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Who's Been Eating Off My Plate!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Wait

I have never been this fidgety for a long time now.. I hardly slept winks last night, I was the first to jump out of bed this morning for a morning puff, okay okay, several puffs, I couldnt even sit on the freaking bowl for a steady amount of time without shifting and darting my eyes around. I feel as if i was on some kind of adrenaline pump! All these for a job i am hoping to get!!! More updates in a bit.. I
m too fidgety to even type now...

Monday, February 22, 2010

recipes on the way!!!

For the past few days, i've been bugging every old aunty, uncle and stranger i meet to find out if they had any idea how to make a god sugee cake. Frankly speaking, i hated that cake which i had so frequently as a child. It was grainy, buttery and so not cool without the frills n swirls of cream and fruits. But as i grow older, and ate out more often, expensive restaurants and new palletes seem to intrigue me lesser, and what i crave for most is the food i grew up eating and not appreciating when i was younger.

I regret not helping out in the kitchen while i was younger. My mum being 65 this year, has a limited memory of how some of her famous dishes were made. These days, i find myself scavenging online, looking for recipes that will help me relive the nyonya and eurasian tradition i grew up in. Cooking and trying to modify it according to the tastes i remember.

It starts with one person at a time, so i decided that from now onwards, i will be posting recipes of famous nyonya and eurasian cooking that my mom used to make.. :)

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Its a Blessing..

The biggest and most exciting part about Chinese New Year is the reunion dinner, on the eve of Chinese New Year itself. Families pour in from all over the place to come together and have an extravagant dinner, where thereafter, bellies need to be literally tucked into their pants. Mothers pour their love into their cooking, and it's a day to laze around after a big meal and just catch up on old times and enjoy each another's company to it's fullest. It is after all, once a year.

For those of us who have enjoyed reunion dinners without fail every year, we sometimes forget how special it is. The opportunity to be with our loved ones and cherish every moment we spend together. As i sit here after my reunion dinner for a coffee to wash down my super sized meal which would have normally made up the portions of three meals in a regular average day, i can't help but feel lucky that i have this opportunity to be here, with my parents, at this age and time.

My reunion dinner was a small one this year. In the years before, we always had extended family joining us as one big event. But this year, it was just mom dad and good old me. I couldn't help feeling sad as well. My aunt who is wheelchair bound was supposed to join us for reunion dinner. However, as expected, her daughter switched off her handphone and we never got news of them despite waiting for 2 hours for their arrival. My aunt used to make the most sumptuous meatball soup, and the best steamed herbed drunken chicken. Since my uncle's passing, she became wheelchair bound due to a stroke, and has been dependent on her daughter ever since. Reunion dinners were always special, where she would start cooking days in advance. And all we wanted to do this year, was to have her with us, at the house which was once hers, and relive her happy days. Sadly, we were stood up.

Across where i am sitting now, is a family who is having their dinner at a Kopitiam. I wondered, why aren't they at home, enjoying this joyous occasion with their loved ones.

I have never considered reunion dinners to be special. It was always a common thing for me. Right now, i couldn't thank God more for the blessings which he has bestowed me..Without me even realising it.. :)

Friday, February 12, 2010

Happy Chinese New Year!

The two major celebrations of this year has been grossly tainted by my low energy, due to my incessant job search since December. I think i will remember this year as a dreadful, emotionally tiring year which i hope will never reoccur in my life. But that's life, full of ups and downs.

I never believed in the chinese horoscope much. But given the recent events, I have no choice to but have hope in the new year we're ushering in according to the chinese calendar. It's the only hope i can cling on to, and hope that it will be filled with prosperity and joy and happiness.

I used to believe that luck is man-made, and what you have and achieve is all made by yourself. It is not written in the moon and stars, but destiny is what you make out of it. And maybe it is true. And i need to find myself again to believe in it. Wallowing in self pity is only going to help me feel worse and more dependable on others. So it's time i move on.

So happy chinese new year everyone. May the year of the tiger bring out your ferocious strive for a better new year and more years to come!

Monday, February 8, 2010

Where i began

As a walked out of the car, parked in a spot only one in a million is lucky enough to get, my nostrils are filled with the stale foul air which i have grown to resent. I then walked to a familiar place, to meet up with my friends for lunch. People i absolutely love to bits and pieces, but a sad realisation dawns on me, that this could be one of the last meals we'd have together in this mad town.. Throughout our conversations, i absentmindedly picked around my food, and when one of them had to rush back to office, i felt a tinge of jealoust.. i missed it.. I missed rushing back from lunch for work. I missed having work to do..

I walked into the place where my life practically began, and looked at the familiar faces. As i walked up the steps, i wondered if i was still allowed to so carefreely scoot up the spiral staircase, since i officially don't belong there anymore. Everything was so usual, as if i was a passing shadow.. It felt so natural to be there, but yet there was a loss dawning on me.

Here i am now, in the office that i grew to love. Despite the regular staircase resident druggies, despite the filth, and the cockroaches, despite the stale smell of wet carpets and the floor which is filled with grime and God knows what other micro-inhabitants.. I walked into the training room, and i saw myself.. or rather, an image of myself..i was a scrawny younger looking girl, i remember the striped black shirt and the stripe skinny pants i wore with my bright yellow loafers.. I saw myself, standing there, talking and engaging the crowd.. i remembered the faces of every single person who attended my first training session.. the little ten year old boy who sat next to his father with spikey hair who was animated and interested in what i had to say.. but it was a memory..

As i sit here in this empty office, alone for the very last time.. i wonder what is to become of my life. What will i blog about, will i ever speak of my job in such charasmatic passion ever again to people i meet, will i ever go to sleep at night thinking of what other ways i can make a difference in at least one person's life, will i have the conscience to know that i have done well today, will i hear the common phrases and sounds my colleagues used to make when they are angry, frustrated, happy or surprised.. Will i wake up with a new found faith each and every day as i did for the past two years. Albeit the frustrations and anger i would sometimes have in the organisation, would i be able to ever stand tall again and say, "this is what i do for a living!" with a smile on my face?

I can't help the weak tears rolling off my cheeks and im almost embarassed if i were to be found this way by anyone.. But this, here, in the midst of the most dirty and crowded and twisted area of the city where no one would want to work at, this is the place where my life began. And this is where it will possibly end.

It feels as if a part of me died.. I can visualize a coffin where i am laid to rest and burried and forgotten. I can see how my life would never be the same again. That i would say " work was great or okay" and have nothing more to say ever again. I can see how the passionate part of me will disappear and i can expect to miss the foul fumes of this area that made me who i am today.

This is where i began.. And this time, for real, I'm bidding farewell to this chapter of my life.. It will be my first love and never forgotten. And i regret all good things have to come to an end..

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

the Ethical line...

In everything you do, there's always an ethical line we're recommended not to overstep. Question is, how do you determine where the ethical line is drawn.. And who decides it?

It's been a couple of years since i joined the NGO circle. I joined it for many reasons. First being to be able to do something substantial in effort to relieve pain and suffering. And the biggest reason out of my many other reasons, is to run away as far as i can from office politics.

It's a life changing sad fact that no matter where you go, as long as you are not your own boss of a less than 2 men company, there is no such thing is the absence of office politics. It's human nature to be competitive, and some more than the others which breeds politics.. WHat is then ethical beneath the lines of the competitiveness.

Is sending out hate mails ethical? Is talking about the mistreatment you receive from one party ethical? Is it still ethical if the party suffers a reputation slap because you have divulged some disturbing facts about them which concerns issues of them being wrong and unethical in the first place?Is it ethical, considering the public or counterparts deserve to know the hidden agendas and cover-ups they have so often done to save their skins. Will it then be be considered unethical to share what is perceived as private and confidential data of the party with the stakeholders even though it is lawfully and certainly unethical to keep it from them in the first place?

I swear i have never been more confused than i ever have been. My crucial question is, am i unconsciously being unethical for saving the skins of others while have my skin burned for the sake of being ethical?

Do you even get what i mean??