in about five minutes i have to go hang up clothes because my grandmother says they'll get too crumpled if i leave them in the washing machine much longer, they'll start drying out. but i have to share a nice thing which happened this week:

HIONG PENG FROM IPOH
(from jon's mum. which made it even nicer.)

enoch, eat your heart out in canada. krispy kremes will never compare to hiong peng. AND YOU KNOW IT.

i suddenly remembered this song, i first heard it when eugene sang it for offering a couple of years back.

today i watched in silence as people passed me by,
and i strained to see if there was something hidden in their eyes;
but they all looked at me as if to say
life just goes on.

the old familiar story told in different ways,
make the most of your own journey from the cradle to the grave;
dream your dreams tomorrow because today
life must go on.

but there’s more to this life than living and dying,
more than just trying to make it through the day;
more to this life, more than these eyes alone can see,
and there’s more than this life alone can be.

tonight he lies in silence staring into space,
and looks for ways to make tomorrow better than today,
but in the morning light it looks the same;
life just goes on.

he takes care of his family, he takes care of his work,
and every Sunday morning he takes his place at the church;
and somehow he still feels a need to search,
but life just goes on.

so where do we start to find every part
of what makes this life complete;
if we turn our eyes to Jesus we’ll find
life’s true beginning is there at the cross where He died.
He died to bring us -

more to this life than living and dying,
more than just trying to make it through the day;
more to this life, more than these eyes alone can see,
and there’s more than this life alone can be.

actually. to be honest, i thought of the song because i was reading a rather ranty post on a friend's blog. ranty posts, in fact, on the blogs of friends. this song's for you... Jesus or not, there really is more to this life than living and dying, don't forget that. the semester's almost over, here's to more lunches and talks after lectures about nothing at all, before we'll be free for three months at least. it's really not so bad -

***
which brings me to thursday, even though i really ought to get the slowly crumpling clothes out of the washing machine. thursday was a perfect school day. i almost didn't want to go to school but then i remembered that thursday's the day i almost always somehow end up with yalan, having these semi-emo expositions on love and life and i really thank her for listening to what i have to say even though i think some of it is just totally strange and weird and i'm just. weird. but no, they aren't emo - i think it's really just a lot of what i've learnt over the years, how i've just come to love God so much more. and tris turned up with highlights in his hair. i take very long to get used to new hair, on guys especially, and he's right - by the time i get used to it it'll have grown out. still, it looks very... artsy.

we had lunch, and yalan and i gave up doing our equity tutorials together and just talked, enjoyed the sunshine and the greenery, with tris and rui. and it was lovely, being able to just say heck it to your constructive trusts tutorial (if people didn't get divorced, we'd all have one less confusing equity concept to think about - all the constructive trust cases so far appear to be on divorcing or adulterous couples) which we probably won't be able to do for client's memos when we grow up.

(it's so nice to say, "when we grow up," as though we haven't already grown up, really. but we haven't.)

say heck it to tutorials and risk incurring the wrath of your tutor and just talk, enjoy each other, grasp these last few precious lunchtimes before the semester ends and exchange next academic year and our class just won't be the same. kyle coming to our table with a sardine curry puff - they sell sardine curry puffs in the canteen now i'm going to try one next week! yonghong started playing the guitar about twenty minutes or so before we all had to leave for tutorial, and it really reminded me of jon and quen in jc, how we used to sit in the void deck and do all these things, talk cock, sing, play the guitar - and i'll always remember jon in e flat major at the bleachers one grey day.

***
which brings me to one last thing before i really have to go. i met jon's (ong) mum in the supermarket yesterday, and forgive me for posting this jon (i'll buy you a drink during lunch on sunday like i'll ask the waitress for ICED WATER ok) but she said:

"aiya. this jon ah. so spoilt."

to which i said, "just get rid of the maid! then jon will have to learn to do housework!"

and he'll die, really, i know it and so does he.

it's 0358 by my handphone clock, i'd actually planned to sleep early because i've got a long long long day tomorrow but oh well. got home later than i planned to because i spent another hour talking to emma about a whole lot of nonsense... but it was worth it, really. long lost secondary school friends. funny how we just happen to think of each other at times and then end up meeting and having these long conversations about - nothing at all (no la, actually very got substance one. seriously).

i felt like having a picture with this post, for some strange reason, and i was just looking through my photos quickly and i decided i wasn't really in a food or pretty lights sort of mood... although i'm going to sleep soon. today josiah rang to ask me whether i knew the person who'd planned the transport for last year's church camp (he doesn't even go to my church). which was just super strange la, he tried to coerce me into calling the church office for him? and i was like no jo you better do it yourself. that's him up there. no matter that he looks all big and macho rugby nonsense he's still a small boy. hurhur.

my parents went to kl today. i made them sandwiches and put them in a paper bag with an apple, a pear, and some spread and crackers. i wanted to put in some tim tams too but i was afraid they'd melt because it was so hot this afternoon. i also wrote a post it and stuck it on the bag - it said, daddy please try not to antagonise mummy - and then i added in, "too much, because it's only natural that you will."

on sunday we went for lunch at this chicken rice place - good and famous chicken rice is always shockingly expensive, have you realised? boon tong kee isn't even that good, five star is better. this place was called - i can't remember, but it's next to L.E. pastry at rochor road (the pastry shop with the fantastic sugee cake and golf ball pineapple tarts which i haven't tried yet but i shall, some day. that's also where the tau huay is). so we're eating, and my dad looks at the black sauce and goes...

"this is very sweet."

i was like... dude, it's sweet sauce?

and at dinner i tell my mother that i don't like the black forest fantasy tim tams and that i'm going to restrict myself to ONE dark chocolate tim tam when THAT packet's open. i think they had a tim tam sale at ntuc over the weekend, my mum bought three packets. anyhow my brother looks at my mother and goes, "there's tim tam?"

my mother, being the witty person she is (or so she thinks), says, "yes, of course! i bought them in case of an emergency. you can only eat them if there's an emergency. i couldn't imagine my babies being without food when i was away!".

i also made tang yuan with my grandmother on sunday, i think i've learnt the secret to making good ones. we'll see, in time to come.

i realised today that many important people in my life are named jonathan. and many important people who were in my life are so named, too. if i'm not wrong it means gift from God? they all were, in their own way. i took out my old worship songbook today, it belonged to my ex cell-group leader when i was in sec 1/sec 2 and his name was jonathan and the person who gave it to him wrote him a note telling him she hoped he would be a blessing in rj. then there's lovely jon ong, and jon huang whom i think loves me simply because i love abi so much. i still remember him at fifteen...and we both agreed he was more dashing and attractive then. my girlfriends who encountered him would be all "oh he's such a man of God and he plays the guitar so well and he's badminton captain and he's just the perfect guy blah blah blah" and i'd look at them and go, "err, it's just jon? and he's a weirdo?" - he's not really a pastor's kid anymore, he's a pudgy kid. seven years it's been and i'm still praying the right girl will come into his life. my godbrother's name is jonathan, and jon chia made me laugh through most of jc. jonnifer, mei and i used to call him, because he used to act really gay with melvin in class. that's still his name in my phone, jonnifer with a <3 next to it. the first boy i ever had a real crush on was jonathan too. and it's so strange because he's now dating someone i knew from jc, in these english language speaking circles (okay fine the whole ac/rj circle) it's not uncommon. and of course now there's jon - just jon, really, i'm sorry but i'm going to have to call everyone by their chinese names soon (jon ong has the weirdest one of all, it's chungsiong and it's both the first sheng1). jon who fed me bak chor mee and made me see how good life was with it, once more.

i think i might have just really baked the perfect chocolate cake!! being too lazy and too not in the mood for using baking chocolate i just used the recipe on the back of the hershey's cocoa tin, for "the perfect chocolate cake." they really do look quite perfect don't they.

there're just a few catches though.

1. i haven't tasted them yet because they're for baptism class tomorrow. i decided to bake them on a whim because we're on duty again for food so after i mixed the egg and tuna mayo (mayonnaise+whole grain mustard+black pepper+salt+cayenne pepper and a dash of paprika - different proportions for the egg and tuna though, i think the egg's a bit too wet for my liking but we'll see tomorrow) i cycled over to kathleen's house, picked up the cocoa we bought the last time and cycled back to bake cakes. just because i felt like it. it's been a long week, smelling the chocolate was good.

2. cakes aren't supposed to crack along the top, actually. but i think they look nicer that way, more home-made somehow. and cracks are good for putting in gooey bits - which brings me to my third point.

3. i cheated. i can never bring myself to use the requisite amount of sugar in these american recipes - this one called for TWO CUPS OF SUGAR to ONE AND THREE QUARTER CUPS OF FLOUR. wouldn't you just die of a sugar overdose already? so i cut the sugar so it was almost equal to the amount of flour - but less i think. then i started worrying that it wouldn't be sweet enough because of the other ingredients - also because i didn't have milk milk so i had to make milk from milk powder and i have no idea whether i really fulfilled the requirements yes but thinking about it proportionally i decided i had to do something about it so i used that old trick abi taught me. if you want to jazz up any cake/cupcake, right after you take them out from the oven just put semi-sweet chocolate chips on top of them, preferrably hershey's...they'll start melting and then you can spread them nicely over the top of the cake/cupcake. i even mixed in grains of coffee...

BUT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE CAKE TASTES LIKE.

we'll all have to wait till tomorrow - or later, rather, to find out.