I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

So after a whirlwind great time back in the tropics, I finally had to come back to the drab that is the end of winter. Fortunately, it’s not raining (yet), but it’s been a little on the cold side – even for this time of the year.

Crappily enough, I managed to fall sick just before getting on the plane. The evening before my throat started getting really sore, and I was sick as a dog on the plane. I tried to sleep as much as I could, but my head hurt, my ears felt like they were going to pop and my nose was sore from all that snot I had to keep wiping off. Add to that the general state you’re in when you have to leave home, it was pretty darn miserable.

My stopover at Narita Airport was pleasant as usual, and I had time to treat myself to a bowl of noodles. It wasn’t the best ramen in the world, but it was the nice, warm, comforting meal I really needed. I couldn’t really finish it, but it was all I ate for 1o hours and in that regard, it was totally nourishing. The only thing I ate after that was fruit (I skipped dinner on the plane, and breakfast was fruit and a sad croissant and some other pastry I didn’t bother to look at). I’m not sure if I’d have enjoyed my meal if I was feeling ok, but being sick made plane food totally repulsive.

Anyway, it looks like the most significant thing I missed out on while away was the 1 hour Spring Forward to DST. Ha.

In other news, I received my copy of Neil Gaiman’s Blueberry Girl today. Yay. I also forgot to pack the books from my room in SG, so boo. Ah well. There’s always next year.

We were a little sad to find out that the Scharffen Berger plant in the Bay Area was going to close down. Hershey bought Scharffen Berger and another local Bay Area brand, Joseph Schmidt a few years back, and now that things are not doing well, they are going to fold in production at the Hershey plants in Pennsylvania.

I haven’t heard of Joseph Schmidt, but I love Scharffen Berger chocolate. It’s like the chocolate equivalent of good tea. For example – you can get your Cadbury’s, Hershey’s, Van Houten at the supermarket. Each bar is relatively inexpensive. However, they are too sweet and a little too watered down for me. Great for perhaps a little snack everyday. But nothing that really should be called chocolate. Same can be said of bag teas that are sold at the supermarket. Often of lower quality (not whole leaf, and even so, leaves might be broken), the teas often hide behind wonderfully creative blends – Raspberry Rapture, Chamomile-Honey-Dream-Tea, you get the picture – so you really can’t tell how bad the tea really is.

When I discovered Scharffen Berger, it was like discovering whole leaf tea. It made having chocolate a completely different experience. And rightly so. It is one of the few chocolate makers that source the beans themselves, roast, grind and blend their own beans to produce the end result themselves. They were also one of the first to feature the cacao content on their bars, although every Tom, Dick and Harry does that now.

The result, is an exceedingly smooth chocolate. I usually chew my chocolate, but when I have Scharffen Berger, I let it melt in my mouth to savour it. Complex and luxurious, you don’t need to finish an entire bar to feel satisfied. Which is why they often sell it in little bite-sized 1 inch squares. Yeah it’s a little bit pricey – but I suppose at some point you can’t go back to being satisfied with supermarket chocolate.

Anyway. Yesterday we went hunting for the Joseph Schmidt retail outlet to get some chocolate before it disappears from the Bay Area. I wanted to go to the Scharffen Berger outlet too, but it was over at the Ferry Building and we didn’t have the time to drive there. No matter, Joseph Schmidt in Castro carried Scharffen Berger as well.

Unfortunately, I’m not as nuts about Joseph Schmidt chocolate. They specialise in truffles, and I prefer my chocolate pure. I don’t like Turkish Delight or Raspberry Mousse in it, not even truffles or praline. I don’t want peanuts or orange slices in it, unless it’s not very good. Incidentally, you should demand the same of your tea. If you pu-erh is really good, you don’t need to and really shouldn’t add chrysanthemum to it.

Hershey says it will continue production of their Artisan chocolates, ie the Scharffen Berger, Joseph Schmidt and Dagoba chocolates, but when we asked at the store yesterday, the employees said they were sure if the store would still be in operation after Easter. So I suppose I’ll have to go and get a refill after I get back from SG.

Inexplicably, I’ve been thinking about curry puffs the whole day. Some days I wake up and there’s already a song in my head. I think it happens in dream sequences where I have the radio on, or the iPod is playing or something. Doesn’t happen with food though, I hardly dream I’m eating, maybe because I do a lot of it when I’m awake. In my defense, I do get awfully grouchy when I’m hungry or food deprived, so to keep my spirits up I eat. A lot. Often.

Anyway. I got the ingredients and all, so for my culinary experiment this week I’ll make curry puffs, the kind I remember from Home Econs class way back when (apologies to my home econs partner Roseline, who now takes care of my insurance policies, in an odd twist of fate, for the totally chunky potatoes the last time we made it like 17 years ago) – simple shortcrust pastry, not the oily puffy stuff from Polar, and simple fillings.

Can’t wait.

Inexplicably, I’ve been thinking about curry puffs the whole day. Some days I wake up and there’s already a song in my head. I think it happens in dream sequences where I have the radio on, or the iPod is playing or something. Doesn’t happen with food though, I hardly dream I’m eating, maybe because I do a lot of it when I’m awake. In my defense, I do get awfully grouchy when I’m hungry or food deprived, so to keep my spirits up I eat. A lot. Often.

Anyway. I got the ingredients and all, so for my culinary experiment this week I’ll make curry puffs, the kind I remember from Home Econs class way back when (apologies to my home econs partner Roseline, who now takes care of my insurance policies, in an odd twist of fate, for the totally chunky potatoes the last time we made it like 17 years ago) – simple shortcrust pastry, not the oily puffy stuff from Polar, and simple fillings.

Can’t wait.

I heard two different people say “deja vu all over again” twice today. Once on CSI where the washed up stripper blonde said it, and now the announcer for the Olympics 100m Women’s Freestyle.

Talk about deja vu all over again!

Thank you for reading. Arigato gozaimasu. Kamsahamida. Xie xie.

The place is still kind of sparcely furnished. We’ve the bed we shipped from Singapore, I ordered another for the spare room, and there’s a dining table that came with the house.

I like the empty living room, but it’s hecka echoey. It does make cleaning up a breeze though. Hee.

Our room is complete though. I carved out a space in our room just for me. I am sitting there now, almost 3 in the morning. I can’t really sleep, I think I had too much tea. I have a nice little armchair, a matching ottoman, a little work light, and my knitting gear (some of it) stuffed into a box under the window by the chair. I even got a pseudo-designer magazine table – which FedEx delivered and left at my doorstep, how clever – to complete the space. It’s comfortable.

I enjoy being at home. It’s the only place that feels like home.

Cos. Outside on the streets it feels like a throwback in time. Cyclists hovering all over the street (them greenies), people spitting everywhere – on the road (again them greenies), on the sidewalk (what we call the pavement), potholes in badly maintained roads, old cinemas, bad traffic, bad manners. Of the lot the spitting has to be the most disgusting. It’s not surprising to come across random but generous wads of rather malignant looking loogie just standing there in the sun, glowing, waiting to be trampled on.

The horror. The irony. The civilised nation.

While it might be just one more thing to look out for while navigating myself around the city, the other being poop, it’s not something you’d expect in a large, cosmopolitan city in a developed country, you know, a member of the First World since you’d have to pass pretty stringent GDP criteria, and I’m thinking, the higher the GDP, the better the education, and therefore the more civilised. It’s a wild presumption on my part, I agree. I mean, they can’t spell, and they don’t really speak English anymore.

On the issue of littering and spitting and gum, I have to say even though our policy back in Singapore is a tad authoritarian, I am grateful for growing up in a relatively clean, sterile country. Yes, it would’ve been better if people refrained from behaviour which is selfish and inconsiderate out of the goodness of their hearts. But education alone would have taken too long. Now, I feel proud when people mention how clean Singapore is. Yes, we don’t do it through the goodness of our hearts, we do it because there are consequences of not complying. But, I don’t have to put up with gum or loogie on my shoe, and more importantly, people everywhere are the same whereever it is they say they come from, so I’m grateful for the practical, realistic and deliberate decision to raise the social standard of the lowest common denominator.

There is no perfect state.

I would suppose there is much to be said for being the Land of the Free. Perhaps some day I will appreciate the hubris and the gile of a people blatantly unafraid to speak up, unafraid to oppose, unafraid to question, unafraid to look stupid. Maybe that someday I will appreciate how my earnings will be taken to subsidise a broken system flooded with inefficiency and a misguided belief in welfare. It might even be the same someday when I find enjoyment in having someone with dubious intentions and intelligence decide what’s best for me and how I should think and what I should do. When that someday comes I hope I don’t get shot dead on the free streets, and I certainly hope I don’t land near a gleaming loogie.

And that’s why I relish being at home.

The place is still kind of sparcely furnished. We’ve the bed we shipped from Singapore, I ordered another for the spare room, and there’s a dining table that came with the house.

I like the empty living room, but it’s hecka echoey. It does make cleaning up a breeze though. Hee.

Our room is complete though. I carved out a space in our room just for me. I am sitting there now, almost 3 in the morning. I can’t really sleep, I think I had too much tea. I have a nice little armchair, a matching ottoman, a little work light, and my knitting gear (some of it) stuffed into a box under the window by the chair. I even got a pseudo-designer magazine table – which FedEx delivered and left at my doorstep, how clever – to complete the space. It’s comfortable.

I enjoy being at home. It’s the only place that feels like home.

Cos. Outside on the streets it feels like a throwback in time. Cyclists hovering all over the street (them greenies), people spitting everywhere – on the road (again them greenies), on the sidewalk (what we call the pavement), potholes in badly maintained roads, old cinemas, bad traffic, bad manners. Of the lot the spitting has to be the most disgusting. It’s not surprising to come across random but generous wads of rather malignant looking loogie just standing there in the sun, glowing, waiting to be trampled on.

The horror. The irony. The civilised nation.

While it might be just one more thing to look out for while navigating myself around the city, the other being poop, it’s not something you’d expect in a large, cosmopolitan city in a developed country, you know, a member of the First World since you’d have to pass pretty stringent GDP criteria, and I’m thinking, the higher the GDP, the better the education, and therefore the more civilised. It’s a wild presumption on my part, I agree. I mean, they can’t spell, and they don’t really speak English anymore.

On the issue of littering and spitting and gum, I have to say even though our policy back in Singapore is a tad authoritarian, I am grateful for growing up in a relatively clean, sterile country. Yes, it would’ve been better if people refrained from behaviour which is selfish and inconsiderate out of the goodness of their hearts. But education alone would have taken too long. Now, I feel proud when people mention how clean Singapore is. Yes, we don’t do it through the goodness of our hearts, we do it because there are consequences of not complying. But, I don’t have to put up with gum or loogie on my shoe, and more importantly, people everywhere are the same whereever it is they say they come from, so I’m grateful for the practical, realistic and deliberate decision to raise the social standard of the lowest common denominator.

There is no perfect state.

I would suppose there is much to be said for being the Land of the Free. Perhaps some day I will appreciate the hubris and the gile of a people blatantly unafraid to speak up, unafraid to oppose, unafraid to question, unafraid to look stupid. Maybe that someday I will appreciate how my earnings will be taken to subsidise a broken system flooded with inefficiency and a misguided belief in welfare. It might even be the same someday when I find enjoyment in having someone with dubious intentions and intelligence decide what’s best for me and how I should think and what I should do. When that someday comes I hope I don’t get shot dead on the free streets, and I certainly hope I don’t land near a gleaming loogie.

And that’s why I relish being at home.

Nothing fancy today, but a nice short story about God. Kinda. Well. His 9 billion names. It being Easter weekend and all, thought it would be keeping with the season.

Found a bunch of historical figures on Facebook, time sure hasn’t done anyone any favours. Most of them are married, some with kids. They seem happy. That’s nice. I realise I can’t remember the names of many old crushes. Seems that there were filed in my head as Says My Name with a Cute Brit Accent, or Lives Across the Street with Twin Brothers, or Friend of Ex-Boyfriend#2.

I need to find other stuff to do online besides shop and stalk.

In other news, my new favourite movie title is Quantum of Solace. It’s very Daniel Craig-as-James-Bond like.

Tried Chicken Poop lip balm (no poop in it, really). Too oily. The lavender in it is nice, but it’s a little weird tasting it. Soybean oil is too viscuous for lips. Sticking to Burt’s Bees.

I don’t get it. Are we all 14? Are we still doing birthday parties? With cake and balloons and little hats and punch from a little plastic cup? And “surprise!” followed by *feigned surprise*?

Received our second surprise-birthday party invite today. Both were sent by the dude’s significant other. They usually involve very secretive operations, very complicated plans, very over-the-top dramatics, and a very pedestrian climax. I’m a grinch. I know.

I like a surprise as much as the dude down the street, but it does not involve gazillions of family and/or friends.
<– /begin shamless plug –>
I mean, if KF surreptitiously got me a present (64GB solid state preferred, but who’s splitting hairs?), that’d surprise the socks off of me.
<– /end shameless plug –>
But squeezing 30 people behind a sofa to yell at me on my birthday is more likely to piss me off more than anything.

Do women find some kind of need to organise a surprise thing for their significant others to:
1) play some kind of conduitory role in their S.O’s lives?
2) assuage the guilt of occupying the rest of his life?
3) assert the happy-yuppie-but-we’re-still-kids status for the viewing public?
4) all of the above?

I’m a grinch. I know.

We’ve crawled into December now. I’ve spent about four and a half months here. Like it or not, watch it or not, want it to or not, time passes.

It’s getting cold again. Under 10°C in the day. My fingers and toes are freezing as my brain tries to make sense of how it can look so bright and scorching hot and yet be this frigid.