K and I went to Singapore Art Museum two weeks back, and a few days prior to our visit, there was a fire drill in school which was rather pointless… Both events are distinct from each other; I just wanted to post the pictures.

Jason Mraz — Lucky
Do you hear me?
I’m talking to you
Across the water
Across the deep blue ocean
Under the open sky
Oh my, baby I’m trying
Boy I hear you in my dreams

Can’t remember the dream now, but the feelings that were stirred up in me linger.

I am sick of life as it is now. Doing things for the sake of doing, breathing but not living, passively observing the passing of time — that is not me. I need something more. I want to feel alive.

Dear G: I will miss you so so so so so ×99999 much.

✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈ · ✈

“Please let us not interfere with the other’s work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection, I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure all the confinements of even an attractive cage.”

Has anyone experienced reset connection errors when trying to visit Happier, or is it just me? It’s getting on my nerves.

Last week, K and I had dinner at Food For Thought for this month’s 20th. We had been to the branch behind the national library once before in April — also for the twentieth — and promised to drop by again. The place is unpretentious and modest, and very relaxed and warm. I can not, however, say the same of the new branch at 8Q SAM although I have yet to dine there. From outside, Food For Thought @ 8Q SAM appears more commercialised and chichi — aloof, even, but that is just my own observation, of course. I will confirm if what I think is true when there is a chance to. :) That aside, K and I loved Food For Thought @ North Bridge Road.

The first time we were there, I ordered pasta too and while it was good, it was not very filling. If, like me, you have a huge appetite, add more pasta for $2. I like that the pastas I had on both occasions tasted as though they were home-cooked. There is a familiar warmth in the food — not from the heat of cooking! — like as though the chef really put his heart into preparing the dish. The two pastas I tried were simple both in taste and presentation. There were no complicated flavours and unnecessary garnishing, and I was completely won over. Pastas, sandwiches and mains come with a romaine lettuce salad, which I relished although I do not usually enjoy salads.

K got the honey Hoisin baby back ribs last week, and bacon & sage-wrapped chicken leg when we went in April. The mains are as unassuming as the humble pastas, and also very delectable. Unlike other places that serve bacon dishes (such as Riciotti), the chicken leg was not too oily and left no greasy aftertaste. The ribs were tender and flavourful, and left K and I wanting more. Once again I must mention the salad, for the one that accompanies mains is slightly different from the kind served with pastas: the mains’ salad has grilled vegetables. The grilled tomatoes hit the spot. When we were there last week, K and I wolfed down our meal in fifteen minutes. We did like the food that much; I exaggerate not!

You know of my weakness for desserts, and K is sweet-toothed too. After dinner, we had a chocolate banana Maltesers cake as well as a sticky marshmallow brownie cup, which is chunks of brownies and marshmallows in a cup served hot, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Skip them both: Secret Recipe has a better chocolate banana cake and the sticky marshmallow brownie cup is not worth the extra calories. Instead, get the bread and butter pudding which sent K and I to heaven in April. (We promptly fell back to earth when we caught sight of our jiggling fats.) Bread and butter pudding is a very rich, creamy dessert, also served hot and with a scoop of ice cream. It is best shared; the creaminess could get rather overwhelming.

This post is making me really hungry… It is almost time for dinner and I have only had some wafer sticks the entire day. :( I wanted to whine about school and how much my life sucks, but I will stop here. Expect more posts when I am escaping from the troubles of school/life again! By the way, life suxxxx.

That was how I spent my birthday with K. :) Celebrations get more and more toned down each year, I feel — not that I mind — and there are less to look forward to every birthday. What are we celebrating, anyway, growing older (but not necessarily growing up)? I once could not wait to reach adulthood. Now that I am nearly two decades old, I feel a tad nervous. I used to be full of zest for the future, whatever awaits me, come what may! I believed my future to be brilliant and dazzling. I am not quite as certain these days… Someone inject some life in me, please. I want to burn bright.

Troubles aside, what do you think of red lipstick? I have two now and I love wearing them.

PS: Bakerzin’s Sweet Pleasure is divine.

I do not mind that my siblings and I live apart, but I wish I get to see them more often. They are a riot! And the baguette is a winner at Ma Maison. :)

School is crazy although the coming week is merely the third since school resumed, and for the first time, the odds of me not meeting my own expectations are incredibly high. I am afraid of not doing as well as I know I can. I have a studio class for advertising, which I am not keen on at all, and I wish I could do whatever I like. Gosh, this paragraph depresses me…

• nil satis nisi optimum •

I need to get out of my holiday mood and start being enthusiastic, but honestly, it is really hard to when I haven’t got any fun lecturers this year, and all that school reminds me of now is the freakin’ huge magazine project that determines my grades for this semester. Poo!

Okay, I have to stop sulking. :(

I’m starting to neglect this blog again… *skulks away*

For a more fantabulous year ahead, procrastinate less, do more; fear less, trust more; want less, give more; sulk less, love more.

18 was excellent. May 19 be even more magnificent. :)

Thank you for being part of my life, all of you, but especially K — without whom 18 would not have been magical. ♥

Ricciotti’s potato wedges were run-of-the-mill, and that I can forgive, because, honestly, how special or different can potato wedges be? We ordered the Al Crudo ($25.50) pizza and got a Pizzoto ($23.50) for free. The Al Crudo is Ricciotti’s version of Bel Mondo’s namesake pizza and pales in comparison. Why are the rocket leaves on Al Crudo so limp? Not even the parma ham could save Al Crudo. Besides, Bel Mondo’s parma ham tasted more flavoursome. The Pizzoto was akin to a grease-laden piece of baked dough thanks to the fatty bacon. Only true bacon lovers should have the Pizzoto; after a while, the porky flavour becomes very offensive.

I have to concede that my comments might be unfair, because two huge pizzas were too much for K and me. We overestimated our abilities to eat in large amounts and could not have more after two slices of each pizza. There was too much food and the taste of fat was overwhelming. If shared amongst a group of three to four, there should be no problems. While the pizzas are not actually inedible, they were far from spectacular, but the one-for-one pizza deal is really too good to resist. I would pick Ricciotti over Pizza Hut in a heartbeat, if that is any consolation. Take what I say with a pinch of salt and head down to Ricciotti with some companions to try the food for yourself!

Before I end this entry, let me slip in a remark K made about the soffiato ($8.90): “The ice cream is better than the cake.” We chatted for quite a bit to ease our bloatedness before we got one. I thought it might be Ricciotti’s saving grace, but if the chocolate does not flow out, I consider it a failed chocolate lava cake. Max Brenner’s chocolate soufflé costs around the same is way better.

Not letting go of the things that matter is how we should all live our lives,
even though the most important ones are the hardest to keep.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

K found that at Holland Village months ago. :) Click image to embiggen.

{via}

K got himself a manual-focus 50mm lens for $50 earlier this month. Getting things in focus is really tricky! The stiff focus ring is partly the reason why, but $50 was a steal.

I like my chocolate cakes dense and moist; K-ki’s was a little dry. I will go back to try other cakes, but The Little Dröm Store was perfect — I wanted to buy everything. There was a zine with absolutely delightful caricatures and they tickled me so! If you are in Chinatown, do drop by The Little Dröm Store at Ann Siang for the most precious bits and bobs, then have tea and cake at K-ki right after. :) They share the same shop space.

(Clearing my backlog of photos.)

If it is born in flames then we should let it burn
Burn as brightly as we can
And if it’s gotta end, then let it end in flames
Let it burn all the way down

Got a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 yesterday. The first three photographs were shot with the Sigma on my 50D and the last two were taken with the Tokina. Apart from making colour temperature adjustments, cropping and resizing, those five pictures were not digitally retouched. The lenses are sharp enough wide open in my opinion; I am no pixel-peeper and I always post-process. I did not get to play with the lenses much because my dad “borrowed” them for a while. I will only get the glasses back after the 20th! :( Chromatic aberration’s rather strong on both lenses, I noticed, but I have to spend more time with the glasses before I comment further. Can’t wait to shoot with them.

The food was definitely not mind-blowing save for Mud Ooze: a chocolate lava cake topped with vanilla ice cream. The chocolate was still bubbling when it was served! Chocolate lava cake is hard to fault… I think I can down two or three of that myself. :D Someday, with K, I will attempt and perfect a chocolate lava cake recipe, and have those heavenly desserts every other hour… Then die because I got morbidly obese. Food aside, let me point out my grossly round cheeks and awfully square jawline which makes my face look even fatter in the photo of G and me. I have to enlarge and make copies of the picture and distribute them to my favourite dining places. They shall serve as a very graphic reminder that I am indeed piling on the kilos. *stabs self*

All of us only had time for lunch that day and just one meal together after months of not seeing each other is far from enough. At the start of the year, we swore to get together every month but arrangements are difficult to make when work, school, family, etc. all demand time from us. I am distraught because G will be leaving for Edinburgh in September, and C for Australia next February. That leaves M and me. To say that I will miss C and G, and the four of us collectively, is a massive understatement. :( What is worse is that C will be there for three years, and G for six! Did I say I am distraught? :( :( :( :(

I don’t know what to do with my life or if I am on the right path.
I want so much more but how?

I am afraid I will never be as good as I am in my head.
I am but a grain of sand, a leaf in a forest, a droplet in the sea.
I am nobody. How can I be sure I will, someday, be somebody?

What scares me even more is that I have no answers at all.

Rey ordered the char-grilled pork set, and I got the chicken alternative. Both were palatable, but Rey’s was more flavourful, I believe, because of the luscious pork fat. Tommy had kimchi (yes, in a Japanese restaurant…) and gave his nod of approval. Unfortunately, I do not have the habit of noting down the names of dishes ordered and with my memory prowess equivalent to that of a goldfish, I can not remember what Yihui and Brian (they ordered the same thing) thought of their dinner.

I am a big fan of after-meal sweets and so I brought the guys to Big O Cafe & Restaurant (Wheelock Place #02-04/05) for cakes. Their cakes are very rich and rather heavy, so unless you are a chocoholic, I suggest sharing. One of my favourites is Bananaruma, a dense chocolate cake with banana slices. We had one of that, a cheesecake (tiramisu?) and a mud pie. I once had a mud pie from New York New York that was basically a huge amount of chocolate contained in a dessert pie shell (known as Mississippi mud pie), and mistakenly thought all mud pies were made that way. I was rather disappointed the first time I was served an ice cream mud pie.. Just so you know, Big O serves the ice cream variation.

I downloaded a WordPress plugin* to try a new way of presenting my “picspam” because I felt scrolling down a page to look at pictures was inefficient, and I wanted to display photographs at sizes larger than 510px. If you are viewing my blog straight from a browser instead of a RSS reader, you should see a group of thumbnails which will enlarge when clicked. I have no idea how this will look on a RSS reader though. Let me know if this solution is good!

* I’m now using Fancy Gallery instead of Lightbox Plus. Fancy Gallery does not preload images but looks better.

May 22: K’s birthday.

In short: we lunched at Bel Mondo (fantastic), strolled around Resorts World Sentosa to look-see (disappointing; Marina Bay Sands was more awe-inspiring), had dinner at Chili’s (another let down) before finishing with desserts at Max Brenner Chocolate Bar (marvellous!). :)

Tomato basil soup, if I remember right.

Ravioli: I forgot the exact name but it was yum x99!

Bel Mondo pizza (title dish?): parma ham (so so so good) + rocket leaves + cherry tomatoes + some cheeses I can’t recall = ★★★

This is hands down the best gelato in Singapore. I will blog about it another time!

We were pretending to be tourists.

I pressed the shutter when K and I were saying something, hence the facial expressions. :D

Chili’s cheese steak sandwich: not half as good as it looked/sounded on the menu.

Southern Smokehouse Bacon Big Mouth Burger: another fail — too dry.

I was caught mid-blink and looked rather silly, but I have M·A·C Cosmetics’ Brave Red on my lips, faded though it might be! It is actually an intense warm red. K bought me the lipstick before we went for desserts. :)

Max Brenner serves their frappé/smoothie/whatchamacallit in a very cute glass (?) tumbler with a metal straw. Kelvin and I shared a chocolate/banana frappé which was yummy but exorbitant. :(

Best best best best best!: Max Brenner’s chocolate soufflé. I have no idea why it is named as such because I always thought soufflé was served in ramekins, and the dessert was essentially a lava cake..

Just look at the chocolate oozing out and the delightfully gooey mess..! *dies*

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ✈

I still have more than ten folders of pictures sitting on my desktop. *winces* Help? :(

The next monthiversary is in 10 days, and I’ve yet to post pictures from the celebration of my 13th month with K, but here’s the fourteenth!

Inspired by Jim’s Pancakes, K wanted to make me a burger pancake. The day before, he told me we would have to get food colouring for the 20th and I could not guess why!

K would not divulge what he was making when he squeezed a blob of batter onto the pan and cooked it till it was burnt. I asked if he was making a pancake mole, poop or a nipple, but it turned out to be the centre of a sunflower. Hahaha!

A lot of the pancakes went to waste, though, because making them was infinitely more fun than eating them. We had only a packet of McDonald’s maple-flavoured syrup to share between us and very soon after, got sick of eating plain flour. Oh well! We have to prepare jams or spreads for next time. :)

We had dinner at The Soup Spoon, then headed to SLICE for dessert.

It was K’s birthday two days after our monthiversary, so we had more delicious food! ^o^ I will get around to processing the pictures someday, so check this blog in a week, or subscribe to my blog.

My mind is blank and words will not come out so I shall leave writing to another day when I am more inspired.

Huiwen posted this on Twitter but it was too long to retweet:

when you force yourself into a place you don’t fit into, you just make yourself miserable. so either stay miserable or do something about it

That aptly describes me in my work environment. I need to get out of that place.

Today is represented by the colour grey, but a shade so light it is nearly white. It is a gauzy haze, delicately veiling.. I am not quite sure how to continue that, but you get what I mean, I hope.

I feel like a feather with a weight attached. I want to slip away.

My mother turned 42 yesterday.

The birthday celebration was a simple dinner attended by my siblings and boyfriend. There was no cake. I did not make her a card either, although I used to.

I had not thought much about today’s events until I looked through the photos taken today.

My mother is, by comparison with other mums, rather young; she conceived me when she was in her early twenties. Still, lines have formed on her face, and her eyesight is deteriorating. I often speak of emigrating elsewhere and I have no second thoughts about that, but I am fearful of the day when my mum leaves me. I cannot imagine being without her.

I do wish I snapped at her less, and went to her assistance less reluctantly when she needed help, and put more effort into the things she told me to do. After all, she is the only mother I can/will ever have.

I love her so.

First, I need to clean the bedroom up. There are stacks of books, papers and school work etc. all over my desks and I do not know where to start. :( I have got another truckload of photos to post too. I am not looking forward to the post-processing! I want to show what I have been doing in school as well, and also, I really ought to start preparing my online portfolio. All that will keep me occupied for a while!

All that aside, I think it’s time for a haircut again. I just cut my hair I know, but I want it shorter. I am contemplating shaving my head, even! I will mull over going clean-shaven for a bit first, although I am a fairly impetuous by nature.. Last night I was all eager and raring to go but this morning I am less certain. If I still want to do it next weekend, I shall. Hair will grow afterall. :)

How is everyone!

I frequently grumble about how awfully slow my hair grows, but it isn’t as bad as I think it is actually. I got a haircut about a fortnight ago, and my hair is a little longer than in the picture now! :)

Fat face yes yes (although I do look a wee bit less fat in the picture than I am in real life); I have resigned to fate and I accept that my cheeks will always be round, and I don’t really care that short hair accentuates my round cheeks. I do wish that my hair grows long quick though. When I have long hair, I want it short and vice versa. I must stop wanting what I do not have!

(I uploaded 21 photos, posted 5, removed one then another.)

My maternal relatives are all in Malaysia and I celebrate Chinese New Year in a kampong. There, CNY always seems like a competition with the neighbours in the kampong to see who has the biggest fireworks show. It is illegal, definitely, but in the village nobody really cares. The heat is incredible. No matter how many showers I take every day, before I turn in at night I have to take a rinse. The nearest mall is around half an hour’s drive away, but Kuala Lumpur International Airport is pretty nearby. Life is so slow in the drowsy kampong, it drives me crazy. An idyllic lifestyle is not my cup of tea.

Ding Tai Fung for lunch with CGM on 30 Jan 2010, followed by ice cream (MaggieMoo’s @ 313 Somerset, B3), then dinner with the guys at Mykii and headed to The Daily Scoop for afters.

POST UPDATED with pictures of the rest of the day.
! Post incomplete !
This entry will be updated when I have time. :)

CNY was okay, but perhaps the long weekend shouldn’t have happened. I did get my “much-needed break” from school but I came back feeling lazier than ever. Meeehhh.

C can’t handle electronic gadgets.

Favourite!

This bowl of braised beef noodles doesn’t look super but it’s ace. (Y)

Pretty pretty. :)

After this, I went to meet the guys for dinner!

Hello Mr. Bear!

We waited pretty long for our food, and when it eventually came, my order was wrong. :( I had to wait for decades before I got my portobello mushrooms sandwich and I was really famished. The rest enjoyed their meal but mine was so-so. Mykii’s prices are rather reasonable though.

Stole two bites of the ice cream and they’re all pretty good, except Mr. Brown which tasted weeeird. :S

That’s all for 30 Jan!