Saturday at last!

It's one thing to wake up early to go to work. It's another thing all together to wake up early and not go to work.

What a lovely morning it was, when I left the house at seven ... and nope, definitely not to go to work.

The air smells fresher, the morning dew sparkles in the clear light, the wind whispers along the grass, and there're hardly any cars on the road.

heh heh. I missed waking up early on weekends and not going to work. Perhaps I ought to get my butt down to the park and do some jogging. Hate jogging on threadmill though. Morning's the best time for a run.

At seven plus in the morning, I see people returning from the market. It makes me wonder what time they actually go to the market. And I thought I was early! Mom used to go around eight or nine plus. She's good old friends with the people at her market and they always reserve the best parts for her. But this is different. It is different when you go to the market with a friend. It feels different. More independent kind of. You know, looking around on your own and doing your own shopping. :P

I picked Wen up at her place and we went down to Tekka market for breakfast with her friends. She bought beef and mutton for her dogs, boy, they really get the best! Her friend saw me buying some beef too, and wondered if I too have a dog? Whoops ... that was for dear hubby. hahahaha.

Wanted to buy some herbal stuffs and spices to try out more adventuous cooking, but gotta start planning first. I can't make a list for peanuts. :P

Dinner last night was really great. Wen made Thai, I thought it was really good this time. That is going to be the last meal she'll ever make. I guess it's hard to be cooking when one starts work. I hardly have time to cook anything fanciful, and on weekends one just want to rot. Where got time to make interesting food?

Cooking can be fun, if one have lots of time ... and the inclination. It's sad that there are families out there who never gets to have a nice proper meal at home. Homecooked food is da best. And it brings the family ever closer together. I'm not a super traditionist, but I somehow feels that a wife and husband should spend some time cooking together. Even housework is done by an external maid. What is left to be done together?

Darn, speaking of which ... back to cleaning the house.

A silent scream

Depressed. Disillusioned. Demoralised.

There is a need to rant. But here is not a place to do so.

The scream goes on and on soundlessly. The mind collapses upon itself, in an unsinking infinte blackhole. Multiply that by a few million light years.

Echos hollowed through the emptiness, eons apart, yet doubling back and forth within the closed prison walls.

There is a need to tell someone something, yet there is no one to hear.

The scream goes on, falling into a pinpoint prick of a dimming light.

Externally, another mask is built in place.

I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care

Anymore.

It sucks.

A voice not to be heard. A scream drowning itself out. Thoughts bursting into stars of ugliness.

giggles

And life will go on the same tomorrow.

While the words remain unsaid. And the rant was stilled.

Pretty little baubles perhaps to chase away the harsh discordants. Best to be forgotten, to save the sanity.

Memory rejects

Before I forget ...

Lunch tomorrow to remember to cook the fish cakes.

Duh. I forgot to cook them yesterday. It's now how many days old? I hope they can still be eaten.

Not quite unlike the squid, where the smell was so strong even cooking with chilli couldn't mask it.

Double triple doh.

Menu for dinner tomorrow would be:
bittergourd with eggs
bittergourd with soup
crab meat balls
either fish or chicken

I forgot to buy tofu for the soup.

See how absent-minded I've become.

Triple quad doh.

Nice tupperware. heh heh heh. Feel like buying more stuffs. :P

I still want:
1. one frying pan
2. microwave oven
3. double boiler
4. slow cooker
5. one egg white seperater
6. one lemon squeezer

Actually come to think of it, there're a lot of things I want.

It's the stress of teaching those kids. I feel so stressed. I really really felt very very stress. I really really really prefered teaching express students.

My brain feels really really really dead after trying to 'teach'.

You know how terrible it can be if you do not get enough brain stimulation sometimes?

That's why I enjoy playing chess.
That's why I enjoy doing puzzles.
That's why I enjoy creating puzzles.

Potato head me now.

And what do we do when we feel stressed? Just felt like shopping mindlessly and spending mindlessly to fill up the emptiness.

I have a headache.

War and peace

It is war, but of a different kind all together. A type which we have yet to come to understand and accept. It is indeed a war, not much of a difference between the world wars 1 and 2. You invaded a country, and people get killed. There is retaliation, and more people get killed. And it is always the innocents and the front-liners who died for an ideal, for a vision, or for some madman.

Do they actually realise that their country is at war with another, and although it seems that they have been the conquerers, there will always be strike backs, for the losers are not taking it quiet.

We may all seem so civilised and enjoying the peace, but the war rages on.

Sensational news really make a difference.

*****
The time is now 9.20am. I have yet to wash the clothes or vacumn the floor. Looks like I'm hardly likely to go for yoga. Lazy bones just set in. The matter is stronger than the mind.

The floppy disk I stuck into the computer screamed bloody murder when I tried accessing the file. Thank goodness I saved out the important ones before that happened. Doing favours for people can be quite tough, you want to please, yet sometimes it can become a chore. I had to look through every disk for the backup I hope I had kept. I was quite surprised that the file I wanted was deleted off my computer. That tells me so much about my memory now.

The antivirus software is too good. It's preventing me from sending out emails.

Shessh.

*****
Wen is really good to me. Amongst all my friends, she is someone I still meet up quite often, and who actually cooked for me and ensured that I had sufficient to eat. heh.

Of course her mom's cooking is much nicer, more of the traditional sytle, but hers sure is exotic.

And the main difference between she and me is that she follows the cookbook religiously, down to the minutest details, and even made notes after that.

I would never have done that. To me, the recipe is just a guide on how else I can cook something with. And if it's too difficult, next please.

The first dinner she made some green-coloured pancakes. Con put it nicely. Is she trying to poison us? heh heh. That wasn't very successful. The prwans were delicious though, with the lemon orchid sauce. Yum. Fifty dollars well spent. The soup was a little diluted and slightly salty. The curry chicken tasted strange without the chilli hot hot that I'm used to, but it was actually quite interesting and nice. Overall, not bad if you don't count the pancakes.

The second dinner she didn't try anything too exotic or time-consuming. Both Con and I decided that sometimes she shouldn't follow too closely to recipes. The egg omelette with chives was too much chives and too little egg. The chicken was nice and so was the fish. And soup was really good this time. Much better definitely.

It's nice to have someone cooked for you and you eat till you really feel full. Somehow after when I cooked, I just don't feel like eating much. And perhaps because of that, I might not be eating enough.

But yesterday was a pig-out session. We had peking duck. heh heh heh. It's a one in a three years affaire. I know she likes it as much as I do, but she doesn't say so. Oh well, sometimes there is a reason for celebrating. :P And shark's fin soup too. She actually mentioned she liked it. I was quite surprised, always thought she only liked double-boiled herbal soup. heh.

And dinner was with family. Seafood. Oh boy, the crabs were really good. Succulent even when cooked with pepper. And huge! And delicious! Oh droooool.

I've forgotten how nice it is sometimes to be able to shop with someone who gave valuable advice. It was nice shopping with Wen. It was nice to have company. It was definitely a rather nice day yesterday.

Perhaps sometimes you just felt that there are no friends left to talk to, or to do things together, and become so immersed in work and your own life. Then someone comes along and took that belief away. Sometimes one just need to have the company, sometimes one just need to have someone else to affirm that you are still alive, to be interested in you as a person. It's not just about work, work and work.

It's nice to have someone showing concern over you, and I mean real concern, and not only just because of the circumstances.

Oil thyself

Tonight's dinner was mightily horrible. This just goes to show that if you have never seen such stuffs before, it's best to look it up in a recipe book instead of trying to cook it in a way you think it should be done.

Damnit.

Dear hubby was so uncritical as usual. Love him so! :)

Critical moi's heart sank when I saw what I've done. I really should have check out how it should be done properly. It was simply a disaster.

Perhaps one should not have cooked when one was feeling tired, or depressed, or had a irritatingly blocked ear. Yes, it's still bloody blocked, and do I hear a ringing sound? Or when one has so little time to prepare, after the repairman came to fix the cookery hood. *sigh*

Well, that was only half of it. I still have half to try another way. Can't seem to find a recipe in my books though. Nevertheless, the safest way is to cook with eggs.

Now all I need to do is to wash the bloody dishes and mop up the kitchen. I swear if you leave it, the floor really absorb all the oil.

Damn the whitebait. Tell me how to strangle you.

A-tis-shooo

My ear was blocked since early this morning ... about eight. That would make it almost seven hours now. What a record.

And guess what, just as I was forming the words to the above sentence, I sneezed twice. 'Poop' goes the ears.

woohooo.

Now why didn't that happen much much much earlier? Perhaps I did sneeze then, but it didn't help.

The question now is, should I seek medical help when my ear is blocked? Would it matter if I get help when my ear is not blocked?

It's been four months.

Blistering bloody irritating.

*****
Meeting up with ex-colleagues really makes me miss them very much. However, it also reminded me just how much I wanted to get out of there the last time. Situation was just getting worse. How awful it is, when after all the work you have done, and all the effort you put in, you are of the least priorty, and not even considered in her eyes? To the extent that you didn't even have a place to sit after all your duties.

Sad, isn't it?

Whoops, I sniffed, and my ear got blocked again. Is there going to be another new record?

The situation is the same just about everywhere. It sucks so much now that I just don't feel like getting out of bed anymore in the morning. It's just so depressing that I just want weekends to last forever. I whine. I whine. *sigh*

*****
Perhaps it was just all a conspiracy to put someone of their own camp up there. Or perhaps that was just part of their plan. Whatever it is, I wonder when will others start to question just exactly how much are them getting?

I wonder when the e is. Have all been beaten so much that there isn't anyone left to have one? Then again, it really doesn't matter. There's no power anyway. Life still rotates with this world.

And it was indeed interesting to note that someone was being critisised pubically. Now, that would never ever have happen if they are powerful or important enough ya? Don't wanna go Siberia, ya?

*****
The gantries are put up and money will start disappearing in a few weeks time. How does it help? Building a new road or enlarging the width of the road might, but noooo, money is more exciting and more rewarding. And believe it, it'll never go away even if they do build one. What's the point? It's too clear.

To live in this place, you have to pay through your nose. And all we can ever do is sigh.

TGIF

Boy, do I look forward to Friday. Thursdays are awful days, with a horrible class in the beginning of the day, and an awful one at the end. Can die. By the time work ended, I was so dead tired, and it was starting to hurt. :(

Thank god it's Friday.

Dearest hubby bought a new ps2 game. After watching him losing his balance again and again on the wooden slits, I offered to help him there. Sometimes it takes a gentle woman's touch. :P And it was kinda fun. A little longer on it, and I finally pushed him off the sofa (yup, literally) and hogged the game for myself.

It's kinda good to play a hack and slash game sometimes to slash away the day's frustrations. But I guess it's not too good to be sleeping at 3am because of that.

Whoops. :P

Another lonely Friday night, but monsters are awaiting.

Being dead tired

How in the world did I end up with eighteen boards of chess games?

My brains are definitely fried this time. Besides I'm not really up to heavy brain work this time. Oh dear.

Feeling dead tired ... especially on the feet. Been walking lots, and climbing lots of stairs. Must do something. Dear hubby might come in useful later. *wink*

heh heh heh.

The GSS is a joke. Nice stuffs aren't on sale. How disappointing.

Why does the kitchen stink when I got home? The cat needs spanking. Grrr.

*bleah*

Brain feeling mushy. Need to sleep.

Friday night blues

It's another of those lonely friday nights. You'd think I had enough of computers, what with staring at them for the past two days. We did e-learning see, and got the students to stay at home, while poor us slogged to work early in the morning and to sit in front of the computers and teared our eyes out.

It crashed today. haha.

I can't seem to access the server back home, so too bad to all those emails tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.

Actually it was quite fun. I completed quite a lot of my markings. :P

And there's no one to shout at. Bliss.

*****
So it's another lonely Friday night in. I toyed with the idea of going out to shop, have dinner and veged out, but ended up scrubbing the kitchen while cooking dinner for hubby. The blasted hood melted, but it sure gave me a good excuse to get a new and better one. Hubby said I'm blackmilling him when I told him I would be able to cook even nicer stuffs if I have a nice new one. Then he said I'm threatening him when I protested that I can't cook without a hood. :P But we shall go and shop for a new one soon. Perhaps we could get it repaired under warrenty, but the bloody blasted design has an internal design error, and I bet even after repairing, six more months of intensive Chinese-style cooking will cause the sky to drop on my head. Again.

Ouch.

So I ended up scrubbing the kitchen cabinets and walls, because of the blasted internal design error of the blasted cookery hob, which caused the doors of the cabinets to be oily with muck.

I shall get a new one with a better design.

Blasted bloody you-know-who. Cheapskate.

*****
We caught Fantastic Four yesterday. There was nothing fantastic about it. Just that it was rather sweet and boring. I think we are so conditioned to watching superheros act in a certain manner, and this storyline actually felt rather crappy. It's really kinda dumb, you know, when all the troubles seemed to be started by trivial arguements among the superpowers, be them good or so-called evil, and have the public applauded when the so-called evil guy lost. Hell, the evil scarface (Dr Doom) didn't seem to do anything particularly evil, or evil enough that the whole world knew he was evil, so how come the on-lookers and public seemed to know who's evil and who's not? Apparently he killed some people, but it was in a dark and gloomy night, and I bet he left no clues so who's to know?

If it were me, I would have thought the heros were all trouble, since they started all the destruction in the first place.

You have to watch it to know what I'm talking about. I wasn't very impressed.

But I'm rather impressed with Jessica Alba, no, not exactly with her acting, but she is rather beautiful ... in an rather exotic charming kind of way. Hmm, I think dear hubby got her mixed up with someone else.

*****
So I busied myself with scrubbing the kitchen, but I don't feel tired enough to be happy yet. And I don't feel motivated to do any manual labour to make myself tired. Perhaps what is left is to have a nice hot bath, and find a good book to read.

Just that there isn't any good books left to tickle my interest.

bah.

*****
It's kinda boring, and sad ... nowadays that my favourite blogger is not blogging too. I'm sure she has her reasons, just that there isn't really nice stuffs to read online.

*sigh*

Oh well ... time for that nice bath I promised myself. There's something about being clean, that makes it ... nice. :P

Getting away with it

Now the problem with cooking just for two is ...

We had better love celery for the next few days.

And beef as well.

So I'm taking a short break, scanning through my cookbooks. How else can celery be cooked, besides with beef? We had that on Monday, and dear hubby refused to look at another dish of beef with celery. So beef will go with ginger stir fry ... and celery? Celery can last four more times. Many stalks you see.

If only I had scallops. That will go nicely with celery. We're kinda tired of prawns for a while, and we had fish yesterday.

Oh dear celery. I'm not strongly against you, just that I don't like you very much either. Just enough as garnishes. But not too much.

Can you imagine what would happen if I were to cook every meat meal with celery for the next few weeks?

yikes.

***
I'm tired of being nice and making special photocopies of worksheets for them when they lose them again and again.

They can jolly well get from their friends and make copies themselves. And if they aren't able to hand in on time, they can just as well get a zero or go for D.

No more mrs nice person.

*bleah*

Similariy, I'm tired of being their wastepaper dustbin and collect their worksheets and stuffs as and when they feel like handing them in. If they are unable to keep datelines, then too bad. Either get a zero or go for D. Maybe fine them. We are a fine country.

*double bleah*

***
I've thought of what to cook with celery. It shall be celery main dish. Vegetables rulz. hahaha.

I hope it tastes nice. Tell you later. :P

Things to remember.

I like this. I really really like it.

Isaac hefted the spanner thoughtfully. 'You are advanced fellows for Class Threes. There's just you and me here, and we none of us are non-metallic humans. Do you intend to molest me?'

'Our orders are to escort the contents of this machine to our mistress,'said Three. He was watching the spanner.

'You could disobey.'

'Class Fives may disobey. Class Fours may disobey in special circumstances. We are not Class Fives. We are not Class Fours. It is a matter for regret.'

'Then I will temporarily disable you,'said Isaac firmly.

'Although you are more intelligent than myself I will resist.'said Three. He shifted uneasily.

'We will resort to violence on the count of three,'said Isaac. 'One. Two.'

The spanner clonked against Three's cutout button. 'Three,'said Isaac, and turned to Eight who was staring at his fallen comrade with a perplexed air.

'I perceive an illogical sequence of events which included a violence,'he said. Isaac hit him.


...

Twenty guard robots wheeled as one on Joan's amplified command and ran towards him.

He stood his ground, which seemed to worry them. To the first who approached he said:'Are you Class Threes, all of you?'

The robot called Twelve said:'Some of us are Class Two robots, but most of us are Class Three robots. I am a Class Three robot myself.'

Isaac looked at the sky. He felt very happy. It was very wrong of him.

'Correction,'he said.'As of now you are all recumbent water-fowl of the genus Scipidae.'

Twelve paused. 'I am a Class Three robot myself,'he said uncertainly.

'Correction,'said Issac. 'I repeat, you are all sitting ducks. Now, I am going to count three ...'

He walked forward, and his atomic heart sang a lyrical hymn of superior intelligence.

...

'Twenty of you and they got away!'

'The Class Five robot precipitated an illogical series of events,'explained Twelve.

'He was a Class Five mind. He told us to count to three,'added Nineteen helpfully.

'Then he hit us,'said Twelve.

'When we get back to civilization I'll see to it that the robot is lobotomized,'said Joan grimly. 'Why did we ever start builting human robots?'

'The Class Fives were constructed because of their ...' began Twelve, and was intelligent enough to stop when Joan looked at him.

'Four more robots trudged in, carrying the prone bodies of Three and Eight.

'I feel sad,' said Twelve.

'May they rust in peace,' echoed Nineteen.

'When they're recalibrated I'll make sure they go down a class,'muttered Joan.

~abstracted from The Dark Side of the Sun, Terry Pratchett.

I dunno, that just read soo damn funny. heh.

Now if only the story doesn't end quite so abrupt. It felt like ... okie, long enough, time to end. There could have been much much more possibilities. It was starting to be fun, yet disappointing at the end.

Much like one simply got tired ... much like those compositions your teacher always tell you not to do, so exciting, yet you wake up and it's just a nightmare/dream. It could have been more, it just left me unsatisfied.

Just like H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds.

Did I mention?

The resident lizard appeared again two days later after the unfortunate accident. Unfortunately, most most tragically, and most most unluckily, it had to come out when I was around. Lizards on the wall I can somewhat stand. But lizards running around on the floor freak me out. I don't wanna them to run over my feet.

I think I did the job properly this time round. It's been almost a week. No more sign.

Please stay dead.

*****
There were so many security personnel at the shopping mall today. So silly. I wonder why I always go beep even when I'm not carrying anything at all. Hmmm.

*****
Wen told me this: when you have a surname Sng ... Charles Sng as a name will definitely not do. Go figure that out.

Damn funny.

*****
I finally got my piano over. It's nice to be able to bang on it now and then. Pathetically practising the Pathetique again. And it's not sympathetique. :P Forgot everything. Damn. Fingers frozen. How I missed the time when I could play all those difficult pieces with ease.

My take

You know how it is, when it strikes you, you just wanna go all ahead for it.

We caught two shows in one day. Adrenaline definitely. All those action. Whee.

It's a good thing we caught War of the Worlds first though.

Now, I've always thought I've read the book before. I have the book at home, and somehow I always knew what the story was about. But all the middle bits seem very foreign. I knew what the aliens were like, I knew how they died, but when I went home and rift through the book, it seemed that I have not read it before. How strange.

Anyway, the story was written in the 19th century. In the 21st century, expectations are different. It certainly seems quite ridiculous that for an intelligent species who had been watching Earth for millions of years, they would do such a stupid thing like exposing themselves to the atmosphere and food of this world, without even knowing about germs, bacteria and viruses. Kinda really silly. It seems a convenient way for HG Wells to kill them off, without going into specifics.

Oh well. I thought Tom Cruise didn't look very suitable as the hero. He didn't looked rugged enough. He just seemed to have this clean cut military chap look about him. Not really just a crane operator. And besides ... he looked so short. heh. But the action was rather cool. Mind numbing fun.

I think I've always mixed up War of the Worlds with another sci-fic story by another author, which I can't remember right now. The aliens were also tripod-like. But that one was in more detail ... and it kinda reminded me of a combination of robotech and well ... war of the worlds, I guess. Hmmm.

Batman Begins, on the other hand, is great. Christian Bale definitely looked real good. I think he's the best of all batman ... well, except that his head is too almond shaped. Not much of a squarish jaw of batman. Can't really be helped I guess. The story was a bit slow, but engaging. Only fault I guess is that ... well, that machine which vapourised water seems rather far-fetched. What is stopping it from vapourising water in one's body?

Next ... Fantastic Four. :)

*****
I finally got my belated birthday present from Wen. She got hers as well. I decided that I don't need to look for something she really really likes and that it'll be useful for her, it's simply too difficult. Just something which I know she would probably like, and heck if she doesn't like it. Anyway, I think she does liked what I gave her .. though they're probably quite useless.

Well, she gave me something really useful. I got a lovely set of nail polish with all the works. Darn. She knows I like nail polish ... but she doesn't know that I hardly use them! Oh dear ... now I have got to go and paint my nails myself. Darn darn darn. :P

Did I mention I'm too lazy to do such stuffs? Gee, I'd rather go out and get it done for me.

*bleah*

Perhaps I shall do my nails later ... after I clear up dinner.

She brought me to do threading. I must say the effect is really nice. heh heh. Quite painful though, I think the lady must have pulled out quite a lot of hairs. doh.

Can go again. Pretty cheap. :P

And Wen finally realises that there's so much things to do even when one has one month of hols. You don't have to go anywhere at all! Less stress too.

The bum boat

It's so easy to become a bummer.

Yes, I have become so lazy, that I can't even be bothered to blog.

And I haven't been going to swim, or for yoga ... or been doing anything much ... except sleep. :P

And now the ironing piles up.

bummer.