la note de numéro sept cents

I decided to post something on my outdated blog before I move on and tackle an exam question. I am surprised that this post is actually the 700th post. Have I been blogging for that long or that much? It is definitely not the case recently, especially this year. As I grow up, time just get robbed away little by little. From commitments to interests to just plain staring into space, time slips away regardless of how aware I am. I find myself having the need to apportion my time wisely, which always end up in an epic fail. As I grow up and especially when I got attached with Shaun, I realised that I spend significantly less time with my family (and friends). I do have my reasons for that but I have to say that sometimes I feel that I am being selfish. I do miss those times when the whole family does things together e.g. travelling, sleepy nap times, CNY...

Coincidentally, today happens to be Mother's Day too! I used to be posting quite a bit of (naive and rowdy) things about my mom back in Secondary School days. Being a rebellious teenager, she was really harsh with me. I would always be filled with angst in response to her harshness and having no other avenue to effectively relieve my anger, I always end up blogging it out. Hence my posts about her then would always be really, really... loud. Today my mom still is quite harsh, but she issn't as harsh as she was in the past. It could be the distance and/or that I am more matured than I was back in those days. I definitely don't miss those time when she would scold me for the wrongs I did/ she perceived and there are some things that I still don't quite see the same way as she does. Nonetheless, I always find myself thinking about my mom and the motherly things that she always do. Especially times when I am alone/ away from her/ depressed/ homesick/ emotional/ etc.. I always think of how she always make sure that our clothes are well ironed, small needs are met, making sure that we have enough water to drink etc.. It's the littlest things she does that touches my heart the most. One event I will never, ever forget is one of my birthdays when I was still studying in Indonesia. My siblings were already schooling in Singapore so it was just my parents and myself in our Indonesia residence. It was raining heavily and my dad called saying that he would not be back for lunch. My mom, seeing how excited I was to blow out the candles and eat the cake, did not want to disappoint me by telling me that my dad couldn't make it. So she opened the birthday box, lighted the candles and sang the birthday song for me. Even though my dad was not there as I blew out my candles, I was really happy that at least my mom was there with me. This memory is very significant to me, especially when I rarely get to celebrate my birthday with my family members ever since I moved to Singapore for studies and subsequently, London. Typing this out already makes me all runny. Egawd.

I am still rebellious to my mom. Sometimes I still don't agree with her ideas/ rules. I still get angry when she insists on doing things her way. But I love her no less whenever such clashes happen. It breaks my heart whenever I realise that time is passing and seeing my mom ageing. It breaks my heart that she is always so stubborn at perfecting her housework at the expense of her own health and still waiting for the right time to hire a maid/ buy items that will easily make her life easier (she is irrational like that). It breaks my heart when I see my mom not in her usual harsh/strong self. Maybe that is why she is harsh. I don't know if that is her (unconscious) way of making me strong. It does sound weird that she wants to instill the angst in me too but I guess every mother has her own way of nurturing and loving her child. If I could make a wish on Mother's Day for my mom, I wish that she will always be healthy, joyful and loved by both family and friends. (& that she will be able to be more rational in her thoughts and decisions too :P)

happy together

I am supposed to be sleeping right now, but I just couldn't resist sharing this ultimately sweet sight I see in front of me. I hope it'll stay up forever! Super cute addition to my room teehee :D

beyond control

Tonight I felt heartbroken saying goodnight to you. Just 5 days left. The last five days of the 112 days I came back for Summer holiday. I've tried to not think about it but missing you makes me all weak and fragile. Ready to crack, go berserk and put down everything else that I have ahead of me just to have that warm snuggle and comforting hug. & never ever let myself go. Unforgivably silly, but you're that important to me. Even after our little tiffs or big arguments, I still really, really love you.

p.s. (mild humour) growing corn bits all over yet? ;)

p.p.s is it emotionally easier to send someone off or be the one departing?

I'm down with 4 chapters of Macroeconomics

Another day spent attempting to be studious. I'm proud to say that my productivity has gone up by a couple of notches in the company of my 2 lovelettes who gave me glares to stop me from being distracted with the random-est things e.g. my hair (bad hair day), this little girl who's studying (her spirit amazes me), the air... if you get what I mean. Ahh, reminds me of the good old times of working over the same assignment together in class/school/old haunts of ours. This is especially relevant to Mila because we've been irregularly close to one another and we both (along with Hosanna) used to have study outings which, at the end of the day, often lose its main purpose.

Oh oh, one delightful thing that happened today was that Mila surprised Rachel and me with home-made bentos! Japanese curry rice yum yum! I loved the curry :D & the rice tasted really nice too since it's Japanese rice and as you know, the texture is just different. It's like more succulent due to it's fat and round nature compared to the other types of rice. Even though Mila claimed that it came out too hard/ powdery, I felt all loved inside - even though I didn't finish the bento *hides face* BUT YOU TELL ME, HAVE YOUR FRIEND EVER MADE YOU A BENTO? HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU? My friend did and I am truly touched that she actually went through the trouble of making it early in the morning! :D :D

One interesting thing that happened today was that... Rachel spilt hot coffee over herself and she was still high on air ever though it was scalding hot. Imagine the horror. I would have screamed my head off, especially if I were to be wearing such a cute, pure white lace-trimmed camisole! Like, my jaw will completely drop as I stare at the aftermath of the accident with my eyes popping out of the sockets... okay enough drama. Anyway, she had to continue walking around with her funkily dyed garments, carrying a nice aroma of coffee along with her. The funny thing is that the coffee actually managed to dye half of the shorts darker brown (she wore a pair of light brown shorts) so it looked quite acceptable.

C'est formidable que j'ai une amie à longtemps! Il y a beaucoup des choses et mémoires que je peux rapporter de temps à autre. Bien sûr, le même chose s'appliquer aux gens à qui on m'assortit étroitement. Et, Madamme Tay, merci pour des croissants délicieuse! Je pense sincèrement que c'est une charmante gâterie pour le soir. :)

A lot of things happened last week. In chronological order, my first niece's arrival to the world, lunch @ TNH with my green gay #2 (Grace!!) and Teng, my expensive haircut which only shows a fringe change (very short and highly temperamental) (all these on Wednesday, 14th) and Shaun's long awaited POP! I witnessed the touching moment of his graduation (his mom nearly teared up while putting his cap on for him) at the cost of getting a horrible and uneven tan. On. My. Face. Nevertheless, it was worth it and I thoroughly enjoyed being in the company of his mom and his grandfather. He's such a cute gentleman! Hehe, what are the odds of seeing your boyfriend graduating from BMT? Each recruit is only allowed 2 guests. :D

If I'm not wrong, her name is Charis Nadia. Skinny baby, weighing at only 2.185kg!

After the haircut, we decided to walk from PS to City Hall because SMU is in between the 2 locations. We came across Ah Teng's Bakery which we all found pretty amusing. I wonder if she still pops this blog now and then. :)

Here's Shaun's granddaddy with his daughter (obviously Shaun's mom, just in case my attempt in being fanciful turns out to be an embarrassing failure)

HOW CUTE IS THIS PICTURE! :D

Just a picture to feed the curious cats out there. Anyway, over to my beloved, he lost too much weight in the span of 9 weeks!! D:

I suppose this picture won't hurt. :P

Ok hang on, one last revelation before I close. I'm starting to find Timbaland attractive... no no no don't get me wrong. Not in that sense. ;)

boyfriend, friends and update

Le boyfriend in army uniform ♥♥♥ :D

My two lovelettes (new name!!) ♥♥

I've spent the first week in Singapore with my closest few. My mom went back to Indonesia on Monday, leaving me alone with my brother, who comes home late because of work. It gave me a lot of liberation, and of course, I treasured every moment of it, especially in Singapore because I normally have curfew of a 9 year-old. At first, I felt quite lonely and missed my mom. But by now, I am quite sad that it's coming to an end. No more coming home close to 10pm, dinner out, breaking house rules, etc. I suppose I can convince myself that, with her around, I'll have to stay at home and do what I should/MUST do this Easter break: STUDY. Obviously, that was not on my list of things to do in the recent week. I'm freaking worried now actually. My assignments are overdue. O_O

I'm scared to a point that my heart feels weirdish. Anyway, I took a nap a couple of hours back in hopes that I'll complete some of it. I must, must finish half of it by tonight. (out of 3) Arghhh, I hope my mom's existence in the house will inspire me to study. Yea, I'm THAT reliant. Boohoo.

Being stressed has pulled me into a slight depression once more. Right now, I miss EVERYONE. Shaun, Mom (and soon my liberation), Mila, Rachel, my sister... the list goes on. It never really happened before. My shell is cracking? Perhaps.

While Auntie Pat was sending me back home after sending off Shaun, I told her about my view of LDR and army. I told her that maybe, at least for me, LDR is helping me somehow to cope with the fact that my beloved is in army i.e. gone for at least 5 days of the week. I realised that ever since I came back, I miss him to a greater degree than when I was in the UK. It could be because I was not used to the cycle of seeing in for 2 days straight after 5 days of absence. I don't know how to explain it, yet. & I think I did a very terrible job at explaining it to her. It was so embarrassing! T_T

Alright, I must get back to work.

I miss you ♥

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MILA-CHAN~ ♥

My close friend turned 19 today. That's like the last year of being a teenager. The last year of being young. The last year before she steps into her third decade. Next year it will be 20, or should I cornily say this: not a girl, not yet a woman. So Mila-chan, treasure your every year from now because you're going to be older (and wiser)! You can't say "I'm just xx-teen" and be easily excused from doing silly, childish stuff next year... but I don't think you'd care much anyway!! I don't think you are a person who'll let age stop you from doing anything you want to do. & I'm proud to have you as a tomodachi! (Even when we are 50 and you still want to fangirl Massu, an otosan by then, and paint your fingernails different shades of pink...)

thank you for everything you've done ♥
HAPPY 19TH MILA ARIEL PALAMITA (fong)! May you get whatever you ask for, from university offers to being an AIDS volunteer (I'm still quite worried about this one)! :)

Coincidentally, it's Pancake Day today! & surprise surprise, I made pancakes for myself. I remembered when I saw my leftover buttermilk from Saturday's session of cake baking. By then, it was too late to invite some lucky people over for some pancake fest. I said lucky because well, my pancakes turned out not too bad and if anyone did come over, they would have been lucky enough to share my pride and joy. Or, they could be lucky because the buttermilk is supposed to expire today (opened it 2 days ago- they indicated that it should be used 2 days after opening)... we shall see.

The recipe I followed was from a recipe-sharing website. I have always wanted to try it but I had never used buttermilk before until the previous Saturday. I'm glad that I get to try out 2 new recipes within 3 days!! Or 3 actually. I'm actually going to try my luck at (spicy) egg fried rice tonight. :)

Anyway, back to where we were at. Here's the recipe I followed. Okay, so basically I reaped ~5 slightly smaller MacDonald's pancakes (actual output was 3 varied sizes) with:

Keep in mind this is for one medium to large serving. I'm quite full after finishing the batch.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup of flour (I used Self Raising Flour- if not follow the website's suggestion: baking powder + baking soda)
3 and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup of buttermilk
1 large egg (size doesn't really matter actually)
2 tablespoons of margarine/butter (I think I used margarine)
3-4 tablespoons of milk

For frying:
Olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, any kind of cooking oil (not sure about this), margarine or butter. Your choice! I'd say use oil because the latter 2 tend to evaporate quite fast, causing the batter to stick to the pan = messy.

Optional:
Blueberries, honey and... well whatever you want to add to your pancake! :)

Steps:

1. Mix dry ingredients.

One cup of SRF. I found out on Saturday that the actual 1 cup (in picture) is pretty small. All along I thought one cup refers to the normal... mugs.

SRF, sugar and salt in.

2. Mix wet ingredients.

Leftover buttermilk.

Milk & butter. Do try to melt the butter before you add it into the mix. I didn't and ended up with small chunks of butter in my batter.

Add the egg in and whisk the WET ingredients together.


Yea, like this. See the little chunks of butter?

3. Leave aside until you're ready to cook.

Dry and wet ingredients are both ready! :)

Do a bit of random things.

I was all alone at home, it's perfectly justified to pose with random things.

♥ ♥ ♥
(I look totally alcohol-loverish here)

4. When you're ready, mix the 2 together. The recipe says don't over stir... I wasn't too sure what that meant but I suppose once the ingredients are mixed until they are not more "flour bubbles" it's fine.

It should remind you a bit of mushy porridge/ oats.

5. Add a bit of oil/ margarine/ butter to skillet/pan.

I wanted to test if olive oil/ margarine or butter (whichever I used) tasted better for frying pancakes.

FAIL. Cannot be a chef-blogger-wannabe already :(

This picture looks too steady to believe.

6. Pour the mixture into the heated skillet and leave it there for a while before you lightly scrape the bottom. Flip it once the upper layer is not too liquidy/ the bottom is starting to turn black (just flip one side by a bit).

Heated = sizzle.

Are you ready, batter? >:D

IN YOU GOOO~

FAIL 2. Premature flip. (the pancake looks like roti prata here)

After a few more flipping. Ready! Golden-brownish in colour.

Trial 2: with butter.

Repeat same steps as trial 1. Note the change in size.

Result of trial 2. Looking good! :)

Trial 3: get personal, add Baileys! (used olive oil with this one)

Oops, underestimated the remaining batter.

Uhhohhh I'm in troooubleee~

.........................

7. READY TO SERVE BABY! :)

It was quite big a portion... and I had to finish all of it.

I've been craving for blueberries lately.

Pancakes + blueberries + honey...

...YUMMO! Unglam much rofl.

Here's something random. I never realised blueberries look like such on the inside. It's like a micro fruit with micro seeds.

Conclusion: diet plan is a total failure. Not forgetting the fried rice tonight... LE SIGH. The pancake tasted pretty interesting though, the buttermilk gave the pancakes a very slight sour-ish taste (perhaps from the buttermilk/ salt/ SPOILT BUTTERMILK OMG??!!!) which makes it more appealing to me. I never really liked pancakes because I get sick of it after the 2nd one. Or maybe this one is different because I made it myself. You know like how your appetite is bigger if you were to eat the things you cooked (something that taste better than expected) yourself? Sigh, the kickboxing session I went to yesterday has gone down the drain. :'(

Alrighty, I have come to an end for this mega long post. I hope this gave you an inspiration to cook! :)

P.S. I've learnt that you can make your own buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of white vinegar to a cup of milk. Stir well and leave it for... 15 minutes? & off you go.

life is short

I finally figured that it has nearly been a month since I last posted! It has not been easy finding time to jot down my thoughts/ activities lately. Especially with assignments piling up and due dates approaching as the second-hand tick by... argh! Horror much. I've got to admit that French is starting to push me to the edge. Homework, essays, lists of vocabulary to memorise, grammar, listening, oral, TESTS... it's a very, very intensive module. After today's surprise test (oh how very nice of you Christophe :) ), I've come to realise I rely a hell lot on the dictionary and that I am behind my work (even though many of my peers seem to find the test quite difficult as well). I really hope I'll survive these 2 weeks (or 3 since most of the French assignments are due by week 11, which is during the holidays & my parents will be around till week 12). The Christmas break feels really distant from now. :'(

Of course there's the pleasure during the 25 days of hectic. Nothing can beat cuddling with your loved one during a cold, windy and rainy season. Such comfort, such warmth in such a cold city! Ahh, thinking of it makes me feel warm inside already. The down side of it was the length of his trip (2 measly weeks! But it's considered pretty generous I suppose since he has to pay for his accommodation on a daily rate £££). Le sigh. Nonetheless, it's a good break from LDR. Real (physically) head butts, hugs and kisses yey! I missed, enjoyed and miss every bit of it. The farewell at Heathrow was difficult knowing that I won't be seeing him for the next 4 freaking months and the fact that he'll be in army by the time I head back! & many other LDR related things...

Anyway, let's move on. Pictures to roughly illustrate how the past 25 days zoomed by:

Went to catch a concert at O2 stadium! I nearly pulled out of this (I really did consider selling the ticket away) but someone decided to treat me to it :D


Huuuuuge crowd, as usual! I like vibe inside the stadium. I don't mean the over-enthusiastic-and-excited-until-violence-start-to-develop kind of vibe. I mean the YEY!!! kind of vibe... you know what I mean?!

Woooooooot all the pretty lights and projections and singing and roaring and jumping and woot woot woot!

Just in case you guys still have no idea which concert I went to. That was a random ticket. We weren't jostling amongst the crowd. (oh thank goodness!)

With the guys who went: Shaun, Boobs and Naz! :D

Pretty good lunch with love @ Pitcher and Piano (?) near campus. It was his last week of the trip :( I realised I took VERY VERY VERY little pictures during his trip which is mega disappointing! :( :( :(

Starbucks with the 2 Abbey guys! Naz and Momo. Was supposed to have Serene there but she had to furniture shop on that day :( (was that really the reason?)

Mo, his blackberry and Shaun. & the random guy looking over his shoulder. We were chased out of the Starbucks by a community officer just because our drinks had been cleared. He assumed that we didn't get any drinks but that is so not true! Each of us got one >:( Anyway, momo left (got to see his new dig) and the 3 of us went for the most overpriced Indian dinner ever. Think £10+ for like a bowl of rice and some meat. & naan too, if that helps to make it seem like it's worth the money (no way ho say).

Oh, what's that? It's a chandelier!

Comes Saturday, Shaun and I went to catch a musical! Spontaneous (or rather, lack of planning -boo me- idea) plan. We had CTC graduation dinner about an hour after the musical. Phantom of the Opera, it was reaaaaaally good and super touching! Why Christineeeeee, whyyy... *cries a river*

CTC dinner, met up with familiar faces and teachers! As shown here are Mr Spiers and us (with Boobs, Pyinnie, Calvin and Regina)

Goodness, it seems like just yesterday when you turned back to introduce yourself!

& after the ceremony, the subtle madness begins!

Oops, during the ceremory. 4As! Good job, very proud of you :D

Calvin, stoning as usual.

With Sunnnnnnnyyy! :D

The person who makes good chicken rice and Jesssss :D

Not one of the best of the set but I found this candid.

With Oxford man and Oxford applicant! :)

On the train back. Rofl at Boobs' pose!! Reminds me of a potato man.

On the last evening before he departs and on our anniversary (omg 1 year already can you imagine?!), he decided to take me to LITTLE BAY for dinner! It's the one in Croydon too. As he said, the circle of life, haha! :D

The profiteroles weren't that good :( but everything else was awesome! We had A LOT of food and I was about to explode by the time we left the restaurant.

Nothing beats spending your first anniversary (not week, not month but year) with the person right in front of you.

It has been quite a year. All those laughter and tears and cold wars and annoying one another and sharing and trying to make you open up to me and cheering one another up and goofing around and you acting as if you are kicking/punching me and me actually kicking and punching you for real and trying to study but end up fooling around and sleeping and movie and sleeping and movie and sleeping and movie and spitting at one another and squeezing your nose and squeezing my fats and indomie and hugs and kisses and asking for kisses and... everything we've done, I truly enjoyed every moment we spend together. I'm definitely blessed that I'm together with you ♥
ty

Ahh... life.