an attempt to fit-ify myself

one night, i was looking up free haircuts (because im cheap like that) online and came across gumtree.com. its a bulletin style website where anyone (i think) can post up anything for others to know about, mostly for jobs.

so i forgot what ad i saw, but i suddenly found myself looking up yoga classes. after checking a dozen websites out, i settled on a physiotherapy centre in st pancras. it was 10pounds a session. quite pricey, but others were either in zone 3/4 or charging wayyy more for a single session. plus, the mats were provided. all i had to bring was myself =p

i am usually free on wednesdays, so i was looking at the timetable for a wednesday class. the only ones available were pilates classes. so i signed up for that instead.

the class was last night. i think it was pretty good considering that i woke up feeling soreness in some areas -which was the intention, so i felt like i actually did something. but still i feel a tinge unsatisfied. i guess slow exercises arent my kinda thing. i barely broke a sweat the whole session. i'd feel much more satisfied if i had sweated it all out and really pushed myself. but then again, i've spent several years in inaction and it ought to be a good idea to slowly ease myself into exercise.

i havent signed up for any other classes because there can only be 8 students a class and the times which i want are fully booked. we'll see how it goes.

maybe i'll forget all about it and become all lazy again. wtf

macaron and hollandaise sauce

macaron and hollandaise sauce?
now why would i combine the two??

simply because the macaron recipe i tried needed 3 egg whites and hollandaise sauce needs 3 egg yolks =p

it was my first attempt making both. and while my macarons looked nothing like macarons, i guess i can say im quite happy with the results :D

although the macarons were not smooth and looked more like cookes than macarons, at least they tasted very much like macarons! so considering that macaron making has a high failure rate, i shall be glad that at least mine taste great =p

as for the hollandaise sauce, i googled "what to do with egg yolks" and out popped the recipe. so i tried it as sauce over my salmon. it tasted ok, not really my kind of thing, but im pretty sure it was a success because it tasted the way it was supposed to (i tried this sauce before), just that i dont generally like many types of sauces =p

so im quite proud of myself for trying out two new recipes today. *pats self on back*

exasperated

it is disturbing that you dont know how disturbing it is.
it is disturbing that i even have to tell you that it is disturbing.
it is disturbing how you cant understand how disturbing it is even after i tell you.
it is disturbing how i think you know that it is disturbing, but you are pretending that you dont.

it is flat out disturbing.

some things you should already know.

asti breakfast

i uploaded some pictures from my phone and discovered these pictures.

since bernie complains that i never post pictures of my travels, here are a couple of pictures taken during breakfast at the guesthouse i stayed at in malta.

as i mentioned before, i didnt really enjoy malta. but if any of you are planning to go to malta, i highly recommend asti guesthouse. its cheap (20euro a night per person), spacious, full of character and the land lady is extremely accommodating. hands down beats many of the hotels i've stayed at in europe.

only gripes i have is that there is no ensuite (for someone who frequents the toilet at night, this is not so good) and there is no carpet, so bring bedroom slippers if you go in winter. unless you dont mind the cold tiles.

on to the breakfast pictures!

bread, cake, jam and butter

breakfast is included in the room rate, so dont expect anything fancy. im not a morning person, so for breakfast, this is good enough for me ;)


random tomato

i always try to eat half my tomato sandwiched in the bread. the other half i discard because i dont like eating tomato alone. the small sweet ones are fine, but the big ones are too much.


blurry picture of the breakfast room


chandelier! (surprisingly clear shot)


i think this might have been a depiction of when christ was born. the picture is too blurry to tell. wtf

malta is a very christian place and especially since we went near xmas, there were christmas decorations everywhere. i have more photos of the guesthouse, and you will see that there are decorations all over the place!

the structure of the guesthouse itself was incredibly unique. most of us are used to the straightforward structure of carefully planned individual buildings, but the buildings in malta are huge tall blocks that meld into each other. and each tenant builds their own home to their own specification. however, as generations come and go, some places are bought over by the building next to theirs and the walls are knocked down to enlarge the buyer's original building (are you still with me??). so there isnt really any 1st floor, 2nd floor kinda thing. its stairs, a corridor of rooms, down the corridor you get more stairs, sometimes a random room at the side of the stairs, winding stairs and in between you get another short corridor of rooms. all very haphazard, but full of character. i'll post pictures of the rest of the guesthouse next time.


angel deco


you can have juice and a choice of coffee or tea. i always choose tea. not a coffee person.

icicles

this was taken a few days ago, but i forgot to post it, so im posting it now.


usually the weather button shows a cloud and either rain or sun or even (but rarely) snow.

this time however, i saw icicles! so i had to be sakai and print screen =p

i dont remember how cold it was that day though. luckily, the temperature has risen since then and hovers at about 7degrees these days.

oh, and im developing a cough. i hope i recover soon, before it gets worse. *touches wood*

on and off emperor

i downloaded the demo version of "emperor: rise of the middle kingdom" last night and finished all the campaigns before i was satisfied and could go to bed.

what an incredibly ridiculous waste of time.

but did i mention how satisfying it was? haha

its odd how addictive this game is to me. my bro has the full version at home, but thats all the way in malaysia. the only game he installed into my laptop (without much consent) was "guild 2". "guild 2" is not even half as nice ok! should have asked him to install "emperor" instead. aish.

i dont know why i suddenly itched to play it last night. i was introduced to this game in form 4 or 5 and was very hooked on it at that time. after a couple of pretty intensive months of playing, i got bored of it. but still played it on and off throughout the years.

oh, the demo version only had one dynasty, so it only took me less than 3 hours to complete all the campaigns. but i only downloaded the game near midnight, hence i ended up sleeping at nearly 4am. fml.

classes tomorrow, court visit and domus dinner on wednesday, and classes and practitioners evening on thursday. its gonna be a draining week.

thank goodness we have friday off this week.

being cheap

i spent the past 2 hours signing up for various free samples online. im expecting alot of stuff via post throughout the next week!

it was mostly tea samples with a few cream samples. hope i get them all! coz im cheap like that. wtf.

anyways, here's a website for those of you who believe in love. not sure if i put it up here before, but i just rediscovered it, so here it is again =p

speaking of which, valentine's day is just around the corner. i'd better start hunting for a present for val!

displacement

i was absorbed in my submission. then i heard some sounds downstairs, and for a disoriented moment, i thought i was home.

there is always noise downstairs at home. its either the tv blaring or the adults talking while us kids have been sent to our rooms to study.

strange.

i guess i do miss home after all :)

hilary term

here's to another hectic why-am-i-doing-this term!

i just wanna pass all my exams. i swear that even if i pass everything by just one mark, i'll already be a very very happy girl.

already the mountain of work is piling up. bye bye lazy days, hello CPR and Blackstones. wtf

cake and health foods

i just baked a cake. the recipe was meant for cupcakes, but i didnt have the proper tray, so i just baked it as a cake instead. taste-wise its fine anyway!

it was a chocolate and cheese cake. in the cupcake version, you were supposed to fill it 3/4 with the choc mixture then drop a little cheese cake mixture into the side. so the baked product would be a chocolate cupcake with cheese cake wedged up and a little mingled in it. but since i was doing the cake version, i just poured the cheese cake mixture onto the chocolate layer, so i had two distinct layers. pictures when i post up my next round of pictures taken with my phone! =p

***************

recently, i've taken to buying foods which are good for me, without really having any idea how i planned to cook them or how they were generally to be used. i guess this way, im slowly introducing myself to new ingredients that i have never previously used before in the ordinary course of my cooking.

last (academic year. meaning it ended aug '09. its so confusing because the english start their academic years 3/4 through a calender year) year, it was red beans and green beans. i was obsessed with tong sui at one point. LOL. it may not be a new ingredient to alot of people, but in my family, we only eat tong suis like this once in a blue moon (except that time when there was the silly myth about eating green bean soup), so i was not particularly familiar with these beans, what to say cook them.

the first such ingredient this year was barley. back home, my grandmother used to make a sweet barley drink for us every sunday. we had to drink at least 3 cups each a day. funny how i used to think of it as a chore to drink, but now i kinda miss it. not sure if she still does it now though. anyway, most people are used to barley in desserts. but that wasnt the aspect of barley i was interested in. i wanted to have it savoury for main meals. so i read up some recipes on it online to get a gist of how it could be used. surprisingly, barley is really versatile. you could have it in nearly all kinds of soup. all you have to do is boil it for the appropriate amount of time depending on the kind of barley you have, and then dump in all your usual ingredients. it doesnt affect the taste of the soup much but adds depth and a slight thickness to your soup, making it a hearty broth. perfect for winter! and check out the health benefits of barley here.

the second such ingredient is tofu. i've always like the japanese tofu because i felt the normal tofu is too bland. and so i always avoided cooking tofu (like most other people, i tend to only cook what i like to eat =p). but im not blind to the nutritional benefits that tofu provides, so i decided to start using tofu in my cooking. first i started with the japanese tofu as you can see the in the bento picture several posts before this. then a few days ago, i happened to be in an oriental store, so i purchased a huge slab of tofu without any idea of how to cook it. just now, i saw that the expiry date was the 8th and it was already the 9th, but i had already eaten lunch and dinner and had a cake in the oven. there was no way i was gonna have space for tofu in my tummy. nevertheless, something had to be done quickly about the tofu. so i cut up the tofu and deep-fried all of it. now i have a container stuffed with fried tofu and dunno wad to do with it. well, thats tomorrow's problem. *shrugs*

not sure what my third new ingredient is gonna be. i usually just browse the supermarket until i see something new and acceptable. acceptable meaning i wouldnt mind eating. unacceptable would be like red or green peppers and celery. healthy but too ugh.

snow relief

what i had initially thought would be a stressful week has turned out to be more of a holiday than my holiday ever was :D

i was supposed to be having mock exams on tues, weds, thurs and fri.

on tues i sat for my drafting mock exam. that evening, we received several emails regarding the forecast of heavy snow for the following days, the final email saying that due to the heavy snowfall predicted for weds, we would all not have to attend college for the exam. the questions would be posted online, and we were to do them in exam conditions. wheeeeee~~~

and just now when i checked my mail again, i discovered that the college will be closed for the rest of the week and i may sit for all my mock exams at home! ushhhh *pumps fist in air*! :D

on another note, i looked out the kitchen window as i was cooking and it was totally blizzard-ing out there! so amazing! i feel like going out to play with snow! but the rest of my housemates have exams next week, so no one to go with me :(

filling

aish!

remember in a previous post i mentioned buying temporary tooth filling to replace my lost filling?

well, the tooth in question is getting worse. previously, part of the filling had come off, and i bought the temporary filling to replace that. but now, the whole original filling (which is huge and consists of nearly half my tooth) has become loose.

the temporary filling just wont cut it anymore.

i guess i'll have to go and see a dentist after all. there goes another 50pounds. FML

i think this is the same tooth that i went to a dentist to fix in kuching, just before i came back to the UK. stupid damn lousy dentist. hate him. ugh.