The Singapore pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 was a bit disappointing on many levels. It didn't speak to the progress that Singapore has made in the last 40 years. I'm sure with Singapore's vastly innovative talent, they could have featured something more than bouncing trampolines. (I mean, look at the Marina Barrage, the MRT system, NEWater, etc).

But I did enjoy the music video presentation. The only thing is that exclusively Mandarin artists were featured. Granted, the Expo is in Shanghai... but still, I thought that it would have been neat to include some Malay and Indian artists in the song.

Managed to find it online. Now I just need to find that cool background music from the Canada pavilion. Hmm...

Recently I have been having a sort of mini musical renaissance. Well, I suppose the music I've been listening to isn't all that old. But by listening to music circa 1999, this music is over 10 years old, which is nearly half of my current lifetime.

In particular, I've been listening the old band Audio Adrenaline again. I own three of their albums, Underdog, Lift and Worldwide, and have the first two in the form of digital audio on my computer.

I started listening to this band in elementary school, and it's perhaps the band that drove some of my music tastes today - primarily alternative rock.

Listening to them 10 years later, I find that I actually do appreciate their music quite a bit still; perhaps even more than before. As far as alternative rock music with Christian lyrics go, I feel they're probably one of the groups that have been more deliberate with their lyrics. Groups like Relient K do have some good lyrics, but they're often more coded, or sometimes just irrelevant all together. Audio Adrenaline's lyrics are often either very prayerful or worshipful. And they're simple. Sometimes when worshiping God, it is just so good to speak out words of praise. It doesn't have to be fancy because it's the heart that worships God.

One of their later songs, Lift does this.

Count them, every one
All of the million things you've done
You are the lord of my life
And I roll them over and over
In my head, in my head
But I don't understand
But I'm glad you're in my life

And I lift you up so high
I forget about the world I'm living in
Lay it at your feet
I'm giving in
My joy inside
I cannot hide
I love to lift you up

Lord I love you
You're a father's hand at night
You're the sunshine in the day
And I long to be with you
All my days
In old age if I'm still hanging around
I'll be found around with you

And I lift you up so high
I love to lift you up

A lot of people are sometimes shocked to hear that I only speak one language fluently.

It's true, and it's a product of growing up in an English-speaking family in an English-speaking country.

But I think about it for a bit, and I find it funny that although I only speak English fluently, there are certain words or phrases in other languages that I do understand, but don't necessarily remember when/where I learned them. I've just been hearing them from young.

Just note that the spellings I use here, are probably grossly wrong. Remember, I only speak, read and write English! So I just sound it out when I write...

For example, if says they want to jalan jalan, I'll know they'll want to go for a walk. Or if someone tedo already, then I'll know they've already gone to sleep.

If someone says they want to 吃 (in Hokkien dialect), I'll know they want to eat.

Other words such as lobang, etc also have some kind of connotation in my mind, although maybe I couldn't use it in a sentence or translate it directly for you. Or was that even the word? I don't know it, but I understand it conceptually every time I hear it mixed with an English sentence.

Certain words I understand but don't always think of an English translation off-hand. Like, "don't anyhow hantam ah!"

Same with, "ai ya, siang siang" or "ai yo, so turok leh"

And of course there's always "eat until gelak" or "wah, this soup so kyam!"

And there's always things like kecil or besar that I've also come to associate with describing how small or big someone is - and I always know it in reference to either me, or other kids around me. From my childhood.

But here's the thing! It's so useless! If you spoke to me completely in Bahasa Melayu, I'd be lost.

When I think about it, I find it pretty funny. And I can almost see that I had the potential to speak to languages growing up. I just didn't.

If only I spent more time with the older Nyonya aunties at church, maybe I'd be able to speak 1.5 languages haha!

When I was sitting in numerical methods today, I suddenly noticed that a tree started growing to the right of the description of Euler's method.

And then some words popped up around it. Who would have thought trees grew on engineering notes.

Either that, or someone wasn't paying much attention in numerical methods at all today.

Nevertheless, I couldn't help but try to finish it before going to bed.

So I'm no artist... but ok, good night!

I came back from tutorial today wondering what to have for dinner. And then I remembered, I had half a can of chicken stalk left in the fridge. It had been sitting there since Friday when I made chicken rice. So at that thought, something welled up inside of me: it was time to retry cooking the ever elusive Wat Dan Hor Fun (a type of hor fun, 河粉).

Wat dan hor fun is another one of my favourite noodle dishes, probably up there with char kway teow and Hokkien mee. I suppose, it's one of those few Singapore-based dishes that I was exposed to as a kid growing up in Canada.

And given my favourable results cooking Hainanese chicken rice the previous week (I think it's all due to the fact that I acquired a jar of proper chicken rice chili from my last visit home), I was spurred on to give my hand a try at wat dan hor fun again.

Gathered all the ingredients I could from the four corners of the kitchen, washed, sliced and chopped stuff. There wasn't all that much slicing and chopping needed actually.

It's probably one of the more expensive meals I'd be capable of cooking here in Waterloo though, as it consumed pork, fishballs and prawns (and I was even missing squid). Usually, I'd just have one type of meat for a meal.

At any rate, boiled the hor fun noodles, and as soon as they were done, threw them into a well-oiled pan. Fried with dark and light soya sauce until I could see some of the noodles becoming burnt - quite necessary indeed. A bit too much dark soya sauce though - the noodles started to look like char kway teow instead

Then on to the sauce... this has always been the source of failure for me. I just can never get a handle of cooking with corn starch and egg at the same time. When everything is combined, they somehow just become a big clumpy mess.

But somehow this time, maybe the merlion was with me and things didn't go so poorly. As the sauce mixture came to a simmer, I held my breath and poured in some corn starch premixed with cold water. Mixed it in, covered the lid and waited. Washed some dishes, for good measure.

And finally it came time to add the eggs. Held my breath even more this time. Cracked two eggs and threw them in. Stirred them around a bit. Things looked like they were starting to get clumpy, and I thought I had met my match. However, the thought crossed my mind to maybe let the eggs cook from the heat of the sauce, rather than the heat of the stove.

And so I turned off the stove and moved the pan to an empty element (yah, I know, I should probably be using a gas burner, no?).

And... the egg stayed separate in the sauce. It actually looked, something like wat dan hor fun.

Now, in terms of appearance, I guess maybe I could fool some distracted passer-byer into thinking it was actual wat dan hor fun. Maybe I could even fool myself. But I know that since I'm no hawker, it probably isn't that great at all. Taste-wise, it's ok. But I have no standard here in Waterloo - where else can you find Singaporean cuisine?

At any rate, this is why perhaps I term today's version of wat dan hor fun the kiasi version. I'd imagine that if you placed my rendition beside some authentic hawker rendition, people would stay clear from mine. Why?

... Kiasi lah!