am i...heartless?

With CNY coming up in less than a week many people away from home have started to feel like they'll be missing out on a lot..

It'll be my first ever CNY away from family, from Klang, from Malaysia... and yet i feel awful to say this but i haven't really felt anything yet.... i just miss the very important 3 F's.. family, friends and FOOD..

maybe it's because it's different... i don't get the CNY atmosphere like i do back home.. sure, the supermarkets here create a special aisle for CNY products, uni substituted the usual oranges with mandarin oranges.. but it sure isn't the same as CNY music blasting weeks before the actual day and also CNY products and hampers here and there in the supermarkets.. not to forget shopping for new clothes, spring cleaning, visitting grandma and visitting friends... (even after typing all that stuff i still can't feel anything D: )

My brother listens to One Fm online.. so when they kept repeating "tuan yuan fan" (reunion dinner) i think he felt a little something... so is it wrong that i don't feel anything?!?!? am i a heartless person who has lost her roots??!? -.- .. am i immune to festivities now?!?!?!

a part of me is saying i should get used to missing out on these events coz that's just the way it's going to be for a while.. and it seems to be working fine, that part of me.. but another part is thinking maybe there's something wrong with me..... and how can people be missing home and CNY and i feel absolutely nothing.....

i'm a monster D: D: D: ...

-llen-

a wave of tiredness..

shouldn't music make a person feel uplifted?

seemed to have the opposite effect on me today...

probably just one of those days... things don't seem quite right..

what if i did things differently..

i wish i could put it behind me..believe me, i don't want to dwell on things i can't change.. but it's just something that keeps haunting me..

suppose this could be another evidence of my "slow-ness" ... my delayed response to so many things... possibly...



i'm ok..

-llen-

ice cream? D:

One of the best things we did during the break i felt was each getting a tub of ice cream and chomping it down while watching a movie.. it was on half price sale, it was yummy... but at the same time it was sinful...*chuckles* ..

I kept telling myself i'd only do this now during the holidays and when term starts i'll make sure i eat healthy..plus, i haven't had ice cream in such a long time! back in M'sia the RM1 cone from McD wasn't a very frequent treat but it wasn't exactly rare too...

So now that term has started.... i sometimes think about that tub of ice cream... it'd be great to have a tub all to myself again... i'll be smiling with each spoonful of fattening creamy goodness :) ..

so when i had the idea while chatting with bro...

Me : i really feel like going to get a tub of ice cream now....should i? :D
Bro: FAT
Me : but.. it'll be the last time..
Bro : FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT
(after a long string of FATs later..)
Me : really so cham mehh D: ..
Bro : you stay there any longer you become fatx10
Me : ): .. oklohh...i'll just have some biscuits ._.

and with that... i stopped thinking about ice cream -.- ...probably should thank my bro for psycho-ing some sense into me ...hrmphh....

-llen-

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

this post is specially dedicated to Xing Leng ;)

..i believe once upon a time i tried to make this blog more food-inclined.... and yea.. i was always too lazy to upload pictures and i don't cook/bake often enough to make it a total food blog anyways.. so maybe once in a while i'll share some recipes? heh.. here's hoping i stick to this :p

OK! so.. Spaghetti Aglio Olio.. why? coz Xing Leng asked me how to make it :) ..

This style i believe is not the real, authentic aglio olio... we first had this at a spanishy fusiony restaurant..i think the authentic one has more sauce and stuff like olives in it..

This is possibly one of the simplest pasta dishes out there and i think once i have a kitchen in Year 2 i'll be cooking this very often because it goes well with a lot of things.. to me it's like the western carbo component in a meal so..yea.. i don't mind substituting this with rice..enough of my rambling, here's the recipe!

You'll need : Garlic, salt, olive oil (not extra virgin though) and preferably coarse black pepper. of course you'll need the pasta too XD .. i like spaghetti and linguine with it and i don't think short pastas will work as well..

before no.1 or simultaneously if you can handle it, boil your water and add salt and put your pasta in, cooking according to the instructions on the packet...

1. Chop up your garlic! i tried slicing the garlic thinly before and it works too but i think it depends on how much you love/hate garlic..if you're slicing it thinly you get to have crunchy flakes of garlic or it'll be easier to take out the garlic too if you don't really like garlic :/
i used about a whole garlic when cooking for 2 :p .. but, adjust it to your own taste...

2. Heat your olive oil in a pan.. or a wok! (Note that you shouldn't get the oil too hot coz olive oil breaks down at a lower temperature than say canola or sunflower oil..) and i don't think the olive oil is substituable with any other oil...hmm... oh, you'll have to put in more than when you're cooking vege and stuff or else the pasta will be really dry and not tasty..just bear in mind that olive oil is a healthy oil! some people drink olive oil! so don't worry too much about it :)

3. Once reasonably hot, put in your garlic.. stir it around a bit to make sure it doesn't become dark brown/black.. add your salt while stirring the garlic around and keep a watchful eye on the garlic..

4. Once garlic is just about turning golden brown switch off the heat coz the garlic will still continue getting cooked with the heat of the pan/wok..

5. By then, your pasta should be about ready... i usually don't drain the pasta but just use a fork to transfer the pasta to the oil+garlic but..i think the proper way to do things is to drain the pasta..haha.. but i've never had a problem with my way anyways *shrug* .. see how hardworking you wanna be..... so yes, transfer your pasta over to your pan/wok and switch on the heat again..

6. You'll have to work a bit faster now coz once when i cooked the pasta in the wok a bit too long it became a bit hard..
Toss the pasta around in the sauce and add your black pepper.. well you could've added the black pepper in with the garlic earlier but..it's up to you i think..

7. Get your pasta on your plate and you're all set! Dig in!


oh..and i've never tried it before but i think adding a little chili to the oil+garlic before the spaghetti might give it a nice kick :) .. i think mum tried adding some herbs before but i don't think she got the right herbs so it didn't turn out so well :p ..but if you know the right herbs to go with this, let me know!!!! :D



Edit: adding prawns to cook with the garlic will also be really nice :) .. (thanks cous for reminding ;D )

-llen-

Sem 2....

it's the middle of the first week of the second semester!

still quite relaxed coz tutorials haven't started...

what's different this semester?

1. i signed up for gym membership so i could go for yoga :) ...and tai chi (coz it fits my schedule and...tai chi has health benefits too right?? it's not just for the elderly..i think ._.) ..and hopefully run on the treadmill though i doubt i will.. might run outside though once the paths are less slippery.......hmmm...

2. instead of accounting we are learning finance.. which SOUNDED really interesting in the module outline but when the lecturer started to speak, :( .. looks like more self-studying is in order...

3. for our management module there will be a group presentation......hopefully i'll be able to overcome my stage fright *sigh* .. the assignment sounds interesting though.. some business plan thingy...

4. most importantly, after this semester i'll be going home!!!!! ahhhHH!!!!!!! can you feel my excitement?!?!? :D :D :D :D ..food! family and "family" ! friends! scaring mum/dad with my driving skills! my own shower/toilet!
i somehow have the habit of getting to excited nowadays.... it's only January but i keep telling myself it'll be May really soon.. :p .. don't get me wrong though, i still haven't felt homesick yet...


Still haven't quite adjusted back to term time sleeping/waking hours..haha... i got up 45 minutes before my class today and luckily the shower wasn't occupied..hehe..


-llen-

thinking about the past is sometimes a bad idea..

suddenly the thoughts about how you disappointed yourself, the people around you just come back.. and it sucks.

it's something i'll always have to live with because no matter what i do, i can never change that fact.

if i had a chance to do it all over again, would i do it differently?

you bet i will... anything to erase this feeling of regret..

something so small could have made such a big difference...

whether or not i would be happier on the whole, i don't know..

but right now, at this moment.. yea, i think i would've been much happier than how i'm feeling now..

-llen-

19...

no longer 18... hmmm...

it was my first birthday away from home but thankfully not a lonely one.. but it was one with surprises i must admit :)

on the night of the 2nd we ordered pizza from domino's and had a good dinner... there wasn't much to do though.. just watched TV together then watched movies on the laptop..a slow peaceful night, just the 3 of us.. (May Ling, Chinli, me) .. and knowing Chinli, she checked the time so that when it was midnight she could wish me XD .. i've been saying at appropriate times throughout the trip that i know her so well and it's been 5 years (in 2010, on new year's day i told her it's been 6 years!!! XD ) and she denied it and said i don't know her at all every single time XD..

And maybe she was right..coz no matter how much i knew her, i sure didn't know she'd be doing so much for me for my 19th birthday!

she went to the kitchen and came in after a few minutes later with a raspberry cheesecake and an unlighted candle coz..there was no source of fire..haha... she even tried to light it buy putting oil on the hotplate and trying to ignite it..

i had no idea she bought a cake but when i thought about it i KNEW there was something fishy going on!!

she slept in my room on new year's day and got up around 12pm on the 2nd.. i assumed she went back to her room and i got up a few minutes after she left.. i thought i'd let her sleep somemore coz she didn't call me.. but around 3pm i thought maybe i should call her..

so i called the room extension and nobody picked up...hmm..maybe she's in the kitchen.. so i called her handphone, she picked up and i asked "not awake yet?" and i was sure her voice didn't sound like she had just woken up and i was sure i could hear some background noise but she told me she wasn't really awake yet and wanted to take a shower first...
but i didn't think too much about it, just felt it was a little weird...

so as usual "after her shower" she called me and i went over .. lazed around watching tv, using the laptop... then i was looking about the drawers and when i opened the one on top of the wardrobe i saw a box and said "ooooh..what's this??" then she quickly said "No!!!! that's my christmas present" then i quickly shut the drawer...but in my mind i was thinking..."when did she get that?? i sure didn't see her getting it :/ .. " but again, i let it slide...

so back to the cake!

while we ate i asked her where she got it and kept thanking her for it.. and i was quite shocked that she'd take the bus out on her own like that...
after the cake and a movie May Ling and i walked back to our halls....

by then my sleeping pattern was actually pretty messed up..haha... i woke up at around 12pm but just rolled around in bed, too lazy to get up... then chinli called me around 1pm and told me to on skype coz she was trying to see if she could go online with wifi on her phone...

when i turned on skype, nobody was online -.- .. then suddenly mum was online and she called me...

i just thought, in passing, something like this might happen but didn't really expect it to happen..hahha..ok, here's what happened..

my "just-woke-up" messy state was witnessed by the whole family -.- .. (including cousins, aunts, uncle, nieces..) turns out aunt made another ice cream cake and there were red eggs.. they lighted up the candles, sang me the birthday song, asked me to make a wish and asked me to blow out the candles..hahahah.... and yes, i blew...i blew at my laptop screen while on the other side Rachel blew out the candles for me XD .. and then i watched them eat -.- ...

then when i told mum about chinli asking me to on skype but she still wasn't on skype yet..

mum: oh..maybe she wanted to.......
dad : wanted to what? what?
mum: oh..mm..nothing lah... you go and cook with her lah, have to eat something..

and i still didn't think something was up!!! hahaha...

but when i went over to chinli's...

chinli: did you skype with your mum?
me : yea.. eh, how you know??
chinli: she told me to tell you to on skype today from last year...
me: huh? ...wahhhh...and i thought it was a coincidence you asked me to on and after that she was on...

and now i know what mum is capable of!!! hahaha...

the next day was chinli's departure from Edinburgh.... with my whacked out sleeping pattern..i think i was too tired to feel anything but tiredness.. it didn't exactly hit me that she was really leaving until she'd got on the train and i went to get groceries, alone...

thing about being lonely is that..it's fine once you get used to it.. you can go days without much interaction and it wouldn't feel so weird.. but when you've got a buddy with you all the time for about 2 weeks and suddenly you're back to being alone again it feels really weird.... suddenly, there's nobody beside you on the bus.. nobody to talk with..nobody to watch TV with..nobody to laugh with.. *sigh*

then chinli texted me when she was back in durham and then her 2nd text was that she'd left something under the bed and she asked me to go check for her..

in my mind i was thinking...oh noooooo... i'll have to courier it to her.. have to look for dhl office...

but when i pulled out the box from under the bed...it was a present for me... :')

i did mention the thought of getting a pair of fluffy slippers to keep my feet warm in the room but i was never able to find one that i liked enough to get so i decided not to get any and stick to my slippers...

and my present was a very very fluffy pair of slippers... and very comfy too! the pattern (leopard print) wasn't something i'd get for myself coz..i'm just not used to overly patterny stuff..hehe.. in other words, i'm not quite brave enough and i usually stick to plain stuff..call my fashion sense boring if you like (coz even i think it's kinda true...)
but it's different when someone gets it for me and i somehow don't think it's so bad after all..

and when i put on the slippers it just felt so soft and fluffy that i liked it a lot, leopard print and all..

and it turns out my birthday present was chinli's so-called "christmas present" that she hid in the drawer above the wardrobe :)

so, my first birthday away from home was actually pretty good after all :) ..
i dunno what i did to deserve a friend like Chinli and a family like mine and all the friends who wished me through facebook and sms but i'm truly grateful <3 ..

-llen-

so...

it's 2011 already...

with holiday mode switched on and days and nights all getting jumbled up it's pretty hard to accept the fact that it's the 3rd day of 2011 already...

New year's resolutions!!

1. as always, lose weight..... haven't reached ideal yet so there is still weight to shed!
2. study harder... aim higher
3. be a better human being.. this means..just generally being a better person i guess?
4. be a better friend.. i think i'm a lousy friend most of the time.... :/
5. have a healthier lifestyle... ._.

i think that's about all i can think of now......

previous years i seem to have given quite some thought into resolutions but i think that yearly tradition has slipped a little...


-llen-