I was looking through my old photos cos I’m going to chop off a lot of hair on Thursday and need to check what hairstyles I look okay or horrible in.

While flipping through my folders, I found some holiday photos of me and Nanny Wen wearing each other’s clothes. It was hilarious. We generally didn’t like each other’s wardrobes, so it was quite a challenge.

It was an impromptu bit of fun. We were in Genting Highlands for a few days and, on our second day there, we decided to swap clothes for the day! This was in March 2007.

The main thing I didn’t like about this outfit was the top because it was stretchy skintight, had a hole at the chest (see photo below) and was turtleneck.

Turtlenecks make my face look fat and short, stretchy skintights make me look slutty, and holes at chest advertise my non-existent cleavage.

The skirt was nice, but I wasn’t into big belts, although I suppose that suited the outfit. Boots were my own cos I couldn’t fit into Nanny Wen’s shoes.

Nanny Wen was soooo uncomfortable in my outfit, haha. It was very anime-costumy and she just doesn’t wear stuff like that. I thought she looked cute enough to eat, though.

Then again, she always does!

Anyway, that was a stupid hairstyle I had, but bangs give me a lot of freedom and peace. With long fringes, I’m always (95% of the time) annoyed by rebellious hair getting into my face. Even if I stuff all my hair behind my ears, I have strands of hair in the front that are like three inches long and never ever grow longer, so they’re always hovering about, tickling my forehead and generally looking ugly.

Stupid hateful hair.

Anyway, fast forward.

Piers just sent me a couple of photos of us taken at his company dinner. Took them so long to release the official photos (more than three weeks)!

In other news, I’m back in Singapore and trying to not be jetlagged but it’s a bit hard when you’re staying up all night chatting with your partner because of time zone differences.

I need to cut my hair very badly. Half of it is severely damaged due to perming and colouring and dry weather in England. Cutting off the damaged parts will mean my hair will be shoulder length at best. Just nice for Singapore weather, I guess.

Anyway, looking at my photos didn’t help. I think I look horrible in all my hairstyles. My hair can’t be styled in the ways that I like because it’s stupid and stubborn, so I’m sad.

Okay enough about my hair.

We’ll see on Thursday!

I’ve been wanting to blog about Oxford because it’s such a beautiful, awe-inspiring city. But I have too many photos of it and it’s tiresome looking through hundreds of photos to pick the best for the blog.

So I thought I’d start off with just some photos of our hotel because it’s a smaller, more manageable task.

All the hotels in the city of Oxford were fully booked (thanks to our last-minute habit as usual) so we had to stay in this peaceful countryside hotel about 20 minutes’ drive from the city centre.

It was a viable option only because we had a car, so we could drive anywhere quite easily.

I’m glad we had to “settle” for the Holt Hotel. It turned out to be really lovely and I wish we’d had more time to spend around that area, have a picnic or something, but then we didn’t have enough time for Oxford city as it was.

The Holt Hotel carpark

The lobby

Our room

Dusk at the Holt Hotel

View from our balcony

View of the hotel on the main street.

It’s a decent-sized hotel (86 rooms) and is fairly cheap (£82 a night incl. VAT). The price included breakfast but we didn’t wake up in time for it so missed a good English country breakfast.

Oh, well. In the mornings, my brain always tells me that sleep is more important than food. You can always eat when you’re awake, but you can’t always sleep when you’re awake.

That’s insomniac-speak, in case you’re not following.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the smiley in the title, well, I’m just in a mellow, smiley kind of mood today. :)

Okay, last photo before I wrap up.

Not really polite, is it?

Just thought I should pop in to say that I’m stil alive and kicking and gaming too much for my own good.

(I do have to assert for the record that the right games promote mental acuity, so there is something to be said for gaming too much.)

Well, the thing is, once in a while I get into a kind of mental block that prevents me from writing. It’s not writers’ block; it’s a block which I can explain more adequately by sharing with you the following internal dialogue:

Sheylara 1: What shall we write about today?

Sheylara 2: We could do X, Y, Z or A.

Sheylara 1: We could, but I don’t want to.

Sheylara 2: Why not?

Sheylara 1: They’re all boring.

Sheylara 2: No way. People are waiting to read them.

Sheylara 1: They’re boring to write. And if they’re boring to write, they must be boring to read.

Sheylara 2: Just write one of them, anyway.

Sheylara 1: I don’t want to write for the sake of writing. I want to make some changes to my blog.

Sheylara 2: Like what?

Sheylara 1: I don’t know. I have a million ideas but they’re all not sustainable and I don’t want to start work on half-baked ideas only to regret and then want to change again.

Sheylara 2: Okay, keep on incubating ideas but in the meantime write something or everyone will think we’ve quit and gone to live in Tibet.

Sheylara 1: I can’t! I just can’t work on something I don’t believe in anymore. I want a new direction. I want to change everything. I NEED to change everything!

Sheylara 2: Do it gradually.

Sheylara 1: I can’t! Because if I continue in this vein, I will keep on continuing in this vein! There needs to be a sudden, drastic change for anything to happen for real! And for that to take place, I need to stop doing whatever’s not working! Don’t you understand?!!

Sheylara 2: …

Sheylara 1: I need to change NOW! I can’t wait! My blog is getting stupid and boring!!

Sheylara 2: Erm… I think we should get back to our game.

Sheylara 1: Okay.

This happens a lot.

In fact, this happens regularly my entire life.

Occasionally, Sheylara 1 gets a breakthrough and something life-changing happens and then we are happy for a time. But, more often than not, Sheylara 2 wins by appealing to the mature, sensible adult hiding somewhere in our DNA, and then life goes on in a mundane but safe cycle until such a time as Sheylara 1 decides to halfheartedly rebel again.

In other news, I am taking my IELTS tomorrow. That’s the stupid English test we are forced to pass in order to apply to colleges and universities in Western countries.

I hate it because it makes you study stupid charts showing how many Japanese people travelled abroad each year over a 10-year period and how many of them chose to go to Australia in each of those years.

You then have to write your findings in 150 words or more.

Among other things, you also have to read long, wordy essays on the boring history of cartography and then answer a series of trick questions which are impossible to answer because you fell asleep while reading the essay.

The IELTS is a three-hour ordeal that will only prove, if you pass, that you have the mental fortitude required to withstand prolonged torture to your brain.

Well, don’t mind me. I’m just grumpy.

Piers just bought a chilli plant of all things.

We were at Sainsbury’s shopping for our dinner when he saw them for sale and got all excited.

Piers likes eating spicy food. His tolerance level is about on par with the average Singaporean, which is quite remarkable for an ang moh.

Anyway, our dinner was homemade burgers and he used his first chilli harvest in the patties.

When I went into the kitchen to take photos, I saw the amount of meat he was marinating.

“How many burgers are you planning to make, TEN??” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, “This is two burgers.”

Do men overestimate their appetites or what?

He ended up making five patties with his 1kg (2.2 pounds) of meat, which is crazy, but I guess better than two patties weighing 500g each.

But then, he ate two of them, both totalling 454g (1 pound), so maybe he didn’t overestimate himself all that much, but that doesn’t make him any less crazy.

They were really delicious, though. Juicy and full of flavour.

I only ate one and I was so full up I couldn’t eat my curly fries after it.

Thick fat burgers always look deceptively manageable, so don’t underestimate them.

On a side note, I love Sainbury’s because I got my pink eggs there!

Okay they’re not really pink. Only the container is pink. But that’s good enough, I suppose.

They’re supposed to be good for baking (I don’t know how) but I’m not using them for baking (yet).

I have been slowly pinkifying Piers’ apartment, putting cutesy decorations here and there, over time.

Recently, I made him buy a pink kitchen linen set consisting of oven gloves, apron and tea towels, saying that I’ve decided to become his personal cook for my new hobby, so I need them.

(It’s a nicer way of appointing him guinea pig for my food experiments but he doesn’t have to know that!)

I saw lovely pink cooking utensils at Waitrose recently. They’ve got like pink knives and spatulas and whatnot.

But I’m going back to Singapore in less than two weeks, so there isn’t much time left for me to indulge in my new hobbies (cooking and pinkifying Piers’ apartment).

Will buy the pink utensils next time I’m back in England! (Don’t tell Piers.)

I wonder if Bob will still be alive when I return in December.

Oh, Bob is the chilli plant. I’ve named him that cos Piers wants to call it Chilli Chill Chill but I think that’s a stupid name. Plants need proper names to feel normal so they don’t develop complexes as they grow up!

Keep your fingers crossed for Bob’s survival!