Valentine's Day

Sito sent flowers to my office every year. Until we got married. Hoho! Last year, I think he handed me the tulips personally on 12 Feb after work - I don't remember much except for the photo taken at what I think is AMK Hub! This year, well, we're a poor student and his poor wife! :p

But it was still fun. On Sunday, I spent the whole afternoon baking some 200 chocolate chip cookies. Sito suggested making a donut cookie so that was what I did with the last bit of cookie dough.. Heart-shaped donut!


We'll look at the result later...

On Monday itself, I went to a friend's surprise birthday party in the afternoon while he had a meeting so we didn't see each other until evening. By then I had distributed about 80%-90% of the cookies - happy :)

By 6 pm, we were out of the house - off to our romantic dinner at.....

*drum rolls*

Five Guys!


:p

Our starters - I haven't had ground nuts for a while! And these are nicely roasted :)


And I realised with a lot of guilt that I forgot to wear my rings! =( But the guilt disappeared when I saw that Sito forgot his too. That made us unmarried for the dinner - call us lovers :p


Sito looks so cute and happy with his food and me in front of him!!


My cheeseburger - two patties! Sito's was similar but with bacon, no less...


We were so full we walked around town for a while before heading home. It wasn't too cold so we managed to hold hands on the streets *shy*

It wasn't until 10 pm that our bellies felt empty enough to have dessert:


That was our "donut" - the dough had spread during the bake and filled the hole *.* But it was fun :) I also made a little M&M icecream sundae.

And we're done. No fancy dinner, no fancy dress. Just the two of us :)

More than a bird's eye view

Did an interview with Aram Pan when I was back in Singapore in December. I still remember it was the day I thought I lost my four leave clover necklace! The article spent a month in the queue and finally came out today in the OSP, reproduced below. I couldn't upload a flash video so click on the clicks to get to the actual page.

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More than a bird’s eye view

Would you attach your camera to a kite and let it take flight hundreds of metres into the air?

That’s what VR photographer Aram Pan did one windy day. The result? A beautiful aerial panoramic view of Marina Barrage.

Click this: Marina barrage from the air
Drag your mouse cursor around to explore the view from above!

VR photography stands for “virtual reality” photography – a continuous 360-degree spherical view of photographs.

Aram delved into VR photography back in 2003. He started out piecing together panoramic photos he’d taken during his travels to show his family and friends. His work eventually became a 360-degree presentation.

As the general internet speed back then hadn’t caught up with photography technology, it wasn’t until 2008 that Aram launched the Singapore VR website, featuring the various sights in Singapore. And suddenly, what started out as a personal hobby became a hit with viewers from all over the world. Today, about 50 per cent of his visitors come from outside of Singapore. In fact, a visitor from the US was so enamoured by what he saw that he moved to Singapore for six months to experience life here!

Aram laughs off the grouse of some people that Singapore is boring, and shares his life philosophy, “My cup is half full, not half empty. There are beautiful and interesting things in Singapore if you know where to look.”

So where does Aram get his inspiration?

He shrugs, “Mostly by chance.” He keeps his camera in his car, which comes in handy when he encounters something interesting. He is one curious cat. For instance, what does Zouk look like when there is no one around? How does it feel like when you swap places with a stall owner in a coffee shop?

Besides photographing all over Singapore, Aram also does fun things with objects like a new pair of running shoes “because it has a white interior whereas my past running shoes all had a grey interior.”


View from a shoe: Aram Pan

While it takes no more than a few seconds to take a photograph, stitching a series of photographs into a VR takes a lot more time. The most challenging ones are those involving movement, e.g. the VR of the fireworks at the National Day Parade last year.

“But that is also my favourite,” he beams proudly. “There was so much energy there (at the parade).”

Click this: NDP 2010 fireworks
360-degree bedazzlement of fireworks on National Day

In Aram’s words, “VR photography makes you feel like you are there.”

Indeed, I can’t think of a better way to get a complete view of Singapore. Apart from actually being at home of course.

More of Aram’s work can be viewed at his website: www.SingaporeVR.com

Sito cooks dinner

So yesterday, after a big lunch at Sun Wah, followed by bubble tea, we remained full for the longest time. It was almost 8 pm when we headed for the gym – I walked while he ran, and he did some weights while I continued to walk*.

* I have resolved to walk regularly since I’m not the running type, to supplement pilates.

And now, I got a little hungry. And he could eat :)

Menu? Instant noodles, instant soup, complete with sesame ball for dessert.

That’s my husband opening a new pack of instant noodles.


Here are the ingredients and equipment:


To make the instant noodles sexier, he pan-fried some hotdogs, and flashed me his super cute, albeit silly, smile :)

* Photo is edited to hide flaws :p

And now, two frozen wantans are in the pot with the water:


Stirring in the won bok.. Notice the ball of plain noodles in the top left corner – it supplemented the small packages of instant noodles :p


Sito checked on the soup as the noodles cooked...


... seconds before he instructed me to pour the seasonings out on the dishes – some powder, dark sauce and OIL! He suggested substituting my oil with some sesame oil instead. This is his:


And now, all there was to do was to stir the noodles with the seasonings! Done!


We watched The Mentalist during our lovely late dinner. And after washing up, we enjoyed our sesame balls with oooh, red bean paste filling!

萍聚

We were on youtube singing old songs (!) - more on that later..

And oh my, this song brings back lovely memories :)



李翊君 -《萍聚》

別管以後將如何結束　至少我們曾經相聚過
不必費心的彼此約束　更不需要言語的承諾
只要我們曾經擁有過　對你我來講已經足夠
人的一生有許多回憶　只願你的追憶有個我

Apparently, the male voice is 陈升..

Food cravings

I have two questions:

First question: How often do you have the following in Singapore?

Hawker food, e.g. char kway teow, chicken rice
Seafood, e.g. chilli crab, cereal prawns
Snacks, e.g. Hello Panda, Yan Yan, Porky, bak kwa
Drinks, e.g. teh tarik, barley

Second question: How often do you (want to) have those when you’re away from home?

My theory is that when we’re away from home, we tend to (want to) have more of familiar food that we don’t usually take a lot of when we are in Singapore where we have easy access.

I mean, Sito and I usually had $3 mixed rice during weekdays in Singapore. Sometimes, usually weekends, we would go to Crystal Jade or somewhere for Chinese food or zi char. Or we would cook something different at home – once he made nice steak for us. Char kway teow, hokkien mee, chicken rice etc were not common for us. Or we tried not to indulge too often! Last CNY, we bought a pack of bak kwa to peck at at night.

Now, I would make char siew for our bento at least once a week. We started having our weekly bak kwa since we got back from Singapore in late December - we have enough weekly portions all the way to April at least. We even have packets of Prima Taste in our kitchen. And we’ve been trying to get nice Chinese Cantonese food near us.

So last week, we went to Sun Wah at Argyle. Today, we went again but with some friends. I didn’t expect it but it was fun to use purely Singaporean lingo and have everyone understood! We ate a lot*, went to a nice-smelling bakery and bought a lot of food in a supermarket.

* Sito said my sweet and sour chicken was better than their sweet and sour pork! :)

One of the guys bought an entire pack of some 12 servings of Yan Yan, so I asked him if he had that much in Singapore as well. The answer was an expected “no”.

I guess familiar food is the best antidote for homesickness. Even though I don’t usually crave for such familiar food – cos I like angmoh food!! :p – but it’s nice to have them once in a while with friends, and of course, see Sito happily eating :) My food slims him down so some good Chinese food once in a while – well, weekly now! – is good for him! :p

It makes sense, really, that food is the most missed among the three F’s – family, friends and food – when we’re overseas for a long period of time. After all, we can easily “meet” family and friends via Skype but authentic food? Not unless you’re lucky enough to have a good restaurant near you. Or you can really, really cook!

PS: I had a sudden craving for bubble tea this afternoon, and Sito got it for me, happy :) It’s like having our favourite Each-A-Cup on hot afternoons in Singapore, lovely!

A lack of grooming

Attempted to brush my hair. "Attempted" because the brush didn't brush through. After some two months of not using hair conditioner, my hair now feels like grass. Dead grass. Oh, it still looks healthy but alas, looks are deceiving...

For example, my hands lie about my age. I'm 31 but look at my hands and they'll tell you I'm 41. I don't mind looking like 41 in 10 years' time but no, not now.

Another example, if you just look at my calves, you'll think I'm a man... Oops, tmi? :p

It's not that I don't have hair conditioner. I do; I just don't like that soapy feeling. Guess I'll have to use it whether or not I like it! I also have hand creams and all sorts of body mosturisers but they don't seem to stay when I keep cooking and washing, and going to the toilet in between! I've resorted to sleeping with moisturised hands in gloves - we'll see if that helps..

But as the poor wife of a poor student, I refrain from spa visits so no waxing, mani/pedi, facial or massage. But I give myself a little spa treatment here and there. There's my weekly foot scrub who keeps my heels looking just dry and not totally dead; I'm a long way from pretty soles after years of abuse from punishing shoes! And my store of facial scrub, masks and moisturisers are giving me the most supple skin since I left school. I even have surgical needles which I use sparingly and only for the nasty pimples. The rest of the time, my 10-year old extractor will do fine, followed by a detox mask and then a nice layer of moisturiser.

Yet, there's a part of my face that's not yielding to all my treatments. My lips. One sudden smile and I bleed. A gentle scrub with my facial scrub followed by my trusty Estee Lauder lip treatment so effective in Sg doesn't seem to work. This is not a lack of grooming - it's been dry and peeling ever since the bout of mouth ulcers that spread to my lips when I was eight. If not for my teacher who spotted it and referred me to a doctor, I would have suffered a lot longer and worse..

Anyway, it's pretty cool in our apartment tonight. Maybe cos we left our window open for most of the afternoon. I'm having hot Milo and should probably head off to bed pretty soon - gotta wake at 6.30 am tomorrow for a volunteer activity!

Buckets of life

Well, we get thrown buckets of shit sometimes.. I've had my fair share but today, I'm laying out new buckets to organise my life.

I mentioned that I am attending a class on managerial leadership. On the first class, lecturer opined that work-life balance was a misnomer. Instead, he carved life into seven buckets - family, friends, health, fun, spirituality, social responsibility, career - and assigned an ideal proportion to each of them, adding up eventually to 100%.

i carved my life into five buckets after that first class. My buckets are kind of balanced right now except for maybe health :p so I thought I would assign proportions closer to mid 2012 when I would have to return to full-time work.. But, oh well, let me just do it now!

Bucket	Ideal weight*	Hours per week
Family	35%	40 (mostly in the weekend)
Friends	9%	11 (dinner, games..)
Me time	9%	11 (read, internet, meditate)
Health	2%	2 (let's be honest!)
Work	45%	55 (some OT + travelling)

* Out of waking hours only, assuming seven hours of sleep

So there, my ideal looks good. I have half my time for non-work! That's some kind of a balanced life! :)

But lecturer also said that the unfortunate reality was that the actual proportions were often not as ideal. The gap between ideal and reality is something that we have to fix.

I have optimistically put work at 45%. I'll cap it at 50%, stealing time from me and friends where necessary. And if push comes to shove, 55%, max max MAX! I know it's a zero sum game. But I can be creative and overlap activities to make time count, e.g. sports with family and friends, inviting friends over for dinner with the family, watching drama while on the treadmill, read while babies nap..

Well, we'll know if this works comes mid 2012! *dreading it*

Frosty the Snowman?

Found, Friday morning on my way to the post office :)



On Saturday, the head was gone (and later found on the ground a little bit away), and Sito put another block of snow on it!

Wow. I feel so loved.

In how many ways can you interpret the title? Two for me.

Episode de la Mum, my MIL

Last week, I said on Facebook that I had gastric problem. She replied shortly that she was worried and asked me to take care of myself. (Oh yes, she's on Facebook!)

Episode de la Mother

Just called Sg to greet the family a happy rabbit year. Ah Yee picked up the phone and we chatted a bit. Yan next as Mother was apparently in the toilet. Then Hui came to the line before she helped to beckon for Mother again.

30 seconds later...

Hui: She said she's busy talking.

Cooking.. Again..

Just watched Julie & Julia and feeling very inspired to whip up a mega storm in our little kitchen!

I mean, isn't it wonderful to be able to create beautiful and yummy dishes out of the bag of groceries from the morning? And I would LOVE to feed Mr Sito something really nice. Much nicer than what I'm currently feeding him. Maybe not every day but certainly not just once a year.

Even our little reunion dinner was very simple. It was a lot of food, yes. But it was very simple. Simple to prepare. Simple tastes.

I'm looking for something more complex. Not technically complex hopefully but the taste! I want something rich, something to crave for, something to feel guilty about but thoroughly, delightfully enjoyable!

Perhaps the closest I've come to that was the sweet and sour chicken last week. Sito paid me the highest food compliment yet - it was like zi char.

I *heart* my husband :)



Well, I don't know. Perhaps I'll try out a few recipes online and see if I feel up to the challenge of cooking gourmet food at least once a week. If it's too much of a hassle or too expensive, then I suppose perhaps we can live with my simple fare.

Oh wait! Sito prefers Chinese food. I'm thinking ang moh food. More specifically Italian, French, Mediterranean! Hmmm, I suppose I can find fit in good Chinese food too...

If it's not within the next 18 months, I'll never do it so there! Time for online recipe prowl :)

Snowy CNY!

Well, I missed having a white Christmas. But look what I have instead:


A snowy CNY!

A snow storm came our way yesterday afternoon, shortly after I grabbed some groceries - phew! The wind was howling madly and the snow was whipping and flying everywhere! Suddenly remember 西门吹雪 aka Simon the Snow Blower!! :p In fact, the weather this morning gave this:


:p

Was glad the dumpling event organised by the Chinese Business Club yesterday was held just downstairs - no need to wrap up! In fact, got myself so warmed up over a game of table tennis - love a little fun exercise :)

So last night we went to bed with the wind in our ears. We couldn't see anything outside but judging from the movement in front of a light on the building across the road, it certainly looked like the skies were dumping snow!

And when I was out this morning to collect WSJ (but of course there was none), I was delighted to see the pile of snow above!

The next two were right outside the front door. The wind sent the snow onto the window sills and aircon units on this side of the building. My aircon was snow free.


There was no snow on these branches cos the wind was too strong.


Yesterday morning, there wasn't much snow on the ground but the branches were full of gentle snow. See the difference!!


I barely returned to our apartment when it started to snow heavily again. At one point, I couldn't see the building across the road! When it stopped some two or three hours later, I found a palm's width of snow on my aircon unit!

Some time in the afternoon, I went out to get milk. And look at what was outside!

* Compare this to this

I stepped into a thick pile of snow up there :p

This is the road outside McManus. After a few steps, I bent slightly to grab some snow and was surprised to find it rather light. It was like styrofoam but cold, very cold in my bare hands.


Then I decided it was easier to walk on the road cos it had less snow. I just had to plough through the snow banks to get there!!


And I love this - never saw such pretty rubbish bins :p


And we had our own reunion dinner just now! Today was declared a snow day so there was no class, but I would have skipped class for CNY anyway :p

Cooked extra rice and chicken – 年年有余! This is the first reunion dinner with just the two of us - a little odd for a reunion dinner but quite sweet too, little home :)


Happy CNY to everyone! :)

Why would people kill themselves?

Ok, a morbid post before the end of Tiger Year..

Was browsing some old snippets of thoughts from years back – things I had no time to develop into a post here. And I saw some paragraphs on how I wanted to die on 8 Jan 2010, my 30th birthday!

Well, I’m 31 now..

Chose the date cos I would have finished my bond by then and not leave Mother in debt, and it seemed nice to say “in my 30 years of life...” (although of course, I wouldn’t be able to say that once dead!)

And I had planned to doll myself up that day and lie in bed in my little room to die (somehow) with Meh with my right hand on her little head so that both of us wouldn’t be scared or sad. Ohhh...

Of course I never executed me this plan!

Think I must have written that when I felt lost in mundane work, when I felt that I had nothing to live for, when I felt that there wouldn’t be anything for me to live for in the future if all I did was work to support the elders. That was a very depressing time. I once felt very trapped by my obligations – work and family – at that point. I felt very trapped again some time earlier last year but by then I had Sito to come home to :)

Since my school days, I have heard of a number of cases of suicides of friends of friends. I even walked by a block that was cordoned off cos someone jumped.. I was totally freaked out! And I find it very sad that life can be so insurmountable for some that they have to shorten it so drastically.

That said, if I were to contract a terminal and painful illness with no hope of recovery, I would choose to go earlier than to hang on and suffer and have my family suffer with me. (But I wouldn't choose to jump. Not pretty! And I'm gutless!) It’s very sad but the saying is true for many right? 久病无孝子 – in the end, the young must take care of their future rather than their past. To do that, we must ourselves be able to take care of ourselves, unlike many old parents who could only rely on their children.

And related, twice, I’ve had people telling me that they didn’t want to live beyond a certain age – 60 and 70 respectively. Isn’t that very short?? I don’t need to live to 100 but 60! I’ll probably still be working and 70! I don’t even know if I’ll see my grand kid yet!

If I were single...

This thought came to me the other day. What if I were single today? Where would I be? What would I be doing?

Before Sito, I thought of running away to Japan to teach English to kindergarten kids. And stay there forever if I could. Why running away? Cos life wasn't too bright then.. Even with Sito, I had considered going for a year after my bond ended, just cos I could! That was of course before he proposed :p

It’s always been such a dream for me. To live in Japan. To immerse in a country whose food and language I love. In school, I missed out on two opportunities to go on an immersion programme cos it was too expensive and Mother's house simply couldn’t accommodate another person for the return visit. It was also a dream for me to live on my own again, away from Mother’s apron strings.

If I don’t run away, I’ll probably still be doing policy, clocking stressful hours. Or taking it easy and cruising at my low position. No need to work hard for performance bonus. Just be happy with the salary that keeps me alive. Or I’ll run away from there too, and become a secretary or childcare teacher somewhere, enjoying a less stressful form of work but with a flatter pay packet.

Then, when I hit 35, I’ll buy a little flat and finally live independently on my own. I’ll have house parties and go have prata every week or so. I’ll spend quiet evenings reading, blogging, experimenting with recipes, watching TV or watching movies on my own if friends are busy with their families. I’ll go learn Japanese properly, and make regular trips to Japan. I’ll rediscover the joy of shopping and buy all the shoes and bags that I want, since I won’t have a family to provide for. Oh, but that’s if I remain a civil servant; childcare doesn’t pay enough!! *.*

And every so often, I’ll go clubbing – be a lao chio and snog random men! Haha! Ok, skip the random men..! Go KTV more often. Oh, and learn how to sing better! And learn the piano!

But I realise I can now do all of the above things except spending money indiscriminately cos we’re poor now, and clubbing cos I don’t have the energy after cooking and cleaning! But these two, I can live without. So, yup, I’m content being Mrs Sito :)

An extension is, if we remain just the two of us...

We want kids of course! But like above, I’m trying to compare the different lives with and without..

We’re living the life without kids now. With kids, I’ll probably not watch as many dramas hoho! Here in Evanston, kids probably won’t change my life too much – there’s a nice support and fun circle of mums and playgroups here. And most importantly, I have time! But back in Singapore, I think it will be significantly different..

Let’s see.. I assume both of us work. So, we need childcare, which means shuttling between home, work and childcare centre but that could not be helped. Emotionally, there’s the worry of leaving the kids with other people but that could not be helped either. We’ll get part-time help so housework is out of the equation yeah yeah! Honestly, ironing little shirts? That’s too much work when I’m working *.*

Then, we get little rest after work cos we have to, want to, play with the kids, enjoy some family time with these high-energy chaps and put them to bed. Probably no energy left for sex *.* Hmmm, put them to bed earlier? Hoho! Do some work at night cos we, or at least I, would have left work pretty early – like, on time! – to fetch the kids. No time to just do nothing. But before we sleep, we can think of chubby cheeks and smile :)

Conclusion? Yes, a lot of changes with kids. But it’s a lot of joy too, I think! So yes, kids, we will have :)