I’ve been trying to tell Neil about this for weeks, all I remembered was the number 4711 cologne that my grandfather used. He had no idea what I was going on about, and today I finally looked it up. I loved those faceted bottles.
Feeling sad for people
Sex Change Hospital on More 4. It’s quite sad that some individuals feel so ill-at-ease with their own bodies, they cannot identify with the gender they were born with, and they end up spending so much money and suffer so much discomfort and pain to try and feel normal.
I wonder if my mother worried about whether I suffered from gender dysphoria when I was younger, I always wanted to be a boy back then (I think I felt that I couldn’t do as much as a girl). I am comfortable in my own skin, though, and have been for a number of years, so the status quo has been preserved.
The Lo-Imp
My body conspires to defeat me at every turn.
An impossible accident at age six found me stuck under a swing and I ended up with a sprained knee.
At ages ten through 12, I did a lot of gymnastics and athletics (100m, 4x100m relay), and was the lucky recipient of multiple ankle sprains.
At age 14, I fell down some steps and sprained my ankle badly enough that there was no walking for a fortnight.
My mother warned me that I would be arthritic by the time I turned 30 if I kept doing high-impact sports.
Then I started smoking and sports took a very breathless back seat in my life.
There have been random ankle sprains, most notably while running for the bus (embarrassing), and most unbelievably, when walking to the bathroom in my own bedroom (more embarrassing, but at least I was alone).
When I quit smoking, I started jogging. So I’ve been jogging for almost five years. As I have mentioned on more than one previous occasion, I don’t LIKE jogging, I do it because it reminds me that lung capacity is a nice thing to have. And it’s free.
This year I decided to join a road / trail race once every month, to try and motivate myself more.
(When I feel unsettled, all my routines go to shit. Guess what. I’ve been feeling unsettled for almost a year.)
So, as Murphy would have it, my hips hurt every time I jog (the left and right take turns). When I sit still for any length of time, my knees start aching like mad. When I do nothing out of the ordinary, my knees and ankles hurt.
At age 31, I think I’m finally ready to take my mother’s advice and seek out low-impact exercises. My options are:
Walking. As cheap (free) as jogging. Has always been despised as the wimpy exercise (wow, is that coming back to bite me now). Great in Scotland’s great outdoors, since there’s so much of it. The only problem is regular walking in our neighbourhood is super boring as there is NOTHING to see except bad graffiti and broken glass. Outdoor access is possible, though.
Cycling. Great fast and low-impact way to get around. My problem with cycling is I’m quite unco-ordinated and too nervous about being unco-ordinated, plus a decent bike costs a lot, even if it’s not an ‘expensive’ bike. We’ve seen a couple of nice hybrid recreational bikes in the shops.
Swimming. I. Do. Not. Like. Swimming.
Could burn water
In affirmation of my lack of any knowledge or skill in the culinary arts, I’ve just had to look up instructions on how to soft-boil an egg.
I actually like the whites quite runny, so I would probably let it sit for only a few minutes! Neil and his mother think I’m absolutely gross and disgusting for sitting there and spooning runny eggs into my gaping maw. Hehe.
One of my fondest memories as a child who generally wouldn’t eat anything more than crisps and Coke is weekends with my grandparents (because my grandmother was a good cook), when Saturday (or was it Sunday) mornings meant waking up to a soft-boiled egg. It would sit there in its egg cup, quietly contemplating its last moments of existence. My grandmother would remove the top and add just the tiniest of dashes of Maggi Seasoning, then we would sit at the kitchen table, raise our tiny teaspoons, and dig in.
I don’t know if it’s a sign of my ‘just existing’ or general quarter- to mid-life ennui (because it’s so easy to exaggerate angst), but after decades of not indulging in runny soft-boiled eggs, I’ve got a serious hankering. Even after I attempted a not-so-successful egg boiling last weekend, I’m not daunted. I shall try again, and I WILL triumph over the egg.
Egg, you don’t scare me. I’m gonna get you. I’m gonna boil ya and slurp ya up without even a pitying thought for the chick you might have been if your mother wasn’t a battery hen and not allowed anywhere near a rooster.
Foodie Friday — New England Clam Chowder
The scene: California, 1983. Scrawny Singaporean Chinese child on a package tour of the USA with her parents. Tries a bowl of New England Clam Chowder and falls in love with soup forever. Saltine crackers add just that little extra bit to perfection. Child orders New England Clam Chowder at every opportunity. 20+ years later, I still choose the soup any time I see it on a menu.
That’s the story of my love affair with New England Clam Chowder, basically. I have tended to favour Campbell’s condensed version for home microwaving, and even for canned it’s pretty good. I like the clams, but LOVE the potatoes.
It’s pretty much impossible that I will ever use this recipe (unless I can persuade Neil’s mum to give it a go), so I shall just salivate from afar.
What do you mean, food colouring and dishwashing liquid will stain?
Zubbles. I remember making my own bubble liquid (who didn’t) and loop out of dishwashing liquid (Mama Lemon, probably) and wire obtained from God Knows Where. And now they come in colours? Phwoar. Wah lau eh.
God I have the worst memory
Let me preface the following picture by saying that I cannot really remember the last time I saw my mother in a swimming pool (let alone in bathers).
As far as I was aware, she wasn’t into it. It wasn’t till only a few years ago that I found out she’d never really learned to swim (she has now, though). My sister and I were sent for swimming lessons every Sunday morning at Hollandse Club (but I don’t think that’s where this photo was taken), before going to church for catechism and Mass, then Sunday school (no wonder I turned out so anti-organised religion). Might I mention that the hot chocolate and bitterballen waiting for us at the end of the lessons were pretty much the reasons I was willing to go at all.
I’m not a strong swimmer, never have been. But I can swim, though I don’t really enjoy it. Beats me why, although part of the reason is definitely because I am careful about being out in the sun.
(I’ve been digging through old photos, and am loving the embarrassing photos of myself that are showing up. I have no memory of the context, though — my mother has been supplying me with some.)
This one is another favourite:
This I remember. We were on holiday, my first big one, to North America. My cousins live in Canada, so we went to visit, and they took us to see snow (the first time ever, for me). It was summer, so the snow on this mountain is kinda crappy. I saw snow again when I was 16 and in Scotland, and finally got to see snowflakes actually fall out of the sky in 2004 (again, in Scotland). I have a fascination with snow. I also hope that the next time I am in a place that snows, I don’t wear ill-sized and inappropriate mittens as seen in this picture. I look like The Penguin.
(Note: the auto white balance in The GIMP seems to restore the correct hues in many of these faded photos. Colour me impressed.)
A sense of school pride
Just received an e-mail from my sister, answering one of her old friends (and copying me on it). The school where I spent 11 years of my life, St Nick’s (the long name: CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School) is going through a bit of a crisis. It’s been a high-ranking school, academically, for a long time, and parents used to do pretty much anything to have their kids attend (volunteer to teach after-school activities, donate money, etc.). St Nick’s is a SAP school, and this is why my mother enrolled my sister and I there (but our Chinese still sucks, although I get to practise these days). Now, however, it’s facing a kind of competition that (it appears) the administration and (active) alumni are having trouble dealing with.
Singapore’s Ministry of Education began an Integrated Programme in 2004, allowing certain ‘elite’ schools to tie up with JCs — qualifying students get to skip their ‘O’ levels and study through to their ‘A’ levels (the equivalent would be the Highers in the UK, TEE or HSC in Australia, high school diploma in the US). Top-ranked schools RGS and RI have tied up with Raffles JC, and Chinese High and Nanyang Girls have tied up with Hwa Chong JC. Dunman High School, National JC, Temasek JC, and Victoria JC are also offering the Integrated Programme in their own way. St Nicks now feels obligated to do the same, but its traditionally-affiliated schools, Catholic High and Catholic JC (where my sister and I went after St Nicks) do not have stellar academic reputations.
So, the originator of the e-mail wants us to discuss and maybe raise some ideas on what we can do for St Nicks, because we want to be proud of the school we went to, and for it to become a ‘third-rate school’ would be shameful, with former St Nicks girls choosing to enrol their daughters elsewhere, making the situation worse.
I won’t print my sister’s response, but I certainly echo parts of it. I’m not proud nor ashamed that I went to this school — its academic reputation means nothing to me*. I spent most of my childhood there, so I have good and bad memories of the place. My teachers were both good and bad. The same with Catholic JC — I am neither proud nor ashamed that I studied there. I spent two very important teenage years at the buildings on Whitley Road. I have good and bad memories of the place. My lecturers and tutors were both good and bad.
Students from ‘elite’ and ‘regular’ schools may not receive the same levels of attention smothering, but if you’re a concerned parent or teacher, you know no amount of nagging will entice a student to work for good results unless they’re motivated.
If St Nicks wants to start offering the Integrated Programme, they should do it because they think they can contribute something to education, not because they need to keep up with the Joneses Rafflesians. If they are going for the former, why not work together with Catholic High and Catholic JC? The three schools can work towards streamlining and improving what they’ve got to create a better learning experience for kids, because that’s what’s important. It may be a struggle at first, but when is the provision of a quality, well-rounded education supposed to be a breeze? If the principal and teachers at the school think it’s too much work, then we’re all better off if St Nicks ends up a ‘third-rate school’.
And that’s my $0.02 on the matter.
* This may be because, like my sister, I went overseas to study at university. I don’t know.