Long Live Jackfruits!

On some evenings, I am greeted by a cat on the ground floor of my building. I figured I'll call her Skitto but the name is still under review as it might be construed as mildly offensive. She is unlike any other cat I have met. On some days, she comes running to me like we are best friends. On other days, she runs away from me like I am a serial killer. I was baffled by this behaviour until one day, it dawned on me that she might be suffering from a bipolar disorder. If I weren't a white-collar worker, I could have been a veterinary psychologist!

This week is a very eventful one. Another social event approaches - the type that Simple Shu prefers to not participate in. It is a bother to find dresses (the theme is "Secret Agents and Spies") and think of make up, but if I am making any compromises to my regular routine, it would be okay to do that with my zoo friends, who share a lot in common with me.

I also failed a basic driving theory test by 1 mark this week. Failing is not only demoralising, it is also inconvenient. Oddly enough, after absorbing a lot of information on driving and road signs, I have just begun to notice signs on the roads that I never saw all this time. I wonder how much information of what we see with our eyes actually reaches our awareness. The brain is a curious thing. Last night, I gulped down a cup of coffee half an hour before bedtime in hopes of studying road signs. It failed to keep me up so I gave up and went to sleep. This morning, in spite of sleeping, I woke up feeling like my brain had been up all night from a caffeine overdose.

Jackfruit (the tree has practically a hundred uses in a lot of countries) is a favourite of many Asians. I was thrilled to receive a pack of dehydrated jackfruit chips from my parents the other day, which I cooked to (Shu's level of) perfection.

Raw jackfruit chips, preserved by dehydration

A delicious, finished product