of SWOT VAC and instantaneous gratification

SWOT VAC has officially started with one whole week of anti-socialness and skyhigh notes to be done. the last 400 metres to the finish line.

and the finish line means i am done with 1/6 of my meddie career! it does feel like it passed in an instant, with all my wonderful friends around me with their crazy antics. it's quite impossible to enjoy myself with them around.

but heck, must hold the champangne glasses and the celebratory 'pop' of alcohol. EXAMS are due in a week's time and i'm not even near it yet.

of the not-drunk-at-all Qi and KitKats

i am tired about memorising the many cycles that happens in the body.
it just goes round and round and round till there's no tomorrow.
but if there's no tomorrow, then the cycles will not go on, since we are going to be dead ey??

....

omg, i can't believe that i'm actually blogging about the citric acid cycle and all the crap that biochem forced down my throat...

i must be deranged and rabid-ranting from all the stuff that i will probably not use in clinics.

i should stop typing ridiculous posts and go for a bath.

yes, i will do just that.

and i need volumes of KitKat please, anyone?

i'm obsesssed with them now. screw the nutritional index on the wrapper.

Mel is not a happy Mel without KitKats.

but on a happier note, happy birthday to Qi who is finally legal and is one heck of a drinker. you put the shots down like there's no tomorrow girl!! Chian already officially invited you to join the club, what more can you ask for?? heck, i'm not even IN the club. and i don't think i can be, due to the fact that my ancestors are Chinese and do not have a whole lot of alcohol dehydrogenase in their genes that will break alcohol down. genes do determine most of the stuff we do and say ey? anyways, happy 18, Qi!! you're legal so don't do the things that i won't do ya?? hugs.

of frozen cheesecakes and Polarchunk

PolarChunk loves oreo cheesecakes and he just can't get enough of it that it's hilarious.
and he not only loves the cheesecake that i make, but he wants it to be frozen like a freaking hard block of ice cream sandwich, instead of the soft fluffy melt-in-your-mouth type.

sigh, the ridiculous things that i put up with.

oh and did i tell you that PolarChunk is obsessed with Lemon Lime & Bitter too??

of dimsum and rude waiters

silly me brought the camera out and forgot to take photos of today's yumcha session with Xin Nee, Jia Hong and Yi Yu (one fish!!). darn it.

and we had such a lovely lovely time, laughing about how i constantly use Yi Yu as the rubbish bin for all unfinished dimsums and the fact that the staff at Chinese restaurants in Melb are unbelievably rude to us!! and we all happen to have the same ancestors!!

for all that rude waiter know, my ancestor in China might have helped his ancestor out in times of trouble and saved his neck from mountains of debts and from the loan sharks' chopping block!!

oh well, other than that bitchy moment aside, it was all oh-so-great!! the girls were wonderful as usual and we had our greedy moments of the week, gulping down whole dimsums, resurfacing for air and gossip.

and then on to Melb Central where the girls had to get something for a 21st birthday party. and surprise surprise, we ended up at Diva, the one-stop shop for a Mother Day's pressie, a best friend's birthday pressie, a colleague's farewell gift. you can get anything for anyone for any occasion in it, i swear. it's a girl's accesories heaven, i tell you. and seeing as i'm in need of retail theraphy, i immediately jumped on the sales wagon and went into shopping la-la land and came out with loads for only 22 bucks!! awesome stuffs i got!!

after all, brightly coloured trinkets are my thing.
that and great friends who make you eat that last morsel of dimsum but take it away as soon as you gag on the taste of parsley in it.

of Oreo cheesecakes and the cooking goddess in my life

Jenna is legal from yesterday onwards. so happy birthday, Jenna!! and so to commemorate this milestone of limitless opportunities and responsibilities, i decided to bake a Oreo Non-Bake Cheesecake!! what else to show the TLC and spread it around ey??

and Phey Yee dearest wants the recipe so here you go, girl:

1 package Oreo cookies, divided
1/4 cup butter, melted
4 packages Philadelphia Cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 container Cool Whip Topping, thawed

1. Line a 9x13 inch pan with foil extending over sides of pan.
2. Coarsely chop 15 of the cookies; set aside.
3. Finely crush remaining cookies; mix with butter. Press firmly onto bottom of prepared pan. (but to add more oomph or flavor or the missing ingredient that chefs always talk about, i put a layer of blueberries! cooking is all about improvisation in the right amounts)
4. Refrigerate while preparing filling.
5. Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in large bowl with mixer on medium until well blended. (seeing as i had no mixer, Kelvin and me took turns to hand-stir the miture till soft. now i have well-defined biceps!!)
6. Gently stir in whipped topping and chopped cookies.
7. Spoon over crust; cover.
8. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm.

and voila!! a really awesome cheesecake that requires no baking and no burnt crusts and no half-cooked insides. and i remember this recipe was first given to me by my best friend, Sheau Shiuh and she was a kitchen goddess at that time and still is i suspect. she can do the most amazing things with normal everyday ingredients. and when we were neighbours (we used to live around teh corner from each other until her dad cruelly moved them to a much further suburb.), her mum used to cook this Hakka delicacy which had green tea and all sorts of yummy veggies in it and i would always go over and have second and third helpings. until this day, i love that dish and try to eat it at hawker centres but it will never taste the same as her mum's.

and when i went over, she would just let me in and i would find my way around the house, beaching myself on the couch. and we used to have sleepovers even though i could very well go back to my house which was less than a few steps away to sleep. and she used to have this very flat pillow of hers that she would let me sleep on and which i found difficult to sleep on on the 1st night but after that, it became MY pilow. until this day, i think she stil has it.

and the extra special bond was the fact that we born on the same day, in the same ward, same hospital and delivered by the same doctor. only she was older than me by 2 hours. and her mum remembered seeing my mum being wheeled into the ward taht she was in 19 years ago. and we used to think that i was the older twin until years later, we whipped out our birth certs and lo and behold, i became the younger twin and the always-blur her remembered the wrong time of birth!! and she became my older sister. but i think i was the protective one, i was the outspoken one. so anyone who bullied her faced my wrath. but she was the gentle one, the calm one, so she kept me in check, not letting me go overboard with my gung-ho instincts.

she's doing her STPM now and she's busy as ever and she has grown so much more and i am proud of her. even though we've probably had our own different group of friends now, she will always be part of my life and she will always be the older twin and my non-biological sister.

of Yahoo! Food and meatloafs

i'm in the architecture library now, getting some work done on the computer.
the brownless feels soo much more at home for me~~ proves that i indeed transcend into the medical nerd mold.

but having said that, mel's newest phase is surfing the Yahoo sites for yummylicious recipes!a a truly weird addiction. people have their caffeine fix, movie fix and i have my looking-at-yummylicious-recipes fix. it's enough to refresh my brain after a bout of serious a-nerding.
and and and...
i get to improve my culinary skills!!

okay, maybe it's different on thw website and when doing it. but hey, i can get the basics down pat!!

Yahoo!Food recipes that are currently on Mel's faves-and-can't-wait-to-try-out list:
1. chicken noodle soup (i always dreamt of making the perfect broth for those cold sick-ly days...comes with the territory of being a meddie)
2. Oreos Philadelphia non baked cheesecake (will be trying this out for Jenna's birthday this weekend and is absolutely baking-oven-free and takes half hour to prepare!! awesome, ain't it??)
3. toffee choc chip cookies
4. the eggplant minced beaf lasagne
5. apple dumplings
6. the various salad dressings
7. italian minestrone soup
8. MEATLOAF!! (i have always had a fascination with meatloafs and growing up in an Asian and meatloaf-free environment makes me crave it even more!! but without an oven in my apartment, it is a lost cause indeed. and the fact that it is crucified as the unhealthy food of the American culture makes me desire it even more!! forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. and i have even heard that unscrupulous restauranteurs even put innards and mystery meat in it instead of lean mince!!)
9. a perfectly cooked steak