Friday, January 27, 2017 8:20 AM
It's all in my mind.
When they originally decided the date I got a little sense of dread, because I had Swedish language classes starting on 26 evening itself. Over the last two days, I have made pineapple tarts from scratch by myself for the first time, most of it while in my room in order to prepare for the CNY potluck.
This morning I was so down when the pineapple tarts were too crumbly- clearly there was something a bit problematic with my use of butter, because exert a bit more strength and the pineapple tarts would break in my hands while I was transferring it from the baking tray. The second batch was just less dark, but similar in terms of its crumbly nature.
Managed to rush out to Swedish class, slightly late after experiencing Swedish rush hour for the first time. And then proceeded to have a very stressful class, because it was nothing like the little bit of Malay classes we took back in RV- the textbook had not a single bit of English, and everyone in class seemed to be following no problem.
Now some context regarding my choice of Swedish class- I was procrastinating on the decision and when I finally decided to sign up, I decided to sign up for Level 1 + Level 2 combined- which meant 20 lessons of Swedish, as compared to (as I would learn later) what some of the rest of the SMU people did which was Level 1 (10 lessons).
I mean, if I was going to be here five months, I might as well learn as much during that period right?
Gosh it is so difficult and so very stress inducing. The people sitting next to me? The China guy learnt Swedish before and could ask the teacher questions in Swedish. The girl from Netherlands is on her last semester of her bachelor degree here, and seems to get most of it. The guys on the next table seem to be from Germany, and as I learn, Swedish and German share a lot of similarities- as does Danish and Icelandic.
I turn around in my classroom to spot about only 5 Asian looking faces, which probably explains the pace of class being so fast. People could attune their ears to whatever the pronunciation was, and I wasn't- or people could get most of the keywords or grammar easily because they either learnt a foreign language similar before this or that was similar to the language they came from.
When the China guy tried to ask me questions from the textbook in Swedish, and I had to frantically scan the textbook to find out where on earth he was deriving the question from and to find the templated response... I just cracked.
Fortunately it was at the second hour mark, with a designated ten minutes break.
I was very glad when the class ended, but I didn't remember a single thing from the class. Not at all, not in the least.
Meanwhile the gathering in block 117 was already underway with the group photos and all, and I just wondered if I was needed there at all. If I wasn't, then gg because I had easily over 120 pineapple tarts. Fortunately they told me on the chat that they left food for me...
And really, the dinner was the best I had in a whole month- and probably going to be the best for the next few months.
They were starting to clear things away from the table already, but people immediately put plates in front of me with their dishes- Charlene took the claypot rice she made with Barrie to find chicken and nice parts of the pot for me. The rest offered me their steam fish, ba kua, a section of non stick pan of egg with tomatoes, steam egg,siew mai, chicken rice with chopped chicken, dumpling, and bak kut teh. It was delicious, and I was just downing as much as I could down so that they won't be thrown away.
One of the girls found it funny and told me I didn't have to rush my food, but it was nice- and so I wolfed down more food. And meantime, I was so relieved to find that people were fascinated and eating my pineapple tarts. They found it nice, and told me so- which I almost cannot believe because it is really too crumbly? But it was a good feeling knowing that they were going to eat it and they liked it.
The last dish was Tiramisu, and I swear that Benjamin is amazing. The tiramisu was lacking liqueur but it was utterly delicious! I regret only taking one spoonful. There was this piece of Tiramisu that dropped onto the table, and someone pointed it out and asked who did it. Though I did see who dropped it, she denied it and the Korean girl who stabbed at the fallen piece afterwards was assumed to be the one who dropped it and was teased- it didn't sit that well with me though I noticed afterwards that the first mentioned girl dropped another smaller piece and proceeded to pick it up immediately.
After that most of the rest left, because they had the Stockholm trip early tomorrow morning. (Which eventually it seems I wouldn't be joining them anyway) I was unsure whether I should follow them, but I ended up making the decision to stay and wait for Sidney and Patrina who would bring cards over.
It was a little awkward because of their choice of topic while waiting for them to come back, and I really contemplated leaving- but there was still a significant amount of pineapple tarts in my containers and I really hoped I didn't have to finish them all by myself?
In the end it seems to have been worth it? They started playing and teaching ban luck, which I kind of forgot but beginners luck seemed to converge on me.
They began first with the penalty being a forehead flick- and I managed to avoid the most of it and managed to not flick people too hard when they had to take their turn with the penalty. Ian and Tim were the most enthusiastic with getting their due penalities, and were very sporting. The Spanish guys they invited were also clearly enjoying themselves. There were many points that Timothy tried to keep everyone's volume down because there was already one disgruntled neighbour, but I think Ian couldn't stop his outbursts and we kind of end up following suit. Even though Timothy was just as entertaining in how he plays ban luck.
There was one epic lose when I took my turn being the banker though! I essentially had to go around the whole table to collect all the forehead flicks... And very few people actually flicked me properly. Timothy said that he wasn't going to flick me he's going to give me a hug which was like ??? and Barrie followed his lead in just patting the side of my fluffy down jacket. The rest of the guys did give me forehead flicks, but none of them being as extremely painful as I have seen them try to give each other. I had to remind them to actually DO flick me as the penalty was.
When the penalty got around to being drinking sips of the red wine that they had bought, my beginner's luck prevailed for some time more! I had only been penalised once until the last round or two. Dorothy had even better luck than me at one point though! Three sevens! Everyone drank.
There was a silly thumb game that we played and drank the last bit of the red wine. We cleared up and cleared out, but I know the bulk of the work will still be by the hosting guys Ian and Tim as they have been just now throughout the time I came until Tiramisu- I washed one pot while Barrie struck up a short conversation with me about the places Wayne and I visited and asked why I was trying to scrub the pot so much when it wasn't my pot. Which was a strange thought to have? But yups.
As we were all clearing out I got a thanks for coming in the form of a hug again from Tim? I don't actually know how he usually behaves but well I didn't really hug back partly from surprise and partly because my hands were wet from washing the cups. But I managed to convince Tim and Ian to take some of my pineapple tarts! I was so reassured to hear that Ian prefered this first batch of the day (he said the a bit of browning made it better but I didn't think so when I baked it??) and Tim proceeded to enthusiastically pack it into a tupperware to say that they will be using this as movie snacks! He stopped to leave me half the pineapple tarts but after I insisted they could take more (I had some that didn't fit into this container) he obliged to take even more. I was really very glad.
Well fed piggy and pineapple tarts ended up being evaluated as a success! It's a pleasant close to the long day.
