Singaporean Habits Die Hard November 8, 2009

A few days ago, I bought a small Toshiba netbook to cater to my mobile computing needs since in the span of just two weeks, both my laptops, a MacBook and a Sony VAIO, decided to self-terminate. I brought it home and excitedly showed Steve the features of this shiny new metal object, and after a series of questions, he finally asks, “How much?”

I tell him the amount, which is markedly above average for a netbook these days, to which he exclaimed, “What?! Why?” And then I sheepishly admit that the netbook was really 450 bucks and that I actually bought a 2-year protection plan for an additional $150.

“Why would you do that? It’s such a waste of money! No one I know ever buys these things, they are scams!”

I flashed a self-effacing grin, saying that I happen to break things very often and I just like knowing that it’s covered, because of the uncertainties of the future, whether it’s a hardware failure or just me knocking over a glass of milk (which I actually did before by the way, and Steve couldn’t wait to come over and say, “oh sweetie, don’t cry over spilt milk! He was so happy after that because he said he always wanted to say that in a real-life non-figurative situation. I’m glad I give him these opportunities).

Anyway, I did it again a few days after when I upgraded my old clunker to Apple’s iPhone – I purchased the Apple Care Protection Plan because if anything happened to the phone (with the exception of theft/loss), I’d have to cough up the retail price of US$600. And before you can say, “what could possibly happen to your phone,” I am happy to tell you a story that just took place a few days ago. Steve had just woken up, sleepy and groggy as he was about to partake in the morning leak ritual when his iPhone slipped out of his hand and actually dropped into the toilet bowl. Miraculously, it bounced off the dry angeled side without touching the water, and landed snugly into his hands. I know the man is a black belt in taekwondo but the reflexes required to successfully pull this off are quite ridiculous. Suffice to say that I know that my reflexes are not nearly as advanced and that miracles in my life are far less commonplace than in his.

This all got me thinking about my inclination towards the concept of the “extended warranty program”, which is in stark contrast to many of my American friends who see it as an unecessary expense and a scam by dealers to increase their bottom lines by milking the consumer for every last dollar.

And then it hit me - you can take the girl out of Singapore, but you can’t take Singapore out of the girl. Singaporeans are a highly risk-averse lot – in fact it is so ingrained into the national mindset that it is practically etched into my own psyche, and till today I cannot seem to shake it off. It’s not uncommon to hear the refrain, “aii yaah, just play safe” among the locals. In fact, “play safe” best sums up the governing principle of life in Singapore where the government created and maintains an environment that focuses on stability and social cohesion. The PAP way of thinking is to make sure that every base is covered, no possible scenario is left unanalyzed, no potential consequence, unexamined – it’s really a very logical approach to life that minimizes the impact of unforeseen circumstances that may leave you caught out in the cold. 

It is no coincidence that Singapore boasts the highest saving rate in the world, well over 40% of GDP, which is a direct result of the government-mandated savings program. It acts as a social safety net that prepares each working adult for retirement, so that everybody regardless of income would have laid some sort of a nest egg; this all negates the need for a government-based welfare system as people are “forced” into personal responsibility. It is as Singaporean as it is a Confucian philosophy to leave as little as you can to chance and save now to prepare for the future, and although the act of spending more to protect a purchase seems counter-productive, it’s the risk aversion bit that is both at the core of the aptitude for saving and the compunction for extended warranties (although unfortunately, I missed out on the tendency to save part).

Also, the culture of taking risks, either in the entrepreuneurial sense or in taking the road less traveled, does not really exist. It’s a truly meritocrtic society where your future can be accurately predicted based on your cumulative performance in the education system. The “best option,” which is really the option where you risk the least and the option which leaves you with the most options, is to do extremely well and make sure you study science and math because from there, you can do anything – you can become a doctor, lawyer or massage therapist, if you so desire. You can’t be a student of the humanities in high school and hope to become a cardiac surgeon one day because it’s too late, you didn’t “play safe,” you didn’t work hard, so you don’t get to study the natural sciences and hence, no chance of ever conducting a triple bypass. Singaporeans rarely ever exit the paper chase or ditch the 9-5 corporate job to seek their true passions – it is drilled into their heads that such behavior is too uncertain and it might jeapordize everything. Where one’s fate is largely deemed to be the aggregate outcome of individual decisions and personal effort, why risk it? Why risk anything when you have so much to lose?  If there’s an option that allows you to be covered and protected from the uncertainties of life, in exchange for a relatively small amount of money, why not go for it? You may lose the $150 (cost of the warranty) or you may have to buy a brand new product. In my Singaporean mind, it just always seems to be a good deal (especially for Apple products).

If there’s an insurance for anything that can possibly break down, I’d definitely get it. I’m the sucker who continually keeps these programs alive – my cell phone, laptop, iPod, camera, video camera, LCD TV, right down to my electric toothbrush are all safeguarded by some sort of a protection plan.

This is how a typical exchange goes between me and someone who’s trying to sell me something

Sales person: “Would you like to purchase an extended warranty that would cover your purchase for 2 additional years on top of manufactuer’s warranty, no questions asked?”

Me: “Hmmm…”

Sales person: “You never know if it may break or the hard drive crashes, you know, technology nowadays…”

My brain, thinking: “Oh ya. Hmm, better play safe.”

Me: “OK!”

(Ever realize that the Singaporean catch phrase “play safe” is a reduction of the english phrase, “play it safe?” This demonstrates a remarkable character of Singlish that I call linguistic efficiency, so much so that a two-letter word, “it,” had to be dropped in favor of overall economy of speech. Three words now become two so that Singaporeans can convey the essence of its meaning without compromising on clarity. Astounding. Truly an artform.)

Steve, like my other American friends soley rely on the manufacture’s warranties, which typically lasts for a year from the date of purchase. But problems don’t start surfacing till much later! Firstly, it’s somewhat aggravating that people just don’t make things that last anymore, is it too much to ask for your new iPod to last for at least 2 years? Secondly, as I discovered earlier, I am congenitally predisposed to disrupt electric circuitry, either by my knack for inadvertantly dowsing water on keyboards or simply by staring at computers. So that’s how I rationalize purchasing these protection plans.

I am actually surprised that Steve does not see the absolute necessity for these warranties, especially given that I am now a permanent fixture in his life. Two years ago we went to Universal Studios and he passed me his old Canon Powershot digital camera for “safekeeping” in my bag. Unbeknownst to him (and me actually), I had taken a sip from a bottle of spring water and neglected to cap it before returning it to the bag. When a kodak moment appeared, I reached in and was shocked to find the camera submerged in a swimming pool (Oh my poor Longchamp bag – that was my first reaction). Big Oops. Moral of the story: never trust a water baby with any of your electronics! But you see, if he had a working protection plan, he would have been safeguarded against, um, me, and we wouldn’t have had to go shopping for a new camera at all (although that was a good idea because he was still using one with 5 MegaPixels and the pictures on this blog would look worse).

Of course a major poblem is that warranties don’t cover a period of time that’s nearly as long as it needs to. Computers seem to break down in 3-4 years, well outside of the typical 2 year protection plan offered by any of the national electronics retailers. In fact, when I told my mom about the demise of my laptop, she texted me and advised that I buy a 5 year warranty the next time I purchased a new one. Five year warranty – did you hear that? That’s unprecedented here in the United States where the most common coverage period is 2 years (which is nice because everything goes kaput after 2 years; it’s a conspiracy). That told me something – warranty programs must be extremely popular in Singapore that stores are willing to offer 5-year warranties.

On a bright note, I did find one store that offered a 4-year protection plan that INCLUDES accidental damage, albeit for 25% of the cost of the laptop itself. I wondered to myself whether, like dry shampoo, that this was really too good to be true, so I made sure to ask the sales guy explicitly whether or not I’d be covered in the very likely event that I spill coffee all over the keyboard. It should’ve been obvious but to my astonishment, he said yes!

So I finally figured out that I’m getting a Sony VAIO to replace my um, broken down Sony VAIO. But this time with an expensive 4-year protection plan. And it is not a rip-off when you find yourself replacing electronics at an average rate of two every year.

Weekend Randoms November 7, 2009

It’s peak foliage here in New England and the parks are riddled with the fallen detritus of yellow and gold leaves. It’s strange but I love hearing the sounds of dried leaves getting crushed under my boots as we walked through the Boston Common, adding just another sensory dimension to Autumn. It won’t be for long before the trees are barren and the first snow flakes begin to fall, so I was intent on taking it all in and savoring the short fleeting moment.

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So, let’s see, what else is new this weekend… oh that’s right! A piano! We bought a piano! If it seems like it came out of nowhere, you’re absolutely right – it was totally an impulse buy. Lately I’ve been nursing an unexplainable urge to run my fingers along ivory keys, yearning for an opportunity to let my inner Chopin out and play music again. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the wedding is over and I finally have the time and energy for extracurriculars like rekindling long-lost passions (playing the piano) and pursuing new ones (like equestrian sport).

First things first, I had to do some major sizing up of the apartment to make sure the hypothetical piano could even fit – 57 inches, that’s the most amount of space I could create without having to do any extensive furniture rearrangement. So on Saturday afternoon, we trooped down to Steinert & Sons, the exclusive dealer of Steinway pianos to take a look; in handbag terms, a Steinway is the Birkin (sadly, a Birkin costs just as much as a pre-owned Steinway piano, pray tell me why!). I described my criteria to the sales people – the piano has to be compact to fit into a tight urban space, in dark espresso or black finish to complement our interior furnishing, and technically advanced enough for a player with moderately sophisticated skill levels (who is also very rusty).

No real musician will ever favor a digital piano over an acoustic one – a digital one can never truly replicate the feel of an actual stringed piano, especially in terms of tactile sensitivity and tone. But technology nowadays has come a long way, so much so the Roland DP990 does a great job of mimicking the sound of a Steinway Grand Piano to striking parity. The most remarkable feature of this digital piano has got to be its diminutive size – it is barely a foot deep and has a lid that transforms it into a stylish console table when closed. Importantly, the keyboard spans 55 inches so it would fit snugly nto the little niche by the window!

Another advantage that I hadn’t considered before has to do with the ability to plug in earphones to practice in private, so at least I wouldn’t wake the neighbors up with my late-night renditions of Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D. Furthermore, this digital piano is extraordinarily low-maintenance because it won’t ever have to be tuned by a professional, which is ideal for now. It just happens that it was our lucky day – a spanking new black DP990 was going for US$600 less than the retail price. After some enquiries, we realized that it was in fact not new at all – it was a rental return, which I never would’ve guessed since there was not even a single speck of dust on it, let alone a tiny scratch. There was only one piece on the floor, standing next to its cherry-finished twin going for its retail price of $2400.

Several chains of thought were processed in my head all at once when faced with this impending prospect. Of course, my first instinct was to look to Steve who surprisingly was wholeheartedly backing my endeavor. I was half expecting an admonishment about the importance of prioritizing my spending habits but instead, he simply said, “it’s a great talent you have and I don’t want you to lose it. And besides sweetie, I love it when you play, I really do.” My heart filled up with silent “awww”s and I smiled back, knowing I not only had his approval, but his overwhelming support. There are many things I’d like to accomplish in this life – mastering George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue ranks very high on that list. Getting a piano was the first step, now at least I can start letting my fingers do the talking and work towards perfecting Gershwin; it’s also going to be a luxury to be able to play tunes on a whim.

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It’s a week away from Halloween and Steve was so busy that he hadn’t had the chance to go shopping for a costume. So I dragged him to the Garment District, THE place to shop for costumes, wacky hippie clothes and rare vintage finds. Housed in an industrial warehouse-like setting, it spans two levels and offers the most impressive range of Halloween costumes, some so convincingly good that they could pass of as theater props. He had no clue of what to go as, but we tried out an assortment of costumes, some just for the sake of fun.

Me as Asterix the Gaul from the famous comic book (shout out to pops who loves Asterix & Obelix) set in France during Caesar’s Gallic Wars.

His Holiness addresses a flock of cardinals in the Vatican (Holiness because he’s very holy moley, literally).

My stomach was grumbling and I started craving for Korean food of all things, so we quickly settled on a costume and headed out. It was perfect timing because we found a Korean restaurant couple of blocks away that was just about to close. There’s an ongoing private joke (guess it’s not so private anymore) about Steve’s “white-washness” – several colleagues and friends refer to him as “Worst Asian Ever,” though when they found out that he didn’t like kimchi, he became known as “Worst Korean Ever.” He has made several attempts to discredit that moniker, all of which has actually done more to corroborate its felicitousness.

Sometimes, he’d take me to an authentic Korean place and try to be all showy and speak Korean to the waitress, only to have the waitress reply in English. There was once he tried ordering a “Number 1″ on the menu and the Korean lady looked at him, somewhat puzzled, and asked him if he was sure – apparently Number 1 was not a dish that appeals to Western palates, seeing that it contains some spicy squid soup that only “legit” Koreans would order. And don’t get me started on the time we went to a predominantly Korean town in New Jersey and they had to re-sit us in another section of the restaurant with english menus (and higher prices) because Steve-o couldn’t read the all-Korean menu. The title of his account of our travels in Korea should be, “I’m a stranger here myself.”

So this night, it was just another dinner at a Korean restaurant – I have this thing for pickled anything so naturally, I love kimchi. I love Japanese pickled radishes, pickled ginger, pickled gherkins and hamburger dills too! We were browsing the menu and after choosing our entrees he asked what appetizers I’d like, and I told him that as long as there’s kimchi, I was going to be a happy camper. He suggested ordering Korean scallion pancakes and I hastily agreed because it’s one of my favorite dishes too and I was really hungry. So the waitress comes by and I hear him sputter some mumbo jumbo, followed by what was clearly affirmations in Korean from the waitress, and then she leaves.

The next time I see her again, is when she emerges from the kitchen, bringing a steaming hot plate toward us. But when she plonks it down on our table, I realize that the dish bore no resemblance to pancake at all. In fact, there was red bubbling liquid with thick white cylindrical sticks floating in it. I gawk at the dish, and then stare at Steve in bewilderment as if to say, “What?!” And he looks back at me, stunned for a while, and then grins and says, “Oops.”

“So uhh, I ordered the wrong thing. But anyway! This is good too! I like it! It’s what we eat when we go drinking!”

Notice the “we” in that statement. He’s trying to force his way into being one with the Koreans after such an embarassing farce! He’s trying to regain some credibility and legitimacy to his roots!

I was cackling in laughter, so hard that I think I got a stitch and I forgot about my hunger.

I love that we laugh with and at each other. Sometimes more at each other than anything.

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We went riding again on Sunday where I rode on a small but feisty stallion called Tequila and Steve this time got Baron. We learned how to trot, actually that sounds wrong because we weren’t doing the trotting – the horses were. The technical term is “posting the trot,” and it’s an action that the rider does to prevent his backside from getting chaffed by the saddle due to the rocking motion. It is to smooth out the jolts of a horse’s trot so that the rider looks elegant and poised, and not like a klutz who’s bouncing on his behind. It’s really not easy – it requires a sense of immaculate timing and rhythm, and a big deal of pelvic action. Posting basically involves rising out of the saddle for every other stride of the horse’s forelegs, and the one-two-one-two rhythm is important to keep. Baron, being the little rascal that he is, tends to change the rhythm of his stride on turns so poor Steve was uhh, double bumping on those turns. When we’re off the saddle with our backs straight, most of what holds us there is the sheer muscle power of the inner thighs and some pelvic muscles. I had a distinct but mild groin ache for the next two days.

Here are a couple of pictures from our riding center: there’s me with Emma, the Old English Sheepdog who reminds me of my late Grizzly (who was of the same breed). And then there’s Steve leading Tequila back to the open stables at the back of the property.

And here’s a picture of Flame running around the open yard

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Fengshui 101 November 3, 2009

So a week ago, my old behemoth of a laptop, a seven-pounder Sony VAIO flashed its last set of blue pixels before it frazzled out for good. I was barely mourning its demise when my other laptop, a MacBook that I use primarily for work, suffered a hard drive crash and wouldn’t boot up its OS. Great. So now I have two useless clunkers that have out-lived their manufacturer’s warranties – don’t people make things to last anymore?!

I decided to crossover to Apple computers in 2008 for two reasons: first, I need a UNIX environment for the nerdy things I do at work and second, I heard that once you go Apple, you never go back, simply because Macs just don’t have many of the problems that plague PCs. But I never truly integrated into the world that Steve Jobs created, primarily because the “delete” key no longer deleted things anymore and an “alias” is really just a shortcut. It is such an unecessary waste of brain cell usage to retain two completely different sets of terminology, especially when it seems that the only reason it serves is to help Apple create some sort of “identity” and exclusive in-group “lingo” among its devotees. Nevertheless, I needed a MacBook to look legit at school and work because everyone in the field of genomics / phylogenetics / bioinformatics uses Apple computers for some very technical reasons that I shan’t go into right now.

What I didn’t expect though, was how soon it would  succumb to its electronic death, especially at a time that I really needed it to work consistently. And worse, because of the general consensus that Macs are sturdy, reliable machines, and the fact that it conked out under my year-long proprietorship, I had to start asking questions about myself. Is there something innate in me that computers are simply repelled by? Do I emit electromagnetic waves that interfere with moving electrons?

I was ruminating over this theory and ventured into the things that computers are naturally opposed to. And then I wondered aloud whether I might be hydrophillic since electronic goods are hydrophobic and we all know that water and electricity don’t mix very well. One thing led to another and after a little bit of research, I got it all figured out!

Folks, I have solved the mystery. I know why computers hate me. I know why in the last 5 years 3 notebook computers have petered out on me. This statistic doesn’t even count the number of desktops that I have casually used in school or in the lab, which are probably riled with issues as a consequence of my usage. It’s very simple – it all comes down to….. Feng Shui !

So according to I Ching (an ancient classical text by which feng shui is based on), there are 5 elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water. After looking up my birthday and birth year, I found that the element that “governs” my life is….. WATER. I am sure you can see where this is going now. Computers and any electronic device for that matter, are made of metal for it is the only “element” that electrons can flow through to conduct electricity. If you think this is absurd just chew on this for a moment: Steve, a good computer tinkerer who makes a career out of business and IT, the saviour of all of my computer woes, happens to be born in a birth year associated with the element METAL. Hello?! Is it not obvious now? There is something inherent about me that computers, made of metallic parts, are constitutionally repulsed by - I am WATER! I disable machines, I make metal rust!

So there. I feel so much better now. It’s not my fault! Blame it on the cosmos!

Brought the Mac in to the Mac store and after a “Genius” looked at it, was told that it would cost $750 for a repair. I decided to drop the idea and for $600, got a little Toshiba netbook for portability and convenience instead. Too bad that it was pretty much useless – I brought it home and realized that it couldn’t connect to our wireless network because we have an advanced N router and the lousy netbook contains an old-school B router instead.

This sums it all up:  - ___ -

The Toshiba is heading back to the store where it came from and for now, I am going to go laptopless (haha!). I can live without a notebook computer mainly because I am a new owner of an iPhone, so I can still access the world wide web at home, and do heavy-duty computing on the desktops at work.

When water and metal figure out how to co-exist, maybe I’ll start thinking of getting another laptop again.

Safe Sex October 29, 2009

I read with interest that a 4th publicly-funded university is in the works in Singapore, and as of now, it has been named the Singapore University of Technology & Design. For a country that is so fond of acronyms, shouldn’t that name be avoided at all costs, since it could easily be abbrieviated by STD?

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1014477/1/.html

The designated acronym is SU but it’s kind of, well, blah… it leaves no impression, it has minimal impact, it doesn’t roll off the tongue nicely like the way IU or BU does, particularly because SU sort of sounds like a curse phrase, you know “S* you!” Most importantly, it says nothing about the university, which in this case, is a specialized school - so why not have the Technology and Design parts of its name in the acronym?

I look forward to seeing kids wearing sweatshirts printed with ”STD” in collegiate font walking around Singapore. Oh what? It’s too hot to be wearing sweatshirts there? Right.

Oh and for intramural sports the teams could be named: Syphilis, Crabs, Herpes and Gonorreah. GO HERPES!

Getting Real in Real Time with Bill October 23, 2009

Another weekend comes and goes, by Monday I was wondering what on earth had happened to it! The eventful weekend was kicked off with a date with one of our favorite comedians, Bill Maher, who did a show at the Wilbur Theater. Friday nights usually mean one thing for us, and that is dinner at home accompanied by Real Time with Bill Maher, a prime time talk show hosted on HBO, the ONLY reason I even subscribe to that channel. I used to watch Politically Incorrect (Maher’s previous late-night talk show) when I was younger and was miffed when ABC pulled the plug because it was too, um, politically incorrect (By the way, Maher is pronounced “Marr,” one syllable and not two). So it was pretty fitting that on this Friday night, instead of sitting in front of the telly to watch his cable show, we headed down to the Wilbur to see Bill’s stand-up routine.

Amid his perpetual smug expression and humorously irreverent commentary, he often conjures up nuggets of practical wisdom. Most of the time, thoughts swirl in our heads but the norms and conventions that society has set in place often prevent them from being regurgitated. That’s one of the reasons that I am such a huge fan of his – he dares to say things that nobody else does, and more often than not, they are the ugly truths that we do not care to admit. He is truly a master (Maherster, I should say, haha) of political satire and observational comedy, a critic of organized religion and a champion of American liberalism. To my knowledge, he was the only public figure (with the glaring exception of US Congressman Peter King)  to have come out immediately following Michael Jackson’s death, and denounced the idolatry that the Nation was showering on a person who not only did not deserve it, but who was also  a microcosm of all the things that were wrong in our postmodernist society. He lambasted the media for intense and prolonged coverage, and censured the people for their collective amnesia of the much-maligned celebrity.

Here’s some of Bill’s wisecracks in the form of my favorite segment, “New Rules” (courtesy of HBO):

New rule: Cornbread isn’t bread. It’s cake

New Rule: Stop referring to Sarah Palin as a renegade. A renegade is someone who rebels against convention. What is Sarah Palin rebelling against? Grammar? Wildlife? Sports analogies? Face it, Sarah, you only rebelled against one thing in your life: family planning.

And finally, New Rule: All the good news stories have to stop breaking while I’m on vacation! You know, I go away for a mere three weeks to work with my charity, Hot Tubs Without Borders, and Karl Malden dies and also Michael Jackson. The most famous white lady to die since Princess Diana. And one question gnawed at me the whole time: why, why did America lose its collective shit over Michael Jackson?! And then, like Michael’s father, Joe, it hit me. Michael Jackson IS AMERICA!

We love him so much because he reflects our nation perfectly: fragile, over-indulgent, childish, in debt, on drugs and over the hill.

Now, let me state clearly, I don’t wish my country was all of these bad things. I just don’t want to be like one of those people Michael Jackson had around him, the ones who just tell you you’re great and that your destructive behavior is totally normal, and they give you whatever you want. You know: doctors.

So, let’s go down the list and see if I’m crazy, or if, indeed, America is unfortunately all the things Michael Jackson was.

Is America fragile? Well, what do you think would happen if there was another terrorist attack here? I’ll tell you what would happen. We’d repeal the rest of the Bill of Rights, forget about health care, elect Toby Keith president–and fire me again.

Are we fragile? The stock ticker in Times Square yesterday said, “What the f*ck are you looking at?”

Over-indulgent. I defy anyone to watch ten minutes of “My Super Sweet 16″ on MTV and not want to strap on a vest and blow up that little snot’s birthday party.

Did you know that a third of children in America are overweight? Michael Jackson didn’t have a heart attack. His play date rolled over on him.

Childish. Well, we think “Harry Potter” is literature and Batman movies are profound meditations on the human condition. Our morning coffee has become a milkshake with whipped cream. And 64% of the people believe Noah’s Ark actually happened.

And what could be more childish than what our news media chooses to cover? My God, since this Michael Jackson thing happened, I have no idea what’s going on with Jon and Kate!

In debt. Please, this week, the deficit –that’s just what we’ve run up for the year — went over one trillion dollars. To give you an idea of how much that is, take what your home is now worth and add one trillion dollars.

On drugs. If you don’t think America has got a drug problem, you must be high. Children are on Prozac. Athletes are on steroids. The pharmaceutical industry sold $291 billion worth of pills last year. Mostly to Michael Jackson, okay, but still. And that’s not counting the potheads and the drinkers. Yes, America is on drugs.

And, by the way, people also do just as much coke as they ever did. They just don’t share it anymore.

And finally, is America over the hill? I don’t know. I hope not. But, Monday is the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong first setting foot on the moon. And I can’t think of any ambitious goal we’ve reached since then. It’s sad when your peak was a moon walk that occurred decades ago.

So America faces a choice. We can go the Michael route and keep living on debt and the world’s affection for our early work, or we can get our shit together like Britney Spears–put on our circus costume and go out there and show the world we’ve still got it!

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He is a true comedic genius! So far, there are really only two things that I disagree with Maher about - namely, his support for the legalization of marijuana and his refusal to trust vaccines. His opinion on vaccinations are somewhat dangerous because he is a public figure and his words get heard by millions of already ignorant people. In a debate with Bill Frist he stated, “Why would you let them be the ones to stick a disease into your arm? I would never get a swine flu vaccine or any vaccine. I don’t trust the government, epsecially with my health.”

In this 21st century, what kind of hippie do you have to be to STILL not trust vaccines?! Without them, our life expectancy will still be hovering around 30. Why is the efficacy of vaccinations still being debated today? These people often cite the medical literature, which will say things like, “4 in 10,000 children contract fever-induced seizures as a result of the MMR (measels) vaccination.” Ok, there’s no denying that there are cases of extreme adverse side effects and conditions, most of the time it has to do with interaction with other drugs or alleries that were not reported. From a mother’s stand point, the 1 in 10,000 ratio is not a chance that she may be willing to take, and frankly, so long as the “1″ exists, a mother will never be fully at ease. But from a public health standpoint, these vaccinations are crucial to fighting diseases, keeping the general population safe and extending our collective life expectancies. I’m sorry to say but if your child is going to die from a vaccine, then that really means that his immune system was already pretty screwed up and he’d probably die from the disease itself. Worse, are the people that are trying to make the case that autism is a consequence of vaccinations!

I realized I got sidetracked but for some reason I cannot tolerate the balant disregard for public health, the naïveté and medical illiteracy of the masses and the distortion of the bigger picture by quacks who use those statistics to bolster their weak arguments. Remember folks, in the words of Mark Twain himself, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics!”

Diamonds Are Forever October 20, 2009

It was my first runway show ever, and the best thing about it was that I wasn’t part of the press and media contingent. In fact, Steve and I were personal guests of the desiger herself, an honor that I deeply cherish for an experience that I utterly appreciated. After all, why on earth would an IT consultant and a scientist be occupying precious floor space at a fashion show of one of the most celebrated up-and- coming designers in New York City?

Bridal designers showcase their collections only once a year, compared to ready-to-wear and haute couture designers, who showcase collections twice a year. Pnina’s 2010 designs have been christened the “Diamond Collection,” which is apt because the economy is climbing out of recession, conspicuous consumption will return to the norm once again and the desire for “bling” will only escalate from here. I’ve actually heard many girls say, “There is no such thing as too much bling,” and for them, Pnina’s latest creations would surely hit the sweet spot.

We got to Kleinfeld at 6pm sharp for a cocktail reception where some hors d’oeuvres and Spanish cava were served and for a while, we mingled before getting seated. On each Tiffany chair was a blue box with a white satin bow and Pnina’s name on it, and a written guide with a description of each gown in chronological order of appearance. I recognized the editors from every major bridal magazine – The Knot, Condé Nast (Brides), Martha Stewart Weddings, the list goes on. As the rampant chatter subsided into a soft murmur, the lights dimmed and a chic loungey version of “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” boomed through the speakers. One by one, the models sashayed down the runway, dripping in luxe details. As promised, there were lots of Swarovski crystals that sparkled under the intense lighting, but other trends were also apparent – textured and architecturally structured skirts, jeweled corsets, feathers and furs, crystal-studded straps and sweetheart necklines, ruffles, ornate headpieces that are a throw-back to the style of a 1920’s flapper.

Some highlights (all photos courtesy of Brides magazine):

Blinged out Hair Accessories

Jeweled Bodices & Necklines

If ball gowns are your thing, here’s a gorgeous ivory satin ball gown with a jeweled corset

A glamorous gown with a plunging neckline, made even sexier by the keyhole detail and double jeweled straps

More cystals, in a smorgasbord of styles

Dramatically Textured Skirts

Here’s one for the princess bride: a white tierred tulle ball gown accented with jewels. It’s what happens when you cross Cinderella with a swan.

A satin dropped waist A-line gown with a ruffled skirt embellished with jeweled bows

More different textures: pleated ruffles on the left, reminiscent of Oscar de la Renta and on the right, a caramel tiered jeweled skirt

Left: Shredded tulle A-line gown; Right: chantilly lace ruffles on skirt. Believe me, textured skirts photograph better than satin/silk gowns with a smooth and shiny finish

A Victorian-inspired Ball Gown

Rich details abound on this dress – gold satin with lace corset accented with jewels and intricate embroidery. It also features draped satin and a pleated skirt with a cluster of beatutiful silk roses that acts as a modern interpretation of the can-can.

The Minimalist

On the other end of the spectrum, a gown with no jewels in plain sight – till you notice that the flowers lining the shoulder are studded with singular Swarovski crystals. (Chris – your favorite, right?) I love the bubble hem and the assymetric seams on the corset.

Old Hollywood Glamor

A Monroesque pleated satin gown and draped jewels on an assymetrical shoulder

Lookin’ like a million bucks in a beaded dropped waist gown with a tiered jeweled skirt

Bringing SexyBack – ivory chiffon sheath and jewel appliques accenting a low back

Fur, Feathers and Ruffles

Furs and feathers are great for winter weddings.

And… romantic ruffles evoke the spirit of flamenco

My Favorite Dress

It’s blinged out, daringly sexy and has a soft ethereal skirt that glows

And for the finale…

An apricot ruffled tulle gown with corset bodice accented in draping jewels and jeweled straps, paired with a light pink mink fur wrap and headpiece

Nineteen pieces were part of this collection – and the only thing they had in common were the diamonds, faux of course. Yet, every single dress was unique and outstanding in its own way, the fruition of Pnina’s dreams and inspirations – several times, she had told me that she “dreamt a dress” – the one she designed for me was born that way, but there were several revisions to the skirt and she eventually decided on a bubble-hem. I am so proud and happy for her – she is so warm, sincere and extremely talented and her career seems to be taking the world by storm. Her very own boutique is now opened on Newbon Street in London, and her first evening and ready-to-wear collection will debut in London at a runway show in January, which we are not going to miss for the world!

Oh how I wish I could walk down the aisle again next year so that I would have an excuse to wear a 2010 design from her Diamond Collection!

Spoiler Alert: I heard from the grapevine that Kim Cattral’s character on Sex and the City, Samantha, will be featured in the movie sequel wearing a Pnina Tornai gown! I didn’t insinuate she was getting married or anything like that – she could’ve been just parading around the movie set wearing a bridal gown for fun, or her character Samantha could have been dumped at the alter just like Carrie was. Who knows?!

 

A Big Bite Of The Big Apple October 19, 2009

It was a classic New York weekend. Classic, in the sense that we went at it full-steam from the moment we stepped off the plane, with a schedule packed tight with many things to do and people to see. Our social agenda involved catching up with the people that we’ve known from various phases of our lives and who all, for their own dreams and purposes, call Manhattan home, albeit a temporary one. It was also classic because we did some quintessential New York things:

1. Got an invite to a fashion show

2. Attended a musical on Broadway

3. Lunched on New York-style pizza and hot dog in the Village

4. Shopped in SoHo on a lazy Saturday afternoon

5. Had dinner with friends in Gramercy

6. Partied like a rock star in Chelsea

7. Woke up to tell the tale at Sunday brunch at the Tavern in Central Park

8. Washed down last night’s hangover with mimosas

9. Nibbled on the best cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery

10. Met someone famous at the Y

We flew into JFK on Friday afternoon and after wolfing down a PRET sandwich (I love that stuff), immediately went to see Pnina Tornai who was having a trunk show at Kleinfeld Bridal. We brought our wedding pictures and a copy of the Tatler, which was our gift to her, since the magazine had featured her gown. Everybody was so happy to see us, and what I didn’t expect, was how glad I was to see them. Many gowns fly off the rack, and after an inordinate amount of time invested in picking out the right dress, heavy discussions about whether it’d fit right in with the other elements of the wedding and what accessories would go with it, most of the staff find themselves caught up in the huge anticipation of someone’s big day, only to see them walk out the store, with nary an inkling of what the big day actually would be like for the bride.

I suppose that was why everyone, from the owners to the buyers to the sales people and of course, to dear Pnina, was just ecstatic to be able to see our wedding, and to see their dress against the backdrop of what was the culmination of a year’s worth of stressing and planning, the glorious stage that marked a milestone in our lives. Pnina herself invited us to her runway show on Monday, where she would be showcasing her much-anticipated, much hyped-about 2010 Bridal collection. Without any hesitation, I told her I’d be there.

Rushing back to the hotel, I quickly changed into “something nice,” which was the dress code that Steve informed me to abide by. Needless to say, I had no clue what he had in store for me, apart from three hints: It had something to do with France, and he always wanted to do it because it’s one of the first things you should do when in New York, but he simply never got about doing it, for whatever reason. Also, this apparently would not be my “first time” doing it. It was obvious to me what it was – we were going to see the… Statue of Liberty! It was a gift from France and till today, despite numerous visits to New York, for both business and pleasure, Steve still has never found the time to see Lady Liberty, the icon of American ideals and the ultimate symbol of freedom.

In 1994, I was almost in tears as the boat pulled out of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty was in full view; till today a picture of my family standing on her pedestal remains one my most cherished possessions. So yes, I have clearly done “the Statue” before. I thought maybe there was some special light show or something going on atop the towering green statue, just like what the French did to the Eiffel Tower to spice up the night. Turns out I was dead wrong though it was partly because his clues were hopelessly obscure and some might say, wrongfully misleading. Instead, on our Friday night date, Steve took me to The Majestic to see the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. I certainly prefer this over any potential laser and light “liberty show,” though I’d highly recommend that the NY tourism people get cracking on one since the Lady could use some night visitors and it clearly works wonders for Singapore’s hideous giant monstrosity merlion.

If you’re wondering what the Phantom has to do with France, then you got my point about why the “clue” was misleading. The entire premise of the musical is set in France, but it is an obscure fact - nothing in its plot overtly refers to its location! I suppose what made it obvious were the names of the characters and how they refered to each other as “Monsieur,” though it could have been set anywhere in la Francophonie.

I went to see the musical with my parents many many many years ago at the Kallang Theater in Singapore, and this was years before the government decided to invest in the arts & culture scene by building a world-class performance venue in the form of the Esplanade Theaters. It was a characterless hall with seats whose upholstery was uncannily from the ’70s and the stage was just as nondescript. Despite that, I was still blown away by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece, but compared to the Broadway production, what I had seen before was simply dismal. Broadway takes musicals to a completely different level – the elaborate stage backdrops, the props, the neo-classical grandeur of the interior of The Majestic theatre and the unsurpassable talent of the performers who have made it through the cut-throat world of Broadway.

My dad has been a avid Webber fan since I could remember, and I grew up with all the famous songs from his impressive repertoire – it’d be played continuously on loop in the car, he’d belt out the tunes on his home karaoke set on weekends and even hum it in the shower. To pops (that’s what I call him), the thing he’s most proud of me for was my 32 performances in the Tony-award winning Webber production of Joseph and the Amazing Dreamcoat as kid #18 (you’d understand if you saw the musical). Because dad’s interest rubbed off on me, I learned either by score or by ear, how to play each and every song from the musicals – his favorite being “Music of the Night.” After all these years, it was an amazing experience to finally see an actual Broadway production of the Phantom of the Opera – it exceeded my lofty expectations, and the best part was, I got to see it with the man I love.

The next day at noon, we headed to the Village to meet up with some friends. It was a reunion of sorts for us former lab mates  - Fran, like us, was visiting from Boston for the weekend, and Nasen who had moved on to bigger and greater things in the form of Columbia University Medical School. I never had this much fun and success working with anyone else before – Nasen and I never got in each others’ way and in fact, most of the time, covered up for each other; and it’s rare to find someone who can ponder genetic drift theories of cells in tissue culture and make you laugh at the most inane thing all at the same time. And of course, in my final years, Steve spent a lot of time with us in the lab he practically worked there himself, so he knew the guys well.

We took them to two of our favorite places (guys have big appetites) - the first was New York Hot Dog & Coffee along Bleecker Street, which is one of our favorite boulevards to spend lazy Saturdays on – it’s filled with little mom ‘n’ pops stores, specialty shops touting cheap chic fashion, gourmet olive oil or home-made ice cream and independently-owned restaurants without the pretentions of the others that are located uptown. Ironically, the hot dog place was started by Koreans and their specialty is making Korean variations of the classic hot dog – Bulgolgi hot dog, for instance, consits of Bulgolgi-marinated beef on top of an all-beef frank with pickles and lettuce in a bun. Think of that for a moment… it’s meat as a topping on a hot dog! How brilliant! No wonder the concept sells so well in America.

They make kimchi versions and something called a Dak-Kalbi for those who avoid red meat – it’s spicy-sweet sauce marinated BBQ chicken bits drizzled over a chicken frank, all neatly folded into a hot dog bun. That having said, they make good standards as well – classic New York hot dogs, hearty chilli-cheese dogs and our favorite, the Texan, a gourmet chilli-cheese dog with japalenos topped with crushed potato chips. And this, as Steve emphasized, is the true genius of it all - who ever thought to put crushed potato chips on a hot dog? It provides a nice savoury kick and a subtle crunch with each bite; Steve thinks that the brilliant mind who came up with that should be awarded a Michellin star, nevermind that they don’t give it out to individuals.

My stomach had barely begun digesting the hot dogs when we crossed the street and headed into the culinary landmark that is John’s Pizzeria. It’s been there for almost a century now and their specialty is coal-fired brick-oven thin-crust pizza. New York City in general is famous for its pizza and John’s is arguably one of the most well-loved pizza  joints in the city itself. I don’t know what makes pizza so good there, maybe it’s in the water, maybe it’s all the grease that bathes each slice with divine flavor. Wait, scratch that, didn’t Mayor Bloomberg ban trans fat? How do they do it then?

Full from an overload of two major food groups, none of them being the one that Atkins recommends, we bade Nasen, the busy medical student, goodbye and sauntered past some flea markets and headed to SoHo to give Fran a little guided tour of the neighborhood. The streets were thronged with crowds holding shopping bags – it appears the recession is tapering off – but what was remarkable was how electic and diverse the crowds were. There were street hawks selling hand-made jewelry, grungy artist types with skinny jeans and Rayban wayfarers, middle-aged women clad in fur and oversized Hermes or Chloe bags, wealthy Arabs, homeless bums and well-heeld Japanese tourists.

Unfortunately, the businesses around SoHo was in stark contrast to this diversity – what was supposed to be a haven for little eclectic, trendy boutiques is now blighted by the mass commercial powerhouses of high-turnover fashion: H&M, J.Crew, Guess, Club Monaco etc. I expected to see some quaint cafes where one could grab an almond biscotti and a cup of Italian espresso, art galleries, small designer-owned shops. It took some wandering off the beaten track into the quiet side streets that we finally found some interesting shops – a furniture store that sold retro, vintage or one-of-a-kindpieces, including a lucite chair and matching ottoman that emitted soft blue light that would look at home on the The Enterprise in Star Trek.

Here you see someone holding a placard that reads: “Obama Condoms”. I’m going to refrain from speculating here…

 

We had to show Fran the dramatic modern architecture of the Prada store, and besides, he was in the market for a light Fall jacket. Steve took an interest into some vintage Prada trunks, the heavy impractical but undeniably exquisite vessels that only people like the Queen still uses whenever she travels. Not many people appreciate the beauty of the past as much as he does.

Next stop: Dean & Deluca, the epicurean’s dream come true. I never knew that asparagus actually came in an albino version – they were white as ivory and apparently, have a different flavor than the regular green ones. Fran was in awe of the range of gourmet selection while Steve was in awe of the, uhh, pumpkins.

By the time we were done exploring SoHo, it was time to race back to the hotel, get changed and meet up with a bigger group for dinner at Gorgio’s in Gramercy Park.

The difficult operation of reserving dinner for 18 people in Manhattan on a Saturday night could only have been achieved by someone like Xing. He is, in the words of Malcolm Gladwell, a Connector, and that night there were a bunch of Singaporeans, 2 girls from Finland, 2 Mexicans, 3 Americans (sometimes, I struggle to figure out whether Steve counts as a Singaporean or American), representing a whole range of industries and careers – finance, technology, science and fashion. The food was dismal (Dawn would testify that it was repulsive I’m sure), martinis were pretty standard by New York standards, but fortunately the company was great and frankly, that’s all that matters.

 By midnight, we got into a stretch limo and headed to Cain for some drinks. It’s a night club that boasts what must be the rudest door men and bouncers ever (don’t you hate their inflated sense of self-importance?), and I entered, I was mortified at how tacky the decor was. What exactly were they trying to evoke with giant elephant tusks bordering around each column? Also the cool retro lighting you see in the pictures were not there, instead, it was harsh white strobe lights. Neither were the hot chicks clad in tight leather numbers dancing on the mini-runway. Instead it was semi-drunk attention-seekers who kept spilling there drinks all over me. To put it plainly, I found to place to be trashy, with people knocking beer bottles and sticky unidentified puddles of liquid on the floor, in addition to stupid young girls vomitting on themselves. Not a classy place. If not for being entertained by Steve enjoying the music, I would’ve wanted to leave way earlier. He really likes old school rap, the stuff Jay-Z produced in the pre-Beyonce days and the rhythmic beats of Tupac. So apart from the DJ, nothing else about this place was remotely decent, but I didn’t want to be a wet blanket so I played along. Close to 2 am, I finally threw in the towel when a beer bottle came crashing into my ankles that were supported on 4 inch Dior heels. I was so glad to be back in bed….

We couldn’t affod to sleep in because we had brunch reservations at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park with two friends who live and work in the city, and my old college room mate who was driving in from Jersey. I love the Tavern – it’s a pop-cultural icon and has such a whimsical vibe to it that makes me giddy with excitement. The crystal room is awash in color – bright fresh flowers adorn each table, floor-to-ceiling windows reveal the adajcent park while letting in copious amounts of sunlight, filtering in to illuminate the pastel colored ceiling with elaborate molding, flanked by several dramatic chandeliers of different colors – red, green, honey. This makes the dining experience part fairy-tale, part Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (Alice in Wonderland) – nowhere will you find a setting this magical.

This particular bunch of friends couldn’t make it out to Singapore for our wedding and this was the first time that we were catching up with them since then, so over mimosas, bellinis and hearty brunch food, we shared our wedding pictures and traded stories. Time just flew right by and before we knew it, we were the last ones left in the restaurant.

Priscilla, my old college room mate insisted on going to Magnolia Bakery to pick up some cupcakes and pudding since she had driven all the way into the city – I’ve heard about this legendary bakery but everytime we pass by one, the lines snake around for what seems like eternity and I convince myself that no cake or pastry is ever worth that much time, which isn’t hard since I’m not a dessert person. I’m almost exclusively a cookie person, but if you count cookies as dessert then I guess you could say I am a dessert person. We go with her anyway and wow, I have to say, hands down the best banana pudding ever (maybe the only banana pudding ever? It’s not a common dish).

Dusk was already beginning to fall and we barely had time to chill out before rushing off to the Y, a Jewish institution in the Upper East Side to meet a very special person. For me, this was the highlight of the weekend, the real reason we spent this very weekend in New York. It was the first time I’d meet a man who had influenced my career choice, shaped my metaphysical beliefs and provided answers to the existentialist crisis that I faced as a teenager. That man, the “famous person” I eluded to earlier, was no celebrity as most people would understand it to be. He’s a professor, scientist, author and the face of the debate between evolution vs. intelligent design/creationism – he is Professor Richard Dawkins.

Before I came across his seminal work, The Selfish Gene, I was roaming aimlessly in the doldrums of academic ennui and intellectual apathy after having reached the end of a gruelling education. I hadn’t a clue about what I wanted to do with my life, and almost all the topics I studied in school were dull and prosaic. At Christmas that year, a friend (you know who you are) bought me a book as a gift. I looked at the title and the author and shrugged, “Hmm, never heared of him. Why did you choose this one?” He replied, “I don’t know, I was at the store and was flipping through the pages and read some of it, and I knew you’d like his prose.”

He was right, though I liked far more than just Dawkins’ prose. I like his content, I like his solid arguments, I like the knowledge that he imparts, I like the clear and concise logic he exercises, I like how he instilled in me a sense of wonder for our Natural world, I like how he explains in simple terms, the esoteric concepts of DNA and the world of molecular genetics to a fledgling biology student, and in the process, managed to inspire her. I like how his books are where William Yeats, Adam Smith, Galileo, Charles Darwin, Michelangelo, Gregory Mendel and Francis Crick meet. Dawkins regularly quotes the literary greats and takes concepts from far-flung fields such as economics and applies them to evolutionary biology and genetics. Suddenly, these weren’t seperate subjects anymore – for the first time, in my näive little mind, I saw that the liberal arts and the natural sciences could be reconciled into one. He taught me more than any teacher or any course ever has.

By the time I finished The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker, I was ready to go to University and was dewy-eyed at the prospect of embarking on a career in science - I wanted to explore and probe the microscopic world of genes and proteins, to be part of the unravelling of one of the greatest mysteries still unsolved.

Today, I am well on my way, a published researcher hoping to move on in science. It’s not easy for sure and the dewy-eyed, gungho little lab rat has seen its fair share of jaded days. But nevertheless, the deep-seated passion he instilled a long time ago is what drives me to go on. On this night, Prof. Dawkins was to participate in a hybrid lecture-debate about his latest new book, The Greatest Show On Earth. The tickets sold out early so I was glad that we managed to secure two. The audience went wild with applause the moment he took to the stage, which was somewhat of a surprise – he is a very controversial figure, and it was a surreal case of cognitive dissonance to witness men and boys wearing yamakas (indicating that they are Jewish) enthusiastically cheering him on. I presume they knew what Dawkins stands for, yet, if that’s the case, isn’t it peculiar that they were there supporting the man who wrote “The God Delusion?” I didn’t think “cultural Jews” wore yamakas. After the lecture, we got in line to meet Dawkins so that he could sign our copy of his new book, which I am so eager to read. I managed to tell him how his very first book, The Selfish Gene, practically defined my adult life and how, with his help, I became so intrigued by evolution and molecular genetics that I chose to study computational biology myself. He was extremely cordial and expressed sincere curiosity, asking what field I worked in and where, an exchange in which I participated as calmy as possible – I didn’t want to appear like a giddy fan-boy, that’s what pop stars and Hollywood actors get.  To be honest, I am well aware that this encounter that means the world to me virtually means nothing to him, for people are constantly telling him how much he has made an impact in their lives by single-handedly pulling the wool off their eyes. But even though I am just one of the thousands of faces that he has come across during the book tour and other recent events, I am happy just to have had the opportunity to meet him and tell him that, if only so that I could say my peace. Now that I have, it feels somewhat liberating.

So excuse my inactivity for a while, I will be burrying myself in The Greatest Show On Earth – you should go see it sometime too, perhaps you’d never look at the world in the same way again.

 

Domestic Disturbances October 16, 2009

It’s that time of the year when I find myself walking home from work in darkness. The sun has begun setting earlier and earlier, and very soon, when the redundant daylight savings kicks in, there will only be 9 hours of light out. Despite having lived here in the Northeast for the past 4 years, the scarcity of sunshine every winter still manages to get to me. There’s a strange cozy comfort in knowing that night would fall at exactly the same time, every single day of the year; in fact, it is so consistent in Singapore that you can more or less tell how late you are staying on at the office by virtue of taking a peak outside to see where the sun is in its downward arc of descent and how much light there still is. That’s something I dreadfully miss about living in that equatorial city, although I see that as the price to pay for having the luxury to experience a change in the seasons. If you want to wear color in the spring, sun dresses in the summer, leggings and boots in the fall and fur-trimmed coats in the winter, then you have to take the varying sunsets with it. 

During the week days, I usually come home to an empty nest and hence, have to contend with managing the household all by myself. Which shouldn’t be too hard since my apartment consists of a mere 900 square feet, right? Wrong! Somehow, I managed to jam the paper shredder again, and today, my trusty four-year old Sony VAIO finally gave out. I was writing an email when the screen turned black, the system emphatically shut down with a whimper and the keypad started smoking. It sounded like the sizzling sound of beef on a barbeque plate, and when it got more furious, I was afraid that it might actually explode. Electronics seem to hate me in general, they tend to die when entrusted into my care or ownership; incidentally, that happens to be Steve’s realm but the weird thing is that whenever he’s home, they never behave badly. It’s a conspiracy I swear. In the middle of the week, the internet signals went down and my only inkling was to start shaking the router.

Also, while I am on the subject of domestic issues, I had no idea that my flannel pyjamas would spit out lint and fuzz in the washer like nobody’s business. Most of my clothes are black or dark-colored, so I had to spend endless hours lint-rolling everything. Lint is definitely one of the most annoying things that I never had to deal with before – in Singapore, people generally don’t own dryers because they just hang their clothes out to dry, which isn’t a bad idea considering how much ambient heat there is. Dryers have their own perils – I have shrunk many a sweater and ruined many a bra strap, but you get wiser the more you use it. And as long as you don’t try to take short cuts and follow the instructions on the clothing labels, there should be no problem. I’ve come to appreciate the shrinking effect the dryer has on my jeans – without it, denim would expand and stretch out, and my behind wouldn’t look very nice with all that extra space. Anyway laundry is really Steve’s area of expertise – we divide the labor up into our respective innate specialties. Koreans run laundromats, Chinese people own Chinese restaurants, so he does our laundry and I do the cooking. Boys are good at gadgets, girls are good at cleaning so he fixes anything that has a current running through it, and I make sure the place is spotless. See? It’s a marriage made in heaven. The only problem is during weekdays when he isn’t around and I am reminded how much I need some Ying to balance my Yang.

Weekend Update – Madames, Frogs, Harvard and Horses October 12, 2009

So I have to say that my experimental croque madame turned out fairly well this past weekend. The pomme frites were slightly overcooked, though Steve was nice enough to stress how much he likes ‘em crispy, but specks of black carbon encrusting each fry is an indication that they stayed in the oven for too long. There were some modifications to the recipe though – I couldn’t find sweet batard (a type of French artisan bread) at the supermarket so I substituted it for ciabatta, which turned out to be the wrong choice because once toasted, the outer shell was as hard as brick (Steve again, reminded me that he likes things crispy; what a sweetheart he is). And I insisted on replacing the Black Forest ham with maple-roasted sliced turkey, for the obvious reason that I generally avoid pork like the plague. I have long wondered what Béchamel sauce is whenever it appeared on a menu, but I never dared to ask for fear of coming off as ignorant in front of a stuffy waiter. After having made a croque madame from scratch myself, I finally got to know what it actually is – it’s a white sauce that’s fundamental to French cuisine, and it requires the painstaking mixing of a certain proportion of flour, butter and scalding hot milk.

We also managed to catch up with Francis at the Harvard Club this weekend. I’m pretty sure Steve and I must’ve set some sort of new record – in the history of the Club, which has a reputation of harboring a rather posh and grandiose atmosphere, I am almost certain that no one, no one has EVER brought live frogs into its premises. I have a very good reason for this peculiar behavior: You see, every time his birthday rolls around, I try to find the weirdest thing possible because if it is quirky and unique enough, Fran would display it on his workbench at the lab or at home, which is beginning to resemble a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not showcase. 

Two years ago, I was by the pier in Seattle and almost bought a preserved shark fetus for him as a birthday gift. It was a baby Atlantic sharpnose shark that was bathed in formaldehyde and encased in a cylindrical glass vessel; surely one of the strangest things I’ve seen but it wouldn’t have looked out-of-place on Francis’ lab bench. After all, he has petri dishes of little sea anemone cells occupying a shelf, some baby krill bubbling in a beaker at the corner of the table, and a freeze-dried piranha on a stand that his brother picked up for him from the Amazon. I thought I might as well complete his mad scientist’s lair theme by adding the shark fetus! The only thing that stopped me from doing that was the possibility of a mishap during the transcontinental flight back to Boston. If the glass display case broke in transit, shark juice mixed with blue-dyed formaldehyde would spill all over the suitcase, soaking through all my clothes and worse, my underwear! Also, while I don’t mind gawking at the fetus through a piece of glass, I really wouldn’t like to have to actually touch that thing with my bare hands.

So Operation “Jaws” was a failure. Early this year though, Steve and I were in Tarpon Springs, Florida and stumbled upon a bizarre novelty item – a freeze-dried puffer fish that was completely puffed out, with all its spines sticking out perilously. Francis has everything he needs and wants so there’s no point in buying him something just for the sake of giving him a gift; he sort of likes eccentric things which either has historical value or just a good story behind them. So, whenever I find something that is best described by the phrase “but…why on earth would anyone ever want something like this?” – I know exactly who to get it for. The puffer fish was a classic, and although it stung his hands when he first took it out of the box, he hung it up at his workspace, right next to the freeze-dried piranha. Not only does he look like a an ichthyologist, now he has a narrative every time someone visits him the lab – “this scary fish is from the Venezuelan Amazon….and the spikey thing over here is from the coast off Florida.” It’s beginning to look like the little shop of horrors! 

It probably comes to no surprise then, that the frogs I was referring to earlier, were part of his 2009 birthday gift! I was racking my brains about what to buy before stumbling upon the idea that it’s time to take it up a notch – instead of something preserved in formaldehyde or by freeze-drying, why not just give him something that’s alive? Strolling through a mall one day, I found the perfect thing – it’s a Frog-O-Sphere! 

It’s basically two mini-frogs (a species from South Africa) in a clear tank that encompasses an entire self-contained, self-sustainable ecosystem. A bamboo plant provides oxygen, a water snail eats up algae that will grow as a result of oxygen and waste build-up, the brightly colored gravel is a sanitation system that converts the frogs’ and snail’s waste into nutrients for the bamboo plant, which in turn releases oxygen for the snail and frogs. It’s the Circle of Life in a tank! All he has to do for maintenance is to drop 2 food pellets into the tank each week as frog fodder.

So on Friday night, Steve steadily carried a paper bag with the froggy tank into the Harvard Club, trying hard to make sure the frogs were as unperturbed as possible. And there, in the elegant lap of luxury, we gave Francis the tank o’ frogs and wished him happy belated birthday. I could only imagine the shrieks of disgust from the old ladies dressed in Brooks Brothers cashmere sweaters, pearl necklaces and fancy headgear, if they knew that they were in such close proximity with ugly wart-inducing frogs from Africa.  Over dinner, we contemplated what to name the two amphibians – I suggested Xeno and Pussy, for reasons that will only be obvious to a student of developmental or cell biology (Xenopus is the specie name of the frog often used as a model organism). Francis proposed naming them Chin and Choi, and I think eventually he settled on our english names instead. A couple days later, I asked how the frogs were doing and he told me how he named them as follows: 

Frog #1: Steve, the larger whitish one who doesn’t move that much
Frog #2: Mel, the smaller one who is a lot more active and likes to bite Steve’s webbed feet
Water snail: Bitchel, after a private joke at the lab, given that the snail has to eat frog poop 

On Sunday, we decided to head out West for our riding lessons with Jamal. It was pleasantly sunny and the Fall foliage seemed to be at its peak. As we pulled into the stables, Emma, the family’s old english sheep dog came running towards our car with her pink little tongue flapping in the wind. It was something that I sorely missed about being a dog-owner – the sight of your dog’s happy face running toward you, no matter how good or bad of a day that you just had. It melts your heart because its the epitome of unconditional love, although Steve pointed out that I’m just a “softy” and all the mutt wants is food to fill his belly. Anyway, I really miss my dog Pappi, but I digress.

Jamal started us off with some horse grooming – yes, Equestrian sport may seem glamorous on the outside but horses aren’t particularly clean animals and every rider has a responsibility to clean and brush them. In the dark languid corner of the stable, Steve and I had to scrub the horse’s body, brush off the dirt and comb his messy mane and long scratchy tail. A horse’s tail gets tangled easily because it is extremely long and constantly flutters whenever the horse gallops – when I first grabbed hold of it, I was surprised to find that the coarse texture was not unlike my own hair. And then came the hard part: we had to chisel off all the dirt that adhered to the bottom of the horse’s hooves. Mind you, getting the horse to raise its foot was one thing, but trying to support a quarter of a 600 pound horse while scraping the bottom is another thing altogether.

I took a pause and looked nervously over at Steve’s corner, because I know he’s not a big fan of roughing it out, let alone doing a dirty job. He’s the guy that hates the beach because of its sand, remember? Surprisingly, Steve was getting right into it without squirming one bit, dutifully brushing the horse’s long tail, with a considerable amount of horse hair and dirt collecting on his HP sweater (free gift, so who cares?). Later, he told me that he sees the grooming process as a way to bond with the horse, to build the rider-ridee trust (don’t think there’s such a thing as “ridee” but I like the word) so that it doesn’t throw him off his back midway through a riding exercise.

After latching on the bridle and the saddle, we picked up our helmets and mounted the horse. I rode on Baron, a rust-colored 11 year old stallion with a rebellious and mischievous streak, while Steve rode on Phoenix, a larger auburn colored stallion who was somewhat indolent and lethargic, which isn’t a bad trait when you’re just a beginner who has never climbed onto a horse’s back before. There, in the indoor arena, Jamal taught us everything from the correct posture to how you’re supposed to control a horse by its reigns. Animal psychology is certainly at play here because it is important that the horse knows who’s the master – once you lose control of what is essentially a wild animal at heart, the horse will take advantage of that. It’s somewhat nerve-wrecking because you just don’t know when the horse might snap and take you for a ride, something I actually got a taste of that day.

We circled the perimeter of the arena as we used the reigns to direct our horses accordingly; at one point, Baron decided it would be fun to start galloping off into the distance at full speed, and instinctively, I yanked the reigns forcefully and yelled, “Whoa boy” which immediately brought him to a stop. Then came the “exercises” – as the horses were stationary, Jamal had us stand up on the stirrups several times. This was to enforce the concept of balance and strengthen our inner thigh muscles. Next he made the horses walk and had us stand up on the stirrups while the horses were actually in motion, simultaneously placing both our hands on our helmets. Not only was I wobbling because it was difficult to balance on two strips of leather stirrups while the horse was walking on a fairly uneven surface, I was also wobbling in fear because of the likelihood of falling from this highly unstable position and the possibility that Baron was going to trample all over me for jerking the reigns so tightly before. Another exercise was holding the jockey stance – knees bent with your body arched forward, a feat which again required both balance and strength. By the end of our lesson, my bum was slightly chafed from all the friction with the saddle, our loins were burning and our thigh muscles were beginning to feel sore. 

Although we weren’t blazing through a tree-lined trail in the middle of Colorado on our horses, the sheer fact that we were able to control and direct the horse in which ever way we pleased was already somewhat liberating. Ultimately, it was an introduction into the fundamentals of equestrian sport – grooming, horse psychology, equestrian etiquette and riding techniques. Throughout our lesson, I caught the sight of Steve patting and stroking Phoenix every now and then; after we led them back to the stables, he even continued cleaning his horse, despite its sudden urge to shower the stall with a fresh pile of manure. Seeing Steve wrapped in a horse’s filth, doing the grimy job of scrubbing a four-legged animal clean, was somewhat of a cognitive dissonance to me. Later, I found out during our drive back that there’s really something about a horse that captures his sense of awe and respect – perhaps it’s their innate elegance or symbolic nobility. Well, for whatever reason that may be, I think we both agreed – Equestrian sport is our type of sport and despite its pitfalls and dangers, it is something that we are going to take seriously. Like classical music, it is a dying art, especially among our generation and hopefully, we’re doing our part to revive it. Once you’ve sat in a saddle, sitting in an office chair surrounded by the walls of a cubicle just doesn’t cut it.

Mid week crisis October 7, 2009

My lips are cracking, which means that the humidity has taken a plunge and the leaves should be turning color right about now. Only I haven’t really had the chance to notice it yet; life has been keeping me very busy, which I don’t mind because I actually like the feeling of being productive again after being on the bench for so long.

There are some short term goals that need to be accomplished this year, one of which is getting a driving license. Lately, I’ve been studying the manual because I’m going to take the test for a learner’s permit soon. It’s funny, in Massachussetts, there is no minimum number of hours required by the State before they can issue you a license – as long as you can pass the test, however you prepared for it, even if you drove bumper cars at the county fair, then you’re good.

In the middle of the week, I started getting restless and came up with this wacky idea to try my hand at Parisian bistro cooking this weekend, and no dish represents that more than a croque madame, which, deconstructed to bare simplicty, is really just a grilled cheese and ham sandwich (but don’t tell the French that).  It’s one of Steve’s all-time favorite Sunday-brunch foods, and I decided why not have a go at it? The task appears rather manageable at first glance, but when I looked into the recipe, I realized I needed something to grill and press the sandwich bread. I sourced around for a good all-in-one type of kitchen device since there isn’t much space for me to work with in this apartment and the less stuff I own, the better; happily, I found a 5-in-1 griller that also is a waffle maker, steak griller, omelette fryer, breakfast griddle and panini press! Voilà!

What makes a croque madame ultimately is the poached/fried egg; without it, it is merely a monsieur. One theory is that the egg resembles a lady’s hat viewed from the top. I always wondered how to replicate McDonald’s Egg McMuffin, because when you wake up in the morning with a big day ahead of you, somehow a breakfast sandwich always hits the spot – it’s filling, savory and rather healthy if you think about it, since it consists of a good amount of protein.

The problem though, is the egg – I’d fry an egg and it’ll wind up looking like a shapeless amoeba, thick in some areas, thin in others, charred at the corners. It never looks like that perfect circular egg in McDonald’s McMuffins and when I try to make a sandwich out of it, it flops around and sticks out of the bread. Not appetizing! Well, today I unlocked the secret to fluffy perfectly-round egg “patties” – William Sonoma’s egg fry rings. It is breadthtaking in its simplicity but works like a charm. Finally, I can make imitation Egg McMuffins at home and the elusive croque madame for weekend brunches whenever Steve has a craving. I immediately headed to the store to pick them up after work before stopping by the grocery store to stock up on all the ingredients to make this weekend’s pre-planned meals.

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend; I’m certainly not going to deny it. But when that girl gets married, I’d say that she would have to start looking for more new friends, like William, and Sonoma. They are marriage-savers; the new friends might even help get you more best friends later, you know, the type you got before you were married.