It's Neu Year's Eve!

well, i just know 2010 is going to be a good year! just know it! it's going to be an AMAZING YEAR. there's just this tingling in my spine when i think of the year 2010...GOOD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!

when i was younger i loved those new exercise books we got in the beginning of the year. ah, this year, THIS YEAR, my exercise books would not deteriorate into 咸菜. THIS YEAR, i would have A stars all over it. the first page would always have beautifully neat handwriting, the date would be written, the work would be impeccable...

ah well, you know the story...

BUT THIS YEAR, it's gonna be DIFFERENT!! cos i feel it in my bones, i feel it in my too-short hair: IT'S GONNA BE A YEAR OF CHANGE. Good change or bad, it's going to BE UP TO ME (and up to God, but I bet He gives me some leeway, and anyway, Him being in charge of my life, i bet if I do my best He'll do the rest.

soooo, I know I'm not very smart, I know I suck at a gazillion things, but 2010, it's going to be THE BEST OF MY 23 years. ever. cos 2010 is officially THE YEAR I DO MY BESTEST IN EVERYTHING I DO. with my heart and my soul and my strength and my sweat and my tears and so on and so forth. aye. do you feel the tingly's too?

and it's going to be a FANTASTIC YEAR, because eejia is back! (man, i really missed her leh) (i think i get through design because she pushes me, would probably die without her feedback, it somehow makes me feel better) (thank God for msn).

it's also going to be a FABULOUS YEAR, because i'm so not taking Jap anymore (yays, no more memorizing vocabulary every night, tutorials at weird hours, teachers speaking gibberish, me speaking real gibberish...etcetc

and i have only 3 mods this sem!! WOOHOOOO!!! 3 modules!!! and all archi related! so much more time to spend in studio for design...so much more time to pore over books on awesome eye candy buildings and connections and floor plans and sections and elevations and connection details and perspectives (okay, slight sarcasm here, but the very teeniest bit, very very tiny, nearly a micrometer squared) i actually like looking at these things, only the designing of them is a little difficult. but who cares? new! clean slate! i'm going to do the best i can this year! i hope i get a randy-like tutor (fat hope, for year3, but still can hope lah) and get to explore and have fun.

and now we get to the nitty gritty of resolutions. i never used to post resolutions before, because i figured i probably wouldn't do them, and anyway i was lazy to think of them, and it got forgotten anyway...but i think i will post them this time, and whether they get done or not, at least i made an effort, and the BEST EFFORT i can put in right now, even before year 2010 starts!

oh darn. not easy.

RESOLLUSSHIIESS:

1) Memorize the book of Proverbs. Just came across it during quiet time couple of days ago. (was attempting to finish Psalms in december, but currently i'm only at Psalm 68. fail.) (but you realize i managed at least 2 psalms a day? heh?)

2) Use the laser machine. (dyou know I'VE NEVER USED THE LASER MACHINE for individual design before?) (must attempt it this semester. FACE THE UGLY LASER MACHINE!!! even if i have to sit at the computer sunday night and book a slot the moment it becomes monday)

3) Use up all my old material. This might put my work at jeopardy, but I will attempt not to buy a single new material until i use up all my old material (i'm lucky i stocked up on basswood last sem. hahaha). This will save me money, and with the money i save...

4) Be better dressed. I know this sounds vain, and silly, and materialistic, and well, silly...but i've been strangely addicted to a fashion blog called the sartorialist and somehow feel like i want to have my own personal style! Well, we shall see. I'm a student on a budget, and most of the time clothes don't top my list of priorities (except when i'm depressed, then blowing my budget on nice clothes suits my mood...but i realize that even though i blew my budget twice last semester on two items of clothing that were a little on the expensive side+2 expensive haircuts, I spent less because I barely ate much supper! lol. Is a good thing, healthier.)

5) Budget. I need a proper idea of how much I spend a month and how I can cut costs on the things I really don't need. I realize if I plan my trips (because I spend ALOT of money on transport) I can really cut down my expenditure. Also, the occasional blowing of budget on unnecessary food items that will eventually be left to rot are nono as well. Suppers, even though they cost around the vicinity of a mere 2-3 dollars a day, will equal to at least 50 dollars a month, and there you go. (that is 125 ringgit leh).

6) Save. Mom said that I should right now begin to set aside money for the future. I won't be supported anymore once I graduate, and if I begin saving now, that might help me out for the first few difficult months looking for a job and having to rent a place outside.

7) Time management+procrastination. I usually manage my time pretty well in the beginning, but after a while I start throwing everything all around, get depressed, burned out, mess up my schedule, and be a wreck at the end of the semester. So, I'm going to have to balance my play and my work, and make sure I don't burn myself out before I should. Also, I have a habit of procrastination. I realize I have perfectionistic tendencies (two people identified that in me, after I broke my model up for the fifth time in one night and refused to use the wrong color acrylic) (perfectionism is a bad thing when you refuse to start because you're afraid it won't finish well, and when you spend too much time on the details). The best way to fulfill this resolution is to plan ahead, plan for the semester, plan for the year, plan for the next 2.5 years until I graduate, plan for the next 5 years. 5 year plan. yes. good idea.

8) Facebook less. Haha. This warrants an entire resolution in itself.

9) Spend more time in the library. If I'm at the library I am forced to work, rather than facebook/sleep. So instead of heading back to hall immediately after classes (unless it's dinner time) head for the library instead (or head for studio). read more in the library rather than borrow. makes me actually read, rather than collect books that i flip through just before i have to return them.

well that's it for now. It's quite a basic list of resolutions, but i feel that these are quite do-able. There is a lot more I have suddenly thought of, but is okay, I begin like this first. :) And of course, God will be my guide throughout this new year, as He has been in the past and will be in the future.

It just occurred to me that in P1 last year, when i was rendering the panels in the dds (some of you will know how long that took) someone pulled the plug on my com by accident and the screen blanked out. i realized then that i had not yet saved the work. and it wasn't sketchup or autocad, which has autosave function, it was photoshop, which i think doesn't save work (it really doesn't autosave). shocked, i switched on the computer again praying furiously, rather numbed. and will you believe it, when i turned on the com, my file was still open on photoshop and everything was still there. and the com was really shut down. I still think it was a miracle. what do you think?

once upon a cellist

to-day i had a haircut. an rm15 haircut. she was very nice, the lady who cut my hair. i liked her. she chit-chatted with me. i still like her.

i think i am a little appalled by my hair now :( it's veryveryveryvery short. i clutch at the back of my head and there is nothing to clutch. i cannot even pull my hair to vent my frustrations. no, i will not show you my hair. you can see it for yourself once i get out (unfortunately, i have to go out sometime).

this brings me to my obsession with long hair (in guys) and cellists (and korean guys). well, the story behind it is that once upon a dream, i attended a philharmonic symphony orchestra at klcc with some like-minded form six friends ('twas fun, we dressed up, there was a dress-code, we felt grown-up in heels and long skirts). the instruments were on stage, there was the grand piano, there were the brass, the woodwinds, the percussion...and there were the strings...a cluster of violinists and a smaller cluster of cellists...

and among them was my dream guy, a tall, too-handsome-to-be-true young man with his cello. like a prince. soft, wavy hair. a sensitive face.

did i say like a dream? must have been a dream!

well then, so you know now why my obsession with men who have long hair and play the cello...

and i suppose i'll get over it one day. he may have short cropped hair and be insensitive and tone-deaf...but he'll be him. i hope :D

sorry, my mind wandered away. i seem to be obsessed with this subject nowadays. haha. and deep down in my heart i know the reason i do this is because reality is too harsh, and i fully understand that i simply have no time for a real prince, so i shall have to settle for a dream one, who comes and goes when i so desire, and i figure, if one has to settle for a dream, why not have a nice one while we're at it, hey? :D

Happies neuss years peoples!

General Stanley McChrystal (runner up to TIMES person of the year) (OFFICIAL suddensongdelights person of the year from the TIMES person of the year)

General Stanley McChrystal is a humble man, self depreciating, does the right thing even if it hurts him, is concerned for the people and not himself (everything he says shows him to be a very controlled and honorable man, even the reporters could not mar him as an individual), has strong convictions and sticks to them...he'll be a very difficult man to live with, but he does great as a General.:D

But what a man! He sleeps four hours a day and eats a single meal a day. look at his face now! and look at him as a young man! i suppose all that lack of sleep does age people really fast! he was very handsome when young (sans the weird hair). he is still ruggedly handsome now. if he had taken another path his face would be less thin, and he would look extremely distinguished...

hmm, i think i don't mind marrying a toned down version of a man like this (but i'll make sure he sleeps and eats properly...only men like these are destined for singlehood, somehow...and i'm sure he probably won't let me make any decisions for him, which is why i said 'toned down' @@) but i really admire him for his discipline, his humility, even his ascetism (a melancholic trait haha, i can actually relate)

what a man! such men usually end up single for life however, precisely due to their ascetism...

what a man! (sorry, i am very impressed)

okay, sans that i also admire nancy pelosi, another of the TIMES person of the year runner ups (i do not really understand what Bernanke did, so i mention more of the other people, despite he being person of the year). she was a mother of 5 children, a stay at home housewife who entered politics at the age of 47. now that's a rock solid lady of steel. life don't end at fifteeehhh

i will need a project to do when i'm 50. retiring is for wimps. i refuse to retire...i will rot and die.

a simple googling of the word architorture led me to a blog called quiet observations from archi-hell, written by a master's student of architecture studying at carnegie-mellon. he writes poetically, movingly. he is as much a master of the written language as he is of space and form. i find his writings inspirational, especially the earlier posts, and my interest for architecture has suddenly been revived again. i remember torturous nights in studio with strange fondness...hunger pangs punctuated those quiet hours with walks in the cold air to nearby fongseng for hot coffee and a prata or two, off-color jokes and random interjections made funny only because we were tired and any excuse to laugh was welcome during those wee hours of the night. and then there is the fun (and loneliness) of being the only person working in studio (because you get to wander around and feel like you've entered the twilight zone...like a dream and yet not a dream).

i will enjoy my final 2.5 years of architorture in archi-hell, and when i graduate i will miss it, but i will never regret these years! how many people get to experience what i experience? it is amazing. how many people get to pursue their interests with such abandon, and insert anything they want into those interests, mixing and matching and making and wondering and feeling! i am glad there will only be a single project this coming semester. :D 3 last semester made it difficult to pursue anything very far.

btw. BUCKLING. CAUSES. DEATH.

cinnamon christmas

meet mr pumpkin!

well, here's a christmas post! i must have one! i love christmas! i love december! december is my favorite month! it's full of festive joy!

there are five people whose birthdays fall in this vicinity whom i love very much! mom's birthday is on the 27th of november, so i'll just count it in! daddy, sis esther and bro isaac are all december babies! and Jesus, my Lord and savior, has his birth commemorated this month as well! december is a lovely month! (plus i'm home most decembers :D)

today was a busybusy day! attended kurisumasu service this morning at church! was nice, although i feel somehow a bit separated now from this church i grew up in...perhaps it's because i've been away so long, and many of the people i knew and loved from this church have left also, due to studies, getting married, migrating, etcetc...the church has changed so much! but change is good! it's good! lets hope the leaders of this church know that!

well, we had a lovely christmas lunch where i caught up with some old friends, many who also have just returned from other places to celebrate christmas at home. the food was awesome, cooked lovingly by many of the lovely older (but lovely!) ladies of the church who always serve faithfully behind the scenes and i believe are some of the most important strands that hold a church together.

i baked alot to-day! my feet hurt because i walked so much around the kitchen, running to the oven, the kitchen counter, the dining table, the wet kitchen...because i baked three things to-day! that's a record for me :P it was fun! and i bet the running around burnt more than enough calories for me to eat it all guiltlessly!! :D

dear all, meet mr. pumpkin (you may have seen him before)! it may be the wrong season, but that is okay, mr pumpkin is pleased to meet you...he turned into sweet, home-made pumpkin puree for the occasion. (it is sweet! very sweet! the ants in my house attested to that...we have an ant infestation @@) (i am really beginning to despise ants!)


he endured the slicing..."it's alright" quoth he "Jesus went through so much more for you, when He died on the cross for your sins! mine is but a little sacrifice"


and endured the heating and food processing...


and became pumpkin cookies!! i adapted the recipe and these weren't like cookies at all @@ they tasted like little pumpkin cakes because they were really so soft! sis thinks it's cos although the recipe called for 1.5 cups of white granulated sugar i put instead .25 cups of white granulated sugar, .25 cups of brown sugar and a tablespoon of sweet molasses! the molasses gave the cookies a very special taste, but i suppose it made the batter too wet and thus i got soft cookies instead!

i made some pretzels too, but they had nothing to do with mr pumpkin. the yeast was really active! i was supposed to glaze it with butter and cinnamon sugar...but it already tasted quite nice by itself, so i decided i better leave out the calories...haha


he sitting pretty on the pumpkin biscotti!


fat pretzels! the yeast went crazy!


and more pumpkin puree went into a pumpkin pie!
for the crust instead of .5 cup of olive oil i put in .25 cups of olive oil and .25 cups of pumpkin puree...tastes quite fine...but then i'm not too sure how pumpkin pie crust should taste like! haha

i still have loads of pumpkin puree, at least 3 cups...what to do? any ideas? :P

recipes linked below!

pumpkin cookies!!
(it says moist...i suppose the american cookies are soft! haha)

pumpkin pie!!

cinnamon sugar pretzels!!

do try them yourselves! it's really funfun!! :D

he sneaked in and wished me merry christmas
sorry for the knees

みあさん、メリークリスマス！:)

of new years

i do love this blog anyway. and i love to write. i suppose you never know how much you loved something until you let it be for a while, and then you realize you love it too much to let go...(should attempt this with people, then i'll know who i really care for, and who i can do without)(haha)

so this blog is getting a lot more attention than i thought it would have when i started my new blog. tumblr is nice, but i love this blog, because it's more me than the other blog, but i love that blog for the ease of posting links and pictures of things that interest me.

this blog is for memememememe!!

tumblr seems to me to be quite an impersonal blog, which is why my feelings for it has not run deep. it could be also because it's new. lol. i have a penchant for old things. this blog holds memories, holds ideals, holds friends, holds thoughts, holds laughter, holds pain, holds loves and hates...this blog is for close friends who have spent time with me for so long ever since i begun this 2 years ago, and who have taken the trouble to find this blog and read it and commented and encouraged and helped! love you all.

i wonder how people can break up after being together for years...are there not enough happy memories to sustain the relationship? what happened? may i never know...or maybe i should. i dunno!

it's hard enough leaving good friends.

the new year is coming, results have come out (God has been so gracious and maintained my cap!! my cap was never that good to begin with, and i really expected very bad results this semester, but somehow, miraculously, my cap did not go down! Praise God! He is so good to me) I have much more to learn, and my new timetable isn't exactly the prettiest (four hour tutorials? @@ siao) like design mod liddat...but i bet it'll be better compared to my jap. jap really ate up an awful lot of my time, added to the fact that languages (and music) are not one of my strong points. (archicon has never been a strong point either, though) Archi structures sounds interesting, and i see that they have replaced a PF module with another Archicon mod. I wonder if alot of maths will be involved. @@ my maths has rotted already.

next year, i resolve to do quite alot of things. i may even write them down here. ever since i begun my impersonal blog this place is suddenly becoming like my dairy to me. haha. my personal space, which only a select few can read! :)))

Just a quickie

i have moved:

suddensongdelights.tumblr.com

this blog is just for the emo posts

the results are not as bad as expected, although my cap went down (boohoo). there is so much more i have to learn, especially in design. so much to learn. i will focus all my attention on design in the coming semester.

jap is comfortably s/u-ed thank God.

eh, i did my calculations and after s/u-ing jap my cap is strangely exactly the same as last semester @@ wow. thank God! He is amazing.



this is a beautiful song, specially when it's sung by jason wade of lifehouse!

writ

i have moved:

suddensongdelights.tumblr.com

this blog is just for the emo posts

i'm all up for another long post because all that tumblr posting is tiring me and not really allowing me to write! but i'm all for short posts once in a while (probably oftener than i think) so that blog shall remain my official blog and this one is a byway and just for my rants and the really long and boring posts.

haha

well i feel like writing today about grace livingstone hill and her work because i've been reading her books (i finished 5 in two days haha, now i'm halfway through the 6th) and i kind of like most of her books save for the 5th (boredom rising, no doubt) because somehow that one did not have the same feel as the other stories that i liked. or maybe it's cos i was beginning to speed read, which does not do much for the enjoyment of books, but sure allows me to finish a lot of books in a short time. honestly ever since i began to speed read i rather lost my old fervor for reading. badbad.

i don't agree with all the stuff she comes up with (her women are strong ladies in one sense and all wishy washy in the other sense), but there is a strong wholesomeness in her stories that i like. it's old fashioned, very old fashioned...but then i'm old fashioned, and i like the idea of honor and respect and hard work and kindness and self sacrifice that are the hallmarks of her women. i don't care so much for the meekness and dependence on men that her women are also capable of (well, i refuse to be dependent on a man, and i think meekness is fine and dandy but there are times when i wish the stupid girl would stop being such a meek thing and do something!! grrr) and also after you have read a couple of her books you realize that she's rather fond of girls coming into huge inheritances, and they are all meek and humble and then they meet a man (who is as handsome as he is good) and fall in love and all that (which i am very tired of, honestly) and they all have good breeding and have connections with the aristocracy. and they are all beautiful and good. one of the stories had me wishing she expanded the character of the honorable (but unfortunately ugly) maid and enough of the pretty young self sacrificing ink and white lady of the house already.

all in all i think lucy maud montgomery a better author...but for grace livingstone hill she made up for it in strong hymns of olden times which i found remarkably good and verses all around that made me feel that i didn't know my bible very well at all! which is good, because i've been reading it a bit more since then.

and much of her women's character can be emulated...just throw away some of the wishy washy stuff and i think that would be a strong woman after God's own heart. Perhaps that was suitable of a woman at her period of time, but nowadays everything is so different.

i'm glad i found that old book and started reading it again (actually it was for the descriptions of food i remembered from 'a daily rate' which is my favorite of her stories) because compared to many books i've been seeing around, these are pretty wholesome stuff. a daily rate is also a particular favorite of mine because it was about how we should take up our crosses one day at a time, and never worry, because He will provide us a daily providence. and that is so true. let us do today what is appropriate for today, and let us not rest until the work and toil is done. but our crosses should never exceed that of today, and our burdens are light because He will be there to sustain and help us through it. (i find my writing very bad today, because i am rushing this (speed writing no good either. my grammar and sentence structure goes wonkers and i invent words when i cannot think of them) also her character in this story was far less wishy washy than all the others, and she had her weaknesses and her strengths and there was no dwelling on clothing (she loved to describe clothing leh, this grace livingstone hill) and the advice given to her by her very wise aunt was good and wise and can be emulated.

wow. i'm really quite appalled at the condition of my english. goodnite everyone, i think i'm tired.

ducks

i have moved:

suddensongdelights.tumblr.com

this blog is just for the emo posts

i've suddenly been inspired to write another long, random post with no beginning and no end and no ideas and no nothing. an empty post, literally, but as freud might argue (i quote freud alot, he may be a fraud (eh cute right, freud the fraud), but he strangely lends some credibility to other fraudsters like myself, heh) loads of thickly veiled truths about my mind could possibly be probed out by (possibly) interested individuals (i am kidding myself, right) who would of course carefully read through every sentence and come to the conclusion that i am not a human being, i am a duck. (quack!)

i have concluded that i am an introvert. i was reading this article about introverts (it's somewhere in the world wide web, but i'm too introverted to share you the link) (oh btw, did you know there was this guy who was horrified when he realized that the world wide web was readily available to everyone not just himself? i kid you not, he must have been an introvert) (that was on the world wide web too, but after all, i am introverted, i tell you). i realized i was an introvert when i read a line that said something like this: introverts are extremely irritated by extroverts who always say things and never think before saying them. that's cos introverts like to think through everything they say and finally end up saying the right thing at the wrong time, which is why most introverts are not popular. but i digress (or maybe i didn't, come to think of it).

another thing about introverts is that for every hour of socializing, they need two hours to recover. i was thinking how true that was of me because there are times when people talk to me and then i have this strangest reluctance in my throat to reply anything back. it could possibly be because i'm too lazy to think of a reply, but it could also be because i'm an introvert. and then i continued reading and then the article said that the reason why introverts are like that is because introverts tend to gain strength from within. extroverts gain strength from without, and that is why they talk so much. they need people to respond to them (people like introverts, who will not talk alot and thus the extrovert has no competitors) and then they absorb other people's strength like bloodsuckers (ie mosquitoes and leeches) (but nay, i am an introvert, i am of highly refined intellect (this is true. a very small percentage of the population are introverts, and this is where most of the geniuses come from. said so in the article) thus i will not compare extroverts with mosquitoes and leeches. nay. nae. nada).

of course the genius part may escape some introverts, thus you have people like me.

of course, then i began to have doubts about the gaining strength from within part, and the recovering part, because i do realize that when i am with a group of friends i have the ability to be a bloodsucker too. oops. which was when i began to doubt the whole article (the genius part kind of tipped the balance) and if you read the whole thing above this thing has no conclusion nehnehnehpoopoo

then since we're on the subject (are we?) i realized that i could possibly go bi-polar. i may not be totally introvert, but it seems that most people who become bi-polar are introverts. perhaps i am not smart enough. the really smart introverts often become bi-polar because errr one day they had to talk to too many extroverts and didn't have time to recover, so some alarm clock went off in their heads and they went bi-polar. it's like 2012, something went wrong with the sun (source of energy duh) and the poles flipped and the climate all went gaga.

ooh, since we're on the subject, i have this GREAT ADMIRATION FOR LADY GAGA. sure, she's mad, but who isn't? but she is darn brave to do the stuff she does. possibly she's bi-polar. nolah, she's a performer, most performers are extroverts, but some introverts are performers too, but they are the mad and brooding ones and the real geniuses. so lady gaga is mad. she's so mad and freaky she's actually admirable. i am a great believer of circles. as in, things travel in a circle and not a straight line. i need to apply this somewhere. like cycles. if you go far enough it'll flip over to the other side. lady gaga's style is so ugly it's beautiful in a freaky way. kitsch is in (i know of people who love kitsch. kitsch is the sort of style that is so ugly it's beautiful in a freaky way) and so is andy warhol, gogo to madness.

i was reading this book by grace livingstone hill. oh i watched UP the other day, i like it very muchie, the front part was very nearly like the short animation by kato kunio which i LOVED. but i digress (i really am this time). i was reading this book by grace livingstone hill. she reminds me of lucy maud montgomery books, except it's littered liberally with old hymns and poems. her characters are very prim and proper and old fashioned, but somehow there is a very nice feel to the books. something Godly maybe?

sis baked a cake for herself and the brother recently (it was their birthdays) (they share birthdays. it's on the same day). she started off with a genoise cake that involved strange things like beating the batter with the flame on (or something) and it failed, so she baked a sponge instead (she's really good at sponges, they always look perfect) and slathered it with dom perignon (which made it taste plain weird) and 0.75litres of freshly whipped cream. it was awesome despite the benedictine dom. and i claimed the remaining 0.25litres of whipped cream and they are slowly being fed to my thighs. (make is quickly lah, don't beat around the bush)

i share a joke with you. once upon a time the President Bush met Moses. But then you already know the story lah. noneed to tell you.

you know hor, i can eat dollops of whipped cream and not get tired of it. love the stuff. forgave the benedictine dom.

i tried drinking once. amaretto is good. didn't get much though. dad used to have a bottle of scottish whisky in his room that was very fruity and full bodied and warmed you after a sip but i didn't get much of that either. nevermind. i don't really like drinking but i hate it when people go about and look askance at people who drink. well, everything in moderation, i say, even drink, but then i don't think one should smoke at all, or take drugs.

i suppose we are all judgmental.

it's another of those introvert characteristics. we may agree with someone but like to take the opposite stand just for the sake of an argument. well, sometimes. most of the time we shun arguments because it requires another person. but then i'm not even sure if i'm an introvert. there are times when i enjoy socializing with large groups of people. and i don't drink leh. not that introverts drink...it was bad grammar on my part. or bad sentence structure.

i think i wanted to write this because i missed writing. i love writing very much. i love reading too. i wish i had all the time in the world to read and write. ohh, my name is in a book! i read uncle steve's draft many years ago, and he just published his book and my name is on the 3rd page as one of those people who read the draft and gave suggestions. i have no idea if my suggestions were good but it qure was nice of him to put my name there. the next thing for me to do is to write my own book and then it will have my name there is huge letters and i will feel happy and accomplished. after than i will have to direct a movie (not necessarily of the book) because it is part of my bucket list. i have an extensive bucket list.

i feel much better now that i have written such a lot. i still feel like writing but i think i should stop now. i have to take another dollop of cream because my thighs are hungry. perhaps the extra fat would prevent me from getting bi-polar. d'you know the brain is 2/3's fat? of course you did, i need to stop stating the obvious, but then i'm an introvert, so i'm not very connected to the outside world.

my dog is lying at my feet as a type. he's not supposed to be in the house, but then he looks at me with puppy eyes and i pat his head rather than shoo him out. we are having an ant infestation in the house. i suspect the vacuum cleaner is 89% ants.

:) merry christmas!!

moving

i've moved

http://suddensongdelights.tumblr.com

current blog will still be around, but won't be updated that much

i'm on twitter too, as

aria_aria

well, just trying this new fad out...haha, got plenny of time for this right now

:)

of cheesecakes and irrepeatable coffee buttercream frosting

i should be maintaining this blog for the longer and emo-er posts (which closer friends (which means you)) can read and for the rest of the world it's at

tumblr

probably will not be updating my blogspot bloggie that much anymore. tumblr is alot faster for what i like to do :)

Daddy's birthday was on the 4th, so since he's back and there's been time i baked cheesecake and frosted it architecturally (well, frosting looks quite architectural, in my opinion) so tadah! recipe will follow, but the buttercream frosting is ir-repeatable because it's a combination of failed macarons (i will never try macarons again, because i've just discovered it's 78% sugar, honestly @@ or maybe it's cos i failed haha) (and i didn't have any almond meal! how to make macarons without almond meal!! macarons are 56% almond meal) and butter


cheesecake


frosted


quite architectural, in my opinion

coffee cheesecake
Cake base
23cm round chocolate spongecake (i forgot about the cocoa powder, mixed it with coffee powder, so a got a weird light grey sponge, not a dark brown chocolate sponge, but anyway)

Filling
(A) 250g cream cheese, 35g sugar (i put one tablespoon)
(B) 30g flour
(C) 2 egg yolks
(D) 1T instant coffee powder, 1T water, 100g whipping cream
(E) 2 egg whites, 50g sugar (i used a quarter cup. anyhow lah)

steps:
1_cream (A) till light. add (B) till well blended.
2_add (C) till smooth and light
3_make thick coffee with coffee powder and water. mix with whipping cream
4_mix cream with mixture earlier (A)+(B)+(C)
5_in (E) beat egg whites till foamy, add sugar and whip till stiff (i forgot if you shouldn't overbeat cheesecake eggwhites or you should, so i did it somewhere in the middle, and there was one tiny crack, so i guess you shouldn't). fold egg whites into cheesecake mixture from earlier.
6_at this point, you can add stuff like nuts, chocolate chips, m&ms etc. I add chopped pecans, hazelnuts and chocolate chips...
7_pour into cake tin with your sponge at the bottom
8_bake in water bath at 160C for one hour

irrepeatable coffee buttercream
ingredients
macaron batter sans almond meal, sugar halved, beaten wrongly
coffee
1.5 sticks of butter

beat all together

just a mention: i halved the sugar in the cheesecake (probably even more than halved) so it was okay to frost the cake. If you add the proper amount of sugar, then it is not a good idea to frost it, you could die of diabetes.

i just remembered i added nuts and chocolate chips to the mix when i cut the cake


was nomnomnomnomnom

family day out by the beach

for some reason, our family has a tendency to end up at mangrove swamps when we go out. this time, we ended up somewhere in sepang. oh, parents and brother just returned from korea yesterday night. i thought they would be there for two weeks, but it seems it was 8 days, not two weeks. haha.

on the way out today (we were fetching uncle to lcct where he was meeting some friends who were going up to genting) we passed by KLIA which i recently discovered was designed by the metabolist guy, Kisho Kurokawa. I discovered it because I'm currently reading state of fear by Michael Chrichton (who rather likes chaos theory, i realize) and now i'm wondering if mankind is ever able to do anything for the environment and if statistics are ever true and is the world really run by capitalism? and other stuff that reading Michael Chrichton invariably leads me to think. I think someone in the house is a Michael Chrichton fan. We have Jurassic Park, The Lost World, The Andromeda Strain, State of Fear, Timeline, Congo, Next and possibly Sphere, but not sure about that one. Perhaps the fan was me, I don't know. haha.


these are some chocs from korea, we munched them in the car


these are the 'nude' chocs


these are the 72% something bitter chocs which mom likes


we saw some planes


we saw some buildings


we saw some pretty sky


don't be fooled. it looks serene and cool, but it was HOT


nice bench in a corner


it seems like some other world, but actually this is the seabed when the tide is out


that's mom and my brother gideon, braving the heat to check out seabeds when the tide is out


this is my brother isaac


dad disallowed him from going out too far, cos he was afraid he'd get heatstroke, so here he is kicking up a fuss


this is my sis jasmine with a conch shell she found nearby


pretty conch shell


and then they found two


they look really nice on the concrete


host of korean snacks


i LIKE


I like taking pics too :P


the brother and his shells


he's shyshy


shadow at your feet


smiley face, smiley face on the sand :)))


two pretty conch shells and one enthu amateur photographer


really enthu amateur photographer


told ja


and then again


the artist...


...and her art


love...


何方ですか？


pile of pretty looking rubbish!!
enthu amateur photographer: YAYYY!!! *snaps enthusiastically


father son moment
Father: WHY ARE YOUR SHOES SO MUDDY @@
Son: I FOUND SHELL I FOUND SHELL!!!
Father: WASH LEG!
Son: WASH SHELL!!


they found shells by the sea shore


they found crabs too!! CUTE CRABBY!!


and guess what, i ventured out into the heat as well, to see the seabeds when the tide is out


i saw this rottie mix somewhere out


this skinny white thing was following me...discreetly


the wonder of nature...this thing sprouted up pretty fast...


the place was TEEMING with little crabs


third doggie spotted!


the brother went to korea and grew bigger heh


what did the mudskipper say to the crab?
mudskipper: stupid amateur photographer
crab: aye...lets pose...


caught! i told you it was following me!


lots of these little shells around


it retreated!


brother moment...what on earth are they looking at?


catch of the day: a baby crab, a baby king crab, lots of tiny crabs, some living conches and some hermit crabs...i tell you, the reason why we have weird pets in the house is because we always end up in magrove swamps when we go on family outings


dad met an Indian guy who sold us a bag of freshly caught shrimp, which we had for dinnerdinner :)

i asked mom if i could go on exchange during lunch and was a little shocked (i was expecting some ums and ahs and how much will it cost etc from mom at least) when she said: go! must go! it'll be a great experience! nothing you can get at nus! apply as soon as possible!" i then mentioned it might be a bit expensive, especially if i went to europe...then her reply was: that's okay! apply! we're willing to spend the money...exchange will open your eyes! then i said: my grades....ahem, maybe i can't go... then dad piped up: have you heard of prayer? haha. so, with my parents blessing i'm applying for sep and i pray i will be able to go :) hopefully to scotland, haha, but anywhere also can.