Going to avoid blogging about lawyer guy for a change, and blog about some other thoughts instead.
been doing meal prep for this past month, but with a difference. previously, i'd tried to incorporate a variety of vegetables and proteins into my plans, but i realized that that was more trouble than it was worth. so, i've taken a more simple approach: 2 types of vegetables, 2 types of fish. decided to cut chicken out because fish is supposedly healthier, although i'm not 100% sure of that now, with the stories about toxic norwegian farmed salmon and all...but i shall choose to believe that the AVA is being vigilant and not allowing poisoned fish to reach consumers. so, the plan now is to have 2 containers of food to mix every day - a lunchbox of mixed mushroom saute, and a larger container of boiled cabbage (inspired by the TCM therapist's 水煮白菜 story). doesn't sound the most appetizing, but i find it palatable enough. yes, i'm technically cheating by counting "mixed mushrooms" as one vegetable, but it's just a minor detail. the quantities work out such that about $80 worth of groceries lasts for about 1 to 1.5 weeks, meaning that each meal costs in the neighbourhood of $5. not bad, if i do say so myself. i also had an interesting learning moment while doing the previous round of meal prep. i must have been off of my cooking game or something, because i grossly oversalted the mushrooms. in a rare moment of genius, i didn't salt the boiled cabbage at all. when the two were combined together and reheated, the salt balanced out just fine. maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but i felt that this method allowed me to taste the sweetness of the cabbage better. should try it again.
another thing i learned about cooking, in conjunction with seasoning less, is the power of bones. so because i buy whole fish, the people at the fish counter also give me the heads and backbones of the fish after they've processed it for me. i usually throw the bones in together with the cabbage and let it all boil together, and it tastes good. since i didn't season the pot so strongly last time, i was able to taste a more pronounced fish flavour in the soup/water. as pretentious/poncey as it'll make me sound, the fish flavour came through from the soup as quite light and delicate. it was probably hidden by the other seasonings that i normally used, so i'm probably going to go lighter on the seasoning from now on. i wonder if i've been taking the western cooking maxim of "season well or else it'll be tasteless" too far.
decided to cut back on the whole fermentation thing. my objective for doing it was to make vegetables taste better, and to have a ready source of snack food on standby. yeah...turns out that i still don't really care for munching on raw vegetables. i mean, the fermentation did make them taste (marginally) better, and i quite enjoyed the added sourness. but overall, it was still rather one-dimensional. i guess it just didn't live up to my expectations. would pickling be better? apart from the lack of interesting taste, the quantity/volume of production was another issue too; i was consuming the vegetables far too slowly. it was to the point where my sauerkraut turned alcoholic, and mould began to grow in my jar of fermented carrots/celery. yes, i hear all of you yelling for me to put them in the fridge to slow the fermentation process and prevent mould growth, but nah. i've still got fermented onions from more than a month ago in there! only the jar of fermented garlic continues to survive well under room conditions, and that's probably only because garlic is antibacterial/antifungal/antimicrobial...anti-something, anyway. so, the takeaway here is to be more judicious with quantities, a kilo at a time should be fine. same for the fermented drinks - i'm making more than i consume, and that throws off the time that they're left to ferment, which in turn throws off the taste. should reduce the volumes by half.
had a brief email exchange with the learning lab HR yesterday. they're interested to renew my contract, but they won't give me additional teaching hours. as much as i'm disappointed by that, i'll still end up continuing with them. after all, some income beats no income, right? i'll probably confirm it with them tomorrow, and ask for placement for ad-hoc classes again. hopefully that will go some way to adding to my salary.
considering that work was one of the major events of the year, it will certainly make an appearance in my end-of-year post. but i want to talk a bit about something related to it, so that it takes up less space later. a couple of posts ago, i prompted myself to blog about liking something, and being good at it. in an ideal world, a person's job would be something that they liked, and something that they're good at. even more ideally, they should be good at all aspects of their job. like, i should be good at teaching all aspects of chemistry, and thankfully, i am...i think. well, for O-level standard, anyway. if you've been reading long enough, you'd know that physical chemistry has been the bane of my entire chemistry career. in the later part of undergrad and for grad school, i was fortunate to be able to choose to specialize in synthetic chemistry - something which i both enjoyed and had a decent aptitude for. or to put another spin on it, i was fortunate to be able to put massive distance between myself and physical chemistry. in the context of the IP firm, being a patent attorney involves several things. there's the filing and conforming the specification to singapore law part, to which i was amply exposed. i think i could have gotten pretty good at it, given a gentler learning curve and slightly more support. another pretty significant aspect of the job is the drafting aspect, where a client comes to you with an invention, and you're responsible for drawing up the specification, ie. you're responsible for determining the extent of protection to which the client is legally entitled. as you can probably imagine, that's highly stressful and requires great skill and experience...and something that i don't think i'd like. so, maybe it's for the best that i didn't pursue the patent attorney route. the other option, if i'm still set on the IP industry, would be to look into becoming a patent examiner. unfortunately, IPOS rejected me already earlier this year, so we'll see how that track develops in the future.
but bringing it back to things you like/things that you're good at, i think there's some truth to the observation that you don't like the things that you're bad at. like, i was never able to "see" physical chemistry concepts like i do for organic chemistry. and unfortunately, i never found a teacher/professor who was able to make me see it either. same thing for fitness. i enjoy lifting weights, but hate cardio. as much as i'd like to generalize and say that everyone hates cardio, i know people who can run for seemingly forever, enjoying themselves every step of the way. again, there are exceptions, i suck at art, but do enjoy doodling here and there, even if i know that my work will never make it to an art contest, let alone a gallery. but that's more of a casual pursuit.
just going to blog about a weird dream before going off. i dreamt that i was an executioner. in singapore, the death penalty is carried out via hanging. in my dream, the death penalty was carried out by using a drill press (those big benchtop drills i remember from D&T class in secondary school) to drill into the convicted person's skull. don't want to speculate about the implications of that on my mental state, but yes. i don't recall everything, but i do recall having to execute a secondary school friend. i even asked my senior executioner to mark the spot that would cause the least pain/make the process as quick as possible. the advice was to follow the mouth/jawline up to the temple, and drill through there. don't know how accurate that is, and please don't go trying it out. there was a lot of crying (both me and him), and he told me to get it over with and that he didn't blame me. think i woke up before the actual act, which was a relief. the weird thing is that while the dream seems to suggest unresolved guilt on my end (manifesting as him forgiving me), i haven't done anything to wrong this particular friend. in fact, we have a pretty good friendship despite infrequent contact, so i have no idea what my brain is on about. oh well.
been doing meal prep for this past month, but with a difference. previously, i'd tried to incorporate a variety of vegetables and proteins into my plans, but i realized that that was more trouble than it was worth. so, i've taken a more simple approach: 2 types of vegetables, 2 types of fish. decided to cut chicken out because fish is supposedly healthier, although i'm not 100% sure of that now, with the stories about toxic norwegian farmed salmon and all...but i shall choose to believe that the AVA is being vigilant and not allowing poisoned fish to reach consumers. so, the plan now is to have 2 containers of food to mix every day - a lunchbox of mixed mushroom saute, and a larger container of boiled cabbage (inspired by the TCM therapist's 水煮白菜 story). doesn't sound the most appetizing, but i find it palatable enough. yes, i'm technically cheating by counting "mixed mushrooms" as one vegetable, but it's just a minor detail. the quantities work out such that about $80 worth of groceries lasts for about 1 to 1.5 weeks, meaning that each meal costs in the neighbourhood of $5. not bad, if i do say so myself. i also had an interesting learning moment while doing the previous round of meal prep. i must have been off of my cooking game or something, because i grossly oversalted the mushrooms. in a rare moment of genius, i didn't salt the boiled cabbage at all. when the two were combined together and reheated, the salt balanced out just fine. maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but i felt that this method allowed me to taste the sweetness of the cabbage better. should try it again.
another thing i learned about cooking, in conjunction with seasoning less, is the power of bones. so because i buy whole fish, the people at the fish counter also give me the heads and backbones of the fish after they've processed it for me. i usually throw the bones in together with the cabbage and let it all boil together, and it tastes good. since i didn't season the pot so strongly last time, i was able to taste a more pronounced fish flavour in the soup/water. as pretentious/poncey as it'll make me sound, the fish flavour came through from the soup as quite light and delicate. it was probably hidden by the other seasonings that i normally used, so i'm probably going to go lighter on the seasoning from now on. i wonder if i've been taking the western cooking maxim of "season well or else it'll be tasteless" too far.
decided to cut back on the whole fermentation thing. my objective for doing it was to make vegetables taste better, and to have a ready source of snack food on standby. yeah...turns out that i still don't really care for munching on raw vegetables. i mean, the fermentation did make them taste (marginally) better, and i quite enjoyed the added sourness. but overall, it was still rather one-dimensional. i guess it just didn't live up to my expectations. would pickling be better? apart from the lack of interesting taste, the quantity/volume of production was another issue too; i was consuming the vegetables far too slowly. it was to the point where my sauerkraut turned alcoholic, and mould began to grow in my jar of fermented carrots/celery. yes, i hear all of you yelling for me to put them in the fridge to slow the fermentation process and prevent mould growth, but nah. i've still got fermented onions from more than a month ago in there! only the jar of fermented garlic continues to survive well under room conditions, and that's probably only because garlic is antibacterial/antifungal/antimicrobial...anti-something, anyway. so, the takeaway here is to be more judicious with quantities, a kilo at a time should be fine. same for the fermented drinks - i'm making more than i consume, and that throws off the time that they're left to ferment, which in turn throws off the taste. should reduce the volumes by half.
had a brief email exchange with the learning lab HR yesterday. they're interested to renew my contract, but they won't give me additional teaching hours. as much as i'm disappointed by that, i'll still end up continuing with them. after all, some income beats no income, right? i'll probably confirm it with them tomorrow, and ask for placement for ad-hoc classes again. hopefully that will go some way to adding to my salary.
considering that work was one of the major events of the year, it will certainly make an appearance in my end-of-year post. but i want to talk a bit about something related to it, so that it takes up less space later. a couple of posts ago, i prompted myself to blog about liking something, and being good at it. in an ideal world, a person's job would be something that they liked, and something that they're good at. even more ideally, they should be good at all aspects of their job. like, i should be good at teaching all aspects of chemistry, and thankfully, i am...i think. well, for O-level standard, anyway. if you've been reading long enough, you'd know that physical chemistry has been the bane of my entire chemistry career. in the later part of undergrad and for grad school, i was fortunate to be able to choose to specialize in synthetic chemistry - something which i both enjoyed and had a decent aptitude for. or to put another spin on it, i was fortunate to be able to put massive distance between myself and physical chemistry. in the context of the IP firm, being a patent attorney involves several things. there's the filing and conforming the specification to singapore law part, to which i was amply exposed. i think i could have gotten pretty good at it, given a gentler learning curve and slightly more support. another pretty significant aspect of the job is the drafting aspect, where a client comes to you with an invention, and you're responsible for drawing up the specification, ie. you're responsible for determining the extent of protection to which the client is legally entitled. as you can probably imagine, that's highly stressful and requires great skill and experience...and something that i don't think i'd like. so, maybe it's for the best that i didn't pursue the patent attorney route. the other option, if i'm still set on the IP industry, would be to look into becoming a patent examiner. unfortunately, IPOS rejected me already earlier this year, so we'll see how that track develops in the future.
but bringing it back to things you like/things that you're good at, i think there's some truth to the observation that you don't like the things that you're bad at. like, i was never able to "see" physical chemistry concepts like i do for organic chemistry. and unfortunately, i never found a teacher/professor who was able to make me see it either. same thing for fitness. i enjoy lifting weights, but hate cardio. as much as i'd like to generalize and say that everyone hates cardio, i know people who can run for seemingly forever, enjoying themselves every step of the way. again, there are exceptions, i suck at art, but do enjoy doodling here and there, even if i know that my work will never make it to an art contest, let alone a gallery. but that's more of a casual pursuit.
just going to blog about a weird dream before going off. i dreamt that i was an executioner. in singapore, the death penalty is carried out via hanging. in my dream, the death penalty was carried out by using a drill press (those big benchtop drills i remember from D&T class in secondary school) to drill into the convicted person's skull. don't want to speculate about the implications of that on my mental state, but yes. i don't recall everything, but i do recall having to execute a secondary school friend. i even asked my senior executioner to mark the spot that would cause the least pain/make the process as quick as possible. the advice was to follow the mouth/jawline up to the temple, and drill through there. don't know how accurate that is, and please don't go trying it out. there was a lot of crying (both me and him), and he told me to get it over with and that he didn't blame me. think i woke up before the actual act, which was a relief. the weird thing is that while the dream seems to suggest unresolved guilt on my end (manifesting as him forgiving me), i haven't done anything to wrong this particular friend. in fact, we have a pretty good friendship despite infrequent contact, so i have no idea what my brain is on about. oh well.
-random thought of the day: Meeting scary JC friend tomorrow!-
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