perspective into hall life. part 1

As most of you guys know, we stay pretty near campus at a place called the UM Guesthouse which is like a 10-12min bike ride to school and city centre. Well, this is probably the first time in my life that i get to experience what 'hall life' is all about; basically in my opinion, its sad. I am glad i dont need to experience something like this long term well for me its just 4-5 months but i can foresee the long term detrimental effects it will have on me.

The most important basic skill you need to survive down here is probably know how to cook a decent meal as you will always be confronted by the option to cook in and save the money. On our first night here, lee thohir and i headed down a really nice place for dinner, the bill amounted to 60 euros so it was around 20 euros per person. It was a good meal no doubt, but as budget students especially asians, we cant finance this sort of lifestyle for a long time with no steady income. Okay, back to the cooking essentials, well we went out to buy some groceries and all excited, but i was soon horrified when lee sheepishly informed me that she would not be participating in any cooking due to inexperience. I was left stunned for a moment but i assured her that i could do the cooking as i had some experience back in camp and during some apparent dinner i made for a girl which will always haunt me. Eventually after consulting google and numerous eHowtodoit.com sites, i successfully whipped up breakfast which involved cooking eggs; let me inform how technical frying an egg can be for a newbie, 1st is to avoid cracking the egg too forcefully and the white just slimes down your hands and also shells should be avoided after cracking! and 2ndly, its important that the yolk stays in shape throughout the cooking as you dont want half cooked yolk and raw yolk in a pathetic sunny side up. I cooked some swedish meatballs yes, its pretty simple and for dinner it was boiling sausages for the communal dinner!

Wah, the communal dinners have been awesome thanks to the other singaporeans. Let me attach some photos here.

Well, its been awesome cooking from our singaporean friends and these people are pretty serious about their cooking that they sent up their sauces, spices, shit etc a month in advanced. Lee and i sometimes feeled pressured when they ask what we can offer each night, thats simply because our novice cooking standards pale in comparisons with the thousand jumping Buddhas soup they cook, the hainanese chicken rice they cook and also just tonight, the special traditional porkchop.. basically in such situations, and they probably know that we can only provide what i call the 'Super Sideshow" dishes, sideshow because its not the main course but its super because you need it in a full meal. haha I am just glad the budget meals we cook were snapped up pretty quick during dinner.

Anyway i am hoping to be able to cook some corn beef hash soon so please stick around for some once its done. Its 12.11am now and there's school tomorrow, would be interesting to see how it goes. More about Hall life the next time.

Poh.