Getting caught in the drizzle 3 times yesterday coupled with 2 very cold bus rides (one from NUS to Bedok, the other for Shenton way to NUS), I started to sneeze my night away and feel that the flu bug has gotten me this time. Yes... You know that sick feeling that comes? You feel so lethargic that all you want to do is sleep the whole day. You feel your body's temperature increasing as you start emitting lots of heat. Hmmm... And, the weather today doesn't seem to improve. It just rains the whole day. It's so gloomy and even more of a hassle if you wanna go out (or rather have to go all the way to the west for project meetings. Gee... And it's my free day!!!).

Bleah...

There is just SO much to do, read, read, and read some more... and just NOT ENOUGH TIME!!! grrr.... And it's only the 2nd week for school!!!

I had a major cupcake craving a couple of weeks ago. A first for me, because I have never been into cupcakes. But, after you've tried NYC's Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, it's no wonder that the cravings jus come back to haunt you. And, in particular, I was craving for yes... Magnolia cupcakes. One chocolate and one vanilla, yes... add the buttercream on! It's so light and not overwhelmingly sweet. I simply love it.

But, sadly, I am more than 24hours away from any whiff of Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes, and of course that is excluding the airfare required to get there. So, I had to settle for Magnolia's online recipe for their vanilla cupcakes. I saw the chocolate one too, but decided there were too many ingredients to buy. So, started my cake baking frenzy before school started. I started off with a half-ed recipe and tried making my own buttercream (in which I failed terribly). After ditching the idea of producing any replica of Magnolia's super good buttercream, I decided to jus stick to cupcakes. Yes yes... the cupcakes were good!!! So, as my good old foodie researched suggested, I decided to try nutella cupcakes. Cupcakes with nutella (or rather chocolate spread, cos I couldn't find nutella in Carrefour!!!) swirled into it. And, it turned out not too bad.

My first attempt at cupcakes... and buttercream. Haha.. tried to add colours to make its pathetic state a bit more exciting. And, since it was daddy's birthday, I tried making him a cake with chocolate ganache. All thanks to shows like Dessert Circus (and, I was using Jacques Torres chocolate which I got from NYC!! haha...) I was super inspired to do a mean chocolate ganache. Haha.. the Ganache came out good, but the cake needed some modifications in terms of shape. Haha.. Still not very expert yet, and in the end, this was wad came out of my first cake baking attempt! Whee... I was far too lazy to go buy the icing and all, and since mummy had some spare cherries, she decided to make good use of them. hee... Simple, but, well made with love. =)

On a note on daddy's birthday, we went to eat Indian food (Mango Tree @ East Coast Park)with a bunch of good ole pals (my parents' pals.. ie.) Indian food, cos I was craving for it. I love Indian food!!! Yummy... Oh, that reminds me!!! They jus opened a Middle Eastern food store in Bizad!!! Yippppeee.... Hummus... Yum!! Yoghurt dips!! Yummy!!! KEBABS!!! okok... back to my story. So, we ordered a variety of dishes and shared everyone of them and it was good!!! I LOVED every dish!!! dang.. if only my stomach had more space.

Gee.. with all that eating I wonder how many pounds I have put on... Sigh... Diet diet diet...

School starts tomorrow. *yawn*

Welcome back to the reality of slogging super hard for a miserly few marks. Singapore, what to do? If only I were still in Austin studying. It's so much easier to score there!

Oh... And... We just received an email from the vice Dean which I found highly amusing.

"...could you all please don't turn up in School in your inexpensive slippers (strapless behind the heels) from now on? ... this is the only branding requirement for our School; it would only work if we all observe this. Again, I know some female slippers are fashionable (and expensive); it is only the el cheapo type that female students should avoid, in solidarity with male students..."

Yar... I don't care. I am still going to wear my fake Havaianas look-a-like there and it cost only $5. What difference would it make? It still looks almost like Havaianas which normally costs about $20+.

Well, maybe if they started giving us GOOD discounts (maybe 30-40%) at good shoe shops like Charles and Keith, URS and VNC, I would consider.

Happy 41st Birthday, Singapore!

It's the last time that National Day Parade was going to be held in the old National Stadium. I hear that it is going to be torn down. Well, we were lucky to get tickets to the actual day parade. At, yes, it was really enjoyable. Haha.. Mummy and I were super on. But daddy was more content reading his papers. Haha... It wasn't till dark that he decided to join in the fun. However, it was a really fun family outing. And, it was so funny to see Daddy take a bus, cos my good ole man drives almost every where. He doesn't even have an EZ link card! Haha... He didn't even know how to tap the EZ link card at first. See la... Always drive, then dunno how to take bus. But, it was a really cool family only (Aunty Fiona was supposed to come, but she got sick.. =(, so it was jus the 3 of us.) outing that involved an activity and not jus going out for dinner.
As usual, the crowd was highly amused during the fireworks display. But, after Rudi imparted some knowledge on what is considered good fireworks display, I realized that the NDP ones are jus a whole CHUNk of fireworks. Haha... But, it was still fun! And.. Ooo... see the Moove Media marketing cow at the NDP! So cute rite? And, this year's fun pack bag is really nice! I really like it!! =)

Of course, I was trigger happy as usual. Snapping away!! And, I was attempting so MANY times to take family photos. But, apparently, daddy doesn't like to smile. No wonder he complaines that my smile is too big. And of course, with aiming problems (since we were taking our own photos..) we got only a few decent photos after shooting like probably a thousand times.
Guess who I saw at NDP? Daryl YAp! Yuppers.. He's back from NYC for a holiday! And, we also caught hold of Aunty Wendy and Uncle John. Oh.. and During supper, we met JJ!! Haha...

Wow! I am amazed that I woke up at 6.30am this morning, and surprisingly I wasn't whining about waking up. Had to send my good ole dad to church cos he's got some retreat thingy and had to pick Aunty Vida and Uncle Stanley on the way. And for the first time in so many years, the morning traffic brought back fond memories of my school days where daddy sent me to school. In front of my place was TJC (but school starts at 7.40am and we left at 7.05am), so when we came out of the carpark, the traffic was slowly building up, but still not too bad. However, at Aunty Vida's place there were 2 schools, Temasek Pri & Temasek Sec (slightly further down). So, while waiting for them, we could see the traffic slowly building up until it almost became a jam. Thankfully we could cut through the carpark and were not affected by the jam. But it was terrible. Even part of the carpark was jam. The once quiet road was suddenly so packed with so many cars. And when i was coming back, the area around TJC started to jam. Such was the jam that some parents decided to drop their kids ar our carpark and let them walk to school. It's really amazing how these parents sacrifice their sleep so that their kids can sleep in a little more and battle the traffic jam first thing in the morning. Thanks dad for sending me all those years and battling all the jams! =)

Little girls love their daddies even after they are grown up...

I have always admired how chefs are able to whip different food without using premade sauces and mixes. So, today, I decided to try it myself and tried to make a decent enough tomato base pasta sauce from scratch (aka no pasta sauce, no tomato puree etc.) with lots of tomatoes, italian parsley, basil, dried oregano, creole salt, some sugar, onions, white wine, a lil vinegar, chicken stock and a chunk of my secret ingredients. hehe... And, well, it turned out to be a pretty decent pasta meal, although the sauce didn't look as red as it normally is when you buy those pasta sauces from the grocery store. But, I love the sourish sweet taste of the pasta sauce which was just bursting with flavour. Wonder what shall be next on the list...