I guess having spent some 64 days here already in a new country, new climate and new environment, I owe some people some thoughts on how things are like.
What has changed? I've been thinking about that quite a bit recently, whether or not I have changed, whether anything has changed, whether the outside world influences the inside realm much or little.
Quite honestly, it has come to only one point, really. I enjoy the simple things better now.
As much as you can think of London as being the hub of hustle, the city of cities and the base of busy'ness, and indeed it probably is, being one of the three largest financial hubs of the world, 30 minutes outside of London by train and it's a whole new world.
There are large expanses of green fields outside my window that, except for 2 days of frost so far in winter, remain green most of the year around. A slow, ambling river runs at one end of it, parallel to a path where joggers jog and dogs of all shapes and sizes run with their owners. A pair of French doors open out to this field from the second floor where I am, and sometimes in quieter moments when I wish to have silence for thought, I stand at those doors and find solitude and peace in peering out into this wide open field of green, content to be privately alone in my thoughts and solitude. When the weather gets warmer I will open these doors and go outside for walks.
On the other side of my apartment, trains chug by from day to night. The shuffle of the trains break the silence and comfort me in my loneliness when things get too quiet when I'm alone in the house. In the night, light reflected from car beams and street lamps stream into my window, interjected by a single candle flame from an aromatherapy lamp that does not flicker.
It's a lovely life. Very much one that begs the poem of "come live with me and be my love".
When I contrast this with what life was like in Singapore, I couldn't say that this is what I'd dreamed of. I'd initially come all the way here to escape the sniffles (yes, to a colder climate, no less, if you can believe that) and gain better health and potential longevity for a body that is burns up faster than it can build up.
What I got was peace of mind, a healthy 10 minute walk to the station and a free ride to work each morning on a green (low carbon emissions) bus, healthy MSG free food and fresh air that cures the sniffles (if I wear a coat and open the window), people who smile and say hi when they catch your eyes along the street, bus drivers who wait for you as you run towards the bus. This was probably more than I bargained for.
Is that a good change? Sometimes when I think about it, it is a change from recycled air-conditioning, fat and oily MSG laden hawker food, traffic pollution the congestion of throngs of humanity edging shoulders. In the simple things, the little things that make up life like wallpaper, yes it is a good change.
I miss the people from home the most. I miss friends and family. People I love, and people who love me. I miss a little white dog that cannot come here to run in the fields with me just yet very terribly.
What defines a home? What makes things perfect?
I would give up a lot to have a life here like this, surrounded by "pleasant wallpaper" because they are what I live and breathe on a superficial level each day. They are the basic foundations of a place you can call home. I challenge anyone who can live in a house with ugly purple painted walls all their lives and claim happiness. So this is important. The simple things are the ones that matter, and the ones that drive people like me to pay tax at 40% instead of 11%. At the end of the day, I have realized that the cost of living is like everything else, you pay for what you get.
But what I would die for - are the people who make that perfect house a home. It is cold here without the people I love and the people who love me. This perfect house has only made me realise the things make houses homes at the end of the day. Simple things. Like family. Like friends. Like Love.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
In need of some good chicken soup loving
While most of the food on my Flickr pages are good looking, photo quality stuff, thanks to eating out - this is the reality of what I eat at home when I'm sniffly and in need of some good cheering up and hot clear chicken broth.
So here it is, one of the heart-warming heartland favourites: chicken vegetable soup with meatballs, a variant of the yummy soup courtesy of enuwy who made some last week in London.
Ingredients:
500 ml chicken stock
200g minced pork
3 small carrots
1/4 brocolli floret
2 slices of ginger (for colds)
A handful of barley (good for winter soups apparently)
Method:
Bring chicken stock, ginger and barley to a boil. In the meantime, chop up carrots and brocolli and marinade minced pork with pepper and soy sauce.
Once the broth has come to a boil, add in carrots, bring to a boil and add brocolli. Lastly make meatballs out of the minced pork mixture and drop them into the fast boiling soup. Bring to an active boil and serve 5 minutes later.
This is so completely reassuring. There's really nothing which I've tried that is better for a cold than chicken soup with ginger slices. Whoever found that out must be some kind of genius because it is honestly, completely true.
if you don't have much of an appetite because you can't smell anything thanks to a blocked nose, but need enough nutrition to get you past your lousy, sniffly days, try this soup.
So here it is, one of the heart-warming heartland favourites: chicken vegetable soup with meatballs, a variant of the yummy soup courtesy of enuwy who made some last week in London.
Ingredients:
500 ml chicken stock
200g minced pork
3 small carrots
1/4 brocolli floret
2 slices of ginger (for colds)
A handful of barley (good for winter soups apparently)
Method:
Bring chicken stock, ginger and barley to a boil. In the meantime, chop up carrots and brocolli and marinade minced pork with pepper and soy sauce.
Once the broth has come to a boil, add in carrots, bring to a boil and add brocolli. Lastly make meatballs out of the minced pork mixture and drop them into the fast boiling soup. Bring to an active boil and serve 5 minutes later.
This is so completely reassuring. There's really nothing which I've tried that is better for a cold than chicken soup with ginger slices. Whoever found that out must be some kind of genius because it is honestly, completely true.
if you don't have much of an appetite because you can't smell anything thanks to a blocked nose, but need enough nutrition to get you past your lousy, sniffly days, try this soup.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The World's Kitchen
This post has been sitting in my blog outbox for quite a while now so I thought I'd just post it. Enuwy solved the long held (how long has it been now? 5 years?) mystery of the Turkish dessert I ate once in a small Turkish dessert shop in Brunswick where all the signs and desserts all Turkish.
Some (probably) 3 years ago, I related the story to enuwy about how, in 2001, I wandered into this Turkish shop in Brunswick and tried a dessert that was a much loved favourite of all who was in this shop. It had just come out fresh from the oven, I had no idea what it was, all the women there were raving about it, but in Turkish, and I had no idea what to have. In the first place, I had wandered in not knowing it was a Turkish dessert shop.
Though it sounds like a dream, I kid you not that the nice people at the shop were so in love with that dessert that they gave me some to try for free. They were so adamant that I tried this just to find out what it was instead of buying the baklava and walking out of the shop. And the better I was for it.
From the first taste, it was obvious what they were raving about. To date, this remains the most amazing dessert I have ever eaten, combining everything I love about dessert (cheese, sugar, texture, chewiness... )and then some. Unfortunately, from that day on, while the tastes and textures remained firmly on my tongue, the alien name didn't stick quite as well.
So began the quest for the mysterious Turkish dessert. I got so far as to realize it was made up of kataifi, a sort of shredded soft filo pastry, but I didn't get to what the dessert's name actually was.
Trust enuwy to be the one to resolve this for me - and with no better blog post than the one she sent across. Reading through the entire post resolved more than just kunefe for me. It reminded me of what I remembered so fondly and missed so much about Alcuin Block A. I came across some photos the other day I snapped of food and smiles, both broad and generous, and it brought a smile to my face to know that I've had those memories of running clandestinely to the next block to snip rosemary for the roast chicken upstairs.
So thank you, enuwy. I had forgot to mention in person that the post reminded me of York but made a mental note to say that here. Oh, and that I know what I am going to get for a Christmas present (hint: Justin Quek).
Some (probably) 3 years ago, I related the story to enuwy about how, in 2001, I wandered into this Turkish shop in Brunswick and tried a dessert that was a much loved favourite of all who was in this shop. It had just come out fresh from the oven, I had no idea what it was, all the women there were raving about it, but in Turkish, and I had no idea what to have. In the first place, I had wandered in not knowing it was a Turkish dessert shop.
Though it sounds like a dream, I kid you not that the nice people at the shop were so in love with that dessert that they gave me some to try for free. They were so adamant that I tried this just to find out what it was instead of buying the baklava and walking out of the shop. And the better I was for it.
From the first taste, it was obvious what they were raving about. To date, this remains the most amazing dessert I have ever eaten, combining everything I love about dessert (cheese, sugar, texture, chewiness... )and then some. Unfortunately, from that day on, while the tastes and textures remained firmly on my tongue, the alien name didn't stick quite as well.
So began the quest for the mysterious Turkish dessert. I got so far as to realize it was made up of kataifi, a sort of shredded soft filo pastry, but I didn't get to what the dessert's name actually was.
Trust enuwy to be the one to resolve this for me - and with no better blog post than the one she sent across. Reading through the entire post resolved more than just kunefe for me. It reminded me of what I remembered so fondly and missed so much about Alcuin Block A. I came across some photos the other day I snapped of food and smiles, both broad and generous, and it brought a smile to my face to know that I've had those memories of running clandestinely to the next block to snip rosemary for the roast chicken upstairs.
So thank you, enuwy. I had forgot to mention in person that the post reminded me of York but made a mental note to say that here. Oh, and that I know what I am going to get for a Christmas present (hint: Justin Quek).
Taking the Lead
Epiphany; a petty realisation; a simple truth; a little known fact; discovery. Call it what you will. I realised something interesting today about leadership.
Ever had that moment where you are walking one direction down the pavement, and headlong going in the opposite direction is someone else, a stranger, on a bicycle maybe, or walking swiftly.
A little dance ensues. You step to the left. Unknown that he's mirroring your move, the stranger (nearly 99% of the time) steps to the right. You are once more facing each other. You take a step in the opposite direction. He once again mirrors your move. This dance will go on until either both of you reach the point where you meet, face to face, close up, or one of you takes a step, deliberately, in the counter-intuitive direction. Which of you does that? You, or him?
At that moment, there is no deliberation, no intention, no malicious thought. You are not out to block his way and neither is he. In fact, probably there is some measure of altruism involved - you want to step aside so that he may pass, or he may think the same way. But if both parties follow without leading, a collision will ensue, for the benefit of neither party.
I think it is psychological to follow. It's also psychological not to want to move, walk or step against the grain, counter-intuitively. In the ten minutes walking home each day, I invariably encounter this situation often enough. Sometimes they are with bicycles, who move faster than I do. Sometimes with men at the door. Sometimes with a passer-by with nice heels. And always it is the same story, the same situation.
I had to discipline my mind to recognize a situation like this one and force myself to step in the opposite direction. Perhaps because I am naturally left-handed, this made it harder to do, I always stepped to the left (strangely enough, the other person always stepped to the right, I don't ask if he is left or right-handed). Instead of doing what I've always done, I deliberately, sometimes slowly (a split second can last a very long time) step to the right. The other person sees my move, noticed I had chosen, swooshes past me and thanks me with a smile or a nod.
This is leadership. It is avoiding the impasses caused by the reaction of the human herd. It is psychological and personal discipline, it is the control of instinct. And ultimately, it is choice. If you can choose and will yourself to act as you choose, and see past what society is telling you, what apparent human logic determines, beyond what your body drives you to choose - you will have led, and not followed.
Ever had that moment where you are walking one direction down the pavement, and headlong going in the opposite direction is someone else, a stranger, on a bicycle maybe, or walking swiftly.
A little dance ensues. You step to the left. Unknown that he's mirroring your move, the stranger (nearly 99% of the time) steps to the right. You are once more facing each other. You take a step in the opposite direction. He once again mirrors your move. This dance will go on until either both of you reach the point where you meet, face to face, close up, or one of you takes a step, deliberately, in the counter-intuitive direction. Which of you does that? You, or him?
At that moment, there is no deliberation, no intention, no malicious thought. You are not out to block his way and neither is he. In fact, probably there is some measure of altruism involved - you want to step aside so that he may pass, or he may think the same way. But if both parties follow without leading, a collision will ensue, for the benefit of neither party.
I think it is psychological to follow. It's also psychological not to want to move, walk or step against the grain, counter-intuitively. In the ten minutes walking home each day, I invariably encounter this situation often enough. Sometimes they are with bicycles, who move faster than I do. Sometimes with men at the door. Sometimes with a passer-by with nice heels. And always it is the same story, the same situation.
I had to discipline my mind to recognize a situation like this one and force myself to step in the opposite direction. Perhaps because I am naturally left-handed, this made it harder to do, I always stepped to the left (strangely enough, the other person always stepped to the right, I don't ask if he is left or right-handed). Instead of doing what I've always done, I deliberately, sometimes slowly (a split second can last a very long time) step to the right. The other person sees my move, noticed I had chosen, swooshes past me and thanks me with a smile or a nod.
This is leadership. It is avoiding the impasses caused by the reaction of the human herd. It is psychological and personal discipline, it is the control of instinct. And ultimately, it is choice. If you can choose and will yourself to act as you choose, and see past what society is telling you, what apparent human logic determines, beyond what your body drives you to choose - you will have led, and not followed.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Mysterious Well... mysterious, well...
Something about Dario's comment really fascinated me, striking me as a bit of a cross between a chain mail, spam and a well intentioned message from a friend.
So I've published it when moderating my comments, simply because it piqued my interest.
Do I think that I have a problem with Life? Am I disturbed, dissatisfied and do I generally not sleep well at night?
Not (at all,) really.
But would I be enough of a cat to let my curiosity take me by the nose?
Most (of the time) definitely.
So I've published it when moderating my comments, simply because it piqued my interest.
Do I think that I have a problem with Life? Am I disturbed, dissatisfied and do I generally not sleep well at night?
Not (at all,) really.
But would I be enough of a cat to let my curiosity take me by the nose?
Most (of the time) definitely.
Happy Guy Fawkes Day!
Remember, remember the fifth of November…
There are fireworks all around, pretty much every single night since Halloween started. Tesco sells fireworks to individuals above 18, and I reckon these guys don't go far to set them off since I can see fireworks from my window, coming from the nearby fields and recreation grounds.
They're beautiful. I asked about why there were so many fireworks recently, I didn't think it was a Halloween thing, and was reminded that it was the season to commemorate Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the parliament building on the 5th of November, 1875 in an effort to remove the Protestant government and re-establish a Catholic parliament and end the oppression of Catholics in England.
This part of English history fascinates me. It reeks of conspiracy and rebellion, of oppression of a people I can identify with (obviously) and is deep rooted in politics. In case you didn't know, I'm deeply, deeply fascinated with politics and philosophy. In fact, politics, philosophy and economics are my three main, grown-up interests, it's a wonder I didn't succumb to taking the PPE course while at York. It was probably the first thing that got me and enuwy really talking, and although I am not that keen in following modern day politics (more paparazzi and marketing than politics, IMHO), I am still fascinated with politics as it occurs in life, not merely in government.
I believe Politics is ultimately about a struggle, but it is in that struggle that we find energy, meaning and power. One of the things that fascinated you about me was how much I was willing to "play the game" and how well I played it at the age that I am. Do you think this is a prerequisite to survive in the company that I work in? In any company, for that matter? I think this is a subtle flirtation, a teasing of the senses? It keeps me on my toes, makes me sharp, and keeps me alive and driven to go to work with a zeal and energy each day. If not for this, life and work would be so boring. And it's not just work. In anything that requires a relationship, from the one between man and woman, to the one between friends and family, there is politics. It is the language and method by which we all derive our relationships and attempt to connect with one another. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we flirt. But always, always, we are engaging in a considered dance, flitting from place to place, from thought to thought. And as the dance defines the dancers, so this engagement defines us and changes us.
In this definition, I wonder about how it is like to be a Catholic in England. Modern day Anglicans share much of the same traditions and beliefs as do the Catholics. Notable exceptions of course are that Anglicans do not subscribe to the power of the papacy, and condone divorce and abortion. Are these such crucial differences that they warrant a time when Catholics were nearly persecuted and oppressed in England? Of course, this had political roots. The queen was not Catholic, and was politically opposed to the Catholic claim to the throne. To this day, the heir to the throne of England is not allowed to take a Catholic spouse in marriage. When I read about Guy Fawkes in the Tower of London tour, I was surprised to learn how much I didn't know. Before I left, Fr Frans blessed me with the exhortation to go forth to England and always be proud of being a Catholic. Does that change the person that I am? Does that make me prouder to be what I have always been?
I cannot help but wonder why people still celebrate Guy Fawkes day. It is a reminder, as you said, of liberation and a time for peace, of a time when people fought for what they believed, and lived for it, and died for it. It was a time when people cared enough about an idea to act, react, and do.
That ended up as what I think about when I see fireworks from my window every night. At the end of the day, Politics is only a reminder of how things should be. If you feel strongly enough for something, do something about it. If you love something enough, show the world that you care. If you believe in something, live and breathe your dreams and your beliefs.
There are fireworks all around, pretty much every single night since Halloween started. Tesco sells fireworks to individuals above 18, and I reckon these guys don't go far to set them off since I can see fireworks from my window, coming from the nearby fields and recreation grounds.
They're beautiful. I asked about why there were so many fireworks recently, I didn't think it was a Halloween thing, and was reminded that it was the season to commemorate Guy Fawkes, who attempted to blow up the parliament building on the 5th of November, 1875 in an effort to remove the Protestant government and re-establish a Catholic parliament and end the oppression of Catholics in England.
This part of English history fascinates me. It reeks of conspiracy and rebellion, of oppression of a people I can identify with (obviously) and is deep rooted in politics. In case you didn't know, I'm deeply, deeply fascinated with politics and philosophy. In fact, politics, philosophy and economics are my three main, grown-up interests, it's a wonder I didn't succumb to taking the PPE course while at York. It was probably the first thing that got me and enuwy really talking, and although I am not that keen in following modern day politics (more paparazzi and marketing than politics, IMHO), I am still fascinated with politics as it occurs in life, not merely in government.
I believe Politics is ultimately about a struggle, but it is in that struggle that we find energy, meaning and power. One of the things that fascinated you about me was how much I was willing to "play the game" and how well I played it at the age that I am. Do you think this is a prerequisite to survive in the company that I work in? In any company, for that matter? I think this is a subtle flirtation, a teasing of the senses? It keeps me on my toes, makes me sharp, and keeps me alive and driven to go to work with a zeal and energy each day. If not for this, life and work would be so boring. And it's not just work. In anything that requires a relationship, from the one between man and woman, to the one between friends and family, there is politics. It is the language and method by which we all derive our relationships and attempt to connect with one another. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we flirt. But always, always, we are engaging in a considered dance, flitting from place to place, from thought to thought. And as the dance defines the dancers, so this engagement defines us and changes us.
In this definition, I wonder about how it is like to be a Catholic in England. Modern day Anglicans share much of the same traditions and beliefs as do the Catholics. Notable exceptions of course are that Anglicans do not subscribe to the power of the papacy, and condone divorce and abortion. Are these such crucial differences that they warrant a time when Catholics were nearly persecuted and oppressed in England? Of course, this had political roots. The queen was not Catholic, and was politically opposed to the Catholic claim to the throne. To this day, the heir to the throne of England is not allowed to take a Catholic spouse in marriage. When I read about Guy Fawkes in the Tower of London tour, I was surprised to learn how much I didn't know. Before I left, Fr Frans blessed me with the exhortation to go forth to England and always be proud of being a Catholic. Does that change the person that I am? Does that make me prouder to be what I have always been?
I cannot help but wonder why people still celebrate Guy Fawkes day. It is a reminder, as you said, of liberation and a time for peace, of a time when people fought for what they believed, and lived for it, and died for it. It was a time when people cared enough about an idea to act, react, and do.
That ended up as what I think about when I see fireworks from my window every night. At the end of the day, Politics is only a reminder of how things should be. If you feel strongly enough for something, do something about it. If you love something enough, show the world that you care. If you believe in something, live and breathe your dreams and your beliefs.
The Modern Day Ah Por
Q: What is scarier than a fast talking auntie who whizzes around your house making a mess neater in 50 seconds?
A: A fast talking, smooth sailing, mathematically inclined, six sigma methodology using ah por (granny).
Today I've just been promoted from "auntie" (which I've always been) to "ah por" which is a rank higher in the pigeon pecking order of housewifey'ness. Ranking from zero which is dumb blonde in 9" heels and french manicured long nails to ten which is Peranakan grandmother with a fifteen generation pure Peranakan bloodline. Ah por is about 8.
OK, I'm exaggerating a bit here obviously. But I must say that I'm quite pleased with my findings of household tips that I've gotten lately simply by being home a lot and tending house. (One thing I astound myself with - I love tending house. It's fascinating enough to be a full time job, if only I could wield a knife safely most of the time.)
Household Tip #1: Distinguishing freezer food in order of freshness (aka how to tell if your frozen chicken is dead, truly truly dead)
Being the only one in the house, I frequently need to buy food in larger quantities (because they don't sell them cheap in petite sizes) and then break them up into personally edible portions when I get back home. To this effect, I am armed with a handful of plastic freezer bags (courtesy of SKP in Singapore) and handy knot tying skills. I bag them up, put them in the freezer, and once the food all freezes over, the bag of mince I just bought looks exactly the same as the bag of mince I bought two weeks ago. The next time I reach into the fridge, I end up picking the newer bag of mince first. Sound familiar?
There are plenty of solutions out there trying to tackle this problem, most of them generally needing a pen or marker so that you can indicate which bag was bought when. I've tried doing this before when I was sharing a household with 5 other girls. The result was, a) the freezer got smudged with marker ink in various odd colours at the end of the day, b) the bags got smudged with ink, leaving the dates illegible, c) try reaching into a crammed freezer with icy fingers turning over bags looking for a handwritten date.
Enter my latest discovery, Ikea food saver clips in various colours. These handy bags of 20x small clips and 10x longer clips retail for something like SGD$3.90 in Ikea. Ikea recommends them for half eaten bags of crisps, as toothpaste holders (some brilliant person took one, clipped a toothpaste tube at the base and slide them along the tube as they go along to make full use of every inch of toothpaste in the tube), to clip half empty pasta bags, bags, bags and more bags. The multi colours in the bag is touted more as a decorative feature than anything.
But here's the thing. To my Six Sigma trained mind, colours mean only one thing. Colour coding. So if you have something like two bags of these clips at home, here's what you do.
Step 1: Use these clips to seal your freezer bags full of food, instead of knotting them.
Step 2: Select one colour of the day - say, Yellow, and for everything you pack that day, use only yellow clips (its not too hard to find enough of one colour, Ikea clips are pretty consistent in the bags - they've got red, cyan, purple and yellow)
Step 3: All the yellow bags therefore make up "one batch" of food that you've purchased that day. What I like to do is note down what date yellow stands for on the fridge door or something like that. The next time I buy food, it'll be Purple, followed by Cyan… or whichever the next cooler colour is.
That makes sure you always know which foods you should be taking out of the freezer to use first before they all die. And because the colour code's already on the fridge, if you're sharing a household with seven other people, it helps to make sure that everyone knows which colour means what, just by checking the fridge door. It also makes it very easy to yell at a significant-other-with-the-IQ-of-a-neanderthal-concentrating-on-football from across the room, "Take the bag that has the yellow clip on it!!" instead of "Take the bag that has 16 September written on it!" (findings have shown that neanderthals are not very good at reading but do respond to colours as they represent different teams on the field.
Household Tip #2: Freezing Chicken Stock is a stupid thing to do in an ice-cube tray.
My ice cub trays are all broken, so today I went out to get new ones, in the hope that I could use them to freeze chicken stock in easy to use ice cubes. Of course, this is an old wives household tip that has been documented in recipe books and are everywhere on the internet. If there's a household time saver that any housewife would tell you, freezing chicken stock in ice cubes for later use is definitely going to be one of them.
Not.
I tried doing this and I swear - whoever's ever said it saves time obviously has not tried it before. Freezing chicken stock into ice cubes is an incredibly tedious waste of time. First of all you can't freeze very much chicken stock on one ice cube tray, so you end up needing very many ice cube trays to get a single bowl of soup. Second, you are left with a whole mess of oily ice cube trays to wash, and if anyone has ever tried washing them, and trying to reach into every single tiny little square to make sure it's grease free… it will drive anyone bananas.
So this is the first and the last time I am ever doing this. I'm happy I tried it at least once to debunk the tip, but the hassle of getting my hands dirty like that again is just not worth it.
So are there alternatives to using an ice-cube tray?
One helpful suggestion was to use a freezer bag. But this left you fighting to peel a frozen freezer bag off a fast melting, oily block of chicken stock. So, off with that. The tricky thing about chicken stock is not only the loading of the chicken stock but the de-frosting of the frozen brew that is the rub.
These days I re-use mineral water bottles (very clean, very plastic, very handy) or coke bottles to store my chicken stock. They freeze well, and all you need to do is to defrost them like meat, take them out and let the liquid melt in the bottle before opening to pour into the pot. I get these bottles free from my office (after I drink the water) and they're relatively disposable after that (or you can then recycle them with the local community). You'll probably need a funnel or some very good liquid pouring skills but the bottle mouth isn't that tiny.
Alternatively, I try to get my hands on re-used honey or pasta sauce jars, but those I tend to reserve for sauces and thicker liquids. They also do tend to have too much residual flavour on the glass.
Household Tip #3: Never throw away an empty glass jar without thinking about the 10 different ways you could re-use them.
I feel a pang of guilt throwing away or recycling glass jars from honey, jams and pasta sauces without trying my utmost to re-use them in some way. The thing is, I paid good money for it (if you thought you were just buying the pasta sauce, think again. Packaging and marketing costs are built into the product you purchase, baby…) and I'm not going to let a perfectly good and useful container go to waste like that. You see, plastic is one thing I can give up, because they're usually low quality, wrap around your food, warp if you squeeze too hard type materials. Same goes for paper, which is prone to spills, ink smudges and marketing peeling off the walls. But glass? Glass is a sculpted, durable, heat resistant, hard-wearing thing. (Same goes for metal, but they rust).
And glass doesn't keep aroma or flavour in them. If you ever thought that you'll never wash away the stink of a used pasta sauce jar, think again. The residual smell actually comes from the rubber (which would probably be stained orange) of the cap, not actually the jar itself. Throw the cap away, and it becomes a hundred other things, ranging from pen stand to coffee mug.
Here are ten things I'd use glass jars for instead of throwing them away:
1. Utensil holder. Especially good for jars where you're forced to throw the lid away (see above). These hold forks, spoons, knives, chopsticks, toothbrushes, pens, paintbrushes…
2. Measuring jars. Notice how most of your merchandise tend to get sold in pre-set measures? 250ml, 500ml, 750ml… Well, the jar already holds that much, you might as well use it as a measure the next time you want 250ml, no more, no less.
3. Coffee mug. Some honey jars come with handles, I've been lucky enough to find a few that served me very well as a coffee mug when I ran out and broke the rest.
4. Sauce holder for left over or home made sauces. I keep old sauce bottles so that when I need it, I use it to hold sauces that I make at home. They keep the sauces better than any plastic container I have at home.
5. Pickling jars. My brother used to do this at home. He'd grill red, yellow and green peppers in the oven, slice them up, and put them in a jar with herbs like rosemary, whole peppercorn… or whatever you like, and pickle them in olive oil (don't use the expensive type, you're just wasting your money). After storing them in the fridge for about a week or longer, they make great dips with bread.
6. Storage containers for small piecey items. These range from couscous to detergent to hair clips.
7. Small jam jars are good for melting down beewax and making your own pots of lip balm. I know this sounds all quite frivolous, but if you're not into making your own lip balm, they're also very good for storing travel sized moisturizers and creams. Oh, and because they're air tight, they hardly ever leak, and are strong enough not to break in the luggage too.
8. Larger sauce jars are great as a pot to grow your own sprouts. I am seriously not kidding about this. You can grow your own organic bean sprouts and alfalfa sprouts in your kitchen, and they taste much better (and cost less) than anything you can get from a supermarket. All you need to do is pop a small handful of them in a jar, top with water just enough to cover the seeds, cover with a muslin cloth tightened with a rubber band, tip them upside down to drain the water out every week and in two weeks or so they are ready to eat.
9. Tumbler for tea. I got this from walking down the streets of China (no city in particular, seems nearly every city in China does this) where men take their tea with them and sip from an old jar which has glass walls thick enough to keep the tea warm. When you've got no thermos flasks handy, this is equally good!
10. Salad dressing mixer. This is one of the best uses of sauce jars I've seen because it is so neat. In the jar, mix your salad dressing with all the messy oils and sauces. Close with the lid and shake to mix. Open the jar and pour to serve. This also stores quantities of home made salad dressing that I didn't get to finish. I simply pop the lid back on and throw it into the fridge to be used another day.
Household Tip #4: Choices, choices.
This is really based off a Six Sigma methodology, I kid you not. I'm amazed every day by the clever but kindergarten ideas that management consultants come up with.
How to make a good choice and not regret your decision tomorrow? Note: this does not apply to choices of significant others/husbands/boyfriends/wives/girlfriends/partners/pets/friends (or you would be a very sad person if you use this methodology). To some extent, it unfortunately does not apply frequently to clothes/bags/shoes/accessories either.
Step 1: On a piece of paper, list down all the qualities you look out for in the choice. Be free thinking when it comes to listing down all the things that would make you happy, or everything your dream choice should have.
Step 2: Weigh them on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being you wrote it on a whim because it's cute and 10 being that you cannot live without it.
Step 3: For each of the choices that you are deciding between, rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 for every quality that they possess on the list you wrote in Step 1, with 1 being it barely fits the bill to 10 being it is that quality personified.
Step 4: Multiply weight of the quality with the ranking of how much of each quality each of your choices have. Sum them all up to get a score. Pick the one with the highest score.
If you've ever used this to make your decisions on supermarket shopping or in buying a house, or choosing a pet, let me know. I know I started shuffling my priorities around when I saw a house that I just wanted to get.
A: A fast talking, smooth sailing, mathematically inclined, six sigma methodology using ah por (granny).
Today I've just been promoted from "auntie" (which I've always been) to "ah por" which is a rank higher in the pigeon pecking order of housewifey'ness. Ranking from zero which is dumb blonde in 9" heels and french manicured long nails to ten which is Peranakan grandmother with a fifteen generation pure Peranakan bloodline. Ah por is about 8.
OK, I'm exaggerating a bit here obviously. But I must say that I'm quite pleased with my findings of household tips that I've gotten lately simply by being home a lot and tending house. (One thing I astound myself with - I love tending house. It's fascinating enough to be a full time job, if only I could wield a knife safely most of the time.)
Household Tip #1: Distinguishing freezer food in order of freshness (aka how to tell if your frozen chicken is dead, truly truly dead)
Being the only one in the house, I frequently need to buy food in larger quantities (because they don't sell them cheap in petite sizes) and then break them up into personally edible portions when I get back home. To this effect, I am armed with a handful of plastic freezer bags (courtesy of SKP in Singapore) and handy knot tying skills. I bag them up, put them in the freezer, and once the food all freezes over, the bag of mince I just bought looks exactly the same as the bag of mince I bought two weeks ago. The next time I reach into the fridge, I end up picking the newer bag of mince first. Sound familiar?
There are plenty of solutions out there trying to tackle this problem, most of them generally needing a pen or marker so that you can indicate which bag was bought when. I've tried doing this before when I was sharing a household with 5 other girls. The result was, a) the freezer got smudged with marker ink in various odd colours at the end of the day, b) the bags got smudged with ink, leaving the dates illegible, c) try reaching into a crammed freezer with icy fingers turning over bags looking for a handwritten date.
Enter my latest discovery, Ikea food saver clips in various colours. These handy bags of 20x small clips and 10x longer clips retail for something like SGD$3.90 in Ikea. Ikea recommends them for half eaten bags of crisps, as toothpaste holders (some brilliant person took one, clipped a toothpaste tube at the base and slide them along the tube as they go along to make full use of every inch of toothpaste in the tube), to clip half empty pasta bags, bags, bags and more bags. The multi colours in the bag is touted more as a decorative feature than anything.
But here's the thing. To my Six Sigma trained mind, colours mean only one thing. Colour coding. So if you have something like two bags of these clips at home, here's what you do.
Step 1: Use these clips to seal your freezer bags full of food, instead of knotting them.
Step 2: Select one colour of the day - say, Yellow, and for everything you pack that day, use only yellow clips (its not too hard to find enough of one colour, Ikea clips are pretty consistent in the bags - they've got red, cyan, purple and yellow)
Step 3: All the yellow bags therefore make up "one batch" of food that you've purchased that day. What I like to do is note down what date yellow stands for on the fridge door or something like that. The next time I buy food, it'll be Purple, followed by Cyan… or whichever the next cooler colour is.
That makes sure you always know which foods you should be taking out of the freezer to use first before they all die. And because the colour code's already on the fridge, if you're sharing a household with seven other people, it helps to make sure that everyone knows which colour means what, just by checking the fridge door. It also makes it very easy to yell at a significant-other-with-the-IQ-of-a-neanderthal-concentrating-on-football from across the room, "Take the bag that has the yellow clip on it!!" instead of "Take the bag that has 16 September written on it!" (findings have shown that neanderthals are not very good at reading but do respond to colours as they represent different teams on the field.
Household Tip #2: Freezing Chicken Stock is a stupid thing to do in an ice-cube tray.
My ice cub trays are all broken, so today I went out to get new ones, in the hope that I could use them to freeze chicken stock in easy to use ice cubes. Of course, this is an old wives household tip that has been documented in recipe books and are everywhere on the internet. If there's a household time saver that any housewife would tell you, freezing chicken stock in ice cubes for later use is definitely going to be one of them.
Not.
I tried doing this and I swear - whoever's ever said it saves time obviously has not tried it before. Freezing chicken stock into ice cubes is an incredibly tedious waste of time. First of all you can't freeze very much chicken stock on one ice cube tray, so you end up needing very many ice cube trays to get a single bowl of soup. Second, you are left with a whole mess of oily ice cube trays to wash, and if anyone has ever tried washing them, and trying to reach into every single tiny little square to make sure it's grease free… it will drive anyone bananas.
So this is the first and the last time I am ever doing this. I'm happy I tried it at least once to debunk the tip, but the hassle of getting my hands dirty like that again is just not worth it.
So are there alternatives to using an ice-cube tray?
One helpful suggestion was to use a freezer bag. But this left you fighting to peel a frozen freezer bag off a fast melting, oily block of chicken stock. So, off with that. The tricky thing about chicken stock is not only the loading of the chicken stock but the de-frosting of the frozen brew that is the rub.
These days I re-use mineral water bottles (very clean, very plastic, very handy) or coke bottles to store my chicken stock. They freeze well, and all you need to do is to defrost them like meat, take them out and let the liquid melt in the bottle before opening to pour into the pot. I get these bottles free from my office (after I drink the water) and they're relatively disposable after that (or you can then recycle them with the local community). You'll probably need a funnel or some very good liquid pouring skills but the bottle mouth isn't that tiny.
Alternatively, I try to get my hands on re-used honey or pasta sauce jars, but those I tend to reserve for sauces and thicker liquids. They also do tend to have too much residual flavour on the glass.
Household Tip #3: Never throw away an empty glass jar without thinking about the 10 different ways you could re-use them.
I feel a pang of guilt throwing away or recycling glass jars from honey, jams and pasta sauces without trying my utmost to re-use them in some way. The thing is, I paid good money for it (if you thought you were just buying the pasta sauce, think again. Packaging and marketing costs are built into the product you purchase, baby…) and I'm not going to let a perfectly good and useful container go to waste like that. You see, plastic is one thing I can give up, because they're usually low quality, wrap around your food, warp if you squeeze too hard type materials. Same goes for paper, which is prone to spills, ink smudges and marketing peeling off the walls. But glass? Glass is a sculpted, durable, heat resistant, hard-wearing thing. (Same goes for metal, but they rust).
And glass doesn't keep aroma or flavour in them. If you ever thought that you'll never wash away the stink of a used pasta sauce jar, think again. The residual smell actually comes from the rubber (which would probably be stained orange) of the cap, not actually the jar itself. Throw the cap away, and it becomes a hundred other things, ranging from pen stand to coffee mug.
Here are ten things I'd use glass jars for instead of throwing them away:
1. Utensil holder. Especially good for jars where you're forced to throw the lid away (see above). These hold forks, spoons, knives, chopsticks, toothbrushes, pens, paintbrushes…
2. Measuring jars. Notice how most of your merchandise tend to get sold in pre-set measures? 250ml, 500ml, 750ml… Well, the jar already holds that much, you might as well use it as a measure the next time you want 250ml, no more, no less.
3. Coffee mug. Some honey jars come with handles, I've been lucky enough to find a few that served me very well as a coffee mug when I ran out and broke the rest.
4. Sauce holder for left over or home made sauces. I keep old sauce bottles so that when I need it, I use it to hold sauces that I make at home. They keep the sauces better than any plastic container I have at home.
5. Pickling jars. My brother used to do this at home. He'd grill red, yellow and green peppers in the oven, slice them up, and put them in a jar with herbs like rosemary, whole peppercorn… or whatever you like, and pickle them in olive oil (don't use the expensive type, you're just wasting your money). After storing them in the fridge for about a week or longer, they make great dips with bread.
6. Storage containers for small piecey items. These range from couscous to detergent to hair clips.
7. Small jam jars are good for melting down beewax and making your own pots of lip balm. I know this sounds all quite frivolous, but if you're not into making your own lip balm, they're also very good for storing travel sized moisturizers and creams. Oh, and because they're air tight, they hardly ever leak, and are strong enough not to break in the luggage too.
8. Larger sauce jars are great as a pot to grow your own sprouts. I am seriously not kidding about this. You can grow your own organic bean sprouts and alfalfa sprouts in your kitchen, and they taste much better (and cost less) than anything you can get from a supermarket. All you need to do is pop a small handful of them in a jar, top with water just enough to cover the seeds, cover with a muslin cloth tightened with a rubber band, tip them upside down to drain the water out every week and in two weeks or so they are ready to eat.
9. Tumbler for tea. I got this from walking down the streets of China (no city in particular, seems nearly every city in China does this) where men take their tea with them and sip from an old jar which has glass walls thick enough to keep the tea warm. When you've got no thermos flasks handy, this is equally good!
10. Salad dressing mixer. This is one of the best uses of sauce jars I've seen because it is so neat. In the jar, mix your salad dressing with all the messy oils and sauces. Close with the lid and shake to mix. Open the jar and pour to serve. This also stores quantities of home made salad dressing that I didn't get to finish. I simply pop the lid back on and throw it into the fridge to be used another day.
Household Tip #4: Choices, choices.
This is really based off a Six Sigma methodology, I kid you not. I'm amazed every day by the clever but kindergarten ideas that management consultants come up with.
How to make a good choice and not regret your decision tomorrow? Note: this does not apply to choices of significant others/husbands/boyfriends/wives/girlfriends/partners/pets/friends (or you would be a very sad person if you use this methodology). To some extent, it unfortunately does not apply frequently to clothes/bags/shoes/accessories either.
Step 1: On a piece of paper, list down all the qualities you look out for in the choice. Be free thinking when it comes to listing down all the things that would make you happy, or everything your dream choice should have.
Step 2: Weigh them on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being you wrote it on a whim because it's cute and 10 being that you cannot live without it.
Step 3: For each of the choices that you are deciding between, rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 for every quality that they possess on the list you wrote in Step 1, with 1 being it barely fits the bill to 10 being it is that quality personified.
Step 4: Multiply weight of the quality with the ranking of how much of each quality each of your choices have. Sum them all up to get a score. Pick the one with the highest score.
If you've ever used this to make your decisions on supermarket shopping or in buying a house, or choosing a pet, let me know. I know I started shuffling my priorities around when I saw a house that I just wanted to get.
Friday, November 03, 2006
An Inconvenient Truth
It would be strange (and maybe even funny) if I say that a documentary nearly brought tears to my eyes, and it wasn't even a documentary about war, or death or disease, but about a seemingly innocuous issue called global warming - but truth is, at the end of "An Inconvenient Truth", I realised that this was a documentary that was really good - factual, relevant and compelling. And yes, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
This documentary directed by David Guggenheim tracks the battle to raise political will for global warming led by Al Gore. Much of the footage are on presentations done by Al Gore on global warming, a presentation he had probably done a thousand times in various cities around the world. It also tracks the other side to the issue of global warming, what Al Gore has done in politics on this issue, how he's come about this cause in his background, and his tribulations and frustrations with getting America, the #1 contributor to global warming in the world, and also one of the two advanced countries in the world who have not ratified the Kyoto convention. The other is Australia.
It's so hard, and increasingly so the older I get, for something that I watch or read or see on TV change my mind about something radically. I suppose to begin with I've got a hard cynical shell on. But An Inconvenient Truth has done just that for me. It took the issue of global warming from the realms of hippie and Greenpeace to relevant, every day life for me. As someone who's moved countries and continents for health reasons, it made me think of the day when everywhere may end up like the place I left behind. It became for me a real issue to think about some of my favourite cities in the world lost underwater - San Francisco, New York, the Netherlands… and my home country, Singapore, a mere island definitely one of the first to go.
So yes, it has become personal. I will walk or ride a bicycle. I'll turn the lights and heater on when I'm not using it. I'll recycle as much as possible. I'll take the low emissions free shuttle to work. I'll use energy saving appliances, light bulbs and plant more trees and green plants.
Although thinking about it, it wasn't even just that. What brought tears to my eyes was how this reminds me of who I am inside and what I feel for. It reminds me of Berkeley, and it reminds me of what the ring on my finger tries to remind me every day - that the purpose of my life is to make a difference. It is to know about, think about, and act about the things that matter to more than just the one person that I am. It is this distinguishing factor, and this one thing alone that makes me different and unique among the others who are different. It is what enuwy and Adam and Farzam see in their friends, and what Jeff saw when he met me on a plane and hired me as his employee, something whose impact I still feel to this very day.
Yet it feels like this is something that I've forgotten of late. And I am sorry for that.
At the end of the day, what makes me who I am is being an activist. Changing people's minds about what commonly held beliefs are. Thinking out of the box. Making a difference. This is what I took with me from Berkeley and what I promised myself to take for life.
Maybe I'm naïve, and take things at face value, but after this documentary, I am glad that I'm taking a free low-emissions shuttle to work. I don't think I'm going to get a car. I'm going to take trains, buses and other mass transit methods. J- likes to tell others how much I love public transport methods when I travel, here's why. This should be habit for me. We think, we choose and we act.
The other thing I've learnt from the documentary is how Al Gore thinks and acts and presents. I've finally come to the realization that what makes American presentations compelling and powerful is the ability to emotionize things. It takes facts and makes them relevant, personal, and emotionally compelling. This is a talent that exists in each and all of us, it is a trick of art - in drama, in literature, in modern day presentations. It's funny how there was a classmate of mine in a Peace and Conflict Studies class once described me as eloquent. Is this simply the catch of eloquence? Allowing people to bridge their thoughts on issues by making it easy to relate to issues in a personal way? What stirs people to move, to think, to see something differently and to act on their thoughts?
I definitely see this quality in Jeff, Breezy in some way, and in Al Gore in a big way. And I've realized that this is one secret thing that make people successful. It's right there, before my fingers - one only has to reach out and grasp it.
This documentary directed by David Guggenheim tracks the battle to raise political will for global warming led by Al Gore. Much of the footage are on presentations done by Al Gore on global warming, a presentation he had probably done a thousand times in various cities around the world. It also tracks the other side to the issue of global warming, what Al Gore has done in politics on this issue, how he's come about this cause in his background, and his tribulations and frustrations with getting America, the #1 contributor to global warming in the world, and also one of the two advanced countries in the world who have not ratified the Kyoto convention. The other is Australia.
It's so hard, and increasingly so the older I get, for something that I watch or read or see on TV change my mind about something radically. I suppose to begin with I've got a hard cynical shell on. But An Inconvenient Truth has done just that for me. It took the issue of global warming from the realms of hippie and Greenpeace to relevant, every day life for me. As someone who's moved countries and continents for health reasons, it made me think of the day when everywhere may end up like the place I left behind. It became for me a real issue to think about some of my favourite cities in the world lost underwater - San Francisco, New York, the Netherlands… and my home country, Singapore, a mere island definitely one of the first to go.
So yes, it has become personal. I will walk or ride a bicycle. I'll turn the lights and heater on when I'm not using it. I'll recycle as much as possible. I'll take the low emissions free shuttle to work. I'll use energy saving appliances, light bulbs and plant more trees and green plants.
Although thinking about it, it wasn't even just that. What brought tears to my eyes was how this reminds me of who I am inside and what I feel for. It reminds me of Berkeley, and it reminds me of what the ring on my finger tries to remind me every day - that the purpose of my life is to make a difference. It is to know about, think about, and act about the things that matter to more than just the one person that I am. It is this distinguishing factor, and this one thing alone that makes me different and unique among the others who are different. It is what enuwy and Adam and Farzam see in their friends, and what Jeff saw when he met me on a plane and hired me as his employee, something whose impact I still feel to this very day.
Yet it feels like this is something that I've forgotten of late. And I am sorry for that.
At the end of the day, what makes me who I am is being an activist. Changing people's minds about what commonly held beliefs are. Thinking out of the box. Making a difference. This is what I took with me from Berkeley and what I promised myself to take for life.
Maybe I'm naïve, and take things at face value, but after this documentary, I am glad that I'm taking a free low-emissions shuttle to work. I don't think I'm going to get a car. I'm going to take trains, buses and other mass transit methods. J- likes to tell others how much I love public transport methods when I travel, here's why. This should be habit for me. We think, we choose and we act.
The other thing I've learnt from the documentary is how Al Gore thinks and acts and presents. I've finally come to the realization that what makes American presentations compelling and powerful is the ability to emotionize things. It takes facts and makes them relevant, personal, and emotionally compelling. This is a talent that exists in each and all of us, it is a trick of art - in drama, in literature, in modern day presentations. It's funny how there was a classmate of mine in a Peace and Conflict Studies class once described me as eloquent. Is this simply the catch of eloquence? Allowing people to bridge their thoughts on issues by making it easy to relate to issues in a personal way? What stirs people to move, to think, to see something differently and to act on their thoughts?
I definitely see this quality in Jeff, Breezy in some way, and in Al Gore in a big way. And I've realized that this is one secret thing that make people successful. It's right there, before my fingers - one only has to reach out and grasp it.
About a Virgin
Airlines... what were you thinking about?
I vaguely remember reading this on someone's blog (probably enuwy's) on how cute and frankly quite funny the animations of Virgin Atlantic's safety video is. And it really is.
I'm on Virgin Atlantic on my way to the US (first time trans-atlantic on Virgin) and I must say that the service has been fantastic! If you're into well designed interfaces and good looking cutlery, overnight kits and in-flight entertainment, you will love Virgin Atlantic's service. Everything here (with the exception of the service crew) looks designer!
It's no wonder that this is a partner of Singapore Airlines, which chooses great partners to code-share with in perpetuating the good service. I have to rave about what's different.
Top ten impress-me points on Virgin Airlines:
Overnight kits come in a colourful bag, featuring a larger-than-most drawstring bag, normal sized toothbrush, pop cap toothpaste, ear plugs and eye mask.
Cute labels on items, ranging from "Pardon?" on the ear plugs, to "v.smelly" on the perfumes range in the in-flight shopping magazine.
Great range of in-flight entertainment. For all you SQ sceptics out there, there are more movies on-demand on the plane than featured on Krisworld. If that doesn't convince you, check out the music range. Not surprising for a company that makes its money by being the largest entertainment/music provider in the world.
But you can't buy taste. The choice of in-flight entertainment is obviously thought through. I watched A Scanner Darkly, an animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick's dark sci fi novel which features Keanu Reeves in animated form. I've not even heard of this movie (so quite cutting-edge although I am probably also behind in movies so far.) Top recommendations include An Inconvenient Truth, a must-watch documentary on Al Gore fighting for global warming. It is utterly compelling, and I'm impressed that this was touted as a must-watch and not some boring short. The Devil Wears Prada is also one of the new shows on board.
The in-flight entertainment magazine, heck even the descriptions of products sold and the in-flight safety information is entertainingly written and fun to read. Apparently, the descriptions of products offered in the in-flight shop is written by well trained monkeys.
Well designed, on-demand, aesthetically pleasing in-flight entertainment system. If you're one of those SQ fanatics addicted to the on-demand, in-flight entertainment systems with dozens of movies, Virgin Atlantic is not going to be any less. In fact, there are less ads (I saw only one) in the beginning of each movie, which is always nice. Also, the on-demand system is obviously using the same Panasonic back-end system (thanks S- for the information, I wouldn't otherwise have known!) as Krisworld since the background font when you stop/start is exactly the same.
The food is frankly, quite nice for plane food. Dessert was a luxury sample of chocolate pudding which was heartrendingly good. (Allergic to chocolate - made my heart race, but I took a bite and it was simply yummy.)
The in-flight entertainment system also has intranet surfing allowing you to surf the net within the in-flight system and text messaging where you can send SMS to ground mobile phones (at some fee, of course).
And although I wasn't in the right class, there is a full sized standing room bar in business class, going with the latest trend of having all aisle-only seats along the side of the plane, with a drinks bar where the galley is supposed to be on traditional planes.
And my personal favourite: toilets feature tampons (a first on airlines!) instead of penguin pads for sanitary protection. For the information of all the guys who do not appreciate this, this is a mark of sophistication and luxury - I kid you not. Old women who define tax and GST laws define tampons as luxury goods in Australia but sanitary napkins as necessities.
So the next time you're thinking of a flight from the UK, I recommend Virgin as a whole, over other competitors like British Airways or Qantas. It's probably on par with Singapore Airlines or Emirates, but may well cost a lil' bit less. And it definitely offers you great value for your dosh.
I vaguely remember reading this on someone's blog (probably enuwy's) on how cute and frankly quite funny the animations of Virgin Atlantic's safety video is. And it really is.
I'm on Virgin Atlantic on my way to the US (first time trans-atlantic on Virgin) and I must say that the service has been fantastic! If you're into well designed interfaces and good looking cutlery, overnight kits and in-flight entertainment, you will love Virgin Atlantic's service. Everything here (with the exception of the service crew) looks designer!
It's no wonder that this is a partner of Singapore Airlines, which chooses great partners to code-share with in perpetuating the good service. I have to rave about what's different.
Top ten impress-me points on Virgin Airlines:
Overnight kits come in a colourful bag, featuring a larger-than-most drawstring bag, normal sized toothbrush, pop cap toothpaste, ear plugs and eye mask.
Cute labels on items, ranging from "Pardon?" on the ear plugs, to "v.smelly" on the perfumes range in the in-flight shopping magazine.
Great range of in-flight entertainment. For all you SQ sceptics out there, there are more movies on-demand on the plane than featured on Krisworld. If that doesn't convince you, check out the music range. Not surprising for a company that makes its money by being the largest entertainment/music provider in the world.
But you can't buy taste. The choice of in-flight entertainment is obviously thought through. I watched A Scanner Darkly, an animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick's dark sci fi novel which features Keanu Reeves in animated form. I've not even heard of this movie (so quite cutting-edge although I am probably also behind in movies so far.) Top recommendations include An Inconvenient Truth, a must-watch documentary on Al Gore fighting for global warming. It is utterly compelling, and I'm impressed that this was touted as a must-watch and not some boring short. The Devil Wears Prada is also one of the new shows on board.
The in-flight entertainment magazine, heck even the descriptions of products sold and the in-flight safety information is entertainingly written and fun to read. Apparently, the descriptions of products offered in the in-flight shop is written by well trained monkeys.
Well designed, on-demand, aesthetically pleasing in-flight entertainment system. If you're one of those SQ fanatics addicted to the on-demand, in-flight entertainment systems with dozens of movies, Virgin Atlantic is not going to be any less. In fact, there are less ads (I saw only one) in the beginning of each movie, which is always nice. Also, the on-demand system is obviously using the same Panasonic back-end system (thanks S- for the information, I wouldn't otherwise have known!) as Krisworld since the background font when you stop/start is exactly the same.
The food is frankly, quite nice for plane food. Dessert was a luxury sample of chocolate pudding which was heartrendingly good. (Allergic to chocolate - made my heart race, but I took a bite and it was simply yummy.)
The in-flight entertainment system also has intranet surfing allowing you to surf the net within the in-flight system and text messaging where you can send SMS to ground mobile phones (at some fee, of course).
And although I wasn't in the right class, there is a full sized standing room bar in business class, going with the latest trend of having all aisle-only seats along the side of the plane, with a drinks bar where the galley is supposed to be on traditional planes.
And my personal favourite: toilets feature tampons (a first on airlines!) instead of penguin pads for sanitary protection. For the information of all the guys who do not appreciate this, this is a mark of sophistication and luxury - I kid you not. Old women who define tax and GST laws define tampons as luxury goods in Australia but sanitary napkins as necessities.
So the next time you're thinking of a flight from the UK, I recommend Virgin as a whole, over other competitors like British Airways or Qantas. It's probably on par with Singapore Airlines or Emirates, but may well cost a lil' bit less. And it definitely offers you great value for your dosh.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
A Life Less Beautiful
It's official - weeks surviving in an empty house without music: 0.714. Or, put more simply, 5 days out of a week of 7. After a week of tapping my feet and twiddling my thumbs in silence (not having a sound system and craving the iPod), I've finally given in and… put a cd into the office laptop, turned music up to loud and hit play.
The life has filled the air.
The CD which has the dubious honour of being the first to be played is a CD that I've been looking for in a very, very long time - the very best of Cesaria Evora. I'm not sure if I can honestly say this woman is little known - she's very good and very famous in the right circles, but I've not been able to find her CDs anywhere in Singapore. I've finally picked it up in the International section in a funky, alternative music store in Virginia.
And this is indeed, the very best.
I've first heard of Evora in 1997, but had trouble finding more than one or two of her songs. The ones that I have heard were indeed very good, and (happy me!) featured in this very best of album. But it's astounding, you seldom find a CD where every single song is good and yet, here it is.
I've also had the happy joy of listening to her live (pure heaven!) while in Berkeley - a place that I can honestly say I've fulfilled nearly a lifetime's worth of starry night dreams - a Terry Pratchett book signing, a Neil Gaiman reading + book signing, a Radiohead and Cesaria Evora concert (yes, very different I know), plenty of salsa dancing, club hopping, cocktail drinking, snazzy interview-going and happy memories of good friends I can sing with.
There is honestly only the dream of going to a Tori Amos concert left to fulfil then I can die happy.
While drunk on the intoxication of this music, let me digress back to what I'd initially wanted to say about this subject. Ah yes, A Life Less Beautiful.
You know, you got me thinking about the stuff that surrounds me. About the things I'm living for, about the things I value, and about the things I spend my time and energy on. As any wandering, wondering intellectual would already know, they aren't always the same thing.
To tell the truth, things haven't always been easy here. And expectedly so. I'm living in a country with an incredibly backward public sector, a bureaucratic service sector, a health care system in the Dark Ages (thank god for the weather I'm falling sick much less often), and frequently famously frosty citizens. This is not Singapore, and the difference is stark. There isn't the 24 hour roti prata store, late night teh tariks and kopi tiams where you can take away food. In many ways, this almost seems the life less beautiful, less perfect, far less convenience.
But what you said made me wonder - do I really value convenience that much? Sure, I curse and swear when BT makes me wait nearly 3 hours on the phone to get a phone line (and to think I'm paying them money for crying out loud!) but after all's said and done, I have a house that I love (yes the house is beautiful - I've actually started a "House Book", journal of things to do around the house), to my surprise, I find that I have an unknown (to myself and to others) talent for my work, and frequently get asked for advice as a guru, I have food that needs cooking but with ingredients that won't kill me. The weather has dropped to a min of -3 degrees celcius at nights, but its dry enough for my sensitive sinuses not to lose too much mucus about it. Interestingly enough too, I'm also making friends (albeit being in early stages of conversation).
After all that, with Cesaria Evora playing in the background, dancing slow salsa in an empty house on a dark wood floor - what's there about life right now that is not beautiful? I only wish you were here.
Last Saturday, in a conversation with an old university friend and his girlfriend, the topic came up about Singaporeans and how they always complain wherever they go. There is, says the girl, a chronic dissatisfaction with the way things are that exists in the heart of all Singaporeans. They find fault and pick on things, however perfect they may be, they are restless, wandering souls at heart. Perhaps it is the migrant in us all that came from our fathers and our forefathers, who had left their homelands precisely because of that same dissatisfaction, that same restless spirit that drives people away from where comfortable hearths rest. Would it be truly fair to ask the question of Singaporeans whether we are "stayers" or "quitters" when we come from generations upon generations of "quitters"? If anything, this dissatisfaction with life is not merely inherent to our nation, it is our birthright.
I wondered about myself. You clearly didn't seem to be dissatisfied with anything. In fact, if anything, you had such a spirit, such joie de vivre in the way things were that I picked up some of it, and looked upon the selfsame nation I grew up in with a childlike and foreign eye. You made me love something I perhaps wouldn't come to love on my own. Was I truly restless, dissatisfied, needing to uproot myself and settle somewhere in a greener pasture? Was this an anywhere-but-here idea?
The truth is, I can't think of a good reason why I'd like to come here to live, except for the fact that it is something new, something like a long held dream (weather aside - some cynical days I think that an excuse, I could have gone to Australia). It is the envy of everyone back home, but what is there to envy? In the end, all I am doing is risking everything, in search of nothing in particular.
There is a story about a girl from a small town in Brazil, whose dreams and heart were too big for her little town. She wanted to travel and go to Europe, make a lot of money, have plenty of exotic experiences, and return a homecoming queen to buy a farm, marry a man she loved, have many kids and live happily every after. She ended up a prostitute, selling her life and soul for money which cannot buy back the hours she had lost. She was searching for love, and ended up with sex. Yet it is a love story. (Read Eleven Minutes.)
I believe that everyone searches for something. In all my previous experiences, I've never stopped feeling like I've stopped searching for something, and found something. I don't know what this is that I am looking for, but I've always never stopped moving, never stopped searching for this thing, risking everything and potentially gaining nothing. There have been plenty of theories on what we may possibly be looking for, peace, God, ourselves, true love, the mysterious other half that completes us utterly.
I truly do not know what it is that I am looking for. But I do know that for a very brief year of my life, the last year in fact, I have felt, for the very first time, like I've stopped searching for something. There were only three occasions I remember, all less than the span of a day each, where I had felt as though this mysterious search, this inexplicable dissatisfaction was back, knocking on my door, begging me to keep going, telling me that my search wasn't over. Three days.
I must apologize to you that it is inertia that brought me here, not momentum. I had stopped moving, yet this was the final move, as though the forces that had been set in motion before I stopped were jerking me back into the past, to the journey I had found myself travelling before, even though now I have stopped. It feels to me as though the pendulum, once set in motion, is now swinging backwards. From now on, all my travels will be to take me back to what I had lost, not what I had failed to find. And I do know, I do know the difference - I'm no longer searching for something, I'm waiting now. What is infinite (a search) is now finite (a wait). And I know it's just a matter of time, standing still where I am, before you will find your way here again.
The life has filled the air.
The CD which has the dubious honour of being the first to be played is a CD that I've been looking for in a very, very long time - the very best of Cesaria Evora. I'm not sure if I can honestly say this woman is little known - she's very good and very famous in the right circles, but I've not been able to find her CDs anywhere in Singapore. I've finally picked it up in the International section in a funky, alternative music store in Virginia.
And this is indeed, the very best.
I've first heard of Evora in 1997, but had trouble finding more than one or two of her songs. The ones that I have heard were indeed very good, and (happy me!) featured in this very best of album. But it's astounding, you seldom find a CD where every single song is good and yet, here it is.
I've also had the happy joy of listening to her live (pure heaven!) while in Berkeley - a place that I can honestly say I've fulfilled nearly a lifetime's worth of starry night dreams - a Terry Pratchett book signing, a Neil Gaiman reading + book signing, a Radiohead and Cesaria Evora concert (yes, very different I know), plenty of salsa dancing, club hopping, cocktail drinking, snazzy interview-going and happy memories of good friends I can sing with.
There is honestly only the dream of going to a Tori Amos concert left to fulfil then I can die happy.
While drunk on the intoxication of this music, let me digress back to what I'd initially wanted to say about this subject. Ah yes, A Life Less Beautiful.
You know, you got me thinking about the stuff that surrounds me. About the things I'm living for, about the things I value, and about the things I spend my time and energy on. As any wandering, wondering intellectual would already know, they aren't always the same thing.
To tell the truth, things haven't always been easy here. And expectedly so. I'm living in a country with an incredibly backward public sector, a bureaucratic service sector, a health care system in the Dark Ages (thank god for the weather I'm falling sick much less often), and frequently famously frosty citizens. This is not Singapore, and the difference is stark. There isn't the 24 hour roti prata store, late night teh tariks and kopi tiams where you can take away food. In many ways, this almost seems the life less beautiful, less perfect, far less convenience.
But what you said made me wonder - do I really value convenience that much? Sure, I curse and swear when BT makes me wait nearly 3 hours on the phone to get a phone line (and to think I'm paying them money for crying out loud!) but after all's said and done, I have a house that I love (yes the house is beautiful - I've actually started a "House Book", journal of things to do around the house), to my surprise, I find that I have an unknown (to myself and to others) talent for my work, and frequently get asked for advice as a guru, I have food that needs cooking but with ingredients that won't kill me. The weather has dropped to a min of -3 degrees celcius at nights, but its dry enough for my sensitive sinuses not to lose too much mucus about it. Interestingly enough too, I'm also making friends (albeit being in early stages of conversation).
After all that, with Cesaria Evora playing in the background, dancing slow salsa in an empty house on a dark wood floor - what's there about life right now that is not beautiful? I only wish you were here.
Last Saturday, in a conversation with an old university friend and his girlfriend, the topic came up about Singaporeans and how they always complain wherever they go. There is, says the girl, a chronic dissatisfaction with the way things are that exists in the heart of all Singaporeans. They find fault and pick on things, however perfect they may be, they are restless, wandering souls at heart. Perhaps it is the migrant in us all that came from our fathers and our forefathers, who had left their homelands precisely because of that same dissatisfaction, that same restless spirit that drives people away from where comfortable hearths rest. Would it be truly fair to ask the question of Singaporeans whether we are "stayers" or "quitters" when we come from generations upon generations of "quitters"? If anything, this dissatisfaction with life is not merely inherent to our nation, it is our birthright.
I wondered about myself. You clearly didn't seem to be dissatisfied with anything. In fact, if anything, you had such a spirit, such joie de vivre in the way things were that I picked up some of it, and looked upon the selfsame nation I grew up in with a childlike and foreign eye. You made me love something I perhaps wouldn't come to love on my own. Was I truly restless, dissatisfied, needing to uproot myself and settle somewhere in a greener pasture? Was this an anywhere-but-here idea?
The truth is, I can't think of a good reason why I'd like to come here to live, except for the fact that it is something new, something like a long held dream (weather aside - some cynical days I think that an excuse, I could have gone to Australia). It is the envy of everyone back home, but what is there to envy? In the end, all I am doing is risking everything, in search of nothing in particular.
There is a story about a girl from a small town in Brazil, whose dreams and heart were too big for her little town. She wanted to travel and go to Europe, make a lot of money, have plenty of exotic experiences, and return a homecoming queen to buy a farm, marry a man she loved, have many kids and live happily every after. She ended up a prostitute, selling her life and soul for money which cannot buy back the hours she had lost. She was searching for love, and ended up with sex. Yet it is a love story. (Read Eleven Minutes.)
I believe that everyone searches for something. In all my previous experiences, I've never stopped feeling like I've stopped searching for something, and found something. I don't know what this is that I am looking for, but I've always never stopped moving, never stopped searching for this thing, risking everything and potentially gaining nothing. There have been plenty of theories on what we may possibly be looking for, peace, God, ourselves, true love, the mysterious other half that completes us utterly.
I truly do not know what it is that I am looking for. But I do know that for a very brief year of my life, the last year in fact, I have felt, for the very first time, like I've stopped searching for something. There were only three occasions I remember, all less than the span of a day each, where I had felt as though this mysterious search, this inexplicable dissatisfaction was back, knocking on my door, begging me to keep going, telling me that my search wasn't over. Three days.
I must apologize to you that it is inertia that brought me here, not momentum. I had stopped moving, yet this was the final move, as though the forces that had been set in motion before I stopped were jerking me back into the past, to the journey I had found myself travelling before, even though now I have stopped. It feels to me as though the pendulum, once set in motion, is now swinging backwards. From now on, all my travels will be to take me back to what I had lost, not what I had failed to find. And I do know, I do know the difference - I'm no longer searching for something, I'm waiting now. What is infinite (a search) is now finite (a wait). And I know it's just a matter of time, standing still where I am, before you will find your way here again.
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