Shit Show

I'm not sure there ever has been another country on earth in recorded history, that has ever gone downhill so fast, save for being invaded by a vastly technologically superior country. Things are all going to hell in a handbasket, and its still just the first month of the year. Ho boy. Damn do I dislike this country more and more, day by day. 

School Anxiety

Today's the first day of my classes at Hunter and I feel anxious. One is that I haven't had anything remotely resembling a schedule since May last year and feel worried about time management, and the other is that I'm starting a program that (appears to me at least) to be removed from the usual purely academic and international setting and instead one is that is very local and in a culture I'm not fully familiar or comfortable with. For instance today, the first class, will be held at the campus school rather than the main Hunter campus itself. The idea of attending a lesson in a location like that makes me feel a whole bunch of irrational worries, beyond the usual "what if I turn up and no one else is there?"

Urgh.

Nutella Blondie Brownies

The last time I remember baking was more than 10 years ago [Though as I continued writing I remembered baking blueberry pie when I was 17-18 years old]. It was when I was still attending church in Singapore as a teenager, and I wanted to impress the people in my Sunday School class with my baking skills. I was probably 15 years old. I was going to make muffins from a recipe in my Home Economics textbook, a recipe that I had actually made a few times before to tasty perfection. 

Problem was this time, I had forgotten to get fresh milk. Instead I used powdered milk as a substitute and hoped for the best. When the muffins came out, they were rock hard. I don't know why I didn't abandon the idea after that, but still persisted and brought them to church. Sure they were hard, but they still tasted good to me, and so I naively thought that was good enough, They're like crunchy cookies, I thought. 

Boys being boys of course, they made fun of my muffins and talked about how they were as hard as rocks. Although they were my friends and I knew it was good-natured ribbing, I still felt hurt. I felt like I had failed and had embarrassed myself in front of the people I most wanted to impress (ah, I never want to be a teen again). 

I never made that recipe again. And for that matter stopped baking completely for the next few years until a friend went gaga over blueberry pie and I made it for her when I realised it couldn't be found anywhere for purchase in Singapore. The second time I made the pie for some other friends, it was so goopy it collapsed, and I lamented my baking skills once more.

Flash forward to this week, when I was stretching in the gym after a run and looking at reddit as I cooled down. Someone had posted a photo of brownies he had made and someone else attached a link to the recipe. My first thought when I saw it was "Hah! Baking! Never going to do that again." and I looked at the recipe out of curiosity, and I realised it didn't look very hard at all and I already had half of the ingredients on the list. I realised I could actually make it, and that this might be one of the last times where I had the chance to be able to spontaneously bake anything on a weekday. 

And so when I went grocery shopping afterwards (a planned trip), I started gathering the items on the list. Things like soft brown sugar (never heard of this before this recipe), vanilla essence and baking powder. When I got home I realised I didn't even have a whisk, so I instead used a wooden spatula. The recipe called for piping out the dough and nutella, and I instead used my (very clean!) hands and the back of a spoon. 

When the baking was done, I anxiously pulled the tray out of the over and sliced into it. Then I popped it into my mouth, and it was good. I felt happy and relieved. And then I sliced it and distributed it into 3 containers, and told Jon to bring 2 containers to work the next day when he got home from work. Because in baking it, I had seen exactly how much sugar and butter went into it, and felt slightly sick at the thought of how unhealthy it was, and wanted to spread the unhealthiness around, hahaha.

So here is my tale of baking again, after several years.

News News

Just read a news report that a tailor, who runs a shop on a street parallel to the one I'm living on, was stabbed several times and robbed of $80 (!!!) just yesterday around noon. I remember hearing a lot of sirens around that time and wondered what was happening.

Reading about it just makes me feel really disappointed as a whole about the state of the world. 

A Rare Religious Post

After an emotionally trying week (wedding prep + MIL), stepping into church this week felt like a welcome breath of fresh air. For the past few months I've been dropping by Madison Avenue Baptist Church whenever Jon is unavailable on Sunday mornings (it is also conveniently a brisk 10 min walk from my current place), and have so far found the church extremely agreeable with my existing notions of Christianity (acceptance of LGBTQ+, political and social activism). The Rev in charge, Susan Sparks, typically delivers hilarious and heartfelt sermons that I love and enjoy, and today I was looking particularly forward to seeing her and listening to her sermon.

This week however, the Rev was nowhere to be seen. Instead it was the Associate Pastor Rev Hutto who was going to lead the entire service, and I felt the slightest twinge of disappointment. Either way, I was still happy to have made it to service this weekend. The sermon Rev Hutto delivered this week however, was beautiful and amazing, and very befitting of the whole political situation swirling around the presidential inauguration.

Rev Hutto started off by saying that he originally had another sermon planned, but had decided that he need to address the events over the last 48 hours: namely the inauguration, counter-protests, and most prominently, the Women's March. The scripture reading was Exodus 1:8 to 2:10, and Rev Hutto's sermon spoke about how biblical society, or even society at large today, constantly ignores, undervalues and underestimates women, but that God uses this underestimation to still carry out his plans. It was a beautiful sermon. And I'm the type that usually nods off during sermons (though admittedly that hasn't yet happened since I've started attending this church).

So here it is: my first religiously themed blogpost since I've started writing this thing.

A podcast of the sermon can be found here. Look for the sermon on 22nd Jan, 2017.