It's late and I'm getting bitten on the foot by mosquitoes I can't see and am not aware of till I start scratching. I've learnt recently to my dismay that there is a type of mosquito bite (not from malaria or dengue parasites) that is "toxic", as Qing Hui describes it. It's left 2 horrible very large and red diamond-shaped bites on my leg that itched like mad for 2 days.

Qing Hui and Jie Chao came over to spend 2 days with me just yesterday - it was QH's plan to bake cookies for our teachers in HC who'd helped us especially with letters and the like. We used my tried-and-tested peanut butter-oatmeal cookie recipe and it turned out great again. This time we were able to make bigger cookies which looked better, but the smaller ones had a nicer, flakier texture. We had a good time over all, and the most unexpected thing was that we spent an hour in the dead of night talking about God before falling asleep... (Jie Chao had many questions, one of which is the lamentable and oft-heard - why do Catholics worship Mary? Once and for all - we don't! We revere her as our mother and ask her to pray for us, but she is a human creature like us and we do not worship her as we do God.)

Today we approached the dreaded task of delivering the cookies with some trepidation. I was the one who got doubtful first - after lunch the repulsive field of HC was strong enough to have me moaning and wishing aloud that the teachers would all be absent from school, or that by some twist of fate Mr Ang WH had declared this day a school holiday. After we got home, Qing Hui started in the same vein and even Jie Chao was not spared, starting to complain while we were already on the train there.

But it was, to quote Qing Hui again, not so bad after you get over your initial fear. I bumped quite accidentally into Ms Heng - it was a good thing we had brought along a small bottle of cookies just in case, for I hadn't planned anything for her - and had quite an interesting conversation. Incidentally she says Shen Siong and I are not nasty / ruthless enough to be litigators. "Too nice," were the exact words... I'll take that as a compliment :P She also said not to discontinue my reading and recommended a title she'd recently read - "Never Let Me Go" by a Japanese author whose name I quite forgot.

The embarrassing (but rather amusing) thing was that I enquired about Mrs Samuel (as her desk was empty) and Ms Heng said she'd help me pass the gift to her. Too quickly I assented, then I realised that Mrs Samuel's cookie bottle was twice the size of the one I'd given her! I told her that's because I knew Mrs Samuel for twice as long and she said she would tweak Mrs Samuel about it tomorrow. Very tactless of me. Impulse kills. :S

Then Qing Hui and I met Ms Yang who was her usual cheerful self. I was much more at ease talking to her and she commented on what teaching at HC was like now among other things - apparently her students don't give her as much trouble now as we used to :P And the sex ratio IS skewed with the influx of Chinese high boys! Oh and according to her, Mr Loi will stop teaching and move to the ministry next year.

He wasn't around so JC and I left the cookies on his table with a note in which I meant just to tease him about his housewarming that we haven't seen hair or hoof of yet. It was quite a pleasant surprise that he smsed later to thank us and make arrangements! We'll be having it on the teachers' day weekend.

Following Ms Heng's exhortation I was more inspired to finish the book I'd borrowed, Ursala Le Guin's "Four Ways to Forgiveness". This is science fiction that leaves star wars in the dust! There are four short novellas that have their setting in the planetary system of Werel-Yeowe, and the worlds she portrays are really vivid in their culture, history, settings and people. The characters are well-conceived and drawing of the reader's sympathy. The first story was somewhat lacking in terms of plot and closure, but the later stories were moving and well-paced. I usually find science fiction stories somewhat dull on the "human" facet, but these had intense drama and are a very good recommendation for the author.