BBQ + Boardgames

I hate Hearts. And I wanna play it over and over and over again. That's the consequence of boardgaming too much; you acquire such a competitive mindset that you just wanna thrash every single opponent you have out there, include the poor fella (in this case, Gordon) who taught you the game. The adage will have to be amended to "bite the hand that feeds you", in this case. Anyway, while I'm still suffering the emotional imbalance from losing to Gordon and Jack by 3 points in Puerto Rico (I was on a damn winning streak! Until Jack bought those dreaded buildings), we did a BBQ at Gordon's condo with some of the finest ingredients on Earth.

Shark steak, leatherjacket, streaky bacon, pineapple, portobello mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, corn cobs, prawns, asparagus.

And yes, we ate ourselves silly, and were especially generous with the sambal chilli (1 bottle, to be exact). Although the booking of the pit ran into some walls (some family claimed they booked the pit for the entire day, but they shared 1 of the 2 pits with us), we had great food, great company and a great stomachache (in my case).

Best thing of all? I robbed Jack of his entire day. Haha.

Forever more

Gods knows how much I cherished this weekend. The past few weeks were taken for granted, simply because I had so much time on hand with both family and Jack. Then things changed when Jack started work at the beginning of the week. But I'm glad we survived this torturous week.

But the void gave me ample time to tune myself back to reality, and whipped some lessons into me. I had to serve myself the constant reminder that time and tide waits for no man, and if I were to wallow in self-pity, it would be no different from scraping myself to the bone with a fork. And so I got down to work at home, by fulfilling some of the roles that I didn't get to play during the busy semester.

Where do you think that FBH poster went?

Of course, yesterday was a day as special as it was 16 months ago, with you by my side, even when it's as mundane as playing shop periphery.

For one, you had changed me for the better as an individual and as a person who loves. I didn't see myself cooking and baking for that special someone, until I realised I would bother to put in that extra effort to make you feel extra special to be in my life. This period of time is going to be as testing as it was a year ago, but we both know that we'll emerge stronger and have a relationship even stronger than before. It will just be another one of those laps we have to do in life before we leap over the finish line.

I'll still sing it a hundred million times.

"Yes I love you."

Randomly

I wonder how old this guy is.

http://pulldown-myboxers.blogspot.com/2009/06/illogical-congratulations-to-singapore.html

Facts to establish about him:
1. He absolutely hates school.
2. His vocabulary of profanities is, well, pretty limited.
3. He probably doesn't care about his nationality at all.
4. He's just apathetic.

If you think teenagers kissing on trains are a plague, judge this.

Hello, Good night

I'm just here to clear the cob webs.



Nah, just joking.


Blogging wasn't a necessity these days, because every day's just another pursuit of time to spend with the people I love most. Friday morning was spent bringing Grandma to a specialist to look into her frequent fainting spells. I had some trouble trying not to laugh, as Dr. Yap struggled in his questioning (because Grandma's hard of hearing) and Grandma's, well, hard of hearing. Plus we had a bad translator (a.k.a my mum), so was also having a hard time trying to bring her point across. Haha.


Uncovered another gastronomical jewel. Ding Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) serves a darling of thousand layer cakes! It's really as tasty as it looks, with a sprinkle of sago crowning the layered steamed sponge cake. And every single layer peels off with a little effort from a pair of chopsticks (plus some very nimble fingers). Never mind that it takes 20 minutes to prepare.

Picture source: Ding Tai Fung TW

And I started tuition! It's good when you reduce the number of noisy tykes in your vicinity to a mere 2, because it no longer sounds like a stadium of tykes watching ManU vs. Arsenal (yes, you just need 9 tykes). And it helps to have someone so dear give you a huge huggie just before the session.



Yesterday was blissful, because I had the best company ever (a.k.a Jack). Being the cheapo patriotic Singaporeans we are, we decided to pop over to Marina to watch the first full dress rehearsal for the NDP. The idea of firing the 21 canons on a floating platform was way cool (I was exclaiming so loudly everyone probably thought that I was some country bumpkin).

Springcleaning! It's too hot to be Spring, by the way. The main point's that I finally swept my table of a conspicuously revolting film of dust, which had accumulated from 3 months of negligence and mass-dumping.

So now I have half a table for my lappie and the next semester's notes. I totally love myself for being a neat freak.

And I love the way the wind catches your scent and carries it to me;

The way those fingers lace themselves with mine;

The times we kiss each other goodbye;

The little sparks you set off in my head.

And I miss you tonight, and every night.

Saturday, Sunday, everyday

Just a picture of the cake we made on Friday night/Saturday morning. I wonder what made me stay so awake that night, only to collapse at 11.30pm last night. I swear that was the earliest time I had slept since the last holiday. And waking up at noon today just proved my point.

The spur-of-the-moment itch to eat Japanese food claimed my entire Sunday morning. Obasan-me throngs around the market every Sunday morning and gets assaulted by the other authentic obasans left, right, centre. I've never seen middle-aged men and women move so fluidly in the crowd, no less, at the expense of pushabouts (like me). So after getting stabbed by prawns and fish tails on the ankles, conned by a stallholder, drove like a decapitated cockroach to IMM for last-minute obasan-ing, I'm quite satisfied with the end product.

Then it was out with Jack and his extended side for steamboat at Golden Mile. Jack has something that place, and I can see why. Period.


And since we ended dinner early (plus the extremely amusing yet eye-covering antic by Jack just outside Golden Mile - I shall not delve into it), we thought that we could hang around Dhoby Ghaut long enough to join the Geyao pack for their post-dinner activities. That plan fell apart when my eyelids started to droop. 7 hours of sleep for 2 days isn't very satisfying. Most embarrassing was being woken up by the bus driver at Clementi Interchange.

That very rainy day.

You and I, and Ice Monster.

Chatting, laughing, still friends.

Not certain, just oblivious.

And then,

You and I, and Ice Monster.

Chatting, laughing, much more than that.

Eyes wide shut

I adore baths, especially those especially long ones where you exit the bathroom feeling totally rejuvenated and perky. And when it rains, such baths are oh-my-godly divine. I deserved such a washdown after an entire night/morning of Korean and Japanese drama and dabbling with conjuring up an edible kiwi lemon cheesecake. Got to love my Gurlies for such insanely impossible expeditions.

The state of minds I harboured when watching such soapy drama serials before and after entering a relationship were vastly differentiated, I realised. The teenage me would cling loyally to every sappy dialogue between the protagonist and his/her accompanying cast of doe-eyed good-lookers, feeding off the perfection of each star-crossed couple. The little girl in me would dream up little dreams of those pretty faces, and hope endlessly to be on the receiving end of such affection. That was plain childish thinking on the part of my bubbling adolescent hormones. Of course, we should all be clear by now about the fact that such fairytales are either fictitious or dodo-bird dead; a drop dead good-looking Prince who's filthy rich, has a beautiful body and matching personality isn't going to pop open his Caldilac's door, step out and offer his Bulberry handkerchief to you just because you're sobbing your lungs out on the walkway. No. Snap out of your self-deluding stupor and kick yourself in the arse, largely because you're not living in your Aishitteru or Sarang Haeyo world.

And being mindlessly in love with TV pixels didn't help with my wallet, plus the fact that pen-woven princes belong solely to print and screen.

So I'm almost past that phase of pinning posters on my walls like I did in the past (and ripping my wall paint off when I took them off), and being in a relationship kind of hastened the entire metamorphic process. Of course, I know that Jack wouldn't always be around me when I needed him, and that's because we're all only human. Neither do I expect gifts, flowers, teddies, chocolates, chauffeuring, sending me home, helping me do my assignments, attend my lectures for me, etcetera. Because he's my companion, and not my tutor/maid/chauffeur/personal security guard/insurance agent/Santa Claus. Most importantly, he's not my Superman. He's just Jack, my Super Sunshine.

8 monsters to scare the boys with

You know I'm bored when I write about such stuff. But of course, I'll only find such time to do such research when the boys are out (to be precise, when my boy is out with his boys). So ya, I'm an autophile for a girl, and I heard that such stuff scares the boys away. Small voice: Girls are supposed to just sit in those cars and look pretty, not know about them. Screw those stereotyping arses.



But Singapore's not Italy nor Germany, so we don't get intricately engineered monster machines roaring down our narrow freeways everywhere you turn. Which is a huge pity, in my opinion. These loud beauties are often restricted to District 10, where there won't be any road humps nor speed-regulating strips to kill the suspension and the bodykits. *Sigh* And that's the precise reason why I always keep my eyes on the road, constantly trying to pick out awesome machines to gawk at.



So I decided to make a list of my favourite monsters to scare the boys and men with (in no particular order). I made an effort to do some research, but if there's misinformation somewhere, kindly prod me. Thanks.

Pontiac Solstice

image source: www.autobytel.com

If anyone spots one of these in Singapore, you should go buy TOTO. I got to know about the Solstice while cursing my head off playing NFS Carbon. I was awed by how ladylike the car was, despite its monstrous appetite for speed. But it's considered one of the slower cars on my list, with a 2.4 litre DOHC four-cylinder engine. Sounds like what a 350Z can totally throw off. I still have the bimbotic dream of decking my Solstice in cream and purple and drive it down Orchard Road.

Porsche Carrera GT

image source: http://www.elanso.com/

Even if you had alot of cash to splash, I don't think buying this darling is going to be easy on the wallet (it's about a millon bucks in local currency, minus everything ELSE). The most expensive Porsche ever made, it's also the fastest among its cousins. I didn't like Porsches in the past, because I thought they looked like beetles. What an expensive beetle this is. The money-chewing fact? Silicon carbide. Very light, but very consuming. Plus, it purrs like a fighter jet when you punch the accelerator. 5.7 litre V10 car this is. If this doesn't kill your hopes of bagging one, sitting in one will probably do. Just remember to keep your mouth closed and wipe your drool when you get off.

Ferrari F430 Spyder

image source: http://www.germancarzone.com/

This is my favourite baby of the Ferrari brood. With its 4.3 litre, V8 engine (just some simple ones for the techie), it's the cheapest of its cousins, stamped roughly with the price tag of a Carrera GT (no one gives me prices, so don't ask me). But admit it, it's a beauty to look at, with the top on or off. No pun intended.

Nissan 350Z

image source: http://www.japanesesportcars.com/

This caught my eye in 2 Fast 2 Furious. Remember Drift King? This is it. I call it the Fair Lady (apparently that was what it was called to attract female customers), because the cream white version of this piece totally threw me off. Then the whole cream-purple theme came to me again. Something ordinary folk can finally acquire, with a price tag of about 153k without COE (latest quotation) for a 3.5litre V6 engine. Affordable and very very worth it. But if you're doomed if you're planning to race an Audi TT with this baby.

Nissan GTR

image source: http://www.coral.bz/

I should get used to looking at the GTR, simply because some rich bastard parked his across the road. But who ever gets sick of looking at such a engineering prodigy? Every single engine is hand-built, 3.8litre, twin turbo, V6 engine. It's one of the most family-friendly cars, with 4 comfortable seats and a boot. And the technology is... mind-blowing. The calculations it does with every corner you take, every acceleration... It's probably the epitome of Japanese auto engineering. Many people have thrown hate at this darling for its less-than-pretty exterior, but you can deny such specs because it's ugly. Only drawback? It sounds like a bitch screaming through the corners.

Bulgatti Veyron

image source: http://www.ridelust.com/

I wasn't impressed by how this machine looked - it looked like some chipmunk just ran head-on into a wall (Jack will probably kill me for saying that). I liked looking at pretty cars, so this one clearly didn't stand out in that department. The 1001hp was the main determinant. Yes, you heard it. This not just mean that it's the fastest car in the world (faster than what F1 cars), it also means that it has to have 10 radiators to cool off this darling's 16-cylinder engine. And technically speaking, it means you can get from one end of Singapore to another in 5 minutes if the roads had no rules and no cars. The interior is pretty for one, with rustic-looking steering and seats. Lovely.

Audi R8

image source: http://www.audi.com/

I always steal glances at the Audi showroom whenever the MRT passes Commonwealth, hoping to spot the R8. Screw those who hate the headlights. Screw those who hate the exterior. I love this giant to bits. Plus it's relatively quieter than all the other super cars out there. The V8 engine's a good liar.

Lamborghini Gallardo

image source: http://www.yosax.com/

Not exactly at the top of my list, but it's enough to draw the guys out. Not exactly a discreet fellow this is, with its 5litre V10 engine. Good for grabbing attention, bad on the pocket. Pretty on the eye, though. The grey one I spotted outside the Hilton gave me goosebumps. This Lamborghini toddler with a huge temper didn't impress me much on the inside.

Big Walkabout

I made the wrong decision by wearing my newly bought, yet-to-be-seasoned sandals out today. End result? 3 blisters, and 2 very sore heels. Why don't I ever learn?

We've ditched Vivocity for the city area! Been wandering around the Suntec-Marina-Raffles City area these days, since it's seems to be the bisector between my home and Jack's. And Marina Square just gave us more reason to hang around there, with the addition of a crane machine section just behind Subway. We would usually satiate our search for such thrills (I almost said 'cheap thrill' when I realised that would be totally fallacious) at the arcadium at Suntec, but the opening of this corner at Marina meant that we no longer needed to make the trip up to Suntec just for the machines. (And mainly because we spent most of our time watching other people play than to try it ourselves.) And Jack's always the one doing everything, because I'm totally devoid of hand-eye coordination plus whatever it takes to extricate one of these toys from the machines.

カピバラさん～！

The engineer's good at such stuff. Either that, or I'm totally luck-less. I'll have the benefit of the doubt.

Another surprise was us meeting our ex-schoolmates there by chance. I met Shaun (from NHSS) while Jack met his JC friend. What I wouldn't want to take home today was the fact that I still, and wouldn't, want to rewind time back to my secondary school period. The major reason was because I was never really happy nor contented with my classmates (whom I had to see 80% of the time), and the way I was treated. I hadn't really been an outcast, but those horrible antics pulled on me have deeply scarred my impression of them, so much so that I'd rather have a second go at life as an insufferable cockroach than to relive that period of my life. I just want to savour the new me, the new life, and the things I've been obscured from back in those days.

Big boys don't lie

I’m having second thoughts about shopping at Far East Plaza before the tykes end their June holidays. I had the naïve plan of leveraging on the GSS (surprisingly, I was leveraging on the fact that many shops were holding their closing down sales), but instead, I felt like an auntie, weaving through the teenage crowd and jostling with adolescents with thick make-up slapped on and eyes straight out of a horror flick. I’ll never pull something like that off without clogging up every single pore on my face and committing suicide when I break out like a pre-NS teenage dirtbag. I’m barely 21 and I feel like a mountain tortoise at that torturous place, so I’m not contemplating another shopping trip there until the last week of June.



Oh, special mention. Can I emphasize the fact that our lovely teen boys are blossoming into young men who simply love to gossip about girls? Well, the junior college boys who sat behind me on the bus on the way home were great samples of proof. While peppering their chat with sudden gasps of “Aye! Look! Chiobu!” (Chiobu means ‘pretty girl’), they were pretty much talking out loud about their crushes, the pretty girls they wanted to ask out in their class or from their previous schools, why some of their guy friends didn’t deserve their current girlfriends because they were too pretty, and pretty much stuff that would make the post-NS guy cringe. I guess that was a reason good enough to explain why guys before NS will always be dorks. But altogether, it was pretty entertaining, simply because they were saying things that sounded like they came out of the teething mouths of Primary school kids. Funny stuff one guy kept babbling: “Eh, where are we arh? Clementi? That means we’re near Bukit Batok!”; “Wah! Singapore Poly wor! Looks like Botanic Gardens!”; “Where are we going ah? IMM ah? Issit Lot 1? Same right?” I totally sympathized his friends, who had to 1. convince him that IMM and Lot 1 are 3 MRT stations apart, 2. Clementi certainly did not look like Bukit Batok and 3. Botanic Gardens does not reside on a hill. I almost had constipation trying to hold back my sniggers. So that’s for you, all 17 years of Singaporean boys. I’m not stereotypical; I’m concise.

HY's 21st huddle-gether

All the possible theories ever conjured up about love and war have been overthrown, ever so subtly yet affirmatively. I’m still baffled.


Fay and I accompanied the newly 21-year-old in our group yesterday, without our mommy Jane bear with us (she’s currently enjoying life with the cute Korean boys in the land of the kimchi warriors). Without the luxury of weaving in and out of Korean traffic at the present moment, we decided to indulge in Fay’s set of Boys over Flowers DVDs, which took us through 8 episodes without us knowing. So much so that we even forgot about cooking lunch, until about 3pm.

Broccoli Spag. Yummm.

After 8 hours or so of not-so-good-looking Korean guys, we decided to do something more old-school, like playing the Game of Life. This Hasbro game, It never grows old.

As usual, I lost. I've kind of let such things slide, ever since Jack and I started to board-game with Gordon and Gerlynn. The victory thingy isn't as substantial or inviting as it was before we had met them. Losing has softened the angle I look at life from, partially because it has been etched into me the fact that you don't win most of the time, especially when you play a game with more than just yourself.

Remember those New Year Resolutions we wrote, sitting around in Fay's room on the last few minutes of 2006? I had the huge itch to take a glimpse of it yesterday. Haha. Now I know why people seldom set themselves down and write such stuff.

Holding out til tomorrow, until I see you again...

Pensieve

It's been a while since I posted something pensive here. And it all started to hit me just the week before, when relationships of people around me started falling apart. So what is in for everyone in the game of love? Is your final destination one of conquest and domination, or a win-win situation? What's your objective?


Having seen dozens of couples fall in and out of love, it dawned upon me that in order for a relationship to work out, it can't simply be a one-sided affair of give, give, give or take, take, take. Love isn't rocket science, I believe, it's all about how much effort you'd want to channel into maintaining it. And while everyone loves differently, it all works out as a directly proportional equation of equity between both parties; being a guy doesn't mean you have to switch to macho-protective-dominant mode, while being a lady doesn't give you the right to throw petty hissyfits and make your guy carry your bag for you. Oh, and don't be a Yes Man. You can't please even your very own individual demand, let alone those of your partner's. Don't try to be everything to them; let them seek out their own solutions before they get the chance to approach you. Overly-helpful partners will only encourage more reliance and parasitism from their partners, and end up dying from exhaustion and overworking.

Most important thing of all - Sympathy klls. So don't try to play nurse to someone's broken heart by offering yours, because it'll probably breed another pair of broken hearts soon. You're not a charity organisation for broken hearts; You're there to love someone who truly deserves you.


As for me, it's no doubt that, at this point of time, I'm pretty much indulged upon by someone who truly loves me and whom I feel the same way about as well. And we'll only be working equally hard to pursue the future we both see each other in, no matter how many brick walls we'll run up against.