Sleep

Daily writing prompt

What things give you energy?

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I might regret this post later, or later on in life, but I feel that I am really unhappy right now. I am so stressed out, and just all around irritable. Everything annoys me right now, the sound of my husband moving around the house, the sound of cars on the road doing what cars doing, the smell of fried egg from the kitchen, the amount of lights from the sun outside. This prompt…

I just felt like I am brimming with anxiety and… something that is like hatred but not quite. Does that even make sense?

My fingers are not feeling so stiff and it is so hard to type at all. I do not know if this is because of the work I have been doing for these last couple of days, or because of the drinking I had last night. And yes, I am back to alcohol, and even though for now it seems like it is very much controllable, I can see in the future that I will rely a lot on nicotine and alcohol again.

Maybe I won’t be able to cope this time.

I genuinely think that there is nothing bright to see in the future ahead of me.

I told my husband already, that I am so unhappy that I am now turning to cigarettes and alcohol again. And I told him that when I die of either liver cirrhosis or lung cancer, he should tell my parents that this is due to them pressuring me to go to work when I am not ready to do so. It is petty, but I don’t want to be the only one dying pathetically.

I tried though…

I found a job where I can work with people who I actually like. And the work that I can actually be proud of. A job where I can have enough rest, and enough hours to make it worthwhile, and yet… I am feeling incredibly miserable.

You gotta work to feed the soul

I’m Not Superman – Lazlo Bane

I think that quote is a total bullshit. I do not find meaning in working, or a sense of achievement, or anything that actually be nourishing to my soul. Or at least not now when all I want is to go to sleep, and rest.

Right now I am so drained and I only worked less than half the time I used to work to. I cannot wait the days when I have to work full time and becoming like every chefs I know – miserable, drunk, and dying.

I cannot wait to die.

ASD Diagnosis For Adults

Daily writing prompt

Which topics would you like to be more informed about?

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Title actually says it all… I would like to know more, and be more informed about how an adult can get an ASD diagnosis. Properly…

I said properly, because I have seen a documentary where people in the UK who tried to get help through private companies didn’t get the help they needed. They got ‘diagnosed’ from 10 minutes ‘counseling’ that looked like an online interview by someone who’s reading a tick list. This companies’ sole purpose is to sell expensive medications to these people.

To say that it is harmful is an understatement. So… yeah… I want to know where people can get diagnosed for ASD properly.

So if you are in the UK and you know something about this please let me know. If you are working with NHS, if you are a GP, and you know where to approach this, please let me know. If you are a private company and you can provide a proper help and not only trying to drug people please let me know.

If you are from Indonesia and you also have information about how this can be done in Indonesia, please let me know.

As far as I know, there is nobody that has an expertise in adult ASD in Indonesia. There are plenty for children, but the adult ones were not available. So far, and please correct me if you have a better information about it, the adult ASD both diagnosis and treatment are lump together with general psychiatry.

That’s a quick one for today, as I am still pretty much recovering from work.

God what the fuck am I doing?

Happy Hobbit Day!

Well well.. It is the 22nd of September again! Happy Hobbit Day to every single one of my fellow second breakfast appreciators.

Hobbits are essentially my favourite fictional creatures, and probably almost certainly my inner fantasy creature. Some people identify with dragon, or unicorn, or even mermaid… I one hundred percent sure that I am built to be a hobbit.

I am a bit too tall for a hobbit… but that’s because I might have accidentally got contaminated with ent-draught. But please don’t get my physical appearance fools you. I might even be a Fallohides, and you’ve never seen me before.

I like to keep myself inside my hobbit hole, and not very adventurous… except for some unexpected journeys that happened every now and then. And in these journeys, I did make friends of a lifetime.

And just like our hero hobbitses I’ve made friends with men, elves, and dwarves. Even with a maia.

If that’s not hobbit enough… This is one thing that would erase all doubts…

I CAN have seven meal a day if allowed.

I will happily go through breakfast and second breakfast, to make doubly sure that I have enough energy to go to work. Followed by elevenses before luncheon to make work a bit more bearable. I LOOOOVE afternoon tea, all of my bosses could vouch for me on this one. And dinner… duh… it’s like the only reason you go to work so you can come home to one home cooked dinner. AND supper… that’s the only way you could go to bed without feeling sad!

And for all of my friends who laughed at me because I mentioned supper? Well… obviously they’re not hobbits. This experience confused me a little bit… But I remember one wise word of master Brandybucks once to his close mate, “Don’t think he knows about second breakfast, Pip”. Right away, I assumed that these poor souls never heard of supper before.

Maybe I’ve been feeling incredibly poo because I have been dieting! It is unthinkable really but alas I am getting wider and thicker horizontally. I feel like gravity hasn’t been very kind to me for the last couple of years, so I needed to do something about it.

However I think today should be an exception. Maybe not seven meals, but definitely not four sorry slices of lembas…

Pathétique

Daily writing prompt

What would your life be like without music?

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I think there is two way of seeing this.

Like everything else, if we never had music to start with, then we might not know what we were missing out. What I meant is that if in this parallel world, humankind never had music, we would never feel like we are losing out on something. We might have something else to replace music, but since we do not know a world without music, then I don’t know what that would be. World might look and sound different, but my life would just… carry on.

BUT…

If music is taken away from me now…

To say that my life will be a lot shittier will be an understatement.

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I grew up in the house of music. My grandfather and his siblings are musicians at heart, and their idea of having fun is good food good music. Whenever we go for a meal in a restaurant where the band offered an open mic, one of us will go up there and make a good show for everyone.

I would come home after school, and if my grandad was not going for a tennis session with his friends, I would be greeted with a wonderful music coming out of our electronic organ. He would play many different kind of music, from a Chinese folk songs to orkes Pasundan.

My dad was known to hum lullabies whenever one of us refused to go to sleep as kids. And he is doing it now to his grandkids. He might not be an involved dad in today’s parental standard, but he grew up when father’s involvement to kid’s life was limited to providing financial support. But he did get us to sleep, tucked us to bed, and took us to fun places to play. He was never an absent father.

My mother’s idea of music is church’s choir and gospel. A completely different genre from my dad’s Chinese pop music. My uncles (one my dad cousin, and one my mum’s brother) were one that introduced BeeGees and The Beatles. My cousin, opened the door to Britpop when she gave me a mixtape with Blur and Oasis on it. That mixtape, by the way were the beginning of my live long obsession to come to Britain and meet one of them. I realised this dream on Valentine’s day 2012, in Aberdeen Scotland, when I finally face to face with Noel Gallagher. The happiest Valentine’s Day in my life.

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My love to classical music, though… I never knew where it came from. My parents did sign me up for a music lesson to play organ. I was never good enough to play it like a lot of my friends because I cannot read the tadpoles the way they do it (I think an undiagnosed astigmatism did not help), but I think I picked up some joy doing and listening to it. Classical music is the only type of music that I can only listen by myself, because none of my family or friends, or even my husband enjoy it the way I do. And I don’t want to hear their ‘this is boring’ comment.

The only person that share this feeling was Dee, the Malaysian woman I befriended during my Masters study. She was doing his Masters Degree in Music Science, and was specialising in piano. Her Masters final paper was about Debussy. I remember all these because how fascinated and impressive she was back then. I haven’t heard much from her lately.

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Oh… and of course. Ha! I just remembered, another person I can share classical music with… Dee’s classmate, I hooked up with a couple of times. He’s an Italian conductor with salt and pepper hair and an arrogance that can match a head chef. He’s a famous conductor now, so I will keep him anonymous here, because he doesn’t even know I have a blog. But he contacted me a couple of times and if he is having a performance near where I live, I might blag a ticket for the old time sake.

Now to actually answer this prompt…

My parents bought me a series of children books about famous people in the world. One of them was about Ludwig van Beethoven. Of course the story has been simplified, and tuned in (see what I did there?) for children, so they have left a lot of grittier stuff. But they did not leave out the part where Herr B slowly and gradually lost his hearing. I felt incredibly awful to imagine being in his place.

Someone whose life is defined by his work in music, is deprived of it. Man… No wonder he’s miserable.

Gosh… I really cannot imagine a life without music, knowing what music has been a part of me. I cannot even write this blog without listening to some music in the background.

What are you listening now?

Feast!!

Daily writing prompt

How do you celebrate holidays?

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Our culture is incredibly food-centric. Food is how my parents, and grandparents showed their love to their family members, their hospitality to guests, and their fortune to everyone who’s nosey enough to want to know.

Since the ban to celebrate Chinese New Year in Indonesia was lifted a couple of decades ago, my parents decided to hold feasts every year in our house. They will invite everyone to come, and my grandmother and my unties would spend hours in the kitchen with some helpers to prepare the meal. I was, of course, not allowed to be there because I was going to be in their way — nobody has ever predicted that in the future I will be cooking for a living.

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In the early 2000’s, every year there would be over 60 people coming to celebrate with us. Some of my parents’ family and friends were not as well off as they are now, so this is the time of the year they enjoy good food. Other was just far away from home and did not have big family to celebrate the New Year with, so this is the time of the year they eat food that feels like home.

I used to hate it when people swarming our house and eat our food. Especially there were faces that I was not familiar with just happily drinking my dad’s cognac. But later on when I was away in the UK, and had to celebrate this by myself, I did wish that there was someone like my parents inviting me to celebrate together with them and their tribe.

It was especially hard because my husband came from a small family, and they do not feast like us. Celebrating anything here in the UK feels very lonely. I know I could have picked a better, more positive word like… intimate. Very intimate, personal, family meal. But even at Christmas, we never had a whole family celebrating Christmas together as a complete set. So I think lonely is a perfect word to describe our holiday celebration in the UK.

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I wish I had appreciated those early days in Indonesia a bit better, because my parents has stopped inviting people for big New Year feasts now.

Most of the people they used to invite are now having their own big family, and would rather spending the holiday celebrating with their own. My grandmother too, is now too old to prep for a grand feast like she used to do (which can be easily resolved by teaching me her recipes). And COVID has put an end to this kind celebration, maybe forever.

But my grandmother still does not want to give up this tradition just yet. She rescaled the whole thing and make a celebration only for her remaining six children (two of my dad’s sibling have died), and their immediate family. So every year, she would host Chinese New Year celebration in one of her children’s house. Next year (2024) should be in my parents’ house, and I really want to come home for this.

My grandmother is over 90 years old, and realistically speaking I might only have a couple more celebrations like this with her. I really don’t want to miss any of it.

Goddamnit I feel weepy now.

mel’s out!

There Was An Attempt…

Daily writing prompt

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

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To boil an egg.

As a chef I did many fails in the kitchen. Some of them are worse than the others. Some fails can be salvaged, some just go straight to the bin not to be mentioned again. But these mistakes were just a part of the job. It is even accounted for. But I had a life before I started working in the kitchen.

I wasn’t always a chef.

I am not even sure if I should share this because it might jeopardise my future career if any one working with me ever discover this blog. But maybe I am thinking too much, most chefs I know cannot read to save their lives. It should be fine…

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Many prompts ago, I did share about how I never set foot in the kitchen until I left my home country to study in the UK. I learned very quickly (because contrary to popular belief, I am not actually that dumb), that cooking is a very useful survival skill, especially when you are abroad, and alone.

Not only that I am not dumb, I had this wisdom that if I want to learn to make food (I did not even call it cooking because it really was not), I had to start with something easy. Rice, eggs, and instant noodles. And boil everything that was green until it was edible. Needless to say, everything I made tasted like shit.

However, even with this culinary background, I knew that I have reached the new low when I burned a boiled egg. Two eggs, in fact, because I was planning to save one for the next day.

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Yes. Egg. Boil. Burned.

I can totally understand your confusion. I really do appreciate your disgust as well. You might have so many questions in your head:

How did she do it? Where was the water? How come she burned it? What does the egg look like? How does it taste?

Let me show you this very useful life tool called an Occam’s Razor. I simply left the two eggs inside the water, over the stovetop for way too long. I did not set a timer, and I left the room to play computer game.

The eggs looked just like a normal egg shaped thing, but with burned black on one side. And I don’t know how to explain it to you, but yes… the curiousity made me try the eggs, knowing that it will tasted even worse than whatever food I have attempted to cook before in my life.

I consider myself a lucky person. First, I was lucky I did not get food poisoning from my cooking attempts. Second, I was lucky I did not burn the building down. And third, I nobody caught me almost burning the building by accident.

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My husband worked in a student hall, and the many times he came home ranting about another student left a pan on a turned on stovetop made me wince. But at the same time I can totally understand where those students came from. Some games cannot be paused willy nilly!

I never burned any eggs since. Overcooked my sunny side, yes, every now and then… but it was far from turning it into charcoal.

And kitchen timer… is a wonderful thing.

The Gift of Epimetheus

Daily writing prompt

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

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I might have mentioned it before, but I do love Greek mythology. Since my parents bought us a series of Encyclopaedia with Disney characters narrating in the book, I was fascinated with the book number 14 about Legends and Mythology. And Greek mythology is definitely just the tits (that’s how the British said something that is just the top of the top good).

Prometheus, in Greek mythology is one of the Titans who were not in war with the Olympians. But later on in the story, Prometheus had a fall out with the great Zeus because he stole fire for humankind. Being depicted as a petty God, Zeus decided to give a punishment not only to Prometheus, but also to humankind, by giving a sealed container (sometimes referred to as a box) to Prometheus’s sister in law, known as Pandora. (not to be confused with the jewelry shops)

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“Hey, Pandora darling, here’s a sealed container. Don’t open it, alright?” *wink*

Anyway, Pandora was married to Prometheus’s twin brother Epimetheus. Maybe some of you linguists have seen where I am going… yes, pro– and epi-. They’re prefixes we have seen a lot later on in life. Like this rambling is the prolog to my actual post, eventually. See what I did there?

Prometheus was depicted as the careful, a forethinker. Someone with the gift of FORESIGHT. While Epimetheus was exactly the opposite, he’s the kind of person who would tell you ‘YOLO, Man… we’ll think about it tomorrow’. Afterthought. Hindsight.

When I heard someone said that hindsight is wonderful, I did struggle to understand what it means. Because of course they meant foresight, because if you know what might be a hindsight before it was a hindsight, then it is a foresight… right?

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But maybe a hindsight is the ability to learn from an aftermath, from history, and the past actions. People who do not have the gift of hindsight might not be able to understand consequences, might not be able to better themselves, might not be able to be reflective because they don’t look back and see what was wrong in the past.

Without people who could think: “Aah… that was a bit shit. We were a bit arseholish to these people. Maybe we should not have enslaved them decades ago…”, there won’t be people saying, “shall we put this in our law that we should not do this again?”.

Yes, of course it would be nice that slavery never happened at all, but that’s why hindsight is a great thing, is it? And because we do make mistake, as mankind we learned mainly because we made mistakes.

Gosh, another world war… should have had a better law about not invading other countries. Maybe creating an organisation where nations can unite to discuss this things, and we can name it with something obvious like United Nations or something. Ah! Yes! Shouldn’t have added lead on gasoline… let’s take it off, and oh look! Electric cars anyone? Oh, global pandemic… never seen anything like this before, but if we have had a better healthcare system there should have been less death…. Let’s put money on more research about this.

That’s why we have the twin Titans Epimetheus, and Prometheus — one who can see the mistakes made in the past and learn from it, and the other who can think of ways so that the mistake in the past will not happen again.

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The two sides of the same coin.

I wish I understand Epimetheus’s gift way earlier. Because for so long I was told that while Prometheus was described as the representative of mankind’s wisdom, Epimetheus was the representative of human folly. I wish I understand that his gift was the one completing his brother’s.

While the Prometheus in us stopped us in doing many things because of the many what ifs, Epimetheuses of the world are those who lived, fucked up, and learned. And it is okay to fucked up once in while… It is not the end of the world.

Maybe almost…

Now before I bid you goodbye, I would like to recommend you something: if you are interested in listening to a podcast about the biggest incarnate of Epimetheus in modern history.

Thomas Midgley Jr.

Good Food

Daily writing prompt

What are your favorite types of foods?

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I genuinely think that this is going to be an easy prompt to write today. But I have stared on a blank space for a good ten minutes, while my brain was wandering, thinking about all types of foods I have ever tried in my life, and trying to decide which one is my favourite. I am genuinely at loss.

Being Chinese Indonesian, I grew up eating Chinese food, and Indonesian food, especially Javanese food — because of the region I lived in. These are the food that became the base of my palate. Rich flavour with lots of spices, balancing sweet and salty with the heat of birds eye chilli. Every Indonesian has their own favourite sambal, and mine is probably sambal bawang.

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When I got older, I approached Japanese food very carefully because they are very different from Chinese food or Indonesian food. I do not get people who lumps Asian food into one category because Asia is massive, and some of them are massively different from the other. Japanese food is, for me an incredibly unique one.

The gateway to Japanese food for me, like a lot of people who step into the realm of Japanese food for the first time, was Katsu. I don’t remember the first katsu I had, but I remember the one that left an impression. That was the tonkotsu ramen I tried when I visited my cousin in Melbourne, Australia. I was 15, so don’t ask me the name of the restaurant because I won’t remember.

But sushi was my first love. Sushi was the first food that made me understand how to appreciate food. That something that looks so simple can give me so much pleasure. Unlike food that I had before the moment of nigiri enlightenment, sushi was clean and light, and fresh and not at all complicated. I tasted everything, and loved everything that I tasted. With sushi, I understand that ingredients make differences. With something simple like sushi, there is no place to hide mistakes.

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We do have European food too when I was younger. American food came into our life with the invasion of fast food chain like McDonalds and KFC. Pizza Hut is confusing, because as American as it looked like, this is actually a very bad introduction to Italian food for many of us in my small childhood town. But every now and then, my father who is an incredibly progressive worldly man, brought us to this fine dining place in the city.

It was the 90’s, and my country was still in the grip of the old regime. Don’t imagine this fine dining place is anywhere like The Savoy, but it is enough for us to learn about European style food. I tasted my first Sole Meuniere, and Wiener Schnitzel, and the first time I ate steak that is not semi cremated. I learned about three course meal, and the joy of dessert. And I learned how to use knife and fork like the Europeans, the skill that many Indonesians still struggle.

As I moved away from home, I developed different palate to my parents’. I would have lamb kebab, curry, or piri piri chicken, while my parents looked at me wondering how I can eat them and not disturbed by the overwhelming spices. At the same time, my husband still could not fathom how Indonesians can eat all those chillies without melting their faces.

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But having typed so many words about food, I still cannot decide which one is my favourite TYPES of food.

Because as much as I can say that sushi was my first love, I can also say that I would walk five hundreds mile, and I would walk five hundreds more to have my grandmother’s award winning mei cai kou rou. I can eat a massive bowl of Traditional English Sherry Triffle by myself, and I will walk across the national borders so that I can devour a tray of freshly made Baklava too.

And THIS, my dear reader… THIS is why I am fat.

Have a good day.

I am going to have something to eat now. This post makes me hungry.

The Night Prowler

Daily writing prompt

How often do you walk or run?

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The first time I moved to Norwich, I walked everywhere. This is a city that accommodate pedestrians, and lately cyclists too, very very well. The way that the city spreads, means that everywhere you live, you will have enough amenities within walking distance. Technically, I do not have to go to the city centre to be able to buy my daily needs, but if I do go to the city centre, it’s only a bus ride away, or 45 minutes walk.

On the orientation days, I was told that it was half an hour walk. One month living in Norwich, I realised that my anatomic build makes me walk slower than other people. I did make an observation when I walk from my student hall to the campus, when everyone was walking around me. I found that even though I moved my legs as fast as everyone else, I was always left behind because I have shorter stride.

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Which is weird because we are roughly have the same height, and have roughly the same length of legs.

Something about the way I move, I suppose.

But anyway, knowing that I do walk slower than average people, I always add 10-15 minutes on the suggested amount of time on google map. I was never late for everything.

After I got married, and moved to the other side of the city, I still walked everywhere. Our house is even closer to the city centre, around 30 minutes my walking speed. My first job in the hotel was 40 minutes walk. If I had the smart watch that counts step like what I have now, I would have hit that 10k steps almost every day.

What changed is that both my husband and I changed jobs. When he had to start working at 5 in the morning, picking me up from work at after midnight from the restaurant is no longer sustainable. The options were either he had a broken sleep which means he did not have enough rest for a very physical working day ahead, or I walk home after midnight because all of the bus service has stopped operating by then. But my husband hates it when I walk home, because he thinks Norwich is not safe.

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Then I had my car.

Having a car is both a blessing and a curse. Having a car is expensive because of the many things that cost me my hard earned money. Everything about my car was taxed. The car itself gets a car tax, the fuel gets VAT. To be road legal, there’s road tax, insurance, MOT. The yearly service is expensive, especially when things needed to be changed or repaired. When you actually take it, parking is also expensive. Truly, I’d rather walk… but not during summertime. I’d rather die during Summer time.

But once you had a car, it seems like you have found a shortcut in game. You could pick the long arduous way of doing something, or you can do something faster, and comfier. And suddenly, my walking period has gone. I drive everywhere, and I became fatter and plumper by the day. Who’d have thunk?!

My last job was 50 minutes drive, obviously I had an excuse to not walk to work. I would like to change that, but I need to find a solution for walking home at night alone.

Because Norwich used to be safe. One of the reasons why I picked Norwich was because it was once the safest city in England, sometimes demoted to second place only lost to York. But things have changed a lot in Norwich since then. A decade later you know that the change in demographic and the pressure of social and economic problem has pushed people to criminality.

My husband is not happy with the plan, and we haven’t found the middle ground.

Rain Rain (Don’t) Go Away

It rained overnight a couple of days ago. I woke up in the morning with cold air coming through the vent, and I haven’t felt so refreshed for a very long time. Since then, the air was much much cooler, and I think this is the beginning of the end of summer.

I am elated.

I learned how much British people hate rainy days. Most of them (I was told it is not nice to generalise people). Most of British people would happily moan when they see dark rain cloud looming in the horizon, and would grumpily moan when they felt the first rain drop fall on the tip of their noses. To be honest, they do like moaning and would moan just for the sake of it anyway.

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When I was in high school, the earth wasn’t as hot as it is today. Our city was not as crowded and polluted as it is now. Our classroom did not need air conditioning, even on the hottest day of the year. Because our building was design for tropical climate with rows of nako windows, it’s so cool and airy even when the midday sun was blazing outside. The breeze of clean air made it hard for us to stay awake every now and then, but the greatest challenge was when your nose picked up THAT scent in the breeze.

The sweet and earthy smell, the unmistakable sign that rain is coming. Apparently not everyone can smell it. I assumed that, because I often look at my friends and told them that it was gonna rain and nobody believed me. I told them about the smell, and they just looked at me as if I was a weirdo sniffing the air for no reason.

But of course I was right, and soon enough the sky started to pour. Slow drip to start with, and if I was in luck, then it really went for it.

I think there is something romantic about the rain, or maybe melancholy. Can it be both?

Of course a lot of people I know don’t see rain the way I do. Most people loves outdoor, and enjoy being on an open space, and being active. Rain ruins outdoor for these people. Which… I can understand because when I was walking a lot after I moved to the UK, I found that sometimes British rain can be bothersome, mainly because it is usually accompanied with strong winds.

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Rain in Indonesia is quite different. My very British husband experienced his first Indonesian rain in Bali when we were about to watch Kecak show. It was an outdoor stage, so when the rain suddenly fell, some umbrellas started to pop up. My husband who’s used to British rain just looked up and somewhat a bit taken aback with it.

“It’s warm”, he commented like a professional rain critic.

When I imagined him being a rain critic, I thought of Forrest Gump explaining the kind of rains he had during his time in Vietnam.

“One day it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night…” – Forrest Gump

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I really cannot wait for the Autumn to come, and the rain that comes with it. The mushroom season. The soup time. Coat and boots moment. The red and orange colour scheme. Spiced pumpkin latte? Well… I’ll stick with my chai latte, but thanks for the option. And of course… my birthday in the middle of it. I really hope it will be raining cats and dogs on my birthday. My dad said that heavy rain during an important celebratory day means a massive fortune for the year following.

And don’t you think your tea and coffee tastes better on rainy days? Don’t you think your imagination runs more vividly while you’re reading your books on rainy days?