By Alex Bottner

I ate a frog for breakfast

I ate a bullfrog for breakfast this weekend. A staple in Singaporean cuisine, frogs are a lean source of protein, with only 0.3g of fat. It’s also a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, potassium and vitamin A. I want to make eating frogs a staple in my morning breakfast.

I didn’t realise to what extent my diet had been lacking. I had been so stressed and exhausted over trying to push my ideas, that I didn’t realise that my fridge was in a state of decay. It was full of mouldy lunches trapped in tupperware that I was meant to take in to school, and decaying vegetables floating in a marshy consistency inside their packets. I created the perfect breeding ground for a big, fat bullfrog.

With nothing edible left in my fridge except wasabi and garlic paste, I was going to have to eat it. At least I had some seasoning.

As I watched an episode of “Dark Tourism” in the background that showed bulls being sacrificed in a village in Myanmar to remember the dead, I was getting squeamish about what I needed to do: kill the frog and eat it. But like the man slaughtering the bulls, I became methodical about cleaning that fridge, removing the messy guts and cleaning the skeleton one piece at a time. By the time I finished, I had filled up two compost bags worth of food. It wasn’t pleasant, but towards the end I felt like I gained some control back.

I wish I could say that my environment had gotten so bad because I killed and smashed a brief instead, but that didn’t happen. I feel that the two are connected. There’s only so many hours in a day. You need to know when to draw a line on where you’re at in a project or a brief, and move on to the other parts of your life you need to take care of. When you’re feeling better, revisit it. If your environment, nutrition and exercise are falling apart, your project will likely fall apart too. You need to be in a good state of mind to do good work.

What started out as me letting myself go for a day or two quickly became my daily life.

The giant bullfrog wasn’t easy to digest, but it made me take a step back and reevaluate things. It made me realise that I haven’t been myself lately. I liked what was said last Friday on how Ben and Helena’s (SCA alumni) personalities come through in their work. To be myself and express my voice through my work, I need to take care of myself. From this point onwards, I am going to be eating frogs for breakfast. I am sure I’ll get used to the taste over time.