Happy 2011!

It's the last day of 2010.... and I am sniffing... :( It's been a great week of meeting up with friends etc but I ended up sleeping really late for most of the week and now the sleep deficit is wreaking mini havoc on my well-being. Am flying off to Kota Kinabalu to spend New Year's day - not climbing the mountain but chilling near the mountain... hopefully running nose etc wld go away and I'd get a nice lil break before everything starts getting crazy again next week..

Here's wishing all of you a great 2011 ahead! The new year starts off with a really cool date - 1/1/11... :)

After a one night Christmas getaway in Bintan and a self-extended long weekend today, I feel so reluctant to get back to work. Luckily this week would be a short one too, with a key highlight being J's wedding reception mid-week, followed by half day on Fri and then another short weekend getaway to Kota Kinabalu! December is a lovely month...

Here's wishing everyone a belated Christmas and a great 2011 ahead!

Christmas cookies.... that I didn't bake :P

This being Christmas season, I have, in the past week or so, rubbed shoulders with the 10,000 other shoppers in crowded malls to do last min shopping and to buy gifts for nice ppl. Bagging good deals/ bargains has an effect similar to a sugar rush, but at the end of the day, shopping tires me out and the feel-good feeling wears off relatively quickly.

On the other hand, I find snuggling under my comforter to read my mags/ books at night while listening to music very therapeutic and soothing. I guess I'm a loner at heart and such low-energy, peaceful me-time recharges me... Having to interact with too many ppl can tire me out and some part of me just wants to hide in my lil cosy corner to chill and do nothing of much consequence :P Looking back at the year past, feel like I hardly had such luxury of time to do nothing at all by myself... Maybe I need to stay someplace with a slower pace of life, where folks around me aren't always striving to achieve this/that and working so hard all the time...

KL weekend getaway!

My weekend trip started on a Sat morning with a bad 1.5 hr jam at the Malaysian checkpoint... but thankfully the rest of it was good. Most of it was spent hanging out with D's frens at various eating places/ living rooms and dining areas, who spent 75% of the time reminiscing about their good old sch days in London :P Thought I could squeeze in some shopping; but ended up taking random pics and walking around hotel area in the short one hour I had to myself this morning.

"Alfresco" dining area outside the hotel... the mall area connected to the hotel had wide pedestrian walkways flanked by restaurants and cafes... which reminded me of the States actually, e.g. LA! :P

Sneaked some quick pics in a cute home decor store.

Above: Snowman candle! Below: Wouldn't it be nice to have some "fresh" flowers on your dining table everyday :)

Also met the friendliest and loveliest little girls on this trip - D's friend's kids. They were very intrigued with my DSLR and wanted to play with it... So I let them fiddle around with it...
This, is what appeals to a 6-yr old in a magazine store...

The bunch of adults were so all happy to be able to have A&W for lunch, now that A&W can no longer be found in S'pore. This is the power of fond childhood memories later in life...

A&W curly fries! I loved these as a kid... But the older ppl I went with claim that curly fries was a later addition to the A&W menu and the classic A&W offerings were the coney dog and rootbeer float. The coney dog I had was slightly disappointing 'cos the hotdog was pretty hard and un-saucy enough :P

Charming neighbourhoods & cool buys!

If you're suaku like me, you prob haven't been to the part of Tiong Bahru with the retro pre/post-war flats. I havent... till this morning! (On a lighter note - whenever I meet J's mum over Christmas, she never fails to ask me when this place would get SERSed or upgraded... and every year I never fail to disappoint her by my sheepiness in giving her an answer) Deep down, I hope this place never gets redeveloped, else Singapore would lose another of its little rustic corners to high-rise skyscrapers or yet another shopping mall...

I went by Tiong Bahru actually because I wanted to check out Forty Hands - a new coffee joint that also serves brunch/sandwiches, cakes and stuff. We managed to get a table inside despite it being overcrowded with yuppy-looking folks and youngsters. Seriously - where do they come from!!! A spectre is haunting Singapore - the spectre of yuppies colonising all the cool cafes around. Anyways. I treated myself to a flat white and a truffle mushroom sandwich... I don't actually think the food was great, but coupled with the hippie/cool ambience, I think I'd prob go back again :)

I also took some random pics using my E72 just before I left - but it led me to discover a cool function on my phone... and I ended up with pretty interesting shots speckled raindrops heh...

After lunch, also decided to check out the "affordable photo fair" at Objectifs at Arab Street - for photographers to exhibit cum sell their works... I didn't end up with any photos, but found a pair of nice berms and a cute pink-rimmed belt at one of the Haji lane shops instead. A couple of yellow spots on the belt suggested that it's pre-loved, though salesgirl claimed it wasn't.. Anyways, since the spots weren't too visible and it being the only piece left, I still got it cos it was relatively affordable and vintage-looking.

Shophouse facade at Kampong Glam

Nosherie refers to a restaurant or other place where food is served.

Was wondering what this word meant when I walked past MUNCH Saladsmith and Nosherie at Marina Bay Link Mall just now.. MUNCH has a shop at Robinson Rd and they serve pretty decent sandwiches. Seems like their business is doing pretty well and there's now a branch at the new mall... But "Nosherie" is a slightly pretentious word leh. Where did it come from... somehow cannot associate something as weird-sounding as 'nosh' with food.

I have two Le Sportsac pouches... a green imitation one with cute lil birds & fruit trees I got in Taipei some years back and an authentic one with blue & brown prints I bought from a dept store in Hong Kong... and they are both missing :( They have always been staples in my bag so I really dunno why they are missing... and the only (though not very plausible reason either) I can think of is that someone pilfered them when I was on course at CSC... cos otherwise I wouldn't have left my bag unattended... Have searched high and low for them but they just cannot be found :(

My nice mum, upon hearing the plight of the lost pouches, decided to search my wardrobe for them (without telling me lah). Was a lil mad when she messed up the cosy hiding places for my various lil pouches by tidying everything up and putting everything tog in one of my bigger pouches.. but ok lah, my chaotic order was restored when I pulled out everything and placed everything back into their less orderly but nice, un-cramped positions. But in the course of the search, my mum discovered this other nice organza/batik bag I own... I think someone nice gave it to me but I cannot remb who gave it to me anymore... :( It's a nice consolation, but I still miss my lost pouches...

Earl Grey "Creme Brulee"

Last night after the purchase of 6 pretty little ramekins, I came home excitedly to try out a baked custard recipe... lifted from an Appetite mag I flipped through while waiting for my food in a cafe :P This was supposed to be a chamomile-infused baked custard.. but I substituted the chamomile with my fav earl grey tea. I was also too cheapo to spend like $40 to buy a blow torch, so tried disguising the un-caramelised surface with fresh fruit instead!

The recipe was a failure though... and looks can be deceiving. Beneath the calm surface lay a cold gooey mixture that failed to solidify... oh well, I will try again next time :) And prob with a proper deep baking pan for the water bath too.

Amateurish food-styling with my mum's dish cloth haha.

Fresh out of the oven! Cos I didn't have enough ramekins, resorted to using my silicon cupcake cups for the rest... But there's just something about these pretty ramekins that tug at your heart, which romanticises the experience of savouring these lil treats.

The Letter T Song

I discovered a really cute cover of Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah" - A Sesame Street song that literally has a plain white "T"... aww, so cute! I was a bit dense and only realised that the T was going 'te-te-te' towards the end...

My 6-day Econs course ended on Wed... and the past two days were back to dreary days of eye-straining staring-at-comp-screen-all-day work. Skived somewhat while on course and as such accumulated quite a bit of backlog at work :(

I think these sorta long milestone courses are helpful in providing me a better sense of what sorta stuff goes on in other stat boards and ministries. And I was pretty fortunate that the ppl taking this course were pretty nice and non-cliquish; and I found myself (surprisingly) somewhat comfortable chit-chatting with most of them. It's actually a pretty stark contrast with my workplace - where I find myself being more AS most of the time; and keeping to myself a lot more. I dunno, maybe just fewer ppl my frequency bah and nature of portfolio doesn't require v much interaction and discussion with fellow workers... (I remb when I shared something like this with J and GM they like very shocked like that... maybe I look relatively pleasant but am a strict friend-picker at heart)

Today I ventured for the first time to the nearby Cedele for a wholesome sandwich set of chicken avocado and roasted veg soup. Over lunch, my fav colleague also shared with me her woes and frustrations with work here... Personally, I shared some of them and seriously didn't know how best to comfort her or make her feel less bad. Also had to balance conflicting interests - my self-interest in having her stay in the division and her long-term interest to look for something she might be happier and better off doing... Hai, in the end I also dunno what to say... I genuinely thought she's doing not too bad already... but i am apparently rather unconvincing leh. :(

It's getting harder and harder to resist spending $ in the city area these days. There's like a retail revolution in Singapore and new malls/places keep popping up it's crazy! I briefly walked thru the Raffles City basement last Sat and found myself surrounded by a gazillion new shops/stores. While I appreciate the greater variety of retail outlets/ places to go to/ cafes & restaurants to dine at, also wonder if the inundation of retail choices will make us more and more consumerist/ materialistic... such that we just dun remember to appreciate say, the wonders of nature anymore...

Yay, the long weekend will be here soon!

After a micro/macroeconomics crash course yesterday and today - I feel like I have reabsorbed a teeny bit of econs knowledge... Sadly, many other concepts/ stuff I've learnt are but distant memory :(

Though I still have to work after the course, at least I saw some 'daylight' yesterday, reaching home by 7pm! And I came home yest to a beautiful sunset... Sadly, half the sky had turned dark by the time I whipped out my cam... why is miss sunset so shy...

"Red sky in the evening"

Would also like to share an interesting video on what motivates us - it's something we watched in class yesterday. The arguments are interesting but ideas not entirely ground-shattering lah. But I thought the cartoonist was amazing... :P (bleah, dunno why YouTube video is oversized)

I've about to dive into a crazy week - Going on a 6-day Econs course from Tues onwards; while it's nice to have a "break" work will also inevitably pile up! I'm somewhat apprehensive that when sitting thru the week's lectures I would realise that I barely retained anything from college. But another part of me is looking forward to the course, as it would be nice to get myself un-rusted and learn more about how economic concepts are applied in the local context.

It's the halloween weekend and yest evening I picked up an IS mag at Heart Bistro. They had a feature on all kinds of phobias... and a top 10 list of weird ones. This is pretty bizarre -

Arachibutyrophobia - Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

What about the fear of cheese sticking to your teeth?? You know, when biting into sandwiches with slices of cheese in them... Wonder if there's a phobia for that. Heh.

I finished the Le Cordon Bleu book! I count it as a tiny accomplishment, because I've been pretty bad with completing any book the past half-year or so... For some reason attention span is pretty short now and end up book-surfing, with several half-read books lying forgotten in some corner of my room bleah.

Though I still find some parts pretty cliche, there were actually a few pretty entertaining/decent chapters somewhere in the middle of this book lah. But I think I'm pretty sure I won't want to be a real cook. Doubt that I'd really enjoy all that poultry boning, food-to-be murdering, getting guts out of fish etc. Nonetheless, this book and the lil baking projects I've embarked on recently made me feel like cooking/baking actually builds character and quick-wittedness. If anything, I've certainly felt like the ingredients prep stage/ baking process are good training for one's perseverance, patience, and 'crisis mgmt' skills. Heh the book also taught me how to curse in French... something I wld think in my head but prob wun say out loud when say, the only egg you have and need for your recipe rolls off table-top and commits suicide. Merde.

Sesame treats

Decided to try out another simple recipe from my Okashi recipe book this weekend; and made some cookies - packed with white/black sesame goodness :) Once again, I met with some little mishaps - burnt a batch of sesame seeds and one egg rolled off table-top and committed suicide. But other than that, cookies turned out looking pretty decent lah. I dunno if they taste like what they are supposed to actually ;) As they are on the drier side, they should go quite well with a cup of tea/ latte.

你是黑的还是白的...? Decided to try out a 'zen' arrangement while laying out the sesame seeds for light roasting... After finishing this, I was reminded of Kyoto's Ryoanji, this famous Zen garden that I couldn't quite appreciate heh...

还是 chao da 的？Being good at following instructions, I disregarded mum's advice and roasted them for 10 min... Alas! By the 8th min or so, my white sesame seeds were all gone case... (Somehow the black ones got more resistance, not that chao da actually.)

It's always wise for first-timers to buy some extra ingredients... 2nd attempt was more acceptable ;)

Cookies are but butter in sheep's clothing...

The dough mix, finally done! It turned out a lil gooey, no wonder I have to refrigerate it for at least 3 hours.

Ready to be baked! They look like pumpkin kueh speckled with sesame seeds or something..

Not anymore! Cookies fresh out of oven...

Mine came pretty close to the real thing lah ;)

Made more bite-sized ones too!

I used to get somewhat upset when XX is grouchy and unapproachable; cos I for some weird reason held myself partly responsible for someone else's bad day... I think I'm beginning to get out of such nonsensical reasoning... in fact, felt slightly annoyed today when XX let her bad mood get in the way when we tried to ask her something. Sure, perhaps we disturbed her while she was trying to concentrate on something impt, but felt that it was slightly uncalled for and not too professional. But fine, I can accept it that ppl have bad days. It's a Mon after all, and I was also having problems keeping my eyes open the whole day...

I am trying to live by a new 'motto' - to never let anyone look down on me. I might not be very smart, worldly, successful & whatever, but the most impt thing is to try to live with integrity and kindness, be comfy and love myself for what I am and learn to count all my blessings... heh. Of course, this business about accepting yourself is just a general guideline, not an excuse to allow myself to do whatever... like eating 10 frozen yogurts a day. A person who eats 10 frozen yogurts a day can't be me...

I must be fated to buy Eat, Pray, Love lah. Due to the movie release in Sg, the Penguin version with Julia Roberts on the cover was going at $12 at Somerset 313 Harris! And so I got it. It even came with a 14-day True Yoga pass... which I'm so not going to use, but shall offer it to colleague so as not to waste it :P

Also did a couple of 'new' things this weekend, such as turning up at someone's welcome dinner party and volunteering. I've been wanting to volunteer for the longest time, but I never got down to doing it. Decided to act on this "whim" today and spent a couple of hours this afternoon at someone's cavernous basement trying to sort out donated kids' books for sending over to kids over in Thailand - to stock up a library that recently burnt down (books included)...! I was quite tempted to read some of the books I picked up... but didn't really in the end. I found a Moomin book and a cute monster book, and even one that taught kids how to draw diff kinds of cartoon dinosaurs..!

Really not looking forward to work tmr, but well, all good things have to come to an end. Till the next weekend...

Just now I repaid a tiny part of my lifelong debt to my parents by helping them put on fresh bedsheets. Mum was visibly tired and so was Dad. I felt a childish sense of pride after that... for my tiny attempt to reciprocate their daily acts of love and selflessness. Pple always say giving is altruistic, but I think it's not entirely so; cos givers like me derive self-satisfaction in the process... :P

Am wondering if it's worth investing 2.5 hrs of my weekend catching Eat, Pray, Love. Reviews of the movie seem mixed, and Miss C advises that the book is way better. Perhaps I should go get the book, while I'm in the pensive, 'what's my purpose in life' mood... and who knows, discover my purpose in life..! (yeah if only it were so easy). Am halfway thru this girl-ditches-job-for-passion book abt someone leaving corporate world to pursue her dream of learning cooking at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Her writing is not terribly exciting and the sub-plot about her and her dream bf sounds rather unoriginal/ unrealistic so far, but her class experiences and stuff she learns in class are still interesting enough. Just that what she cooks all sound pretty complicated. If I ever follow in her footsteps, I'd probably do the pastry course :P J has urged me to do so in Kobe... haha. Sigh, that's not possible for now lah.

Me also resolves to stop thinking bad thoughts about myself all the time. Seems like 50% of the blog posts in my 'younger days' were self-bashing in nature... No wonder I got upset so easily lah.

After visiting the Blue Mountains in Australia, a couple of friends whom I met up with recently asked me if they sell Blue Mountain coffee there... The ignorant me was like... erm, got meh? It was only after attending a Barista Workshop this morning that I realised there's also another Blue Mountains range in Jamaica, and that the famous Blue Mountain coffee actually comes from there. So suaku... heh. I also realised today that coffee beans are extracted from bright red coffee berries... and goes thru pretty extensive processing, roasting etc before they are ready to be used for making coffee beverages... There's so much history and 学问 behind coffee it's amazing. Actually I think it's the same for many other types of foods/ drinks; just that we busy creatures are often too pre-occupied with our seemingly impt work to set aside time to learn about these cool facts...

Tonight I go to bed with a semi-blocked nose... :(