CreativeBitchin

Flight

2012-01-28T05:42:00.001+08:00

So why do you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've known
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why do you sing with me at all?

- Delicate by Damien Rice

I don't want the things you think I want from you. I don't want anything from you, just the sort of freedom you never could afford me, and maybe the sort of peace you can no longer give me.

I'm sorry for turning away from you, when you opened your heart, and bled on me.

I need so very much to be a separate entity from this unpolished diamond husk you made me. That chrysalis doesn't fit my wings any more.

And you, you lost your power of flight, a long time ago, when you fell to earth in a flurry of feathers and saw me, and sought to possess me.

Heart-Strings

2012-01-27T03:41:00.003+08:00

I rarely speak directly of the mess that is my troubled relationship with my mother, or my family's volatile interaction with her, but things got really fucked up today and I'm tired and hurt, and just want to put an end to all this meaningless drama.

An excerpt from the email I plan to send to her:

"Do you remember how you used to be? I loved you, adored you, thought you were the most amazing person in the world, with the most awesome things in your head. you were this laughing, energetic person who baked this humpty dumpty cake with real eggshells, made soy milk with me, dug up earthworms and let me play with them, gave me a handful of mung beans to germinate, came up with the coolest art projects to occupy us during school holidays, and always had really fun activities that were both educational and exciting. You had your foul moods and your dark days then, but the sunny side of you showed more often, and you had a big, big heart. These days, you're just defensive and angry and sullen... I only got a brief glance of the old you when you saved that bird, few days ago. I miss that person you used to be."

I wasted a shit-load of tears, as I drafted that paragraph. I thought I was past feeling anything anymore, but I keep coming back to this realisation that I still love her, and miss the happier version of her very much. Miss Dot read that one with me, and the both of us, being the sentimental fools we are, shared stories of the innovative things she got us to do, and cried together about the mother we used to have, the one who smiled a lot more, and was less quick to cause hurt.

Don't know if it means anything to her anymore, but I hope she will read, and remember, and put down all the bitterness and resentment, if just for a moment, to listen to the things we've been trying to say to her, for so long.

Snake Oil

2012-01-25T02:04:00.000+08:00

"If I told you there is a means whereby you may gain the attentions of the object of your desire, via a little superstitious magic, would you try it out?"

It was another of those humid tropical afternoons, and the both of them were trying to fight the lethargy brought on by the oppressive warmth, by bringing up random topics of conversation, which were as disjointed as they were interesting insights into the other's mind.

"Hmm. Superstitious magic?" he asked while looking over at her quizzically.

"Yeah. You know of our local black magic practitioners, right? Now, most of them are just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but let's just say I have a friend of a friend who actually found one that was the real deal."

"Real deal? You mean like a love potion, or more of the voodoo stuff you see on TV?"

Seeing that his interest is now piqued, she takes her time to take a deep drag on her cigarette before answering.

"Friend's friend acquired a bottle of ointment from a bomoh who has since gone into retirement, or gone missing, or whatever, who knows. The bottle of ointment's still around though. Just a tiny drop's enough to do the job, and she's not used it since the first time she tried it out."

"And it works?" he asks, a note of scepticism entering his voice.

"Oh yeah, it does. The man she'd desired for, pined over, obsessed about - he became hers."

And because he is a little more perceptive than your average man, and familiar enough with her to recognise the subtle shifts in her demeanour, he turns to look at her, really look at her.

Now he sees what he missed earlier on: Her shoulders are almost imperceptibly slumped, and despite her carefully maintained non-chalant demeanour, he senses a subdued air about her.

No longer as curious as he is concerned, he gently asks her, "So... What happened after that? Did they get married? Do the whole happily ever after thing?"

He senses that last attempt at a crack was horribly inappropriate, because she turns away from him and answers so softly he has to strain to catch what she has to say.

"No, they didn't. She realised that he wasn't really what she wanted, and that she only desired him because he was unattainable. He was a fantasy. And when that fantasy became a reality, she realised that it was a mistake."

That sounds reasonable enough to him, but she doesn't look at him, and the resignation in her posture, the joylessness in her voice that tells him that she has not reached anywhere near the end of her story. He waits, knowing she will continue where she left off, eventually.

He watches her back, as she lights another cigarette, watches as she silently takes a pull on it. It has begun to rain again, but there is no respite from the clammy heat, which caresses them like a million moist palms, the moisture mixing in with the sweat oozing from their pores, making their shirts stick uncomfortably to their skin.

He almost starts when she suddenly speaks again, so seemingly unceasing is the silence between them.

"He never loved her. It was the ointment, the magic, the enchantment that compelled him to go to her. And after awhile, it became apparent that his devotion to her was an empty obsession that he himself couldn't understand."

She's shuddering imperceptibly now, as she drags the words painfully out of herself, like pulling violently clawing spiders out of their lair.

"She tried to make it right. Broke up with him. Tried to set him free. Told him, she didn't love him anymore, and that he was to leave her alone and never come back."

The light shower has built up to a torrential downpour now. The both of them watch as a nearby drain swells with water threatening to overflow, and he watches her quietly now, as she fights some internal battle within herself to reach to the conclusion of her story.

"He wouldn't leave. He probably couldn't."

She stops speaking.

Long moments later, he senses that is all she can and will tell him, that the overwhelming need to unload the story to him had been forcefully squashed by an opposing will inside of her.

Disappointed, and slightly disturbed now by the turn the afternoon has taken, he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and waits for her to pick up the stalling conversation.

She turns to him, with a wry smile on her face, and asks him, "So what do you think? Would you give in to your desires anyway, and use the ointment if you had it?"

Chinese New Year Buffet @ BCCK

2012-01-22T04:29:00.000+08:00

Celebrating Chinese New Year? And you're sick of the same old locations for Chinese New Year feasting and want something new, something fresh, something a little more than what you've been having for the past few years?

Here's a suggestion: Borneo Convention Centre Kuching, which has been very much promoting their Raintree Cafe, coming up with lovely themed offerings in keeping with the season. I managed to attend the food tasting for their Chinese New Year buffet recently, after missing their Chinese New Year set meal (check out Eve's and Chris' posts on that), and as much as not being that much a fan of the cuisine commonly served at Chinese New Year (I blame jaded palate syndrome), this one actually gave me sufficient reason to get excited at some of the offerings.

First off, we started off with a messy beginning, together tossing one of the most uh... vigorous dishes I know - the multi-coloured Yee Sang offering. Supposedly the higher you toss the ingredients, the better your fortune in the coming year.

We watch with an almost predatory air, as the nice lady adds the salmon to the yee sang for us...

Preparing to toss it as dramatically as possible...

Here's how our table looked after we were done:

Yep, we're definitely going to be on the receiving end of some REALLY good fortune this year. =)

I have to confess here that I *gasp!* am not a big fan of Yee Sang. I generally found the flavours rather uninteresting and the general texture of the dish somewhat like a rather dry salad. I actually heaped on an extra serving of this version though - I rather enjoyed how wonderfully zesty and tangy it was, because the chef had made sure to add a little more dried oranges and pickled ginger in it, to make it taste really refreshing on the palate. The salmon was really fresh... and yes, this one wasn't anywhere near being too dry. I wouldn't mind a few extra portions of this!

Next up was the Chinese Popiah Roll, which is a little bit like a burrito thingy but with mostly shredded yam bean (jicama) and other vegetables, and definitely more sweet than savoury. I have this one occasionally as a bit of a lazy-day breakfast-on-the-go, so being served this at a dinner was a bit strange, for me. And then I dipped it in the sauce that was served together with it, and put it in my mouth...

OK, I'll grant this one as much - it is NOT your standard popiah. This one is extremely flavoursome, with plenty of ground dried shrimp in it. And the sauce was pretty amazing on its own, with belacan added to it for an extra dimension to it. I liked it, but I probably wouldn't binge on this one, as the intensity of flavours might be too overwhelming for me.

Next up, we were served a Szechuan Hot and Sour Soup:

I remain rather undecided on this one. On one hand, this dish really did make quite an impact on the taste-buds. Then again, I found it a tad too spicy, and maybe slightly too salty. I'm not a fan of bland food, but a overwhelming gustatory experience isn't really all that pleasant either. Or maybe after the intense tastes of the previous dish, this was a bit too much. That said, this soup would taste really good if it was tuned down by a notch. Spoke to the chef and was informed that they use Szechuan sauce in this for authenticity.

And then we move on to a sampling of four of of the main courses available over the course of this buffet.

The Baked Snapper in Lemon Sauce was nice enough, with a tangy, buttery sauce to counteract the fishy flavour, but paled in comparison to my two favourites of the night: the Braised Three Mushroom with Garden Green Vegetables and the Chicken with Golden Mushrooms (金针 or golden needles actually, a form of dried edible lily).

These two dishes were cooked to perfection, with the mushrooms and chicken being thoroughly infused with the salty and umami flavours of the gravy.

However, I particularly favour the three mushroom dish (no pictures of that one because I stupidly deleted all copies of the pictures I took of it), possibly because I enjoy varying textures in my mouth, and the chewiness of the shiitake mushroom and the meaty texture of the abalone mushroom really appealed to me. Personal preference, I reckon.

The Home-Made Beancurd (actually fish cake) was made with squid paste, which was alright but got eclipsed by the other dishes.

However I'd give props to the chef just for trying out something different with this one...

Finally we were given a sampling of the dessert platter, which consisted of fresh fruits, French pastries (your standard Black Forest cake and cheese cake - the former which I really enjoyed), and the true star of the show: Deep-Fried Nian Gao.

OK, My mother makes this every year, around Chinese New Year... she fries up the traditional sticky nian gao or New Year cake in batter, and serves it as a snack. But the chef took this to a whole new level by sandwiching the nian gao between a slice of yam and a slice of sweet potato before frying it up, and then topping off the entire thing with a light vanilla sauce. We were all extremely impressed by this particular creation! =)

These are just a fraction of the items available for the Chinese New Year buffet, which runs from Chinese New Year eve to the 6th of February for a value-for-money price of RM68. Bloody worth it! Do call 082-392988 to make reservations... and do make haste, as I hear that it's getting pretty fully-booked for the up-coming festive season.

Happy Chinese New Year all! Just eat all you want to first, and think about your exercise regime after it's over. It's the season to indulge in gluttony!

Dis/Order

2012-01-14T07:41:00.000+08:00

I've been sleeping roughly three hours a day, for every day of the past week or so. It's been frustrating, for my eyes to snap wide open every morning while everyone else are still comfortably slumbering in their own beds, and lie there staring at my ceiling or my bedroom wall, wondering what the fuck is wrong with me as I struggle in vain to go back to sleep.

I'm updating this at 730am right now, which is a rather rare occurrence, if not for the need to DO something, as I try my very best not to scream and yell at yet another of brief and rather insufficient respite from consciousness.

So life hasn't been a bloody bed of roses lately, and that's quite the understatement in itself. I won't go into details, but I'll tell you that for most of last week I've been walking around in this apathetic numbness, but even that has come to past. Last night, I found myself overwhelmed by the flood of emotions at the reality of all the shit finally sinking in, and did something I've not done in years - break down into a very public display of water-works. There's this pervasive loneliness that's been a constant companion, but never quite as keenly as right now.

Human relationships are strange. The very same people you love the most, are the same ones who are capable of twisting that metaphorical knife in your heart, even when they do not mean to do that. I'm watching two of the people who I care the most about grapple with their flawed understanding of each other, struggling hard to find a common ground for compromise, and I find myself shaken in that utter helplessness of not being able to do anything to fix things.

I wish... hell, I don't know what I really wish for anymore.

I just want to reach out sometimes, and shake them both out of their respective self-absorbed revelry, silence their illogical justifications, and point out the most obvious matter of all...

Why can't you both just talk, really talk, and listen to what the other has to say?

But people are never the most reasonable of creatures, and as much as I myself am testament enough to that fact... I can only hope.

Hell-Raiser

2012-01-08T18:20:00.000+08:00

It's not as much what you did that pissed me off as the disappointment of watching you, for the very first time, betray the trust and the respect the both of us worked so hard to maintain between the both of us.

I know as per the policy of honesty we both have agreed on, I really should tell you straight to the face when you have overstepped your boundaries. But I just don't feel like it. This crushing sense of disappointment just doesn't quite inspire any discussion that would most likely end with me feeling like I've wasted pointless effort on verbalising all this bullshit anyway.

So here goes. I say, fuck it. Until you have learnt to respect me and regain my trust, I am steering clear of you. I would like to keep this year as drama- and aggravation-free as possible, while trying very hard not to be unnecessarily caustic to anyone, so what I will do now is give you a wide berth, until this resolves itself.

I know I have major trust issues. You know that well enough yourself; you pride yourself on being someone I feel secure around to not ever feel threatened. It's just a damn shame you've got to go and shatter that, just because you weren't a big enough person, just one ruled by such foolish, foolish desires.

For all it's worth, I'm really, really sorry for you. But I am not your friend, and refuse to be your confidant any longer.

[2012]

2012-01-06T05:54:00.000+08:00

So. It's 2012 already. Supposedly the year where end of days happens. Sure feels like that, here in Kuching, what with the really dreary weather and the flooding.

That aside though, I've been feeling pretty blessed, but I'll not bore you with here disgustingly sappy gushing over the amazing people I've met in 2011, and the old friends I've had the chance to reconnect with.

I know I've said before, I don't really do new year resolutions. And I won't, meaning I won't list down a heap of shit I kind of want to do that I'll promptly forget by next month. The only thing I really want to achieve this year, apocalypse or whatever, is this:

I just want to be a better person this year.

And that means to empathise more, love more, care more, do more little kindnesses, and try harder not to do shit to others. No back-stabbing, no gossip, less negative thoughts about others... All those sneaky shit we sometimes seem to unthinkingly do sometimes. There has to be more of a conscious effort to be a nicer individual overall, even if nobody but me will notice it.

I reckon it'd be hard enough to stay on track and stick with this "be a better person" thingy, so all those healthy lifestyle, weight-loss resolutions of the past?

All very commendable, but let's be a bit more realistic this year, won't we? =)

Oh yeah, to make this post a less boring one, let me entertain you with this picture of my eye with a very colourful example of five-day-old bruising:

I got this injury on the last day of the year - specifically around 2am on the 31st of December, 2011. Felt like taking a shower, and being the klutz I am, managed to yank the shower-head so hard out of its holder, I pretty much sucker-punched myself in the brow-bone with it.

Attended the New Year's Eve party, hours later, with a fresh injury on my face and a swollen eye-lid - it just figures that I'd end (and begin) the year with a dramatic wound on such an obvious place.

My life is such a comic tragedy even when I try my best to remain drama-free LOL. I guess at least I'm never short of self-deprecating humour when I need a good laugh! =)

Troll Dad

2011-12-22T02:30:00.000+08:00

In my previous post I mentioned a troll dad. Maybe not all of you get the reference, but my father has proved himself a highly-annoying fully-fledged specimen of that particular variety of patriarch.

Most recent case in point, this was what he posted on my facebook wall:

Translation (badly done by me, yes):

Mr. Chan > Irene Chan
What kind of person are you?

Sleeps at nine is a village-dwelling person
Sleeps at ten is your average person
Sleeps at eleven is a city-dweller
Sleeps at twelve is one who had to entertain guests
Sleeps at one is an Internet addict
Sleeps at two is a pitiful soul
Sleeps at three is a night-club hostess (read: "Guest Relations Officers")
Sleeps at four is an insomniac
Sleeps at five is a gambler
Sleeps at six is a person burning midnight oil
Does not sleep at all isn't even human ("human" in this context is the same word as for "person")

Mrs. Chan sleeps at 9pm consistently. Ignoring his dig at my seemingly non-existent sleeping hours, I jokingly asked him if he was trying to say that my mother is a village-dweller.

Unperturbed, his reply to that was, "I'm saying that you're not human."

-__-"

Nice one, dad.

Posthumous Humour

2011-12-21T17:26:00.000+08:00

I might have blogged this before, a good six years ago, but since the topic came up again today in a discussion with a friend, I thought I'd do another post on it.

So here it is... When I die, I want the most irreverent of funeral services for myself. I insist on cremation, preferably scattered over the seas I love so much, but that'll probably add to the pollution, so OK, stuff what's left of me in an urn, if it makes everyone happier that there's an object of sorts to pay last respects to. None of that open casket shit for me - if I'm dead, I'm dead. Looking at the empty husk that used to house me isn't of much point, really.

And somewhere during the solemn proceedings, someone, either a very close friend in on the plan, or even better still, someone I've hired beforehand, will carry out my final wish and blast... Marilyn Manson's This Is The New Shit. On top volume. At the service itself.

Yes, this song:

Babble, Babble, Bitch, Bitch
Rebel, Rebel, Party, Party
Sex, sex, sex, don't forget the violence

Utterly inappropriate. And an accurate portrait of myself, once a rebellious life-time ago. Enough to send most of those present to pack up and leave in a hurry, irate and probably perturbed as hell. My friends, those who know me well enough, will probably be left in stitches, if they're not too preoccupied with face-palming themselves, or snorting up their drinks, at all that unexpected clamour.

I can almost hear the half-amused, half-horrified mutterings of, "WHAT THE FUCK. NOT AGAIN, IRENE!".

The way I see it, I'd just be leaving the same impression on people while dead as I did while alive. Preferably this lighter note of controversy so signature Irene, than one of grief and mourning. Even a modicum of rage at my lack of respect at my own death would be preferable over all that unnecessary sadness.

Most of all, I'd have the final laugh hah! Relevant: I see your troll dad and I raise you my troll dead. =P

I can't imagine any better way to clock out - dramatically, while flipping the bird at societal norms. Call me immature, call me childish, call me a drama-loving attention-whore, but I rather this than a mediocre Auld Lang Syne that will quickly be forgotten anyway.

People die all the time. Might as well go out with a helluva bang, non? =)

Venn Diagrams

2011-12-21T08:02:00.002+08:00

Human beings suffer from clan mentality.

That's not a bad thing per se, we're social creatures and we all need to feel accepted in some social hierarchy or another. It's a survival instinct of sorts - all that "Us versus Them" is basically sticking together in groups for the main purpose of self-interest; in the past that was precisely the sort of behaviour that pretty much ensured a higher rate of getting through the shit that comes with just living through another day.

But there's an ugly side to all this that has made me understand, more than ever, as to why I've always been resolutely the loner, always looking in from the outside, observing and wondering why we go about in our little follies. All those little blog wars. Those friendship politics. So trivial, so consuming.

I won't elaborate too much on this, but sometimes you are the company you keep. The small-minded, malicious, intolerant sorts would probably influence the objectivity of your perspective towards all this. And sometimes even the best of company leaves you yearning badly for your space, your own thoughts, your own time, unaffected by the trivialities of socialisation.

So here's to being a little bit introverted. And here's a very unapologetic view on the ugliness our kind will display once there's a common target for all that negativity. And don't you for a moment pretend you've never done the same. I have many times over, and will probably keep doing the same, despite my best efforts to avoid repeating this shit.

But yeah, we're all just being so foolishly, uniquely, simplistically human, ey? And yes, I do realise that for all my anti-social sentiments, I'd be the first to die should there be a zombie apocalyse... Then again, I'm jaded and fatalistic, and not very much use as a cog in the clock-work machinations of society, well-oiled or otherwise, so maybe it's no big loss. =P

Good morning, world. And it's been awhile since I've posted anything as mind-numbingly pensive as this, I realise. =)

A Tasting: Christmas Eve Five-Course Set Dinner @ Raintree Restaurant

2011-12-14T06:35:00.001+08:00

It's already midway through the month of December! Aside from the fact that I very much enjoy the jolly spirit of goodwill and cheer permeating the atmosphere, during this time of the year, the holiday season also signifies plenty of mouth-watering treats which makes me one very, very happy girl indeed, even if it means all resolutions to get back into shape pretty much go out the window.

Imagine the silly expression of glee on my face when Mike invited me to a Christmas food-tasting at the Raintree Restaurant at the Borneo Convention Centre (BCCK)! Even a malfunctioning gate that seemed adamant on trapping me in the house on the day of the event didn't deter me from showing up, albeit a tad late.

Before I proceed on to the actual review of the Christmas menu, I need to rave about this:

A humble little bread-roll you say, while rolling your eyes? Well this is no ordinary bread-roll. This bread roll is all the things I love in wheat-based edibles - it's crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside, and tasty enough to be eaten on its own. I won't say it's the best I've had in Kuching, but it's pretty darn good, and baked fresh daily in the restaurant itself.

It always cheers me to find restaurants here in Kuching who actually produce their own bread. =)

And then on to the first course, which everyone present were already halfway through photographing/dissecting:

According to the menu, this dish is a blinis tower of lobster medallion, smoked salmon, and crème fraiche, paired with warm ravioli of duck confit and pumpkin puree, the blinis being a cute little pile of miniature buckwheat flour pancakes. This is a terrible photo that really does the beautifully plated dish no justice. I need a new camera. I know I'm digressing.

The portion of lobster in this was surprisingly generous - a whole piece of tail, if my starvation-addled eyes weren't playing tricks on me. The smoked salmon was good, and there was a generous amount of caviar topping the whole arrangement, but it didn't quite wow me as much as I expected it to.

The duck confit ravioli, however, was a dramatic explosion of savoury flavour in the mouth, its gamey richness tempered by the delicate sweetness of the pumpkin puree. The fact that the chef unexpectedly incorporated bayam (edible amaranth, a local vegetable) into the ravioli half of the dish brought a smile with that little homage to our local produce.

And then the second course, a cream of cauliflower garnished with peppers and croutons:

I wasn't expecting to be very much impressed by this, honestly - I mean, c'mon, it's soup ferchrissakes; and I can do soup! - but it did. Rich and comforting, it was however not overtly heavy to the point of being cloying. I quite enjoyed the little bit of sweet peppers the chef had chosen to top the soup with as garnish, because it added a rather pleasant crunch and a little extra sweetness to the dish as a whole.

As far as I can determine though, those red blotches of oil just seem to be some sort of sweet pepper oil (correct me if I'm wrong) more for garnish than for flavour. They weren't spicy at all!

Next up was a palate refresher, also called a palate cleanser, to prepare our taste-buds for the main course(s) that was to come:

We were treated to a exotic ginger-lime sorbet that came in little cups. There seems to be a bit of a mixed reception to this one, but I liked it well enough, although it could be a little less sweet. Probably because it reminds me of the sour candied ginger snacks my grandma used to buy for me to uh, bribe me into donning that halo and keeping the devil horns well-hidden.

Tangy and spicy at the same time, it's a pretty refreshing treat, but I can see how it could be a little overwhelming for some. As they say, one man's meat...

And finally, the dish we'd all been eagerly awaiting! The slow-baked turkey roulade with wild mushrooms and truffle oil, served with sauteed brussels sprouts, caramelised chestnuts and cranberry sauce arrived amidst much excited chattering:

It's got all the elements of a good traditional Christmas meal down: turkey, check; chestnuts, check; cranberry sauce, check, check, check!

Turkey is notoriously hard to prepare without drying out, and unfortunately this offering was a tad on the unjuicy side, especially around the outer edges. Not quite enough truffle oil too, but then again I know that's probably in the realm of "asking for too much". The chef would have been better off doing a stuffed turkey (stuffing helps retain moisture), but for the purpose of practicality, a roulade does make a heap more sense.

The chestnuts, however, were spectacular. Sweet, with a hint of smokiness, it was so good I think most of us practically scraped our plates clean of the stuff. The cranberry sauce was, well, cranberry sauce, but I did think the sauteed brussels sprouts on the roasted sweet potatoes did add a lot of really lovely colour (and fibre!) to the dish.

As an alternative to the turkey, there's always the option of the slow-grilled marinated sirloin on spicy potato, wilted spinach with blue cheese, buttered carrot, brussels sprouts and beef jus as the main course:

Before I proceed, let me say this first: LOOK AT THAT BEEF BEAUTIFULLY GRILLED TO JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF PINKNESS!!! OK, granted I'd prefer it a tad more rare than this perfect medium doneness, but as I generally like my meat barely introduced to heat, I think my preferences can be counted as more of an exception

The general verdict for this culinary creation can just be summed up with the resounding amount of orgasmic ahhhs that followed each bite of it. Of course, I can tell you it's tender and juicy and flavoursome and marinated in the unlikely combination of dates, dijon mustard, garlic, and a bit of chilli for heat, but just take my word for it - it's good. Go order this.

I loved the spinach with blue cheese, even if it might be a tad too pungent for some, and I particularly liked how the cheese flavour infused the little medallion of a deep-fried potato acting as a buffer between the meat and the spinach. So much so I had seconds and thirds of those potato slices off the display platter later on. :D

Finally, we were served dessert, which came in the most impressive arrangement of all:

Does this Christmas pudding with raspberry white chocolate parfait look rather, uh, avian to you? That swan-like thingy's actually crafted out of crunchy caramel, which some of the girls at dinner loved. Me, I found it a tad too jaw-breakingly hard, so I pretty much left it well alone.

The pudding itself was surprisingly rich, and densely filled with fruits and nuts. As nice as it is, I think that it might be a tad overwhelming for those trying to watch their waist-lines (as if the whole concept of "Christmas meal" wasn't already a formidable threat of sorts to a svelte figure LOL). The light-as-air parfait was pure dairy heaven, gently melting onto the tongue to a not-too-sweet, not-too-cloying creaminess, and yielded this little frozen surprise:

Yeap, a frozen raspberry, literally bursting with juice. Yum. The acidity works well to counter the richness of the heavy meal. The perfect note to end a pretty satisfying dinner on. =)

And here's the lady behind this the creation of this hearty seasonal meal we enjoyed, the rather demure Virginia Kedit (right).

For the ladies, there's also a cute chef dude (left) working the open plan kitchen - perfect for ogling at whilst dining... =P

Anyway, this five-course set dinner will be available on Christmas Eve at RM125++, and live entertainment from the RBS Quartet will be provided on that day from 7.30pm till 10pm.

A full list of Raintree's on-going holiday promotion :-

16-24 December: Pre-Christmas three-course set lunch/dinner, RM78 per head
24 December: Christmas Eve five-course set dinner, RM125
25 December: Christmas Day buffet lunch/dinner, RM78 per head
26 December: Boxing Day buffet lunch/dinner, RM78 per head
31 December: New Year's Eve seafood buffet dinner, RM155 per head

All prices quoted are presumably not inclusive of any additional beverages outside of your basic complimentary H2O.

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Spotted while on the way out of BCCK, suspended mid-air from the ceiling:

Mutated reindeer! Looks like a four-legged turkey crossed with an antlered, red-nosed Scrat. A little bit weird but definitely worth a few laughs hahaha.

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I'll be heading out of town for a few days, for a friend's wedding... and just in case I don't find the time to update till then, I'm going to wish you all happy holidays and seasons greetings and all that.

Hope y'all have an awesome end to the year 2011!

It's A Dog's Life

2011-12-10T07:00:00.001+08:00

Actual conversation between the skinny and I:

Me: I wake up every morning and look at my dog with affection and adoration. Too bad I can't find a guy I'd feel the same about. Instead I get those that I wake up to, and think, "Geez, still no improvement?"

Skinny: That's why I tell you... you HAVE to get rid of you dog if you ever want to get married. She just sets impossible expectations for a partner.

Me: .......

Where's Cookie?

2011-11-26T15:19:00.001+08:00

Every morning, I wake up to this amusing sight:

My dog loves sleeping next to me. I seem to only be able to sleep easily when I've got a heap of pillows on me and around me, specifically one over my face, one on my chest, and one longer one for me to wrap my legs around, aside from the standard pillow underneath my head.

Obviously, with such an arrangement, a pillow or two will invariably find its way off me over the course of the night, as I tend to shift around in my sleep quite a fair bit. One of the smaller pillows usually ends up on top of the dog slumbering peacefully next to me, which doesn't really bother her much, as she's pretty much used to falling asleep in my air-conditioned with duvets and pillows piled on top of her.

This is how, every morning, I wake up to find what looks like a small-ish pillow next to me, with a pointy black pair of doggy ears sticking out from underneath it, and grunty high-pitched snoring sounds emitting from the whole set-up.

Too bloody cute.

(And yes, that is the approximate design of the bed-spread I'm actually using currently. Bought by the green-loving Mrs. Chan.)

Being Legitimately 无聊

2011-11-25T14:54:00.001+08:00

This will be the lamest post I've ever come up with (or not, knowing my propensity for lameness), but I've been stalking Reddit a lot lately, and one of the things that have really caught my attention and given me no end of amusement are the emoticons used in the comments.

Anyway, with me being me, my OCD/hoarding instinct kicked in and I decided to start collecting all of them, if just to annoy friends like Fahri (very relevant because he's also a Redditor) on Twitter and Facebook by spamming him with them at the most inappropriate or unexpected moments. Like this, actually:

So this post is pretty much dedicated to listing down a bunch of those aforementioned emoticons. I'm keeping this as an open post to be updated on a regular basis, if I find any new ones. Without any further ado, here they are:

ʘ‿ʘ

ಠ_ಠ

(*≧∇≦*)

ಠ‿ಠ

ಠ෴ಠ

ತಎತ

ಠ‿ಠ

ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

┬─┬ノ( º _ºノ)

┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

And my all-time favourite, the "Ballz of Disapproval" stick-man:

ಠ_ಠ

<|>

/ω\

Thank you for wasting five minutes of your time reading through this one. Always glad to oblige. =)

Famiglia

2011-11-24T22:25:00.001+08:00

It's a lie when they say, love doesn't have to hurt. It always does. It always will.

Even when you alienate yourself from that tedious task of caring, your blood will bind you to the burden of concern, and you will find yourself, one cold evening, asking yourself, what the fuck am I doing here, trapped in this humanity, this weakness created of my own conscience?

And all your conviction in living, and loving, in tasting this life so grotesquely extraordinary, that gets violently shaken.

You know what... it's exhausting. And I am beginning, once more, to contemplate leaving. Running, running, running, and disappearing from this little niche I have no business residing in.

This mind was your aberration.

Blow You Away

2011-11-21T00:55:00.000+08:00

Early this morning, at the traffic light near Brighton Square, I spotted this smoke-spewing abomination:

The poor Proton stuck behind him was actually reversing from its original spot about a foot behind it, during that tormenting wait at the traffic lights, where all of us behind Smoggy Fartmobile had to put up with massive amounts of toxic fumes in our faces.

Someone should have him reported to the local authorities. Fucking inconsiderate arsehole.

Didn't bother to Photoshop his license plate out because I figured, if the fellow's so unabashed about the massive amount of pollution his vehicle's spewing out, what's posting this up on a relatively unknown little local blog?

Take The Lolly, Baby

2011-11-12T05:07:00.001+08:00

Over over-priced coffee at Starbucks, I caved in after an evil friend of mine insisted numerous times that I check out this cool site called "Take This Lollipop" out. Having been traumatised one too many unnecessary times by shock sites, I was initially sceptical, but upon his insistence, I clicked on the link. A warning popped up telling me that I was about to access an "abuse site", but said friend told me to disregard the warning and proceed.

So proceed I did. Turns out it directs you to a flash site with some sort of somewhat interactive video.

Warning: If you want to try out the site for yourself, without spoilers, you should stop about here, click on the link, and come back after this.

On loading, the page reveals a rather deadly-looking lolly, and a button to click in order for the site to be connected to Facebook. There is fine print advising that the volume be turned up for optimum experience, and assurances that no private information will be saved.

Uh... OK. I click on the button and grant permission for it to access my Facebook information.

Suddenly, the video starts playing. It shows a creepy hallway, and flickering lights coming out from a doorway on the left. At this point I turn and yell at friend.

"You said it wasn't going to be horrible or scary!"

"It's not! It's just a bit creepy! Just watch it!"

Reluctantly, I glance back at the screen, just to find out what's in the room with the flickery light. It's some rather scruffy-looking dude sitting in front of his computer.

Tap-tap-tap, he's typing away furiously, sporting some of the most filthy nails I've seen on anyone in a long time - I hang out with cultured people. I decide to point that out to friend.

"He's in dire need of a manicure!"

"JUST WATCH."

Shrugging off friend's lack of sense of humour, I direct my concentration back to the screen... And it seems like scruffy dude's signing into his Facebook account.

And this is where the connection at Starbucks suddenly dies, so I only get to proceed to the next part of this suddenly rather intriguing flash video when I have the time to do so, at home.

-----

This means that by the time I get to see the next scene it is 1am.

Watching scruffy guy access his Facebook in a dark, dank-looking room at 1am gives me the heebie-jeebies. I bravely soldier on and keep my eyes glued on the screen...

Cue dramatic music. Scruffy dude's looking at my Facebook profile. Not cool, man, not cool. I'm feeling somewhat uneasy now.

I watch on in horror as he goes through my page and hovers his cursor over the links to my friends' profiles.

As I feel the first vague tendrils of panic enclose my heart, scruffy dude, who has by now upgraded himself to the label of "creepy dude", makes a face often seen on those in the throes of an orgasm.

What. The fuck.

He snaps out of that rather unnerving paroxym of ecstasy, and resumes browsing. He stops and stares at the flickering screen.

Eh? That's some dress sold at some Facebook-based online boutique that I occasionally make purchases from. I've been tagged on it... but what the hell's so captivating about a dress on a headless female that is not me?

Says something about me and my sense of narcissism/paranoia that I immediately assume that creepy dude's stalking just me, me, me, and nothing else.

Scary intense stare. I don't like. What are you thinking, psychotic-looking person looking at my Facebook profile?

EEK!!! That's me! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY PICTURES FOR!? I don't know you!

And he goes through two or three more random images of me, taking time to ponder obsessively over them. With each new photograph of me that he pulls up, I find myself strangely getting rather less freaked out. I get desensitised to weird stalker-types quickly, having dealt with them many, many times before.

OK, it's that unblinking gaze again. I wonder what photo of mine are you clapping those crazy eyes on now?

Uhhhhhhhhh... The thosai masala I had for lunch a few months back? Really? You're doing that intense look of concentration... over thosai? I never knew Indian cuisine could be that riveting.

Seems like creepy dude's incited by that culinary offering into a flurry of activity. He moves his mouse around (do people still use that sort of antiquated-looking mouse?)...

He's typing something. Things are getting interesting.

Err. I start getting uncomfortable again. He's typed something into Google and it seems like he's found a map to my place (or at least a map of one of the common routes leading in the general direction of the area I live in). I debate whether to close the browser screen at this point, but curiosity makes me sit back and watch his next move.

Creepy dude's mumbling something that I can't quite make up. I assume it goes along the lines of "I'm gonna get that bitch..."

Yes, I'm just a little bit scared now.

And then... what is this? It's the grilled asparagus topped with poached egg and hollandaise sauce that I had for dinner a couple of weeks ago. OK, this is rather weird. Oh well, maybe it was just some random image that came up. Aside from the fact he's staring at a rather odd choice of Irene-related image, this man is still making me nervous.

Eh. Creepy dude's caressing the computer screen, which is showing what I presume to be the poached egg...

Right. Now this has definitely entered the realm of ridiculous. The vague sense of fear that was gradually permeating my being evaporates faster than ethanol on hot noon-time concrete.

Look! Creepy dude's about done molesting his computer screen... he's giving those crazy eyes again instead.

So now he's driving out somewhere, looking distinctly mental.

He has some sort of psychotic episode, midway through guiding his car to wherever his destination is.

He seems to have reached it. He's getting out of the car. Seems like he has a print-out of my Facebook profile picture stuck on his dash-board. I have an admirer!

Creepy dude shoves his car door close while on the way out. Is that a knife he's holding in his hand? So what, he's heading over to kill/rape/kidnap me back to his lair so he may slowly carve pieces of flesh off for dinner? Either that or he's planning to grill me over my culinary preferences, with that pointy metal object in hand? (Grill, get it? Hur, hur, hur...)

How joyous.

This pops up suddenly. The same lolly as earlier on, except it's red and has my name taped on it. Below all that is the name of the next victim, which also happens to be a Facebook friend of mine.

You mean after all that suspense, I don't get to see how the happy little drama I just wasted precious minutes of my life on watching is going to end? Shame.

For those who still didn't quite get it, well, it turns out this whole flash site thing's pretty much a creative way of driving home the issue of privacy on Facebook. I think it'd be quite effective too, unless you're tagged on a heap of random shit and/or food pictures, like me.

Anyway, that aside, the lesson learnt: Don't add creepy men with a penchant for grubby singlets.

-----

Note: Screen-shots weren't taken on the first time I watched the video. Had to watch the damn thing again for that purpose - unfortunately it seems like the images used so convincingly actually just come up at random, so I pretty much made do with what I could get.

Dress is a different one from the same online boutique. Screen captures of the thosai and the poached egg are rather badly Photoshopped because those never showed up again in subsequent viewings, and I couldn't be arsed to do anything better for the purposes of demonstrating my first experience of the site.

All friend names and postings have been pixelated because I am paranoid about privacy just like that.

A Rant About Facebook

2011-11-10T22:30:00.001+08:00

So this is what happens if you decide to deactivate your Facebook account, realise that you don't have a friend's contact number, log back in as a means to reach him, deactivate account again, and then log back in because yet another friend sounds rather emotional in the latest correspondence with you, and deactivate YET again... and the laughably silly cycle goes on.

After a point, as you deactivate your account for the umpteenth time, Facebook informs you that you may only log back in after twenty-four hours. No problem, you tell yourself, and some twelve hours later you forget about that and attempt to sign in after a night out with friends. It tells you again that you may only do so after twenty-four hours.

You wonder if it means twenty-four hours after the notice you got straight after deactivation, or from the moment of your attempt to sign in, but think no more about it and go to sleep. The next day, a good full day after your last deactivation, you try to sign in again, only to be told to come back in fifteen hours and twenty-one minutes.

In short, Facebook is a temperamental bitch who is currently in a sulk because you taunted it one too many times by your multiple deactivations.

Bloody hell, if I wanted this sort of shit I'd have kept the bratty ex-boyfriend around.

What Is This I Don't Even...

2011-11-08T01:30:00.001+08:00

This, dear reader, is my father. This is a random shot of the top of his head that I found, while helping him download applications to his iPhone.

Don't ask me what the hell was he doing, trying to snap a shot of his own noggin'. There are a bunch of similarly hilarious vanity shots of himself, from very odd angles, but this one somehow cracked me up the most.

With some edits with some newly-downloaded photography apps, this is what you get. Saved it and returned the phone back to him. Was almost tempted to set it as his wallpaper... but I figured a more subtle approach would be more satisfying.

I wasn't wrong.

Just a few minutes ago, I heard an outraged "WHAT IS THIS!?" emitting from the living room.

Hehehehehehe.

Sweet, sweet revenge for all the laughter he's had at my expense. =P

Wrong Solution

2011-11-05T12:36:00.000+08:00

The thing about alcohol is, if you consume enough, you will find somnolence gradually descending upon you. Your eye-lids grow heavy, your bed seems like the best idea since... well, going out for those ten glasses of whiskeys.

You stop crying (oh yes, you are crying, for the torrent of emotions this legal drug called ethanol managed to unleash) long enough to undress and get into bed, and as you snuggle in deep under your covers, you let out a contented of sigh of relief. You're finally going to be able to sleep.

And... the thing about alcohol is, you wake up a mere four hours later, confused and upset by the rapidly-fading cacophony of dreams you must have had while asleep. And this sense of discomfiture gnaws at the very core of your soul, insistently demanding on your consciousness.

It won't let you rest, this alcohol. After tricking you into sleep more painfully inadequate than complete consciousness.

From Reading About HeLa Cells, To... This. Sigh.

2011-11-04T04:37:00.000+08:00

It's fucking 4am. I'm still here because I can't sleep. There's a heap of Bad Feelings coursing through me, and I'm not sure if it's merely the Prednisolone (fun side effect: exacerbating mental disorders and causing mood-swings even in your run-of-the-mill EveryPatient), or because there's a lot of things issues on my mind that I just haven't gotten around to addressing.

I'm not going to verse this as elegantly as I would, on a good writing day, because I'm fucked up, and I just need an emotional dump-site right now, which would be my poor, neglected blog.

So I'm single. In a not very good way. Not the liberated-and-happy kind of singlehood, but more of a single-and-afraid thing, just because I know, I'm fucked up, and I'm sick of fucking up relationships because I'm fucked up. I'll be honest enough and say this: I come with baggage. And not just your standard post-shitty-breakup emotional baggage that almost every other person carries with them, but a fucking large amount of stinking, gangrenous, oozing emotional injuries that I still haven't quite dealt with, those that go beyond mere broken relationships.

Honestly, I question myself every day, if my relationships fail because I'm as screwed up as I am, or if those I date are to blame too... and even if it's the latter, I start wondering about my own emotional state of mind, what with selecting all the unsuitable partners to be with. A fucked up girl picking the most self-destructive paths to walk down.

And it gets worse, but I'll not bother to elaborate complications of the grey areas of human relationships. To put things simply, there's the indifferent heart-keeper, and the inappropriate lover, neither of which are the ones I can envision a serious relationship with... So I turn away from them, square my shoulders, and march off resolutely away from it all, conscious that my face is wet with tears.

Now it's 4.24am, I'm still here because I can't sleep, and I'm single, maybe more so than I've been, in quite a few months. This is about as alone as one can feel, turning away from those who were once my oases of solace in this confusion they call life.

I'm just very, very, weary.

TL; DR

2011-11-04T02:35:00.000+08:00

Sick of the silence. Sick of a lot of things.

Sick of you and I.

So sick of it all, I couldn't be fucked to be more eloquent.

Stuck with A Lasting Souvenir from the Sea

2011-11-02T03:08:00.000+08:00

Remember the jellyfish incident about two and a half weeks ago? The day after I'd gotten all those stings, the swelling went down and all I was left with was a burn-like reddish mark on my leg that gradually darkened to a brownish colour, very much like a burn wound.

Taken the day after getting jellied

The sting on my arm was so mild, the welts disappeared after just three days, and I pretty much thought that was the end of it, hoping that the brownish mark on my leg would eventually heal up and flake of, as burn wounds typically did.

On Halloween's (the irony's not lost on me), however, my leg began itching mildly. I paid no heed to it as part of the skin on my leg damaged by the sting had begun to flake off, and I chalked the irritation down to the healing process.

Yesterday morning, I was woken up by a fierce itch from both right leg AND arm - the sites of the two jellyfish stings I'd received. On closer inspection, I was horrified to find out that the marks on my leg had swelled up into a rather irritated, blistery welt.

Mr. Chan: (disgusted expression) GROSS. Don't go to the beach anymore!

Scratching at my arm, I almost let out a gasp of shock when I looked more carefully at the site of the very mild second sting I'd received on my arm previously. Where the welts had disappeared, a whole trail of very itchy little blisters had formed along the exact location of the second sting.

I can't even begin to tell you how itchy I feel just by looking at this shot

The red line denotes how the original jellyfish sting actually looked like before it faded away:

I got molested by a tentacle. Sexy ey?

The picture does not show the full extent of those blisters. Bad angle (they go all the way around my arm) because I was holding the camera with my left hand, and also, those nasty little things seem to have doubled in amount since I took that shot.

I'm suspecting a secondary reaction brought on by some immunological response by my body, as there can't be any residual nematocysts after so many weeks to inject more jelly venom into those afflicted areas.

I'll update this post tomorrow, with more pictures if the current situation does not abate... It's late and I'm tired from the sleep-deprivation all this itching is causing me. =(

-----

So this is my update, ten hours and not much sleep later... This is the the patch of grossness that is my arm. It obviously hasn't improved much.

Friend: Have you tried lancing it and scraping out whatever's inside? *puke*

Check out the larger-sized blistery thing on the far left... that one's particularly disgusting because it's a whole row of those things (at least six of them!) all sort of lined up in a row and merging together in a lumpy, inflamed line.

I've just found a new patch of these things on my left ankle, where I suffered a very insignificant sting the day I got jellied on the leg... it was so insignificant I never even noted it or mentioned it to anyone. Apparently my immune system thinks differently. I now have yet another itchy patch as homage to the original mishap with those sea stingers. I'm not going to take any more pictures of this torment.

I'm heading to the clinic to have it checked out soon. This itching just won't abate and I'm about THIS close to clawing off my own skin. To give you an idea how itchy it is - the irritation is so intense it's actually almost close to pain already.

Does anyone have any idea WHY I'm experiencing this secondary reaction, and HOW to relieve it?

-----

This is another update, posted about two hours after previous update.... I'm heading to the clinic in about half an hour's time. ALL areas that came into contact with the jellyfish are developing the same blistery allergy, whether they were adversely affected by those creatures or not.

New areas afflicted include: the knuckles of my left hand (which I used to brush off some of the remaining tentacles on me), my left hip (the initial contact just caused a prickly sensation and wasn't even enough to cause any further irritation), and a patch underneath my right thigh, a few inches below the noticeable sting I got on the same leg (had brief contact with the jellyfish there but didn't leave any swelling or welts so got promptly forgotten about).

Seems like whatever response my immune system's cooking up right now is a hell lot worse than the jellyfish attack itself. How ironic.

-----

From top: Betamethasone cream, Prednisolone 5mg, Loratadine 10mg

Final update: Saw the doctor. His prognosis? A very nasty delayed hypersensitivity reaction as a response to the jellyfish stings. This probably means that all subsequent jellyfish stings in the future most likely might lead to an instantaneous allergic response like this one, so it's better for me to avoid getting stung at all from now on.

The nurse who was taking my blood pressure prior to my consultation took a look at my leg and was appalled - it was so reddened and swollen she thought it was a badly-infected scratch.

Long story short, I was prescribed a rather potent steroid cream (Betamethasone) to relieve the itching, and some Prednisolone pills, a corticosteroid drug used for a wide variety of auto-immune conditions (inclusive of organ transplant, severe gout, acute asthma, etc.). Loratadine, an anti-histamine, was also prescribed for usage in conjunction with the Prednisolone.

That's some heavy-duty ammo to combat the itch! Gonna go take/apply them now and hope that by tomorrow things will have improve.

Irene Does Gourmet Lunch

2011-10-25T19:18:00.000+08:00

This was lunch today:

After days of browsing recipes as a form of bed-time reading, last night I decided that I would no longer resist the temptation of culinary experimentation again. And so at 9pm, I found myself marching into the kitchen to take stock of whatever ingredients I had in there... just to be called out to a barbeque near my house.

Shelved all the ingredients I'd gathered together, and decided it'd be today's lunch-time meal instead.

Anyway, I found quite a fair bit of pork mince, and a good wedge of blue cheese that needed to be consumed immediately. Figured I'd go the decadent route and whip up a gourmet pork burger with blue cheese.

Adapted this recipe and mixed up enough meat mixture to form two hearty patties:

I veered wildly (OK, maybe not quite THAT wildly) away from the recipe and made a number of adaptations to it, including combining some steps from other recipes, so if you haven't clicked on the link, it's OK. You don't have to bother with it. Mine's simpler, and for all it's worth, turned out very edible too.

Ingredients (for burger patties):

220g minced pork
8 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 tsp salt
1 egg (no need to separate the yolk from the white and use only that!)
Cayenne pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash of dried basil

Step 1: Mixed the breadcrumbs into the minced. Cracked an egg into the mixture and using hands, kneaded everything together. Added the salt, a few shakes of the pepper-shaker, a pinch of the dried basil, and a few dashes of the cayenne pepper. I like a little bit of spice in my food.

Step 2: Divided burger mixture into two portions, rolled them up into two balls, and then chucked them back into the fridge while I worked on the rest of the burger's components.

Step 3: Realised that I didn't have the yellow onions I was planning to make caramelised onions with. What I did have, however, was a big bagful of shallots. So I uh, improvise, improvise, improvise. All the better, I reckoned, less slicing involved. I lop off the tops and bottoms of a big handful of those shallots, and cut them into half, length-wise, and throw them into a non-stick pan and begin to cook them as I would with regular onions.

This will take a while, so I go about preparing the rest of the components of my burger.

What you do when you realise your only image of those pretty little shallots cooking is a blurred disaster: you heavily edit it out of every square inch of its life.

Here's the link (if you haven't clicked on it yet) on how to turn onions into a sweet, squishy, almost jammy, incredibly yummy food item that you will find yourself heaping on everything, from soups, to burgers, to steaks, to pizzas.

Step 4: Slice a couple of rolls (I used wholemeal) through, butter them lightly on sliced side, and brown them in a hot pan, butter side down.

Ditto. Bad lighting day + shitty camera + hypoglycemia = bad pictures

(No pictures of me doing that because I forgot to snap a shot while they were actually still in the pan.)

Step 5: Heat up a little extra-virgin olive oil in a pan and cook your burger patties.

Step 6: Now for the blue cheese sauce (sauce au Roquefort for those who want to sound fancy), which is purely optional. You can just add a slice of blue cheese on top of the patty when it's almost done cooking - just slap on the blue cheese, and let it met a little in the heat before taking the patty of the heat and then proceeding assembling your burger. I chose to make a sauce because I was also cooking for Mr. Chan, and most of my family are pretty squeamish about trying out moldy-looking dairy products.

Also, the slice of blue cheese I had on hand wasn't the best-looking specimen, being just days from its use-by date, which accounts for why there will be no shots of this step (that and I was getting hot, sweaty, cranky, and VERY hungry). Didn't want to put the father off my cooking forever. So I used this fairly simple recipe for the sauce, which I once again adapted extensively due to a last-minute realisation that I didn't have cream.

I used milk instead, which was a mistake, because it wouldn't thicken. Had to throw in corn-starch, which I probably added a little over-zealously, resulting in the whole thing suddenly gelling up to a horribly gloopy consistency. Taste-wise, it was still good, but don't follow my method. Stick to slapping on that slice of cheese, or following the recipe I've provided the link to, sans creative shortcuts that just lead to more sweat and tears.

Step 7: Shallots should be almost done by now. Deglaze with a little red wine. In my case, I like to use a LOT of red wine, so if you're planning to follow my way, do tip in a big lug of red wine. The stuff does add so much dimension to browned onions/shallots. =)

Step 8: Assemble burger, and serve with caramelised shallots on the side. Do NOT tell your very squeamish father that blue cheese was used. Watch him bite into the whole thing and proclaim it a success. And then put your face in your hands when he questions the thickness of the patty (the man's encounters with burgers are mainly of the Burger Ramly or McDonald variety).

Yes, I'm showing you this image again because I was so hungry I only managed to snap ONE quick shot before hastily stuffing my face.

Do try this out! Blue cheese looks gross but the richness of flavour is really something one has to at least experience once in a lifetime. And browned onions? You'll wonder how you ever went without those indispensable things, so useful in almost anything, and perfect just on its own with a wedge of cheese.

You Jelly?

2011-10-18T18:24:00.002+08:00

So I spent the last weekend away again, yes, you guessed correctly, at somewhere with sand, surf, and salty sea-water. I thought it was a day-trip, just to get reacquainted with the ocean kayaks I've so sorely missed, after weeks of not taking them out, and only learnt that it was going to be an over-night stay, with quite a few colleagues of the SMurF. Even then, I was oblivious to the plans of the weekend, until I got into the car and was handed a Manchester United jersey and a ticket to the VIP section of the football-themed party that was to be held in conjunction with the Man U - Liverpool match, at this new bar near the resort we'd be staying it, Escobar.

Whatever the plan was, I figured it was all fine and dandy, didn't really care much either way (not a football fan) as all I wanted was a good swim in the sea, and nothing else really mattered, as long as there were kayaks there for me to take out, and some good company to hang out with.

On reaching the area, all of us decided to meet-up for some fun on the beach after checking in, and we promptly gathered on Damai beach. Whilst the SMurF chased a ball around, scattering sand on people in his wake, and then switched to making himself a public nuisance with his frisbee session with his buddy, I decided to relax and take a leisurely swim in the sea. Two other female colleagues of the SMurF were walking around the beach, and as they didn't seem to inclined to enter the water just yet, I went off on my own.

After swimming out some distance, I decided to just float on my back, and enjoy being back in the water, on a familiar beach. As I was staring up at the sky, I realised that there was a full moon in full view, more obvious now, in the fading sunlight. At the same time, I also came to the realisation that the water was feeling just really... strange. Warm sea-water was being interspersed with lashings of icy-cold currents, which brought on a growing uneasiness - the last time I was on this beach and experienced this sort of thing, I had an encounter with almost thirty jellyfish.

Just as I was thinking all that, I felt something akin to small plastic bags in the water, bumping up against me from all directions. Despite that, I couldn't see anything in the murky sea-water, as the tide was bringing in silt that killed all visibility in the water. Swallowing back panic, I reasoned to myself that they were probably just floating debris, as I didn't feel anything else, and decided to swim back to shore.

As I switched from a floating-on-back position back to a free-style position, I finally felt it. An almost itching, stinging sensation, all over my left leg. I let out an involuntary squeaky scream, and all the while still trying to maintain my grasp on self-control, quickly made my way to the beach, out of the water. While doing so, I frantically slapped at my left leg, feeling the itching pain transfer onto my knuckles, and lifted my hand to see... a mass of slimy, near-invisible tentacles. Those I could fling away as far from myself as possible, I did, and I removed the rest with a leaf that had conveniently floated right past me.

At that same moment I let out my squeak of shock and surprise, the two girls on their beach had just shed their clothes and were about to enter the water in their bikinis... at the sound of my alarmed shriek, the both of them froze on the edge of the water, statue-like, and I would've laughed at them if I weren't trying to remove the remnants of my underwater attacker off my leg.

The SMurF, subjected to months and weeks of my drama queen behaviour, merely laughed off my plight as yet another diva response to imaginary attackers, and did not take me seriously until a man not few metres away from us stood up and ran out of the sea the same way I did, mentioning on his way out that there were jellyfish in the water. On hearing that, the SMurF offered help - in the form of urination on my inflamed leg, as did the other two girls.

Lovely how helpful my friends really are... -_-"

Dude to the right of me in this illustration also got jellied. No, he wasn't wearing a red cap. I just felt like adding that on to differentiate him from me. Stick figures have a way of all looking alike, you know.

Needless to say, much of the fun of being on the beach was taken out by that incident. All of us decided to go back to our rooms to rest up and prepare for the football party later in the evening. Back in my room, I moodily checked out the extent of the stings, and was relieved to find that the worst of it was concentrated around my thigh area, near my right knee, with a few superficial stings around the ankle of that same leg, and the knuckles of my left hand.

As I sulked in a corner of the room, annoyed at my joy at being on the beach being so rudely interrupted by some invisible stinging creature, the SMurF came up to me, and slapped a wet tissue onto the welts near my knee. The tissue was... WARM. Upon closer inspection, it was also a very light yellowish colour. I let out a horrified shriek as my brain fought against accepting the notion of a pee-drenched tissue paper on my body. As I sat there, frozen in mortification, the SMurF dabbed at it, and then finally (and mercifully) removed the offending article off my leg.

Jellies leave rather unappealing-looking welts. I'd still take this over getting peed on, any day.

Fortunately though, for all the drama it caused, the jellyfish sting did lead to me scoring some free drinks at the party we attended later on. I was quite tipsily walking around the party venue, watching the merry-making and feeling amused at the drunken antics of my companions, when a waiter came up to me and asked what would be my drink of preference, as someone wanted to buy me one. Said waiter came back twice more, once to pass on the message that a gentleman in a corner thought I was "hot", and the second time to pass me yet another free drink. When I finally bothered to head over to the corner where the man who'd bought me my alcohol was to say my thank yous, I found out that it was the same man who'd gotten stung the same time as I did, earlier on.

This is a new one for me: bonding via jellyfish stings. Haha.

If you thought that was the last of the story, you're wrong. The next morning, the SMurF and I decided to kayak all the way to one of the many small coves off Permai beach (the beach adjacent to Damai). It was a hot morning, and I was hungover, and I over-heated quickly as we paddled out that fair distance to a remote sandy little cove. Pulling our craft above the water-line, we both decided to cool down first with a quick swim in the sea.

After ten minutes, the SMurF decided that we should go back to shore. I was about to answer with a "Nahhhhhhh... let's just stay here another ten more minutes, please?" when I felt that now-familiar pain around my right FOREARM.

That's right, I got stung again, while the SMurF, frolicking just a metre off, remained unscathed and rather bewildered at my sudden hasty run out of the water, seconds after giving him a minor scare by letting out another squeaky scream.

Best part of it all: thinking that I wouldn't encounter another of those insidious things, I didn't bring the vinegar I'd left back in my room along as a remedy for possible jellyfish stings. FML.

You'd think all those jellies were harbouring some sort of vendetta against just specifically me. Maybe something like this, I imagine?

Wanted: dead or alive. Preferably swollen beyond recognition.

As we made our way back to shore, the SMurF put up with all of one measly minute of my outraged whining before he calmly told me, "Shut up. Nature happened. Suck it up."

Which he does have a point there... the sea does come with its own set of consequences to live down, which is why everyone should have a healthy respect of it. However, if my next encounter with nature looks like this, I sure as hell am not just going to whine about it:

Nomura's jellyfish. Image credits of: Sankei.

Now this fella justifies MAJOR bragging rights, man.

That Little Silence

2011-10-17T19:02:00.001+08:00

I must admit something here: I’ve stopped blogging as prolifically, just because I’ve gotten sick of reading what I have written, and hear it in that annoying mental narration that’s perpetually playing in my head.

Don’t ask me why. I think it’s just plain dissatisfaction at my own prose. It no longer thrills me to reread a piece I have composed, probably because I’m no longer churning out posts that even come close to my lofty standards.

It feels like inspiration has dried up – there’s a heap of things I would love to write about, thousands of pictures I want to include with those interesting and captivating lines I have floating somewhere in my head, but there’s just no elegant way of verbalizing it anymore. I guess it has something to do with my bipolar disorder, creativity and the ability to play the role of wordsmith ebbs and flows with the varying cycles of my emotional state.

And so I’m apologising here, even though I really shouldn’t; not on a personal blog that’s a chronicle of my life, and mine, mine alone to curate.I’m apologising if you’re someone I know, visiting here for an update, just to leave disappointed. I’m apologising to myself for the sub-par scribblings I’ve been subjecting everyone to here.

Ahhhh. This is agonizing... Hopefully, given time, this frustratingly prolonged period of writer’s block will eventually resolve itself.

Of Laphroaig, Smokes, And A Decadent Weekend Well-Wasted

2011-10-11T17:38:00.000+08:00

Just spent a lovely weekend away, enjoying a much-needed retreat from the general day-to-day bullshit, with a like-minded libertine of a friend. It was the most blissful two days either of us have had in a long time, just lounging by the pool at a private location, stiff drink in one hand, and a joint in another, with friendly staff at our beck and call, whilst we leisurely spoke about the nature of human behavior, the general apathy shown in our society, and more so, the recurring topic of human relationships.

All that talk about relationships past, present and future, just got me thinking. As of this year, I’ve been in and out of relationships for more than a decade. For all the heartache and drama and the heart-meltingly tender moments that will probably remain with me as long as I live, I somehow still sometimes feel frustratingly none the wiser as to how to deal with the changing nature of that sort of emotional entanglement.

From the first real boyfriend back from when I was sixteen, to the last long-term partner that ended in yet another dramatically disastrous manner, I still find myself not all-too-happily dissecting the ruins of yet another failed relationship.All I seem to have amassed is the painful memory of yet another betrayal, or the weariness of never-ending disputes; and more tormentingly, memories of happy days gone by, never to be re-lived again.

I still do not understand. I reckon the blame partly falls on me, my unresolved emotional baggage, and also the men I seem to choose – those whom are completely unsuitable for this tender mass of contradicting emotions and more than two decades of learned pain. It's like the same men I fall for are the ones that are least-equipped to deal with my condition, and the fragility of my precarious emotional state. My fault really, for not choosing well enough, but I always had a penchant for things not too good for me.

So here I am as close to being single as I’ve ever been, after so long. And I am the happiest I’ve been, in an arrangement as close to being in a relationship as I dare to be, sans the complexities or the burden of expectation that comes with one.

I will admit it readily here: I am probably nothing more than a common coward, and a selfish one at that. But until I have managed to dislodge this huge emotional block in regards of getting involved with another in a serious, long-term capacity again, this shall have to do.

It was, however, a really good weekend away. Flavoured with whisky and hemp and too many Long Island Iced Teas; two days of shared confidences and comfortable silences.

You Can't Go Wrong With Bacon and Potatoes!

2011-09-30T20:06:00.001+08:00

My various different social circles have been holding a spate of barbeques lately, for no reason whatsoever, and princess as I am, and not too much a fan of slaving over a hot grill pit in this sweltering weather, I offered instead to be in charge of the vegetables and carbs.

I opted to make an old favourite, a potato salad with home-made bacon dressing that I might or might not have posted up before. It's a recipe I found years ago, one that's reasonably simple to make, and yields a flavoursome potato salad that my sisters and I love (that's saying a lot considering Miss Dot doesn't like potatoes very much). That said, this recipe calls for bacon, lots of it, so it's definitely in no way a health-friendly dish, and best taken in moderation.

The original recipe had its heart in the right place, but it was a bloody pain in the arse to follow, especially the bit on the bacon dressing, and so through trial and error we've adapted it. I'm posting my latest version of it, tweaked to feed about twelve people, although there's likely to be up to fifteen people attending the barbeque tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there'll be some among those attending that actually give a shit about the state of their arteries, heh.

I'll be including pictures for illustration purposes, all assembled in the same order as in the recipe for broccoli soup that I'd posted up awhile ago. Here's a refresher in case there's any confusion:

Ingredients:

10 large potatoes
8 slices bacon (I used roughly an equal amount of bacon chips)
4 eggs, beaten lightly
6 tablespoons sugar, or to taste (too sweet - I reduced the amount of sugar to 4 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vinegar (this is way too much vinegar - I reduced it to less than 1/4 cup, but do adjust accordingly)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped shallots or small red onions (that's about 8 shallots)
4 tablespoons mayonnaise or salad dressing
Salt and pepper to taste

Optional:

2-3 stalks chives, chopped (my addition to the recipe, omitted here because I didn't have any on hand)

Step 1: Begin by chopping up half a cup of red onions or shallots.

Step 2: Boil potatoes until tender, peel them, and then cut them up into pieces.

Step 3: Bacon-lovers will love this part - add a little olive oil to a pan, heat it up, and fry up the bacon until it is crispy. Remove bacon from pan, and reserve the bacon drippings for later. This is the magic stuff that will make your potato salad rise above other mundane ten-minute mayo offerings, so be careful not to spill it, as I did. =(

Step 4: Take a pair of kitchen scissors, and chop the bacon up into little bits. Alternatively you can just crumble it up, but I find the scissors method faster and easier.

Here are the crucial items that flavour you salad: (clockwise from top right) bacon drippings, red onions, and crumbly bacon bits. So much bacony goodness!

Step 5: Now this is the tricky part of this recipe, making the bacon dressing itself. Whisk the eggs together with the salt, sugar, and milk. Do NOT add in the vinegar just yet. The original recipe called for double or more of the amount of vinegar I've found sufficient for the dressing, and instructed for that to be whisked into the milk and egg mixture prior to heating, but in past experience I've found that all that does is curdle up the entire mixture prematurely. Also, it leads to clumping which renders your dressing unusable, so don't waste your eggs by doing so.

Instead, still omitting the vinegar, slowly whisk the mixture into the bacon drippings in a pot. Simmer over a low flame, and only then, add the vinegar, in gradual increments. Do NOT pour the entire amount in all at once. Keep whisking the entire time, paying heed to the consistency of the mixture. Once it reaches a very thick cream of mushroom soup viscosity, you've gotten it correct. Stir in bacon bits and continue whisking it to prevent clots from forming.

If the dressing does not thicken up satisfactorily, add more vinegar as required, being careful to do so in small amounts.

This is how it looked when I swirled the milk in with the eggs. What a pretty white-and-yellow marbled effect!

Step 6: To the potatoes, add the red onions and the mayonnaise, as well as the bacon dressing. Gently mix everything together well, adding salt and pepper to taste (I like to use a LOT of pepper in my potato salad). Do add chives as well, if you have them - that really does round off the mix of flavours very beautifully here. I've accidentally used garlic chives before. That's surprisingly pretty good too, adds a bit of a garlicky/leeky sort of flavour to the salad. Do play around with the recipe a little according to your preferences!

And then you're done! I usually refrigerate the salad for a few hours before serving - it tastes best when the flavours are given a bit of time to mingle and infuse into the potatoes. Serve this cold, as a side to some hearty grilled pork. Goes very well with a pint of cold beer too... =)

I'll be making two batches of this within three days. I hope I don't get too sick of eating it haha. Either way, the heavenly smell of bacon seems to have permeated every corner of my kitchen. I'm not complaining at all!

A Stick-Man Unromance

2011-09-30T03:27:00.000+08:00

This was originally in prose. Decided to draw it instead, as my penchant for metaphors seems to be the biggest contributing factor towards the noise leading to the barriers to communication between us.

They say, a picture speaks a thousand words. That makes this post two, three times longer than what I publish here, on average.

Can't say I didn't try.

On Courage

2011-09-28T17:29:00.000+08:00

Hey you.

I don't know you, but I hope you are OK, wherever you are now. I just want to tell you, I was in that same dark place before; I'm still fighting to keep from falling back in, every day. I hope that you will find the strength in you, to overcome the temptation of that final escape, the same one I flirted with almost fatally, a life-time ago.

I hope you will have the courage to try to look forward to tomorrow, instead of dwell on the pain of yesterday, and the confusion of today, as I eventually managed to. Yes, I still fall down, occasionally; and no, it's not an easy thing to do, but it will be worth it, in the end.

More than anything else, I hope you can see that there are those still who care about you, and that their love is not a burden, but the shining light guiding you out of the abyss you have currently lost yourself in.

I don't know if it's too late, if you've already given in to despair by this point. I just hope all is well with you. I hope you will go home soon.

Someone out there loves you. And I, just a stranger, I wish you nothing but positive thoughts.

Everyone deserves to live.

Scabby Baby

2011-09-28T03:03:00.002+08:00

This is proof that both my genetic propensity for blatant displays of klutziness and the tendency for the most improbable shit to happen to me hasn't improved much at all over the years:

Went out on Saturday night, in a sexy black mini dress and my favourite pair of killer black booties. Was expecting to take a tumble in those, because I've not worn high-heels in so long I no longer really feel comfortable in them. Didn't fall over as expected, despite tottering around in them for most of the night.

And then when I decide to switch to a more comfortable pair of flats to give my feet a break... I trip while crossing the road. Fortunately I had a male friend on either side of me, and barely a moment after I'd landed on one knee, the both of them hauled me back up laughingly.

It's been healing pretty well though, despite the initial inflammation. Mr. Chan, however, finds the sight of my injury highly amusing, and has taken to either exclaiming in mock horror or bursting out in near-hysterical laughter every time he glimpses it.

"You're too old to keep coming home with scabby knees!" he says.

-_-"

The Ambitious Gecko

2011-09-21T14:29:00.000+08:00

An unexpected landing next to an unsuspecting gecko.

A more attractive potential dinner date, it has never seen.

Not quite stealthy enough. Dinner (date?) departs.

Back to boring flies and hapless ants, is the ambitious gecko's dinner du jour.

Zuppa Arancione

2011-09-15T23:47:00.000+08:00

I know, I've been rather lazy in posting up food-related content here lately, even though I'm still cooking up a storm on occasion when the mood strikes me. It is quite a pain in the arse to keep a camera close by to document the whole process of putting a dish together, step by fiddly step where I sometimes prefer having both hands free to do things.

However, I'm feeling a touch under the weather today, and staying in on a night where everyone's out (it's the eve of Malaysia Day today, and most of my friends are out getting really, really sloshed), I've decided to blog about what I cooked today.

So... I made pumpkin soup (unintentionally keeping with the upcoming Halloween theme!), after just referring briefly to a few recipes.

So I decided I would:

Throw in an assortment of other vegetables aside from pumpkin
Use my own home-made stock instead of powdered or canned stock
Add some ginger in for a little heat, reminiscent of some really good pumpkin soup I'd had many years ago

Making the stock was a bit tedious, because it had to be simmered for over two hours. I modified an oft-used recipe from this favourite Italian cookbook of mine, and boiled up the following on low heat on the stove for almost three hours:

5 large chicken wings (instead of a whole chicken)
2 large onions, halfed and roasted
2 medium carrots, halfed and roasted
2 stalks of celery, chopped into large pieces
1 stalk of coriander, roughly chopped
5 black peppercorns
Enough water to cover everything in pot

Strain resulting stock and skim any scum and oil off the surface.

For the soup, I chose a hodge-podge of ingredients, crossed my fingers, and prayed that it would turn out OK. Yes, I was in a reckless cooking mode today.

1 pumpkin (about 1.5kg after removal of skin and seeds), peeled and chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
3 sticks celery, chopped
3 large onions, sliced
2 large knobs of ginger (according to one of the recipes I'd read with about the same amount of pumpkin in it), grated
Chicken stock (from earlier)
80g butter
Extra virgin olive oil
Coriander
Freshly ground white pepper
Salt to taste

Drizzle a generous lug of olive oil in a pan. Then, add butter. Once butter is somewhat melted, sautee the onions and celery till onions are soft. Also add grated ginger in together with onions and celery.
Throw in carrots and pumpkin. Cook in pan until soft.
Add chicken stock to and some water (if required). Simmer for half an hour.
After half and hour, take the mixture off fire and blend it till smooth.
Reheat the pumpkin puree and serve with some julienned coriander on top as garnish and flavouring.

And here's how it turned out:

Not too bad ey? Unfortunately, I found the ginger a tad too overpowering. "2 large knobs" sounded pretty pornographic to me, and was a rather vague indicator of size, so I used about two thick pieces about the length of my thumb. I'll try one and a half or even just one piece of ginger next time. I wanted just a hint of heat, not a soup that packed a minor punch in the spice department; and while it was perfectly fine by me, the mother (who's highly intolerant to spice) complained a fair bit.

I've been making a lot of soups lately, as my stomach hasn't been very well, preferring soups over anything overtly substantial. Also, these are pretty filling as a light meal on their own, and can be prepared in a large quantity, and then frozen in smaller batches as quick meals on the go, easily thawed in the microwave oven.

This soup is very much comfort food for someone on the verge of succumbing to the 'flu bug, and nice and warming for the temperamental tummy. Helps that it's such a cheerful orangey colour too! Love it!

Pens

2011-09-15T13:34:00.001+08:00

Don't know if I can actually do so, but I don't want to write anymore.

This gift is a curse and my burden to bear.

Who sees the artist when there's just his work overshadowing him?

Do you see the despair in those swirling strokes, the madness in those muted colours?

How much more of the soul, to be poured into work, so little understood, little cared for?

And then the expectation for those cheap little reproductions...

So many demands for my written word. Things I don't want to pen, don't care for at all, but am obliged to. So many 'requests', 'favours', 'kindnesses'; I'm weary, I'm out of words, I'm a crippled word-smith.

I would have broken my right hand today, my writing hand; slammed it angrily, foolishly, recklessly, against unyielding concrete.

Because I don't want to write, anymore.

O Boyo, Don't You Know Flattery Won't Get You Anywhere?

2011-09-13T16:34:00.001+08:00

It's been two years since we broke up (I think). You still say shit about me. I derive perverse pleasure in hearing about those catty little barbs you pass on to mutual acquaintances. Those are the only things that serve to remind me of my time with you, else I'd as happily have forgotten about that little bit of bother, being with you. I guess, in a way, it IS rather flattering that I've made such an impact on your life, that you still find it in you, to think of me sometimes.

On some days, however, I wonder, why would you lower yourself to such levels, and prove yourself to the world as such a mean-spirited little (figuratively, not literally - forgive me if this word offends you) man? Isn't there anything that's worth more effort on your part than the continuous slander of someone who no longer even gives a fuck, and is just simply entertained at your somewhat masochistic effort at spite? Was the rejection such a blow to your ego, that all this snarkiness in response to anything related to me became a reflex action on your part?

Either way, it doesn't really matter. As telling as your behaviour is, it's not for me to judge how you cope with a broken heart. Or a deflated pride. I just wanted to say to you today, thank you. For the little bit of amusement you still afford me. You'd never think that you'd still make for reason to smile, or even laugh, even with us currently in this state we are - uncivil and no longer on speaking terms, would you?

And yes, thank you too, if not for loving me, then just for occupying that little corner of your mind. <3

Monkeys!

2011-09-11T19:20:00.004+08:00

There has been so much going on that I've kind of lost the ability to organise my thoughts into coherent sentences. I won't be really updating until I can sort the various muddled notions in my head into some semblance of proper composition.

In the meantime, I have been looking at pictures we took in July, seems a life-time ago, but one thing's for sure, I will always have my sisters' unconditional love and acceptance, no matter how things are.

For all the things that do not go they way I'd hoped, I still am truly blessed to have two sisters who I will always be able to depend on.

Here's a series of silliness the skinny managed to capture while we were on a junk cruise on Ha Long Bay. Her amusement and exasperation of being stuck on the same trip as two overgrown children made us laugh even harder.

Sisters, if you're reading this, do know that I miss you both dearly. And that I love you guys. For all the laughter, and all the love, and all the time spent together, for good or bad.

Broke

2011-08-29T06:28:00.005+08:00

Been living in a crazy, painful dilemma the entire week.

The truth doesn't really set anyone free, just opens up more complications and more questions to be answered.

Life is beautiful, and confusing, and a cacophony of colours and emotions so loud that it's almost intolerable at times.

And I am split into two. The two pieces of my life that used to work together so beautifully like clock-work are broken and fragmented and no longer make any sense to me.

Apparently telling the truth means that one has to perpetuate a lie after - if one seeks to retain things the way they were. Because once spoken, the veil is irrevocably torn apart, and there's no longer blissful ignorance to ease things along.

Fucking defeats the whole purpose of coming clean ey.

This week of confusion has made something quite clear though, although whether I will actually take that nugget of awareness to heart is another story.

Sometimes we don't discard the extraneous, even though logic dictates we should.

I need another break from myself. Sometimes I think I should just check myself into a monastery and take a vow of silence, among other things.

Notlove

2011-08-21T21:30:00.003+08:00

Three nights ago, when I was about to leave your house, I gazed upon your slumbering form, curled up child-like on the sofa, and felt a wave of tenderness briefly pass through me. I scribbled "I <3 U" on a note-pad, to leave for you to find when you wake up, placing it on the table next to you, where I was sure you'd see it first thing in the morning.

And then my heart lurched. It didn't agree with those three words. The affection, the kindness, the occasional laughter I shared with you - that wasn't quite enough to be love, something deep inside myself whispered. And then I realised that as much as I cared about you, I could never love you anymore, not the way that would be ever make it right, and it was just a matter of time before someone got hurt again - this mock-relationship prolonged, would amount to nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory for the both of us.

I wanted to snatch up and crumple that slip of paper, now nothing more than a blatant lie, blazing into my conscience with all its wrong-ness, but I made myself step away from it, because some part of my heart still had a soft-spot for you, and felt that you needed a that little bit of kindness from me, a small token from the receding oasis of my accessible emotions, because I thought I owed that much to you.

But I guess it was another lie, to the both of us. So today I tried to make amendments. I told you the truth. The one neither of us really wanted to hear, in such a direct pronouncement.

I'm sorry the honesty broke your heart again.

Two Stupids Share A Fag

2011-08-14T16:24:00.007+08:00

On the way back down from the beach, friend digs out crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights from under his car seat and pulls out the single remaining, rather miserable-looking cigarette from it.

Me: Isn't that the pack I gave you, like, weeks ago?

Him: Uh. Yeah, I think.

Me: Eww. Hey how about you light that one up and see how nasty it is?

Him: Is that a dare? *straightens out cigarette, lights it, and takes a deep puff on it*

Me: *watch as his face changes to a strange shade of grey* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! Is it that bad?

Him: *sticks head out of car window* BLEARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *turns back* Yes, it's horrible.

Me: Really? Pass it over, I'll be the judge of that. *grab cigarette and do a long pull on it*

Him: *silently watches proceedings with amusement in eyes*

Me: *exhaling quickly* UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *shove cigarette back at him, grab water bottle and chug down half of contents* OK. You're right. That was... bad.

Him: *carefully disposes offending cigarette out car window*

And that is how you end an otherwise predictably awesome beach getaway for the weekend if you're an idiot like us: after all that hyperactive running around, swimming, and kayaking - you fill your lungs with smoke from a very stale month-old cigarette, just out of some misguided curiosity about things.

DomoHammer

2011-08-10T15:01:00.011+08:00

Introducing the DomoHammer!

You might have spotted it in a previous post, being photographed while fed tiny amounts of cake, and wondered what it was.

Well, this is one of the most annoying toys ever, and hands down one of the best conversation pieces for any event. It is also the reason for the most ridiculous form of chaos, no matter what social setting this is presented at, because when sufficiently smacked on any firm surface (or hapless person's head), it will emit a loud, comical "BOING BOING BOING BOING" sound.

It is the perfect tool for the means of irritating others, if nothing else. And it provokes nothing less than outrageously aggravating behaviour, even among the most solemn of personalities.

The first day I brought it home, Mr. Chan proceeded to go around smacking everyone with it... and the usually-humourless Mrs. Chan actually brought it out for a dinner with family.

This is the perfect ice-breaker... or the fastest way to get ostracised from any social function =P

Don't Spit

2011-08-10T12:55:00.007+08:00

I find it amusing that so many different people view me as so many different things.

There are some who accuse me of indifferent coldness - a numb emptiness and a lack of empathy for their pain.

And then there are some who chide me for investing too much emotion into things, people, places, that logically shouldn't matter much to me.

I myself must say, I strive to achieve equilibrium every day. How does one feel for things one is mostly dispassionate about, or stop caring for those that pull at the very core of one's soul?

And how is it I can care so keenly, then turn around and lose all desire to bother? Is it some form of emotional retardation, is it my bipolar disorder, or am I just switching off because that becomes a necessity for my sanity?

And then there's the crazy little wild-cat I've brought into my life, that growing hurricane fit to rival my own tumultuous sea of madness, the loose-cannon I thought I could control, manage.

I thought I could compartmentalise things better, but everything's spilling over the rigid boundaries I set for my heart and my soul.

I swear, I'm in some sort of trouble, again.

I swallow it with a smile.

Finally! Delifrance's In Kuching!

2011-08-09T18:11:00.014+08:00

Last Wednesday I went for a food-tasting event for the newly-opened Delifrance outlate at Hills Shopping Mall.

This post is rather overdue, so I'm making up for it by actually editing ALL the pictures for this event (and also because I only realised my camera was low on battery when I reached the venue, resulting in mostly fuzzy, furtive snaps).

They offer a pretty varied selection of items for all pastry-lovers to indulge in, ranging from sweet to savoury:

Quite a few sandwich options too, for those who prefer a more substantial alternative:

And heaps of cakes for the sweet-toothed and those desiring dessert:

We were told we would be served three courses as a chance to sample the offerings from Delifrance. First up was this mini-croissant and strawberry danish (correction: seems like it's a blueberry apple danish. Food review fail - never go hungover):

See the chunky bits of ~~strawberry~~ blueberry/apple in the danish? <3!

Next up was the sandwich... Now this one was pretty deceptively filling - I only managed half of it:

For dessert, we got to try two types of cakes, some jellied mango one, and a layered chocolate cake:

Found it a tad sweet,but then again I don't really take sugar or any sweet items because of intolerance to that, so others might beg to differ.

I loved the black coffee though, it was strong and fragrant and really packed a caffeine punch. And their trademark product, which we got as a complimentary gift: a mini French baguette - that one was a favourite of mine too:

This is how manly men handle their baguettes (firmly, and decisively):

Manly men see no shame in taking pictures of themselves feeding my DomoHammer bits of cake:

And another one, taken by another camera-wielding attendee of the event:

I don't have a group-shot of bloggers attending the event because my camera gave up on me and died at this point, so I stole one off Eve's facebook (sorry and thank you in advance! =P):

It was a pretty interesting event, and definitely good news for pastry-lovers in Kuching: finally there exists another option for satisfying those wheat flour cravings, and in a very convenient location smack in the middle of Kuching city at that, too.

Masks

2011-08-07T15:31:00.003+08:00

Beneath the multitude of facades I costume myself in, and the personas I embody, only this much is resoundingly true: my heart is a riddle, even to myself.

My Magic

2011-08-05T15:01:00.002+08:00

Sometimes my friends come up with gems like this on Facebook (click to view larger):

Cracked me up so badly I couldn't catch my breath a good minute or so, and too good not to share.

For those who do not get it:

I'm just waiting for this one to pop up on Failbook sooner or later LOL.

Bunnies and Freckles

2011-07-29T18:57:00.008+08:00

Not many posts just yet because I've been generally happy as hell lately and pretty much enjoying the buzz from enjoying life this much.

I suspect the previous post was somewhat fueled by pre-menstrual syndrome but as it's passed quickly enough we're back to over-enthusiastic happy moi again. Might just be a manic upturn for all I know but might as well enjoy it as long as it lasts.

To put it simply, I'm walking around with this big smile on my heart, all the time, and I think it shows. I'm feeling incredibly joyful, on a natural high, for the past few weeks, and it's wonderful. There's so much to love, I feel like hugging everyone I meet.

And no, I'm not in love, even though this insane, heady sense of extreme bliss feels almost like it.

So for lack of a more interesting update, and as I'm still sorting out the shots from Hanoi, here's a bunch of pictures of things that make me unreasonably chipper:

I've been wanting this Pinkie Pirate Dooodoll for awhile. Someone grudgingly got it for me after a few days of listening to me whine for it. Made PMS a heap more tolerable, just grinning stupidly at it after I got it.

Had cravings for very rare steak the entire time I was feeling hormonal and cranky. Two people brought me for that. Was literally bouncing off the walls after that. Food makes me smile!

Looking at pictures of the silly doodles I did on Miss Dot. This one keeps cracking me up. The "mouth" was actually a cigarette burn she suffered while out with friends.

I bring this little Domo-kun doll everywhere. I take random pictures of it in strange settings. This was from my cruise at Ha Long Bay. Looking at my folder of Domo-going-places shots cheers me up immensely. Most entertaining present from the skinny, EVAR!

A random trip to the beach on a weekday afternoon with frequent beach buddy, Yogurt (no, not her real name). Rolling around on the sand with a book. Bliss. Don't mind the make-up free face and dark eye-circles. Yes, I am freckly.

And that's all for today!

Your Winter

2011-07-26T12:58:00.006+08:00

you are so far away most days all i see in you is a glimmer of resigned affection and suppressed aggravation. is passion even a word in your dictionary anymore?

i come to you every day, worrying the empty tundra landscape i see in those tired eyes.
i walk away sometimes, aware of the invisible bars that keeps me trapped in the cold.

i've been warming myself, at other fires, just so my own heart will thaw again.
i thought i lost the ability to taste that spark of pure feeling,
i thought i could sit next to you on your icy throne, but i was wrong.

the bands of ice around my chest are melting. but you are still cold. and i am still trying to escape.

these chains of love and habit.

ask yourself again, if i am the resentful Persephone you would keep by your side.
because the pomegranate seeds i have eaten are only so few.
and it is almost spring-time.

And Moving On...

2011-07-23T16:04:00.011+08:00

Went out last night, got a bit smashed from my lowered alcohol tolerance from being mostly alcohol-free for the past few months. Anyway, about 3am an overwhelming hunger drove me to go straight home for food.

On reaching home, while still inebriated, I seem to have managed to (not in any real semblance of order):

changed into my favourite shirt for sleeping in (no idea how I achieved this, I can't find half my stuff even when perfectly sober)
removed makeup
washed face
applied toner, moisturizer, and serum for night treatment
taken out contacts
fixed myself a wiener in a bun
replied an email (and sounding quite sober too in it)
checked Facebook and commented on half a dozen things on it
chatted with a friend
replied to all the texts I'd gotten
gotten self into bed with Cookie

I must conclude that I am pretty awesome on auto-pilot.

In other news, sorting through close to a thousand and seven hundred images from my trip has been a major pain in the butt. Will upload some quite soon, once I get the chore of discarding pointless or irrelevant shots over and done with.

Character Flaw

2011-07-20T10:37:00.012+08:00

I get living vicariously through other people's dramas. I get the jokes and the low blows at other people's expenses. I even get the occasional harmful gossip. All that serves to spice up your life a little, and make you feel better about yourself. I mean, that's what it's for right? A certain self-reassurance in feeling a little better than others... I know. I understand. I'm probably guilty of doing the same at one point of life or another.

I just don't get how you have made all of this such a big part of your lifestyle. Is your existence as meaningless as to drive you to devote most of your free time towards reveling in and spreading shit about other people's lives? I mean, is that all your life revolves around, this endlessly vicious cycle?

I also do not understand how you could run your mouth off about me to literally everyone and their mothers, to the extent that it is no longer a surprise, nor hurtful, that the nth person tells me that you have been discussing the private details of my life with them. I would keep count, but there have been so many... I guess my colourful life fascinates you or excites you, enough to become a constant topic for conversation LOL.

Sure I tire you, I realise that, and that is why I stay away from you. Hell I tire myself, so I fully empathise. But I know what you say about me, have known about what you say about me, since years and years back. I have read what your friend said about me to my ex. I know what you said and still say to my ex. The irony is that you tire me too, with your constant back-stabbing and the silly little dramas within your slanderous little group.

The saddest part is how I use to take you into confidence because I actually trusted you. And liked you. And respected your opinion. I guess none of that really matters though, for you. Your addiction to dishing the dirt takes precedence over everything else. I think you made me cry once, when I realised that. But crying once over anyone is one time too many, and I've come to accept that you are what you are, and that trust is not something someone should have in you.

But it's fine. Really. I won't say anything detrimental about you when people call me up for reference checks. I don't bother to make you the topic of my conversations with people. I don't respond when people bring YOUR name up as a topic of gossip and bitching.

Because you are still blood, and the idea of doing all that shit to you makes me uncomfortable, to a certain extent. Can't quite see myself stooping to that level, I guess. And honestly, I couldn't be fucked. It's easier to just not give a shit, instead of getting worked up.

So the point of this post? I just thought that you should know that I know. =)

Simple Things

2011-07-19T11:54:00.007+08:00

Sat down in front of my computer today just to find that my internet connection was down. Decided it was a good as any an opportunity to write. I have realized that, prior to the installation of a fast, relatively stable internet connection, I was a lot more productive on the writing front, for lack of the ease of just opening my browser and screening through the infinite amount of things to be seen online that serve to fill my mind with mindless trash and anaesthesize the hurt that I used to pen down.

I have been rediscovering my old love for music again, settling down with headphones on, on a simple enough quest for sounds and rhythms that make my heart sing and balm the constant edgy indecision of my soul. Keeping those head-phones on serve a secondary function of keeping me from engaging in the daily confrontation of the one that rages chronically, here at home, blocks out the words that would hurt.

I have recently found this young Saudi Arabian singer, Alaa Wardi, and despite not understanding a word of what he sings, his music speaks so earnestly and directly to my soul that I teared up the first time I heard this single, 7aram. I have been a big fan, ever since.

Haven’t really cracked open any books until the past few weeks. Gone are the days of voracious reading, I guess, but at least I’ll try to make more time for those private moments curled up with a good novel or an interesting piece of non-fiction. It’s been reassuring to find that the tactile pleasures of flipping through a bound volume, the lines of text conveying a different world, a different place, isn’t quite lost to me yet.

Life, lately, as you can see, has been a bid to rediscover all the simpler things in life that used to give me so much joy and satisfaction. The indifferent numbness of the past nine months has thawed, and an unreasonable sense of joy has been filling my heart for the past week or so. I feel like I’m walking around all the time with this big smile inside of me, almost bursting out in song for this happiness I can barely contain.

For once in a very long time, life feels like a infinite amount of possibilities again.

Another Boring Title For Another Update

2011-07-14T15:34:00.007+08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates: I've been back in Kuching for more than three days already, but I've not been very diligent in posting up anything. Took a day or two to recuperate from the frenetic pace and general confusion that was the last part of the trip, and also a rather severe episode of irritable bowel syndrome that was pretty much well-deserved - I just HAD to gorge myself silly on durian pancakes on my final day in KL. All that fat and sugar was just too much strain on my intolerant stomach, and I had to suffer an entire day of the consequences of my gluttony. Heh.

I remain as unrepentant as ever, though. Some things are worth the discomfort of indulging in, and that leads to the topic of my latest acquirement during my brief stay in KL: a rather interesting new piercing. It's been a few days already, and I'm pretty chuffed at having done it, even if I've to make some minor life-style changes, if just for a fortnight, to ensure a nice, quick healing.

Some tips and advice from Frankie, my piercer:

Drink plenty of fluids
Keep piercing clean and dry at all time
Vitamin C supplement can aid in speeding up healing time
No rigorous activity that might affect the piercing
Sea-salt soaks
Early bed-time for at least these two weeks

As you can probably guess, the last one's the one that I'm having most problem sticking to. I have been, for a huge portion of my life, ever since early childhood, been a mostly nocturnal person, with episodes of insomnia. But he has good reason for asking me to stick to that, with his apprentice Andy as a prime example of that (dude has a piercing that didn't heal as nicely as it should, due to not sleeping well), and I will persist in keeping it up for at least a week, or a month, if it's not too much of a struggle.

I must say though, Frankie's definitely someone I'll be going back to for new metal - he was very friendly and professional, and answered all my questions patiently and didn't once make me feel uncomfortable. We need more of such people here!

Also, there's this issue that I have been slowly emerging out of self-denial of... but now I find myself at risk of sinking into depression over.

I have a niggling feeling that my hearing is going. I've been having this sneaking suspicion for a while already, but it seems to be getting progressively much worse lately. The tinnitus has been an on-going problem that I have been trying very hard to ignore for the longest time, but for the past few months I've been experiencing what I can only best describe as a constant "flinching" sensation in the ear, the sort one gets in response to a loud sound, only in my case it feels like that all the time, regardless of auditory stimulus or not.

And then there is the all the conversation I can see going on but can't really catch...

To say it is a terrifying prospect would be an understatement. Music salves my soul, soothes a lot of the tumultuous insanity that lies just beneath the facade I just manage to keep in place all the time. What do I do when I no longer have that to comfort me?

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'll go for a test soon to find out the extent of my hearing-loss. Sigh.

Short Update from Tune Hotels

2011-07-10T10:39:00.004+08:00

Going home tonight after a rather stressful day yesterday in KL. Due to the lock-down imposed by the government as a rather unnecessary and overtly dramatic reaction to the BERSIH rally, I couldn't even check into my hotel in the city, and was pretty much camping at the airport with Miss Dot and the skinny till evening.

Had to check into Tune Hotels (and not the one near the airport, because that was fully-booked by other sad people like me), which I absolutely detest, and found no reason to love after spending a night in. At 8am there were the house-keeping crew loudly talking and pushing around carts noisily in the hall-ways, which went on till 10ish, and I was most unceremoniously informed by one of them knocking on my door that I was to check out at 10am. The shower went bonkers on me mid-lather and I was scalded with a sudden deluge of hot water, and it didn't help that the hair-dryer in the tiny toilet didn't work. I am a cranky, cranky person when I have to walk around sporting a crazed Simba hair-style.

A very pleasant end to a holiday, as I'm sure you all would imagine.

Just my luck to get stuck in this situation, after being similarly stuck in Sukhumvit in Bangkok last year due to another demonstration. That one had grenades being lobbed around, as opposed to tear-gas canisters for this one. Fuck my life hahaha.

Ah well, at least it was quite the experience, I guess.

The Great Hanoi Binge

2011-07-04T12:35:00.005+08:00

By the time this post goes up, I should embarking on the quest of stuffing myself with as much of Hanoi's culinary delicacies as possible, both the skinny and Miss Dot for company.

Will update once I recover from what I foresee to be many, many food-induced comas and one helluva frenzied shopping spree.

Shuttling It to RWMF

2011-07-02T01:53:00.009+08:00

It's that time of the year again in Kuching - the annual madness that is the Rainforest World Music Festival.

Malick. Image courtesy of the RWMF site.

As usual, there'll be hoards of people from all over flocking down to Kuching enjoy the music festival.

Image credited to: http://rockofplanetearth.blogspot.com

Some of you might be lucky enough to secure accommodations at resorts around Cultural Village. Some of you might not, or might have opted not to stay overnight there.

And driving all the way there can be a pain in the arse, because

it's a fair distance from Kuching city and all that driving just seems tedious (or in the case of inebriation for the journey back down, close to impossible or even dangerous)
on reaching the area, parking can be a bitch, resulting in the need to walk a fair distance from some random parking spot nowhere near Cultural Village
you might be having so much fun you end up losing those goddamn keys (been there, done that, bought the t-shirt)
you don't want to drive back all muddy, sweaty, and smelly, and soil the precious leather seats of your own car

And then there's always the option of taking the bus up to catch the festival. So there's a City Public Link shuttle between Cultural Village the city (or more specifically, Hills Shopping Mall)every hour, and going for RM10 a way... or you can just fork out RM50 for unlimited rides on the shuttle for three days of the festival.

You can take the bus up in the afternoon for the workshops, head back down to town for a nice dinner of kolomee or go back home/to your hotel for a shower, and head back up just when the performances begin rockin'. And you do so as many times as you want to for the entire duration of RWMF. Good deal ey?

If anyone's interested, those three-day unlimited passes are available at Hills Shopping Mall information counter.

Don't say I never post any good news here for the meagre handful of people still reading my blog... =P

Have fun, people, and no matter what you do, be safe! I'll be partying along with you fellas in spirit =)

Heredity

2011-06-24T23:20:00.006+08:00

You would think that after so many times my heart would be more impervious to this pain.

Well, it isn't.

You've broken my heart again. But let this be the last time.

You might have birthed me, but I will make it official here: I will not acknowledge you as my mother, not any longer, not even if you would take back those words you have wounded me so deeply with.

I will not let you disown, re-own, and disown me, as fancy strikes you. Not anymore, especially not after the life-time of pain you have inflicted on me.

Two Days Ago

2011-06-19T00:27:00.020+08:00

I am painting my nails when a late-night visitor arrives at the old house I am lounging in; this is the house I grew up in, a place of nightmares and brilliant dreams.

Dim, shadowy. Muted street-lights filtered by the wild growth of plants in the garden next door, just separated from mine by a tiny alley.

My friend has come to see my tiny fluffy mop-head of a pet. As we chatter away, our voices strangely clear and quiet in this landscape of black and greys under the cold moon-light, my pet wriggles free of my grasps and jumps a near-suicidal four feet to the ground and takes off in a mad dash down the alley.

If this scene is a reconstruction of old memories, then this neighbourhood is one populated by many strays, all frighteningly aggressive. I scream in fear for my precious and chase after her, my heart leaping into my throat, my feet bare on the dirty concrete littered with rotting plant matter.

I see her in the distance, running down that long, dark alley-way, between my corner house and my neighbour's. I gasp in exertion and continue running, noting a eerily odd incongruity in my surroundings, out of the corner of my eyes:

On the wooden deck, amongst the mad tangle of flora in my neighbour's garden, there sits a girl, in a chair, not one foot away from the fence, facing the alley. She is my neigbour's daughter, and her long dark hair falls around her face like a dark curtain, as her head hangs forward and down, although in real life her hair was never long or straight. There is something abnormally lifeless about her posture and demeanour, and I would have guessed she was dead, if not for the silver sheen of tears (are they tears?) glistening on what I can see of her face. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, as I sense that she is watching me.

But as I am still running all those do not quite register enough in my mind to evoke anything more than a mere indifferent curiosity at the overwhelmingly powerful sense of wrongness.

I note that my dog has stopped running, and is nosing around at something vaguely shaped like an infant in child-sized garments among the dead leaves and the debris of accumulated plant matter, and rush forward to grab hold of her. It is only then I see that the "baby" is nothing more than a set of doggie outfit that my dog seems particularly interested in. This new fact disturbs me even more; she has never once liked wearing anything on herself aside from her own natural fur-coat.

I hastily begin to stand up, and realise that the dirt and compost on the ground has encrusted my hands, notably my finger-tips, probably stuck to the not-completely-dried polish. I am horrified, and try to brush it off, and something strange happens.

The black earth seems to meld into keratin and a glistening, blister-like protrusion forms on each of my nails, the surfaces as dark and slick as well-polished obsidian. As I watch each projection swells like balloon filled with water, and then I see clearly for the first time what they are: they are little amniotic sacs each filled with a single, monstrously deformed embryo. I am filled with terror and revulsion, and in my shock, I freeze there, squatting among the filth, unable to do anything but watch in morbid fascination.

For a moment it seems like the things growing inside each crystalline sac are reaching out at me, clawing, grabbing, gaping mouths showing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and as I flinch in anticipation of having my face ripped to ribbons, my nails are normal again, yet not quite: I now sport a gleaming manicure, my nails that same glossy obsidian, but with a vaguely-bean-like shape of translucent blur of pink in the middle of each.

I stand up, dazed and unable to form any comprehensible train of thought, and slowly walk back to my house, back up the alley-way that was my childhood playground and the place a million dreams and nightmares were conceived.

Update

2011-06-17T12:32:00.003+08:00

Miss Dot just came back. I am ill with a persistent 'flu thingy that won't go away. Heaps of pictures and stuff to blog about, but as I'm too busy battling a microscopic foe at the moment, those will have to wait.

I am now going to collapse on the couch and sleep this one off.

You

2011-06-14T00:53:00.002+08:00

I loved you when I first met you.

Loved you all the years I knew you.

Knew you loved me too but never dared ruin our friendship by acknowledging how I felt about you.

Circumstances would never permit. But it was alright, you were my buddy, and you were there for me.

Knew you felt it was better not to say it too.

And you moved away and I was sad. We drifted apart but we both still cared.

Now you're getting married. To a beautiful, wonderful woman. Part of me feels slightly blue about the what-ifs and could-bes that have passed us by, but mostly, I am happy for you.

You deserve someone that awesome to share your life with. She couldn't be more perfect.

I see how you smile when she's around. I'm happy you're happy.

Congratulations, dear friend. I wish you all the best.

I'll always love you, and this love is beyond anything anyone can or will comprehend.

You saved my life one too many times, and that is something I will never forget.

Now go wait for her at the end of that aisle, buddy. She's gorgeous... and you've never looked more full of joy.

=)

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-13T18:09:00.005+08:00

This conversation happened yesterday at dinner, just hours after Mrs. Chan got back from Perth.

Mr. Chan: (conversationally) Irene cooked a lovely father's day dinner for me yesterday, as an early celebration, so the kitchen would be kept clean for your arrival.

Mrs. Chan: It's father's day today?

Me: Yup.

Mrs. Chan: (turns to Mr. Chan) Oh happy father's day!

Mr. Chan: I am not your father leh.

Mrs. Chan: The father to my children then lah!

Me: (chokes back laughter)

Great to have my sometimes rather amusingly dysfunctional parents back, just in time for father's day.

I Love You Like A Fat Boy Loves Cake

2011-06-11T00:16:00.007+08:00

This is a badly photoshopped picture of the skinny (because I know there's no way in hell she'll let me post up the original The-Dog-esque image):

There is one thing you must know about this sister of mine: She loves cake.

It's the kind of cake-loving that borders on an insane obsession. She buys cake all the time. Lovingly consumes them. Thinks about them all the time. Enthusiastically describes them to me. Posts on her blog about them.

Well, you get the picture.

Anyway she finally decided to take a hiatus from cake soon after her birthday recently, because there was a cake-overload of sorts during that period of time.

I almost died laughing when she drew this out for me during our chat that night after a birthday dinner with colleagues, which came soon after another cake-laden celebration with house-mates:

Yeap, my sister loves cake. But there IS such a thing as too much of a good thing hehehehehe.

Bow Wow Wow

2011-06-06T23:34:00.008+08:00

I am going to take a break from burying my nose in my books, merely because I have been interrupted from doing so by the most pointless yelling and bitching ever, by an individual who has no fucking right to express worry at this point, not right now.

I find myself highly disgusted at weak men - especially those who feign concern way too long after it matters. Too little, too late... so why even bother when your presence isn't even required anymore?

These are the men who run when the going gets tough, and avoid confrontation and drama, only to sneak back with their tails between their legs whining some parody of caring, knowing full well the futility of only appearing when things have cooled down and they don't really need to deal with any of the shit that ensued earlier on.

Honestly? You're just pathetically spineless. And I'm OK with that. Just don't change things right now when that's no longer really needed here.

Blooms Are Beautiful... And Tasty

2011-05-31T23:07:00.015+08:00

Brought my grandparents out for dinner today, and was just sort of tuning out to my grandmother's chatter (I love her, but the woman has the ability to speak in Teochew at top speed on subjects that changes every fifteen seconds, without as much as pausing for breath) when suddenly my ears perked up at the phrase "liu lian huay" (榴槤花 in Chinese, durian flowers in English). Excitedly, I snapped back to reality and practically yelled "WHAT LIU LIAN HUAY!? YOU COOKED THAT!?" at her (she's hard of hearing).

The reason for my excitement is this - durian flowers are highly seasonal, only available during the months where durian trees are flowering, around March to May every year (depending on weather), and I love them cooked as a vegetable dish.

I don't think people in West Malaysia eat them (they don't know what they're losing out on hehehe!) but here in Kuching, durian plantation owners commonly leave out sheets of cloth or nets under the flowering trees so the flowers (which drop soon after pollination) may be collected after they are shed, to be sold in markets. They're not that readily available, and quickly snapped up, so they're not exactly a very common dish, more a delicacy of sort these days (well, at least to many foodies like me LOL).

They're delicious fried up with sambal (a paste made of herbs, spices, and prawn paste - I'll post on that soon), curried, or even, as one food blogger innovatively did, battered and deep-fried as a tempura dish. I personally prefer the sambal method of preparation most though; the pungent saltiness complements the mild crunchiness of the durian flowers. It's quite similar to paku or midin (both are tender local ferns commonly eaten here) stir-fried with sambal, except with a slightly sweeter, more delicate crispness to it.

Anyway, back to this evening's story, my grandmother confirmed that there was, indeed, a plate of the flowers at her place, compliments of my aunt who lives next to her who'd fried up a batched and passed over some. Since my grandmother was having dinner with me, she told me I could take them home with me as she wasn't likely to be finishing that up.

I was more than chuffed to bring them back home and here they are:

From tasting them, I think my aunt probably fried them up with garlic, chili, a bit of tamarind juice, and possibly some dried shrimps. Would prefer it with plenty of spicy sambal, but beggars can't be choosers, and I enthusiastically scoffed this down for supper.

In case you're curious, here's a picture of durian flowers while they're still on the tree:

Image is taken from emblatame's Flickr... do click on the link, he has more pictures of those beautiful durian flowers on his photostream.

And to those who avoid durians for their notoriously pungent aroma (I don't!), no, the flowers do not smell anything like the fruit, so they're safe to eat! :3

More posts on durian flowers on other Kuching blogs:

On Sarawak Travelogue
On FH20

(Question: Does anyone know if this durian-flower-consumption thing is only restricted to Kuching? Or just Sarawak? How about other places where the tree is also native to?)

Gritty Gradient

2011-05-27T18:41:00.027+08:00

Did a relatively simple nail design for this weekend, using the same silver polish from Revlon (Silver Screen) as my last manicure as the base colour.

Then, I used a make-up sponge to dab on VI407 from Skin Food, one of my favourite shades from the company, a dark, almost-black polish with the most beautiful rich burgundy-purple shimmer to it. After that, I sealed the whole design in with two coats of clear top coat, which really helps to even out any bumpiness from sponging on the colour.

Initially, I found that this required little bit of patience to get that interesting gradient look, but got the hang of it after awhile. For first-timers, I think it would be wise to dab conservative amounts of colour on until the desired build-up is attained (my first rather over-enthusiastic application of the darker shade was a little heavy handed, which was fortunately salvageable via a quick intervention with polish-free bits of the sponge I was wielding).

For more pictures and directions on how to do nail-sponging, click here and here (those pages are in Dutch, but if you're using Google Chrome like I am your browser will probably ask if you want them translated into English).

Results were a bit messy, due to it being the first time I've tried this method out, but I like its slightly gritty, almost industrial look... goes pretty nicely on my shorter nails (yes, I trimmed them down a little and gave them a long hot oil soak because they were chipping and flaking a bit around the edges).

The pictures here really do no justice to how beautiful the Skin Food nail polish is - it's almost a deep burgundy shade with the shimmery glitter adding a richness of dimension that I somehow can't seem to capture with my camera.

Yes, I really like the colour combination of silver and purplish colours as you can already tell. Hehe. This should be the last of this current phase though; even I think that two consecutive weeks of posting about the same colour combo might just be getting a little repetitive already.

I've a paper tomorrow so I guess I'll keep this brief and end this post here. Have a good weekend! =)

Don't Justify Those Wounds As Tough Love

2011-05-27T01:58:00.011+08:00

I am, on most part, a cynical person, despite having deep within myself a closeted fluffy romantic. I've had men break up for me for the sole reason that my pessimistic cynicism was too overwhelming for them to continue the relationship. That hurt, but at the time all I did was shrug and further cloak myself in my misanthropic indifference.

I guess this cynicism has been a character trait of mine since childhood, what with my inquisitive nature yielding, more often than not, answers I didn't want to learn of; also, I had, right from a young age, a precocious grasp of the basic fact of life that everyone lies, more often for their own benefit than anything else.

And there was the pain and rage and fear that felt like the singular theme of my entire childhood. One of my earliest memories of her, was when I was down with bronchitis when very young, maybe when I was just two or three, I was very ill and the wheezing coughs wracking my whole body kept me up the whole night. Apparently it kept her up too, and my bewilderment at her rage is still firmly etched in my mind - she took out a thin cane and struck me with it, yelling for me to be silent, and let her sleep in peace. I spent most of the remainder of the night choking back the spasms in my chest into my pillow, terrified should even just a whisper escape me.

I remember going to primary school as a child of eight or nine, in my dark-blue-and-white uniform, and catching a glance at my right sleeve and feeling utter mortification at the blood seeping through the clean white fabric. She'd hit me too hard with a frayed rattan cane the night before, and the welts that had left had literally had the skin stripped off them, leaving raw, bleeding open wounds on my upper arm and shoulder.

There was also the heavy-handed blow that landed on my face and caused the inside of my cheek to get caught on the braces I sported back then. It took me half an hour to "unhook" the flesh off the metal bits. The insides of my lip and cheek were a pulpy, bloody mass of deep red and necrotic purple, for days after.

And there was the moment of disorientation as the thick volume of Oxford English Dictionary came down on my head, or the many times I couldn't dodge the cane or a heavy leather belt fast enough as it landed on my hands and made my nail-beds haemorrhage. Or even the marks and bruises on my arms and legs from her cruelly twisted my flesh between her fingers, digging her nails into my skin.

Then the time I was dragged by my hair off the bed, and landed so badly on my spine, I was winded for a long moment. I lost it for the first time after fifteen impossibly tortuous years and stood up for myself, against her unreasonable brutality. That was the last time the physical hurt occurred. And from then on it was just the cruel words, the barbed comments, the name-calling, but with those, she managed to brew up a particularly potent concoction of pain to steep my heart in.

And she doesn't remember much of it, most of it, because there is something dark inside of her that causes her to unconsciously cause such grievous hurt, every time she's stressed or unhappy. She never realises how far she's gone, until it is pointed out to her, and when it is, she refuses to remember, unable to reconcile her soft heart with the actions of the monster that did all of that.

For all the pain, I understand that much. For all the hurt, I know that she has her own sicknesses of the mind, destroying much of the loving person I used to see more of.

It hasn't taken away any of my hurt though, a burden I've carried with me as long as I can remember. It hasn't made me a stronger, better person, just a more imperfect one.

And when I was stuck in an abusive relationship, years ago, and he lifted his hand to strike me for the first time ever, that sense of deja vu was so strong, I smiled at him as the blows landed, much to his confusion. It felt like coming home.

It all comes back a full circle - and the only love I've known for so long has been the sort all mixed up with hatred and rage and fear. That would probably explain why I attract all the sorts that would hurt me - and the reason why I seem to unconsciously provoke even the most non-violent man into reacting physically. That's the only love I understand.

The most ironic thing is, I know what my problem is, but I seem to be forever trapped in this little hell I have known all my life, a dark place nobody seems to understand and nobody will be able to save me from. I can't move on, there's a cancer in my soul that won't be excised, and it has been the source of all the despair, for all these years.

Hence this uncharacteristically honest post. I've spent the whole of last night awake, after suffering the most recent poisonous barb at my wounded heart, trying to block out a deluge of memories, of the very matter I've been reluctant to talk about, to anyone.

I spent the night and most of this morning, crying softly into my pillow, just wishing things were different. I guess now's as good a time as any, to finally find my voice, and release the knotted up bag of poison at the core of my being.

I don't see how this will change anything, but I don't know.

I just want to vent this enough for me to get some respite from the flickering images in my head... the ones that are killing me.

Of Kayaks and SMurFs

2011-05-23T01:53:00.024+08:00

(Note: For maximum impact of accompanying images, do click on them to view larger - they looked fine as I was drawing them in MS Paint but I forgot to factor in the fact that Blogger has a way of shrinking images to fit my template.)

One Sunny Sunday, the SMurF (Silly Male Friend) and I decide to go to Permai beach in the sweltering mid-day heat.

Upon reaching, the SMurF decides to take a single kayak out for a quick fifteen-minute paddle, just to stretch out muscles knotted from the stress of the week. Because the glaringly bright sun feels too oppressive to just lounge under, and the beach is unusually devoid of other sun-worshippers, I decide that I do not want to be left out, I kick up a fuss until another kayak is set up for me.

SMurF takes a smaller, less speedy kayak that is more suited to kayak-surfing whereas I have the advantage of a larger, faster, more stable craft to steer. However, with the noodle arms and the sadly lacking stamina I possess, he soon catches up with me, and with a single gesture of his hand towards a little sandy cove far up to the left, yells a suggestion I cannot ignore.

"Let's go there!"

Agreeing to that soon seems like a bad idea under the hot sun, with the occasional wave causing sea-spray to blind me. There is also a bit of a current against me, and I struggle to get to the little cove whilst panting loudly. In fact, I almost want to give up, but a stubborn little voice screaming in my head refuses to let me do anything but paddle harder to catch up with the SMurF, whom by now seems to be a little toy figure on a miniature kayak in the distance.

But then I make it, with barely any energy to spare. With an enormous effort, I painfully drag my kayak that 1.5 metres out of the water next to the SMurF's kayak, and then sprawl face-down next to it in a position best described as the (Dead) Star-Fish Stance.

Ever the kind, sympathetic character he is, the SMurF laughs at my lifeless form and runs off for a swim in the warm sea-water.

Long minutes pass before I muster up enough energy to lift my face off the damp sand, and manage to crawl into the sea for a quick dip to invigorate myself. Despite it being quite a relief to be submerged in water instead of lying under the sun on the sandy beach, the water is warm and the heat starts to get to me. Looking up, I spot what seems to be a shaded area behind some big rocks, where a thick wall of jungle growth and big trees provide an inviting-looking spot to escape the heat.

I get out of the water and make my way towards the area, whilst the SMurF obliviously continues splashing around in the sea. Upon reaching the little hidden area behind the rocks, I am overjoyed to find out that the secluded spot is very clean, hidden from view of anyone looking from the beach, and delightfully cool. It is almost like a room, with the boulders as the walls, and trees forming a cool green ceiling.

I promptly get into (Live) Star-Fish Stance, lying face-up in the middle of that little enclosed area, and fall into a blissfully comfortable afternoon nap.

The SMurF, bored of playing alone in the sea, starts looking around for me, and is torn between amusement and irritation to find my comatose splayed out form in the dim hidden little area. He joins me for a lie-down for awhile, but eventually manages to cajole me in making the return journey back to Permai beach, despite my reluctance.

I go into drama queen mode and moan and bitch and whine about the exhaustion wracking my body as we make our way back to the kayaks, and he agrees to tow me back on mine. Few metres out to sea later though, we decide to see if a better arrangement can be made to spare him the effort of getting the both of us back. My paddling whilst in the kayak behind doesn't do much aside from slow him down, so from my craft, I crawl forward onto the kayak he is on, but we both find out that it is both uncomfortable and impossible to do a tandem paddle with that arrangement.

So I tell him that I will attempt to paddle back to shore on my own effort, and he agrees. He clambers behind me and attempts to undo the fastenings linking the two craft together, and without thinking, I shift around on the kayak I am sitting on to ease the discomfort of a hard plastic knob that is part of the kayak jabbing into my bum.

Suddenly, there is a loud splash behind me - the action of shifting my butt caused the kayak to tip a little, pitching SMurF into the sea. As unamused as he is by that, he manages to separate his craft from mine, and climbs onto it. Unfortunately his paddles are still with me, and before I can pass it to him (narrowly smacking him with it), the current carries me a little way off from him. I briefly contemplate pitching the paddle at him before he kills all such notions by yelling at me to double back and hand it to him.

So I paddle whilst uncomfortably holding down his paddle with one leg, but instead of rotating my craft around, I start turning what seems to be a large, languid circle away from where I am before slowly turning back to where he is. Annoyed and tired, I yell about going in a circle instead of turning, and he yells back at me about putting more strength into steering, which results in me yelling back whiny complaints about the tiredness in my muscles.

I finally manage to pass the SMurF his paddle, and we make our way back to shore. It is not an easy journey, mostly because it is punctuated with various moan-y complaints from me regarding the exhaustion seeping into every fibre of my being, and spiced with the occasional irate/encouraging/weary "JUST KEEP PADDLING!" and "WE'RE ALMOST THERE!" from the SMurF.

(To my credit, I never actually did give up on my effort to get back to Permai Beach - I might be an attention-seeking whinger but I'm not completely made of weak stuff - only SMurF was paranoid that I might throw a sulk and make him think of some way to get me back.)

The return trip was actually easier, because the current was with us instead of against, and we quickly got back, despite SMurF's reservations.

On reaching the shore, I maintain excellent composure and manage to drag my kayak out of the water and onto the beach for some distance, and do NOT do the Star-Fish Stance anywhere near the workers in charge of all beach recreational activities.

And guess what? A dip in the ice-cold pool fed by a mountain stream some distance from the beach, followed by ice-lolly and a young coconut drink at the resort cafe, and I was all energised and good to go again, suffering nothing more than a mild sun-burn on the tip of my nose.

The SMurF, on the other hand, seemed worn out by having to put up with my antics, and fell asleep on comfy lounging seats in the cafe, some half hour later.

:D

Space-Age Leopard

2011-05-17T14:41:00.010+08:00

Was bored last night and had a new nail polish to try out (Silver Screen by Revlon) so decided to give leopard print nails a shot.

Ridiculously easy to do, and still looks good even if you fuck up a little and mess it up. Nobody will be able to tell you had a case of shaky hands there... =P

I dotted the silver base with a pearly, shimmery purple (No Shrinking Violet by Revlon) and used a black nail polish with subtle shimmer from Skin Food (BW701) to outline the purple (if clumsily attempting to line those blobs can actually be called "outline").

Here are the results (without top coat, because I realised mine had dried up in the bottle, only after I'd started painting my nails):

And then the sun came out from behind a cloud:

This was so simple and took me so little time compared to many other designs, I think I'll try other colour combinations soon!

Yo Paw On Mai Paw

2011-05-12T03:38:00.000+08:00

Quirky, yes. Silly - definitely. But it amuses me to no end that I carry such a cute little reminder of you on myself at all times.

You will always be my little furry ball of optimism and bring me endless laughter. You were the reason I crawled out of bed, just to feed you and play with you, even on days depression consumed me and made it near-impossible to even function.

It's only apt that I put a little representation of the untold happiness you gave me over the echoes of the destruction I used to inflict on myself.

Anything + Bacon = Win!

2011-05-10T23:52:00.000+08:00

Over a week ago, I went shopping for the ingredients for making a cream of broccoli soup. When I got home and took out my groceries from their shopping bags, I found a head of cabbage that had somehow mysteriously made its way into my bags. I didn't pick it, and certainly didn't pay for it, so I assume the cashier made a mistake there.

Either way, I was appalled.

I hate cabbage. I really do. I've never found any reason to love them, finding the cabbage soup my grandmother used to boil up in batches rather repulsively offensive in its odour. The colour disgusts me, a somewhat putrid shade of pale yellowish-green I used to associate with anaemic, wilting plants. I don't like the flavour either, or the nauseatingly soggy texture it takes up upon being boiled.

Coleslaw of the sort from KFC never appealed to me either - looked too much like vegetarian puke to me. The only time I've actually willingly consumed cabbage was when the skinny made me cabbage rolls for my bento - those were pretty good though.

So like most social media addicts, I tweeted my displeasure at finding it secreted among the onions, broccoli and garlic I'd purchased.

And then Shaolin Tiger gave me this really awesome suggestion:

Now I like onions, and I LOVE bacon, and anything with onion + bacon has always proven to be awesome. So I figured cabbage + awesome = at the very least, edible. Not like I had any other idea as to how to use up that head of cabbage anyway.

Either way, it was a week before I got around to cooking that green monstrosity lurking in my fridge, and when I did I was too lazy too look up that tweet so I decided to wing it and hope for the best.

Here is aforementioned vegetable, in all its cabbage-y glory (ignore the cling-film on my wrist, had just gotten some new ink half an hour prior to cooking):

I weighed it just for reference and it's about 700+ grammes.

Quarter the cabbage, just like so...

...and then remove the core and slice it into shreds. I have no idea why but I cut it into pretty wide pieces instead of shredding it (didn't manage to take pictures because I was busy wielding a knife) but it doesn't matter that much actually.

Now you finely chop a medium-sized onion up...

...and crush and/or mince a clove or two of garlic (again, not shown - fingers sticky from garlic juice don't lend themselves well to photography).

Heat up a little oil in a pan and fry up about 90 grammes of bacon (I used bacon bits sold at the non-halal butcher's - they're already in smallish bits and cheaper):

For the sake of convenience and shorter cooking time you should probably cut them into little bits before this step. I forgot and took to them with a pair of kitchen scissors only AFTER I'd tossed in the onions, which is what we're gonna do in the next step:

Yup, onions and garlic into the pan when the bacon's suitably cooked. You could wait till they're crisp but I was hungry and impatient so I couldn't wait that long (brain-dead cooking style).

Cut bacon up in pan while onion is cooking (remember, don't do this my way.) Then when onion is caramelized (or cooked till translucent, in the case of Little Miss Impatient here), you pretty much just toss all the cabbage onto that:

Stir to cook evenly and cooked till at desired tenderness. It'll look like quite a heap there but once it cooks a little it'll soften a bit and collapse. Even then, this is a LOT of cabbage for three people hahahaha. Add salt to taste and liberally sprinkle some black pepper on and you're done!

Serve to a mostly carnivorous and very unimpressed father:

I actually quite like it, and that's saying a lot. It's not soggy, and the smoky bacon flavour masks the cabbage-y smell, if any. Also, it still retains some of its crispness, which is awesome, even though I really do think the cabbage would've benefited from being sliced into smaller pieces. I'll try frying the bacon to a crisp and caramelizing the onions when I do make this again.

This would actually make an awesome side dish to some pork and potatoes but I wasn't feeling much like meat or too much carbs that day due to another sensitive stomach episode. I later had some of this with a couple of bratwursts and it went together beautifully.

Predictably, two plates of cabbage, no matter how tasty, can not be finished by three rather light eaters, especially if one is a reluctant omnivore. Mrs. Chan, who bakes, had the brilliant idea of using the leftovers to make some quiche:

She also added some leftover sweet corn in it and a bit of roasted tomatoes for colour, then topped it all with some grated cheese (could've added more, but she doesn't like dairy products much, it seems).

I'll update this post with the how-to for these quiches soon, but to my understanding, it's fairly straightforward - you fill pastry shells with the vegetables of your choice, then pour in a mixture of cream, milk, eggs, salt and pepper, and top it off with cheese.

On a separate note I think I'm starting a new label (although I forget to use them half the time) under 'those gross greens', since I seem to be cooking more and more of the very vegetables I used to abhor in the past haha.

I think I might change my mind about cabbage after this. Now it's time to conquer yet another vegetable I detest: eggplant. Baby steps, you know, baby steps...

There's A Gremlin Lurking Inside

2011-05-08T13:00:00.008+08:00

Sometimes I forget about the bad things that have happened. Real bad things, like the shit you read about, see in movies, and think, oh this sort of thing will never ever happen to me.

But it does. And it leaves behind wounds so deep that after the bruises and the cuts and all the physical trauma has healed, the scars remain so deeply ingrained that you lose yourself awhile just to run away from the pain.

And there's drugs. And sex. And alcohol. And just a deep self-denial while you destroy yourself just not to deal with the world. Then when you're sick of the lifestyle and you think you're all better and you resume with some sense of normalcy and you get on with life...

Something deep inside you will not forget.

That revelation will catch you by surprise, all repressed memory and suppressed torment, reaching out to you as you slumber, in the form of twisted metaphors in your dream. And you cry throughout each agonizing scene you are forced to live through again, and you cry when you wake up, those tears running down your face without you even realising it.

You numbly reach up to your face and feel the moisture running down your face and you suddenly realise how much it hurts and the floodgates open again and you weep. For the loss of innocence that you have mourned over and over again and never made peace with yourself over, for the heinous amount of cruelty the you in the past had to endure, for the resolution you denied yourself simply because you could not speak about the brutality against you to anyone.

But you dry your tears again and fix that mask of normalcy that has slipped, and as you do so you know that this will happen again and again - old wounds reopening as repeating nightmares to haunt you, yet you slip on that couldn't-give-a-fuck smile and get on with life.

Maybe one day life will overwhelm you so much, the past will be washed away.

Fahri's Few Stages of Inebriation

2011-05-07T20:16:00.008+08:00

Attended Fahri's belated birthday party which was held last Saturday at Terminal 1, in conjunction with an event DJ Uno was spinning at.

All of us left that party pretty plastered... so it wasn't until this afternoon that I realised I'd SO MANY pictures of the drunk birthday boy HAHAHAHA.

Here are the few stages of inebriation according to Fahri...

Stage 1: The Apology Prayer

Stage 2: Serenity in Meditation

Stage 3: Too Much Serenity Leads to Sleep

Stage 4: Wide-Eyed But Brain-Dead

Stage 5: Brief But Boisterous Revival

Stage 6: Princess Goes Posh

Stage 7: Rainbow Puke

Happy 21st birthday, Fahri! Now THAT was the proper way for an initiation into adulthood! =P

How To Create Utter Chaos With Minimal Effort

2011-05-03T21:28:00.017+08:00

This is a bit of a long overdue post, but I'll start it off by most sheepishly admitting that on the 15th of January this year, I almost burnt down the kitchen at home. The incident happened due to carelessness: I was reheating a pot of oil on the stove and promptly forgot about it when I got a call from Mr. Chan, asking that I rush out to collect an set of photos for him that he needed very urgently.

Took so long for me to put up pictures of this because Her Royal Highness decided to acquire the camera these pictures were on were for her own usage, and I've not been able to retrieve them ever since.

But I digress... this is how the kitchen looked like after my unsuspecting parents came home to a mini-fire and managed to put it out:

As you can see, the worst damage is over the stove, with the point of origin being very obvious (the soot in the middle was smeared because I attempted to wipe off some of it before remembering to photograph the scene). EVERY single surface of the upper half of the kitchen was covered in a very thick layer of oily soot, which would not budge without considerable effort spent on scrubbing with a brush.

More fascinatingly, the smoke that filled the kitchen made for some rather unexpected discoveries like this:

... all the previously invisible cobwebs got coated in a layer of soot as well, and in all the high corners of the kitchen, there were creepy-looking black webbing.

Here's another shot of the webbing around the kitchen lighting:

Also, my dog decided to contribute to the mess by running through the powdery soot on the floor and trailing grey paw-prints all over the house. I had to chase her down to wash her dirty feet.

Not very clear but you can see how her paws are a darker shade than the blond fur her legs are:

All the pictures are a bit dark because the soot coated even the fluorescent light and gave the entire kitchen a dull, dark, depressing atmosphere.

Fortunately, with the combined efforts of the skinny, Miss Dot and both my parents, we finally managed to clear off most of the damage, after much back-breaking time spent on a ladder. That took over a week including repainting the entire ceiling. I fell sick for two days after that.

And the very obvious moral of the story? Boys and girls, NEVER forget to check your kitchen stove before exiting the premises.

Cream of Broccoli Soup (a.k.a. How To Coax Non-Vegetable-Eating People To Take Their Greens)

2011-04-29T03:42:00.035+08:00

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago - I was thinking of attempting make a cream of broccoli soup from scratch in keeping with the spate of broccoli dishes I've been making recently. So yes, you guessed it... another food post, featuring the much-maligned vegetable that I used to not even want to touch with a ten-foot pole. How things have changed LOL... but before you decide to stop reading here, I'll have to assure you that this is one vegetable-based dish that's relatively easy to do and pretty undisgusting in flavour =D

Because I was very diligent in photographing the process of making this dish, I've decided to compile it so there's four images per .jpeg file so I don't bust an artery trying to upload everything. Feel free to click on the images to view larger - I kept the file resolution relatively high for that purpose.

Anyway, I am not following a clockwise/counter-clockwise format, so for the purpose of not having to constantly have to mention which image comes after which, here's the order I've assembled them in:

Capische? Now we're clear on that, I'll get on to the rest of the post.

Before you start cooking, you need:
5 tablespoons butter
1 large onion
2 leeks
2 cloves garlic
2 heads broccoli (original recipe called for 6 cups; use both florets and stems)
1 large potato (optional)
3.5 cups chicken stock (from chicken stock cubes OR home-made chicken stock)
3.5 cups milk
3 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper to taste

Step 1: Before you do anything, chuck two chicken wings into a slow cooker to make the the 3.5 cups of chicken stock you will need for this soup. You could use chicken bones or chicken parts instead... but chicken wings give the best flavour. This is an optional step - you can do it the easy way and just use chicken stock cubes dissolved in warm water instead. The longer you simmer the chicken, the richer the stock will taste of course. Best to do this at least a couple of hours before you want to prepare the soup. I only simmered mine for an hour so I cheated and added a teaspoon of chicken stock powder to improve the flavour...

Step 2: Take two stalks of leek, remove dark green leaves so only the light green and white portions remain. Wash them well and slice them up. This is my first time cooking with leek because I only acquired a taste for strong-tasting vegetables such as leeks and garlic chives last year, and was apprehensive about cooking with such pungent and still-unfamiliar flavours.

Step 3: Take one largish potato, peel and and cube it. As you can see I made the cubes really small to reduce boiling time. This ingredient is optional - the original recipe didn't have potato. I added it because I wanted a more filling soup I could have as a meal on its own.

Step 4: Mince up two cloves of garlic and dice up a large onion. I used two small onions because I didn't have any large ones.

Step 5: Now for the main ingredient - the broccoli. Because everything will be boiled to a soggy mess later on and then pureed, you can use the entire vegetable, including the stalk. Recipe said "chop up stalks" - I am OCD when it comes to cutting things up and cannot tolerate uneven-ness and the irregular shape of the stalk sent me into a slice-and-dice frenzy... hence the finely chopped up bits of stalk LOL. Please do not waste time like I did. Just roughly chop them up, half-inch chunks are perfectly fine. I must note here that I used two whole heads of broccoli which was a tad more than the six cupfuls dictated in the recipe.

Step 6: My favourite bit... Heat up two tablespoons of butter. I like watching butter melt in a hot pan hehe.

Step 7: Sautee leeks, garlic and onions in the butter until onions turn tender and translucent. It should start smelling pretty good by this point on!

Step 8: Chicken stock should be ready by now. It's generally recommended to strain it. I come from the couldn't-be-fucked school of cooking so I just ladled it from the slow cooker into the pan my onions were cooking in.

Step 9: Now that you've added the chicken stock to the onion-garlic-leek combination, toss in the broccoli (florets and stem) as well as the potato. Add a little more chicken stock (or water) if needed, as I obviously had to in my case, having more broccoli than the recipe called for. There should be enough stock to cover the vegetables. Leave everything to boil till soft, remove from heat, and then puree everything to a mush (no pictures of that because I was having so much fun with the blender I forgot about taking snap-shots).

Now to make what is called a roux - a mixture of clarified butter and flour.

Step 10: Melt three tablespoons of butter in pan. Whee! Add in three tablespoons of flour to that and mix in well to form a thick paste. Add more butter or flour to adjust consistency.

Step 11: Cook the roux until it loses its raw flour smell and gives out a somewhat nutty aroma. Slowly whisk in 3.5 cups of milk.

Step 12: Add the broccoli puree to this mixture and slowly stir it in. Doesn't the green and white contrasty bits look nice? Kinda marbled, like my nails! =D

Step 13: Bring to a simmer and then you're almost done! Add salt and pepper to taste, and dilute soup with water if the consistency is too thick (mine definitely was, what with the added potato).

This very hearty soup makes for a light meal on its own, paired with some home-made garlic bread (I left mine in the oven a little too long because I went out of the kitchen for awhile for some fresh air). Because it's a little richer and has extra broccoli, my modified versh of the original recipe serves up to five or six people, and the soup may be frozen and stored up for days when you just want the convenience of a quick meal that requires you to just add a little water and then heating it up. Great for a lazy bum like me who doesn't eat well enough =P

I really, really like this recipe for how flexible it is - you don't have to follow the exact amounts and you can tweak it to your preference (ie. add celery and/or carrot, add a cup of grated cheddar, give it a bit of a bite with Dijon mustard, make it a vagetarian option by using vegetable stock instead of chicken etc.), so it's pretty much fairly idiot-proof I guess. I'm thinking of adding a little more leek the next time I make this... turns out I absolutely LOVED its flavour in this soup. In the meantime, since I have a whole bunch of that left over from this cooking project, I'll experiment with it a little and try cooking it with other stuff. Leeks with potatoes! Leeks with seafood! I like leeks!

Mrs. Chan who generally doesn't like most of my cooking (too "unhealthy", too complex and too Western for her preferences) actually had two helpings of this, to my surprise. She commented that it was very much like the baby food she used to feed me when she was weaning me haha. Best part of this dish - it doesn't taste very 'green' - perfect for coaxing someone who wouldn't normally eat broccoli into consuming some... *cough* skinny meanie *cough*

So what do you think about broccoli now?

RIbena-Berry Water-Marbled Nails

2011-04-24T18:42:00.026+08:00

Just very recently I realised that I had quite a respectable little nail polish collection that I wasn't using... so decided to do my nails up a little myself, instead of wasting money on going for manicures I was going to fuck up soon enough anyway.

Anyway, while browsing some beauty sites, I came across one which were dedicated to the love of nail colour and nail art in general, with beautifully drawn diagrams to show various nail-art application: this invaluable site was Laquerized. From there on I found plenty of other amazing similar sites, Nail Swatches, Nails by Asami, The Lacquer Files being among some of those, and was equally amazed and inspired by them.

And then I came across My Simple Little Pleasure's water-marbling tutorials and was completely blown away...

So I decided to try it out as a weekend project, seeing that it was a Good Friday and an extra free day for such frivolities. Unfortunately I contracted a nasty viral fever and ended up sleeping away two days of my long weekend, so I only managed to try it out yesterday.

Anyway the project turned out to be a bit of a failure, and I don't suggest anyone with the attention-span of a flea (i.e. myself) and very little patience (i.e. ditto) to try it out as it takes A LOT of trial and error to get it right.

Here's my left hand (which turned out better overall, for reasons I will discuss below), click on image to view bigger:

And my right pinky finger which was the only finger on my right hand which i was vaguely happy with:

They are in no way even close to being as beautifully marbled as many of the examples shown on Youtube and nail-art blogs, but as they're not completely ugly as well, and a little bit more interesting that your usual one-colour manicure, so I think I might just keep it for a few days.

Here are some things I found out the hard way last night - despite already reading about it you have to really try it to see how it works (am posting this more as a reminder for myself than anything else, so you can skip the rest of this post entirely if you're not interested):

One, room temperature distilled water works best - the nail polish will not spread on water that is too hard (high in mineral content), and even the filtered water at my place wasn't soft enough (for some reason my area has VERY hard water). Warm or cold water will also affect spreading and drying time.

Two, thin, pigmented, non-quick-drying nail polish works best. Wanted to experiment with my cheaper Skin Food colours but they were too thick... might need to buy a nail thinner to work with those. Some paints just DO NOT want to spread at all, or just sink. Some spread quickly and dry up before you can do anything with them. After an hour of exasperation I decided to just go with two colours from Revlon: Plum Seduction and No Shrinking Violet.

Three, don't bother with using the Vaseline method of avoiding paint from getting on skin. It makes a bigger fucking mess, and you end up getting everything all greasy, hence making the whole operation even harder to perform properly than it already was in the first place. Just take the smarter, less messy route and tape up your fingers to mask them.

Four, it's a shit-load harder to do those fancy designs than one would think. Paint has to be dripped onto the surface of the water quickly, and the design has to be dragged through it before it has a chance to dry up, else you'll end up picking up the entire piece of polish on your toothpick/pin/skewer.

Five, it doesn't matter if it's humid as hell and your face feels like it's dripping off together with your sweat down your neck, just DO NOT turn on the fan when you're attempting this. Again, nail polish will dry up and you'll end up with fuck-all for your efforts.

Six, a white base makes for a brighter canvas for the marbling to stick onto... but bear in mind if you're just a beginner trying this out you might have very sheer bits or even parts you don't manage to get all that paint on. Safer to just use the lightest colour of the combination used for marbling. I used a white base, and while it showed a beautifully graduated swirl of colours, bits of white also showed through. I hated it so much I painted a coat of the lighter nail colour of the two colours I used over the whole thing when I was done.

Seven, this one's possibly the most important bit nobody really emphasizes on: When you've managed to get a nice pattern and all in your little paper cup, do wait a little while for the polish to dry a little on the surface of the water. Dipping your nails in immediately after you've run your toothpick/pin/whatever through it it just going to make your design smear and run on your finger-nails. This was how I fucked up my entire right hand - was actually getting a little better and more confident but was too impatient to wait. Big mistake.

Lastly, positioning takes a little practice too. Some of the patterns on my nails were originally very pretty in the cup... but I misjudged the positioning of my finger upon dipping it in, and got only the edges or the less-patterned bits of it. A very good lesson, but quite a frustrating one to learn.

All that said, I had loads of fun doing this. It's a bit of an effort, and some time (and polish) is definitely needed to get the hang of this, but it was a pretty interesting approach to applying nail-art.

Went through some sites and read that China Glaze polishes are pretty good for water-marbling. Will probably order some of those. Anyway, I think I've grasped the basics of doing this already... I might just attempt this again next weekend, with longer nails*, to show more of the marbling.

* I generally keep my nails short and sweet because they're rather soft and flaky (inherited this trait from Mr. Chan, unfortunately) if I don't wear polish on (precisely why I've been painting my nails more often lately). Also, I am a major klutz, and have narrowly managed to poke out my own eye while removing my contact lenses on many occasions. Some of the men I've dated have also not been spared - while lovingly caressing a cheek I've accidentally scratched many a male face before. =(

Green, Green, Yellow, Who's There?

2011-04-21T12:08:00.010+08:00

This is going to be a quick (and possibly unappetizing) food post on broccoli. In support of Kelvin's recent diet, I've been trying to stick to a 7:3 vegetable to meat ratio programme, and it's been way easier that I expected, considering how much vegetables, fruits and grains I have in my diet everyday - my mother is a healthy-eating freak, and I suffer from this pesky thing called IBS.

Today's brunch was a single, slightly past-its-due broccoli. Needed an easily-prepared yet tasty meal that wasn't bread or instant noodles, so I rummaged in the sadly lacking fridge and came up with that.

So I decided to do an easy baked cheese broccoli to satisfy my cravings for something savoury, of course without any fancy-pants white wine reduction or button mushrooms ...

And was left with the stalk. Usually I bin that, but since I saw on Just Bento how it could be easily whipped up into a simple, tasty dish, I've been saving that, especially for use as a filler in my bentos... I actually have to admit here that since then, I've discovered that I love the broccoli stalks more than the florets, heh.

While the broccoli florets are steaming, cut stalk into matchsticks. Be careful not to over-cook the florets like I did (I went off to change and feed the dog). When the broccoli's in the oven, just fry up the stalk match-sticks with some sesame oil, a splash of light soy sauce, and a pinch of sesame seeds.

The two dishes taste quite different - the stalks have a slightly sweet, crunchy, delicate quality to them very much well complemented by the fragrance of the sesame seeds; and the earthy taste of the florets go very well with the savoury richness of cheese.

So there you have it - how to whip up two dishes out of a single head of broccoli under thirty minutes... Speak of green overload LOL, ten years ago the sight of these two dishes would've sent me running off screaming. =P

The next broccoli-based dish I'll be doing is probably a cream of broccoli soup. Seems like another very simple dish. Vege- and broccoli-haters, it's time to boycott my blog! =P

A Little Moment of Silence

2011-04-17T18:17:00.005+08:00

Would lay there with you would forget the world with you...

But with the realities of life intruding and the mistakes made constantly haunting, I don't think that would ever be possible for either of us.

I am sorry for the hurt I've caused you.

Nobody's winning in this game.

The Post Where I Completely Turn You Off

2011-04-14T03:22:00.009+08:00

Yes I'm aware it's 3am, but I was just doing my pre-bedtime skin-care routine when I decided my current state of skin has probably reached an all-time low, a sudden decline after a few months of improvement from the last hormone-induced temper tantrum.

And I'm sharing how it looks like with all of you here... =)

Helpfully numbered so I can give you a little background info on each and every offending new resident on my face, of course.

1 - The Permanent Resident: Been around since early December, this tenacious bugger started as subcutaneous lurker, swelling up to the size of a mung-bean over a few painfully prolonged weeks to form a purplish mini-cyst of sorts, but never "ripening" up enough to form a head, pop, and go away. All it seems to be doing is slowly, slowwwwwwwlyyyyyy shrinking in size and somehow managing to take up residence on my face for so long its practically got its own zip-code already.

2 - Broken Capillaries: These have been around since forever, and don't really count as a new intruder on my mug, but I thought I'd just point them out in case someone asked. And no, I did not get them from over-indulgence in alcohol. Apparently I have a very delicate, thin epidermis that injures easily. Brings new meaning to being "thin-skinned" LOL.

3 - The New Guy: This big boy just appeared all out of a sudden last week, when my skin was being all sorts of hormonal and the weather was particularly humid. It's showing no signs of going anywhere just yet, even if it's turning a rather fetching shade of greenish-yellow in the middle. Might probably pop tomorrow. And leave a nasty reminder of its unwelcome tenancy here.

4 - The Hit-and-Run: Appeared on day 1 of my period last week. Quickly dried up in a few days. Itched like hell the brief duration of its stay here. Seems to insist on not being so quickly forgotten. I really shouldn't be too surprised by that, by now.

5 - The Lurker: Too small to really be seen in real life, but has been around almost as long as The Permanent Resident, this little fella's one pervasive teeny-weeny cyst underneath my skin. Which the salicylic acid facial cleanser has almost completely eliminated from its rather annoying spot just below the corner of my mouth.

6 - The Chin Colonist: One of many tiny little comedones (blackhead and whitehead thingies) that have recently started colonizing the area underneath my lower lip. I suspect I am due for my next facial to rid myself of these fuckers. Doubt that they will go away otherwise, exfoliating cleanser or not.

I think I might have put many of you off, what with this rare close-up of uncharacteristically bad skin for me. Such a terribly sexy post, no? =P

This crappy hot, humid weather better ease up soon before I turn into some warty-faced monster.

Grah.

2011-04-11T02:55:00.007+08:00

Without saying too much, I'd just like post here that I really find an inebriated lack of self-control rather distasteful, and while I'm no saint and have had my fair share of stupid behaviour while in a less-than-sober state, this repetitive bit of foolishness IS getting to the point of being rather intolerable.

Maybe dignity isn't something many might value highly these days, but emotional alcohol-fueled episodes of ranting and raving about the most inappropriate issues just isn't very becoming. I don't know about everyone else, but most people don't find that sort of behaviour particularly endearing or appealing.

So regardless of what one might think of what might have been, or would have been ideal, I'm saying this now: from the behaviour shown in recent weeks, all that has been achieved is an effective killing off of any possibility of any positive development of relationship between two people. And that includes a friendship, which doesn't seem to have much value placed on it at all, what with recent actions speaking volumes on how much one wants to retain the previous easy camaraderie.

That's fine. I don't in particular give much of a shit about that. I just want a little peace of mind, please. I don't really care for those late night ramblings and the disjointed sentences conveying the unsettling things directed at me, so don't.

To be perfectly honest, it started out as slightly flattering. And then quickly escalated to rather bewildering and rather worrying. And in a few days, the situation just went straight to downright terrifying. No, I don't get it, and at this point, I suspect I don't really want to, either.

I never asked for all this drama, and I would rather not have any of this sort of excitement in my life.

How hard can it be to respect me and my wishes for some peace of mind? It's not much to ask for, is it?

Products That Worked (And Those That Didn't)

2011-04-07T16:03:00.019+08:00

Now as you all probably know (or guessed) that I'm not a particularly girly girl. To be honest, I probably wouldn't even shower every day if I could get away with it, but in this sort of weather, doing so would be akin to inviting a nasty case of heat-stroke.

However, that doesn't mean that I don't indulge myself by purchasing the occasional cosmetic item (especially if it is cheap), if just to play around with a little and remind myself of that somewhat elusive sense of femininity I still possess, heh.

Also, what with my skin in less-than-optimal state lately, the importance of a good skin-care routine has just begun to sink in (in more ways than one, unfortunately) - something I've taken for granted all this years, because I've never really had bad skin before, despite the severely bad-for-skin lifestyle I used to lead. Seems like old age is catching up with me, even if the drugs, the drinking and the two-pack-a-day habit never did.

So since my camera's currently loaned to a friend (with all my images and stuff still on the SD card), I've decided to do a review on some products I've tried recently (or just stood out because they were so outstandingly awesome... or just downright shite).

Please bear in mind that the last review I did of any similar items was probably over six years ago and involved roll-on wax by Veet, which I ended up tasting to verify if it tasted as good as it smelled (no, it did not); so don't expect too much in good product information here LOL.

Garnier Brightening Eye Roll-On

Saw this product advertised on XiaXue's blog years ago, but never really bought into the hype back then. And then found it in the apartment of a guy I was seeing for awhile, and he claimed that it worked wonders on him, so decided to get one for myself to try. Cost me RM19.90 from Watson's, if I'm not mistaken.

What it is: It's supposed to be a roll-on gel/solution which claims to reduce puffiness and dark eye circles.

Performance: Used it twice a day religiously for a month, and nawp, didn't work for me much. If it reduced any puffiness from underneath my eyes, the effect was probably at best, negligible. Dark eye circles? Still here. The caffeine-infused liquid obviously did nothing for me. I did, however, notice that the product contained very, very finely-milled reflective specks (a.k.a. teensy-weensy glitter) that probably helps with the "brightening" effect.

I did, however, like the cooling effect of the roller-ball, especially when it'd been kept in the fridge before using. That said, for almost RM20 just for some fancy-pants roller-ball thingy, I'd be better off applying a cold spoon over my under-eye area for a cheaper, more effective solution. Or just drink more water.

Verdict: Meh. Waste of money. Better to just save up for a good eye cream by Estee Lauder.

(Edit: Was going through my nightly skin-care routine and giving my skin a close scrutiny, when I noticed a very slight improvement in orbital puffiness. So to be fair, yes, maybe this product does work a little... it's still too small an improvement on me to honestly say that it's effective though. My verdict on this one still sticks.)

Nyx Round Lipstick

Got a heap of these because they were on sale and dirt-cheap even BEFORE discounts, and the range of colours offered is just frankly mind-blowing. Didn't expect them to live up to the standards of higher-end lippies (which I splurge on because I love a nice lip colour, even if I don't apply much make-up on), but at RM10-11 for a colour, it's hard not to ask yourself "Why not?".

What it is: It's a moisturising lipstick claiming to offer long-lasting, non-smudging lip colour.

Performance: For the insanely low price? There's really not much you can complain about, really. It is pretty moisturising (even for my sensitive, dry lips), and some of the colours are just gorgeous (True Blood fans would love 'Snow White' and 'Decadent', two lovely, rich, red shades). It does smudge though, and some colours do feather a bit, but overall they're really pigmented, especially the darker shades.

I'm not a big fan of the scent though. It's probably pleasant to some people, but to me it smells sort of soapy, and "soapy" isn't exactly a scent I want on my lips - my nose keeps tricking my tongue into tasting soap suds whenever I use this. However, my sensitive lips didn't chap or peel (like they do with certain products), which is pretty amazing, considering even Shisedo triggers that reaction in me sometimes.

Don't buy these expecting them to be anywhere as good as your Dior lippies, but they ARE as good or better than many drug-store brands, at a fraction of the price. With more fun colours! I got a whole range of colours from pinks to reds to blacks to nudes to corals to golds and they're all pretty nice (although best worn over lip-liner to maximise the amount of wear you get out of them).

Verdict: Pretty sweet, considering how cheap it retails for (try getting them when they're on sale). Can't hold a candle up to MAC though so don't expect a similar standard from it.

Hada Labo Tamagohada AHA/BHA Cleansing Foam

Was looking for a salicylic acid face-wash because of an outbreak of milia seeds and blackheads from a very irritating case of hormonal skin, when the cousin mentioned seeing an AHA/BHA cleanser offered by Hada Labo, of the ultra-hyped Super Hyaluronic Acid Moisturising Lotion fame. After she'd tried it and gave the feedback that it helped smoothen out her complexion a bit, I grudgingly bought it (as you can probably tell already, I'm a big sceptic when it comes to products that people go ga-ga over - too much marketing, too much sheep mentality, in my opinion). It's a pretty reasonable RM30+, and comes in a smaller-sized packaging too (unsure about the price of that one), so was worth a try I guess.

What it is: It's a cleanser with AHA (Alpha Hydroxy Acid) and BHA (Salicylic Acid) which exfoliates and promotes cell regeneration.

Performance: Really effective! Even for someone with dry, sensitive skin like me... I just use it once a day, at night, before bed, and make sure I use a good moisturising serum after, and a good sunscreen for face the day after, if I'm going out in bright sunlight. For my day-time cleanser I don't use this - I go for a mild, gel cleanser instead.

At first I thought it was just me, but my complexion has improved so dramatically I've received heaps of positive comments from friends, both male and female alike. However, as it is a exfoliating wash, it has to be noted that it causes a tan to slough off faster too. Not a problem if fair skin is what you want, but I'd prefer a little colour to my complexion, and since I started using this my face looks a bit like a gleamingly pale egg (the "Tamagohada" ("egg skin" in Japanese) tag-line seems pretty apt here ey?).

However, if you're using this (up to twice a day depending on your skin type), do keep an eye on how it's affecting the condition of your skin. It worked really well for awhile, but since my skin has periods of dryness I've to adjust frequency of usage accordingly if I don't want dry patchy areas appearing. Plenty of moisturisation is recommended with this one - and do bear in mind many serums and products absorb better after exfoliation, so this cleanser works great as a prep for whatever serums and treatments you might want to pamper your skin with after.

Verdict: Great product! Do use with a degree of caution to avoid drying out skin though, especially if it's on on dry, sensitive skin.

Bobbi Brown Blush

I love blush. With a good lipstick, it's pretty much all the makeup I really need. While in Perth I got a sample-sized blush from Bobbi Brown for free, in the shade 'Blushed', which was a tad too dark for me. Tried it out anyway, and found that with a little blending, I could pull it off anyway. Looked pretty good on me when I was really tan from diving.

What is is: This is supposedly an award-winning product from Bobbi Brown: a matte blush claiming to provide long-lasting wear.

Performance: Wasn't expecting much from it because the packaging was rather boring - I guess I've been spoilt by the pretty packaging so many products come in now - so was pretty pleasantly surprised at how pigmented this blush is. A little goes a long way, unlike many blushes I've tried that have to be build up with many, many, MANY washes of colour.

It lasts pretty long too, as claimed - it's one of the few blushes that can withstand a long, sweaty night of partying or a hot, humid day in Kuching (ideal climate for melting makeup, which is why I don't bother with the full face paint routine here). A pretty good option if you're anticipating an entire day out and don't want to carry cosmetics on you for touch-ups.

If you're looking for a cheap drugstore product, this is probably not it, but for the price it's really worth it - it delivers. Retails for RM70+ (10% cheaper than retail price) here, if anyone's interested in buying.

Verdict: Not a must-buy, but a solid, decent product that's worth getting if you're willing to spend a little bit more on a good quality blush.

Phew. What a long post on a topic I rarely even write about. I'll have to credit all the images here from Google Images, NyxCosmetics.com and BobbiBrown.com because as I've stated earlier, my camera's currently taking a break from me and enjoying being in the more expert hands of someone else.

This Is An Utterly Random Mash-Up of All the Things I Wanted to Blog About

2011-04-03T14:36:00.021+08:00

... but sort of got lazy to elaborate on after the first couple of paragraphs.

Mr. Chan
The father has been displaying behaviour best described as ranging from rather amusing to downright aggravating since retirement.

Case in point: He just attempted to read 9 Beauty Rules That Don't Apply to Everyone off MSN.com to me, some ten minutes ago. Apparently I don't have to shower every day, especially with my dry skin and all, yay!

Also under selected reading material to be loudly dictated to his snoozing first-born, supposedly for her benefit: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Shampoo from WomansDay.com.

Yes. Scratch your head in complete incomprehension together with me, please.

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ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
Was trying to read up on it because it was a topic that aroused some interest... but apparently I am too attention deficit to complete that task. Or a decent blog post, for that matter.

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On holding hands (paws?) when I sleep
When I was two or three I watched an episode of Transformers, that for some unfathomable reason, scared me shitless. Actually, I think it was a scene where Megatron was being his usual creepy self on a screen that somehow got to me. Needless to say, my over-imaginative young mind processed that into a terrible nightmare that very night.

At the time I shared a room with my parents, in a cot next to my parents' double bed. My father slept next to my cot, presumably because my mother was a light sleeper and did not appreciate my occasional episodes of night-terrors.

So that night, I jolted awake in sheer horror of the horrid dream I had, and reluctant to cry or wake my parents and risk my mother's sleep-deprivation-induced wrath, I quietly took my dad's hand and went back to sleep, feeling somehow a lot safer with his reassuring big engineer's hand in mine.

However, that kinda became a habit, and when I started dating I'd do the same to my boyfriends, grasping onto their hands (or even a single finger) as I fell asleep, as if their digits were some sort of magical talisman to protect me against my nightmares (still as vividly frightening as they were in my childhood).

And then I got Cookie.

Yes, you might've guessed where this is going, by now. I sometimes hold her paw as I slumber. She might be a pint-sized, rather undog-like fluffy mop of a thing, but it's still as comforting as a big, rough, manly hand to hold.

Here's the both of us, taking an afternoon nap on my favourite couch:

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Big Gear, Free Gear
Was at my usual herbal tea place (which also doubles as an apocathery AND a pharmacy) for some cooling herbal tea (a must-have in this crazy hot weather lately) when I spotted these condoms for sale:

Apparently the green one's a "Free Gear", which seems like your stock-standard condom; and the red one's a "Big Gear", which according to its illustration seems to be some ribbed/spiked and somewhat intimidating rubber sheathe.

Interesting way to name prophylactics, but to be honest, they could do much worse.

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:D
Just walked past Mr. Chan and mustered up the widest, cheesiest grin I could at him. Something along the lines of the :D emoticon, in all its tooth-baring glory.

His reaction? To grin back at me in the exact same fashion, rather soundlessly.

And people wonder where I get my goofy sense of humour.

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I think I'll drag myself to the shower now for a much-needed dousing - not because I'm particularly in need for a wash (both MSN.com and my father will agree with me on that), but the hot, humid weather's killing me.

So I guess his is about as much insight as you get for now, on the things that caught my interest in the previous few days, while I valiantly attempt to keep from literally being stewed alive in my own home.

Celebrating My 8th 18th Birthday

2011-03-27T23:55:00.004+08:00

My birthday was on the 25th, but since Mr.Chan was out of town then, my birthday dinner with the parentals was postponed till this evening.

We had a pretty cozy dinner at a restaurant of my choice, as promised by the man of the house. I chose Ristorante Beccari at Merdeka Palace as the venue because it wasn't too extremely expensive, yet a nice enough restaurant to suit the occasion.

Dinner was pretty good - even the fussy Mrs. Chan enjoyed the food - she didn't complain once despite the fact she doesn't really like any form of Western cuisine at all, quite a rarity if you know the woman personally LOL.

Anyway at the end of our meal, a waiter brought out my birthday cake, a wondrous combination of Guinness, chocolate, and peanut butter that I'd requested Mrs. Chan make, after stumbling upon the recipe on Pig Pig's Corner.

You have no idea how happy I feel every time I look at this picture:

Would like to blog more about the celebration of my birth and what an awesomely miraculous event that was, but I'm so stuffed from the heavy dinner I think I'll just leave it for some other time.

Thanks, mum and dad (even if you guys don't read this). Really did appreciate the lovely meal and the gorgeous cake.

Tell Me What You Know 'Bout Dreamin', Dreamin'

2011-03-20T23:27:00.007+08:00

Crush a bit, little bit, roll it up, take a hit
Feelin' lit, feelin' right, 2 am summer night
I don't care, hand on the wheel, drivin' drunk, I'm doin' my thing
Rollin the Midwest side and out livin' my life gettin' out dreams
People told me slow my roll. I'm screaming out fuck that
Imma do just what I want, lookin' ahead no turnin' back
If I fall, if I die, know I lived it to the fullest
If I fall, if I die, know I lived and missed some bullets

I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold, hey
I'll be fine once I get it, I'll be good

Tell me what you know about dreamin', dreamin'
You don't really know about nothin', nothin'
Tell me what you know about them night terrors every night
5 am cold sweats wakin' up to the skies
Tell me what you know about dreams, dreams
Tell me what you know about night terrors, nothin'
You don't really care about the trials of tomorrow
Rather lay awake in a path full of sorrow

I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold, hey
I'll be fine once I get it, I'll be good

I'm on the pursuit of happiness
And I know everything that shines ain't always gold
I'll be fine once I get it, I'll be good, good.

I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold, hey
I'll be fine once I get it, I'll be good

Pursuit of happiness, yeah
I don't get it, I'll be good

Argh, Oh man, oh. Room's spinning, room's spinning.
[unintelligible], Oh fuck. Oh my God, why did I drink so much and smoke so much?
Oh, fuck.

Story of my life, heh. Almost the same words I've been saying over and over too, except less melodiously, my words a sometimes painful mix of confusion and hope woven together.

Oh, and I love MGMT, and they're playing in KL on my birthday this coming 25th, but I think I'll be giving that a miss to spend it with my family. Somehow it feels right to make this year's birthday celebration a quiet one, with the people I love.

Anyway, I've a million things to say here but lacking the incentive to blog much.

Life's been quite the experience lately. Been really busy; met some interesting people; questioned my place in the grand scheme of things; learnt to put some matters to rest, if not let them go; haven't lost the weight gained from successfully quitting smoking; still lost; still chasing down happiness, or at least hoping it'd find me somehow...

Aside from the little incidences that flavour my day-to-day life, nothing much's changed: I'm still the same girl struggling with her issues and trying to make the best out of each day.

I guess it's true, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I hope I'll post something a little less bleh the next time I add new content here. =)

Fit As A Fiddle, Yeah.

2011-03-11T17:34:00.008+08:00

Haven't been posting for a while, because I've been ridiculously busy of late. Here's a quick (and hopefully brief, knowing my propensity for rambling) post to update you on my the state of my healing digits:

Day 1-6: Turned from some rather plummy shade of purple to a more eggplant purple surrounded by greeny-blue mottling. Didn't bother taking pictures because was too wrapped up in depressive self-pity for quite a few days after breaking my finger LOL.

Day 7: Noticed that my finger had turned a rather necrotic shade of blue, especially around the knuckles. It actually looked worse in real life than this picture of it, taken that day:

Lovely colour, don't you think?

Day 10: In the middle of all that fading blue-ness, a reddish spot appeared. Looked like a fucking bull's-eye.

Funky colour-changes aside, the bone's healing fine and the splint should be off in another two weeks. Joints are a little stiff though, and might need a few sessions of physiotherapy to restore flexibility.

Living with a disabled left hand can be a bit of a hassle, and I've compiled a list of things I can and cannot do in this current condition:

Things I can't do now:

Tie my hair
Pick up heavy objects that require both hands
Do a double flip bird-flipping
Splash water on my face to wash it
Cup hands to bring water to my mouth to rinse off after brushing my teeth
Throttle people with both hands
My 15-minute yoga stretches first thing in the morning
Go back to CMD and fizfit classes
Dive

Things I can still do:

Type (with the remaining fingers)
Wash my face (with the aid of a sponge)
Pick objects of a reasonable weight up (with thumb, fourth and pinky finger)
Shower (when required, I can dangle the shower-head off a "hook" fashioned from my thumb)
Cut up my food (painfully slow, with cutlery held rather strangely in left hand)
Text on my phone (I just have to hold it a little differently)
Just about almost everything, come think about it. Just need to modify the ways I used to do them.

I've noticed an increase flexibility and reach in my right arm (try scratching itchy parts of your back with your right hand where you used to require your left hand to reach and you'll see what I mean).

However, due to the reduced usage of my injured hand, and what with my right hand taking on most of the tasks now, there's a disparity in size between my left arm and my right arm, noticeable enough for Mrs. Chan to yell out in surprise during dinner...

Yes, I look like a fucking fiddler crab now, except that waving my larger dominant limb doesn't quite appeal to the opposite sex the same way.

It Just Snapped Like A Match-Stick ='(

2011-03-02T15:54:00.018+08:00

Breaking something seems to have become an annual affair, with me cracking my left wrist about this time last year, give or take a few weeks, and a broken finger fiasco last night.

Won't get into details as to how I broke it, as it's just standard Irene klutziness + misfortune, but I can tell you that snapping a finger was relatively painless, in fact, I didn't really even realise I'd broken it until I realised my fingers were feeling rather odd - felt the middle finger of my left hand bumping against the adjacent pointer finger, even though I wasn't bending either finger to touch each other. Feeling a growing sense of dread, I looked down at it, and to say I got a shock would be quite the understatement.

Blurry photo because I took this while running through the front doors of the hospital

As you can already see from above, my middle finger was twisted at a really odd angle, as if it had decided to turn its "head" to face my pointer finger. My first reaction after taking in the sight? I decided to flip out at that point and hysterically screamed my head off.

Blubbered and bawled the whole way to the hospital, and had to be comforted by the three emergency ward doctors who had the misfortune to have to treat me, as well as the entire radiology department team AND the orthopaedic surgeon that finally arrived to fix my finger.

The thing is, it wasn't as much the pain as it was me looking down at my hand whilst waiting, and freaking out all over again at how misshapened it looked, and then burst out in tears at that sense of horror as well as my anxiety at never regaining mobility in my hand again.

However, I did manage to pull out my camera between sobbing loudly, pausing mid-way in my sniffling in order to take snapshots of my hand, incurring unimpressed expressions from many of the doctors attending to me. Explains why all shots taken in the hospital are rather blurry - between all that crying and shaking in shock and trying to ignore the unamused glares, I only managed a few furtive shots.

Swollen and grotesquely twisted after two hours of waiting. Another blurry shot snapped between bouts of drama queen tears.

I must say though, it really didn't help that the second emergency ward doctor who saw me was a young, rather inexperienced trainee who decided to give me a shot of diclofenac to relief the swelling and pain, but ended up botching the injection by clumsily pushing the needle too deep into the muscle of my upper arm, causing the entire muscle to swell up badly to a hard, tender golf-ball-sized inflammation by the time the orthopaedic surgeon could treat me.

Also, all the different doctors who looked at my X-rays were once again, as in the case of my busted wrist, unable to decide if it was broken or just dislocated as it wasn't apparent in the images. I was even questioned by four different doctors if my fingers were already deformed prior to my accident. -_-"

And then, there was my insensitivity to local anaesthetic. Mr. Orthopaedic administered two very painful shots of anaesthetic to my injured finger, on the left and then on the right of the base of that finger, before proceeding to straighten it out... which resulted in a fresh bout of weeping because the injections weren't really taking effect yet. He had to administer yet another shot just above the break before he could go back to manipulating the bones back into place.

After splinting the now-straightened digit, he sent (a less tearful, slightly dizzy) me back to the radiology department, where it was finally confirmed that it was indeed broken.

So here's how my finger looks like in what is called a 'buddy wrap', splinted to my pointer finger:

Splinted together for the next three weeks at least =(

It'll take about a month to heal, and in the mean-time I'm learning to live with not having the full usage of those two digits. Rather surprisingly though, typing on a QWERTY keyboard hasn't presented much of a problem, with my fourth finger taking over the tasks of its two invalid neighbours.

At present moment I'm being best of terms with Arcoxia. It's been rendering my recuperation a rather pain-free one. Otherwise it's been a rather uneventful Day One of healing. I'm just a bit upset that this injury pretty much means that I now have to limit the activities I choose to take up in my free time. Have to shelf all plans for diving for now... =(

Red is for STOP

2011-02-28T14:15:00.014+08:00

Apologies if updates of this blog has slowed to almost a trickle - real life has been taking precedence over long, self-indulgent hours spent on chronicling little snippets of my life here that I used to be able to afford; these days find that I am too unmotivated or exhausted to pen down my thoughts when just lying comatose on my couch seems like a luxury.

Today, I'll just write about one of the lesser-mentioned, yet very important men in my life - my hair-stylist. If he isn't obviously swinging in a direction that's definitely not at me, and were a little bit older, I might just consider marrying him (I said "might" because I might just not, yes, I'm fickle that way). He does magic with my hair like no other hair-dresser has ever managed to, and takes my ideas of how my crowning glory should look like, and improves on it.

It's been one year since I most fortuitously chanced upon him, and through the months of lack of maintenance and general disregard for the appearance of my locks, he has managed to make something decent-looking out of them, despite what I must imagine a constant sense of secret horror and despair at the state of my sun-bleached, salt-water-dehydrated, colour-faded hair with inches of roots growing out unchecked, every single time I set foot in his work-place after weeks and even months of disappearance.

This is how my not-so-glorious crowning glory looks like after three days of constant immersion in salt water and prolonged sun exposure. Yeap, like a human mop.

He's young, very young, yet very, very talented with his skill in making one's limp, tired hair look refreshed and modern yet very wearable at the same time. I won't even go into how awesome he is with a hair-brush and a hair-dryer - lesser mortals have wept in envy at the beautifully crafted sculptures of hair he artfully turns out, without as much as breaking a sweat. Did I also mention that he gives the most amazing hair-washes ever?

It's been a year of him patiently coaxing some semblance of shape and volume out of my lank, lifeless, overtly straight hair, and he's never disappointed me yet, despite all the times I've left him no clue as to what I want except of the vague "just do what you want with it, as long as you make it look nice". In fact, if I were to be honest I'd want to be selfish and keep him all to myself, but how better to show a little love than to promote him and his astoundingly amazing way with hair?

So yes, here's to finding the best hair-stylist ever (I can't imagine letting anyone else do my hair anymore) after a long nomadic journey from one unsatisfying hair-dresser's to another; and losing him briefly when, after a long hiatus from hair-maintenance, I went back and found that he'd quit the hair salon I initially met him in (prompting panic and a frantic quest to track him down); and finally locating him and his new workplace again (via the all-reaching aunty network - my mum turned out to be a colleague of his mother).

I know, I know, so much like a Korean drama, only it's for the rather less romantic reason of pursuing the only person in the world who knows what to do with my hair.

And here's to a lovely mane of well-shaped, silky-soft, richly-coloured hair, and to never again feeling trepidation and dread when sitting down for a hair-cut. Heck, more so than anything else, here's to my eternal gratitude at feeling pretty every day, bad face day or not.

Thanks, Sean, for the awesome service and the affordable prices AND the great hair you've given me. Keep up the good work and don't ever, EVER let anyone take away your passion for something you are so blessedly talented in.

I just HAD to include a vanity-shot of myself here, of course. And THIS is the miracle he can work given half an hour, a brush, and a hair-dryer. Bear in mind I have so-soft-it-can't-hold-shape hair, normally.

For those in Kuching, you can find Sean on most days of the week working from 11am on at May May Unisex Hair Salon (don't be put off by the venue or its name - it's the skills of the fella doing your hair that REALLY counts, and Sean's as good or even better than many of the hair-stylists working at high-end salons that I've tried). Give him a call or a text to set an appointment! He can be reached at 012-895118.

Oh, and THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTORIAL - just figured I'd share a great thing and give him all the acknowledgment he deserves. <3 <3 <3!!!

Hearted

2011-02-17T10:20:00.011+08:00

I meant to write this Valentine's post a little earlier (ie. on the day itself), but I've been so caught up with things that I didn't manage to even as much as have more than half an hour in front of the computer for the entirety of the past week. But it's OK, nothing says 'I love you' more than a belated post as a loving reminder of that celebration of love gone by.

So anyway... on the topic of Valentine's Day... only in Malaysia would you see it being condemned as being synonymous with vice and associated with Christian elements (oh the ignorance of that latter statement, LOL). But fear not, only Muslims need to feel that negatively about something as innocuous as a simple celebration of human affection. That little bit of foolishness made me laugh, but as I'm sure there's been plenty said on the issue, I'll refrain from commenting too much on it here.

Instead, I'll ramble on about my perception of Valentine's Day, as this is my blog anyway and should remain self-centeredly so. And I'll admit it - for many, many, many years I hated the celebration, because I'd find myself either single, or suffering some relationship crisis on the day itself. Or half-heartedly celebrating it but not feeling the joy in doing so. V-Day Grinch much ey?

This year's different, I guess. I had a revelation. It really doesn't matter at all, whether you're alone on Valentine's, or celebrating with a significant other, or having a Single Awareness Day (SAD) gathering. It doesn't matter if you get laid, or you end up just watching some sappy rom-com on the telly, or if you go out, party, and end up smashed; or if it's a quiet night in snuggling with a smelly contented dog who couldn't even be arsed about the silly trivialities of humankind.

Hell, it doesn't matter if you get a wedding proposal complete with big sparkly rock, or a bunch of ninety-nine red roses, or a fancy hand-packed gift of the things you've been hoping your partner would get for you, or a costly pack of collagen in vials (OK I got this one, of all things... is it supposed to hint at my progressively aging mug?), if you keep in mind that despite everything you did or did not do, or did or did not get, you're ultimately self-satisfied with what you have, and you know that there's always someone out there who loves you.

So yes, for the first time in years, I didn't feel let down, or lonely, or resenting this whole over-hyped, over-rated occasion. And to be honest, it was lovely, just not hating on a day when love should be embraced in all its forms, even if it's something as unexpected as loving oneself enough to just sit down awhile to enjoy a short moment of peaceful self-reflection.

So there you have it. If Valentine's Day is a celebration of love, how better to embrace it by starting with loving the most significant person in your life - yourself?

I have to mention here that I took this picture with a crappy Bold 9000 :D

Rain-drops Keep Falling On My Head

2011-02-15T18:58:00.006+08:00

It's been almost painfully sunny every single day of the past week until this morning. And then grey skies rolled in. The skinny left yesterday night. Coincidence?

/clears throat loudly and begins to sing in a mournful, off-key voice

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

It's not warm when she's away...

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

And she's gone too long anytime she goes away....

/ends terrible singing

Skinny I miss you! And so does the weather! And it's another four months before i get to see your annoying face again! =(((

Boo

2011-02-10T00:10:00.005+08:00

I guess it's about time to change my number.

It's never been as hard to shrug off yet another life I've built. It's always been not unlike a snake sloughing off its skin, for a girl so used to running, running, running... but this time it actually hurts. Then again I might just surprise myself, heh.

All the missed connections, brief encounters, strange friendships, people I've loved; and the things that could've been, and those that would've never worked out... I'm so reluctant to wipe yet another slate clean when I've grown fond of so many of you.

But it's time to leave. It's starting to itch and burn, this complacence.

There are more I want to say, but I am just starting to comprehend that some matters are best left unsaid - kept unspoken to uncomplicate matters.

Of Self-Inflicted Pain and Coloured Welts

2011-01-27T17:52:00.023+08:00

I finally got my belated Christmas present to myself, albeit almost a month late, right to the day. So my sisters trailed along as I marched myself into the studio, all anticipation and trepidation...

Miss Dot avoiding the paparazzi (a.k.a. the skinny)

So here's the finalised design on tracing paper!

This is what goes under the skin.

Initially all chipper and upbeat.

So the tattoo outline's traced out onto skin - now the pain starts.

Not the most comfortable positions for either one of us.

We pause to check how the design looks with me in the standing position.

A glimpse of the skinny in the mirror, chronicling the events of the afternoon.

Two and a half hours and just halfway done. Fatigue setting in.

Tattooing the last character - the illuminated G for God. Most painful moment of the whole session as it was directly on top of a rib.

At the end of the session - not so chipper anymore hahaha.

Almost five hours and a fair bit of grimacing later, my serenity prayer's complete.

I'm not Christian, but I have always found this little prayer to be a calming mantra to bear in mind. Its sentiments are pretty much the essence of the teachings in many other religions too, most notably Buddhism. This new piece of ink serves as a reminder to myself to inculcate more acceptance, courage and wisdom in dealing with life.

I keep telling myself this, but yes, it's about time to learn how to let all the negativity go, and deal with shit as it comes with a calmer approach.

The tattoo was done by Johnson of Magic Hand Tattoo at Chonglin Park. He did an awesome job for me! He also did the tattoo on my hip-bone. Do look him up if you need an ink-job done.

Pictures, of course, are credited to the skinny, who accompanied me throughout the whole session, and very diligently committed the whole event down to SD-card ("committed to film" would sound better, but we ARE in the digital age already).

We All Yarro-Yarro

2011-01-21T22:34:00.005+08:00

If anyone's noticed from the previous few posts, this week hasn't been a great one, and I've been steadily sinking lower and lower into a depression.

Was despondently sitting in front of the computer, wondering how to struggle through another few days of this seemingly never-ending misery, when I saw the thumbnail of a picture me and the two munchkins took a couple of weeks ago, when we were experimenting with a tumeric mask.

It made me smile a bit. It's actually currently my favourite picture, because it's so cheerfully yellow ("yarro mango!", the skinny calls us) and quirkily absurd. It also pretty much captures each of our default expressions, from the smirk I've been told to contradict my claims of virtue and sweetness, to the skinny's cheesy toothy grin, to Miss Dot's ever-ready picture-perfect cam-whore face. Hehe.

So there. I'm fine again. And I want to just get a little soppy here and say, I love my sisters a LOT, and could never ever imagine life without the aggravating, interesting, up-lifting company they provide, despite all the bickering and the disagreements we might have sometimes.

OK now I'm done rambling all this mush here I'm just going to run and dodge a couple pairs of evil eyes for posting up such a comically unflattering picture of all three of us on public domain. Hee!

I Know

2011-01-21T20:16:00.000+08:00

I know
The illness behind the image you create

I know
The tedious need to turn all you love into hate

You poor pathetic paranoid

Is it just me or do you secretly enjoy it?

-----

I wish you would just die.

Untitled

2011-01-18T12:23:00.004+08:00

I've been sick, down with a nasty bug bringing with it a gamut of fun symptoms: runny nose, fever, sore throat, cough, yadda yadda yadda.

Also, I'm desperately depressed, but since we're all disgustingly familiar with the topic of my despair, we'll not bother with describing the symptoms that accompany this particular malady.

My routine as of the past couple of days includes a lot of sleeping, not eating much, and waking up just in time to pop a few pills (broad-spectrum antibiotics, you're so fucking tasty!), before resuming the entire cycle of despondent sloth.

Feels like I've lost the will to live.

Don't even think a call for help would do anything for me anymore, so I curl into my cocoon of bed-covers and hide away from the world.

So, yeah. Don't call me. I'm likely to be sleeping my life away.

Arrhythmia

2011-01-17T13:31:00.005+08:00

Let me tell you what I know is true - people don't change.

You may claim otherwise, deny my cynicism, insist that you're a different person from what you were, but I know better.

Try looking me in the eyes and to tell me I'm wrong. Try runnning your eyes over the bruises patterning my skin and insist with conviction, that things are different.

You'll fail.

Nothing changes, not even the angry red criss-crossing the flesh of my wrist, or the death in my eyes.

Lost my hearing in my left ear today. Good, at least there's fifty percent less bullshit to listen to now. Might be temporary, but for now that silence is golden. There's only the words in my head to listen to now: a mantra, a solution, a salve for my sanity.

Marketing. We're all such pretty products for self-marketing. What ugly things we are, under the pretty, shiny packaging.

Oh you don't have to apologise for that.

Protège-moi de mes désirs.

Somebody

2011-01-17T08:21:00.001+08:00

Anybody.

Please help me. Please.

Caramelised Apple + Mixed Berries Pancakes for Brekkie

2011-01-12T12:03:00.007+08:00

Another food post, so soon after the previous one, just because the Chan sisters three are gluttons on the highest level, especially when put together. Eating is a social activity after all. Hehe.

Anyway, this was breakfast today...

Apparently the secret to fluffy pancakes is: beat two egg whites till medium-stiff before folding into the flour-buttermilk-egg pancake batter. A little more effort required, but soooooo worth it. We took the recipe for pancake batter off one by Gordon Ramsay. Unfortunately we didn't have buttermilk, so we substituted it with fresh milk instead. Also, we realised we didn't have any vanilla or vanilla essence only midway through whipping up the batter. Boo to that.

Turned out pretty OK though, after LOTS of attempts at not fucking up midway through cooking the pancakes. Check it out below... what do you think?

The pan I used heated up too fast, and I only mastered the art of flipping the pancakes without squishing up the uncooked side towards the end, when I was frustrated and hungry and just about to lose my temper at the prospect of turning out yet another imperfect-looking pancake. Ah well, now I know better. =D

For the topping, we caramelised some apple slices in butter and sugar (with a sprinkle of cinnamon), and sprinkled on some dried mixed berries, and voila! - a scrumptious looking brekkie. Use Granny Smith apples - they're tart enough and remain relatively firm after all that cooking.

Next cooking project: bento again!