Wednesday, November 23, 2005

one heck of a busy week

i've hardly had any time to sit down and blog properly for the past 5 days, which explains the lack of entries.

last friday, i watched harry potter and the goblet of fire with my cousins and my sister. since practically everyone's blogged about the movie, and how disappointing it is (i personally only have a problem with the absence of the world cup mascots - how could they? - and the really boring interpretation of the task scenes), i shall not write a review. i agree with everyone who didn't like the movie much.

saturday and sunday flew past so fast, i have no idea what i did. all i know is, i didn't spend those two days doing anything productive since i was out of the house most of the time.

on monday, i went to watch harry potter again, this time with uni friends. i just wanted to spend some time with them. they're a really great bunch of people, and it'd be a shame if we were all just "hi-bye" friends.

had a great time but reached home really late, so couldn't get any work done either.

yesterday, i had a cell group meeting with some seniors, which went on till late. and when i went home, i had to work on the layout for the imu newsletter, so only got to sleep at 1am, though i had an 8am lecture this morning.

*yawn*

and today...i had my second patient interview. which i didn't prepare for cuz was helping a friend out for the 2 hours prior to the interview. gah. thank goodness the simulated (not "stimulated", ok?) patient was very kind and forgiving.

i just got home. with a horrible stomach ache. sigh.

anyway, i saw this really witty comic strip, B.C., in the papers today. i can't find it online, plus it'd be a violation of copyright laws if i post it here, but it goes like this:

"oh, my goodness."
"what?"
"the bible says, one day the earth will be destroyed!"
"do the meek know this?"

lol.

for those of you who are scratching your heads...

"blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." - matthew 5:5 (NIV)

lol.

i dunno, i just found that strip really funny. *grin*

alright, i'm off to wash my hair. you'll see me again tomorrow, promise!

lishun at 11:01 AM

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Friday, November 18, 2005

stock values

when i was in singapore, my friends and i used to joke about guys' "stock values" - it's a measure of their boyfriend-potential and naturally the higher the values, the more desirable they would be.

one of the guys in my so-called clique rated really highly on the girls' "stock market" because he would accompany us grocery shopping and carry all our bags. he opened doors, abstained from swearing in front of us...in other words he was a gentleman. and that scored him alot of points.

anyway, a couple of days ago, my friends from imu were talking about the electives we were going to pursue during our semester break next year. i chose journalism, naturally, while some others decided to venture into art, pick up a new instrument, or learn mandarin (the number of non-mandarin-speaking chinese in imu is quite, err, shocking).

one of the guys, however, enrolled for ballroom dancing lessons.

it's always a big plus when guys can dance - you know, the whole "if he can work it on the dancefloor, he can work it in...other areas" thingamajig - so when he told me that, i grinned at him and said, "that will really boost your stock values!"

at which he replied, "you know, if girls knew how to cook, their stock values would go up too."

darn. i can neither dance nor cook. i can almost see my stock values plummeting way way way down, below the floor, into the soil and right into the molten core of the earth.

some of my secondary school friends would remember the times when i was in guides. we danced every year for the stepping down ceremonies and, as a result, it earned us the title of "singing and dancing guides" from a senior scout (bleh). you'd think that with so much practice i should be a pretty decent dancer right?

erm...no.

last year, during the asean seniors' night, i ended my reign as "wallflower queen" and actually got asked to dance by two of my juniors. the first guy is an excellent dancer. i've seen him dance, and he's really good. so i felt a bit...paiseh cuz of my inferior dancing skills. but then, it was just moving around in a square right?

wrong! i think i stepped on his feet like 4 or 5 times throughout the 4 or 5 songs we danced to. eek. he was really nice about it, but he flinched really hard every time i landed my heels on his toes. gah. so embarrassing.

the second guy was luckier. i only stepped on his toes once. but then, we only danced for one song, so actually the rate of occurence is the same. gah.

you'd think stepping on two unfortunate guys' toes in one night would deter me from dancing, but nooooooo. stubborn me signed up for the imu dance society, and am currently learning a fast-tempo, super-energetic hip hop dance. while everyone was moving smoothly to the beats of corny j-pop-techno in the last class, i was busy trying to make sure my arms weren't smacking anyone in the face.

sigh.

cooking is another sad sad story.

the first time i cooked something other maggi mee was in form 1, when the girls were introduced to the kitchen for the first time in our home ec classes. our first assignment was to cook fried meehoon.

i ended up with a mass of black stringy stuff that tasted not too bad, actually. i took some of it home to show off to my mother, and she literally ran away. so much for home social support. no wonder i'm stressed.

i didn't cook much after that. over the years though, i learnt to perfect the cheese omelette (it's all in the milk) and can cook a pretty mean mixed veggie soup if i can say so myself.

then, when i was 16, my mother took a one-month vacation to the states, leaving me with the affairs of the house. i didn't mind doing the cleaning and washing (been doing it for ages anyway) but i was mortified at the prospect of having to cook for my dad and sis.

the only veggie i could stir fry without making it turn brown was leafy stuff like cabbage, so my poor dad and sis had to have cabbage nearly every day for a month. plus since veggie soup was what i cooked best, they had that for a month too.

the other dishes i cooked only involved eggs (eggs saved my life, really!), mushrooms, and chicken. but there's only so often i could cook steamed egg with minced pork in a week, right?

we ate out alot that month. haha.

so what exactly is the value of my "stock"? if women were seriously only judged by our cooking abilities, i think alot of us would have been declared bankrupt a long time ago.

i think the best thing for me to do is take a cue from jules, jamie oliver's wife, and marry a chef. that way, no one would care whether you could cook or not. the important thing is your husband can.

but the question remains...would a chef marry someone with two left feet?!

lishun at 11:11 AM

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Monday, November 14, 2005

ooer...i'm second next!

as i've mentioned several times before, i'm the 4th granddaughter in my family.

out of the 9 grandchildren, there are 7 granddaughters in total: mann (my sis), yang, woei, shun (me), gaz, and xinn.

my sister got married earlier this year, and my cousin yang just got married yesterday. woei, 4 years my senior, has a steady boyfriend of a couple of years. gaz is only 16 and xinn has just finished her first year of primary school, so no one expects them to have boyfriends.

which leaves moi, 20 and single.

i have until 4 years after woei walks down the aisle, sorry, cheap red carpet of a chinese restaurant, to find my soul mate and marry him.

o_O

hey zach...no hurry, k? lol.

unfortunately though, people have been asking me about my relationship status since form 5. my mother has made it an annual event to ask me, "eh, don't be scared to tell me if you have a boyfriend ya?" i know my relatives are itching to ask me. they've resorted to casually slipping the question into conversations or getting their young kids to ask me. xinn and her brother hann have asked me on more than one occasion if i'm attached.

yeah, as if 7- or 8-year-olds regularly go up to their cousins and ask about their love lives.

in case you're wondering, i've never had a boyfriend.

i was 8 when i first had a crush on my classmate. i showed my feelings towards him by accidentally whacking a tennis ball on his head and then giving him a piece of chocolate afterwards to say i'm sorry. sweet, huh? nope, he didn't think so either.

then when i was 11, i was unfortunate enough to have a crush on a friend's brother. he knew, alright. and because he was a year older and therefore "cooler", he thought it'd be okay to tell all his friends that the awkward prefect in standard 4 liked him and they should laugh at her everytime she passes by.

in secondary school, i fell for a friend, hard, and it took 300km and 2 years to get over it.

and here i am, 20 and single.

i'm actually really lucky in the sense that i have yet to get into any "una and geoffrey alconbury" moments ("so you still haven't got a feller! what are we going to do with you?") and have no need to resort to anything like this.

however, thanks to the two weddings this year, i am bound to be under attack come chinese new year, otherwise known as the asian equivalent of new years' turkey curry buffet ala bridget jones.

there's just something about questions about one's inexistent love life that make it sound as if you're not normal when you're not attached. it's as if there's some club out there for every person who is/was married or is/has been in a relationship, and everyone over the age of 20 who doesn't have membership is just weird.

so now, on top of being too intimidating, unladylike and just downright ugly...i'm weird?

it's funny how people keep telling one another that it's okay to be single and that women don't need men to have confidence in themselves and you're better off with a dog than a boyfriend (unconditional love, undivided attention, no nagging or trying to change you, no heartbreak), when the messages they indirectly send mean otherwise.

it's no wonder single women everywhere feel every bit as insecure as bridget jones.

anyway, am just rambling. i'm not feeling "the pressure" anymore than i already do, and i don't believe that being in a relationship means my self-worth has increased, but am just thinking...we're all such hypocrites. even in little ways like this.

*note: i do wish i had flowers like these sent to me though. sigh.

lishun at 11:33 AM

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