day 4-5

This just in: an accident?


and Toro tried to drink my coffee again

day 3-4

to wake up to more news of the Israelies intent on bombing the life out of Hamas (and any tiny unlikely reservoirs of good-will the cease-fire created) and marshalling the rest of the Mid East (maybe not Egypt) against them. Can you say disproportionate retaliation? And of course, international condemnation means nothing to Israel since big brother is standing behind it.
Several things to think about:-
i. the obvious humanitarian crisis - access to already limited medical supplies and basic goods, thanks to the blockade in place prior to the most recent raids compounded by the bombing of the Gaza-Egypt tunnels
ii. more regional instability - not just Israel-Arab, but also Sunni-Shiite
iii. Hamas' status & future - not just as terrorist organization but also an arguably legitimate government
iv. WTH, Olmert and Barak? Is this a way to redirect internal politicking to an external enemy - Feb 2009 elections
v. UN Security Council and the UN as a whole - its actual capacity to broker peace and exert influence in the shadow of the US (again)

Ugh, I should stop monitoring the news.

-click-

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the NY Times slideshow of the year in pictures.
A picture paints a thousand words - go to the politics slideshow, bear with the slow loading time (gracias Streamyx), and compare the shots of Obama (a sliver of light falling on his smiling face in profile, American flag in the background), McCain (1. his back to the camera, talking to a small crowd and juxtaposed against a portrait of what might be an early parliamentary session or the founding fathers etc. 2. being interviewed, a dim yellow light on him and his wife, looking tired and slightly baffled as if he's thinking 'why would I want to lead this party?'), Clinton (1. in profile, framed bya white screen against the setting sun, 2. her feet, flanked by Chelsea on the left and Bill, looking rhapsodic on the left, 3. bending awkwardly, smiling forcedly), Palin and McCain (standing next to each other, looking in oppsite directions).

It's easy enough to understand the message each of the 160 pictures convey (I'm only up to no.39 now, again, thank you Streamyx). Obama as ray of hope, saviour. McCain as isolated maverick (hehehe.. Palin, Tina Fey.. hehehe) surrounded on all sides, Clinton clownish and pushed on by 42, Palin the joke, revitalising and polarising force. Brilliant and evocative (even if biased) photography from the Times photographers as always.
And however Obama handles the next four years to come, he cuts an elegant figure as president-elect.

disgruntlement

Ipoh was good. I didn't overload on food this time around. The new house is gorgeous.


I miss the still of the silence, as you breathe out I breathe in

Thoughts of S have been echoing in my head for the past few days now. I wake up aching and wishing that life wasn't over, impossible as it was.

come on get higher and loosen my lips

It doesn't help that he appears to have a sixth sense about when I'm thinking about him, about us even if there never really was an 'us'.

pull me down hard

I wonder - are you unsatisfied that I didn't show interest in seeing you before I left? You were lucky - given enough sleep, I woke up in a good mood and sleep addled enough to answer your call.

I miss the pull of your heart, I taste the sparks on your tongue

But somehow, maybe I have too much time on my hands, maybe this maybe that, memories of the two of us together keep playing in my head. In the car, in the middle of conversations and meals, in bed before sleep.

I see angels and devils and god when you come

Everything I can remember of the conversations we had in bed, in your car, over coffee. Secrets, problems, the past and the future but never the present. The little admissions you forced out of me.


So enough already dear head

if I could make you believe, make you forget

mumble mumble grumble

this is because little miss E is complaining about the lack of posts. so here's what's been going on the past few weeks. pre-caffeine at that, no less (see what I do for you!)

1. KL irritates the life out of me. It's like having a fat, painful blister between your toes, chipping nail polish, boy problems, split ends, and being in a constant state of hunger all at the same time. Times ten. The general lack of civility, intelligence, eye candy, etc gets to me.

2. I'm off to Ipoh today for an overnight eating trip with the usual suspects. Which is the only reason I'm awake this early.

3. When I'm not half-heartedly browsing the online job sites (really don't know what I want to do now. fuck.), I'm cooking stuff, eating stuff, going out, bumming, or day dreaming. Still haven't sent out a summary of my research findings, mainly because I've been too lazy to look it over and send it off.

4. I'm trying to shrug off the attentions of not one but two of my idiot male friends (one of whom is the one you helped by giving out the Syd address) gently but firmly. Not easy. I might have to outright ignore them for a month or so. I don't know. Give me coffee.

5. The dogs are as psychotic, clever, dufus-ish, and adorable. Didi acts like a human and has the intelligence of at least a 5 year old child - she knows how the gates and doors open/ latch.

6. I'm hungry now. Time for a caffeine shot. More when I get back. Happy? Twit, I blog more than you do.

8600km

It's both funny and terrible that even as my memories of him fade and blur, memories of you remain - persistent and complex.

home

I'm Sydney-sick.

zzz.. ZZT

For two or three nights in a row now I've been having the strangest, most perverse dreams. Now I'm not going to bore you by giving a blow by blow account of the different dreams so I'll just say that they're very Sade (the Marquis, not the popular singer) and Bataille-esque. Really disruptive and disturbing. Although I don't put much weight in dreams (my explanation is that they are your brain's way of making sense of random neurons firing. see what I do with a bit of PSYC1001? shoo Freud) these are bugging the life out of me because for one, I almost never remember my dreams - all this year dreams have evaded me, making for very good sleep, even during the most turbulent periods - and for two, these bizzaro scenarios keep waking me up with a jolt in the middle of the night, making it difficult for me to get back to sleep. And when I do manage to drift off again, it's only to have another disturbing dream. Which shocks me back into the waking, middle of the night world.

I'm not loving this. And I'm not going to narrate the dreams either. The last thing I want to do is to delve into my subconscious mind or even my brain's chosen method of decoding random neuron movement. thbbpt

sometime in July/ August

I got on to the first bus to Central passing through Surry Hills. It was packed with a mish mash of commuters. Slightly dozey after my meal, I allow my thoughts to drift along unfocused, observing the people around me, the PDAs of the young couple a few feet down amusing me. A minute or so in, a man sitting opposite me catches my eye. He seems to be sharing my thoughts and smiles quietly at me. Caught off guard, the corners of my mouth curve upwards ever so slightly. I look away, slightly embarrassed, only glance back seconds later and find him still smiling at me. This continues for several minutes, each time our smiles widen until we’re almost laughing together 4 feet apart. All this without saying a word. I like the fact that he doesn’t appear to be undressing me mentally and it’s a pure expression of friendliness. A shared if silent joke. The passengers around us are eyeing the two of us curiously and the old man next to him looks at us as if we are crazy. The bus reaches its final stop and I rush off first. There are too many things going on in my life as it is. It’s time to slip back into city mode and I walk quickly. Armour up.

whirligig

KL makes my head whirl. wheeee.....

day 4

It's funny being back here. It's like I've slipped into a time warp or into an alternate universe where people still act a particular way. Slightly awkward conversations that skim around the subject, people hinting at emotions I really don't want them to have. Ugh. Must we do this again? It feels unfamiliar. Unsubtle hints instead of head on admissions. How do you head these things off, I forget.
Asian sensibilities will be the death of me. snark.

thursday morning

I haven’t been able to stop sneezing since I woke up. Preemptive allergy kicking in. Hatchoo!


It’s a strange feeling, looking around this room – walls bare, table cleared, shelves empty. It occurred to me last night as I wiped the walls of the room that it was partially symbolic as well as a physical act; rubbing away the borders that form around posters and papers stuck on a surface but also erasing all traces of myself from these four walls, removing a life. It’s all gone now; packed up into suitcases, in boxes crossing the ocean, thrown out as trash.

“Come back to KL, your life is here”

True, my life is there. But I have had many lives, one of which has been here.

These four walls have borne witness to this life. Here I have laughed, cried, fallen in love, fallen out of love, raged, mourned, celebrated, fucked, fought. It is possible that I have lived more fully here than anywhere else, fraught as this life has been with demons, sometimes of my own design. This past year particularly has been rich in experiences and challenges. Compared to 2008, 2005 through to 2007 was a breeze. Smooth sailing indeed. You know how they say you grow in spurts and not in continuous smooth motion? This year has seemed like a spurt to me. Maybe it has been and maybe my judgement is currently clouded by the proximity of it. I wouldn’t be able to put my finger on any changes if I tried. We will see.


In an hour I’ll go to uni for the last time to hand over my keys and to return some books. C is coming over at 1 to send me to the airport. This is really it, the last day here.

I don’t expect this to be easy with KL being what it is and me being who I am. That place has always stifled me and having been away these four years has made it seem ever more oppressive with each holiday back. This time it won’t be a holiday, it will be the return to that life, or the start of a different one. Whichever it is, it will be different from this.

tug

I'm spending the day packing up the last many bits lying around my room. The people from the shipping company are coming in another hour or two to pick up the two boxes of books and miscellaneous items. Everything else which can't fit into my luggage is going to be left behind until April.

I'm already compiling a list of places to visit in April. La Perouse for the fish and chips I had yesterday, easily the best I've had in memory (which might not be saying much considering my memory storage but it was good), bills, mundo gelato, ichi ban boshi (maybe).

I feel like yanking out every last blonde/ copper hair on my head. They are bugging me today. Who messed with my follicles?

should i buy this dress?

Brunch at bills turned into lunch at Pancakes. Undercaffeinated, I forgot that the 372 didn't pass through Foveaux and we had to walk up Crown. And when we got there the wait for a table turned out to be 20 minutes. Hungry people don't like to wait. Even if it's for creamy scrambled eggs. And I still hadn't had coffee so it seemed like taking the bus to Circ Quay would take less time. So Pancakes it was, for eggs benedict with a buttemilk pancake instead of toast. (Btw, I decided that if, IF forced to choose a single cuisine to eat from, I would choose all day breakfasts. Yes, I know it's not a cuisine per se, rather a subsection of one but it's perfect! Eggs any way, pastries, pancakes, bacon, sausages, toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, coffee, juice, and table loads of other stuff - all good. My cousin would go Japanese, which would be my second choice.)

Erm. Where was I?

At the Rocks market:
squeek! cold!
"Can you imagine if I hadn't been standing in front and you went 'eee! cold!' to a stranger?"
I wandered off to stand in a patch of sunlight. Freak weather, it's usually sweltering at this time of the year.

The man wearing a cape and crown holding a scepter of stuffed toys waved at the cars stopped at the junction as he crossed the road. While I skittered through the shade and waited in the sunny spots until we hit Pitt. hehehe. hit pitt.




Myer was less packed than usual, maybe cause it was a Sunday. Which made for easy shopping. Buying lingerie always makes me happy. And there was a discount on pleasure state. And you get much nicer things here than in KL. Excuses, excuses.



Unfortunately the dress I tried out fit perfectly. Unfortunately it costs 250. Unfortunately, I'm obsessing over it. It's black, silk satin, above the knee, fitted at the waist, scoop/round neck. Nothing flashy or unusual but it is classic. What think you? The photo quality is crap but you get the picture.

I'm going to see if I can get approval from the Powers That Be to get it as a birthday/ thesis present >p

sulk

Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.


This blows.

a quickie

have you read the news? fantastic, tell me I won't even be able to trip around Bangkok and Chiang Mai now


30 seconds after getting into the car:
"You asked your parents if I could speak English"
(burst of laughter from me. I miss being a kid)
30 minutes later:
"Sadist"
(all I did was to play with the meat on the barbeque and mutter 'sizzle'. I swear.)
1.5 hours later:
"You used to bathe in the big basin in TR"
(up until I was ten maybe. the things people remember)


I found a recipe for almond croissants. It sounds promising, like the ones I had in QV. It involves sugar, butter, almonds, egg, and rum. Yo ho ho and a bottle full of rum! Oh and croissant of course. Tomorrow tomorrow..


Why the fuck is it this cold in late November? A bit of heat, please? thanksloveyoubye


I hate packing up a life. Grumpy. I'm starting to feel KL mode creeping into me. I can't write that way and I certainly can't find the center in that mode. The fatwas don't help either. Screech. I want ink. Or something else with three letters. Let's run through the list: pot, sex,
my brain stops there. Dammit. I need an electric choker that zaps me everytime I think dirty thoughts. Then again, I might get used to that. Oh behave! Rambling.
bye!

bang bang

Sometime between sleep and waking this morning I had this brief illusion that my heart had been replaced with a block of pale wood and that an unseen hand was pounding it with an invisible hammer.

ish

I'm kicking myself for this. I think, I almost know that I'm changing my mind about going dirty backpacker in December. I just don't want to admit it yet.

A month ago I was certain about doing this; go travel, rough it out without the usual luxuries, go at it alone, see new places, have new experiences. But now that I've booked my flight and have gotten down to the little details - transport, budget, accomodation, things to do - I'm chickening out. I don't really want to rough it out. Been there, done that. I've gone without hot water for a month, collected a layer of dirt on my skin so thick that I could rub it off in the shower, stayed in places that were so filthy the bathroom soap had pubic hair encrusted on it, had my bones shaken and bum bruised by 7 hour long bus rides on dirt roads. With no air conditioning. In the hot and dry Indochina season.

It was fun, I liked playing that role. And I've been wanting to do it again for the past few months (not so much the filthy guesthouse thing though). But do I want to do it now? I don't think so. I am not relishing the thought of going dirty backpacker now and not very enthusiastic about doing it alone. I like my creature comforts and I don't want to be alone with only myself for company. No Internet, no cellphone, no communication with the 'normal' world. And I hate to admit it but lying to my mom about having a travelling companion is killing me. It is safe to go alone, I know that from everyone I've talked to who's been there and who lives there but there is no way she would let me go alone. Which is why I have to lie to put her mind at ease. Knowing that doesn't help with the guilt though, and each time I speak to her about the trip it gets harder and harder.

So I'm re-examining my reasons for wanting to go.

i. final fling (kind of) before having to work and be responsible. Throw off the shackles of everyday life and just wander.
- I don't feel the same urge to do it anymore. I'm content. I'm not quite ready to go back to KL yet but taking a side trip doesn't hold the same appeal it did before. I've done it before so it's not a novelty. And I don't want to abandon civilization any more. The shackles of everyday life are actually very comfortable.

ii. see places, eat things
- I do still want to do this, but the list of places I want to go to now is considerably shorter. Bangkok is obviously still on the list, Chiang Mai is a probably, I would still like to check out Luang Prabang. But Phonsavan, Vientiane, Si Pan Don etc. not so much. I want a lazy chilled out holiday. Rushing from one place to the next isn't lazy, it is stressful.

iii. an interim between KL and Sydney to heal and be alone
- I don't need this anymore. Melbourne did me good and I think being alone with myself for three weeks might actually undo that.

Sigh. I am truly a fickle little twit. I'll probably rebook my ticket to shorten the trip. A week or two maybe. Bangkok is a must, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang maybe.

Mecca cosmetica is evil

I walked around the city with my nose stuck in the crook of my elbow today. Saffron, coriander, pepper, amber, and musk smells much better than cheap tobacco and the stink of the masses. It was a warm day.

And I did buy it at the end of the day. It looks like a giant gold nugget sitting on my dresser. And a rosy saint, and a gipsy. Rubberized casing gets me. Major wallet burn. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like my heart of stone has been wrapped in a fur. PETA begone.


We had pastries and coffee, chased with roasted pistachio gelato. And there's pate and sourdough sitting on the counter waiting for me. Purrr

overheard

"fe le lo ro shay"

guess what was being referred to. we then spent the next ten minutes mocking these little (Singaporean/ Malaysian) Chinese boys up and down the aisles.


I'm going to hell, I know. (psst. I don't believe in it so that's okay)

was going to pose a twisty conundrum here but when i started writing it i forgot what the point was. and it wasn't that tricky to begin with. brains scrambled from results. oof. shoo you, unless you're going to metaphysically celebrate with me. kidding.
i am content for now

book worm

I have a stack of books to devour. I love UNSW's library (when the books aren't missing or out on loan or otherwise untraceable). A selection of classic (more or less) titles:

G. - J. Berger
Story of O - P. Reage
Story of the Eye - G. Bataille
The Marquis de Sade: The 120 days of Sodom, and other writings - M. de Sade (the copy of Justine was lost)

blame intellectual curiousity. will be back after I'm done. with summaries, or not. most likely not considering the content (because you should read it for yourself!)

I'm halfway through G., 20 pages into Story of O (couldn't put it down when I started in the library) and 3 pages into Story of the Eye. I started reading the latter while having lunch and had to stop. It seemed like a good idea. The acts of eating and sex are both sensory pleasures/ necessities (take your pick) and go so so well together. Certain foods are believed to be aphrodisiacs, both activities involve sight, smell, touch (meals eaten with your hands are remembered better than those with utensils), and taste. Ideally. Sex also involves sound, which is optional when you're eating unless you count the sound of chewing or conversation, which is exterior to eating but sometimes enhances a meal. I digress. Short attention span. My point: full sensory experiences. Oh and my ideal partner must have an appetite. I'm going to draw up a list of essential characteristics one day.

Back to the books.

The Story of the Eye however, does not go well with food.
No.
Big No.
Should have read the synopsis first I guess.

quote unquote

I was skimming an article in the times and came across this Palin quote:


My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.
And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”


Eyargh! All my favourite traits rolled into one. Incoherence, ignorance, pretension (to awareness), bad bad BAD grammar. In a person who stood to hold the second most important post in the most powerful country in the world. shudder. I going to read The Story of O to erase this from my head. >)

chew the cud

So i was thinking about this in the shower. it's been in the back of my mind for awhile now but I've skirted the issue deliberately, not wanting to have to change my habits. but ultimately, I believe that this is something no thinking person can avoid confronting. it's a small step to take from purchasing food to wondering where it came from, who made it, under what conditions, and at what cost (not in the dollar sense but in an environmental and social sense, which could and should be translated into economic value but I'm not the person to do that). whether you acknowledge it or not, the answers to these questions have a direct relation to you.

Once these questions have been asked, the answers are easy to find. Michael Pollan is a good place to start, as is Peter Singer but there are other writers out there I haven't read who have written on the subject. There is too much to go into here and I can't pull the facts out of my head automatically but trust me on this (and if you don't, investigate for yourself) the issue of ethical food matters. Where was your food grown? How far has it travelled to get to you? Who grew it and was s/he paid a fair wage? What is in your food (this is particularly relevant when you're looking at processed foods)? Under what conditions was your food grown and are these conditions sustainable? These are the questions that ought to be asked.

It's funny that it took a bar of chocolate I picked up out of curiousity to lead me to this point. See I started thinking in the shower about the trade-off that I make as a consumer in choosing to purchase that expensive ($5 for a 40g bar, to compare $5 for a 250g block of commercial chocolate) piece of chocolate. Simple math, if you look at it from a purely economic angle but then think about what was on the back of the 40g bar. Organic. Fairly traded. Locally made (if using imported cacao). A short, explicit ingredient list (I had a packet of Dove chocolates around. Ingredients: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, milk solids, emulsifier, flavours, Note the ambiguity of 'flavours', 'emulsifier'. Dove chocs are made by the Mars company too so that means that the cocoa used was not fairly traded).

The bottom line is, I can eat the expensive local, organic, fairly traded chocolate with a clear conscience knowing I have not contributed to a company which condones unfair trade and does not practice full disclosure to the average consumer of its products. Instead of giving money to a large corporation which prioritizes its growth, I'm giving money to a company which funnels it to a community which has worked for it and needs it. This I can live with, even though this chocolate costs 6 times more than the other. I don't need to eat that much more chocolate and I'm willing to cut back on my intake of what is essentially a luxury since the little that I will consume has been ethically produced. It won't make a difference to my food budget (don't really have one, but hypothetically speaking now) because I'll be spending the same amount on chocolate. Less of it, to be sure, but of ethical origins. Extending this to other food groups means that in some, maybe many cases, what I pay for will be of better quality and better nutritional value (fresh produce gets main mention here).

Coincidentally, I'm painting my nails a shimmery rich chocolate. yum.

Dinner: tortilla-base pizza (because the one thing I baulk at is yeast. Especially when I'm hungry) with prosciutto, rocket, bocconcini and tomato. I have some prosciutto to use up and it's too intensely flavoured to eat in a sandwich. shouldn't have bought so much. damn DJs. d-oh. melons and bocconcini and I'm set.


There was a woman in the bus today with a funny hiccoughing laugh. haha. stop. haha. stop. literally. at some point on the way to the city this woman in a suit scooted into the empty seat in front of me. i was distracted for awhile by the hiccup-laugher and then spaced out like you do on bus rides. then i noticed that the woman in front of me appeared to be sleeping, leaning against the side of the bus. she must have had a rough day. since it was 1 in the afternoon, maybe she had to work really early too. as i exited the bus, i glanced at her. puffy faced and tired-eyed. a twinge of sympathy.

reading material

-raw organic activated almond & purple corn dark chocolate-
62% raw cacao
single origin from Satipo Peru
our cacao is fairly treated

** organic chocolate bars are handmade in Melbourne. the organic cacao we use is raw, which means our chocolate has up to 4 times as many antioxidants as conventional chocolate. We use organic agave syrup (a natural, low GI sweetener) instead of sugar to create this delicious chocolate bar.

Ingredients: organic raw cacao butter, organic raw cacao powder, organic agave syrup (dark), organic activated almods, vanilla beans, purple corn extract, himalayan crystal salt.

taste. apparently much better than cacao nibs (I haven't tried, JY has). a bit coarser than commercial dark chocolate but with a more complex flavour. maybe the soft bitty bits were cause it's raw... ooh, himalayan crystal salt, agave syrup. i'm a sucker for new stuff. and packaging. and

fair trade. the makers of this chocolate reportedly observe the spirit of fair trade more than green & blacks and, obviously, the big guns (incidentally, cadbury owns g&b) and definitely more than Lindt, Nestle, Hershey, and the Mars company (crap. boo!! off my safe eating list, you lot.)

more here

barf

seriously.

these fuckwits can't control their own urges and resort to regulating the life out of women. pathetic. Dahling, your beloved council is the security threat, not the NGOs.

revival

I walked through a carpet of purple flowers this morning. It's been raining since last night and the winds blew down half the flowers on the trees.

So this is my new project/ revitalized dormant project: to cook properly.

It started yesterday, really. I made mayonnaise from scratch, using a hand whisk. And it was good. See there's this site with pictures of food that link you to individual blogs. One of the pictures brought me to a blog where the author had made mayonnaise. I had everything the recipe called for at hand, time to kill, and besides, I'd wanted to make mayonnaise for yonks now. It had always intimidated me though - stories of the mixture curdling and separating put me off. I don't like the prospect of failure.

But this, this seemed easy. And it was! Piece of cake. I only had Cobram Estate's EV olive oil in the cupboard so the mayo has a strong bite to it; peppery and fruity. It is also really thick. Like pudding. Could have thinned it out but I got a kick out of seeing it jiggle. My mayo has character. Hah.

A third of it got turned into aioli, the rest was unadulterated. Dolloped onto smoked ham and sandwiched between toast for dinner. Yum. Now I've got to use it up within a week but that shouldn't be hard. Now I've got to try making hollandaise to go with poached eggs (picked up a little metal egg poacher in Melbourne. It is shaped like an old-fashioned bathtub with legs. Only it has holes in the bottom so it can't hold water. And a stem. Adorable)

Today's project is undetermined.


I'm re-loving my macchinetta

whoosh

i like the rush of the plane's acceleration and the jolt as it touches down

aiya

CdG 8 88 - love at first sniff.
TF Black Orchid - black truffle. ohh

I need to cultivate less expensive taste.

melbourne pt.1

I spent most of the trip eating, or at least it felt that way. JY insisted on paying for every meal we ate together as her graduation gift to me. In return, I made pancakes. I know. Breakfast was mostly at her flat - coffee and whatever else was on hand but I couldn't not trip down to the QV markets for pastries (and coffee) at least twice.

Gill's Diner - gnochetti with tomato and calamari, duck confit with lentils

some Japanese place - sword tataki with ponzu, spicy prok mince ramen

QV - almond croissant (lovelovelove. it wasn't the type you find in KL with a sprinkle of almond flakes on top of a normal croissant - this had chunky marzipan running through the pastry and on top, with a thorough dusting of icing sugar to make sure everyone know you've been eating sweet stuff)

mussels in white wine (home cooked)

Cafe Vue - lunch box. Cafe Vue is a more casual branch of Vue de Monde and the lunch box we both ordered is a genius idea. The contents change daily so you don't know what you're going to get and it comes in a sturdy red cardboard box designed by someone or another (printed on top, did not register. preoccupied with contents). Perfect for the indecisive. Let the chef decide what you should eat. Inside, there's a little menu to tell you what you've gotten. We got a starter of pork rilette with fennel seed crackers (rather Asian), a salad of haricot blanc and chorizo, tuna nicoise roll, and a dessert of chocolate mousse with baked orange cream. How sweet is that? And the disposable cutlery they supplied with it was made of wood. It kinda reminded me of toy kitchen sets, you know those plywood forks and spoons. I liked. There's a picture of me admiring the cutlery (just because they were such a novelty. no splinters either)

Laksa me - Khao Sao Gai. Not sure if this was Thai but it was yummy - dry fried noodles with a chicken curry.

QV (again) - coffee scroll. I'd seen this the first time I went to QV and put it on my to eat list. It had coffee in its name, can't go past that. Turns out, it's like a coffee cake - it doesn't actually have any coffee in it but it goes perfectly with coffee. More like a giant cinnamon bun. Damn. Not coffee.

Hooked - grilled fish, salt and pepper calamari, a mountain of chips (I shit you not. a mole hill, at least)

Fritz gelato - ruby grapefruit and blood orange. Blood orange...

smoky bacon and spiced plum sausages with broccoli. We picked up these sausages at QV and baked them. Smoky bacon really tasted like smoky bacon. I kept trying to taste plum in the other one because it intrigued me but it was fairly subtle. You could taste a slight fruitiness in it but it didn't overpower the meat. Yummy, very yummy. By this point I wanted to up stakes and live in Melbourne just because it has QV. But then the weather is kind of shit and it was really the central location of the flat which got me.

lamb and cheese gozleme at the Sunday arts market. Like pide, but thinner bread and less filling.

Grill'd - Hot Mama burger. I know there's a place in Kl with the same name but it's not part of this chain I think. The Hot Mama had harissa (love harissa. want to smuggle a tub back to KL with me), roasted peppers (another love), tzatziki (love, but a bit less), pickle and cheese. Oh and some salad too. It was at least 3 inches thick. Squish squish squish and it fits! chomp.

Animal Orchestra (love the name) - Baked eggs with chorizo, black pudding and tomato. I need to get a baked eggs recipe. Also shared a sticky date pudding with vanilla bean ice cream (it rhymes. say it really fast now: vanillabeanicecream vanillabeanicecream) and caramel sauce. Should also find a good recipe for this. Dammit, why are all the things I love hard to find in KL.

Dainty Sichuan (I swear, I'm not making these names up) - so not dainty. This is real sichuan food (I've been told). Sichuan peppercorns do this strange thing to your tongue and lips where they have a numbing effect. So it doesn't sting the way spicy food usually does. Instead, you just lose sensation. Hmm.... I glanced in the mirror when we got back and my lips were fatter than usual. It looked strange. Sichuan food works better than lip plumpers and doesn't sting like lip plumpers. The peppercorns themselves look slightly alien. It's like someone took regular peppercorns and covered them in tiny white zits. Oh right, the food - beef on toothpick (that's what it said on the menu, don't scold me for not remembering!), chilli chicken, and leeks with tofu. Both meat dishes came in a mountain of dry fried tiny chillies. Not sure if they were cili padi but there were a hell of a lot of them. I think they reuse the chillies - we had to wait a really long time for the chicken to come out and it was only after another table which had ordered it had left. Tasty, spicy and fascinating.

Nobu - sashimi tacos (shared), lunch bento box and suntory whisky cappucino (shared). Ok, so you've probably heard of Nobu. If you haven't, google it. The sashimi tacos were delicious. They put cubed tuna, salmon, crabmeat, and prawns (separately) into mini crisp taco shells and plonked a little pot of salsa next to it for you to dab on. South America meets Japan. Loved the contrasting textures and the different flavours. The tacos were a bit too tasty (salty) but it's all good. The bento box was huge. Stacked oblong bento box with 5 compartments. It came with a portion of black cod with miso (signature dish), tuna sashimi with a sesame-black pepper-maybe a bit of ponzu but i'm not sure dressing, various sushi, mixed vegetables on rice, citrusy shrimp tempura. And miso soup. And I finished it all! (except for most of the rice under the veges). The whisky cappucino was the best bit of the meal. It's actually a layered dessert in a cap cup. bottoms up: chocolate covered coffee bean bits, coffee creme brulee (not really a creme brulee, just custard), milk ice cream, whisky foam. I want this every day for a month, Then maybe I'd get sick of it and not crave it.

gnocchi with shrimp and peas in a creamy white wine sauce (homecooked and bloody good. easy too)

enchiladas and meatballs from DJ's food hall.


there. now I'm hungry.

frown

Back from Melbourne and refreshed. Sniffed much, ate more, walked less.

I love staying in the city centre. Clean, modern apartment. Hardwood floors. No cooking odours. Good, intelligent company. Perfect. More to come on the trip.

The good-bad thing about spending time with my cousin is that my judgemental tendencies and intellectual capacity resurface. While this means that I've pulled it together because I cannot stand having weaknesses, it also means that the trite makes me shudder once again and I'm tempted to disavow anyone who spouts banalities and unnecessary adjectives.
Reconciliation: People have the right to be as inane and insubstantial as they want. Just as I have the right to scorn them and dismiss them with disdain. Yes, I am arrogant.

Also the flat stinks of curry. Ugh.

peal

the ringing of the Town Hall bells at dusk created a strangely beautiful cacophony.

omifuckingod

this one - such a bastard. so much for being friends when you can't be there for me the one time I ask you. I could be a grown up and pretend it's alright but you've done nothing to deserve decent treatment. this is you being pushed out of my life. bye now.

---
Melburn tomorrow. Hope to restore my appetite there. Strangely I haven't been hungry for the past two days. I've been eating around friends, not because I'm hungry but because it is expected of me. Dinner last night was after having an apple and coffee for lunch (not by conscious choice, there was a lot going on). And despite the intrigue of a fluffed-up piece of roti canai (think an irregularly shaped ball made by someone who has never seen a ball) and the first roti in months, I ate it with a semblance of enthusiasm. Because I was supposed to.

The same thing happened at lunch today. C and I shared a panang curry and pad thai at one of the best places in Sydney (conveniently close to home too) and I just pretended to be hungry. Dinner was a few strawberries because they needed to be eaten before I left. Nothing in between but a latte. Still not hungry.

Here we go again.

In less than 24 hours Dubya's successor will be known. I'm going to miss G W actually. The gems he's come up with are priceless. You could put a dyslexic with tourettes on stage and he still wouldn't be able to top G W. ah good times.. (if at the cost of international regard and basic competence)

protection

I want a shell or a cave to hide in for awhile

Melbourne will do.

burn

I wonder what it would be like to go out with a normal, decent man. For a change. Bring me one? After I detox that is.

I don't know where to start with the day's events. I don't know if I should, so I won't. Strangely, it doesn't hurt the way you would expect it to. It's already reached saturation point I guess.

On the upside (or maybe more on the strange side as well), it was another day where people kept smiling at me. In the faculty corridors, on the road. Whatever.

I saw whales for the first time. They were just off the shore at Maroubra and I could see their tails flipping and occasional spurts of water. Also got burnt (thank you impromptu-beach-trip-without-sunscreen-at-noon). The straps and the hemline from my dress are on clear display. Genius.
-walks around the house muttering ow ow ow ow-

IT has been read by people other than my supervisor by now. Duncan told me that today was the date all theses were to be passed back to the Honours coordinator. After this the two different markers' scores will be tallied and there will be the Honours committee meeting to discuss the results before they are released. The thought of other people reading, having read it terrifies me, just a little. It has been put out there for strangers to see. An open book.
Dinner was good.

I miss my people.

week end

I got drizzled on at the market. It was an overcast day and I got there past 10, which is early by my standards since I had to wake up at 8.

The smell of food grilling floats through the open air market. You know the way they draw odours in cartoons, those wafting wispy strands of scent leading people forward by their noses? Yeah. First stop was for confused eggs (fancy egg and bacon roll) - eggs scrambled on a grill plate, smoky bacon, rocket and barbeque sauce on a chewy bun *love*. The sisters made a special request for the pomegranate balsamic vinegar that they got when I took them there back in June. M swore it turns the simplest salad into gourmet fare. It's funny how I'll shell out 20 dollars for a tiny jar of truffle salsa but wince inside at paying 22 for a bottle of balsamic (limited ed granted). Being the dutiful and loving sibling I am, I scored the last bottle available for them and a good pack of bush dukkah too (again, another easy gourmet maker). Plus a smaller packet of dukkah and tayberry jam to bring to JY in Melbourne.

'What's tayberry?'

A cross between a blackberry and a raspberry it seems, and possibly the most curious item at that stall. A minute after I asked, a couple came up and asked the same thing after glancing over the jams and tarts on display. The jam itself is slightly tart (raspberry genes?) but pleasantly so. (note to self: finish off stash of jams in fridge - strawberries and champagne, lemon curd, cherry, err.. too many. slight jam addiction maybe)

And that was it. That's all I got because it started drizzling while I was polishing off my brunch and I was wearing a dress and it was cold. >( The drizzle paused for awhile but it came back as rain later by which point I was trapped in the closest mall.

The walk to and back from the market along the harbour carried so many memories. The last time I had been there was in June with the sisters, happy and anticipating. Every visitor to Sydney has been brought to Darling Harbour to play in the random miniature fountains and try to get to the middle of the water swirl structure without getting their feet wet. It's this circular installation of sorts where alternating panels descending to a platform with a sphere in the middle have water flowing down towards the center in a spiral. Hard to describe. Takes too many words, but you know which one I'm talking about. I remember walking on the bridge overhead with B, S, and others, friends.

I just realized this afternoon that the goodbyes have begun. Friday's lunch was probably the last time I'll see that friend for a long time. Dinner with Duncan and his wife tomorrow will be another goodbye. And Tuesday brings another possibly last dinner. And as for the city itself, I'm slowly, reluctantly saying goodbye to it. There's a list of favourite haunts to visit before I fly. Some of them are everyday favourites, on campus, in Randwick. Others are more specialized - the art gallery for a dose of culture and calm in the storm, my secret place really, Coogee to doze and watch the waves roll in (some of my books are testament to this - sand between the pages), the train ride from bondi to circular quay just for the view pulling into the station, bills surry hills for the food and perfect brunch ambiance. One by one.


---
Last night doesn't bear talking about. I'm still seething/ stewing. You can tell me it'll drive you crazy after I leave if we start again and whisper that you'll miss me. Yet you don't want to make the most of the time I have left here. Because it'll drive you crazy after. Spineless. Allow me to express my contempt for you once again.
i'm losing my favourite game. my heart is black and my body is blue.
---

Reading: The Ethics of What We Eat - Singer and Mason.
I prefer Pollan's writing style, it's more polished and does not have the agenda these two have. But it is a good read nevertheless. Like Pollan, they raise serious questions about the food we eat, usually without thought. I might turn vegetarian for ethical reasons eventually. If my ethics ever hold up long enough to have their existence verified, that is. More on this later.

pack for melbourne! triptriptrip

purrr

another 3 hour lunch, big breakfast with poached eggs
talk: Malaysian and Singaporean politics, miscellaneous topics, food, the perks of being an academic, god knows what else. the heat saps everything.

AND IT"S FUCKING HOT! 38 degrees out and sweltering

tomorrow: pyrmont market to see if they have any more pomegranate vinegar and bush dukkah. and confused eggs for brunch

Monday

I spent the afternoon in the city. From Chinatown I made my way up to the CBD, felt the heat from the sun on my skin. It's different from what it is in Malaysia. The air here has a clarity I haven't encountered anywhere else; not in Melbourne where it is filtered by cloud cover, more diffuse in Brisbane, and unlike the heavy and dense air in KL. The brilliance startled me every time I returned from a month or three away. Just walking out on a clear day, perhaps after the rain, even in the middle of winter, the clarity of the light makes me smile.

I picked up a loaf of bread, a chocolate hazelnut croissant, and a cherry strudel from one of the best bakeries in the city. The croissant was my lunch on the go, happily leaving a trail of crumbs behind me as I walked through the underground of QVB, back into the light, through Myer, and up to Martin Place to get cupcakes. Knowing that it was one of the last times, possibly the last time I would do that did not make it any less enjoyable and I smiled to myself all the way, chomping on the flaky pastry.

Almost every landmark in this city has a memory attached to it. Places to meet friends or lovers, places to walk alone through the crowds, places to escape from the crowds and just be silent. Over these four years, this city has turned from a stranger to something else. It's sharp beauty, like the edge of a knife would cut through whatever else was fogging my mind; the emotions, preoccupations. And when there were none, it amplified the happiness and peace.The clarity of air I have found only here at times bordered on being overly bright. Almost blinding.

Yet the sharpness never cut me, instead cutting through to me. Frequent pauses for a moment of appreciation, to just stop running for awhile and admire you.

It's an oxymoron - a beautiful city. Cities aren't supposed to be beautiful. They are brick and mortar, steel and concrete, man made defences against nature and the wilderness. They are elegant at best but elegance is not beauty. Somehow you have that quality rare in a city and wear it lightly.

yum

strawberries in caramelized balsamic
porchetta with dijon on rye

life is good
*smirk*

revised itinerary

Chiang Mai - Ban Houayxay - Louang Phrabang - Phonsavan - Vientiane - (if there's time, Si Phan Don) - Bangkok

this after narrowing down the suggestions from Duncan re:Laos and throwing out his more bizzare preferences ('I like to go to the places tourists don't go because there are no sights for them there' = off the road/ bombed out by the Americans)

also, travel in the daytime because the scenery is beautiful. That means I should put aside at least 3 days for traveling on the road.

10 days? I think Si Pan Don might not happen this time around

I have way too much time on my hands

Pollan is making me seriously think about food for a change (as opposed to what exactly I'm not sure).

New project: Industrial vs organic chicken
Pollan's book is roughly divided into 3 sections; industrial, organic (which has two subdivisions), and personal, each of which traces the paths of produce produced through each system. Industrial follows corn because it's the keystone of American industrial agriculture. Corn - beef, corn - HFCS, cornstarch, dexterin, -glycerides, and other molecular derivatives of corn mass. Thirteen out of the 38 ingredients that go into a Chicken Mcnugget are corn-derived. Yeah, 38. I digress.

What was my point? Oh right, industrial/ organic chicken. So the premise of this experiment is the 'chicken-ness' of say, a Chicken McNugget. Does it really taste like chicken with its 38 ingredients, including natural chicken? I'm not sure. In my memories Chicken McNuggets seems like chicken, although the dominant flavour is the crust of the thing and it's McDonald-ness (no better word, not going to bother trying to find it either). You know that particular flavour or aroma McDonalds food has. The texture of the thing certainly isn't chicken - which isn't surprising considering the 38 things that go into it. The chicken meat that has gone into a Chicken McNugget has been processed and disfigured to the point of no longer resembling it's source. That's my hypothesis.

So I'm going to make a side by side comparison of Chicken McNuggets with a piece of organic, free-range if possible grilled/ pan fried chicken (although these veracity of the labels attached to such a chicken in the supermarket may be misleading, I've got no other source so that chicken will have to do as 'authentic chicken')

And yes, this is an attempt at distracting myself from the boredom and loneliness so I don't give in and call any of them. hah.

Next time, I will only write after having coffee. So incoherent.

murderous tendencies

cockroach.

kill kill kill!

like, seriously?

So erstwhile f-buddy and nominal friend (oversimplification but you already know the complicated details), S called. He managed to lock himself out of his flat and wanted to know if he could stay with me in case the locksmith couldn't come until the next morning.

I'm on auto answer when people ask for help (unfortunately) so 'sure' is my verbal response

Luckily, the locksmith pulls through (yay, nameless locksmith!) and S doesn't have to spend the night with me.

But seriously, was there no one else he could call?

Men

-thump-

I ate my cupcake (too eggy) and just as I finished it I remembered the time I was standing in front of you, using your laptop.

You put your head to my chest just to listen to my heart beat.

grr owl

strike one: 'fast' food

i don't think i'll be able to look at a maccas meal without seeing a bushel of corn and a gallon of petroleum now

sigh

idle thoughts

I was thinking while carving up a roasted chicken. Tearing the meat off the bone structure of a chicken is something I suck at. It takes forever. So I started thinking of a conversation a few months ago, about infidelity and whether it's acceptable and even normal.

To me, it is not acceptable and it is not normal. I would leave any man who cheated on me, regardless of how sorry he may be or how many excuses he may make. And likewise, I would leave someone I could not be faithful to instead of prolonging the relationship. Here's why.

To argue that man is inherently incapable of monogamy smacks of determinism and is a blatant denial of free will. True, men are more inclined towards having multiple partners than women are. It's a throwback to prehistoric times and a fact of nature. But this alone is not enough to justify infidelity because humans, unlike animals, have free will. This capacity to make rational choices and morality are elements which distinguish man from beast. A person who cannot rise above his baser instincts is not fully developed as an individual, both mentally and morally. Fidelity is something every person in a serious relationship has the right to expect from his/ her partner.

It is also a matter of respect. A person who truly respects and values a relationship would not then jeopardize it by seeking attention from a third party. It can be argued that there are extenuating circumstances, problems in the relationship but these are excuses, not reasons. However troubled the two of you may be, if it is worth holding on to, the last thing you do is to find someone else to play with. To do so is to wilfully and deliberately hurt your partner. If it's not working out, the two people would be better off going their separate ways.

To accept infidelity, physical or emotional, as inevitable is to perpetuate a vicious cycle upon both your current relationship and future ones. Because he, having gotten away with it once, is likely to carry the belief that most women will forgive and forget infidelity into future relationships. And she, having it stamped into her consciousness that the genetic predisposition is an excuse for infidelity, will allow it to happen in future relationships.

Conflating the weaknesses of the individual with the tendencies of the sex is flawed. And yes, I do believe that it is a sign of weakness, and that it marks a personal lack of self control and responsibility. I've been there before but I hope to have learnt better.

The argument that men just can't be monogamous is not one which holds water these days. Infidelity is less common than you might suppose - one in five men and one in ten women have commited infidelity during their marriages. It is not inevitable for a man or a woman to cheat.

hatchoo!

The company was good. So much so that I failed to notice until much later that the food wasn't actually as good as I remembered it to be. The deep fried prawn, chicken, fish, and mashed potato thing were lukewarm bordering on cold and the sashimi was dry as if it had been prepared a few hours ago. But I ate it all anyway. The whole dinner bento box (this is where you break out the applause). Not bad, but not what I remembered it to be.

The barbequed squid was good though.

Fucking sydney is fucking freezing. It's been like the middle of winter for the past two days - 15degrees out, plus rain, plus knock-you-over wind. Really. Thank you. I felt a cold catching this afternoon but dinner seems to have chased it away. Also chased dinner with a walk through the city (late night shopping Thursday, y'know! shops open til 9! excitement) and something I haven't had for years - one of those Japanese green tea ice cream things encased in wafer with red bean in the middle. Eating ice cream when it's cold is really counterintuitive. My head says no, my tastebuds go 'yes please!'. No prizes for guessing who wins. And because my tastebuds are self indulgent, the rest of me couldn't try on clothes. Which of course means a return trip is necessary.

And contrary to popular belief (really people, I do have some sense of morality that actually functions now and then. And it's functioning full swing right now) I am being good and staying away from all of them nasty liddle (or not so liddle) addictions. Mind over body.

The bad news is that the same ethics are also starting to hammer at me for all of the following reasons:-
i. eating unsustainably farmed food - meat and veg
ii. eating unethically grown meat
iii. eating un-local produce (both meat and veg again)
iv. eating processed 'food' and junk
In sum, contributing to the 'military-industrial complex' that fuels bad health and divorces people from nature by so easily turning that cow into an unrecognizable patty with corn filler.
It's also bad for the environment.
read
M. Pollan compacts the contents of 'the omnivore's dilemma' here AND offers solutions too. You will need an account with the NY Times to access the article, but it's free. Alternatively you could wait until the next time you see me in person and get the lowdown from me, significantly simplified and edited for content depending on the inconsistencies of my memory. Just sign up for an account dammit, save us all the trouble :p

Whether this will impact my eating habits remains to be seen. Because my carefully nurtured ethics are coming up against my culturally-ingrained apathy and cynicism. Activism vs. defeatism. Sit back and watch.
See, this is where all my energy is being redirected.

This weather calls for Miles Davis. It's a thing I have. Jazz goes well with hibernation. hibernate. zzzzz

It's nice not having anything to do. :)

puk

the sea salt and rosemary chips "cooked in 100% olive oil" had way too much rosemary.

this week

this is the plan for the week so far:-
return the library books that are cluttering my room
meet Duncan and plan mamak session
dinner with C on Thursday. get hit with sugar if there's anything appetizing. the offerings this year don't appeal to me that much. what do you think?
carry out massive clean up of room
think about summarizing research findings for participants
hunt down cupcakes in the city (ooh.. wild game)

oh, and i went shopping today :)
1 dress (to add to my ever expanding collection). quite proper. not a sundress, more for dinner. stretchy and close fitting, cream upper, black lower. just above knee. v front and back. argh, you'll see. maybe.
2 pairs of shorts. basic. i left my fave pair of shorts in kl. genius
1 tank top. basic.
1 belt (because some of my dresses need a belt to look good). heart.

the belt i got needed an extra hole or two so it'd stay up instead of falling halfway down onto my hips. the guy at the shoe and watch place was nice - he did it for free

done

yeah, it's done. it felt surreal yesterday, to not have it in my hands anymore, to know that it was complete. the work of almost a year and by far the biggest thing i have ever done.
'empty nest syndrome' my cousin called it.

But today it feels good. To finally have the time to do what I want without feeling guilty for taking precious minutes away from it.

So I made truffle scrambled eggs.

Remember bills' scrambled eggs? The silky texture without a trace of hardness in the eggs? :) I got it perfect today (and without the 1/2 cup of cream too)
nyam

I now have to clear off my desk and clean up my room - papers, journal articles, chapter drafts from march through to the final full draft in october, LIBRARY BOOKS (two trips)
I'm going to spend the next month of so doing (almost - because I'm being good) everything I've meant to do since March. And I'm also in the mood to cook for the first time in months. Maybe I'll set up a cafe with my sisters and use my thesis as wallpaper. Hmm..

And no, no plans to do a PhD. Or to turn my thesis into a book.

speculate

Someone has my address here. Someone I do not remember giving my address to. Which means someone has been snooping because this someone does not know any of my friends (here).

How do I know this?

I had the earliest birthday present ever in the mail today.



was it YOU?

it's your fault i took this!

the questions and options irritated me - i find very few things morally objectable but many of them are intellectually absent or tasteless. and what if you try to walk whenever possible BUT your family also owns luxury cars, cars that are fuel efficient, as well as second hand cars?

but i'm surprised at how 'not proud' i am. less surprised at what would send me to hell..

Greed:	High
Gluttony:	High
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	High
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	Medium

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

But

You say you will wait for me to return. But it is not you I return to.

today

I spoke with a man with the most brilliant blue eyes I have ever seen. They were jewel-toned, the colour of sapphires. Blue eyes and black hair get me every time

I amused myself by observing a pretty bubble head in the library

I picked up a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma

I was offered a gingerbread man for oktoberfest

I smiled a bit at every head that turned

I had my usual large skim latte, one sugar and banana bread, toasted and buttered

I shivered in the wind

I relished every minute here because I know they are coming to an end

the end is near

tweet tweet tweet tweet!
It's almost done
:)

just a couple of thorough read throughs to check for consistency from start to finish and then it's done. for good. monday, october 20 2008, 12pm will mark the end of this phase.

book list

In preparation for freedom. I have a lot to catch up on

Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma
- In Defense of Food
Peter Singer & Jim Mason - The Ethics of What We Eat
Jennifer McLagan - Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient
The Waiter - Thanks for the Tip: Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (Waiter Rant is brilliant)

TBC

constellations

the End is in sight. the email read that tomorrow's meeting will be short. I interpret that to mean that there's little to correct or change and it is near acceptable for submission.


So I tripped home, first peaches of the season in hand, dawdling and anticipating. And admiring my gold nails every chance I got. Every time I want to check my watch I get distracted and look at my nails instead and forget about the time. tsk.

:)

The bad news, depending on how you see it, is that I feel the stirrings of my ink addiction. I should name them, just for ease of reference (and also because I secretly think they've each got a distinct personality. Or they are associated with a different me). The last one kept me satisfied for almost two years now, so that's a bit of a record. No piercings etc since then either.16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and nothing up to now. It IS a new record! woo hoo! I can't believe I got something done every year of my life since I was 16. Never counted until now.

This time around I want something
a. at the base of my neck/top of my back (obviously)
b. shoulder blade

first choice would be a. but that would leave the problem of concealing it should I ever be unfortunate enough to land in a conservative workplace. As for what it would be.... I've come full circle - I want another star. Perhaps a smaller one, not a carbon copy of the first but there aren't that many variations on stars.

Which gives me an interesting idea. I could eventually have a smattering of stars across my body/ canvas. Not just black or solid stars either, maybe have a few red stars, a few outlines of stars, different sizes. That kind of thing. OR instead of having a completely random scatter of stars, I could place them in apparently random positions but have them form a sign/ something-i-just-don't-know-what-yet if I were to draw an imaginary line connecting them. Connect the dots. ooh...

So, a constellation of stars or connect the dots (stars). This would keep me occupied for a decade, I would think. And because each one would be so (relatively that is) small, I could get them done more frequently. Yes, let's bring some order into this whole milestone thing instead of ending up with a completely random assortment of creatures and symbols. Bigger picture yeah

self-praise

I have to admit, even as IT drives me insane editing it, I love the complexity of my thesis. Reading the first few paragraphs that state succintly what it's about makes me positively purr.

*

hush now, if you're really quiet you'll be able to hear me scream

BECAUSE I NEED TO CUT 1500 WORDS

almost there

I *heart* gnocchi filled with spinach and ricotta. It doesn't even need sauce. Browned butter might be nice. mmmm..

The meeting over the first draft lasted two and a half hours but it didn't seem like 2.5 hours. Must have been the coffee. Surprisingly little to change though even if it'll take a few full days to correct. Minor details here and there but Duncan still hasn't criticized anything I've written much. He talks about how he kept scribbling 'excellent!!' instead and wanted a stamp so he wouldn't have to keep writing that. I hope it's just me being overly critical of my own work rather than him being overly easy to impress/ lenient. Now, finding more things to cut is going to be hell. Damn word count. Shouldn't have it. It's repressive.


gnocchignocchignocchignocchi. love the sound of it. gnocchi. too much coffee. gnocchi. shiny blind-you-bright fuschia nails. gnocchi

this

I loved you once before and maybe I still care, which is why I won't ignore you. Also because I'm being civil.

But I am over this back and forth game that you're trying to play. So when you ask me how I'm doing, I'll reply. And when you ask me to meet you now, you'll need to give me a reason to.

eat

lunch. blanch asparagus. garlic sauteed in olive oil, capers, spaghettini, asparagus, crumble feta, smoked salmon, squeeze lemon. drizzle e.v. olive oil. yum.

i hear the constant sound of yarping

9am:
still asleep, i hear
yarp yarp yarp yarp

(cover head with pillow and go back to sleep)

11am:
i wake up to more
yarp yarp yarp yarp

they made headphones and microphones for a reason. and do you have to make the living room your phone booth? yergh
blast PotUSA in return.

hehehehe

signs of summer

bikinis (yay, skin!)

shorts and mini skirts and dresses instead of jeans

strawberries on the cheap, all the time

which naturally means that I eat a punnet a day (sometimes)

because they are that good. that red, that sweet, not even dipping them in dark chocolate tops these berries fresh and unadulterated

:)

and yes, that is a package you see in the background. my cousin sent me a message two days ago - keep an eye out for the postman in a week!

it came today

and.. (now i know you'll scold me..)

this was in it

card telling me to hang in there

and the entire Zoya gossip collection

which completely satisfies all my hot-pink and purple cravings :) i know, i know..

plus Zoya ki, top coat, base coat, and quick dry drops

(photos taken with 1.3MP cameraphone so excuse the quality)

on another note, i was distracted by the presence of prawns (not dried, fresh and butterflied) in my papaya salad and wondering about the contents of my package. this is what happened

ooh prawns, i don't think they usually put prawns in papaya salad

(lifts a forkful of salad, briefly note red specks but continue pondering prawns)

munch munch munch

ow. shit. damn chilli. cili padi too

-germinating-

Ok, this will take the place of my no-go solo jump

Places to visit/ worship in Thailand:

Ayuthaya
Chiang Mai (yes, again) - take the train up from BKK
BKK (obviously)
islands - not sure which ones yet, but eyeing Phi Phi
want to check out the south too but these bloody travel warnings.. the food would be different there from central and northern Thailand. it would only be fair!

and then off the beaten track (at least as far off as you can get in Thailand..) :
Ranong?
"The least charming of the Andaman coast's provincial capitals, Ranong lies on the east bank of tea-brown Pak Chan estuary, a short boat ride from Myanmar. This is a frontier town through and through, with a frenetic, downtrodden feel and a mix of Burmese and Thais scrambling for your tourist dollar. The town attempts to woo visitors not only with its interesting visa runs to Myanmar (Burma), but with a clutch of natural hot springs and a handful of tumbledown historic buildings. Even if you don't need to renew your visa, it's well worth taking the opportunity to have a cup of tea in Myanmar - but the bleak town of Ranong doesn't entice a stay longer than a day or two." - Lonely Planet
bleakness sounds promising. and i could hop across the border into Myanmar for a bit. but i don't like the sound of frenetic Burmese and Thais scrambling for my tourist dollar. bears consideration this one.

not off the beaten track but intruiging:
Pattaya
this is what Lonely Planet (again, so help me) says about it
"A heavy-breathing and testosterone-fuelled testament to holiday hedonism, Pattaya has lured tourists for almost four decades, and it's showing no sign of slowing down. And as past visitors move on to more genteel Thai resorts, first-time travellers from Russia and Eastern Europe now air their new passports with a fling in Asia's first and foremost Sin City. Anyone for Pattayagrad?"
herm... maybe to humour my curiousity

I have this urge to cover all corners of Thailand and then trek back to the center for a civilized break with the family. But the south is off limits for now, the Andaman coast offers Phuket but 'been there done that' and the rest of that side still has a [recovering from the tsunami] sign hung on the door. that might be an opportunity to do some 'community tourism' but god, how I hate the sound of that. It's so patronising and do-gooder who comes in for a weekend and goes 'oh, i helped rebuild this village'. harumph.

ALTERNATIVELY
It could be a BKK - Chiang Mai -
option (a) transit in bkk and take land route into Cambodia to trip out at Angkor again - 6 hours on dirt roads isn't that bad, done it before :) it gives you a massive headache but yeah, not unbearable
option (b) transit in bkk and take train into Laos and make way to Vientiane
option (c) take bus from Chiang Mai to border town of Huay Xai (Laos) and boat into Luang Prabang (yay, Laotian boat person!) and then check out Vientiane?

and that's as far as I've got right now. Eventually to head back to BKK and Ayuthaya and BKK and finally KL.

Laos sounds quite appealing actually. Angkor can wait for another trip and I've been there once, even if it wasn't enough.