Food & self control!

So what did i cook for my baby’s supper last night?

Yup it’s carbonara pasta - yummy! Not from scratch (which i have done for him before) but it’s the thought that counts. For this dish all i had to do was add water, milk and butter, let it boil then simmer for 7 minutes and tada!

Delicious carbonara pasta :)

Okay the color of the pasta in the pot and in the plate look different cos one picture i used the camera flash and one i didn’t. It’s not due to the boiling and simmering - just fyi.

Had too much sauce - as the final picture in the plate shows - cos i added a little too much water, milk and butter but baby says the creamy sauce was good still.

This easy-to-cook pasta brand is really great! It’s available from ntuc and i can’t remember the exact price but i know it doesn’t cost much.

I have tried out all their different types of pasta before, like a few years ago i think so i decided to get this for baby yesterday. Each packet contains 4 side servings, which is just nice for 1 proper meal serving for 1 person - unless you eat damn little of course.

On the other hand, for people like me (those with bottomless stomachs) then 1 packet will not be enough. I think i had 4 or 5 packets of the pasta for lunch one day (a few years ago) and i still wasn’t full so after that i ate plenty of junk food to fill myself up. Yeah my appetite and stomach space are really enormous! When i was in primary school, i could already eat 2 upsized mcdonald meals plus dessert plus bubble tea plus chocolate, snacks etc. and still not feel full after that :\

I think that’s why my parents keep saying that since i was born, it has cost them damn alot just to feed me haha.

Well it’s better to have a child who eats then one who doesn’t… right?

Anyway i don’t know if my room’s weighing machine is spoilt or the battery’s weak or something, but look what i weighed yesterday and this morning too!

Unbelievable right?!

My brother says the weighing machine’s accurate though, cos he weighs the same on his school’s weighing machine and on my weighing machine - so yay if it’s accurate! haha

Not that heavy for someone who doesn’t excercise at all, has an extremely sedimentary lifestyle and consumes so much junk food. But i think i’ll put on weight this weekend in genting, but hopefully not too much weight as my legs (especially my thighs) are already fat fat fat and can barely squeeze into all my jeans.

Lol. Me camwhoing away and look at my thighs! omg.

I’ve to wear jeans this weekend cos of the cold weather in genting so if my thighs get any fatter then i’ll be so uncomfortable in my jeans!

No no can’t let that happen, i wanna enjoy myself to the max over there with my family, uncle sassle and my dearest baby. Plus baby and i will most probably be visiting the theme park and fat thighs plus tight jeans make sitting on rides so uncomfortable.

So for my own enjoyment, i shouldn’t snack too much - self control!

Just lovely

My lovely (sarcasm here!) brother has decided to ditch his own family. He’s giving the genting trip this weekend a miss to be with his friends instead, doing gay stuff i expect.

Such an ass!

Honestly, i really wanted to spend some quality/family time over the weekend with my brother. During school days he gets home really late and when he is back home he hides out in his bedroom, glued to the computer screen as if the computer gives him health or he’ll die :\

And during the weekends, it’s the same thing - he’s either out with friends all day or glued to the computer or tv - so typical of the younger generation!

Anyway, uncle sassle will be taking my brother’s place for this trip cos now there’s a free space in the car for him plus the hotel rooms have already been booked - so no money is wasted. And also on the bright side, i won’t need to keep looking out and looking after my brother, checking if he’s hungry, if he’s been kidnapped or something etc. so i get to concentrate on spending good quality couple time with my baby! :)

Hmm i’m kinda tired now, just came back from toa payoh where i was running some errands for my mum who was not feeling well earlier. Heh i bought more junk food from ntuc but i sorta balanced it out by buying more fruits as well haha!

Next time i’ll take a trolley instead of a basket though, my arms are so damn tired now cos the basket was filled to the brim with junk food (and fruits). I didn’t expect the basket to be so heavy plus i didn’t expect to be ntuc shopping for long, since i was just supposed to get a small bottle of rice wine, frozen sharks fin and toilet rolls.

But whenever i’m in ntuc, i just can’t help buying junk food as well hehe. And by the time i checked out of the cashier, my arms were aching so bad that i took a cab home! Thank goodness it wasn’t peak hour yet, if not i’d be stuck in the horrible jam and the cab fare will be so high and so not worth it.

Exactly 6pm now so baby should be leaving the office soon and coming back home to me! He’s been having bread with nutella for his supper for the last 2 nights so today i bought something from ntuc for his supper tonight. It’s something simple to cook, nutritious and not so heaty like nutella and of course it’s extremely delicious and i’m positive he’ll enjoy it!

I’ll take pictures of the dish later tonight for the next post, that is if i remember to take pictures of it as i may be too eager to present him with the dish and totally forget to take pictures haha :)

I live to eat

Crap.

We’re not leaving bangkok on the night of 3rd august but in the morning instead! Cos there’s quite an unexpectedly high demand for the night flight… maybe loads of nus students like us rushing back for the start of term?

So now it’s just 4 days 4 nights in bangkok (5th day doesn’t count since we won’t be able to shop before our morning flight) instead of the planned 5 days 5 nights :(

Nevermind… focus on the positive stuff.

At least baby and i will still get to go to thailand together for our major shopping spree! Plus this weekend my family, baby and i will be going for a short getaway, going to kuala lumpur & genting. And my parents are thinking of staying an extra night in malaysia, till monday perhaps so the trip won’t be so short, at least 3 days.

Okay this is a little off topic but i have to type this down for memory’s sake. Two days ago i played a round of mahjong with my parents and uncle sassle while they were waiting for the 4th player to arrive - and i was the sole winner! Unbelievable! I guess my luck that day was pretty good. Heh i won $70 in total.

Anyway, i’ve been eating so much fast food, chocolate, potato chips, peanut butter biscuits, chocolate pound cake, cookies and loads of other junk food that i seriously think i need to detox cos i just know my digestive track is in desperate need of cleansing. I actually wanted to try avoiding (most) junk food for 5-7 days and just eat proper meals and more fruits but obviously that failed miserably.

I really just can’t control myself since i live to eat! haha

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Edit @ 5.25pm

Okay malaysia trip will not be extended as we aren’t able to book some club’s lodge in kuala lumpur. So it’ll just be a 2 days short getaway over the weekend. Leaving superduper early on saturday morning, way before the sun rises and we’ll be back on sunday night.

Also, i guess most probably i won’t be able to attend my jc classmate’s (youfei) 21st birthday party this sunday night at the orchid country club :(

I’d really be looking forward to it if i weren’t going to malaysia over the weekend as it’s been ages since i last met up with my jc classmates (youfei, julia, huimin, joey etc.) If i’m not wrong, the last time i saw all of them was when we met up for dinner at paragon, when sabrina was back from hongkong last october - 9 months ago!

Well, i hope all of them are doing great and i seriously hope we all meet up soon - not counting this sunday of course since i can’t attend! At least once next semester, as the following semester i’ll be in vancouver for sep so no chance of meeting up with them or anyone else for that matter.

Oh yes this friday is tengteng’s 23rd birthday so we (cherie, amenda, laura, jacelyn, germaine, baby etc.) will be meeting up for dinner this thursday to celebrate it.

I can’t wait! :)

I’m back!

From nowhere haha. Okay i was never gone, just lazy.

For the past 3 weeks or so, i’ve had numerous urges to blog. But whenever i’ve logged into wordpress, i fail to post anything as i would recall that once i start on a post, it will take me quite some time to finish it and so all of a sudden i wouldn’t feel like blogging anymore. Then i’ll log out of wordpress and proceed to surf the net - my daily past-time.

But after err… 25 days since the last post, i think a new post is way overdue. Thus, i’m here right now typing this out. As a blog reader myself, i know how it can get pretty tiresome sometimes when you visit a blog for the upteenth time, only to find out that the blogger has yet to update his/her blog after such a long time. So here’s my update!

Well regarding my sep progress, it’s coming along just fine - so far. I’ve been officially accepted as an exchange student by ubc and have a place in their faculty of applied science. I’m still awaiting the results of my housing application and course selection application. Housing application should turn out fine since as long as i’ve applied before the deadline, as an exchange student i’m guaranteed campus accomodation and even if i’m not offered my first choice, it won’t matter much. But i’m rather apprehensive about the course selection application since exchange students are restricted from so many ubc course modules. So i just hope for the best and pray i get registered for at least 5 courses then i won’t have to remap and reapply. It’s such tedious work!

Anyway in june, my brother’s choir mistress suggested that they enter this acapella competition for the fun and experience of it, so my brother and 6 of his barker friends formed a group and submitted their recording after just 2 weeks of rehearsing. You know, none of them had any experience singing acapella before. So rather amazingly, around 2 weeks back my brother and gang were in the finals of the competition held at republic polytechnic (so blardee far lah).

Maybe there were insufficient groups that entered the competition? Or the judges decided to just let all groups enter the finals? heh.

Baby and i went down to support him and once again, i witnessed one aspect in which my brother and i differ greatly. He experiences no stage fright at all whatsoever or maybe he hides it well, but nonetheless he was really confident on stage. I remember the very first time i saw him on stage when he was in kindergarten (just 5 or 6 years old!) and he was the emcee for a concert - really a natural!

I recorded his group’s performance on my cam and here are a couple of pictures taken:

Kinda blur as i didn’t focus my cam properly and the entire group was swaying or side-stepping or something to the music. But it’s obvious which one my brother is haha. He was the soloist for both songs performed by the group, that accounts for him being out of the straight line.

Unsurprisingly they only got a consolation prize, there were quite a few experienced acapella groups competing - even one from the acapella society! - and my brother’s group had only had 2-3 weeks of practice, most of which was taken up by arranging the songs and scores. But i know they had lots of fun, had a new experience, made new friends from the different schools etc. and that’s what their choir mistress was aiming for.

Last tuesday was our 17th monthniversary. No celebration or anything but baby bought back bubble tea for me and a rose :)

Heh baby placed the rose in a milo cup! Oh well green and red do go quite nicely together, don’t you think so?

And the rose 8 days later! (Baby threw it away already)

Last friday we went down to keppel club for dinner and their monthly tombola once again, my godmother, uncle nicky and uncle sassle joined us (my dad was busy) but this time we weren’t as lucky as the previous. We still enjoyed ourselves though.

Then the next day my parents, uncle sassle, baby and i went back down to keppel club in the morning for golf, a short swim and billiards. My brother stayed home and of course - played computer games!

I didn’t bring my cam out, these pictures below were all taken with my handphone cam of 2.0 mp so that accounts for them being blurry.

Baby, daddy and uncle sassle (in that order):

I wasn’t wearing gloves so after just a couple of swings, the skin on both thumbs became so red and sore that i couldn’t continue so i recorded a couple of swings baby made and took pictures of the 3 guys swinging away.

After 120 balls, daddy, baby and i went for a short swim and i do mean short. I always knew i was extremely unfit, having not excercised at all for the past 5 years but i didn’t realise i was that unfit! After just 1 lap i was all ready to give up and just laze around in the pool but i’m so proud of myself cos i pressed on and swam a grand total of 5 laps! haha.

Then we headed to the jacuzzi to relax for awhile and the water was so hot! But i loved it :)

Anyway the pool there is really perfect as there’s hardly anyone there, the jacuzzi rocks, towels are provided and it’s free for members. Oh yeah their toilets are great as well! There’s cold, warm and hot water, soap and shampoo, hair dryers, cotton buds, lotion, soothing gel, perfume, combs etc. all provided for in their toilets.

I had the entire toilet to myself, and their mirrors are the kind that makes you look alot slimmer! So of course i did a natural thing - camwhore! haha

I didn’t bring hair conditioner so after bathing i had a helluver tough time combing my hair! I think i took about 20 minutes untangling the ends.

After that we went for lunch at the tee top, then we wanted to bowl but keppel club was hosting some youth bowling competition for different clubs so we played billiards instead. We had the entire room to ourselves so it was uncle sassle vs my dad and baby vs me, while my mum went to one of the club’s huge toilets for their massage chairs lol.

I must say it’s really a challange playing billiards cos the table’s so darn huge and i’m so short! But we had loads of fun still :) Then at 4plus we headed home as there was a mahjong game at 5pm.

Hmm what else… Oh yes, my dad got my mum a new phone - htc touch diamond! It’s really sleek but so wasted in my mum’s hands cos she only uses a phone’s basic functions - calls and sms - that’s all. So all the other functions in the htc touch diamond will never be touched - well maybe accidentally touched since it’s a touch phone haha - okay not funny.

As usual baby and i have watched alot more movies like “wall-e”, “get smart” etc. and others that i can’t recall at the moment. Oh we actually rewatched “kungfu panda” and still it was just as hilarious! Seriously that show’s really great.

Regarding travelling plans, my parents are planning a short family trip to genting over the next weekend. Baby’s coming along as well and i’m really so excited! Not about genting, since i’ve been there countless of times, but i’m super duper excited cos it’ll be the first overseas trip together for baby and i. I thought our thailand trip would be our first but nope it’ll be our second.

Anyway this short genting getaway trip was really rather impromptu cos my parents never talked about travelling anywhere this holiday. My mum, baby and i were just talking about cold weather/winter since baby and i will be going for sep during the winter season. Then my mum mentioned genting’s weather cos her friend just came back from there. And she said she missed the cool weather there, then suddenly genting here we come! haha.

For our thailand trip, flight tickets have been booked and we’ll be flying off early morning of 30th july 2008 and flying back really really really late at night of 3rd august 2008 so it’s kinda like a 5 days 5 nights trip actually since our flight back will only touch down in the early morning of 4th august 2008. 

We’ve not booked our hotel room yet. Baby and i were considering either bangkok city inn, sam ran place or grand watergate hotel since all 3 hotels are in okay locations and their rates are pretty reasonable (all less than $50 per night). Most probably we’ll be booking a room at the grand watergate hotel, since a group of friends from school will be staying there during their trip which overlaps with ours (they arrive and leave 1 day after we do) so it’ll be safer plus over the 4 days that we’re all there, we can easily travel to and from the hotel together and split the cost.

Oh boy! So many things to look forward to! Once i reach thailand i’ll be able to shop shop shop - something i’ve been avoiding for too long as i need to save up loads to fund my thailand major shopping trip.

Ehh regarding my working life, it’s still non-existent! haha yep i’m still slacking away as usual since the exams ended more than 2 months ago. No big surprise there actually.

Slacking at home and not earning any money is bad enough, what’s worse is that i keep stuffing my face! I’ve lots of (junk) food at home so i keep eating and eating and eating throughout the day… and my wonderful parents keep replenishing and stocking up more and more and more food. They visit ntuc nearly every week and buy $200 - $300 worth of soft drinks and foodstuff so guess where all those go - into my stomach, then stored as lovely bodyfat!

I’d better reduce my snackings before i can’t fit into all my clothes anymore.

Some self-control please!

Not so brief update

I know i know, 20 days since i last posted anything!

There were quite a few times when i logged in to wordpress and started to draft a post but i kept deleting the drafts halfway through cos on second thoughts i felt that i should not post them, at least not without mincing most of what i typed because to be honest i’m quite afraid of posting too-offending articles online where anybody in the world can read and i’m unashamed to admit that i’m afraid.

And if i minced my words then there wouldn’t be any point of posting the article since it wouldn’t be my true and honest opinion on the controversial matters or topics that i write about.

That got me thinking if i should start making all my posts private and just give the password to friends who ask for it so i’d know only my friends will be reading the posts. But then again, being the paranoid me, i thought, what if one day wordpress screws up and all private posts become public without any password set on them? What if someone manages to guess my password somehow and gains access to all my posts?

See, told you i am paranoid.

Well, perhaps one day i’ll be brave enough or totally indifferent to what others think then i’ll post articles that truly reflect what i think and how i feel about certain controversial matters, that may seriously offend and anger people.

Maybe for now i should consider getting a personal and private diary where i can safely record anything i want to without any fear.

But then what if someone finds my diary and reads the entries?

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Alright anyway it’s been exactly 6 weeks since my last exam paper in the previous semester.

So it means that i’ve been having my school holidays for exactly one and a half months now and being jobless (still) i’ve been slacking away while many others i know, including my baby, have been working and still are.

Not that i can’t find a job, i’ve had more than 10 job offers in the last couple of weeks but rejected them all for various reasons - mostly due to the low hourly paying rate and/or long term commitment needed which i can’t commit to due to school starting in less than 2 months’ time.

Anyway last week, being jobless was actually kind of a blessing as i urgently needed to go down to nus to collect my ubc course selection form from the building dept during office hours as my form was already overdue at the ubc office by 2 days then! And so jobless me could go down during office hours to collect it, without having to rush there and back to the office in a cab during lunch time if i had a job.

I seriously hope that out of the 15 modules i listed, i’ll be registered for 5 then i wouldn’t need to relook at their course listings again and remap my modules. It’s really tiresome!

Also, tram - my ubc partner - just called me up from usa and said she heard that once ubc accepts our applications, ubc’s office will soon send our acceptance packages to nus and nus will email us to go down to school to collect it - definitely during office hours - so another good excuse reason to remain jobless.

Though of course if i’m offered a job with a reasonable hourly pay rate, that’s not at a too inconvenient location (not that fussy right?) i would take the job without any hesitation.

Then i’ll get my dad to collect the ubc acceptance package for me since i’d have a good excuse not to personally collect it, plus my dad works in the west so it’ll not be that out of the way for him.

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Okay so what have i been doing for the last few weeks?

Met up with friends on several occasions like the faculty’s dinner and dance and lilin’s 21st birthday party, spent time with my family and of course with my dearest.

Baby and i at the dinner and dance:

The uni people at lilin’s 21st birthday party:

Also - unsurprisingly of course - we’ve watched quite a number of films like “the other boleyn girl”, “sex and the city” ,”forgetting sarah marshall”, “the incredible hulk”, “the happening”, “you don’t mess with the zohan”, “kung fu panda”, “my tutor friend 2″ and “21″. 

There may have been a couple more shows that baby and i watched but i can’t recall all of them now.

All were pretty entertaining, though you could give “the happening” a miss cos personally i’d rather re-watch “the sixth sense” for the upteenth time as it is way better than the former.

Quite unfortunate really as i think the general storyline/plot in “the happening” has the makings of a great film - with an edited script, slightly different directing and change of cast (ahem! zooey deschanel).

If you need some laughter in your life or just a few stressfree hours, then watch “kung fu panda” and/or “you don’t mess with the zohan” - i loved both films!

Of course movie critics and too-serious-no-fun people will say that their storylines are so predictable, so cliche and whatnots. However if for just once, you try not to focus on what’s gonna happen next and stop guessing what’s in the next scene (cos that’s what you should only do in thriller/mystery/horror movies, if at all) but just enjoy each scene as it comes, then you’ll really appreciate both movies that made me laugh out loud.

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Anyway on saturday, just like half of singapore’s population (seems like it) baby and i went down to the pc show at suntec city to check out the laptop deals and promos - not bad i must say.

We met fei fei and her bf, yong cheng, there as well, they were there to check out the cameras. And speaking (or rather typing) of yong cheng, it reminds me that baby and i have to shop for his present as his 21st birthday party’s this sunday. We haven’t a clue what to get him though, so i think before we shop we’ll have to ask fei fei what sort of stuff does he like or need.

And speaking of 21st birthdays, this wednesday there’s another we’ll have to attend - baby’s cousin’s (yanling) 21st birthday party - at dempsey road i think.

Well the next day - yesterday - was fathers’ day. So to all fathers and fathers-to-be, i wish you belated happy fathers’ day!

My family had our fathers’ day dinner at “kuriya dining” located at great world city which serves fine japanese cuisine and the food’s pretty alright. Though if you’re a big eater with not a big budget then don’t visit the place on weekends during dinner time and expect to be full at all when you leave that place cos the portions are rather small but come at a rather steep price.

There were 2 dinner sets available - $56+++ and $65+++. And the price of just 2 pieces of sushi that costs around $1.90+++ at other japanese restaurants, range from $8+++ to $28+++ there so imagine what their handrolls and sashimi cost!

Anyway my brother and i ordered the same main dish - this rice dish that’s served with salmon (cooked) and cheese as it’s picture in the menu looked really good and the portion seemed to be around the same size as a normal salmon-don rice dish from normal japanese restaurants but alas, the bowl my rice dish was served in was about the size of the miso soup bowl!

The portion was about maybe two-thirds or less than a normal portion of steamed rice served at chinese restaurants. Fortunately i enjoyed the dish though it’s not extremely delicious and it did remind me of ordinary baked rice from swensens and pizza hut.

My mum had one of the dinner sets and she (quite a fussy pot) said it was nice so i guess to me it’d be really delicious haha.

The other dishes we tried were alright i guess, not terrible but not really that great either - or maybe we just didn’t know how to appreciate them?

There was one really delicious dish though, this side dish my brother and i shared, not sure of the exact name but it’s sliced beef with some kinda unique sauce and it was really one of the best beef i’ve ever had! If and when i ever go back there again, i’d definitely order that beef dish.

Okay i shouldn’t talk about food anymore cos it’s making me feel greedier than ever and i’ve been snacking so much since err… to be honest since february! 4-5 months of snacking as if i excercise daily and need all those extra calories when i don’t at all, haven’t excercised since secondary school which was 5 years ago - such a pig.

Oh yes i forgot to mention! My parents, baby and i went to keppel club on 6th june 2008 for their monthly tombola! It was really fun and every round there’s a chance to win up to $6000. We’ll be going again next month - i can’t wait!

My brother didn’t go as those under 18 years of age aren’t allowed to play so he just stayed home and played computer games as usual.

Anyway today’s my brother’s first day at obs and he won’t be back till friday.

I seriously wonder if he’ll survive the 5 days.