If I had one piece of advise to give, it would be to never drink the water your noodles are boiled in

Being a re-app/hall senior (who more accurately doesn't do very much for her hall), I get inundated with questions all the time, which I'd like to think I answer with a sense of wordly wisdom, offering incredibly important pieces of information which are vital for your daily life.

What you probably don't know is that most of my answers are rubbish and handed down to me from one-off experiences, quirky habits or my mum. All of which are usually not realiable unless you are me and think they are really important and above all... think that they work.

Take for instance my propensity for not keeping the water from my boiled instant noodles to use as a soup base, and boiling a new batch of water instead. The eco/humanitarian warriors are screaming at me because I'm wasting water that a Somalian child would trade his donkey for, but here's my theory. When you boil instant noodles - what's left in the water is wax and other cancer causing agents (everything's a cancer causing agent these days). Well, I'm gonna die from the ajinomoto in the instant noodles anyway... but here's the other (neurotic) part of my health plan. When eating Indomee in particular, I throw away the bumbu powder and only keep the garlic, sesame oil and soya sauce. It still tastes good. Honest! This is important information, I think you should know.

My latest gem of information came about while searching online for cooking conundrums. I've been trying to figure out the importance of selecting the right type of wok and seasoning it properly. Why it's so inportant to me, I have no clue. Perhaps it's just a fundamental part of my Chinese DNA. Anyway, kuali.com gives a wonderful explanation of how to season your wok properly (which only involves oil, old pieces of ginger and spring onions... and you thought they didn't really mean SEASON, didn't you?). This reminds me of another important piece of advise - if all recipes fail (including mum's), kuali.com is your next port of call, always!

Kicap manis and maggi chilli sauce (preferably the bawang putih one) are vital ingredients in your kitchen. If used in moderation, it can cover up any cooking mishaps.

Never wear white when cooking. Never wash your hair before cooking either, or live to regret it.

Always offer to cook. That way you never have to wash up. Believe me, it's easier.

Other incredibly important things I've learnt are to soak satay skewers for at least an hour, add sweet potato to the flour when making onde-onde and all ovens are different and moody - get to know yours better.

I don't think this post has a point. Nor do I know why it's become skewed towards cooking. But it's only typical of me to use food to rid my mind of Speech Processing and this morning's exam.

p/s: Dr. Naylor is no longer the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse all in one. He is kind and benovolent, his mercy knows no bounds, he rules supreme in the kingdom of cepstrums and formants where mel frequencies are normalised (I hope).