The first day of Chinese New Year.

And other than the visiting I did, the dog ate the sun. You're bullshitting, you say. Well, maybe because it's the year of the bull cow ox. So I bullshit instead of, uh, lionshit.

Anyway.

My family and I set off in the late morning (it used to be early morning but I became lazy) to the temple first, then to three other locations for visiting.

Dad wore a checkered shirt that I bought online by mistake and matched it with incompatible suspenders.


Mum wore a purple blouse with black slacks.


Bro wore a brown tee and pants.


I wore a dress that made my brother go 'WAAAAAAAAAA WHY SO RED' when it was in fact burgundy. I like my dress.


First stop was to visit a temple at around the Tampines Link area.

Anyway, RC informed me of some solar eclipse that was gonna happen. But it was very cloudy I worried that the sun would have no one to ask for help from when the heavenly dog started to munch on it.

Gloomy.

And then we headed on to my maternal uncle's place where my sister's family met us there too.


Put a straw hat on my dad and I'll be convinced he's a farmer, not a taxi-driver. Haha.

Distracted by the teevee

A closer look at how my dad's suspenders look like

I have no idea where they came from.

Eating chocolate

Chasing after a dog

This is how life is like when you have a little kid at home. Life seems to revolve just around him.

After a couple of hours we headed to my paternal 2nd aunt's place, then to my paternal 1st aunt's place. =\ No photos were taken there, but I visited Felix as usual, this is what I do every year.


There were some tuba scores at Felix's, and I found this score. The song Fever, I'm sure many of you heard it before.


How on earth do you play a piece smoochy-ly??

And because of the eclipse, my dad brought an extra equipment out - DIY eclipseculars. I made that word up.


Failed attempt =S The lens reflected myself instead. And the sun was...kinda moony. However at that time it was a little covered by the moon already.

Anyway, here's how the very old eclipseculars look like.

I don't know if you all will find this box familiar, because this margarine is so long ago.


My dad got the piece of glass a la lens from a hardware shop that closed down long ago.


In other for it to be more user-friendly...

...my dad slit the box so that your forehead can fit snugly to the box...

...and this is where you place your nose. Cool eh.

Dad made this in 1995. When I was in Primary 2.

And for some reason we kept this antique with us for the past nearly 14 years.

Still, thanks to it I manage to get good views of the solar eclipse.



And then it got REALLY cloudy.




Then I got bored so I stopped.

Dad added an extra detail to the box.

Same ol' handwriting.

Heh.

Hope you all are having a great CNY!

Turn of the year in the lunar calendar

Happy Moo Year!

Thanks to the melamine scare in China, I have no 大白兔奶糖 this year.

Big find.

I was in the midst of room-cleaning when I found treasure. Right smack in my room.


This was the bag I ran away from home with many years ago =P I think I mentioned about the event before somewhere in this blog.

But I didn't go further than the lift lobby that time.

All the way to Obama

=\

真希望可以马上把缺点改掉。

Year 3 Semester 2

Today is the first day of school.

Today is also my free day.

The above statements imply that I haven't stepped into school.

Which means that I am still in holiday mood.

Darn. School's at 8 a.m. tomorrow. How disgusting is that.

Extreme Makeover Part 1

Of course I'm NOT the one going through a makeover. I don't need one, do I?

HAHA

Anyway, I'm talking about my block. It's undergoing a repainting job.

Now it's (faded) light pink/pink/white, and it has been this way for like, nearly 15 years.

You can see that the left section has been painted white

Nooooooo. They wrote that below my neighbour's window. Must be cracks or something.

I wonder how my block will look like when they're done painting.

The White House?


The Cinderella Castle?


...

OK la, I ought to stop dreaming. Enough!

1000th post!

And this 1000th post is about junk food. HAHA.

That is the fried zucchini from Carl's Jr. Very nice! I'd rather not eat any kind of junk food for a week to reserve my calories for them. Haha. I don't know how to tell you, but it's really quite nice. $3.70 for a serving.

I'm finally back to Carl's Jr. after so many years =P But just for the fried zucchini!

Bread-a-baking

My first go at baking! Bread. Wholewheat oat bread. My favourite kind of bread =D Got the recipe from Martha Stewart, but due to limitations I didn't follow totally.

I was kinda worried because I am not experienced at all, and with a cranky oven, it could fail easily. And there weren't anyone at home who baked bread before! The closest was mum who made char siew bao in her younger days. I've never seen her bake one, so you know how long ago it was.

Used oats, wholemeal flour, bread flour etc. and of course yeast to get the dough you see below. I was supposed to let it rise for 1 to 1.25 hours.

1429hrs - It was smaller a little while ago, I was cleaning up the area before I washed my hands to take these pictures. When I first covered it in cling wrap the dough was in contact with the plastic

1448hrs

1508hrs - The rising slowed down

1520hrs

1534hrs - Like no difference hor? Haha.

It was kinda scary because I could hear some 'activity' going on in there, the active yeast doing its job. Somehow like bubbles popping away. It was as though the dough itself was alive! Creepy.

Then a little kneading and pinching and pushing later, it became a ball and rested peacefully on the baking tray. And then there was another 45 minutes to rise. Rise what? Hasn't it risen enough already?! (coming from an impatient person haha)

45 minutes later
It looked like it was flatter instead of fatter lo =S die die die. Haha

Then I scored the top with a big X.


Pardon the ugly hole in the middle =( Haha I didn't do the shaping part well enough.

Then you sprinkle the top with oats...


And into the oven it goes!



Ta-daa!

The colour is so nice =D

Not as hole-y as bread should be

And in the end. The crust was damn hard (but sis found it nice) and the inside was a little too moist. And not hole-y.

I'll try again!! But baking bread is time-consuming. The never ending wait for the yeast to complete its work. I said I will try again because I can't just leave the ingredients there right. HAHA. And the next time I better lower the temperature a bit, I think my oven is a little too hot. Anyone has an oven thermometer that I can borrow for a little while?

~~~~~

Oh remember the apple tart I baked for Christmas? I forgot to post this. Had it with vanilla ice cream!!! Oooh la la. Heh.


It was super nice with the ice-cream too.

And whatever I am/was wishing for has got to do with this heh heh heh =P

I learnt (from Facebook and an uber busybody friend haha) that a couple from secondary school is going to get hitched this March. The guy's my age, the girl is two years older.

My oh my. This is scary. I can't imagine myself at the point of marriage yet.

But still, congratulations to the both of them!

Tsk. Tsk tsk tsk.

I was somehow more relaxed about bidding for modules this semester compared to the past since it's my last.

So no matter how expensive my modules are, I should still be able to afford it I guess. With all the points accumulated from the past five semesters.

And I looked forward to splurging on my modules.

In Round 1A on 2 - 5 Jan I had three core modules to bid for. I placed 291 points on each of them and didn't really bother anymore.

In Round 2C which took place today I had an elective to bid for. I placed 999 points.

And then.


Bloody hell, I only spent 4 bid points for this semester.

Tangerines and technology

I was surfing around facebook when I saw this advertisement.



Splendid! Now you can buy mandarin oranges online!

I find it a little amusing because mandarin oranges for sale isn't an online advertisement you'd see everyday. It's not like clothes or tuition or books but fruits.

To add on to that, via Facebook.

Of free gifts and luck.

Mum got a lo hei plate from Shop N Save this morning, after spending over $30.

She came back and complained that the cashier didn't give her that plate until she asked for it. And then she went on about the cashier being greedy and wanted to keep the plates for herself etc. Aiya. This is human.

So here's the plate.


And as you can see, along the circumference of the plate there are pictures of the Chinese zodiac and telling you how your fortune will be like this year.

I was born in the year of the rabbit (or hare), this is what mine said:


So if the good luck never comes I won't be able to reveal my hidden talents lo.

In the kitchen

And I cooked again!

Was so excited to cook (haha) and I made 葱油饼 (loosely translated as spring onion 'biscuit') and onion rings.

Onion rings!!! I used Martha Stewart's recipe - The Best Onion Rings (and it was really the best!). It's just that I don't have cayenne pepper and cumin so I replaced everything with paprika and it turned out great! The batter was a bit watery though, so mum added more flour into it. It's just that I didn't expect so much onion rings =S So there are a lot of leftovers. Ask me for the recipe if you're interested okays. It's really good!


And then the 葱油饼. Disastrous. Everything turned out to be alright, except for the 葱油饼 itself. It tasted very salty and tough. Eeks. I'm never gonna make it again. Haha!


But it looks okay. Still edible la, just that I didn't like it. And the spring onion smell was overpowering.

This was the 葱油饼 I ate in Irvine which was good.


I think I'll stick to eating that at a restaurant.

A bird's visit

Just last week a bird visited my room and scared the wits out of me.



The red line is the bird's route. I was using my laptop on the floor beside the table when I heard a loud thud at the window grille. I looked up and oh my it's a bird. Before I can do anything to shoo it away, it flew all the way into the other side of my room and landed on my lions. Damn it. And I was so scared! When it flapped its wings it was super loud. Unlike those mynahs/sparrows, it's bigger!!! I have no idea what breed it is though.

Then it flew to the floor mirror behind the door. That's when you see the red line getting all over the place. It was flying all over and scaring me whenever I hear the flapping.

Somehow or the other I managed to wake my mum up, and blah blah blah, we both got stranded in my bed because the bird was flapping around. It was damn funny because my mum and I were pushing each other haha!

I managed to get myself out of the room, mum closed the door, and I bunked in my brother's room (who was working night shift that night). It flew away by daybreak.

Since the bird landed on my lions, I had to change my sheets and detoxify (haha!) my lions. When I put them on my table to get in the sun after cleaning, I saw a feather on the table! Argh~!


What if there's bird flu?! Yikes!

Studio Ghibli Concert 2008

This happened last August.

Though I was watching it only from youtube, I couldn't help but tear a bit.

How I wish I was at the concert! It featured the many classics of Studio Ghibli, if it's not familiar to you, then think My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and of course Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

What wonderful music!!

Watch it here! 9 parts in all.

Reluctantly..

我认命了。

It's more of, I'm over it.

But still kinda harping on it.

A four-day week it is!

做人凡事都要看得开!

I hate CORS to the CORE!

Arghhhhhhhhhh!

>=(

I hate you I hate you I hate you.

*kicks around like a haughty princess*

I hate youuuuuu!!!!!!!!

T_T

T_T

Why won't CORS get a life and let me take the module I want!

Argh.

It's this time of the year again. =(

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Okay la, I'm not THAT happy. Just..erm. Doing what everyone else is doing.

I only slept about...1.5 hours from noon yesterday till now. Thanks to my first attempt at counting down in the outdoors. And then my day was packed until the afternoon.

Anyway, time for resolutions!!!

Erm. Erm. Erm...

New Year's resolutions can be bad for you.

Okay so no resolutions this year! =D

The itsy-bitsy spider...

This piece of news is seriously funny.

Dear CORS,

This is my last semester in NUS.

Never mind that you've never been nice to me the past five semesters, giving me problems in choosing the modules I want to take, the biggest of which is clash in timings.

Why can't you be nicer to me?

This is already my very last semester and it is obvious you don't want to make things easy for me at all.

Why do you want to do this to me? I did you no wrong, I've always been faithful to you!

Argh!

You've saddened me so. Sob.

Hurt,
Erina

I want to be sarcastic but too bad sarcasm doesn't work on everyone and anyone.

Happiness doesn't last, does it?

I just blogged about myself becoming happier and now I don't feel that way anymore.

=(

Life is playing tricks on me, maybe.

Before you say I only blog about sad stuff...

...I just got a little happier! =D

A la MacBook

I think the photo booth function from Apple has been a bit too popular that other brands of laptops put the function in too. That include my laptop -_-

And of course I played with it. Hoho.

Sorry for the bad lighting.

Or it's just that I'm dark.

Test shot.


And then I can add some decorative stuff to the photo. Like a ladybird...


..some kisses *shy*...


...UFO...


...or just frame it up!


I was trying to do some Mona Lisa look but apparently it looked more Mr. Bean.

And I didn't notice I was sitting like PCK -_-

Oh well.

平安夜的晚餐

Growing up in a very very very Chinese family, I've never had any kind of Christmas dinner at home. Not that I ever yearned for one, but it is quite fun if we can have one. So...

I donned the apron!

Well it would be too ambitious for an amateur cook to prepare a turkey, so I decided that I should avoid any kind of bird altogether. Fish is the solution, since it is simple and fast to cook. And there was dessert!

Mum (and later Bro) helped me in the kitchen, but this time I was doing the main stuff instead of my mum. She helped me take out the gigantic Corningware plates and made everything looked so small! Hahaha so pardon the presentation:

The fish wasn't thaaaat small, it was the plate that was big
At top left is the coleslaw, top right is the mashed potato

I apologise if you are looking for something presentable, I was too busy to bother about that! Haha.

The fish was bought frozen from the supermarket at $3.99 for two packs, four pieces each. It said 'Sutchi fillet' or something like that, it wasn't dory.

After some googling I learnt that sutchi is actually a kind of catfish which you see below. The sound of catfish makes me sick in some way or the other, but well, I've eaten it all in.

Striped catfish but I don't see the stripes

The fish was marinated with Worcestershire sauce, paprika (I should've used chilli powder), garlic, freshly grounded pepper and Italian herbs then pan-fried. And then eaten with malt vinegar. Yummy. The fish turned out not bad! Before I knew that it was catfish, that is.

That's coleslaw on the side, nothing much, just shredded carrots and finely-cut lettuce and dressing.

Then there was mashed potato and broccoli, which I think worked out pretty fine. Okay, in fact I think it's good. HAHA. I didn't do much, all I did was to follow the recipe and Bro helped me mash. I was busy with dessert.

DESSERT!! What is a Christmas dinner without dessert?! So I made (for the very first time) an apple tart. It turned out pretty well! Yeay!

Apple tart!
(note my Bro's clean plate in the background! YEAY!)

Haha if you're gonna ask me why there's a + on top of the tart. It's because I don't have enough leftover dough to make a nice lattice =P Aiya, never mind la, not as if I open a restaurant. Haha.


But there's too much crust and too little apple =\ Not that I mind, but I certainly won't like this kind of thing if I buy any pie or tart from outside.


成功！

And so that was the product of five hours of buying and cooking. And quite some money. Because I bought quite a few new condiments that didn't exist in my kitchen (like malt vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, etc.).

Not so Christmasy after all eh? With no turkey no stuffing no log cake. Aiya, who cares!

Maybe I'll cook up a New Year's dinner. Time to hunt for some new recipes =D

Phew

What a relief.

I wish..I wish...

... ...

To be revealed after Christmas.

Just in case you all say I'm hinting ma. But I've been quite a bitch so I doubt Santa will put me in his list this year. Not that he ever, but still.

Grumpy

It pisses me off that the wind symphony isn't part of the university arts festival just because of the way things are done and decided.

There is just no incentive for me to bother about doing a better job simply because obviously performance isn't a criterion.

If this is how they determine a festival of good quality then so be it!

DAMNIT!

Totally retarded timetable next semester.

On top of that, I can't take the Southeast Asian module I wanna take because of a bloody core module!!!!!

ARGHHHH!

马票也没那么准！

*粗话连篇*

气死我了。



Edit: I was pissed off with the entire thing and found a simple game (freerice.com) to play to take away the angst. And look at what the third question asked.



Of course I know what it is! It's been going through my head the past fifteen minutes!

A little late...

That's why there are things called 'updates'!

So here is an update of the barbecue for Mr. Leonard Tan at

Hazel Park Condominium
A Certain Ulu Corner
Upper Bukit Timah Road
Singapore, Singapore

on 14 December which took me an agonising 2 hours to get there by 291 and 67. Two bloody hours! Next time I better go there by bus-train-bus.

No no, no, no more next time. Hahaha.

Anyway, here are some photos I'd like to share.




The last photo is the ENTIRE lower brass section. Seriously.

GO AWAY!

I wish that everything about you would go away.

The new skin

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, some of you might wonder where this splendid blog layout which is much prettier than the skin on my face came from.

But before that, looking at my most-recent long post, I completed NOTHING in the agenda. If this is some exco meeting, I'd be done for.

Anyway, before I digress, I got the background from here:


It is actually the inside cover of a certain cookbook I talked about in a few posts back. I just have to keep something from the book, don't I? Hahaha. I scanned it in and extracted the design. Hosted it in Photobucket, then set it on repeat in the blog's HTML template. Voila.

Next, the blog body and sidebars. I'm not some HTML queen (obviously, duh) though I had a little bit of HTML education in Primary Six. Sad to say, the lack of facilities thereafter in secondary school failed me. Thus I can hardly remember much. Thank the guy up there for granting me some commonsense, I cleared these


corners that I didn't want out of the Rounders template, available by default on Blogger. This is how it'd look like.


So now you see all the body and bars are sharp-edged, not rounded. And I can play with colours to make them complement my background. =D It's all in Blogger. Not too bad at all!

The photo you see on top, taken by my trusty Zhao Xiangji and edited into a Polaroid by dear Joan, is on standalone. How did I do that?

The guy up there knows what I cleared! HAHA. The next time I clicked preview, the top box was gone and the photo was there by itself, pretty and nice. A little alignment did the trick, to put it in the centre. This is what they call tyco.

Time for bed, it is getting early. Good night!

Done

Yeay, new look. How refreshing.

Notice

THIS BLOG IS CURRENTLY UNDER...ERM....MAINTENANCE!

SO PLEASE VISIT AGAIN IN A COUPLE OF HOURS.