chemistry 2011 auld lang syne

2011 - sign language class farewell

solly street's tofu day

dear daisy,
cooking made easy. an average time to spend for cooking a day is an hour, including cleaning and washing. today's theme was vegetarian (V) fusion of chinese and japanase. it was my first attempt of mapo tofu - blended with my liking of spicy and sweet sour.

V&A museum visit

smoking is bad.

dear daisy,
i don't like people who smokes, even for social purpose. it is so uncool and distasteful, even for someone with a look of the late james dean. smoking is degrading one's and other's health - it is like BP oil spill in the mexican gulf last year, although after massive clean up, the effects on population health and ecosystem are disastrous and compelling.

in this case, BP is not the tobacco company nor the smoker. sometime this year BP filed a lawsuit of 40 billion against transocean. neither transocean has anything to do with smoker. i'm just implying that smoking is bad for health and ecosystem. nonetheless.

another london folly

dear daisy,
in this depression climate and the struggle to make more money for the year during so called boxing day, tube strike was yet another industrial folly. there were a lot less people on the road and at shopping complexes than usual hey days before chrismas. pity to retailers and owners, boxing day shopping is not an anticipated activity anymore.

on that particular morning, autumnal breeze of winter made walking across hyde park easier. we opted for walking rather than cramming ourselves in densely packed double decker to get to our destinations around london.

there wasn't any snow this year in london, winter has probably shifted into next year leaving end of 2011 with a long autumn. there were surprisingly a lot of malaysians in london who lack of gestures and smiles (unlike the hospitality shown in the malaysia truly asia advert). poor those delegates from malaysia who came here for winter experience and shopping spree.

our travel to london was made easier by free parkings at single yellow line and at non resident spaces. perhaps, this would be the last time we could enjoy driving for free in london. i read in news that the municipal wants to charge up to 4.80 pound per hour during weekend and bank holidays starting next year.

the rom com follies

dear daisy,
it is never quite easy to let away high school and undergraduate tragedies of being turned down, rejected, struggling with pre-adolescence symptoms (i called it pizza face) and average kid (not too smart and not too bright). i wasn't a smarties, never fit into such group neither belong to girls with good looks and rockstar boyfriends. you could say i was something like 'the cinderella's story which starred hillary duff, only the scene where she danced gracefully under the brilliant, brightly lit sky along with beautiful strumming of edwan mccain's i'll be never happened to me for real.

we all love rom com, it is an escapade from harsh reality to those who love reading and schooling, can't afford prada at twenty and dream of fun, good looking guy who would love to laugh at your jokes to be your significant other. say katherine heigl in the ugly truth - and the good looking guy is gerald butler. (and i'm the katherine, mr.M is the gerald butler auwch! loving it).

jeniffer aniston dubbed as the world's sexiest woman by one man magazine for her subtle wit and good looking figure at 40s. looking back, now at age nearly 29 i think i can achieve anything if i move forward and let bygone be bygone. i have 11 years to 40.

i spent my day today blog hopping at blogs written by some malaysian teenagers, just to see how much things had changed over the past 12 years inevitably of getting annoyed by their language and expressions especially on how cheesy love at 16 and 17 can be. if only i could shout out loud to their ears - love sucks!! get a degree first. massive divorce at 26th without a degree will get you nothing except a salesgirl job at local supermarket. unless you're super pretty good looking, you'll land a job at a chanel counter.

it is not that i'm promoting love-relationship before marriage, i understand at this blossoming age, love looks so wonderful as pictured in romeo and juliet but shakespeare died nearly 400 years ago. you've got to think better than that. according to today's report 20% of marriage since 2005 ended up in divorce.

carrying a divorcee or single mother title isn't easy. it's nicer to be a geek or brainy with a high paid job (thanks to your degree, rather than an ambitious middle age stuck up without a degree - because, with money you can buy good look, good clothes and of course nice shoes).

how i met your mother! in sheffield

one fine evening, on the way to a local coffee shop..

kerabu apple -

dear daisy,
lately i am craving for thai manggo salad and it brought me to an asian-fusion restaurant at meadowhall which cost me a staggering 10 pound a plate. my verdict? - i think the chef need to learn how to exactly make the real thai manggo salad.

i googled the recipe over the internet and later adjusted the recipe accordingly to my taste and ingredients that easily found in the UK. special thanks to my mother-in-law who taught me how to make kerabu some years ago, so this recipe has her influence in some way. i used granny smith apples to replace small green manggo as i like the bit of sweet and sour yet crunchy taste. for this recipe also i used boiled, blended and later fried mackerel to replace dried small prawns. anyway, here are the rest of ingredients for the making of kerabu apple:

ingredients:

boiled, blended and fried mackerel (500g)
anchovies - fried and blended (half a cup)
bird's eye chili or cili padi (as much as you like - i used about 10) blend together with anchovies
4 granny smith apples (skinned and sliced)
2 big shallots - sliced
half a cup of rice vinegar
half a cup of fructose syrup
one tea spoon of salt
3 cloves of garlic (chopped thin)

to make:
mix all ingredients together and serve chilled.

to garnish:
add coriander leaves

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ratings: *** mr.M said that he will buy me a proper shredder on boxing day.

my december

dear daisy,
it's now coming to the end of the year, marking another year in the UK - hustle and bustle, ups and lows as a student. (not really making a success yet, really).
my life has been occupied with reading and learning new things, - i picked up british sign language, beginner's course - and of course with beginner's luck the whole universe conspired to help me to achieve that. (quoted from the alchemist - coelho). another things in my interest are life sciences and economy (freak-o-nomics free market literally). (pretty much, i spent most of my time observing at occupied movements across the world - seen one in sheffield and amsterdam, also reading newspapers, journals and books).

i save my thoughts for other time because otherwise it will be a long posting. right now i am in the lab, cultivating cells from epidermis received from an obese patient who underwent abdominoplasty - so basically i only have fifteen minutes to ramble and whine about my dissatisfactions, works and people.

the people i truly pissed at the moment is those scavengers who literally picked on gullible, naive and vulnerable people to buy their multi-level-marketing scheme (MLM) with promising success, good health and also good look. not that i rejected the MLM idea totally, (the products are super-mega expensive), i have a deep repugnance on the health and medical benefit claims by those products and agents, although some of them are professionally practising medicine. (it is against the law to do such thing!)

urgh....

Kosmo! Online - Rencana Utama

Kosmo! Online - Rencana Utama