Work/Play?

Home cooked meals are usually prepared by the lady of the house, until late last year when the thought of food made her retch. So I had to step up to the plate, literally, and have been the household chef for half a year.

My second office

The last time I did any sort of regular cooking was during uni days in Scotland and even then, we were more like line cooks putting out dishes from a small deli with a very limited menu. Every evening my housemates and I will all take our places in the kitchen/pantry and automatically carry out our roles - there will be a fella to chop the garlic, onions and sausages (we put sausages in a lot of things), peel the potatoes (if necessary), prepare the chicken (toughest job I think, because its always frozen) or cook the rice (hmm...I don't remember ever doing this). For one year, we ate more or less the same thing over and over. I didn't mind.

This dish turned out messier than I expected...

Now that's something my wife finds hard to accept. She yearns for variety in her meals and it shows in her cooking, she has never cooked the same dish in the same way twice if she can help it ... and its a good thing I can eat almost anything. So I felt the need to reciprocate and tingle her taste buds.

Initially it was hard for me. The focus of my cooking was 'I hope it is edible'. Or 'God, let there not be food poisoning'. After a while, I started getting better at organizing the workflow and deciding how I'm going to attack the ingredients and transform it into a nice meal. Only then did I think about other things like trying out new ingredients and giving thought to the presentation.

I didn't expect to say it but I enjoy cooking. I was thinking of handing the portfolio back to my wife after the delivery and all, but I'm thinking otherwise now, maybe we'll take turns. I love planning the meals for the upcoming week, looking for new recipes to try and especially seeing the finished product, whether it succeeds or fails.

I've been thinking about why this is so. Maybe its because I work in the service industry, where you clock in at a certain time and then use a few liters of your saliva throughout the day. Then close, recuperate and repeat the next day. For all the efforts put in, the results are intangible and usually only a figure on a piece of paper at the day's closing report. Also the amount of saliva used is NOT PROPORTIONAL to that final figure.

It's different when doing the things I enjoy - lets say photography.
1) The result is tangible. It can end up as a printed photo in a frame or photobook.
2) The result is proportional to the creative input. It also inspires more intrinsic learning and researching to improve that result.
3) I have complete autonomy over the whole process...this last one being one of the most important.
Sounds very much like cooking then.

That's not to say making money from your saliva is a bad thing, but I do realize that I'm subconsciously seeking a balance. And its not about one being work and the other play, photography and cooking can be either work or play. It's all about the mindset then. Bon Appétit!

Antenatal Class at Hospital Likas

We attended an antenatal class at Hospital Likas last Saturday. Someone suggested it to us, my wife did some asking around and we were told to be there for the registration at 8.30am.

There were quite a lot of people present already and the morning started off with a tour of the facilities, the labour wards and the delivery room. We then adjourned to a hall where they delivered a series of lectures.

First time parents get priority with the Dum-By (Dummy Baby)

Topics included pregnancy and complications, an introduction to painkillers during delivery (including epidural), medicines to avoid during pregnancy, breastfeeding and some hands on tutorial sessions with the nurses.

The practical sessions were what we found most useful, particularly the handling and bathing of the baby. The nurses were very experienced (most of them being mothers themselves) and walked around supervising as we listened to the instructor.

Its quite daunting sometimes when I think that I'm going to be a parent soon. On one hand I'm very excited but on the other there is some nervousness as to how things are going to turn out and whether I'm prepared for it. But one thing I'm sure of is that I'm grateful for all the advice and support given to us so far from many experienced hands.

Meal Snap

There's this app that I really like, Meal Snap. I've started counting calories few years back after having successfully lost close to 20 kilos and was determined not to gain any of it back. Its more of a guesswork than exact science...having to look at a dish and 'oh 200 kcals maybe?' So I read about this app, downloaded it and highly recommend it if you're looking to keep a tab on your daily caloric intake.

The first time I tried it, I was quite impressed. The values are more or less in the range of what was on the label/what I guessed.

I was more impressed that they described the 'Lurve' as multigrain chips. Its as if there's some human operator going through all the snapshots, googling the product and then sending them back to the app.

Hmm...so what if I...

Not bad. How about...

 And this one?

All in all, a pretty fun app to use. However, the app lags quite a bit. One search can take anywhere from 15mins to an hour (maybe needing a referral to a human to determine what that thing is). Sometimes longer. I had a couple of searches that were 'lost' - as in totally no results at all. It will just show you a blank snapshot instead of the one you submitted.

Still, its a new app and I hope they do improve with subsequent updates.

Ubik

I love reading good stories. Stories that are so captivating that it just sucks you into whatever world the author has in mind and so compelling that  you just want to keep turning the page to find out what comes next, despite having to be at work in a couple of hours time. 'You just can't put the book down' kinda thing...

...or rather can't switch the book off.

For me, one such book is Ubik. I was googling 'The Adjustment Bureau' trying to decide which movie to  watch a few weeks back and from wiki, one link led to another before eventually ending with this book. I got the soft copy and what a read!

Unfortunately thanks to excessive googling for reviews, I started already knowing how the surprise twists will play out later in the book (DAMN!!!). In spite of this, I still was hooked to every single word. And I don't generally read science fiction but I enjoyed this one, literally not putting down my phone till I've finished it in the wee hours of the morning.

The beginning may be a bit of a turn off with all the jargons and futuristic (despite the story being set in 1992, but hey its written in the 1960s) technology like 'cold pac', 'protophasonic flow' and 'homeopape' but yes you do have to invest some time absorbing this for the story to be rewarding. Kinda like Inception, where you learn about the 'architects', 'dreamers' and 'limbo' and how the story revolves around those basic ideas.

There are some news about this book being made into a movie in the near future as have many of the author's other works - Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau to name a few. Sadly it was only after his death that his works gained much recognition and he struggled with financial difficulties throughout his life. Some may say he didn't know how to market his genius. I think he was way ahead of his time.

Goodbye

I got a very early morning phone call from one of my aunts last Tuesday and she informed me that my grandmother had passed away.

Initially I felt sad and grieved over her death, but as the day passed and the more I thought about the circumstances in which she had gone, the more I see things differently. She's lived to a ripe, old age of 94 dying peacefully in her sleep, virtually free of disease - no hypertension, no diabetes, normal cholesterol levels, no 'fong sap' and is a great grandmother many times over. Most of us will be lucky to achieve that these days. When my plane touched down in Penang that night I had fully accepted the fact and was ready to move on.

The only regret that I have is that I didn't get to know her better. There was this massive language barrier, us with our laughable command of hokkien, we probably sounded to her like Phua Chu Kang talking 'engrish' with a foreigner. We knew her through our parent's stories of her days back in China and all, but conversations between us were few. The only words I remember her directly addressing to us the grandchildren were to 'study hard and succeed in life.'

There are no excuses though. Language is a barrier yes, but not insurmountable. My wife, ever a beacon of support, summed it very nicely by saying in her consolation that there may be regrets but its time to move on holding the important people in our lives closer. I couldn't agree more.

Moon

I was walking to my car after work on Saturday and saw this massive halo around the moon. I've heard about the moon being the brightest and biggest that day but I didn't expect to see the ring. It was awesome! Some people, when faced with such a beautiful sight like this, would be overcome emotionally, or feel a sudden desire to write poetry. Maybe even call a loved one and share the experience together. All I could think of was "Tripod! I need my tripod now! And a wide angle lens!"

After a very quick drive back, I was fumbling with the keys to the house before I realized that that the moon was going nowhere that night. In fact I didn't need to rush, I would later spend more than 10 minutes under the moonlight in the garden, experimenting with long shutter speeds and generously feeding the mosquitoes.

There is beauty everywhere, even in the ordinary and mundane, if you care to look for it.

Unrolling A Film

I shot one roll of film through a camera last week before realizing that the shutter did not open at all. Now I've read about unrolling the film from an already wounded roll few years back, but never had a chance to do it. What I did is take another roll of unwanted film, lick it and stick it into the film canister. The saliva is supposed to snag on to the film leader and drag the film out to be reused, but trust me this is harder than it sounds. I managed the feat after half an hour.

Here are some tips that I've learned.
1) Never lick the film. Uggghhhh! The unwanted film had already been developed and the chemicals tasted terrible. Spit or rub some saliva on it, but never lick it!
2) Make sure you insert the unwanted film deep enough. A good measure of how deep is when you see the film canister rolling (the pic below) in response to your pushing, then you know you've latched onto the film.

3) Try turning the film around in the canister. Sometimes when the film has been rewound, the leader has gone too far inside and its difficult to latch on to it. Turn it around a bit and try again, if the leader is in the right position then it will come out easily.