As usual, starting the post with: wow, long time since I last posted. As usual, not much’s been going on. It’s raining again. The rainy season is definitely here. Been raining practically every day for a while now. It’s annoying. I’d be up in my room, the balcony windows downstairs would be open because of the drying clothes then the sky starts to get dark. Now, I don’t want to close the windows just yet because the wind is really nice for the clothes but I have to keep checking every few seconds that it hasn’t started raining yet. Or, if I do close them, a few minutes later, the dark clouds pass and the sun comes out.
In other news, I got a job. More or less. Haven’t signed contract or whatever yet. Supposed to start on Monday. Once I go, I’ll have signed over 2 years of my life. 1 year training programme and 1 year bond. Oh well. Hope it works out fine. It’s a good place and it’s hard to get in, especially now given the state of the economy. I get the vibe that they might want to keep me after, cos they keep saying not to worry about after the training. Hope so. I had a major panic attack thing when HR called to say that they were offering me the place. Guess I hadn’t quite wrapped my head around the “I’m an adult and entering the working world” thing. It’ll be fine. Just keep telling myself that. It was an interesting interview. For one, I thought I was going to be late. Thing with the bus is, when I take the early one, like I did for the writing test, I ended up absurdly early. So I, trying to be clever, let the early bus go and waited for the next one. I got there right on the dot. The interviewer had just come out to ask for me just as I stepped out of the elevator. In a way, maybe it’s good. Kept me from thinking too much so I thought the interview went quite well for once. It wasn’t as painful as the others I’d attended. And it was successful. Oh well.
It’s november and I’m writing Nanowrimo again. Think it’s going quite well. It’s day 12 and I’m almost at 30,000 words. Of course, most of it is likely to be crap and I’m having major second thoughts about it. Mainly because I feel I’m falling into the trap I used to hate about writers – focusing too much on the action and not as much on the character. I compare what I wrote over the past week to the bits that were the earlier chapters and I feel that it’s so shallow and lacking in character exploration. Bit difficult. I’d like to completely, well, not completely but significantly, delete parts of it but I have no idea how to make it work. I’ll probably just keep writing. After all, it’s not like I’m going to publish it. Can’t anyway. It’s got too many copyright issues to be anything but a private indulgence maybe shared among a very limited audience.
Finished watching House. At least, up until where they’re airing it on TV, I assume. Season 6 episode 3 was awesome. They had James Earl Jones playing a ruthless dictator who was about to commit genocide be the patient. I was blown away by the acting. For once in a very long time, House had an extremely strong story and super strong actors to play out the part. Amazing. Makes Grey’s Anatomy pale in comparison. Haha!
Discovered the BBC versions of the Chronicles of Narnia on Youtube. In the 80s the BBC made TV serials of some of those books. Quite accurate and faithful to the books too, which is one of the reasons I love it. Watched “Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe” (LWW), “Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (PCVDT), and “Silver Chair” (SC). I think VDT was the best. I could feel the sense of a pilgrimage through the entire series, especially at the end when they set out on the final voyage to the Eastern seas to reach Aslan’s country. I really liked these versions better than the Hollywood ones. You can really get the themes and the feel of the story like how it’s portrayed in the books. Saw the religious tones in LWW very clearly. SC was enjoyable because of Puddleglum, played by Tom Baker. Not quite what I expected, based on the books, but it brought his character to life, hearing and seeing it being played. Of course, the effects were really funny at some points. The animatronics lion playing Aslan was MAGNIFICENT. It was a character unto itself and believeable as Aslan. It looked so real. Remembering that this was in the late 80s, early 90s, before computer effects and all that. The beavers in LWW were hilarious. Not supposed to be hilarious but they were. *does a little t rex dance with the little arms*
Watched “Fanfan” last night. Of course, another Vincent Perez film. He’s really cool. Well, he’s really good looking and a not bad actor. At least he didn’t end up dead again, like so many of his characters in other films. But anyway, “Fanfan” wasn’t bad. It started out really cute and sweet, romantic thing. The middle part seriously disturbed me and made me feel like switching it off. It was the part where Alexandre knocked down the wall separating his and Fanfan’s apartments and installed a one way mirror and he could ’spy’ on her in her life. Seriously disturbing, I can’t even begin to describe. I shall always be careful about mirrors now. Especially full length mirrors that make up an entire wall. Never know if there might be a pervert on the other side watching your every move.
Made apple pie two days ago. Well, tried to make apple pie. For starters, I used the Betty Crocker pie crust mix so mum keeps saying the crust is nice, I have to keep reminding her that the only thing I did with the crust is stir and roll. Then I couldn’t find a round tin so I used a square one. Then couldn’t find the rolling pin so I used a water bottle (washed first, of course). Then almost cut my fingers of peeling and slicing the apples to bits. It looked good before I put it into the oven. It looked good after I took it out of the oven. The problem was after we cut it open. It was literally apple soup inside. There was so much liquid. It tasted yummy – parents said it was too sweet but I thought it was fine. Mum drained away the liquid in the end but the damage was already done. The bottom crust had practically vanished cos of all the liquid it got soaked in. The apples were alright. Wanni suggests cooking the apples a little before I put it into the crust next time. I’ll try that, since raw apples didn’t work already. haha! But, for my first attempt at apple pie, I’d say it was a B-.
Oh yeah, went back for choir last thursday. I miss them!!! Sang Lily with them. Omg. That song. I can’t escape it. Anyway, proved that I’m completely out of practice. I’ve sung that song twice for two different competitions. Last Thursday, I could barely sustain the line. I was gasping for breath half way through. Jeez. Bit embarrassing. Yeah, hope I can go back and sing with them next year, but I doubt I can. Working hours and all. Anyway, one of the songs they’re singing is “From a Distance”. Yup, The Bette Midler one. A pop song. See what’s wrong here? Nelson must be cracking or the end of the world must be nigh. He’d NEVER have consented to let NUS choir sing this kind of song. NEVER. He wouldn’t even allow a JC choir to do it. I was amazed and I wasn’t the only one amazed at his decision. Oh, and by the way, NUS Choir was on TV the other day. Sang a song as backup choir during that Project Hope special for the victims of those natural disasters. They looked lovely.
Wish I could have taken part. Would have been fun. Oh well.
I was going to bitch about technology again, particularly about Word for Mac, but I decided not to. Enough raised blood pressure from anger and frustration for today. Instead, I’d like to share this technology related video that’s circulating on FB:
Explains why suddenly there are so many people around using Mac.
Lol!
And, since I’m posting videos up, wanna share these two with you that I really liked.
This first one’s a Phantom and Vampire Chronicles crossover. A Christine/Marius pairing. Really good editing. Love the song too. And it’s Marius played by Vincent Perez. ;D
And this second one’s just a Vampire Chronicles thing. Being a huge fan of the VC, I just loved it. It’s sooooo emo.
Thought those girls lounging on the words were rather random. Wondered what I’d gotten myself into, that Il Divo had to resort to girls posing like that.
This is the clearest of my photos. It’s cropped, by the way, that’s why it looks like it’s so close. They started about 5 minutes late but it was great! First song: “Somewhere”. I didn’t use the camera during the rest of the concert, though I was really tempted to. They had nice background video things. There was a strange bit in the middle where the mini orchestra played “Heroe” in instrumental and Il Divo vanished backstage. Apparently it was a costume change. Hee!
This was during the encore “Amazing Grace”, the interlude part. They did their good nights and their bow and went backstage but the house lights didn’t go up yet and people were still clapping and cheering. When they came back on, they had another costume change! Cool.
Urs! I think he’s the best singer. Not too overbearing and always hitting the right tone. Hehe! Unfortunately not the best looker. He looked a bit stoned. Not drugged, mind you. Just ‘oh it’s another night, another concert’ kind of attitude. Anyway, I remember his name the most, even if I couldn’t remember whose face it belonged to. Bit embarrassed to say that, although I knew every one of their names and their background stuff a few years ago, I’d completely forgotten it by now. But, was reminded again when they introduced themselves during the concert.
Their final encore piece (I think). “My Way”. Can’t remember though. Will have to check with the bro in the morning. Hehe!
First batch turned out really bad. Burnt. I didn’t realise that it was ok for the cookie to be not firm when they came out of the oven so I left them in there too long and ya, burned.
Second batch was better. Realised the above point so they came out quite nice. But a bit wet but that was ok. It was like soft-bake. 
It looks nice but it began to melt the minute I took it out of the fridge.

Bro was joking the other day about how much the biscuit crumbs looked like drugs and were all laughing over what happens if we snort up biscuit crumbs. But anyway, this time, the biscuit base failed. Sigh. Because I put in too much butter. I thought it was too little so I put in more but it ended being too much more. Pity. It was a nice base the last time. But the top part worked out quite well. Was a bit burned but not too much. Wasn’t as well mixed as it could be either. The mixer couldn’t handle so little mixture and left all the good solid cheesy bits unmixed at the bottom. 
The base was far too wet and crumbled a lot. But the cake bit was damn nice. Very cheesy. Haha! I feel fat now. See the lighter bits, those are the unmixed bits of cheese. Oh well, not too bad for first time. Like I said, not too sure that I like baking. I don’t quite see the appeal of it.