Diary | The Hexacoto

August 2, 2013

Can I have some more gruel, please?

You know you’re falling on hard times when you start rationing even cabbage, and cutting out a 1/16 part of it for lunch.

Grocery shopping has become challenge as I start to cut out on things that were once deemed nice to have, but are now crossed out out of necessity. I have always been a frugal shopper, but lately I have had to extend how long groceries last in my fridge, thereby reducing the frequency with which I have to go grocery shopping. I now have to try to make two weeks’ worth of groceries last three.

I have resisted the temptation to live on a diet of processed food, even though they are probably cheaper. It’s depressing enough that I don’t have a lot of money, I shouldn’t have to suffer the idea of eating sub-par frozen dinners and the such. Besides, eating unhealthily might eventually lead to health complications that might end up costing me more. A friend who is similarly unemployed tells me that on certain sale days, frozen dinners can cost as little as $1 each, but having never grown up in a culture of microwaving meals as a norm, that idea did not sit well with me.

On average, I manage to rack up about $25 on Asian groceries and about $35 for Western groceries each trip. This $60 usually sufficiently provides me two meals every day, for about two weeks, making it a cost of $4.30 a meal a day, which isn’t bad at all. This $60 now has to last me three weeks.

The following chronicles how my diet has changed in this time of rationing.

Carbohydrates

The above are two of the cheapest noodles available in the Asian and Western supermarkets I go to. The Chinese egg noodles on the left cost about 80 cents (the supermarket doesn’t tax!) and the capellini pasta costs about 88 cents before tax. While it seems like the pasta costs only a paltry eight cents more, too little to make a difference, the number of servings I can prepare before I finish each box is hugely different. These noodles are all the carbs that I buy.

I wonder why I always end up using finishing the box of pasta faster than the Asian noodles. I usually finish using the box of pasta after 4-5 meals, whereas the Asian noodles lasts me about 5-6 meals. This is odd because by weight, the pasta is a full pound while the Asian noodles are about 14 ounces. Maybe because the Asian noodles are in cakes and makes it easier to divvy up (one is usually enough, two if you’re really hungry) whereas I usually just eyeball how much pasta to use.

I have also stopped buying bread or pitas or tortillas.

Meats/Proteins

I used to have protein from meat at least one meal a day, or once every two days if I felt like having less meat in my diet. Now, my source of protein comes primarily from eggs, and occasionally I’d be able to have some pork, perhaps twice a week. The one-pound round of pork butt which I made char siew out of in a previous post has been made to last me two to three weeks, by strategically cutting off what I need and freezing the rest.

I have also been substituting meat with tofu, because a pound of it is about a dollar.

Vegetables

This is the above-mentioned 1/16 of a head of cabbage, which I have been painstakingly rationing, since they’re one of the hardiest vegetables to keep in the fridge. Even though a pound of carrots is $1 each, I also have a bag of frozen carrots and peas. However, I reserve the fresh carrots for making stew, and use the frozen ones in pasta and rice dishes. I have stopped buying bell peppers and fresh herbs such as basil, rosemary and thyme.

I love mushrooms, but they’re impossible to keep for extended periods without turning mushy.

Luxuries

Chocolate has been struck off of the list. Today, my friend was kind enough to give me a slab because it was too bitter for her. Thanks goodness I love bitter chocolate.

However, I have been snacking on spoonfuls of peanut butter instead; peanut butter that I bought a long time ago but ran out of bread on which to spread.

I have also been drinking copious amounts of Milo because it tastes so chocolatey.

Flavorants

I used to have flavour bouillons and stock pastes, but ever since I ran out, I’ve been relying on using shallots, onions, garlic and scallions as a replacement. These vegetables are rich in umami, and when burnt in a pot or pan, release a lot of flavour. Buying scallions from Chinatown has been a steal for me, since in Chinatown they’re usually two or three bunches for $1 (approximately 5-6 stalks per bunch!) whereas it might be as expensive as $1 a bunch in Western supermarkets. It’s also $1 for a rope of garlic and a dollar-something for a bag of shallots. Scallions last only about three weeks before they yellow, but onions, shallots and garlic stay good for a really long time, about a month or so.

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July 31, 2013

Whatever was that?

Last night, I attended the premiere of internet TV series, Whatever This is. The creators of this series previously made The Outs, which fairly enjoyed. The event was well-attended and that floor was packed with so many plaid, skinny, mostly-white, creative-industry-looking people that I actually raised an eyebrow the moment I stepped in. I’m not calling them hipsters, because I’m sure they probably are not; I’m making a fashion and demographic observation (honest!).

The show played, and… I felt a searing sense of loneliness and distancing from everyone else in the room. In my opinion, the episode was not particularly funny to me. I don’t laugh very easily at things, and even the original outs only had me smile a couple times, but never left me adequately-humoured. However, the room erupted into laughter at what I thought were some of the most banal moments. I wondered if I have had botox done to my face at point in the screening, because my face felt stiff from not emoting in response to the show.

Don’t get me wrong, the show had good writing, and seemed to have set itself up for a good story ahead, but I just did not find it particularly funny as the audience seem to have indicated from their response.

It seems as if the American public were pre-programmed to laugh and applause at stipulated moments in television. A funny point is not funny by being funny inherently, but becomes funny because the audience participates in recognising it as funny. “This is funny because I am laughing,” so as to speak, and not “I am laughing because this is funny.”

I feel like the audience expected the show to be funny, hence the laughter and the clapping. What if the director intended the show to be sombre, but directed it exactly the same, with the same one liners that painfully reveal our dreary existence, financial woes and personal insecurities that had led the audience gleeful? Would the director feel anguished, or would he approve?

But I digress. I stood, unmoving, unsmiling, watching the show, feeling painfully removed from everyone else’s mirth. And it’s not only this show — I’ve been to stand-up comedies and felt exactly the same thing. Comic says something really ordinary, but at moments where it seems primed to harvest laughter, and the audience delivers.

I had definitely spent such shows paying attention to the audience more than I did the show. I wouldn’t know which parts of the show was funny otherwise.

Eventually the screening of the first episode of Whatever This Is ended, and everyone clapped and cheered, especially hard so at certain lines in the credits (were half the audience cast and crew members?). I clapped because everyone else did, but I’m not sure if I’ve made the premiere a success because I clapped or that I was clapping because the premiere was a success.

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July 27, 2013

Le regard neuf de l’enfant sauve même les trottoirs de l’usure

The fresh perspectives of a child will save even the sidewalk from attrition — Romain Gary

I learnt this phrase from a friend from France who turned up at my weekly circus. We talked about haiku and I mentioned about the naive perspectives of children being one of the most beautiful things about it, and he told me about this quote. I found it poignant and decide to illustrate it.

Every day I wake up less and less sure of myself — I open my email inbox with my breath held, expecting to be disappointed. Expectations were met. No response from any of the jobs I have applied at.

Every time I write I become less and less sure of my ability — I used to think that being capable got you places, and I was sure that I was pretty capable. Now am I less confident that that is the case, or that maybe I’m not that capable after all.

And then I realise that perhaps what I need is a fresh perspective to stop this attrition of the self and of the mind. I left college with a font of hope and optimism, and thought that sufficient to last me till I transition into the next phase of my life; where I start working. I guess I did not consider that this transition might take longer than I expected, and hoping to merely brave this foray with what I had would not be sufficient.

I will need to renew my view on how I take each day that does not bring me the news I so fervently wish.

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July 25, 2013

Waking dreams

It is often said that dreams are manifestations of the subconscious; I find that very plausible. As if spending every waking moment being reminded that I have yet to find a job is not enough, I am dreaming about them in my sleep too.

I have always had the ability to remember my dreams pretty well, though I am not sure that’s a gift.

–

I am back in Singapore, but instead of returning to my parents’ home, I go to my grandmother’s. “You’re back,” she says, happy to see me return, and I said, “Yea, but I will have to go back soon.”

“You should call your parents and let them know,” she says.

“Ok, I will do that later.”

And then I procrastinated by going grocery shopping. Being back home, I need not scrimp and save when it came to shopping to feed myself. I did not have to forgo buying meat because it was a tad expensive, I did not have to buy the hardiest vegetables and produce so that they last in the fridge the longest. I could sense the temptation to just embrace this purchasing-power-freedom.

I made it home, and then I called my mother’s mobile phone, instead of my father’s, but a bad connection forced me to call the house’s landline instead.

“Mom, I’m back.”

“That’s great. When did you return?”

“Earlier this morning,” I lied; in the dream I returned last night. “I’m at grandma’s now.”

“Ok, will you come over for dinner later tonight?”

“Yea, sure.”

“How were things in the States? How was the flight?”

“Er, we’ll talk more when I go over. See ya later.”

“Alright.”

I could sense that my father was there in that room when I was talking, and it was an uneasy feeling.

The dream ended, I never got to go over to meet my parents for dinner. Maybe I didn’t want to.

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July 22, 2013

Sorrowful Rice 黯然销魂饭

I tried making my own char siew, or Chinese barbecue roast pork, for the first time today. People usually buy them because nobody owns a spit and a fire pit, but I learnt that you can actually cook it in the oven, and char it on the stove top!

Given that I now have a batch of char siew, a natural dish to make with it would be what is known as “Sorrowful Rice” or 黯然销魂饭. The dish is essentially regular ol’ char siew rice, or char siew over steamed white rice, with a side of a sunny-side up and some vegetables.

“Sorrowful Rice” is actually the name of a dish from a movie, God of Cookery (食神).

In it, the protagonist Stephen Chow competes in a competition and strives to create the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. He reaches into his sorrow and memory of a woman, who made him a bowl of char siew rice when he was downtrodden, and she supposedly took a bullet for him. With that, he created the “Sorrowful Rice.”

The sorrow is apparently onions.

I reach into my sorrow and create my own “Sorrowful Rice.”

Grandma, you never got to see me graduate college. You never even got to see me off as I left for New York later that year. You never got to see me do the ‘triumphant return.’ I have yet to return, and it seems I am becoming quite the prodigal son. Will you still be proud of me, even if I am struggling to make something of myself and having racked up a colossal collegiate debt?

What will you say, if you learn that I do not wish to return to the land where you are buried?

On 28th May, 2009, at around 5 AM, you passed away in the hospital. I remember, because I wrote it down.

I also wrote down having heard you cry when Great Grandmother died. It was really painful.

A grandson should never live to see his grandmother cry. Or any old people cry.

I wrote that down in my logs. In my mind, it seemed impossible that you were one to sob uncontrollably, for you were my stoic grandmother; frustrating at times, but always well-meaning and grandmotherly.

I also remember, and wrote down when your youngest son, my uncle, passed away. By traditions and customs, you were not allowed to attend his wake. I can only imagine what grief it must be — grief I didn’t want to imagine, because I remembered the grief you had at Great Grandmother’s funeral.

Many times whenever I am doing something, I would think, “What if she could see me now?” And then I remembered that you can’t, and I am reminded of the finality of death.

Uncle (叔叔), I wrote down what you told me when I visited you on 12th April, 2008.

The first few things he said to me were, “Is the army stressful?” and then he went on about how I should learn to take things easy and learn how to let things go. However I feel that it was more for the benefit of himself, as if he were repeating these to remind himself exactly what he has to do.

But he seems ailing in his road to recovery. He doesn’t wish to pick himself up, saying how exhausted he is and all, and all he does is lie in bed. He doesn’t move much, not even to leave the room or to sit on a sofa. That is bad.

Hope he perks up soon? I’ve even offered going out with him for photography as bribes.

What I did not write down, but I always remember was when you asked me that day, “So what are your plans for college?”

“I’m probably going to apply for college in the United States,” I said.

“That’s nice. What are you going to be studying there?” he asked.

“Journalism.”

“Journalism? That’s good. I wanted to be a journalist too when I was younger, but I never studied hard, and I couldn’t be one. You should study hard and become one for me.”

You passed away a week later.

I graduated journalism school, but I have yet to find a job in journalism. I am going to keep trying, uncle. With the memories of that robot dinosaur you gave me as a kid, and also that toy guy that you disabled the recoil feature for because it scared me, I will become the journalist you couldn’t be. I could not keep the promise to go do photography with you, but I will try my darndest best with this one.

I should ease up with the onions. This is too much sorrow for me.

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July 20, 2013

Rest in Pieces: The cost of vision

I’ve been going without glasses for about two weeks now, and I’m still in one piece. But my glasses aren’t; they’re in two.

Deciding that I was not a fan for living a life of impressionist vision, I got a rather splendid Groupon thing where I pay $35 for an eye exam and that includes a $200 value that goes towards the lens and frames. I was quite thrilled at the prospects of having to pay only $35 for new glasses.

What I did not know was how expensive glasses are in the United States.

Back home, the glasses that I got (and the one that is currently broken) cost me about US$70 for both the lens and frames. They were not fancy glasses, just plain, black plastic ones that were suitable for use in the military during my time in National Service. The lens were high-index lenses and had UV protection.

At the optician’s in Park Slope, where the voucher was for, I was looking for a similar pair to the ones I broke; black, plastic, durable, unassuming. I was handed a pair that I was assured are very durable since they are made by a company that makes sports glasses. I was rather pleases with it and was almost about to make a decision when I suddenly remembered,

“Oh, how much are these?” I asked.

“$349,” he replied.

I balked. $349? And that was not inclusive of the lenses.

“Have you got anything else? Cheaper ones, perhaps?”

And the optician helpfully pulled out a couple more from the back of the shop.

“These are $249, and $199,” he said.

I looked around undecidedly. I had not planned to be spending any amount of money that exceeded double digits.

“And this one is $149,” he said, taking one more from inside a drawer.

It was black, light, unassuming and looks durable.

“I think I’ll take this one,” I said. That left me $50 for lenses.

And then we had to look at the lenses.

“We use Nikon lenses because we believe they are one of the best in the market for value and durability.”

The high-index lenses were $225, but it was not like he could pull out any other kinds from more drawers.

“That will be all,” I said, a little shaken from the day’s events. And I had only been in there for about 20 minutes. 20 minutes was all it took to wipe out everything I’ve earned from street-performing in the past few weeks and more.

But at least I will be able to see now.

–

Rest in pieces, old (cheap) pair of glasses

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July 19, 2013

Pokémon heals hearts

Today, I met up with a friend who wanted someone to play video games with, to help him get over his breakup. I agreed, and we ended up playing Pokémon together. We battled, traded, fought co-operatively. It was pretty good fun.

At the end of the day, he texted me to let me know that he really appreciated what I did. What he didn’t know was that he was helping me too.

Just as he needed the company and a distraction to pull him away from thoughts of his breakup, I too needed reprieve from sitting around the house obsessively checking my emails trying to see if any of my applications got back. Every phone call from an unknown number gave me a surge of hope, to which I always reply in my most professional, “Hello?” only to find out that it is the gas company calling to confirm that I changed address, or the building management asking about a flooding situation that happened in my toilet.

Each call a surge of hope to be dashed, every time.

And thus with Pokémon and friends, in that time where we pitted pixels against pixels, my (and his) worries were forgotten for a spell of time.

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July 17, 2013

Waking up is the hardest thing to do

You still have your alarm set for 9am, but you don’t know what for. After all, it is not as if a day of paid productivity awaits for you today.

You wake up just before 9am, but you don’t know what for. You lie in bed, shifting uncomfortably knowing that there is no impetus for you to remain awake.

You end up going to bed and closing your eyes. The fantasy of darkness and sleep continue but then you wake again. Surely it must be 10am now?

it is 9.15am.

Going back to sleep after having woken up twice seems like sloth unduly so. You make a beeline for your morning ritual.

Not it is not coffee, no it is not breakfast. You check your emails. New mail, but nothing consequential. “Buy new discounted things on sale!” they scream. Every single day.

The morning glory wakes up to be battered into submission, battered into a waking dream, every single day.

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July 16, 2013

Don’t smile the Mirthless Smile

I went performing in the park again today, and the collection wasn’t as good as last week’s. But it is an amount that will go towards helping me through this period. However that is not today’s topic.

Prior to today, I haven’t had much reason to smile. I lived the past few days with nary a need to even twitch my facial muscles upwards. Ultimately, I actually did not smile at all for the past three to four days. Personally, I don’t smile very much anyway, unless I have to or something or someone is really funny.

However, while performing today, I was all smiles and winks, a stark contrast to how I’ve been living the past few days. After a while, I was starting to wonder if I was really smiling or was I making my face resemble a smile for the purpose of my performance?

I have a friend who is an actor/comic. Every now and then a laughter comes out, but it sounds executed on demand; bitter and a little forceful. That is less a laughter than it is an exhalation. I say, “Don’t laugh the bitter laugh,” yet here it seems that I am smiling the Mirthless Smile, committing what I preach not to do.

Studies have shown that simply arranging your facial muscles into the semblance of a smile is enough to trigger endorphins that makes one happy, which in turn makes them smile. Was I unhappy when I was smiling, or was I trying to make myself happy? I have had so little to smile about recently.

But perhaps I was really smiling because I was happy to be performing. From when I was learning to unicycle, the moment I sit on the saddle, almost uncontrollably, a smile begins to form, because I like unicycling and simply sitting on my unicycle makes me happy. Granted, today, I was probably more washed out from the heat (38c/100f), making it hard to notice if I was having fun or not, but I believe that I was still happy to be spinning and unicycling around.

You see, performing takes up so much of my focus and attention I could scarcely spare any mental faculties for ruminating on whatever sad thing in my life. At the moment, putting my all into my moves and producing art that pleases me does make me happy. Satisfaction at a job well done, so as to speak.

My smiles while performing could not be Mirthless. The day that happens will be a day when I stop enjoying performing, and start to see it a chore. Which is kind of why I’ve resisted putting out a collecting box for my performance, until now. Let us hope that the Mirthless Smile never comes.

And after today’s performance, it’s back to another period of stony-faced austerity.

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July 12, 2013

Lessons from a coffee mug on a rainy evening

This evening, as I was sending out more job applications, I decided to make myself a cup of hot cocoa (technically, I made Milo, which is chocolate malt). After a while, I looked at my mug, and I realised that I could see the reflection of the ceiling lights off of the rim of the mug. I decided to look closer and then I noticed the edge of foam that looked like it was climbing out the side of the mug. Other things I noticed were that where spoon touched the liquid, the area around it was slightly darkened, and that the shadow of the top of the mug formed a neat crescent that bisected the cocoa.

I’ve never stared so hard at a mug of cocoa before, and I reckoned if I could see all these individual layers of detail, I must be able to illustrate them out.

I spent a long time trying to replicate each feature accurately: its colour, its location, its details. But after a while, staring so hard at these features, I started to forget that they were actually part of a mug of cocoa. In my excitement at being able to see fine detail, I forgot what the whole thing was.

Have I been similar in my job search? Although I’m trained in journalism and my speciality is international news, focusing only on getting positions that will land you where you were trained to do might have you forget that what you really want to do is write. Maybe applying for business writing isn’t a bad thing. Maybe writing about technology isn’t an end-all (But heavens forbid you write for the New York Post). What you need to be doing is to be moving, because you (I mean me, this is me speaking in second-person again) are currently being stagnant, and that needs to change.

Like what you teach people in unicycling, “Always keep moving. If you stop, you fall.” I should learn to take my own advice more often.

Persisting in fine-graining my search yielded the above snazzy illustration of my mug, but the hot cocoa turned cold, and became slightly less satisfying on this rainy, rainy evening.

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Category: Diary

Carbohydrates

Meats/Proteins

Vegetables

Luxuries

Flavorants