i like.

I like middle-eastern food (Arab, Turkish, Egyptian etc). I love pita bread eaten with the assorted dips (hummus, baba ghanoush, yoghurt, tabouleh) I really like hummus and baba ghanoush, which i think is a kind of seasoned eggplant dip. And then there is the feta cheese salad and main course grilled kebab meats, which i love too.

I googled Middle-eastern cuisine and found that Greek cuisine is partly categorised as middle-eastern too. I totally enjoyed my meals in Greece! Which explains the gyros (grilled kebab meat in pita bread), souvlaki (skewered grilled meat), greek salad (feta cheese and tomato salad), moussaka (casserole with minced beef & eggplant) and grilled zucchini. The ingredients are essentially the same and the best part is olive oil is used. Olives happen to be a staple of middle-eastern food too except that i absolutely hate olives.

I basically like doughy stuff i think. I like the chinese jiaozi, the italian pizza & pasta, the indian naan, the controversial origin roti prata/channai etc. While i like chinese food too i don't think i'll miss my rice and noodles and probably can go 3 weeks on a european and/or middle-eastern diet. That said, I can't wait to go to Turkey! And maybe Israel. And Morocco.

But for now, here are some pics from a relatively enjoyable dinner at Arab Street with Dabends & Poooey last night. I was too lazy to take out my camera when the food arrived. Kinda regret that now. Anyway i got the first pic off Wikipedia and the rest were taken while we were chatting after dinner.







Followed by some dubious after-dinner activity.

My default homepage is the Yahoo! webpage and to me it is nothing more than self-imposed compulsory wallpaper i need to pass through to get to my email, my blogs and a couple other regular sites i visit on an almost-daily basis. Very rarely would an image or an article be so compelling that i actually look at the Yahoo! page while its loading. To me it is a blur of text and pictures. If i want news, i get them from the newspaper and Primetime Morning while getting ready for work each day. If i want celebrity gossip i read 8 days (although i haven't bought 8days ever since i turned 31 and strangely don't miss it).

Which leads me to reflect on another habit i don't partake in - channel-surfing. Rarely would i be sitting in front of the tv switching channels in search of something more interesting. Unless i am absolutely stoned and growing roots in the sofa and totally unmotivated to get up to do something else*. Having said that i'd probably be watching whatever's on the current channel rather than pushing the buttons on the remote to switch channels, i think. I mean, I've channel-surfed before, most definitely, but i don't enjoy it cos it feels like a huge time-waster and you're not getting what you want at the end of it. But its funny i say this because i am a huge time-waster myself, blogging about inconsequential stuff not excluded. When it comes to tv, I know my favourite tv program schedules by heart and watch those faithfully (there aren't many these days) then move on to other things when the program has ended. In similar fashion, i don't enjoy randomly surfing the net as well.

So.

On a positive note, I guess i could be called task-oriented but on the other end of positive, surely i am (yikes!) boring, predictable and unadventurous!! Over a delicious middle-eastern dinner last night (more of that in another post later perhaps), my friends say they channel-surf in hope of finding something more interesting than the current channel or they scan the Yahoo! home page cos some articles intrigue them and rouse their curiousity enough to make them want to click on "5 ways to know if she is the one" and the likes.

In conclusion and to avoid writing an essay about something potentially predictable, I think i need to have a mindset/outlook makeover and be more curious for my own benefit. Because how then would i come across sites like the one i have been raving about in my last 3 posts (if not for Cherry) or find the secret to finding The One (okay i'm just kidding) but seriously i think from now on i will look at the Yahoo! home page in a different light and when i feel like writing another inconsequential post i will pause and channel-surf a bit cos who knows, i might just come across something interesting that could potentially change my life! And even if it doesn't, i'd probably have gained some other knowledge somewhere (hopefully i channel-surf to appropriate channels that is.)

* For some strange reason, its a different story when its very late at night after i have finished my rounds of websites/blogs i regularly visit. My butt and my chair would seem to have developed some kind of emotional attachment and i can't pull myself away from chair and move on to bed. thats when i waste time. but even so i still don't random-surf. I click in and out of the sites on my favourites list hoping i missed out something earlier, just so i can procrastinate some more. oh dear.

I spent the past 3 nights reading all of Tim Urban's previous posts (2005-2007), skipping the Apprentice recaps cos Cherry said he was really funny in it and i'm considering devoting a weekend to watching the entire season.

Since i've been going on about it, here's an excerpt from his Trip to Central Asia post i read last night. Btw, the post is extremely long but extremely intriguing.

So he's in some obscure province in China and he says...

"Anyway, the most crucial words to learn in any new environment are "thank you," "hello," and "where," and I got those three down ("Thank you" in all parts of China is "syeh-syeh" which, despite learning the exact pronunciation, I cannot say without feeling like a douchebag). One especially awkward translation is their word for "um": "Niggah." I eventually got used to this, but it was awfully jarring for awhile. Especially when it would be proceeded by the common word "ma"—so I'd hear, "Iyah tsung sieui anai, ma niggah diapung" and it would completely startle me."

It took me a while to realise that "Niggah" translates to nei4 ge4 ma3 which literally is the Chinese expression for "um..."

And i tried to make sense of the chinese sentence he strung together but gave up soon after. I have absolutely no idea if he completely made up the phonetics.

Um okay i don't know what motivated me to post the above. Taken out of the context, it suddenly isn't funny anymore haha. But still there were so many posts that had me laughing out loud. He's funny in a mundane kinda way, like even the most mundane speck of an account would be funny. Here's a sampling but i suspect it's funnier read as a continuous diary of sorts like an invasion of someone else's thoughts and daily accounts and enjoying it tremendously.

Friday
Google Earth
Tutor-Student
Idolatry
Internet Drama
Speechless
Lighten me up
Bird Flu
McMishap (the one that started it all)

i think i'm gonna suffer from withdrawal symptoms soon.

tim urban made me go out and get mcnuggets.

not 4, not 6 but 18 freaking pcs of mcnuggets.

i thought a box of 9 would be more than enough to curb the craving. but i sorely underestimated the sheer power contained within those innocent-looking golden little chunks of deep fried juicy goodness.



i ended up getting a second box of 9 when i should have just gotten the box of 20 right from the start. and to think i've never been a huge fan of chicken mcnuggets. while placing my order, i didn't even know what the next available number of pcs the nuggets came in after the regular 6 pc pack. i actually ordered a 10-pc pack only to be told the nuggets came in 6, 9 or 20 -pc packs. Plus 4 pcs for the Happy Meal pack.



well, at least the evil was shared between my brother and me.

but still?

all becos i was blog browsing?

i blame it on the power of good writing (and unintended advertising).

oh. and if you must, a weak will. all mine.

Got to know of this blog from Cherry and this entry had me in stitches. Like many of his other entries do too. Its always a pleasure to read stuff that puts a smile on your face.

Wahhh... i watched the entire FI night race and coming from a non-F1 fan, it was worth every minute of my sunday night haha. From sitting up when the first crash involving Piquet happened to Massa's heart-stopping pitstop slip-up and watching the pitstop guys run after the ferrari with the fuel hose dangling and the difficulty and consequential time lost they faced while extracting the hose, to another pit-stop booboo where David Coulthard (i think) was given the green with the fuel hose still connected but luckily managed to brake in time and finally to Raikkonen crashing out of the race (literally) while in the fifth position in one of the last few laps. Exhilarating! And like a friend responded over msn after the race... "ya... very exciting for a few wrong reasons" Ha ha. Here's poooey and me watching the F1 race in Sepang two years ago.

There is something soothing and poetic about paperbacks. And i'm not just talking about the stories contained in between the covers. Peering into my bag and finding a good novel among the contents, holding the book in my hands and feeling its compactness, flipping the pages to resume where i last left off, catching a whiff of the smell of the pages, feeling the crisp paper texture on my fingers as i turn each page, being carried away by the words into another world and the satisfaction that this brings and finally finding a slot in the bookcase when i'm done with it.



These days i try to read the papers a little bit more, and have been with a little bit more interest in the things that are happening in our world today. Like the US Financial Meltdown. The bomb blasts in Islamabad. The political turmoil in Thailand. And Malaysia. The contaminated milk scandal in China. And the possible recession in Singapore. It seems like there's more bad news happening in the world today than good.

Then there's the Finance section with all its confusing charts and investment jargons, analysts' reviews and commentaries, which is an area that i'm not naturally inclined to. To my great misfortune may i add. Sometimes to make it more accessible, like today, they feature interviews with ordinary people who have reaped successes in their investments (and by default usually in other aspects of life too) and they make it sound all too easy. Unfortunately i don't seem to be any wiser from reading about their money-growing strategies.

For several weekends now there's a travel feature where i get to read first hand accounts of someone else's travels and i love it! Especially since the places featured range from ancient ruins to medieval castles to romantic vineyards to breathtaking mountains to mystical treks in my favourite travel destination, Europe. I remember one especially fondly about a mother in her 30s who escaped work and family by going on a 30-day walking trail from Spain to France alone. It left me feeling way inspired and i wondered if i ever would work up the courage to do the same. And today they featured the rustic countryside in Turin. And i have this sudden urge to go trekking through all the countrysides in Italy, starting with Tuscany.

But more of that another time. For now i'm going to take a shower, and tuck myself in bed with my current read, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, to drift me off to dreamland.

I lay in bed a good hour before i finally pulled myself out from under the covers, which was, in that 60 minutes, the closest thing to a hug that i needed wanted.

Its been a while since i last had an intense extended dream about M. Last night i dreamt about M again which is the reason for this morning's post. As with most of the dreams about M, it felt real and whenever i wake up from these dreams i drift for quite a long time between waking and sleeping until reality wins in the form of either the morning sun seeping through the gaps in the curtains or my mom knocking on the door.

Once, maybe a year ago, i had this extraordinarily long and detailed dream about finally meeting M in church after a whole year of absence and i retold the dream in a single long post because i wanted to remember it. So i wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I included all the specific details i remembered like the dull grainy texture of the bench we sat on, the grey t-shirt and faded jeans he was wearing when he first appeared from round the corner, the words we spoke... About three-quarters through, due to some connection errors, I lost the post for good and there was no way i was going to retype the entire thing cos it was long and mentally tiring. And of course, i saw it as a sign. A sign that there was no point in recording things that shouldn't matter, things that i have decided for myself shouldn't matter.

Between then and now i've dreamt about M (and his mom) countless times. I remember most of the dreams, to varying degrees of detail but i never spent time dwelling on the significance of each dream. Sometimes the dreams provide an alternate means of communication with M, like in a parallel universe this would be how its like being friends after going our separate ways. For some reason my dreams with M are usually different scenarios of meeting him in the present and never about the past. Many of these dreams even reconcile the fact that we're no longer together but we're still able to truly hang out as friends. Maybe its because thats what i long for deep inside my heart. Of course there would be one or two rogue dreams that have a sadness and infinite feeling of irrecoverable loss akin to Haruki Murakami's poignant love story in Norwegian Wood.

Sometimes i wonder if the dreams will continue to be with me for a long time more. And i wonder if they are a result of my consciousness (or perhaps subconsciouness) in the day. Just after the breakup, I remember desperately wanting to swallow a pill that would wipe out the entire 8 years of being with M from my memory. That was the only way i knew for the pain to go away. Now i don't need it and i am glad i didn't take that pill (if there really was such a pill to begin with) because it is no longer painful. I miss him still but the pain has gone.

Like a good friend once wrote on the back of a card, "time heals..."

It does.

Sometimes you don't realise how much you actually think of someone until for some reason or other they're not readily available.

This is going out to Cherry, my constant confidant, who's touring Europe with her parents as i type. I probably have thought about you or felt like talking to you more times than the number of days you have been away for. And to think you have only been away for less than half the duration of your trip. 2 weeks suddenly feels like a long time despite the hectic pace at work. Hee. I know it's a little bit mushy between friends but it's true and it pleasantly surprises me that i actually am feeling your absence this much ha ha :P



November 2005 - Despite the smiles, this picture was taken on one of the worst days of my life, when the weight of the heartache fresh from the breakup left me feeling frightened, alone, helpless and extremely in need of a hug and someone close to hold on to. i remember the flurry of tears that morning in the office and i somehow got myself onto a bus not knowing where i was headed. I guess i probably called you and we ended up going to pick out christmas decorations and coming back to my place to decorate the tree. This, amongst all the other countless occasions long after the breakup when my heart still wouldn't heal and you'd come to be by my side and always brought me strength and comfort, sometimes disguised as a flower or pretty ribbons in the mail. :)

Plus all the other happy silly girly stuff that we always do together, the stayovers, the bkk pilgrimages, the weekend shopping sprees, Jason Castro!, RE-MENT tiny treats!!! ha ha! and of course not forgeting the occasional un-mentionable gross stuff too!

i guess i can't wait till you get back! Hope you're having a splendid time in Europe! ;)

Last night i was re-watching videos of Scooter when he was still a puppy and Scooter, who was comfortably curled up on my lap, suddenly perked up his ears and started looking around wondering where the ruffling noises and human voices were coming from. So I propped him up against the table edge and the movement in the video caught his eye. His gaze remained glued to the computer screen for a good half minute before he got bored and wandered off.

i am so super curious what went through his mind in that 30 seconds!

"i miss him. i mean i really, really miss him. i ache-inside miss him."

unbelievably heartwrenching. and i wept like a baby. the anticipation of knowing what's coming is sometimes worse than the thing itself.

Scooter, don't you grow up too fast okay, promise?


Scooter & me. A nightly affair after work. Almost.

The current novel I am reading is one that i had mixed feelings about picking up a few months ago when i was at Borders so i looked adoringly at the cover, read the synopsis and returned it to the shelves. Last weekend i saw it at Cheryl's place and found myself promptly borrowing it.

With just one-sixth of my novel left i find myself wondering if i should just stop. Stop now. Stop when its all good.

Of course, I'm reading Marley & Me by John Grogan, which is the story of him and his wife starting their life together with their yellow labrador retriever puppy, who will grow and change together with the family.



"Age sneaks up on us all, but it sneaks up on a dog with a swiftness that is both breathtaking and sobering. In the brief span of twelve years, Marley had gone from bubbly puppy to awkward adolescent to muscular adult to doddering senior citizen."

I guess i've watched Marley grow from bubbly puppy through to adulthood and i'm now at the beginnings of doddering senior citizen where i'm realising that the only journey left to read about is how age will inevitably take its toll on Marley. And i'm scared to read on. Scared cos i know one day the same would happen with Scooter. Scared that i cannot face up to it when the time comes. Scooter turned two on 10 Sep 2008 and that makes him a teenager. My puppy is a teenager. Already.

I don't like watching animals die in shows. I don't like the sadness that comes with it. But at the same time, it feels wrong to want to experience only the good stuff and blank out the bad. Thats not how life was meant to be i guess.

So i bravely flip to the next chapter and it is titled Borrowed Time and my heart sinks. But i will read on cos thats how life is meant to be - a mix of the good and the bad.

I'm so super duper excited! My otherwise uneventful friday night is turning out fine after all!

Am on msn with my friend who's in the States for 2 weeks for work and he's helping me get the DVD i wanted! Plus a couple more just to make up the 25USD amount to be entitled to free shipping from Amazon. Yayy!

Here's what i got:
1. Conversations with other women (for some strange reason its not selling here)
2. Once (i wanted to watch this but missed it both in the cinema and on the plane)
3. Pride and Prejudice (dunno, suddenly felt like watching it)

I wanted to also get 2 days in paris and/or Je'taime Paris but couldn't decide so ended up not choosing either. I don't usually burden friends to bring stuff back but it so happened that i was checking on Conversations at HMV again today and then i saw him online, i kinda put the two together and the next thing i knew, i was doing the very thing i say i never do! *sheepish grin*

Also i've got 5 episodes of Project Runway Season 5 to watch later over popcorn. okay i don't really have popcorn... and Season 5 episode 1 was quite a letdown in terms of creativity but i was blown away and absolutely inspired by Season 4 (which is currently showing on local tv now) so much that i crammed the entire season in 3 nights over last weekend, averaging 4 hours per night and becos i start watching when i get home from work around 11pm, i end up sleeping at past 3am! It all started with the sat night i stayed over at Cheryl's after working the entire day. Been a huge fan since Season 1!

Yayy!!

Shocking as it may sound i never thought my furry little pooch had in him a killer-attack streak so ferocious that he would, could actually do this to me.

See for yourself.



Okay nice try you say. So i guess i'm a bad liar and you don't believe me haha.

Had my stitches removed today for a muscle biopsy done 2 weeks ago. Was referred to the National Neurosciences Institute where i was told i have congenital myopathy which is some kind of genetic neuromuscular mutation and that's the reason why i walk a little funny and have difficulty climbing up stairs i guess.

Oh well. Nobody's perfect. :)

uh-huh. 

I guess until i find that special someone finds me, Dog will have to do it.

Since i'm remotely on the topic of love and marriage, i was just wondering the other day if opposites really do attract. And when people say "he's not your type", i wonder if they base their judgement on personality and/or interests and if so whether they've considered the possibility of opposites attracting.

That aside, i'm quite tickled by my friend's unexpected sense of humour. Maybe it's his upcoming wedding ha.

Conversations with different friends tend to be somewhat different. Its like after a while you realise that conversations with one friend are usually of a certain type and with another it is of yet a different type. But i guess they all serve to fulfil a particular need. Like the saying goes, no man is an island and i think everyone has this need to share, vent, confide, discuss, analyse, bounce off ideas etc with someone else.

Today I somehow was reminded that a friend once told me that if he wanted an easy relaxed conversation he'd talk to Friend A and if he was up for a possibly tiring discussion he would talk to me. Hmm. I'm holding that thought out for a bit. But I guess different friends bring out different sides of us and the combination of all the exchange we have with each of our friends do shape our thoughts and to some extent, reinforce them. And at the end of the day help us understand ourselves a little bit more, hopefully.

Anyway this was just a random thought that crossed my mind today and i wasn't about to do a study on the different types of conversations i have with my friends. Even if i wanted to, i couldn't cos i am exhausted. And feeling somewhat miserable.

Got home to another amusing sight that put a smile on my face after a long monday at work.

From the events planning desk (amidst a very busy past week at work and the next 2 weeks ahead), here are some event updates happening in the last week of August.

I guess its easier to just let the pictures do most of the talking...

First up, Sunday brunch to celebrate the September boys' birthdays this morning. 



And of course, THE EVENT of the year... Dabend's & Poooey's ROM on Friday 29th of August!
Thought the day turned out REAL NICE! :)



Managed to squeeze in time after work on Saturday evening to ride on the Singapore Flyer since it was the 2nd last day of free rides for those born in the month of August, in conjunction with our nation's birthday celebrations.



And last but not least, i came home a couple of nights ago to see a very gleeful-looking Dad fixing up his new toy in the living room. He tells me excitedly that he is experiencing his 2nd childhood.