Mimolette is deep within the grassy greens in the Bukit Timah region, where one finds many cool watering-holes and classy dining. It’s in the Old Turf Club region, next to the Fairways Saddle Club. To get there, drive through Eng Neoh which is one of the exits off the PIE and turn into this rather nondescript entrance with an old weathered signboard for the riding club.

Right off the beaten track, it sure is!

Mimolette

Expect a fair number of cars parked out front of a white cosy looking cottage with an outdoors siting area surrounded by loads of greenery. A raintree (I think) forms a beautiful umbrella over the entire setup. It’s also got lanterns hanging from it’s branches. I think it might be quite romantic at night.

Mimolette serves what they call ‘American fare with a firm grounding in French’, which didn’t make any sense to me. But that doesn’t matter, what you taste is probably more important. Brunch is quite an elaborate affair there, as you can see from the menu. It ranges from simple ‘Farmer’s Breakfast’ consisting of eggs (done your way), bacon/ham/bratwurst and beans. Pity though, it should have had a side of greens. We also had the Eggs Benedict, omelettes (your choice of filling) and SCONES. That is the magical FIVE-letter word there. It was scrumptious. A scone, with side of whipped cream with berries, and homemade preserves (berry and marmalade). All for just 3 dollars. (It’s probably the cheapest thing on the menu.) The other items cost at least 20 bucks.

It would have been a great experience, rivalling that of PS Cafe @ Dempsey’s if not for the appalling service there. Seriously, for such a classy place, I’d expect their service to be better than the average service you get at… say… any average Western-food serving place. But to some extent, the staff’s mannerisms were worse than that of your average cafes / fast food.

It was obvious that the staff were unfamiliar with the food. They come up with us and say, here’s your ‘ABC’ when we had ordered DEF. That’s fine, I mean, pple do get their orders wrong but the offputting bit was when he came back and say, oh yea, this is actually the DEF. -.- I can see the doubt on my friend’s face as she got her order. But we checked, at least it contained the same ingredients as described in the menu.

The most horrifying was when I got my omeletter of ham and mushroom and dug into it with gusto, only to reveal CORN. OMH HORRIFYING CORN. I really detest corn to the point of declaring an allergy to it (but I eat popcorn and tortilla). Turned out it’s supposed to be my other friend’s order. Waved and waved and waved till the Highness our waiter decided to come over and told him about how I did not order corn in my omelette. He went to the Empress-Dowager his supervisor who decided that ‘oh sorry miss, that should be your friend’s order,’ and she proceeded to attempt to put the half eaten omelette in front of my friend!

How disgustingly unhygienic and unprofessional is that manz… Goodness!

Just some updates about my sad sorry life…

Been procrastinating on studying (cuz I don’t know what I shld concentrate on studying, sigh, all so fragmented); been getting severe writer’s block with regards to my project, and also a bit slow on the data collection. I just need maybe a few nights of solid 100% data collection and I should complete it soon. Been slowly gearing up my excitement for the upcoming trip overseas! My first proper break this year! Yay….

I so need to recharge and regenerate. -.-

Social life’s so-so, studies are so-so, work life is horrid. I’m learning loads but I totally hate the new adminstration we fall under. Such administrative inefficiency! I have pride in my work but I hate the fact that I’m totally exploited. I feel like it’s an emotional blackmail of sorts. There I’ve said it, I’m super not satisfied with work now!

On the other hand, I did have a great Sunday :) Got a reaaallly nice coat for my upcoming trip YAY! Had a great time just joking and trying to forget about work. Watched the 20th Century Boys II and it’s surprisingly better than the first. So I’m kind of looking forward to the finale. Well, if work doesn’t suck away all my energy tomorrow, perhaps I’ll blog about the film.

-.- My affect is just flat all the time. -.-

— “It was an accident.”

I had decided to do law initially but due to a fortunate or unfortunate (as some might say) parallax error, I coded ‘Law’, instead of ‘Medicine’. Despite the avalanche of medicine-related questions during the interview, I perservered, thinking it merely a perverse act on the part of some disgruntled lawyer who was hauled out of his/her billion dollar lawsuit to interview a lawyer-wannabe, and therefore decided to give me an especially difficult time.

A month later, to my absolute horror, a letter arrived, bound in blues and orange:

‘Dear Sir/Madam, we are pleased to inform you that you have been selected for admission to XYZ for a course of study in Medicine in the session ….’

Boulevard Hotel was really quite posh looking and the bed looked reaaaalllly inviting, to the extent that I decided to totally flop onto it and bounce a few extra times just for good measure. WAA, I almost broke my back ok and bruised my already adiposity-enhanced backside. Haha… SO HARD! So take heed, dear friends, do not presume all inviting-looking beds are going to be soft and bouncy, it might just be a nice quilt leading you on.

Breakfast was horrid in that hotel though. Goodness even Breadtalk had better food!

The exam hall was one of the worst I’d ever had the fortune (or misfortune) to experience. I felt a bit claustrophobic after a while. It was a huge hall but was fairly airless and getting increasingly warm by the minute. I guess I should stop complaining or I’m going to be like one of those typical Sg’rean in Malaysia - complain complain and complain!

It was pouring cats and dogs right after the exam, I think that’s how I felt… I’d rather not even think about the outcome of those papers! An absolute massacre!!! The rain took my mind off the exams quite a bit, especially when I realised how there were NO CABS in the area… Tried calling for a cab but wow, they wouldn’t take my order! boohoo! Thankfully a friend helped to extricate me from my sticky and very wet circumstances. Very grateful indeed! Phew.

The next day I shopped like mad. Never walked so fast haha… Actually didn’t buy anything much except a pair of pants and a bag from Radley! I really like that brand! AAHHHHH I’m so sad Singapore doesn’t have it’s own shop for it!

Do you know what’s the best part of travelling? Part of it is the experience of living in various hotels!!! Haha… The next part is the flight there, and one of my dear friend’s highlight of the trip is the airplane food. Seriously, I can’t see anything delightful about eating out of crates. -.- I can’t wait to go on my next trip! For PURE LEISURE this time round!!!

Unfortunately I have just recuperated from the trauma of an exam which I DID NOT really have to take (yesh, masochistic me) and an even more traumatic experience post exam when I found myself stranded in a strange land… followed by the ultimate traumatic experience of not being allowed to get my results because of blah blah blah… With the change in departments, an on-going project that keeps falling into rutts because of the lack of leadership and a rather frustrating two weeks. I haven’t had the chance to do anything much else! My brain is about as cluttered as my heart is empty. I have been feeling extremely murderous towards certain individuals of late. -_-

In fact I’ve been so distracted that I broke the tradition of not blogging about the movies I’ve seen, which has so far accumulated to include ‘Wolverine’ and ‘Angels & Demons’, pathetic ain’t it? At least I’m meeting the gals this weekend to catch up on our movies. :D :D :D Can’t wait!

Things get more complicated, the more senior you go, and mind you, I’m just about ONLY an MO. I’m already feeling like a walking contradiction, and I’m totally submerged in the grey areas of life.

Anyway, being a very ambitious person (so I’ve been told) and also a fairly obsessive one (as I’ve been told time and again), I thought to list out the important things that have occured in my first year of actual ‘work’ life.

1. My experience in the ED was one of my best (and most stressful) times ever, and thanks to that, I’ve finally made up my mind to spend the rest of my life in the bowels of the hospitals.
2. GM was an acquired taste, which I’m happy to unacquire soon, I hope, as soon as this MOPEX freeze is over. I can’t say that I haven’t ‘enjoyed’ myself, since I was offered plenty of opportunities to practice my ACLS and resuscitation techniques. I’m convinced that once a person declares himself or herself ‘ED’ patients just love to collapse in front of you, on your call, in your ward, or just randomly next to you at lunch.
3. I’ve made many good friends and acquaintances in this posting, and finally managed to walk of our my very shy self (as a medical student, I’d be terrified by almost ANY registrar - I’m sure no one believes this now as it might be the opposite).
4. There hasn’t been any obvious headway made in the realm of relationships of the romantic nature ie I AM TRULY SINGLE. There has been opportunities and potentials but I think guys are more fun as friends. Rumours are still flagrant that I’m attached to a certain someone and it seems like no matter what I do or say people just refuse to believe me. Maybe actions speak louder than words and some drastic act like a slap in the face or a knee in the groin would be sufficient to sever the grapevine (or not). Given the nature of our highly effective gossip circles, I think the people at the eastern side hospital will be buzzing about a lover’s tiff before the day is out.
5. The swine oh the swine… better now than never I say.
6. I’ve dealt with and hopefully survived the most difficult patient’s relative ever. Definitely stronger after that experience and hopefully will not be making an excursion to the courts, as my boss has cheekily suggested. Well and apart from that, I’ve learnt quite a bit from the lady herself!

A year ago, during the HO-MO transition period I remembered feeling more than a little bit panicky, more that a little insecure and definitely wondering how on earth a year’s medical experience could prepare me for a normal GM MO call. And now that I’ve completed a half year’s worth of it, it doesn’t seem that bad anymore. Somehow, somewhere, and through some obscure way, I’ve actually learnt quite a lot and progressed quite a bit despite everything. Hmmm… it all just happened so subconsciously, I didn’t even feel it (or maybe was too busy to).

At this point, I would be really surprised anyone would still be ploughing through my lengthy discourse. Unless of course they were merely scanning through it in the hope of catching phrases like ‘engagement’, ‘wedding’, ‘boy friend’? At which point you can go on to continue surfing at your pubmed, facebook, google whatever while I continue rambling in excess.

Ok, I’ve run out of steam but I will be back soon. The signs of pre-exam hysteria are about to come…

After some years, our concept of ’slumber’ party has somewhat changed. We’ve ‘upgraded’ to booking a room at some 4 star hotel, complete with luxurious bathtubs and a somewhat not too fantastic view of the Singapore Flyer, and though we still bought cheap junk food it came from a more ‘high class’ place like ‘Carrefour’ (haha) and one absolute necessity was alcohol. :) And true to the term of slumber party, we really had to sleep. We’re no longer that young and our faces no longer that supple and resilient to wrinkles. Sigh.

We had movies galore! Yay! And would have been better if our dear friend has somewhat become less blur than 8 years ago… -> she forgot to bring the remote for the DVD player. We still talk about girly stuff but more about bitches at work and men with bruised egos. -_- Yes only J is an exception so far.

Horror movies are all the rage at such parties… and it’s usually the one who’s most afraid who’s most keen on this genre. I have a picture of her mushroom head with spectable rims peering over the pillow she’s hugging but I think she’d most likely cut off all my electronic connections and phone lines if I post it up here :) Hehe… Instead of shrieking together when the ghost shows herself (Why are all ghosts female with long hair?) We begin to analyse the plot and make rather accurate predictions, meanwhile toasting our literature teacher Ms S. for imparting her skills of interpreting literature to us (so that we could use it to predict film endings hahaha).

In the morning, it’s no longer ‘let’s eat more junk food for breakfast’ but a common call for some ‘extra strong coffee’.

Such is the way we’ve all grown up, yet retained our strong friendships… Looking forward to the next time!

Film reviews to come later!

PS: To gals who’ve graduated in the same batch as me. ie. the centennial Kim Geks, the 10yr anniversary reunion is on 5th Dec this year.

This is one of the best films I’ve caught this year! And I’m not saying this only because it got 8 Oscars, I watched this before the Oscars came out. It’s both funny yet realistic, grimy yet beautifully shot, and it definitely helped when the actors were rather photogenic as well.

‘Slumdog’ is a local reference to people who grew up in the slums. Our ‘hero’ here, is a little boy, orphaned from young, who grew up with his brother in the slums. Here, this person whom you’d never expect to have undergone formal education, proper parenting or had good role models in life, is seated in the hot seat of the wildly popular ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionnaire’. What is even more shocking is how he wins level after level after level, and ends up being arrested right before the final show for alleged cheating.

In the gruelling one night at the station where they use all methods to force/cajole/persuade a confession out of him, he recounts his life story and explains how he knew the answers for all the questions. It really is a bit of a coincidence. Yet he is so earnest in his anecdotes that the authorities can’t help but believe him.

Call me a cynic (you all know how realistically skeptical I can be right…) call me a non-romantic, but I was really ‘huh’ by the reason why he wanted to do the show… It was so that his beloved could know where he was and come to him… Okay maybe for him, his girl was the only reason he lived and breathed… Anyway thankfully the film had a happy ending, and of course they had to had one of those dancing sessions a la Bollywood!

Very entertaining film indeed! Worth every second of my time!

Anyway, my HO remarked that it’s times like this that should make me feel that I’m finally being appreciated for something. I used to think that these little thanks should make my day, but oddly, I think I don’t really feel that rewarded at all.

My happiest day was yesterday, when this patient who had a horrid long 1 month stay complicated by almost 12 issues on the problem list finally managed to get discharged! I didn’t need the family to say thanks or even his cute tiny wife to grab me, but I just felt so happy. :) :) :) Of course, it was great that I could then avoid those awkward breakfast moments where the ah-ma tried to promote her grandson (and vice versa). *god that was embarrassing*

On the other hand, I had a very eventful month working for a boss who was one of the most thorough, precise and clear-minded person I’ve ever met. I have to admit, it was a pain initially; but once I knew what he wanted and what he expected, working for him was the real reward! And can you believe it, those two days he wasn’t around actually made me miss rounds! (That’s a lot coming from someone who hates rounds!)

On a different tone, I have a sneaking suspicion that I can be made to like almost anything. It’s a bit scary right. How would I then ever know what I like. (An even more scary thing is, how would I know if I really liked a guy or that I was just reciprocating…ok but this is another thought for another time…) Seriously, I’m done with BGR for the moment. Better to concentrate my energies on studies and work.

Anyway, I just realised that apparently my olfactory nerves are quite linked to my feelings as well. I should have known… I think I’m drawn to guys who wear Davidoff Coolwater. Haha… Back to the point. I have been waiting for L’Occitane to release their Jasmine Green Tea again cuz I like it best compared to the White Tea… and definitely don’t think the Green Tea’s suitable for me. So today when it came out, despite it not being available at duty-free (that’s a different issue), I bought it!!! And to my horror, when I tried it on again at home… OMG. HORRORS. I forgot I went through one of the worst downs during the period of time I was using it. -_- Goodness, now I have to design another desensitisation programme again!