Downsize me

Been trying to control my diet, and swimming again. Hopefully my efforts will pay off. Don't want to keep this tummy for much longer. I'm now huge on salads, cereals, yoghurt and high fibre mixed-grain bread. Not to mention all the fruit. I tasted blueberries for the first time. A little disappointing, squishy and rather bland. Think I'll stick to grapes. Dried cranberries are nice though. Oh, I also discovered that watermelon is actually not that nutritious, and melons can actually adversely affect digestion if eaten with a meal. Oh well.

In other news, I cooked a rather successful curry chicken korma, which is a sort of yellowish curry that's not hot. Unfortunately my family didn't appreciate it at all. I ate half of it. Luckily I invited Mr R to try it served with prata, and he liked it. What can I say? He might be my only fan. Hope he'll take the friendship option more seriously, then at least I'll still be able to keep a friend. Romance is out of the question, unfortunately.

On racial harmony day (21 July) I performed at the primary school as promised. I did get some really interested kids, but some were bent on destruction, banging on my instrument as hard as they can with my rather fragile bamboo hammers. Thank God nothing was damaged. But it was a really nice experience, and certainly some of the teachers and the principal liked it. I even got a souvenir! Nice.

 

When old wounds bleed afresh

It's 436 in the morning, and I can't sleep. Something's bothering me, and I've got to write. Beats tossing and turning in bed.
 
The thing is, I've just checked my newly bought DVDs for defects, and one of them was a Faye Wong MTV collection. Most of my friends know I somewhat like her, though I've never been to one of her concerts. Anyhow, I watched some of her MTVs and decided to go to bed. Then something stirred in my head. I had remembered that I bought 2 VCDs of her MTVs a long time ago, way back in secondary school. What happened was (and I'm pretty sure of this memory) that my sister( the older of two younger sisters) brought it to her friend's place, lent it to her, and when they returned, one of them had no disc in it. The worst thing was, despite repeatedly reminding her, it never came back. She even said something along the lines of 'it wasn't nice anyway'. I was very upset, naturally, but I can't remember how I dealt with it. The VCD is now unavailable, which makes me more upset because it means I can never go buy a new one. This memory haunts me to this day, and it just popped up again. I just went to the disc drawer to check, hoping I was wrong and the VCD was somewhere. But it wasn't in the sleeve. There were songs in it I liked. Once again, I was disheartened, and disappointed that my sister had no regard for my property. Which is odd because it was a long time ago when this happened.
 
This thing that happened a long time ago should have been forgotten. I'm not really angry at my sister, but she can be very careless, and strangely manipulative sometimes. I don't know why I still feel that residual bitterness.  Recently she took my Tianlongbabu to her boyfriend's place, it came back with one disc missing! Luckily I checked and reminded her and it turned up. It's on loan again, but I'm pretty confident it will come back complete. So, no bad feelings, not really. I love both my sisters, and I don't really mind if they occasionally get on my nerves. But I have no idea what went on in my mind, and why it chose to preserve such an awful piece of memory. Worst still, I have never thrown the empty cover away. I wonder why.
 
 

Jesus Christ Superstar

For those of you who've never seen this musical, I urge you to see it. The songs are fantastic! I've recently procured the 2000 version of the musical, and there also exists a movie version made in the 70's. It is the Christ story from a completely different and most unlikely point of view--Judas Iscariot's! For those staunch Christian activists who read this, pardon me, don't bomb me, I'm Christian too. (When the movie version was released back then, several cinemas were bombed, and protests were held in lots of places.) Anyway, back to the musical. It is a most astonishing rework of the biblical story, and examines what might have been the thoughts and feelings of the central characters and their reaction to events. Very psychological and intriguing. It actually also raised some questions which I have thought of all this while after having read the gospels. Why did Jesus have to die? If so, was Judas meant to betray him? Was Judas really evil, or was he part of the divine plan? Or was he just simply fallible, like anyone else, like you or me? Why did his name have to live through the ages in infamy? If Judas didn't succumb to evil, would the Christ story still work? For those of you who only see one side of the story, think again. The chorus hauntingly echoes after Judas's suicide--Poor old Judas....so long Judas....

Also, I suspect that the Passion movie by Mel Gibson had been influenced by Superstar, particularly when dealing with the psychological trauma Pilate and Judas went through, and also the debauchery and insanity of Herod's court. I could be wrong, but then again, qui est veritus?

宽 恕

你 给 我 保 护 ， 我 还 你 祝 福 ， 你英 雄 好 汉， 需 要 抱 负 。 可 你 欠 我 幸 福 ， 用 什 么 来 弥 补 。 难 道 爱 比 恨 更 难 宽 恕 ？ 看 来 我 是 中 毒 太 深 ， 已 经 迷 上 了 天 龙 八 部 。 还 是 迷 上 胡 军?

School experience

It was just one week, but it was enough to change me. I was posted to Ahmad Ibrahim Primary School for my one week school experience. Seeing the kids effected something on me, I felt... responsible. Yes. Being a teacher means a lot of responsibility. I have moral obligations too. I didn't even dare to smoke anywhere near the school. In fact, I stayed off cigarettes for a few days, no less. I've been doing it lesser since, and I know for one that I don't have much withdrawal symptoms. What a blessing the experience turned out to be. The kids were lovely. They could be little devils too, of course, but putting up with that is part of the job. The teachers in the school were mostly lovely people, and the atmosphere was definitely not a stifling one. I felt really bad when the teachers were talking to me about some of the kids coming from really poor families, and couldn't even afford the school fees. It gives me no reason to waste my life away (as I'm still doing now, unfortunately), now that I have the resources to do meaningful things, and upgrade myself.

I'll be back in the school to perform on Racial Harmony Day, for the kids of course. Say hello to Mr Ang.

Cooking experiments

I've always liked cooking, but due to the extra time I have recently, my output has increased tremendously. I've just made some baked stuffed capsicums today...turned out alright but my sisters don't like capsicums. My parents are not fans of my cooking at all, so I don't force them to eat my creations. Yesterday I brewed this magically purple soup with beetroot and red cabbage. It looked kinda scary but nonetheless tasted good. Naturally I was the sole consumer. I guess I better stick to making pasta. My chicken stew did well too, and so did my chicken cordon bleu, pan-friend dory fish, Malay-styled fried turmeric rice, amongst others. Been doing a lot more work with vegetables lately, and I just bought a vegetarian cookbook. Stay tuned to find out whether there'll be any success.

Mindless banter

All right, I know I've been rather lazy. No blogs for a while. But I really wonder whether this reflects the state of mind I'm in. I'm having holidays right now and I've been sleeping a lot and simply rotting. Ok that's not very good, and my tummy is not getting any smaller. But what the heck, it's the hols.

I've been going out with Mr R as usual. By the way, he's the guy I'm dating at the moment. He's a very nice guy, but I can't say it's been really going that well. He's called off the thing once already, and then he decided to give it another go. Oh well. I have to say I'm pretty indifferent. I've always been telling him I'm not really the sort of guy he should fall for, but then, how could I control his feelings? I'm definitely not madly in love with him, but I can't say I don't like him. He's been really nice to me. But I'm also cautious of the fact that he just broke up with his boyfriend. I was probably a catalyst, though he insisted he has been wanting to do it for a long time. Whatever. We'll just see how it goes.

Indian food really gives you smelly farts.

Oh everyone should go watch Supersize Me. It's really clever, gives you (forgive the pun) food for thought. Anyone should watch it and think twice before quaffing another Big Mac. Under the recommendation of Jacs, I bought The Experiment DVD, and man, it was thrilling. I was also surprised the genital shots were not censored. Wow. Oops, got carried away.