Me and My Perpetual State of PMS

Siewlian commented that I sound like I've been going through a perpetual state of PMS in my recent entries. Dunno what's wrong with me. Think I'm weak, feeling inadequate yet I'm doing nothing except mulling over my unhappiness. Can't really remember when did this burden in my heart appear anymore. Hee hee, but for all you know, it's because I haven't really been studying.

Just a brief outline of what has actually been going on in my life:

My senior Derrick came over from Singapore during the first week of February 'cos of an exhibition in Birmingham. We used to cook together during our first year, together with Hsienhui, Agnes, Elly and Sengwai, plus some of the others who come in once in a while. Had a Japanese Night - we made sushi, gyoza, onigiri and had gen-mai cha. (Japanese rice tea, a.k.a Popcorn Tea by the ang mohs)

Actually there's only one onigiri, reminds me of Fruit Basket. *sigh*

Derrick and I, haha~! This chap always bullied me when I was in my first year; but he was at my mercy when he came 'cos he slept in my room! (I moved in with Hsien of course) During the week he's here, all of us basically indulged in anime, Dr House drama, and Bleach manga. Oh what deprived souls are we! =P

After he left, the next 2 weeks just flew by, as usual, nothing much going on in this small campus except my daily struggles with calories, going to the gym, occasional meeting up with Edwin for breakfast, Agnes for lunch and hanging out in the kitchen with my corridor mates to watch The Apprentice (UK version) and CSI Miami and Las Vegas.

Oh, before I forgot, there was the Economics Summit, where students and professors all over UK and some from rest of Europe came for a weekend of talks by distinguished speakers from all over the world. I was in the external marketing team, and before the event we went to other universities to publicise about this event. During the weekend, what I basically did was sai kung, opening doors for people, holding on to microphones and packing goodie bags. It was really depressing, not because of what I had to do, but how I was treated. Ah well, it's over now, and I didn't even manage to get a goodie bag!

Anyway, went to France for a weekend during the last weekend of February, to meet up with my cousins - one of them is working at Nestle as an ice-cream flavour specialist, at Beauvais, outskirts of Paris. I enjoyed myself tremendously, in the company of my cousins and my cousin's friends from France and Netherlands; living in a proper house, watching Winter Olympics while snuggling myself in the covers on the sofa; sipping hot tea and eating yoghurt and chocolate bread (not all at the same time of course!). Had very bad hair days the whole weekend though, so I'm not going to put up pictures of myself. Haha~! Went down to Central Paris on Saturday and had very good dinner somewhere near Notre Dame. A three course meal cost 9.50 euros (~ S$19), had mussels for starters, roast chicken for main course and canned fruits for dessert. The mussels were the highlight of the dinner:

YES! This is the aftermath of my war with the mussels. To faciliate counting, I stacked my mussel shells in threes, and altogether there are 36 mussels in my plate! *slurp* And guess what did I eat most in France this round? FRENCH FRIES!! (sarcasm in tone)

After coming back, Cheryl, Hsien and I decided to implement a cooking rota - Me on Monday, Hsien on Tuesday and Cheryl on Wednesday. The more notable dishes so far:

I made 卤鸡，卤豆腐 and 卤蛋。Didn't turn out too bad, but subsequent Monday meals were nightmares for Hsienhui and Cheryl. I'll work harder!!!

Cheryl's char siu mian - I can't believe char siu can be made by marinating ribs with hoi sin sauce and ketchup! It's really good though.

Not that Hsien's cooking is not good; she cooks really well too, but happened so we didn't take pictures when she cooked. Hsien made both sweet and savory pancakes (with ham and brie) on Pancake Day (28 Feb) and we had a lot of fun eating pseudo-pratas and pancakes. Hee hee...

Experienced the heaviest snow on 2 March this winter, though it's mild compared to the twenty/thirty degrees below zero in UIUC. Happened so that I decided to take a picture in the morning 'cos the lake was frozen even though the sun was glaring, and it looked like this:

Six hours later, it looked like this:

Snow depresses me. It is a beautiful sight when it's still fresh; an ugly one if people start walking on it; and a sad one when the rain comes because everything will disappear. The knowing of it eventually have to go makes me feel that I shouldn't indulge in its beauty or I'll be sad when it's gone. So it's easier to hate snow. If only it's that easy in life too - to detach yourself from people who will make you upset.