A Visit from Henry

Henry came to visit today! It was fun =) Hx and I made some sweet potato cookies for him. They tasted quite nice although there was this peculiar 'breadish' sort of feel to them.

Henry told us about Craydon park, which looks good in the snow. He lives somewhere near Wandsworth, which is near to Wimbledon. We found out that tickets to watch the show are priced around GBP25! That is kind of shocking because I think they should be more expensive. Apparently, when you drive a car in London before 6pm, there will be congestion charges at a ridiculously crazy price of GBP28! I was so shocked to find out. However, if you get some other deal like a monthly pass for example, life would be much easier and driving a better experience. =S I didn't know all these things.. I am pretty ashamed of myself, living in London for almost 2 years now and not being aware of these things.

Henry went to watch Iron Man last weekend. It was absolutely funny when I teased him saying that he must have selected that movie, instead of letting Georgia, his daughter do so =P I hope to meet Georgia one day. Up to now, I know she's 13 years old, loves to sing, is a naughty little procrastinator, and is an absolute darling! I know Henry loves her a lot! =)

I was thrilled to find out more about Henry's country of origin, Jamaica. Apparently, English is their first language, although Spanish is taught in schools as well. It's quite interesting to know that.

Henry and Georgia goes swimming sometimes in the weekend, which when mentioned, got me to admit that I can't swim nor float myself!! I told him I would like to go to the Red Sea and just lie down on the waters and he told me he's been to Israel before! On a pilgrimage to the Holy Land! I wish I could bring mommy there next time. He said the food is amazing, the weather super hot, and the sights splendid!!!! I didn't know Israel could be a good place to visit. =D One less thing now of me not knowing. Hehe..

Today was a good day XD

Happiness!

Today is a happy day. Ok, that was a total LIE. Today was an extremely, exceedingly, enormously HAPPY day!!!

1. Henry gave me a box of chocolates and lifted me off the floor in a hug. He totally is a father figure to me. Sayang him alot!
2. I was supposed to sell 10 Valentines lollies today, and the unknown professor I really like bought the 9th/10th for me! And so I completed my sales target!!!
3. My boss got me a Valentine lolly as a reward, just as she promised. And I ended up with 2 lollies now! Can't wait to give one to Deer!
4. I had an amazing lunch of nasi briyani with Khan and another pHd student, which was AWESOME!!! There was lamb and egg and carrots in the fragrant rice. It was so sinful!
5. Make-up and shorts issues Mnite costumes are settled! Plus a GBP1.60 to be spent by my housemate.
6. Deer will be arriving in 45 minutes!!
7. Baking session later!
8. CNY and Valentine's on the same day soon!!!
9. I can call home soon!
10. I got a placement!!!!

Taking pieces of me away

I just watched the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, the 13th episode of the latest season. There was a part towards the end, when Yang told Mr. Red Head that her previous fiancee took bits and parts of herself away. She loved him but he stripped her off her true self and she changed into something else, thus losing herself in the process. She was being unconsciously pushed towards self submission to her lover. Isn't that sad? What a reflection of something which can happen to anyone of us!

When we love someone, we might give up things that are important to us because we're too busy being in a relationship. Our goals might turn vague, cloudy and distant. I loved the intelligent way the scriptwriters portrayed this. Although GA is peppered with promiscuity and random relationships between the characters, it still does touch on relationships in a most interesting manner. Literature and film are good ways to reach out to the mass public about psychology. Ah, how reminiscent is this! Just like my TOK topic in the year 2008. Memories!

Acknowledge your weaknesses, then deal with them :)

I am a victim of jealousy sometimes. I just figured, I get jealous when I'm not sure about myself. In other words, how insecure I am about my position in the lives of others can make me a monster of jealousy. *laughs*

This is pretty normal in growing up isn't it? We want the people who love us to always keep doing that. If another person slowly creeps into their lives, we might get defensive and exert our so called but non-justified 'ownership' over the people we care about. Indeed, no one has the right to do that. But yet again, not many have the strength to not only think maturely, but feel maturely too. Feelings are immature most of the time. What we are used to feeling in childhood, tends to carry on into adulthood. That's why most of our emotions when invoked, are reminiscent of the way we feel and respond to scenarios since our younger days.

However, the trick is in handling our emotions. If you can't stop but feel them, don't make the excuse that you can't dictate it. We can! I can! Cheers :P

Food Blogs!

I am afraid of being forgotten. I am afraid of drowning into the crowd and being special to no one. Now I realize how vulnerable I am to the feeling of unimportance. I don't mind if people who are just acquaintances of mine forget me; but to the people whom I hold special, I do not want to be forgotten. At least to a niche of people, I want to be remembered.

On a lighter note, I have this fancy for well written food blogs and would like to share some here. Recently, I watched the movie Julie and Julia and the theme of the movie somehow correlates to the internal fears I have. Nora Ephron was responsible for the screenplay of this movie, just as she was for You've Got Mail and I must tell you, I really really enjoyed this movie. Anyways, the protagonist in the movie started a food blog too, inspired by her role model who is an excellent French cook.

Alright, some of the good food blogs I found:
1. http://www.mykitchensnippets.com
2. http://www.whiskblog.com
3. http://www.myasiankitchenny.com (my friend recommended this one to me. Thanks HX!)
4. http://belachan2.blogspot.com
5. http://curiousfoodie.wordpress.com
6. http://jeenaskitchen.blogspot.com
7. http://startcooking.com (i love the cute videos in this one!!)
Enjoy!

First Pay =))) !

Today I received my first pay ever! Yoo Hoo! This is only the beginning. I want to have many more pay days so that I can buy mummy whatever she wants! =DDDD When I was little I always wanted to give all of my first pay to mummy, every single cent. I always imagined handing her a stack of cash on my first pay day. I can't see that dream realised now because if I were to do that, I would lose a lot on the exchange rate, and probably, the process of sending her my meagre pay would cost more than the pay itself =S Next time, when I earn real money, I'll do that for her. Mummy, I love you so much!!!!


Yesterday, I presented some muffins to Khan and Henry. I was so happy to see the way Henry's face lit up! He shook both my hands and told me the muffins were lovely hehe. Khan thanked me too, but he was a bit depressed about a certain person so I couldn't help but feel bad for him. Love hurts, yes it does..

I realize I love using exclamation marks when I'm expressing myself. Hmmmm.. A person reading my blog posts (if there is any to begin with!) might find it an eyesore. Sorry about that but that is pretty much me. hahaha.. I'm a sucker for all things rainbowy and jolly and sweet and cakey and sweety and what not! There you go, another exclamation mark..tee hee ^^

Moist Banana Choc Chips Muffin!!!

I've meant to try baking some muffins for quite some time and was inspired by the Library Cafe's Lemon and Poppy Seed muffin. Since it was a Wednesday today and I had loads of time to kill, I decided to try making that. However, as I was searching online for the perfect recipe, I somehow strayed to banana muffin recipes. I found this most AMAZING recipe from here:
http://curiousfoodie.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/moist-banana-chocolate-chip-muffins-recipe/


And so, I hurried away from college, ran into Sainsbury and started filling my shopping basket with all the ingredients. I was quite delighted to find some riped bananas in the fruits section which proved quite good in the end! hehe! Also, I unwilling to spend slightly more than 5 pounds on the muffin tray and ended up only buying the muffin cases. (0.85p for 75 pieces)

When I came home, I started work straightaway! Sharmie was cooking pasta for lunch at the same time and Kor was up to making some Nutella pancakes so I had much fun having light conversation with them. Kor has been obsessed with egg tarts lately and he lent me some of the aluminium cases for my muffins. Thank Goodness!! Or else, they would have gone out of shape. (I finally realised the importance of a muffin tray! haha..but am thankful I didn't buy one anyway because Kor had loads of the aluminium cases)

The muffins came out heavenly!!! Some modifications I did to the recipe was use 1 1/2 large eggs instead of 2 small eggs and I added about 2/3 more tablespoons of sugar into the batter. Other than that, I followed the recipe almost by LAW and they turned out HEAVENLY!!!!