mountain burger

what's better than a burger with a huge piece of deep fried battered chicken?

why, a burger with deep fried battered chicken, cheese and a hashbrown.

whoever thought of adding a hashbrown to a burger is sheer genius. carbs on carbs. what's not to like :)

and good ol' english weather is really pulling a number on me!

i get so hungry it's not funny.

in additional to the mountain burger, i managed to finish an entire five piece spicy chicken meal (with large fries and coke), two gooey chocolate nestle toll house cookies (remember that friends episode???), a sausage roll and stuffed custard donut from gregg's. 

mhmmm :) 

my lunch companion was most amused by my quadruple walks of shame to the till. i'd order one thing and proceed to resist temptation until i could hold out no longer, succumb and walk to the till to order thing #2. rinse wash repeat...

by the end of the meal, the guy at the counter rolled his eyes when he saw me make yet another trip. le sigh. i cowered in shame, left fried chicken heaven with my tail between my legs, vowing never to return. 

(well, till next weekend at least.)

aww man

nine newborn boxer puppies at home, and i'm so very far away :(

happy halloween!

how fast it's been a year since this. last year, i'd just gotten back from kuching, where we'd conveniently picked up some handy transformers masks, before making a dash for bongo's*bus. this ingenious idea saw us gathering at a*tica, horded onto eight coaches and then carted to various night spots as the night wore on. i went as a leopard print clad fashion faux pas (ooh, scary!) and this later became the barometer for potential friendship.

random: you dress as what?
me: fashion faux pas (pronounced: fox parse for double faux pas!) 
random: hahhh. you where got foxy. you wear lehper preen leh...
me: nice meeting you! -shimmies away-

but i digress. one year on, i'm spending not-halloween at medsoc drinking diesel (vile mixture of beer, strongbow and blackcurrant!) and trying very hard not to compare the uni basement to the glittering string of clubs we covered last year ;) 

costume of the night - pumpkin patch girls were a huge hit!

plus all good nights end with a doner kebab slathered in everything and chased with indomie.

naturally.

happy halloween folks! what are you dressing up as :)

kladdkaka revisited

it's been awhile since i attempted this but nice to know chocklit cake is largely the same the world over.

J suggested we form a graduate baking cooperative in protest at the astronomical price of baked goods from the cafeteria. however, i secretly think it was more for the constant supply of home made goodness than a genuine economical concern.

T was only too happy to oblige with deluxe flapjacks today. now i don't know about you but flapjacks with grated coconut and raisins are definitely luxe in my book! we ooh-ed and aah-ed over the flapjacks (yummy!) and i was peer pressured into sharing the one cake i do not destroy. 

will be the first to admit that i'm a one trick pony when it comes to baking and this tried and tested recipe served me well in stockholm, much better than the cake my so-called friends christened "brain cake". so here it is! comprising of tesco goodness and lots of love.

the deli

 

i'm almost ashamed to admit that i've been frequenting this sandwich bar on an almost daily basis. when i first started class, i endeavoured to live healthily and avoid slipping into the dreaded sandwich lull. 

four weeks on, caution and self-restraint have been cast to the wind and in the name of convenience, i've been having a green streak (bacon and avocado i.e. animal fat with vegetable fat, what's not to like?!) on each visit. tell a lie, sometimes i get the coronation chicken (sort of like chicken curry) on bread, with crisps and soda :) when i related this to the voice of reason, i could almost sense him recoil in horror. "who eats a curry sandwich???", he asked with great incredulity, then added with ill-disguised disdain, "you're turning into a sandwich scoffing brit!'.

but really, if we dip roti in our curry, how is a curry sandwich so very different? instead of bread in curry, it's curry in bread. sort of a reverse roti if you like.

plus who can resist an establishment with cartoons like so plastered all over the loo :)

thank you

saw this on postsecret recently and wish i could somehow reassure her grandchild that we actually do. 

dealing with a cadaver was a part of medsch that i couldn't prepare myself for, save volunteering in a morgue or funeral palour. i had thought it'd be nauseating, and expected to be completely freaked out by working on a preserved body. 

but our first anatomy session came and went with barely a whimper. the respect the body and tissues were handled with, and the professionalism of the anatomy teaching team, almost normalised what would ordinarily have been an uncomfortable situation. only the section being studied is exposed i.e. when we study the chest, the cadaver is covered from neck up and belly down. sure, there's hair and other surface features but not being able to see the face takes some of the eek factor away. 

part of me wishes more people would donate their bodies, so like in days of yore, each group of students would have a personal cadaver to work with but now we make do with pre-sectioned cadavers, and don't do any dissection ourselves. a bit of a cop out, if you ask me.

idiosyncracies

bev, our cleaning lady, comes round every wednesday morning so i usually spend tuesday night tidying my room and en suite. this strange phenomena amuses my friends no end. i'd be so ashamed to let anyone see the daily squalor i live in that i feel compelled to clean up after myself on tuesday, to project a sense of responsibility, if nothing else. bev, however, has seen everything one would expect to see in college housing and has reassured me repeatedly that at my disorganised best, the room is still cleaner than most. whew. but there's still a part of me that is compelled to ensure my room is as clean as clean can be when i waltz out the door on wednesday. 

do you have a cleaning lady? and if you do, do you clean before she comes? 

sometimes i think the point of having bev come round is to give me the impetus to clean my room.

unimpressed

had the routine blood borne viruses screening last monday to test for Hep B, C and HIV. 

nevermind that i already got tested back home - the uni needs the report from a uk lab. fine. but ohmyword! is it so very much to expect not to still be bruised a week after the venepuncture? you'd think one of my classmates did this... and that's not all! somehow the nurse managed to create three punctures in the course of one.

mumble grumble.

in the alternative, maybe i have scurvy....

naturally, i sent the photo of my bruise on crack (along with protracted whinge) to the nearest and dearest,  and this is what i got back.

yummeh veins and an invitation to practice my venepuncture skills once i get home. awww :)

further proof of conversion

as with any new experience, i held out for awhile to decide whether it was worth investing in. not to make it sound more dramatic than it really is, it's analagous with being in a relationship, isn't it. say you were sort of going out with someone, and things don't progress as well as you'd like, you'd be able to shrug it off with a "well, we gave it a shot..."and get on with your life if you hadn't invested very much in it. however, if you'd poured heart and soul into this mysterious phenomenon labelled "going out", chances are that seeing no return of investment (ooh, big word) might leave you wanting to buy a one way ticket to the moon.

maybe that's my way of justifying commitment phobia ;) which, for the record, i do not have. in fact, seeing how we think we crossed the four year mark a few months ago, think that makes me more a commitment junkie.

back to investments!

had the most awful afternoon in town trying to find a telco that would give me a 24 month contract. i ricocheted down main street from one telco to the next but to no avail. this fruitless pursuit ended at car*phone*w*arehouse where a complete stranger asked me if i'd like to move in with him. hate to be a tease, but that's another story for another day. long story short, until i've lived here for more than 3 years, i've got a non-existent credit rating and no one will give me a 24month contract (and free phone). it's a chicken and egg situation because until i've a post-paid contract, there's no way to prove that i'm credit worthy. but no one would give me a contract. have thrown my hands in the air and resolved to get an iPhone4 (no, not 4S) from hong kong and send it up with my darling brother next month. sure beats waiting 3 years for the iPhone7...

decided some retail therapy was in order after four wasted hours of futile phone hunting. buoyed by infatuation with the great outdoors and the prospect of future trips (we're going to yorkshire in a month!), i was meaning to have hiking boots procured and brought over with my brother. however, during my self-indulgent sulk, i chanced upon a store that had hiking boots on 50% sale and scored the only size left (thank god for small feet!) for GBP34. don't think boots go for S$70 back home either. the same store had other offers (buy one get one free) so i got two pairs of long thick hiking socks for the price of one, and my waterproof gloves came with a free woolen hat :) funny story: the adult gloves were too big and amidst my desperation, i discovered that my hands are the size of an eight year old's. great for surgery (except maybe ortho) and not much else. 

and because it was dark and i was bored, i laid out my spoils and took a photo. see the leaf in the corner? that was unintentional but symbolic ;)

dropping off the grid

strange as it may sound, there was something therapeutic about not having mobile signal in the wilderness. that's when i knew we were well and truly out there. in contrast, i had phone reception in the middle of what was supposed to be the sahara desert when i was in morocco summer '08. really, now. should have known better than to believe the fly by night travel agency we booked the desert night with. so much for spending the night in a berber settlement! was most displeased to see twinkling lights of the nearest town in the (not) distance. 

but i digress.

when we reached kielder, nobody had any mobile reception and it stayed that way till we were on our way back to the city. part of me panicked (oh no! no signal means no whatsapP!) and another part sort of welcomed the respite from technology. i'd be the first to admit that i'm a complete internet junkie and am pathologically obsessed with my email. incidentally, this is why having a firm-issued bb had i remained a lawyer would not have been much fun. then again, i was still glued to my remote access email as a pupil. so there.

think a big part of this phone addiction is the opposite of being present. not having reception meant that nobody was fiddling with their phones because we were all resigned to being separate from the outside world. which, unsurprisingly, meant that i was 100% present mentally the whole trip. being present is something i'm working on and being without distractions was really helpful.

funny thing - once we were regained coverage, i emailed the parentals to say i was ok despite the 36h radio silence and they hadn't even noticed i was gone :(((

check out me shiny waterproof pants! oh the horror...

(photo courtesy of dan the official wilderness photographer)

smitten

the strangest thing happened this weekend. 

there i was, resisting the allure of the wilderness and conscientiously maintaining my carefully cultivated veneer of "xiu jie"-ness when all of a sudden, i fell head over heels in love with the great outdoors. admittedly slow on the uptake, having had many prior chances to get with the program but somehow never really quite taking to it. 

am not entirely sure when that switch flicked but it was probably when i realised that being outdoors didn't 1) hurt 2) make me sweat 3) give me freckles. my biggest issue with being immersed in nature is the sun. i've more freckles than i care for and live in fear of them coalescing into one huge liver spot when i turn 30. but the wonderful wonderful thing about the uk is the weather! possibly the only clown thrilled when we didn't get much sun, and because it's so windy, i didn't break a sweat at all :) 

not one of pain and physical exertion so when the walking was manageable and it didn't seem like a collapse was on the horizon, i started to really enjoy the whole wilderness experience. odd how just 36h away can change my perception and i feel absolutely ridiculous for being so anti-outdoors before this :( the scenery was breath-taking, the teaching sessions fruitful and staying in a hostel with a better shower than the one i have in hall almost makes me want to do a wilderness trip every weekend now. being able to let go of my fears (of dirt and mud and extreme weather to name a few) was liberating and after a certain point i stopped caring how squelchy my shoes were getting (note to self: buy real boots).

however, as the proud possessor of possibly the only hairdryer in kielder, it will be some time before i relinquish my grip on all creature comforts. but it's nice to know that there is so much out there to discover, and yay to conquering fear one baby step at a time :)

on a lighter note, looks like this newfound love for the outdoors welled up just in time...

dundundunnn...

kielder water part 2

 

after some early morning drama involving a broken lock, high window and ladder rescue, we set off on a half day wander over the hills.

stopped the vans by the road side and hoofed it!

nope, didn't turn here!

we crossed bridges, keeping an eye out for trolls

took photos of the rolling english countryside

got up close and personal with the locals

climbed hills

gathered in circles for teaching and debriefs

and on our way back, there was this awkward moment where the path we were following plain disappeared.

ever resourceful, we turned 180degrees and backtracked 3.5miles...

and to our relief, the vans were where we had left them in the morning.

the end.

kielder water part 1

it was with great trepidation that i set off on the wilderness*medicine trip to kielder. my peer dad, who incidentally planned the trip, had reassured me that it would be an easy walk but i remained unconvinced. however, the prospect of a proper bed at the hostel was a big plus. fingers crossed i wouldn't have to use the sleeping bag (borrowed from friend's brother and of questionable cleanliness...) this time.

wasn't disappointed! the kielder water was beautiful and the weather most cooperative. look at that cute sailboat!

also quite amazing how the skies go from blue to overcast in a matter of minutes.

wandered till we hit a head

and stopped for some teaching in the forest

hard at work with the 'casualty'

before heading back in the golden light

where all good walks end with a pint at the local pub :)

cheers!

p.s. check back for more wilderness posts over the next few days if you like

masochism

remember my sudden streak of gung ho? yeah. well it lasted a little longer than anticipated and i found myself signing up for a weekend mountain climbing trip. however, when this kit list reared its ugly head in my inbox this evening, i started to wonder if i'd bitten off more than i can chew. 

much as it sounds like an arctic expedition, the multiple layers of clothing i sort of understand. however, no one said i'd need a headtorch (ARE YOU KIDDING ME???) and on a regular basis at that!!!

this whole wilderness experiment is truly more out of character than if i'd just joined the pole dancing society...