Find myself in constant daydream these days. I’d be able to sit down and stare into nothingness and just think about things.

There’s not terribly much to get me excited over these days. The days are routine and with the sun rising earlier, I get up earlier as well, but there feels like a lack of accomplishment. I recall when I used to be able to turn ideas into form and function. Now the ideas just get lost in a sea of other ideas. Maybe I’m a little tired out, wanting some totally different experience altogether.

Was at Borders reading about Tobie Puttock and his background as a chef. He is currently famous for getting Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant running in Melbourne. What fascinated me was the idea that one could go to a provincial town, and work cooking shifts as an apprentice while spending his free time snowboarding off the snow mountains nearby. I think he stayed there for 6 months, and left the area proficient in pasta making as well as speaking Italian. The head chef there told him he’d speak to him in English for two weeks, after that, he’d only speak to him in Italian. Heh, the only way to learn a language is to use a language.

Food and cooking fascinate me a lot these days. You can see it from what I keep in my pantry, from cumin powder/garam masala to dried shitake mushrooms/five spice powder to capers/olives and basil etc. Heh, applying all my learning skills to understand how cooking works. Lament at my kitchen for lacking a proper gas stove. Electric stoves just don’t generate the kind of heat needed for certain dishes (especially Chinese ones where you quickly toss the food up, it’s the uber heat that cooks it quickly while retaining the flavours/juices of the meats/vegetables). Just last night I tested adding corn to the soy soup base and it really enhances the taste. The idea was taken from seeing corn added to miso soup noodles in local Japanese restaurants, so the idea had some merit. Heh. Also made tonkatsu with some Japanese breadcrumbs and premium pork eye fillet (alas, no pictures, was hungry!). Had a disaster with meat a few weeks back when I bought the cheapest cut of meat available. There was a big chunk of it, but it was intended more for stewing and no amount of chewing reduced the meat into small sizes possible for swallowing.

Cooking is very much a trial and error process. Heh, but as long as there’s someone to eat my cooking (me and Vyanne, who also gives me interesting ideas when I see her cook) I am quite motivated to learn new dishes. Heh.

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My friend’s shoes, so tidily lined up on the grass.

Been spending longer hours at work. Heh, it feels good, to have some responsibilities that you make yourself accountable for. I have a work process that I’ve made entirely my own, and even designed my own spreadsheet to work with it. It’s good to be knowledgable in an area and also be able to produce reports on demand for it.

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Juggling time again, mainly between work and play. Studying has so far been left out of the equation, but I’ll see if I can cram 2 or so hours this weekend. A computer with the Internet as an entertainment form in front of me at my desk is not conducive for studying, so I’ll try and make use of library facilities as much as I can.

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Been wanting to find something to buy for a long while now. Maybe I’m just itchified to spend money. Heh, I either really want it but don’t think I can justify the cost of purchasing it (eg. 70-200mm VR lens) or I can buy it on a whim but feel I have too much junk (eg. iPod Nano) to keep collecting more. Talking of purchases, the best items I’ve bought so far usually cost me the least amount of money. My $20 plunger has been making drink after drink after drink. It originally specialised in coffee but does tea as well now. Heh.

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Life has been terribly routine of late. The Mid Autumn festival is soon and am anticipating a really full moon. Vyanne’s housemates made some mooncakes, the green skinned ones. I want to celebrate life a little over the next few days.