Just a post for posterity. We attended Amit's concert last night and bumped into WJ, who was sitting with the FAN CLUB - big L your way, WJ!!! =)
Yx and I had our serious doubts about Amit. We really prefer her soft crooning in those ballads, not the angsty belting in her recent album. It turned out surprisingly enjoyable. I liked the stage setup, the costume, and the fact that she had one segment where she responded to song requests (A mei's old songs) and sang them, impromptu, without accompaniment. She's the real stuff indeed!
I particularly enjoyed her rendition of 掉了, and she did a surprise gig by singing Nessum Dorma. OK, not a big fan of women (and non-classically trained women at that) singing such a classic, but the song did show off her range very nicely. She should have done the aria from The Fifth Element instead.
The morning was taken up by work, and after I got home I started on the garden. A few of my Sarracenia are now sleeping in the fridge, and require weekly inspection. The S.purpurea, S.minor and S. x catesbaei in the garden seem set to go into dormancy as well ... urgh. I'm really envious of the growers in temperate countries - at least they don't have to go to so much trouble.
Anyway, I repotted about 50% of my plants today. Shockingly, the plants have propagated on their own to the extent where I don't think I can keep all of them anymore - I must easily have 80, if not 100, venus flytraps now. Yx is bugging me to sell them or something, but I have a problem parting with my plants I think. And an even bigger problem is actually meeting new people. Repotted one of the Cephalotus as well, we'll see if the plant will sulk after that.
There's still the other 50% of the garden left, a box full of seeds to sow, and the balcony area to set up. We all need longer weekends.
We also dropped by the new place today, and construction's really quite rapid. I can see our room taking shape already, and I'm a little disappointed by the size of the toilet. We later came up with this CRAZY, radical idea of not having any doors at all for the toilet. Muahahahahahahahahahaha.
I suddenly recall snippets of memories in English class, where the teacher used to make a fuss about a kind of poetry called Haiku. Honestly, this style of expression may have been beautiful in its native Japanese, but to me it's utter rubbish when done in English. It just appears .. odd. Try singing any of the good Mandarin ballads in English - it's just never the same.
Sigh. This is not a spectacular start to the year. Deadlines for 2010 seem to much closer when you look at them from this side of the year. Let's see what's going on:
1. Wedding - 'nuff said. TONNES to be done, but we're taking it in our stride, spacing it out. Honestly we're having it better than most, as we've sussed out most of the major things already.
2. New place - half-fun, half-stressful. Gotta liaise with the architect and builder sometimes, but otherwise it's not too much of an issue - except cost. Obviously we'll be footing the bill when it comes to our own bedroom, and so far we've seen the budget for our bathtub. We've also visited the Teak & Mahogany for outdoor furniture, but that baby that I really want costs a hand and a leg. $4k to be exact. Bleargh. Time to source for cheaper stuff. We're looking at building an asian / bali-inspired room, but will have to see what our budget allows. My dad shot me strange looks when I declared that my bedroom's bathroom will not have a toilet in it. We're being pretty adventurous about the designing thing, which is great as it's really my kind of fun. As for the balcony area, no prizes for guessing what's gonna be there. I'm being made to allocate space for a relax-and-chill coffee corner in addition to my plant collection, which is why we were scouting for outdoors furniture. Hmm .. and maybe a small frangipani plant on the balcony, which is sure to invite comments from my dad again.
3. Work - I'm still struggling with a stupid study that I'm supposed to help do, and what's more there's the ever-annoying issue of trying to sort out my calls etc. Gotta speak to my boss soon about this. And there's the cardiac issue that's bugging me all the time - I keep wondering if I should have gone for the procedure back then.
4. Garden - I'm trying to re-build my plant collection. This is part of the renewal I was yammering about several posts down. Still trying to find a reasonably-priced water timer, and there's all the piping to be done as well. I bought myself 3 Cephalotus plants the other day, which was such a thrill! Talk about parallel evolution from Down Under.
5. Holiday time! I decided today that a break is MANDATORY. I'm feeling a little strained already. There never seems to be enough budget/time to do stuff that you really want, eh? We're planning to go to the Gilis, but what I *really* want is to have a long trip down to South America, to visit the plateau mountains and to look at the plants there. Oh well. Good chance of being eaten by the savages there anyway (I'm just kidding by the way.. just sour grapes about it).
6. Academics - time to take things seriously. Everyone's advancing in some way, taking some kind of exam, EXCEPT ME.
7. Website - yay, I got myself some web space!! =)
I think everyone's having a rough start to the year, but hang on in there and take things in your stride. Things usually sort themselves out, and even if they don't, you'll never lose what truly is important - friends and family. Oh dear. Waxing lyrical already.
Just a backlog on what went on for New Year's eve. Yx and I have designated New Year's as our official anniversary date, as that was when we started going out together and also it was the date when I proposed to her. And seriously, the other dates are kinda arbitrary and years down the road I'm going to end up in trouble for forgetting some weird anniversary date. Anyhow, we headed down to Liquid Kitchen at Thomson for a drop of vodka and a countdown there. The staff there were so sweet! Just on Xmas eve I casually mentioned to one of the waitresses that New Year's is our anniversary. They called on NY's Eve to ask if we were coming down so that they could reserve a table, and when we arrived there, we found that our table had been specially decorated. It was simple but heartfelt, and I really appreciated it. Penny the bartender also gave us a little gift, which was an Absolut Pears bottle filled with some strange jelly thing - I gave the Absolut Pears bottle (emptied) to Penny previously as she really liked the smell. Jeffrey happened to be free that night after work and came to join us as well. Since Yx didn't drink (she was still sick from a viral gastritis) and could therefore drive me home, I seriously indulged that night - my first in a long, long while. In fact, Jeff and I overindulged somewhat and ended up puking. Not pretty.
For our anniversary night itself, Yx and I had a disposable grill which we set on the balcony. We got ourselves assorted sausages, a couple of lamb loins which I marinated in wine and basil, and I also made a mousse de foie gras with the leftover frozen livers. For dessert I tried my hand at blancmanger with macerated blueberries, but it's seriously too much work. Now I'm reminded of why I don't like to do desserts. That last photo is that of Brownie, who insisted on coming out to the balcony with us but promptly fled at the sight of fire coming from the grill and he ended up hugging Yx for comfort through most of his time on the balcony.
I am thrilled. Yx bought me a book that's always been on my must-buy list, but somehow I keep putting it off, mostly because of the cost. More to come!
