clouds yum

Over the Chinese New Year holidays, I have been trying to digest the literary theories of overdetermination and deconstructionism, along with the familiar pineapple tarts, ayam buah keluak and inedible waxy hockey pucks parading themselves as chocolate coins. I haven't studied much for such a long time, it is most alarming to wake up to the idea that school is starting immediately next week and I have no idea what to expect or prepare myself for the people I'll meet. Or even the uniform I'll find myself wearing, for that matter.

And then we'll be worrying about SYF, competitions, PW, and finally, A levels — all in a matter of 2 years. It sure feels like we'll all be thrown into a food processor to get blitzed about at the highest setting, before being emptied out into a startlingly formless, homogenous mix where our faces shall be indistinct from our textbook covers. I'm wondering how many pens I'll be dumping into the trash after sucking them dry of their ink, and I'm guessing 2314 and a half.

On a more festive note, I'm getting sick of new year goodies, and the entire idea of eating holiday-themed food. Considering the fact that I'm still recovering from Christmas and the New Year, I've been availing myself to heaps of sugee cookies and shrimp rolls, and I'm very sure all these tiny health monstrosities will do absolutely no good to my cholesterol levels. Chinese food is hardly ever healthy or wholesome, and Peranakan food isn't any better. Everything on the plate is salty and spicy, and since tastebuds grey with age, copious amounts of salt and chili are added to deliver a greater "kick", as the more ancient folk would say as they volunteered to give their own critique while frowning pensively in mid-chew. In the end, my grandmother, who views people who don't take chili very condescendingly, confronted my entire notion of what constitutes and warrants a person's right to identify himself with his own ethnicity by hissing something about people who refuse sambal belachan are never Peranakan. Of course, she was only kidding. I hope.

My cousins are visiting later. Will I survive one more round of CNY lunch? All I want right now is a salad tossed with lemon juice and toasted pine nuts, and a couple more clementines. Or a bar of really good dark chocolate.