Water Dragon

 

 

 

家庭照片: 大年初一和大年初二

The very short school week is over. Three days down to year 1 orientation, three weeks to the start of common test week, it's crazy. January whizzed pass, and it hasn't exactly occured to me that it's 2012 already. I felt strangely dispirited and unfeeling during the festivities this year, which is ridiculously odd because Chinese New Year is one of my favourite holidays. Some things remain customary, but there seems to be an inverse relationship between traditions and wholehearted practices, if you get what I mean. Nevertheless, the two day break was a joy, evident through my over-eating at e v e r y single meal. I was as stuffed as a teddy bear.

I joined in the whole prep process this year too — chopping, slicing, julienning, mincing and all. Stir-fried the vegetables and stewed the sea cucumbers. Chucked them into the fridge, got on my deactivated OCD self and gave the house a good cleaning. Put up the (minimal) decorations with Mum and whipped up the rest of dinner after. Packed all the goodies that were meant as gifts. We even made a promise we'd go to Chinatown next year.

Celebrations aside, I've finally decided that things have more or less been deeply brilliant and I'm finally ready to rekindle my relationship with onedietcoke! It's been two whole years since I last  signed into blogger I could actually have had a baby in this time. All that made me invincible throughout this hiatus was that I got through 'O'Levels and survived from Taecyeon's stage sex and greasiness at MAMA. And also I started cooking. I would throw virtual confetti all over your screen and have a bash for welcoming myself back into the blogosphere after a very overdue hiatus. Basically, I missed this space a whole lot. Being "alone" for a whole year has made me realise the versatility of life, in a neutral way. I've come to terms that acceptance is detrimental and the lines of comfort zones will eventually blur out. Things can only go uphill from here, and hopefully 2012 bears some good promises!

I'm also starting to get back into the habit of reading and writing as often as I can. Blogger serves as a platform to compile my thoughts nicely, however senseless and messy they can get. Fingers crossed that this habit sticks through, just as my new cooking habits have been. Speaking of which, I'm off to the kitchen to whip up dinner

Detoxify

The festive season is almost upon us! A time for eating, drinking and perhaps more eating, for money and new clothes and seeing your relatives and celebrations. A time to trigger your inner OCD by cleaning the house and eating nothing but leftovers for days on end. It sounds exciting already! So grab some lettuce for the local lion dancers and doll yourself up to collect those red packets because Chinese New Year comes Monday morning!

And to explain myself for the all too over-the-top enthusiasm in the above paragraph is that it's only been 20 days into the year, 2 weeks into school and I feel exhausted already. I can't remember the last time the universe tried this hard to kick me down. Again embracing a terrible biological clock screw-up and negative correlations between critical thinking skills and never-ending deadlines at midnight. I'd say I won't make it past June.

Photos via Instagram, gastro-porn and dainty new bedside table lamps and all. Pretty evident of the time I've been spending in the kitchen as of late, and all the nifty skills I've picked up through a concoction of Mum's good ol'tricks and the online web. Gone are the k-pop videos, and beauty tutorials aside, my subscription list is now 50% cooking channels. Also, have I mentioned I adore Gordan Ramsey? His crudeness satisfies me in a way Simon Cowell does and I love them both.

The build-up towards this year was strangely satisfying. During that time, I managed to get out of the country twice, visited some extremely picturesque places with the people I love, and enjoyed really good food. I don't take much of a liking to street food, but hawker food is right up my alley. How unfortunate we do not have the priviledge of what Penangites do, and anyone that says our local hawker scene is good enough for them, they obviously have not been to Penang.

So here we are, in 2012. The family and I spent New Year's at home. We sipped red wine, popped champagne, and had a very entertaining round of Monopoly. 2011 was gone, and I hurried with my mental thank-yous and a quick reflection. Then I prayed that 2012 wouldn't disappoint, and that we would visit the famed Tsukiji in Japan sometime soon.