The Impossibility of Forgetting

My roomie didn't get a cake on her birthday so I decided, along with one of our former roommates, to bake her one. I decided on making french 'petit fours' and tried my hand at making fondant- that thick doughy icing you see on wedding cakes. After four hours of baking this was the fruit of my labour. I gotta say it was quite an experiment since this cake was not fluffy but solid and heavy.
We somewhat 'surprised' her by setting up her black desk with trays of petit fours, slices of iced cake, strawberries, Magnolia cupcakes as well as a few wrapped presents (I even paid attention to lighting by spotlighting the desk and dimming the lights down in other places for the full dramatic effect... pahahaha). I think she liked it a lot- presentation wise it was gorgeous:


It started off looking not so great... the shortening was just oozing from our fingers as we rolled the fondant out. Gross.


But we always figure out ways to make the ugly mistakes into something pretty. What you saw from the first image is what we ended up doing with the trial cakes: sliced them up into quarters and added sprinkles, add a silk bow on a plastic cutting tray with a doiley and bam! It looks pretty darn good.


After many years of making miniature clay roses the size of a fingernail, I tried it with fondant and they looked great as a detail on the cakes.

People often ask me why I don't go to culinary school. My only answer to them is that I don't have a passion for the culinary arts: I just do it as a way of showing my love for other people. It's not something I see myself doing twenty years from now- and I can't produce things in mass amounts because it'll just get boring.

*
Jess wanted me to go to her place down in the Financial District. We like to smooth talk each other which always ends up me disgusted at Jess.
S: yeah you live so farrrrr
J: it's okay, you're near.
J: seeing as you occupy my heart.
J: teehee.
S: PUAAHH
S: do i have to pay rent?
J: yes, in rice porridge. and that tiramisu of yours.
S: thanks
S: I see your heart lies in your stomach.

*

This weekend has been quite interesting...

I don't know how I got myself into this situation. It seems only fit for an Asian drama. In this game of love, I know the cards that all the other players have been dealt which they've shown me willingly yet I keep my own hand rather quietly, revealing it once in a while. So why am I losing if I know the cards that they have been dealt with?
It somewhat broke my heart to do this: I don't know why I did it but it was my way of letting go. I shouldn't want anyway because I don't think I really deserve to want. And I want someone to deal me a better hand.
Ironically the only person I could talk to at the time was a guy who I knew back in HK who ended up in Australia for boarding school. I had a crush on him back in gr6- my reasons being that he played the piano well and was also good at tennis. lol. Anyway, he was online until 4:30am and I found out that we could have crossed paths in HK though unfortunately I did not know he was in town at the same time. We both ended up moping about our love lives and how messed up life can seem at times.
And I convinced him to get facebook. lol. Sometimes you just gotta laugh at the circumstances that you've been given because they're so ironic.

I got a call from Mel, "friday, asian frat party at 12am."
I went because I had nothing else to do. And I just wanted to forget.
Forget, forget, forget.
Forget you,
Forget all the feelings I want to bury.
Dance to forget.
But the more I wanted to forget, the more I had to remember to forget. Thus the idea of forgetting was impossible.
Who would have known that He would take away so many things away at the beginning of the year? I understand, I'm not angry or bitter but I'm just a little lost as to what I'm supposed to do now. Am I blind to things that I should be aware of and the only way of making me see is to remove all distractions from my sight? Interestingly enough I don't see as I used to.

I didn't want to go to church today. I know I should be going there to meet God but at the same time I really did not want to go because I didn't want to see him.

Old loves don't die.
I know that as a fact. You think they've faded but they always return- feelings are like that, they just creep up on you unexpectedly (somewhat of a paraphrase from '2046').

So I got there early to set up and to somewhat of my dismay, he was already there. I just avoided him by talking to other friends I had not seen since Christmas yet it was inevitable that I had to make some conversation since he was edging over to the area where I was making hot chocolate. I asked him indirectly to test the chocolate and then went to pray with the rest of the Welcoming Ministry.
Afterwards I just had to suck it up, go to him and talk because I didn't want to dread going to church the rest of the semester in order to avoid him. And for once I didn't really have to carry the conversation: he seemed a little confused to see me since he thought I was back for new years and then disappeared for another two weeks when in fact I was gone for a solid month. I told him about HK and getting an internship there and he asked me if I could speak Canto. I think we're both on the same level speaking wise.

I think it'll be alright- I can't avoid him so I'll just befriend him. He seems interested in talking as friends. Or maybe it's just all in my head. To my dismay I've become really good at seeing life as the photographer- as the third person- in relationships. I can see when a guy is interested in a girl and vice versa through body language.
Like I said one and a half years ago, never the player but always the spectator. And I thought I was taking ownership of my relationships.

*

At lunch today with a friend, the conversation ended up her asking me why I don't ever talk about myself. She told me that when I told her that my uncle was sick in HK, she was pleased that I finally decided to 'open up': however I don't really consider that as opening up because it only affects me indirectly. I'm still not talking about myself, rather, about someone else.

The reason why I don't talk about myself is simple: I suffer some self esteem issues where I do not believe that anyone is really interested in getting to know me so if they don't ask me anything, I won't divulge them with anything of my own. I don't talk about myself because I don't feel like they'd really care about what I say about myself. So when I start talking to people, I end up asking them questions about themselves thus I turn into a sponge and just soak in what other people have to say about themselves: and you wonder why I forget what people say, because I just can't contain that much small talk information in my head. So when I want to talk about myself, I write it all down here because blogs don't shun people. I don't know if you realize this, but if you ever come out of a conversation without me asking me anything, you'll discover that at the end, you will have gotten nothing out of me. I'm scared to come off as needy or wanting attention.

The funny thing is is that the people whom I value most are the people who I can
1)feel free to talk about myself without having them ask necessarily but if they ask, it makes me feel wanted because not many people ask. At times when I'm talking about myself to someone else, I'm having an inner dialogue with myself, questioning the reason why I started talking about myself in the first place when the person probably does not give a darn with what I have to say because it doesn't concern them.
2)look 'ugly'. I mean that I can just feel accepted without makeup or elaborate clothes.

My roomie told me that I should start talking about myself because people actually are interested. Ironically I find it extremely hard to open up to her- I don't know why.
Lately I've been trying to change- I try to randomly talk more about myself yet after I finish and do not illicit any response from the person, I feel really bad as if I took up their time with my selfishness. After all, why would they care for what I had to say about my life?
I feel like I give a lot but never get anything back and I feel selfish for wanting something in return. I want to get to know people but at the same time, I want others to know more about me.

I don't know if this makes any sense because my thoughts always end up in pools at my feet and I'm trying to wade through. I know it sounds messy and I might just totally sound psychotic but there's logic in my emotion.