Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn)

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The Sun Is Also a Star 

This is a sweet teen romance where everything happens because of 'destiny'. I remember being less than impressed by the book, but this film starred Yara Shahidi (Zoey in Black-ish) and Charles Melton so I wanted to give it a go. Well I guess I have really outgrown this genre - I ended up being rather bored despite the pretty scenes.

I mean, you have to try watching Charles Melton though. Look at that killer jawline.

I miss taking the MRT??? Haha.

I used to really dig this serendipity thing, so I will recommend this to the secondary school me. The movie is reminiscent of Nick and Norah's Playlist and other 'girl meets boy by chance' teen romances. 6.5/10

Watch movie here.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Where'd you go, Bernadette is about the catastrophic events that lead up to a missing mother, who is a genius architect but also a bit of a kook. I enjoyed the book better but the visuals of Antarctica was breathtaking! 6.5/10 

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Ocean Waves

Hey guys!

I have been on a workout streak - 9 days so far!

It really helps to have fitness kakis to get you off your feet. We video call each other by Google or Whatsapp. Having fitness partners help you avoid procrastination!!

The best workout is the one you did. So don't worry too much and just get started!

Here's a YouTube list I made:

For Lazy Days
Walking exercises are basically sets of exercises with 30 seconds "walking" breaks.
Holly Dolke Walking Exercise 15 min 
Holly Dolke Walking Exercise 20min

Quick and Fast
I really enjoy song workouts! After watching Harley Quinn Birds of Prey, I was really into Doja Cat's song, Boss Bitch. It really pumps you up! Since this workout is short, I usually do it twice and do some running afterwards.
Madfit - Doja Cat Boss Bitch Workout (2:30min)

If you wanna feel more crunch
Emi Wong 30min HIIT (Lots of planking... not my favourite)
Emi Wong 30min Fat Burning

Zumba time!
Sunny Funny Fitness 36min Diet Zumba (I skip the ab crunching at the end, I like this video for the energetic zumba routines!)
Sunny Funny Fitness 15min BTS Zumba  (There's also Blackpink etc haha just choose whatever you like)

Also tried a whole bunch of other things but I didn't really like them.
I've tried Tabata, some Chungha zumba choreos etc. I'll share more new ones when I get to them!

The Nike Run challenge is still on, and I did a short stint of running outside while running errands. However the streets were deserted and I just felt really guilty so nowadays I'm just doing variations of running and jumping on my yoga mat! I don't own a fitness tracker (the free HPB one died) so I just hold my phone and let the Nike Run app do the work. Ran about 3.5km in total so far! A yoga mat is like a indoor treadmill, but more sustainable and saves so much space LOL.

What motivates me to workout:

• Good music makes you forget the crunch!!!
• Friends
• SHOWERS! Honestly, I really look forward to them, especially in this heat. I aim to sweat it out, then treat myself to a nice cold shower. It's great! 

Have any nice workout ideas or videos to share? HMU

Love,
Skye

Wondering what I should attempt to bake next... any suggestions?!

Love,
Skye

Movie: In Time (2011)
Starring: Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried
Genre: Action

What's it about:
Will (Justin Timberlake) lives in a world where humans stop ageing genetically at age 25. Time is money and everyone has a lil clock tattoo on their arms. You use the time to buy things, for example, 1 hour for a cup of coffee, or pay 1 month for a standard room in a fancy hotel. When the clock runs out, you die.

Amanda Seyfried is gorgeous, but when she asked, "What do we do now?" I laughed. Also, she runs around in the whole movie in impossible heels. Help.

There are plenty of tidbits about inequality and even more word plays on the idea of time. In a way I think the current Covid situation has given us a lot more time and opportunity to break away from our usual routines and attempt new things that we would usually dismiss due to 'time'.

Insanity.

5. Rilakkuma Hanging Mobile

Here's the link: https://shopee.sg/lala-bear-store-limited-lazy-bear-rilakkuma-chicken-i.182263882.5600105715

4. Rilakkuma Teapot Series

I think I've seen this set of tea cups in Suntec City before, they are super adorable! (And not very practical, but it's still fun to look at them!)

Here's the link: https://shopee.sg/Rilakkuma-Bear-Flower-Tea-Cup-PVC-Figures-Toys-Dolls-6-pieces-Complete-Set-Japan-i.93039433.4819608106

3. Rilakkuma Mini Hanging Toys

Fuchiko!

Here's the link: https://shopee.sg/Rilakkuma-Cup-Glass-Ornament-Miniature-Figure-toy-i.93039433.4019610807

2. Rilakkuma Mini Backpacks

Next, we have something very impractical as well, but oozing with cuteness~

TINY BACKPACKS?! For the plushies. Or your coins.

1. Soft and Fluffy Rilakkuma Plush

What's it about:
An entertaining read of how humans evolved and developed scientific thought over the ages.

Author's Style
Mlodinow's style of imparting information is markedly different from Stephen Hawking.

To make some dry sounding scientific information and concepts more easily understood, he wittily draws parallels to commonplace items and occurrences, or includes anecdotes about his father, a Holocaust survivor, or his family. This makes the book, despite it being chock full of facts, very charming and easy to read.

Here are some examples, including some that I find very humorous.

On Alchemy and its early practitioners:
"An Egyptian named Bolos of Mendes (200 BC) ended every 'experiment' with the incantation "One nature rejoices in another. One nature destroys another. One nature masters another." Sounds like he's listing the different things when two people get married." 

I lol'ed.

Someone advising Charles Darwin on his book on Natural Selection, that he would be better off writing "a book about pigeons", because "Everyone is interested in pigeons." HAHA

Darwin studying barnacles until he wrote "I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before."

In the chapter explaining how people used to think that living creatures just materialised:

In the 17th century, a chemist went so far to recommend a recipe to create mice from everyday materials: just put a few grains of wheat in a pot, add dirty underwear (lol), and wait twenty-one days. The recipe reportedly worked.

The chapters move through the eras, and will delve deep into major players of the day. Here are some I would like to highlight:

Paracelsus
Paracelsus (born 1493) revamped alchemy and called it "iatrochemia", which will later be the basis of the English word "chemistry".

"He was not subtle in promoting himself and was prone to making statements like 'All the universities and all the old writers put together have less talent than my ass'. Another time, after announcing that he would reveal the greatest secret in medicine, he unveiled a pan of feces."

This book made me grin and giggle to myself often. I was so delighted that my nonfiction pick was not as dry or difficult as I expected. It's kind of amusing and relieving to know that people of the past behaved just like some offensive people of this century too.

People of the past can be so eccentric sometimes. There also seems to be a fine line between being a genius and a lunatic. Maybe you have to be a little crazy to 'create disruption' and make important discoveries and inventions.

Galileo (born 1564)

• Galileo's daddy was a well-known lute player and music theorist. He wanted his son to have a lucrative job and sent him to study medicine (like every well-meaning Asian parent LOL). What did Galileo do? He decided to study Math and often ended up in debt.
  
• Galileo furthered science, which was then dominated by Aristotelian Physics that involved observation and theorising. Galileo took it further by doing experiments and explorations, replacing Aristotle's law of free fall with his own.
  
• However he is most famous for proving that the earth is not the centre of the universe, but an ordinary planet that orbits the sun, supporting Copernicus' (born 1473) theory. He also invented the telescope, which was sort of a side hustle for him then. (lol)
  
• Galileo would come into conflict with the Vatican and was put under 'house arrest' which stipulated that visitors were allowed, provided that they were not mathematicians. He still received them though, and died in the presence of his son and a few mathematicians. (He died in the same year Newton was born, coincidence? Reincarnation?)
  
• His works were also banned by the pope, but later writings were smuggled out and eventually published. 
  
• Galileo was denied a grand funeral by the church and was given a small funeral instead. However, his loss was greatly felt. 

Newton
Most of us at least know that Newton 'discovered' gravity and created three popular laws of motion.
But did you know he was anti-social AF?

• "Newton achieved intellectual triumph but never love." "Newton was unpopular with his own mother. He was premature and born on 25 December 1642. He was so tiny at birth that two women who were sent for supplies dawdled and took their time, certain that the child would be dead before they returned. His father died a few months earlier and his mother eventually remarried, shipping him off to his grandmother. "
  
• "Newton wrote diaries and saved every scrap that he wrote on, including feelings about his parents, accounts of every penny he spent, and his thoughts on religion, mathematics and philosophy.
  
• "Bored by mathematics and furious with his criticism with optics, Newton virtually cut himself off from the entire scientific community, which would last for the next decade." This dude is so extreme. So what did he study? "alchemy and the mathematical and textual analysis of the Bible." Wow. I did not know that for sure.
  
• Newton believed that the Bible promised the truth would be revealed to men of piety. He also believed that great alchemists hid important insights in coded form. He would "waste" the 1670s-1684 (15 years!) on these two pursuits.
  
• The Newton chapter is a dense one and it actually enlightened me a little on some Fullmetal Alchemist episodes. Lol. It also stirs my desire to read the Three Body Problem AGAIN! 

Did you know? (Some extra fun bits out of the many littered through the book)
Robert Hooke peered at a piece of cork through his homemade microscope, and became the first human to see what he would call 'cells'. He chose the name because they reminded him of the tiny bedrooms assigned to monks in their monasteries.

Later, another man called Leeuwenhoek will take microscopes to a whole new level, and discover what he would call "animalcules". What a cute name! Today we call them microorganisms.

Alexandria had a place called "The Museum", which housed one hundred scientists and scholars that received stipends, free housing and meals from the Museum's kitchen. It includes a grand library of half a million scrolls, an observatory, dissection labs, gardens, zoos, and other facilities for research. Sounds like a dream! Sadly, it was destroyed by fire in the third century A.D.

Concluding thoughts
The book was very enlightening and entertaining for me! It is non-intimidating way to get to know how science has evolved over the centuries, and the book includes plenty of fun tidbits of 'the greats' that you probably never knew.

After reading this, I am inclined to go check out Newton's Principia.  Also, since this mostly covers the scientific world of Europe, I sure hope to find a similar book that covers Asian and Middle Eastern scientific eras.

Happy Reading!

Skye

Baking wise, I have been trying to perfect the multigrain bread, so I've tried the tangzhong method where you first prepare a slurry of flour and water. I was so amazed when it worked! My bread has never been fluffier. I am borrowing a chiffon cake mould soon thanks to my friend and I can't wait to try making some cakes!

My sister and I also attempted the Dalgona coffee- but woah using our dad's instant coffee really made our whipped dalgona crazy bitter! We're lucky we have an electric whisk though. Haha!

What's up my friends?

Covid-19 has taken over the world by storm, and life has definitely changed for most.

Singapore is currently not on lockdown, but gatherings are limited to less than 10 people. Social distancing is not only encouraged but enforced, with fines and jail time for those who do not comply. Most white collar workers are working from home, while many have found themselves out of a job. Some blue collar workers, especially those hired on a part-time basis, have been dropped from the roster, and in their place, the white collar workers are stepping up to fulfill their duties, especially in the tourism industry (banquet servers, cleaning of hotel rooms etc).