weekend in brief

'twas a great weekend to the last official week of lessons.

Caught Company at NLB on Friday evening, thinking that it'd give me a clearer idea
of my take on singlehood, relationships and love... though it sort of ended with me being slightly
more perplexed bout these issues than before. But... since it's really quite pointless to worry
bout these things for now, I'll just let things be what they currently are for now.

Met up with the usual ktowy fellas after the play a random pub in the
Duxton Road cluster to have a few drinks. Ah Ong finally brought his girlfriend to meet
us and we all had a few good laughs over the dice version of Bluff, credits to my non-existent lying *cough* skills. On hindsight, I think it might've been due to the bad fengshui of my seat...
or maybe it was just the alcohol... hmm.

Woke up slightly late and slightly groggy on Saturday morning as a
result of the drinks last night. Jenny gave me a wake-up call that somehow made it feel like
uni mornings all over again; getting all flustered for waking up later than I should. We attended a
brief workshop on coffee appreciation together at Highlander, along Kampong Bahru Road and it
was interesting to learn more about the roasting process of coffee beans, what goes into the roasting of our local kopis, and the main types of beans available out there. We even had a go at making our own latte art for our cappucinos; though it was barista's hands doing most of the work. Met Bun after she renewed her passport and we hopped over to CSHH for a quickie brunch + yet another coffee.
Mmm... tasty patties and salami sandwich indeed.

Moving onto Jolb's place after, whatever plans we had made for a
barbecue were quickly dashed with the onslaught of a heavy drizzle-turned-downpour.
Thank goodness the weather was the only depressing part of the evening. To ensure that the food didn't go to waste, Jolb's mum deep-fried some of the prepared food and we all had a good chat with her over our processed and sodium-laden dinner. Their warm hospitality made the evening turn out to be such a cosy affair, against the backdrop of a gloomy overcast sky outside the tall glass windows - 是幸福的.

After the rain had subsided, we decided to head to the pool for a dip. No thanks to
the rain, the waters were brrrrrr-eezing (by my standards, they were freezing)... but no matter,
we still managed to waddle in the jacuzzi pool, splash water at one another,
belt out drony out-of-tune ballads and swim a couple of laps as I froze
 my buns off. I can't remember when was the last time I did anything
like that (probably the Bali days a few years back?)
and it was awesome.

Numb fingers, body all stiff and cold, the girls let me take a shower first. I couldn't help
but feel like I was an upright frozen drumstick that was being thawed as the hot, running water from the tap washed over me. Slowly but surely, I felt life returning to my body, starting from the fingertips -
那也是幸福的.

Made it down to ECP on Sunday and I headed out to sea for a quick surf. Body's still
aching from the very short session but I'm glad that the longboard's finally taken care of and I can now move back to the shortboard that I've very ashamedly left at Uncle Richard's workshop for the
longest time ever!

It's the second unofficial day of school holidays so far and I think I've cleared most,
if not all, of the mandatory work I need to complete. It's a couple more days to go before we're
flying to Queensland and yes! I can hardly wait.

the end of something good

After living what seemed like the new Dolce Vita for the longest time, my last vacation as a student finally came to an end two days ago. Looking ahead, I'm quite certain that my next prolonged period of idling won't be here anytime soon. 

And so, I'm feeling quite thankful that I'd been able to busy myself in the past few weeks with lots of catching up (with the same dear old people, of course), checking out ulu cafes, taking long walks around places that I never really got to stopping by previously, etc. Instead of having to meet deadlines or fulfill other academic obligations like we've been doing the entire semester, I was granted the luxury of learning to take things slow. Really slow. 

A slice of Antoinette ($9++) at Antoinette's

I learnt to take sips instead of gulps, nibbles instead of gobbles (of course, my Kindle made it a lot easier to do that), and pictures instead of mere snapshots. I made sure that nothing was too serious for me to fuss over, had plenty of time to mull over some issues in my life and it turned out to be such a wonderful time. 

Milk chocolate mousse cake infused with earl grey, topped with a bubble that oozes of tangy raspberry coulis when burst. The unusual sweet and sour combination worked quite well for me; both flavours balancing each other evenly. 

(I still think the bubble looks like a giant nipple though)

Oh, and this year, I finally learnt how to wrap bak zhangs at Grandma's place.

Wrapping's the easiest part of the entire process; preparation of the ingredients and cooking of the dumplings after they've been wrapped is so much more tedious. With quite a lot of difficulty, I finally managed to make mine decent-looking when tied; Aunt mentioned that the ones I'd wrapped look really tiny, just like the ones Mum used to wrap when she'd first started.

There were a little leftover ingredients so Aunt suggested that I bring them home so that Mum could do some wrapping too. I helped out with the preparation of the ingredients early morning (e.g. cleaning and shelling of salted eggs, chopping of mushroom, garlic and onion) and managed to wrap a few more bak zhangs before scooting off to NIE for a meeting with my practicum supervisor.

I thought my last weekend of the vacation was kind of ruined when I did something regrettable Saturday morning; spent the afternoon kicking myself in bed when I should really have been out windsurfing or making more out of the precious weekend. 

Thankfully, I reminded myself that I have the power to turn things round (it's all in the mind!) and things got so much better in the evening. Post-tuition, I met up with a smaller-than-usual KTOWY (everyone will be coming home soon though :D) at Zhen's for a barbecue dinner. The food items bought and prepared by Zhen and her family were marinated and grilled to BBQ perfection; Boss' meat joystick was a big hit (ok, sounds slightly inappropriate), Ah Long's beancurd tarts were delish, and the bak zhangs I brought were just to make numbers lol. Good food is often paired with awesome company and we had much of both that evening. Boss provided us girls with a breakdown of the different types of guys we're likely to come across (generally) in life and I suppose my favourite's the "gong dua dai" kinda guy - sounds cute, no? Don't judge me for picking a favourite based on what it sounds like please. We played In-Between too, for lack of better games, and my luck was unbelievably horrible. I make a mental note whenever I start cursing or saying swear words (raising self-awareness ahem), and records show that frequency is highest when I meet horrible drivers on the road, followed by times when I drop my sail while windsurfing, and finally, when I play In-Between wtf.

Sunday was great too even though we didn't have the best of winds; I had a really enjoyable time surfing and it's also partly because of the trash-picking that we did before that. 

Ended the evening with a cousin's wedding dinner and here are some snaps:

with Mumsy

YF

and Yihao! Like he mentioned on Facebook, it's been the longest time since the 3 of us took a picture together.

with the 'little melons'.

Mum and Dad :)

Weddings usually leave me going "Awwww... they're going to spend the rest of their lives together now. How sweet is that..." in my mind, but this one made me have cynical thoughts; maybe I've been thinking too much about the impermanence of life, love, and such of late.

And that marks the happy closure of my final vacation as a student.

Final practicum's finally started on Monday; things have yet to get busy (very soon though, I'm sure), and I'm really happy to be here - I hope I'm not speaking too soon since it's just the 2nd day so far. It feels wonderful to have my own workstation (finally!) and have superiors acknowledge my presence on the first day of work. Not to mention I have really nice CTs too; one of whom gave me a 'welcome gift' on my first day:

I'm feeling really blessed right now.

To show my appreciation for all that I've been bestowed upon,

I should really stop paying just lip service and start working hard! :)

a little slice of Sweden

You must have thought that I'm referring to Ikea in the title.

But neh, it's not Ikea.

After two rounds (was that considered one lol?) of L4D2 with the girlies on Monday, we took a walk down Haji Lane and Arab Street and found a quaint-looking Swedish cafe/bistro called fika at the end of Arab Street (along Beach Road to be more specific).

Liking that cute little moose atop the letter "i"

One of the 2 shopfronts; this one faces Beach Road.

It was tea-time (sorta) and the heat was melting us, so the idea of a nice place to sit down for a cuppa and some cakes/desserts was really enticing. Thought it would be an interesting place to check out since my dining experiences with Swedish cuisine are mostly can only be associated with Ikea.

Since we were still kind of full from our pancakey brunch, we settled for just drinks and cakes.

Ordered 2 cakes to share, and the girlies had 2 pots of tea while I had a capp.
Not too sure if it's self-service but we walked up to the counter to have our orders placed. There wasn't too many people around when we arrived (2-3 other tables were occupied), and I really enjoyed the sort of tranquility that filled the place. The clean-looking walls and furniture contributed somewhat to that peacefulness too. 

Cappucino ($5.50) - a cuppa a day.

This was quite basic, and the first time I'm seeing chocolate syrup being used to decorate a cappucino.

(have been cafe-spotting a fair bit recently hehe)

fika roughly translates to taking a coffe/squash/tea break (with something sweet) with some friends or family, so it was most fitting that we were there at that point in time!

Caramel-something-something cake ($7.90)

Chocolate-something-fudge cake ($7.90)

The cakes are a little on the pricey side (observed that most other cafes price similar cakes/tarts between $5-6) so thank goodness they tasted quite alright. Both cakes were tender and moist, and the chocolate tasted rich. It felt slightly decadent each time I delivered a morsel of cake to my mouth.

elegant-looking plates

shake shake shake

The cafe's white-washed interior and big windows makes it look very clean, bright and inviting; something that I take to be a common feature of Scandinavian interior architectural design
(again, I have to disclaim my knowledge is limited to Ikea showrooms and catalogs).

Not too bad a place to catch up with pals, and I wouldn't mind coming back again to try some of the Swedish mains when I have slightly more money to spare.

pictures from 2 weeks back

Beginning Wednesday:

Enjoyed TCC's 1-for-1 promotion at Bugis Junction after some walking around with Siao,
before the potluck with the rest of the primary school clique. 

#potluck

Made some pizzas for the potluck dinner at Siao's.

Her family helper prepared the dough and pesto while we rolled out the dough, poked holes in them, spread the pesto and sprinkled toppings generously on them.
That was my virgin pizza-making experience, and I really enjoyed it.

#potluck

Deviled eggs (by yours truly), or what they're supposed to be at least.

Yes, the piping needs some serious working on, I know.

#potluck

Prawns fried with garlic and herbs, courtesy of Jon.

#potluck

Beautiful Mesclun Salad, done by Bin and Lilin. Has got all my favourite vegetables in it! <3

#potluck

Rosti patty with smoked salmon, by Jon again (clap clap)

I just realized I forgot to snap a picture of Shir's yummy sambal fried rice!

#potluck

We played the usual drinking games, and were introduced to more new games by R.

The die is just a farce, we ended coming up with new rules to over-ride the chances which spared the thrower from drinking. And it was a good thing that the enormous bottle of Nutella was hidden from Siao's sight.

On Friday, it was my virgin visit to PLAY!

I believe clubbing's a milestone for us in our 14 years of friendship.

Siao's friend who was really fun to be around.

Saturday:

On the way to Liangliang's 21st party after tutoring, a traffic-light pause on the road.
That's a latest addition to Little Red btw.

At Liangliang's 21st. I felt so old to be around all those young ones gosh.

Monday:

Was less than a minute's drive away from tutee's place at Telok Kurau but got held up for more than 15 minutes because a gigantic construction vehicle was blocking the way. Snapped a shot of this floor-turned-seat mat in the passenger seat beside me, and don't you think it reminds you of the Esplanade too?

Monday:
Meet-up with the girlies at TCC's 1-for-1.

Enjoyed the food, and even more of the company that I had for that evening.

pregnancy is a scary thing

Rob shared with us snippets of progress of his sister's pregnancy over dinner at Chilis' last night. She's due in April, so we heard about the 20 kilos she gained so far, how big her tummy is right now, how bloated her entire body is from the pregnancy water retention; her fingers have become stubby and her ankles have completely disappeared under the swells - he even showed us a picture of her swollen ankle and oh my, it looks like one of those small balloons filled with water in it.

Why is it that such horrible things happen to their bodies when women go through pregnancy?! It makes the whole process sound so scary, and that's not even the scariest part yet (scariest award goes to the labour process itself)!

On a slightly more light-hearted note, maybe funny even, the shark tattoo on her ankle now resembles a whale more than the shark that it's supposed to be hur hur. And it was really cute when she said that she missed doing things like lying on her tummy/front. We tried to imagine what it'd be like if she did that, and came up with the following (bo liao) questions: 

Would it be like lying face down on one of those ginormous exercise balls? 

Can she rock back and forth on her tummy now?

Will the baby be crushed?

No pregnant woman in the right state of mind would attempt that, I guess?

Here's a picture of the sky when the sun was setting a couple of days back. I don't remember seeing the sky in such pretty shades of orange, pink and yellow in Singapore before so I thought it was something worth capturing.

Anyway, I've just attended the first (of five) day of the instructor course today. It feels a little like I've come one full round in this windsurf journey, though it's way too soon, and I definitely felt unqualified and undeserving of that seat in the class today. 

school, and some time with friends

stuck in a terrible, terrible jam on the way home sometime last week

One final assignment to go after today's submission. A little hard to believe that this is the LAST ONE that'll conclude my 4 years in university, but... oh yeah! I'm looking forward to spending some happy last days in school, and of course, outside school too ;)

Met up with Jenny, Bun and two of Bun's friends on Friday night for a drink at Harry's and it was nice to hear them share the ups and downs of their practicum experiences. 

Caught up on the Draw Something hype, and we had to make Bun draw for us after looking at the thresher shark she drew for her students (one of whom said it looked like a parang). In case you're wondering which was the shark she drew, it's the eel-like looking thing in the picture above. Not that I could do any better (below parang-lookalike shark), I decided that I should 'intervene' lest the rest of our company for the night walk away thinking that's how a thresher shark looks like.

<3

Caught up with ktowy for another round of mahjong at WY's place too and I had so much fun with them again. We were making all sorts of funny noises and saying all sorts of stupid things by the time it was 4 a.m. because we were getting tired and some of the nonsense spouted was just way too funny.

Made me feel really lucky to have all my different groups of friends whom I can get really high and crazy with, even without alcohol involved. I'm so thankful for all of you! <3

late for dinner tonight because I was busy playing Tetris.

And I've realized how much time I've been spending on Facebook games too, and that's really not part of my resolutions for this year, so, I deleted the app for Bejewelled today. I think I'll get rid of Diamond Dash sometime soon too, but Tetris can stay :p

new pair of specs

Ah Hong say I look like Ah Te, i.e. super old-fashioned. 

okay lor.

pictures from this past week.

#1 8.30 tutorial

  

#2 qiqi is an angry bird

#3 with our 'baby'

#4 Friday night with Jenny.

#5 Crepe - roasted chicken with bacon and creamy mushroom sauce 

#6 Morel mushroom pasta

#7 Violette

#8 Salted caramel religieuse

Have been meaning to try out some of the pretty-looking cakes at Antoinette for some time now (the logo somewhat reminds me of Laduree), and I finally did on Friday. Visited the branch at Mandarin on Friday with Jenny and tried some of the mains as well as the cakes. Not particularly impressed with my crepe, though I did enjoy the cakes very much.

Had a wonderful potluck dinner at Siao's on Saturday with the primary school clique, and overdosed on Nutella because I didn't want to drink any alcohol as forfeit.

Was a little stressed while doing projects this past week so I painted some nails to relieve some of that stress a little.

#9

#10

Only two times this week, not much at all :x