i'm already there

home in 2 weeks and a bit! oh boy oh boy oh boy. loh mee, sun, proper rain and church!

i get to wear dresses and miss a month of miserable weather, how good is that.

the rain it rains

i really should be concentrating on my assignment just at this moment. watching "the tenant of wildfell hall" will be the highlight of my sedate day.

just counting the days when i can have some fresh loh mee again in all its starchy gastronomic glory.

i love being back home. the familiar smells and sounds of Penang lull me to sleep and in the same way wake me up in the morning. aye, its humid that is true but even the sweat is enjoyable at the moment.

hee hee! woop woop. I am home!

*sniff*

Twas a strange morning today. En route to Uni to hand in the last of my assignments (woop woop), the sun was shining golden and sky as blue as Paul Newman's eyes. Caught a whiff of fresh air and suddenly it seemed like I was home in Penang. So vivid it was that I was disoriented for a moment, I could have sworn (but i don't swear) I smelt Georgetown in all its exhaust fumes and coffee shop fried oil smells.

Merely an acute longing to go home I hear you say. Nay. I have proof it is explained by science.

Scientists believe they have discovered how a waft of perfume or the strains of a familiar melody can evoke a vivid memory.

Scientists believe they have discovered how a waft of perfume or the strains of a familiar melody can evoke a vivid memory.

A study has located the precise region of the brain that appears to be responsible for connecting an everyday sensation with something that has happened in the past. The area, the CA3 region of the brain's hippocampus, plays a critical role in the formation of memories that can stay with a person for life.

Researchers led by Dan Johnston, a professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, said the CA3 region was essential for a phenomenon known as "pattern completion". He said: "That is the ability to recall memories from partial representations of the original." The CA3 region may be the part of the brain that initially captures a memory and prepares it for long-term storage. This may explain why people with a damaged hippocampus can remember events that occurred years ago but not what happened yesterday.

The study was based on an experiment in which mice were trained to escape from a maze using a set of visual clues. Genetically engineered mice that lacked a specific protein in the CA3 region could not remember how to get out of the maze when some of the clues had been removed.

Being able to recall the details of a memory from partial clues is thought to explain why humans can become sentimental over a song or a smell.

So you see, I am no sentimental fool. Twas my hippocampus playing tricks on me.

whinge!

I really would love to be in either of these places right now. 

promenade des anglais

maybe i'd prefer the ramshackle houses to a beautiful blue sea.

allegorical ties & strings

I am missing proper family sit downs, church get togethers and overall fellowship with like-minded people. One of the reasons I absolutely loathed leaving France was not the Mediterranean scenes, not the remarkably fine-looking people in their remarkably well-tailored outfits nor the frequent gustating of gelato(i never knew ice-cream had so many flava flavs). 

None of the above though I would be very content living in that kind of environment instead of putting up with the potty-mouthed English. I don't dislike the English, I really don't. But they are the most boring population in all of Europe, however interesting their history is. They are dull in nature, behave like sheep & think like preprogrammed robots. And they're unforgivably bland-looking. I do like rural English villages with their afternoon teas, scones and jams. But! I digress.

I loved France for la famille, incomprehensible they may be due to the language barrier but feeling comfortable nonetheless amongst people of like mind. Makes you realise how fabulous the chinese are, with all their traditional ideas and daily practice. 

I'm just rambling on a Friday night, knowing that summer hols and home is not too far away now. Thank GOD!

elementary, my dear

she'll be around for youth camp 2008. she will. be it hijacking a private jet or hotballooning it across the oceans.

its a little early for snow in industrial manchester, but there u go. watching white-topped cars crawl by.

living on snozzcumbers

Olfactory senses. a bane and boon. they trigger off a certain memory of a dish, more specifically sar hor fan. you never knew you missed that delicious gravy with its fat soft noodles, complimented with eggs, shrimp & roast pork till you catch a whiff of a certain smell (the smell of oil and fried something-or-other).

Smell memories that lay dormant now emerge and trigger an acute craving for that delectable satisfying meal. Cravings so acute and persistent it makes you want to leap up in the midst of class and yell, " Give me Sar Hor Fan or give me death!"
nothing that dramatic, but still..............its pure torture.

He held my hand

shucksaboo..got martha. but it was alright. considering i was nearly on my deathbed this morning, throwing up and purging, amazing Lord helped me through the 1.5hour exam. Felt completely perky and buzzed around during the exam, then 5 mins later after i was done, nearly went blind from spots in my eyes. got diarrhoea and fever 5 mins after exam. how good is that...awesome God. praise Him, i would have positively failed if i was in the state i was before and after the exam. couldn't even process what people were saying around me. anyhoo, Rupert bear here i come! going to watch all the episodes. heee!
home soon! hoorah! oily penang hawker food...sar hor fun. slurps

52 days more......

52 days....

52 days....

52 DAYS more!!!!

sounds

its the familiar sounds that make you feel at home. I don't necessarily miss "home" or penang much, just those seemingly inconsequential noises that you hear everyday. i miss the roti man clanging away on his bell, the beeping of the truck carrying veggies into the house nearby or even the mat rempits racing up and down the street. heh.

i bet i'll miss some familiar sounds here when i go back for the summer holidays. like the daily emptying of beer bottles into the rubbish truck at the nearby pub, or the drunken screams of retards outside the pub. yep i'll miss that ALOT.