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Thursday, December 29, 2011

hello from hella


three and a half years on, iceland hasn't changed. well, except that three and a half years ago, it was summer. re-visiting in winter is a completely different experience. just like being locked out when it's -17 degrees. headed west tomorrow, and then it's new year's in reykjavik. 

hope the tail end of 2011 is treating you well and have a wonderful wonderful new year :) might be a bit quiet on the blogfront but catch you in 2012!

Monday, December 26, 2011

2011: amazing things that happened this year

in chronological order:
found out in january, albeit long distance, that i'd passed the singapore bar exam. three hours later, and still in a state of euphoric shock, i had my medsch interview. two weeks after that, i started my training contract i.e. work

in february, i was allowed to be an extra pair of hands on a huge case which was going to trial in march, which is when i learnt, while in the throes of trial, that i'd been accepted into medsch on a scholarship, and became really annoying alluding to this 'big thing'. somehow people thought i'd gotten engaged but i remained resolute that Dr. > Mrs. it took every bit of self-restraint to wait till the other side surrendered (3/4 the way through!) before telling boss i wouldn't be staying on. to which boss gave his blessings, and was hugely supportive :)

as part of my new year's resolution to overcome fear (of heat, sweat and failure), i ran in the bench&bar cross country for singapore (not the whole country, just the lawyers). because it wasn't a complete disaster, xj upped the ante and we did the nike*goddess 5km together the week after. psyched, i even went so far as to compete in and complete the great*eastern women's 10km run later in the year. then i hung up my running shoes for good and slipped back into my sedentary lifestyle, or so i thought.

in may, i was proposed to, after said boss gave tkx the green light for a surprise trip! so much for my prior bravado... ;) had originally anticipated being engaged (gah, such a clumsy expression, it makes me sound like a telephone line!) to be life-altering in some ways. yet when it happened to me, apart from increased levels of blissed out contentment, nothing really changed. which was nice :) remain anti-spectacle, anti-big white wedding, anti-fuss, anti-wedding drama so the simple solution is to entrust everything to mr. makes it happen (but more about that later).

in july, i completed my training contract, headed down under (perth & sydney) during call break,  and got called to the singapore bar in august. after which it was with great joy that i kissed the legal industry goodbye.

relocated to the uk in september, moved into my cosy flat and started medsch. grateful to have made good friends in the short few months i've been here. being with graduates is somehow an instant icebreaker. there's this shared understanding of why we're back in school and our stories share a common vein. there is a former quantity surveyor, anthropologist, finnish NSman / english teacher, phD holder and bartender on the course. with such an eclectic mix, is it any surprise that the banter has yet to dry up ;)

in spite of myself, i fell in love with the great outdoors (and wilderness*medics) in october, which was life changing, to say the least. funny how my new-found affinity for the outdoors was more life altering than agreeing to get married. anyhoos, my former sedentary lifestyle is a thing of the past and i'm all keen to scale mountains (ok, hills) now. and in november, i bathed out of a tiny teapot in a stone barn bunkhouse with no hot shower, something i hadn't thought i'd be capable of.

later that month, T and i scored the sweetest deal for our house for year 2. it's literally 200m from medsch (because i'm OCD and google map everything) and a 10minute stroll from the city. plus it's huge (my new room is four times the size of my current o.O) - so spacious that we've started discussing being more sociable to make friends we can later fill our house with, sort of like moving potted plants, you know...

in december, it was mad eurotripping with the folks and the future folk and in the span of three weeks we covered 
zurich 
milan
lake como
parma
verona
innsbruck
salzburg
berlin for christmas and now on to
rejkjavik and around iceland for new year's
lake windemere in the lake district for some top secret business wheeling and dealing ^^
before ending back in london
it's been a fantastic fantastic year and i'm overwhelmed by the goodness i've received. humbled by loving family, wonderful friends and the opportunity to be where i want to be, doing what i want to do. in a great place and thrilled that what seemed like a gamble just over a year ago seems to have paid off in spades. seeing how the desire to apply to medsch germinated on the solo trippin' part of my grad trip, i'm a huge advocate of self-discovery through solo travel. plus it's mega gratifying to have what i anticipated in 2011 to come to pass.

thank you God.

2011 has set the stage for some huge changes in 2012. in a great place now and grateful for the voice of reason's insistence that i only deal with one transition at a time. that said, i'm kinda quite looking forward to getting married, and better yet, not having to lift a finger because the voice of reason also happens to be mr. planner supreme and is single-handedly doing everything for the three (yeah, i know. opulent, huh.) weddings we're having.

however, complicated as that may sound, my to do list has but one item:

turn up at the right place at the right time in a white dress (rinse, wash, repeat!)

and that's when i knew he was a keeper :)

(even though it now seems there's no space for me)
watch this space, and i just might watch my own wedding unfold via video conference.

if you'd like to see, the 2010 review is here
and the 2009 review here.

thanks for reading, and wishing you the very best for 2012 :)

Friday, December 16, 2011

hiatus

currently with the folks in milan! and then embarking on a three week eurotrip with the manfriend. a white christmas on the continent more than makes up for missing the crazy christmas party circuit back home.

looking forward to big beds, fluffy towels and a shower where i don't need to choose between heat and water pressure. for the past three months, i've encountered the daily dilemma of whether i preferred living like a polar bear and having lots of freezing water, or living like a desert salamander, content with a tepid trickle. 

but for the next month, i presume i'll have hot water galore. and not have to freeze in the drafty loo waiting for the exhaust fan to suck up all the steam before opening my bedroom door. the last time i didn't do that, the steam set off the fire alarm. needless to say, the house was not pleased.

other things i look forward to? not having to count me pennies and eating holiday-style i.e. to surfeited collapse :) can't wait to have my annual share of stars. in fact, not star-ed since sushi-ya mao last november, and before that it was november '09 with the manfriend at matsalen.

have a lovely holiday season, may it be filled with warmth and joy with those near and dear to you.

p/s have done a round up of the year and will be posting that around christmas so check back then if you'd like to see.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

iPorpor sends a parcel


of belingbing and serai for soup that warmed the cockles of my <3

(chai po omelette was unincluded in package, but also cockle-warming.)

if you like, you can read more about porpor here.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

serenity


turned my paper in a few days early, have one last class tomorrow and then it's off to meet the folks (again!)

been playing christmas carols non stop over spotify, buble's album is perfect for the season, and been in a happy state of frantic packing. it's been a good semester, an even better year, and i love that it's almost home free. with just an hour long seminar between me and the christmas holidays, this state of delicious anticipation is almost driving me delirious. been calming myself with hot chocolate and made sure i polished off all the food in the fridge. so much so i even feel teensy bit green now :/ tidied my room, going to switch off everything tomorrow and i'm away for the month. woot!
this holiday is going to be an awesome mix of new places (lake como, parma, salzburg, hella in south iceland) and old (milan, verona, innsbruck, berlin, reykjavik). the manfriend and i have been to berlin separately while on our respective years on exchange so i'm looking forward to revisiting one of our individually favourite cities with him. we were last in verona four christmases ago as students on a budget and we're staying at the same place this time round. some things have changed (he's no longer a struggling student while i unfortunately still am and will be for a few years yet!) while others (like our choice of travel buddy) haven't. hopefully the b&b is as fabulous (teehee!) as we remember it. run by two wonderfully flamboyant gentlemen, it was special all right...

can't wait to see family tomorrow, and the manfriend on friday. and at the same time, the sooner it comes, the sooner it'll pass and i can't anticipate it any more :( but there is plenty ahead next year, so i guess that's not too shabby :)

yumcha and cupcakes

meant to wake at 820 for my 9am class but it was dark when my alarm rang. and to me, dark = sleeping time so i silenced the buzzer and went back to bed :) woke proper at noon with sunlight streaming through my window and didn't feel in the least bit guilty. and to make the day even better, i got a text asking whether i was done for the week (would've been done at 10 if i'd rolled outta bed in time...) because a friend wanted to do coffee and cupcakes. two things i'd never say no to! better yet, when we did meet up, it was lunch time and having not had yumcha since leaving home, it was high time to get my fix of cantonese goodness. stuffed ourselves with bao, personal mountains of cheong fan, chicken feet and beef balls. yummy! and yumcha was strangely better at 2 degrees than it is in the tropics. well, can't compare with hong kong but pretty darn good this far north.

chased the yumcha feast with cupcakes instead of egg tarts (only available on sundays, boo!) and wasn't disappointed. last week, i decided S is a true friend for not showing me this cupcake store when it was open. cruel as it may sound, taken in context, we'd just had a massive japanese diinner and there was no way i could've had a cupcake binge without compromising my health in some way. but today we went round to make up for cupcakes denied last week. and because 1/2 and 1/2 make 2, we had 4!


grateful


one of the things i'm most grateful for this year is wonderful coursemates. must admit my biggest fear was being absolutely friendless in the uk! relieved to have found this fun-loving bunch sooner rather than later. it's so rare to find a group of people who are together more out of choice than circumstance. and we get each other - somehow the universality of this graduate medic mindset cut through friendship foreplay and all of a sudden, we seemed to be bona fide friends!

celebrated the end of our first term with a nice dinner at a real restaurant, complete with tablecloth and silverware. while we lunch together most days, adequate as our memories might be, one of us inevitably forgets to bring utensils of one sort or another and i'm not going to name and shame, but someone has even eaten rice with a ruler... as they say, necessity is the mother of invention! we tried to ban medical talk tonight but it's hard to run away from the one thing we have in common. it's been a short ten weeks but already i get the feeling that medsch will be a lot easier with friends like them on the ride.

Monday, December 12, 2011

misty morning

it's only been a month but i'm already missing the country with a vengeance. the morning mist, huge bed with super fluffy duvet and pillows was the recipe for the perfect lie in.

and while we're on the topic of pillows...

am gutted i'm not home to watch this litter grow :(

Sunday, December 11, 2011

the nutcracker




had a thoroughly enjoyable girls' night out to the ballet. grew up watching the nutcracker at christmas, and my more talented friends even performed in it, so i jumped at the chance to watch it here. there was a mother-daughter pair next to me and it made me nostalgic for christmas as a kid where i think my mother brought me to the ballet. then again, knowing her, she might've outsourced my cultural edification ;) but it was as i remembered, only better, and the songs were familiar and i didn't want the ballet to end. i still want to be a sugar plum fairy when i grow up!

happiest


when i'm with my folks :)

that is all.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

addiction


in a perfect world, jam donuts would a major food group. but because the world is far from perfect, here's breakfast, lunch and dinner trying to pass off as one of our five a day. 

personally prefer the waitrose donuts because they come swimming in icing sugar, but tesco is more generous with the jam... decisions decisions :( and with a bag of 5 going for 70p (or 39p when on discount at waitrose...) what's a girl to do!

such a child

by an unexpected turn of events, i've a bonus day with my folks! were planning to meet on wednesday but turns out they've rerouted to be closer to me. so i'm taking the train to be with them for 24h, back to my flat for 48h amidst some mad paper-churning, oral presentation and one last anatomy practical, before linking up on wednesday as per original plan. kinda psyched for this extra time! and thank god this set of last minute train tickets didn't break the bank. this also means i've to be up at 5am on monday to make it back in time for disection at 10am. but it's all good if i get extra time with the fam :)

have a mass whatsapp going and can't believe it's 24h till i next see them! 

am such a child that i get so very excited and now i can't concentrate on all the real work i'm supposed to do so i need to go run this extra energy off if not i'll bounce off the walls at home and be a really annoying flatmate. and i need to pick up train tickets! hmm really should run this off because i'll not get anything done today otherwise and goodness knows i need to get my act together before this latest disappearing act of mine. yay for weekends, and for spending every alternate weekend out of town.

edit: some photos from my walk to the station to collect the train tickets!


admittedly a bit of a fashion disaster in sweats and trainers. oh so ahmerikaaan...


Friday, December 9, 2011

scent 2012





oh lookyy what came in the mail today :) 
definitely one of the perks of being based in the UK!
think i just found the one scent that i endeavour to be faithful to next year.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

so it was only a matter of time

before i managed to destroy the one recipe i had previously declared indestructible :( 



had eagerly told the bake sale coordinator that i'd contribute two chocolate cakes. however, i managed to destroy not one, but both cakes. so i'm now contributing zilch because my battered sense of self-worth is clinging on to some remnants of self-pride and refusing to handover these unpresentable bits of cake only a mother could love. and love i did. somehow, what i lack in baking prowess i make up for in appetite in spades. that missing half? yeh, in my tummy. and photographed half? yeh, subsequently also in my tummeh. 

at least i stopped at one (cake). ruined cake two will be graduate fodder during lunch time tomorrow. if i can't raise money, at least i can buy myself some friends...

why do i do these things to myself. why.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

winner winner chicken dinner


this peri peri gives nando's a run for its money, and for one third the price! was looking forward to dinner all day and practically ran there from uni right after our surface*anatomy of the heart*session. 

funny story there: we got to strip and paint hearts (the important body pump, not <3 shapes) on each other with body paint. totally how it sounds - think horde of topless people parading around. felt a wee bit bad though because i was too big a prude to strip so i pounced on the first unsuspecting male i could find, and made him be "the canvas" while i painted. there i was, at my predatory best, but he was a real sweetie and let me deface his chest. to make up for it, i offered to buy him coffee. then again, he said he doesn't drink coffee so i might give him a candy bar as thanks for the effort. there were some pretty darn impressive hearts on display, complete with the great vessels going up the neck. will share a photo once i find someone who doesn't mind! then again, as i was discussing with JJ, it seems most of our classmates are only too happy to take off their clothes ;)

after the chicken fix, it was off to the theatre for some culture in the form of the nutcracker. stay tuned!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

christmas market



moseyed over to the christmas market last weekend and spent a wonderful afternoon eating my way from store to store. there was traditional christmas fare like mulled wine (oh how i lived on glogg during the swedish winter!) and not-so-traditional fare like paella. i bought a brown paper bag chock full of pastries and other delights, nibbled away and went in search of more food. 

christmas markets never fail to get me feeling all christmassy on the inside. well, markets and how i've made a bad habit of alternating between hot chocolate and mulled wine for my daily hydration needs.

and i cannot help but remember the christmas market in frankfurt (photo above!) that cost us our flight to london (and S$1000 each) winter '07. that was a ton of money when we were students. hmm, it's actually still a ton of money now haha. wonder if S$1000 will ever be chump change. if only! 

was at the berlin markets all by my lonesome self come winter '09 - the problem of solo travel is that you inevitably end up alone, but am buoyed by the prospect of revisiting the very same berlin markets with the manfriend come christmas '11 and adding to our ever-increasing collection of gluehwine mugs.





with just over a week to go, i'm already counting down the days on my imaginary advent calendar :)

Monday, December 5, 2011

ho hum


apologies for the mundane post but a sparkly new toaster is something to scream about. 

after its not-so-sparkly predecessor caused a power failure in the entire house not once but twice over the weekend, it was high time to replace it. the uni housing response was swift and this spanking new piece of plastic makes me want to run out in the freezing cold (it's hovering just over 0 degrees now) and buy meself a loaf of bread to christen our new toy with. 

in other news, i am bored out of my brain and can't wait for the christmas holiday. mhmm maybe more hot chocklit will speed things up...

Sunday, December 4, 2011

lazy sunday finds

the sundays i spend in town (because hey, the weekend is for wilderness trippin' and train rides to faraway cities) are self-declared exploration days. putting our deposit for house 2012/13 reminded me how i'm not maxing out my current 'hood. so i donned my walking shoes bright and early this morning and spent it wandering around and getting lost in the nooks and crannies of this lovely part of town.








hope you'd a good weekend, regardless of timezone! headed for a sushi dinner this evening. can't believe i've managed to go 3 months without sushi but yay to the end of the sushi drought. fingers crossed it'll be at least semi-decent :/

Saturday, December 3, 2011

one tree

three ways




admittedly slow on the uptake (the problem with scheduling posts!) but i'm so glad the public sector workers took time off their strike to doll this baby up.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

pop of colour


yellow and blue go so well together, don't you think? the swedes sure have it right :)

gratitude

we were learning how to calculate projected adult height (for dealing with parents concerned about their children's growth) and to my horror, i realise my height merits clinical investigation.

the magic formula is as below:
(average of parents' height (in cm) + 7cm) then +/- 8.5cm
boys tend to be nearer the upper limit of the 17cm range, and girls nearer the lower limit.

unfortunately for me, i'm a whopping 12cm below the lower limit. 

so at the end of the session, i send a furious email to the parentals, roundly chastising them for their failure to meet my growth potential. this was after being breast fed for three years too, mind you! breast is not always best...

but then i went on to the next seminar where we saw the awful impact of spina bifida. the heart-wrenching thing about this is how taking merely 400micrograms of folic acid three months before conception, and for the first trimester, dramatically reduces the risk of spina bifida by 80%. knowing how my folks were ahead of the curve back in the 1980s, i then changed my tune and whatsapped a thank you. however, my gratitude was met with mockery!


so while it's not entirely miraculous that i don't have spina bifida, sometimes even i'm surprised i don't have body dysmorphia...

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

convert





tried pierre*hermes for the first time recently and was left questioning my l*aduree loyalty. 

while my heart belongs to sprungli and her luxemburgerli, but when it comes to macarons, i thought i was deep in the l*aduree camp. however, an incredibly thoughtful gift from belle (thank you very very much! i will forever associate you with macaron joy!) made me cast all former belief to the wind as i fell head over heels in love with PH and his little mounds of heaven. for one it's less sweet than l*aduree and i appreciate the mealier texture of the macaronage. the exotic flavours are another plus (white truffle macaron, anyone?) and i've been pretty much blissed out the past 24h as i slowly made my way through the box.

now to figure out how to make PH a regular in my week...