gnatweds

Winter is biting back - after all those exultations about the advent of spring, and the sunny 20 plus degrees days we got last weekend, it's karma and winter backlash time.

It's rainy, dreary and the high is 8 deg C. Much better than -20 deg C I grant you, but when you've had a taste of 20 plus degrees, this kinda is saaaaaaaaaaad.

Very very unwilling to do very much at ALL - but as luck would have it I have to pack and clean house thoroughly (like-clean out-fridge-type-thoroughly)... sighs, so that we get the renter's deposit back.

Would you believe it? Next wed, it's supposed to *SNOW*

Eh, one third of the year is over liao... huccome I am still cold? *sighs*

Anyway, on to final countdown, everything moving by in a blur.

Shippers will come pick up boxes in a few days.

The end is nigh!

PS: Anyone has any suggs on what to get G for his birthday? AP watches and Porsches are out of budget.

Nat

Guess what I found! Ai-Lien, Arti, Pete, Tarns, Chris - I still think you guys did a superb job, and its the bestest page 1 I have ever seen.

This by the way, was the wedding favor we gave our guests back in Nov 2005 (!!! Cor has it been that long ago) - it is a bit uncoventional, but I thought, who really wants to eat dried up fruit cake? Hahahha.

So I'm trying out golf right?
Judith alerted me to this extremely funny clip. Kudos to Robin Williams here.

Okay, we were sitting together having a drink, discussing the pros and cons of getting a lotus Elise vs a Porsche - and I was browsing through our Flickr "africa" set... when we spotted this photo. (we were there for our honeymoon)

G was obviously in darned good form when he took this.

We were in a Mokoro canoe in a small stream of the Okavango.

This is what G has to say of the shot:
"I was sitting there with the camera in my lap wondering what bug would be next to well, bug me... when that shot came up, I went *shit*... it was like that National Geographic shot in that split second and my brain was yelling at me "TAKE IT TAKE IT" - so I did."
"It was really transient though, a second later it was gone... "

So, it's Spring.

Well, according to the Vernal Equinox anyway. The wha? Equi-wha? you say?

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times Science page article today:

Our clocks may have already “sprung forward” in a dubious attempt at energy conservation, but please, let’s not lose track of the far weightier astronomical event that ushers in spring proper — even when the event has trouble keeping track of itself.

A couple of weeks ago, I checked a wall calendar and noted that this year the vernal equinox falls on Tuesday, March 20, happily the publication date of this column. Not long afterward, however, my eye chanced upon another calendrical reference to the equinox — March 21.

I quickly consulted every one of my household’s 13 calendars: 6 put the equinox on March 20, 6 on March 21. As for the potential tie-breaker, my daughter’s “Star Trek” calendar, it had nothing to say about a geo-fixated occasion like the equinox, though it did point out that March 22 is the birthday of William “Captain Kirk” Shatner.

Now, we’re all accustomed to the general shiftiness of the four seasons, and the fact that their start dates in the third week of March, June, September and December may move a day or two from one year to the next. This is to be expected from our attempts to synchronize our rigid annual schedules with the gravitational nuances of Earth’s transit around the Sun.

But as I soon discovered in my attempt to resolve the calendar crisis, the vernal equinox in 2007 has the added snag of arriving at the querulous hour of just seven minutes past midnight, universal time, on March 21. Coordinated Universal Time is what used to be called Greenwich Mean Time, but the new name doesn’t make it any more universal than it ever was, and it remains a time zone centered in Britain. For those of us in the United States, the vernal equinox arrives while it is still the evening of March 20."

So there it is. As of the evening of March 20. It's Spring. And PS; if you think I'm some astrology whizz, think again, I was only prompted to think about Spring when I heard the DJ go on and on about it on the local station while I was driving - ahem, and get this, it's actually called... Kroc 106.3. And you thought the stations back home had cheesy names??

(PS: our fav station here in MN is Cities 97. Go have a listen if you're free - er, preferably in the daytime here, just minus 13 hours from Sg time)

And back to the topic at hand, well, the weather seems to be obeying the rules somewhat this time: It's -2 deg C out now, but in two days, the highs will reach a whopping 12 deg C. Everyone say it with me... "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa".

heh.

So, a good friend and colleague from home was aghast when I said that I couldn't wait to go home to work...
Was I mad? Did the Minnesota Winter burn all the sense from my brain?

I'd have to say, actually, Yes. Winter was bloody awful, I was depressed and stuck at home with a bum hip, that must have done something to my pysche. Prolly a lot weirder and pyscho now (cue dramatic Bates Motel soundtrack music)...

But, really, why do I want to go back to WORK? Well, I miss the independence that work offers me, a lot of your self image and ego I realise, is tied up with what you (try to) achieve in your career - well, in my case anyway. I hate to say it, but I miss the thrill of the hunt, and despite the intense deadlines, or maybe it is in spite of it - because the newsroom does become a pretty lean machine when something big happens and we all have to pitch in to cover it - it is a place where people do bond. And gosh, I miss the people at work.

Yup, there you have it. Why I want to go back to work (yes, that four-letter word). Cause I miss the hanging out with my pals in the newsroom; I miss earning my own money, I miss having nice lunches (whoohoo), I miss buying coffee in the am from Spinellis to wake up from my stupor, I miss the late night bitch sessions....

Hahah. Two weeks into work, and I will probably totally regret feeling like this now.

N

On Saturday, the nation caught St Patrick's day fever, Rochester included. There were people dressed in green everywhere - not least because some shops offered discounts of up to 10 per cent if you wore the colour...

Then, there were leprechauns (!) on the street corners waving to passing cars - yes, yes, to be specific, people dressed up in leprechaun costumes - I couldn't help it, I waved back while laughing out loud in the car.

We decided to hit the local Irish Pub where a huge tent had been erected to contain the masses of celebrants, just because Gene was extra keen to drink green beer. Don't ask me why, I really don't quite know either.



So here's the Green Beer.



And that's Gene looking distinctly unamused: heheheheh. The beer was awful, think they just dumped a vat of some nuclear-green thing into very flat beer, and served it at 2.75 a pop... eh, you need to add tips for the bartender too leh, so it was expensive beer at about 3.75 a pop - that's about five or six bucks Sing. Anyway, it was five or six bucks Sing down the drain cos G was totally dying to get out of there - he wore his nice Zegna shirt and Polo corduroys and the chappies at the pub were wearing their hunting vests... We were literally flies in potato soup, wait, make that croutons, since we are really yellow now with our super-faded tans.... and one of the flies was super overdressed. Hurhurhur. Hence the super "get-me-outta-here-now!" look. I chortled at him the entire night.

But to make up for it, there was a great house party that night, we were invited by an Irish cardiologist that I met a week earlier, she's got such a British-isles type name.. Aisling. Anyway, she and four other Irish chaps and ladies here decided to throw a good old fashioned st pat's party - read a party with LOTS of booze, notably Guinness.

It felt like something right out of our "functions" back in those days of our youth - c'mon everyone, you remember them right? the house parties usually thrown by richie rich kids? And they'd hire like sound systems and all?

This had all the elements - sound system with this pounding bass, strobe lights AND a disco ball. We had a blast, not least because it was so international. I mean, we don't usually realize this, but Rochy IS quite a melting pot of different nationalities, and last night felt like quite the United Nations: Irish (or course), Americans (well, we are here in MN after all), Indian, Italian, Czech, Canadians, Greek, Lebanese... you get the idea... and everyone bopping to Irish jig music and Europop/dance/techno. Gives the idea of world harmony quite a filip don't you think?

Then today, we went up to the cities to positively gorge on dimsum... *burp* let's just say I got so full that I felt that if I had eaten another bitem everything would have spewed up. THAT bad.

Completely bloated and with doggy bag in tow (told you we overextended ourselves with the ordering), we headed off to see the car show in Minneapolis - where Gene fell in love all over again with the Lotus Elise, eyeballed the Porsche Targa and the Cayman S.

THEN we caught the movie 300. It's a must watch, and its absolutely eye candy galore for us women. Finally, I say! Finally we get to oooogle at the men on the screen.
Gene sniffs that it makes the movie like Chippendales. Humpf, no-one says anything disparaging abt movies which put up gorgeous woman bodies up on screen for the MEN to oogle now, do they?

Heh, that said, I liked the movie, cause the film making was aboslutely wonderful - new techniques, the lighting is wonderful, great new angles etc (okay, the cuties did have something to do with it too especially... *Swoooon*... Tom Wisdom).

But (spoilers ahead) good grief, I don't think the Immortals had ahem metal face masks that made them look like fans of the Joker. Drugs, yes, face masks like that? No. And I understand the image of Xerxes came straight out of a graphic novel by Frank Miller (of Sin City etc etc fame), but whoa, he just looked like Kumar (boom-boom-room Kumar) to me.

That said, the battle of Thermopylae has always been this wonderful premise, and I'm glad someone did a cool job of it. Bits I didn't like? All that going on about democracy etc etc etc, and how they were fighting for a future for freedom.

Erhm, Sparta used slaves. Hello. That's why they had to maintain the warrior breed of Spartans so that the slaves - who did ahem everything and eventually controlled the economy of the city state - wouldn't revolt. Martial law anyone? Geez. But true, they did inspire the rest of the city states to get off their butts,a nd therefore Athenian style or shall we say inspired democracy managed to survive... yada yada and then the rest is, as they say, history.

But all that said and done, doncha think Sparta is horribly intriguing? I remember being fascinated, almost gruesomely so, during my A levels history class by how the Spartans abandoned their weak, deformed babies, or threw them off a cliff. So committed were they to this idea of martial strength and law. But eugh, I also remember almost tearing up my book when I had to remember details like the many Athenian leaders and the Persian-Hellenic battles. Gak.

Alright alright, have rambled on enough. Go watch the show :)

Recently went through G's storage archive and added more pixes of us to the flickr "memories" set ... found this one. Super could not resist putting this up. It is SO typically Gene doncha think? Someone captured this quiet moment during his MO conversion course... even in military greens, it's hard to tear that PDA out of his grasp. And for people who know him, isn't it such a typical Gene face when he's concentrating? Note the gloomy gus expression.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Hi folks.

I must say things are looking up here in Rochester, MN - not least because we've booked our respective flights back home.

Am a lucky girl, G had enough miles to upgrade himself AND get me a business class one way ticket back to Sg! Yaaaaaaaay! I leave on April 24 and arrive in Sg on April 26... so who's free to meet up then?

G comes home in July.

So, now, am a bit busy with making sure everything's packed, finding a shipper etc etc etc.

Oh, and its also definitely transitioning to Spring - the weather is positively balmy at 3 deg C. No need to wear the extra coat during the days now, and the snow is finally melting. No more snowboarding maybe, (which is sad) but winter was TOUGH and shoveling snow sucked big time.

Speaking of snowboarding - two weekends ago, we decided to get ourselves to Afton Alps - which is one of the bigger ski areas near the twin cities with 18 chair lifts. Check out the trail map on the website. It was great fun, especially since it had snowed the day before, but it was real crowded - and because we were so new to the place, we were super blur on which runs to take, plus the signages were mighty confusing as well.

To make a long story short - we think we went down our first black diamond - erh, completely by mistake. The best part is that we didn't even realise that we took a black diamond slope until later when we were having our requisite end-of-the-day-beer at one of the chalets and we were checking out the map again when, we went... uh oh... did we actually do that?

It was steep! And there were a couple of skiers sprawled out on the snow, the snow patrol had to come and toboggan them down to the medic station... and a couple behind us in the line for the ski lifts gave us this incredulous looks when they thought it was our first time on snowboards (miscomm - it was our first time at Afton Alps) but we didn't put two and two together until much much later...

okay, okay, it's called being chao gong.

In the meantime, buying all my barang barang to bring home - if nothing else, this year will have done wonders for my wardrobe but not much for my bank account.

If you want something, better email me quick!

What else? hummm....

oh, G's lost a lot of weight - he's on call once every three days and he gets very little sleep on these horrible calls. Although he snorted huffily when I told him today that he was a lot less rotund around the middle now, the poor boy is just too tired most days to eat properly.

Alright, that's the update for now.

Hugs

okay, I think I have managed to do almost everything that winter entails.

I've made a snow angel, pelted Eugene with snowballs, we made a mini snowman, gone snowboarding, experienced -40 deg C, been afflicted by Seasonal Affective Disorder - SAD; I've shoveled (v heavy) snow, scraped off layers of ice from the car, yanked/kicked open the frozen car door (yes, ice encrusted the thing), driven in blizzard-like conditions, spun on icy roads; gotten whacked by sleet (ouch)...

What we haven't done: Ice fishing (erhhh...); snowmobiling (hummm) and winter bonfires (dunno where).



It's very annoying when you spend almost an hour shoveling out your driveway, then hours later, you get another few inches that you need to get ff. And we realise, yes, you actually need to shovel, because otherwise the cars can't get out of the garage. One of our neighbours got stuck and Gene and a couple of others helped push the car out of the piled up snow.

We got something like 15 to 16 inches a few days ago, and it's expected to hit 21 inches by the time the current one blows over by Saturday. Oh, and there's a difference in the kind of snow you get early and late on in the season. Now, when its close to the freezing point, the white stuff is not fluffy - its very heavy and moist. Good for snowmen and snowballs but sucky for cleaning up.

Ironically, Eugene - who loves it - and says "Bring IT ON!" to snow storms is missing this massive snowfall happening right now.... he's on call at the hospital.

I jest you not when I say you couldn't see 20 m in front of you while driving. Forget road signs - can't see them, and when the road crews try to clear the streets, they leave piles as high as buildings.

Interestingly, people here pile into grocery stores and gas stations when the weatherman predicts a big snow storm. We did our own stocking up - of beer and wine.

But - wait - it's not all that bad. I take it back. On Sunday we went boarding and the stuff was so deep we sank into our knees in it and it was wonderful - and it didn't hurt at all if you wiped out.

But in the absence of sunny weather - I've started golfing lessons at the indoor golf dome across the street. Yes, when we first came, we were wondering how to procure a rocket launcher to destroy that ugly thing that we have a full view of from our home. Open the door and you see it.




But now, I reckon, maybe it's a sign that we should learn how to play the game anyway - well, it becomes a sign when you have nothing else better to learn.

I shan't make fun of golfers anymore... it's tough! Think too much and the swing goes all funny and don't think and it goes funny too. I've only swung at balls (very cathartic, this whacking balls thing) for two lessons... but it's actually kind of fun. Gasp. But I dunno, it seems a pretty tough game man, its just so counter-intuitive, your left arm is dominant when you wanna whack the ball, and usually, you'd want to use your right arm to send it to the rafters. Ah well.

This has definitely been a year for learning new things - snowboarding, golfing, yoga, proper swimming techniques. I should be grateful, I don't think I would have been able to dabble in all this if I were working back home. But in a strange, strange way, I do miss my working life very badly. It's very human to not like something when you're in the thick of it, but when you're not, you miss it and think it was brilliant. Like school, and work, and Singapore. Hahaha. In a few months, I'll prolly miss the carefree(er) life I'm currently leading here in Rochester huh?

Think this is the epitomy of the phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"...