It occurs to me that I never have a poetic and meaninful way of starting a new post. I seem to jump straight to the point and shoot whatever it is on my mind out into the post. I've no patience for dilly dawdling and mind-games twisted with fancy schmancy words that seem to drive me away out of frustration after a while. You can never know - sometimes - the true meaning behind such colorful language and I'd rather people state in it black and white.

Lunch, then shopping with JL and DL. Its sort of surprising that they are two of the few people whom I'm friends with in secondary school who I manage to stay in touch with even after we graduated 4 years ago. Blimey 4 years. But when we sit and talk, it seems that like we've never left and that we're still struggling with geometry and remember pointless dates in history and paraphrasing Chinese words and paragraphs.

We lunched at a Japanese restaurant, and it was my absolute first time having a proper Japanese meal. I ordered a saba rice set that came with gyoza and a bowl of miso soup. I was bewildered to see only a pair of chopsticks, because the course included soup. And how was I supposed to have the soup without a spoon right? So I started asking JL if she has a spare spoon in her set and JL and DL both looked at me in an amused fashion and was all "You're supposed to drink it from the bowl, woman."

Right.

So we talked about our experiences in our respective schools and what went on after we went out seperate ways, which universities DL and I were planning to attend. DL got accepted to study Mass Communications in University of Buffalo. I'm jealous. Not because he's going - if he chooses to accept that is - there, he'd be going to New York City. God is openly mocking me in the face right now.

We went shopping after that, because JL needed new clothes and DL needed a get a cookbook for his domestic helper's birthday. Me. I just followed. I mean i DO need clothes, but I don't shop for clothes with friends. I shop for clothes alone. But it was equally fun to look at the clothes JL chose and give her opinions on what works for her and what didn't. DL commented that a dress that JL chose which I thought was awesome for workwear, looked like an apron, and that that another polka dotted dress she tried on screamed "farm girl goes to prom". We argued in the shop about that, because it simply screamed vintage and quirky, yet DL openly mocked my style and we went full on debating about the entire issue of styles and whatnot, just like we did when we were in the debating team.

God I miss the times I spent with them, especially with JL. Its hard to forget that we were best friends in secondary school. To be honest, I'm not sure about the idea of labeling people as best friends or not. Two people may be best friends in school for a long time, and after going seperate ways with the occasional meetup when they moved on and made new friends, are they still considered best friends then? It seems very dodgy to me.

But still. It was nice being able to meet with some old friends, considering how I've lost contact with most of my classmates over the years.

Going to make my second cake tomorrow. My first cake was an unfortunate failure due to a slight miscalculation on my part, having read 1 cup of milk instead of half cup milk and I ended up with an extremely watery batter. Have purchased all my ingredients, plus I've got a new cake tin with a removable base! I got it at Phoon Huat's AMK outlet, though this one was much smaller as compared to the one at Bugis. Still. I suppose it'll be nice to start with a small and simple cake and slowly work my way to other cakes.

Brace yourselves!

Countdown to Graduation: 20 more days bitches!

It fills me with such depression to look at all these lovely cakes and cookies and other pretty heavenly looking goodies in all these cookbooks when I'm fully aware of how incredibly sinful they are. Loaded with sugar and all that junk. AAAARGH. I hate this.

My dad is being incredibly stupid now. Like, really. He keeps asking me to talk - literally - to Bobby and ask him if he's hungry, and in my state of utter annoyance, I snapped at him and said that that was an incredibly stupid question and he replied that as a student of psychology, I should be able to understand animals.

I thought my dad was supposed to be smart? Clearly he has issues.

I watched John Q last night and it was an incredibly excellent show, starring Denzel Washington, who plays a medically uninsured man in America who has a son with an enlarged heart, on the verge of death and in dire need of a new heart. But being uninsured, he can't be put on the national waiting list for a new heart, because American health care policies, if you have no money, you can pretty much kiss your health goodbye.


So poor Denzel's character, desperate for his son to live, hijacks a hospital and some patients and doctors in it and asks that his son's name be put on the national waiting list out of anger at the unfairness of his country's medical laws. Yet when all hopes of a new heart being available at that point of time since impossible, he offers to commit suicide and give his heart to his son, only to have his wife screaming on the phone just as he was putting a gun to his head on the operating table, that a new heart was now available and that he operation would take place in a jiffy.


It seems really straight forward and predictable, but the underlying story really focuses on America's lackadaisical health care policy. Its sad to see that millions of Americans aren't medically insured, purely because they can't afford it. Its morally unthinkable to see that a doctor has to turn away a sick and/or dying individual because he's not insured. Undoubtedly medical technology is expensive in the States, which is why the government calls that Americans must be insured, but the cost of being and getting is unbelievably high.


The movie made me cry. I was so touched by his character's humbleness and dedicated love for his son, so much that he's willing to give his life and heart up so his son can live the childhood that his enlarged heart deprived him off.


People in America are dying because they can't afford medical care, yet I'm here cutting myself because I'm fat - which happens to be an absolute fact by the way. I ought to shoot myself in the head and spare me from misery.

Really. I understand that this is all in the head. But I might commit suicide one day because I don't know if I can stand the thought of literally seeing flabby flab around my disgusting body. I am so NOT pretty and completly horrid looking. I ought to write my suicide letter soon because I don't know if I can hang in there. I mean, the cutting frequency and intensity is increasing. And I'm so frightenend. GOD i hate myself. If models and friends can be stick thin, then why can't I? I tell you why, I need to staple my disgusting mouth shut for good.

Lunch with JL and DL later Am partly dreading it, because I've nothing fancy to wear, and I look FAT and ugly in whatever I wear. And unpretty. I hatemyself. Did I mention that? Yes, only about 4834 times, but its true. I completly disgust myself.

Mum changed my phone last night. I now have a "brand spanking hand-me-down iPhone that was previously her's. Can I just say I absolutely despise the touchscreen keypad? I actually prefer the old school method of pressing buttons. I tend to press the wrong alphabet icons, even though my finger was on the correct one, and this is fatally frustrating and annoying. Playing Angry Birds ain't all that fun too because the birds and pigs are too small.

Plus, switching phones reset the timecode on my phone so I ended up waking an hour earlier and I'm feeling so sleepy.

I miss my old phone. I have no NEED for an iPhone. I just need a phone that enables me to send messages and take photos. With proper buttons, thank you very much.

Perfectionism is slow death.

I can honestly say that I might just be representative of the population that fits this quote. Well I may not be a perfectionist in setting cutlery, but the cuts on my arm and abdomen are testament to this.

I went on a spree a few days ago and was honestly - on a scale of 1 to 10 of immense sadness, loss and confusion - might just have pitched at a 12. Whenever I go through the details of what I did that day to myself, I cringe, because I honestly believe that I must have been possessed. To hurt myself in such an unthinkable manner. So after, the deed, I emailed K because I seriously had no idea what to do. K is the only one who knows the full extent of what I've been doing and she's been a really incredibly rational and logical support system for me. I think when it comes to such extreme measures of self injury, nothing but rational comfort would do for me. Its nice to hear things like "you can do this" or whatever, but its....not enough? I think.

May I quote what "I" said when I was emailing K when I was drowning in a puddle of my own tears, wincing and rejoicing at the pain of the new cuts on my abdomen "I honestly think I'm losing it."

So you see. I'm not as strong as people think I am.

On a brighter side, I baked my 1st cake today, and I knew something was wrong when the batter was too much too watery. Until I looked at the recipe and realized that I copied "1 cup milk" instead of "1/2 cup milk". I'm such a dingbat. Am still on the lookout for lemon cake recipes. I want moist cakes. Not light airy fairy cakes because my mum doesn't like them. Was supposed to go down to the National Library to look at cake recipes, but the rain was so strong. Like, the raindrops were cascasding sideways! My brolly was turned inside out! But not before I went to get my yogurt from Berrylight. Its sort of become a habit for me to buy yogurt from Berrylight after I clock out. So far, I've tasted the flavors, Milo, Peach Mango, Red Velvet, Blueberry, Mint and Raspberry, which I never knew could be incoporated into a yogurt. I've become a little more friendly with the girl at the counter. She's the same age as I, and awaiting acceptance from NUS and NTU to study Business. It was fun hearing about her ranting about the perks and downs of working at a yogurt shop. And having someone fun to talk to after work with a nice relaxing cup of flavored yogurt.

Shall continue looking for more lemon cake recipes suitable for a family that is weight conscious. I mean, I've got a body type that predisposes me to diabetes, so I really gotta watch that sugar intake. National Library. Friday. Maybe.

I'm having qualms about this university thing right now.

I've worked so hard to get into NUS. And I've got accepted by both schools. But now having to make a decision is to hard. One of the reasons I want to go to NUS is because - though that's not the main reason, but a contributory factor - is that I want to get away from the both of you. I feel like I'm alienated. I feel like they're having fun conversations with each other, and I'm just left there like second rated rubbish. Like I'm not fun to be with, or something fuck like that. I don't know.

I want a new life. A new chapter in my life and sometimes I feel like it requires giving up a part of you for that.

I haven't officially decided which school I want to go to. Hell, I'm still undecided. 2 weeks ago, it was NUS, yesterday it was NTU, and now its a blank slate.

That's it. My mouth is shut. I won't tell anyone what my decision is. No one deserves to know it. Not even "friends". Oh wait. I forgot. I don't have friends. Friends think I'm too boring to hang out with now. HAHA la-dee-dah.

I've been officially banned from buying any baking-related items, due to the sudden depletion of the figures in my bank account, along with the need to pay for dance lessons, bus and train rides, food and other expenses (my low fat yogurt, thank you very much).

I might put dance on hold for a while. I don't want to ask my mum for money, because I'm trying to learn the art of being independent and being responsible for your own purse strings and seeing as how I'm stretching my last few dollars right now, I might put it off this week.

Speaking of dance, going for Fredy's classes have made me realize that as my HH, or at least, going for his HH classes, is getting better, but my SJ is getting a little fuzzy and dodgy. Street Jazz is very jazzy and technique and to be honest, I'm still struggling with my turns and all, but I'm actually getting better in HH. I've really taken to heart Gin's advice on body posture in hiphop. She says hip hop is all about going low and bending your knees and she commented that we (the class that I was taking a few ago) have absolutely lazy knees and we need to work on it because HH is all about going low and getting dirty.

Right.

I'm not sure. I still like SJ. But somehow it seems that I'm starting to have a difficult time in Fredy's SJ classes. The choreography is all right, but the technique is getting harder. He's introducing double turns and complicated moves that I'm not used to right now. But I'm not a quitter when it comes to dance. I'm not going to give up on dance. I just need some dough.

Work was a little frantic today. 2 staff called in sick today so it was only my supervisor and I holding down the fort. What was more, it was so busy today. I'll be taking orders from one table and before I can help them set the cutlery before the food arrives, another table is ready to order, and once I'm done taking the order, I've to pick up food from the kitchen and by the time I'm done, I can't remember which cutlery I'm supposed to set for which person by the time I'm back to the first table.

We didn't have time to eat our meals, because if I'm eating, the supervisor's handling like, 10 tables at once, so my food left cold and untouched for about an hour and it was about 3pm by the time I actually settled with DM to lunch. I agreed to stay for another hour because they were so short handed. Plus, my supervisor was so desperate, she called our outlet manager to give us a hand. I got a warning for stacking the plates when clearing the dishes from the table. I thought it'd be more efficient and save me loads of time. The manager was all "Don't do that next time. It's doesn't look nice. We're not a coffee shop."

Plus, I've never met another person who is more of a perfectionist than my supervisor. The lemon in the ice lemon tea has to be placed at a certain angle, the foam on the latte has to be spread in a particular leaf-shaped pattern, and the cutlery has to be set in the exact criss-crossed manner. And I thought my mum was insane.

SY came over on Saturday to my place - for the first time - to bake. She's been saying how she wants to see how my apartment looks like, but I keep putting her off and decided last week that maybe it'd be nice to have her over and flaunt my new noisy convection oven. We made chokes, I mean, choux pastry with caramel sauce on it and it was pretty fun seeing how different ingredients can combine and rise to become such sinful hell-sent goodies. I'd upload a picture of the choux pastry, but my soddy phone can't send the photo over to my laptop.

Bugger.

I'm now on the hunt to search for the perfect recipe to bake for Mother's Day.

Contender: Serene Juan
Challenge: Low calorie, low fat, low sugar lemon cake.

HAHA. Who am I kidding. Low calorie, low fat AND low sugar? Jillian Michaels must be laughing her ass off at such impossible cakes. In her dictionary, cake = fat. Have you SEEN her on America's Biggest Loser? She literally screams at the contestants to move their asses and ticks them off in public if they forget to bring their calorie count books to restaurants. If she sees the kinds of cakes that Julia Child bakes, she'd crucify Ms Child and hang her to flog.

But hey. I'd give it a go.

Cranberry Scones

After an hour of sloughing my hands in doughy dough, I've finally produced what I can confidently say (at least at this point of time), one of my finer works of art (culinarily speaking) - Cranberry Scones!

My fascination, desire and love for scones originated during internship in Australia. I had them for breakfast and they were so scrummy and delicious and soft. Basically a carbohydrate-fueled rush of pure pleasure. So once I got my oven, I decided that I just had to have scones, and what was more, I couldn't find scones here in Singapore, which is a tad scandalizing. I wanted to ask the bakers at Bakerzin if they know how to make scones, but I figured I'd end up more confused in translation. Besides, they told me they use only flour imported from France, called Type 55 Flour & using other flour to make the artisan breads would produce breads with different textures and taste.

Plus, I don't think they're allowed to reveal the receipe. Which isn't fair if you ask me because I'm part of the Bakerzin family aren't I? My secrets are your secrets, that kinda thing? Whatever.

Anyway, the original recipe for the scones called for dried apricots being mixed inside as well, but I didn't buy those so I just added an extra serving of dried cranberries in place of it. I woke up in the morning, all set to begin baking and send an air of baked bread permeating the house, but realized with dismay that I had no yoghurt or eggs. So I rushed to the convenience store to grab them.

Mixing the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients together was easy, but the challenging part as kneading and rolling the dough into the shapes of balls that would eventually rise to become the delicate scones I so love. The batter was, due to lack of a batter term, waxy and glutinous. Bits of batter was stuck to my fingers and I just couldn't rub them off, like candle wax. Unlike cookie batter, which has a softer and firmer consisteny and very easy to cut and knead.

It took me about 15 minutes to seperate the dough into 5 individual balls of batter. Again, the recipe said 4, but each one would have been huge! So I split them into 5 and stuck them into the oven for 15 minutes. The worst thing about baking is waiting for the goods to come out. I hate waiting, and never have been good at it. So in anticipattion of the birth of my scones, I bustled off to wash up my utensils and equipment. It gives me such joy washing and cleaning up the kitchen; wiping the mixing bowl free off batter, sweepeing flour off the granite table like fallen pixie dust. Moreover, I like the idea of bringing fresh yummy smelling goods into a world that's sparkling clean so I can enjoy it with a peace of mind without having to worry about the mess in front of me and prevent me from enjoying my fruits of labour.

So finally 15 minutes later, which felt like such an awful long long time, the timer rang and I launched myself at the oven, yanked the oven door open and slid the tray with my 5 babies out and onto the table, smelling so crisp and full of goodness.

This is how my suicide note will be like:

Name: Serene Juan
Cause of Death: Perfectionism