the past few days have been rather quiet, and ranged from pleasant to depressing. during the week my life regains some sort of sloth-like routine consisting of large amounts of sleep, tv, and food. i am getting comfortable with living an aimless existence, and this worries me because it bodes poorly for my life in uni. on top of this, my OCD and paranoia have intensified, explaining daily runs to the postbox whenever i hear the postman's motorcycle outside. i have also become more particular about hygeine, especially the sterility of my pillows and blanket. lots of people do not understand this hangup, including my sister, who regularly rubs her dirty jeans on my bed in order to piss me off. i can't explain why but the thought of my bed getting dirty makes me feel immediate panic, and the compulsion to sterilise whatever's been contaminated. when i read books, i don't even let their covers touch my blanket because who knows who's touched them and where they've been before that? i am definitely turning into some kind of neurotic freak, but my consolation is that at least i have a clean bed.

on saturday evening there was dinner with my mom's relatives who were down from perth for the week. it was at patara, where i was smart enough to remember what happened the last time i had tom yam soup at a thai restaurant. it was not a friendly feeling, that. anyway, whenever eurasians gather they like to reminiscence about childhood and "the olden days", so again i was left quite amazed at my grandaunts' abilities to talk continuously in a manner that almost eliminates the drawing of air between sentences. i felt tired just listening to them! but 'twas quite an evening, i must say.

on sunday my sis and i tried to bake a chocolate cake for our mom because it was mothers' day and we felt guilty for forgetting about a card. luckily there was a spare box of some betty crockers' super moist chocolate fudge in the pantry, which i descended upon and portioned into a little heart-shaped baking tin. however, a few minutes after we put the cake into the big under-utilised baking oven, the electricity in the entire house short circuited. so then my dad was woken up and had to rush downstairs to restore order, which meant that the mom was also alerted to our plans. so much for a surprise! what's worse though, was that we tried to bake the cake in the stupid tiny half-dead conventional oven afterwards, which was a huge mistake because the oven doesn't heat evenly. so, the top part became completely burnt, and after half an hour the inside was still liquid. it was the saddest fudge cake ever :( it wasn't even edible, AND we're talking about a supposedly foolproof betty crocker idiot mix! nobody ventured to try the cake, which i think was a huge waste because i later realised that some parts actually vaguely resembled chocolate pudding...

as for yesterday, it was shopping with walker day! which was unexpectedly fruitful because it turned out that taka was having this huge bazaar sale on SHOES AND BAGS! now that is a sale worth waiting for, ha ha. anyway i found this pair of URS shoes which look quite like the ones which i've been eyeing for a month, and they were only $19! i felt so gratified after buying them, because it means that i've saved about 66.67% of what i would have paid if i'd bought the other shoes the day before. i'm now thinking that if uni doesn't work out, i could become a personal shopper. i think i have a natural nose for sniffing out good buys! plus, since being a personal shopper would presumably not seem like a job at all, it would mean that i'd be free to work on my gelato store in the meanwhile. then, once i've established my monopoly in the gelato business, i'd be in a better position to start my restaurant, which would then satisfy all my lifelong ambitions. i am an easy person to please, after all.

oh, and i'm still thinking through the birthday wishlist, so you might want to check back regularly :D