23

Woh. I am 23. Old liao. So happy birthday to me.

Year 21 started as a year of brimming possibilities and bright beginnings. Didn't go as foreseen.

Year 22 was a decline. Some happy times, but overall, that year was a challenging and the most destructive year, perhaps since I was born. Plenty of growing up, self-reflection and a cynical disappointment in some stuff taken for granted, and people.

So now comes Year 23. So there perhaps I'll learn to accept totally, discard some negativity from 22 and realise (in a practical sense), the possibilities and potentiality of Year 21.

Perhaps on the surface there ain't very visible changes to my person, but i believe some internal heartware has been radically rewired. So Year 23 will be one helluva year in which to test out the new heartware. Haha, it'll only get better, cos i will make it so.

So another year, another birthday, another beginning and perhaps a new direction to check out. With me, myself and I, plus the family and friends; there isn't any real stuff i lack now. Satisfaction and reconstruction, here we go.

Oh enough of the heavy stuff. I've had Secret Recipe cake for a "birthday cake". And what's the most interesting thing? The Aunt has done it again. She took the wrong cake from the shop counter. So now i've a nice postmodernist mismatched halves of two different cakes, masquerading as a whole cake, no candles, BUT 2 flavours to try. Not Bad.

At least this year's not a "log cake" year llike nearly ALL my cakes last time!

Happy Holidays people! Next big day... the 26th. We'll scream then.

Chungking Express

One more nice film to catch. I am not a super big fan of Wong Kar Wai, but I guess this DVD is worth a look... I'm getting bored of the normal, run-of-the-mill films popping up nowadays. So yea! Here goes... Chungking Express, 1995.


2 stories, linked by a common urban landscape of Hongkong. If you are the kind who likes the cluttered and dense urbaneity, ala Chungking Mansions, this film is a treat! It's more polished and fun, with better acting than any heartland film Singapore can come up with.

This is no straight narrative film though, and i agree with the critic Robert Ebert (on Wiki):

"If you are attentive to the style, if you think about what Wong is doing, Chungking Express works. If you're trying to follow the plot, you may feel frustrated...When Godard was hot, in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was an audience for this style, but in those days, there were still film societies and repertory theaters to build and nourish such audiences. Many of today's younger filmgoers, fed only by the narrow selections at video stores, are not as curious or knowledgeable and may simply be puzzled by Chungking Express instead of challenged. It needs to be said, in any event, that a film like this is largely a cerebral experience: You enjoy it because of what you know about film, not because of what it knows about life."

So there you go. And the film stars TONY LEUNG, Lin Qing-Hsia, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Faye Wong and Valerie Chow, what more can you expect?

You are What You Eat

Was brainlessly surfing some random stuff on wiki. Then somehow i came to the food page. Skimming through the pages of cuisine, i came about the Cuisines of China.

Went on to the Teochew cuisine section. Then i realised not only does my granny cook well, she does all the authentic teochew dishes. And most of my favourite food (she cooks really DAMN well) reads exactly like the list on the Wiki page. Wuh... I am more Teochew than i think i am.

For a list of the traditional food i have every big family dinner:

hay-zo (prawn roll): mashed prawns, spring onions, water chestnuts, pork, rolled up in a beancurd skin and fried

lor-ak (braised duck in soya sauce)

Teochew steamed pomfret (with clear broth, tomatoes, ginger and plums)

Broth (really clear, super boiled, aged stuff with pork ribs, sea cucumber and old cumcumber)

Besides that, I've lived all my life with food such as Teochew porridge (simple porridge breakfast with preserved veges and small leftover dishes), peng-kway (rice dumplings, normally triangular and dyed pink), yam paste dessert, crystal pows, steamed chives dumplings (gu cai kway) and of cos or-luak (oyster pancake) all my life, all which i discovered are REAL original teochew stuff they eat over at the ancestral village in Chaozhou.

So it's really interesting to me that food acculturates, and in such an invisible manner. Good food is meant to be appreciated, and i am doubly pleased to know my comfort food comes from good hands, and has some real solid history and background to them. One day i will get my hands on to making those dishes, and not merely eat them.

It's Stinky But Nice, Like Cho Dou Fu

Sometimes I feel Singapore's way too small for my liking. When one does something wrong, or something spectacular, the whole blooming population that matters somehow will get to know.

Everyone's linked cyber-rically (huh?) nowadays! At most "2 or 3 Friendster degrees" away, I am sure one can find a list chock full of enemies, broken-hearted ex-es, your parents maybe and all the assorted people you crapped on, or has crapped on you sometime or another.

Brings to mind the Old Western line "The world is too small for both of us boyo. It's either me or you, today". Dang, if only there is still Old Western laws in Singapore, I most certainly do not mind taking a pistol and strutting out to shoot some holes in a few bastards' constipated plumbing. Debate or run your way out of this, bugger. bang bang.

But on the bright side, good company and friends are always on at hand, and the small island makes it better for spontaneous meeting. A few calls and messages, chances are one can get a bunch of nice company real quick.

That's food for thought. So thanks the myriad of nonsense people who shared food, gossip, supper and assorted nonsensical crap. The fat rings I grew are sure worth it (special mention to KJ, the perennial dieter who always jio supper, dinner and dessert).

Onwards to JB and seafood!

(lack of sleep)

Way to Go Boy(s)

Yep, so today i got over my jitters and called the tuition kid's mum. Now i tutor him for English, and i know he is not a winner when it comes to exams. Lo and behold, he got a "50-plus lor". And so your's truly got another extension of the deal...

And apparently he got into the "first class of normal acad", which really means he has to take O levels English and Maths during his secondary 4 year, skipping the N levels...

Which translates to... more work and hair-pulling for the both of us (mostly me). So big deal, pia kor yi si ah... but at least he improved, if only barely. Tuition Teacher here gives you A*****. Next year maybe we'll turn you into some express student ok? Way to go boy.

And yo, another "boy" made New Paper article. Way to go ZX, you and the "sequence of events" is indeed scary. This country's Orwellian. Can't you just make it even more fun by say also joining the "I love Singapore and the ONLY party" group on facebook too? Makes the next SR gathering more exciting already.

So people, to prevent some weird rounding up ala Kafka's The Trial, please, when doing exciting stuff, make sure your Facebook and other assorted stuff reflect the credentials you need.

Your Big Brother's watching, Boy.

August Company, December Hols

Well what can one wish for in terms of company and food?

Met up with the remnants of the OG people, for Sushi Tei, browsed around, and am now back at home, with a warm cup of sweet coffee and a nice drizzle outside. Feeling? Pure BLISS. Stress? Non-existent.

And later there is supper with the primary school folks (lotsa prata and ALL local food miss ade). Nice.

Before madness starts again, there is a life to be lived. Ho.
Happy holidays.

海阔天空

没人叫你这么扰乱一切。若是给你多一个机会，结局我想也不会和现在差很多。

天空与大海，人说能在水平线上相见。。。

但无论你追得多快多远，水平线还是离你那么远。海与天本来就差那么多，这骗人的水平线我也不想再去追了。A-mei 有首歌叫“海阔天空”，正好能说出心中感慨。

“海阔天空”

到了世界尽头
开始习惯了风
捧着厚厚的寂寞
平静向前走
不当做那是折磨

到了世界尽头
开始学会快乐
不同方向的辽阔
是你最后的温柔
一直到现在我才懂

海阔天空 在我心中
湿透了眼 就不再迷惑
望着你给的黑夜
当泪划过 才能对自己宽容

海阔天空 我顶着风
当雾散开 就真的自由
独自寻遍这地球
找新的出口 谢谢你让我爱过

不同的方向的辽阔
是你最后温柔
一直到现在我才懂

就算舍不得也不能回头.

(海阔天空 我顶着风
当雾散开 就真的自由
独自寻遍这地球
找新的出口 谢谢你让我爱过)

Bagged

I've bagged my notes. Basically just cleared them from the files into NTUC bags, and stowed them away in my big plastic container. Just in case one day i'll find use for them again. Well this sem i had to dig out some stuff 1 sem back, so one will never know right.

Being evironmentally friendly, i've saved the files and folders for the next batch of notes coming soon. Ah. Didn't use to be so organised. The library-in-making is filling out too nicely. My shelves are bursting with all the accumulated lit texts and assorted nonsense. If the saying "You can know a person by looking at the kind of books he/she reads", then of cos if you look at my shelves, you will know i am a literature student. Cos no one in the right mind stocks up on Shakespeare, his loony friends and even weird Greek tragedies. Kafka? tick. Renaissance plays and poetry (really vintage porn)? tick. Victorian novels (that everyone heard of but never read)? tick. Weird Southeast Asian, Singapore and Malayan novels and stories? tick tick tick.

I wonder if i'll ever stare at those stuff again. But it's cool, cos as a bulk, the books can impress:

Visitor: WOW! You have so many books! And MY GOD, they do look cheem.

Me (waving nonchalantly away): Oh well, just some books i read, some for my lit course, but mostly for fun and interest... you know, to keep in the know.

Yea rite. Hur Hur.
Nite.

It's Done. Brain, you can take a break Now.

THE EXAMS ARE OVER AND THE WHOLE SEM'S DONE!!! MWAHAHAHA.

Nabei, this sem is nothing but madness. And fellow NUSers... We pulled through! (ok for some not so soon yet, but what the hell rite, few days difference only...)

Well a big thank you to those who shared a lil cool company in this god-forsaken rat race. You people made it fun. Special thanks to filmies, the og people, people i talk to in the modules and the remnants of the A1 gang floating around in lectures and canteens.

I will try not to be zombified (there is no need to), and stop lurching around with my coffee can. Instead, this holiday i aim to...

- go JB eat seafood
- meet the film people, other people and other other people
- watch movies till my eyes drop, and rented films too
- check out that Japanese Cemetery near my house
- bike
- exercise (youwei you are tagged for this one)
- swim (maybe even jog...)
- play lotsa games
- and other random stuff.

So mad khakis please sign up fast for YL's holiday program!

May everyone get good results, and laugh and be happy through the holidays. We'll make it fun.