Advent: a Time of Waiting

It's been a while since I wrote. I hurt my thumb four weeks ago and while I could still type as a 9 finger typist, somehow having only one opposable thumb and being a bit of a hypochondriac about it made me slow down a lot of activities in general.

It did make me think though that sometimes it's better just to wait and this is the season of Advent after all. A time of waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas.

It's been a good year in some ways but also I have been impatient in the recent few months for things to happen and it always seems to take forever. So like with my thumb, even though there are little signs of improvement and growth and the new pink skin growing underneath and the old skin on top flaking off, I'm still impatient. However I know only too well that trying to pick at the scab or trying to exercise it too vigorously at this stage can only set the healing process back and create more scarring. So sometimes it really is better to do nothing and let nature take its course.

But it's forced me to reflect more about how necessary it is to be sensitive and wait sometimes. Not to intervene or to intervene only very precisely and accurately, almost like a surgeon going in, only to fix that one little thing that's wrong and not do any harm otherwise. Otherwise sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease. Again my thumb has areas of slight numbness and I can't help wondering if it's the internal scar tissue and inflammation that's causing it or was it the injection that harmed the nerve a little. Who knows, but it's so very important to just not do any harm by being as precise and as sensitive as possible when dealing with practically everything in our lives but most especially living things, human beings and relationships whether these are at work, at home or just general dealings with people i don't know so well.

So it was very comforting to me, in this time where I can be frustrated with waiting, to read a passage from a book I have and it quoted Psalm 4:1,3, heading it with the title: "God answers your call" and it went

"Answer me when I call, O God of my right! you gave me room when I was in distress....The Lord hears when I call to Him."

And the reflection was, to Trust that God will provide. I quote, "Have you ever turned a problem over to God, only to take it right back? Maybe you didn't really believe God could help. Maybe you got tired of waiting for a response (God's answers don't always come on our schedule). Whatever the reason, the end result is the same - more stress, right back on your shoulders!

Next time you turn over a problem, really turn it over. Trust God to take care of it. You'll be glad you did. "

It's so important i think sometimes to listen to people, to listen to nature, to hear what is being said in any situation and to give ample room for that intuitive understanding to grow, so that in life we can react more precisely and humanely to people, to do as little harm as possible, and to help as much as we can. And to wait upon each other as Christ did for us.

(excerpted from WWJD series title To Rise Above Stress, by Daniel D Grippo)

Aikido Grading

We recently had a grading in my Aikido Club. As I wasn't grading I decided to steal a shot of the grading in progress. This is a shot of the white belts doing their very first grading. The grading panel is to the right of the picture. It consisted of four men this time around of the senior level dan grades and the chief instructor. It's often tense for the ones being graded especially at the junior levels as it's never easy being scrutinsed.

The Forest Walk

I took a stroll along the Forest Walk, the elevated section of the Southern Ridges trail from Alexandra Road to the Mount Faber walk today across the Henderson Waves. It turned out to be a very good walk indeed. The Forest Walk for those of you who have not been on it is an elevated walk at a height about 2 storeys off the ground on a metal walkway. It's on a gentle incline with a mesh walkway and is really a bridge built firmly into the ground which takes one at a level where the views of the trees are great. I went with a couple of friends and my two dogs in tow. It was a bit crowded as it was a public holiday at least on the way up.

The Henderson Waves bit is made of wood and curves up on one side and on the otherside of the wide wide walkway, are great views all the way to the sea. The kids I saw there had discovered that it was possible to slide themselves up a quarter way up the "wave" bit that curved up and then let go and slide down quickly. Trust the kids to discover a slide where none was meant.

For anyone who would like a walk and take a different view of the forest, it's a walk well worth doing. I really liked coming down at that incline and jogged practically all the way down as the footing was great even with my dog enthusiastically pulling me along.

xi yan

Xi Yan epitomises for me modern Chinese cuisine. Subtle and innovative ways of combining flavours and creating new tastes. And at an affordable price for the non private dining option. Superb. the quality of food and service has certainly been upheld since the last time i dined in Hong Kong more than 13 months ago.

I'm waiting for Xi Yan Singapore to open other than their private dining option. It's fast becoming a must-go dining place for me in Hong Kong. I'll see if they're able to raise mid-priced dining in Singapore to the same culinary heights they did in Hong Kong.

I'm also very happy to see in Hong Kong a very wide range of mid priced Chinese restaurants from their private dining kitchens to normal restaurants and cafes. I think in general the restaurants here somehow don't have the same range. Maybe it's simply a function of the size of the market? I do however like to think it's the demanding Cantonese customer in Hong Kong that keeps the standards high.

What I also like is that people there value their own cuisine so highly that these restaurants can survive. Chinese food is most definitely not a cliche there as i suspect sometimes it becomes in Singapore where it's a lot more staid and tried and tested. And i don't even think of myself as a foodie.

Are You Wearing (Under) Pants?

I was carrying my 3 year old nephew out the door the other day while his daddy was putting on his shoes and was surprised to hear my nephew go, "Aunty xxx, are you wearing pants?" Glancing down at my shorts, I figured he didn't mean those and from the slightly embarrassed chortle that came from my brother-in-law I figured the little tyke was actually asking me if I was wearing underwear.

I responded, "You're lucky you're only 3 years old" so my brother in law explained he was trying to train his little boy into wearing underpants which my nephew was none too keen on. So our discussion continued down the driveway on the merits of wearing underwear.

Priceless moments of parenthood....in this case, aunthood.

Pilates

I feel like I've been getting distinctly flabby over the past year and putting on inches and weight as well. So I really do need to start more muscle building exercise as my favourite form of exercise, aikido, may be great for many other things but it's definitely not a good way to lose weight. That plus since I've just been having a lot of problems with my left knee so I need an exercise regime where I'm in a lot of control over what I do.

So I finally braved a pilates class at Amore again where I'm a member. I have discovered that I like the instructor at the Heartland Mall branch a lot more as he's more patient with beginners like me and will actually adapt the positions/movements etc so that people like me with weak core muscles can still derive some benefit and actually do something as opposed to flopping like a fish out of water.

He was distinctly more encouraging this time as well compared to the last time telling the class at the end that those who are just starting out need to be patient with themselves and the class since it takes a while to build the strength in the core.

Looks like over the next few months I'm going to be a bit more regular and try and make it to pilates once a week. My Saturday yoga class is already part of my regular schedule so now I have to step things up on Sunday.

Counter Cultural

I bumped into an old friend at Fr Keane's 50th Jubilee Mass at St Ignatius the other day. And it turned out to be wonderful catching up with her and her husband and four children. Her "socialist" tendencies means that despite her oxford education in law and her husband's being a specialist doctor, they lead a life sans maid, in a HDB apartment in an old estate (albeit newer block) and essentially keep it simple. They live well within their means and she's cheerful and happy as are her husband and children.

They don't preach (at me at any rate) or complain and they said they turned down an offer of a house from her parents because it would mean scaling up their existance to a level which they could not afford ie the house would require a maid and an additional car at the least.

Maybe part of it is sheer rebellion at a life of pretension and status of her parents lifestyle but having seen her through her university days and watched first hand how she interacted with the prisoners in Oxford prison as part of a group of Catholic students helping a priest say mass there, and watched her do other things like go help out with Mother Theresa in the Rome community, etc etc, I'm fairly convinced this is not a youthful rebellion she has yet to grow out of, but a deep seated detachment from material things.

I'm in awe really and greatly heartened. I don't think I could have done the same in her shoes and I'm not necessarily advocating this as a way to live for any of us who have choices otherwise, but I'm awfully glad that she's there as a shining example of how it's possible to not get hung up with the 5Cs and to brush off society's expectations of how it is they should live. Truly some of us really do cut our own paths in this world and she and her husband are doing just that.

Poetry Exercies: Heroic Verse

Here I am, sleepy headed on late Sunday morning after having had wine and barbequed feast the night before. However, I'm determined to try and keep up some semblence of pace on this poetry writing.

So here is the next exercise Stephen Fry set. The instructions were to write in heroic verse ie iambic pentameter rhymed couplets. A contemporary monologue of a guy stoned off his head and trying to explain away a packet of cannabis found in his possession.

Trying to write this while being sleepy and tired gives me some sense of what it must be like to try and string logical thoughts together while in a semi-stupor.

To all you non-Singaporeans/Malaysians out there, this is written in Singlish: the bastardised version of English as she is spoke in my beloved country.

Explaining Away A Packet of Cannabis:
Aiyah! sir ah, this one how can mine one?
I *tole* you al-rea-ddy someone put it in for fun
Like joke like that - into my bag. I know
I know: you don't believe, ah, but it's so.
So suay. My friend, he run away. Lagi
Now worse for me. Aiyah, you search prop'ly
Neh mind neh mind. U don't believe? Is true
You say it's what? kah-na-bis? I no clue
This word I say also cannot. Ear-lier
When he give me, he say curry powder!


Needless to say i'm sure the cops didn't believe his story.

Suay: unlucky

Poetry Exercise: the Ballad

I do not like writing ballads. It's a bit like liking country and western music. Maybe I can like a tune or two and it is catchy to hum or sing along. But writing it is a different story. I find it really hard to be that exaggerated with my emotions or that sentimental. However in the name of doing Stephen Fry's exercise poetry exercise number 12, I did at least write a couple of stanzas so I can say I did it.

Now gather round and let me tell
The tale of Danny Wise
And how his sweet wife Annabelle
Did suck out both his eyes

And if I tell the story true
And if I tell it clear
There's not a mortal one of you
Won't shriek in mortal fear

Sweet Annabelle and Dany Wise
Did love each other so
But late one night he heard some cries
And ran to her too slow

By then the vampire bit her neck
And though he chased it far away
His wife was white and sick
Next moon, she turned. And well, the rest is history

Kungfu Panda - Go Watch!

Today I decided despite the busy-ness of work, to take time out to watch Kungfu Panda with my aikido mates. It was a good choice. Huge amount of fun and I was laughing out loud throughout much of the movie. Po, the main character, is of the bumbling hero lineage and one of the funniest scenes is when he is trying to get into the training grounds where everyone has gone to watch the martial arts display before the next Dragon Warrier is chosen.

What i really liked were the fight scenes which are so reminiscent of the kungfu movies and the magical way in which the martial artists often do the gravity defying huge leaps and bounds. I always find that only in animation does this ever seem real to me. Flesh and blood would represent too much reality. I'm too much of a realist to be able to suspend belief for real flesh and blood actors but am quite happy to suspend normal laws of gravity and live in my imagination with animated movies. The animation world can almost perfectly represent for me the platonic ideal plausibly.

I won't say too much more as I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who watches it but I have to say it's the best movie I've seen in this genre for a long long time. It's great for any age.

Oh and I totally identify with Po's "I eat when I'm stressed" line :).

Akan Datang

Sorry to the regular readers of this blog as its been a while since I posted. i've been overwhelmed by work, my brother's family visiting, a short holiday, and nursing one of my doggies (who had to have stiches so mainly i had to make sure she didn't chew them off). Just a notice to say i'll be back blogging in about a week and that I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth.

Poetry Exercise: Spenserian Stanza

The last of the open forms: the Spenserian Stanza is a 9 line stanza of which the first 8 lines are iambic pentameter and the last line an alexandrine ie iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.

This form of verse the poet Spenser took.
Immortalised "The Faerie Queen" he did.
From then the form took life and shook
Our senses in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
"St Agnes Eve" - the cold crept in, it slid
By Keat's genius the fluttering owl's wing
Enshrined this form forever: iamb feet
Lord Tennyson, his "Lotos-Eaters" sing
Same tune and ends too with the alexandrine.

*Finally* I've completed Exercise 11 in Stephen Fry's book, "The Ode Less Travelled". It's been a long stretch of just composing self-referential poems describing these open forms.

Poetry Exercise: Ottava Rima

Here's the next self-referential open form poem. One of the poetry exercises set by Stephen Fry.

The ottava rima as its name suggests
Was borrowed from Italian epic form
Too use in jest as with Lord Byron's epics
Best: Don Juan - the romantic satire long.
Later though, its mocking roots it left
And so his "Among School Children" was born
WB Yeats' philosophical anguish at ending years
End in perfect square of words that sear.

The rhyme scheme is abababcc. For those of you who saw the earlier draft, please erase the thought. I made horrendous mistakes in that rhyme scheme. As you can see I'm getting a bit too careless!

Bishan Dog Run Outing

Lookeee the doggeee in the yellooww booties!

I finally made it to the Bishan dog run with my dogs in tow last Vesak Day. I say "finally" because the last two times I tried, the carpark was chocablock and I wasn't able to get a parking lot despite waiting around a bit. Had the usual good chats with fellow dog lovers, met a gorgeous, gentle German Shephard, rescued at the 11th hour from being put down at the SPCA by his new adoptee owners. Also saw the cutsy dog above just as I was leaving and couldn't resist taking a snap.

And as always this sense of peace from being amidst the greenery slowly seeped in as I ran with my dogs and hung around in the dog run. Life always seems a lot easier to face after being out in this park, more settled, more in perspective. It's like recharging the soul.

The Best Little Japanese Restaurant

Warning it's expensive enough that I'd only recommend it on a corporate expense account...having said that, it's superb and if you like Japanese food, go!

Shiraishi is a tiny restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton, Singapore, with barely enough seating space at the tables for 10 people and a little counter that sits maybe another 10. So even though we went late, it was still crowded. The service was good and they had held our table though we were slightly late and had shifted us from the counter to the table at our request.

The crockery is lovely and so is the menu. With typical Japanese attention to detail, each piece of porcelain/pottery was designed to match the food served. I especially liked the watercolour paintings on the menu which was made from handmade Japanese paper so has this rough textured finish to it.

What we had: a sampling of sashimi then we ordered a couple more dishes such as sea urchin, salt baked fish head, summer vegetables and desert. All were exquisitely laid out and tasted very fine.

My favourites though were the seasonal vegetables and the sea urchin. The vegetables each came a little carved and artistically arranged into a medly of colours and tastes. The sea urchin was so fresh and soft and full of flavour I think it beat even the one I had in Japan many years ago at a very expensive Japanese corporate dinner. The salt baked fish head turned out to be the cheek rather than the whole head.

What I was also very impressed by was that all the wasabi and other condiments were obviously made from scratch. The sushi leaves were imported from Japan and tasted amazing. I could have just gone there for the freshly grated wasabi alone.

We didn't eat a lot and our bill ended up at over S$200. She'd decided since we were both so very full still from our buffet dinner the night before (me) and her indian lunch (her) we could only take nibbles for dinner. Hence a good time to try out an expensive sushi restaurant. Overall, I'd say despite the price, if you treasure good sushi, this is the place to go to, after saving up of course and not going ravenous.

Poetry Exercise: Rhyme Royal

This classic English poem from old
Has iamb feet in pentameter lines
From Chaucer's time till present day it's mould
Not changed. But now its language modern is fine.
To not update it would be a shame, a crime.
With refurbished words, a new lease of life is given
The form can live again in modern times.

Aikido Bag

My aikido sensei gave me a bag! I was quite taken by surprise and it was actually very nice of him to do so. I think it's meant to be a sign of appreciation for helping out here and there with classes ie showing up regularly, helping with mats, adminstrative work on Fridays etc. Still, I don't really do that much actual work so it's kinda nice of him to do that.

Poetry Exercise: Rubai

The exercise 11 in Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled has me writing several self referential forms. This one covers the Rubai which is an open form (ie can go on ad infinitum).

The Rubai:

This form was used in Persia long ago.
Omar Khayyam's moving finger writ it so.
His jug of wine to fuel his thoughts
And loaf of bread to help his poetry flow.

It's only rule is to rhyme lines one, two and four
In four line stanzas, no more.
Ignore line three: its rhyme matters not.
And there you go: a rubai from from yore.

Poetry Exercise: The Quatrain

At long last, I got down to writing again. To those of you about to chide me for my tardiness, I will say in my defence I did write an earlier one but as it was upon my lunchtime in the office and I had wanted to consult Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, I had left two lines left unwritten. And then promptly lost the poem between the office and home.

So anyway, to cut a long story short, here's the quatrain, freshly written in my living room and I'm rapidly committing it to blogger before my laptop finally carries out its recent threats to die entirely.

The exercise was to write a self-referential poem describing the essential structure of a quatrain.

The Quatrain

The quatrain is what is all to us
A poem quintessential true.
Or so we think: it's just no fuss.
Can be strong, can be fun or blue.

The mood may vary, but same stays
The rhyme: abab, cdcd
Efef and so it goes
All emotion fits four lines, this story.

If You Want to Make God Laugh

If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans

- Proverb (undoubtedly Jewish)

Homemade Strawberry Jam

Strawberry Jam is nice enough when it's a decent brand bought in a store. When it's home made by my nephews next door and my sister-in-law, their mum, however, it's superb. They bought a punnet of strawberries from the supermarket and with sugar and honey made this suberb jam. After I ate a bit of it, it's hard to revert to store-bought brands again. The freshness and the sheer strawberrieness of it came through so strongly. And the honey was the best touch.

However making it this way costs double the amount of a decent store bought brand and that doesn't include the skilled labour of the gaggle of kids who made this. So, sad to say, we won't get this strawberry jam very often as a result.

This jam was a special edition jar made for their grandma's birthday which we ate after the dinner of duck, fish, prawns and mango rojak.

Terza Rima - Poetry Exercise

The point of this exercise it to get familiar with terza rima which is a form of poetry where the rhyme scheme is aba, bcb, cdc, etc. It is an open form which means the poet can go on forever as opposed to closed forms where there are meant to be a fixed number of lines. It is stopped usually by adding an additional line to the last remaining stanza which so that the last stanza is abab instead. Or as Stephen Fry pointed out, Hopkins end stopped his by using a rhyming couplet instead.

The task was to write a self-referential terza rima explaining the form of the form.

Terza Rima:

I tried to write a rhyme once
Or twice, or thrice, but it was hard.
The rhythm slid away from this dunce.

Then I scribbled a terza rima shard
And it didn't seem too bad.
Not quite a poem yet - I'm not the Bard.

But aba, bcb, cdc, wasn't too hard
In fact I think I could go on and on
And on. Each interlocking rhyme is shared
Between the stanzas to lead me along.


This new poem written as an exercise comes after a haitus and is written in thanks too to another blogger who blogs on Taking5 who very kindly obtained a discounted copy of Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled for me. I had been using a copy from the National Library of Singapore and had already renewed it once. At the rate however that I was working through the book, it would have taken many more renewals and with each renewal at S$0.50, Taking5 had worked out it made more sense to buy a copy especially since she had a discount coupon. So I finally sat myself down in Dome in Dempsey today with an expresso and an orange carrot muffin to fuel me and worked this exercise out.

Many thanks to Taking5 for her encouragement.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

My nephews, all four, aged from 2+ to 9, actually baked these soft American style cookies and very nicely brought over a plateful, all nice and warm still from the oven. They were beautifully moist and the chocolate still half melted from the heat of the oven. Absolutely perfect in texture and taste so I immediately scoffed four and had to move the plate out of my own reach lest I eat the rest.

The flower is not edible just in case anyone was wondering.

I have a young sister

I have a young sister, far beyond the sea
many be the druries that she sent me

she sent me the cherry without any stone
and so she did the dove without any bone

she sent me the briar without any rind
she bade me love my leman without longing

how should any cherry be without stone
and how should any dove be without bone

how should any briar be without rind
how should any love my leman without longing

when the cherry was a flower then it had no stone
when the dove was an egg then had it no bone

when the briar was unbred then it had no rind
when the maiden hath that she loveth then she is without longing

ANON (circa early 15th century English song)

druries: love-gifts leman: sweetheart unbred: unborn

One of my favourite poems, so replete with sisterly love and understanding of love requited. I found it in a book of poems which a friend gave to me of poems that had been displayed in the London Underground.

Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Kopi

I have the perfect excuse for hanging out in cafes, drinking coffee and watching the world go by: work. Yes, now that I have to do market research on coffee serving cafes, their service and the quality of baristas, I'm happily spending time with my papers from work, reading and drinking coffee.

I have to say i really like Ya Kun's coffee. It's the local kopi-tiam kopi and I usually take mine kopi-c-kosong which for those of you unacquainted with the lingo here, it means coffee with milk without sugar. It comes in a little teacup of thick porcelain with a saucer to match and a tiny chinese spoon. I also had mine with two slices of their thin crisp brown bread toasted and spread with butter and kaya. Yum. I couldn't resist dipping my kaya toast into the kopi and I have to say it's actually rather good that way as long as I don't dip too much of it that i lose the crispness of the toast entirely.

The coffee? it's good. Thick and strong in flavour. It's very possibly from beans roasted with margarine or butter as it has that richness in it. Maybe corn? Not sure. But overall, the taste is excellent. The milk is rather strong as they usually use evaporated milk but the coffee taste still stands up well to the milk. It's way stronger in flavour than many a cuppa I've had in the expensive western style cafes. At S$1.50 it's also a lot cheaper but of course doesn't have the piped music etc but does have airconditioning and a fairly decent place to sit down even if not sofas.

Service levels were generally good. I've noticed that I'm usually served quickly and promptly and got pretty geniune smiles out of them when they served me and when I left the cafe. I've noticed the service at this particular cafe in Holland Village near my office tends to be quite consistently good so kudos to the staff there.

Human Pretzel

Yoga stretches parts of me I usually forget about. I'm reasonably flexible about the shoulders and the hamstrings but not around the sides of the waist, hips, knees or ankles. I've resumed yoga practice since joining Amore and as they have a branch at Heartland Mall, I try and make it there on Saturday morning when they have a very good instructor whose name escapes me at this time.

Last Saturday we were doing a lot of asanas which stretch the side just above the hip and twists which work the entire waist including the side. And given I feel like I'm developing a little paunch, I felt it was much needed.

We did an asana which was new to me: do the half lotus tree pose with one's hands together above the head and then bend and hold to either side for at least 30 seconds each time. We also stretched our sides in another asana where we were also in half lotus but with our knees on the group rather than either of our feet and this was a similar stretch for the waist.

We also did a very elegant (when properly done that is) dragonfly pose which involves lying on one's stomach and raising one leg straight up backwards as far as one can go and propping that leg up with the other leg. So it looks great but for me, my foot just kept pulling my track pants down steadily so I would give up at the point where it was going to lead to some immodesty although given that it was a room full of women, that didn't really matter.

Hopefully if I remember to stretch my waist, hips and ankles, they'll slowly become more flexible with time.

Gubana

I'd been wanting to do something special to mark Easter Sunday other than attending the Easter Vigil mass. So this year I decided to bake an Italian Easter bread called Gubana. Gubana is from a region east of Venice called Friuli, near the what used to be Yugoslav and Austrian borders. It's a briochelike dough rolled up like a strudel with a nut and dried fruit filling and twisted itself around like a snail then baked.

The recipe I used came from a book by Carol Field called "The Italian Baker". It's an excellent book and I've had good results from recipes I've tried in the past. And twisted doughs have always appealed to my inner aesthetic cook. So out I went on holy Saturday morning with my shopping list of ingredients.

As our domestic helper is always wanting to learn things new in the kitchen I decided she could do the dough and I would do the filling and walk her through the process. So I showed her the recipe and told her she could either use the electric mixer or knead it with her hands. She chose the mixer with the dough kneaders.

The process took the whole afternoon but of course much of that time was spent doing other things while waiting for the risings to take place. The fruit (mainly rasins and candied peel and lemon zest) and nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts) was mixed with a mixture of different liqueors and spirits so it tasted wonderful on its own. The filling was spread on the rolled out dough rather like spreading jam onto a swiss roll and then rolled up. The additional step was then to roll up again to form a round snail, wait for it to rise again then pop it in to bake in the oven.

The result was great when freshly baked but I was on the whole a bit disappointed with what it tasted like the next day. It was nice enough, but nothing to rave about. The fruit filling while it tasted great before being baked lost a lot of its nuance afterwards so I'd personally adjust the recipe to include more raisins and more liqueor.

As it doesn't have any artificial preservatives, it doesn't retain its freshness well although it keeps so it greatly benefits from toasting from the next day onwards. I felt that while it tasted nice enough, it could have been kneaded more to create a greater elasticity in the final bread plus maybe bread flour rather than all purpose flour would also help to that end. But it is actually meant to be a dense bread, so maybe the texture wasn't wrong, just that I prefer my bread slightly softer although I still like chewy textures. However while I grumble, you may notice that the only picture I managed to take is on the second day when most of the bread had already been eaten or given away. So it was certainly edible enough to get eaten fairly quickly and distracting enough for me to forget to photograph it freshly baked.

Overall verdict: interesting but not rave-worthy

Syllabic Verse Exercise

The next exercise in poetry was to write simple stanzas with pre-set numbers of syllables each. This form of poetry focuses on the number of syllables regardless of the number of stresses. It's not too common in English poetry because English is more of a stressed language than eg Japanese or Chinese where syllabic poems are far more common.


On Rain:

I saw my brother run once
Down the slope near home
I was driving up the slope and
Wondering why he ran

Then just behind him, a sheet
Of rain I saw. Light
But growing strong. It followed
Him to the door. Slam!


Hygiene:

Hygiene counts
When baking bread: no ants,
Birds,
Are allowed in
The kitchen while it's done.
At least during
Which
One's hands especially
Are washed, dried.

Kneading means
Wet, sticky, doughy hands.
But
Later this turns
A drier dough which springs back at
A gentle prod
So
Then we rest it and clean
Hands and wait.


As you can see, I was contemplating the process of baking as I had planned to bake an Italian Easter bread called Gubena so it seems more interesting to slant the poem in that direction. For those who are interested in the outcome of the baking, stay tuned.

Napolean

I watched the TV mini-series Napolean recently on DVD and was highly impressed. The acting was outstanding and the casting perfect with Christian Clavier doing a great job of portraying the Emperor of France in a way that one can understand how his humanity and charisma had men and women willing to give their lives and their love to him. I liked the way both his and Josephine's love life and their other loves were portrayed. In a way it struck me as being so much more realistic than many American type dramas are wont to be. Isabella Rosallini was the beautiful but older Josephine. Tallyrand, the foreign minister of the period, is also outstandingly acted by John Malkovitch, and typifies the whole balance of power approach to international (read European) politics of the time.

The costumes and scenes showed a period in French history that was breathtaking in its stately homes, and dress of the upper classes and aristocracy. I spent much of the time admiring the coats, tunics of the men who seemed to be more stunningly adorned than the women a lot of the time.

The war scenes were a real study in military tactics before the advent of fire power. There were some muskets in use but clearly the battle tactics had not yet adjusted to fire power with phlanxes of men forming squares and moving forward in large formations. Nowadays they'd be sitting ducks and the loss of life intolerable. But the bravery of the men was remarkable and also how Napolean needed to be there to inspire them.

I have to say also that just before watching it, I had read a thread on www.aikiweb.com which impressed me about the ability of the French to organise and have central command. Aikido is one of those organisations where the founding country, Japan still has a strong central Headquarters but in the manner of all human institutions, as the art spread across the world, the groups in different countries, as in Japan itself split. What struck me about France was that there are only 2 main schools there, one headed by Tamura Sensei and the other by Tissier Sensei who is himself recognised by Hombu Dojo. France is a large country with a strong tradition of aikido. My own country, much smaller already has 4 main schools. And apparently Israel has 47 and counting. It really dawned on me at that point that the French have a tremendous ability to organise themselves in large groups and to respect a central command which meant that they could have someone like Napolean lead a large army across Europe.

Anyway, the series is highly recommended for history buffs, for those who liked military history, Europhiles and anyone with a taste for period movies. The movie is beautifully shot and has sumptous sets and costumes.

Fruit and Veg Juice Galore

I've finally discovered a fruit juice stall that serves exactly what I want and more besides. And it was practically in my neighbourhood too. Or at least nearby in Hougang Street 21. There's a hawker centre next to Heartland Mall and the fruit juice stall has an amazing range of fruit and vegetable juices. I'm highly enthusiastic since it will make my detox days much easier. I'm soooo not into making my own juices because I always end up with too much fibre and hate cleaning the bits off the juicer.

So far I've tried three different mixtures he has. The pineapple and chye sim is fine. Not too green tasting but it's a nice green colour. The spinach and apple is sweeter, without the tanginess of the pineapple and is a slightly deeper green in colour. The beetroot takes the prize for colour with its gorgeous magenta hue ending in a purple-pink foam top which you can see in the photograph.

If I make it through to the end of the day with a detox, I'll go back and try three more. He has a chives and ginger one which sounds interesting but rather strong so I wonder if he dilutes it with some other fruit juice to make it more palatable. There's more exotic drinks like cactus juice and he does have a nice succulent cactus leaf hanging as part of his decor over the stall front.

Overall it's good to see an imaginative hawker who's come up with a much larger range of vegetable based juices to complement the usual fruit juices. And the fact that it seems to be surviving nicely certainly seems to imply there's a market out there for even healthier drinks than plain fruit juices.

His prices are usually around S$2.30 to S$2.60 or so for those of you who are curious enough to want to go try and he lists all the prices upfront. I didn't however ask his opening hours but he's certainly open in the mornings and my guess would be the whole afternoon and evening but I'm not sure what time he packs up. The nearest MRT is Kovan and it's just a couple of minutes walk from the station exit.

A Good Barista is Hard to Find

I went in search of good coffee yesterday and my search took me and my mum to two places: Highlander Coffee Cafe in Kampung Bahru/Blair Road area and Wiener Kaffehaus near 6th Avenue. Both were set up as specialist coffee houses by enthusiasts. One by a pair of Singaporean engineers in pursuit of their dream and higher coffee standards and the other by an Austrian who wanted to replicate the Austrian coffeehouse experience in Singapore.

I have to say I was disappointed as my expectations were high. I'd say the staff of both were eager to please and were definitely trying hard, but the coffee, for places which specialise in coffee, and roast and grind their own beans, the actual drinks turned out to fall short.

Both places are nice to sit and drink in: the Highlander is a cheery, newly renovated shophouse unit in the conservation Blair Plain area near Outram MRT station. They just reopened so perhaps that accounts for the less than knowledgeable staff, who presumably will learn as they go along, and I'm sure if I go back in a few months, I'll be able to ask questions about the beans etc and get more confident and knowledgeable answers. I liked most of the decor except the neon bits didn't really go with the shophouse ambience. The training area was behind a door and since there was a training session in progress, I wasn't able to take a peek at it.

The Wiener Kaffehause is meant to be a replication of an Austrain coffeehouse and has traditional leather covered, dark chocolate coloured seats and lots of lovely Gustav Klimt reproductions adorning the walls and a couple of art deco lamps here and there. The staff were certainly friendly and warm without being intrusive which I appreciated. The only thing missing was that since they do not roast the coffee on the premises, it doesn't have that coffee aroma hitting you once you walk through the door.

For those of you who would like details on the drinks: I had an expresso machiato at the Highlander Cafe and this turned out to have a very pretty clover pattern done with the crema but the taste of it was sour which I dislike very much in coffee. I'd rather bitter than sour and in fact I'm one of those who never adds sugar to coffee because that seems to result in a sour aftertaste once the initial sweetness wears off. The whole cafe smelled great as did the actual expresso, and one of the reasons why I dragged my mum along was that she has a far more sensitive nose and palate than I do, and I wanted her opinion since my taste buds and nose aren't quite as reliable as hers. Turns out she had the same opinion as me except more exaggerated. So I rest my case. Either that or having been brought up on kopi tiam beans, she's a Malaysian kopi devotee.

In the Wiener Kaffehaus, the decaffinated cappucino was better although it left me wishing I had ordered an expresso machiato as well so that I would be able to taste the coffee without the milk getting too much in the way. However, I still am not convinced it was as good as it could have been. It didn't have a sour aftertaste but it was not as full bodied as it could have been. I do also think it got a little bit overfoamed. My mum's verdict on the cappucino was again similar to mine but less enthusiastic.

The big hit was sachertorte which my mum positively gobbled up, she liked it so much...I found it just a little dry but the taste as my mum atested to, was a wonderful mixture of chocolate and a touch of almond and cherry.

The best coffee of the western roasted variety that is, I've had in Singapore, still remains in Da Paolo's restaurant along Jalan Merah Saga. It caught me by surprise as I simply wasn't expecting great coffee and it was at the end of a business lunch. And I'm generally not too picky and ordered a decafe cappucino but when I took the first sip, I was very pleasantly surprised and now I know what coffee aficiandos fuss about. It was a taste bud opener. Sadly the gastronomia place under the same ownership does not do decaf any longer so I've stopped ordering coffee from there.

Tau Hui with a Twist!

At Serangoon Gardens Chomp Chomp hawker centre, there's a stall which serves the traditional soya bean curd in the usual ways, plain or with toppings such as gingko nuts, lotus seeds or flavoured with traditional flavours such as almond etc. What makes this place unique is that it also serves flavoured soya bean: bandung (read rose syrup with carnation evaporated milk poured over) is what is shown in the photograph. It really does taste like bandung, the drink of milky rose syrup and is a very pretty pink.

The bowl to the rear of the picture contains the more traditional tau hui with gingko nuts on top which is one of my favourites.

There are other interesting flavours. I liked the green tea one which has a distinct green tea flavour to it and a more gelatinous texture, more jelly like than tau hui-like with a dark green transclucent hue to it. The chocolate one, sad to say isn't that chocolately, so chocolate lovers consider this to be more asian flavour chocolate ie lightly chocolate only. I haven't yet tried the other flavours although I've seen my aikido buddies lap up all manner of colourful choices with gusto. They're major fans and the ones who introduced me to this stall. For them, they love the texture but personally I still prefer the more liquid texture of the more traditional tau hui, but for variety of flavours, they sure can't be beat: the baskin robbins of tau hui.

Alliterative-Accentual Verse

I tend to write on a full stomach rather than empty so when I did this exercise, I was thinking more of drinks and snacks so my food tends to be less robust than what Stephen Fry came up with. However as the exercise is more about writing in the bang bang bang - crash! style ie alliterate three times and then change in a line, so it scarecly matters really what the subject matter is.

Here's my attempt and for those of you who don't yet know what alliteration is, you will by the end of the poem.

Things I Want or Don't Want to Eat or Drink Right Now:

Chocolate comes first or cocoa with froth,
A lemony drink or lime leached juice
Speedily hits the spot and sooths but then
Coffee doesn't. Caffeine kills my mind
But my body remains hyped: bouncing off the walls

I crave kana a lot, those clumps of fruit
Dried, salty, sour and sweet - I drool
Now that I'm done with drinks and desert, I desperately want
A Kaya toast: covered in coconut eggy jam
Thin crisp bits of bread, buttered and hot.

Or half-boiled eggs basting brown wholemeal toast
With soya sauce and pepper, spotting the yolk
Teh halia heaving with froth is heaven I think
So I'll stop soon enough to ready my mug
Yew tiao too is tea-dipping worthy

I wouldn't want wanton mee right now
Nasi lemak's not nice - too gelak
Oyster omelette oozes oil and lard
All these add on an extra pound or two
So to the gym I go and gallop on the treadmill.

Poetry Exercise: Anapaestic Hexameters & Dactylic Pentameters with Spondees

Can't say the title sounds that appetising with all those technical terms in it. Nevertheless I plough on with one quatrain of anapaestic hexameters which for those of you who are interested means a di di dum beat and six of them in a line.

The exercise was to write a quatrain of such lines as directions to one's house. Since I'm not about to place a set of directions to my house online, I've written a set of directions which will hopefully take one from my office to the nearest Catholic Church.

At the end, Merah Saga, turn right at the lights. Again Right. Up the slope
To the T, a third right. Go on past all those flats. Filter left at the cross
Farrer Road. At the lights midway down go on left. Empress Road
Old Market so go past. No, it's not the white spire on your right. Instead look
Straight ahead and you'll see. There she stands: new St Ig's, looms above.

And the second half of writing metres was to write a quatrain of dactylic pentameter ending with spondees at the end of each line.

Stopping for a Cow crossing the road:

First one I saw as a child was on route up to Penang.
Still so she stood on the road. She was muddy, bedraggled
Queen though she strolled on across as her hooves did go clip clop
Forced so, we waited, ablare was our horn and we wooshed past.

The second exercise was slightly more enjoyable to write...clearly I like cows more than I like giving directions. Fortunately we take a pause from stressed syllable counting in the next exercise as we move to alliterative beats instead.

Poetry Exercise: Tetrameter, Trimeter

We take a break from the pentameter here. The exercise was to take the subject, television and write

(a) two quartrains of standard, eight syllable iambic tetrameter

A whirr of words and issues too
The PR crises fly. Control
The press, with truth, not lies, just spin
It lightly so. That's CJ's job.

The bargining, the compromise,
All part of cooking law, Thus Josh
And Sam and Leo too, all work
To get things through: the White House Corp

(b) two quatrains of alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter

A little town called Stars Hollow
Community abounds.
There's Luke, the grumpy diner man
And Taylor, grocer old

But most of all, the girls themselves:
The Gilmore daughter and mum
They're smart and sassy and their words
Do snap, crackle and pop

(c) Two quatrains of trochaic tetrameter: one in "pure trochee" (dum-di instead of di-dum) and one with docked weak endings in the second and fourth lines.


Dead man speak not through words.
Science clears the mist. Just blood
Spattered or paint scratched off can
Clue the team and cases crack

Murderers they find entrenched in
Crime. The lab reveals all that.
Intent still needs a human touch
Jigsaw the remaining facts



No prizes for guessing my favourite TV shows.

Pyrrhic and Trochaic Substitutions & Weak Endings

The next exercise involved writing in some pyrrhic substitutions, trochaic and weak endings to a basic iambic pentameter. Write 16 lines on any contemporary news items, so ordered Stephen Fry. It was, I found, a very difficult exercise.

The Jargon:

Pyrrhic substitutions: instead of the basic iamb di-dum, it's di-di
Trochaic: instead of di-dum, it's dum-di
Weak endings: at the end of the usual heroic (iambic pentameter line) add an unstressed syllable/word

Pyrrhic and Trochaic substitutions both score 5 points each while weak endings and emjambments score 2 points each. Points are deducted for poor style.

The results:

On the recent escape from the Whitley Detention Centre by Singapore's most wanted man and JI operative, Mas Selamat Kastari.

We seek him here. We seek him there. We seek
Him everywhere through undergrowth, through roads and
Sea. But selamat datang, mas. A ghost.

Enjambment: 4 pts
Weak ending: 2 pts
Trochaic substitutions: 5 pts
Deductions: 0

Total: 11

On the hustings in Malaysian elections:

The date's been set. The ruling Barisan
And opposition parties' race is on
"Vote!" they all cry, "It is your right you know."
But sad to say, democracy's a game
That's hard to win, in best of times. Even
A fool can win, though, of course one hopes not.

Pyrrhic substitions: 12.5
"Barisan"...I wasn't sure if this was a pyrrhic sub to be honest so I'll cut these points to half for that particular one. The other disputable one is at the end "hopes not".
Trochees: 5
Weak Endings:0
Enjambments: 4
Poor style: - 5

Total: 16

I really did have a problem deciding if some phrases were equally stressed or pyrrhic subsitutions. And I found my ear getting somewhat inaccurate after a while, rather like drinking too much wine to be able to taste it well. So if anyone disputes my scores, I would happily accept some independent criticism.

On the proposed means testing in Singapore hospitals to determine the level of subsidy for patients:

A sliding scale, a "Testing Mean", or is
It "Mean Testing"? Oops, I mean "Means". But not
The plural of "mean", I mean. A fairer means?

Trochees: 5
Pyrrhic Substitutions: 2.5 (again I'm having a problem as I think it's two words emphasied next to each other rather than a pyrrhic sub so I'm deducting half)
Enjambment: 4 pts
weak ending: 2 pts

Total: 13.5


On the recent move by the IIF to debate a banking code discourage short term risk taking at long term cost through restructuring compensation packages for bankers:

The Institute of International
Finance debates a banking code: to cut
Pay in the aftermath of subprime woe.
Can law subdue such unbridled greed so?

Pyrrhic Subs: 5
Trochees: 20
Enjambments: 4
Poor Style: -5

Total: 24

Grand total: 64.5

My total is a far cry from Stephen Fry's 106 and my pyrrhic subs aren't always actually pyrrhic subs. I wasn't that happy with the quality of the verse either but well, I guess that's why Stephen Fry's a celebrated writer and I'm not :).

Poetry Exercise: Enjambments & Caesuras

The next exercise for crafting poetry is to write run-on lines (otherwise known as enjambed lines) and write in some pauses (caesuras) on top of a basic iambic pentameter couplet. So I first wrote a set of five couplets in straight iambic pentameter with end stopped lines and a second set as a variation on the first with enjambments and caesuras. The subjects were given by Stephen Fry.

1. Precisely what you see and hear outside your window

end stopped:
I sit and hear a car and bike roll past.
I see a tree with leaves so green give shade.

enjambed:
A bike goes swish. A car roars past. But green
Remains the tree. In silence growing strong.

2. Precisely what you would like to eat right this minute.
NB: since I did this exercise right after lunch I wasn't hungry but wanted a nice drink so that's what I wrote about.

end stopped:
A cappucino would be nice to sip
Or cold green tea sans sucre oh so sweet

enjambed:
A frothy drink, all steaming hot, would suit
Me fine. Or else a tea, all icy green. Sweet.

3. Precisely what you last remember dreaming about:

end stopped:
I really don't remember what I dream
I fall asleep and wake and all is gone

enjambed:
The dark enfolds: I fall asleep. Enwrapped
am I till dawn. Then sunbeams wake: all dreams are gone.

4. Precisely what uncompleted chores are niggling at you:

end stopped:
My income tax forms call out to be filled.
And my computer desk so old discard.

enjambed:
More tax, more tax - more papers still remain
Unfilled. Computer desk so old it must go soon.

5. Precisely what you hate about your body

end stopped:
I wish I had a slimmer tum and arms
More hair but not upon my legs but head

enjambed:
Tight abs: not me! Nor toned, taut arms. Alas,
My hair: it falls but grows too slow. O me.

Poetry Exercise: Iambic Pentameter

I've been inspired by my cousin's example and Stephen Fry's book, "The Ode Less Travelled". From the moment I read the first line of the Forward, " I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry." I was sold. I got myself a notebook and am now taking spare moments to put pen to paper and start practising the craft of poetry. It'll at the very least give me a greater attention to words and hopefully make me write more carefully even in everyday speech and writing. And it's also fun.

Here below are the results of the first exercise: a batch of iambic pentameter lines which are non-rhyming.

On an Aikido (Japanese Martial Art session):
I went and threw my uke so he fell
And hit the mat with an almighty bang

NB: an uke is one's partner and crash dummy in aikido as we practice in pairs co-operatively

On my cafe du chocolat from the Japanese bakery:
This choc-filled bun is wonderfully yum

On waiting by the phone:
I wait and wait: my mobile does not ring

On my new pair of dress trousers recently purchased from GG>5:
My trouser legs have seven buttons each
A show of leg and ankle they do line

On email missent:
In office land I stare at my computer screen
Aghast that I have sent an email wrong

On my dogs greeting visitors:
My dogs are runing up and down the stairs
Excited, barking: strangers they proclaim

On waiting for my prennially late friend:
I can't believe she's *always* late, and then
she goes and does it yet again. O hell.

On prayer:
I pray my prayers each morning, noon and night
Awaiting God, His Presence, Love and Grace

My prayer go forth, an arrow seeking light
From darkness bursting doubt and into faith

On work and frustration:
I try and try but nothing's going right
My boss's words of comfort scarcely heard

Birthday Celebrations

My parents, two aunts and my cousin and I recently repaired to the nearby Bintan Island, Indonesia, a short hour long ferry ride away from Singapore. We stayed in a lovely little villa part of a series of villas called Banyan Biru (after the large-ish pond which both my aunt and dad were at pains to point it was green rather than blue or "biru"). It was really a lovely birthday celebration for me and I'm very glad that so many people were actually able to make it and share these few days with me. So thank you to all of you who could make it.

I came back to a lovely surprise dinner party organised by my sister and my sister-in-law contributed lots of dishes too. It turned out to be lots and lots of scrummy food with my brother-in-law turning out a wonderful duck dish for which he made a great marmalade wine sauce. Yum!

All I can say is after 3 days of feasting and being pampered in a spa, I'm spoiled. Thank you to my dear family!

Conehead

Custard, my one year old dog, got neutered on Valentine's Day and has since had to wear a cone to prevent him from licking and potentially infecting his wound. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about being left at the vet and I had to trick him to go into the consultation room, but he recovered quickly from this operation, much to my relief, and by the following morning, had returned to all his mischevious ways.

After a puzzled evening when he was still dopey and bumping everything because of his new dress, he has discovered how to do virtually all his usual tricks, upsetting the dustbin in the kitchen, sticking his nose out the gate at the hole just when one is about to stick in one's hand to open the gate, and generally figuring out how to eat and drink with his Elizabethean collar on.

My very macho little nephew, all of 7 years old, laughed and called him a girl dog for wearing a girl collar so they got a little education in Elizabethean male and female fashion.

I'll remove the collar on Friday morning assuming there's no further problem and no sign of infection. I figure a week is enough for things to have stabilised.

To Friendship

I have a very dear friend, who sends me flowers each valentine's day and I, her...it's a girls' tradition for us and while we have been physically separated much of our lives by entire continents and oceans, she of all my friends, is the one who understands me best, with whom I have carried on an unending correspondance and with whom I can always pick up as if there's been no gap whenever we see each other again. So to my beloved friend, thank you very much once again for a bunch of flowers that so aptly celebrates our friendship.

Here's to friendship.

Coconut & Lemongrass Ice Cream

Our domestic helper is a whizz in the kitchen. This weekend she decided to turn her hand to ice cream and after she figured out (from me) that the recipe's mention of an ice cream maker was unnecessary (as I told her the word "alternatively" meant she could still use the manual method), she turned out an intensely flavoured ice cream redolent of my childhood. The lemongrass gave it both a nice tanginess as well as a lemony aroma which was not too sharp and citrusy. I could taste the coconut but what surprised me was that the end taste was actually reminiscent of condensed milk: another childhood comfort flavour. It must be all that sugar and cream and maybe she used brown sugar or gula melaka?

The texture, for those who like their ice cream to be creamy and smooth, is not that great because it does need stirring every hour for the first 2-3 hours. Otherwise ice crystals form within. However my mother who grew up with homemade ice cream actually much prefers this nostalgic, icy, flaky texture so I guess in our home, that's the way it will continue to be made. However for those who didn't grow up in that era, but instead on the rich creaminess of American superfatted ice creams, you'll need a ice cream maker or be particularly diligent about repeatedly whipping it into shape.

Funky Blue Shoes

In a fit of frustration over someone at work, I went out and bought a new pair of funky blue shoes.

I don't usually do retail therapy but as this pair was a steal at S$20 and such an cheerful bright blue and white, they made me feel happy just looking at them.

It helped that I did need a new pair of casual blue shoes as my other pair was on its last legs.