Back to school!

The last 2 weeks of the school holidays were just packed! Birthday celebrations, trips to Malacca, church camp and endless other feasts and festivities filled our days.

Needless to say, waking up this morning at the glorious time of 5:45a, was a drag. Surprisingly enough, Hanan bounded out of bed rather quickly and was not too cranky about my hurrying him through the shower, dressing and shoes-and-socks stage.

After he left, I went to bed but instead of sleeping, found myself praying for the many things on my mind. Michael Jackson's demise. My friend's dad's operation. My ability to get through the next ten weeks of term and emerge sane. My seasons of self-pity and loneliness.

It's a whole bunch of depressing stuff, but at the end of it, I actually felt stronger and more confident than I had in quite a while. Strange, no? Or maybe not.

First Birthday Thing

My department people at work took me to birthday lunch today. We had Japanese, as my request, which is one of my favourites (among the other 15 types of cuisine which are my favourite. Ok, I like food.)

It was really fun, especially trying everybody's food, making fun of each other and generally continuing the asinine mayhem that goes on in the office anyway.

And I got really nice presents, including a "hot babe" tag. Finally, the recognition for who I really am :)

Happy already!

Some photos. I won't ruin your pleasant bewilderment with captions.

Oven

I have been hankering for an oven recently, after throwing out my old decrepit one in December along with a whole bunch of other kitchen junk i no longer needed.

It's funny that I haven't felt the need for one till recently when the plethora of good recipes on www.foodgawker.com have made me want to grill and bake again.

So, through an angel who will remain unnamed I got this Moulinex Compact Chef Oven for a very afforable price. Well this is not the exact thing, but it looks something like this.



And now, I realise that I need to get all the peripherals that go with it - cookie sheets, cake pans, muffin pans, stoneware, etc etc...

This is gonna be fun! And just in time too.

Singing in "Indian"

On Page 39 of Thursday's Today newspaper, a very popular, iconic SINGAPOREAN musician was quoted as saying,

"We once did a Chinese song... done as a ballad with Indian instruments and sung in Indian."

Every Indian nerve in my body prickled and stood on end at those last three words. Sung in Indian?

How do people who have lived in a multi-racial society like Singapore, have friends of different ethnicity (one would assume) and have written and performed in all 4 official languages not know that "Indian" is not a language?

I can understand if the person grew up at the bottom of a well, is a SAP school alumni and local university graduate whose only contact with other races is when they are feeling exotic and want to eat prata. But this person is a much respected cultural icon, who honestly should know better.

So, to clear it up, here is the low-down:

Indian is a nationality.
A Hindu is person who practises Hinduism, a religion.
Hindi is a language.
The Indian language that is also our official language is Tamil.
Tamil is spoken by 90% of Singaporeans of Indian descent.
Tamils are not classified by how "fair" or "dark" they are, but where their forefathers came from (Tamil Nadu and some parts of Kerala and Sri Lanka)

And for the record, we are not amused when you imitate our language and ask non-enligtened questions like "Wah, you perm your hair ah?"

It is as impossible to sing in Indian, as it is to order food in Malaysian or speak in Singaporean.

To the respected musician in question, I really do hope that you were misquoted. It is unforgivable for a person such as yourself, who borrows freely from our vast cultural heritage to make such an ignorant comment.

Vignettes

Its been exactly 2 months since a certain someone got on a plane and left for the shores that welcomed the teeming masses. In a lot of ways, i guess its wierd not having him around. But in even more, it is actually quite good. No more arguments for the sake of arguments. And going home is a lot more plesant.

***

In 8 days, I will cross an important threshold and go into my late thirties. Ugh. That's a whole other checkbox on most survey forms. On the up side, I am more stable emotionally, secure financially and mature spiritually then I have ever been.

***

What do chocolate cake, baked rice, roast chicken and sugar cookies have in common?

They all need an oven to be prepared. And I don't have one. For some reason they cost an arm and a leg and the there aren't that many second hand ones for sale.
I need an oven. It will make me feel fulfilled as a woman in her late thirties. Well, maybe not. But that's my story and I am sticking with it.

***

Why do I sign myself up for stuff I don't have time to do? I just sorta kinda volunteered to be pretty heavily involved the production of the combined service. It started off with an innocuous idea which grew till I realised, wait, I am signing up for more work here.

But I guess I didn't really want to say no. Not to this anyway.

The Worship Concert

There are few things that I rather do on a Friday than relax with some people who are near and dear to my heart, listen to really good music, have a good conversation that brings me joy, comfort and food for thought.

Thankfully that is exactly what I got to do last night at church, during The Worship Concert, a worship event that seemed like a microcosm of the worship experience at Hillsong Conference last year.

With excellent musicians and singers from FGA Singapore, FGA KL and Every Nation Church Singapore leading the way, it was all I could do not to break out into a full-fledged dance routine.

Of course what took it one step higher was that it was all in praise of awesome God, but still, there is little that could have detracted from the fact that everyone brought their best.

The auditorium was packed full and slightly warmer than it should have been (that could have been just me, though), but the sound of every voice raised in song, hands raised in worship was phenomenal.

I could have done that all night.

An ex-churchmate once said, "Sometime we worship, sometimes we just sing songs." I thought of that last night. People outside of a church environment will probably see it as a bunch of people, who know all the words, singing songs to their God, with additional dramatics like raised hands, clenched fists and hypnotic swaying thrown in.

Which is why we can never explain what it feels like to worship God and know that you are heard, and loved and responded to. Its like trying to explain the thrill of your first kiss, or how it feels to suckle a baby, or how just hanging out with your beloved is like to someone who has never had those experiences.

And therein lies the conundrum of worship. It's awesome, its healing, its freeing, its uplifting. But it can't be explained. It has to be experienced.

I am glad for the experience.

Yum Yum Tex-Mex

The last time I had really good Tex-Mex food in our fair city was probably 15 years ago when the Westin had a beautiful restaurant called the .. the name eludes me at the moment, but still.

El patio had all the quality of food and ambience without the pretentiousness. In fact if you were looking for it from Lorong Mambbong, it might be easy to miss next to the garish, overdone pseudo-Mexican facade of its next door neighbour/ competitor. But El Patio is for people looking for Mexican food, not the "experience", the way the local kopitiam is for people who want coffee and not a "caffeine experience."

We ordered the prawn quesadillas and the mixed combo fajitas, our inner carnivore knowing it craved meat, but not which kind. We were not disappointed. Tender, flavourful slices of lamb, chicken, beef and *gasp* prawns were beautifully carmelised and served with warm tortillas. The prawn quesadillas were crisp, stuffed full of prawns and highly satisfying. I was so glad that they weren't oozing sour cream and guacamole like in some places.

All of this was complimented by tortilla chips, freshly made guacamole (they make is 5.30pm everyday, apparently) and salsa. Add a couple of jam jars of frozen magarita with the strongest kick o tequila I ave ever had, and we were all laughing.

The service was impeccable. Polite, coherant and well-informed staff made the experience even more fulfilling.

El patio is for real tex-mex food lovers. It's the real deal. And of course all the eye candy in the surrounding vicinity doesn't hurt either :)