it's been what, decades since I last posted?

right. I've forsaken my little diary which I religiously wrote in in my schooldays, and then my old blog got shut down somehow, and now, I update this blog so sparsely I might as well don't. :(

Let's hope this post isn't an one-off thing. So anyway, it's FRIDAY! okay technically it's a minute into saturday, and the first match of world cup just ended. My ears suffered, goodness they had better do something with the endless blaring of horns (or rather, buzzing of insects as I'm suspecting).

I'm totally trying to make sense of the entire WC opening ceremony now, i just saw a gigantic dung beetle (i think) rolling a gigantic football. Am wondering if the dung beetle is the one making all the buzzing haha.

That aside, I've been totally so caught up in working and resting AFTER work, that I've totally neglected miniatures for these few weeks. Tsk tsk, I need to learn a thing or two about discipline and priorities from the boy. 

I'm at a loss as to what to write, so I shall end here!

my birthday. it was on 22nd March. and I just realised I haven't had a single photo of it and the little celebrations at all yet. so here's some verbal recount. :)

i think it's only polite to thank people when they do nice things for you, so here goes.

The weekend just before my birthday (which fell on a monday) was half-spent in gloom as I fretted over if I should attend a work gathering, but everything brightened up from then. The work gathering was really much more fun than I had expected, and I shouldn't have to worry about it at all. As I rushed back to the west to meet the girls, I KNEW they were definitely up to something and they kept ignoring my calls! It turned out that they had planted a mister zhang in my house as my present (i don't think they paid for him though hahaha). The mister also cooked pasta (awww..) for us. :)

and then it was off to Mac-cafe (okay no idea how to spell this) for an apple pie and coffee (not for me). It was sooo crowded with everyone glued to the little television telecasting the big match between liverpool and man united. At home, I was getting ready to sleep and having just stepped out of the toilet with freshly-brushed teeth and there was the boy and qiao! with my cake, and candles all lit up! Awwwwww. :) The silly girl had driven to my house all alone at midnight, just to wish me happy birthday! -hugs!!!!

The boy stayed over and had to wake up at the hellish time of 7am, to fetch me to work! hahha, birthday girl privileges!

The next day at work, I didn't expect anyone to know it's my birthday but I received a few emails and many well wishes! :) And this uber sweet lady from work, bought me a cake and had candles and made me make wishes, the works! AWWWW. thank you serene, if you're reading this somehow! You can eat all of my kerepok! hahaha.

And of course the rush of birthday wishes on facebook. Thanks guys, you know who you are. :)

I can't wait to meet the girls! Ros, Mab don't pull another surprise on me this Sunday hor! And babuuuuuu, hurry hurry back! :)

Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. :)

and so Chinese New Year has come and gone. Okay technically, there are a few more days before the end of the official 15days, but honestly, if it's not a public holiday it's not much of a holiday here.

My past blog entry is eons ago! But it's easy (or hard) to sum up what I've been going through since the last time I blogged. Rojak. Apart from the CNY festivities where it was all fun (except when I lost too much at gambling, I hate to lose and I love money WAHAHAH), mostly my emotions have been in highs and lows.

I get happy and positive and carefree sometimes. And then I start to think about how the world is really my oyster, and there are so many possibilities with life. And how I know what I want to do with life, and I'm going to lead a happy one focusing on AiClay while working part-time in a regular job that would give me some stable moolah.

And then there are the lows. And I mean, being so depressive and wanting to cry and feeling the hot tears spill while entertaining thoughts of just ending this miserable life and everything is grey and all I see are sad robots disguised as humans in office clothing. I would get so gloomy thinking about how I would still ultimately end up like another one of those office workers, and AiClay would slowly just be a hobby and finally something that I would look back on one day, all clad in office clothing and buried under work, and think "oh, how young and foolish I was then, to think THAT would work out.". And then I'll wait for 5.30pm and leave the tall buildings, joining the mass of similarly-clothed workers in public transport and return home to sleep, knowing that I'll be waking up to the same old routine again tomorrow, for the rest of my life.

I feel so severely scared  for my future that I wonder why I'm this way, and I kind of blame it on my last 'official' job.

I'm entertaining thoughts of being a zookeeper, but even THAT required an education in life sciences etc.

I'm entertaining thoughts of working at a stationery store, surrounded by beautiful notepads and pretty pencils. But I am afraid that would just further cement the fact that I've truly wasted my university years (and fees).

I read through each job scope so many many times, before pouncing on the one little detail that would make me not send out my resume. I find so many reasons for myself to not do it, and I shouldn't keep doing that, but I still think my reasons are right (sometimes).

I think we should be living in an era where the phrases 'live for yourself' and 'do what you love, and you'll love what you do' should be not just used in theory, but applied to real life too.

CRAP,  I was pretty intent on sending out the resume for the stationery store and now the jobsearch database server has crashed on me. perfect.

Alright, I shall quit being the sarcastic whiny old man.

My msn nick is now 'Nothing's too scary', to make me all pumped up to apply for jobs and quit thinking I'm not capable of them. 

feels really weird to have just woken up, when everyone else is going to sleep (1 am).

this whole sheng ling nu hai thing is really taking over the globe eh, seeing how everyone photowhores, and whores pretty photos found all over the net on their blogs..

i read two blogs, where both had been in a long term relationship, but broken up. (not 2 parts of a couple) and it scared me. imagining how it would feel without the boy in my life, to have that huge gaping hole in my life. what would i do, who would i hang out with? i should really have a healthier social life eh. (btw everything's going great though. :))

The PPF is not flitting around my Etsy shop at all, sigh. That's Etsy lingo for Paypal Fairy, who reportedly brings sales to your store haha. Etsy people are so cute.

Maybe I should find something on Etsy to feature here.


here you go. Picture from ohhellofriend, item at http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29575937.

 i feel like having breakfast. though it's 1am. :( i want french toast suddenly!

today on the way back, i suddenly thought of the mama-shop uncle.

not the one who's there at my void-deck now, but the uncle who owned and ran the mama-shop before this new one came along.

the mama-shop was a HUGE part of my childhood, i can remember myself buying some snack from him everytime i got down from the schoolbus, with my little brother in tow. There was this wafer ice cream, wrapped in a really old school paper. The wafer biscuit was often soft and not really fresh actually, but I don't know why i kept buying it. maybe it was just for that familiar taste, and knowing that there wasn't anywhere else that sold it. and the little packets of sweets i used to buy for 50cents, or 20cents for the smaller ones. It was the highlight of my brother's and my day, after having come home from school, to share our treasures when we got home.

also, i remember there was this particular day. and i was still in primary school, so we had to wake up really early for the morning school session to catch the school-bus. And the sky was really dark, it was about 6am or something. and it was pouring really heavily. And my mom didn't want us to get our school-socks drenched from stepping in the puddles. So when we passed by the mama-shop as we always do, she got 4 plastic bags from the uncle. and she tied them around me and my brother's school-shoes. It was quite a sight really haha.

and i can't remember the many times we used the toilet of the mama-shop, a really small one tucked away in the back of the shop, and i would sneak looks around his store-room stacked high and full with goodies of all sorts.

and his simple nasi lemak i always had for lunch, with just good chilli and egg and fragrant rice. none of that nasty fish filled with fish-bones.

The uncle worked with his wife, and both of them opened shop almost everyday without fail. I would greet them as I passed by everyday, on the way to the lift.

and then one day, the shop was closed. and my mom broke the new to me that noon that the uncle was severely sick.

and then, just a few days later, he had passed away. His wife never did return to open the shop again, and the shop was closed for a long while.

and now, the current shop owners are also a couple, and the shop has taken on a 'hippier' look. However, i almost never buy anything from the shop anymore. Nor do I even pass by them, with the new lift that has been installed right outside my flat.

The uncle was always friendly and kindly, and always there to look out for everyone in the flat.

i miss him. :( sighh, getting really teary now.

a tweet-worthy incident, but my twitter is so inactive that I'd rather blog. heh.

me and the boy (is anyone getting irritated with this reference? haha) were in ikea, and we had this trolley thing, loaded with our bags cause they were weighing us down. So we were pushing it around, and had a constant tickling battle (god we're irritating, hahha. but its vicious okay. Quoted from the boy "OMG, u're damn violent!", or something along that line.). and at the end of the day as the announcements chimed that the store was closing, we rolled the trolley to the checkout lines. at that time i was pushing it, but before that the boy was the one doing the pushing for quite some time.

and then, he suddenly pointed at the trolley, stricken and burst into laughter at the same time.


i was pushing a trolley that was fully filled with maybe 50 photoframes and 2 rags, and some other crap, and our bags were gone. and the STUPIDEST THING, was that the trolley was an entirely different kind from the one we were pushing before! It was a MUCH bigger one, and the design was totally different.

we had been pushing around the WRONG trolley for goodness knows how long, must have happened during one of the highlights of the tickling battle. hahaha. 

HOW DUMB ARE WE.

we then spent like 10minutes laughing like crazy hyenas and combing the place for the trolley we deserted. (we found it in the end) hahah. the things we do.

my lovely girlfriends.

you know how it is after you get attached. you get so very caught up in the honeymoon phase that you want to meet up with the other half every single minute and before you know it, you find that your girlfriends have been pushed out of your schedule and your life.

i've been victim to this zhong se qin you (which translates to placing more importance on the opposite sex, usually the boyfriend, over your friends) occasionally, so i never wanted to be that sort of girl. hopefully i still was a good friend during that whole honeymoon phase (probably the whole first few months of last year).

okay i'm deviating from what i wanted to write about. sometimes i write here because i'm so psyched about something i can't wait to ramble on, or when i have tons of photos that i want to share, or when there's some event/moment i really want to remember (and don't trust my lousy memory to). in this case, it's the latter.

and so, we went over to di's place (ok i mean mansion HAHHAH!) on sunday afternoon. Honestly, i was really excited about seeing the babuseng again (after a good few months of not!), and just really happy with the thought of us four girls catching up again. we do have such fun together.

and so armed with homebaked cheesecake (yes the one featured in the post before this) and presents from Aust and Bangkok and feeling a little Santa-ish, I headed over.

i think in the two days we met, i've laughed more and talked more than i have in months! every single moment was just filled with catching up with each other's lives, making each other answer hypothetical questions that only we would know, sharing the latest gossips, our joys and downs. and of course, laughing ourselves silly.

the pool room would always echo with our mad guffaws (mostly ros, HAHHA. okay la i admit i do emit shrill yells sometimes) and i wish someone would videocam us when we're doing the 'distract-opposition' dance with our cue sticks.

that night, we talked into the early morning (5AM!!) with sleepy eyes and empty stomachs, but all still unwilling to turn in for the night. because we knew that such moments weren't going to come about that easily again.

i'm so blessed to have you girls. :))))

P.S can't wait to crash njc together!! hahhaha!

I SUCK at time management. I chose the worst timing ever to bake a cake.

Hmm, here is what happened. It was a Thursday (i think) and a few days ago i had chanced upon a beautiful raspberry cheesecake recipe with gorgeous pictures that promised of a delicious cake. and so bright morning Thursday I trooped off to the supermarket and rounded up all my neccessities. Oh, and i had just picked up 2 baskets of VERY ripe strawberries from the boy's, that was one of the main reasons to make this cake.

OH and the fact that i've been keeping busy with my shop making such wonderful miniature cakes, and NONE were for eating. :(

and so i got to work, very psyched by the tantalising baking photos. SO, i had to make strawberry puree first. It was my first time ever, but it didn't turn out that bad. TEDIOUS though!



First I cut up and cored the strawberries, trashing some uberripe ones meanwhile.





and then you gotta slowly boil (with some water) and mash them at the same time, to coax all that juicy syrup out of the berries.



Because the berries' skins were so full of seeds, I had to strain the puree so that nobody eating the cake would bite onto a very disturbing hard seed.



voila, strawberry puree! oh and pardon the photos, when you're peppered in flour and have only one hand to take photos and horrid kitchen lighting, this is the best i can manage. haha.



whipping cream cheese (EXPENSIVE SHITSSS) and freshly-ground sugar together.



mixing in self-crushed graham crackers crumbs for the cake base.



YUMMM, all that's left is to pour the creamy cheesecake batter into the heavenly-smelling crust!





but bloody hell.



what is THIS SHITTTTTTTTT.

okay lar i did manage to salvage it in the end, by spooning some mixtures into muffin cups and baking them again. and i also whipped up a new graham crust and used some of the cheesecake batter for the new (albeit VERY much smaller) cake.

it is SO HARD to bake with microwave ovens! the many convection/microwave etc etc modes just bloody confuses me!! i just looked away for a while and the next minute my beautiful-looking cheesecake had melted into a greasy mess.



and my mommy made strawberry juice with the leftover puree.

now the cheesecake isn't half made, though the texture is very much more like a cheesecake mousse instead haha. But there's even a homemade rich chocolate ganache spread on top of it, say YUMMM. hahah.

there's so much of it left in my fridge, c'mon i wanna share! :)

jocelyn teo
daughter, sister, friend. and blissfully loved.

beauty of language

may they stay dear

my little clay shop
diana ngiam
04S12
rossie poo
crystal tear
wilson lau
daphne koh

along the way i met you

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