Have you ever heard of the saying "Can't see the forest for the trees"?

I have.

It means that people can be too caught up in the details of a problem that they are unable to see the problem as a whole. It might mean that you're stuck at question 2 of your 100 question paper, and spend 2 hours trying to figure out question 2 that you forgot you have 98 more questions to go. It might also be the reason why people are unable to comprehend why Rafa Benitez did not play Fernando Torres against Birmingham at Anfield last week, a match in which Liverpool failed to win. It is also the reason why I am unable to comprehend why Rafa did not play Torres last week. But I digress.

Its a common saying, well accepted in the proper English speaking world.

However, how about a reverse of the same saying.

How about, "Can't see the trees for the forest"?

I suppose this is when you're unable to see the details due to the sheer enormity of the problem itself. When you are paralysed by the size of the problem, and are unable to take the first step to solve the problem.

Because everything that you do requires you to actually start doing it first.

And I suppose I'm wondering myself, what's the point of this whole post. And I don't have an answer.

I remember English in Form 5. My teacher Mrs Chandra (I think) asked of us to write one article every week. It was called 'free writing' where we could write anything we wanted, and just generally be expressive. I always had no idea what to write. There was once when I even lifted a whole article from a writer that I read on the internet. Of course, I quoted him, but then again, I didn't write anything of my own.

And this is where I shall end this time.

Good day.

I had a dream yesterday.

I saw this ad in the newspaper, claiming that a certain celebrity whom I can't remember was to be performing at this certain shop, which I also cannot remember, on that day.

So off I went rushing to the shop, only to discover a notice on the door of the shop saying: "You have been April Fooled!" I then suddenly remembered that the day was indeed, the first of April, and I chided myself for falling for such a cheap trick.

But I had 2 burning questions in my mind then.
Is today really the first of April?
If it is, is the first of April really April's Fools Day?

What is intelligence?

In his book 'More Games for the Super-Intelligent', James F. Fixx has this to say about intelligence:

... We can agree, too, on at least one other thing: intelligence is well worth having. Intelligence has, to be sure, landed more than a few of its possessors in deep trouble. One thinks, for example, of the student who on a physics examination was asked to describe a method for determining the height of a building by using a barometer. Finding the expected answer obvious and uninteresting, he outraged the educational authorities by giving the two alternate methods: (1) drop the barometer off the building's roof and time the interval until it smashes on the ground; (2) find the owner of the building and say to him, "If you tell me how tall your building is, I will give you a good barometer." ...

There was also a third method proposed: find the owner of the building and say to him, "If you don't tell me how tall your building is, I'll break this barometer over your head."

Haha.

OCSC Dinner

Friday night was Ormond College Student's Club Dinner.


It was a night where the students get to dress up and the members of the Senior Common Room (the Master, tutors, and staff of Ormond College) actually serve us dinner.

What follows is just a series of random pictures of the night, not all of which were taken by me.
















For many of us, it may be our last year in Ormond College.

May all the accumulated memories be cherished and not forgotten.

Koko

For some reason, I found myself eating lunch in Koko at Crown on Saturday, a very expensive place that I wouldn't normally find myself in.


I forgot to take a picture of this in the original state that it arrived in, and furthermore I have no idea what its called. But that's the starter that we had.

And then came the teapot soup, which was awesome.


This may not be new for some people, but it was for me. Firstly, it is not tea. The teacup there is not part of the soup. The soup is in the teapot, and you pour it onto the bowl that provided on top of the teapot. Very good soup. Like I was saying, if I had a whole boiling pot of this soup, I'd put some instant noodles into it. Its that good.


We shared this between the 3 of us. A combination of sushi, sashimi, spider rolls, and volcano rolls all in one huge platter. According to my friends, they said the fish tasted fresh, compared to stuff you get elsewhere. Me, being the simple guy I am, couldn't detect any difference. Lol.


For some reason, we also had a steamed (?) fish to round up the meal.

And then came the dessert. 3 of them at once.

Bam bam bam.






I'm just making up the names as I go along, not too sure what they were called.

An excellent lunch, which brought me to the 'not too full, not too hungry' level, which any perfect meal should aim to do.

However, this meal burnt a huge whole in my pocket, and till now, I still can't decide whether it was worth it or not.

;p

Nudel Bar

I gave Nudel Bar a try the other day with my friend. It was recommended by another friend to be a good place for fusion food, if you're willing to pay around 20 bucks. Located up Bourke Street, opposite Hard Rock Cafe, it caters mostly to the office working crowd (or at least it did when I was there for lunch).

The menu was very interesting, with stuff ranging from Wonton Noodles to Macaroni Cheese, to stuff like Laksa Lemak and some other very interesting mix of west and east dishes.

In addition to the menu, they also have a separate special menu which changes over time, and the waitress was good enough to drop by the table and actually introduce the special menu to us and ask if we would like it, "The kitchen today is making very good egg noodles served cold with a mix of beef and nuts...", can't exactly remember what the dish was called.

And that's what I had:


I must say that I haven't tasted or seen anything like it before. It was very much like a noodle salad. And it epitomises the word 'fusion' in more than one sense. Mixture of different styles it is, but every bite was crunchy from the nuts, cauliflower, carrots, and deep fried onions; and very fresh and refreshing because it was served cold; and it had a nice tangy flavour, due to vinegar I think. The slices of beef (or pork, not sure) rounded up the dish very well.

Very good, an experience to savour.

My friend had another dish from the special menu, although I really can't remember what its called.


I'm not a big fan of pasta though, but it got good reviews from my friend.

An interesting deviation from the stuff I usually eat, but very good.

Both dishes cost $17.80 each.

Han Guuk Guan

Its been one whole week since I've last eaten, and I finally got my meal yesterday, at this Korean restaurant, Han Guuk Guan, on Victoria Street.

I've been to it before once, and I didn't really enjoy the food there that time, but I guess its probably because I did not know what to order. This time though, our friend, Supa, had a magic piece of paper, and on it, was written the names of 4 different dishes, and he gave the magic piece of paper to the waiter, and this is what we got.


This was magnificently awesome. I absolutely love it. Not sure what its called in Korean but I'm pretty sure that if you say 'Black Bean Noodles' this is what you'll get.


Jap Chae, I think. Fried potato noodles. It was very difficult to pick the winner between this noodle dish and the previous one. Super good.


This huge mound of chicken made up for the lack of meat in the previous 2 noodle dishes. Whomever it was that provided Supa with the magic piece of paper must have known their stuff.


At first glance, I thought it was just some kimchi hotpot soup. But later, I realised that there was actually some Maggi-like noodles inside it.


This is what we get.


And finally, I, in all my naivety, ordered 3 BBQ dishes, which did not turn out to be anything much at all.

Boo hoo to me.