wet wet wet

Conclusively, today is a day that is -- in my dictionary -- worth-blogged.

What happened today stems from an unwritten agreement among some of us to:
- work crazily hard during week days
- have some time off on Sunday

So, our agenda on Sunday is like:
- attend 9.30 am mass
- socializing after mass until around 11 am
- start walking (yes, by foot!) and find some place to have lunch
- chit chat, battle of the wits, gossip, talk about music and everything under the sun
- go back at around 4~6 pm
- get back to work!! The mad routine starts all over again

It works! In fact, I think we increase our working efficiency significantly. This kind of Sunday is a day worth slaving ourselves away the entire week.

Before I start reciting our today's encounter, let me introduce you the actors and actress for today's drama:
- me: you've known me
- sw: the towering Austrian girl, who makes my research life less uptight -- also in aero/astro
- mv: the Indian girl, studying Computational System for Biology (CSB)
- bs: a malaysian guy, also in CSB, who knows Sheila on 7 and Peterpan much more than I do
- nb: an Indian guy, also in CSB
- ap: a Colombian guy, in Architecture
- rv: a American-Philippino girl from LA (her cousin went to high school with Kirsten Dunst - ga penting si), also in Architecture

To start with, the weather today was soooooooooo horrible. It was even worse than last week! The weather comprises everything to describe a 'bad weather'. Rain, merciless wind, strong wing, crazy wind, mad wind, lunatic wind, and cold. To make things even worse, I forgot to wear my winter boots -- thus waterproof -- how stupid was that. My toes literally froze and the shoes-socks-feet were soaking wet. Far from comfortable.

The first adventurous thing to do was: to WALK all the way to Super88 market -- went to the end of MIT, further, cross the Boston University (BU) bridge, walked along Commonwealth Ave, until the junction with Brighton Ave. In total, it was more than 30 minutes... in SUCH WEATHER!!!

The bottom half of my jeans and my shoes (and everything underneath) were soaking wet when I entered the Food Corner. We planned to get our lunch from Bali Kitchen, i.e., the Indonesian food stall but it was only opened at 12:30 pm. Typically, it was late for almost half an hour. So meanwhile, we looked at other stalls around and get some bubble tea (Thai Iced Tea without boba -- in Singapore 'pearl').

Honestly, I've never dared to ask somebody to try Indonesian food. Well, you know, not all stomach can take spicy (a lot of spices, not only chilli) or thick (coconut milk-y) food. But they were determined -- oh I am so proud of them -- to try it anyway. As an attempt to abate my responsibility of whatever aftermath that may come out, I suggested something 'mild' or at least not too shocking. Like for the Austrian girl -- I almost forcefully restricted her choice to Ayam Kalasan. I suggested Ayam Bumbu Bali only to the Malaysian and Indian guys. The Colombian insisted to take Sayur Asem -- only to sweat afterwards *padahal udah g bilangin lho*. I took Soto Betawi, mv Rendang, and rv didn't buy Indonesian food as she was too hungry to wait.

For appetizer: Pempek Palembang, Siomay Bandung, Satay Sate Ayam.

The one who stole the ABSOLUTE limelight: Pempek Palembang. *hip hip hurraaaayy* *applause*

The runner-up: Sate Ayam. *keplok-keplok*

sw and mv were sooo crazy of pempek's vinegar that they pour the vinegar onto their rice *geleng-geleng kepala*.

Trivia for today: I am the only one who even think that the vinegar is too hot (spicy). sw even ate her ayam kalasan with the chilli *terkadang saya malu ngaku orang Indonesia karena ga bisa makan pedes*.

Stomach full, we start chit-chatting: girls and guys. The girls talked about DURIAN. sw was soooo curious about this king of the fruit. During a dinner with our advisor, our advisor described durian in the meanest way: smells like *....* (omitted as I don't want to hurt any durian lovers), tastes like onion, illegal to carry around in Singapore's public transport. Only me and rv have eaten durian before and love it. bs has, too, but is neutral.

What's next?

We found durian in the supermarket! It was a long and complicated decision-making process until we came to the conclusion that we'd buy it and eat it and everybody has to try <-- imposed by rv.

Walking back was the first drama as the wind was doubly strong as before (though I thought the morning's one was already at the upper bound). Halfway through BU bridge, my umbrella flapped up. I also saw some other people's umbrella having the same problem. To prevent any further damage and permanent deformation, I closed it and relied on my cap instead. Not long after, sw's umbrella badly -- sooo badly --- flapped up. It's so funny looking at a very tall girl wrestling with a small umbrella and she'd never given up. We laughed so hard until we cried. The kind of laughter that can wash away all your worries -- if you know what I meant. The strong wind disable you to close the umbrella -- seriously it was that bad, you really can't close it. To complete the agony, a car passed by and we had a free shower. We laughed again -- now I think about it, I think we were simply lunatic.

Walking back to Tang Hall (sw's dorm -- as she's the only one with the gigantic chopping knife a.k.a golok) we started fantasizing about sunny beach in Santa Monica, Texan desert, etc. rv -- the Valley girl <- remember "Clueless" -- was enticing us with tantalizing description of the beauty (and sunny) side of US: west coast. Arriving in Tang, we were soaking wet, my feet froze and our hairs were so entangled *kayak tikus kejebur got*.

The next highlight of the day (second drama) was (in fact the brightest highlight): cutting open the durian!
We were so inexperienced, some of us haven't even seen a durian before, that it was literally a bloody encounter. We took turn (umm well, some of us were just cheering them up) to try to open the stubborn grenade -- wrestling is the way rv puts it. I kept on saying "that's not the right way, it should split automatically after a right cut" but couldn't tell them how-to. It was a long fun-filled process...

Well, finally we did it! After a long encounter, we had our durian BADLY deformed, all the seeds were chopped (geblek kan) no single piece has the shape it should have. The living room was full of debris from durian's skin, really they were everywhere. And the guys talked about durian in words like cavity -- so engineering -- and compartmentalized -- so archie and urban planning.

Next question from them was: what will happen when a durian falls down from a tree?
The Colombian guy shared that in Colombia, there's a statistic for people died from fallen coconut!!

And you know what? They like durian!! I was sooo surprised. *beaming* They can beat Fear Factor contestants now...

We also talked about few games and decided to have a game-night one day, only among us.

We tried to persuade the Colombian to do a rendition of Shakira: spanish song with some belly dancing but he refused, too bad.

I'm sleepy now so I'll stop here.... Good night! *3am now*

PS: the weather when I walked back from Tang to Green Hall was even worse than the precedences!