Whoo hoo! I finally changed that pic of a great dane! I found out how to do this in IE and am proud of myself

I am getting a bit lazy updating my blog, especially since I have been catching up with friends at home.

It's New Year's Eve!!! and my friends and I are on the verge of not going out tonite but instead celebrating the New Year tomorrow, without the crowds and New Year prices! so what shall we all do??? After all, it is going to be yet another new year, like any other.

Maybe I shall stay at home and sleep, so that I can stock up on energy for the coming nights of pub-hopping I shall be doing next week. Or maybe I shall try to find the phone no. of the guy that keeps leaving me msgs sans his phone no. as he assumes I have it. or maybe I shall just follow my family somewhere, if they have space and decide to accept this poor little girl who has no new year's plans tonite ;p

This is irritating - I want to change the pic of the dog that I have up as it is seriously starting to irritate me! But my comp doesn't have netscape and my brother will uninstall it the moment he finds it on the comp. looks like I have to wait till i get back to the States.

okie....haven't updated my blog in a long while - have been distracted by all the interesting little things there are to do which I never did as a child Today, I went fishing! I don't mean fishing with rod and pole in a pond or lake, but with a little mesh net in a monsoon drain. This is an activity normally reserved for little children under the age of 12, but guess I still haven't quite grown up! I have to say that catching the fish - little drain guppies - was tonnes of fun! I had to stand still so that they wouldn't be frightened away and I sneaked my net under them ever so slowly before trapping them! I am proud to say that I have captured a grand total of 11 guppies today! 4 adolescents and 7 babies. Unfortunately the really big ones were smart and stayed in the middle of the drain where I couldn't reach them - evolution has taught them a thing or two!

Why on earth did I embark on this childish enterprise?? well, it is an infantile desire of mine to see that the guppies that I already had at home did not die out due to inbreeding. These drain guppies that I just caught are really hardy - hell, they have been living in that storm drain almost since I was born, despite all the mini oil slicks and other assorted pollution that came along

My mother, of course got rather exasperated with me (revenge!!) - she expects her daughter to be at home or out behaving like a young lady, not a 12-year old brat. She says that guppies are cheap, why other with those in the drain? Well...I had fun, and that is all that matters

When I have been away from home for a long long time, I often start to miss you family. I even start to miss distant relatives such as a great-grand uncle seven times removed. When I come back home however, i suddenly remember why it is I enjoy being away from home in the first place.

As we all know, family members are the most exasperating people that know. You can change your friends but never your family. It seems to me that relatives are always doubly exasperating as they know that they can get away with it. How many of your mother's friends would openly comment on your dating situation?? That would be a social faux pas, but the minute that any member of your family finds out that you are still single despite being of eligible age....you know what happens.

This happens all the time with me. The worst perpertrator is my mother. Somehow, she managed to convince all her friends that ALL of my friends would not be home for the holidays and that I would be very lonely. The result of which is that I have been extended numerous invitations to spend Christmas in various places round the country, these being rather thinly disguised attempts at matchmaking me with sons who are currently of age and eligible. As you can see, my mother is very well-meaning, but totally exasperating.

It's not even as if I am nearing the Big Three-O. My biological clock is not relentlessly ticking away, though my mother's seems to be - I think she wants grandkids within the next 5 years...Everytime I am back on vacation, she takes me to this boutique where I saw my first Vera Wang wedding gown. I liked the simple yet elegant design and casually remarked to my mom that if i got married, it would be in a Vera Wang gown. This was 10 years ago, but she still reminds me of this remark, "Baby, do you remember...wedding gown...buy it for you.... hint HINT!"

It has gotten up to the point that everytime I call home when I am away, she asks, "So, have you met anyone interesting yet??" My stock reply is to tell her that she should replace the word 'anyone' with 'GUY'. I love my mother but really, in situations like these, I do believe I can literally hear the cogs turnign in her head.

I got sidetracked in my quest for sites to access images - my love is contemporary East and Southeast-asian art and I found cool sites which I am going to review first - apologies to LucienSarkis. I personally find the synthesis of Western art techniques and ideas with Asian ideas and traditional Asian methods fascinating. Trouble with contemporary art is that you often have to be in the region where it is happening to keep abreast of things. People used to western art may initially deem contemporary asian art to be nothing new. Indeed, the methods employed are very often 100% western, but the ideas expressed are not. Although I regard this sort of art to be Asian, I am far more impressed when the artist manages to assimilate Western means of artistic expression with asian ones. Two of my favorite contemporary Chinese artists right now are Wei Dong and Xu Bing. Both had training in classical Chinese art and have used their backgrounds to develop a visual vocabulary that is uniquely theirs. More power to artists like them!

Whoo hoo! I am glad to be back home in the tropics and have access to all my favorite fruits once more. I am a very gastronomically driven person, and I am glad that fruits like durians were available in the US thanks to the large Chinese population in the States. Papayas were a pain in the neck to find, even though I knew they were available, and they cost a bomb too! Imagine my pain when I knew I could get humungous papayas for only US$0.70 in the tropics.

While I was in the States, I missed so many of the fruits, not just the taste, but the sight of them. Have you seen rambutans? They are a rosy fire-engine red when ripe, and the tips of their "hairy spines" are flecked with bright green. Inside their flesh is pale and translucent but sweet and tart.

I miss too the Jackfruits and Chempedaks - Whoo hoo! They reek of gasoline when ripe, but their deep golden flesh is thick and sweet, and tastes oh-so-good! Like the durian, it's loaded with calories, but makes an excellent meal or dessert. hey...if it isn't sinful, it doesn't taste quite as good.

But the fruit I miss the most are the mangosteens - their flesh is white as white can be but sweet and very pleasantly tart. It tastes best after it has been chilled. They don't look like much on the outside - I wonder how anyone thought they would be delicious, after all, its skin is thick and hard and produces a purple dye that permanantly stains your clothes!

As you can tell, I am food-crazy. I think I dream of fruits in color. I have been gorging myself since I got back. Although New York apples, Florida oranges and Del Monte bananas are good sources of fibre and vitamins, i won't be eating them for a long long time!

btw, the images for the pics came from this cool website which I have reviewed somewhere in my review section, on the same date as this entry.

Am back home after a long long long flight. Finally managed to put the limited German that I know into good use at the Frankfurt airport where the staff thought I could speak German and rattled off to me in the language! All I did was nod and make the appropriate sounds of agreement....I should write a column of how to bluff your way through Europe on Two Words a Day!

Here's something that I wrote at the beginning of freshman year college. It got published on an e-journal, BlackRose, Blooming, which you can click on to find some more of the type of poetry that I used to write. Am more inclined towards happier stuff now. You can also follow this link BlackRose to see my review (Dec 14, 2000) of the site.

Soul of Ice, Spirit of Fire

The leaves have all turned gold, my love
And the sky gone red with flame.
And with each sigh the north wind breathes
I begin to forget your name.

The kiss of winter has touched my lips
I gasp in silence at its touch
And the birdsong is gone from these darkening hills
Forgotten in the fleeting hush

The rain has come again once more
And I dream with a heart grown wild
I suddenly long for those sweet summer days
When I was just a child.

But I have come home to stay awhile
In this place that I do not know
From Summer's smile have I fled this way,
Amidst the silent snow.

But Winter's beauty is as pure as heav'n
And Summer's like a blazing pyre
I cannot choose - my heart it weeps
Soul of ice Spirit of fire.

The aurora is calling beyond the dawn
I see myself in its flickering light
To sleep and forget my divided heart
And pass once more a lonely night.

hmmm....I think I am going to use this time outta school to come up with a whole list of my favorite sites to access art images. Watch out for this soon, so that when I start talking about art, you can easily find the picture that I am talking about