Jon's Birthday Celebrations, Part 2

No, there are no pictures. I'm sorry but I was rushing out of the house and I didn't bring Tenny with me (AND I also have no patience to wait for pictures to upload!).

We had what you might think was an Extremely Boring UnBirthday time, but I still think it's worth blogging about because after we each had a lovely burger at Blooie's at Rail Mall - though my bacon cheese and mushroom tasted suspiciously like the Mushroom Swiss from BK in parts - and ice cream at Frutta La Viva (down with Udders! Lots of alcohol does NOT equal good ice cream) we hastened to my house to . . .

WATCH BOYS OVER FLOWERS!!!

Alright, I know I dissed the show a couple of posts back, but my mum and I tuned in the other night and found it more interesting than before. Maybe because they've stopped bullying poor Jin Sicao (that's Geum Jan Di to you).

Also, I found out that my mother had no idea that Meteor Garden was based on a comic strip. And that Jon had no idea that Boys Over Flowers is essentially a much better version (but that's just my opinion) of the Taiwanese Meteor Garden.

And after Boys Over Flowers ended, because Jon had to wait for the beer he had after dinner to get out of his system, we watched the last episode of Full House.

What a sweet boyfriend I have!!! Although I don't think this is going to happen very often - our Saturday excursion was also a kind of make-up for the fact that we couldn't have dinner on my birthday because I was sick. He also pointed out to me he felt exactly like I would have if he'd made me sit through 2 hours of pole-vault on YouTube.

Point taken.

I think I'm going to bring my mother to watch Rain when he comes, purely for entertainment purposes - and she needs to have an Aunty-Killer Outing at least once in her life.

And after Full House, we watched some of Jacky Cheung's Odyssey Tour footage because one and a half hours of him on Thursday just wasn't enough. That, at least, we BOTH enjoyed.

So endeth our birthday celebrations.

***
What I'm currently doing now has made me unable to write in anything other than bald facts. Too bad. But then again, that makes it that much easier to voyeur, doesn't it?

Glorious Anticipation
(and a vaguely idolatrous-and-emo sounding post)

I love that phrase - and I now have a chance to use it! Say "glorious," "glor-ree-uhs," so it's got three syllables and not just two as when you say "glor-ryus."

Forgive me for the horrible phonetics.

I spent most of yesterday in Glorious Anticipation, knowing that The Hour was Finally Going To Come, The Hour where I would see A*Mei LIVE. And after sodagreen left the stage at Fort Canning, the feeling heightened considerably, with me jumping up and down and screaming "A*MEI WO AI NI!!!!!"

And even though she sang a whole lot of rock songs from AMIT and looked really tired from the heat, her voice was Amazing. Just being able to hear and see her LIVE was Amazing. I screamed and screamed and jumped and jumped and was Really Tired after that - and Even More Tired after doing the same for Jacky Cheung, though not as much. He's only a few years younger than my mum (ooh, she won't like me revealing her age like that, hurhur) but he was Still Amazing, as Amazing as he ever was in J's VCD of one of his concerts, and what I've watched on YouTube.

But my heart, of course, is with A*Mei.

谢谢你。你美妙的歌声为我的生活增添了好多不同色彩和感情。尤其是我搭巴士和地铁的时候，和我晚上要睡之前的那些时刻。

Thank you, for your lovely voice has added many different colours and emotions to my life. Especially when I'm taking the bus or the MRT, and in the moments before I drop off to sleep at night.

Listening to some of her songs always takes me back to Beijing, and those long bus rides to and from school, or just to wherever. And, funnily enough, it makes me think of Chinese people and culture.

The whole experience was Glorious, I tell you. Simply Glorious.

Now to wait for her next Singapore concert.

***
EDIT:
I should put down what CY said: I'm sure it'll be a*mei-zing!!!

As I've repeated ad nauseum, it most definitely was.

Last Night

My maiden experience at the live taping of a MediaCorp show - the Singtel Grid Girls Grand Finals 2009, no less. Not something I greatly desire to repeat, because it was Very Tiring (I was Totally Exhausted by the time it was over) screaming and screaming and clapping, but it was fun going with G, J and I. And being catty with J about certain contestants.

Flesh parade MAX, indeed!

Two things:

1. Michelle Chong is very, very funny. I'm so glad this came just in time to give her an opportunity to be Barbarella Posh-Beckham, and poke fun at the rather unfortunate Ris Low and the SingTel Greed Gerz. Though I was rather surprised they allowed such irreverence on the show, snigger snigger.

2. My primary school classmate is now a mini-celebrity!!! Dear Shumin, even though this does not mean that I will stop calling SingTel Grid Girls 'Greed Gerz,' a la Barbarella, I hope you enjoy your time being the lead . . . Greed Ger.

You know I still luvch u!

***
Two days, and a Civil Procedure tutorial to A*mei and Jacky!!!

Exciting Day

Sometimes when I'm sitting in class, I think of the most irreverent things. Like how Cecilia should just say it was her twin sister Briony who was responsible for the murder of Paul in the mock criminal hypothetical we've been given. Or that their mother, who is my Aunt Emily, should make Briony take the blame because she's a struggling painter who dropped out of school and Cecilia is on her way to Oxford on a PSC scholarship.

Or how, when the fact patterns given to us throw up witnesses who have passed on, that we should just conduct a seance or use an Ouija board.

I wonder if people think of these things in real life, when facts pattersn like these arise. I'm sure it crosses their minds.

Today we walked into the SC, and we saw four people, each armed with a cleaning implement, cleaning a cordoned off area, the size of which was disproportionate to the amount of labour expended. J wondered out loud about this disproportionality, to which I responded Maybe there was a fight and they're cleaning up blood!

Today I also learnt that the penalty for daylight robbery is less severe than the penalty for robbery committed at night; daylight is defined in the Penal Code as the hours between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and night is defined as the hours between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. You can check out Section 392 of the Penal Code at Singapore Statutes Online.

Nice Afternoon

I had a talk with P just now as we walked to the bus-stop, after our movie at Sinema Old School, along with J, J and S.

I'm too young to have studied at the Mount Sophia campus, but I recognised the buildings from old photographs, and it was nice all the same to be able to share about the long flight of steps leading up to the place, as well as seeing the cross still on what must have been the old chapel.

It's a artsy-fartsy-max place now, and I kept thinking about that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa submits a film to the Sundance Film Festival. That was really funny, and made me wonder what I used to see in watching arthouse films, or becoming so emotionally invested in them. Eternal Sunshine doesn't count, by the way.

Okay, I was just young and angsty and trying to be "different."

Anyway, we watched Please Vote For Me, which I thought was a pretty good take on the Chinese way of life and thinking.

And we also watched seven BAD short films after that (the eighth was okay), simply because we'd paid for them. We laughed and laughed, and I was very hungry after all that laughing.

But the point of this post is to tell you the upshot of the talk I had with P on our way to the bus-stop - ugly food tastes GOOD.

So here is a picture of the Guinness Stout Cupcakes I mentioned in my last post, looking sloppy and oh-so-delicious with (cheap, I used Emborg whipping cream along with Cadbury's chocolate) Chocolate Ganache Frosting. YUM!

Sitting pretty (ugly) in a wrapper with hearts on, in a brown paper bag for R

YAY!!!! :)

I can now sing along to A*mei on my MP3 player happily, because I'm going to be watching her LIVE next Thursday at F1 Rocks Singapore!

Yes, we won the LG competition. The video is still on Facebook, and if you haven't seen it you still can! Follow the link on my profile.

Thank God, and thank you everyone who Commented on/Liked our video - thank you for not deleting me off their list of Facebook friends after I kept updating my status and actually SMS-ing some of you.

And thank you LG. Just in case the person who selected us is reading my blog, haha.

Law school has taught me one useful thing, and that is, to read or at least browse through Terms and Conditions. Most people don't bother anymore, especially with Facebook, because you have to keep agreeing to Terms and Conditions everytime you add a new application, or upload photos, etc.

Well, there was a clause which read that videos which had a higher number of Comments and Likes would have a higher chance of winning.

Now you understand my tenacity in trying to get YOU to make a few clicks.

Jon's Birthday, Part 1

But before I talk about that, I would like to tell you something interesting I realised recently. When you sing A*Mei's Bad Boy at KTV there's one part where the lyrics read "BAD DOG BAD BOY." I always thought it was a typo, because well, you can't trust the source of these music videos, right?

Well, I was listening to Bad Boy again recently and guess what! She really sings, "BAD DOG BAD BOY."

Nevermind the inferences which can be drawn from those lyrics, especially in the light of reports of Singaporean men being abused by Singaporean women.

***
We had dinner at this steamboat place on the edge of Chinatown. It was really good! We had tom yum and herbal soup. There were 5 Js, a K and a C.

I like corn cooked in soup.

And I baked Chocolate Guinness Stout cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting. Those were pretty good too, if I do say so myself. Dense like a good chocolate cake should be, with a bitter stoutey aftertaste, without the tau cheo overtones you usually get when you drink stout.

If I make them again I'd probably not cut the amount of sugar so drastically. But the frosting saved the day - how wrong can you go with chocolate ganache, anyhow?! Dark chocolate ganache at that, even though it was made with Cadbury's 72% Cocoa, which I bought because it was on sale at NTUC. I also put in a touch of XO from the bottle sitting in the fridge.

That's all.

(What were you expecting? I TOLD you already, the lives of lawyers and lawyers to be all Very Sad One. Don't believe what you see, read or hear about the legal profession.)

Dreams

One of the first things I'm going to save up to buy when we go back to work is a hand-held mixer - so many recipes I see nowadays call for fluffy, light-as-air beaten egg whites, which are next to impossible to achieve by hand. And they apparently make for lighter, softer, crumbier cakes.

Just like my favourite cake of all time, pandon chiffon cake. Yum.

I'm starving to death slowly in front of Lenny, reading recipes, while my parents try and convince me to snack before dinner because they did and are therefore not hungry enough to go for dinner yet.

Begging Pardon
Dear Jon,

I am most sorry that I have been accusing you of being in possession/losing my Stevie Wonder Greatest Hits CD. As you already know, I found it lurking in one of my desk drawers, hidden under some old foolscap paper and a CD of Debussy's Piano Works Volume 2.

I am just posting this so that you will feel some sense of vindication, and also because it is de rigeur for people who blog to let those reading their blogs know how cool they are, from time to time; oh how varied are the types of music one listens to!

And I am in one of those moods now, just like my father - this morning he came up to me and said, "I'm feeling bombastic today! So I've decided to use the word quintessential in one of my papers!"

Love,
Chloe

p.s. For your love, I would do anything, just to see the smile upon your face.

:)

"VOTE" For Us!

Okay, so it's not a "Most-Liked," "Most-Commented" sure-win contest.

BUT. Having people comment on and liking your video can't do any harm, surely?

Follow the link on my Facebook profile. Remember to comment on/like the video found on the LG Mobile Singapore page itself!

Thank you!!! Especially to everyone who's already taken the time to do so.

I haven't laughed so much in one night before. I kept bursting out in laughter everytime we tried to take the entire video in one take, hence the fade-out before we start the song.

Which is a very catchy tune, and was written by Jon.

Happy laughing and saving the video for blackmailing purposes in the future.

Ways and Means

We've decided, once and for all, that we're too broke to buy tickets to the first day of F1 Rocks - well, if we weren't too broke, we'd be too busy.

Anyhow, I googled for contests and found two.

We've entered one, and our entry to the second one is pending an email confirmation.

I will tell you more (rather silly and funny) details at a later date.

Wish us luck! (it sounds strange to say "Pray for us" somehow. But please do.)

Prawning

It's because I like eating prawns, and because I've seen photos and heard so many accounts of friends and acquaintances going prawning that I decided I'd like to try it. And as part of my 23rd birthday celebrations, at that. Even after D disabused me of the wonderful notion that people went prawning with nets.

Well, ok - what was I thinking, right? What would be the point of prawn farms offering you the chance to prawn, then?

Even so, yesterday afternoon, my head was filled with visions of prawns and prawns barbecuing in a row, ready to be peeled and eaten. I could smell them cooking, a lovely prawny smell tinged with barbecue smoke. And the taste of their legs! I love the taste of prawn legs (very weird, but I'm sure there are weird things YOU like to eat. Don't let's hear the pot calling the kettle black). And they're somewhat meaty-feeling in your mouth.

And of course, the sweet, sweet taste of fresh prawn meat, all fat and white and pinky orange.

Alas!

Prawning is barbaric, and also rather difficult. Ten prawns in just about 4 hours, with three rods and about 8 different people taking turns to have a go. There were many people, so maybe that accounted for it, and it was our first time after all (excuses, excuses).

But the results were tasty, and matched up to the visions I had.

And, as one of Jon's friends pointed out, the fact that I was squeamish about seeing them skewered and salted while they were still flipping about didn't stop me from eating them with a relish, a huge grin on my face.

With our rather small catch

I caught one and three-quarters on my own (Jon completed the last quarter of our first catch), and he caught two more, I think. I almost got a whopper one time, but he (she?) got away, with such force that my fishing line swung up and my hook got caught in the attap roof.

The uncle, when he came to help me release it, said 小姐虾在水里不是在上面 (Miss, the prawns are in the water, not up there).

At least I didn't drop the rod into the water， like You-Know-Who did. Sniggers.

We went to Hai Bin U Enterprise Prawn Fishing in Bishan, at 603 Sin Ming Avenue, next to the driving range. The zhi char was pretty good too.

And no, we did not order barbecued prawns.

***
In other news, my brother fell off his bike two days ago. He cannot walk properly, and he has puncture marks from his pedal on his left calf.

I couldn't stop laughing when he was describing it. Especially when he kept insisting, after that, that he had a sprained ankle (he didn't).

What a mean older sister I am.

But he's so huge, and he was kinda being a bit of a . . . (see my blog picture). You know?

Odiously Pleased (O.P.)

I seized upon this phrase yesterday morning when M and I went back to ACJC for a chat with our form teacher, who is finally pregnant, after many years of students nagging at her to have children. Our class played a big part, I am happy (sad) to say (oh, the terrors we were).

I asked her whether her parents were O.P., to which question she responded with her trademark rolling of eyes.

And the phrase has stuck with me since. It isn't a very nice adjective, but it does sound so nice when you say it!

I am currently feeling O.P., having cleaned the floor thoroughly, and am feeling that I am a Very Virtuous Daughter who can clean the floor better than her father. Please excuse the use of italics, it's only because I am feeling so very O.P. at the moment.

Don't you just wish you could wipe the smirk off my face?

***
A few Sundays ago we had a sermon on unity in the Chrisitan body. Of course, Pastor J talked about unity in families, and it struck me then that for all I complain about my father and disagree with the way he does things, I have a united family which I'm thankful for.

My displeasure with my father results in my not ironing his pants and his shirts which I deem too old and worn out, and not mopping the floor of his study room. The latter I gave in to, just now because my mum pointed out that all our labour would be in vain if he tracked the dirt from that room out to the clean parts of the house. And I might give in to ironing his pants soon, to stop him from coming to my room in the mornings demanding why they have not been ironed.

Wrinkle-free fabric, indeed.

And his shirts are so worn-out that they don't need ironing anymore because they don't wrinkle.

Keeping cool is the most important, says he.

The shirts which do need ironing I feel tremendously O.P. about, after I've finished with them.

To his credit, he did take the mop from me and mop his room, but that might have just been because he didn't want me crashing and banging about into the carcasses of old computers strewn about, with towers of books in between for good measure - you almost suspect he enjoys purposely creating impediments to a clean floor.

I'm probably also the only young person in all of Singapore whose primarily driving parent (father) constantly tells it to take the car!, but staunchly refuses to do so in the interests of the safety of other Singaporean drivers.

And he likes Jon. I fell sick on the 3rd when we were supposed to go out for my birthday, so Jon came over instead. I went to bed early, and he stayed in my house watching NCIS with my father.

So tonight, to round off my birthday week, we're going prawning! I'm very excited. Be excited for me, and I'll share the experience with you next time!

Making It Up, and The Sad Lives of Lawyers To Be, Part 4

I was Very Sad after my last post, but Jon has fully redeemed himself by coming to my house at midnight on my birthday (this has never happened before) and giving me my birthday present.

And in true lawyer form, right after being lovey for a bit, we proceeded to Very Unromantically discuss the assignment due on Thursday.