Svíčková!

Wanted to talk about something negative, but something else came up which made my day! Better immortalise (okay, this isn't a novel or anything ... but you get my point) this moment instead!

As I have mentioned few posts ago, I visited Czech Republic during my December break. I then left a really heartfelt review on TripAdvisor for a restaurant in the city of Kutná Hora because the food there left a really strong impression on me. Also, seeing that the manager personally responses to each review, I just wanted to try my luck!

Svíčková!

I really, really, really missed the flavours of the dish in the picture. Not knowing the name (because our tour guide brought us there) of the restaurant nor the name of the dish, I had to do a little research. Lo and behold (do people still use this phrase?), it is listed as the top rated restaurant in Kutna Hora on TripAdvisor. The English menu listed the dish as beef baked in cream, which isn't really helpful if you're looking for recipes.

2 weeks after posting the review, the manager finally responded! Here's what he said:

Hello, I personally thank you for such a nice review. Meal you had is called "svíčková" in Czech and it is very popular all around. You can google its recipie and translated it. Of course every chef have own original ways, but find ours the best so far :). By the way it is not long way from UK, so if you have chance... you are always welcome. So till we meet again I wish you all best. Radek Cikler, manager of Dačický´s

Svíčková! Thank you, Mr. Radek Cikler! I wish I could go there again one day. In a movie, we would then proceed to become friends, keep in contact, then I would be spending my summer holidays working at Dačický´s, a restaurant with a name I can't even pronounce. Sadly, people don't live in movies. Well, some do. I don't.

Let's look at what Wikipedia has to say about this dish:

Beef (round or brisket) is marinated for up to three days before it is roasted and thickly sliced. A gravy is made from a part of this strained marinade, beef stock (optional) and sour cream. It is served with bread dumplings, rarely sauerkraut, and (as is currently done in the Czech Republic) sometimes cranberry sauce.

*jaw drops*
No wonder it's so amazing.
Time to book a ticket to Czech Republic ...

-Kritz

Of wishful thinking and limitations of capabilities

Woo, fancy title. Not really. People these days like to have titles for their Facebook photo albums or Whatsapp groups that start with "of". Is it a hipster thing? I don't know. Never mind that.

21 birthday was great! (Stopped myself from using the word awesome. Overusing it makes it lose its meaning). My friends sort of surprised me at 12am on 12 Jan of GMT +8 (Malaysian timing). Have to admit that it caught me off guard, haha. Was happily eating a bowl of instant noodles while watching YouTube videos.

Karaoke was amazing. Food there was good too! Best part of it was not having to worry about who-owes-what, because I'm often the one in charge of that. Got a lot of presents too! Probably the most I've ever had. Took pictures of them, but a little lazy to post them ...

Another surprise at 12am (GMT 0:00): cake. Then the neighbours came over with cookies. It's kinda like having 2 birthdays, haha. Made dinner that night (or the next? To be less ambiguous, it was still 12 Jan), some Guinness beef stew with mash. Would rather cook than wash up, heh.

Anyway, back to the point of today's post. If you scroll down a little, you will see a post dated May 16 of last year (holy crap that was quite some time ago), telling future me to not take a certain module. I'm currently doing that module, and deciding whether should I drop it or not.

You see (not exactly sure who "you" is, because this is gonna be even more uninteresting than the previous paragraphs have been), I signed up (or enrolled, whatever) for MMORSE, which is a 4-years course. I could switch to MORSE, which will be a 3-year course. For MMORSE, there are 4 streams, in which 3 of them have a core module that lists the dreadful module that I'm doing right now as a prerequisite.

I was pretty adamant on switching to a 3-year course, but I just read an alumni page where people who did MMORSE got really cool jobs or are doing other cool postgraduate courses. So much for being adamant. However, I should consider the fact that these people are geniuses that enjoyed their courses, to which I'm neither of that. But it just feels like I'm losing the chance of working in the Ministry of Justice (someone did that). What happened to the MORSE people that did more business modules instead? Alumni page seems a little biased ...

I guess one would say I could always study harder, but I just can't study harder for something I hate studying. At this point, I don't even know whether I like studying at all ...

Nah, I should save myself from plunging into severe depression in the future. 3 years of hell should be enough. I think I've made my decision.

p.s. Removed the chat box. So ... do leave comments on the post if you want to!

-Kritz

Guess this is what I'll be doing for 2014

Decided to just stick to this blog, despite the childish blog address ...

Week 1's over, just 9 more weeks till Easter break! Been spending way too much time in the kitchen ... one of the things you'd expect when you're staying with a bunch of friends.

I should probably just write on the day I have something to write. Now I can't remember anything ...

Anyway, since I was done with my assignment and exam on Tuesday, I've sort of been on a short break, kinda like extending my winter holidays by another week. Watched 5 episodes of Sherlock (the entire season 2 in one day and the first episode of season 3, then the second episode of season 3 the next day ... had to ration it out a little). I think I have withdrawals now. It's so good ...

My copy of Hyperbole and a Half arrived too. You've probably seen the "X all the Y" meme.

Few more hours till I'm 21. Let's hope things go upwards from here!

-Kritz

2014

It has been a long time.

Way too long.

Once again, I'm here, in front of my computer, procrastinating. It's like being stuck in a vicious cycle, like a kid growing up in a poor family, lacking the opportunities to equip themselves with whatever it takes to make it in the society, thrusting them further down into the depths of poverty and hardship ... except there's no cycle here -- it's just me being lazy time after time. I'm surprised I'm still in this course. For some reason, I keep anticipating my impending doom every time a deadline comes up, like in a movie, where this one specific incident changes the main character's entire life ... but nothing really happens. For some reason, I fantasise about failing this exam I'm about to take and end up having to decide whether to repeat an entire year or waste a huge chunk of my father's life savings, disappointing not only my parents but also relatives and teachers that have always considered me one of the smarter ones.

Sometimes, I fantasise being in a plane crash. Well, only sometimes mainly because I don't fly every day. So just the times I'm on the plane ...

Up till now, I don't know what went wrong since I started university. Studying has never been a thing I had to deal with before. I can't tell whether I just hate the course I'm in or I'm just lazy. There's really no point fantasising about joining a culinary school or pursuing something in the direction of writing, as I could be equally lazy in said alternatives. Guess I'm just used to things just ... being understood. Wonder why is it such a huge issue now?

Like someone in a relationship that has been way too long to just give up on, there's just too much sunk cost involved. Gosh, I'm so darn good at analogies tonight eh? Or maybe I just watch too many YouTube videos and movies ...


Anyway, 2014.

21 soon. Very soon. Feel like writing blog posts again. Maybe on Wordpress or something. It's nice to have an outlet for all these bundled up thoughts. It's also nice to write/rant a little.

Been checking out a few of my friend's blogs. No surprise that most of them are as dead as mine, or perhaps, deader.


I hate to be so whiny all the time, but I just really ... am. I wish things were more flexible. I wish there was time allocated to everyone for them to hop from one major to another ... kinda like in the US. I wish I could just accept the way things are like everyone else and just do what they are suppose to do.

So what happened in 2013? (In backwards chronological order, because it's easier)

Stayed over at a local family's place for Christmas, in some countryside place in Wales. Absolutely lovely.
Well, went on a trip with a few of my friends to Prague, Czech Republic and Vienna, Austria. It was fun. Good food, good places, good company, what else could I ask for?
Did an internship in some banking software company for 2 months. Kinda sucked, but nevertheless, good experience I guess. Colleagues (other interns) made it more bearable.
Finish year 1 with a second upper. Good, considering the amount of effort I put into it. Bad, because it isn't first class ...
Anything else before that is just a blur. My memory isn't that good ...

So ... I should be off to write my essay and study for my exam ... which is next Tuesday ... and progress so far isn't looking too good.

-Kritz