The purple and the blue-black

Just a short post. I'm a massage junkie. There, i said it. I love massages, and i like them hard, especially when the masseuse is able to hit and knead a knot right in between my shoulder blades. The way to my heart ain't through my stomach, it's through my knots baby.

And now, it's time to stop sounding like a porn video.

More seriously, I decided to give foot reflexology a try since i had a good experience with a similar massage set-up while in the US. The first foot massage was pretty painful, and not all that enjoyable, but i figured i would give it another try since my knots were mostly in my back and not my feet. This time round, I went to a place near my house. The results were..... excruciating, to say the least. I nearly cramped up trying not to squirm from pain, and wanting to be manly, i simply gritted my teeth and nodded when the massuese asked if i was ok. The next day, my whole back felt tender. Lo and behold, it was a patch of blue-black bruises. Suffice to say, my brief flirtation with foot reflexology places is now ended. Back to more high-end spa type places for me!

Ajantis is a wussy boy...

Because i knew you....

One of the reasons why i loved the musical Wicked. And yes, i did tear up.

For Good
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

It well may be
That we will never meet again in this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend

Like a comet pulled from orbit
as it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
halfway through the wood

Like a ship blown off it's mooring
by a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
in a distant wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better.
Because I knew you... I have been changed for good

Ajantis loves this song

Wagyu's Anatomy

The gourmet food craze has now officially come to Singapore. Everyone's buzzing about the new $101 burger at Uberburger in Milennia Walk, with its prime cut wagyu patty, mixed with fois gras and truffle sauce. Apparently other outlets in Singapore have been serving such gourmet burgers for a while now. Much of the buzz seems to be about how people are going just because of the price, which to me seems a tad missing the point. It's kinda funny seeing all of this after having coming back from New York, where the fine dining scene seems to have almost evolved into a complete ecosystem of its own, and then seeing how we are seeing the faint beginnings of what seems to be a hoity-toity, only i can afford this kind of food, kind of dining culture.

Don't get me wrong. H has halfway persuaded me that fine ingredients make a huge difference to the food, but $101 for a burger!? That seems a bit much.

I just caught 2/3rds of an episode of Grey's Anatomy, and have been officially converted. Haven't really caught much TV since i graduated, but once in a while a show comes along and catches my eye. Knowing me, I will probably indulge in some sort of downloading binge after this :P

Random links : This is the new car that H is getting, the Honda Fit. I'm not really into cars, but i honestly think that any car that markets itself as being able to fit a llama is pretty cool.

Ajantis wants to eat wagyu in a Fit

Cabling my way to Xanadu

Read Trich's blog about being back in Columbus yesterday, which made me reminisce about my student days. Living in an apartment/house/dorm with other people, walking about and talking with professors and other students, partaking in college life, and being generally more bohemian than the working world allows or requires you to be.

The college life is a kind of safe cocoon that sometimes I never wanted to leave. That's perhaps the reason that I had for wanting to be come a college professor. But after seeing how much work and politics went into finding a position and securing tenure, I realised that while i enjoyed the graduate work and the teaching, I wasn't as ready to commit to chasing after funds and recognition in order to do the kind of ground-breaking social science research that American universities demanded.

So actually, I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. Truth be told, I picked political science as a course of study cos it sounded like history, and I ended up in my current line of work more so because I wanted a full scholarship to study overseas. I do enjoy my work but i'm not sure whether i could do the same thing in Canada, which we're planning to move to in the next few years. I had been putting it off due to career issues, but given that the processing time is now 4 years (!!), i probably have to bite the bullet and talk to my employers.

Funnily, i was originally going to blog about the cable TV and internet here, but thanks to reading Trich's blog (bad Trich!), this ended up being more a reflection about the past and the future.

Oh well. Anyway, just a quick blurb about my ORIGINAL topic. There are way too many cable channels here. H's roomate subscribed to cable on demand, so i can download and watch stuff at leisure. I usually catch up on movies during most vacation trips to the US, but this trip more so than usual. So far, I've seen Rent, Groundhog Day, numerous sitcoms, Zathura, Aeon Flux, Ella Enchanted, and Mad Hot Ballroom. And with H's fast internet connection, i've also been catching up on anime over YouTube, which is a pretty awesome video site.

Ajantis is chillin, really chillin......

Reminiscing the moon

Some thoughts on the trip thus far...

Saw the Gimble concert on Friday night. It was really cool to hear the group 9 years down the road, and see them release their 4th CD. Quite a number of alumni showed up, and we spent part of the after-concert party just singing old songs. Makes me miss being in an acapella group again, but i also realise that that part of my life is over :) I neither have the voice nor the inclination to really go out there and try to be part of a group in Singapore. Besides, the lindy crowd and performance company more than satisfy my need for a social grouping and an artistic interest :) Hopefully, i will be able to make it back for the 10th anniversary concert.

Went to a bread-making class with Zingerman's Bakehouse the other day. Got to see H help conduct the class and knead some dough. It was quite inspiring to hear the staff talk about the bread like it was a living organism that needed to be nurtured and encouraged to develop its full flavor. And I felt really proud at seeing how H helped conduct the class in such a professional manner. It gave me a deeper appreciation of why H wanted to give up college to become a full time baker. That's always been one of the things i've struggled over in our relationship, coming from a Singaporean background where the only way is to get a degree.
So i'm glad i went to this class, even if i can't pick up a wad of bread dough without mangling it. It gave me a deeper understanding of why H has chosen this career, and that makes it all worth it.

Other random observations :
1) i've gotten soft. It's hovering around 6-15 celsius, and i already find it cold!
2) i called up my stock trading company in the US, and it was SO obvious that the person i was talking to on the helpline was from India :) This is the first time i had come face-to-face, so to speak, with the outcome of the outsourcing craze in the US. The service was decent, but the whole experience was definitely on the surreal side. A singaporean chinese calling up his US trading company to talk to a helpline person located in India.

Ajantis is trying to avoid eating too much...