Terrible reaction at 2AM on a Sunday Night

 Yesterday was like any ordinary typical Sunday, I got up late hung around the house doing nothing, waiting for my mom to go and collect my Grandma as usual, so that I could leave and go to my boyfriend's apartment. That happened as usual and then after a few hours i had to go back to my house for dinner and then wait for my dad to drop my Grandma home and me to my boyfriend's apartment again  Usually at about 10ish.

I arrived at the apartment felt freezing wanted to get into bed... My boyfriend wanted to do some late night shopping for some snacks that was fine. We came back had some yogurt played Super Mario til 2am at this stage I was exhausted and wanted us to go to sleep straight away. Then panic struck out... Where is the USB (Camera) with all our application details?

No sooner had he said it til it clicked i had brought it home in my other bag by accident. My boyfriend went ape-shit crazy and said he can't sleep now he's going to be thinking and worrying about it all night. So he started to turn on his computer. I got really annoyed I was  really tired and started insisting that we go to bed then he said no.

Then he  said put your clothes on were going to walk to your house and get if. My initial response was fuck off we will get it in the morning. Then he started shhhing me and telling me to hurry and i just couldn't stop saying fuck off. Resistantly I got dressed walked home got his USB/Camera and then he said your not going back to the apartment.

I started to explain I told my parents I'm sleeping there tonight it will be weird they will think something really strange happened causing me to come back in the middle of the night also everyone's getting up at 7 I won't be able to sleep then he said tough that's your problem Your not coming back with me and with that he left.

Never before has a USB key meant life or death. Anyway I didn't get a wink of sleep woke up felt extremely sick and have  felt horrible all day. Yet I am still considering going down to the apartment and sort out this mess.

The Americian Dream

About a month ago Vodafone lowered the price for calling America, Naturally my boyfriend was delighted, his cousin lives in America and he hadn't heard his voice for almost 8 years, obviously they chatted on QQ but chatting on the phone is a bit more personal and special. 

The first time he rang him, He stayed on the phone for almost 3 hours in the middle of the night if you don't mind. My boyfriend is definitely a night-owl, more about that another day. After he got off the phone he was dying to share all the news, and accidentally woke me up. 

His cousins story is quite sad really. In 2002 he started the impossible task of trying to move to America. The whole process took 3 years and a lot of money. To be honest  I don't really know the full details but from what I can gather whatever agency helped him, were exploiting some loophole in the American law. He arrived in America with no English and no clue what to do and was detained in prison for a month given a solicitor who I presume applied for asylum. Which was successful but resulted in him losing his right to go home to China and then return to America. To be honest I can't make heads nor tails of it.  But this is all i know and I didn't want to pry any further since it was so late at night.

But not being able to return home wouldn't be as bad if he was a single man and free to search for a girlfriend to keep him company, but that wasn't the case he left behind a wife and child. I can't imagine how that must of felt. I said to my boyfriend "why doesn't he just return back to China and give up on America?" My boyfriend said he (strongly influenced by his parents) has a dream to be successful in America and set up a business and save lots of money. He hasn't achieved that yet. He is working as Chinese take away delivery man and earning just about American minimum wage.

So obviously 5 years is a long time to be away from your wife and missing out on your sons life must be tough. Which makes me think a phone call once a week just doesn't cut it when your married. Which leads to his cousin's next big plan. He wants his wife to move to China and leave their son with his grandmother. This doesn't sound too bad... but the worst part is the only way to get her there is to use a tourist visa and once that expires to allow her to become an undocumented person. They will live there for the next 8-10 years. I just thought it was a horrible thing for a husband to insist that his wife to do. The life of an undocumented person is far from desirable. I think it's really selfish of his cousin Then my boyfriend said he hasn't had sex for 5 years, doesn't he deserve a normal life living with his wife? 

I just feel sorry for their son, who's had an absent father for the first 5 years of his life and now he's going to have an absent mother and father for possibly the next 8 years. Theirs only so much a grandmother can do. 

Photo from here

When is it time to give up on your dream? When is enough, enough? 

Cooking bonanza!

 My boyfriend is a chef, Well not the professional type as of yet but a chef in training... He works as a common chef in a restaurant, Nancy Murphy s in a nice little quaint countryside village, Enniskerry,

Anyway during the summer my Grandma moved house and she had a heap of recipe books she was planing to throw in the skip, But as my boyfriend is a chef in training I thought it would be a great idea if he took some of the books and learned some of the cooking terminology. It started off great first of all we made a raspberry cheesecake which he sent up to my mom as a birthday present..... We made several other things and then found out that following recipe books is rather expensive.... So we got lazy and the cooking terminology studying ceased. ...

But on Sunday we got inspired again... and made

Cauliflower and Blue cheese soup

Ingredients

1 small cauliflower, divided into small florets

2 small leeks, diced

1 small potato, peeled and chopped

900ml vegetable stock, made with stock cubes

125g Gorgonzola cheese, roughly chopped

Preparation Method

1.		Put the cauliflower, leeks and potato into a pan and add the stock and seasoning. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat. Cover and simmer gently for about 14 minutes or until tender.
2.		Transfer half the soup to a food processor or blender and purée until smooth. Return to the pan. (Alternatively, use a hand-held blender straight in the pan to process the soup lightly, leaving a chunky appearance.)
3.		Heat the soup gently until boiling, then remove from the heat. Add the cheese and stir lightly. Ladle into bowls and serve immediately.

Honey and mustard salmon with crushed butter beans and spinach

 Ingredients

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp clear honey

2 tsp wholegrain mustard

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

4 skinless salmon fillets, about 115g each

2 x 400g cans butter beans, drained and rinsed

1 large garlic clove, crushed

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

pinch of crushed chilli flakes

180g fresh baby leaf spinach, rinsed

12 vine-ripened cherry tomatoes

Preparation Method

		Make the marinade: In a shallow dish, mix together the vegetable oil, soy sauce, honey, mustard and 1 tbsp of the lemon juice. Add the salmon and coat with the marinade. Set aside.
2.		Combine the beans and flavourings: Put the butter beans and garlic in a pan with the olive oil, remaining lemon juice, the zest and crushed chilli flakes. Set aside.
3.		Wilt the spinach and heat the beans: Heat a ridged griddle or frying pan until hot. Meanwhile, tip the spinach into a dry pan with only the water that clings to its leaves and stir over a low heat for 2 minutes or until wilted. Drain and set aside. Gently heat the beans.
4.		Griddle the salmon: Cook the salmon in the heated ridged griddle or frying pan for 2-3 minutes on each side or until just firm and pink. Add the tomatoes for the last 1-2 minutes of the cooking time.
5.		Crush the beans: Roughly crush the beans with a vegetable masher or fork. Stir in the spinach and seasoning. Divide the beans and spinach among four serving plates. Arrange a salmon fillet on top of each and scatter the tomatoes around the side. Serve at once.

The Burglary...

As much as I hate to admit it, My former classmate, still has a habit of coming in and out of my life more often than not as he pleases, whether it is to annoy me, to joke with me, insist on playing with me, comfort me, etc. Even though he is quite annoying I still feel that he is rather misunderstood by most people Irish people and Chinese. 

Irish people don’t get him because he is outspoken and sometimes his frankness comes across as rudeness. Once I went shopping with him for a new suit and he tried one on. Now most sensible Irish people who try on something in front of a sales assistant would never insult the clothes. They usually make some polite excuse like oh I will think about it and come back later. But on the contrary my former classmate just came straight out with the insults, the texture is to fluffy, the lining is too thin, the shape is not very good, and the insults kept coming… I felt embarrassed just sitting there listening. I’m surprised this manner is accepted in China, but it definitely isn’t the norm in Ireland not by a long shot. He was totally unaware that he was being rude, as far as he was concerned the shop is just there to serve him and he can say what he likes to who he likes. After we left the shop I gently told him he was too rude in the shop and Irish people never carry on like that. He seemed totally alarmed so I just let it be.

As far as his dealing with Chinese and Irish students people don’t take him seriously. You never know if he is joking, lying or telling the truth. I think I was the only person in the class who was able to get his humor. As I got to know him on a more personal level than most people. I was often able to ask him why he did what he did and so on… You just have to take him with a pinch of salt.

I hadn’t talked to him for the whole summer and then one day in November for the first time in 4 months I picked up the phone to him and he told me he had bought a house and a Mercedes! I was thinking I will believe it when I see it. But evidently sure enough I did get to see the house and the Mercedes.

Which leads to the burglary! Yesterday as I was heading into the city centre I got a call from him to say, His car has been stolen and his front door smashed! And he wants to me to meet him tommorrow probably not going to happen…..

Regardless of his behavior he didn’t deserve this…

My strange encounter on the bus

Today started out rather oddly and ended even more oddly. I was supposed to meet my friends in Dublin City centre at 2'o clock in front of the GPO. to go shopping. When I got to the bus stop at 1'o clock a bus instructor informed me that there were no buses because of a car crash, so all buses have been diverted so then I rushed to get the train. In the end I arrived in Dublin at exactly 2'o clock and rang my friends, only to find out they were not even on their bus yet!!!

So I had  an hour to kill by myself. off I went for a trot and during my travels I ended up finding a new Filipino supermarket which just opened today! They were serving Filipino lunch for free! So I got to try all sorts of Filipino food like spring rolls, Filipino cake, and other strange things I had never seen before.

Then my friends arrived and we went shopping I just bought some new make up sponges =.=;;; I don't really like there style of shopping.... go into one shop and spend hours..... I prefer shopping around...After the shopping we went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered dum di dum... Hui Guo Ruo again. which shocked everyone including myself. we also ate lots of other things like soup, Chinese pancake, sizzling beef and rice.

Anyway the most interesting thing of the day happened on the bus. I had to wait 1 hour for the bus which nearly killed me, I was freezing cold! Once I got on I noticed some rather strange characters sitting at the back of the bus. Dressed strangely, speaking strangely... They weren't foreigners either. They were in fact Irish Travelers @.@ Ever since I watched a TV show called "The Truth About Travelers" I have been quite curious about them and have a bit more respect for them and there culture. Most Irish people want to stay as far away from them as possible because they are scared or they think they are a drunk and rowdy lot. But to be honest I hoped they would try and strike up a conversation with me... I felt it would happen... And it did sure enough the nosier of the 2 came and sat beside me while he was talking to 2 presumably traveler girls who were on the bus. 

For the second time in living memory I got asked for my number. The first time was by a man from Mauritius who i never saw again... I don't know I must have a really friendly face. I can always attract people from different cultures than me.  

Learn Chinese & Secrets

I remember the first song I listened to by a Chinese person was Jin- Learn Chinese; I know it’s not a classic Chinese song, but at the time and even now I love rap. So it suited me just fine. Although it never actually inspired me to learn Chinese, I just liked the tune.

During the Christmas holidays, I came across a blog written by an American woman married to a Chinese man. She posted a blog post about “How to get your boyfriend/girlfriend to teach you Chinese” I used some of the techniques she recommended such as to learn how to say the routine things you do every day, Like brush your teeth, turn on the light, take off your shoes and so on. Here is the link to her blog Speaking of China

Anyway I found out early on in the week that I could have improved my Chinese a lot quicker!! One of my friends in college, Xiaoji, has been giving Chinese lessons during the holidays and he never told me even though he knows I want to learn Chinese. So obviously I felt disappointed, I wanted to say something to him but my friend who told me Ma Jin... made me promise me not to mention to XiaoJi  that I had heard about the teaching @.@ so secrets are everywhere. Anyway I kept everything inside and was very distant to XiaoJi after that because I just didn't know what to say.

Ma Jin & Me (in the college grounds)

Nancy, Ma Jin and Me

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Me and Ma Jin (In class during the break)

But today all hard feelings were erroded and I got the full story. :) After class XiaoJi met me and said "Sarah I have something for you.... come with me to my dorm..." So I followed him and we were talking and he made me promise not to tell Ma Jin or any other chinese friend that he was giving me this gift! Ahhhh more secrets!!! So I promised. Then I got an opportunity to ask about the Chinese lessons, It turns out he was just teaching one classmate and the lessons only lasted for a week... and he just covered the very basic Ni Hao, Zai Jian,  blah blah and explained how to read ping yin. I have already mastered that hahah! 

Ma Jin, Me, Nancy & Xiao Ji (In front of the college)

Nancy, XiaoJi, and me (Horrible Photo of me!!)

Then he gave me a really cute gift of Choclates the box was lovely~~!! Chocolate makes everybody Happy ! :)

The chocolates (in my college Common room)

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