A Hard Day's Night

Whew, I've finally finished half of my third assignment for one of my modules, due in full in a week's time but due in draft form for coming Tuesday's reading session. For most of the class, it's a norm to send other classmates the assignment at least a day before so they can have time to look through it before playing during the reading sessions. And it's a must to send a copy to the assistant lecturer, who conducts the reading sessions, one day in advance as well. Hence the rush to finish by tonight.

I've just sent it to the people who'll help play my assignment but I think I'll rather send it to the assistant lecturer tomorrow morning, I don't want him to think I'm such a last-minute worker that I have to work past twelve midnight to get my work done! Although it's the lecturer who grades the assignments, you never know...

I certainly thrive under pressure. Give me an assignment like this and I'll claim to have no inspiration or ideas to start, but come one or two days before the deadline and somehow the sparks start flying due to the miraculous forces of time constraint.

Hmm... that reminds me of a major essay for another module due next week, just a wee twenty four hours before the above-mentioned assignment. And, no prizes for guessing this: I haven't started. I've borrowed a few books to help me along but haven't read them at all, other than little fragments here and there (and also a little in aid of above-mentioned assignment). I don't think I'll be able to finish reading them before writing the essay and I guess I'll just have to find my way as I go along. *fingers crossed*

It's cringe-worthy to note that a week ago, I actually promised myself that I'd start on those books. I did, but I lost track of the authors train of thought somewhere after the second page because of the sheer technicality of these books' subjects. So I gave up and just listened to the subject of the essay, twice, thought to myself oh luckily it doesn't sound too awful, and conveniently left it somewhere in the pile of papers on my desk. Maybe I somehow thought if it doesn't sound too awful I would be able to cope with taking it apart and writing about its construction process. But all these processes are quite new to me, and now I'm starting to worry.

To cheer myself up a bit on this gloomy, moody, restless and full-of-work day, I decided to cook something homely for dinner. Had some sort of herbal soup that I've never seen in Singapore but my Hong Kong friend introduced me to at a chinese supermarket here. It's bamboo with some kind of dunno-what-that-is thing, and dried carrots. Each time I cook about a quarter of the packet and it yields two bowls, so it's quite worth the money I guess. I was told that it's nice cooked with real carrots (there are only a few slices of dried carrots in each packet), so that's about the only way I know how to cook this soup. Other than occasionally adding a chicken drumstick when I buy any.

And the ultimate homely food in the picture is vermicilli, cooked with garlic and lots of chili. My mum used to (I think she probably still does) cook this with prawns in a claypot. Ever since I bought the vermicilli I've been thinking of cooking this but always put it off when I come home late on most weekdays (excuses, excuses). Not sure if this is what my mum used to do, I think it's close cos it tasted like hers except without the taste of prawn.

So I guess it's just: fry the garlic, chili padi, and sambal oeleck sauce nicked from a housemate's cupboard (he did previously tell me I could use it!), then add the already soaked-in-water vermicilli for a quick stir-fry before adding some water and soy sauce. Actually I have a feeling that the soy sauce wasn't needed, maybe it's only needed if I didn't use any chili sauce but just the chili padi. And then, just let the vermicilli soak up all the flavours (ok, one flavour, hot!), and while the water dries up the vermicilli will start to become browned and fragrant and delicious. I'm salivating thinking about it now.

Being the pig that I am, I became hungry again once I started work after dinner and I consumed three cereal bars, which were meant to be the next few days' breakfast, or lunch, depending on my mood. (Ah, and did I mention eating a family bar of cadbury's chocolate yesterday evening?) Haha the perils of doing work... my foot. Someone just told me today that I gained weight. Oh I don't think I want to get started on that. Got to get some sleep anyway, need to have an early start tomorrow, what with having left my practical skills to rot for the past week.