Numb

Lead on my shoulders
Glass in my eyes
Stones on my chest
Sand in my heart.

Water.

So ever slowly,
the being,
it goes,
under the stone,
displaced by another,
unknown.

Biology

I can't stand Biology. I really can't. I hate the fact that I have to remember so much from a page. I detest reading lines after lines that describes how ions A move into surface A, causing process B, which activates protein B, which in turn sets off a set of chemical processes and in turn, stimulating enzyme C into function, and then, it moves to site D, causing another set of reactions etc, etc.

It hurts my eyes to read something like this. It makes my hair go frizzy.

However, now, I dislike reading about things I have learnt before. For example, Vygotsky's Social Theories, which I have studied twice and Piaget's Stage Theory, which I have learnt three times.

I very much prefer learning about action potentials, movement of ions and the meninges. Things that are completely alien to me.

And, this for me, is a recipe for trouble.

First Screw Up

Contrary to your belief that my cooking skills are perfecto mundo, they are not. Sometimes, bad things do happen and I had my first today.

Worse still, it is a very simple stir fry dish. An authentic China-Chinese dish.

Problem? It was a flop.

While I can easily blame it on my lack of sleep ( Woke up at 4am this morning ), I shall be honest in this account.

I blame it on my over-confidence. I blame it on my belief that some Chinese dishes can be cooked based on a formula that Kylie Kwong has introduced to me a long time ago and that I can easily replicate what my flat mate cooks.

In this case, my over-confidence totally seeped into the deep pockets within my brain, resulting a few, disastrous minutes in the kitchen. Fortunately, the whirlwind was conquered by my self-created stir fry honey pork recipe.

Strangely enough, this morning, I was writing about certainty and confidence in the kitchen. Words, when set loose, like a wild dog, never fails to bites back its master, eh?

Vermeer

The girl with a Pearl Earring


When I come across such a picture, in which the expression is so human, so real, I could not help but to be intrigued by an artist's sensations and perceptions and their ability to capture something which can fade away within seconds.

Also, I could not help but to wonder: what is it like to sit for a painting?

Grill snapper, Greek style

I made this grilled snapper what seemed like ages ago even though it was merely two weeks.

The fact that time is an athletic still baffles me. I can't seem to have a grasp of how this hidden dimension works.

One second you are doing this, the other second you are doing that, and when you lift your head to look at the clock or cast your eyes down at your watch, an hour is gone.

(Recipe taken from here)

At least, in the kitchen, I find a small pinch of certainty. When there is certainty, confidence ensues.

It is the moment in which one feels invincible.

Therefore, the tweaking in a recipe.

 For this grilled snapper dish, I deliberately decided to cook the onions in white wine. This worked for me when I was making a chorizo chicken stew, so I am positive of the outcome.

The outcome made my taste buds nod in a silent approval. The flavor-enhanced onions paired up nicely with the rather crunchy but bland blanched long beans.

And thank god for Borlotti beans.

Millais

Ophelia.