In the last 5 hours, I had had a full dinner (rice and other dishes), a cup of bubble tea with jelly, tuna, ham and egg sandwiches, a bowl of mango pomelo dessert and several pieces of keropok - I'm now waiting for Jo to come over with my Feifei wanton noodle and wanton soup. I'm seriously overeating. I ought to remind myself that I am no longer The Girl With The Bottomless Stomach, I ought to stop eating like a sumo-wrestler, but old habits die hard. I remember reading about Hollywood stars eating naked in front of a mirror as a form of diet, the mere shadow of a love handle is suppose to repulse them so much that they would lose the urge to eat (or live) - I should just do that. My belly's HUGE, but then again, I may be too preoccupied with my food to notice. What mirror?

Anys, I started regaling my bemused Love with how much more I used to eat in Poly (so what I ate today was nothing - her argument was that it was 7-8 years ago and my metabolism rate is no longer at it's optimum - which is quite true). How I would order many dishes from the Malay stall in school and have them all in one sitting. I remember getting one plate each of Lontong, Mee Rebus, huge-ass chicken drumstick, and god knows what and polishing each plate at a consistent speed. I remember my friends looking a little weak when they saw the plates and said I was going to eat myself sick. I wasn't bulimic, mind you. I was a growing child and I was Skinny. And I love my food with a fierce passion.

Love says I remember things based on food, which I have to grudgingly admit, is true. 'Did you remember the time when we....', I would recollect and include some nuggets of info pertaining to food - usually based on what we were having on that mentioned day. Love would be looking smug and wearing an I-told-you-so expression while gleefully pointing out that she was right, I do remember incidents based on food and I have a, as she said - one track mind. I do not plan for anything, but with food... I would think and rethink just to work out the best option. Love said (too often) that I ought to channel this passion and high level of precision into our business idea, my job-hunting, whatevs, she had no doubt that I would be masterful. It's different, I would argue. Food occupies this warm, snuggly place in my lard-laden heart (that's from polishing all the pieces of fried lard that came with my favourite Hokkien Mee at Jurong West), no thing could ever replace it. Not even my dream sexy black Porsche Cayenne Turbo, my dream pair of Repettos, or even... Perth.  I Am A Glutton - period. And gluttons breathe food - literally and figuratively.

I have quite a bit of fond (for me) and shocking (for my friends, esp Shup) food-related memories. I just wanted to write these memories down because it was hilarious at that time and now, these memories are very precious.

I remember the time when I was addicted to the seafood fried rice near Shup's home, because the rice had very good wok hei and most importantly, it came with a generous helping of sotong - my favvvvvv. I could finish the entire packet all at once - I think each pack contains about 2 bowls of rice. One evening, Eunice, Carmen , Shups and I were at the void deck of her flat - I was having my fried rice when I had a very very bad tummyache (I insist that it's not caused by the fried rice, I was already under the weather before I bought )- I was bent over, pale and breaking out into cold sweat... Eunice was suggesting to call the ambulance. Halfway through the panic, I found myself reaching for the spoon - I figured I could still manage more piece of sotong when my horrified friends screamed and immediately threw the offending packet of rice into the bin. I was devastated - not because of the pain, but because I had earlier put a few pieces of sotong aside just so I could save the best for the last. Yes... I had the mentality that I would eat my sotong even if it killed me.

There was this time Shup and  I were walking along Citylink - I was nursing this addiction to Breadtalk's pizza bread because the sausage that came with the bread was the type that I loved and it came in oh-so-shiok chunks, not the usual thin miserable slices. I would relish each bite, making sure that each mouthful was well-rationed with a bit of sausage.  Then, to my horror, I dropped a big piece of sausage. I stopped there upset for a while. No, seriously. I was really really upset. I think Shup could remember my look of horror and she would tell me much later that for a split second, she thought I was going to pick it up, blow at it, apply the 3-second rule and pop it into my mouth. I did think of that, but it's too gross for words, I'm not that desperate, though I was terribly upset. So, what's the big deal, just get another pizza bun, you would say! But at the point, I was thinking, nothing could bring back that piece of sausage. One track mind indeed.

Shup, if you happen to read this - you remember, don't you? :)

I remember all the 1-minute breaks between classes that was not spent going to the loo or talking... but running to the canteen to get a plate of fried rice. I would fall into a state of bliss, walk back to class and proceed to snooze while my stomach absorbed the nutrients, while my friends would absorb nutrients of a different kind - information; transmitted by our dear lecturers. Shup used to proclaim that the most hardworking part of me would be my stomach.

I was telling Love that I wish I could just go back to the past for 1 day. Just to laugh and eat heartily, without a care. Love was studying in the same school, but we didn't know each other. But she did remember being very annoyed at us, silly mass comm girls, because she had the radio studio door (which opens outwards into covered pathway) slammed into her on several occasions. 'Don't you guys ever look before swinging the door open?'. I was wondering if she could be of my faceless victims. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?