That's What Blogs Are For

BECAUSE I AM UNABLE TO RETALIATE ON FACEBOOK I SHALL DO IT HERE.

HOW IS SEZAIRI A BETTER SINGER THAN SYLVIA?!

Personally, I've got nothing against him. He's probably pretty likeable in real life, and he's not a bad singer. I thought he did a good job on the episode where Tabitha got kicked out.

Heck, I even thought he did slightly better than Sylvia on the second song - but that's probably only because I got over Yellow a long time ago.

So before you get all antsy and point fingers at me, let me just state for the record that I don't really have anything against him winning, because I do like him, and anyway winning Idol doesn't actually say much for your music career. Case in point being Adam Lambert, though he's going all weird and I'm not so sure I like him that much as a perfomer anymore.

And whatever it is, Sylvia was the real deal - she had talent, she was sincere when she performed, she was pure heartland - there's something so Singaporean about her, somehow (despite her mixed blood). So I think she'll be fine, career wise. I'm definitely going to support her.

I'm just feeling really annoyed right now, at people who make pompous, know-it-all comments on Facebook about how they feel Sezairi's win was "fair and justified" because he was a better singer and that people just wanted a female to win, hence the support for Sylvia.

Give me a break, and give the girl credit where it's due. Honestly, he's not a better singer or performer than she is. Any objective spectator/listener could tell you that.

I wish they would create a "Dislike" button on Facebook.

P/S I'm still a firm believer in Regardless of Race, Language or Religion.
I mean, imagine life without asam fish and asam stingray? Or ayam penyet? Or that awesome chili sauce only Malay food stalls seem to have? Hello?!

This Week At Work

There is no email exchange of the week, because we were all tired out max.

However, on Wednesday, when Aunti L smsed me to say she was buying "yami," I immediately thought of whether Yami Yoghurt would have a claim in passing off against Yummi Chiffon (which was what Aunti L was really buying).

Which is really, really sad, if you think about it.

To quote a colleague, I think Aunti L and I had passing off coming out of our ears (add appropriate hand action, simulating things flowing out from ears).

And because I simply couldn't do any more work at around 4:30 p.m. on the eve of Christmas Eve, I found this game called Sara's Super Spa which TechSupport didn't block (but now they will, I'm sure) and played it until I reached Level 7.

Try it, it's fun - especially if you're a girl. A bit like Cooking Mama in a spa setting.

Then I felt bad, so I turned off the game and mooched about until it was time to go home.

Merry (belated) Christmas and a Blessed New Year to everyone! :)

Email of the Week, or Much Good Part 2
From J (ah, which J, wouldn't you like to know), after lunch on Friday:

I need help!

How do I view the New Msg on my phone ????

Which button to press ah hahah

I didn't know the answer to his query, and the fellow suffering pupil (trainee? What are we now called?) sitting opposite me told me the wrong thing.

It took us some trial and error on those dang-blasted office phones before I was finally able to ring J back with the correct answer.

Yes, me and fellow suffering pupil sitting opposite me actually left each other call-backs.

***
In other news, I bought Jon's Christmas present today and gave it to him just now so he can use it at work on Monday. He'd wanted to buy it on Friday, after seeing someone in his office use one, but I told him I'd just get it for him for Christmas.

It's a multi-colour pen with a mechanical pencil (perfect for marking-up, as he said). Quite cool, really. Because I bought refills, the lady at the stationery shop asked me if it was for a gift. When I said yes she gave me a silver box with Zebra on to put it all in. She even wanted to wrap it in pretty paper, which had a teddy bear-flower-heart print. I kid you not.

Must have been my look-like-student face.

I said in Mandarin: it's for a boy, no need lah.

I think she found me quite amusing.

Don't believe what you hear about posh lunches, dinners and expensive presents. I told you lawyers were deathly boring, practical people.

Some of whom can't even operate their office phones.

Hey, not me yah. I already know how to operate it okay.

:)

Jon, at 0050 yesterday morning: ...i feel like applying for the queenstown bto...shall we try?

Not quite Facebook-status-change-worthy yet though. Stay tuned.

Tell Me Why

Xiang Yun appears to have hair like A*Mei's, circa 2006? And Edmund Chen has taken to calling himself "Rex Lee"? And how come I know all this random TV trivia?

And, of course, tell me why the (I'm restraining myself from using "my") Yoghurt Passionfruit Syrup Cake tastes So Awesome?

AWESOME STUFF

Today I baked the Yoghurt Passionfruit Syrup Cake from NotQuiteNigella. It was really quite fortuitous that I actually had two passionfruit in the fridge clamouring to be eaten or used in such an awesome way. I also thought I'd have to buy yoghurt and baking powder (to make self-raising flour), but I chanced upon a tub of yoghurt in the freezer, and self-raising flour in the fridge.

Tenny is currently on holiday with PoBe and my parents in Hong Kong, so there are no photos of the cake - but it looked quite liked Not Quite Nigella's except that I didn't bake mine in a Bundt pan but in a springform pan which is actually Abi's and appears to be have made its permanent home in my kitchen (well, she does have three of them).

I was a bit worried the chunks of ice in the defrosted yoghurt (which I stirred away) would affect the ability of the cake to rise in the oven, but twenty minutes or so into the baking time it was rising just fine, and turned out wonderfully light and fluffy.

I also didn't have enough passionfruit to make up the required one cup of pulp, so I used the - get this - frozen lemon in our freezer. I had to defrost it in the microwave first, and was worried the juice would've dried out but it was as juicy as ever!

My mother is in the habit of freezing things, as you can see.

I thought the lemon gave the syrup quite a bit of an edge. Oh and if you're planning to make it with lemon and passionfruit don't follow the instructions exactly but add as much water/sugar as you deem fit, to get the consistency you want.

The cake was so cakey, crumby and light and moist, just the way I like it.

I hardly ever eat anything I bake, but I had a pretty substantial slice of this, it was just awesome.

And I think I've figured out the secret of the heartland bakeries - self-raising flour.

Email Exchange of the Week

On one of my many visits to D's desk to borrow the materials we have to use, I noticed that he had a navy blue H&M 'M' sized sweater-vest thing on his desk. I immediately assumed that it was his girlfriend's, until he informed me that it was his cold weather wear.

Since there are only so many things to amuse us in the office, I reported this fact to Aunti L when I got back to my desk.

Me: D brought winter wear can go laugh at him hahahaa

Aunti L: He brought winter wear FOR?

A few minutes later

Aunti L to D: Snowing in the library? :)

Much Maligned D, Only Male Pupil (Trainee) and Therefore Has to Suffer and Forebear the most:
Hahahaha you and chloe are like one entity. Talk to one and the snide response comes back from the other!

Your email must have some 'auto CC' feature

***
Aunti L sent the above exchange to me, along with "!!" to express her sentiments towards it.

I couldn't stop laughing, it was awful having to try and keep from laughing out loud.

And you still wonder why I actually look forward to going to work.

Hopefully the feeling lasts.

Family Ties

PoBe's prom was last night, and because he's in Hong Kong with our parents (oh, woe is me and the need for those 180 days), I just commented on his Facebook wall that the choker he wore was uggs maximus and that I wish I'd been at home to tell him to take it off.

YUCK.

I really don't like chokers on boys. It seems so wrong somehow.

Don't you wish you were an older sister, old enough to be mean and getting away with it?

Kudos to JC kids who don't bother to restrict their Facebook profiles. Or maybe they're still at an age where they want their lives to be subject to voyeurism. But that's just weird, don't you think? However, I used to be like that once.

It struck me how very young they all looked. And when I look at photos of my prom, I just see old people. Weird. I wonder if he sees old people too, when he looks at his prom pictures.

***
Today D informed me that the Khong Guan biscuits which are round with the frilly edges have a peanut cream filling, thus resolving the mystery and saving me some calories in the process.

I discovered they've got the plain square ones! Maybe it's time to get some cheese.

New

I have a new desk on another floor, and there are also new biscuits in the office - Khong Guan biscuits, to be exact, of an unidentifiable (cream? The round ones with little frilly edges?), the fake Oreo and the lemon puff variety.

Suffice to say, all this is very pleasing except for the fact that the lemon puff variety (which happens to be the only variety I'm partial to out of all three) appear to only be stocked in the pantry of my old floor, so I've got to nick some whenever I'm down there discussing the NECESSARY with my colleagues or make my NICE colleagues bring some up to me whenever they come up to discuss the NECESSARY with me.

***
Today I went to the Family Court, and I came back with a mini short story in my head. However, I tried to type it out just now and failed miserably because I couldn't help feeling somewhere in the back of my mind that I was being pretentious and rather poseurish, so I scrapped it.

It had something to do with a man and his wonderings at how he'd felt more disappointed at discovering that a song he liked was actually Jay Chou's 最长的电影 (because Jay Chou isn't exactly the epitome of manly music) than with the end state of his marriage, and how dispassionate he felt sitting in court waiting for his turn to take the witness stand at his own divorce hearing.

And about how he'd felt more amused than anything else at what was supposed to be one of the most crucial turning points in his life, snickering softly along with the pupil (Guess Who!) from the law firm he'd hired at the things he observed and heard as he waited.

Like the two Ah Bengs sitting behind him, who seemed to be acquainted but didn't know the other would be there -

What are you doing here? (in Hokkien)
Divorce lor, what else? (in Hokkien)
(String of Hokkien words)

Which unfortunately, I - I mean, our protaganist - was unable to understand.

You're starting to see why I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being Rather Pretentious, don't you?

The best line (in my opinion) of the short story which I managed to churn out before I gave it up as a bad job was:

How can people bear to live apart after all that (courtship, struggling through years of heartache in the hope that there was something better beyond that, etc.), even though they can't bear to live together anymore?

Does that even make sense? I used to love writing things like that.

In a warped way I guess it does make sense, but who wants to live like that in the real world? Isn't it very tiring? Isn't life just so much simpler where there's God and no God, cake and no cake, ice-cream and no ice-cream? And don't I sound like an annoying three year old? (Gotcha!)

***
I miss Aunti L, but on the brighter side, at least we'll (hopefully) be more efficient now that we're sitting apart, and can thus go home earlier.

Unsentimental
It's nice to be thinking about HDB flats and hearing from my own dear mother that she does NOT want me to stay in Punggol.

And it was nice, on Friday morning at 1 a.m., to be able to leave BTC without feeling much nostalgia, just extremely grateful for Jon and YH, even though we'd seen each other almost everyday for the past three weeks.

I'm looking forward to Monday, even though I would welcome a day of sleep.

There will always time for the little things.

So really, boys and girls - it's not the end of the world, it's only the beginning!

***
Just remember, when all else fails, there will still be . . .

cake.

Polar sugar rolls, Bengawan Solo pandan chiffon cake, Yummi Chiffon cake, QQ Bread butter cake.

Crumby, honest to goodness, down to earth, no-frills, cake.

And cake means tea breaks in the pantry, with friends (not just colleagues, but friends) who are just as sick of being in front of a computer as you are.

Of Exams

The amendments to the Legal Profession (Publicity) Rules 1996 include the removal of Section 19, which used to provide for Greeting Cards. The said section is reproduced below:-

Greeting cards.
19. - (1) An advocate and solicitory may, on the occasion of any special observance or on any other special occasion, send greeting cards to -

(a) any person who is his client or a client of his firm; and

(b) any person with whom he has personal or business dealings.

(2) Any greeting card referred to in paragraph (1) shall, apart from the message of the greeting, contain only approved information.

(3) No advocate and solicitor shall send greetings to anyone in any form or for any occasion by publishing the greetings in any mass medium, electronic or otherwise.

If this rule was still in force, which of the following greetings would attract a reprimand from the Law Society? (N.B. All grammatical errors are intentional)

(A) I wish you a hapPy christmas tOday.
(Hope to hear from you soon!)

(B) we Must & will remAin in CONTACT.

(C) We hope you are in good health this festive season. If not, we send you our regards.
WeWILL see you soon!

(D) All of the above.

***
At least it's over!

(And you do know the above question is fictitious right, even though the paper was pretty awful.)

Inspiration!

After watching Fantastic Mr. Fox with Jon today so we could watch The Informant! with everyone else on Friday (note the corresponding exclaimation mark in the title!), I was seized with the desire to do something stealthily.

Something which actually needed to be done stealthily, of course.

So I decided to wash my new clothes.

I washed them in the bathroom with the door closed while my mother was hanging out a batch of washing.

And then I waited until she had finished hanging up said washing, and finished fussing over the locking of the door and the switching off of the mains.

And I waited some more, until I heard her bathroom door close, indicating that she was taking a shower.

And it was then that I snuck out to the backyard to hang out my new clothes, which I shall instruct PoBe to remove from the laundry poles as soon as they are dry.

But there's a slight problem with all this - how on earth am I ever going to dare to wear these clothes?

***
Fantastic Mr. Fox was pretty good. Maybe it's time to forgive Ong Sor Fern for giving Troy 5 stars.

Yes, I have held a grudge against her for that long.