yi (累) :
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

yi (累) :
tts new

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
it cld be like bld pressure. or stroke. or whatever. heart attack. ha.

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
u dying man.

yi (累) :
gasp

yi (累) :
its finally it

yi (累) :
i gotta write my will again

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
overdo it.. as in like, WOO, heart attack. die.

yi (累) :
wrote it in J1 once

yi (累) :
i'll put on my blog

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
haiyo.

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
tsk

yi (累) :
just to get some frens attention

yi (累) :
hehehe

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
u dying man

yi (累) :
haha

yi (累) :
somehow

yi (累) :
the word dying never scares me

yi (累) :
until it happens

yi (累) :
and then......

yi (累) :
*quoteworthy*

yi (累) :
*strokes beard*

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
ah huh

yi (累) :
语重心长

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
haha

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
dramatime

yi (累) :
"its too late to be scared"

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
o. tts true.

yi (累) :
im just cackling away

yi (累) :
this is so hilarious

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
it is! really.

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
ha

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
i am damn healthy. it sucks/

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
hahaha

yi (累) :
hahhahahahaa

yi (累) :
u're seriously classic

yi (累) :
hahaha

Jan is ceresmap fan ~ tomorrow. says:
i did a health report. its glowing.

~

My god. I love talking with Janice bout serious stuff like life and death. We make it sound like sesame street (just that big bird and oscar decided to go whisky on the rock).

Anyway the above msn conversation was brought to you by yours truly and janice (my ceredrinkmate). And yes, it is supposed to let my darling medi friends jump a little :)

Anyway! i'm gonna publicise my will and hopefully it'll start a healthy blogging trend of ..........

"Looking death in its face undaunted".

hyuk. i remember my old will, it was written on a hwa chong foolscap, haha i remember my worthless classmates beside me fighting for my meagre assets. *roll eyes* i do remember leaving my combimates and ml some stuff though. Junjie got my stereo set. haha. and boon my teddies. i can't remember exactly, now you people, don't start scavenging around, im not gone YET.

Anyway life has been pretty jumpy these few weeks.
Singing competitions (one defeat and one sorta triumph), sleeping on the toilet floor till 3 am , the most inspiring trip to wuxi ever to see my darling haohao who turned into an absolutely loveable BRAT (hahaha), getting a pseudo-fanclub and weird attention, forming a triumvirate with two of my seniors and a whole lot of rubbishy gossip-worthy play-love-triangles/quadrilaterals to spice up my otherwise muggerylife here in shanghai.

there. that sums it all. :) why do you guys insist in having periodic blogs when u know i can do it all in a paragraph with my gift in long illogical tedious ramblings?

i do miss the inner circle. alot. esp ml and adele. my two wisewomen. i haven't seen you two in ages. i can't wait for this semester to end. so i can feel your faces. haha. thats such a dramatic crap thing to say. and jiabin , i know u wanna add an 'e' to 'faces' cos u're such a cheesy person.

and people are saying they miss me. hurray. i need that from time to time and it doesn't mean just cos i 1) dun update my blog 2) dun sms u 3) dun email u 4) dun tok 2 u on msn, means i dun miss u peeps. i'm just busy. but i'll always entertain a singaporean. for at least 2 lines. and don't nudge me. its annoying.

shanghai is still loveable. it'll be helpful if the weather won't be such a bitch but we don't ask for too much. :) i'm getting fat. nothing is new. *roll eyes*

oh my will my will.

Okay okay here goes, just in case, fingers crossed, ohmmmmmmmmmmmm, meditation, ok :

1) Savings and all current cash assets : Parents
2) All sentimental stuff (presents and letters) : To the givers
3) All non-sentimental non-machinery stuff (CDs, clothes, ornaments, books) : hold a charity sale at my place for my friends only and all earnings go to Cerecare
4) Laptop, stereo, mp3 player, camera : Brother
5) MD player and Paul&Lauren CDs : Paul and Lauren
6) Solo photos : Add all, divide between inner circle, parents and brother
7) Group photos : Whoever in the photo who wants it

Try pooling some money (dun touch my cerecare funds) to publish a book with all my written works. like 100 copies for anyone who knew me. sell it at 30 SGD and all money goes to cerecare funds. haha. janice , pls ensure this.

Oh it'll be nice to have an album to commemorate me. But bit tough lar. But the paul&lau songs not pro enough, never mind, sell! (cerecare funds too)

Okay the body part will be troublesome cos i promised to donate my organs but just in case they are in like reallllly bad shape and hosp decide to 30day money back gurantee it, then u guys can just burn it and put it beside my maternal grandpa when he goes.

what else what else! erm my room shall be preserved as it is. to house any friend who decides to have some personal time with my remaining aura. my mum shall serve them cheesecakes, swiss rolls or bread, the way i made them once for him or her. my dad shall pour a glass of obligatory red wine, for us to remember the drinker i once was. play a joni mitchell song if its a rainy day and a tori amos slow number if its late at night. then he or she shall look at my photos (do keep an album of my favourite people in the room) before they fall asleep. And when the dawn arrives, we grieve no more, my mum shall make a cup of english breakfast tea without milk and sometimes without sugar, sit on the sofa , she will read her papers and tell the guest stories of my past, as the guest shall too, tell her about me. And then before it is eleven, my friend shall leave with a hug from my mother, and with love from me.

There. my will at 21.

~

ooh i love this paparazzi photo. rocking. its SO justin timberlake and watztheirname?

2006-03-13T23:05:00.000+08:00

*sings*
I'm a strawberry.
I'm a strawberry.
I'm a shanghainese strawberry.

THE STRAWBERRY ENTRY:

I will not stop ranting about strawberries until the season is over.
Its gotta be sake, sashimi, strawberries and melas .
Everything else in life is more or less redundant.
OF COURSE friends are absolutely crucial. and family matters too much.
and now, nietzsche, kierkegard and schopenhauer are part of it too. sigh.

okay now we'll talk bout the collage. you guys have seen the cakes and teapot one so i'll skip that.

if you see that cake...
Its my mum's not-so-original-but-delicious-nonetheless pineapple cheesecake with a digestive biscuit base RECIPE.

Of course i made it myself with the rundown common kitchen at my dorm WITHOUT measuring spoons. SO *twiddles fingers* its a tad too solid cos i sorta added too much gelatin .

and fyi, gelatin is made from boiling animal bones and skins!!! jellies will never be the same again. Anyway i gave this cake in the photo to jiaming, a friend in shanghai (haha jj and jb). I didn't MAKE it FOR him.

the other two pictures are related

before :
nestle strawberry milk, a dozen of fresh chilled strawberries and an entire Magnum vanilla stick thrown into a blender.

after :
ZY'S strawberry icecream milkshake as a supper drink served in chemistry containers. its my senior zifang's newest craze, drinking from testtubes and beakers. But i must admit i get quite excited from drinking from testtubes.

2006-03-13T11:05:00.000+08:00

FRIENDS, FRIENDS, FRIENDS!
(in the way Caesar classically addressed the Romans)
(or should i say, *suspicious look* SUPPOSED friends)

I've got a friendship test site!

http://yizheng.testren.com/

Yep yep one of the symptoms of hopeless slackness (and dweebiness).

Well one individual whose name i shall not DISCLOSE (for fear that HE dies of shame) got 70% and he has hereby been demoted from BEST friend to a 70%-friend.

let me get this clear, i do not expect anyone to FAIL this test.
so if you think u're gonna fail it, you could
1) go consult Mr. 70%
2) read my blogs from 2003 onwards
3) retake it 10 times with anonymous names. using probability, maybe u can pass after ur 200th attempt. but THAT will jam up my friendship charts so i DISCOURAGE it.

yay!!! go take it my friends! *honeysuckle smile*
p.s. its in chinese so jb, do get equipped with a dict.

2006-03-06T00:54:00.000+08:00

oh oh oh. i forgot to show you guys my new hair.
this was taken more than a week ago when i still had my freshly roasted Sentosa tan. sorta dyed my hair brown. the colour faded quite a bit. it was bright on the first day but i'm thankful that it did (fade).
i can't help the smug smile, its just silly to pose looking normal when you're doing self-caming.
new look? nah. i'm back fair again. blame it on the lack of sun in shanghai. argh. the photos can't really capture the true colour of the hair. never mind. i'll just tell u guy ,its brown.

2006-03-05T15:01:00.000+08:00

Show and Tell time!

I won't take the milk if i were him.
(this ad is all over the shanghai trains)

Ultraman Sai Wen gives a morale boost to one of my kids at the centre. *fuzzy feeling*

"zy dagege" interrupts noon nap. haohao on left. yueyue on right.

Next time, Teddy, shut up when mum is talking.

2006-03-04T23:37:00.000+08:00

alright i am back in shanghai.
i've been back for two weeks and gathered enough trivia (discounting my random thinking sprees i go on daily) to write an adequately long entry.

so how is life back home for everyone? i have been talking to most of you peeps, even zhaomugger (*snigger* synonymn for chaomugger). besides huili and chris. so do drop a mail. dun bother leaving comments now cos remember i can't access my comment page on anon.proxy! u guys can leave them for the day before i return to singapore so i don't screw u guys up for not leaving any. :) i love you guys too.

anyway.

i saw snow! i am going to ignore all the unimpressed looks i get from the UK/US-ians. IT IS STILL SNOW OKAY. and according to the oxDele, its called 'sleet'. HAH. hard rain. how cool is that! i woke up one day and man, the streets snow-ed. like white rooftops and roadside shrubs all creamed up, yay! its like a WHITE MORNING. so i ran out for a walk. ooooh, hard ice bits flying at me and stinging my face lightly. ahhhh.

ok. reality check. its shanghai.

so...
nope, we don't need shoveling.
yes, it lasted less than 2 hours while i was awake.
nope, i didn't manage to make a snow house or an igloo or ski down the dry tar road. But i DID try i really did. Haha i made a palm sized snowman!! But i realised snow compact = ice. so my small ball + big ball equation sorta ended up in a deformed icebulge. tada. So much for carrots for noses and twigs for hands. ill be glad if tt snowman was the size of canned carrots.

that's that for snow.

Now the MOST IMPORTANT discovery this SEASON (i can't call it spring yet. but its a little overdue to still be winter) is :

i-chi-go

say it with me.

i- (as in yi4)
chi- (as in chee4)
go (as in goh4)

ichigo ICHIGO ICHIIIIIGOOOOOOO!
which means

Strawberry. *beams of sunlight blast through the clouds*

6.50 RMB - 8 RMB per 0.6 kg of ichigo.
means. little little money for many many ichigo.
means. goodie good good for us ALL.

now you guys know why my msn nicks have been going ON and ON about ichigo-san. there is NOONE like her. (of cos it only makes sense that strawberries are women. esp. since boys can't like strawberry pocky or yamyam. what. feudalistic. thinking.)

Anyway i've had bout 3 kg of strawberries till date. in a week or so. Lala. New reason for loving shanghai.

and the only dignified way to treat Ichigo-san, is to DEVOUR it with tea and strawberry creamcake from one of Shanghai's best bakeries (sun moulin-comparable), which is , a stroke of fate really, called... *wipes off a tear* Ichido.

here it is. i believe i have captured a glimpse of my heaven.

there is something sexual about strawberries. is it one of those foods which erm.. what do you call those? release like erm lust molecues... ya know like oysters and chocolates. someone educate me!

okay enough cooing over ichigo san. the world might get jealous.

(and right before me now, lies ANOTHER plate of succulent S-es. oh did i tell u, they are slightly deformed ? some of them look like baby pumbkins but still with the yellow pimples)

( joni mitchell : dancing clown )

anyway, another important update is me taking 3 philo modules this sem. I have bout 9 modules. Sigh. i think only lihui here can empthasise. erm jj could if he actually understood his lects. LOL. jokes jokes.

i just digested schopenhauer that day. he is german. and he is the archrival of Hagel. and he came up with some theory that the world is made up of Xian4 Xiang4 and Yi4 Zhi4. Which i will translate as Appearance and Will. Just to confuse my readers a lil, it goes like this : We have noses on our Appearance cos our inner Will desires to smell. Right. Cool.

His most interesting argument is that this world is ultimately hopeless. Hurray. Cos whatever we do is giving in to our Desire and desire begets desire and we are unsatisfied and thus hopeless. What does our great philosopher suggest?
Nope, not suicide. Cos that is giving in to the Will ( i compare it to Fate ).
But to do everything you do not want for that is NOT giving into your will. I think that doesn't make sense either cos once u start DECIDING u do not want to give in ur will, the 'not giving into your will' means giving into ur NEW WILL.

alright. thats thursday. friday is on the Mr. Zis.
Kong Zi, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, Meng Zi, Han Fei Zi, Sun Zi and a few more schools of thinking that originated from the Qin Dynasty. So much for east meets west.

And to top it off, i have an introduction to philo on tuesday. But that teacher is amazing. IMAGINE. The students take their textbooks (written by him of course) to him for him to sign. And he smokes during lectures. DURING. like 7 sticks in 1 hr 40 min. There is no reason not to like him. He is REALLY good. one day ill tape his lect down and let you guys hear it.

Besides that, im doing corporate finance, Tang shi Song ci, Visual Basic, chinese language, American TV and movies and culture (woohoo, i spent one period watching clips from Friends and Mona Lisa Smile for the first lesson!) , social work intro. Yep tts about it. But its much tougher this sem. Plus i want to take up a more active role in my volunteer work at Cerecare. And i'm still tutoring my japanese friend. PLUS i still need to eat and hopefully gym one day. And of cos i still have to spend time with my schopenhauer and soda. hur.

alright thats that. till the next entry!

2006-02-09T10:16:00.000+08:00

i have never been able to completely alter my life or my attitudes or my character. i always preserve a part of me to an exclusive group of people, the true 'me'. if i were to resolve to be hard-hearted and distant, i will keep that warmth for those people. if i were to resolve to be tactful and reserved, i will still be that thrashmouth for those people. It could be the reluctance to change. Or the incapability to do so. I don't know.

But i know people who can. There are people who can, for the sake of someone they love, change into someone else, for better or worse, that is unimportant. There are people who can shut their doors on all their past and cocoon themselves, when they reappear, they flutter past you, neither proud nor ashamed, and no longer recognises you.

The harshness of life deals its timely blow, knocking us down over and over again.
The tender skin gets cut and heals, it bruises and heals. sometimes before it heals, it is cut again. and this goes on, leaving scars on our knees. And later on, calluses. Something in the sun cringes as our young mouths scream those bitter resolutions.

Not to trust. Not to put too much faith. Not to be hopeful. Not to rely on friends.

It is part of growing up. I say this without any hint of sarcasm or resignation. It is. And nothing will convince you until you do grow up. It is like death. You are never sure about whats in for you until you are there.

But i am not saying i am happy with this outcome. There are people in life who i admire, who always look to Hope when in doubt. They continue believing. I feel defeated when i encounter them. I hoax them with my cynicism. I tempt them with my dark philosophies. I wish to see them falter, to see them show distrust. I turn away, sneering, thinking, what a turd. But in my heart, i wish i could believe. Because winning in life is ultimately about being happy. And being hopeful is believing you might be happy. You, my cynic, and i will never be there. And so we wait, for our own saviours.

~

i realise that everyone in my inner circle is either in their very first relationship or have never been in a relationship before.

So i talk about love now.
(note : the love i mention in this passage refers to the love between couples and not family or friends)

I fear that love is overrated. In certain aspects of it.
It is also misused. misinterpreted. misleading.
3 misses and 1 over. I make love seem like a fraud.

Its the media. Its the stories. Its the price jackup during valentine's day. Its him stroking her neck in front of you. Its the SDU. Its the loneliness and that one-room-flat in Sin Ming.

All these and more have completely crumbled the worth of mono-existence.
"You are not complete until you find someone."
"All i want in life is a partner."
"I want to get attached. That is the only thing i want. "
"I can't believe i have never fallen in love before."

I hear hearts skip a beat as they read these familiar quotes. My heart did. I ever said such stuff too. I am not mocking the desperation (or the cheese) in these lines. I am showing US what we have made our lives out to be. From perfectly self-sufficient and glorious humans, we have allowed society and ourselves and alotttt of jap dramas turn us into flimsy cardboard pieces in a 2-piece-jigsaw puzzle (for polygamous people, its X-piece-jigsaw puzzle). Its interesting.

I am not higher than this. I am a victim as well. I am just more capable of stepping out of the stars from time to time. I am stating a phenomenen. I see shaking heads, but i will go on.

From the skin of love, we go deeper.

I just realised that love is one of the very few things that everyone is capable of.

Is it not amazing?

I was about to dissect love into conjury, sexual needs, societal needs etc. Then i realised that not everyone is a cynical, paranoid, manic depressive (overover)thinker that i am. So what is love to others? From the white-haired iron-fisted politician to the cross-eyed trishaw rider who never shaves. What is love to them?

So i realised my analysis is useless. It only applies to me, impresses some, disgusts some and confuses another 'some'. So i can only approach the topic of love from the more superficial and day-to-day aspects.

here i go.

for something as undefinable as love, there are still common grounds where the politician has to sit on the trishaw to get across.

If you haven't already set aside your first relationship as the sacrifice, maybe you should. It usually doesn't work out. And it makes sense. You could prove me wrong but from statistics, it is more likely to get your titration right on the 3rd attempt than the 1st. Love isn't titration but you get the drift.

If you insist, then you probably should take note of a few things. Hold your reins on those expectations. Once again, i repeat, expectations kill. Don't go into a relationship hoping for the kinda fluff you see on tv. I'm not quite sure of the precedence of events, but somehow instead of thinking 'oh its REALLY like in the tvs' when doing the lovey dovey stuff, i think we're more likely to think "i'm in a relationship, i SHOULD be doing those stuff i see on TV" and you do it. Media influence. How i wish i was born in a farm and love would be all NZ-natural.

Don't go into love thinking "hey i'm ready for love. i need to love someone." Thats really unfair. The someone out there might not be ready ya know. I no longer believe in "The One". The 'someone' i'm referring to is that person you 'decide' to give your love. We're all too egocentric, we think that love is a harmless thing and we are ready, so we can just go impose it on someone who isn't ready to accept. Think again.

Compromise. Not butterflies. :)
its amazing how we all know what love is made up of and still want it like venezia on a hot day. Love demands we change. Love demands we give way. Love demands we compromise our ideals, our dreams, our not so glamourous habits, our work, our LIVES. The good news is its gradual. Cos if he asks you to "Hey would you stop jumping your eyebrows?" on the first date, he knows he isn't gonna get you. So he waits. Till the 7th date. And you too, decide to ask him not to fart in public on the 8th. Hurray. These are small changes. Of course the most popular argument ever is :

A: "Why are you always like that? can't you change for MY sake? since you love me and i love you!"

B: "If you loved me, you would not ask me to change, you would accept me for WHO I AM. "

A: "I love you so i hope we become better people together! So i wish you'd change, i'll change for you if u asked me to!"

B: "I don't ask you to change because i love you enough. "

I'm more of an A person. I believe that love is not solely beneficial to the spirit but also improves people on the whole. Where you allow someone to come into your life and know you for who you really are and have the 'authority' and more importantly, the desire to make you change. Its allowing that person who really cares for you to tell you whats wrong. But i'm B sometimes. I'm B when i'm asked to change something i'm either very proud of or very ashamed of. B is defensive. But B is also a more accepting lover. we're all As and Bs sometimes. And since we are good at this role reversal, we should be able to empathise both ways and resolve the argument more efficiently :).

Love is something that is 100% 50-50. What do i mean? I mean it is (ideally) an affair where both persons have equal share. More important than anything, love should be about both parties giving the same amount willingly. If A decides to be the giver all the time while B is just ya know hawaiiing around, then for A and B to be together, either A has to stop giving so much or B has to get his ass moving. The media says : "Love is about giving your all regretlessly." Thats bull. Of course there are people who are so hopelessly devoted to their partners and give everything they can, thats touching in a 10-episode-dorama, but try it for 10 months realtime, you'll be burning poems and smashing photoframes before you know it.

When do you know you're in love with a person? How does love look like? so you don't miss it or mistake someone else for it and blurt "Hey i love you!" on the streets when you don't mean it yet?

You don't. There isn't a scale here. We're not piling up affection and concern till it hits the 72.8 kg mark (whines) and then saying "YES WE ARE (by the scale) IN LOVE!" Not measured by time either. old-couple-syndrome. sometimes a certain event proves that you love someone. then you find out. you might be late, but eventually you find out.

Give love a rest. Stop giving it too many duties. Ishtar has her mahjong sessions from time to time, she needs her time. Take off some of her burden and give it to her friends like Companionship and Lust. What do i mean? Don't keep thinking "Do i still love him?" You're not in it only for that gaseous thing called love. You're in it cos you just need someone to sms you goodnight, to catch that movie with you, to talk to when you're in the dumps. Thats Companionship. And as for Lust, you know what i mean. She reaffirms that love has to be a little bit superficial.

Well thats about it.
But what do i know?
But i'm sure of one thing :

if you want to be in love, be happily in love. otherwise, screw it.

2006-01-27T09:09:00.000+08:00

good morning singapore!

i don't suppose there are still readers out there who don't know i'm back!
but just in case,
*deep breath*

i'm back! hurhur.

Okay. i'm updating. Whats with all these people telling me i don't update my blog! Its as preposterous as me spelling "fillal" as "filial" for the past 20 years of my life! (thanks janice... *scowl*) I just updated in November or something? Hungry readers. *mock dismissal + eyes rolled*

It was a nice morning just ... 30 minutes ago. Then something happened. I think schoolkids. Arp. Hurray. As i'm typing this, construction work just began. You guys are a bunch of jinxes. *throaty growl*

I decided mornings are worth waking up early for. :) haha. i write the most amazing and stupid sentences. (amazingly stupidly, stupidly amazing, watever) On days like that where i'm forced to wake up at 8, i am rewarded with a cold morning. Yes. COLD morning in singapore. Thats just two rungs below striking toto. Gentle sunshine. Ahhh. How i wish i had a bigger window so i could just open up the entire room. You should have seen the way i slided my window open, so full of gusto. hurhur. i should be in drama.

On drama, i think i might consider a late career in acting. After watching our heartland Ai De Zhang Men Ren @ 9pm weekdays, i realised that i could thrash the entire cast (jacelyn tay being the only possible exception) with regards to acting. What is up with local tv drama! I've only been away for 6 months and they're churning out scenes like :

1) Chen Hong Yu (the antagonist) is double-crossed by his wife and gets caught by the cops for embezzling. When the cops appear as he is trying to catch a flight, he has ZERO reaction time, and immediately turns around to his wife, whips out a finger in the GTO manner, and says " Shi Ni Chu Mai Le Wo!?!?!?" PAINED LOOK.

2) Jacelyn and Fiona were happily chatting and suddenly sees the news. Oooh. News : Ann Kok, their sister just got caught for a nude run on the streets. Their reaction? Once again, ZERO REACTION TIME. Jacelyn goes (determinedly) "I'll go bail her out" and Fiona (from her nose of course) " Wo ye qu!" . Erm. Where's the shock? I mean if her getting arrested isn't already shocking enough, what about the nude bit? I don't know bout them, but i was, genuinely, caught by surprise. Nude run? Ann Kok? wow. Zhen de ma...?

Come on singapore. We can do better than that. I know we aren't the brightest audience around but when arson, interrupted wedding ceremony, nude run, public stripping, numerous attempted suicides, rape, murder, commercial crimes , 3 Sisters + 1 Mom hugging scenes all happen in a SINGLE SHOW (mostly congregated in the last 3 episodes. help.) , something IS wrong.

And its a show called "Ai De Zhang3 Men2 Ren2". The little snippet before and after ads have them wearing bridal gowns in a pinkish heart-filled background smiling to a most heart-warming tune and WOAH. their life decides to go HK drama for awhile. I mean this really isn't the most typical singaporean family ya know. Our scriptwriters should seriously get out of their caves and maybe walk down to our HDBs and live for awhile.

And one thing i absolutely dislike about singapore tv serials is the terrible dialogue.

Firstly, we don't speak like that. We don't say "Wo gen Ta zhi shi Wu4 Shui3 Yin1 Yuan2 er yi." (We had an affair) We don't say " Wo Men Xu Yao Ni De. Ni ke yi gai guo zi xin de. Wo men bu hui fang qi ni de. " We don't use PROVERBS in our daily conversation! Okay i do. But NOT ALL THE TIME. (holy moly, the schoolkids are singing SHOU QIAN SHOU!! wahahahah!)

Secondly, we don't always speak in undiluted Mandarin. I know i know. Its not exactly GOOD mandarin but thats the way we are. So maybe its time to sit down and consider what our direction is? Persist in this unreal, distant, FOREIGN mandarin or maybe allow something closer to our lives like Singlish? Yes i know the concerns we all have. But the shows could portray the different classes in our society too, there is the lot which speaks english, the lot which speaks chinese (beams), the HUGE lot which mixes both, and we could all learn. Break down all language barriers. We are THE bilingual country ya know. so Channel 8 meets Channel 5. We could just have Channel 13 and quality tv. Hurray. *smirk*

Its all very idealistic i know. And shows in singlish seem to already determine its fate of being not-very-deep. I get that impression when i see shows like I Not Stupid. But i'm still gonna catch the sequel. Nice trailer. :) But cheesy line ("A form of education"??? --- jack neo has this problem of trying to hard to slam the theme in your face but well we have to appeal to certain masses as well. so i understand his dilemma.)

Alright! I'm going for KTV now. Seeya all!

btw, there's this certain 'grey' who left me a comment just recently. Ey who are you ar? haha. :P sms me @ my new number ok?

anyone who needs to contact me , my new no. is 9887869X.
where X is the value in 0X/01/1985 - my birthdate. work it out.

my old number 92399567 is cancelled.

Next blog : We talk about love.

2005-12-14T15:46:00.000+08:00

i seriously wonder if anyone still reads this blog anymore.

besides the preying polar bear.

and of course you know i'm the authentic zy. ('seriously' by the first sentence)*smirk*

so how are you my imaginary readers!
(the random strangers that stumble across must be feeling quite uncertain about carrying on the read)

yes yes, i am being random but hey its the exams and i'm blogging! did you expect anything less?

its bloody cold here. ('bloody' pronounced brit)
you don't know what cold is. i'm serious. its unbelievable. you walk out of your room, everything looks perfectly normal. you let your defences down for ..BAM! the cold hits you. then it shrouds you and eats you up. Walk out of your building and you know you were kicking up a fuss. the wind cuts. the cold omnipresent. cold takes any form. air, knife, tapwater, numbness. here, there and everywhere. (paul!)

its amazing how i manage to stay alive and cheery. probably cos i'm distracted. i mean how much time can i spend conjuring up depressive thoughts when i'm busy fighting the cold. (fighting is an understatement. its a shakeout. a raging battle. warcries and all.)

shivers, migraines, frozen earlobes, dry lips and hard fingers.

not forgetting

trying to bend over (gracefully) to pick up that moronic glove that decided to fall out.

crawling your fat gloved fingers into that tight padded (long johns) pocket to reach for that goddamned why-can't-you-be-10-times-bigger lip gloss.

oh and try unlocking your keypad with gloves. i took 5 minutes.

or stuffing your scarf into your pocket to find out later that its gone.
it probably fell out halfway while you were trying to ride that creaky wreckage of a bike. just because shanghai decides to be girly for a day and throw a sunshine tantrum, you're severely overwrapped and wet inside.

but i really love shanghai. i mean no lies. i hate winter or whatever you call this mudblood of autumn-winter-sometimes summer. actually it isn't that bad too. mind and body united against the common enemy. so its more of love-hate. helps to objectify it too.

and hey, its not the coldest yet.
we're expecting neg5. but its really different in shanghai (dun mock our coldness, osm) cos we have wind. gales, draughts, gusts, occasional cold currents followed by a much desired rebound in temperature. nightwinds kill. morning moisture gnaws.

but i really love shanghai. lalala.

my exams are in 2 weeks. i have just been informed that i have 5 papers in 4 days. *gleeful grin* yay! hurray! wooooooo! pop the cork! bring the booze! cram me with papers! overwork me! hurray hurray hurray haha hurrah hurrah hurrah heehee!!

*slit eyes*

i'm going mental.

but nevertheless, i love shanghai. you guys must come over. (gasp. the first normal-looking sentence!) serious. get out from the city and come to THE CITY. i have decided Shanghai, Paris, London, New York and Tokyo will qualify as the 5 most significant cities in the world. Of course my choice is impaired by my lack of knowledge but you know what i mean.

but even if you guys do come over, i don't know where to bring you. only by living here can you feel the city beat (dun be lame).

there is something stirring beneath. sure there are dodgy alleys and unlit, litter-cluttered corners. but thats what i feel a city should be - a melting pot. beggarchildren scavenging to expats swinging at bars, its that life that refuses to be categorised or named. you can strut across the road or linger near the lamppost, shanghai doesn't even notice you. you wish to be remembered. here you are infinitely minute and thus infintely large. you are the pebble and the river. the loner and the victor. this city breathes and you breathe. you long for nature and farms and anything rural. you wish to go home, where its small, where its simple, where its all predictable and in your grasp. but you need to stay.

of course its me talking so take it with a pinch of salt.

alright. enough of litdiarrhea. pops a charcoal pill.

updates updates!

i'll be returning home after my exams. and yes, i won't be telling some people about it. haha. come onnn, let me enjoy depriving you guys. and don't we all love surprises! and if SOMEONE in the clique can't know about it, the entire clique too will have to kept in the dark.

and of course some OTHER clique might not need to know about it because of some drastic internal changes. *grudging look* hehe.

i'm good. wrapping up myself well. eating well. too well in fact. so i might be slightly swollen when i get back. (operation HL must be carried out. i need people to turkey her up so i don't lose the bet.)

i am doing volunteer work for those who don't know. and i have been very attached to one of the kids there. hao hao. and he'll be going back in feb (back to some other province for good) so i'm sorta prepping myself up for the goodbye. but i'm fine cos i got his address. he's real sweet. will tell u guys about it.

besides getting info from news and non-info from jj, i haven't heard much about singapore. do update me when i come back anyway.

exams exams exams. i'm studying. don't worry.

my japanese tutee (is there not such a word tutee?) AKA student scored 87 for his midterm. mwahahhahaa. and he smsed me to thank me. wooha!

sigh. there's a singaporean exchange student that i'm pretty close with. returning in early jan. one less volunteerwork and drinking kakee. she's damned cool (of cos by the zy def.) lar. and yes, i do drink. one reason why i am so gonna die when i return to singapore is the lack of dirtcheap booze. its disgusting. 80 cents sing for 660 ml bottle of qingdao (i dun drink lite but ah. u get wat i mean.) and KTV is 5sing per person for 6 hours with ultranew songs (kbox can sit on the bench). i love shanghai! argh. and i don't overdrink la. just ya know dinner drinks yaterdidididi.

i love my old testament teacher. he is seriously random.

(halfway thru lesson)
" Are there heaters in your rooms? i know there aren't heaters in your room. so actually there isn't much reason to come late to class. if you have heaters in your room, maybe its okay to lie in bed a while longer. but there aren't. so you might as well come over and hang around. "

" The exams will be on 11th jan. (uproar) hey hey hey! what's up? don't be so excited! is it because you guys don't think much of it? its going to be tough you know? We put it at the very end because its going to be the Ya1 Zhou2 Xi4 (finale)."

" (compares to some part about Israel taxation) So well this is sorta like what the teachers here face now. the party issues us a receipt for our salary monthly and its a really long list with many deductions , so the teachers don't get much money. "

haha. he's stupid. love it.

anyway, there is this super jap buffet here that is to DIE for. free flow sake and beer. free flow uni (sea urchin) . free flow A-grade beef to be barbecued. free flow raw beef. all of top standard. no jap food in singapore , i repeat, NO JAP FOOD in singapore i have eaten comes close to this standard.

sighhhhhhhhh

anyway, this is a long post. so i have met my quota for the next 3 months. haha. till i am inspired.

take care babes.
"

2005-11-07T00:38:00.000+08:00

Impairment is the correct term to use to define a deviation from normal, such as not being able to make a muscle move or not being able to control an unwanted movement.

Disability is the term used to define a restriction in the ability to perform a normal activity of daily living which someone of the same age is able to perform. For example, a three year old child who is not able to walk has a disability because normal three year old can walk independently.

Handicap is the term used to describe a child or adult who, because of the disability, is unable to achieve the normal role in society commensurate with his age and socio-cultural milieu. As an example, a sixteen-year- old who is unable to prepare his own meal or care for his own toileting or hygiene needs is handicapped. On the other hand, a sixteen-year- old who can walk only with the assistance of crutches but who attends a regular school and is fully independent in activities of daily living is disabled but not handicapped.

All disabled people are impaired, and all handicapped people are disabled, but a person can be impaired and not necessarily be disabled, and a person can be disabled without being handicapped.

quoted from "http://gait.aidi.udel.edu/res695/homepage/pd_ortho/clinics/c_palsy/cpweb.htm"
(a website on infant disease Cerebral Palsy)

2005-09-25T19:11:00.000+08:00

(btw, this is my 200th blog entry. CHEERS! )

Alright.
I'm feeling a little bit Fei4 Xiang2 now.
[Fei Xiang [fae seang] a phenomenen named after a not-so-famous celebrity : where a person resurfaces in a (blogging) scene after a long time and doesn't know if people remember him/her anymore]
*heehee. I rock!*
I must admit that i don't really check people's blogs nowadays cos Proxify can sure be a pain in the ass. Its getting swollen-headed, just cos alot of people rely on it nowadays, it has decided to work only periodically for unregistered users. *grumble*
So sorry to the blogspot users. Do update me if something important has happened in your life through email.
*discovers a small piece of his wrapper in his mouth while he sucks at his honey sweet. this sweet totally rocks. my aunt got it fer me. yay!*
And i DON'T see anyone commenting at my last post. I AM ASSUMING THAT USING PROXIFY DOESN'T ENABLE ME TO READ COMMENTS. Cos if it DOES and i DON'T see ANY comments, I SHALL NOT UPDATE THIS BLOG ANYMORE. *scowl*

Anyway!
I had the motivation to blog cos i've just experienced the once-in-a-lifetime...
FUDAN CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY (means fudan's 100th birthday)

My goodness. I am in awe. I have never seen EVER something of such grandeur for something like a SCHOOL celebration.

Firstly we had Andy Lau come over to Fudan to perform in June.

Then we had the entire school decorated with posters, with massive Zhong Guo Jies', with pots of flowers hanging from the lampposts, new gardens and new roads.

Then we had an international principals conference where principals from NUS, Yale, OXFORD (*grin* dele) and another 60 over schools came over. And following that were individual presentations of gifts from the respective institutes to Fudan.

Then we had a Musical Fireworks night the day before the actual celebrations. And my god, although i didn't get tics for it, the news telecast the next day left me gaping. It is comparable to our NDP fireworks. (i wonder where the budget came from though)

Then 2 bike-free days in Fudan because we were expecting 70,000 (okay plus minus one zero) members of the alumni. It really hit me when i saw this granny wearing the Fudan t-shirt that i just bought - you could really feel all that fudan history coming back.

Then the actual celebrations. Its UNBELIEVABLE.
It was held at Guang Hua Lou this skyscraper erected in the middle of our campus, facing our Main Entrance.
There was a GIANT LCD screen.
Fire-spitting words "1905" and "2005" .
Another two LCD display screens at the side.
World-class sound systems.
We had artistes like LIN ZHI XUAN, ZHANG YU (Phil Tsang), YU QUAN (china group), REN XIAN QI (er...) , ZHOU CHUANG XIONG (aka Xiao Gang) and a few more china artistes. We had LIU XIANG (OLYMPICS CHAMPION).
We had WU BANG GUO (the head of the Ren Da Chang Wei Yuan Hui - i dunno how to translate that to english. some big shot after the PM and Chairman) gracing the ceremony.
I quote an ABC friend of mine : " Its majestic. "
I quote myself (grin) : "Its SUPER EXAGGERATING LAR. "
And things just got better when i noticed something while i was running to the actual venue for the ceremony (only ticket-holders could go in. didn't have a ticket though.so i had to watch 1/3 of it beyond the cordontapes).
I SAW A BLEEP. issit called a bleep? The ship-like hot air balloon? It said : " Fudan Centennial Anniversary : " or sth like that.
A BLEEP. (JB TELLS ME ITS A BLIMP! A BLIMP! )

I only managed to watch the final dressed rehearsal live. but i watched the rest of the actual ceremony at our school sports stadium where a live telecast was displayed using ANOTHER 2 LCD Display Screens. (i love GIANT LCD Display Screens)

My favourite part of the show besides the appearance of all the celebs, was the very first segment when the Alumni Choir, the Master Students Choir, the Doctorate Students Choir and the School Choir led the entire Fudan in singing our school song.
The stage held also , 100 flag-bearers which held proudly our Fudan school flag in a splendid array of colours; my female classmates who each held a huge maple leaf (?!)(dun ask) ; all the previous (and living) Deans of the school and the kids who presented them with flowers.
It was overwhelming. Such a bonding. I mean i haven't been in the school for a month, and i'm already in love with it. Probably a sucker for glamour but i bet there's some part of me that was really touched. heh.

And of course , there were fireworks BEFORE and AFTER the actual ceremony. ridiculously extravagant! I LOVE IT. *smeagol look*

And i've got pictures to prove my words (:

The flags all over the campus (check my hair out! its unstyled i KNOW. the COLOUR stupid.)

The posters on almost every tree and lamppost

The full dress rehearsal on the eve of the anniversary 230905 : Night and Day

The REAL thing. My senior caught this shot. Its a bit blur but she totally captured the extravagance and explosiveness of it all . SUPER SHOT.

Man. Even loading up the photos get me all breathless.
Although i couldn't be at the actual location of all the hype and fun, but watching it with my singaporean friends at the sports stadium was pretty cool too. I was quite high (not without a bottle of korean white wine and nuts . hehe)

I'm really proud of this school and i'm bloody fortunate to be able to get in here just when its our centennial anniversary. The luck.

Fu Dan Fu Dan Dan Fu Dan!!

2005-08-28T22:52:00.000+08:00

Visual updates.

This is not an accurate portrayal of the traffic situation in Shanghai.
For one, its too bare. Normally, there will be MANY things on the road.
For example, you have men dragging wheelbarrows of firewood (yes, in this age of electricity), women in flowery pleated ankle-long skirts on bicycles or scooters , construction workers with shovels on their shoulders walking haphazardly, many taxis and just as many pedastrians!
Secondly, it looks orderly. Thats not right. Cos in shanghai, there are NO rules. Free for all i call it.
You have a road, you have cars at one end and cars at the other, and the cars here wanna go there while the cars there wanna come here. Not forgetting motorcycles, scooters and bicycles. To top it off, you have people, hundreds of them wanting to cross the road in all possible angles and directions. So everybody just goes ahead. Lane markings , traffic lights and zebra crossings are merely for ornamental purposes or the road is boring black.
Like how my friend asked a senior :
" Where's the stop line ? "
My senior :" There isn't one. "
Friend : " So where do they stop ? "
Senior : " Ping2 Gan3 Jue2. "
How to not get knocked down while crossing the road?
Close your eyes and cross. Stop for 2 seconds when you hear a loud-enough horn. Then continue in original direction. You'll live. :)

had crystal jade with mummy. Don't worry , its cheaper but singapore has the exact same menu and better quality for most dishes except well.. the xiao long bao :)

some hostel pictures. Self-explanatory. (mum helping out w cleaning. love u mum!)

Yes yes, horror of horrors. i'm with Ah Boon. haha. He's my hostel mate. We should survive without hating each other (too much). no la, we're pretty much on the same cheenabiang freq and generally harmless ppl. but living with some1 else takes so much EQ and compromise sometimes. i am still waiting for a transfer quietly.
This is us after a major cleanup (w sweeping , mopping) : we're both hygiene freaks. haha. him more than me i suspect but i'm putting up a good pretence to keep him on his toes. heh.

how's the weather?
its singapore but dryer, cooler but sometimes it just drips the entire day. yes 'drip'.

how's the price?
everything is cheaper except for imported clothing and accessories i suspect. food is well dirt cheap , a not-so-decent cafe (flies but airconditioned) : two bowls of pretty Q and tasty noodles and one small bowl of 8 less-than-yummy wantons = SGD 2.40. Hmm.
Magnum icecream is erm SGD 70cents
Samsung LCD screen + China brand webcam, keyboard , mouse and 50 CD-Rs for SGD 400.

how's the people?
hmm. service industry is virtually non-existent. the people are frank but generally harmless i guess. its just a culture where people believe in expressing what they think on their faces and sometimes magnifying it through their actions and speech volume. Some of them are okay really. Just get used to shoving , non-queues and in-OUR-local-culture , what is regarded as low-class. I think most of us Singaporeans are too sheltered : we are a small country after all and i guess we can't blame ourselves for being narrowminded. I'm not exactly pro-china yet but i guess a global outlook which accepts different cultures (and i'm not talking about just the pro-American (Jap and Korean) or American culture which our country deems as the ideal) is more than necessary as cross-boundary communication becomes more accessible. Yea, thats my view on this matter. I get peeved too but i don't get upset with anyone or anything. They have a long way to go but don't we too? :)

oh well. this will be the last blog for some time guys so its pretty long, do your own re-reading if u miss me / my writing . heh.

take care all.

lastly, some trivia,

from the left :
my access card to my dorm , my top-up card for internet access , my top-up handphone card , my Bank of China ATM card and 100 RMB (the largest value that China notes have - very inconvenient. heh. )

2005-08-25T16:04:00.000+08:00

ok the beginning of my blind blogging.
i've arrived in shanghai safe and sound.
weather's sorta like singapore on a cooler day.

yep. that's all for now.
for those of you who did, thanks so much for coming down, love you ppl.
for those of you who didn't, nah, no big deal . :)

anyway, you can leave comments on my blog but i would need to find someone on msn to help me check the comments cos i can't access any www.XXX.blogspot.com sites from China.

So that's for now.

the beginning of this crazy journey.

2005-08-22T22:53:00.000+08:00

Well. Here we are finally.

The following messages are dedicated to respective chummies of mine.
(Why do i do that publicly? Because i'm zy, remember? )

I'll go anon this time round though , for the fun of it. But remember i told some of you that i have a thing with hp numbers? I unwittingly remember numbers by hard and i don't browse through my contact lists when i call or sms some friends of mine, i simply type the number, the closer ones of course. So the following 'labels' used are all memory-work (ie i didn't refer to my hp at all. *proud look* ).

(in no specific order, either the first 4 numbers or last 4 numbers or my choice of alternative labelling)

0111:

hey! wah u're terribly mushy. im sorry i can't be mushy with u. u're my bud i discuss almost everything under the sun with on a thinking level, how do i mush with u! anyway, i know u'll miss me but shut up if u wanna say sth er xin, i really will slap u lor. heh. don't worry, i'll find time to hold our 'talks' online when we both have some xin1 de2 to exchange. will be excited to share alot of experience with you actually. in fact, do come over! u'll be one of e ppl i would like to bring around shanghai when i'm more acquainted with the place. lets keep things up and work towards our goal yea?

0438:

hey you. i think you're the only one who's taking this worse than i am. its quite amusing and sweet at the same time. i do notice you getting grumpier but i'm not in the position to cheer you up (for once). you must remember: don't put too much pressure on the friendship. i think distance is something we shouldn't expect much from and i slowly warm up to. and you know my style, give me time. i'll miss you, dun make me worry too much cos u're really stupid smtimes. and hey bet's on no matter what ok. ;)

0689:

you! silly thing. stop conjuring up problems! *light slap on the head* its going to be tough but remember what i have always been telling you! "its not that bad!" and when we've all gone this far together, you'll always be someone special . remember? the one-seat-reserved-during-wedding gang? but of course things might change. but don't always give up without a fight for your silly pride! i'm a goose at times too but not as bad as u! :P we're both cynics, but at least i'm a practical cynic that don't blow problems up beyond proportion without a basis! its not bout quantity, its bout quality ok. i can have 200 friends there but i'll still miss each and every one of u for who u are. u din understand tt last time, hope u do now. like how pepper can never substitute tobasco when u wanna spice up that vegeterian lasagna :) :) :)

0818:

wei. glad tt 3877 came along, sorta catalysed outings, cos when its just the 2 of us without 4459, we're sorta laidback. Concerned but nevertheless laidback. its good we are aware of how we function so there isn't any insecurities. Like i said bout 4459, we run well even in distance, so im not too worried. i felt u were opening up already but im leaving! but nevertheless its a start and u know i will listen even if im gone. anger management ok? heh. send me emails occasionally! not our style but now its an imposed thing.

1791:

wei wei! haha! i'm remembering what u told me bout remembering this number. my god. its plain silly. i wonder if u'll try to guess who every number is. ;) i'm quite surprised things turned out better for the two of us. its funny how things work. i guess we(or shld i say 'u' ;P ) realised how significant we were to each others' lives and from then on ,came alot of appreciation. i really really will miss you. yea, its really scary to not be able to wait for your return any more. but its another year only isn't it? then you get to wait. :) don't change! i will.

3877:

i hope i got it right! but u wun blame me right? *doggy eyes* hurhur. who would have thought we would pick things up after like 2-3 years and meet more than 3-4 times in a month! the way life works sometimes. zhen1 xuan2. i'm glad you're ard, got lazy us: 0818 and me to meet up more often. not that u're just a tool! ;P u always do crack me up and i will await your free idd calls. dun forget 018.

4459:

wo ye shi mei hua gen ni shuo le ba. zhong shi jue de wo men zhi jian shen me dou mei bian , ye shen me dou bu hui bian si de. i think its just the nature of our friendship, deadclose in a very relaxed and independant manner, def. can withstand distance. but dun u SLACK. hurhur. i'm so excited about going. knowledge! knowledge!
8-) (heehee)

5659 and the other one:

wah lau, i took bloody long to recall yours la. what is up with two phone numbers. just plain bitchy and the other one, i can't remember la. don't talk to you guys as much anymore but i'll miss the eating sprees and bitching. well , in fact, i think i'll really miss having someone to scold. haha. will meet up with you guys when im back, maybe we could go swim a lil or sth during CNY. heh.

6113:

heya! i've never been soppy w u and we've never been that intimate. but weirdly, i have been hanging out one on one with you very very frequently. maybe cos u're not as stressed up. there's a certain chemistry after all! love-hate r/s. haha. you're independant but chummy with us, keep at it girl. and i know u dun usually come to me when u're down or troubled (not as much as i do to u def.) but do whine occasionally like u do over here. its our special mo qi.

6155:

won't normally address you in this way but for anonymity's sake. :P
by now, i've told you more or less what i wanted/needed to tell you. can't tell you how glad i was when you came up to me and told me we will have to send each other's emails weekly. it'll work out. i'm betting on it. think about it, i don't even bother typing your number nowadays if i need to call you, its usually the last number i dialled so i'll just press dial. *roll eyes*

7600:

u havent forgotten the number already right? grin grin. don't expect u'll be reading this cos u're prob hyperbusy. well bro, its gonna be tough eh. all this keeping in contact. we'll just chill and give each other space. and do wat-we-have-to when we see each other. will remem the very last session we had and the things we said (and wrote). take care!

8200:

haha. i bet u din expect a msg to u. well somehow i remember ur no. too. we arent tt close. but since u are coming on thurs, here's a note fer u : take care and don't be too weird. heh. hopefully we can catch up with 1791 or with the rest of the starfishes. i really don't think we can meet up 1 on 1. haha.

8466:

hey hey! wow i am seriously thinking how we will be like. its one of the most unpredictable ones of my friendships. i mean, it has been so long but it has always been sorta distant yet close. Now even more distant, no more of our average of once-fortnightly meetups. I always feel comfortable with you and i hope that doesn't run off. Esp when our means of contact reduce to skype,msn and emails. we're not used to such mediums but we've got to try i guess. i never even called u for a chat like more than 10 times in my entire life man. plus u sound terribly dead on the line. haha. but we'll manage. look out for that person for me ok? u know how he is like and i know i can trust u. you will be fine, don't worry too much bout 'that', its predestined and i know you will be blessed. work hard and don't slack too much ok! you're too scarily laidback for ur own good.

4384476:

i know u have prob forgotten the 4 numbers and its hard for u to recollect so i put the entire thing down to jog visual-triggered memory power. -_- do u even read my blog? haha. i miss u. come home altho IT isn't there for us anymore.

the-little-things:

i realised i don't remem ur LOUSY no. cos u got it only during j2 and i bet u dun remmeber it ANYMORE. lousy thing. but i have GOT to write to you. heh. now things might get tougher than it already was. we'll give it some breathing space but work hard too ok? ill really try to remember typing mails. in the meantime, just check this blog. i haven't seen u in such a long while.

44551 and 4799 :

hmmm. didn't get to see u 3 before i left (can't remember the last no.) will miss will miss de. don't worry. when im home, def. will have to meetup. :)

~

well well.
that's that.
i'm really typical. haha. just so politically incorrect. *sticks out tongue*
i'll miss typing this numbers on the keypad (one more reason why i did the above).

while walking home today, i realised i'll really miss the trees along that stretch of road outside my place. but when you realise you'll even miss the beep of EZ link machines , you figure it out : familiarity by itself is something endearing.

~

for my chums : do check out skype - free internet telephony service at www.skype.net.
ask me for my username when u get it or get it from jj, jb or ml.
all u need is a mike and some time.

~

i miss my ah gong and my parents.

2005-08-22T00:18:00.000+08:00

My brother had me rolling on the floor with laughter with this little piece of information. I'm not exaggerating. I really did roll on the floor. I was just cackling breathlessly with that usual pseudo-pre-spit noise i make that sounds alot like the 'keke' i use on msn. :)

like any other sunday night, we were randomly hopping from topic to topic and we landed on 'Shi Jie Yi Zhou' (Round The World In A Week). Well its this show which has been airing since forever that introduces absolutely USELESS but GRIN,(and in my case) ROAR-worthy facts or trivia anywhere in the world! I wonder how they source out such crap.

And my brother brought up this episode he watched before:

There was this Japanese family who had a family pet : A PENGUIN. Yes and my brother did a rough estimate for its height : about 1 metre or so. And everyday, the penguin would come out from its cold room where it sleeps and GO TO THE FISHMONGER'S AND BUY FISH.

*blinks blinks*

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

That was when i started hissing and my eyes couldn't open. CAN YOU IMAGINE? A PENGUIN BUYING FISH. WAHHAHAH! *hops over and swings over a single fin*

So my brother continued, the penguin actually carries a primary school backpack with money in it. AND THE BACKPACK HAS A PENGUIN DESIGN ON IT!!!!

*double hiss*

Then the penguin would hit the streets (there u have it lou) and toddle all the way to the fishmonger's and the lady there would take the money from its little bag (awwww!) and give it the fish for the day!

*LOL*

And the fish would go home!!!!

And to kill me off, my brother told me that when the penguin left, the owner of the house would go

" Iterashai! " (the japs say that to people leaving their home , it means, sth like man4 zou3 or take care)

ISNT IT UNBEARABLY FUNNY!

And its true! I searched on google and found some writeups (no pics tho :( )!

http://www.anigami.com/jimwich/jimwich_archives/jimwich_1_2005.html

I want my own penguin! I'll make it buy cigarettes for me. >:)
(Oh wait but its not 18 yet!! wahhahaha!)

p.s. according to one of these websites, i heard the neighbours along the street will have the hose the penguin down during its return trip cos its too hot! whahahah how cute is that!

~

i'm 90% packed in an hour. with dad's help. but still. whats with all the packing trauma?

yay to penguins!

2005-08-21T11:06:00.000+08:00

finished my last round of meetups yesterday.
not that i won't be meeting up with anyone anymore but that was the last of my scheduled appointments.
very appropriately, it ended with a ktv session.
like qs, i think ktv would be sth i'll really miss. well, not that shanghai doesn't have ktvs. in fact, they are Superior (a high tea with cheesecakes and pastry, personalised service, red velvet sofas , king-sized rooms for maybe 7-10 dollars for an entire night).
but i'll miss ktv-ing with jj. with jj and jb. with lili,chris,lihui,jj and jb. with adele n zhao n melet. even ktv-ing with my aunts and parents. ktv-ing will never be the same again. no more tamborines and shakers. no more standing on the sofas from the start till the end.
Ktv isn't ktv if you sit from the start till the end or if you don't do S.H.E. , Jolin and F.I.R. or you try to sound good. *bawls* heh. oh well. thats what makes ktv-ing back home unique i guess. And therefore, it will probably be one of the compulsory back-home activities next time.

had swensens after ktv. was so much fun stealing fries from one another and hopping from flavour to flavour for our 2 Topless 5's (5 scoops of ice cream) . Oh the Swensens apple crumble is divine for its price. love the presentation and the caramel sauce!

OH DO WE LOVE OUR FRIES...

THE BEAUTIFUL

THE THOUGHTFUL (?)

i'll really miss you ppl.

~

After meeting up with the guys and girls, i was headed to Republic Plaza for a dinner with my family and my 3rd aunt's family.

Heard alot about this Tower Club place that my aunt was treating dinner at, was expecting it to be glam and classy but not that far off from all the other country clubs my aunt goes to.

But man, was i in for a surprise. First it was the elevator. Odd and Even floor divide. Okayyy. Then i realised that Tower Club was only 3 floors in this Republic plaza building. Now that was weird.

62nd floor. okaaaay. My ears blocked and unblocked as i went up on the elevator.

And when it hit 62nd, i was greeted by this lady in a suit. Introduced myself as one of my aunt's guest and the lady led me to this corner where she opened a door in a wall and took out a jacket.

"Here sir, I'm sorry but you will have to slip this jacket on when you leave your dining room (DINING ROOM?!) for the washroom because your bottoms are semi-jeans
(bah. semi-jeans?) "

So i was led into a room called the Sulawesi room and man, words fail me. i was gaping when i saw the room. here are some photos.

Note the the number or wine glasses. i used 3 out of 5 : champagne , sparkling red wine (rare and pretty good stuff) and red . I love fine dining.
Please look at the bottom left photo. Its the VIEW from the dining room. THE FREAKING VIEW. It overlooks the city! Its like looking out from a plane descending at Changi airport. Just MORE gorgeous. If only i could turn off the lights in the room, it would be so romantic.
That's our 1st starter. Chawan mushi - a japanese egg soup appetiser . But it was served in an egg! how exotic. yay! im a sucker for presentation. (ml : had foie gras as 2nd starter. ooo not bad!)
That's my bro's dessert - Chocolate SOUP. I know it looks like sth we all rather not mention but i thought it was pretty. :( It tasted pretty good, cool chocolate soup which was like a nice chocolate drink, not too thick, not too diluted with chunks of fruits in it. its like a light fondue. AHhhhh.

the only problem was Ryan my kid cousin was around. man. fine dining at tower club can be any macdonald kid's room party with that rascal around. but oh well, he's quite cute at times. :)

~

Packing starts today. Hmm. I must be patient cos i know my dad is going to be autocratic and naggy. :) hurhur.

3 more days in Singapore.

(recover soon ml and christine!)

2005-08-19T23:22:00.000+08:00

On my flight,
Its SQ 0826 (Terminal 2) 25th August (Coming Thurs).
My flight is at 0805 AM. (yes. AM.)
I should enter the gates by 7 AM.
So i should be at the airport at 6 AM or so.

Okay. I'm not saying ANYTHING.
(I really hate this feeling.)
Don't come cos its terribly early, trust me, if it was a 9pm flight, i'll be bringing attendance lists and doing rollcalls. But its 6 am, so its REAAAALLY (cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die ) OKAY.
I'm trying to be understanding in a very ZY manner. Don't bitch. I'm like that.

(DOESN'T HELP TT U COME N TELL ME " WAH LAU. SO EARLY. " I know its early, thats why im tuning my expectations down. *growl*)

You have been warned. Nothing more shall be said on this matter (at least not on a public basis).

~

With regards to my blog,
i think i'm keeping with blogspot.
All the other inferior blogsites have restrictions on templates or are plain silly.
The nicest one i could find was this china blogsite which had this pretty cool goatskin background (don't ask).
I'll use that if i get tired of not being able to see my own blog.

The problem with China and blogspot , is that i will be unable to view my own blog and thus :
a) not be able to read my comments
b) not be able to spot problems in my captions for photos or photos etc
c) have big problems trying to load new songs

Other than that, no big sh*t.
So i might employ some help from anyone i see online to help me check my blog when i have a new entry (don't worry fjj, i need people wth genuine pikpikpiakpiak english. :P ) So don't complain if you're the random chosen one. UNLESS YOU DON'T WANT TO READ MY BLOG AND BE UPDATED WITH MY LIFE. *glares around* (thanks zhao for offering! good zhao!)

yep. i might change the address to make it well..more private. will inform the necessary people. thanks people for all the support.

blogging will stop after i fly and should only resume in about a week after my arrival at shanghai.

~

Packing starts this sunday. Got my checklist out. Have been doing some simple accounts. Must get used to keeping receipts and sticking them on nice big jotter books for reference when i'm over there. And will have to do quite some fund transfer from my account to my dad's cos he paid for air tics, air taxes and laptop for me.

Adele will be back on tues, i must give her an afternoon. IF she spares me her precious time. *roll eyes*.

~

Had a pile-up-the-friends day today.
Met JJ for a mini-competition between each of our favourite prawn mees (my AMOY street dry prawn mee versus his LITTLE INDIA AH HWEY prawn mee with soup). Well the result was predictable : we insisted on our own choice being the better of the 2. typical obstinance. tsk. MINE'S REALLY GOOD. bleah.

Then JJ joined me to meet melet and zhao at Kuriya so zhao could use up his $30 voucher (and the 2 of them could still spend $14 each). We proceeded on to Royal Copenhagen which is just a tai-tai's 6-star cafe at taka lar. I wonder how melet knows bout such high class places. Its just... unexpected of her! haha.

Us Outside Royal Copenhagen

We had hot date sticky pudding with strawberries and grapes (melet's), a really plain green tea sponge cake (mine :< ), a blueberry cheesecake which was light and rich at the same time! (zhao's) and a pair of fat scones with jam,butter and cream.

OUR CAKES

Then the 4 of us went for blazer/suit/jacket testing at Zara. haha. It was a mini-garment-crash course, with funny words like tweet? sueze? corduroy? velvet? coming out. I used to see these words on books or magazines and never knew what they meant. oh well. i still don't remember but at least melet tried.

Then huili joined us and we hung out for quite awhile, went to help her choose a crumpler bag for her sis. But i was protesting loudly against crumpler bags, COMMONPLACE! SU2! terrible. and just to prove my point, we did a minor investigation. In less than 3 hrs, we spotted more than 27 crumpler bags in takashimaya. Goodness. Can it be any more Yong1 Su2. Im sorry if anyone of you have it but.....

SHAME ON YOU! Carrying the exact same bag as everyone else on the street. But oh well, i guess if the quality of the bag is worth its RIDICULOUSLY STEEP price and its MEDIOCRE design, then so be it. *snorts*
(sorry lili, now i know you really won't want to buy the bag for your sister but i really feel you shouldn't commonify her. haha. 'commonify' )

Anyway, lao po was really sweet. Oh well, i guess i was a LITTLE bit grumpy and upset cos of the impending departure and she wanted to get me something. And knowing her, she makes really impulsive buys when she likes sth herself. So she got me this puma jacket! I know its the typical adidas lookalike jacket but hoho, i love the colour and its POSER! I like acting poser at times. but i suck at it. So i'm the unsuccessful poser that just turns out to be awkward and adorable , i guess... (crazy grin)

So both of us love it and i'm supposed to wear it *small voice* 24/7 but its reallly quiiite hot in sg? *imitates melet's timid look* heh. but i guess i can manage it in late summer or early spring in shanghai. oh well! I dun even know if fudan has airconditioned lecture theatres (hohoho) cos i remember beida not having them! (or am i mistaken?) I'll bring it to shangai anyway lao po! Thanks alot! Its really too ke4 qi4.. i don't really know why there's a need for farewell gifts but oh well, i DO like free and chio stuff! *wide toothy grin*

I realised i don't look very me in such a bright coloured sporty jacket. haha. I DUN CARE ANYWAY!

Me and my Puma Jacket and NZ Natural Ice Cream (sth's up w my hairdo)

Lili and Me and OUR Puma Jacket (she loves it alot too)
Some things we learnt today :
1) JJ can't spell encyclopaedia and giraffe
2) Lili and I can't spell accommodation
3) Everyone thinks i have ugly handwriting (Jap, Chi or Eng) : *glum look*
4) Amoy street prawn mee is SIMPLY SUPERIOR.

~

In 6 days.
Change approaches.
I know leaving was by choice, but i can never visualise the whirlpool of an infinite number of changes that comes with it.
Maybe that's why i've been feeling a void inside. A certain aimlessness and helplessness.
Don't mind me.

2005-08-17T18:20:00.000+08:00

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

But it don't snow here,
It stays pretty green.
I'm gonna make a lot of money
And I'm gonna quit this crazy scene
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly

Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on.

I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
He put me at ease
He loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I've ever had
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly

Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I made my baby say goodbye

- Joni Mitchell "River"

I am insanely in love with this song. Like how i usually do when i fall in love with anything. Brief but apocalyptic.
Its my blog song now, do put your volume up for awhile and give it a listen.

3 overseas calls in a week, uncle agony for 5 friends in a day,
emails to reply, appointments to catch, family meals,
late and long night-phonecalls, 1 more jab left,
claims and accounts to be done,
1/5 through my 1st chi book in a long while,
packing awaits,
goodbyes to be said, over and over again.

My braincells are going lemming - i stayed up all night yesterday for another mj session with *nudges to right* them and i haven't caught a wink of sleep for almost 34 hours already. I feel like death. but oh well, i won quite a bit. so i'm not complaining. *pats jj's head*

A week left, my heart is so empty and full at the same time, i hardly have room for simple anticipation.
its just occupied by short-term objectives. 1230s @ orchard mrts and 6ams @ changi airport and back-home-by-4-pms.

I suddenly wondered if Shanghai is preparing herself for my arrival.

~

boy can you let things go.

2005-08-13T02:09:00.000+08:00

it suddenly dawned upon me how little time i have been spending with the people i will miss most when i leave : my family.
i live away from home now and my dad doesn't see me for an entire week until weekends come along. Yes he usually comes back at 10pm and sees me for 10 min before i coop myself up in the room with the computer but at least he sees me. I kinda miss my dad already. As for mum, she's home all the time but she only gets to see me when i pop by to get some stuff before i rush out to meet friends. I miss mum too.
friends. the only thing i've learnt is that there will never be enough meetups. So i should know when to stop.

The next week is another mad rush.

i am merely meeting appointment times. i don't think anymore. its just finding out if its more logical to go home and shower and get stuff or to go out direct from my grandpa's place and get stuff another day. its just where to eat and what to do and who to meet.

i still have 6 books unread. 2 series (She4 Diao1 included) and 1 movie unwatched. I haven't written in ages. i haven't had a single meal with my grandpa or my parents this entire week ( and i feel like fuck-dge for that ). i don't even msn much nowadays. i check my email at 2am when i come home then. i feel perpetually sleepy. im on-the-go all the time. i seem to have lost my memory : i don't know when appts are anymore and whether i'm free on XX day.

i get the urge for going . i guess i have to go.

forgive me for i really must forgo many people i would like to meet. And although i casually promised everyone " a dinner before i go ". i'm afraid i really can't afford the time or energy. I really must spend the last week with my family.

i can't even find the energy to start a new blog although i've signed up at 4 different blog-hosting-providers, hoping i would find one to substitute this current blogspot one.

i haven't packed. i owe 2 jabs. i haven't started my accounts book.

i need to sleep.
i'm tired of leaving.

2005-08-08T18:00:00.000+08:00

I wish i had a river.
So when winter comes,
i'll skate away,
drawing circles far and wide.
Forgotten.
Noone remembers melted ice.

I wish to own a tree,
i'll look at it in a way noone else could decipher
and it will never betray my adoration,
unlike children who forget -
their aged playmates after a fresh bout of sweat.

2005-08-06T23:27:00.000+08:00

" i get the urge for going but i never seem to go. "
- Urge For Going

so i bought Joni's newest collection , laboriously named:
"Musical Tales of Long, Cold Winters
with a Hint of
Short but Glorious Summers"

and James Blunt's "Back to Bedlam" which i have yet to hear.

~

I just went up to Lihui and said :
" Hey sunny! You're sunny ok? "
Lihui says:
" haha funny, is it some punny thing ? "
And i say:
" Oh punny is zhao and if you're asking for funny, it'll be junjie. "
And i added:
" I'm nunny. "
Lihui says:
" hahhahhahaha .... "

It started when ml was asking me :
" How are you? "
And i went , random as usual :
" I'm feeling sorta swirly wurly funny bunny. " which ml found pretty amusing. (SCORE!)
And like how bananas spoil over time (ie the natural progression of events):

There you have it.

ZY is swirly wurly NUNNY bunny
JJ is swirly wurly FUNNY bunny
Zhao is swirly wurly PUNNY bunny
ML is swirly wurly HUNNY bunny
LH is swirly wurly SUNNY bunny
HL is swirly wurly RUNNY bunny
Chris is swirly wurly MONEY bunny
JB is swirly wurly BUNNY bunny
Louis is swirly wurly DUMMY bunny

this is awfully random.

~

In the last 2 weeks, i managed to meet jj once for a minimalist ktv session, meet jb n jj for a suit-trying-on session, meet jj and lihui for an around Suntec/Raffles City session, lunch at Imperial Treasure with aunts, had macs breakfast with huili, attended LEP's 15th anniversary, recorded 4th album with paul and had a roof session , met melet and zhao fer pepper beef place and marmalade pantry, had my TSPC rehearsals and TSPC.
for the next week, i have a mj session at jj's place, movie with jiabin, ktv session with e 2 of them, tentative fireworks-watching session with TS, lunch with qi and jj , sending paul off, treat from young aunt, dim sum session with campmates, lunch appt with huili, treat by 3rd aunt and more.
at the same time , i need to collect my visa, get my jabs, buy stationary, prepare checklist for packing, sort out my claims , sort out my winter clothing and more.
oh yea, and those proper goodbyes.

precisely why i'm feeling swirly wurly n(f)unny bunny.

~

LEP's 15th anniversary sort of rocketed me back into somewhere cushioned and familiar when i sat there in my non-uniform amongst seniors and juniors. Especially when they performed this skit, a parody of all our Gu3 Wen2 (olden chinese text) and the plays and novels we studied, i had an unreserved, unpretended and mighty good laugh. And with Mu and Zzy around, how could it not end up being an unglam,loud Retro-Song session right smack in the middle of the lep room ? With Melet, XY , Zhen-mei and Fang-jie joining us. Baked a *gulp* chewy oreo cheesecake which well got snubbed at for its hideous form but complimented for its taste. Didn't turn out as well as it should have. I'll redeem my baking skills another time. 20th LEP anniversary or something.

~

Louis wants to know why he is dummy bunny.
So here goes :

Yep. That's why.
(hurhur)

~

dele's home on 22nd.
lau's home on 14th. (how will she face the harsh reality of Sun Moulin's closure? i shudder to imagine.)
hamamaians planning an outing.
moe scholes planning an outing.
our 'one last ktv session before i go'.
watson wants to meet up before we all leave.

paul and i concluded that noone knows what it feels like to leave until you are the one leaving.
its not cool or heartless or tear-jerking or anything quite so clear.
its copper-red-hair and to-dye-my-brows-or-not mixed with i'm-not-going-to-see-you-for-one-year-after-CNY and gasps of horror.
its 120 pairs of dailies (contacts) mixed with webcam and skype.
its choosing which shirt to bring and travel insurance and dieting before i go.
its books, modules, bolsters (to bring or not to bring?)
its what-time-should-i-be-at-the-airport smses , please-don't-buy-me-anything-bulky advice and singapore students' society meetings.
its everything practical and everything emotional. its packing everything you need into that luggage and into that little heart of mine.

shouldn't there be something else to do besides blogging bout it?

SLEEP.

2005-07-28T00:48:00.000+08:00

all possibilities end.
i hear the dying breath of every uncaptured whim,
the inaudible disappointment in the sigh of this new mother,
the light bend in impossible angles.
when pen meets paper.

a whole new set of possibilites begin.
The strays from our initial intentions,
the baby you do not recognise,
the antithesis of our very inspiration.
when word meets eye.

feelings evoked
like the infinite shades of colours
a drop of yellow in grey is not
two drops of yellow in grey.

the beauty of interpretation is in its doomed inaccuracy.

- random musing 1:21am

2005-07-26T12:30:00.000+08:00

lost says:
hungry. wonder what i shall eat today.
yi: you know i'm not good at goodbyes says:
wats good at VJ
yi: you know i'm not good at goodbyes says:
u SHOULD know
lost says:
fan cai

... hehehehe. "fan cai"! and louis insists its the same thing cos there's both fan and cai. stubborn.

oh on my brother's bday (dinner at home as usual), we had foie gras with apples (again! ml!) and leg of lamb. Premarinated leg of lamb from Swiss Butchery (near RGPS) is pretty freaking good. :) Mom made Coffee Custard cake (?!).

FOIE GRAS WITH APPLES (its $80 for like 8 times of this minute serving, not worth it lar i feel. Cos the lamb was only $30 and super good!)

EY My broter the bday boy and his gf and the COFFEE CUSTARD CAKE MOMMY MADE

When we asked her what it was :
" Shen me lai de?! "
and she said sheepishly :
" Hmm. Aiya. You2 dian3 guai4 guai4 de. (a bit weird) "
hahhaa. so appetising. but it turned out pretty ok. a bit like pandan kaya cake. Not too bad. Went pretty well with the greek coffee kor brought back from oh well.. where else? Greece.

My brother and my dad had a Spelling quiz that day.
a 50 year old Chinese Educated uncle
VS
a NUS Engineering , ex-HCJC student

How do you spell February :

DAD: "F"
BRO: "F"
DAD: "E"
BRO: "E"
DAD: "B"
BRO: "B"
DAD: "R"
BRO: "R"
*crucial moment*
DAD: You go first. *sly smile*
BRO: *hesitates* hmmm fe-bre-ree.... so should be "A".
DAD: *shouts* "U"!

Man. Embarrassing. But dad still can't spell giraffe. Why am i doing language studies again? hehe.

Dinner was fun. Drank more than my parents for the first time. My dad and mom looked both proud and threatened at the same time when they noticed my glass empty again. haha. Four glasses of red and 2 glasses of kahlua milk (i love kahlua milk although its a bicycle (lady's) drink. its jus nice alcoholic tasty milk lar)

Gave my bro Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman. Hehe. I won't say my desire to read it din play a part in my decision-making process. >:) My brother's gf is an accomplice too. And my aunt got him HARRY POTTER! hurray! I raised my hands up and YAY-ed when he unwrapped his present. haha. He looked positively amused. :)

~

Went out with JJ and LH yesterday. Gosh i never walked so much in such a short time. These two together is THE formula for wishywashiness. JJ has no preference. I let the lady do her choosing. And WE ALL KNOW LH, don't we! :) Her mind works in marvellous ways. Decide on AJISEN, we end up heading towards Marina Square , decide on Thai food, she pops up with some other place, decide on coffee after meal , we end up looking for dessert at Suntec Basement, suggests Gelare, we go look for Cedele , consider Haagen Daaz, we end up at Soup Spoon. JJ and I almost went mad. Didn't help that we were lugging ('we' at first then one of his bags broke so stuff in the bag i helped carry went into the one he was carrying) his matriculation goodie bag which was rather bulky. hahaha. its so funny. But she'll make a really good salesperson. I JUST HAD TO buy this G2000 longsleeved shirt cos she was making all the right compliments. awww. i'm jus so Caesar.

Some photos!

WE TOOK THIS AT ONE RAFFLES LINK (or sth like tt). UNTIL WE REALISED WE WERE POSING ON A ROAD. haha.

another photo there.

LH redeemed her photo-taking skills

~

Would it stop raining. I'm stranded at my ah gong's house and lunch awaits me back at real home.
ooh. I have an idea. *crazy look*

2005-07-24T18:35:00.000+08:00

Crazy was stranded at a block of flats near his home. He was there to get a haircut.
He ignored the sign of the giant ship-of-a-cloud sailing low and above him and quite absentmindedly left his umbrella at home.
So the rain fell.
He grumbled a little to the more-than-sympathetic hairdresser and left the salon anyway.
How would you tackle this Crazy? You could almost hear the viewers ask in a cutsey childlike tone as they rest their chins in their palms, with curious looks on their faces.
Crazy always has a moment of sensibility. He considered. He could wait out until the rain stopped. He could buy an umbrella from the garlic and onion stalls. He could run to the bus stop, the path would be punctuated with shelters under flats, it won't be that bad. but Crazy was long decided and in fact, more than decided.
So Crazy, driven by some mysterious force, determined and doubtless, went over to the garlic and onion store and asked for a plastic bag. He was lucky. The owner was kind. She gave him a big red plastic bag.
Crazy put his belongings into his backpack and his backpack into the red bag. He remembered his shoes. He took off his shoes and added it into the red bag. He made a double knot and was satisfied. The rain hit the pavement in a crazy symphony.

Crazy walked out into the rain. The first drops were sharp and cold. Then he just got wetter and wetter. the wetter the better.
His sole shuffled along the smooth pavement to avoid slips and skipped complacently in a dance-like manner when he reached the rough tar roads. He was soaked from head to toe. Jumping into a puddle ,he felt the grime toss from the bottom of the concave. Treading on grass, he felt mud seep between his toes - cool and soft. He hugged his red bag , hopped and with a burst of energy, ran up the long slope. Home was near. The fabric of his cotton t-shirt stuck to his skin with significant weight and ankles aching a little.

Crazy looked out for cars. Mommy and Daddy were coming home from the market and would not be pleased to see him walking barefooted in the rain.He felt he could love the little boy on the other side of the road who too was running in the rain. Crazy smiled to himself more than once. He felt free. And crazy.

Crazy remembered playing in the rain when he was young. (or was it another one of his affairs with Imagination?)
But he didn't have this big red bag of belongings then.
Now he was just soaked from head to toe.

~

I had a haircut today. The way i like it : high sloped and short.

Feel a flu coming up. But i'm just asking for it anyway.

My flight date and time are more or less confirmed. With my dad, that is. We haven't called up any travel agency yet. 25th August 8 am. I'll keep you guys updated along the way if there are any changes.

Everything feels so surreal now. I don't really know what surreal means. I think it means exceptionally close and real. If thats what it means, yea. (edit 270705: lou corrected me. surreal means dreamlike. total opposite of what im trying to mean! so i substitute surreal with er.... REAL? haha)
Flying away used to be just a date on a calendar, now its everything : travel insurance, medical kits, winter clothes, air tickets, accomodation, phone cards, passports and goodbyes.

And of all times (but could there have been another time?), the few of us MOEs decide to get all bonded and organise outings. Maybe its cos the UK people have an additional month so they don't feel the pressure of saying goodbye. I quite like a few of these MOE people and how i wish i could give them my undivided attention and allow time for NORMAL friendship progressions. But for now, its hard to keep my mind off all the old ghosts.

Saying proper farewells. hmm. Some workshop we had mentioned sth about saying goodbyes properly so we wouldn't have any regrets when we leave. I agree. But i really don't know how to. Everyone seems so busy with their lives and everything seems normal besides the fact that i'll be leaving on XXX date. Can there be enough outings? I don't know. I hope i can have a one-one farewell session with everyone in august. Just a simple dinner. I'm going to have a checklist people! *weak smile* Its so draining just to think about saying goodbye.

I foresee an avalanche of to-dos in august that pop out from nowhere (i haven't even started on exit permit, visa, air ticket , shopping etc) and i KNOW i'm e sort who can get so caught up in everything and get grumpy and stay home. I have to finish all my Chinese books i bought. Plus Harry Potter (aunt's gift for bro's bday today) and Marvel 1602 (by Neil, my gift for bro) and Tori Amos' Piece by Piece.

And Zi Fang (my xue jie) is asking me whether i've prepared my standby blog for china. Hmm. I don't think i will bother to till im settled over there. Bah. But i should update everyone on my life. And i bet all the settling in will overexcite me and i'll forget about people back here. So i better start one. Stay tuned. I miss this blog! >:O

Flying away in a month. I get wet palms just thinking of it.

I hope all my friends out there can be really understanding for my last month. I know its so like me to say this publicly but i'm just gonna sit my bum in anyway :

I know some of you are just dead busy and i know i can be really difficult with my timetable cos i have alot of commitments for now. okok i KNOW i can be really difficult. But the next month is really not a month for me to go begging people to go out and organise group outings and go find out how everyone is coping with their lives. I really really don't want to see myself doing that.

So for August, please give me the benefit of the doubt when you are wondering : why isn't he asking me out before he is flying? why aren't we meeting up?
I would love to meet everyone but i have to settle alot of stuff - both physical and mental. I'm not being a coldhearted bastard or pretending to be xiao1 sa3, i've never done this before, pardon me if i don't do it right.

If it isn't too hard on everyone, the golden clue is ASK ME OUT.
I'm just so typical (sighs to ml) to say all these but i thought it'll be right to set the tone right from the start cos u know i can be very zy.

~

Met the combi back in HC on friday for a bball (not REALLY bball. ill call it run-and-laugh ball instead) and yong tau foo-cheese prata session. Sigh. the good ol' days.

2005-07-18T23:57:00.000+08:00

im back.

from OBS for the uninformed.

this OBS will be a memorable one. my third visit.
my first was in TCHS - probably quite a screwball cos i don't remember anything more than a few random stills.
my second was Tenzing with council - that was pretty fun cos our group were just outright slackers (with jr, tom kong)
and now,
my third : Tock Seng (T again!) with fellow MOE scholars.

well its all in the group i feel. this statement is especially true for 3 day courses. and boy was i glad i was in Tock Seng with these great bunch of people.

i guess like most people, you will be looking for the Anchor person in a group. Someone you were hoping was in your group from the start and :

i had KLEMENT. haha. ghost of the past really. one of my closest friends in sec. 1 and 2. another caustic sharptongued drama person. but we sorta drifted away when we went to diff classes and then diff jcs later on. and i only realised he was a fellow MOE scholar when i bumped into him for our first meetup session with all our peers. haha. he's as hilarious as ever. and we really didn't take too long to 'get back together'.

Having klement might have been coincidental but i bet having the other 8 people in Tock Seng required a little more luck than that.

When we have groups, you'll always start out wondering :
man. how is this new group going to be like?
And at the end of the day , you end up wondering :
man. how could it have been any other group?
In the case where you're happy with the group of course. And that was exactly how i felt with Tock Seng.
To put it simply, our group was DIFFERENT. and some of you know how much i value distinction. We were the kind of group which doesn't take prep talks or sharing sessions without raising our brows first. We were cynical when witnessing the (over)enthusiasm of other watches : playing retarded games tt i might play if i had e correct company like my class (haha. im a diff person with diff groups). We would give each other ludicrous looks when something absolutely trite ( you know... OBS talk ) has link his personal experience to the leadership model he was trying to teach us with a cheesy line like : " If only i knew the PPP model then, i would have ... "

I know how that makes us sound like some unhappy rebels. But we were the sort that had fun in our own ways! bitching endlessly , insulting each other all the time , klement, J (an RJ guy) and I being the main forces behind all the lets-heck-it decisions.

And how crazy were we?
Given a mahjong paper and crayons, we were supposed to draw about our team goal and motto.
And we ended up stoning for like 5 min looking absolutely tortured. Then i started doodling on the paper and the nxt thing u know we were all vandalising the mahjong paper. The product : a huge rainbow polkadotted mother cow with Horns and Wings thats crashing towards an island and spilling strawberry milk that was dripping into our stick figure instructor's mouth. and all of us were stick figures on the island. (?????~?)
and the cow was called Mooses cos we realised the ocean we drew had a gap in the sea. hehe. i was rolling on the floor w laughter. and our motto ? MOOVE IT. meaning? we had no idea.

We're not the group that bothers to engage in group games in our free time. we'll stone and slack. and bitch. And strangely, this could be the most comfortable position fer me. Not the joymaker when people decide to play group games altho i do enjoy that sometimes.

We're not the group that huddles together at the end of OBS and does sharing.

We don't mingle. We challenge our instructor when he uses the USUAL inspirational tone on us. We do share but only if we want to. We roll our eyes in unison.
We're just a CLOSED group. Noone in. Noone out.

It was a very different experience. When its very apparent that everyone's sorta jaded and unexcited , we don't force ourselves to be enthusiastic. We just chill. Its less tiring really. Im prob one of the least nonchalent ones in the group. But we get stuff done very quickly and we're innovative (not taking tups and groundsheets for camping and just using our ponchos..hehe klement's idea). And we do love our group. No whiny or hyper girls. No act macho or eager to please boys. Just girls that get things done even when the guys werent around. And guys who help because they want to and not cos they have to.
Tock Seng seriously rocks. Love 'em all.

And we did kayaking and a MONSTER height challenge.

Hmm you guys know i get seasick right. But miraculously, i was fine throughout! And i'm so glad that someone was willing to partner me despite the knowledge of my condition. (the others like Klement were OVERTLY EVADING me . e.g. : "ey i want to kayak beside to see you puke later" -_-" so kind >:] )

And my partner was LIANGSI! (yes ml! liangying's sister! she looks exactly like her!)
And liangsi was probably most symbolic of our group. Simply cool. We were (ok i was) highly competitive kayakers who was trying to outrace everyone we saw (ESPECIALLY louis tan who jus kept yakking when we went past him. but somehow he'll leisurely drift past us again. grr. )

it was fun kayaking in the swamps and pitching a tent outside. and doing the quarry jump again and playing spit-the-quarry-water at each other and pee-talk. haha. as i write this, i am smiling to myself as i remember the little details. IT WAS FUN. wow.

Er.. and i am afraid of heights too. (im jus a coward. haha.)
but cos we were so stoned before the height element (after sea ex.) i groggily volutneered to go first and i was spouting so many vulgarities and bitching so much standing on the 3 metre platform supported on a single pole . it was damned scary lar. my legs were just wobbling and my team members were jus laffing and laffing. (another thing bout this group : noone cheers for one another. we just keep shouting : DO THIS LA. LOUSY. )

So oh well, i had fun. altho i think i just readily stepping into the stereotype people usually have of me : Funny and really bitchy and insensitive. haha. I dunno. *shrugs*

Tock Seng.

~

Oh the gig.
:)
I guess it was something that couldn't have turned out badly. I mean, its my first experience so i don't have a standard for how it should be like. But of course, i guess i do hope more people could have turned up. Friends or even better, real customers. I only had 2 friends + 2 customers for my entire gigspan of 45 min. Hmmm.
I wouldn't say i wasn't disappointed but i guess the live singing experience was the highlight of the night. Did songs that i have always wanted to recommend to the public (tts prob why i hoped more people could have turned up).

I was so. SO. S8-)W glad for Melod's and XY's presence.
Its unimaginable if they weren't around. I would have been really upset.
I was quite upset at the start well cos some people couldn't make it. I was really hoping zhao could come cos i knew he really wanted to. And i knew if he could, he would. So don't feel bad zhao. =) I'll pass u dvd version of it. hehe. its like e real thing (just tt u have melod n xy commentating the entire performance. hahhaha~)
Oh i really must thank melod and xy fer coming. they just made Paul and I feel so at ease and totally chased away MY blues. In fact they made me laff so much i was happy all over again. Such hilarious and nice people. And thanks to melod for helping out for recording. WO AI NI , RANG WO QU, WEI ZHI DE REN HE MING YUN! melod showed alot of support for this gig , she said she die also will come de. I also hoped osm, adele and ml were around cos i knew they would love to be around if they were in singapore. Never mind! i'll let you girls know when we have another gig ok!

I think i did pretty well singing. And paul managed (as usual, what's new) to pull everything off on e lousy keyboard. He's really good. I was listening to an intro for one of the songs and i suddenly just remembered why i worshipped him in the past again!

there's the video for each song, lousy sound quality but i guess the feel is more or less there =). have been spending time cutting the clips. wah so tedious when im a techidiot. heh.

~

yay. more than 3 ppl thought my spoken english was good in OBS. =) someone even told me i shouldn't be a chinese teacher. (er i dun get the relevance either but i guess... YAY!) i'll be a bilingual chinese teacher. hehe.

~

I am doing self-reflection.
Hmm.
I AM insensitive.
I speak before i think and i am too used to just saying everything i want to say.
I am incapable of reserving my thoughts.
And as liangsi very poignantly pointed out (did hurt a little tho)
that i commented on everything.
Its very hard to change but i must. So i have to slowly cut down on my impulsive energies. Like how i have a thought in mind and have to get it out to the person regardless of its content. I am lucky most of the time my thoughts are just random insults and lotsa crap.
I know some people prefer me like that cos i can be quite entertaining. but i must have discretion. give me time. i hate it when everyone just thinks im a no-thinking loudmouth (its almost like the male equivalent to a bitch) until they know me better. I should be lucky i can be funny or i would have been stoned to death before i reached 20.
i really lack charm. i have no appeal. seriously.
its not about looking good.
i don't appeal to girls. i don't appeal to guys.
so what. i go to dogs. i know my uncle's dog loves me.
its terrible! why! 20 years in my life and i only have 1 person whoever openly declared she liked me. how unpromising! i must change! i must!
and i'm terrible when it comes to facing the people who i really wanna know. its terrible when you have all the social skills in play with people who don't matter as much. bah.

i wonder why my friends like me. hmm. so odd hor. friends are really hard to come by i guess. im not asking for stupid compliments or ego-boosters hor. please know me better than that. im jus doing self-reflection!

wait. i seriously am bitchy. haha. this is badddd.
lala.
sleeptime!

2005-07-12T17:16:00.000+08:00

i am laying on my belly on new bed. Laying on your belly makes you really warm somehow. I think that's cause our belly and our 'front-er' half our body is used to being exposed to air when we are lying down. I get really warm and i'll actually start sweating even if i am in an aircon room.

But i have to lay on my belly cos i'm using my laptop on my bed.
i could sit up and use it but my mouse and mousepad would not be at the same height and i don't like that.

oh for all of you who don't know yet, i've moved out from home. i'm known as 72 Fang2 Ke4 to my family members cos i moved over to my granddad's place which is only 5 min drive away from my place. No no i didn't run away from home or anything, its just that my brother returned from Sweden and i no longer have his bed anymore. My granny and my maid take my room now and i cannot sleep on di2 lam1s anymore. So i decided to take up this vacant room in my uncle's semi-d. So i'm on my laptop now. IBM T43. I think its cool. Who says black is boring and ugly? Its BLACK - come on. its the most consistent colour ever. Professional and hardy. That's all i need. Remembering what all my friends said bout IBM being ugly.... *sneers* Only kids like white and silvery laptops. Cannot make it. haha.

So i get to stay up to 3 am as and when i want to. Come home at any time i like. Its like a sneak preview for my next four years of overseas' studies. My only concern is whether i spend enough time with my granddad who lives here. I go home almost everyday so don't worry about me not seeing my parents. Weekends are for them too.

It has been quite a mad rush lately. All the MOE ahem... work and preparation for our (paul and me) gig @ muchuan and stuff like laptop claims and files transfer (PC to laptop) and meeting for mahjong sessions and yaterdididdi god knows wat. And what's coming is worse.

This week
Wed(tmr) - gig @ muchuan (not without rehearsing @ 3/4 pm w paul)

Thurs - bringing my cousin keean (yep the cute little rascal) out as i promised (or should i say , "COS i promised" haha. aiya. really a bit busy mah....) i intend to bring him to beach road army market cos he does love army stuff and er... i need to get my solid fuel. (lou> i know u're going to lompang me when u see this. gr.)

Fri - Induction programme ( many. many. talks. and more rehearsals. TIAN ah.)

Saturday - Monday - 3 Day OBS (yes. obs again. don't ask.)

Next week
Tues - Predeparture programme
Wed - MOrE Predeparture programme
Fri - Class outing! yay! 01S21 (zzy> PLEASE REMEM THE DATE) ok but i seriously hope i can make it... i might not cos there might be MOrE rehearsals.
Sat - Cooking classes (part of MOE's predeparture programme)

Ok that's for these 2 weeks.
Now the muchuan gig. I really hope i didn't lose my voice cos i stayed up all night last night for mj at jj's house. (won $9! wooooooo~)
I get real jittery before such stuff, yes yes believe it or not. (contrary to MUILIAN'S belief ... *snarls*) well being song ic for hcjc just made me less stage-frightened (haha. cute term) but still i get all these insecurities (my voice not anything else u nincompoops) before the actual day. i even get nightmares. haha. its quite exaggerating.

I still don't know who i can be expecting besides Melod and Zhao(?) who confirmed they are coming. (thanks babes. melod for being diehard. and zhao for not minding to come down although you gotta fly off in a few hours) Expecting a few "Oh zy, i'm sorry i can't come! i really really want to come...but i really have sth on" or the equivalent. Not that i mind, haha cos i am pretty stressed already. I don't mind cocking up in front of strangers. I wonder if everyone's like that? I think most ppl mind cocking up in front of strangers but i dun give a damn for strangers but i want my friends to have a good time. So if noone comes its good. If people come its good also. Basically im just happy im performing and as yangwen told me once , " Just have fun. " which is true. not going to let all the performance stress get to me but that doesn't mean i can eat durians. I hope mu chuan can find a way to fit in all the guests since there will be a few groups of performers, i'm sure its going to be quite packed with respective supporters/friends. hmm. my extended family might be making a excursion down. (covers face and groan : they get REAL wacky. even more than you kids.)

a month and a week before i leave for shanghai. nothing seems to be setting in yet. not that i am expecting anything. haha. except my grovelling friends with their teary farewells and endless ding1 ning2's from my family. *wink*

-PLEASE DON'T THINK I'M HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!!-
i think people really don't understand! they think that just cos ppl say I can sing, I will want to sing every song! I have preferences too!

Zou Wen Sen (Boon Seng)! ( as i described it to him : its like asking you to direct PCK e musical.)

the person who SABOTAGED me and nominated me with a very innocent straight face saying (in all sincerity) : I think zheng yi can sing.
Its just cruel. I absolutely abhor the song. It is tuneless. the lyrics are bullcrap and i hate singing songs i hate!
this is retribution for all the bitching behind the scenes. (looks sadly at lou)

Okay okay. it isn't THAT bad. it is BAD. but not THAT bad.
cos i'm lucky that my REAL friends (ie not boon seng) like K managed to get another friend to sing with me: T! *smiles spastically at lao po. smiles again. more spastically*

but still. im a grump trump now. i have been dragged into the ... dark side. *mourns*

and on tis topic, its just sad to see people with nice voices who so desperately wants to show their voices off regardless of whether they like the song or not. its distasteful. its an insult to people who like to sing.
so you may be sarah brightman.
but you're singing toxic.
good fer you.

i am drowning in this...
sea of love. (private joke)
(looks at adele and zhao and makes a really sour face)

oooh i better scoot. meeting melody and zhao to watch Sekai No Chushin de, Ai Wo Sakebu THE movie. I love having movie cliques. If only dele was around too. :|

2005-07-04T11:34:00.000+08:00

to all loyal readers of www.yizheng.blogspot.com and random visitors :

I regret to inform you that the www.yizheng.blogspot.com will be closed down after September 1st 2005. This is due to the fact that all blogspot sites are blocked off by the Internet Account i will be subscribing to in China (i have been informed by Zifang jie).

Keeping in contact will be thrice as hard i guess.
It also means i won't be able to access the blogs of the following people :

Boon
LaoPo
Chris
ML
Lou
Ivan
Jolene
Qisheng-er

I should have a "China blog" then. It will be in both languages. I will start one in August and inform everyone accordingly (and DEFINITELY privately).

I shall not be so stupid as to put my name in my blog address anymore. *glares at dennis* :)

Sigh no more photos and su2 songs. :(

Zheng Yi

2005-07-03T12:25:00.000+08:00

An insanely ridiculous argument on MSN i had with baobei on a Sunday morning :

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
i'm a toothpick for king kong lah maybe

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
darling

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
u're REALLY Stupid

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
toothpicks are meant to pick

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
from gaps

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
DOESNT MEAN KING KONG BIG THAN HIS TOOTH GAP IS BIG

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
DEN HOW E HELL WILL THINGS GET STUCK IN THEM?

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
dun be a paris hilton ok

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
king kong big

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
den of course need use BIG toothpick lah

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
fuarkkkkk

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
so of course his teef are big

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
proportionately

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
the gaps will be big wat

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
u r SO STUPID

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
TEETH BIG GAP IS JUST AS SMALL CAN?

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
WHAT ARE U

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
STUPID?

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
if his teeth is big then his gap is like the size of a house

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
DEN WHY WILL FOOD GET STUCK IN HIS TEETH?!

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
CAUSE HE EATS BIG FOOD

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
WAT THE HECK

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
AND HE DOESNT CHEW I SUPPOSE

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
i am SO GOING TO RUN A POLL ON MY BLOG BOUT THIS

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
SO THE BIG FOOD U CHEW LE WIL STIL HAV REMNANTS WAT

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
that is jus out of pt man

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
if u tink king kong is gonna use the same sized toofpicks as US?!

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
NOT SAME LENGTH MAYBE

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
wat maybe, DEFINITELY

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
anf of course it'd b thicker la

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
else he'd jus tbreak it rite

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
NOT MUCH THICKER

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
at most pencil size

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
heehee

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
And KINGKONGS dun use toothpicks

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
*snort*

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
where got use so thin de

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
u're just jealous*snorts back*

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
NONSENSE

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
king kong teef also will itchy de lo

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
so he pick up buildings to use toofpicks

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
dun u watch the shows or cartoonnssss

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
THAT IS ROT.

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
huh huh huhhhhhhhhhhh

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
ROT.

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
ROT ROT .

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
ROT ROT ROT.

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
That is totally ROT.

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
unlesssss

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say
says:
he uses.........

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
. . . . .

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
uh huh

/-\aRo|\| --> insanely sunburnt... but so SPORTS-GASMED!! 2 more camps to go!! says:
WAT

yi : grading parents - raking confucius up from his grave i say says:
Twin Towers or sth with a pointed tip

2005-06-24T12:25:00.000+08:00

Load up on guns and bring your friends.
It's fun to lose and to pretend.
She's overbored and self-assured.
Oh no, I know a dirty word.
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, how low.

I'm worst at what, what I do best
and for this gift I feel blessed.
A little group has always been
and always will be until the end.
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, how low.

With the lights out it's less dangerous.
Here we are now, entertain us.
I feel stupid and contagious.
Here we are now, entertain us.

a mulatto,
an albino,
a mosquito,
my libido.
A denial, a denial, a denial, a denial.

- Tori Amos
Cover of Nirvana's << Smells Like Teen Spirit >> (Crucify [US] 1992)

~

Give me an indie pendant and usual me.
Never in the mood to socialise but
she said her socks were up to her knees
Oh putting your faith in your fags,
they never burn out.
putting your faith in dogs,
they lick your toes.
putting your faith in everything inanimate.
oh don't trust me
i will
disappoint.

- random musing

~

saku-chan. suki yo.
i'm stuck on replay : Track 2 from Seikai no Chushin de, Ai wo Sakebu OST.
oh how low , how low , how low.

Ai-wo-sakebu depression is just terrible. Still didn't manage to make me cry but i had my suan1 liu1 liu1 nose throughout and my heart wrenched and rewrenched.
Yes I watched it the 2nd time along with Adele's 1st and Zhao's 3rd.
Had a vcd marathon at adele's place two days before.
she was bawling from the 5th disc onwards. and she agrees this is the best (jap) drama series she has watched. one more hardcore fan. and when the qian1 jing1 adele joins the club, you find getting the $80 DVD boxset not quite as extravagant anymore.Cos she wants one too. hurray.

i really love adele. throughout the show, staggering her loud sobs, we will turn to one another and start groaning. from time to time , she'll go " oh man. i really can't take it anymore. " and i'll go "wah. crap my heart is damned cheng2 zhong4 (heavy)." Then the two of us will start moaning and tugging at our pillows. She was a riot really, tissues on the right hand (10 used tissues maybe?) and a half-eaten tau sa bao on her left. I bet she was uncoordinated at least once and used the tau sa pao to dab her eyes. haha i really adore adele. AH DIE!!!! SUKI YO!!!

Its S8-)W GOOD* to have her home. (*S8-)W GOOD was invented by paul. Its an expression of lauren's we came up with. The expression she has after she eats something good. its "SOW GOOD" with roll-eyes (typed in msn))

Classic Aunt Jo brand potato salad , our new fad Mochi Icecream (courtesy of jj's recommendation) and her thumbsup Milo Float.
didn't manage to make our teh tarik icecream with the UK icecream maker she got.(she's just qian1 jing1. her house doesn't have what she calls 'inferior tea' (ie lipton) . note: oh well she really is joking, you must know adele humor to not feel offended.)

We had so much fun! Watching Overtime without zhao who was at work. INFERIOR romance drama. oh well but almost all romance dramas are inferior beside (once 'my' now 'our') HAO NAN GUO!-Ai-Wo-Sakebu. Then we stayed up till bout 8 plus am ( i dozed off alot) for our Sakebu. And then slept till 10 . Had 8-) healthy cereal with 8-) skimmed milk for breakfast. (heehee) And met My Melody for KTV at Clementi KBOX. Cool place. Big and quite deserted cos its new. WHICH EXPLAINS WHY WE GOT TO SING AN EXTRA 2 1/2 HOURS AFTER OUR K LUNCH. So it was a good FIVE PLUS HOURS of KTVing.

K-ing with adele,zhao and melody rocks. We are like Lao Ge masters. And although zhao is not as happening, he knows the new songs so i can sing both! Of course i am bao-ka-liao (what-to-do? i'm-jus-zai) Gosh. We were dramatising all our songs, like the Brit Accent for Huang Ying Ying's Hua Yan Qiao Yu , yelling on our chairs for F.I.R. and super emotive deliverance of Purple Rain and Wu Qing De Ni Wu Qing De Yu. Oh and Ai Yu Ai Chou! Ni Shi Wo De Wei Yi! Wan Fang! Wu Qi Xian! Chao Meng! Gosh we did every possible old song man.

Then we headed back along with melod to finish up with Ai Wo Sakebu. Then the crying, the charsiew,tau sar, vege paos her mum got us and mochi icecream (Black Sesame WAN SUI). Although i felt like throwing a vase at melody quite a few times cos she was making IRRITATING COMMENTS at STUPID details. But she still cried. :) Another fan.

Oh and we gave zhao the android his presentS. Ai Wo Sakebu's OST, Ai Wo Sakebu's Original Novel and handDRAWN 100page cartoon book! I keep thinking why we spent so much on him. Zhen de. Jus kua zhang. But oh well, he was really happy with the present so nothing to complain i guess. The two Ai Wo Sakebu products were courtesy of my angelic Boon who 'imported' it back from his japan trip (thanks again bud!) But oh well, both adele and i have got the songs from the OST on the very same day. haha. SO i guess its a gift for all 3 of us. Oh track 2! my tragic instrumental! *collapses*

We are just wu liao and such good friends.
When some STUPID character from the STUPID "Overtime" mentioned :
" There is no such things as good friends between a guy and a girl "
Adele and I were just yelling and protesting. What Rot.
Adele is such a great girl. No i'm not putting her on auction. NOONE SHALL HAVE HER. She is to grow old and happily single with me so i can have high tea with her. and lauren too. Zhao... *thinks* hmmm..... hao la hao la! mian qiang let u join us if u're not the zhong se qing you sort. :)
*blows nose and waves a sad goodbye to adele (leaving for China on tmr)*
AH DIE! SUKI YO!

*sleeptalk*
Yes yes.. pass the salt please... yes i am very fond of Adele...
- adapted from Calvin & Hobbes

~

I haven't been reading or writing for a while. Even my daily dosage of newspaper reading didn't come through. I guess its just all the scholarship mails i'm busy reading and er... discussing with louistan and also all the meeting up i've been doing with ml and adele. and bdays too (zzy's, aaron's , ml's , zhao's)

well the last birthday and the only one i am going to bother with from now onwards till the day i leave sg is fjj's. which is quite coincidentally the most important of the lot i guess. its just going to be an ang pow lor, jian huo, so you don't act shy in front of me le. *roll eyes* Sao bao Zhi Wang.

~

its going to be Fudan, Shanghai most likely. my buddy is Fang-jie. :) how fortunate!

Oh anyway initial D is not too bad. Don't go for plot. Just go for harmless entertainment (quite tickling at times actually) and some pretty fresh editing concepts. Its a very good adaptation i must say, sort of like a movie-cross-jap anime style. Jay can't act for nuts but he is quite endearing in the show. Just being himself i guess. Louistan and i both thot the dubbing was rather bad but oh well, jus make do i guess. can't expect much from Chinese movies anymore (besides Wong Kar Wai and Zhang Yi Mou films).

~

a gambit, an oxford chauffer and a zack.
my my,
my thirst for tractions.

- random musing 2

2005-06-09T19:50:00.000+08:00

托尔斯泰牵着我的手，带我寻找革命式的精神复活；
周国平悼念郭世英，我悼念我那未逢的知己；
余华按着我的头，要我赤裸裸地活着；
我翘了王安亿第三到第九堂课；

章诒和，斯人亦寂寞；
苏童划了我心中的一条香椿街，
我学了毛毛的父亲冲冷水，却仍然是个小资产；
张爱玲的气息闻起来像我永远无法握住的烟；

我上了路，可是哪里都不去，
我读书了。

2005-06-05T10:13:00.000+08:00

I woke up to "Northern Lad" at 10am when i only got to sleep at bout 3am. You know its bad when they both share an 'a' (hey but look on the bright side, imagine them sharing a 'p' instead.)

but waking up to songs. especially hers. you just know today is just going be one of those days : where you wake up in the morning and the morning feels like one of those afternoons in your primary school days where you'll be waiting by the tv for one of those SBC reruns at 3.30pm. so i was trying to get myself back to sleep by shutting my eyes really tight. but the sun's glare leaked from the gaps between my really inadequate curtains. i need wider curtains. or i need to sleep earlier. i think i know the answer.

so apparently i failed to get back to sleep and thus my dream where i was running all around a shopping mall that looked like the inside of ikea-cross-pearlcentre. with my aunt pearlyn. i was trying to find X & Y (Coldplay's Yet to be Released New Album) in all the music shops. almost mistook a glay-coldplay-watzisname compilation as the new album (is there even such a compilation). then tried to scribble my handphone number on a sweet wrapper with a dying pen and passed it to a little kid i held hands with. i tell you, the holding hands bit i blame Gong Li for it. i was watching a China movie which she starred in last night called "Zhou Yu de Huo Che (train)". There was a particular scene that remain etched in my mind. (good material to start off a sandman chapter) It started off with a closeup on two hands holding one another, the arms were stretched out ,tense and you could hear Liang Jia Hui's voice going hastily " Che Shou Ah. Zhou Yu. Kuai Che Shou Ah. (let go) " and he started panicking and begged "Zhou yu! Zhou yu!" And finally you get the big picture : One standing on each rail of a railway track, Zhou Yu (Gong Li) and her lover (Liang Jia Hui) were holding hands, their bodies leaning outwards, the tension in their hands supporting their weight. But there was an oncoming train. And Zhou Yu refused to let go. I would like that still as a poster.

So as i was saying (have i digressed?) , i woke up, decided to quit pretending to sleep and started singing with a mouth full of moths (the before-brush).

"Had a northern lad, well, not exactly had. He moved like the sunset. God, who painted that..."

Do you normal people do that? I hope i'm not really that crazy.

In fact, everyday since 2 weeks before, i have been sitting out 1-3ams ,thinking i don't ever want to sleep and then lying on the bed an hour later , thinking i don't ever want to wake up. So how on earth do i get on my bed,answer: the momentum of convention (Mom-O-Con : physics at its finest) . I think i'm not very concerned with the not-wanting-to-sleep since i am aware of how addicted i am to the process of sitting in front of the pc aimlessly. But of the never-wanting-to-wake-up. Hmm. I almost mistook it as another one of those depression symptoms.

But i realised , that isn't the only change in my life these past 2 weeks. I have been undergoing an internal transformation. (ok external too, i'm starting to wear singlets at home) I realised as i begin to read and write quite intensively, i start to invite a tsunami of knowledge. And its very different from the cramming/schooling days. the main difference is my work being voluntary. Its quite interesting how studying Chinese literature and Studies can trace itself back to General Philosophy. And as i embrace wisdom, I realise the eternal, penultimate question of The Meaning Of Life hits me like never before. What do i wish to attain at the end of my Day. So what if i manage to hold 0.5% of the entire pool of knowledge in the world? or if i become a Professor in a renowned University? or if i publish a few books and teach for life? What is it that i am working towards at the end of the day?

(likechek) Many of us have pondered over this question i am sure. That's why books like The Life of Pi, Sophie's World and HG2G are bestsellers. But to give thought to this seemingly unanswerable question when you have taken a forward step in your life, that is the difference. It is almost as if taking a random bus not knowing where your final destination is but putting faith in the fact that the bus will bring you closer to it. I have been stagnant for the past 20 years and now i moved. It might be only a tremble or just a little bootyshake but i have shifted my feet and i'm on my way.

The seminar i attended yesterday gave me an option for my general direction which i feel could be a very probable choice. but to decide on it would mean leaving my womb of self-centredness and accepting my identity as a mere (another) building block. I will take my time to decide.

I have had it up to my neck with people asking me when i'm leaving. SERIOUSLY. Its the favourite question of the year. in fact of the PAST year. On average i get asked that twice a day i bet. I have the exact same uncle asking me the exact same question in the exact same tone whenEVER i see him. What is this? If you are disinterested then don't ask. If you want to ask, REMEMBER the answer. Its not like i gave you a DATE which you might forget if you are an absentminded unsincere moose. I gave you a MONTH. A FREAKING MONTH. And its already JUNE. I obviously don't look like i'm leaving SOON. SO that leaves FIVE MONTHS for you to choose from and doesn't NOV and DEC sound a little bit too FARAWAY? And all these people like aaron, chek and dunnowat ppl are asking me over and over again, amnesia hitting them everydayy like their dingalongs do. The next non-relative that asks me this question in that seemingly inquiring look will get NO answer. If you're lucky you will witness an incredible "Quadraple Roll Eyes". Make an effort people or at least use your COMMON SENSE to deduce a range of months. (Like if you asked " Oh so you're leaving in August or September right?" , you won't make me hit boiling point right? geez.)

So that's for the bitching. met my quota before 12pm. not bad.

I am adequately satisfied with my life now. Its going somewhere. :)

lihui is my new favourite friend. *shoves away huili and jiabin "go away you 2 had-beens" * she worked with me at my aunt's place. very diligent girl. (and jj asks y i din ask him to. *cough*)

of cos i still adore adele and ml. haha melod you rock! ok ok zhao rox TOO. *mian qiang* melody is a mutual friend, colleague of zhao's , ex-classmate of mine, ex-schoolmate/since-prisch-mate of adele's. a worthy alliance of slackers' inc.

*waves to jean (the singer)* hey!

that's all for now.

2005-05-29T22:13:00.000+08:00

well one of those i'mbloggingforthesakeofblogging blogs.
i've got time to kill. noone in particular i'll like to talk to online. and i'm done with my 3rd story (dennis> yup yup pretty quick huh).

i really intended to sleep early tonight. Really. i swear. (Cross my buns and hot i bite)

but good ol' zzy borrowed his sista's kinokuniya card (which entitles buyers to a not-10-but-TWENTY percent discount on all books. deadline 1st June.) for me so i've gotta go collect it from him in about *checks watch... 30 minutes... its 10:20pm btw*. Normally it'll make me grouchy when my sleeping plans are thwarted but i'm thinking about the delicious books i'll have on my hand by the end of tomorrow. *maniacal grin* thanks good ol' zzy! (very worthwhile isn't it? the tangible 20% discount in exchange for my forgiveness. *evil chuckle*)

well that's the price people have to pay when they STAND ME UP. okay waittt a min.
do you say 'stand me up' or 'stood me up' in this case? but 'stood me up' sounds REALLY wrong. but on the other hand, stand me up sounds either 1) very cheesy or 2) very perverse. uh. nevermind.

on album promotion : please go and get Chen Qi Zhen's compilation album. exceedingly superior pop music. and if you have like $6 petty cash left , skip one of those taka food court meals and get leehom's recent album (C.I.).

on album purchase : still have to get Beck ("GET BACK" hurhurhur. *nudges zhao in beerbellied drunkard sense* punsy.) and Jiang Mei Qi's latest album.

the weekend was awfully long. this is a fresh complaint. you never ever hear anyone say their weekends are too long do u? but yes mine was. i had NOONE asking me out. NOWHERE TO GO [weeps beside jj ,"wo men jiu shi mei ren ai" , jumps up and dances hen-hen-ai]. I basically msn-ed day in day out while doing some writing and read when i had too much of the pc glare. i believe extensive exposure to pc glares can cause migraine and insomnia. i'm having a bit of that now. i'm an addict! *chants* he'saddictedtonicotinepatches

met up the class on friday. erm. okay wait. i met up with yeok hui and muying on friday. [ah... now you know why i got my kinokuniya card. :) ] well its jus GREAT to see yeok n mu again. FOR AGES i tell u. i havent seen yeok for AGES. since like last yr's maf. which is a good 7 mths! even be4 i leave for China. TELL ME WHY I HAVE SUCH FRENS FOR. *grumbles* okay aniwae, its really quite cute to see how we all get together and within 3 min of warmup we turn into JC-mode again. Ridiculous. You should see how muying was 38-ing the NYDC waiter. and not forgetting a stroll by the EspBay and having nostalgia-soaked chats and from time to time, exclamations or sighs along the line of "we're-so-old" and "i-miss-those-days". well said it once and said it again and shall say it as and when i like, those were the best days in my life. [get here - oleta adams plays in the background] awwwwww.

bad weather. flu in recovery. bad skin. skin in intense treatment [ie washing twice a day with my lousy Biore and avoid squeeeeezing pimples. bah.]

WHY the june hols. grumble. i can't go back hc to do my studying. Yu lao shi and Su lao shi are such wonderful ppl :) great teachers. so knowledgable i feel stupid beside them. the gems of hc. who cares bout faculty names sounding like spaceships or the influx of unfamiliar-familiar faces (tchs teachers) in hc. just leave the antiques intact .

hoho. time to go get my card!

2005-05-26T11:45:00.000+08:00

the empire of Torifan is expanding. *glorious laughter*
ok ok,i exaggerated, at least more people are trying to listen to tori.
first there was louis tan who told me she's not bad!
and meiling who told me Mr. Zebra was good!
then adele who agreed to sign a '1-Tori-Song-Sent-to-Her per MSN conversation' contract! (her evaluation was 'she is good.')
also aaron who begged me for 'The Power of Orange Knickers'!
and finally ivan who asked me which tori songs were good to download!

not forgetting zzy and dennis who i THINK i can say i formally introduced tori's music too and turned rather ardent supporters (or should i say believers). :)

first my friends, next the world.

~

i'm down with a slight cold. itchynosed sneezing type beta.
definitely due to the lack of rest and late nights *glares at meiling.. msn conversations till 3:40am... ('i'm kidding!' he attempts to pacify the queen.)*
and the weather has been rather erratic but what's new. its either gloomy cloudy humid ,with threat of rain or bloody hot. So i'm either sweating it out or hiding under umbrellas.

i suspect there's a flu bug out there. cos jiabin, lisheng, ivan and i are all done with a slight cold. i really wonder where these bugs come from when ppl say, "there's a flu bug out there". what. are there hives or something where they anxiously crowd at the exit , anticipating their next attack? or issit jus the accumulation of germs till they exceed health limits?

bah. im grumpy.

~

i've finished writing 2 short stories so far. about 3/4 done with the 3rd but a brainfreeze-cross-mindblock is hindering my path to completion. humph.

well im really glad to have 3 private critics who i'll religiously send my works to and have them comment on it.

there is dennis who i share a surprisingly number of common ideals with.
my darling adele who is always so patient with my nonsense. :) i miss you CU MIAN GU NIANG!
and lastly, my 'xue jie' Zi Fang.

Well i realised i've been a little bit complacent and unheld back when i started calling her xue jie. But after all, she is still going to be my xue jie even if i dun get into Fudan University. She was a fellow LEP-ian in S6 during hcjc times and now my 'xue jie'.

Its really good to have someone who you can approach so forthwithingly regarding issues on anything in the Chinese Field. You are never embarrassed to clarify certain terms specifically used during lit crit. Nor are you afraid of stating what your work intended to deliver across. (despite how sometimes my fang jie will just tell me SPLAT : ' no i didn't get that feeling u wanted. at all. ' ) haha. i'm quite proud of how receptive i am. didn't think i would like it much.

Its always good to have a mentor but even better to have someone who is more or less, on par with you. She'll be very frank in her criticisms (which are sometimes really TO MY FACE) but at the same time, letting you know that both of us have gained from the reading and reviewing.
thanks fang jie!

Learning is a splendid process when you put your heart to it.

to my med friends>
i know you guys are undergoing tremendous stress. it almost sounds like hell.
Sometimes its just impossible to not want to cut out the learning bit and go straight to memory work and 'important' (ie to be tested in exams) details. But remember where your passion lies, look at what's ahead straight in the eye and simply take everything in. Stay focused guys/gers! U can do it. hols are a week away!

~

hmm is the whoring of emotions superior (morally) to the whoring of your body?
Or is it worse?

i really don't know. something to ponder on.

~

i finished my Heavens' Coin 1 VCD Series.
Now that i remembered the ending (watched it before in xiamen),
i wonder why they had to spoil everything with a part 2 (which i watched before).
Despite the fact that Noriko Sakai looked much better in part 2 and the storyline was so much more heart-wrenching,
i still feel that there is NO reason to kill that little ideal where the chi1 xin1 guy gets to accompany the girl he loves forever.

Anyway. i love my Main Pic. Took it on the hill of Gothemburg.
I know i've told many of my friends this before (or they know it already) but i'm gonna say it again :

The guy in the photo was wrapping the girl up in a blanket and cooing this Swedish folksong-like thingy to her in the cold hilly winds.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

2005-05-14T02:49:00.000+08:00

OH. this is going to be SUCH A LONG BLOG.
so if you are just browsing through, don't bother.
this entry requires focus as respect towards my organised sanity. :)

~

i haven't been blogging for a month. when i realised people rely on my blog to know if i am back home in singapore (smiles to zzy), it sorta gave a nudge of obligation. to be honest, i haven't been feeling quite bloggie these few days because i am reserving my writing impulses for 'proper' work like my short stories. bah. don't ask.

i blog as i like. so this blog might disappoint friends who wish to know more about my Sweden-Czech trip. i have my photos ready tho. on ofotos.com . contact me personally to know how to access them directly from my account because i don't want to send it to everyone on my mailing list nor look up a bunch of email adds. okay? okay.

~

i am nothing if i don't have my words.
words are my weapon, my fences, my poison and my medal.
i live and suffer for my words. I pride myself for my words.

Like how Li An once said, "Besides making movies, i know nothing else." , Su Tong also said, "I have no options besides writing (for a living)." I hope I could say that to myself one day. Of course they do not mean it literally, but the statement claims an absolute. I'll rather call them completely confident and assured of their talents than call them humble. In fact , in a way, we know they are very proud of this solitary skill.

Words, whether in speech or in script, are almighty. It is the most fundamental and crucial element of communication. As i was telling dennis that day, it is not a 'talent' to be able to express yourself in writing or in speech, but a necessity.

Like how i could ask two different people the same question, "how's the movie?" and one could tell me "nice" and leave me with so much room for imagination (unwelcomed) while the other could give me a little bit more,maybe a two worded answer like "engaging throughout" and give me a whole new impression of the movie. Its as simple as that. Or it could be as complex as explaining your ambitions, your concepts, your feelings to people and not know if the final 'product' in the recipient's (reader or listener) mind is ANYWHERE near your actual thoughts. And communication is basic.

I know i am not (yet) a glorious writer, the one who propagates seeds of his own opinions , his own fantasies or his own observations in his readers' hearts. I hope i do become one. But i am a very serious speaker and writer. From my sms-es to my msn messages to my emails to my blogs, to my diaries and stories and day to day conversations, i play with words. Its a marvellous process really. How one chooses his/her words. It is awfully unbecoming (in my opinion, distasteful) if people use words that they don't mean. I get that sometimes and i am always hasty to ask for the correct definition of the word from the person who kindly corrects me. But of course not everyone shares this passion of accurate deliverance and weighing your words all the time.

But for us:
First we pan through our vocabulary lists in our minds. We choose words. We juggle their definitions along with their usual interpretations. And sometimes, like for my case, i know certain friends will interpret "STUPID" and "stupid" and "stoooopid" differently. And i will try to use the most appropriate word in THIS situation with THIS person. Not forgetting irony and sarcasm, exaggeration and humor. Wit is a speared expression. Far more poignant and eager to impress. But it might lose some sincerity along the way. Its all very exciting and complex.

I love talking. I love writing. Like how you write an expression, a phrase , of choosing 'absolutely' instead of 'completely' or 'relatively' instead of 'comparatively' and feel good about it! (i'm not very good at english that's why. all these words are very blurred so i get excited at knowing what they really can mean) That is the writers' simplest form of satisfaction from writing. and speaking of cos.

I make it sound very intentional don't i? haha. Writing maybe but so much talking has to be done to get through a day (especially for a doomed loudmouth like myself) i take shortcuts along the way but i make it a point to only say What I Feel or say What I Mean. The former is sincere and 'real'. The latter, To get what i want. I shan't elaborate. This isn't a thesis on communication. hehe.

Like why i love Tori Amos. I know i sound totally infatuated with her and all my friends probably do not understand nor think they need to understand why. But a large part of it is for her lyrics. If she could be coherent and less random (i picked the word 'random' up from Adele who inspires me so much with her cleverness), she would make a gifted writer.

I quote "Alice blue blossoms". Its my favourite.
Immediately, we see a Colour. In its specific shade. Its just .... clever.
Alice blue = the colour of Alice's dress in Alice in Wonderland. i was amazed.
a name + a colour that gives the reader instant visualisation.

or " i've been looking for a saviour on these dirty streets. looking for a saviour beneath these dirty sheets" which could mean nothing to most of us, but had such power and punch that i was clinging to it for life when i was at the edge.

or " i am alone in this kiss "

or " maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen "

It doesn't always have to mean SOMETHING. It just has to make you feel and see and associate. While tori fans have had such fun deciphering her language and condemning those who have made references which they disagree with, i feel that her lyrics is more of a buffet. Take what you want. There's always something for someone. But sometimes we need the references for indepth understanding of her music. Because remember, her music was meant to express her thoughts OVER to us . And i'm sure she hoped it was 'accurate' . :) Communication is everrrrywhere.

I love innovative language. I hate cliches. Its a shortcoming. I remember this saying (yo ml!) "cliches are cliches because they are true" but i'm so obsessed with uniqueness that i cannot stand anything that's been said before. I am very sensitive to repeated characters in chi lyrics or poems. I don't like it when tori reuses a word in any of her lyrics. Its a bad point. The true spirit of accuracy of expression is to use the ONLY WORD. but i'm still figuring out if there is always ONLY 1 WORD out there for every scenario. Like how big and huge and enormous and massive , meagre and minute and tiny and small and eensy weensy could never substitute one another.

I'm a bit random when it comes to talking. haha. but i never use words in vain. I don't use 'duh', 'nvm', 'uh huh' , 'oh' , '!' or '?' in vain. Seriously. I'm so obsessive with expression that if u see me type when im in concentration, i could be pondering over the use of 'haha' or 'heehee' or 'heh' in my msn conversations! it all means sth different! i'm weird. I plan my sms-es as far as i can. Hoping to light up the receiver's life a bit. Its so boring to receive "how are you", " where to meet? " , "i'll be late" all the time (:P to the last phrase) isn't it? I make an effort to colour my smses.

Hidden meanings are like treasures. That is why i love talking to adele from the very first day i shared a bus ride home with her. Hidden meanings accentuate intentions. Putting something in between the lines and letting someone find it makes people put their attention on the thing they found. Its jus natural to appreciate something you put effort into realising. Perfectly normal. Compare" You know i don't like it when you say that. " and "Dun say that". There is so much more intimacy in the former. Its an ART really. Like how i'll say the former to a fren who threatens real suicide and use the latter on someone who is grumbling about small issues and jus needs to whine and threatens 'fake' suicide. U could add a la to both and see how it totally warps the initial meaning of the phrases. Its so fun. I could write a book on all these. Make an effort to design your words. Msn and blogging and smses are not realtime so its good practice for me. Its not fake to design, its just bothering to get a message across in one piece , unaltered.

i'm always glad to hear lihui say that she likes reading my blogs because she knows i have a way with my words. (thanks lao sai hui. LOL. join the CLUB!) And i must be honest, i do use words to my advantage, either manipulate or propel people towards or away from me. Everyone does, its just how effective they are.

But its always important that you recipient, your reader, your listener understands that you HAVE been powering your expressions. Most people don't during casual talk. They don't notice that you chose to say " YAY!" instead of "okay! thanks!" when they ask you to a party or sth. Or maybe they do. I dunno. haha. I'm really sensitive with words . Fortunately i don't have overly blunt friends.

YAY. i've been wanting to say all these for a looong time. haha. I'm sorry it might be seem totally duh to some of you, but to a few of my buds, i think this can come in quite useful.

~

i love this quote i got from julie's nick
it reads

"its not just rainbows and butterflies,
its compromise."

to my friends out there who dwell on their singlehood : another insight to the world of relationships.

~

Had a really really good chat with Dennis yesterday afternoon at Sun Moulin. Of course i did most of the talking. He is just so humble when expressing himself.

I managed to voice out alot of my random thoughts on society and filtered them a bit. I never had a coherent, full argument on this issue and yesterday was probably my first breakthrough.

I decided that our root problem is , i quote this retired associate Professor i met on the bus,

" This society is too materialistic now (to pay attention to things like .... *gestures to me* literature) ... "

And seriously, some of these words like 'materialistic world' have been so overused, that people no longer pay attention to them any more. People overlook this phrase in arguments or complaints. They underestimate or simply ignore the effects of materialism (just to quote one of the many words).

You do not understand the kind of fear and awe i felt when i heard the old man say the above in the bus.

Revolution is never dead in my heart. Death in Sandman once said, "Change or be dead."

I quote a phrase from a book i read (loosely translated)
" Intellectuals ( Zhi1 Shi4 Fen4 Zi3 ) can never be satisfied with their environment and that is what keeps a society advancing "

Of course i don't think i am an intellectual (yet) . I lack the courage of a revolutionist and the education and discipline and many many other elements. But i cannot see myself going down the path that so many others walked. I cannot see myself functional in a huge materialistic and metallic rodentwheel. There are so many dreams i have , so many dreams i need to discover. Its reward enough just to be chasing after them. Fulfilling them is only an added bonus.

I expressed alot of these airy views in general and also in detail during my chat with dennis. It was quite engaging really.

But i look around sometimes and i wonder,
am i strong enough?
i realised i have to keep my material wanting constantly awake and indulge in it, because without it,
i think and see too much for my own good.

to qisheng : i have to talk to you soon. i am feeling unsettled.

to dennis : upon further thought, my conclusion at this stage is,
move out or be normalised.

~

I can not tell you how much i wish everyone read.
and for those who read,
i can not tell you how much more i wish everyone could go read chinese literature.

then i would tell you to go read
Zui Hou de Gui Zu.

~

Once i was a child,
i would say,
"this world is so cruel. its materialistic and superficial."
People would only see the angst. The words would fall flat. They say,
"Angry youth. I was there once. it'll go away. "
Some would say,
"They haven't even grown up. You haven't even seen the world."
or
"That's life."

But now when i say
"this world is materialistic and superficial."
I hope you can see that i mean what i say,
see "materialistic"
in its definition in the dictionary,
in your unpresumptious understanding of its implications and associations,
in its totality.

~

I know soon to be doctors. i know real doctors. i know managing directors. i know housewives. i know the unemployed. i know cashiers. i know waiters. i know students. i know singers.

for anyone who is about to go into the arts,
be the best or be the rest.

its as tough as it sounds. i don't want to be the unaccomplished writer. i will rather be a... typist. (i cannot name my 2 most dreaded professions here for political correctness, dennis)

They always have use for the top engineer, the not so smart engineer and the E grade engineer. But there's no room for an E-grade writer. And lets not fool ourselves, there are still standards around here, the readers and the WRITERS know better.

~

such proper thoughts. haha. i miss this kind of drive.
yay. sorry this is so long. hope you survived.
good night!

allnightlong : Tori Amos' " From the Choirgirl's Hotel "

2005-04-17T11:10:00.000+08:00

hoi.
i'm leaving for Sweden tomorrow with Mom. Will be there till 8th May.
probably spending 2 weeks in the town but brother is studying in (NUS Engineering SEP). maybe some weekend travelling. Dad will be joining us in the last week to Prague, Czech Rep and Stockholm, Sweden. Might go Amsterdam. don't have much expectations of this trip, not that i'm not looking forward to it, but there isn't the avid anticipation either. i concluded the root reason being the expenditure. of cos its fully sponsored by my parents but i'm miserly by nature so i don't really like the inability to splurge like how i do in HK and China. McDonalds for $13! Haircut for $60! eeps. But hmmm, i realised that if the trip was to Japan (probably just as expensive) i would be reallllly excited. haha. maybe i'm pro-Asian-travelling.

it has been a good 3-4 weeks since i last blogged. What have i been busy with really? Nothing quite concrete except for a short story (yes. in chinese. *pacifies the traumatised jb*) i hope i can finish before May in Sweden. It was actually written for some short story competition zhao told me about but now its really just for my personal satisfaction. about half-done. might post it up online when its done. :) do support. sigh. i just woke up at junjie's house (stayed over) and i had a dream that i had two short stories published in Lianhe Zaobao (a little dream of mine. :| ) and one of them was actually some primary sch essay i have no recollection of. hahaha.

i have been working too. i think all the ppl who read my blog knows tt. (i'm so lacklustre today. jus woke up and a little stoned. not exactly bloggie.) Hmm. i finished up my job. Well towards the last few days, i got a bit more indispensible. Cos they needed a MAN (smirk) to assist one of my colleagues in overseeing the renovation and setting up of the new office. Of course i was made to do physical labour like moving cartons from here to there etc. But mainly i did alot of the liasion with the CONTRACTORS. haha i'm so proud of myself! i'll talk in a very jiang1 hu2 way with the contractors, trying to negotiate prices and explain the blueprints. tsk tsk. i'm jus cool la. haha. one of the sub-contractors even CALLED me at night to inform me of a lack of supply of fluorescent tubes . of cos... without flinching.... spontaneous , composed and calm... i jus said, " Hey Sim ar, no problem , tomorrow i'll inform my boss to get the replacements and attach it. Sorry for the inconvenience . " hahahha. i'm GOOD. i really like having REAL work to do, i like feeling important and operationally-necessary. Not like those days where i was made to search for games on my boss'(my aunt) N-gage for her son (my cousin Ryan la) during office hours. *lowers head in shame*

had the long-anticipated ktv session yesterday. WEeeellll it was long-anticipated cos PEOPLE were pang-seh-ing me ALL THE TIME. *slit-eyed look* had to have it without jb and lihui (actually not that we HAD TO HAVE IT la... but since its post-CAs for the girls and i'm flying off, we couldn't wait till after my trip). But no problem, we'll go as our original 6 again after i'm back! :) WE were supposed to go as the original 6 at first cos we received a card that waived our cover charges during our previous session (the boss was just nice. Cash studio at Apollo Centre really rox! he gave us the card jus cos the customers right before our timeslot hogged onto the room a bit later than expected. ) THIS WAS THE MOST EXHAUSTING KTV SESSION EVER. We did 90% fast songs which just means we HAD TO STAND most of the time. we were flying around the room dancing during Shen Qi (ok me n jj only la) or hopping on the sofa seats during Ni De Wei Xiao. We were like on drugs. So shu2. noone can be shu2-er than me n mi frens. U GUYS ARE SO SHU2! *sneers*

(wah lau. how can Sweden be 0-6 Deg C!! its like bloody end of spring, isn't it? or is it summer? i dunno la! i just know it sucks. It had better snow! If i'm going thru the bitter cold, i might as well get to see my first snow! *Does a Calvin impression as he curses the skies outside his bro's hostel in sweden*)

Instead of having to be politically correct or intentionally subtle in my blog, i've decided to jus steer away from saying anything that might give the losers out there a chance to file complaints up to MOE. QS (under identity protection) informed me of a PRC scholar who had to make a public apology for R remarks on his blog which were spotted by people who have nothing better to do but sift thru scholar blogs so they can go "AHA!" and then happily open their Letter of Complaint.doc format in MS Word and print it with the full details and run down to the respective organisations to make a HUGE issue over sth that was meant to be private. Hello. We are scholars not saints. And if freedom of speech isn't even allowed over blogs which we could make entirely anonymous if we BOTHERED to, i cannot imagine where else we can just blurt out anything on our minds. Or has getting a scholarship robbed us of our right to have a definite stand over any controversial issue? I am very afraid. I request all my blog readers who have their personal blogs to DELETE ANY LINKS TO MY BLOG to reduce the chances of nosey parkers , no life-rs from accessing my blog. Oh ya, and never mention my name please. Use either Yi or ZY. Anyway, i might be shifting my blog to another address. stay tuned.

( Can u imagine? After the publication of this piece of news, how many more of these weirdos would be jumping from their seats squealing in glee, screaming, " YOU MEAN WE CAN ACCESS ANON. BLOGS and "PROOF-READ" THEIR BLOGS AND HOPEFULLY GET A CHANCE TO GET THEM DOWN!?!?! WIPPPEEE! LIFE ROX AFTER ALL!! " )

Suddenly i dun feel that liberated after my ORD.

Ok anw, on a lighter note,
i bought Cheer Chen Qi Zhen and Wang Lee Hom's album. Okay the former was something i have been waiting for a long long time and didn't disappoint. Its a compilation and a good one at that. Its really hard to find her albums anymore so a compilation came on very good timing. Leehom. hmmm. bought it cos it was C-I-ed and i already like 4 songs on it. :)

Tori Amos still rocks my world. I realised my fav. album of hers might just be To Venus and Back. extraordinary. This woman IS a genius. Have been listening to Lin Yi Feng too. I like this chap's voice. But im handicapped in Cantonese so i dun get the lyrics, and if i dun get lyrics, i can't really love the songs. I'm a very lit person. Words words words. At least of a familiar language. Like when tori and jay sings i dun get shit but i can make sense of it here and there. good enough. Penny's album isn't too bad (er..yea i bought C-I of it too), nai4 ting1. But nth really exciting jus doing what she is good at over again. I'm going to get Beck's latest album. ( QS> u have any idea how it is? ) FIR's album isn't up to my expectations. Worse lyrics as compared to the prev. album. And the prev. album's ones were really average already. And i dun really get the attention on the 'unique instruments' in use! cos i really dun think they blend? haha. i dunno. i'll give it a few more chances for zhao and zzy's review. :P

i really miss a-die. :( i really love the msn conversations with her. we're both so random and spontaneous. We'll be like testing each other on Jin Yung dialogues " by who and where and why? " or having quizzes of Dou4 Yu2 or exchanging jap dorama cliches. haha. she is my fav. msn chatter up till now. :) JIA YOU EVERYONE ELSE. haha. And when zhao joins us, we'll jus start making airy fairy unrealistic plans of our vcd chalet which are so hilarious that i saved the conversations ( i never do )! We'll all be talking bout totally random stuff! We'll be saying our own things, poking fun at zhao a bit den the other 2 gangs up against me den zhao and i start insulting a-die's internet connexion! hahaha. i miss us 3 together. HURRY BACK A-DIE!We're going to have (ok we PLAN to have) a one-week-VCD-recluse where we try to finish my 40-episodes of She Diao Ying Xiong Zhuan and maybe a few good jap films (OF COS AI WO SAKEBU!) and go for other activities like our KTV sessions, maybe picnics and jap-dorama-wannabe filming. Ok... all these IF zhao manages to get leave. *PRESSURE*

i dun care bout OSM le. she's been reduced to a ONLINE friend. *snorts* heehee.

i really can't wait to see what kind of long-distance-friend i become. i hope i'm not too heartless. nor too dependant (and spend hours on msn). :)

My ideal sweden trip :
Wake up at 9 everyday. Take a nice walk round neighbourhood. Do some grocery shopping. Sometimes with my mom, sometimes alone. Go back do some reading or writing. Den have lunch. Den go for some town exploration or IKEA shopping on a bike. Come home for dinner and continue with reading and writing. MSN anytime during 9-11pm equivalent singapore time on alternate days to catch up with u local darlings :). During weekends we'll go travelling round nearby cities and places. And hopefully i get to see snow and wear my nice winterwear. I will take many many photos and save them into my mp3 player. :) See! I'm so simple! i Dun even CARE if i stay in a little town. ooh i hope i get to cook a few meals and meet a few swedish friends and drink my fill on cold nights to warm up.

Okay people , till i'm back or when i'm bored at my bro's place. Take care please. :)

2005-03-29T10:51:00.000+08:00

i'm back from HK everyone!
* to this imaginary fanatic friends who miss him like shit *
awww. dun EXAGGERATE. it was just a few days! i bet u dun mean THAT!

anyway.

i love hk. for its weather. for factory outlets. for dun nai (boiled milk dessert). for bo lo bao (maxim's). for good-looking and fashionable locals. for siu yok (roasted meat). for the yumcha-ing (breakfast dim sum). for cantonese (its such a smooth dialect. unlike the uncouth hokkien. *sneers*). for their HMV! (what a paradise. every dvd,vcd under the sun is there: even sex and the city and QAF.)

but other than that, hk is just a grey, crowded and foggy place.
i wun recommend it for a holiday spot unless you count a prolonged shopping spree staggered with good food as a holiday. but i won't mind living there though. but my apartment had better be near/on Victoria's Peak and spacious. Not those in Mongkok which are dilipitated and cramped. i think hk seriously needs two things, a MAJOR paint-over (every wall is grey (was white) and the paints are always peeling) and singapore's traffic/road system.

went to lan kwai fong. man. clubbers here can jus go to hell. its damned funky there la! imagine a sloping alley with clubs of all shapes and sizes and entirely different concepts on both sides of the road! expats and rich locals! cool weather so you can sit outside and get a drink or two! no underaged, brutish ah bengs. no blame-the-weather sloppily dressed slobs. no sweat.

i bought alot of things. spent bout $300 in total. Sing !!
excluding dinner cos i was treated most of the time. excluding airfare and lodging at my FIVE STAR ROYAL PLAZA (mu.ha.ha.ha.ha.). hmm. i think these pair of shirts i bought at AUTHENTIC ESPIRIT contributed alot to it. wrong choice. cos i didn't think i would find so much good stuff at the outlets at Fa Yun Kai the very next day. DANG.

but here are my trophies.

obviously not of all of the above are MY stuff. i got 3 tees, 1 shirt, 1 jacket, 1 cd, 2 vcds (to jj : MY HUO ZHE VCD!!!!! hahahhhahaha we no need to walk the entire singpaore le!) , 2 keychains, 1 mousepad. and the rest are gifts.

lalala. i realised i like shopping. its brainless. and you jus feel damned good after all the retail therapy. and what is better than some tong sui (dessert) when u need a break.

i din wanna come back to stuffy, hot ol' singapore. i'll avoid the streets these few days. i can't bear the weather and the ugly people.

heh.

~

Okay.
Ren Zhen = Mei Li.

I deduced this equation when i was having my usual good time with my mp3 player.
I saw the mtv for Hitomi Ni Tojite and Ken Hirai is really quite a gem. He looks serious bout his work even when he is pretending to look all shen1 qing2. and surprise, this chap actually looks pretty good. i thought he disallowed web photos of his cos he was mutated or sth. but he looks cool. YAY. i like the concept of my idols having good looks cos it just proves that its possible to have both shi2 li4 and wai4 mao4.

Now i'm just listening to these songs over and over again :
1) Damien Rice's B Sides
I tell you this guy is remarkable. His live could totally masquerade as a recording. and his b-sides are on par with the actual 'O' album. i can't tell you how much i recommend this album for people who just need to buy something to listen to. Tori i can't cos she is undebatably (is there such a word? LOUIS TAN!) alternative and i'll rather people not know her then misunderstand her.

2) Tori's The Beekeeper
Its as sure as the sun rises each freaking day of our lives : Tori's music WILL grow on you. Remember i commented how this album was much milder and conventional. i stand corrected. Its unbelivable how certain tunes can come out from her head and i can only churn out cheesy chinese pop-alike stuff. dang. and her vocal arrangements (whatever you call the harmonies) are more geared up than ever to secure the fact that this lady has a thrash-the-divas voice. powerhouse can just scurry away now.

3) John Legend's Get Lifted
ok i remember giving incorrect reviews for this. he isn't more traditional. he is just less electronic. i was fooled by the first impresion. He uses stuff like trumpets for an entire song. what a delight. i think Alicia has met her match. And his songs are fun to sing. and i don't mean sing-a-long like S.H.E.

4) Jazz - random singers, random songs
i think buble is just normal after i heard diana. its quite hard to explain since i've not been a very avid jazz listener. but somehow (timid to express his shallow thots on jazz) i feel buble has less of the jazz spirit. and norah jones is jus more lazy, country loungey. she's not bad too. i thot i din like her. but i still like diana krall best. :) i hope i can give more indepth reviews after i get more acquainted to the genre.

5) S.H.E's Wo Ai Ni.
Watch out Superstar. U are going to get dethroned from 'All Time Fav. S.H.E. song" soon. I wonder how i can do tori right after S.H.E. i wonder what tori has to say bout this. hah.

6) Ken Hirai's SentimentaLovers
This album has been in my player ever since it came out. Its more for his hit-the-sky vocals.

Now i must start focusing on work. i realise how a person just glows when he/she is focused and aflame with passion. and sitting down in front of ur pc 24-7 on msn toking crap (oooh, talking crap w dele n zhao rox!!! 4 saved conversations. i never used to save my conversations. but i laffed so hard this time round i had to. i'll be putting them up for sale soon. the conversations i mean.)

~

still din get to find my sekai....ai wo sakebu dvd box set , ost or poster. not in hk either. so i guess i have to splurge once again. and order it online. *gulp*

2005-03-23T17:01:00.000+08:00

i'm back!
i didn't plan to blog but i've got 25 min until i knock off and i have absolutely nothing to do. okay if i were to go do stuff like refill paper in the photostating machines i would have something to do. BUT i need to stay by my reception counter cos i'm waiting for my Speedpost guy to come collect my package. Just a glimpse into my exciting life as a errand-runner/office boy/receptionist/operations clerk/boss' PA. teehee.

so i'm popping these HUGE, CRUNCHY, DELICABLE (is there such a word? louis tan!) $10/kg, GREEN grapes into my mouth ( fyi : i bought it myself *for all u presumptious tramps*) as i type this. The only reason why i churn out the slacking details from my worklife instead of my experience of having 4 hours of continuous work multitasking (picking up phone calls, filing, issuing delivery orders etc) IS because i dun like to whine. i prefer to brag. hahaha. and all u people who prefer to think i'm living off my aunt's boss status can be DAMNED RIGHT for alllll i care. haha. as long as i get my money without the guilt. *snorts*

O! B! N! O! X! I! O! U! S!
WHAT'S THAT?! OBNOXIOUS!
WHO'S THAT?! ME!
WHO CARES?! I DON'T!

(oh the speedpost guy jus came. done. ahhh. a day's work done. feels goood.)

okay. i'm going HK on friday.
surprised at how last minute this is? I AM TOO.
its ridiculous.
i refused a trip when my aunt asked me if i wanted to go. (cos too last minute to do my excuse recall forms etc.)
she said 'ok'. (which i assumed meant i successfully rejected her)
then she called again at night and told me she booked the trip.

!

yes. exactly. exclamation mark. her reason being (to my other aunt) : he really wants to go, i know it.
okayyyyy. works for the hedonist society maybe. but i am in the ARMY.
so scurry scurry. rush rush. got the documentation done.
it gave me a major adrenaline rush (plus the ai wo sakebu chat i had with zhao and dele which made me really happy for that whole night. i was unreasonably nice to everyone on msn.)

so the thing is im going HK. im not getting anything cos its only fm friday noon till sunday noon. which is really short. :)

my MAIN agenda is sakebu-related.
According to zhao, the movie is still showing there! can u imagine! if i could SIT in the theatre and watch the movie?! orgasmic. zhao and i are quits if i manage to watch it since he has had the liberty to rewatch the show again cos he hold the vcd. dang. AND i am looking for the special DVD box set or any posters of the series.
YAY. i am officially obsessed with the show.
My life is glorious all over again.
I like being crazy over seemingly trivial things. it makes feeling happy so much easier. and any sadness in my life is comparatively insignificant to the tragedy of Saku and Aki. *drama look* haha.

bought John Legend's album. Its good. :) Comparable to Alicia. Tho i probably prefer alicia for her more daring attempts during composition and groove. And i like her voice much much better. John's more classic. More sway. More big black women singing background kinda feel. Not gospel like. Just traditional and being good with the basics. That is for how much i know about R&B. its not really my genre.

Wo Ai Ni. Rang Wo Qu.
Wei Zhi De
Ren He Ming Yun ! *pained look*
heheee
okay i gotta knock off. tatz.

2005-03-19T16:10:00.000+08:00

**revised**
Sekai
No Chushin De,

Ai Wo
Sakebu

(At the centre of the world, I cried out for love)

Saku.
Aki.
Doushitte. Doushitte leizou no kokoro kara, mata ai wo sakebu.

Zhao and i finished the Japanese Drama series " Sekai No Chushin De, Ai Wo Sakebu ". Its been a long time since i last finished an entire jap series. My last one was probably Hitotsu Yane No Shita (for the sixth time). In fact, i haven't 'followed' tv programmes since forever.

I think zhao and i will have disputes on whether this show counts as a tragedy or not. But that depends if on what you feel about (during) the ending. And in this show, the ending is probably the least important. both zhao and i loved the movie. it comes a close second behind my all time fav. It is a love story. And love stories being love stories, are nothing but a compound of cliches and twists. This show had them all but it is different.

The mood is set from the start; the cards laid : she will die. the lovers will be separated. there will be pain. and you would be expected to cry. No surprises. No shock. And as Saku recalls the past (17 years ago), you find yourself walking beside him and as he tries to forget her, somehow, i was trying to forget her too. The show calls for our empathy. Of course it isn't your average real-life relationship, but you will feel for the characters, and you will feel their pain, the bittersweetness of youth, the torment of losing the love of your life. It was not only once when i asked myself : what will i do if i lost someone i really loved? will i be able to forget then? will i be able to live with it? And you find yourselves asking the precise questions that the male lead asked himself, by then, its too late : you have been won over.

Each scene. Each still. Each dialogue. Every detail seemed to have its significance in intensifying the element of tragedy in his loss. Its a series with a clear theme and that is VERY rare: We deal with losses. Big losses. How do we survive them? How can we live on? I do not take these messages for its positive educational value (jus typically me) but delight in the means they were delivered to the audience : swimming in the despair of the male lead and the helplessness of those around the dying girl.

Its your typical sick girl who eventually dies. I have no interest in the usual conflicts that surface during the treatment of her illness but was overwhelmed by the desperation of those who loved her. Saku in the future, still haunted by the past, knowing not what to do to escape from his agony. Saku in the past, her ashes in his clenched fist, breaking down on top of the majestic red moutain of Ululu. Realistic and fantasical at the same time.

A wonderful cast. Character shaping was more or less complete, zhao and i especially liked the fact that the parents' in this series were not "archtype" (courtesy of zhao). Filmography was a treat. I felt like i was watching a movie sometimes : with stills of objects lingering at the end of a scene. Zooming off from the leads to make them but a part of a breath-taking scenery. And speaking of scenery, this show has a fantabulous setting. Small town by the sea. Automobiles were only seen 3 times in the entire series. Managed to produce an 80s effect, it felt alot like walking through a time tunnel. zhao and i feel like planning a trip down to that little town.

Cheers to the scripting. It was positively delightful. How smooth the transition was, from past to present and vice versa, not only physically but also emotionally. I felt like i was in Saku's mind all along, accompanying him in this reminiscence. like how an item from the 'past' will be introduced at the beginning of the 'present' by old Saku and very appropriately appear again in the 'past' with young Saku towards the later half of each episode. It felt coherent. It felt complete.

Acting was tops. From the leads to their 'parents' to their 'friends'. Everyone managed to make their characters unique even if their personality weren't allowed to fully develop. Music was fine, suited the movie, giving it the old feel. Theme song's not too bad.

Many a times i could feel my nose getting all scrungy and my eyes getting damp but maybe cos i was too sleepy, the tear ducts weren't working well. damned. it has the potential to be a A-grade tearjerker.

Seriously recommend this. *thumbs up*

P.S.
Zhao and i started watching from bout 8.30 all the way till 3.45 am. Slept till 8.20. Started at 8.45 or so and finished at bout 11. I love vcd marathons. But it kills my body. And i decided not to go find xiang xiang. :(
Seikai no chushin de, xiang xiang wo sakebu. :)

~~

At 11:35 pm on the same day :

crap. this is an addition to the post.
i am stuck in the show. dang. i can't seem to get it out of my head.
its like being one of their friends in the series.
and my heart is being wrenched over and over again.
I NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS VIRTUAL REALITY.

i think i'm getting the dvd. i want posters too. Zhao is probably getting a picturebook if there is. We're gonna be the chairmen of Sakebu Club.

If you need to have drama in your life and real relationships are much too unfulfilling and troublesome, please go get this series.

while i attempt to recover from my post-sakebu-lovelorn phase. urgh.

2005-03-18T10:32:00.000+08:00

" i never thought this day would come.
where i'll be paid to
blog. "

It's exasperating to idle. I WANT to do WORK when i'm SUPPOSED to be "working".
Don't envy me. I don't like this.

~

Ok this is a DESPERATE call for help.

(yay! i was just asked to string up some files. now i have work! but i'm too efficient. *in mock resignation* i finish what i have so quickly that i'm idle again. *SIGH* and my superiors will look so traumatised cos they have to 'find' some work for me again. oh. what. woe.) (i can be such an asshole without even trying hard.)

Okay my knees are killing me. ANYONE who has any recommendations for doctors, please leave the address or contact no. in my comments page.

Western or Chinese. i'm willing to go as far as witch doctors and even drink tailsman ash. I have condemned NUH's specialists and physiotherapists. 3 DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS (even after an MRI scan and xray) which include : 1) My leg being totally fine with an unlikely but still probable tear in my ligament which should 'heal by itself' and recommendations to go back to running ; 2) A fusion of 3 different problems in 3 different areas : ligament, muscle and the jelly between the bones (JBB) (what a riot.) ; 3) (oh this one is GOOD...) he claims all my pain in my knees is attributed to my... FLAT FEET (this guy's THE winner).

I feel my bones rubbing against one another. i limp. i cannot climb stairs or kneel anymore. I have never had physical injuries before. And i hate it. Even though i don't do sports. I'm gonna grow old with a stiff knee and an ugly pot belly. So i need treatment now. So please help out if you guys know any good tui1 na3 or western doctors.

Thanks.

~

Meeting zhao tonight for a stayover VCD session. Gonna finish : Zai Shi Jie De Zhong Xin Hu Huan Ai Jap Series. And probably gonna try look for xiang xiang tml noon at Sembawang Shpp Centre. Call me crazy. Call me mad.

2005-03-14T23:14:00.000+08:00

A sloppy collage. MAKE DO.

*faces are blurred to protect the identities of these people*
(erm. NO. its jus poor resolution.)
(and NO again if you were wondering if chris is my gf from bottom right photo. we just like acting couply. she's already ahem chou4 hua1 you3 zhu3 le. so eat ur hearts out. n i could rent my lao po out tho! ahem. :D )

Brainy

2005-03-14T12:35:00.000+08:00

The fact that i'm blogging during office hours isn't wonderful evidence (if lunch hour being only 15 min away doesn't justify it) of my diligence. But seriously there isn't enough work around here!

for some reason, the work shuns me. Probably because everyone here ,with the exception of my small aunt, doesn't dare pile work on the boss' nephew. Its quite annoying. yes yes, i know i still get my generous payslip at the end of the day but i'll rather work for it. And if that is too noble a reason for the resident slackers out there, time passes much more quickly when you're busy with something. So what happens is when people delegate work to me, i'll try to humble myself as much as possible and do whatever (and more) that is required, while the people delegating the job usually gives me the impression that they MADE UP work for me. like specially designed to be 'less taxing'. which is rather irritating. Or they'll spend so much time explaining to me how to do it (cos i'm as new as a blank sheet) , they would probably rather do it themselves. And then i feel like a useless burden. BUT I AM WILLING TO WORK. I AM! I AM! bah.

now i've got my own cubicle so i'll blog. (btw its lunch time now so im not exploiting my 'special status' ok.)

~

keke.
i was Teddy Bear at Sembawang Shopping Centre last sat.

Okok. i know you guys are probably no longer thrilled by the absurdity of it all and would just give me a look of despise like i'm a fart or sth. haha. Adele used the words, " Wu yao ke jiu " on me. Aiya. its not really for the money (okay it is). its quite fun doing odd jobs. I enjoy doing weird stuff. and i sure didn't regret being Mr. Teddy Bear this sat....

BECAUSE

i got to meet the 'sample' for my future son. mmm.
what i want to say is,
i met this little boy i'll crown the 'cutest i've met'.
he's called Xiang xiang and he's gonna be really handsome with his longsideburns. he's prob 2. he can't really like er.. make conversation. okay so i was mascotting for this sorry little food fair-wannabe 4-stalls pasar malam-like thingy at the mall.

i was jus walking round and round in my silly Brainy the Bear (YES. the name is BRAINY. the BEAR.) suit. i made probably 6 rounds or so. Trust me its bloody tough. i've got shoe of size 18 maybe and i was looking out from Brainy's mouth, directly facing the floor which aint top view for stable walking. So i shuffled here and there, teasing people as i go along , imitating their poses or jus pretending to jog which was quite hilarious. or telling them how hot it was with a paw fanning face action *snigger*.

that's besides the point.

whenever i walk past this certain stall, there will be xiang xiang with his mommy. and xiang xiang will be standing there with his little hands. one little hand would be holding his mommy's hand. the other little hand would be reaching out to me, and there will be this expression which isn't the usual kiddish loud excitement i came across but rather this look of meekness conquered by a great GREAT adoration for the bear. and this look : it can melt hearts of stone. That didn't happen for just the first or the second time, but every SINGLE time i walked past : the novelty simply doesn't wear off for this little darling. And the feeling was easily mutual. Each time i walked past him, i gave him special attention (oh and believe me, it means THAT much to a kid when we're talking about a lifesize bear.).

for the 1st time i merely shook his hand.
the 2nd time i got to hug him. and he got to hug me.
the 3rd time i shook his hand and patted his head.
the 4th time i did sth taboo : TALK. Rule no.1 of costume bears broken.
i said , " Where's mommy ? " which he blanked out to.
the 5th time i asked him if i could bring him home and he refused but he refused to let go of my hand too.
the last time i carried him up and cradled him for a little while.

And that was when i actually felt like NOT getting out of that stinky, used, dratted suit, just so i can continue playing with my boy. but i had to. cos its jus really hot in there. i was perspiring all over.

so i changed out. and after setting my costume aside. i decided to go see xiang xiang one last time. And when i walked over, it felt really odd. just 5 min ago, i was a bear which got the eye of every passerby : the schoolgirls will giggle in their gaggles, old people would look mildly embarrassed, the young chaps will tease or shun and little kids would look absolutely thrilled or otherwise petrified. And now, you are out of your costume and noone even takes a second look at you (if they even take the first). And feeling a bit nervous yet hopeful i went over to the stall where xiang xiang and his mum were around.

Yep, he was there.
So i walked over and patted him on his head.
Now xiang xiang is a really cool boy , he didn't freak out at tt but looked at me with a slightly confused expression. And his mom (nice lady) turned over and said hi. But of cos she had no idea who the hell i was. but she was just being friendly.
Then i said this line which i had rehearsed while i was changing :
" wa. gang cai hai gen wo wan, xian zai bu ren de wo le ah? "
( wa. just now was still playing with me , now don't recognise me ah? " )

And thinking bout it now, his mom must be pretty smart to get that sentence in a less than a second. she went : "ohhh you're the bear! "
and she happily went up to xiang xiang and said, " neh! this is kor kor la! kor kor is bear bear la! ni bu shi yi zhi zai zhao bear bear? " ( weren't you looking for the bear ? ) "
and xiang xiang obviously didn't understand the logic behind this : some 20 year old teenager would dress himself up as a bear to earn some quick bucks. OR the more fundamental question : the bear isn't REAL? but xiang xiang sort of understood that there was a very unique relationship between this teen in front of him and the bear he was looking high and low for. So he was quite receptive to myself.
So i knelt down and start talking to him, patting his head and stroking his face with my real hands and even carrying him. he is such an obedient and friendly boy. I asked him if he wanted to go find the bear, he nodded. den shook his head when i tried to carry him away. den nodded again when i suggested that mommy came along with us. In the end, after an unreasonable amount of time spent talking to him (if his mom wasn't such a lovely lady, she would have shown signs of resistance but she was really nice bout it), i decided i had to go. And his mum kept asking xiang xiang to follow me and look for the bear but he didn't want to. dang. den before i left, i asked him to say : "bye bye kor kor" and finally i heard that little voice of his.

Then i walked away. feeling all fuzzy inside. And when i was just about to go down the escalator i spotted the little boy and his mommy walking towards the escalator. So it turned out they were on their way home too.
And i had this little conversation with xx's mom.

Me : " xiang xiang, wanna go find bear bear? " (to xx)
XXMum: " Ask kor kor to bring u to find bear bear la! " (to xx)
( i clumsily undid the knot of this HUGE polkadotted cloth bag which contained my entire costume and showed xx the bear head and his eyes WIDENED and GLEAMED. haha. so cute. )
Me : " See, bear bear sleeping le. kor kor bring him back home to sleep right? u have to sleep also right? "
(XX stones.)
XXMum : " So tml u coming again? "
Me : " Nope, another event tml. just a one day thing. "
XXMum : " going to have any other performances anywhere else? " (hopefully)
Me : (wishing damned hard for that moment i did have) " Nope . "
XXMum : "oh.. so only once .. "
Me : " Yah. where do u live ? "
XXMum : "Woodlands"

blablabla.

Then it jus occured to me that there were so many ppl whom you just meet once, love them so much but know that you probably won't see them ever again. And that's just shitty. You have that impulse to ask them if we could meet again, if i could go play with xiang xiang sometime or when they'll come over to sembawang again. but. BUT. its not sensible. its irrational. its probably scary. cos ppl just dun do that ard here. ppl aren't supposed to like people they dun know.

I remember waving goodbye to xx from the taxi stand as he waited for the shuttle bus to the mrt station , in his mother's arms. And he kept waving and waving. so did his mum. bah. i miss him. im going to sembawang shopping centre next saturday. i wanna see the kid.

p.s. i think u guys think im probably crazy for dedicating such a long drag of words to a little boy who was 'just cute'.

~

well well. this weekend sure was a PACKED one.
it started on friday. after work, i rushed off to have a bday dinner kid's party at marche for my aunt's bday. and after that, i met jj and bern outside town to meet jb for a mj session at jj's place. lost. slept at bout 3am. woke up at 6.45. rushed off to chomp pang for the hopelessly stupid and meaningless ADSD family day. sneaked off. had breakfast with some of the guys. then rushed home. then slept for 1 and a half hours. rushed off to sembawang shopping centre. worked till 5. took a cab home. stepped into my house for 7 min where wen sen called asking me to watch the play he co-directed and involved two of my childhood friends : junfeng n xinying. didn't know xinying was inside. decided to go watch it. zzy coincidentally wanted to watch it for a 2nd time. rushed down. POURED. JAMMED . late by half an hr. decided to not go watch since HALF of the play was over already n tics weren't bought yet. (not really anyway). went for a aimless walk round city hall area, had wasabi prawn salad at raffles city's coffee club. not as good as e one at paragon. met zzy. went down substation to see wen sen etc. went home w zzy.

sunday, woke up at 11. met huili,chris , jj and jb at PS at 3. had lao beijing buffet (JB's treat).the food wasn't good but cheap la for this kinda food. had lotsa fun making gross conversation bout gorging ourselves w food n where to erm.. "hide it". left for ktv at good ol' apollo centre, with lihui joining us. had the CRAZIEST DANCING ktv session i had. this session squeezes into my top 3 maddest sessions. i was actually soaked in sweat (good dat u guys din see it :P ) we were dancing to like a series of 4-5 'high' songs. gosh. i was bloody shacked at e end of it. god i love these people. it must have been one of the best turnouts ever for group outings. (WE MISS U TOO MEILING!!)

went home. slept. woke up for work at 6.45.

man. i'll die young at this rate.

~

photos of outing w campmates and clique outing soon to come.

~

i dunno why i have this crazy urge to spend on vcds nowadays.
Remember my mei li shi guang vcd which i got bout 2 mths ago?
i haven't watched it.
i got another china movie. din watch it.
bought a she diao china series. din watch it.
got 3 new japanese series. havent watched them.
and bought another old series i already watched.
its jus stupid la. i dunno wats wrong with me.

its books and vcds. books n vcds. the worse thing is buying them n chucking them away. but once i get e chance ill start my endless movie marathon. with zhao probably. *wide grin*

yay zhao's back fm taiwan with more gifts for me. HURRAY. *he had better*

~

oh ya. about the prev blog about the listening ear and problem i'm facing.
i'm fine everybody. er. and im very thankful for all the sms-es and phonecalls. thanks ppl. but im really okay. haha. so dun start worrying for me. esp LIHUI! im really fine la.
n forget bout e listening ear bit. haha. i realised i still like keeping stuff to myself. :)

~

I am frank.

To all who wants to learn baking from me,

1) i am REALLY not a pro.
2) unless you have mixers and all the baking essentials, i don't teach.
3) if you DO have mixers and the baking essentials, i won't teach cos i dun teach pros cos they are future competition. ( dun question why. dun challenge. )
4) i only teach my close friends.
5) i will make all exceptions if u pay. course fees : Cheesecake : $80 excluding ingredients.

jus a note : Bt Batok is holding baking lessons on sat.
lala.

2005-03-07T00:09:00.000+08:00

and so it is,
like you said it will be
life goes easy
on me
most
of the time

i probably should seek aid soon. i have an issue i need to resolve. i think.

oh no no, i'm not depressed. dun worry girls. (and a few boys.)
its something i'm looking at quite objectively and rationally.
and yeah, for once i am saying this,

when you guys are free,
i'll appreciate a listening ear.

~

uhm.
Dad's back tml. i bid my car farewell. adios. sayonara. it was good.

My Week Of Driving
THE Summary :

6 horns from fellow inconvenienced road-users to me
3 horns from me to road rages/hogs/female drivers
3 kerbs
2 near-accidents (1 due to unnecessary speeding, 1 due to failure to check blind spot : SEE. the courses DO make sense!)
1 outstretched middle finger (*whistles innocently*)
1 knock on their car door (his bumper "kissed mine" (exact words) at the Marina Square Carpark, with luck he was as slow as he could be, but nevertheless, it TOUCHED. DIE.)
0 scratches, bumps or peel offs

4 trips to town ( 3 times parked at my aunt's place)
4 trips to LCK my camp
2 trips to Outram (fetch jj / chauffer mom)
2 trips to Tiong Bahru Market (with boon n chris/ with boon n jj)
2 trips to Thomson Road (fetch boon back)
2 trips to Upp Serangoon Road (fetch jj back)
1 trip to Marina Square (FREAKING scary)
1 trip to Upp Bt Timah (paul's place fer baking)

51 dollars for petrol (oh!oh!oh! my HEAD! it SPINS!)
4.30 dollars spent on parking
1 hour of car-washing at 22:30 (dad's back the next day)
110 km/h fastest speed
5 PEOPLE (max i've chauffered, my campmates)
3 DESTINATIONS in 1 single trip without stopping (alighting them)
1 red light i MIGHT have beaten (no cam i think. i hope.)

Well things i've learnt!

1)
this is seriously not a chauvinist statement. and it isn't intended to bemean my girl friends either. but.
FEMALE DRIVERS NEED AN ADDITIONAL SUPPLEMENTARY DRIVING COURSE. seriously.
they are NORMALLY (i'm being politically correct) either TOO slow. or TOO blur. or SIMPLY IGNORANT.
some stupid car cuts into my lane and misses scratching my car by like 2 cm.
i growl.
i speed.
i overtake.
i say 'female driver. confirmed.'
i turn and look.
tada!
all of a sudden :
i'm psychic.

2)

I get VERY agitated when i'm being violated on the road. and i turn road-ragish. and someone told me, flaring up onroad isn't good - i must learn to control myself. i get REALLY noisy when someone does sth stupid to me, i'll jus start yelling and cursing and swearing and bitching and hoping that car gets into an accident. there are abbbbbout 5 cars i've cursed already.
heh.

3)
Taxi drivers are to be AVOIDED.
either crawling on left lane to scout potential passengers,
OR cutting out from nowhere to pick up or 'put down' a passenger,
OR cutting in and out just to rush for oncalls.
gr.

4)
Petrol is just freaking expensive la. and my petrol tank is on my left. hoho. and i have to press sth to open my tank cover. keke.

Yay. Driving sure is fun! i love fetching friends home. I know this is probably just an initial phase. And soon enough i'll just drop all of you at some MRT and you guys can go home yourselves.heh.

Now all i have left is to face my dad when he comes back.
ALthough the vehicle is unscathed, the petrol is topped up and i washed it till it shines (think it should), it doesn't alter the fact that i'm NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE (to camp, specifically : if i wanna play with words i could...but).

WHICH PROBABLY MEANS :
i'm not allowed to drive INTO TOWN.
or THROUGH NEWTON CIRCLE. TWICE.
or THROUGH e hazardous SUNTEC area.
or PARK in MARINA SQUARE.
or travel 380 plus kilometres in 6 days.
or drive to camp.

hmm. i broke all the possible rules. i have a feeling my mum and i are in deep shit. *clings to my kao4 shan1 - mum*

~

dang. i'm mad. it's 12:43am n i haven't bathed after washing the car and i'm blogging. okay i continue, i have to rush :

today was quite an eventful day. FINALLY got to have dim sum with campmates.
ivan, chek and dennis. (original gang) with tyx.
drove ivan and chek from cck. i love goodwood! there's free parking!

well it was pretty good! small variety but good quality.
and the creme brulee was simply to die for. so was the durian paste.
but as usual, as guys always do, stuff ourselves SO bad we were about to puke. every joke made caused intense jolts in the stomach which sent tides of undigested food climbing up our oesophagus. hahaha. its such an ugly sight. but oh well, army guys (w e exception of ivan who's si-bei-lian now).

then we (typically) decided to rest our tummies at the main entrance and start a phototaking session. it's mad la haha. we keep taking all sorts of photos. voyeurfreaks. and this time round, we have NEW GENRES , including
"TABOO" and "EROTICA"
*snigger* i dun think i should post the ones from the former, i have a feeling huili will scream and jiabin will start nagging again.
as for the latter, whose title simply screams out loud, and i know you guys have more interest in, i will consider posting it up.

then we walked off to library@orchard. and kino. and borders.
they are jus ridiculous la. we just stopped at some photography shelves and started looking at photographs and everything long-ish jus became 'dennis'. and when we were in borders, they jus stopped at the bargain books section to browse through fatalistic shit like PALMISTRY BOOKS, DREAM-DECODING BOOKS and LOVE-LIFE-THRU-HOROSCOPE books. they are shen jing de.

then we drove HOME. EACH OF THEM. first chek. ivan den dennis.
aiya, nvm la. its my last chance w e vehicle anyway.

not bad. pretty fun.
i prob will keep in contact w these guys. *grin*

haha i'm so evaluative. no la no la. i'm not like 'evaluating' their 'performance' or anything la. geez. just saying only.

~

12:55. i have to rush. i have to bathe.

okay. the day before was typically a day of wasted trips.

like going to paul's house and our chiffon cake failed. collapsed. damned.
okok, not exactly WASTED trip but dang.

like going all the way down to library@esplanade after alot of research and online searching to happily borrow my Huo Zhe VCD. Only to find out its only entitled to premier members which means $21 upfront annual member fee. Decided against it cos the chinese movie selection is crap and i wun bother flying down to esplanade to borrow english mainstream movies either.
(Anyone with membership please contact me. ZZY!!!!)

like driving down to town from esplanade just to borrow books from orchard library and finding out its closed. lucky i was in town the next day (dim sum day) so i could borrow FOUR yu hua books. *hehhehee*

like driving down to tiong bahru after going to outram park to buy jj's stefanie vcd. and finding out the $1 sumptious cheng tng and porridge were finished. settled for 60cent refillable (not the syrup tho *wink*) da bao soya milk.

finally decided to go chomp chomp instead.
OKAY.
the process is THE INTERESTING part.
and its LARGELY attributed to stupid HONG CHUN KIAT and a useless JIABIN in the backseat.
HCK's navigational skills are A LAUGH.

E.G.

1)
Me : okay okay (in CTE(AMK) tunnel) which exit should i get out?
HCK: aiya, i only know there are two tunnels you'll pass to get there.
Me : WAT THE HELL! I DUN CARE IF THERE ARE 2 or 3 TUNNELS BUT WHICH EXIT?!
HCK: AIYA. GOT 2 TUNNELS CAN LE LA!
Me : ....
(we reach 2nd tunnel)
HCK: (matter of factly) SEE. 2 tunnel wat.
Me : f*** la.
(jb roars in laughter)

2)
(we are travelling on a CONTINUOUS straight road with no left or right turns)
HCK: ZOU ZHI ZOU ZHI ZOU ZHI!!
Me : (bitches) OBVIOUSLY RIGHT! HOW ELSE CAN I GO?!
(jb laughs)

(we are travelling on a straight road with a left slip road)
Me : Ey bai chi, do i turn or not?
HCK: (bitches) WAH LAU. I NEVER SAY THEN U GO STRAIGHT LA! ASK ASK ASK! TAXI DRIVER NEVER SAY ALSO GO STRAIGHT LOR.
Me : bitch.
(jb laughs)

3)
(after 10 min of silence or talking with jb or singing, hck decides to talk)
(i navigate my way with help fm jb and we manage to get UN-lost and reach somewhere familiar)
HCK: (out of the blue) I KNOW I KNOW! THIS IS MY LAIR! I KNOW HOW TO GO. *competent look* *points ahead* ZOU. ZHI. (confidently)
Me : ... *mutters* wo ye dong.
(jb laughs)

GEE.

~

i FELL down.
yay.
its not a fall-and-scratch-my-knee type of fall.
i have NO scratches or bruises.
but my entire left knee KNELT and hit the stair floor perpendicularly.
remember? my left knee is the INJURED one?
it hurts like its freaking swollen la.
i've been limping up and down stairs for the whole day.
totally f***ed up.

~

i've got to hand it to Tori to totally excite me.
the new album is groooovy. driving with it simply kicks ass. some of the songs are bouncy. i was happily bouncing and speeding down mandai road with it ablast.

and if ANYONE really cares , i recommend :
" The Power of Orange Knickers " (f. Damien Rice)
" Parasol "
" The Hoochie Song "
" Martha's Foolish Ginger "
" Sweet the Sting"

it's a 'less psychotic' album, according to paul. so dun worry bout it being too alternative. EMBRACE her. *lol*

~

i have seriously GOT to bathe now. 1:18 am. i'm turning mouldy and i'm working tomorrow. Next week is another packed week.

expenditure is getting WAY out of hand.

i'm doing a summary here becos i can't bother to do it elsewhere.

Tori's album - $20
Calvin & Hobbes Books x2 - $28
Dim Sum - $22
Presents - $60
Movies - $15 (with 2 or 3 more coming up)
Japanese VCDS i ordered (unpaid) - $50
Petrol (hopefully claim-able) - $50
Chi. Movie - $5
She Diao VCD - $30
----------------------------
TOTAL - $280

And i haven't added all other miscellaneous eating costs.
and parking costs.
and yada yada yada costs.
I need to work. AND YES i DO work. i don't just sit and stone and get money for doing so. contrary to popular belief (BITTER ppl).

~

jj got a zoo job to clear hippotamus dung. funky. hope he perseveres.
boon's 21st coming up coming tues. but he's gonna mug it away. yay for him.

christine> someone tipped my scale, i'm not gonna watch Lemony le.
huili> don't believe boon n chris. i gave them e photo only cos i met up w them. dun let their LIES fool u.

ladidar, i got quite a few jazz albums. lala. thanks paul!

okay i've gotta go now. probably won't blog for awhile. busy myself with reading , working and er... going out. (sounds more or less what my adult life will be like.)

*dryly*
yay.