Manic Monday- Working student life?

Well, I practically worked the whole week last week which was why there wasn't any post.

People who study and work at the same time...I will never look at them the same way ever again

They are some kind of magical beings who manage their time so precisely and appropriately.

I look at them in awe and with complete respect because I am struggling to do what they seem to be doing so effortlessly haha!

I gotta go slay the 8000 word assignment now. :(

Hopefully, I'll be able to produce a better next post  

Asia Colion

Random Ramblings -The not so secret confessions of a graduate

So a while ago I said something about a graduation post and here it is!

Like I mentioned an earlier post (click here) I've finally graduated with a degree at last!

I am no longer a dishonor to my family! :')

The Not so Secret Confession Time:

1. I hate having photos taken of me

• I should be awarded a Masters of looking awkward in almost every picture

Exhibit A: Dat. Awkward. Grin.

• However, there will be those RARE candid shots which actually look normal and not awkward, I could almost dare say, nice! 

Exhibit B: Granny Shot, Captured by Andrew Mah

2.  Before my graduation, I used to get nightmares that the administrator in charge of the Results Portal made a mistake. We get our results earlier than our graduation, online, so I knew what my “grade” was.

• I got nightmares that I did worse than stated on the Results Portal quite frequently (Kiasu much? I think so! haha)

• Fortunately, I did unbelievably well (HALLELUJAH!) by God’s grace because it could not have been my own efforts (I mean, I’ve been a dunce from the time I started kindergarten, real honest. My parents can attest to the validity of my statement. (Sad but true)

3. I bought my graduation dress the day before my graduations (Because I’m fab like that~)

• I was going to wear something simple and plain, but my flighty friend, Sienna Newton Ho, was like: NO! YOU HAVE TO WEAR A NICE DRESS!! (She just wants me to look good in the photographs, God bless her soul, but I think I’m a lost cause)

• No dress, no matter how nice will save me from my awkward photo sickness :’)

Here are some pictures from my graduation that are not awkward

Not awkward...

  

...because I'm...

...not in it!

On a more serious note (get your tissue ready):

• I thank God for always helping me through my whole life and especially during the tough times in uni (all those tears and sleepless nights!)
• I would like to thank my parents for allowing and even encouraging me to enter University despite knowing what a dunce I really am and how expensive it is to send a child to university. Your support did not go unnoticed.
• I thank my whole family (sister, uncle, aunty, cousin, etc) for supporting my choice of degree despite how unpopular and unrecognized my degree is (I studies Education in Special Needs) in Malaysia.
• My classmates and friends, I love you guys! Uni life would not be the same without you! 
• All those surprise meal deliveries
• Late night support helpline
• Forcibly making me take a break because you know I'm gonna have a breakdown if I don't
• Heart to heart sessions about our struggles and then encouraging each other
• Crazy mamak/ makan session
• Taking me to the clinic when necessary
• Random joyrides-turn-shopping-trips to relieve stress

Of pearly whites and awkward grins

Class of 2014! I ♡ you guys 

The extended Uni family!  I ♡ you guys too!

My not so sexy back, boo yeah!

You know who you are and I thank God for you constantly! ♡ 

Asia Colion

The epic tale of the battle of necessary evils

Hey! 

So, it's been a while since I last posted and... I would just like to say I'm really sorry for always being so inconsistant, but I SWEAR I ONLY DID IT FOR A GOOD CAUSE!!

So, "what is this good cause?" you ask me. The title says it all! Short story time!

       Once upon a time in a far away land where the people lived in trees with wifi and cable tv, lived a young woman by the name of Asia Colion. She once valiantly vowed to update her blog as frequent as 3 days a week and kept her promise for a few months. She posted about food, fun, crafty shenanigans and a sprinkling of her daily life, but as time went by, she enrolled into a university to further improve her shallow and tiny mind.

       As time went by, the number of her postings decreased and stopped altogether and she broke her promise. You must be thinking what an awful person she is to break a promise she had made, but the reasons on why she broke her promise was not known to the world. She was engaged in a battle, a battle too horrific to recount! A battle of mind and body with the darkest enemies of humankind!

Procrastination!

       Alas! That was but  only one major enemy! She battled against Priorities, Time Management, Stress, Academic Text, Unreasonable Assignments, The Nasty Lecturer (This one was a real tough one!), Insomnia and many others which were just as devastatingly evil. The constant assault of the evils wore her thin till she could no longer find inspiration to blog.  The battle lasted for 3 years with no cease to the attacks, but at last she emerged from the battle victorious!

        Full of remorse for breaking her promise, she has returned to blogging fearing that all is lost and that nobody would ever want to read her blog ever again and this time she will be facing even more devastating evils, Evils which she has never faced before: Work Life. She begs for forgiveness and hopes that everyone will understand the inconsistencies of her posts. She also invites everyone to follow her battles in the coming near future if they can bear with the inconsistencies.

So yeah, story of my life in a nutshell. I've graduated but I'll reserve that for another post!
To be honest, I really had a lot of fun writing this and I do hope you had fun reading it!

Cheers!

Asia Colion

Wooly Wednesdays - Sad termination

Unfortunately Uni life has taken its toll on me and I now have to reduce my posting. I also don't really have time to make stuff anymore so Wooly Wednesdays will be posted only when I have time to post.

I know you feel sad because I am partly devastated! I say partly because I actually really enjoy my lesson even if it does take a lot of time and energy from me. I feel that it's totally worth it and I'm willing to invest all this time and effort into it!

Don't miss me too much! I will still be posting on Monday's and Friday's as usual. In fact I have some cool stuff lined up for Friday! Wait for it, people!! Really sorry about having to stop posting on Wednesday's!

Yes, I'm sad too but may this picture of a cute baby from the web make up for it.

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays - Lotus root soup!

Hello everyone! Getting into the groove of uni life. It's been hectic but I am loving it! My excitement cannot be contained!

In celebration of my first day of class and many more to come, I shall cook up some lotus root soup for dinner.

I love all kinds of clear soups. I think one of my favorite is pinto bean soup(the clear one) Other than chinese soups I love 'tong sui' which is usually warm sweet soup. As weird as that sounds, I promise that its not weird. It's really nice and it's my form of comfort food.

Okay, I've gotta nerd it out! Let me know what's your favorite comfort food!

See you next time!

Asia Colion

Funtastic Fridays - Nerdy fun!

Okay you'll think I'm mad for trying to make studying into a 'fun' post but I must say that working on this project is tough and I may or may not have shed unseen tears because of it. HOWEVER!!

It is pretty fun if  I don't think of it as work. I really need to change my mindset planning a four day English program should be fun by right? Right?!?

So I will force my brain to make it fun. Mind over matter! For now, this is my situation:

So much  fun!

See you on Monday!

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays - Soya beans and meat replacing

I'm not a vegetarian but I do go vegetarian for one week in a month (sometimes I eat meat during that week  because I'm not that disciplined but mostly veggies are eaten)

I don't do this for health reasons. I'm healthy-ish and have no allergies to dairy or gluten product. It's just an excuse for me to eat more veggies because, have I ever mentioned that I love veggies? I LOVE THEM!

However, vegetarian food available in Malaysia has imitation meat which contains a lot of flavoring and additives to give it a similar taste of meat.Not to mention can sometime be very overpriced.

 No offense to vegetarians, but I'm honestly and sincerely confused as to why you eat imitation meat? Could someone please enlighten this poor uncultured soul?

Moving on, so I usually eat tofu and eggs to sub proteins but recently, I came across a bag of dried soya beans. I bought it thinking I would make soya milk (which I will) but it's really rather a lot of soya beans.

And then it hit me! I could use soya beans as a protein substitute as well! Thus this blog post was born (fanfares and grand music!)

To use dry soya beans, you need to re-hydrate them by soaking them for 8 hours at least. I just soaked them overnight. Pop them into a bowl with enough water to cover two times the amount of soya beans and say goodnight.

 The next day, your soya beans should look like the one on the right (double the size). The one on the left is a dry bean.

 I wanted to use these beans as minced meat so i gave them a little roast in the over for about 10 minutes to get that chewy meat texture

Pop them into a grinder and.....

Voila! soya bean pulp. Now go and do what ever you want with it. Search for recipe's using soy bean pulp or okara.

I think I'll use this to make okara cookies next time!

Asia Colion

Wooly Wednesdays - Lacy doorknob cover

Hello everyone! I know I said I wanted to do footwear last Wednesday but I recently moved back to the jungle where I learn how to be a special educator A.K.A University and....

I saw these really cute doorknob covers which are actually to stop children from opening doors and hurting themselves (or something to that effect)

But they were so cute and I thought to myself I could use it for aesthetic reasons (I love pretty things a lot!)

Thus, I made my own! Tada!

I had to modify it so that I could still fit my key into the lock haha!

This is what it looks like opened. makes a good doily if you don't want to cover your doorknobs.

Just some feminine, lacy, ribbony, goodness! 

If you live in a cold country and hate touching cold doorknobs you could probably do this in a less lacy pattern to give you something warm and soft to touch when opening doors. Just a suggestion. :)

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays- Garlic smelling hands

I really have an insane craving for mac and cheese now but I only have healthy food with me. Hence, I will have a healthy dinner TOMORROW! (Procrastinators unite!)

So, my hands smell like garlic and I find that rather yucky but at least I won't have to cut garlic for a long time. Why ?

The trick for cooking which I use to reduce my cooking time is to pre-chop my garlic and store them in cooking oil then put it in the fridge.

It's completely safe! I have been doing this for the whole of my previous semester and I did not have any stomach discomfort nor did Sienna. (My ex-roomie and the person with the lacy purple scarf)

After all you only need two things: Garlic and oil (prefably not olive because you can't heat olive oil  too much or it will be bad for your health.) I used vegetable oil(Palm oil, I think.)

How I did it?

1. Crush and peel garlic
2.  Chop garlic finely
3. Put in an air tight glass jar (or clean old pasta sauce bottles)
4. Fill jar with oil till you cover the garlic
5. Put in fridge

As you can see the oil solidifies. This is completely normal and a good thing! Reason?

You can  now control the amount of oil you use without accidentally pouring out too much into the pan while cooking.

You also get Garlic infuse oil. How do we use it now that we have a jar full of garlic in oil? (and garlic smelling hands)

1. Grab a spoon
2. Scoop out the amount of oil garlic mixture
3. Drop into warm pan 
4. Fry garlic till golden brown
5. Stir fry vegetable/meat
   or
6. Put the oil  and fried garlic into a bowl and add in some soy sauce for a simple dressing

Hope you found this tip useful :)

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays - Meal planning (mp) week 1 execution!

This is going to be my first meal plan ever. Join in my quest to healthier and convenient eating. If you're too busy to do it yourself you could use mine but I eat a lot of food (especially veggies) that people dislike.

Tada! So this is my meal plan for lunches

Avocado Tuna pasta salad with grapes!

And an up close

It probably doesn't look particularly nice now but I can assure you, it was really tasty. What's more, it was so easy to make! What's not to love? :)

The only hard part was waiting for lunch time to come (I prepared this before going to work) :D

Leave me a comment on how you like your pasta. See next post!

Asia Colion

Funtastic Fridays - No bake cake ( batik cake/ hedgehog slice)

Warning! This post is ultra long. Warning! This post is ultra long. Warning!

Everybody loves Friday except for everyone else who doesn't (me included). Why would anyone n dislike Fridays? Well in Malaysia, Friday is the day of terrible traffic because of several factors. 

Malaysian traffic often looks like this or worse.

Going chronologically: 

• 'Overly happy because it's the last day  of work for the week' workers heading off to work in the morning. ( Fine, this occurs every day minus the happy part.)
• Our Muslim friends have prayers in the afternoon = traffic jam. (You guys face the worst of it because you have to go out to pray. Sorry bout the jams :/ )
• Friday night fever people (All you crazy happening people who go out after work to partay the night away)

So obviously for all us spoil sport people who don't like Friday jams, we need a little Friday fun! What better way to have fun than to eat a deliciously rich  and fudgy chocolate cake and decline into obesity?

This is Wendyinkk's batik cake! So pretty! You have to check out Wendyinkk's blog tutorial, it's much clearer!

 I am fully aware that some people dislike chocolate but this one's for the rest of us who do.

Making cakes = The hassle of  baking a cake and the clean up that comes with it and let's admit it, there are those cakes which turn out like an alien baby from Uranus or something. 

I've probably convincingly discouraged you from trying by now. But fear not!! This no bake batik cake/hedgehog slice  is so SIMPLE and FAIL PROOF. You will NOT end up with an alien baby from Uranus. I promise!

Okay  enough chatter and down to getting this cake in our tummies! (There are a lot of different versions of this recipe on the web, mine is reduced sweetness so it's quite bitter)

Things you need:

1. Measuring cups (if you don't have these, using a small glass cup might work)
2. Baking paper ( or you can grease your container with butter/margarine)
3. Container of any shape to house your cake (usually square ones are good)
4. Pot and stove (if you don't have this, you probably can't make this cake...)

Ingredients ( My recipe is reduced sugar ):

1. 1 cup of water (250 ml)
2. 1 cup of cocoa powder
3. 1/2 to 1 cup of Milo/ drinking chocolate powder
4. 1/2 cups of brown sugar (if you like things sweet you can use 1 cup)
5. 125 g of butter/ margarine ( Roughly half a stick. Salted/ unsalted? Up to you.)
6. 3 eggs
7. 1 pkt of Marie Biscuits

Method (read to the end before doing anything):

1. Put ingredients 1,2,3,4 in a pot on low heat. Mix until combined.
2. Add in ingredients 5 and 6 in the same pot and stir until chocolate sauce coats your spoon. Turn heat off
   
   For people who want a nice even pattern or if you just have OCD and need things to be neat:
3. Arrange a layer of Marie biscuit to cover the base of your container
4. Pour chocolate sauce to cover the biscuits. Now add another layer of biscuits and repeat this process till you finish your chocolate sauce. 
5. Now proceed to step 8
   
   Alternately, if doing step 3 and 4 is too much of a hassle for you non-OCD folks:
6. Simply break the Marie biscuits into halves or quarters (or just break those buggers anyhow) and chuck it all into the chocolate sauce.
7. Stir to coat the biscuit pieces and pour into container.
8. Push the whole mixture down with a spoon to compress it. If you used baking paper, you can fold that on top and press down WITH A SPOON because we don't want hot chocolate sauce burning your hands.

   

   The mess on the right is what happens when you press it down
                        

   (The biscuits may shift about when you do this so please don't panic if something pops out of place, just keep pressing them back down)
9. Now chuck the container in the fridge and give yourself a pat on the shoulder.
10. Do the chicken dance.
11. Take a shower with your clothes on.
12.  Change out of your wet clothes
13. Do a twirl
14. Now, ONLY do step 1 to 9
15. Take cake out of the fridge when you're sure it's set (It usually takes 3-5 hours but if it doesn't seem to be setting,which usually happens to me, put it in the freezer in fact leave it over night in the fridge.)
16. Impress yourself , enjoy your cake and gain some weight. (Weight gaining may be optional if you don't eat it that is...) 
17. Wash up your saucepan, measuring cups and everything you used.
    DO NOT NEGLECT THIS STEP OR YOUR PARENT'S/HOUSEMATES/PEOPLE YOU LIVE WITH ARE GOING TO BE SO ANNOYED!!!

I hope you had fun :)

Asia Colion

Munching Mondays- Meal planning?

Choices, choices.

Remember those times when your friend asks you "What do you want to eat?" And you immediately hate them for asking you something which you yourself haven't the foggiest idea? 

When I mention "meal planning", you're probably thinking of housewife duties (no sandwich jokes please). In fact, meal planning, will help you answering that dreaded question. 

Man, go make your own sandwich.

Even more so  if you plan to prepare your own meals because if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself standing by the stove for 30 minutes and still unsure of what to cook.

So why meal planning? 

3 Benefits of meal planning

·        Saves time

o   No more standing in front of that stove for 30 minutes thinking of what to cook for dinner.

o   No more walking around the food aisle wondering which ingredient to buy

·        Saves money

o   No more finding you have to run out to Tesco/Coldstorage/Ben's/etc..)

o   No more buying ingredients which you will find in your fridge weeks later in the process of decomposing

·        Need to shed some pounds/kg?

o   Planning out what you’re going to eat within the week can help you count and cut unnecessary calories

o   Easily monitor what kinds of food we eat to maintain a balanced diet.

Still think meal planning is for sissy people? Then join me for the next blog post on my weekly meal plans to have a glimpse of the benefits without having to do the actual work yourself :D

See you next time ~

Asia Colion