if i know that i have a gluten-intolerance problem, why do i go ahead and torture myself by eating a salami pizza? and a egg-mayo sandwich? and chunky bread with pumpkin-sweet potato-and-tomato soup?*

why???

because i’m greedy, that’s why. and because i never ever remember how badly i can feel after all that gluten stockpiles in my system.

right now it’s all headache, stomach flip-flops, lethargy and general bleagh-ness. not too clever, huh.

i’d really like to just crawl back into bed and pretend all that eating never happened. but alas, corporate failure and alternative rescue procedures are on the agenda today, so i’ll just limp along and hope some of the revision goes in and stays in.

and hope all that gluten-induced disgustingness goes away soon. or that by some magical spell, everything that contains gluten in it disappears and is replaced by gluten-free alternatives.

oh how i’d love to live in a gluten-free world.

*note: over the course of two days, not all at the same time. i might be greedy, but not that greedy.

oh so childish, but so funny at the same time.

VW Unpimp your Ride I

VW Unpimp your Ride II

VW Unpimp your Ride III

it’s time to un-pimp your auto

something reminded me that singapore regards itself as the garden city.

i might be mistaken.

but if it does, i’m assuming that it does so on account of the trees and greenery one sees on either side and down the middle of the ECP. and also, presumably, because we have a lot of greenery?

on the other hand, what else is so garden-like about singapore? and how is it more garden-like a city than say malaysia or vietnam?

or is it because we’re pretty and cultivated to the hilt, and completely unnatural? hybridised, cross-bred and cross-pollinated. and because it is such a controlled environment that without constant supervision by the gardeners (read ruling party), the garden will burst into its own, unheeding and unwilling to cooperate?

that’s the problem, you see, with these highly cultivated specimens. they’re so delicate and prone to failure without someone watching them all the time. and most of them don’t grow on, and their seeds don’t produce the same quality plants as they do, so you have to repeat the whole process every year using freshly-bought seed.

wouldn’t it be so much easier if it was a woodland, or field? let everything grow as they like, let nature take over for a long while. whatever happens, the land takes it in and makes do. the plants either flourish or die, in the end only the strongest and fastest evolving survive.

and all without anyone having to keep vigil. just let nature do its thing, and voila great variety of plantlife and low mortality rates, low maintenance too.

now, wouldn’t that be nice.

simple things make the days go by so quickly.

who knew that doing nothing in particular would lead to saturday, and then sunday, and then monday and the start of revision?

i never got down to being touristy. i spent a lot of the time just hanging out with the best friend, eating good home-made food and grocery shopping - because we’re completely in love with veg+fruit stalls, pound shops and giant supermarkets. i spent some time in my balcony, potting things and replanting others, sowing seeds for summer crops. i finished reading the library books i got out on monday by thursday, and have to go back for more tomorrow. i’ve also learnt how to roast pumpkins.

i don’t thnk i’m going to make it to st.pauls cathedral tomorrow either. apparently we have a dim sum appointment in chinatown at 1pm, which will take up most of the day, and probably the evening too if you include the post-lunch pub trip.

there’s a brick lane documentary that clashes with csi: new york later this evening, but seeing as i’ve missed so many episodes of it already, i think the documentary will go well with vegetable curry for dinner.

the best friend reveals many things to me, some of which surprise me. most, however, are the usual things that come with not seeing each other for most part of the year, and are heart-warmingly normal and boring and everyday.

because, really, it’s the normal, boring, everyday things that i missed the most.

the long awaited, eagerly anticipated 5 week vacation that would normally consist of one week in another country, and four weeks in the land of revision before plunging headlong into the deep blue waters of examinations.

but this year.

moving house and setting up house and arrival of best friend means that (1) i have no money to go anywhere even if i wanted to, and (2) i don’t really want to since i have company (for a while, at least).

but still, things like free entry to all the museums and galleries on a particular weekend in april in amsterdam make me long for a ticket out there. and stories from friends about their impending trips to new york, florence, south of france, etc etc give me little twinges of envy.

ah well.

spending a week as a tourist in london will be as good as taking that budget airline flight. it’ll be great fun to go exploring the places i frequently walk by without a second glance, taking pictures of everyday occurrences, writing things down in my travel journal. it’s about recreating that initial sense of awe and wonder, at the beautiful architecture one finds spotted about the city, at the english eccentricities, about cobblestone paths and weekend markets, about the london-ness of london.

all i need to do is chant a little mantra in my head for the next hour, while planning things to do:

exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal;
exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal;
exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal;
exoticise the familiar, fetishise the banal. . .

i might even attempt to attend sunday mass at st.paul’s cathedral.

it’s obvious, really.

but then maybe it’s just my style, to cut myself loose. and yours, to stick it out till the arguments and the fights give you more than enough reason.

your seemingly- petty irritations belie graver concerns, i know this. i also know that there are other issues afoot, not to mention self-interest.

and i also know that you know that i know that there are problems. but i won’t mention it till i’m asked, and i won’t give you my opinion until you need it. you know this. unwarranted and unsolicited analysis will only lead to conflict, and ever greater complications in an already delicate situation. i know that.

we haven’t been friends for so long just to be strangers.

A few months ago, when I first told L about the best friend moving to London, she remarked about how everyone seems to be coming to our part of the world now.

At that time I was sceptical, but now I’m convinced – although I do have to interpret ‘our part of the world’ to mean United Kingdom and sometimes Europe, or anywhere within convenient weekend-trip travelling distance.

So, the best friend arrives tomorrow with plans to conquer the world through creativity, and also start an experiment in domestic familiarity with his legal-eagle. Another friend of ours is already here and was showing her work at London Fashion Week, and has had her heart conquered by an architect ex-neighbour residing in London. Someone I’ve known for a long time, but have never met up with properly, is going to settle in the Midlands with her boy.

Do you see a recurring theme? Apparently, from my small control group, anyone above 25 who comes to my part of the world does so either for work or love, or both, but they may not occur simultaneously. And also, sometimes life imitates art imitating life (case in point, our fashion designer and her ex-neighbour and the Taiwanese film Turn Left, Turn Right).

But still, I’m delighted to have more people around. It means I’ll have a greater variety of people to talk to, and invite to dinner parties (conversations with other students usually leaves me with a great desire to talk to someone more interesting, but maybe I’m just being conceited). It also means that I get to speak singlish more often, because sometimes it’s just really tiring to speak proper English all the time and all I want to do is slip into my patois, except of course, I can’t because it is quite unintelligible to anyone else.

Anyway, what all this means, really, is that I will be having the best friend round for dinner tomorrow, and I will be making grilled salmon with julienne vegetables and rice. But in the meantime, it also means that I really ought to get started on that damned essay which has to be finished by 3pm tomorrow or I’ll never get it in by Tuesday morning.