::operation s.u.r.p.r.i.s.e::

was a SUCCESS! :)

♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Birthday Kit ♥ ♥ ♥

I hope you had a wonderful time. I did! :)
Many more years of love, fun and excitement!

Lots of love,
Ping

::food fight::

My parents called last night:-

Pa: Hi sweetheart

Me: Hi pa!

Pa: What are you up to?

Me: I'm stuck at home doing work :'(

Ma: Wahh...guess where we are!

Me: Where??

Ma: At the claypot place eating cantonese kueh tiaw! OOoo, so nice!

Me: :'(

So craving cantonese kueh tiaw today, Matt and I went to a chinese restaurant where we knew served that dish. I cheekily sent my mum a text message saying, "I just ate cantonese kueh tiaw. I also can show off la :P" And in mere seconds my mum replied my sms saying, "Going 4 cha siu rice n ice kacang later. U kalah liaw. Luv u lots."

*u kalah liaw directly translated meaning you lose already in malay*

Ahhh...my mum is so cute! I miss her :'(

::miso cute::

So after waiting till 10.40 p.m., I decided that I'll just whip something up from the kitchen instead of waiting for Matt to come back from work with something for me to eat. Yes, he's at work on a Saturday. The whole of Saturday in fact. No he's not having an affair :P If he were he'd be so dead. DEAD.

So giving myself a break from the computer I went down to the kitchen with Puss following excitedly. I realised I had bought tofu, dried seaweed and miso paste the day before. Here's a story for you - For the 4 years I've been in Melbourne, miso soup at home was an every once in a while treat for me. The pack I would usually buy comes in a big pack of 6 individual packs that come with 2 sachets, one with miso and another with dried seaweed, spring onions and depending on the variety I got, usually beancurd. A pack of 6 would cost me an estimate of $6, which isn't too bad really to satisfy my occasional cravings for miso soup.

Now with the once-a-week vegetarian program, the first that comes to mind would be a salad or better yet a pasta salad, tofu, stir fries? I don't know... and ruling out mock meat has narrowed the options down to nothing interesting. To say the least, Matt wasn't all too excited. My beefy outback Aussie wants himself a slab of tender, juicy steak! No, I exaggerated...Matt's not so much a massive meat-eater :)

So a little inspired from the Japanese restaurant I work at, I googled japanese recipes and found one I especially liked, nasu dengaku. OOooOo..sounds so fancy-schmancy.... :) It's simply grilled/broiled eggplant with miso paste! Sounds delish! :) That and mirin, sugar, spring onions and toasted sesame seeds. Easy and apparently oh so delicious! I say apparently because I've never tried it but everyone that has says it's amazing! So given that it needs miso paste, I decided to stop buying mini packs of convenient miso soup and put in a little elbow grease to have my block of miso paste cater for miso soup, my eggplant dish and whatever else that I'm sure I'll stumble upon!

Big chunk of miso paste =$5

Dried seaweed = $1.50

750g tofu box = $2.50

Spring onions= $1.50

I can definitely make more than 12 bowls of miso soup with that.
Waaay more! Hooray! :)

I can't help it. It's so gratifying! I'm a student on a tight budget, so it rules out asianism :) If my parents were to ever read this they'd think I've been living like a pauper. Lucky we're not in the states otherwise Social Services will track my parents down and take me away :'( If I were under 18 of age that is.

So for dinner, I threw in 4 pork dumplings, miso paste, spring onions, lots and lots of tofu and lots and lots of seaweed :) I suppose that counts as my greens for the meal. With a few sticks of ramen and a 15 minute wait, it was all good to go :)

I'm in a very odd mood today. I'm rambling more than I usually do...

::application of study::

Walking up the stairs into my room from the kitchen, I was awaited by puss lying stretched along the floor in the door way. I looked at him and then looked at the door and said to myself, "800mm... Puss, you are 800mm long"

Haha, I learnt something useful from architecture school :)

P/S: Standard door way width is 800mm by the way

P/P/S: I just saved you tens of thousands of dollars on architectural higher education

::everything is celebratory worthy!::

Did I tell you Matt got me another flower? I don't think I did :) Well, he did! After getting me one from my so-called depression. It wasn't another rose too! It was some sort of flower that looked like the previous one but a wee bit different and of a different colour. I am guilty of not taking a photo of it :( I do however have it hanging on the clothes line upside down, in the process of drying and to be kept for the many years of us happy together! *touch wood* I told my mum of the flower Matt got for me after my final presentation. She said he is very sweet indeed! :) In fact, he got me one the same time last year for the same celebratory reason. I am so curious now that I'll have to give this post a break and go look for that day in my archive! Oh my! Puss was so tiny! On a side note, Puss is at this very moment lying arched upwards on the floor ON my right foot. I'm getting a little uncomfortable now, with Puss warming my foot way too much on the already way too hot day. He's sound asleep. Should I move my foot? I shouldn't, but I can't take it any longer. Moved. He stirred without opening his eyes. Mission accomplished!

I couldn't find it. I'm still waiting for October 2008 to load. Damn photos! Ah, there it is! How sweet :) Going through old posts, I've realised that we celebrated Calippo Day a few days ago and I didn't mention that too! And that Little Mel and James' Birthday is coming up and we'll be having another family barbecue! I've already planned it! I can't afford buying all the kids Christmas gifts, so instead, with all the flour and sugar and chocolate and butter I still have left from the RSPCA bake sale, in which I hope the butter is still ok, I'm going to spell their names out with letter cookie cutters with Christmas themed cookies too! I've got all the letters I will need and Christmas tree, snowman, angel and star of david shaped cookie cutters! I'm so excited! I'll probably be baking them next Friday depending on when the barbecue will be. That and the time I'll need to bake and beautifully ice 72 cookies! I hope they turn out yum! and I hope I spell all their names right too!

Wait...is barbecue spelt barbecue or barbeque???

Wikipedia!

::unflick the switch::

You know how you have living areas in your apartment, I wouldn't say so much a house but definitely more so in apartments that don't get direct sunlight? And you know how it's habitual when you absent-mindedly stretch your hand out and flick that light switch on just because you're about to enter that relatively darker space which doesn't quite blind you anyway? We're obviously talking long after dawn and before dusk here. So, I realised I just did that about 3 minutes ago. Just a little dark and all I needed was to put my clean sheets in the linen cupboard. It's not very necessary is it?

::morning call::

I hopped into the shower and to my horror discovered that the hot water wasn't working. I leaned furthest away from the shower head as far as the confines of the shower walls allowed and hated so much the cold cold pricks of this technical malfunction. Gah! I couldn't do it. The thought of people dying from dehydration wasn't enough to stop me from fussing over lukewarm water for a morning shower. Here I am, unshowered and feeling tired still from a full day's work yesterday eating muesli with what could possibly be expired peaches... I can't tell. They smell and taste alright... I guess that's ok.

::alive & kicking::

Walking home from the cinema, Matt and I decided to speak in accents. He spoke Irish which then evolved to Leprechaun-ish and I spoke British, poorly I must say, which later evolved to Pirate-ish... which then later caught on to the very contagious Leprechaun-ish accent. He held my hand in his. It has been a while. It really has. Matt has been so busy with work and myself with the end of semester at uni. We have been on a strict regime of sleep, work, eat and sleep. Slot in 2 hour train rides to Bendigo and another back to Melbourne and part-time work, the apartment dwindled from a boasting spotless haven to a heavily detonated land mine field. Cooking was put to a halt and a search in the cupboard for cookies and a packet of instant noodles every now and again hasn't done my waist line any good. Just thinking of it makes me nauseous. It's either that or that pack of Maltesers I just shared with Matt. And where do these sucky emotions bubble from? ... it is a wonder.

Just 2 days ago, digging though the pile of washed and unfolded laundry dumped in a basket at the corner of my room weeks ago, I temperamentally dropped myself on the floor holding back what could have been a 5 year old sulking from not getting strawberry gum drops from the corner store. I had nothing to wear! My drawers are a mess, worn clothes in the bathroom and almost decent blouses terribly wrinkled in a bottomless pit of hours of sorting, folding and ironing.

Guess what movie we went to watch... Julie & Julia :) It was quite entertaining to my surprise. I really wasn't expecting much. I guess Meryl Streep made parting with my $13.90 a little more reassuring. And Julie is right, just so you know... we need short-term goals. I don't think following every recipe in a cook book will do my savings account any good but I will need to think of something. I do have plans though! I will have approximately 2 months instead of a glorious 4 months break thanks to enrollment mix ups early this year. I'm dreading summer school. Anyhoo... So, here are my goals.

• Continue learning Mandarin on my NDS daily
• Forex - you'll understand in december. That's a hint for you by the way ;)
• Compile & Catalogue all my favourite cooking & baking recipes

They aren't too big and overly adventurous. It sounds good :) Short-term goal for tomorrow, catch up with an old friend, grocery shop and clean up the apartment!

P/S: Matt's mum is slowly but surely recovering. Hooray!

::R.I.P 256 MB::

It was around this time 5 years ago when my dad and I did what every Overseas Student preparing for life away from home did. Gadgetry shopping. You know, questions like, "Is a laptop or a computer better?" followed by a camera and a mobile phone and winter clothes. And mum joins in and throws in notebooks, tissue packs and you find a stashes of your favourite snacks :) The last few days of packing before leaving for Melbourne for the first time, my pa had to tell my ma to stop putting random knick knacks in my suitcase.... several times. Pa would go back to helping me pack things and lo and behold find a secret stash my mum stuffed in somewhere. Pa would shake his head and say, "Your mother ah..."

This bugger was expensive! Well, relatively expensive to how much thumdrives of much bigger capacity cost now. This mere 256MB was, RM80. Now it simply rains thumbdrives, you need a helmet on. It has only recently stopped working. I'm going to try get Matt to revive my baby. I suppose it would still be handy for word documents and.... a couple of photos and songs? I don't know... it's sentimental. If it doesn't work, I'll have to keep it in my special drawer with all the other junk I keep with a post it on it so I can look back at it when I'm old and tell my grand kids the story of this ancient thingy-majiggy.

::i'm chinese...it's true!::

So I can't speak mandarin. But it's ok. I can understand so much better than I can speak. But that isn't going to get me anywhere is it? So... I have "My Chinese Coach" on my Nintendo DS which I will discipline myself to put aside 30 minutes twice a day to learn Mandarin. I only just started yesterday and I'm pretty good with my numbers and my days now, in reading them I mean. Oooo... I never knew sunday was xing chi tian :) I thought it would be xing chi chi or something. Anyways, the bit that's a little annoying is that I have to learn to write them too. I really just want to learn to be able to converse decently. But in order to pass what they have classified me to be at the stage of a "toddler", I need to go through these exams and learn to write them too. Sigh*

Matt's excited ever since he watched "Funny People". The part where Eric Bana comes home to a family meal and together with his kids say, "Papa Bu Yao! papa Bu Yao!" So... I'm hoping to keep this up and not get bored or lazy. How exciting! :)

::puss loves spring::

Puss gets upset with me when i am home and don't play with him. I feel like a negligent mother, letting her baby die...of boredom. Puss loves the weather and the insects he has started to take notice of outside the window. He sits at the window, watching the little Lego sized cars and people on the street. Every now and then, you would hear a little tap and occasional bangs on the window from Puss chasing after an insect. When he gets really excited, he makes funny noises and sometimes runs into things that cause little crashing accidents. He used to wiggle out of my arms really quickly when I hold him. Now he stays a little longer and lets me hold his paw and it's as if he points towards where he wants to go and reaches out and curiously taps at things. He knows he's mummy's boy. I just sometimes think he resents me for being the most boring person in the world and waits anxiously - in his long afternoon naps - for Matt to play with him after work.

::almost veggo-day in somewhat start of spring::

The weather was beautiful yesterday, but I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it. I stayed home the whole day chained to work, had my brief soak in the sun in my walk to work and would every once in a while step out at the front steps of the restaurant to smell the fresh air and feel the occasional breeze on my arms that didn't bring up the need of quickly putting on a jacket like it has been for the past 4 months. The weather is looking up... finally! It's another beautiful day, sadly spent indoors :( I suppose the walk to work later this evening will be even more of an event if I quickly got back to work and made this day a productive one... that will come after this :)

Yesterday was supposedly Veggo-Day. By midday after lunch, I realised I had downed a bowl of bolognaise. Not a good start, but it has been postponed to Wednesday. Matt and I agreed it would be more fun making Veggie Pizzas together for dinner instead of me being at work with him home alone. Omitting salami, bacon and chicken pieces needs a little discipline so why not make it an enjoyable experience :) We almost passed Monday as Veggo-Day when we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches for dinner last night, but no, we'll stick to it :) Wednesday it is!

Alright... time for homework :) Happy Days!

::everyone's happy::

I forgot to pull the stove top kettle out from the abyss of the kitchen cabinet for my morning coffee, but I will remember next coffee :) Matt's mum's in Bendigo! Just thought I'd let you know that everything is great! On Wednesday we got a call from John that they got the thumbs up and was waiting for an available ambulance. I got to help him pack a little, run a few errands and saw him off. It was quite sad, I miss him :(

Marg is doing great in Bendigo. Happy she is back closer to home and that she is recovering very quickly. In fact, she got to go out on Saturday for a coffee out at a cafe :) Everyone's happy! Just a little tired I think. Haha... Matt and I found it a little hard adjusting back to what life was before the incident. We were definitely tired and I fell sick for a bit, but Matt and I feel a lot better after a restful weekend. When Matt was on the phone with John, his dad last night I told Matt to say to him, "Ping's cooking dinner and it will be ready in 30 minutes. She says you better not be late!" He had a laugh and thanked us for taking care of him and marg. Like what John said, "Matt's a good boy. He's very close to his mum. He's not like other non-asian boys you know" I found that statement a little funny to digest. But he is right, if he means Matt is different from the stereo-typical white alpha-male. He's the sweetest thing :)

Now with everything back to the usual, I have to re-focus and make sure I kick in to over-drive with uni work. A little more effort in for the next week! I can do this :)

::bf+gf scenarios::

In the kitchen, I opened the cupboard and reached for a mug and yelled out to Matt, "I'm going to have a coffee, you want anything?!" Matt then yells out, "Yup!" I hear his footsteps come down the stairs as I briefly filled the electric kettle with water from the tap. "Well, I'm going to have myself a hot chocolate!" As soon as Matt said that, I turned the kettle back to the sink and flipped the tap back on to fill the kettle up a little more. I then placed the electric kettle in it's port and turned the switch on. It's funny, every time I do that, turn the switch on I mean, I think to myself, "I have a free gas stove and I don't use it! Instead I use an electric kettle!" Matt thinks I am too Asian, being a cheap-skate and all. But you see... boiling a kettle at an average of let's say, 3 times a day for 365 days a year? That's 1095 times a year. And if that took the kettle 3 minutes to boil me enough water for a cup of coffee, that's 3285 minutes. That's 54 hours and 45 minutes. I don't know how much energy that will cost but every little bit counts! Especially when it's no biggie like converting the use of an electric kettle to a stove top kettle I have tucked somewhere behind the kitchen cabinet :) You know what, I'm going to switch to the stove-top kettle once and for all first thing tomorrow!

Hehe... since we're on being Asian and all, a funny thing happened today. So I was cooking Bolognaise for dinner tonight... or so I thought I was. Happily cooking the garlic and the onions and adding the mushrooms in, Matt comes up from behind and says, "Do you want me to cook?" a little surprised because Matt was on the couch watching Border Patrol a minute ago for the past half an hour, I said, "No, it's ok" and he replied, "Are you sure?" I thought to myself... ok, you seem excited to cook. So I allowed Matt to take over, doing the manly thing of mashing the minced beef and stirring it in, pounding on it and making sure it's all separated in the pan. While he was on that, I excitedly waited for the 8 minute timer I had set to go off for the pasta that was already cooking in the pot. It takes 12 minutes for the pasta to cook, it says so on the pack. So... back to my point about being Asian, I timed the timer at 8 minutes so I had 4 minutes left for the pasta to cook in the pot. That was the time I added the frozen mix veggies into the same pot to cook! You see, it saves me from washing a separate pot, wasting more water and gas! Cool huh? And besides, it wasn't spaghetti, it was fusilli. So I figured it would be easy to separate anyway if we wanted the vegetables separate or no harm all together. Matt wasn't too pleased though.

Matt: What are you doing??!!!
Ping: I'm adding the vegetables in the pot
Matt: I know. But why??!!
Ping: Well... why not?
Matt: It's going to end up like last time!

*I did that the last time but without enough intellect, the vegetables turned out over cooked*

Ping: It's ok, I've timed it! It will be fine!
Matt: Maybe you should stay away from cooking pasta...
Ping: But... it will be fine!
Matt: Ok...ok...if you say so

I am very proud to say, both pasta and vegetables turned out perfectly cooked! :)

I was supposed to tell you about what happened at coffee/ hot chocolate time. I got a little side-tracked :) So... I switched the kettle on, it started to boil and I had that thought I have every time I flip the switch to the kettle on. As Matt pulled out a hot chocolate sachet from a separate cabinet, I reached into another to get him a mug for his hot chocolate. Matt quickly said, "No no, it's ok, I want to use our Starbucks take away coffee cup!" He was very excited! I never told you, but when we were in the states, every day at all the hotels we were at had 2 packs of Starbucks coffee packs, take-away coffee cups, sleeves and caps. They were so cute! We couldn't help but keep them every day, excited for a new batch of two each day! So you can imagine how many we carried home with us. I know you're pointing fingers at me but no, it was not I who did all that... it was Matt shamelessly stacking them up one after another each day. He calls it a collection. I call him a closet Asian.

So, back to coffee/hot chocolate time...again. So Matt very excitedly pulled out a take away coffee cup! I sort of understood how it was fun and we never got around to using it, so ok. A little novelty fun for little Matt. That was until I saw him grabbing a sleeve and a cap to go with it! The cap, ok... the sleeve? Okaay. *click* The water was boiled. I poured the boiled water into my cup and then into Matt's. I picked a teaspoon from the drawer and stirred my coffee, dunking it into Matt's take away cup which was next to mine, he held on to it as I stirred. "Lucky this cup has a sleeve! Even with it, it's a little hot!" I let out a laugh, "Lucky my mug has a handle!" sigh* the enjoyment I get from Matt being a weirdo. I love that he's just like me!

We adjourned from the kitchen to the couch and turned our attention to a Friday missed episode of The Office. Sitting with my coffee in hand, I looked over to Matt, my little boy with a grin on his face for me as he turned to his cup for a sip of hot chocolate. "Ooo, it's hot!" I didn't say anything. I'm pretty sure I was thinking, 'well, if you were using a normal mug, it would cool a lot faster'. But I didn't say that of course, I didn't want to burst his happy bubble. Content with my coffee and reaching out to a cookie from our cookie jar on the coffee table, I happily watched my cookie dunk into my coffee, surfacing a born again coffee drenched piece of heaven and just as I was about to quickly lift it to my mouth, Matt dunks his cookie in mine.

.
.
.

and left it in there for too long it broke off

.
.
.

HALF his cookie broke off

.
.
.

IN my coffee

.
.
.

"So... you can't dunk cookies in your hot chocolate ey? I wonder why..."

::sweetie pie::

ping: i'm depressed

matt: why?

ping: just very low

matt: my bao bei can't feel low

ping: not depressed, just exhausted, haha!

matt: what can i do for you to make you happy?

ping: no, everything's ok.

matt: come on...tell me.

ping: well, i would like a flower

matt: ok!

ping: but i don't want you buying me a rose ok?

matt: haha, ok!

There's something different about not having yet another rose :) it's like a, "you already know i love you so very much, so here's something to show you that not only do i just really love you but on top of that, i think you're the most amazing & beautiful person in the world!" kind of a flower.

Nothing like Matt coming home from work in a suit with a flower in hand :)

::whatcha doing daddy?::

and you thought he was just curious about what daddy was doing and wanted to help

.

.

.

.

well, you're almost right.

almost!

::Veggo a day i say!::

It's Kang's birthday today! :) and guess where we had dinner?? At Soulmama at St. Kilda...and it's vegetarian :) Don't be judgmental now, it was actually very good... but you're right, it would have been better with meat, but it was a fun and very enlightening experience. So this friend of mine turned vegetarian about 2 years if I'm not mistaken. We were all quite surprised, especially with him being the very hyper and noisy one. He is that friend you have that goes, "aiyo...i tell you right, the bak kut teh at the shop under the bridge is the best man!" So you can imagine how such a life impacting decision came with us all being very skeptical. But he has remained true to his decision for himself and I'm very proud of him :) That and the basis of which his efforts are set upon.

Here's a little something I learned earlier this evening:-

"In over 1,500 factory farms throughout Australia the worth of a female pig is determined by how many piglets she can produce each litter. She is allowed to ‘live’ for as long as her body can physically endure the demands of being kept continually pregnant and confined, standing with minimal movement on a hard floor. Female pigs in factory farms are treated as breeding machines. They endure a cycle of suffering and deprivation." -savebabe.com

Sure, you can say the human species is at the top of the food chain. We are born predators. But surely there are less cruel ways to go about it. I doubt I'll ever turn Vegetarian or to the extreme end of the spectrum, a Vegan! But see, it can't be that hard to have a 'one-day-a-week' Vegetarian Day! What can going Vegetarian a day do to help? Here are 10 bloody-less good reasons!

Matt and I won't necessarily have it every Monday. We will see how it goes. If it turns out that we're more veggie in-tuned on another day of the week, we'll do just that! It's kind of exciting isn't it?! :) Hop on board too? Please say Yes!

::chicken soup for the soul::

Matt's mum is doing alright. Like John said, "one step forward, two steps back". We all do what we can :) Good news is, she might be going back to Bendigo any day now, depending on how strong she is. Bad news is, she will have to stay in the Bendigo Hospital for a while before she gets to go home. But it's ok, things are getting better and is far from the worse which we initially expected. Hooray!

In the mean time, John has been experimental with food here in very culturally diverse Melbourne. He isn't known for being very adventurous with food but he really is doing very well! Yesterday before I work, I cooked chinese chicken soup! Threw in the chicken, the shiitake mushrooms, red dates, a few anchovies and made a vermicelli omelette the way my aunt used to make them, cut in little squares. I left the omelette pieces at the side and allowed the soup to slow cook while I was at work.

I was hoping they would have started dinner without me because I was a bit shy about introducing the soup to John and talking him through it, as odd as that sounds. I got home and there it was, still in the pot on the stove, everything as I left them. I said to John, "I hope you feel like Chinese Chicken Soup!" With a little excitement he said, "I sure am!" haha... :) I dropped my bag and went straight to the pot. I added more chinese wine, popped the omelette pieces in and waited for the rice cooker to signal 'pop' as the click moves up to the keep warm setting. I forgot the bok choy :( But don't fret. We had enough goodies in already and with freshly cut spring onions on top, we were all set!

Margaret is the more adventurous one when it comes to food! But she can't be too experimental at such a time so she will have to wait till she gets all better to taste test all these goodies! :)

::oh no...::

i tripped over sunshine...

::a breath of fresh air::

I was at work this evening and my friend had a book. "It's a gift from a friend" she said when I asked her how she knew of the author. As I looked busy, tending to the coffee orders and doing little tasks she would every now and then ask me, "ping, what is unto? is it to? isn't it the same?" I would try explaining to her the meaning of each word, expression or terminology. Use them in various sentences and try very hard I did!, tempering with that delicate & very much bewildering fabric of the english language I take for granted each day.

My friend is Korean. Surprisingly with the mistake of judgement I made with first impression, we have a lot more in common then I expected. Very much to my delight. Movies, books, music. I love those, "you know that one?" "i do!" "i loove..!" "me too!" conversations. Like two flip book characters in exclamation page after page.

So... it's this book I myself am looking forward to reading. Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet. I haven't felt so excited for something like this in a long long time. It's invigorating! :)