Song for my Student Visa

Sung to the tune of "Last Kiss" --Pearl Jam

Oh where oh where is my FM3?
No thanks to this bureaucracy
It's been too long and I dont wanna be rude
But it seems that this country is run by little girls

More weird food

The things an exchange student cooks with limited resources...

Here is what you need.
1. 2 Eggs
2. Rice
3. Can of Tuna (i wanted the chunks one at first, but i bought the shredded ones by accident)
4. 2-3 slices of cheese.

TAH DAH!

Steamed cheese tuna rice with Chawabunshi

Minimal supervision with minimal washing!!!

Gah... i should really upload my vacation pictures...

Afternote after comment from my mum: I ran out of vegetables, otherwise there would have been some cabbage inside.. haha..

1911 and 1191

I break my series of photologs of my travel for breaking news... nono, im not too bothered about the approval of the US$700billion bailout package, nor melamine in my Lala Brand milk...

Lala is one of the most famous brands for milk here... I like Mexican brands... Lala... Bimbo... etc.

Anyway, this is bitch post about how... how should i put it... how unique one of my profs here is.

To start off, he is a really young instructor, 28 years of age only. The first time we had class, you could already sense how ngeow this person would be. I tried to rationalize that because if you are so young and you can become a professor, you must have high standards of yourself and hence these expectations are also demanded of his students... but noooo... think SMU's Marcus Lee... I think it's just a personality issue.

And so for twice a week for 8 weeks, I attend his lessons and he knows so much, he rattles facts about the history of LA (latin america) like how i would with...er.... er.... I dont have a specific subject that I can rattle off... I just rattle in general.

In this course, we are graded upon 4 main things, a mid-term, 2 critical analysis papers and a final paper. In tec, the passing mark is 70%. He challenges and offers us that if anyone can obtain 90% average for the 2 critical analysis paper and the mid term, he will give him full score for the finals and he does not even have to sit for the exam.

At the end of the critical analysis paper 1, the lowest score I heard others got? 50plus. That's a fail by the way.

Speaking of critical analysis paper, he lists the following criteria
============================
You must give the professor two copies of your paper AND turn in a copy through the digital drop box. You may NOT turn in these papers by email.


The critical analysis papers must be organized in the following format:

(1) 1.5 line space and space between each paragraph

(2) type-written in 12 point New Times Roman ONLY

(3) 1 inch margins (2.5 centimeters) on all sides

(4) justified to the left ONLY

(5) center the title of your paper on the first line

(6) place your names at the end of your paper just before your bibliography

(7) staple the paper in the upper left-hand corner (no clips please; just buy a stapler and keep it in your backpack)

You may write no more than 4 pages for this paper. The bibliography list and your name may appear on the fifth page.
===========================

Most profs do it for fun. He really means it. Cant remember the penalty for not following the format, cos i dont think anyone tried.

Now comes the most ridiculous bomb. The mid term exams. There were plenty of rules, but I can only remember the 3 main ones worth remembering.

1. For the true/false questions, you will be marked WRONG if you write T or F or True or False. instead, you must write 1191 for true and 1911 for false in the blank given... huh?? wtf? Its apparently to prevent cheating.
2. For the open-ended questions, keep to the box you are give to write your answers in. If any part of the answer is out of the box, the ENTIRE question will be marked WRONG. You get zero for that.
3. If anyone is caught looking or glancing around, both papers will be taken away immediately (glancer and glancee). Both papers will be marked and the higher score, divided by two will be given out. E.g. A was caught glancing at B's paper. A and B's papers will be taken away. Up till the point where they did their exam, A scores 70 and B scores 100. B's score will be taken. 100/2=50. Hence both A and B will get 50 for the finals = fail.

Awesome technique isn't it? You have to give credit to his ingenuity for preventing cheating and how anal he can get. And i thought things couldnt get any worse than a certain prof in SMU.

Independence Week Trips, Part 1 of ?

In between, having too much academic work and fun, I have clean forgotten about this blog. Was primarily supposed to be way to keep in contact with friends and family, but with MSN and skype, no real need for a blog huh? But this is something I must blog about!

It started with the Mexican Independence day, 16th September, Tuesday. Since we were given holidays on Monday and Tuesday, it gives us a super long weekend. We (Melvyn and I) decided to travel from 13th to 20th September.

Highlights as follows!

- Melvyn eats a lot, you see him buying food all the time (and i'm not talking about the fixed meals we have)

Fresh Roasted Peanuts

Something that looks like cocaine on water

Tlayudas! Think gargantuan tacos with the awesome Oaxaca String Cheese

TUNA ice cream! Tuna actually refers to the red cactus fruit

The very awesome Oaxaca String Cheese! It looks like chicken when shredded, and has a chewy, springy texture!

I love it so much i bought some to bring back to Monterrey. It is supposed to not need refrigeration for up to 8 days... haha... PS. I threw it away after getting back to Monterrey after 6 days tho... it just doesnt feel thaaaat safe... haha..

Okay.. Mole... it is like the traditional traditional stuff used to make their mole sauce, apparently from 50 different ingredients... if you ask me, im just okay with it... looks scary this way tho...

My lang bei look. Bread in left hand, water in right hand for supper. Paulina Hostel is the best damn place to stay in Oaxaca! Amazing clealiness and awesome breakfast...

Aye... im gonna stop here now for a while... the bed calls... damn, i sure am a lazy blogger...

While waiting for classes to start, I might as well update a bit. OMG... i have not been updating!

We went to Zacatecas for the weekend, but more on this on a later date! for now, its what I owe you guys... Gastronomical adventures!

On one fine weekend, Melvyn and I tried to recreate 2 local dishes... the Chilli Crab and the Roti Prata.

Long story short, and pictures speak a thousand words. So here they are...

1st up, Chilli Crab Sauce!

there is an unwritten rule that top chefs either have to look moody or perenially pissed.

Crabs are hard to find in Mexico, so boh bian... use chicken... 爱心 meal okay? got heart shape somemore

Ta dah!!! Spaghetti and whole chicken thigh in Singaporean Chilli Crab Sauce!

AAR for Spaghetti and whole chicken thigh in Singaporean Chilli Crab Sauce

• Sauce tasted a little sourish
• Probably because of the use of green chilli
• BOUGHT DRIED RED CHILLI FROM ZACATECAS! It should work the next time!
  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so it's on to the Roti Prata

This is how successful prata flipping should look

Disclaimer, this is not my video, but the prata man is pretty darn good.

So with a recipe found off the net, I begin...

Looks alright.. so far so good... The texture also reacts as how the recipe suggests

Except that the recipe insists that I use a wet cloth to cover the dough as I let them rest. Anyone cares to enlighten me on this?

And so I begin after covering the table with aluminium foil

Fast forward past the embarrasing flipping moments...

As you can see from the shape of the prata, I probably did not get it right. There were plenty of holes in it and once you have a hole in your prata, you can't actually mend it

Actually it looks pretty alright if you can forgive the shape. The outside is pretty fine, but the inside does not have the stretchy and chewy texture that defines good prata.

I'm still wondering what went wrong... probably gonna try again this coming weekend... haha...

Apologies for the abrupt end, but I'm off for boxing now!

Stayed tuned for more gastronomical adventures!

I am training night vision..

Today i learnt 2 new spanish words.

FUSE & CANDLES

Well you can guess what happened... I have my first blackout in Mexico! Damn fuse broke...

oh bummer...

My exchange wasnt supposed to be like that!

Hello everyone!

I must have kept you guys waiting... apologies for the absence of posts...

Just in case you were thinking "Terence must be having so many parties that he has no time to blog", you couldnt be further from the truth... I HAVE BEEN BUSY DOING HOMEWORK AND QUIZZES!

My exchange is exactly like SMU... weekly assignments, homework to keep you busy through the weekend, quizzes... not to mention the same seminar style pedagogy... Big "wah lan eh"....

Well, I have plenty to post about, as a note to myself and as a preview for you guys, here are some of the posts I intend to put up in the near future. (and they come with pictures!)

• Goodbye Elise and Minette
• Gastronomical adventures of Chef Melvyn and Terence--chicken in chilli crab sauce and roti prata
• Objects around the house! Part 1, 2 and 3--things you have never see and probably will never ever see again in modern Singapore!

But in the meantime, here's a damn friggin weird 2-parter dream I had.

1. I grew a beard
2. I woke up because I dreamt that Melvyn sms-ed me "Dude, open the door leh". I proceeded to clamber out of the bed half-awake to open my bedroom door, only to see Melvyn chomping on his breakfast with a damn stunned look cos it was 6am and my classes were at 10am.

Here's why I had the dreams,

1. Melvyn and I were drinking whiskey and we decided to dab whiskey around to promote hair growth so we can look like sexy latino men
   
2. We realised that we did not have the key to my bedroom door. Hence, if i'm locked out, i'm pretty much screwed...

Oh did I also mention that I missed my first class of the semester? Damnit... totally unintentional. I woke up at 10:48am when my class was at 10am. Strike one...