Photos

Chicken Ballotine at Miss Clarity Cafe. Quite well done.


There was this Chinese thing on TV and some of my classmates were on it! (xinyu and jingya!)


My best bowling score ever :D 118! Okay, deep inside, I was silently happy.





Collected new photos today! Will post my favorites soon, once I can get the scanner to cooperate.

it was a stupid morning.

Someone once told me, in a rush of excitement, that our school is very much like a microcosm of Singapore. We're small and we're not exactly that well known but yet somewhat well known depending on how you define "well known" so that's a grey area. Just like Home.

Sadly, barely 15 minutes into my school day, it became rudely apparent that it was no longer merely a microcosm of Singapore. As the assembly in the parade square found themselves gripped by fear of seismic proportions when names were spat out, purportedly for breaking rules on attire, I realized that No, that's no longer the case; the fear, the uncertainty, the arbitrary rules that offered no room for appeal and forgiveness — it can't be a microcosm of Singapore if all that I felt at that moment was silent, furious protest akin to the reactions during the Islamic revolution in Iran!

I hate it, I really really do, when rules and the punishments they attach to it are so arbitrary, especially when a large amount of demerit points are involved. It certainly does not justify the nature of the so-called "crime", since those called were not even aware of it in the first place. It could have been an accident, the shirts becoming untucked without them being aware of it, and thus being caught and mislabeled as "an act of defiance". (I'm sorry, but I've also found that term being abused and thrown around like a perfect supported and legitimate reason to slap on the punishment, but I'll save that for another diatribe.)

They speak of learning from your mistakes, of second chances, and of the school being your second home. Yet, are the measures being put in place really effective in solving the messy attire problem? The cost of enforcing discipline and carrying out periodic and senseless crack-downs certainly does not justify compromising on the respect and voluntary cooperation of the rest of the populace. I'll wait and see what happens next.

他们治标不治本，实在是太可惜了。

yes/no/maybe/I don't know

So the chinese paper today was relatively easy, but I'm quite uneasy about the listening comprehension and paper 1, because the questions had a veneer of do-ability, but the phrasing of the questions caused me to doubt the validity of my emphasis of a few issues.

Furthermore, I had forgotten to bring along a jacket into the exam hall. I was more or less popsiclized for the entirety of the chinese exam, and by the time I got to the comprehension section, my muscles weren't responding as well as it should have been and I had to take an added amount of time and effort to ensure that my words didn't become messy scrawls. When I had finally completed paper 2, my teeth were chattering and I had to borrow cheekit's sweater to protect further heat loss.

And I'm pretty stoked about tomorrow's talk by Patricia Herbold, the US ambassador to Singapore. I'll finally hear for myself why all the TIME magazines we're reading are becoming quite annoyingly elections-centric, and why I'm throwing Obama and Clinton around on Facebook, and why the world does not care about our cabinet reshuffle.

I had a strange dream-within-a-dream when I collapsed for a rare afternoon nap today. (Apparently, chinese exams are akin to slow-reacting tranquilizers that you sit for and then fall asleep later.) I dreamt that I was at some drama camp and I was queueing up for soyabean milk, and I remember laughing to some random character that it was going to be the longest wait for soyabean milk in my life. Later on, I fell asleep in my dream and I had this confusing nightmare in which I was being attacked by an entire ant colony.

It was a strange afternoon.

明天的华文考试

为了准备明天的华文考试，我会用华文来写作博客上的日记跟大家纷想我对这几天的事情所想到的感想。

Hmm，世界上最库的辩论组到了我家制做“杯子”蛋糕！（哈哈）可是，我们想作的糖（放在蛋糕上的frosting）没能做得到，令我有点失望吧。但是，我还觉得到一丝的成就感，因为这不仅是我第一次做这样得蛋糕，效果还令我们都惊喜得赞不绝口。（不好意思，我忘了拍些照片让你看！你可以到angeline的博客看看吧。）

星期六中午，我们到miss clarity咖啡店庆祝亲爱的mingting的16岁生日。我的 chicken ballotine 装满了热气腾腾的蘑菇，吃得津津有味。可是，我桌的侍应生居然态度恶劣! （很想写一封投诉信）

除了这件事，我们的午餐还是很好的， 相信大家都吃得津津有味！

对明天的华文考试，我觉得很绝望。我绝望，不是因为认为自己没准备得好。我只是怕到了考场就立刻名落孙山，在自己的紧张中把一切复习的成语和俗语都忘掉。能考得优秀的成绩也许是个不会现实的盼望。

So let the dim light shine
Over my eyes
Let me eminate the dim light
Of an overcast day
In the bleakest of springtime


Dear Nora = cool.

I feel as if I'm in a narcotic haze after going through all 130+ of 成语.

we'll become silhouettes

My blogging's getting very food-centric these days.


But anyway, this is the peanut butter and chocolate brownie from P.Osh, a brownie gallery at dhoby x.change. ("Brownie gallery" sounds really classy, haha. And is there anything oh-so-hip about placing full-stops at the most inappropriate places with no formatting whatsoever?)


The brownie base was really warm and moist. Maybe it's just my personal taste, but I didn't quite like the peanut butter. With the chocolate icing, the whole brownie felt a tad too heavy. I think I'll be going back to try the other flavours.

By some amazing coincidence, I met my sister outside school today! We went to ajisen ramen for lunch, and I had two buns from breadtalk from their new "japanese" line that snazzed-up otherwise run-of-the mill creations with exotic terms like 'sakura' and 'hokkaido'. That is, however, not to say that the buns were altogether bad and worth great admonishment and disdain. The hokkaido dome I had was soft and fluffy, but felt more like a blander version of those coffee buns of yore. (okay, maybe not to such a great extent, but coffee buns were getting kinda overdone before they started to vanish.) 'Sakura' bun with pink cream was slightly better, but still adopted the crackled-sugar texture for its dome. I think I expected more from breadtalk, it being so forward-looking and all.

Today —

You know how it's so odd to sit on your couch watching White Chicks on TV and laughing, and then realise that someone who sat at that spot and laughed too had just died? Someone who played the recorder with you in primary school, who sometimes frightened you with his age alone, yet seemed to be able to last forever, as if an unshakable vestige from memories that have long faded, of people standing in front of Fords, wearing the British Army uniform, grinning toothily? I first learnt of his death when his son called.

You know how something bad is going to happen when the person on the other line introduces himself as child/relative/cousin of so-and-so? How you instinctively reach for a pen and paper because you somehow realise you have to take down the address of the wake/timing of the funeral? And then the inevitable announcement to everyone else, where you have to keep a straight face without swallowing? I had to continue scooping claypot rice into my plate without looking too affected.

You know, right? You really really do? Because I was just about to lose my faith in humanity (I know—once again, for probably the 34th time this year. I'll probably lose it again sometime next week, but I blame hormones for these annoying vacillations from euphoria to despondency).

(oh, by the way, anyone wants to watch Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day? Assuming we won't be frantically mugging for chinese next tuesday.)

Weekend

omg, this is so seriously cute.

I think I'll stay home in the morning and read The Bell Jar tomorrow.

What I did on half-day monday

Actually, I wanted to revise A Maths, but I realised that I left my textbook under my desk, much to my dismay. Anyway, I tried to come up with something creative to make using the bottle of sea salt that I bought a few weeks ago!


Intended to make macaroons but I guess those are way beyond me still. The meringue shells came out of the oven flat and embarrassingly un-macaroonish. They tasted quite good though, so I thought they would go better with a generous scoop of plain and creamy vanilla ice cream.

I think I'm much happier with the salted caramel that I had intended to use as the ganache, which was really sweet but had a pleasant subtly salty edge to it. I think I'll skip the meringue shells and dive straight into making the caramel the next time. Watching sugar melt and caramelise is such a euphoric sensation for the olfactors.

2 more Homecoming Day posters

Ach, here are the 2 other posters to publicise the Woffee Haus! The wonderwoman one somehow pays homage to last year's Ice H(e)aven stall. (Is that the correct stall name? I can't remember already.)



and the other one,