Issues
It took the bank 1 month to get our accounts sorted out, 2 weeks to reply and give us an appointment, 1 week to send the cards, and now that I’ve finally gotten my bank account (but not the money we transferred over 2 months ago!), I get 2 emails from 2 different branches of the same bank inviting me for an appointment to open a bank account.
Why lidat.
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Because it’s 500m down the road, we always go to the supermarket in shorts and flip flops (the sloppiness!) and always look out of place because everyone’s bundled up in jackets, scarfs, coats, boots, and the sort.
Everytime I walk out of the apartment, I anticipate the chill that envelopes my bare legs and even though I generally prefer warm weather over cold, I find that feeling oddly comforting.
Maybe the feeling comes from an unconscious realisation that the building envelope does successfully provide some form of insulation and shelter, and it somehow gives me hope in the significance of my profession. Yeap.
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I’ve decided to leave sorting out the thoughts about women and their sexuality for another day. I somehow see the train of thought fitting into some branch of feminism, and because it will take a lot more reading to come to a logical (and personal) conclusion, I’ll tend to other thoughts first.
Cavalier, or not
Surely, the real strength of a woman comes from the mastery of her own sexuality (as pertaining to sense of self).
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Two recent cases of bad breakups have affirmed my belief that when it comes to women, men can be awfully vulnerable creatures indeed. Women can walk away from (long term) relationships relatively unscathed and almost totally unaffected, but it’s the men who will be all tangled up in the messy emotional aftermath of a relationship.
Sigh. Of course, the idea of having men wrapped around our little fingers sounds awfully empowering, not to mention tempting, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to maintain some form of discretion and integrity when it comes to matters of the heart.
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I must have diverted because I actually started this post with the conviction that using your sexuality for your own eventual benefit is an admirable thing.
Will sort these thoughts out tomorrow.
Today
I really like these images from dailybitsofbeauty!
![holly14[1]](https://elainethian.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/holly141.jpg?w=650&h=431 "holly14[1]")
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My favourite part of our day is always dinner time.
Today, I made baked char siew, stir fried french beans and a (comforting) carrot-potato-onion chicken soup. The room was glowing perfectly from the evening sun, the food turned out to be good, and so we had a nice long dinner.
I’d really like a big nice (black coloured) oven in my kitchen. Hmm maybe I’d like two. One huge one for the roasts and bakes, another smaller one for daily dinner dishes.
Today I also went to the shopping place opposite the bank, bought some volumising shampoo, a big round brush, and some velcro rollers for my hair.
Food and Clothes
I just realised that the Mid Autumn Festival is coming up pretty soon, and now I have a craving for a slice of triple yolk lotus paste mooncake. Or a yam paste snow skin one.
About dinner the other day, we made Wiener Schnitzel for a dinner party for 12 people. The two of us, Christine my neighbour and I, made a grand total of 30 slices of schnitzel, each managing 3 oil filled cooking pans at any point of time.
I haven’t deep fried anything in a while (the horror of the oily face/hair/clothes afterwards!) but I’m reminded once again that a big outdoor wet kitchen is always a necessity in any house.
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I’ve been following the Spring/ Summer 2010 Fashion Week updates. I’ve never realised how many second or third tier (from Central St. Martin’s, nonetheless) designers who have shown for years during fashion week, but have yet to get enough publicity, if any at all. I wonder if their clothes sell at all.
Of course, the big names deserve their share of fame and publicity, it takes a lot of talent to make inherently unfashionably things like shiny, sequined tie dye print look good.
Thankfully the studs and leather look is out for good, I wonder what the blogshops are going to do with all that stock in 6 months’ time.
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The other day, a friend had a bicycle accident that resulted in a chipped tooth and a big bad scratch across her cheek. Of course we were thankful that the curb missed her eye by just a teeny bit, and her tooth, not nose, broke her fall, but I feel a bit apprehensive at the slopes now, especially during horrible traffic jams in the morning.
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I’m appreciating this method of designing from a form. Analysing the graphical patterns of a city is sometimes more substantial than filling our heads with airy fairy urban theories. Perhaps semesters in architecture school should be organised like that- vacations for reading and generating ideas, school term purely for execution and testing out of ideas.
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Because I have talked too much, here is a compact camera photo to end this post.
Copper Rust, by canal in Amsterdam
woohoo.
I have decided that these few months ahead here in the Netherlands would be, perhaps, one of the most memorable periods of my tetiary life. And that it would be great to be able to read and reminiscence it all again in future.
Of course, considering our awesomely sparse timetables, we do have quite a bit of time to spare.
This weekend so far has been awesome pawsome. It started off on Thursday evening 5pm, when the Bouwpub opened officially (we have a faculty pub right outside my studio, drinks for 1 euro). Halfway through our drinks, I decided that we should go to Rotterdam for dinner!
And so we did. Had pizza in a religiously decorated restaurant (I quote Jere, ‘there was a Jesus in the toilet, i’m not kidding!) , met my kawan Belanda Edward’s incredibly chatty Portugese girlfriend, discussed the pros and cons of the European Union, and got an informal tour of Rotterdam Blaak area.
Friday was supposed to be work day, but obviously that didn’t happen. We went to the city centre instead. There was a (vertical rides, token slot jackpot machines, throw the hoops and win a lousy soft toy kinda) funfair, hurray. It amazes me how there seems to be a different form of entertainment at the town square every single week. I suppose it is, afterall, the most happening place to be over the weekend.
I can’t exactly remember what happened today, but I think we watched a lot of shows. Caught America’s Next Top Model (I can’t believe I’m still watching it!), Gossip Girl (explaining it to Jere made me realise how pointless the show really is), and Micsha Barton’s The Beautiful Life.
I made tomato pasta paste from scratch today! In a kitchen full of Spaniards and Aussies, a Chinese girl cooking Italian must have looked weird. Loved the smell of fresh basil.
Oh, one of my goals for this exchange semester is to cook a different dish every single day. We’re making wiener schnitzel (the Austrian version I prefer) tomorrow!
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