I've tried to make half-boiled eggs for myself... and in the process i've experimented with 3 eggs already. And I'm proud to say that:
1) The first egg came out completely raw. Don't ask me how it remained raw when i put it in boiling water for like some time. Maybe, my idea of "some time" was like 30 seconds or so. What I did with the 1st egg? I ate it. (!!) Luckily I didn't get a bad tummy ache or sth.
2) The second egg came out very hard-boiled. When i ate it, it had the feel of a dinosaur egg or sth. And so, after that nasty experience with eggs (that happened last Sunday), I decided to spare the remaining 10 eggs in the dozen that i bought.
3) This morning, I had the nerve to try to cook another half-boiled egg. It turned out hard-boiled again (I detest hard-boiled eggs) AND this time, i found egg shells making up a major component of the egg that i tried to swallow down. It's def not an understatement to say that i've not mastered the art of breaking an egg yet.
Any girls want to help me out with this? mum? sis?
I was so looking forward to eating my own half-boiled eggs k... oh well, classic example of "Never count your chickens before they hatch".
In Search For Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
This is the title of the ethnography that we have to read for the Anthropology 102 unit right now. An ethnography, as defined by Martin Forsey (the lecturer), is a descriptive account of cultures through personal contact with the individuals involved or through fieldwork. The author of this book, Philippe Bourgois, spent like a few years staying in the inner-city neighbourhood of East Harlem (in local speak - El Barrio, hence the title), New York City where the population was made up of 91% Puerto Rican and African-American migrants. Phillippe befriends the drug peddlers and records first-hand of their life experiences, the suffering, the poverty, the sexual abuse, the gang rapes (the gang rape part is especially violent) and the drug abuse. Btw, the word crack (in the title) is cocaine in its purest form. And the book is not censored to allow for political correctness; every page is littered with obsecenities and the stark brutal lives that the drug peddlers have to go through + the indifference and discrimination that the local NYC government places on them. Now, I've only read 20 pages of this book (there are 400 pages) but I can already feel goosebumps whenever I take the book out to read. Like, I remember the last page I read last night which was describing how a pregnant teenager was smoking crack frantically and condemning her baby to dulled brain cells and a lifetime of anguish.
Therefore, I'd love to recommend this book to you guys (that is, if you can find it in s'pore). It highlights the themes of social inequality, discrimination, and the search for respect by the people living in El Barrio. The search to eke out a living (in the face of >50% underemployment rate in the neighbourhood), the search to fight for their rights and dignity against an oppressive NYC government which criminalises poverty by incacerating residents into jails.
Where are you heading for, in your search for respect?