christography

It’s been crazy almost 3 months for me - work and worrying about this chest pain thingy, and waiting for the specialist appointment while going through all the medical tests.

So meanwhile, I’ve been experimenting with salads. First started with just buying a bunch of veggies and dressing. Well, I’d bought for the week, but later learn, the wasteful way, that I could really only buy for 3 days if I wanted the vegetables to be fresh and all nice and crunchy.

The vegetables. I had Broccoli, Rocket, Butterheads, Romaine, Purple Lettuce, Celery, even bought a Mixed bag of vegetables to learn from.My favorate had to be Romaine and the Purple Lettuce, especially from Ho farm! They are especially fragrant when fresh! Next was Brocolli - nice when fresh, too! Otherwise, it becomes a little ‘brittle’ and less crunchy when cooked.

Fruits. Pepper, Tomatoes.

Fungi. Shitake Mushrooms, Button mushrooms and the really big ones (can’t remember the name!).

Seaweed. Only the baked unsalted ones. The loose ones are hard to eat and makes eating it rather yucky.

Dressing. Ranch and Extra virgin Olive oil. Also had cheese, and preserved veggies.

And the results are actually quite nice! As you can see, I started adding some nut-based cracker, and soft-boiled eggs and I lost a total of 4kg in 2 weeks, and well, my pants started loosening up, and overall felt fresher, and my headache’s gone down quite a fair bit. It also made me more calm and restful too! I’m going to be keeping this up for a long time! And since then I’m helping to build a healthy veggie service that might happen in about a year. Excited.

I was asked to be on a panel to talk about objects that was the basis for the creation of art. As my current exhibition was heavily based on material popular culture, I thought it’d be great to discuss that.

The talk was really wonderful with wonderful people and audience. I look forward to more such events!

Thanks, Michael.

First time seeing this bird in the garden just out in the garden near my studio. This image has not indication of its’ size, but well It is the size of a crow.. anyone know what bird this is? It is AMAZINGLY big! Sorry I couldn’t take a better picture as this was heavily cropped from a point-and-shoot camera - can’t go near or the bird will fly away. It is beautiful!

“So the critic to whom I am most grateful is the one who can make me look at something I have never looked at before, or looked at only with eyes clouded by prejudices, set me face to face with it and then leave me alone with it. From that point, I must rely upon my own sensibility, intelligence, and capacity for wisdom.”

The Frontiers of Criticism - in On Poetry and Poets

These are really huge and sweet smelling roses! 2 almost gone this morning, and 1 more left after spending 5 days with them! That is very long lasting if you ask me, especially for cut roses. beautiful. One day a room of roses will be grown and I’ll put a white nice bed and sleep in that room. Now, the roses are in their ‘bed’ in MY room. : )

Some how, I have this feeling that you will not be coming back.. yeah, I know, I’m weird that way! But I hope I’m wrong! Well, at least got this picture to remind us!

Who else can I go to for brainless banter, and intellectual discussion at the same time! But aiya, you do mumble way too much - a sign of your generation, surely! haha.

And yes, I will definitely try to visit! And you promised you will try to get a real nice apartment for all of us friends! heh - sabo.

All thanks to Yan wei and Yimin, went to the Herbarium at Singapore Botanical Gardens. Really, really nice, and such memories and inspirations! Thanks to Prof Benito too! He is a really, nice nice guy! All the talk about Moss, Liverworts, Lichen! Pai sae, I still don’t really know the differences! But I do know the difference between the algae and moss, now! hur hur. After the herbarium, we walked and I found this dirty colored hibicus that’s surely it’s natural color! Like huh and wow at the same time.

I do think that having people like the Prof around does grow the passion for plants. I’m already passionate about plants, but he just made it that much more interesting!

When I got back, I also found out what terrarium meant, I’d thought it meant ‘a collection of growing moss’. I’ve been googling ‘grow moss’, and the information is not exactly forth coming. Maybe it’s a hint that I should grown moss together with other plants.. Well, now at least I’m not talking nonsense with the professionals. heh. Still can’t seem to find info on just moss growing, though. Will do trial and error!

This Lichen above is called the Graphis because of its weird ‘fonts’ like structures. Try to make out a word! haha..

This is how I felt after the whole walk around the gardens! Quite telling since my next ‘time for myself’ thingy would probably to buy and ride a bike!

Yes, I was wondering why I keep hearing about death and found it odd. But not familiar. Until last night, when I realized that it was the ghost month, and for the past 2 years, have noticed that there were more deaths that happens during this time of the lunar year.

Last year was the continuous funerals that happened in my estate, all different people. This year, was just friends, or relations of friends who moved on to better pastures.

Yes, I’m mobid.

Noriko, I know you read this pretty often, so this is for you.

This was taken about almost a week ago, so they should start full bloom in about 2 weeks! I counted about 30 of these flower buds and more has grown since. AND, there was another tree that has even more flower buds!

Enjoy!

Update! These are the blooms a few days later!