It’s Chinese New Year Day 3 and I’m working alone in the office, again.

Why do they call it the year of the Ox, not Bull, or Cow, or something else? Don't they know that an Ox is a castrated bull?

After multiple delays and numerous discussions, much unnecessary bureaucracy and follow-ups, I finally managed to send my Anti-Money Laundering Report and Securities Compliance Report to my big boss, the Global Head of Legal and Compliance OE 1160 who sits in Stuttgart. Truth is, I got them ready more than a month back but was held back because my Regional Director was being ‘extremely prudent’.

This afternoon, I had a super delicious grilled fish club sandwich for lunch at the Singapore Yacht Club with my boss. I just felt like having some non-Asian food after so many days of rich traditional Chinese and local fare. I think I polished off at least 100 spicy prawn rolls (my favorite!) in the last 2 days, resulting in a terrible sore throat, high fever and intense migraine the whole of yesterday. I was pretty sick, but glad that I recovered enough to coerce myself back to work today.

I also had tonnes of chicken curry and potatoes (fatty and very oily with lots of gravy), leek (yucks~), shark’s fin soup (yummy!), fresh mushrooms (anti-aging) and fried noodles (for longevity, continuity, whatever.. ). The dim sum lunch we had the Pan Pacific Hotel was just okay, and uncle Lee joined us too. We ate so much till the waitresses were very afraid of us calling for them. For dinner, we organised a popiah party which took hellalot of work to peel, shred and pressure cook 6kgs of ugly turnip and carrots, preparing the other ingredients such as peanuts with sugar, egg, fried tofu, lettuce, Chinese sausage, sweet chilli and sauce, and the flour skin. But it was fun and the kids helped out, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Another labour-intensive-but-cannot-do-without dish in my family is the sweet gingko nut dessert soup with red dates, dried persimmon and longan in pandan syrup. We had to hammer 3kg of the dumb nuts, de-shell them, take the fleshy inside out, soak them in hot water, rinse with cold water, remove the inner membrane, soak them again, remove the inner bitter stem, and boil. These tedious steps were religiously followed just to get ready the RAW gingko in preparation for the actual cooking process. My grandma refused to buy processed ones because of ‘tradition’, and sometimes we just have to give in to her for such matters.

I painted my nails a fire-engine chilli red this year, and I’m actually pretty happy with it. The trick to blood red nails, I read, is to keep them short and edges rounded. Never long and pointy, less you want to look like a solicitor for illicit sex leftover from Keong Saik Road.

We went to Holy Light church with grandma where I experienced a surge of emotions reminiscing the days when I tugged my grandpa’s hand listening to sermons preached from the same old Presbyterian pulpit 20 years ago. My grandma is still faithfully flipping the faded red pages of the same old Chinese Bible that reads from left to right vertically downwards she used to share with my grandpa. I guess one could never bear to throw 60 years of memories away, even when brand new ones are readily available.

Aunt Michelle and Uncle Mike are back from San Francisco over CNY. Talking to them makes me reallllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy want to go back to California again!!! I miss the lifestyle, the cool chilly winds at Big Bear Lake, going to the grocers for fresh produce and stopping by Denny’s Diners, the fresh yet pungent mountainous scent on Yosemite National Park, having breakfast on Santa Monica Beach with all the very noisy seagulls, candied apples and the occasional road trip to Tijuana, Mexico where one can get authentic cinnamon churros (another of my favorite)!! Even the Chinese restaurants which serve lousy Asian food give out fortune cookies after the meal which no one cares for here. HOWEVER, aunt Michelle said that I WAS MUCH SKINNIER WHEN SHE SAW ME LAST YEAR. I’m super sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe I will go and visit her this year, if I can.

I still keep eating like a bottomless pit and my dinner appointments are still full for the next 2 weeks. How to be skinny like that? The cakes, cookies, tarts, rolls and trans-fat laden CNY goodies at home are still beckoning.

Cannot wear my bikini already.