sle_eping

O' Omniscient Omnipotent One,

While you made London snow in October yesterday, the first time in two centuries, could you also let me into Neil Gaiman's talk and book signing event this Friday 31 October? I am going to be desperate enough to wait at the event in the hope that there may be vacancies e.g. someone not being able to make it so that the people there will let me buy a ticket and get in :(

Whoever you are, the snow was really pretty. You're pretty darned good aren't you?

Pretty pretty please with snow on top my roof!



(This post is not meant for prudes.)
(Sigh.)

It'll be my one month anniversary come thursday. Time flies, doesn't it? Today, I had the Western version of Old Chang Kee curry puff. While heading down to Inner Temple for a European Union talk by the President of European Court of Human Rights, I popped into a bakery that I've been eyeing every time I go to Strand. It's a small little Cornish bakehouse opposite the Royal Courts of Justice with a sign saying "Award-winning Cornish pasties". Though it costs £2.95, it's almost double the size of an Old Chang Kee with chunks of beef in gravy and ale in thick and sticky pastry. Yuelin said that Cornish pasties were actually what the miners' wives baked for the miners as meals in the underground by adding stuffing into a thick layer of dough. Because lead was poisonous, the miners would only eat the stuffing, then throw the pastry that they had come into contact with away.

Then we passed Gringotts (which is actually Lloyds), a bank with large wooden doors and elaborate furnishings and turned into a narrow lane to find ourselves in Diagon Alley (Inner Temple, one of the four inns for barristers). The surroundings were completely different from the main road which is chock-full of shops, bars and traffic. Inside Inner Temple, there was a nice little garden, an old chapel and the buildings just the sort I like with beautiful architecture dating back to the 17th century. The talk was held at the Main Hall and when we walked through the doors, our first reaction was "Whoa...." It had extremely high ceilings, I would say the room was two-three storeys with stunning silver chandeliers and huge portraits of lords, royals and maybe judges hung from the higher portions of the walls with rows and rows of family crests of Queen's Counsels, presumably those from Inner Temple who have taken silk at the side panels. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand much of what the speaker was saying because of his accent so I can't tell you what the talk was about. But Inner Temple was nice, I resolve to visit it again some time in the near future.

There has been a deluge of academic work since I have bought about two-thirds of the law books. I have been trying to read the first few chapters of each book but I don't think I am concentrating hard enough. Also have been set two essays, one for criminal law and one for contract law but after typing this post I will FOCUS on studying. By the way, I visited Tate Britain with Cheryl and Charmaine in the weekend. I am now a proud Tate member, which means I get to visit all the four Tates for free! AND I get to hang out in the member's room which supposedly has a great view of the city. We visited the Francis Bacon exhibition and this happens to be the largest collection of Francis Bacon's works ever. There were ten rooms, each of different themes and we spent a total of about three-four hours walking from room to room, scrutinising each painting.

From the exhibition booklet: "As an atheist, Bacon sought to express what it was to live in a world without God or afterlife. By setting sensual abandon and physical compulsion against hopelessness and irrationality, he showed the human as simply another animal. In an era dominated by abstract art, he amassed and drew upon a vast array of visual imagery, including the art of the past, photography and film." Violence, fear and brutality pervade his works and I only found out more about his complicated background by wiki-ing him. My favourite room was one called crucifixion when he made paintings in a triptych (pronounced trip-tick) format. It was all quite dark really, he replaced traditional saints with monstrous creatures and depicts humans as carcasses but it's hard not to admire his talent which he uses to express his emotions and beliefs. I also liked the room 'Memorial' with large paintings of George Dyer, Francis Bacon's lover who committed suicide two days before the opening of Bacon's major exhibition in Paris. It's hard not to get shivers down your spine when you realise he painted all these dark paintings in memory of George Dyer.

We also visited the Turner Prize 2008 nominations exhibition to take a look. Bo-ringgg. The noticeboard at the end of the exhibition was literally the highlight because it was stuck with lots of interesting notes. These are just some I remember: "What a load of shite", "Turner would be turning in his grave if he saw this", "Obscurity is not always profundity". I absolutely agree. We had originally intended to take the boat to Tate Modern but it was already too late and we were exhausted so we decided to leave it for another day.

One last thing: Lacrosse. I am still hesitant about joining so I shall just go for a few more practices. During a long break yesterday, I travelled down to a garden in Russell Square to practise with Jia Lin. We practised with oranges (because they wouldn't lend us the balls) and it was HILARIOUS because after a few throws, we were getting orange juice splurted at our faces whenever we caught the ball until I decided to wrap it with a ziploc bag and we played till they completely disintegrated. We're trying to improve so we don't embarrass ourselves during practice. Shhhh.. don't tell the team. Another lacrosse practice tomorrow, wish us (including Cheryl) luck!

Incidentally, today happens to be my first day of school AND the end of the second week I have been in the Land of Eternal Rain as Litz puts it and some updates are in order.

Before that, thank you all who showed up on that day or texted their blessings and good wishes. (Special mention goes to Nat who baked me a cheesecake for lunch that day because she couldn't make it. You owed me that anyway Nat because Litz tells me you cried buckets at HER going away.) Anyway, the very least I could do to reciprocate was to let you witness something extremely unusual that for time to come you will be able to tell your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

For the past few months leading up, I've not been feeling anything but at that instant I was about to enter the gate, it hit me. I AM NOT GOING TO BE SEEING MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS TILL NEXT JUNE. And I started crying. Hard. Frankly speaking, one of the biggest advantages of going away would be being able to cherish my close relatives and friends better. I would have to keep in mind though, not to return to taking them for granted when I'm back.

But that emotional outburst was over soon and as I was on the plane reading letters, I next realized that I was really going to study overseas for three years and felt a rush of exhilaration, yet not without a tinge of guilt. 

Thank you all, really for everything because I really think I am lucky to have had the good fortune of benefitting from your kinship, friendship and guidance. I can only promise everyone that I will return a person more capable of standing on her own two feet, slower to judge others and bear a grudge, more capable of articulating thoughts generated from her three-years-to-be incisive and critical mind and definitely more worldly-wise and mature.

That process is well under way and this is a list of what has happened thus far:

Setting up my bank account, enrolling in school and handling all the 'logistics' including transport by myself was a small step to living in London but a big step in gaining independence. I had to compare mobile phone rates, bank offers and actually make decisions involving sums of money sums of money I would normally not take upon myself to deal with. I was and am in charge of my life fully now!

Cooking and shopping for groceries: Loads of kitchen drama. If you could have witnessed me, cooking for the first time (I mean, real cooking not Betty Crocker baking)... BUT in a mere week (since I moved in), I learnt the basics of cooking: peeling garlic, onion, how to cook rice (without a rice-cooker just in case you're feeling rather smug now), turning on the hob, etc. For now I have made rather simple dishes like spaghetti, baked fish, roasted cauliflower. (Just yesterday, Litz taught me to stir fry chicken, cook rice and make stewed potatoes and carrots. Eternal gratitude, mate.) Some dishes taste a bit bland because I haven't purchased essentials like soy sauce yet but what I am enjoying thoroughly is deciding what I want to eat. Before elaborating on that, let me dispel the myth that everything in London is expensive. This LIE resulted in me bringing bulky foodstuff and cooking materials that made moving in horribly tiring. Sainsbury's, which I am now a loyal customer of, sells stuff which aren't priced too badly. Unfortunately, Litz has chosen Tesco, our long-time rival and bitter enemy.

But I digress. In line with being empowered to decide my own meals, I get to enjoy yoghurt with bits of oatmeal, raisins and honey for breakfast along with a fruit for breakfast. Healthy wholewheat spaghetti or brown rice with baked vegetables or meat for lunch/dinner. A large tub of yoghurt, which I finish in two sittings costs less than a pound can you believe that?! That's even cheaper than in Singapore! The pack of oatmeal, raisins and honey also costs less than a pound. And it lasts me at least two weeks!

I don't want to come back to Singapore sounding like a housewife but I can't help gushing and feeling proud of my cheap bargains. My parents, especially will be glad to know that I am not starving myself. I am stating this explicitly now. I have COOKED haddock, chicken breast, cauliflower, potatoes and carrots to EAT. I haven't gotten food poisoning so stop worrying!! Admittedly there were problems at the start which caused much frustration but those days are over now, it's time to usher in the era of LEE PING'S SUPERB CULINARY SKILL.

I have also done my laundry, which went quite smoothly.

That was abrupt, but on to the other parts of living in London. Now that I have started school and gotten my timetable, I look forward to planning my days: setting aside hours to study, go jogging around my charming estate, visiting museums, shopping and living it up in London with Litz and newfound friends.

By the way, I live in Hampstead, which is an area with the highest concentration of millionaires (go Wiki it), where Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry currently stay! I find that in central London there is more smog and maybe more 'dodgy' people because many hang out at bars and clubs at night. Here in Hampstead, we have wealthy housewives driving Jaguars and Ferraris, pushing their toddlers (with silver spoons sticking out of their mouths) around in expensive-looking prams, well-groomed working people and beautiful houses which I stop to look into. These people have really nice red-bricked houses with gravel on their driveway, nicely tended gardens and glass windows which are just huge sheets of clear glass that allow me to peer in and envy the spaciousness and tasteful design of their home.

That's quite a lot for two weeks, though I'll post more about the first day of school tomorrow because I have to read about some dodgy company that promised to give people money if they got sick from using their products. Yes, it is the Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case.

*If there's anything to take away from this entry, it would be that Lee Ping will walk up and suckerpunch the next ignoramus who blabbers on about how people studying abroad are all rich, spoilt and pampered. I had two lessons on contract law today, so I'm going to venture and say this is an offer because I am showing 'a commitment or immediate readiness to undertake the obligation'.