Illustration

This has been building up in me for about a month now.
As much as I love working at Jabs, I can't help but feel tensed up when the creativity juice kicks in and there's no way I can output in the office. Jabs have much more better IT security, so I have been debating in my head for quite a long while if I wanted to install this there. Writing lame short stories isn't the same as having a place to design and color.
Today I couldn't stand the debate anymore and just install it in my good old desktop instead.

It's so lame, I've really gotten out of touch with the shortcuts.

It's pretty sad that the things I love doing have to all be time-managed into weekends. How I wish I can just enjoy Clara or doing stuff like this after work during the week.


***
I'm starting to wonder if there's a point keeping this blog if it just damages the relationships I have in real life due to audience assumptions vs my POV where virtually anything I say on the Internet can be untrue. Who's voice is it suppose to be speaking here? Isn't this place suppose to be mine to do whatever I want?

"I am a cold-hearted, materialistic, money-minded bitch."
There I've said it. Maybe this is the end of everything.

Baking Day

I haven't been baking for quite a very long while. So I thought I'd give myself a challenge and bake both a cake AND cookies in an afternoon. Also, I had to finish all that within 4 hours before my dad came back and find the whole kitchen in a mess.

The first thing I tried to do was bake a cake. As it is known, all my past cakes have sank in the middle or has been doomed one way or another. Actually, even today was doomed. The middle of the cake was still wet even after the 35 minutes instructed. I think it has to do with me making a tad mistake at the beginning and putting 100gm of cocoa powder and butter making it all dark that I couldn't see the texture when I had to add in the sugar. Adding on 20 minutes didn't help. After a 2nd 20 minutes and it was still wet, I decided to put another 30 minutes and give up if it was still wet inside as I had by then got all my cookies on the trays waiting to bake.

And time was running out! So I was super super happy when it turned out like this.

So excited that I finally made a whole cake that isn't collapsing, my hands were very shaky to take the picture. Needless to say the top bulging part was hard on the outer side from all that baking. But inside it was just right.

Beautifully dense, but a tad too sweet because I added an extra 100gm of sugar after I realized that the cocoa powder was really bitter.

Since it was such a success, and my dad doesn't like dark cakes, I sliced off the hardened top part for keeps and am bringing the bottom part to the office on Monday for a colleague's birthday so happen to be next week. It's seriously is a big relief for me to finally be able to produce a cake like this. I am grateful that some people continuously encourages me to bake even after so many failures.

So while all the waiting was going on, I made some cookies from a box of premix I had on hand. Besides the butter and egg instructed to add, I added a dash of vanilla and some red coloring just for the heck of it. I also finally got to make use of the cookie cutters San got me for my birthday.

Kawaii!

The cookies ballooned alot from their initial size.

And a batch of heart-shaped ones.

I finished just in time. As I was taking the mop out to mop the floor after washing utensils and wiping the counter, my dad drove into in. Haha! Talk about perfect timing.

For Vanity's sake

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

- Jane Austen

Once upon a time there was a girl who was in need of a haircut. But she was lazy to return to the barber she last got her haircut from as it was pretty far far away from her kingdom. So she surveyed the barbers in her kingdom, and finally found one open.

Unfortunately, the moment she walked in she knew she was in trouble. The barber didn't speak her language and communication was at its worst. So she tried to make the best of the situation and walked out of there trying to appreciate what the barber has done. But it was just not right.

Once she was safe in her home, the more she looked into the mirror the more she felt that the haircut had made her hair ballooned and she looked like she had a pumpkin as a head. And it didn't help that the father kept saying that it was just fine when it was not. After a few hours of deliberation and a tad tantrum, she decided to set off to the barber again. The father adviced her to go back to that same barber and get her money's worth, but she was terrified that that barber would only make it worst.

And so she decided to travel far far away to the barber she last got her haircut from. Thankfully the long long journey was fruitful. The barber was open and the barber was able to remove the pumpkin-ness and cut it more like what the barber formerly did, although it was a shorter version than she would ideally want. What more she had to pay another bundle of money. But she was very happy and relieve having the haircut fixed.

And it was worth the trouble as her happiness showed when she got back home, for her father then commented that he knew she wasn't going to be able to sit tight until she got her haircut properly, in a very amused manner. Thus she once again made her father highly amused for going on a long long journey to get the haircut fixed for which she should have done in the first place.

The only cure for vanity is laughter,

and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.
- Henri Bergson

The lesson learnt was to not be lazy when going to the right barber, as she could have been stuck with a very very horrible haircut instead.

Melodrama

Warning: This is just a melodramatic post.

"Accuse me, if you will, of melodramatic embroidery"

(Erskine Childers)

Someone deserves to hang me up in a tree by a rope around my neck.

Or wring my neck.

But then again, maybe not.

I have actually lost count how many 'Argh!!' I've gone thru this couple of days,

that I can almost laugh at myself.

Is there such a thing as introvert drama queen?

Transit in place

In 7 hours I have to get up for a brand new week of work.

Thanks to Yvonne, I now have 'Transit' in my car!!!
And Nana, thanksie for the brilliant idea~~!

Been listening to it every single moment that I can. In the car. At home.
The album is pretty cool as the lyrics and thanks are all in polaroid form. So I can just take out one polaroid at a time to view. It's pretty shiny smooth but so far I haven't left any fingerprint marks on it. I'm not sure if it's actually water resistant though. Won't wanna find that one out!

I am glad to find that they haven't change much even though they have minus 2 and add 1 from since the original first album, although I was kinda hoping for more solo parts for the bass and drums. I love every bit of the loud music but can't help but be a little annoyed with some parts of the vox that could have been stronger to emphasize instead of fading away and sounding weak instead. Some words are but sadly just a mumble. And the lyrics given are a little 'off' or missing the bridge maybe on purpose.

It's nice to be able to relate to most of the songs in there.
Although some of the themes are repetitive, they are not trying very hard to send a message or coyingly musical to draw you into a high.....sorta just factual. Haha! Ok, I know when I'm not making much sense.
It's a good diversion from the stuff I hear other wise, as it's not much me playable. It's seriously alot of work trying to figure out what key they are in because it's guitars. I found one in B major and another in A flat. So am not going to waste my time figuring out the other songs as these so far are ugly keys to me. Give me a C,G,D,A,E or even F any day and Clara will sing. But the rest are out of my league.

Oh, and today Clara was shockingly introduced to my brother's fingers.
I can only pray and hope that he didn't drop boogers into the gaps between the keys.
*shudders*
I had to wipe her for quite a bit after as there was quite a difference between the keys left untouched and those used. Sad to see there's a little dust all over her already.

Enough said.