Pat A Cookie, Pat A Cookie!...

So what has Daphne been up to? Trying to be a housewife, that's what!

And am very proud to say there's been no disaster, yet...Lol...

Let's just say 3 people have been extraordinarily kind to me (2 of which happen to be my professors), and went out of their way to show their kindness (which I never expected at all). Touched by their gesture, and after discussing with mum about the appropriateness, I have decided to reciprocate by sending them a tiny 'Thank You' gift...

So what can a broke college student do, that is nice, and yet will work nicely for the pocket?

Bake! That's what...Lol...




Chocolate batter...Needless to say we found excuses left-and-right to eat the batter!



Eh, not bad lar ok? Our (me and a friend) first real attempt at baking from scratch, and we came up with a nice set of cookies, so not bad lar, ok?





Super-sinfully-chocolatey chocolate-chip cookies!




And the final product!



In the end, we had enough left-over for me and my friend to enjoy among ourselves. And heck, each 'pot' of cookies (see above) came up to like $4-5, which is great! All thanks to Dollarama, where you can get the pots, ribbons and and plastic wrap for like a dollar (highest would be $2) each!






And a tired Daphne goes to sleep on the floor...;)




And what do we do at the end of the day? Laze like a cat lor...Lol!

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"I'm Stupid; I Can't Even Feed Myself"...

People who know me well know there are 3 things which tug at my heartstrings, and which I have a very soft-spot for...

1) Children, especially the exceptional ones...

2) Animals...

3) Old people...

Today was hospital-volunteering day, and today, after I was done with most of my work, one nurse approached me and asked if I was busy because she needed a favour. When I told her no, she replied that she had a 'super-duper' job for me, if I was willing.

Sure, but what was it?

I had to feed a lady who was about 90 years-old, who was terrily miserable because she could not guide her spoon to her mouth and had made a mess all over herself and the floors when she spilled all her water and juice...

Uh-oh...

The moment I saw her, I could feel myself getting all sad.

Uh-oh...

We spent over an hour just to finish 3/4 of a muffin, and half a cup of yoghurt because it was mountain of an effort for her just to swallow...

The poor old dear kept saying thank you and saying how stupid she was that she couldn't feed herself because her tremors were so advanced (her hands were constantly shaking even when her hands were resting on the bed)...

And she held onto my free hand practically throughout...

Haih...I guess I always spend time in hospitals where I get teary-eyed. In Ipoh Hospital, it was all the special needs kids, over here, where more than half of the patients I come into contact with are very old, it's people like her who make me feel all teary-eyed.

But as much as I used to feel it was a liability, one nurse put things into perspective a while back: She said the one thing which makes me actually sit there is because I actually feel. So maybe my tears make me more effective.

I think she may be right, after all...

Cos I surely wouldn't have sat there for over an hour if I didn't feel sorry for that nice old lady...

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Of Summer, Rats and Stews...

From left: Me, Angie and Irene, at a sushi restaurant, treating ourselves after finishing a mountain of work...




Geez...This is not turning out to be the summer I thought it would be...I thought it would be lazing by the pool, sipping juices, reading some novel or two, watching Scooby-Doo, Everybody Loves Raymond, with my two feet in the air...





Instead I'm reading many books (none of which I actually want to read), about 10 metres away from the pool, and trying to make sense of a bunch of numbers and graphs I really don't care much for. The weather has also been a little temperamental, judging by the number of times I got rained on, despite checking the weather forecast...Truly Canada!



Despite doing slightly less volunteer work over the summer (schools are closed, for one, so no puppet shows), I seem to be a whole lot busier. Guess the whole compressed summer class is just taking a toll on my mental resources...



Lab work, although a whole new world, and alot of fun, comes with its downfalls as well. After a hullaballoo just last week, where I unfortunately, ended in tears in the lab (my soft spot for animals just could not handle the animal shocks*) and was subsequently removed from the lab for the day by LCP (leng-chai prof), it's turning out to be pretty interesting.

I guess LCP has different dynamics in the lab to handle when his assistants are females and when they're males. The females for example, name the rats ;) and coo at them, and they also get teary-eyed (I'm not the first, I later found out) when the rats have to undergo surgery, are the slightest bit uncomfortable, or when they get euthanised...



*The shocks, LCP has assured me are not traumatizing to the rat, as they have been passed by the ethics council, and because he himself, and all his assistants have to undergo the shock first prior to administering it to the rat (everybody says it feels like slight static)...






On a lighter note, I've found a new hangout in town (well it's not new, but I've never been there) that seems to work fine for having a cup of coffee, a pot of tea, and for my friends and I to just hang out all day reading and doing assignments. It's a cafe-of-sorts that always smells of fresh coffee and something toasting, which is fine by me!





Some kinda stew brewing...

I also seem to have perfected the art of cooking some kind of stew, and what goes into the pot depends on my mood. Lol. I don't even know what exactly it is called, but my Persian-Canadian housemate is enjoying it, and we have actually found a dish we both definitely agree on.

We both eat what the other eats, but we end up always having to compromise on one thing: Level of spicyness. It's always not spicy enough for me, and too spicy for her, so we end up compromising so it's at her threshold, but enough I can taste it!

I have already introduced her to Maggi's Chlli Sauce (and her family too, because she took it home with her, and now they're hooked), and imagine how funny it was when she came home from the weekend and brought another bottle to add to my stock (she was so excited, proclaiming she had a gift for me)!

Haha...Oh, how I miss Malaysian food!

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