The Resilience of Durum Wheat.

Once upon a time, I did something stupid that took a huge chunk of my weekly finances. Faced with the reality of surviving on 13 dollars a week, I pondered about poverty and starvation of middle class university students. My choices were clear: maggi mee or skipping meals. There was no way that I could possibly skip meals lest you want to see a very cranky girl lashing out at unsuspecting strangers. I could take my chances with instant noodles. They come in so many different flavours of carcinogens now. Who could resist?

Instead, I cooked my food - y’know the proper way. Martha Stewart would have been proud. I dug into the sunk cost goods in the kitchen - PASTA! - invested in a bottle of pasta sauce and pilfered celeries and carrots from the fridge. You have to understand, we hardly ever cook at home. Our fridge is a casket of oranges, apples and carrots for juice and nothing else. Ah, and the parents, they must not know about my dire financial situation. Even the cooking had to be a secret. Naturally my diet became vegetarian because vegetables were cheap and I would have risked poisoning myself with salmonella if I attempted to cook meat.

A week goes by and I am a living breathing testament that I am able to cook food! IT WAS EDIBLE TOO! Do you realise the huge implication of this? I can do this adulthood business.*GASP* I CAN EVEN FEED CHILDREN!

It’s been two weeks and I haven’t been able to stop. I like the feeling of knowing what I put inside my mouth. I know that brocolli costs 4 dollars a kilogram and I know how to debone a chicken leg.  I learned how to make pasta pomodoro from scratch with fresh tomatoes. There are two bags of prawns inside my fridge: one soaking in garlic, onion and sesame oil concoction and the other in a simple rosemary rub.

Oh I know. I am pretty darn awesome.

Because Sharing is Caring.

Crestock has come up with a brilliant round up of

The 50 Most Popular Web Design Blog Posts, Resources & Cheat Sheets of 2007

The past year has been an amazing period for those wishing to learn the ropes of design, whether you’re a noob just getting into the game or a seasoned designer or programmer. As we enter 2008, let’s take a look back at some of the most popular articles, resources, and tutorials that helped those who toiled away on the web everyday.

I have been way behind the times in the realm of web design. I really want to go back and learn how to code from scratch. I feel like an utter relic not knowing how to operate XHTML or even CSS properly. In the past two years alone, web design have grown in leaps and bounds incorporating elements of good old typography. It’s kinda funny how it’s gone from shiny slick flash merely 5 years ago which was so popular to simpler and yet more elegant design. Presentation is key.

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This is why Jan Sochor’s portfolio of photo essays is just breathtaking. Set against a very simple, clean layout, his photography to stand out and speaks quietly but clearly.The pictures are brilliantly vivid with sweat, grit, flesh and colour.

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He captures life in the Central Americas from Chile to Colombia. His photograph makes you feel as though your inches away from breathing in the same earth.

Visit

Roads Left in both of our Shoes.

There’s a greyhound station where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations

So they may have a chance of finding a place where they’re far more suited than here

83 Ways to Waste Your Time

Diesel and Adidas created a lovely union in the name of jeans. Incorporating elements of web 2.0, they’re inviting you to participate and be a part of their marketing effort by submitting pictures on how you waste your time. They’ve come up with 83 no less. I love love love this type of marketing effort and the sheer redundancy of it. The pictures are just brilliant.

How adorable is that?

Don’t Let Them Know Where We’ll Hide Today.

I have a radio prophet. Except instead of a radio, I use my mp3 player. Think of it like the magic 8 ball. You ask it a question and it gives you an answer through the mystical cosmos by giving you the most appropriate song. The message is in the song of course. So instead of the radio, I click forward down my playlist randomly whenever it feels like stopping and voila.

Can you believe that I believe this stuff?

This song has been picked out a couple of times these last few days and I can’t quite figure out why.

maybe i’ll hide with you
Stop counting please
They’re all fake me’s
Don’t mind if I break down again
I can always hide from this town
Don’t let them know
where we’ll hide today
It’s all for you
And all you say to me is hanging on to yesterday

letting up despite great faults - download

So what does that mean?

Neon Warmth.

The world gives you its best and its worst on the same day, because it can.

After the closing gala of arts festival, I went back to school to check up on my lost laptop charger and the possibility that I will have to stay in school to finish my part of the report. I walked from Victoria Concert Hall. Disoriented in the dark, I walked towards Fullerton Hotel. I would’ve ended in a forest of steel. But I let my feet walk by itself and it turned around. It walked on and on past the bus stop in careful steady steps along a slippery rain-soaked pavement. It walked on and on, floating on neon lights. They weren’t as colourful as the lights of Tokyo, London or New York. But they were safe. The roads murmured with the sound of cars and conversation. It walked on and on, carrying a body that wasn’t quite there but a voice which murmured to itself. Walking on shimmery wet tarmac glowing red green and yellow, you almost wished this was a movie. But it couldn’t be. It’s not pretty enough to be. So I walked on and on alone, undisturbed and unnoticed. Like I’m not really there. Like I barely exist.

I wondered what it would be like to run onto the road and feel the metal crush against my bones: just to feel something, nothing, anything and everything. Just to prove to me that I exist. Just to teach me what it means to say “I am”.

Well this is just crazy talk.