Bad Hair.

[So my hair has been so disastrous the past few months (for the most part of my life actually) that I decided to write a poem dedicated to it, because that's how true writers channel their inner follicular angst. I hope you like it. This one's called, "Bad Hair".]

Hair, hair, why are you so bad?
Why do you always make me so sad?

 I often wake to find you disarrayed,
Did you spend the night having a party on my head?

Hair, hair, cut me some slack,
(Sometimes I wonder) if you are Asian, why are you black?

I try to make you pretty and fill you with colour,
But soon you become damaged and so much duller.

Oh hair oh hair,
Do you think I will ever
Be able to find you a handsome lover?

Hair, hair, you weigh me down,
Very much literally and you sure make me frown.

But when I finally can take you no longer,
I snip you off.. then feel so much dumber.

 

Hair hair, why can't you live in the cold?
You frizz for no reason and you flake like snow.

You're not that good in the heat either though,
You get all sweaty and smell like toes.

Oh hair oh hair,
Sometimes I wish
That perhaps I was just born a fish.

But good hair or not, long hair or short,
I guess I should appreciate my chops

 

For come a day where I will be
Pining for my hair, 

and my hair, for me.

I will never complain that caifan is boring ever again.

I apologise for the melodrama but I just really miss the food back home so badly it's driving me nuts.

It's so bad that everytime I think about some random food item from home I feel as though my heart just kind of disintegrates into this pile of tiny starving beggars who immediately try to squirm their way out of my body and the minute they are expelled through my pores, they pray that the wind takes them on a journey back to Singapore and hopefully lands them in a bowl of wanton mee.

However reality is harsh and I think not every one of them tiny beggars are gonna make it all the way back to Singapore because there are millions of them, and probably only the strongest one will make it while the rest are just gonna die halfway and now I sound like I am describing sperm.

By the way have I mentioned before that when I was small I read this book called ‘Willy the Sperm’ and it tried to explain the fertilization process, except it had a horrible loophole because it said that when Willy was in sperm school, he was depressed because all his friends were really good at things like math and art, but he was only good at swimming.

(Of course, he was finally appreciative of his only talent on the day he won ‘The Big Race’.)

But anyways, they later showed that the baby that was eventually born grew up to be really good at swimming but that doesn’t really make sense does it, because then every single one of us would be great swimmers because we’re all technically made of the Willys of every sperm school.

Imposter duck.

There is a lake in my school and it's filled with ducks. Almost everyday we walk past it and it looks pretty much the same: ducks chillin' on the water, ducks chillin' by the pavement, ducks chillin' on the grass. Sometimes, we'll bring bread and feed them.
But one day, we noticed that amid the tall marshes next to the lake, was a duck.. that didn't look very much like a duck.

 

IT WAS AN IMPOSTER DUCK.

We observed him for a while and realised that he was trying to hang with the ducks and have a share of the food being thrown into the pond, but the duck majority kept chasing him away.

But the imposter duck never stopped trying anyway.

We don't know where he came from, maybe he got lost on its way to Austria or some nearby country, but he sure wasn't very welcome in this seemingly bounteous pond he thought he could call home.

We proceeded to laugh for a second or two at his tragic fate, before I had this sudden epiphany that the imposter duck was pretty much the story of everybody's life.

We are all imposter ducks, except we are often too afraid to try, especially when rejection has come our way. We would rather starve to death than face rejection over and over.

In that moment, bravery was all I saw in the imposter duck's attempts at survival.

And after a few weeks, he magically became a beautiful swan dictator and took over the whole lake and that, was the story of the ugly duckling.

THE END.

Ok no not really. After a few weeks he just managed to live with the rest of the ducks and share in their food, without them chasing him away anymore. They probably just gave up, because he wouldn't give in.

The imposter duck taught me a lesson on the power of persistence. He is a true inspiration to us all and from now on I will always take a moment to remember him every time I eat some duck rice.

The ultimate non-cooking cooking guide

Coming to Stuttgart has definitely taught me how to feed myself. I cooked with the Singaporean boys the first couple of weeks then proceeded to just cook on own because they live 8 blocks away and when winter comes I'm not gonna run there and back for meals in the freezing cold.

This meant that after 2 weeks, I had to actually learn how to cook.

So the guys don’t really cook back home either, and for that 2 weeks, we were trying our best to cook. Though I personally was employing different tactics to try to cook by not cooking. 

So, although I am now currently on my way to being true chef and no longer need these tactics anymore, they were very useful for my survival during those 2 weeks, so I am going to kindly share them with you, and hopefully help a sad hungry soul out there earn (or non-earn) a happy tummy. Let’s go.


1)   Never cook alone.

This is the very first step that allows the rest of the steps to fall together in place. Always make sure you are cooking with somebody, so that if any disaster strikes, you never have to bear full responsibility for it. For instance,

Note how all personal pronouns used are shared and plural, and also how everything ends up in the guilt-free act of “laughing it off”.


2)   Ask if anyone needs help.

Never take charge. Immediately exalt everyone else into leadership by asking what you can do. All responsibility disappears from your hands like sand through your fingers. And since most people like to be in a position of authority, you have created a win-win situation. This is also to ensure that you always have something to do around the kitchen be it cutting some veggies, or cracking some eggs, or pouring some oil into the soup.

Being the delegated, you have no true responsibility over anything that goes wrong.

 

3)   Volunteer to taste the food.

Make the valiant sacrifice.


4)   Act like you want to do the dangerous things, like carry that heavy pot of rice off the stove.

Keywords are ‘act like’, because we all know that you are going to drop that pot of rice on the floor and lose your dinner AND your friends faster than you can say sorry. So offer to do it, but ultimately let your uncertainty shine through like diamonds so that you will eventually be asked to be taken over.

 

5)   WASH THE DISHES.

This is an essential skill for the non-cook who wants to cook, and also the most important step. If you do not fulfill this, nobody is going to want to cook with you again, rendering step 1 forever obsolete and henceforth the entire guide useless, and you can count on eating takeaways and raw ham the rest of your time in the hostel.


I hope this guide has been useful. Actually I'm pretty sure it is but if you disagree you should probably just learn how to cook and not blame me.

FLYING OFF IN A FEW HOURS!

Can’t wait to spend the rest of the year on exchange ahhhh

My Boyfriend is embarrassing.

So it was Hari Raya last week, and every year for Hari Raya, my friends and I go to Adnaan’s house to visit. This year, I brought Raph along and he was really excited about it because it was his first time going to someone’s place for Hari Raya, so he decided to wear this Malay outfit he bought ages ago but never really wore before.

  

When we reached Ad’s place, a whole ton of his visitors stared at us like we were some kind of hideous disease. Only my beautiful friends (like 6 of them amid the crowd) thought that it was sweet of Raph to dress up but it was quite a walk before I got to safety in their company.

 

And even though Raph’s outfit wasn’t exactly culturally accurate because he got the wrong sarong or something, Ad and his family really appreciated his effort and his mum even very bemusedly (and honestly) said that “he look like the satay seller.”

Here’s a photo of us by the way:

 ^Slightly blur, but you can see my ever so loving face very clearly right there.

Anyway while we are on the topic of dressing to embarrass, Raph and I went to the Adventure Cove water park at Sentosa a few months back, and you know how everyone visits water parks in nothing but their swimwear?

 

YEs because you totally have to protect your feet from the perilous GLASS SHARDS that litter the floors of all water parks.

I was in the car on the way there like:

 

But he insisted on doing whatever he wanted. Thankfully though, we went there when the place first opened so we pretty much owned the whole park and only a couple of people stared. But just as I decided that the number of people around were far too negligible to feel any form of humiliation, just as I was beginning to forgive him for his embarrassing behaviour,

 

 

And Raph has this weird habit also, of bringing one of those ‘uncle’ handkerchiefs around with him, like yknow the kind that old uncles bring around to wipe things in place of tissue paper? Yes he’s the youngest person I know who carries those around. And sometimes when he’s eating curry or anything that might dirty his shirt, he takes it out to save the day.

 *best if your hankerchief matches your shirt.

We were in a food court the last time this happened and I was dying in embarrassment as I ate because people would walk by and stare and think he’s crazy, but he wasn’t bothered at all because he was too busy being the happiest prata-eater on earth.

I have no idea how I am still so in love with the guy.