chaucer

It dawned on me while I was on my way to school 3 days back, how connected I've become with the city of Bath. I passed by a restaurant in Bath known as the Wife of Bath, which was taken from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Now I heard about Bath at about 17-18 while doing The Canterbury Tales by Geoffery Chaucer for my A levels. It is a series of stories narrated by pilgrims while they were making their way to Canterbury. I did the story "The Franklin's Tale", and as the Canterbury Tales holds many stories, I actually bought the book to read the other tales within.

I remember my Lit teacher Mr Burrows*, English no less, made copies of the Franklin's Tale for us. It was written in middle English, more archaic than Shakespeare's English and for a few weeks after we got the core text, we were trying to figure out what it was saying. Terms such as "noblesse oblige" and "gentillese" were discussed, we had to understand the content in the context, genre and time frame that it was written.

Literature is a really interesting subject albeit commercially useless but still interesting subject.

Heere bigynneth the Frankeleyns tale,
In armorik, that called is britayne,
Ther was a knyght that loved and dide his payne
To serve a lady in his beste wise;
And many a labour, many a greet emprise
He for his lady wroghte, er she were wonne.

- The Canterbury Tales, The Franklin's Tale, Geoffery Chaucer

And of course then we had to do the literary critique of the story.

Anyway there was the Wife of Bath tale, which even by today's standard was risque. The stories within the Canterbury Tales all had a moral behind it. The Wife of Bath was about sovereignty of women over men, the Franklin's Tale was about chivalry, and noblesse oblige. Some stories would refute earlier ones.

At 17, I thought it was funny that a city was called Bath, and of course at the ripe old age of 31, while my mom and I went to the UK, subconsciously, I wanted to go visit it.

And then I met S, and now I am living and studying here. It's been five months since I've been to the UK. I can't believe that in 3 months' time, I'll not see many of my classmates for a long time to come. Perhaps till graduation, and this MBA deal will all be a thing of the past.

*Burrows, or burrowsaurus as he was known to all my classmates in SRJC then also introduced me to Stilton cheese with crackers, Mr Bean comedy.

-----------------------------------Rascal update-----------------------------------
I got mei a pink bag with some pink feathers on it. She was sooooooo pleased with it and carries it everywhere and tells everyone that "My yee yee sent to me". Of course she keeps telling my sis that! My sis was going - as if I don't know that! muahahhaha.

Anyway she loves playschool and for the first time day before, Mei didn't want to go to school becos my sis won't allow her to bring her bag to school. She was almost in tears. The rascals were really pleased with their gifts and happy that I remembered them. Of course I'll remember them, as if I would forget!!

On a side note - I passed my exams! Everyone paper, :) okok, I was happy till I found out others were scoring distinctions...as in "s" in plural, and I only have one. Sigh... guess I gotta work harder then.

mistaken box of chocolates

It's finally arrived! My box full of goodies. With lots of stuff inside. One angpao, 3 cards - 1 from my 2 cousins, 1 from B2 and one from B1, who drew Nian, 2 boxes of pineapple tarts, Bak kwa, some Chicken Rice and Pineapple Fried rice, Prawn rolls, and a mistaken box of chocolates*. :) Terribly pleased with it.

Funny to open a box full of red stuff and new year goodies, when it doesn't feel like it's Chinese New Year at all. But of course, what's priceless are the 2 cards from rascals (sorry cous, hehehe, but you know me - jian jian jian!)













Left to right: Card drawn by B2; a picture of nian from B1

Today was the birthday of one of my classmates from China, and I wrote out happy birthday in hanyu pinyin and the boys started singing it. They were quite good at it too! Maybe I can get them to learn Chinese the way I did. Hmmmmmm hahah tho I can't say me super success with that language.

*Box of chocolates were supposedly for B1, but mom packed it in. Weighs a ton!

dong dong chiang

Chinese New Year today, and I don't feel like it is at all! Absolutely no festive cheer. My box of stuff from home is still on its way here. Mommy said she accidentally packed Bear's chocolates in the box.

S was really nice though, he got a card and an angpao for me and placed it on the sofa early in the morning when I came into the living room for breakfast. :)

Of course I called home to wish everyone Happy New Year...and the princess said to me,"xin nian kuai le yee yee" The way an angmo would said xin nian kuai le to me. But she said it a few times. So super cute.

And Jamesy was telling me he performed at school and it was the best stage that he had. Either that or that it was the best stage performance in school. Mei also performed. Must be so super funny to see them.

it's really snowing!

So after months and months of grumbling, I woke up at 729 this morning to a text from my classmate Henna. (She had to hear my complains about no snow for a good 1 and 1/2 hours from Bath to Swindon). So obviously, she had texted me to tell me it was SNOWING!

And it was! :) Just flaky bits dropping down, covering the floor like a layer of dusted white carpet. The Norwegians and Eskimos probably say it isn't. Since they have 15 and 40 different definition of snow, respectively of course. Then again, what else is there to do in the north pole? My first thoughts were there it's more like ice-kacang ice. Except without the yummy syrup, but lovely nonetheless. But all melted by 2pm in the afternoon. Sigh, and it seems like there will be no more snow for the rest of the season. Well, at least I saw some.

---------------------------------Rascal Update--------------------------------
My little prince hanging upside down, with his glow-in-the-dark dino footprint PJs that I bought for him.

imprisonment

This is how prisoners in max. security go mad. You lock them up in a room, with just a bed, and bathroom. Small window or none at all. No TV, no radio. Give them crap internet connection, so that it basically means you can't watch youtube or chat or do anything. Put them in a timezone different from everyone else they know, so that when prisoner is awake, her friends are sleeping & vice versa.

Hmmm hey that sounds like how my life has been past week! Only view of the outside world is through the window. I swear - if anyone were to interrogate me and ask me to spill names of my informant, just put me in my Thornbank Gardens room for a couple of days and I'll definitely spill!

So please, no country secrets, I can't keep secrets...

Feeling restless and frustrated all day. Can't think of topic for dissertation...argh!

what's for lunch?

I'm proud of myself, even though I wasn't that hungry this afternoon, made a frittata, roasted potatoes and baked beans. And it was really good!

Crabstick Frittata With Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 3 sticks of crabstick (roughly chopped up)
• 1 whole medium-sized chilli (chopped up)
  
• 4 slices of turkey ham
• 2 stalks of spring onions (chopped up)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Heinz baked beans (of course!)
• Sainsbury's frozen oven-ready roasted potatoes
• 1 wedge of Whisky flavoured crumbly cheese
  

• 50 mL fresh milk
• 1 teaspoon mixed dried herbs
• 3 dashes of Henderson's Relish or Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt & Pepper
• 20g Butter
  

Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Start by greasing oven-tray with olive oil and dust roasted potatoes with black pepper and pop into the oven at 225 deg C for 30 minutes.

Mix milk, spring onions, turkey ham, herbs, Henderson's relish, salt and pepper with eggs. Beat well with fork.

Heat olive oil, butter and fry chilli, garlic and crabstick together, till garlic turns slightly brown. Pour in egg mixture, crumble cheese all over. Leave to fry on low heat for 8-10 minutes. Slowly ease cooked underside of frittata on plate, and invert plate to cook other uncook side of frittata. Leave to fry for another 5 minutes.

Once done, put aside to cool. Arrange to cut a slice of the frittata with roasted potatoes, baked beans and a dash of ketchup (heinz of course!)

yummmmmy.

turn up the radio, nian is coming!

My nephew has an updated version of the story of Nian for Lunar New Year. Instead of firecrackers, he told my sis,"Mom, let's turn up the radio and TV to scare Nian away."

I was on the phone with my sis when Bear said that. I was like thinking,"hmmmm yup." And my sister laughed, cos she thought it's funny that instead of firecrackers, Bear would ask for loud noise from radio and TV.

It took me 30 seconds to realise that Bear had updated the Nian story, but I was in agreement with him all along.

:)

Poxy table lamp blew, so now I gotta go homebase to get one. grrrrrr. Troublesome man.

a piece of my rainbow

Came out of my shower a few minutes ago, and what do I see? Some indigo on the carpet. :) It's a brillantly sunny day today, the morning sun shines through my window, which can be blinding on mornings when you want to sleep in.

Aren't the colours pretty?

Good news is: I finished a crappy piece of assignment in 4 hours, handed it in and now really keen to do some reading. *what's wrong?!*

School officially started, for me, on Thursday. So now it's back to getting up at 7.30am. This term is going to be a lot more jialat, just because there are going to be so much more projects and team work that we're expected to do. I have to start looking at some dissertation topics as well. :) Somehow I am really excited by the work for this semester. Really weird.

A few friends have changed jobs. :) They've been stuck in jobs they've been unhappy in and now will get better prospects and pay. While I am happy for them, I am starting to get a bit worried for myself about the job situation that I will not be able to catch up with all of them when I do get back home. There is no promise or guarantee of a job offer when I go back, and knowing my luck with job hunts, I'll get a really crap paying one. So yes, I am worried.

Called the sweethearts last night. I asked B1 what is his favourite book of all the titles I got for him the in the ladybird series. He said,"Stories for 4 year olds." Of course I thought of him when I got that title for him, the angel. So I said, "What happens when you are 5 then?" So the angel said,"Then you have to get Stories for 5 year olds for me, okay yee?"

Then mei, spoke with me,"Yee yee I am eating raisins,... then BYE!"

Anyway B1 got a ByeBlade (don't know what it is exactly, but something that spiiiiinnnnns). So I said I'll get one in the UK. The sweetheart went,"Yee, they only have it in Singapore, not in England, so I will buy one for you in Singapore and send it to you okay?"

Firstly, hmmm it'll be on my mom's account if he buys it.

Secondly, he doesn't know how to post stuff!

Ain't he a sweetheart?

Like Kylie said, likely that the person I'll willingly give my entire worldy possessions* to will be my favourite boy B1.

*Worldly possesions at the moment:
1 plate, blankie, 1 samsonite luggage, depreciated to nothing iBook, 1 mug, 1 omega watch that isn't working, a million pairs of shoes, lots of textbooks and Bath MBA files, 2 moisturisers, 2 bottles of perfumes, coats and clothes, 1 99p IKEA frying pan, 1 table lamp, 1 IKEA reading lamp.

That really is about it! Sad!