"Guess what;"

When she met him she knew, too. 

Camouflage

There might be something good coming my way. Something I'm passionate about.

I hope. Fingers crossed.

Funny how things work out, don't they? 

Home

And of course, one cold, misty evening, under the pouring thunderstorms, the beagle returned and sat near its dog house at the lawn, wagging it tails, happy, content, playful, as if nothing had happened.

And all you can't help think about, even more than rage, than desperation, than the need to curse left and right, is how your chest practically exploded with happiness at the sight of it. 

A wish her heart makes

Hello self,

Whenever you feel like work is crashing down on you and people are acting like assholes and you feel so tired you don't feel like waking up and dragging your zombie feet out of the bed, when you feel like you've had enough, when you think you will eat someone for lunch AND dinner all in one day, when you feel like you screwed up major time and would rather be swallowed by the ground - when you feel like you've given up.

Remember that one day, you will be this person. You will work for her and one day later replace her and feel like all those hard work and sweats....well, they're nothing compared to the feeling of satisfaction you've successfully achieved.

And when that moment happens, don' forget to thank me. 

Sincerely,
Future Self

Well-played, universe, well-played. 

An ode to yous

I must have done something right in the previous life, because I am now surrounded by the greatest, most awesome best friends in the whole world. 

Step into our (virtual) coffee shop!

A new co-writing project with the ever-so-talented Christabelle Palar is up and running (or shall I say, brewing?)

Check out the link below :)

http://coffeexstories.tumblr.com/

Oh, the demons

And so, in that sunny afternoon, she kneels down and pats the beagle on its back, tenderly, lovingly, affectionately. Forcing a smile, she leans down and whispers gently, "It's time for you to leave." 

"Why?" Beagle questions, its head tilting to one side. "I thought you and I were good together."

"Good?" she repeats in disbelief, "Try great. Perfect. Which is exactly why you need to go."

Beagle stares at her face, her two pigtails, her big blue aqua eyes. It wags it tails, still excitedly clueless. "But...why?"

"Because you're harmless. Because of your ability to be affectionate. Your passion to be nice, your goal to make me happy, to accompany me whatever mood I am in." The girl stops herself, sighing. "I need a Doberman instead. Big, burly, mean. A killing machine, they say."

Beagle looks confused. "It will hurt you. It will not protect you with affections like what I've been doing all these times."

"So then I know I can fight back when he bites. Then I wouldn't be swimming in guilt every time I realize I said something nasty. Because it won't have the same amount of patience as you do," she smiled. Oh, the fakeness of her smiles recently. The nonexistent layer of sincerity. "You belong to some other seven year old who will be glad to adopt you with open arms, no questions asked."

Finally getting the hint, Beagle's tails stops wagging. Its huge, puppy eyes cast downward. 

"Hey," she whispers and closes her eyes as she kissed the top of its head, feeling his fur tickle her nostrils. "There's nothing like you and I."

Jerking back, she swallows hard and places the puppy in the huge dollhouse. It has everything Beagle will ever need - chewy bones, meaty snacks, bottled water, and her favorite old blanket. 

She wants to make sure it leaves with its best, most favorite surroundings. 

She painfully ignores its whimpers as she makes her way back to her house. She cannot afford to take one last glance. There is no such word as 'last' in our dictionary, remember? The least I can do is keep that promise.

Closing the door behind her, she leans against the wooden door and sighs deeply. 

Door locked, windows closed, walls back up. Time to install a new alarm.

You can really hate your best friend sometimes.

D: "I really, really miss [insert name of place]"

C: "Do you miss the place, or do you miss the feelings when you were there?"

D: "....."

C: "Uh-huh, consider me your emotional autocorrect from now on."

***

"That's even worse."

(On the subject of pros and cons in leaving a person.)

X: "OK, you know what, it all comes down to this. This always works for me so let me ask this to you, loud and clear, once and for all - can you live without him?"

X: "It's a quick, yes-or-no question."

Y: "I think so. Yeah."

X: "Err........ really?"

Y: "The problem is, I doubt there is anyone I can't live without." 


boom. 

one of the best 'stories' I've ever read.

Brilliant. 

"You don’t normally enjoy this.  You’ve got a security system installed because you don’t trust people in your home. It staves off thieves who try to steal your belongings for a quick fix...Every once in a while a thief attempts to break in, but your security system works wonders."

It's too cold for you here.

"I wanna shelter you

But with the beast inside

There's nowhere we can hide

When you feel my heat

Look into my eyes

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

Don't get too close

It's dark inside

It's where my demons hide."

- Imagine Dragons 

After a long, thick silence, she asks,

"Okay. What if I don't want to be brave?" 

And for the second time in his life, he falls into a longer, thicker silence. 

because I bow to this man's words.

Some memorable blurbs from Mr Geiman:

“You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right."

"Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue. "
- taken from Instructions 

“I miss you', he admitted. 
'I'm here', she said. 
'That's when I miss you most. When you're here. When you aren't here, when you're just a ghost of the past or a dream from another life, it's easier then.” 
― taken from American Gods

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” 

And my favorite one so far:

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” 

just saying.

I have a thing for words.

And people.

And especially --especially, people who are good with words. 

Mmmm. 

"you're my crutch when my legs stop moving."

I have been wondering endlessly about why I've been so jittery and restless this past few weeks - aside from the fact that I am finally, finally, bidding farewell to my working place for the past four years; my second home. And I realized that maybe it's because I haven't had a chance to pour it all out here. 

I don't know any routine other than getting up early, get on the train/car and head into my office, turn on my computer, chitchat with my friends while it hums to life, check my emails, go over my to do list, then head down/upstairs to grab breakfast with them. I don't know any other routine than to have hectic mornings, cut off by a lunch session where all of us go upstairs to crack jokes, fuss and curse about clients, and go back to work blasting out 8Tracks in my cubicle until 5 p.m, followed by coffee/desserts break only to hear about the continued part of those absurd, out-of-this world jokes and curses made by my friends. I don't know how it will feel tomorrow knowing that there won't be any familiar voice yelling dinner orders. I don't know how I can ever get used to turning left or right without seeing my friends there. I used to know the place inch by inch; even with my eyes closed. Come Monday, I will be placed in a completely new, strange environment with unfamiliar surroundings; back to square one. Back to zero.

Notice how I wrote 'friends', instead of 'colleagues'?

Because that's how they feel to me. This love-and-hate relationship between all of us is something I've always treasured deep inside. The non-bullshit way we treat one another and the fact that no matter how hard we tried to disguise it, the sincerity to back up each other and help one another out always manages to show. I will miss each of these unique characters, types of people whom I would never have thought I'd get along with if I hadn't met them there. It's surreal how different yet how alike we all are. 

It has been one heck of a ride, and I will never forget the moments leading up to my last day there. Good or bad, I think I learned a hell lot in that place both personally and professionally. It makes me smile, frown, laugh, shake my had in disbelief to think about how naive I was and how I should've been smarter in picking which issues I needed to respond to and which to ignore. And these past few months in particular have been utterly indescribable. I've gone down roads I have never even thought to touch before, allowed myself to feel things I never thought I'd feel before, made decisions I never thought I'd have the guts to make, and said words that surprised even me - in a good way. It's been amazing. Maybe this whole growing up process wasn't a bad idea after all. 

(If you knew how much papers and stuff tend to build mountains on my desk, then you know how this pic tells a million words.)

So I guess this is it; on to the next, then. Can't wait to see what other surprises life has in store for me in my next chapter. Looking at how things have been going recently, all I can say is - bring it on, Universe. 

:)

says Comfort one night,

"Checkmate."

The Wall, in all of its rock-solid glory, looks down shamefully and retreats back in to the corner, feeling a thunderous rumble coming in the distance that will soon make the fort collapse.

And the Universe; the Universe is smiling somewhere, leaning back at his seat with a happy, satisfied sigh.

(to be continued)

2013 Lesson #2,7964

Learn to keep your mouth shut.

Just because it's in your head, doesn't mean you should say it out loud. Just because you're easily restless and thus always feel the need to let out how your mood is or how you feel, doesn't mean you can't sink back to your shells and clam up. Permanently.

It's a freaking fun method, bottling up. Try it. Of course it's not your usual trait; but maybe that's always been the problem. You were right to zip your lips and hide behind the walls. 

PS: You have to be brave.

How do you fall in love?

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. 

Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)

And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. 

That’s it.

PS: You have to be brave.


(Jeanette Winterson in Big Questions from Little People & Simple Answers from Great Minds)

2013 Lesson: #34

Spend more time with Mom and Dad. 

And then enjoy their sincere, pleased smile when you propose it.

a dream.

I am well-aware of what you think of patissiers, pastry chefs, desserts experts. That compared to culinary chefs, they're small, useless, insignificant, invisible--or as Bourdain says, like a bunch of orthopedists in a room full of surgeons. A bunch of pretentious people making fairytale,non-manly foods with the level of coolness being minus one out of five. 

But you'll be damned if you think that it ever stops me from wanting to be one.

I know it's probably too late for me to learn pastry through an official institution by now; but a lesson is still a lesson nonetheless, right? Spending two hours in the kitchen on a Sunday with your mom (who is not any nicer than Gordon Ramsay when it comes to cleanliness and tidiness and efficacy) (and worse, she's doing it in Javanese) learning how to whip eggs the right way is just as useful as a session in Le Cordon Bleu, no?

I can't quite put my finger in how I got my first passion in desserts. When I was little, my sister and I used to be so excited every night before Lebaran because we got to help her make cornflake cookies using a recipe that goes back to my grandma's years. I remember seeing the scrawly handwriting in a yellowed note and thinking I wanted to leave my daughter and grandchildren with this kind of heritage, too; a family recipe. I remember climbing up the kitchen chair and shoving my small hands into a big bowl of batter and taking a lick whenever mom turned her back on us. The rush of feeling (perhaps from all that sugar) and giddiness was easy to recall. I remember mom teaching us and guiding my hands into making the perfect cornflake balls. Small, round, crispy and moist, and competing with my sister on who could roll the fastest (although after a while, she got bored and just left me alone at the table. She's fun like that.)

And my dad - I blame him for my constant craving of colorful, illegal-looking drinks I've had in my life. He's my partner in crime in smuggling weird syrups and ice lollies into the shopping cart whenever mom isn't looking. He shares my love for ordering colorful desserts and after my parents' divorce, when he still had the time to visit us every Saturday, I made him banana milkshakes or ice cream sandwiches which he always ate despite his dietary requirements. 

I get most of my influence from my mom, though. My mom is a terrific cook. She's cooked since she was in her teenage years basically because she didn't have a mother to grow up with. No mother to look up to, can you imagine that? No one to hold you and tell you everything's ok when you're crying your eyes out after spilling a bowl of chocolate paste to the floor. My mom cooks cuisine and pastry, both equally excellent. We would go to a restaurant and I would order a dessert (the most colorful, weird-looking one) and we would discuss how we can imitate one at home. 

We still do that now.

I remember a family event at home when my sister invited her boyfriend's whole family for dinner at our house a few years back. Always one to please guests with foods especially in my house, I volunteered to to make an frozen Oreo cupcake for desserts. Imagine Oreo in all of its gloriness, the thick vanilla filling and rich chocolate cookies. What happened was I presented them with a gooey mush of black-and-white fillings and lumpy cupcake muffins, with too much Oreo crumbs and too little chilled time. Luckily, being a bunch of polite people that they were, all the guests finished it off without forgetting to send compliments to the cook (and for that reason alone, kak, I think you married the right guy.)

The one thing I would change from my current routine now, the only good thing to have a strict 9 to 5 job is that I would have more time to bake. More practice. My hands are already rusty from all the non-baking over the past year, it makes me sad sometimes. But I still assure myself that I still have Sundays to squeeze it in and I motivate myself by collecting easy recipes from the web. Nothing fancy, nothing with a name I couldn't pronounce. Just simple pastry and sometimes they don't taste good. Sometimes I let it in the oven too long or too soon. Sometimes I incidentally used the wrong type of flour and it doesn't flourish like I want it to. Things go wrong most of the times and that's why I love it. It makes me questions things, makes me want to do better every. single.time. It tickles my curiosity, my desire to be better. I have had eggtarts that taste too egg-y. Chocolate brownies that are too sweet (yes, there's such thing.) Shapeless marble cakes and an even more shapeless Momofuku cookies, to cite recent examples. 

But I can't wait to go back to the kitchen. I can't wait to lay out all the ingredients at the countertop table and try each step from the recipe. I can't wait to fail. 

I just finished Bourdain's first book and that is perhaps where I got all this culinary sentiments from. It's amazing to read someone pouring out his passion like that. There was this particular page where he wrote an advice on how to be a great chef (coming from him, that's like bible.) I fully understand that both physical and mental solidity are required to be one and that you have to be prepared to work endless hours. Which, I think, will seem like seconds when you do something you really love. Check out the interview below with Craig Koketsu, one of my favorites who is also a former resident chef at Lespinasse. (It's hard not to idolize the guy when he looks like this, btw):

"Unlike many of his contemporaries, Koketsu didn’t go the culinary school route. Classes as a rhetoric major at UC Berkeley didn’t inspire him, but a visit with his sister, who was enrolled at the local community college culinary school, did: Koketsu realized that he wanted to be in a kitchen, too. But he’d worked his way through college and couldn’t afford more schooling. Instead, he lucked into a job with “an incredible teacher,” Chinese American chef Steve Chan at the Silicon Valley French- and Asian-influenced Martha’s Restaurant. 

There, Koketsu absorbed the fundamentals of cooking during grueling 15-hour days that “flew by,” he says, “because I loved it so much and knew I was doing the right thing.” One night on the line at Jeremiah Tower’s Oakland Stars, he had a light-bulb moment. Koketsu asked Tower what the key to his success was. Tower’s answer: “I don’t separate my personal from my professional life.” It made sense to me, Koketsu recalls. “When you’re completely absorbed in something, it becomes your life.”

The book also mentioned one name that has stayed for me for so long and resurrected again in my mind thanks to Bourdain mentioning him as the greatest pastry chef in the world: Richard Leach. I've seen his book in Kinokuniya once, his Sweet Seasons recipe book with ingredients that allows cooks to mix and match that is now not available anywhere else THAT I DID NOT BUY and remains as one of my biggest DINDA WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING moments. (and to make things worse, I forgot to look it up in Melb.)

It made my day that I had the same preference with Anthony Bourdain. Nice. (and probably a million other people out there, but I'd like to think of it as a private moment with the chef.) 

Anyways, I can ramble on and on and on here if nobody is stopping me. And I don't like rambling. I just needed to let this out, this frantic feeling of awakening and discovering what you like again. It's a pretty damn good feeling, though. It's a reminder that, despite the fact that it's impossible for me to be there now, at least I've gone here to this sacred place of mine, sat on one of the benches, peeked at its library, acted like one of its students -  no longer admiring it from afar and thinking what it would be like to step through the gates.

And for me, that's good enough; for now. 

I couldn't agree more.

Via @food52: "The kitchen is a hub of political jokes, aromatic dishes, love—things nobody can take from you." 

:)

Says the complicator one quiet night/morning,

"The simplificator seems hesitant to articulate what she wants."


Nine simple words that should have been uttered by someone you've known all your life.

the tale of the midnight shrink

A few things I learned as of Saturday, 23:30 p.m., the second month of the year:

1. This eye infection thingy is not going away anytime soon and I will forever be neurotic everytime I feel it itch for whatever reason.

2. Closure can be found in the most unexpected, inappropriate timing and place; but still feels equally relieving.

3. How you see yourself and how others see you are two very, very, unbelievably different things. 

4. Having your mind read by other people is, well, normal. Don't put too much thought into it and definitely don't make it seem like a much bigger deal than it really is.

5. Strangers will surprise you. A certain sentence coming out of their mouth will surprise you, throw you off, catch you off guard, resulting in a quickening pulse climbing up from your chest and eventually a small movement creeping into your face no matter how hard you try to hide it.

6. And when that happens, it's ok. Smile. Grin. Laugh.

7. When something feels right, admit it. At least to yourself. Seriously, if you're still going to put up an ego fight with yourself, you should check into rehab. With you, you don't have an audience thus there's no need for the ego to shine through. Or worse, pride. 

8. There's this type of...flower, that you thought you've stomped and torn down to pieces with its thorns still attached, that just keeps resurrecting at times when you need it the most--even if you never realized it. Maybe they come from seasonal trees. But whatever it is, you can't shake the happiness from your insides when you encounter them again out of the blue. Happy not because of the pounding heartbeat or whatever teeny-bopper symptoms they explain in chick flicks--happy because you feel content. As if the time never leaves and the moment always stays. Happy because it feels right. And when it feels right, well......

9. Being surrounded by positive, like-minded people is one of the best things that can happen to you in your entire life.

10. Accept the fact that you tend to like someone too quickly and too damn easily. And then accept the fact that the feeling only reaches the surface and thus it may only be a shield to your otherwise closed-up, barricaded steel of self emotions. Like an appearance to make you seem more human to the naked eye. Accept the fact that it usually takes a long, heavily-assessed period of time for you to actually fall and drown without life jackets and don't be too proud to yell "help" once that happens. Be more clever in telling these two apart. Which one gives you a rush of blood and an exciting tickle in your stomach and which one gives you a rare calming effect that did not know existed and touches the very core of this overrated, beating thing called heart.

11. It's okay not to be interested if you are really not--this applies to anything. You should only spend time for those you're really passionate for because you know that when you like something, you go all out and make sure you give your damn best efforts, which will make all the waiting worth the wait. (Oh, it will.)

12. It's. okay. to make. bad. decisions. They make the best stories afterwards.


(...this is not me we're talking about here. Of course. Except no.1. Of course.)

This is between us, ok?

Dear reader,

I cannot express my gratitude to you in mere words for clicking this link and reading these posts. 

You see, my master is a douche.

I spend my days and nights with eyes wide open, hoping, breathing, glancing at the digital clock on the left screen below, watching the minutes pass slowly. I have lost count on how many hopeful smiles I have stretched on my face whenever my master opens this link. But that's just it. She just opens the link, skims the pages over and......shuts me down. Literally. It's like she could not feel my energy darkening and slumping against the wall. Day by day, I cross my alphabetic fingers hoping desperately that she will click on that 'new post' icon and start writing, anything. Anything! Even that little poem below made me excited although all she had to do was click copy and paste it on me. But still, it stirred me awake and made me feel useful again.

I know how she's hooked with work, etc, and that she only has time for me during the weekends. Even then, I need to be patient still because I know she won't dedicate the whole weekend to me. I get that. But how long does it take to update me, really? Five, ten minutes? It's not like she ever thinks about what she types on me, either, so thinking's out of the way. So, what - all she needs to do is click on that icon and start typing, right? Even a simple hello would do it. But if I bring this up with her, she will always use that 'busy' excuse, which is a lame-ass reason she's been using in the past few years. 

But all of those mean nothing compared to what I just heard yesterday; apparently, I have a new sister now. CAN YOU FREAKING BELIEVE IT? No time to take care of me and now she creates another one just like me, in a different platform? How delusional can a person get?? I was fuming so mad my battery immediately ran low. My insides was trembling with rage so hard, the screen blinked. I swear, if that little bitch gets more words that I do, I refuse to operate. I'll just stare back at my master, wide-eyed full of innocence and...blank.

There. Let's see what the douche will do, then.

Please pardon my French and I do sincerely hope it will not scare you off from returning here again. 

Sincerely yours,
Me

You can never go wrong with Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

I'm toast.

Recurrent corneal erosion is a disorder of the eyes characterized by the failure of the cornea's outermost layer of epithelial cells to attach to the underlying basement membrane (Bowman's layer). The condition is excruciatingly painful because the loss of these cells results in the exposure of sensitive corneal nerves. Mis-diagnosis of a scratched cornea is fairly common, especially in younger patients.

The cornea is the clear outermost layer of your eye. It protects your eyes against dirt and germs, and filters some ultraviolet light. RCE is caused when the corneal cells (the epithelium) of the eye are not firmly attached, which causes them to pull off easily, usually by the eyelid as it moves over the eye 

Symptoms of corneal abrasion include pain, photophobia, a foreign-body sensation, excessive squinting, and a reflex production of tears. Signs include epithelial defects and edema, and often conjunctival injection, swollen eyelids, large pupils and a mild anterior-chamber reaction. The vision may be blurred, both from any swelling of the cornea and the excess tears.

With the eye generally profusely watering, the type of tears being produced have little adhesive property. Water or saline eye drops tend therefore to be ineffective. Rather a 'better quality' of tear is required with higher 'wetting ability' (i.e. greater amount of glycoproteins) and so artificial tears (e.g. viscotears) are applied frequently.

Surgical Treatment

A punctal plug may be inserted into the tear duct by an optometrist or ophthalmologist, decreasing the removal of natural tears from the affected eye. 

The use of contact lenses may help prevent the abrasion during blinking lifting off the surface layer and uses thin lenses that are gas permeable to minimise reduced oxygenation. However they need to be used for between 8–26 weeks and such persistent use both incurs frequent follow-up visits and may increase the risk of infections.

Alternatively, under local anaesthetic, the corneal layer may be gently removed with a fine needle, cauterised (heat or laser) or 'spot welding' attempted (again with lasers). The procedures are not guaranteed to work, and in a minority may exacerbate the problem.

This disease is claimed to be one of the most underrated in the world. 

The only word I paid attention to is needle. Period. 

(Oh and on a much lighter note, happy New Year everyone!)