my mind is shattered to many pieces. I don't know when or how this happened exactly but I no longer think with a complete mind. Thoughts go in all directions I think I might go insane. I hope time can cure me of my mind.

e.g.
I suppose the difference between you and me is that I do not fear loneliness. Sometimes I think that loneliness is all I deserve.

Cooking Time - Crème brûlée

Today I tried out my hand at making a Crème brûlée. It didn't require a sophisticated amount of ingredients so yeah this is what happened.

Ingredients

Everything was easy to obtain, except the vanilla beans. Sure I could have gotten the essence but that sounded so artificial and I managed to find some at World Square albeit a hefty price of $8 per 4 pods.

Process

Scolding the cream and added the vanilla

Whisking eggs and sugar. My arm got really sore from whisking

Once the cream was ready I mixed it with the eggs

Placed the mix into the ramekins. Hmm they were right, it does serve four

Into the oven for 40 minutes. Realised I didn't preheat the oven. Also this oven confuses me. So many modes.

Out of the oven, looking good so far. Waited for it to cool before fridging them.

Finished product

After taking them out of the fridge I decided to experiment with different sugars for the caramel. I thought brown sugar would be good but my brown sugar was way too clumpy and didn't distribute well. My parents wanted to try their sugar and it turned out okay (left) but the sugar granules were a bit too big to make a good layer. Lastly I tried the caster sugar that I cooked with. The powder texture of the sugar made caramelising much easier. Next time I'll try brown caster sugar or something.

Verdict

They tasted okay, however they didn't set! Unsure where I went wrong but it was like eating custard. It might have been the oven so next time I'll take proper care of that part. I took some notes so I'll try again next time. Also I need better utensils such as measuring cups and etc, to make it more efficient. I also didn't preheat the oven, so I wasted precious time waiting for the oven to get ready. So I'll definitely make starting the oven the first thing I do.

The Will of Fire

Not sure if people noticed but I'm phasing in a new way of formatting my blogs. I think this way readers can make skim reading and navigation even more easier. Enjoy!


Pokemon X and Y

Holy crap I haven't been impressed/excited by a Pokemon game in a long time. What stands out is the fact that there pretty much isn't any 2D sprites both in battles or free roaming. Perhaps the only thing that could kill it for me is if the new Pokemon designs were crap like the ones in Black and White. That was pretty much the reason why I never opted for it. The starters look decent but not awesome. I actually have no idea who to start with, since they all look like viable choices (including grass muahaha). I'll probably cheat and see what they look like when they're fully evolved. However what caught my eye was the legendary Pokemon Yveltal (ee-vel-tall) which looks totally awesome. I like it much better than the other one Xerneas which looks like a deer. I'll definitely get Y version assuming that's where I can catch it. Here's the original artwork of the two.

Now that I think about it, it looks like a cross between Lugia and Groudon, my favourite legendaries in their respective versions.

Are those swords for feet?

Also here's my favourite fan artwork so far.

if the starters actually looked like this, I'd go for the water type.

Wednesday happenings

We were supposed to take class but we ended up discussing what songs we should do for the upcoming shows which is also good, hopefully we have time to make it look good by then. Song choices were set, I like them and I hope others like them too. Also tried watermelon Gatorade today. It didn't really taste like watermelon nor Gatorade. I swear it's like Mizone. Afterwards was dinner at Eating World. I don't think I/we have eaten there in a long time. It also feels like a long time since everyone (well everyone as it can get) were all together to have said dinner. It was nice having a dinner like that again.

Three people are heading to Melbourne for a week starting tomorrow/Thursday. I wish them safe journey and an enjoyable week. The purpose of trips like this is to have fun together, hopefully by the end they'd be a little sad that their trip is over haha.

The Crossover 2, and other things

I remember distinctly, when it was almost IJGK's time to perform on stage at Wesley, there were some of the kids who did kpop were telling each other that we were about to perform and that they really wanted to see it. Our performance wasn't the best, but by then I had realised that we had become something out of the ordinary.

Looking at it, we have something others don't, and I know some who would like to have something like we do. Kinda like how I would like to have peeps to mess around with videomaking with me. Not really that big of an epiphany but it does however give me new found motivation to work hard and not waste the time we have, and to do the best we can.

Recently heard about hate/criticism about us and what we do. I guess it's only fair since some of us (me included) are guilty of criticising other cover peoples who aren't great. But hopefully that's been happening less over time. If there are criticisms then good, we'll take it, and make ourselves better because of it. As for the second thing, I don't know why people would make a big deal out of it. It's not like this so called scene is going to grow bigger than theirs. People have their preferences and there should be a mutual respect for all. Real dancing or not, what happened to the freedom of doing what we love? 

Anyways rants aside, 2011 and 2012 were filled with a lot of shows, from awesome to downright random cough-chineserestaurant-cough. Regardless I've had a great time doing all of them. And I'm not afraid of what the future holds.


A quote from Naruto Shippuden

To those who posess the Will of Fire, everyone is family. It is the desire to protect which strengthens our bonds. If this will is embraced by everyone, the village will be alright, no matter what happens.

Reset

New Years Resolution time

Now that the new year is upon us, it is time for some resolutions to be made.

Resolutions:

Get more organised for study

The common resolution usually involves study or organisation, or both. It's always beneficial to be organised which makes things easier by the time exams hit. Hopefully this semester I'll have no trouble with it. Keep notes in check and take the time to sort them out. Maybe buy a folder or something. Spend at least an hour everyday after class at uni to go over the day's work. I mustn't be lazy and go straight home/city. It's hard to do work at home anyway.

Get more involved with other people and things

In other words get out there and try something new, with other people. There's opportunities to be found and they are best when you are not at home doing nothing.

More dance!

Dance is good for the soul. I also intend to help build on the dance scene here in Sydney, apparently we need it. Still working on popping, but I feel like I've made some progress, by that I mean leg hits, I can totally do them now haha. But I still need to work on them foundations. My aim is to do other muscles such as the stomach and chest because they're totally muscles, that can pop.

Learn new skills

It's always good to learn something new which can open doors for you. Maybe I'll look into HTML or something. Also skateboards are cool, just saying.

Make the bed every day

I don't normally take the time and effort to making my bed, usually I just make it look neat. But today I spent the effort doing it well, we're talking hospital folds up in this ****. It made me feel good every time I look at my bed. I guess it's a good discipline thing to do, and yeah there's always room for more discipline. Perfect for resolutions.

Bonds

Finally it's important not to forget those around you, the people who you've met and share bonds with. Even if they won't always be there for you, do your best to always be there for them. I also need to keep and strengthen a certain bond. My strongest one, the person I care about the most.

Quick trip

So the other day I went to Melbourne for Christmas. I pretty much flew in Tuesday morning then left for Sydney on Wednesday night. Went by pretty quickly.

This was also the first time I used an electronic on the plane. You know how you're allowed to use if after take off. The trip was quite boring so I just listened to my mp3 the whole trip. I got to Melbourne and once we got to the hotel we decided to take a look around. Unfortunately we forgot it was Christmas day and that a lot of places were closed. So we just wandered around anyways. We found that a lot of things changed since the last time we were here. A lot of stores have been replaced with other stores, etc. We went back to our rooms. Turns out they had Cartoon Network which showed nothing but Adventure Time, Regular Show and occasionally other shows such as Chowder and The Amazing World Of Gumball. We had dinner at this Japanese place. I recognised this as the place we had teppanyaki but we didn't have teppanyaki, we had regular food instead.

The next day we went to a Chinese place for lunch. We had yumcha foods without the random waiters serving with food trolleys. Also the tea tasted weird, not sure what tea it was but it had like an almond taste to it. Afterwards my brother and I went to the city to look around. There were a lot of nice buildings and bridges there. In the city there was a camera store that also had a museum of old cameras. It was so awesome to see all the old film cameras especially Leica up close. Too bad they weren't for sale. I would have seriously considered buying something lol. Afterwards we just wandered elsewhere, went to JB HiFi which was like separated into 3 stores for some reason. We saw the Wii U and played it for a while. Too bad it only had like 2 demos. We played Super Mario in co-op mode and the one with the tablet was no help at all. All you do is make platforms out of nowhere.

We went back to the hotel and my mother decided she would buy me pants, cause apparently I need more pants. We had dinner at the Chinese place again. Then we were on our way back to Sydney. Didn't listen to music but slept instead.

Unwinding

Today was a slow day, which for me was quite relaxing. Slept in late, played some games, watch youtube, etc. My brother wanted to eat, so we ended up going outside for lunch. We ate at the new Tenkomori Ramen House which has become my favourite ramen place. Though I miss Mappen, I'll go next time it's hot, perfect for some cold soba. I tried the spicy pork ramen, the pork tasted nice but the soup turned spicy which wasn't my cup of tea.

Afterwards I felt like dealing with B1A4's song in my head from yesterday, by buying their album... lol

Came with a photo card of Jinyoung, I preferred glasses guy but he's cool too.

The other songs are good too, so the album wasn't a waste lol. So far my favourites are 

1. In The Wind (despite it being an opening song, it's quite surreal and I like it), 

2. 걸어 본다/Try To Walk (Jinyoung wrote this song. That's awesome.)

3. IF... 

7. In The Air

Haven't really listened to the album properly yet though. Makes me wish I bring headphones with me when I go out.

Quite the night

Ultimately, I have no excuses. But in my mind, willpower is a quantifiable thing. If I could point out the main contributor to what was forcing me to use a lot of it, it would be the fact that you made her angry and sad. I don't care what you call me, but next time I see you I will hurt you in front of everyone.

Sigh, it's that kind of thought that I have to fight. Part of me wants to just let loose and do whatever I want. But the other has to remind the whole about the consequences of such actions, to forget and not let the other person win by being unhappy. I will live my own life, unaffected by people like you.

Anyways, by then I hope people understand why I felt down over something small. But it was just big enough to impact me, and I just didn't have enough willpower. I just "wanted" to feel sad as if I wanted to stop running, if that made sense. I'm sorry to the people who I worried. Next time I will make better use of my energy and not get brought down by such things.

On an unrelated note, I can't get this song out of my head now.