violence_past

In fact quite the opposite nothing is very doucement at this point in time because I AM FUCKING LOST help me help me help me !!!!!!!

( La vie j'ai la comprendre (not) )

I may be spreading myself too thin, but heck if I can't do it all, I'm going to try, 2 10k races a week apart, race volunteering, trying to juggle all that with school and IS and H3 Lit, and trying my best to get some baking done at least once a week (because otherwise I will go batshit crazy), and still going for training (even though it's winded down a lot-remember how at one point I was training 5 times a week and running on the days I didn't have training? Much less, now, probably the reason why I can't seem to stop expanding), and having to learn all the kata for black belt grading somewhere in June (19th?). I should really stop looking at bakebakebake now, all I've managed to do so far today is to type my History notes in. Speaking of History, Mr. Miles very waspishly pronounced in class today that BT2 would consist of a single source-based question-this strikes more fear into my heart than a life without bread and baked goods (yes, truly) because I have no ability to actually score for SBQs (in fact I'm not quite sure how to actually...do them, this is the literature student in me completely throwing my hands up in frustration because dammit, I never had to learn to do SBQs properly and now that is coming back to bite me in the ass) and BT2 is important, y'all. Scholarship shortlistings begin with BT2. I have to do well. 

Edit: Nike run results are out, I rank 18th individually and 8th with Carrie in the BFF category for <25 year-olds, chip timing 24:50:76...I subbed 25, oh my god oh my god. But the crazy amazing people like Vivian Tang finished the run in 18+ minutes, so there's really not much to be proud of here. I could do better! For now though I just want to break the 10k barrier and move on to 15, then 21. I'm not very pleased with the way my body has been responding to exercise recently, so it is about time I whipped my fat butt into shape. 

An updated list of things to remember

1. 16th April: TTSH CIP briefing
2. 19th April. 2pm: JP Morgan Corporate Chase CIP, F1 Pit Building
3. 21st April, 11.45pm-22nd April, 12pm: RUN350 CIP, The Float @Marina Bay
4. 22nd April, 2pm, Minerva's birthday thing, Lawry's at The Mandarin Gallery
5. 28th April, 2-5.30pm: MFA tea session, MFA
6. 6th May: Class chalet
7. 7th May: Apollo Fac Outing
8. 11-13th May, 9am-9pm: Run Bike Swim Expo+Sundown Marathon Race Pack Collection CIP, Singapore Expo Hall 4B
9. 19th May, 1-5pm: PSSC fair, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel
10. 26th-27th May: Sundown Marathon Race CIP, report at Nicoll Highway MRT
11. 8th-9th June: WorldVision Famine Camp, ACS Barker
12. 17th June: Black belt grading???
13. 31st June-1st July, 11am-9pm: Shape Race Entry Pack collection expo
14. July 8th, 9.30am-8.30pm: RAC Expo, Velocity@Novena
15. July 15th, 7am: SHAPE run, Nicoll Highway
16. July 22nd: Race Against Cancer, East Coast Park (Angsana Green)

About block tests, and PW: A for PW, B for KI (urgh, Section A passage-based critical thinking was really really bad, 15/30. Expected but still. Thank goodness my Section B saved me.) So block test results now spell BBBC (edit:BBBB, because Econs has been raised to a B). Nawbad. 

Goddess Run was yesterday! It was a good run (as in, for myself and my timing), but it was HORRIBLE organisationally and everything. HORRIBLE. First things first, though, it was wet. And rainy. And the run was at Sentosa: this is a terrible combination to have, okay? By the time we actually got to the race venue at Wavehouse, my shoes were soaked through and so were my socks, and it's terrible to have to run with wet shoes and socks. Yuck. Next, the ushers seemed to have absolutely NO IDEA where everything was supposed to be, and Carrie and I had to figure out our way around the place ourselves. More than once we ended up looping some route just to go back and find the actual place we were supposed to be. We did, however, manage to meet Ethanyn, and we all went to the start pen together and being kiasu pushed our way up pretty far in front. Which was good. What wasn't good: MAKING US WAIT IN THE START PEN FOR GOD KNOWS HOW LONG. I forgot to bring my watch with me, but it must've been 30 minutes or more, and it was lame. I think we were waiting for the GOHs? But whatever. Fuck it, you don't make runners wait for so long in such a cramped space. Look at the irony of it, the runners waited to run for longer than they would've taken to actually finish the race. Once we got flagged off, though, the race itself wasn't that much of a problem. Although the route was unbelievably cramped and tiny (dude you have 5000 women running and you give us such a small route? There wasn't even much space for overtaking!! And people were walking right in the middle, no race etiquette at all) and there were unexpected uphill/downhill stretches, as well as some parts where the path was COBBLESTONES hey when it's slick and rainy those cobblestones are sprain traps, ok, Nike/Hivelocity, ok? I'm just glad I came away unscathed. Also, pedestrians. I know Sentosa is a tourist spot and it's near impossible to clear the route of pedestrians, but dammit you do it if you want to hold a race there. So race-wise I tried to keep up with Ethanyn (and failed, she's too fast she just took off like a rocket), but I managed to keep pace with her for about the first kilometre or so, when we strided to get ahead of the crush of people, and when the crowd thinned out I just settled into my own pace and lost sight of her. Carrie fell behind to tie her laces, didn't bother waiting for her. The only other time I saw Ethanyn was at the loop, where I was approaching the U-turn just as she left it. Then I just continued running. Didn't bother hitting the hydration stations (what for, it's only 5km), and by the time I neared the end I was getting kinda pissy with the whole race organisation so I was running fueled by my anger hahah. Sprinted the last bit, hopefully my timing wasn't too horrible, I estimate ~25 minutes? Then I hung around the finish line and waited for Carrie to come in. Which she did at ~26 minutes, so she really wasn't that far behind. Got our tags for access to the BFF lounge (which was nothing much), went to get food and water and our finisher's entitlement (LAME LAME LAME it's just a pocket-sized mirror wtf last year there was a TROPHY!!) and the food was gross, unlike last year (again), and then we queued for the photo thing and it started raining again so we were soaked, basically. Got our things, went to check out the lounge (where you could get free manicures, but whatever for pffft), left. Met the team at *scape, they all went for dinner at Billy Bombers', hung around and then I went home to wash my shoes and shower. More or less an ok day and a mediocre race. I want them to upload the timings NOW.

Apart from all that, though, today is IS day! Speaking of which, do you think memory is a necessary or sufficient condition for self-knowledge? Is it possible to have memories without having self-knowledge, and is it possible to have self-knowledge without memories? 

Edit: Ew I never want to work at a water point for races again. 

How appropriate Rachael Yamagata is for today, it's stormy and it's Sunday and it's in the afternoon as I write this. 

There are decisions I have to make and ties I have to cut off, things I need to sort out with my life, and History notes to read-because the Middle East is one big confusion of wars and arguments, and in six days the same six days we were all at comps Mr. Miles managed to get through the entirety of the UN's movements in the Middle East, as well as through bits of the end of the Cold War. Why so fast, Mr. Miles? Six Day War, ha ha ha. So I've just spent Easter weekend trying to catch up on work, which hasn't really worked, tbh, because I'm a major slacker. I do however have all my notes down, so now it's just about reading them. Econs, too. Can't wait for PW results, and KI, because KI's the only block test paper I haven't gotten back. I want to see if I really bombed it, ha. Currently, though, my block test results spell BBC. Not bad for the amount of studying I managed to get done (thanks to training nearly every day and camp during the March break). 

So. Teams! Was great. If I put down everything through Prelims and Finals this post would be long as fuck so. Finals. Girls' fight was good. We planned to make it a massacre I remember using the term during our warmups in the dojo before we went to Hougang, and although it wasn't really that much of a bloody massacre we still won so thank goodness. Yong Qing won, Saiying lost to Roanna (?), Carrie won, I won, Jeza won. Ballyhoo. The boys' fight was scary, I feared we wouldn't win when Kent lost the first bout (although we sort of knew he might, it's impossible to lose so much weight and be injured and still win, but he hung on pretty well and for that I am thankful), but Dong Yang won so spectacularly that it just restored hope. Daniel and Jun Cheng were pretty much sure-wins, cocky as this sounds, because I had so much faith in them. So by the time the heavyweights came on to play we'd won, and I didn't bother paying much attention anymore because goddamn we were double champions (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), but I think Han Yuan really did try his best (and sure there's really nothing much you can do when your opponent is Kim Koh can you). Sir took us all to dinner! And we had fun we really did. There was good food, so much of it. 

I know it's horrible to take so much pleasure in seeing Raffles lose, and I know they probably deserve the title as much as we do (who can say who's trained harder? Not me, for sure. I'm also prone to thinking they've trained harder than we have, but that's just me) but yes after being so crazy and training and cutting weight and basically hanging out with no one but my team we're now A Div champions and we're winners. Although it's sad that C Div girls lost our double champs in Nanyang after 5 years...I did want this batch to have the solid gold achievement :(

Indivs was also pretty great. Isn't it strange though that I've only just won my first Individual gold...anyway we stayed over at Amanda's on the 2nd, because we were all too lazy to go home and she stays near Hougang or AT hougang, can't really tell it's not my locale, so to speak. And we spent a while talking about random shit and bitching. And I tried to save my dailies because I forgot to bring my glasses (FAIL the next day I put them on and suffered like crazy. My eyes were completely bloodshot and gross and it hurt like a bitch), so I had to buy a pair of monthlies and then we went back to support the B and C boys the next morning. Went home, returned to the dojo for Indiv finals on Wednesday, went to Hougang. Hung around for ages because my match was so late in the day. Then after it all we went to Sakura! At Balestier, of all places, because we couldn't book the place for a hundred people ANYWHERE ELSE. Raffles went to Sakura too, I heard, but somewhere in town. PFFFT. Balestier was so out of the way! Took me an hour (or more) to get home, even with switching buses at Bugis, I fell asleep on the ride and nearly missed my stop. But it was ok food and a nice place so. Spent some time sitting away from all the food talking to Portia because I was so full and because I was being a depressed bitch. 

Yes then the next day we all had to go back to school and it was hell and I fell asleep in my lessons then I went running for a bit then I went for Billylim at Bishan. Sometimes I really wish tuition wasn't at Bishan so I wouldn't have to travel so much. But whatever. AH yes yesterday we celebrated Jun Cheng's birthday at his place hahahahaha it was quite a fun time! 

( A cut for pictures of food )

On a side note, why do my posts keep getting published on the Livejournal.sg site. It's making me uncomfortable, it's kind of scary. 

Things to remember now that Teams is over:
-you are going to become a CIP hour whore (RUN 350 on 22nd April, blood drive on 19-20th May)
-MFA tea session 28th April
-Nike Goddess Run 14th April
-JP Morgan Corporate Challenge volunteering on 19th April, F1 Pit Building
-Min's birthday thingy 22nd April
-IS and H3 Lit papers: start writing, finalised draft should be completed somewhere end May. Oral defense in August??
-Catch up on all the schoolwork missed in the past 3 days (and also the coming 3 ugh)
-Go back to running you haven't run in a week!
-try not to gain too much weight (ha ha ha impossible the moment I start eating normally my weight shoots up)

I'll post about Teams when I'm free(er)

Must go pack for Indivs I don't even know why I'm so bothered about it anyway




Edit: Indivs is over, I have my first (and last) Indiv gold medal. Ballyhoo. Been having a few mini crises of my own, some involving my weight, others about other things but lest anyone worries (not like anyone will) they won't get out of hand. If there's one thing I will never let myself do it is to fall apart completely. Apart from all that, though, it's unbelievable how behind I am on work, and how much I still want to bake, and how unfit I am after a week of competitions. I ran 5km and did a few laps of sprints today and just about died, don't know how I'm going to get back to my 10/15km twice a week routine.

Can I just quit school to go be a baker, would that be viable? 

Guess who's been surfing recipes for over three hours

Now that block tests are over I am free to recipe-hoard as much as I want leave me alone

please buy me this and this 

edit: it's now...11.30PM and I'm waiting for my loaf to get out the oven. Unfortunately it still has about half an hour ago. And my arm hurts from kneading it, something must've gone wrong with my percentages because my dough was sticky as hell, I kneaded it for like, half an hour or close to an hour, actually, I didn't keep track, until it got relatively smoother. Mistake to start kneading with my right hand, really. Pffft.



It's been a long day! There was (as usual) training so I was up bright and early, 2 minutes before my alarm rang (lol, body, you've been well-trained hur hur). All the usual stuff for training, then I had to come home and mop the floors/placate my angry parents. Even though it's really not my fault that SPGG has anal staff. In any case it wasn't hard to placate them (because I bought Chewy Junior cream puffs) (no actually because apart from mopping the floor which was my job anyway I also completed other less...fun household tasks). Then Saiying called and said they didn't want to go relax in the hot/cold pools anymore so I suddenly had lots of time on my hands...which meant only one thing: BAKING. 

And because I have no eggs at home, I can't really do the usual cakes/cookies. So bread it was/is. I love bread, no kidding. And I'll attempt a tangzhong starter/Japanese milk toast soon. I keep telling myself soon soon soon though and I never get around to actually doing things I want to do because I'm either too lazy to get the ingredients, or too broke, or I just have too many other things to do. Anyway, the bread is done now! Hopefully it's not underbaked, the tap test didn't sound very hollow to me but it's been in the oven for nearly 40 minutes, way longer than what the recipe called for...



Ok here's to slicing it in another...hour or so ugh how else do I keep my pretty loaf without it staling by tomorrow morning. Guess this means one less hour of sleep. Oh well. Can't wait to see the insides! I'll probably get another picture up here when I slice it up, but probably not tonight because I'm sleepy as hell. 

It's strange to think that possibly all you need for a good dish is salt and fat-but it's actually true. Some strange science of food, nutrition and taste needs to enlighten me on why this is true. It'd be interesting to know. 


( edit//2: more pictures )

Some indulgence before lit tomorrow? Yes. 

INTERNET. Also, my History paper was the ultimate fuck-up, but I'm not going to care much about it. Apparently IS proposals are back, and Lit H3? Mostly approved? I'm alright with that. It means time to get cracking on actually writing my papers. 

I think John Donne is quite amusing-apart from the fact that he's so annoyingly clever with all his images and shit, reading his poetry makes me laugh at his insecurity. Sometimes his misogyny annoys me, but then those instances are few. He's perhaps one of the few poets who actually respect (in some ways) the women he writes about. 

Disgrace, however, I struggle with. I love the book, don't get me wrong-but it's precisely because I love it so much that I don't really want to take it apart. Analysing a text sometimes brings up nuggets of information that make it even more precious, but sometimes it destroys the whole text for you. I don't want to analyse David Lurie, nor do I want to read more into Petrus' moves-because as I see them, right now, they just fit into what humans would do in the same situation. It's the human condition and that's that, I don't want to say any more about it. Alas, Mr. Perry, alas. 

BREAD SUCCESS omg :')

ANYWAY.

( gloat gloat gloat )

( attempt #2 )

So that the record does obscure the thing the record used to be

I spend too much time thinking about what others will think of me, I spend too much time trying to live up to something they wish to see, I am not supposed to give a fuck about these things and these people and I will learn to not give a fuck I will become Nietzsche and a nihilist and nothing is ever what it seems, so I know nothing and you know nothing and we are all on a big wet ball floating in the dark, screwing up block test 1 seems so small in comparison-after all I could just go work at a bakery and be happy the rest of my life. 

-buy 750g 365 cornflakes
-buy Alpen muesli
-365 Noir aux Noisettes bar seems tempting, then again lots of chocolate is tempting
-I hoard chocolate: there is currently a Cote D'Or dark chocolate bar, a Cadbury's Turkish Delight bar, a Cadbury's Old Gold 70% bar, half (because my dad stole it!!) of a Cadbury's macadamia milk chocolate bar, Chocolate Chilli Truffles from Sloane Street (that someone gave my mother), Oolong Tea Chocolate (this one...I don't know what possessed my mother), Cadbury's Peppermint Chocolate, Whittaker's Almond Gold bars, and various other small chocolate bars (that I may or may not have taken from Billylim), inclusive of Ferrero Rochers, Kitkats, and Dove in my fridge, which now has a dedicated chocolate compartment. I want the Dove Amicelli sticks! And Whittaker's Ghana Dark! 
-I hoard cereal
-I hoard biscuits and cookies (I have Lotus biscuits!)
-I (fortunately) don't hoard bread because it would spoil, I miss the taste of bread. I miss peanut butter-I should go buy some.
-I look forward to waking up in the mornings because it means I get to have some cereal, the thought helps me get out of bed fast. Although it is not the best cereal, it is still good cereal. Nothing will ever replace Blueberry Morning and Banana Nut Crunch, or Frosties+Blueberry granola, but this strange Fitnesse brand is pretty tasty. 
-Granola is actually really unhealthy, why do people think it's health food?
-I still refuse to try Kellogg's Special K: it seems to have absolutely nothing to recommend it apart from being low-calorie and high-protein well hey if you wanted low-calorie you could always just stop eating if you wanted protein why wouldn't you just go eat some damn meat, meat is awesome.
-I think I will bake on Wednesday night with my sister, because her best friend's birthday is on Thursday. It will be my baking quota for the week, I guess. Maybe if there's extra cake batter I'll jazz it up as cupcakes and bring it to school. Sticking KitKats around the cake seems to be a good decorating idea, right. I don't know why my sister refuses to take my ideas. 
-Speaking of my sister, I made her a two-egg cheese and onion omelette and a carrot apple salad for dinner today because my parents aren't home (yet, they're both stuck in meetings or something tonight). She didn't touch the salad, I wasn't surprised. She exemplifies unhealthy eating habits. Also, it seems I am her personal slave. Cooking cleaning and generally running errands for her. Pffft.  
-Tomorrow is Bun's birthday-as I am constantly reminded.
-One day I will make an ombre cake, just you wait. 
-can someone buy me a KitchenAid stand mixer please? As much as I love walloping butter and sugar together, sometimes it takes too much time. I don't have time. Or well I do but I spend most of it searching and bookmarking recipes online. Or doing this.

Goodnight 

I was going to write something about Edward's blog posts/the whole debacle, but then I decided he wasn't really worth my time. 

What's worth my time, however, is baking. I've been baking a lot recently! Exploring new territory, in some ways. Heading into the kitchen when I'm stressed out, or angry, isn't anything remotely new, but moving from the hot kitchen to the cold one (although it's technically the same place, in my house, I'm not lucky enough to have separate kitchens) is a recent thing. I made the switch purely because it's much easier to share my baking with people who are not my immediate family (i.e., they don't stay with me), and also because my family doesn't really appreciate what I make, so these food testers (or lab rats, as I like to think) are pretty much essential. I love it, I really do, cooking and baking and feeding people. But cooking is hard to share: dishes need to be served straight out the pan or the wok or the oven, because the flavour and presentation is the best right then. I've got a few dishes I know will be surefire pleasers, but even those don't stand up to overnight refrigeration, reheating, and a very bumpy, clumsy ride to school well. Baking, however, is much more forgiving (especially chocolate cakes, and you know how much I like chocolate in any of its variations), leaving some cakes or cookies to stand overnight actually allows the flavours to meld better, and brings out the complexities of taste and texture. So now, I bake. I have this not-so-secret wish to work at the Emerald Bakery near my house after A levels to learn more, and do more, but then again I also want to work at a zi char stall in a heartland hawker center, so idk. Flights of fancy, those. 

I'm no Stephanie Shih, nor am I anywhere near as brilliant as Elissa or Jamie or the numerous other unbelievable food bloggers out there (like Deb of Smitten Kitchen...my god how does one do all that), but I still need to keep a sort of chronicle of my baking attempts because otherwise this pea brain of mine will just sputter and die trying to recall what I've done already and what I haven't. I'm not becoming a food blog, I don't have the time, or the skills (especially the skills!) required to do all that. Forgive me for blathering about my baking attempts. I'll cut this post, alrighty right. 

( let this cake (not) pass from my lips )