To Kill a Mockingchicken

Yesterday was my first time butchering a whole chicken. At first I was wondering what to do first and where to start, then it was a little odd feeling the bones cracking under the knife, but the mission was finally completed after forty minutes. Basically only cut off the thighs, wings and breast meat. Decided not to waste my time figuring out what to do with the rib cage since I was going to use it to make chicken soup anyway, so I just chopped it into half for easier storage in the freezer. Wish I had a chopper though; I imagine the job would have been easier if I was using that rather than a normal knife.

Definitely going to do more of this. At £2.99 a chicken, it's so much cheaper than buying like chicken breast/thigh/wings from the supermarkets at I-dunno-how-much-because-I-never-buy-them prices. And I can do so many things with the chicken! Just made my chicken soup just now after coming home from work... and three hours later, woohoo done! I love getting the meat off because it's already falling off the bones, and I'm keeping the meat for making sandwiches during the week (so healthy right... lol). I always like using home-cooked chicken soup for stuff that needs taste instead of those chicken stock cubes (which off course are more handy).

I love this! I can imagine enjoying a hot bowl of soup just before rushing off to work on one of those days when I just barely have enough time to change and put the make-up on after reaching home before I have to leave again. Will have some of the rest of the chicken for dinner on Monday and Tuesday, when I don't have to go to work. Haven't had a proper home-cooked meal for so long now, very satisfied and contented :)

On the work front, since yesterday I've been half a chef and half a waitress. I'm really interested and one of the new girls doesn't mind doing either cooking or waitressing, so I've been trying out the cooking. So far it's good, pretty much common sense and also cos I've seen them doing stuff for so long already. If I really want to make the full switch to a chef though, I guess I'll have to master the tossing thing they do when stir-frying the noodles. Seems like it's very essential to getting the ingredients evenly-mixed! Trying to do so with chopsticks, no matter how conscientiously, still doesn't seem to work well enough.

Now that I've been up way past my bedtime, I don't feel sleepy anymore (or maybe it's the coffee NH made just now?)... think I will start doing the work for Tuesdays' tutorial. That would be a nice change from my usual Monday night frenzied-churning sessions.

Back from the dead

Wow... been really busy for the past two weeks. It was really bad, particularly because AL couldn't work in the cafe so I had to do that, take a 3-hour break while HN sets up the restaurant for me, and then work in the restaurant. It really took away whatever time I figured I would have to complete my essays.

At the same time, people came to tear down the plaster in my room and re-plaster and paint, so I had to move my stuff to the kitchen and NH's room. And sleep in a sleeping bag in his room as well, but I didn't get to sleep for 4 days because I was basically going to work, coming home after 11pm and then camping in the kitchen with my laptop until it was time to go to work again the next morning. That, and yet I still couldn't finish one of the three essays by the deadline. I had to give that up and hand it in a day late... was really disappointed in myself. Not so much for not being able to finish, but for procrastinating and leaving the work till so late.

Now my room is finally done, and I can move back, but the wardrobe is still mouldy, so I still can't put clothes in it. Going to just move my laptop and stuff back later, and put the bedsheets on so I can finally sleep in my own room tonight! But I'm going to miss sleeping in the very warm and comfy sleeping bag, although I won't miss the backache from sleeping on the floor.

I could have moved back sooner, but I was busy with the first week of school and for the last three days or so NH took over my room to finish his assignment (his room's in a complete mess now with my stuff cluttering it). But he's finally handed it in today, and I will gradually move out of his room (except my luggage with all the clothes piled on it).

The recital at which I accompanied two singers went really well. There was a last-minute change of piece at the end of last term by one of the singers, which I didn't have the time to practise during the holidays... and when school started, I had a day to practise it before rehearsing it with her the day before the recital. It was really nerve-racking, but I'm glad I managed it. And didn't break down, just had some minor mistakes... which the professional accompanist also had when he played for the singer who abandoned me. So, just goes to show... I'm not that bad afterall! (Saving my own face here la.) Both singers were really sweet and they bought me chocolates; the nicer one of the two bought a really box of chocolate and a really pretty card.

I can finally breathe again this week (or at least for now, I just hope the rest of the week will be ok). Tonight all of the housemates got together and we made assam fish head curry, roti john and roti prata for dinner. It was fantastic, except that the curry wasn't spicy at all (the Germans can't take spicy stuff). Tomorrow after I finish at 7pm I'm going to watch a movie with HN (whee!... but, a week after he asked me, he also asked a fellow colleague and her husband along...). Should be fun. I realised he's a really great friend to hang out with and we never run out of things to chat about, so that's good. Think status quo is great too, things can turn sour sometimes once you cross the line.

Anyway, yep, going to relax a bit before all the studying and working takes it out of me again once term gets into full swing.

Slacking and pigging out

NH just called to say his plane has touched down in UK and he'll reach home by about 3am. Back to my smelly mouldy room then... *sob*

Despite promising myself to finish at least the assignment this week, I'm really ashamed to announce that I haven't done much over the past few days. The only thing I was hardworking about was practising, which is good in a way... but once I get home I have the tendency to slack. I'd much rather browse blogs, watch the movies I have on the external hard disk over and over again, do anything but work. Sigh.

I did try very hard last night, but after listening to what I've already written, I will just be sian ji pua and not only don't feel like doing work, but also feel like deleting everything I'd written! And after listening to it over and over again in an attempt to maybe hope a bulb will light up somewhere... I was ready to give it up. So I moved on to watching a video of the opera which I've chosen to do for one of the essays. Fortunately I managed to find its score in the central library, otherwise I really wouldn't have been able to do anything except watch it.

I hate essays and assignments!!!! I'd much rather have more practical stuff even though I'm scared to death of them, and can really screw up. But since I don't ever get tired of practising, and at least it's just... go up there, do your stuff, and it's over. Much better than doing essays when you have to mull over it, do lots of research and reading, and finally force yourself to stare at the computer for days on end. (Ok, I know watching movies is also staring at the computer.) Just to come up with rubbish that many people have already written about. I do like reading and learning all the academical things, just not plaigarising summarising paraphrasing trying to express the same opinion as others have done in their books. Give me practical stuff any day.

It's also not helping much that I have a very guilty conscience because I suddenly got a monstrous appetite. Think it's because of the sudden jump to colder-than-before temperatures. But that's no excuse! I don't wanna become as fat as I became at the end of last year again! Look what I had for dinner for the past three days:










Thursday: devoured half a duck by myself (was really craving for Peking duck for unknown crazy reasons so I bought it at Aldi, sold frozen, together with the wrapper thingy and sauce). As if this was not enough, I munched on a whole packet of popcorn that was about probably medium-sized as sold in cinemas. Oh the horrors!










Friday: had lamb shank in rosemary and mint sauce (also bought frozen from Aldi). Then I moved on to peanut glutinous rice balls in water with brown sugar (what a great comfort to eat this and listen to the wind howling!) Also ate three small packets of Cheese Curls (light potato and maize snack that's cheese flavoured, very addictive) after that.










Today: ate two pieces of southern fried chicken (again, bought frozen from Aldi), with a mountain of fries drizzled with melted cheese. No picture, because I wolfed down the whole thing before I remembered that I should capture a picture to remind me of all the fats I've just consumed. And then peanut glutinous rice balls again (bought frozen from a shop in china town, same brand as the one in Singapore!), this time in soya milk.

Oh, the sinful convenience of frozen food. Buy it, keep it for as long as you want, and when you're craving for it, take it out, bang it in the oven, and half an hour later it's ready. No fuss. But also unhealthy.

I think it's just a once-in-a-long-time thing, cos right now I'm feeling too sick of such rich food and am ready to eat like I normally do once again. Just hope it will last for some time before I start craving for something more fattening. And then, I will attack the pizzas still lying in the freezer *cackles*.

German chocolate loot

Woke up early for the first time during the holidays and went to uni to do some practising. I loved the feeling of satisfaction after spending a good three hours working on things. At the very least, it sort of made up a bit for the guiltiness I had been feeling for not doing any work ever since the start of holidays.

I then took a train to the city centre, because when I had visited the central library yesterday I hadn't looked up some things. And it's my only source of information right now, since I had procrastinated doing work and going to the library so much that when I finally got my lazy bum out of the house on Friday, I found out (to my very great dismay and guilt) that the music library and the resource library were closed from Friday. Serves me right for lazing my Thursday afternoon away, thinking I could always go to the library on Friday. And both libraries are only going to be open on 3 Jan, a short twelve days before my three essays are due. Also, I'll be working for the whole week starting 2 Jan, 9am-4pm, so I might not even have twelve days to do work. Argh I really hated myself so much (I still do, but not much use crying over spilt milk now).

Anyway, so I went back to the central library this afternoon and sat down with some reference books. Also found some other useful books, but in the end, I'm still going to have to wait till the music library opens because the central library just doesn't the score for the essay topic I've chosen. I'll just try to do the most I can in the mean time though.

I rewarded myself for doing so much work coming down to the library even though I initially wanted to go home after practising due to the cold (thinking I'd probably not find anything useful anyway), by getting myself some chocolates from the Christmas market. It was the last day the market was open, so quite a number of stalls were having discounts. I got a buy-one-get-one-free bag of chocolate peanut clusters for £3, and two I-dunno-what-it's-called chocolate thingys (previously recommended by HN) for £1. I'm going to save the chocolates for when I start doing the essays.

Food outing and job woes

Glad it's 'weekend' again. I was going to work very hard practising on next Thursday's performance pieces today. In fact, the rehearsal on Tuesday went quite well. Two of the pieces were quite straightforward so they were good. I just have to work harder on the third piece, which has speed changes almost every two bars and in which I only have the figures and bass part.

But, due to lots of disturbances from my housemates last night... 'Wheres the basket?'... 'NH!'... and other variations or noises I can't remember. I can only remember being woken up by all the noise, looking at the time, feeling really pissed, then going back to sleep. Only to be woken up again. Argh. So I didn't brace myself and crawl out of my warm bed into the cold room when my alarm rang at six this morning. I slept till it was TEN. What a pig...

When I finally dragged myself out of bed, the whole house was silent... all sleeping, of course... hahaha retribution for disturbing me last night was that both NH and YR missed their two lectures today. Hmph. I decided that since it was already so late and I have to go to work at about 4.30pm, I might as well not go to school to practice. This decision was made with lots of aid from the fact that NH and some of the Singaporeans were going for a conveyor belt sushi buffet. And it was practice, or sushi.

The types of sushi were really little, but it's still good after not eating sushi for so long. And I declare that their egg sushi passed my test! Most of the time in Singapore I wouldn't even touch any egg sushi cos most I've ever given a chance and eaten tasted disgusting. I don't know why I don't like them, I just didn't... this is coming from someone who's a I-eat-anything garbage bin.

Work was ok, but a little... I dunno... spirit dampening? Cos the really cheerful and willing-to-teach girl I was learning from the first time I worked has gone back to her country now. And the person who was teaching me and another waitress today was really... slightly unpleasantly full of herself. And to add to that, it was a really busy night although Wednesdays are supposed to be quieter. Maybe it's because the restaurant had been closed for two weeks following the chef's operation.

My major mistake was to serve a dish meant for customer a to customer b, since the dish itself was ordered by both, but for customer a it was as an addition to his main course and for customer b it was as his starter. So I wrongly assumed the dish was for customer b, and when customer a's main course was ready I was waiting for the dish to be ready so that both will be served together, but miss-experienced yelled at me to 'Serve it now!' And so I did.

It was only after I did, that it hit me. I realised that the dish I just served to customer b might have been meant by the chefs for customer a! When the realisation hit me, it was like, oh my god! But the chef wasn't too angry (luckily), although miss-experienced was really pissed. She was like, 'Why did you do that?' And even after I explained that it was my mistake and apologised, she said in an accusatory tone, 'then you'll be the one to go and explain to the customer why he will have to wait for his dish.' As if I was going to push the blame to her and make her do the apologising to the customer. Eurgh. I will apologise to everyone when I make a mistake, but I just can't stand it when someone assumes I am not going to do it.

Anyway... today's just supposed to be my 'training day'... not sure if anyone else will be there tomorrow to help/teach me or if I'll just be thrown into the deep end on my third day at work. But I think I'll manage... or hopefully I'll manage... as long as the chefs working tomorrow are the same as today's. The two other students and the boss of the shop, they are the best trio of chefs to work with man. Can handle the pressure of lots of waiting customers well. But I think I'll still have to learn more on how to pretend to slack a bit and not take the customers' orders too quickly, so that the chefs will have enough time to cook. Heard two people got fired cos they took orders too fast on a Saturday night, which is when it's the busiest and the chefs can't handle cooking everything so quickly :/ I will try my best anyway. Jobs are hard to find, I must keep this one! Gambatte!

The one thing that probably cheered me up a bit today was when another person messaged me to ask if I can play for her performance in January. I was deliberating whether to accept cos I'm real scared I will screw up. But, heck, if I don't dare to accept it and challenge myself, I'll be wasting all these excellent opportunities. And of course, the more people you play for, the more other people will ask you to play for them (assuming you don't screw up). Oh yes, I like this person already, because I replied that if she passes me the score before Christmas holidays and we get enough time to rehearse with each other, I'll do it. And she immediately replied that she'll put the scores in my pigeon hole tomorrow! Efficient, and responsible enough to find someone to play for her in advance.

The craving strikes

Whilst doing work this morning I was feeling very cold, and I had a sudden craving for congee. So it was that I boiled a pot of rice and water and left it to simmer from about 1pm until I had dinner at 7 plus in the evening. I was really surprised that my skills of agar-ation was that good; I poured the rice into the pot completely by random! And water is of course variable, I added more water sometimes when it started to get less at around 3pm and it was too early to eat.

Hmm, of course, in my dictionary there's no such thing as 'too early to eat', and to be honest I couldn't wait to devour all that congee. But the consistency wasn't what I really wanted anyway, so I decided to be patient. And it paid off. Nothing like a piping hot, hearty bowl of congee with a generous helping of sesame oil on a cold day! It was surely worth all the wait, the occasional stirring, and it was even worth cleaning out the sticky pot in the end. Yum... should have cooked more... I need food right now!

It's funny how most of my food cravings are for the simple, home-cooked things and seldom what other Singaporeans here will crave. Like, they will crave char kuey teow, laksa, etc... although these can also be cooked at home, but I usually crave for simpler stuff. Like congee. Soup. Oh no, I'm thinking of fried bee hoon now... lucky there's no bee hoon in my cupboard, or I think I just might go down to the kitchen and fry some.

Just have to control myself now... and anyway I don't want to gain too much weight like last winter :(

Bliss is...

having 'breakfast' at 9pm. Sausages, scrambled eggs, buttered bread and strong, black coffee straight out of the coffee maker... *contented sigh*

Was cooking my dinner when housemate NH came into the kitchen to make his Mexican coffee and offered to make me some too. Mmmm... aromatic! Although it was too sweet, it reminded me of the coffee my grandma makes. When I was young I loved to dip 'soda biscuits' into her coffee.

I'm glad I don't have to work this week (the chef/boss is still recovering from his operation), the time is just right for when I need to rush to meet the essay and assignment deadlines next Monday and Tuesday respectively. Right, back to work!

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.