Could have beens

Headed down to Gardens by the Bay with this cutie on Wednesday to see the War of the Roses exhibition 'cos I'm crazy about roses. They were reaaaaaal pretty. But there wasn't enough. Did not leave the exhibit as a satisfied human. Half the photos Irene and I took weren't even of roses haahahahahahahahaahahah.





 

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Also feeling real blessed right now 'cos momma came in with a tupperware of cold grapes for me + wants to take me to the market tomorrow to shoot photos + thankful for parents who're so supportive of me going on exchange, helping me with stuff like insurance and not questioning how much more of a hole I'm going to burn in their pockets. Even though all I really do is spend their money and go into crazy mood swings and demand for new clothes.

+ Had a really good time with Shirlyn last night giving each other massages (while grunting), then plopping on face masks and taking a 20 min nap before getting up to peel them off. Hall life is gooood.

 

 

But I guess all this still doesn't change the fact that I need to leave.

Recess week is a lie

This is the last day of recess week, which of course is a huge lie fabricated by the universities because nothing has happened that has put the "recess" in recess week. For 4 out of the 9 glorious days of 'freedom', Noel and I took some kids from the Strisuksa School in Roi Et, Thailand out for a tour in Singapore. I have to admit that we couldn't stop questioning why we'd ever agree to do such a thing, especially on our recess week when we could be somewhere on a beach in Bali instead. But it turned out to be pretty worth it, with the highlight being the last day at the airport when things turned to becoming this major photo-taking session + we had a really good time with our other volunteers which we wouldn't made been able to do without. I guess we never really realised how much of an impact we could make on the kids - even though I'd yelled at them that very same morning about being overly tardy. So now I have about 30 Thai teenagers on Facebook being their usual teenage self, updating their statuses just about every 45 mins. It's rather heartening though when they put up photos of the trip, post statuses about how much they miss Singapore or drop us a message saying thanks and that they miss us. That said, Noel and I are still going to think twice before accepting anything like this again.



Anyway, ever since dance and this Thai tour, I've been moping around trying to tie up bits of my resume and cover letters to get sent out because the deadline iscoming up reaaaaaaal soon. It feels like I'm slowly losing track of time and any sense of direction at all again. I feel like I'm just working on mundane crap day in and day out - until I wake up one fine morning and realise I have school tomorrow. Slightly excited to develop my negatives though and see if I've captured anything this time hahahahahahahah.

Quindanze 2014

As someone who basically has 2 left feet/no sense of balance/zero body coordination ability/cannot keep rhythm, joining dance was a huge thing. But through the lo0n0n0n0n00ng 6 month journey that seemed like it would never end, I've never regretted it. Sure it got frustrating having to come back to school early on weekends, having a failing complexion from the late nights and lack of sleep and being constantly frustrated with my body's lack of ability to execute the moves. Don't even get me started on the core exercises. 

I don't think I've ever been so committed to something, really. Given that time in SSIS was always by seasons and we were never really that hardcore about winning something + I suppose you can't really have basketball training 7 days a week for months on end because 1) the season isn't that long 2) others want to use the gym 3) which coach wants to stay 7 days a week in school? Well anyway it's been different from my other activities and I guess its through the commitment that we've all spent so much time together that I've gained so much love for our Quindanze team. It's been really nice too, being able to be part of such a family and having something to belong to like that. Also works as a really good excuse for procrastinating on bloody Accounting tutorials that really have been piling up. 

I've made so many new friends, met people that I never knew existed (sorry Damien), reconnected with people I thought I'd never speak to again and found a family in this team. So....... disregarding the 13th placing, we've all done well. After some point in the journey, the worries about the potential ranking ceases to exist and it becomes more focused on our own personal development. How far we've progressed as individuals who've had to balance the late nights and strange men (Jayden), the ever increasing workload (damn you accounting), the severe lack of sleep (4 hours/day) and still found it possible to love and motivate each other. 

On top of that though I have to say that I am glad to have had Jayden as a partner again because we're just so comfortable with working with each other. That + the stupid arguments we have + the occasional good moments + how he actually can be a nice and patient human being with plenty of biscuits. As ehrogijreogieghe-ed as we were when we got to know we were partners, it actually has turned out to be an amazing time with the man who came up with the term Ruben. 

So now my nights are going to be spent working on accounting and spent surfing the net and I already feel the emptiness from not having to prep for training at 3 later. Was also so so weird walking out of the cult room last night not saying "see you guys tmrrrr" but instead "see you guys.... around" and knowing that it was going to be a long time before I'd step into that room again. 

I miss Quindanze already and I'm so, so, so glad I joined. I'll always be grateful for the help and support Riana and YC provided, the encouragement for the long nights (spent twirling with Jayden/sewing tutus and bralets/doing nothing in particular/fun run/so much more) and that amazing emotional run we did that honestly blew my mind. 

All I've got is basically a bunch of thank yous to just about everyone, lots of happiness, quite a huge bit of emptiness now and plenty of emotions to sort through before I can get back on track with accounting. A part of me wishes this would never have to end. 

As they say, it's the end of HOCC now, also known as the official start of the academic year for the Quindanzers. 

Christmas 2013

Spent the first half (well more than that) of my Christmas with some of my oldest friends possible. Sophia and I have a friendship that's 14 years old now, even though that started out with us being irritating children who hated each other. Funny how things turn out.

Well anyway Irene was getting baptised so we all got invited to her church to... check it out.

Had nonya food after that at Irene's paired with my (somewhat freshly) baked brownies hehehehe YUM.



Dinner after that was Teppanyaki at Jurong hill and that was ultra yum too. My family's still been trying to settle in from moving back aaaaand we had a grand total of 0 Christmas decorations put up this year. But that's okay, I still had a pretty great Christmas.

Lazy Wednesdays

Little India Riot

Okay I don't usually weigh in on such events but I feel the need to now. 

People need to stop telling the Indians (usually Bangladeshis so they aren't all too accurate on that part) to go home because "THIS IS SINGAPORE NOT INDIA". They need to stop freaking out about how their clean and safe environment is ruined and how they fear that their kids will never walk on the safe sidewalks again, "OMG". They need to stop condemning them. They need to stop complaining about the PAP causing this - this riot and unsafe Singapore. 

The thing is, how many of you out there really understand what it's like to work under the hot sun, even during the haze, get paid minimally, be so pressurised to make enough to make ends meet for them here and for their family back home and get treated like dirt. If we're talking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I'd say about zero of them are met. 

Guys, we are more fortunate than most of them and it's something to be thankful for, not something to look down upon them for. It doesn't help that they aren't paid a lot even though they're the ones who do they dirty work for you when you don't want to do it yourself. You don't want to be the one fixing that flooded and choked drain on that muddy pavement do you? You don't want to be the one sweltering under the hot sun building some luxurious condo that you can never afford, do you? You don't want to be the one surviving on poor pay while your family is a gazillion miles away, do you? 

You don't. 

So show them some respect. Instead of thinking of how "ooooooooo such unsafeness in my country", think about why they're doing this.  Think about why they're upset. Put yourself in their shoes. Don't be ignorant or use this as an excuse to be xenophobic. You don't even want to get me started on "Tiongs"

I would also give this man a standing ovation because he has got it all down.

 

Moving

So it's 2.31 in the morning and I'm lying in my new bed in my old/new apartment. 

Yes, we moved. Again.

Even though my family hasn't moved all over the world or 5 times across half of it, it gets pretty taxing. 

It's pretty much common knowledge that Third Culture Kids (TCKs) don't know where home is. I thought I had all that sorted until my parents decided to move back to Singapore from Suzhou, China. And at that time, I'd already moved back from China to Singapore, shuttling between my grandma's flat and my room in hall. So when they came back, my grandma's flat was as crowded as an illegal squalor while they worked on renovating the apartment we stayed in before we moved to China. 

Okay yes I get that it's pretty confusing. But I had thought of our place in Suzhou as my home - where High school had been and the best years of my life were spent. When they came back, we had to give up our house in Suzhou (it was rented - yeah, no.1 sign that it couldn't have really been home) aaaaaaand that was that. A few weeks ago I was looking up cheap tickets during class (Scoot had this crazy $24 dollar sale) and found that tickets to China and back were only SGD$100. I thought about going there and then I realised that I didn't even have my house to go back to, no room to return to and no comfy bed to crawl back into. And then it hit me - was Suzhou not home anymore?

Of course, it didn't help that every time I or anyone from the Class of 2012 went back it felt more and more foreign: we weren't the ones prancing around in school like we owned it. In fact we felt like the odd ones out, the ones no one knew and no one cared about. The places we loved to go to still exist, but the people changed every time we were there. Teachers we knew started leaving the school and every time we went back, it was always a different bunch of people there. Everyone had changed and grown up from high school. No matter how foreign it was starting to get, it was still my home. It was hard to call Singapore home after having been gone for so long.

Now in Singapore we're moving about trying to fit back in it and trying to set everything up again. But it feels so wrong and I'm tired. Tired of trying to make places feel like home and tired of trying to get used to all these huge changes. 

I wish I knew where home was. 

Carpenter and Cook

 

It's a quaint little restaurant/cafe (It's a hybrid. Too large for a cafe and too low-scale for a restaurant) with all sorts of vintage items all around. I read their website's "About" page and apparently the owners really liked collecting vintage items and decided a restaurant/cafe would be the perfect excuse for buying more. Sounds pretty legit to me too.

So I headed over with Josh and Josh for breakfast before my flight and the food is pretttyyyy good. Fine. I only had the apple crumble. But that was good. The 2 of them had sandwiches, double choc muffins and quiche - all of which I was too full to try - I'm not a morning person, as you can see (and yes, 10am is still pretty darned early). But according to Josh and Josh, the food was good. I quote:

"Yeah the choc muffin is really good"

"Yeah the quiche is not bad"

"Wow that's a typewriter"

So yes, I guess we can conclude that it's a pretty fine place.

 

Great, now I'm hungry all over again.

The flyer

Wow

Strictly Pancakes

It's taken me some time to realise that even though it says Musings of a Glutton on my page, it's got a grand total of 1 post on food. Oops.

A week ago I headed down with my friends to Strictly Pancakes at Prinsep Street for lunch before a group project. Being my second time there, I already knew how orgasmic their pancakes were.

But they blew my mind again.

So we ordered:

What-a-spread! Which is made up of kinder bueno, nutella and a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream, as well as the mandatory medium stack of pancakes. 

 

Chicken A La King, where you've got tender chicken fillets, asparagus and this amazing cream sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the legendary Garlic Buttered Prawns. A beautiful creation I swear :') Incredibly creamy and just sex-in-the-mouth, I kid you not. Okay I admit, the cream and all fills you up real fast and it's also pretty easy to get sick of it... because I did. Halfway through. But still it's amazing, really.

 

Great. Now I'm hungry again.