Too Much Information

I had to re-edit a personal profile that will be flashed up on our internal work network for everyone in my increasingly large company to see, and our HR department wanted me to add in my personal interests/hobbies. Notwithstanding that it’s not anyone’s goddamn business what I do in my free time… I feel like a little put out my profile sounded totally boring. I couldn't think of anything to write other than my “interests include reading and baking.”

It doesn’t really capture the fact that when I say my interests include reading, I really mean that one of my life goals is to own a library like the one The Beast gifted Belle with in Beauty and the Beast (that is totally the way to make me love a dude forever, FYI, even if he has hair all over his face and claws for fingers), and bookcase stairs make me swoon, and that I feel disoriented and despair of life in general when I don’t have a book to finish reading (and when I start reading a book I feel like I have a goal and sense of purpose again). And when it says my interests include baking, it doesn’t really capture the fact that I actually just like making cakes and cookies, but that I don’t really eat my own stuff and instead pawn them off to other people as little tokens of affection because I am like retardedly emotionally unexpressive. And that I really enjoy eating more than baking. And that I don't really have any other sustained hobbies because I have a habit of starting things and then not really finishing them, even though they're good for me (like running and swimming) and even though I may love it (like yoga). Actually these failed hobbies mainly relate to exercise, mainly because it's difficult to read while exercising (I've tried, and my book and I almost flew off the treadmill).

But then again do I really need people at work to know this about me? Probably not. I’d rather they think I was boring.

Bounty Cake; Acme Bar & Coffee

First day at work fasting. I think I'm doing okay so far. I went to Bijou during lunch just to look at their cupcakes but I was the model of restraint (I mean, other than the fact that I went to press my nose against the glass at a cupcake shop during fasting month) and I didn't buy any. And I've been trying to stay hydrated so religiously that I drink water constantly after breaking fast, and as a result have to wake up to pee like five times during the night (so maybe will tone down the hydration thing. I'm pretty sure any benefit I get from drinking so much is being erased by lack of sleep).

In memory of lunchtime desserts, I present you with the Bounty cake from Acme Bar and Coffee.

I hate coconuts, don't eat or drink any coconut derivatives, and don't eat Bounty chocolate bars. But I love this cake. I know this doesn't make sense, but when weighing out whether to stay true to the logical principle that if I don't like coconut stuff, then I wouldn't like this cake, against Bounty cake's mutiple layers of sponge cake and cream and chocolate and coconut shavings: the cake prevailed, and logic failed. 

This is the gastronomical equivalent of when you totally have a type and you meet someone/a cake who/that is totally not your type but then you end up marrying them/eating it. So the moral of the story is do not restricted by your types; true happiness could be lying at the bottom of that food you totally hate and in that hipster bar you refuse to set foot into because you're not a hipster! (Examples are for purely illustrative reasons and have nothing to do with my life at all.)

The blogger no longer has a guy type but still hates coconuts. I mean if she WANTED to ingest something slimy and milky, she could just eat jello and drink milk.

Hari Raya Briyani; Home

It's not even Ramadhan yet and I got teary booking my flights to Brunei for Hari Raya. All because this is my last Hari Raya as an unmarried person.

*commence weepiness*

And next year I have to split up my Raya time between TWO families! And I won't get to go to Brunei the whole time and just pig out and be babied because I'll officially be part of someone else's family! Okay, so not like a total stranger someone else, and it's not like I don't know Alman's family, but still! I'll be part of another person's family?!?!?! And I have to pretend to be well-behaved (err wait did I say pretend? That was a typo) and I have to be good and demure and wifely and what if I don't salam people properly and what if I can't make sufficient small talk and what if I don't understand Alman's relatives when they speak Malay and what if they think I'm snobby because I don't understand and what if I miss my family because I'm not with them on Hari Raya, and since my family is already so scattered all over the world what if my parents feel sad that I'm not there on the first day, because I'm part of someone else's family on the first day?! THAT IS CRAZINESS! THIS IS CRAZY!

I have a feeling I'm going to be crying right into my overloaded plate of homecooked nasi briyani come Hari Raya morning from the overwhelmity of it all.

For some reason thinking about Hari Raya is the only time I really feel like STOP THE PRESSES GUYS I'M GETTING MARRIED?! Everything else seems easy. Living together? Check. Setting up a house together? Will do. Total monogamy forever? No problem. Split up Hari Raya? HOLD ON THERE WHAT IS THIS CRAZY TALK.

And now I'm getting all teary again.

Sticky Toffee Pudding, Ben's KLCC

It's almost Ramadhan!

My stomach has already started to rumble its trademark cavernous roars at random times in anticipation of the coming month, as if it knows that it will soon be deprived of lunch (which breaks the monotony of my working day) and more importantly, caffeine (which allows me to stay awake to experience the monotony of the second half of my working day) (can you tell I like complaining about work?).

And if any of my organs deserve to be anthropomorphized, it would be my stomach. My stomach is the root cause of most of my emotions (like when I get upset because I'm hungry and I have to wait SOOOOO LONGGGGG for Alman to get ready to go out on weekends when I just want to GET OUT the DOOR so I can EAT SOMETHING) and tragedy (like when I get really excited about eating food that I've carefully put away in the fridge the night before, and then I open the fridge after a long hard day only to discover that my food has been PILFERED by a PILFERER) and relationship compromises (like when I get angry because I'm so hungry and take it out on my poor fiance. This is a compromise of sorts because he is a pilferer and so crankiness is his punishment, and also he's already promised to marry me so it's too late buddy, my stomach and I are all yours! But it's not all bad - we love him really, so sometimes we do nice things for him. Like give him the last longan in my ice longan, or the most cookie-ish scoops of ice cream from my Haagen Dazs cookies and cream carton. That is compromise, boys and girls, and that is true love).

So... this is going to be a trying month. The light at the end of the tunnel is Hari Raya, going home, being with my family, and forcing my sister to make our famed sticky date pudding with caramel sauce and cream that we have at our family's open house every year. The baking of the pudding used to be my specialty, until I realized that I would not be fulfilling my role as an older sister unless I bossed my sister around and made her do it. So now she does.

Sticky Toffee Pudding with vanilla ice cream at Ben's, KLCC
(Not as good as mine. Oh alright. Not as good as my sister's. Also I hate Ben's, but that's a story for another day.)

Boys to Men

Expelling the ghosts of my dating past and shaking those pesky relationship skeletons from the closet before I get married. In no particular order:

Primary school: I develop a hopeless crush on a blond-haired blue-eyed French boy in my second grade class. And by hopeless crush I mean I feel intense rage and competitiveness when we battle it out for best marks in our weekly spelling and math tests and pretty much make it clear that I hate his stupid shiny-haired big brain. I've always been attracted to the smart ones. I've also always been really great at expressing my feelings.

Early College: Meet a dark haired French Persian engineer during my second day of college. He laughs at Friends episodes in accented laughter (it totally exists: I'd do an impression, but I can't do any impressions other than, for some reason, Minnesotan) and is so genuinely, earnestly nice. He's also into commitment, and unfortunately, I'm not that into him. I feel a rush of euphoria when we break up and immediately put on Walking On Sunshine after he leaves. He never speaks to me again.

Early College: Can't for the life of me remember how I met this one, but unfortunately, that was the entire problem with our relationship. He was tall and geeky, bland and unmemorable. All I remember are fleeting images: a ski jacket, roses on Valentines Day, the way his glasses misted up with tears when I said I wanted to break up. I was a heartless turd.

Kindergarten/Reception: He was a chubby little English boy named Tom and my best friend. He was literally the He-Man to my She-Ra, the Michaelangelo to my April O'Neal, and the Tin Man to my Dorothy (I really have no explanation as to why we used to pretend we were in Wizard of Oz). I wrote 'Iman + Tom' in all my storybooks and all over my bedroom wall, much to the irritation of my parents, who really should have been delighted that I was learning to write in the first place. He moved back to England before first grade, and I was devastated. 

Primary school: Another academic rival. He drew me intricately detailed aliens and predators on illustrated love notes, and I never mustered up the nerve to tell him that I've never seen the Alien movies and while I admire the effort that goes into drawing the spaceship from Independence Day, I don't quite know what to do with the drawing after. I will always remember him fondly as the boy who still liked me even though I had frizzy hair and more facial acne than face.

Middle school: He was way, way too old for me. I can't remember how I met him, I can't remember if he was attached. I've blocked out pretty much everything out about him except for the fact that you liked Sheffield Wednesday (WHO likes Sheffield Wednesday anyway?) and he should really have been dating people his own age. Douche. 

High school: He was a high school jock and I was the complete opposite of a cheerleader. I would be nerdy Taylor Swift to his football hero in the Love Story video (did I just reference a Taylor Swift video?! Yes - yes I did. These are the high school years after all). We had nothing in common and nothing to talk about. He was popular and I wasn't. He was a good brother to my sisters, and ignored all the signs that pointed to the fact that I wasn't really into him.

High school: He was much older. He had dark sparkling eyes, a deep belly laugh and told me he was in love with me. It wasn't love - he seemed so much older but looking back he must have been a kid then, and I was even younger - but I shouldn't have agreed to date him and then changed my mind. He passed away in a car accident. He really did have the happiest eyes I've ever seen.

Middle school: He was the class clown, and I was in public school. He teased me incessantly, made my life a living hell, insulted me constantly, and we were teenagers: of course it meant that he liked me. He made me laugh, and I remember the terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach right before I told him that I wanted to break up. He wasn't  laughing then, and we don't talk now.

High school: He was my first real relationship. He was older and fascinating because of it, but he was also ditzy, and so ultimately, not fascinating enough. I fell out of puppy love, and broke his heart and wasn't sorry. I missed hanging out with his friends more than I missed him. I should have been nicer.

High school: He was my best friend. We spent hours and hours talking on the phone; hours and hours dissecting poetry together (seriously, because we were cool like that). He was the first person who showed me it was possible to have higher standards in relationships and to expect more things - a deeper connection, a shared sense of humour, the ability to keep a healthy debate going (and we had MANY) without it venturing into a full-blown fight. The sad thing is that I wasn't attracted to him, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

High school: He was South American, sarcastic and sharp-tongued, which was a defense mechanism for his weight. He had spiky hair, pink cheeks and a Fender guitar. And after I dumped him, he tried to hit on my sister. 

Mid-College: He was the best friend of the guy I liked. I knew what was happening while it was happening but I never thought he'd articulate it and make it real, but, unfortunately, he did. He told me he felt strongly about me, and just like that, our friendship was never the same.

Mid-College: He was the one who broke my heart, who promised so much, and delivered so little, who was insecure, immature, and unsure. I thought that we were taking care of each other, but I was the one who took care of him. I can draw a line in our relationship, and I would draw it in the middle of the second year, when I realized that I cared about him more than he cared about me. And while I can view the period before that with a detached fondness, like watching a movie starring strangers I don't know, strangers who were so young and optimistic and naive, who met at a fraternity party, she with flowers in her hair, he with his baseball cap and ruddy cheeks, who were overtaken by the rush of infatuation, how he became the most important part of her support system and she was so far away from home, how they were happy; I don't think of the second half at all. It has been poisoned by what he did at the end, and if I think about it, or if I touch it, I'll be poisoned too, and his sickness will infect me. He was selfish and pathetic, and I'll never forgive him, because that would make what he did forgivable.

And this isn't even an exhaustive list! (Guys I dated vaguely but really don't care about don't make the list. Also, I have a terrible memory.)

26

Found lying in my unposted archives. I can't believe I was 26 when I wrote this. I'm now halfway to 28! To say time flies would be a gross understatement of how fast it moves and how long I have apparently neglected my blog.

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What is this nonsense?! This is not a food post! Yes, I know, non-existent warden of my kinda-food-blog, but it is the nearing the end of the year, which means I'm getting nostalgic, reflective, and downright sappy about life, because in a few weeks, it'll be a WHOLE NEW YEAR. AND it'll be my birthday. AND next year I'll be married (and I've heard that one must be an adult to do that, so therefore I must be an adult now). AND I just read a book called Dear Me: A Letter To My Sixteen Year Old Self, although I am quite a religious reader of fiction only, and it made me think about what I was like at 16, which I then realised is a mind-boggling TEN YEARS AGO. And the combination of the nostalgia and the holy-shit-ten-years-ago?! manifested itself in... a rambling letter to my 16 year old self (what up 16 year old me). Hopefully in ten years 36 year old me (what up to you too) will write a letter to 26 year old me (cannot what up you, because you are me now).

Dear Sixteen Year Old Iman,

I remember what it was like to be you. You're awkward, worried, geeky and unconfident. You desperately want to get out of Brunei. You are constantly disappointed with yourself. You have major insecurity issues. You know you want something better and bigger and more significant, but you can't articulate what it is that you want. When 26 year old Iman remembers what it was like to be 16 year old Iman, she feels like crying, and let me tell you, at 26, you don't turn on the waterworks on very often at all (except for really important things, like Disney cartoons). The good news is: it gets better! The bad news is: not something I want to tell you, because you need to go through it, and sometimes ignorance is bliss. The bad news I WILL share: the next few years will be Arsenal's best, I don't know what happened after that (metaphorically speaking, because obviously I DO know what happens), so enjoy it while you can.

Other things you should know:

- I don't know when it happens, because I didn't realize, but: your acne-plagued skin, will, one day, no longer be acne-plagued. Your hair will, one day, no longer look like it is equal parts mortal enemy of conditioner and product of electric shock therapy. You will always dislike your nose (we did not get a nose job like you wanted), but you will, one day, stop giving a shit what people think about it. You will, one day, be considered conventionally attractive, even though your first instinct will always be to think the person saying that is fucking with you. And if they were, 26 year old Iman would actually (and has been known to) cuss out or flip off someone who WOULD fuck with her, which she is way more proud of than being thought of as conventionally attractive.

- You can do way better than the people you are dating right now. I AM SO TOTALLY NOT JOKING ABOUT THIS. Please dump you-know-who right now. (Don't worry, he will get over it, and also, he never will start that band and become a rock star, so no loss. In case you were wondering, although I know you aren't.)

- You will have your heart broken, and it will suck. But you will get over it with much less pain and grief than break-up songs will have you imagine, and after a few years, you'll actually struggle to remember what the hell it felt like, because all you can remember is that you must have felt some sort of emotion at the time, because last you checked you aren't a robot, but now, you feel nothing. (Nothing is good.)

- Your siblings will grow up, your parents will age. It will happen so fast. Kiss Ali as much as you can, because he is/was hands down the most adorable baby in the world, but he won't be a baby for long.

- Learn to become a feminist, it will be the best thing you can do for yourself.

- Don't feel bad about being one of the few kids at school who doesn't have a Nokia cell phone. In 10 years, these fruit companies will invent smartphones that will make Nokias look like those brick handphones Umi used to have in the 80s.

- You still won't have it all figured out at twenty-six. Maybe no one ever does figure anything out. (Am still waiting for a letter from 96 year old Iman to confirm or deny this.) But life is good, and too fleeting to spend too much time or effort trying to map things out.

- Keep re-reading The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy at sporadic intervals, because, one day, that will be how you first bond with the man who will become your husband. (I still can't believe it either.)

My Life in Lists

About weddings:
 
Number of days until I become a married woman: 169
 
Number of times I have freaked out about the impending end of my singlehood: None. Strangely or thankfully, hitching my anchor to Alman's boat (or something like that, I'm not a nautical person) is probably the easiest part about getting married.
 
Number of times I have freaked out about wedding planning: Mutiple. I feel like popular TV and rom coms have instilled in me a false sense of expectancy about how much drama I should be feeling. Like shouldn't I be all Bridezilla, alternating between weeping over mismatched tablecloths, vengefully sending out invitations to my douchebag exes (I have a lot. Of exes, and also douchebag exes), sneakily comparing notes and sabotaging my childhood friend's wedding that is planned for the weekend before mine (this is actually happening! The childhood friend's wedding, I mean, not the sabotage)? Oh wait, there hasn't been any drama yet because I haven't sorted out my invitations and tablecloths yet. For now I mostly just panic about not having enough shit done and worrying that my wedding will be too sappy.
 
Number of dresses I have: 3, and they are all gorgeous.
 
Number of venues I've booked: 2 out of 3, and therein lies one of the sources of my panic attacks.
 
Number of minutes in a day I think about how to do my hair in these gorgeous dresses: Too much. My employers would weep if they knew.
 
Things I am secretly hoping will happen on my wedding day(s):
1. Someone will give me a kitten as a wedding present (a girl can dream)
2. I become, overnight, gloriously photogenic and my wedding photos all look fantastic (I tend to freeze in front of cameras and either grin too widely or make ugly faces, it's a disease)
3. Alman cries (with happiness, I mean. On the inside doesn't count. We want to see emotional happy tears, dammit!)

Random things I like:
My new Miu Miu bow bag
I could stroke it all day. I won't, because that would look creepy, but I COULD, because it is gorgeous chocolate brown leather. When I put it on my desk at work I can sometimes catch whiffs of the leather smell as I work. It reminds me why I work the hours I do. (I will be less materialistic when I have a kitten.)

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin
Holy shit, was I obsessed. I bulldozed my way through the five books in three months while watching Season 2 of the series, and am now waiting impatiently for Book 6, which is coming in... a few years. Shoot me, Georgie, this is torture. At least I have all the fan boards online to discuss conspiracy theories and trade George R.R. Martin-isms with. After reading five books in a row, you can't help but notice his favourite phrases: What is this mummer's farce? I must needs drink my Dornish red wine, it is known (but also you know nothing, Jon Snow).

Discworld by Terry Pratchett
So I tired of it for a while (reading 28 Discworld books almost consecutively can do that to you, apparently) but I am now back and on track and set to finish this series before 2013 rolls around. I find it totally amazing how fictional characters populating an imaginary flat world carried by four giant elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle floating through space can be richer and more colourful than some PEOPLE I meet in real life. Reality fail.

Online shopping
Etsy! Fashion Valet! ASOS! (Not Net-a-porter yet though - that's a whole different price range that my online self fears to venture into because if things don't fit me and I've spent that much money on it, I think I'd cry.) Nothing beats working late at night and taking a 5 minute break to window shop without even moving your ass from your swivel chair! Okay so it's sometimes a 20 minute break. Okay and it's not window shopping, its actual shopping.

Random things I don't like:

My stupid oven which keeps switching itself off. I've taken to just standing there by the switchbox thing, broom in hand, just daring the flip thing to switch itself off. And then it does, and then I use the broom to switch it back on and then commences a flip war. Which I am fighting... with an inanimate switchbox. I really hate my oven I tell you. Just to spite it, these are the brown butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I made with Yan, NOT with my oven. This was using Yan's nicely behaved oven.

People who come around behind my desk and peer at my laptop. If you're not my boss, you're not allowed to do this. I mean I can't really disallow from doing it per se, but I sure can bitch about you after.

Sleeping with my eyelash extensions. I miss being able to wear a sleeping mask or being able to squash my face into Alman's neck (it looks less weird than it sounds). Damn you eyelash extensions! I know I can't quit you because I am super lazy and not having to wear and remove mascara has probably freed up 15 minutes of my day every day.

 

I really need to get back to work.

Coffee & Cupcake; Wondermilk

One of my most guilty of guilty pleasures, up there on the list along with my moth-to-a-flame must-keep-watching-the-carwreck fascination with the vapid "reality" television show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians (as well as its spawn-like spin-offs Khloe & Lamar, and Kourtney & Kim Take New York... why do I know the names?! The shame!); uninspired romantic comedies with formulaic plots that I WILL scoff at aloud although my heart is secretly warmed by the notion of True Love occurring between the beautiful people on the TV screen, no matter how recycled that Love is; and eating feta cheese out of the jar, is... reading while eating.

Sounds innocuous enough? Doesn't seem like something I should get my panties in a guilty twist about? Sadly, my parents tried so hard during my childhood and teenagehood to break this habit of mine that now, although I am a grown twenty-something-year-old adult, I still feel guilty when I read while I eat. (Please note that although I am now an adult, I am, of course, still entitled to blame my idiosyncrasies on my parents. They fuck you up, your mum and dad... although I take artistic liberty here; I'm not really fucked up: I just like Philip Larkin and I have weird relationships with books and fizzy drinks because of my parents' food rules.)

My parents would plead and scold and beg (in vain, all in vain) for me to just STOP. READING. AT THE. DINNER TABLE. Antisocial, who cares; unfortunate side-effects Remnants Of Food In Books and Condensation From Drinking Glasses On Back Cover, bring it on. I was a really mature, obedient little first child (as in, I didn't even have an angst-y I-hate-my-parents phase kind of obedient), and reading at the dinner table was probably my only form of rebellion.

And now that I'm an adult... I can eat-and-read whenever I want! I also have some truly historic food stains in most of my favourite books from my childhood, but that is neither here nor there. Goosey is never appalled at my antisocial behaviour, mostly because he loves me and love means never pointing out that your partner has flecks of chicken in their Terry Pratchett, but also partly because he has an iPad, which is sort of like a book, only much more expensive and with better graphics, and which he plays with when I'm too busy reading and eating to talk to him.

I forgot what the point of this post was. I think I wanted to say that I had brunch at Wondermilk yesterday while reading The Marriage Plot and the combination of food, coffee, a big fat novel, and it being Sunday afternoon was almost too delicious to bear. DELICIOUS.

Smorgasbord Part 2: Paris

Paris In Photos

1. Food.

Not all that was ingested was photographed (taking photographs of everything that moves and stands and exists in general is like, SO mainland Chinese tourist with a fannypack and secret stash of tourist poses, okay), but I did take my fair share of surreptitious food shots while in Paris.

Duck, steak, crepes, macarons, lattes, croissants, cheese, baguettes, hot chocolate, escargot, profiteroles, rum baba, random desserts, oh my! And in no particular order, the shortlist:

Most Delicious: Steak, pasta and green beans in a little cafe in Rue Montorguiel. I realise steak is not very French, but I am very carnivorous, and if it helps to French-ify the meal, it was partook of while watching good-looking Paris hipster types walk past on cobblestone streets.

Most Confusing Location: Picnic of curry chicken baguette and Pierre Herme macarons by the Trocadero. A view of the Eiffel Tower in front, breakdancers from Canada at the back, tourists all around, and a Chinese couple taking wedding photos somewhere to our right.

Most Over-Hyped Dessert: The Mont Blanc from Angelina's. Is so famous that apparently even Coco Chanel, Proust and Lagerfeld love(d) it, and all the guidebooks recommend that you eat the Mont Blanc while drinking the equally famous hot chocolate. Which I did. And went into like sugar shock coma. The Mont Blanc is a gigantic (okay, maybe just large) meringue concoction with sugar inside, sugar on top, sugar on the bottom, and whipped cream all over. And I ate it with super thick hot chocolate. I have learned my lessons and will never trust guidebooks again. I also didn't finish it. It was my Everest (see what I did there?) but one day, I will return and conquer it. Minus the hot chocolate.

Best Breakfast: Goosey is not a morning person, so this would be the croissants I bought at the patisserie while a certain someone was still drooling in bed.

Best Food Thing About Paris, Ever (last-award-of-the-night-type significance): THE BAGUETTES. I have quite the sweet tooth, I like meat, poultry, dairy products, garden gastropods, but the most amazing food in Paris was still the stuff they gave away for free at every cafe we went to. The BREAD. MY GOD. MON DIEU.









2. Indulgence

Books and bags will be my financial ruin.





4. Love

Was also engulfed in a haze of post-proposal high, which caused me to take pictures of everything romantic I could see.

Smorgasbord Part 1: Brunei

Brunei In Photos

1. Pebbles & Bamm Bamm, my sister's kittens

We don't know what sex they are, because my sister says she can't tell (I already told here there should be two pretty obvious hints in the genital area, but she said I was being gross) and no one else can be bothered to check. Pebbles and Bamm Bamm run around the patio all day like they're high on speed, pounce on each other a lot, devise evil schemes to con their way into the living room, where they're not allowed in because they aren't kitty-litter-trained, and are frequently picked up and cuddled by various members of my family, much to the kittens' annoyance. So adorable I want to gobble them up.




2. Fatimah, my cousin's daughter

Has the juiciest chubby little thighs. Like Pebbles and Bamm Bamm, is also picked up and cuddled more than she probably likes. As she is the offspring of my bossiest older cousin, I imagine that this kind of treatment of her as an animated baby doll will cease as soon as she can order people not to pick her up if she doesn't want to be picked up.


3. My sister's butt

Is like, hugely chubby. Good for playing bongos on when bored. Mainly posted this to cause mortification, because what else are sisters for.



4. Hari Raya breakfast

Lamb briyani, and 2 sisters on Skype in the background.