que pasa

It has been a fantastic 2 weeks back home. Was able to catch up with the usual suspects I always want to hang out with when I come back - this was truly time well spent. Also found some long-lost friends - like my primary school friend who found me on facebook by going through profile photos of many many people with the same name (hmm guess I look pretty much like when I was a kid). And of course, I managed to do some shopping too (yes I saved up all my money to spend back here to boost the Singapore economy and yes I did find Ion rather disappointing).

It's been a rather busy 2 weeks too, strangely busy I would say. The intention was to spend more time at home with family (especially now that my bro is overseas studying) so I have deliberately tried to do more dinners at home, yet somehow it doesn't feel like I've achieved that objective because they aren't always able to eat with me. And the days when I have dinners out, it's the days they have dinners at home. I need to get better at this – shall schedule dinners next time so that I go out when they are out too. After all, they have their own plans too.

But I realize I have also been quite "pre-occupied" with fluff i.e. things that don't really matter. It's a bad habit I picked up in Shanghai – this laziness of the mind. Maybe work is tiring so I just want to "switch off" when I go home but I now suspect that has just been an excuse for how I have been idling my evenings away. I spend a lot of time and (for lack of a better word) RAM on things that (in hindsight) haven’t been purposeful. As I write this, I’m thinking that "switching off" doesn’t necessarily mean letting the mind and body idle. Or, why should it be a "switch off" rather than a "switch to (a different mode)"?

For instance, I have certainly been lax in my blogging – that is a symptom of a deeper problem. I used to (and still do) think blogging was challenging because it required effort. I admit now that I’ve been very irregular in my blogging because my mind has been lazy. I do journal but it’s been about fluff! I know it’s fluff because if it were anything meaningful, I’d put it up on here to share.

I have also been lax with my body. I’ve fallen pretty sick 3 times this year (and it’s only October) and my complexion has gone to the dumps because of my poor diet, poor sleeping habits and lack of exercise. I tell people I feel all of 30 years now but that’s entirely my fault.

I have also been lazy with my soul. While I still recognize that the Shanghai spiritual environment has been very good for me, I haven’t been making full use of it. I’m just kinda chilling in the waters, not working out my salvation. I’m not chasing the waves, I’m just waiting too see what debris the waves bring to my feet as I stand pretty far away from the shore. What a waste!

Oh then there’s the same recurring problem with relationship-keeping and building. Wow, could anyone have squandered away more time than I have!?!?

In a blog post in February this year, I said that I feel that Papa gave me 1 more year to revive me. I am embarrassed to say that I have not made good use of the past 8 months. I have 11 more months in Shanghai and I am aware now that I should really get myself in shape, in all aspects of the word. So that I will be ready for wherever I’m supposed to be next. This is me holding myself accountable. Please check in on me from time to time, I might hate it but I will need it. Thanks!

Saturday morning I was woken up by an SMS at 910am.  Decided that since I was up, I might as well go grab some breakfast at Mac’s.  I’ve been told that this is a Singaporean thing… that Singaporeans actually like Mac’s breakfast meals…

I do like their breakfast meals.  And their fries and McNuggets.  Don’t think much of their burgers though.  Anyway, by the time I was ready to go, I kinda had to book it to Macs because breakfast ends at 10am (as opposed to 11am in Singapore).  So I go there, squeeze in my order and then I’m at the window enjoying my Sausage Egg McMuffin.  (Unfortunately, they put hamburger buns instead of muffin buns – by the time I realized I was at my last bite, oh well.)

As I sit eat my breakfast, I recall a time way back when I used to eat at Mac’s with a good friend of mine.  We’d meet there for breakfast, or go there for lunch sometimes.  There was once we’d been there every week and we’d only eat McNuggets until one day we got so sick of it, we had to egg each other on to finish the box of 20 pieces we had bought. 

And then after we both came back to Singapore, we met up again, but this time for weekly breakfasts.  I don’t even quite remember what we spoke about.  Then when we both started getting really busy, it’d be weekly evenings at cheesecake café or somewhere.  Now, she’s away, and I’m away too, so it’s going to be quite a while before we get together again.

It’s one of those rituals I guess, and Saturday morning I was missing our Mac’s routine. 

It has been raining for the past three days here. No storm, just a constant downpour. Sometimes heavy, sometimes it lightens up. But it has not seemed to stop. Not that I am complaining, it is a change, and I have been learning that I cannot take things for granted. What a contrast to Zhejiang. It has therefore also been cold these few nights and I snuggle deep under the comforter to stay warm. It does keep me snug, yet there is something really cold about sleeping in a hotel - it will never be a home.

I have been thinking about my blue and white checkered comforter from my days at Penn. It was a gift from Sarah. That one kept me warm physically and in my heart too. When I first came to Penn, all I had were the two pillows and thermal blanket I bought with my dad to settle in. This was Spartan in comparison to my roommate’s bed which had tons of stuffed animals, a body pillow, two pillows - one obviously long used, a thermal blanket, a comforter and one of those back rest things. But I was fine with what I had, until winter came.

I do not know why I did not buy myself a comforter. Why did I sleep in my sweatshirt and long pants, curl up in a fetal position under my thermal blanket, and shiver in the winter nights when my roommate chose to leave a window crack for the chill to come through? I do not know how to take care of myself sometimes. Or am just plain silly.

Anyways, I roomed with Sarah in the second year. With my two pillows and thermal blanket, winter came and she noticed that was all I had. One day I came back after a long day out to see a blue and white checkered Martha Stewart comforter and a Backstreet Boys CD - yes, I actually liked their music before and they serve a purpose for me - on my bed. She told me that I definitely needed something more than that thin blanket. I must have looked like such a poor Chinese kid to her.

For that year and the next - I was at Penn for three years - Sarah and I roomed together. Our dorm was a home. Matty would come by and take naps on our big old floor carpet. We would have people over for dinner, using only our small rice cooker - on the same carpet. XwAvE came over for small group every week, each time followed by this five minute manic shoving of everything under our comforters so that the room would look neat. Once we even had this production line of small Swedish Fish pouches going once. Floor mates would stop by our room for candy - whatever candy was in season - we left by the door. We were so proud to have our room to be the designated dorm room visit when potential frosh came to visit the dorm. Sometimes Sarah and I would put on Backstreet Boys and other assorted teeny-bopper music to dance and jump around like crazy little girls. Sometimes we had to pull all-nighters and we would play the said teeny-bopper music on our computers with headphones plugged in so that we would not disturb whichever of us was sleeping. Sometimes we would lie in our beds and talk to each other until we fell asleep.

Times like this when I am lonely are when Penn memories return. I miss those days.

 

(By the time I post this, it will be Friday morning.  But all references to "tonight" actually mean Thursday night, and that makes 'tomorrow" today i.e. Friday)

 

It is my dad's birthday tomorrow and mom does not like to celebrate birthdays after the fact.  So, seeing as my brother would not be free tomorrow, we went out for dinner tonight.  No cake or anything, just making time to go out together for a meal. 

 

Family dinners are usually on Sundays.  A home cooked meal.  Talk about things that happened during the week because we do not get to see each other much.  Not enjoyable always, kinda quiet sometimes, but it is important to be there.  Like a ritual, a time pre-allocated for family.  Discussions and debates.  My dad always seems to have an answer for everything.  Incredible.  He may not always be right (or we may not always agree), but he sure sounds like he knows what he is talking about.

 

At these dinners, Mom takes occasional trips down memory lane to remind my brother and I of our childhood behavior.  Like how my brother used to love going to Parkway Parade (the mall we used frequent every week) and he would hint subtly to my parents by singing "I want to go to Yaohan, I want to go to Yaohan..."  (Yaohan was the Japanese electric store at Parkway).  Mind you, there is no such song "I want to go to Yaohan" and if he sings anything like his shower-time rendition of Titanic's My Love Will Go On, I suspect that it was one crazy tune.  My brother (now a mature 30) claims that he was just merely being communicative. 

 

And I just found out tonight that when I was seven, I drew a picture of wallet and there was a dollar bill with wings flying away.  And the wallet had a speech bubble saying, "Come back!  Wait for me!"  My mom thinks it was an sign that I might grow up to be a spendthrift and would probably always be broke.  She is right.  I probably spend too much, and am probably doomed to be a poor sod.  Snugly stuck in the proletariat class, I say.  Too bad she does not have the drawing anymore.

 

Then I randomly commented that I want to write a book (which seems to be the dream of half the bloggers worldwide).  To which my mom reminded me that when we first moved to our current residence, I actually wrote a weekly newsletter for the house.  For all of two issues.  Haha.  I think I might start that home newsletter thing going again.  Maybe not a newsletter, not that much happens at home.  (My dad says if there were so many things to write about we would all die young.  Funny man.)  Maybe a weekly column I can post on my door. 

Sarah and I stayed in the freshmen dorm throughout college, so cooking facilities were far and few between.  We took up dining plans for convenience and to satisfy the occasional need to feast unhealthily, stock up on milk/ fruit/ bagels/ yoghurt/ OJ, or eat with freshmen (with way too huge a meal plan always). 

 

I always believe that there should only be one woman in the kitchen, and between Sarah and me, it was no contest.  She had so much in her favor - her italian background, instant pasta packs, yummy home recipes and The Joy of Cooking (which is a great book).  My role was to eat - and gladly too - whatever she prepared.  I loved it when she cooked.

 

We had some funny cooking escapades.  Like how we discovered that the black surface of little red pan that i bought at the dollar store was peeling.  Like checking out the strange foods that people would keep at the common fridge in the rooftop lounge.  Like hating the awful smell that the fridge emitted when people forgot about their food in the fridge for months (and no one would dare to touch the food because of the strange bacteria/mould that was growing off it).  Like how we had to use peanut oil to make pancakes the first time and she refused to eat the pancake-lets (they were really small) because she thought they tasted funky.  Like how I told Sarah to put in 4 cups of rice in our mini rice-cooker which caused the rice cooker to literally overflow with cooked rice just because I forgot that 1 cup would be enough for the two of us.  Like how we would cook our entire dinner in our small rice-cooker (in that small corner of our room right next to the sink) so as to save us the trip of going up to the rooftop kitchen to cook.  Like how the rooftop oven thermostat was kinda berserk - we had to keep scrambling upstairs to check on the stuff we were baking every five minutes.  Like how I would drive her crazy insisting that I was going to be sick when she cracked a raw egg on cooked pasta, stirred it for a few seconds and insisted it was cooked and that I could eat it.  Funny.

 

I did try cooking a few times.  Sarah taught me how to make pancakes.  The thick ones with banana chunks in them.  I tried to make my favorite cold tofu dish - with mushrooms, oyster sauce and pork floss - which did not come out too bad.  But Sarah hates mushrooms, and the fact that my food was brown in color, so I ate it up by myself.  No fun.  The one cooking experience I can be proud of when I invited xWaVe and a couple of other friends to breakfast at the end of senior year.  I made banana pancakes and french toast for about 15 people all by myself.  That together with extra bagels from Dining.  It is a nice feeling: when people enjoy your food, or the opportunity that your food provides for them to get together and hang out.  That was more than four years ago.  I have not cooked since then. 

 

I guess it is a matter of acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses.  I appreciate the result of cooking so much more than the actual process.  I did dabble in baking before college and that was fun with some successes, but I know I am not cut out for culinary matters, at any level.  Some of you may have heard of my baking test in middle school; Crispy Prawn was witness to my very pathetic cheesecake; and my family can testify to other failed attempts as well.  Then again, maybe I should dig out my baking recipe book and take a shot.  Just for the heck of it.  Who knows, maybe I will have a good hand this time. 

Sister Gill sold the family baby grand to Mr. and Mrs. Music. Today Mr. Music told sister gill and her sis that they found a "treasure trove" with the piano. It was the piano chair - it contained sister gill's and her sis' old piano books. Mr. Music told us about how he and his wife were so happy to find the books that they took them out and started playing. I saw the smile on his face - I could tell that they would be truly pleased when he realized they could keep the books.

Tonight I asked myself, What is my treasure trove? I had to think hard. All that came to mind were flashes of memories tucked away at the back of my mind. Memories that slowly fade away with time or get replaced. Then my yellow scrap book came to mind. It was a graduation gift from my small group at college - xWave.

As I flipped through the pages, I started beaming. Photographs, emails, quotes and more colored fading memories anew. Faces I had almost forgotten smiled back at me in the book and special events came back to mind. For the ten minutes I spent in the book, I was transported back to college. I could see myself back in my room again, I could hear other xWaver's voices. Wow, it was sweet. I remembered how much this community meant to me and shaped my life significantly.

I always say that college days will never be here again. But maybe I can beat that in a different way. This week, I am going to dig up all my college photos and finish up the scrap book.

Treasure trove
Mem'ry grove
Spirit dove
Comfort cove

What is your treasure trove?