Paper Skies: A Blog

fug

2012-01-28T17:20:00.002-05:00

DAMN YOU, FACE

WHY ARE YOU SO CRAPPY LOOKING

why can't you be drop dead gorgeous instead

*sad

MY TEETH

2012-01-23T00:37:00.000-05:00

so far the worst part of this coming back to boston has been my realizing (on the way to KLIA) that i forgot my retainers. and that was on tuesday. and even though i texted my sister immediately asking her to go to the post office early wednesday morning to mail them she only ended up going on saturday evening. and since DHL doesn't work on sundays, and monday and tuesday are public holidays back home, they'll only mail them out on wednesday. which means I'LL only get them wednesday afternoon.

OH GOD I FEAR FOR MY TEETH. maybe i really should look into invisalign. BUT OH GOD THE $$$

coooooold

2012-01-19T09:34:00.000-05:00

back in boston IT'S -7ºC OUT TODAY AGHHHH SO COLD

i boarded planes a total of 4 times this trip. it'll probably continue to be this way as long as i keep flying SIA (unless Qatar decides to lower fares)... if only Singapore was like in the Middle East or something. then no need so many layovers.

we just got fermata back last night. he's extremely smelly, behaviour-wise more or less the same, slightly skinny (dunno why, maybe he wasn't fed enough!?). got tons of things to do this week - unpack, clean apartment, stock up fridge, etc etc. the apartment was super cold when we got back, even a warm bath didn't help. woke up at 2 am shivering like crazy until XA changed the batteries in the thermostat - now the heater works again! :)

my cough magically got better on the plane - was praying quite hard i wouldn't cough too much just in case passengers complain / i get quarantined in JFK... and aside from the occasional stuck blob of phlegm and dust itch, my throat was surprisingly well behaved *pats throat*

i ordered a roll neck from Asos, hopefully that keeps me a bit warmer; planning to make a quick trip down to Zara sometime soon to stock up on sweaters. i am like so unprepared for winter despite having been in the states for a while now - i think sometimes i forget that Boston is much much much colder than NYC :(

UGH

2012-01-13T22:50:00.002-05:00

infuriating conversation i just had with my sister.

e : eh that's my shirt. (pointing to shirt x is wearing)
x : it is? it's kind of old, i was thinking of giving it to mary.
e : omg are you serious. you gave all my clothes to her already.
x : no i didn't.
e : my t-shirts and stuff, she wears them everyday. i can't ask her to give them back, so paiseh.
x : i only gave her the old stuff we were planning to give away.
e : NO you gave her shirts that i left behind like a year ago because you wanted them. and i was planning to wear them when i came back but since you gave them away i don't have any shirts to wear.

(at this point dad chips in asking if i got the shirts from the states or from kl)

e : from the states.
d : then why did jie give them away?
x : i only gave away the ones that were here lah.
e : ya, which were mostly bought from the states.
x : no they weren't.
e : you gave her all my junk food shirts.
x : there were junk food shirts? which ones?
e : lady and the tramp shirt, all my slogan shirts, the shirts with the building prints, those are all from junk food ok.
x : ooohhh i remember those. they've been sitting here for like how many years already.
e : omg, you said you were gonna use them. want to give clothes away, start with yours first la. and if you want to give mine away, at least ask first.
x : you left them here so i figured you didn't want them.

so. in a nutshell. my sister is kind of a psycho. and this is generally how our arguments go most of the time. accusation --> curt denial --> reminder --> curt denial --> pressing reminder --> vague remembrance --> reiterated accusation --> curt denial/outright lie.

seriously. my sister's wardrobe and hoarding habits far exceed mine (case in point: shoes from 10 years ago that are peeling, still sitting in the store room because she "still plans to use them".) FFS MAN I DON'T HOARD PEELING SHOES

goddamn. i don't normally rant about my family on my blog, but this really really pissed me off... is everyone else's sister like this!?!?

!!!

2012-01-10T23:11:00.000-05:00

THE ACCENT!!!!!!! *howls*

glubberebbulg

2012-01-05T09:26:00.002-05:00

the walrus just left for singapore and i feel my chin/neck disappearing in a big mound of flab... the past 4 days i've done nothing but EAT LIKE CRAZY and i just remembered i have to be at a wedding on saturday... and a wedding dinner... both at which i will be meeting up with some skinny relatives (AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

guess there's nothing for it, i'll have to go running tomorrow and see if i can minimize the damage :(

i just thought you should know

2011-12-31T00:05:00.000-05:00

frustration

2011-12-28T05:24:00.002-05:00

it could be so much better.

i pray you will grant me the fire i need to reignite and keep going.

2011-12-24T04:36:00.004-05:00

the view on the way home :)

finally back in hot and humid malaysia, got lots of people to meet and lots lots lots of food to eat! CAN'T WAIT TO STUFF MYSELF.

away

2011-12-15T02:40:00.003-05:00

my computer was away for about a week getting a bunch of parts replaced. i'll NEVER go to the apple store for repairs again - too crowded, too flashy, too brusque AND too expensive!

i will be going to the store tomorrow, however, to pick up a new MBP... the idea is that i'll use it more for work, but... we'll see how that goes. now that the old guy is fixed it seems kind of wtf to have two machines. i imagine it will turn out to be useful in the future; buying it NOW might have been a little hasty though...........

i'll have a week before i fly home to decide if i want to return it! *fingers crossed, hope i make the right decision*

below are a pair of booties i got from F21 during the black friday sale. they actually look pretty nice in real life, clean and simple, but are HORRIBLE to wear. my right foot is slightly bigger than my left, so the fact that this fits my left foot like a glove spells nothing but trouble......

tokidoki-inspired

2011-11-23T21:33:00.002-05:00

haven't worn these yet even though i've had them for quite a number of months now. maybe i'll wear them on the ride home to KL, i need something cute and bright to keep my spirits up during the long and horrendously boring flight.

heartfelt

2011-11-11T03:17:00.001-05:00

18 months of joy and frustration, laughter and tears, and a whole lotta love from me to you :)

zzz

2011-11-05T21:51:00.000-04:00

long day today. xa will protest since he's been out since noon (and still isn't back yet!) but i had one of those annoying days where i went out for rehearsal only to find that ensemble dept people messed up again and gave away our 4-hour room, so i ended up going to the practice room to help jude transcribe some stuff, spent a little while poking in and out of the studios looking for familiar faces, then back to hynes where the train took forever to arrive. ended up cooking porridge + chicken gizzards for dinner.

if i'd known things were going to turn out like that i would've just said fuck all and taken fermata to the vet. he's gasping again, we're hoping it's just hairballs.

top asos / shorts full circle / bag asos / necklace f21

reignite

2011-10-31T10:05:00.000-04:00

somewhere along the line i lost my sense of wonder, the very sense that fueled my imagination and creativity.

with it went some things i loved but slowly lost my passion for, things that once defined my life and helped me convey my wonder and joy.

time to relight the fire :)

カリズマ

2011-10-28T00:15:00.003-04:00

sitting tight just before our 8-minute BPC act

blazer edmundser / top kensie / necklace asos / leggings f21

sick

2011-10-12T01:31:00.002-04:00

i've been sick for the past 3 days - mysteriously came down with a sneezing fit, drippy nose and sore throat... it got so bad bob sent me home from Jazz CP today so i wouldn't make anyone else sick :( i'm also trying to be careful not to spend too much snuggling time with fermata because as luck would have it, ferrets HAPPEN to be the only animals around that can catch the human cold...

i'll probably start taking pictures for asos marketplace sometime next week, gotta start purging my closet of all things old and tacky and cheap and blah. also need to make room for a cardigan or two, for someone who shops a lot i sure don't seem to have given my wardrobe much thought... i seem to have ended up with no cardigans and just TWO sweaters for winter! also doesn't help that i threw out some clothes while unpacking because i got lazy (huge waste of $$$, and i regret it now) i just wish there were more consignment stores i could go to instead of Buffalo Exchange (keep getting lowballed by stupid buyers) and STA (which is always too full and not accepting).

on a brighter note, looking forward to chelsea boots and knee-highs! i'll be gutted if they don't fit :'(

dinner party

2011-10-06T02:06:00.001-04:00

the walrus & i had a group of friends over for dinner last week - it was a fairly successful dinner party in that everyone brought something, and those who didn't brought money (well, two of them anyway). the miffy part of it was that a number of people flaked at the very last minute, leading us open the place to two more [uninvited] guests. on the whole it was fun though.

some pictures... they're not very good, i was having way too much fun to bother with the camera.

just placed an order for a new pair of boots from asos - I HOPE they're slim-fitting! the pair i got from zara was WAY too big so i'll be returning them. i know what you're thinking, but bear with me - i PROMISE i won't be doing anymore shopping after this next asos/topshop haul!

GUH

2011-09-26T11:35:00.001-04:00

I KEEP FORGETTING TO UPLOAD PICTURES OF THE NEW PLACE!!! BUT I WILL SOON I PROMISE *flaps arms*

what's new

2011-09-22T19:18:00.000-04:00

1. olga road leather jackets (electric blue pender & dark beige waldron)

2. anni jürgenson ear cuffs

3. tiffen 52mm filters

4. nikon 35mm f/1.8G

5. pleather shorts + waxed trousers!

updates

2011-09-13T22:53:00.000-04:00

quick one. we had a housewarming party on sunday, which was quite fun, although with about 12 people in attendance our living room started looking a little small. not an issue since how often will i be inviting 12 people over for dinner? ingredients cost about $50 or less in total, laughably cheap for the spread xiao an created. i did not take pictures because... i forgot.

we also just got our trash can, which was bent out of shape from the horrendous treatment it received by UPS, but xa got it back into shape with the clever use of our stove. speaking of know-how, we also fixed my lack of bed slats by sawing up some scrap wood (not really scraps, they were slats for a full bed that someone else threw out) we found outside our apartment and using good old jute twine (the kind we used to tie our old textbooks up with, remember!? :D ) to secure the slats to the bed frame. that bed is now being used as a sofa in the living room.

i know i've been putting off invisalign for a while now (mainly because it's expensive), but my teeth have been moving more recently and my lower retainer now fits funny so i guess i don't really have much of a choice anymore. planning to think about it a little bit more and make that phone call to the dentist by the end of next week. i'm a little anxious; i just know the dentist is going to comment on my fissure stains and worn-down canines. AND the retarded lingual retainers which aren't even doing their job right.

i also ordered bleach for ombre hair, but thinking about it now i guess i should've waited for my hair to grow out first, since bleaching dyed hair is never a good idea and my hair is too short to ombre anyway. it's at an annoying length right now, and will be for the next 4 months or so until it grows past my shoulders. bleghstxkpqwuisklh.

moved

2011-09-04T10:26:00.000-04:00

we've just moved into our new allston place and it's starting to look quite nice! it's not luxurious or anything, just a $1525/mth place with one good sized bedroom, a good sized living room with open kitchen and a decent bathroom. the place was renovated recently so they put in some really nice kitchen cabinets, a large sink, silver steel appliances, etc etc. basically everything looks pretty nice, except for 2 loose boards in the bathroom (which we will tell management about, of course)

unpacking has been the worst part of this moving business so far, although loading the truck got a bit strenuous too. we thought we accidentally threw out fermata's food (found it later while loading) and had to go get him evo food, which he refused to eat (had to force feed him the stuff!), and as a result was very lethargic for a few days and had weird drippy poo.

yesterday while out looking for a plunger (VERY HARD TO FIND IN THIS AREA DUNNO WHY) we came across a sort of 3-store outlet made up of a supermarket, discount store (selling stationary and basic house supplies) and a home furniture/decor store. planning to head there again tomorrow to get some much needed things for the apartment, and hopefully have the place looking great by tuesday!

pictures soon!

busybusybusy

2011-08-22T00:19:00.001-04:00

busy packing for our big move!!!

xa is away in maine with his mum & dad and i'm in his room being sad & lonely :( well not really, i ate a soft boiled egg for dinner so i'm more or less happy. YES THAT'S ALL I ATE TODAY. as well as some arizona mango drink. people always think i'm on a diet but i'm not. i used to be a perpetual dieter but i really am not making any conscious effort to watch what i eat now. i just... don't have the same kind of appetite i used to. i can last a day on a small bowl of noodles, it's slightly depressing how little i eat, and i imagine when i go home for christmas it'll be weird not being able to finish my cheong fun or mee yoke or whatever.

i've got a few more things to pack - namely xbox, 2 pairs of shoes, random books i have lying around my place and other random shit i have scattered around xa's room. i bought marvel vs capcom 3 and fable 3 the other day. the former is fun. i love marvel vs capcom. fable 3, on the other hand, is like playing the sims in combat mode. i have never come across such a convoluted and boring RPG. an RPG that doesn't have a health meter, doesn't have any kind of menu. an RPG where the path you must take is literally lit up with sparkling dust so you won't get lost. an RPG where you can have sex with NPCs and get pregnant! and buy a house! wtf. like i said, the sims in combat mode.

while xa is gone, i am in charge of looking after my room and his. in the morning i go back to my place to see fermata, in the afternoon when fermata is asleep i come back to xa's place to clean up, around dusk i go to see fermata again, and come back to xa's place at night to sleep. i realized that i'm not actually lazy to get up and walk from place to place; i think it's just that when xa is around i'd much rather be in the same room haha.

that being said, i have little to blog about. will put up pictures of the new place once we move and sort it out! we're also planning to get a second ferret to keep fermata company, so we won't feel so shitty when we leave him at home by himself.

errrr. and what else. I HATE WHEN PEOPLE SLAM DOORS!!! it's one thing to slam doors when you're angry, but some people just slam doors all the time and it's really annoying. caleb does this a lot. he will probably lose most of his hearing in the next 3 years.

i also think that people who talk about being champions of justice/integrity/love/faith/whatever are full of shit. mostly. people who bash religion are full of shit. as are overly religious people, but i guess that's just a long-winded way of saying all extremists are full of shit. but you don't even need to be an "extremist" to be full of shit. you don't need to want to kill people and do dangerous things. anti-whatever sentiment is borne out of dissatisfaction with a system, but with this world being so large, the system we find fault with is often only a very tiny fraction of a larger system that may contain much better groups (can't find the word). organizations that better represent, or more positively/humanely represent their cause, or faith. i don't like seeing christians bash non-christians because there are plenty of good non-christians out there who don't do anything wrong, who live virtuous lives, give to charity, help others, etc. but i also don't like seeing the reverse, because there are plenty of good christians who are kind and loving and not in your face.

in a nutshell, in everything, practice moderation! in being condescending towards someone else's beliefs, practice moderation. in promoting your own beliefs to someone else, practice moderation. in adopting ideologies, practice moderation. IN EATING, PRACTICE MODERATION.

alright time for bed. good night!

AE : Laidback Quirky

2011-08-12T12:09:00.003-04:00

AE : Laidback Quirky by ennie22 featuring retro sunglasses

hop over to polyvore to check out my entry for the american eagle x polyvore
style contest and like my submission! :)

newport, ri

2011-08-08T17:14:00.002-04:00

i was in newport recently to attend the jazz fest for the third time, but - i don't know if it's just my ears maturing, or my interest in jazz waning, or something else completely, but every time i go to newport the jazz fest gets more and more boring. it seemed so exciting the first time (granted, there were some powerhouses there to justify that claim). the next year it got a little bit boring, but brian blade and herbie x vinnie were there to save the weekend. this time it was so bad i felt like even the discounted $15 ticket was a waste of money.

on the second day it rained heavily, so XA and i decided to explore a bit of newport instead. we went into a fudge shop and bought an elephant's ear (which i thoroughly enjoyed :D), bought a couple jars of spices from a nearby spice shop (including the hard-to-find sumac) owned by a nice gay(?) fellow who overstuffed our bag with green paper to make it look nice, and had a subpar $12.95 buffet breakfast at a friendly little restaurant while waiting for the rain to stop.

we drove around the area looking at houses - the houses in newport are so pretty! all quaint looking and covered in plants and overlooking the sea. i should have taken pictures but i didn't :(

highlight of XA's day was the queer spice shop, but the thing that really brightened my day was this little fellow:

which we saw on the salve regina cliff walk... basically a fenced gravel trail behind several mansions at the edge of a cliff that apparently belongs to salve regina university.

we ended the day with ice cream and blackberry picking at a pretty but not-so-well-maintained berry farm, and 20 pieces of chicken mcnuggets for the drive home :)

2011-08-03T12:45:00.003-04:00

i really really want to go to sweden and absorb some of the fashiony air that fills the place... cos evidently just about EVERYONE in stockholm is benefiting from it. have you ever seen such put-together skateboarders? the pant length, the socks, the fit of the shirt. SRSLY. i love guys' clothes!

picture via stockholm street style.

done

2011-07-25T01:15:00.005-04:00

should have done this a long long time ago, but... i finally decided to hide my ex on facebook. hid all his updates, and put him on my "limited profile" list.

there aren't really any specific reasons for doing this, but i decided that risking seeing things that made me reminisce wasn't worth having the updates visible. we haven't talked in a long time, it's awkward when we do run into each other - we've made great progress as far as moving on goes. as much as we were good friends before and even though we said we'd still be friends after splitting, i think it's important to sever ties so you can get on with life and your current relationship - no point letting suspicion ruin everything. and no point giving yourself the chance to reminisce either, since nothing good can possibly come out of it. it's almost like keeping them around just in case love blossoms again (which, if you think about it, is like cheating, which i certainly am not about to do).

and so I AM VERY PROUD OF MYSELF for having completed the next to last moving on hurdle! last one will be deleting contact + pictures + emails + cards + presents + messages. hopefully very soon. then i will be able to gladly/proudly say that I HAVE COMPLETELY CLEANED MY SLATE. maybe in the future we'll become friends again and maybe even working buddies. but until that bridge appears, it's probably best we remain strangers for now.

heat wave

2011-07-22T13:12:00.000-04:00

boston - actually, pretty much the whole east coast - got hit by a crazy heat wave this week. today's temperature is expected to soar to 38ºC, way higher than even i'm used to back in malaysia. i stayed in all day yesterday with the AC on... even venturing out into the hallway made me feel somewhat suffocated, like i was in a sauna (i hate saunas).

ever since summer highs breached 30ºC fermata's been quite lethargic, choosing to get up only to make his way to the bathroom where the cool tiles are, or to eat/drink. when the AC is turned on he perks up significantly and is his normal playful self, but we try not to keep the AC on more than 8 hours a day to prevent the electricity bill from getting out of hand.

today i decided to wake him from his stupor and dump him in a room temp bath (normally ferrets should be bathed in water slightly over their 40ºC body temperature, but since it's already so hot i decided he'd appreciate a cool bath more).

i didn't get a picture of him in the bath - he's very ratty-looking when wet and because he doesn't like water very much tends to just stand very still - but i did get a few pictures of him after, when he was prancing around and drying himself.

snippetry

2011-07-09T17:54:00.003-04:00

ennie : i hate looking like crap all the time
jules : you look like crap all the time?
ennie : like
ennie : my hair needs blow-drying every single day
ennie : my skin tone isn't even and i have acne scars
ennie : my eyebrows are a mess
jules : just start making an effort to look nicer la then?
jules : can do yourself up more often even on stay at home days
jules : it's never too late in the year to make resolutions

that being said, i RESOLVE to make more of an effort (more than none, anyway, which is how much effort i'm making right now) to look nice everyday! i just ordered tarte's new true blood palette (looks nicer than urban decay naked imo!) and my contacts will be coming in in 2 weeks' time so here's to a prospective (successful) transformation! maybe i should start going on the pill to prevent pre-mensus acne too? since most acne meds don't work on me anyway.

ok shall go trim my eyebrows now. bye!

must must must NOT

2011-06-24T00:40:00.003-04:00

as you probably know by now, my grand plan to grow my hair past my boobs down to my waist FAILED MISERABLY. i initially had planned to go to MIE with xa just to get my bangs trimmed, my hair layered a bit more and my roots touched up, but somehow i got conned by my own mind into getting a crazy mushroom (read: bowl cut) 'do with two-tone coloring. i wanted a wavy bob (again) and didn't get it (again). but this time i at least got something decent... if a little difficult to work with.

i'd upload pictures but i'm still having trouble figuring out how the hell to make this hair look nice. if i were japanese and super pro with hair goods, it'd be a cinch, but i am a low-maintenance malaysian hobo who only started blow-drying properly less than 2 years ago.

the original idea was to get my hair so long that i wouldn't have to use a straightener on it anymore, because it'd be so heavy it'd just pull itself down, and having erratic waves wouldn't look so retarded. AND i'd be able to just pull it all back in a ponytail when it's misbehaving or when i'm at the beach, or somewhere where it needs to be out of the way so it doesn't go crazy. BUT SOMETHING HAPPENED. AND I LOST SEVEN INCHES OF HAIR :(

OH I DON'T KNOW. i guess i just need major convincing! i think short hair is really nice on most people and sometimes i think it suits me better than long hair, but then again i've never actually had long hair (does hair down to armpits count? that's the longest mine's ever been). on a good day it looks WAY better than any good long hair day i've had, but because short hair on me is so high-maintenance the ratio of it looking nice to looking shit is about 1:2000, which, interestingly (but not surprisingly) means that long hair actually works better in the long run, in terms of manageability and versatility (can pull/tie it this way and that!). and good short hair days occur once a year - in other words, ONCE, because after a year it's no longer short!!!!!!!

AIYA WHATEVER LAH i'll just give this hair time to grow out a bit and look more like the style i saw in the magazine. not like i can do anything about it also, i paid $180 for it and bought a big tub of wax (american crew fiber is amazing stuff!!!) so may as well start getting used to having to wash and style every morning. then maybe i'll become so pro at it i'll want short hair forever. highly doubt it tho. ha.

regime

2011-06-21T19:48:00.004-04:00

this is primarily for tabby and kiki (my friends have cats' names wtf?) but if you're not tabby and kiki you're still welcome to read this if you're interested in my errr, skin care regime.

i'm kind of a product junkie, you could say... but i don't buy lots of products just for the heck of it; i buy lots because my skin has the personality of a small child; it's fussy and always needs variety in the stuff i put on it (read: MONEY SPENDING). i have, however, (finally?) found a combination of things that work fairly well - it took me a while to get to this point, but some things are worth sacrificing a little time and money for. things like NICE SKIN (which xa never has to worry about because he is pimple-free 95% of the time, bawl)

first off is this:

Amore Pacific Enzyme Peel

i got a free sample of this from sephora and was initially kind of "???" about using it because i'd never used an an enzyme peel before and didn't know how it worked, what it did, etc etc. according to the product description, it removes all the gunk sitting on your skin so that when you use moisturizer and other good stuff your skin will soak it up properly. kind of a super-powered cleanser, if you will. i only use it once every 1-2 weeks because of how potent it is, and how dry it makes my skin, but it really does improve my skin brightness and texture for a while. one tiny sample bottle goes a looooooong way (lasted me nearly 4 months), which is GREAT because the full-size product is ridiculously expensive.

Queen Helene's Mint Julep Mask

back when i was in NYU and just discovering winter scrubs (i.e. moisturizing/non-drying ones) i used QH's Honey/Oatmeal Scrub almost everyday because it made my skin feel so so good. i'm not sure what's happened but it doesn't work anymore (probably just my skin being bratty). so the next best thing, i thought, that also wouldn't be as abrasive as a scrub, would have to be a super thick mask. which this is. it's minty and refreshing and it drags out blackheads mercilessly and slams shut all your pores! (not literally, since pores can't be shut or removed) it functions like the enzyme peel, getting off the dirty top layer of your skin pre-cleansing (even though the directions say to use AFTER cleansing). best of all, it's under $5! definitely get this if you can't afford amore (i know i can't).

L'Occitane L'Imortelle Brightening Foam

for about 11 years, since i got my first pimple, i have been searching for the perfect cleanser. i used to steal sample-sized tubes of my mum's Splash Away (which everyone's mum uses), and then moved on to neutrogena, johnson & johnson, l'oreal, clean & clear, biore... all of which never worked. now after much distress and close shaves with suicide (just kidding) i have finally found a cleanser that doesn't leave a disgusting film on my face, doesn't make my skin itch or break out in a rash, doesn't smell weird and doesn't completely dry out my skin! it does make my skin feel a bit tight, but can't be helped la, moisturizer can counter that.

Fresh Sugar Face Polish

this, i find, is best used after a masque treatment or anything else that sucks all the moisture out of your skin, to keep it from turning into a pile of ash. some people like using this as a daily exfoliator, but i can't because it's WAY too oily for frequent use. it's nice in the winter when your skin's feeling a bit flaky and crap. and it smells so lovely. like grapefruit + brown sugar :)

Thayers alcohol-free toner with rosepetal & witch hazel

i normally don't use toners, but this is a pleasantly mild alternative, and great if you like the smell of roses. it's chemical-free and feels almost like you're just putting perfumed water on your face, except the moisture lingers longer so your skin feels hydrated. this is also a great alternative to moisturizer if regular moisturizer is too thick/oily for your skin.

Elizabeth Grant Collagen Diamond Cream

i got this at a very special discount price (also another expensive product i wouldn't get otherwise, boo hoo). directions say to apply to dry skin after a shower. i can see why; applied to damp skin it just turns really liquidy and kind of evaporates or slides off? i don't know. suffice to say this isn't the best body cream i've used. i prefer something a little thicker, that doesn't leave you thinking 4 hours later, "wait, why does my skin feel like i didn't put anything on it?" it's filled with (apparently) diamond dust, which makes your skin shimmer a little, but the dust rubs off so easily it's gone in like 10 minutes. SAD.

i still have a couple more products lying around that i have yet to open and try (ha, i'm such a hoarder) - mostly masks and sample-size creams. maybe when i'm in the mood a year from now i'll do another writeup about the products i use (if they've changed).

special

2011-06-16T01:21:00.006-04:00

sigh.

being extremely emotionally driven, i'm very susceptible to mood swings and being read the wrong way. i think part of it comes from being brought up in a stern family, where emotions fall into the frivolous/unnecessary category of things, and after a while all your pent up feelings just go BOOM. except in my case i've always been going boom, even when i was a kid growing up and trying to be cool like everyone else (but failing miserably because of my inability to not be such a wuss). i mean, it's kind of difficult to be cool and composed, especially since i am by default a very angry person, and coupled with emotional instability i can be quite unreasonable AND sulky... about 80% of the time.

BUT THEN.

i met an equally stubborn/hot-tempered individual with the words of a learned scholar and the grace of a newborn duckling. and i found this experience very very vexing, because butting heads with someone who is just as stubborn as you are but who has a stronger head means that most of the time you'll end up losing, but you'll still butt heads anyway because stubbornness is a very strong/dominant trait in stubborn people (badly composed sentence).

it is also very difficult when you are an emotional wreck who needs a hug and a kind word all the time vs a hardheaded and extremely straightforward no-frills person - but you know how people say opposites attract, and i suppose it must be true. they also say girls fall for guys who remind them of their dads, and i suppose that must be true too.

everyone's got a special person in their life - a sort of physical manifestation of jesus, you might say... some kind of inspirational being - it might be someone who stopped you from committing suicide, it might be your single mum/dad, it might be the therapist who helped you through depression, it might be your 8th grade english teacher, it might be a taxi driver with a heartwarming story. even if you've never really been extremely depressed (though in today's harsh world, it's hard to find someone who's never felt terrible about himself at some point in his life) you must have had a hero of some sort, or someone who helped you make important [life] decisions.

this... creature is always there when i'm bawling my eyes out about how my life is shit, ready to deliver a piercing line about overreacting. he's always there when i'm moaning about my crappy complexion and ugly face, ready to tell me i'm annoying and stupid and wasting my time + energy. he's always there when i'm going on and on about my lack of self confidence, ready to tell me i was born this way and there's no doing anything about it.

BUT he's also there to tell me stupid jokes when i'm having a bad day, he's there to make me breakfast when i wake up, he's there to make faces for my camera, and he's there to give me hugs all the time.

very rarely will you come across someone who will be brutally honest with you without fear of jeopardizing your friendship, who will also sit by you when you're weepy and hold you close with the tenderness of a mother clutching her young. as far as i know, i'm just an emotionally needy girl who's good at washing dishes - sometimes i wonder how much of a contribution i'm making, wonder if i'm just doing fuck all and maybe it's a bit unfair that such a smart/witty/good at cooking person is going out with a clumsy sod like me :(

nevertheless, i would be very very sad if he disappeared, cos i would have lost the best man in this part of the universe :(

tweakage

2011-06-02T11:37:00.003-04:00

i have found that i can make my face look somewhat smaller (shorter?) when i clench my neck muscles around the jawline - what it does is give me the appearance of having a slightly shorter chin and less long face, like so:

thing is it kind of hurts, and i'm afraid if i continuously keep straining my neck like that i'll end up with a really huge, veiny neck, so i guess i'll be content with looking like my normal self.

crooked smile and all. minus the color editing, of course.

omgwhatabimbo

2011-05-27T19:51:00.005-04:00

it is no secret that i despise dawn yang with every fiber of my being, even though i don't know her personally and i have maybe only 2 or 3 friends who are chummy with her (not sure if partying together = being chums). the only thing i like about her is her hair, which is ridiculously long and puke-inducingly silky (the last time my hair looked that healthy i was 14, sob)... BUT the pros end there.

this is one of many many reasons she makes my skin crawl:

WTF, i am so so so so so glad malaysians DON'T talk like this. so what if the percentage of english-proficient malaysians is smaller than that of singaporeans - i'd MUCH sooner settle for KL pasar manglish than this horrendous, bizarre accent. i hope to god this isn't what she sounds like in real life, i dunno what sort of person you must be to be able to tahan holding a conversation with this alien. she sounds like chinese aunties when they're trying to impress ang mohs - you know how they suddenly adopt some weird pseudo-american/british/whatever-they-think-is-posh accent, but their pronunciation totally gives them away (as is apparent in dawn's video, because she is a 100% cheenafied singaporean who can't be bothered to enunciate the "th" in "them")

edit: apparently that IS what she sounds like! (according to her) i'm convinced i'll never let my kids grow up in singapore/go to rjc for fear they end up speaking like this.

and you know what - it wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't such a glorified con artist. this woman, no sorry, this monster removes all negative comments on her videos and blog, in a bid to make herself look pretty and popular and the object of everyone's adoration. i know this because i am just one of many people who've left not-so-happy comments for her (yes, we're petty, but leave us alone). and i'll be honest, some of them were a little scathing, BUT some of them were just passing remarks like "your eyes/hair/nose/dress looks weird". either this girl is an extremely spoiled brat who's used to getting everything she wants, who's used to being told she's pretty and smart and everything else we dream of being and won't have it any other way... or she's just mental.

if you ask me, i'm inclined to think she's just psychotic and in dire need of help (and less foundation).

ok i'm going to sleep cos i was out in brockton with xa steph and joe and it was hot out and i feel like i've just lost a lot of blood (water?)

no more

2011-05-21T03:57:00.000-04:00

I PROMISE I WILL NOT SHOP TILL THE END OF SUMMER.

it's going to be a long, hard battle, but it's about time i fought it properly and ruthlessly. spent WAAAYY too much on things i don't really need and am having difficulty recuperating my losses... no one's fault but mine, really.

dear to my heart

2011-05-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

this is the first picture xa and i took together. it was after a long day of pancakes and onion rings and other breakfast foods, gay jokes, zarusoba and jam sessions better left forgotten. this was the first time i'd clicked (or so i thought anyway) with someone in just a day. this was also the first time i met a singaporean i actually, genuinely liked hanging out with.

fast forward some 15 months and things haven't changed too much. we're as retarded as we always have been (maybe more). we bicker about stupid things like xa's questionable penchant for gaudy shirts and my hoarding habits. we've rubbed off on each other more than i imagined possible - you know the saying about pets and masters resembling each other after a while...

i guess the one thing that has changed the most is my feelings, in that they have grown much stronger and more resolute. i learned that you cannot love a person half-heartedly. i learned that there is great value in smelly things. and i learned that there are few things more valuable than simply being able to hold tightly the hand of a loved one, knowing that you're there for them and they're here for you.

"the greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return."
- eden ahbez

wildlife

2011-05-09T12:29:00.003-04:00

the hawks first started appearing towards the end of winter, and then the superintendent alerted amos to a nest they were building outside his window. one egg hatched sometime last week - like all baby birds this one looks a little odd and nothing like his parents yet, but someday he will grow into a fine young hawk, and leave to find a mate and build a nest of his own :)

missing

2011-04-28T00:19:00.000-04:00

maybe i'm not loudspoken enough. i keep things to myself too much. and maybe that is why when i do snap people think that they can turn the tables on me and tell me i'm being uncharacteristically angry. let me just say - I AM AN ANGRY PERSON. i am always angry or upset about something. when am i happy? seldom. maybe when i'm eating ice cream. maybe when i'm playing with fermata. by typing all this i've just made myself marginally angrier, but fermata is also sticking his nose in my face, so i feel a little happier again.

i made a deal with xiao'an, and i've been somewhat good about keeping to my end of the bargain. i have made an effort to limit my fashion blog reading to twice a week, as opposed to every minute of the day. i don't know if xa is keeping to his end of our bargain, but we're all on the honor system here... so trust is key?

anyway. as you probably already know, i'm quite ocd about tracking blog stats and all that, and i know exactly where everyone comes from (unless you work for blackberry), and i'd like to think i know who you are, especially if you're reading my blog regularly... cos i mean, my blog IS kind of boring, and the only people who i assume would keep reading are friends and family?

so... my point is, i just wanted to find out who these long lost friends are (who keep giving me repeat hits, thanks for coming back to read even though i'm such a boring fart) so if you come from any of the cities mentioned below, HOLLER!!

- Sunnybank, Queensland

- Launceston, Tasmania

- Cleveland, Ohio

- San Diego, CA

- Moscow (!?!?!?)

- NUS in Singapore (i know heaps of people who go to NUS but which one are you?? why never leave a comment to say hi)

- Central District, HK

- Toronto, ON (do you use Teksavvy??)

- Atlanta, GA

that's it for now. peace out!

say hi

2011-04-25T11:26:00.000-04:00

cape cod + an important decision

2011-04-20T03:02:00.004-04:00

on monday - patriot's day (which is only observed in new england) - xiaoan, caleb, debbie and i took a drive down to cape cod. we didn't really know what we were going to do or see cos none of us had been there before, but... it looked nice in the pictures so errr, yeah. it was a 1-2 hour drive, pretty stress-free for the most part. xa and i had google mapped it earlier in the morning to look for interesting places we could drive to - there were all these marshes and random little river mouths(?) and lakes and stuff, but since it wasn't great weather for wading we ended up driving out to the beach :)

i don't really get beaches here, they're so plain and full of stones! i'm so used to the beaches back home that are all pasir hitam(ish) and pretty coconut trees and bushes. and when we got to sandy neck the beach was full of grass that was still green and SUPER SHARP (i found out the hard way when i took off my shoes and accidentally stomped all over a patch of beachgrass). and because we were there around noon (not yet low tide) there wasn't much coast. but we made do, and fermata made the most of his time there:

on the way out we stopped for brunch at this place called keltic kitchen(?), supposedly a really awesome place to eat, but i was served a really iffy (and oddly spiced) seafood benny... the only good thing about it was the eggs that exploded in my mouth. YUMMMS ♥

since we weren't really sure where to go next, a nice old couple at keltic kitchen told us about a wildlife center nearby, right by another beach where you could see a really gorgeous sunset.

at long pasture i was kinda paranoid about ticks because there was this big sign at the entrance, with a massive picture of a tick, and a fear-striking article about lyme disease. and i was wearing ballet flats with NO SOCKS :( the whole time i was just freaking out in my head, checking my feet every few minutes for any sign of insect bites.

inside we came across a very arrogant turkey that had ripped a whole bunch of feathers out of his friend:

he didn't like us one bit and kept gobbling loudly while walking towards us in a really menacing way. i'm usually not afraid of animals, but birds are the WORST. the ones that fly will poop on you, and the ones that don't will peck you and/or smack you with their wings. and turkeys' faces always look extra mean by default. you just can't mess with a bird that's got a triple droopy chin AND another string of droopy skin(?) hanging off its face.

right by the turkeys was a sort of wire-fenced enclosing with some VERY FRIENDLY goats and nonchalant sheep. barnyard animals are always so friendly! and greedy. they all love chewing on fingers. (except pigs, but that's only because i've never actually met a pig up close)

i have a feeling the trail went on much longer but we ended up taking a roadside route that brought us right back to the car, pfffft. i probably will want to check the place out (and the rest of cape cod!) again, maybe in the summer when it'll be warm and awesome and we can all wear tiny tops and daisy dukes and slippers and REALLY get lyme disease. HA. but no, really, i want to go to the beach in the summer. i just got a new bikini and I WANT TO WEAR IT!!! (must work out a bit first of course, so i won't look like a fat auntie)

anyway, i've decided that i will get invisalign done. i probably have a total of 15mm (worth of gap) to close, and based on the research that i've done it'll take around 4-8 months to complete... but i might take a risk and speed up treatment a little. if i could do it with braces (which probably wasn't a good idea, seeing as now i have to resort to invisalign to clean up braces' unfinished business) then i'm pretty sure invisalign will be ok. the only issue with speeding up treatment is extra pain/tenderness/swelling/inability to chew. AND teeth that aren't rooted well. but never mind all of that, I MUST GET MY NICE SMILE!!!

will probably go to the dentist sometime before the month is up. hope the student discounts are good!

spring is here!!! ...wait, maybe not

2011-04-14T23:37:00.000-04:00

as the header suggests, the weather in boston has been bonkers for a while now. it's mid-april, for pete's sake, and we're still waiting on beautiful 15º sunny days!? the forecast says it'll warm up considerably starting sunday, so i have my fingers crossed, because i have a Cape Cod day trip planned on monday. still debating with myself about whether or not to bring the ferret, since he doesn't travel in cars so well. maybe if xa gets a ford escape or something similar we'll just bung him in the boot, and then it's happy days for all in the car until fermata takes a crap (it REALLY stinks)

last week i attended aries' birthday dinner, which was kind of unexpected because I AM NOT CLOSE TO ARIES AT ALL, but debbie (who isn't close to aries either) dragged me out cos she wanted dinner and a familiar face so we ended up teaching people how to order at melting pot. and it was admittedly fun; i met a few new people, had a pretty good time, had amazing chocolate fondue and wrote a pop song for debbie's class.

and then there was the ASAB @ Simmons gig, which was a minor success in that we got a good variety of performers to show up, and a fairly good crowd, AND a sizable total donation (for the japan quake)... not so sure about the quality of the performances though. there were several really good moments. but i blistered my fingers and they bled, so that wasn't so fun. and i would've stayed for the rest of the show had i not had to leave for Jayvon's 320 session...

........... which was horrendous due to an inappropriately written strings score (BUT there were good strings players, at the very least). and anytime past midnight is never really a good time to track vocals. singers' vocal cords are so delicate, they have a small window in a day where they sound absolutely great, and the rest of the day they kind of fluctuate between extremely breathy and husky and nasal and awful.

speaking of which, THIS IS JAYVON:

nikon d90 + nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

black people always have such perfect teeth it pisses me off. nice and straight and white. while i, with my fair-ish skin, have crappy yellow teeth (even though i stopped drinking coffee some 2-3 years ago) that would still be jutting out like crazy if i hadn't got braces to rein them in. GRRR. speaking of teeth, i'm thinking of getting invisalign to complete my unfinished braces treatment. i haven't gone to see the doctor yet because i still need to save up, and talk to my parents about it. retainers (when i do wear them, once a week, terrible of me) pretty much keep them from moving about too much since my teeth are overly calcified + mega strong (according to dr geoffrey) but i need to close up the gaps and give myself a more natural smile.

i have something like a usable $1500 saved up (my other savings aren't meant to be touched till i graduate, so i can use them to buy a car and stuff) ... i'm thinking maybe another $700 or so and i can make that invisalign decision.

updates

2011-04-07T01:43:00.000-04:00

so... remember how i kept whining about having too much junk in my closet, and how i was desperately trying to get rid of my garb? i found the perfect solution - buffalo exchange. BE is one of numerous thrift stores in and around boston, and one of the least dodgy places (*beep* garment district *beep*), with a good range of items from really cheap (forever21) to really expensive designer garb. like most consignment stores, BE resells things that it buys off customers. on sunday i went to check it out for the first time, bloomingdale's big canvas bag in tow chock full of clothes to sell.

i sold about 8 pieces of clothing for $38 - not too shabby, considering about half these items were from *cough* forever21. the others were a mish mash of miss selfridge, zara, topshop and asos. the latter i felt SHOULD have fetched a much higher price (TOPSHOP IS NOT CHEAP YOU KNOW #$*%&^) but... what do americans know about UK brands, right? regardless, i'll definitely go back within the next 2-3 weeks with another bagful of stuff to sell. here's to (hopefully) making at least $200 by the end of the semester!

nothing much else is new except I GOT A HAIRCUT!!! and i went like looking like this:

to

not a huge difference, just took 3 inches off and had my roots done. now most of the old blond bits are gone and my hair looks more... coherent? some of the damaged ends are still there (i'd have had to go really short if i was going to get rid of all of them) but in general everything is much lighter and healthier. i am a happy girl!

p.s. if you go to mie higashimoto ask for MIHO. she is so bubbly and cuts great hair! fumi was great too but she's not so friendly and she never really gave me what i wanted...

meme that gabes tagged me in

2011-04-03T08:36:00.003-04:00

1. what happened between the last girlfriend/boyfriend?

nothing really, but you know how some people make pretty good friends and just that? that was kind of what was wrong. apart from very huge age and religious differences and clashing levels of willingness to commit.

2. have any of your ex's called you by a nickname after the break up? don't think so. except "baby", but that was more of a habitual thing that just needed easing off.

3. have you ever thought that you were going to marry a person?
i had pretty crazy dreams once but i was like 16(?) at the time and just caught up in the whole first relationship thing i think.

4. do you hate your last boyfriend/girlfriend? definitely not (although i am still pissed off about certain things). we see a lot less of each other these days, which is weird coz we were good buddies before, but i guess the estrangement is kind of inevitable for most people.

5. have you ever liked someone so much that it hurt? i don't think i've ever had a crush that didn't hurt.

6. have you ever made a boyfriend or girlfriend mad? as in angry mad? yeah. i can be quite careless with my words, and i guess at the end of the day i am admittedly a bit bratty. /sadface

7. are you happier single or in a relationship? hard to say. i haven't exactly been through a disastrous relationship. it's really nice to have a heart-to-heart buddy you can also cuddle with, so i guess i am happier with a man by my side :)

8. ever dated anyone with an STD? egh??? no.

9. have you ever had your heart broken? i wouldn't say broken, more like bruised.

10. have you ever broken someone's heart? i... hope not.

11. think any of your ex's feel the same? as in still like me? i really don't know. if anything, i'm usually the one who has major trouble getting over an emotional down, i.e. a breakup. so if i've moved on already, he probably has too.

12. do you believe that you are a good boyfriend or girlfriend? i could do with being a little less clingy. and paranoid. but otherwise i am extremely loyal (which ties in with clingy). like a pet dog (not a very good comparison wtf). i'm very defensive about my significant other's actions.

13. do you believe people deserve a second chance? definitely. everyone makes mistakes. although in the context of relationships i think moving on is really important, and it's a little impractical to give someone a "second chance" if you don't feel strongly about them anymore.

14. do you believe in love at first sight? no.

15. do you want to get married? yes :)

16. does heartbreak really feel as bad as it’s said to be? i'm emotionally high-strung so any kind of emotional fluctuation affects me badly. so... yes.

17. would you believe your ex if she/he said they love you? as a friend? yeah. romantically? probably not. i don't really believe in gray areas when it comes to love.

18. would you date your best male/female friend? why not, i think good friends who hook up eventually tend to stick together for a long time. haha. this is assuming i'm not in a relationship, which isn't the case right now.

19. do you regret any of your relationships? no, i gained an even stronger friendship from one of them, and learned a whole bunch about human nature from the other. i like the idea of only having one love in your life, it's all really sweet and everything, but i guess that only happens in fairytales.

help me out here

2011-03-29T19:04:00.002-04:00

なんで男はポルノを見なきゃいけないんだ？？誰か、教えてくれないか？

i don't want this to be the cause of ruin, but feeling second-rate is really just... not nice. ugh, whatever.

on a happier note, i got a nice new men's shirt (my new favorite clothing item). it goes with pretty much anything, and i can't wait for the weather to warm up so i can wear it out without having to cover it up with a big heavy coat. now that i'm a wee bit smaller i

on a not so happy note, i have THREE HUGE ZITS on the right side of my face... it seems whenever i break out i only ever break out on one side of my face. the last time it was my left, now it's my right... FML :(

and on a neutral (or good?) note, i'm going to Mie this saturday to get my hair cut. i know i'm supposed to grow it out, but it's getting really dry and damaged and i really need all those split ends removed and my roots touched up. i'm going to do a medium-length layered bob this time. (kind of like what i did last year, i guess HAHA)

i leave you now with a little peek of yesterday's outfit: qi t-shirt, heritage81 tank top, asos diamond pendant & miss selfridge jeans.

confessions of a bulimic

2011-03-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

sometimes i forget all about my weight and stop worrying about what i'm putting in my mouth, and then all of sudden, two weeks later, all it takes is the feeling of a stuffed tummy for the alarm to go off. yesterday i talked to a friend's sister, who's recovering from bulimia, and i realized just how real and difficult the condition is. i've never been properly diagnosed with an eating disorder because i've never seen a doctor about it, but i think any chronic case of puking after eating doesn't really need a sit-down chat to be diagnosed as such.

i have always been extremely self-conscious and generally unhappy with my weight and my face. when i was in primary school and a gymnast, we had to adhere to strict eating rules, and we were weighed every day to make sure we weren't getting "fat". puberty for me began really early, when i was 9, and i shot up way before everyone else did. i also started developing breasts and hips - basically i was gaining a lot of weight, even though i wasn't getting fat. when i hit 35 kg i was told that i had to downsize my usual food portions. because i wanted to be a successful gymnast, i was determined to eat less. but as a kid growing up in a doctor's home, i wasn't allowed to eat less because it was unhealthy. as a result i always felt big, fat and greedy (albeit healthy).

in form 3 AFS sent me to japan to study.

first of all, most japanese girls are REALLY skinny, fair-skinned, have tiny boobs, perfect hair. in meitoh i constantly felt out of place - coming from a really sunny country, i was tan. i did not have tiny boobs. my hair was black and in a ponytail all the time. my journey to attempting to becoming one of the perfect japanese girls i was surrounded by began with me buying hair bleach one day and bleaching my hair brown. but it wasn't enough; the one guy in my class that i had a HUGE crush on (and everyone knew) had a massive crush on an upperclassman with long honey blond hair, a tiny nose, skinny legs, etc etc etc. and small boobs.

the whole thing was really depressing, so i started eating. and eating. and eating. and long story short, i gained 6 kg while i was in japan. when i returned to KL i weighed 55kg and looked ridiculous, even my sister laughed at me at the airport. my mum kept fussing about how chubby i'd become, and when i went back to school for some reason all the fat girls had gone on a crazy diet and lost truckloads of weight and become really slim.

i was the new fat girl.

when i rejoined the track team and started training again, my 100m time had dropped to 15 seconds (equivalent to my primary 5 time, i.e. SLOW AS A SNAIL). the coach said i had to lose weight or she wouldn't let me go to msskl (state track meet). out of desperation, i made myself throw up.

it was initially VERY painful. i was trying to grow my nails out, so they always scraped the back of my throat when i stuck my fingers in. i got heartburn. the gastric acid irritated my esophagus and i constantly had a sore throat. but i persisted and lost a LOT of weight. i was really happy about the weight loss, but i wasn't happy that it didn't make me any prettier. i was going through a period where all the girls had grown up and were starting to date. i always wondered why everyone else was capable of attracting male attention while i was always stuck in a one-sided crush. i have had issues with acne for 10 years and i still am unable to hold a full face of makeup for a day without breaking out like crazy the next morning. IT REALLY DOES SUCK.

at the time, although i was trying to keep it a secret, i didn't think i was doing anything particularly bad for myself. i went for a 45-minute run everyday, drank lots of green tea, ate no more than 800kc a day. i severely limited my junk food intake, refused all cookies/cake, stopped drinking everything but green tea. i was in a way pretty healthy. this continued into 12th grade until i went to new york.

in NYC things got tricky because i shared an apartment with 3 other girls, and there was only one bathroom. i couldn't puke because i was afraid someone would find out, and anyway for the first 6 months i was so excited about being in NYC that i kept going all over the city and eating random shit that i'd never eaten before... and before i knew it, i'd gained all the weight i worked so hard to lose, and more. in retrospect i suppose the one thing that was good about it was that i was sort of forced to not throw up. for a while it was extremely frustrating because i wanted to but couldn't.

^ weighing approximately 59 kg. disgusting

since coming to boston i've started eating more healthily, but i won't deny that the bulk of my weight loss here happened early last year immediately after my breakup. being depressed sucked, but at least i came out of it looking better (??)

it's now been 7 years since all this craziness began. i've definitely come a long way from throwing up after every single meal. nowadays i have to deal with trying to eat properly without feeling terrible (the beginnings of subconscious anorexia?). i try to tell people about it just so i don't have to feel like i'm hiding some deep dark secret. i don't know if i will ever fully recover, just because the whole throwing up thing is like doing drugs or smoking. it's an addiction. once you've done it several times, you KNOW you're completely capable of it. your muscles remember how it's done. it doesn't hurt, it doesn't take much effort. it's too easy.

complete recovery means feeling perfectly fine in my own body, and i haven't quite reached that point yet. hopefully the day will come when i can finally look in the mirror and see the pretty girl i've always dreamed of being.

someday.

lately

2011-03-18T00:01:00.000-04:00

xiao'an and i nearly lost fermata last night - he somehow managed to get out of the apartment while we were out having dinner with jayvon & co. our guess is that someone (amos or cheryl) must have left the door open for whatever reason and fermata must have crept out quickly and sneakily like the wily little weasel he is. he was out for nearly 5 hours, and was spotted on the 4th floor. we only discovered him around midnight (after frantically searching the bathroom and xiaoan's room) when we heard him scratching at the front door. poor thing was so tired he went straight to sleep as soon as we let him in.

my 50mm lens arrived just yesterday evening. the D90 should be arriving on monday, and if everything goes well, i.e. it's in perfect working condition, no faults, etc, i'll be able to start using it immediately! i'm quite out of practice, haven't really had the chance to practice on an SLR in a while so it'll probably take me some time to get used to using a viewfinder and tweaking stuff and changing lenses again. but i'm really, really excited. (i'll also be able to take self-portraits for my lookbook, which should be fun... once i get used to self-portraiting)

toodles!

post-quake

2011-03-11T23:57:00.000-05:00

RIP, Reiko.
ずっと君の記憶は私の心の中に残る。
名古屋で初めて会った時から別れた日までとその後いろいろ感謝しています。

日本にいる知り合い全員をまだ連絡すること出来ないけど、無事用に祈ります。

growing up

2011-03-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

it's really weird looking back and thinking about how i used to be like, the jock in school, always winning races and trying to get by in class with as little effort as possible. i don't think i took anything seriously then, except maybe the idea of building a gundam and designing a kera-esque line of clothing (which failed miserably because, as i learned, i am only capable of copying existing designs). i didn't even take music seriously. i knew it was a big part of my life but i never really imagined it would BE my life. i also never realized how lala i was until i got to boston (yes, took me that long) and saw that none of the japanese kids were wearing half the colors i had on.

I HAVE LEARNED MANY THINGS!!! i have learned that:

1. jeans are awesome (learned in late 2009 when i began losing heaps of weight)

2. i can trust my ears 99% of the time

3. i am a 30DD (barbie?) if i go by the standard way of measuring bust size

4. jrock > all other music

5. forgiving is difficult/painful/frustrating but you feel so much better after you do it

6. i cannot pull off berets to save my life :(

7. I SPEND TOO MUCH (started out with 3 pairs of cheap ass shoes from cutesygirl when i first went to NYU... slowly moved on to delia*s, and now asos and topshop... almost religiously FML)

8. I HOARD TOO MUCH

9. i should trust my tastebuds more... e.g. I ALWAYS KNEW TROPICANA ORANGE JUICE IS CRAP

10. sometimes i don't know when to stop using caps, and i realize too late that i sound bimbotic as a result

all these, among other not so important things.

i am also generally a happier person these days, i am going out with an absolutely wonderful (if a little annoying) guy that i love love love to bits(!!), and i am the proud mother(?) of the naughtiest ferret in the world, and i have lots of shoes. COULDN'T BE HAPPIER.

wannabe

2011-02-27T09:10:00.000-05:00

reading fashion blogs is a great way to load up on style fix ideas quickly without having to wade through too much shit (i.e. US Vogue), but every now and then it gets kind of depressing. mostly because everyone owns stuff i don't and i wish i owned everyone's wardrobe. this is clearly a redundant thing to say because no two women have identical wardrobes... but STILL.

anyway. some of the stuff i purchased recently include the biggest wellies in the world (note to self: NEVER buy rain boots without trying them on first because for some reason 99% of rain boots are made for people with massive calves...), a suede coat from mango, leather pants (cropped really, but i'm a midget) and sam edelman faye clogs.

this is one side of the edelmans i was raving about a month ago:

(fermata's plastic tunnel in the background haha) taken with iphone 4 and edited with FREE ps app! technology is scarily awesome nowadays. these clogs are comfy as heck despite how teetery they look - the platform and sturdy sole make this a very, very walkable shoe. then again i have yet to actually go outside in these because the weather isn't very walk-friendly right now... so maybe i'll change my mind when spring comes round. the right clog is a quarter size too small (but not very obvious), i should've ordered half a size up.

:) ?

2011-02-22T18:38:00.000-05:00

there is something really humbling, yet at the same time refreshingly smile-inducing, about reading old blog posts. i've had this blog for slightly over 7 years now (although i did switch to livejournal for about 3 years until blogspot got an interface makeover), and i've filled it with tons of shit... most of which i've actually moderated out (last year i began vetoing posts when i realized there was a little too much extreme negativity being put up). now it's just 135 entries documenting 5 long years of my life - not nearly enough, some would think, but they're some of the most memorable bits.

i haven't got much to say, haven't been doing much besides looking over people's film scores - jesse would be so proud :') - and hassling UPS and various shippers about my shipments that got stolen. seriously man wtf, people just pick up your packages and run! ok well UPS does leave packages at the front door, which is quite a shitty thing to do, and my apartment doesn't have a working buzzer, which makes things extreeeemely difficult. LE SIGH. hopefully once i move out things will be better.

to end, here's a super old video i downloaded somewhere 5-6 years ago and randomly found again last week! the song is anything you can do i can do better from annie get your gun. haven't seen it but this song alone definitely makes me want to!

this and that

2011-02-17T01:58:00.000-05:00

YES 、いっぱいいっぱい買いましたよ！

ヒマがあったら写真ULする☆

てかあの憧れなファッションブロガーみたいになったなぁ... i have no idea if that's a good or bad thing. probably bad if i'm spending all this money. NO MORE SHOPPING TILL MAY!!! (or till the first victoria's secret biannual sale, whichever occurs first) i realize i've never actually been so crazy about shopping till late last year... i blame it on leblogdebetty and a number of my friends who've become quite bimbotic shopaholics. the latter point is actually quite amusing, considering we all grew up total tomboys, not wanting to wear skirts or get married, and all of a sudden one of us is engaged, most of the rest of us are in committed relationships and none of us would go back to our t-shirts + cargo pants days for a sack of money.

** and tbh being in a relationship actually makes me dress up more (when i go out anyway). i don't quite know why this is; occasionally it's because i just look like crap and i'd hate xa to be seen out with some gaunt/pale hag. other times i don't know. xa and i watched this documentary last month called the science of sex appeal, and in it was some theory (hypothesis? dunno if it was actually proven or not) that women who are in steady relationships tend to tart themselves up more and exhibit more sensual body language in the presence of other men - presumably to incite competition of some sort. so maybe that's what i'm doing. but if i'm not consciously vying for other men's attention (not a loose woman wtf), and i have absolutely no interest in guys other than my boyfriend, then how does this all add up? confuseddd @#&$^%(

on another less confusing note, yui and i are performing at ASAB fest on saturday (we've HARDLY rehearsed), i'm still recovering from the cold i mysteriously came down with all of a sudden, and..... MALAYSIA FORUM is in boston once more! whether or not i will be going depends on several things, but i have offered to host 1 attendee. hope it's a girl, then maybe i can talk her into buying stuff from me hohoho.

happy valentine's day :)

2011-02-14T00:03:00.001-05:00

if there were no words, no way to speak
i would still hear you
if there were no tears, no way to feel inside
i'd still feel for you

and even if the sun refused to shine
even if romance ran out of rhyme
you would still have my heart until the end of time
you're all i need, my love, my valentine

all of my life
i have been waiting for all you give to me
you've opened my eyes, and shown me how to love unselfishly
i've dreamed of this a thousand times before
in my dreams i couldn't love you more
i will give you my heart until the end of time
you're all i need, my love, my valentine

and even if the sun refused to shine
even if romance ran out of rhyme
you would still have my heart until the end of time
cause all i need is you, my valentine
you're all i need, my love, my valentine

* * *

happy valentine's day, everyone!!

the very beautiful song above pretty much sums up my sentiments toward a very special person - i'm glad youtube and blogger exist, cos otherwise how would my paiseh self express anything! *sob*

thank you for being with me even on my crankiest days. i love you very very much ♥

addiction

2011-02-10T12:27:00.003-05:00

I WANT THIS BADLY.

and on a slightly unrelated note,

i need to start wearing heels more often.

ferret asthma

2011-02-05T17:56:00.000-05:00

around 8 am on thursday xiao'an and i woke to a weird wheeze/hiccough sort of sound from fermata. kind of like the sound people make when they hyperventilate, except not as loud. our first reaction was why the hell is he making that weird noise? and then my second reaction was (in my head) OH SHIT HE MUST BE CHOKING.

to cut a long story short, we never found out what was wrong with him. every 30 seconds he'd go into a short fit of wheezing spasms + reverse sneezing, and his whole ribcage would move like crazy. and sometimes the spasms were so strong they alarmed even him and the poor guy would run and hide somewhere safe, like behind the stove (not exactly safe but hidden anyway) or in his box under xiao an's bed. i contacted a vet online, who said it could be an allergic reaction, so i sent jayvon out to buy some benadryl.

this was after about 4 hours of intermittent spasms. every time i fed him ferretvite it seemed to make the spasms worse, but eventually he got hungry and with much effort ate his dry food. it was really really painful to watch, because he had to stop after every mouthful to wheeze. but it must have done him some good, because a few minutes into eating he was completely fine and bouncing around like his normal playful self. i concluded that it must have been asthma or something.

^ the little monkey that got me SO WORRIED.

i can now safely say i kind of know what it feels like to be a mom. i have to wipe up fermata's shit, wipe his backside, give him baths, clean up all his spilled food, keep him out of trouble, make sure he's not lost, make sure he has a nice surface to sleep on, make sure he's warm when he goes outside, etc.

harrrumph

2011-01-28T06:08:00.000-05:00

K : i just had a revelation

E : yah?

K : fuck porn

E : how is that a revelation!

E : but i share your sentiments

E : fuck porn indeed

K : im so insulted

K : its not even like guys sayin fuck shopping

K : unless youre shopping for sex toys

E : ahaah

E : my obsession with clothes/shopping is quite dangerous though

K : but seriously

K : fuck porn

K : i want to drown that poopface in pillows stuffed with broken glass

K : for lack of a better name to call him

E : i feel you

E : although i wouldn't go as far as the broken glass

updates

2011-01-24T16:26:00.003-05:00

not much has happened in the past week. bought a new saute pan from all-clad's special lagostina line, calphalon bakeware that i hope to start using in the next month (right now i'm just reluctant to go out and buy ingredients because IT'S TOO FUCKING COLDDD), sold 2 old bags i had lying around, made a crazy trip* to jamaica plain for joe's dinner party, bought my first pair of sam edelmans (it was a close toss up between edelman and jeffrey campbell) and celebrated xiao an's birthday(!!!)

* ok to be honest it wasn't that far. it's just the cold (-14ºC) + snowy sidewalks + wind + slush seeping through my shoes that turned it all around. my aigner boots are now ruined - still wearable but they've got snow/freeze marks everywhere and i can only hope that treating them with leather protector and shoe cream will help somewhat.

anyway. yesterday we had a surprise birthday party for xiao'an, only it wasn't much of a surprise because he found out ages ago (the bastard) but i think everyone had fun last night regardless. i know i definitely want to get kinect at some point! especially since i already have an xbox hahahaha.

alright lah going to see if i can squeeze some music out of my head and onto paper. i've been trying for the past few days (albeit not very hard) and i haven't been able to produce anything substantial. hopefully i'll have something proper and worth expanding by the end of the week, otherwise wtf i'm completely useless.

COLD

2011-01-20T21:01:00.000-05:00

OH MY GOD IT JUST KEEPS GETTING COLDER AND COLDER AND COLDER

but here is a picture to keep you entertained. this was at shawn cutler, think i was getting my hair treated for total lack of health or something.

on a side note, i bought new topshop jamie (ultimate skinny) jeans before i left for boston and THEY ARE AMAZING, i love topshop jeans sososososo much :) i'm saying this now because I CAN FINALLY FIT into a pair of their ridiculously tiny jeans. last time i couldn't, but that was cos i was a human blimp. now i'm still a bit blobby but not so blobby that people are filled with an irresistible urge to poke me all the time.

i'm still going to try and lose 2-4 kg over the course of the semester but i'm not really aiming to become a super skinny minnie anymore cos when i was back home i looked at all my growing up pictures and realized that even when i was a kid and had less than 10% fat on me my bone structure already dictated that i was always going to be sort of broad and that there would never be that coveted large gap between the thighs which most skinny asian people have.

i guess that explains why even at my thinnest some 10 years ago my waist size was 24 (right now it's 25.5) and my sister, who is under 5 feet and absolutely tiny, has a waist size of 24 (bigger than some supermodels). and according to auntie celina, we are doomed to have wide hips/thighs because apparently in runs in my family. WTF WHAT KIND OF GENES DID WE GET :'(

hair

2011-01-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

i've always wanted more than my ratty, miserable short-lived pink streaks of 2008. ideally i'd like to have an edgy short do that's all hot pink or bright red, but i'm really very very bad at styling short hair, and i don't really want hair that's all hard and sticky from wax/spray/gel/etc anyway. i'd much rather have a full head of long silky smooth (albeit slightly damaged) tresses. ALL IN PINK. like so:

and it would be pretty awesome if i could go out looking like cato van ee every day but haha too bad no supermodel features and no team of stylists to fix my hair every 10 minutes. errr also having one eye perpetually covered with a pink rose petal might look a bit odd.

but nice right? nice right? nice right?

exchange of the year

2011-01-06T23:30:00.000-05:00

et : how long have you guys been together ah?

xa : since january?

me: WHAT. i met you for the first time in february!

hahaha such a nutcase ♥♥♥

sometimes, haha

2011-01-02T05:39:00.002-05:00

en: EH look at the wedding dress nice!

mich: eh so nice! i want la!

en: i also want la! so nice!

(20 minutes later)

mich: aiyooo look at the baby so cute!

en: omg so cute! i want one!

mich: i also want! damn cute!

*swoooooon*

mmm, malaysia

2010-12-23T23:16:00.000-05:00

i'm HOOOOOOOOOOOME and it feels really hot and sticky and ughhhhh but it's HOME, what else can i say? :) haven't really done much besides eat good food, de-tick my dogs (cos apparently EVERYONE is too busy to do the dirty work) and help my grandma totter around the house. oh, and play lots of piano.

coming back to summer & pepper was really weird. i've been around fermata for so long that i kind of forgot just how big my labs really are. summer is really small for a lab, but MUCH bigger than a ferret. sometimes i feel a bit sorry for them because pepper's old and can't go outside, and i can't take summer outside without pepper because she'll find out and get upset, so the only solution is to let summer wander around late at night while pepper sits by the stairs and whines sadly. she tried running down the stairs the other day but we caught her and hauled her back up. i'd honestly let her go out if i could, but she's old and weak and can't climb back up the stairs. she can't even walk down properly, she just slides.

also, watching how mom and daughter interact (esp in mom's old age) kind of made me really want to get another ferret to keep fermata company. granted, he does have a lot of free rein, and has a decent amount of fun nipping me and xiao'an and waking us up in the morning by crawling all over our faces, but i can't play with him all the time, which upsets me because he didn't ask to be brought home just to be left alone :( i'm looking online for adoptable ferrets now - gotta talk to xiao'an about it cos having 2 ferrets obviously = more money spent on food and stuff.

SIGH.

looking forward to singapore trip! :)

dug this up

2010-12-18T00:44:00.000-05:00

isn't it funny
how our greatest strengths
so often also turn out to be our greatest weaknesses?
how knowing too much often becomes
that pride before the dreaded fall?

perhaps my greatest strength and weakness is,
my inability to stay in the present.
i live in the future,
in the 10 years from now,
in the settled down ahead
with a job to work hard at
children to feed and educate
a partner to lean on and to support
old folks to care for
bills and dues to pay
but at the same time, thinking,
i could not possibly be happier.

Form 5 (2005)

* * *

i think i was trying to sound like the english version of a samad said's gagak parit? i think i achieved that somewhat. but of course my poem(?) is more personal lah, no mention of pollution or babies dying.

eurgh

2010-12-12T00:55:00.000-05:00

i've had a pretty hateful relationship with pornography for as long as i can remember. my first brush with XXX-rated material was sometime in '97, i think. i saved some anime pictures somewhere and couldn't find them, and couldn't remember what they were called, so i thought, oh well, not a problem, i'll just go to Search Files and search for *.jpg and sort according to date. very clever yes?

clever in theory only. the first 10,000 or so pictures that showed up were of random naked ang mohs sucking each other off, penetrative sex in action... you get the idea. at the time i wasn't entirely sure what the fuck was going on, but later on when i knew more about computers i realized that my cousins (who were visiting at the time) must have been surfing, and you know how pictures always get stored in the Temp folder for 30 days (to allow loading from computer cache on days when internet is painfully slow).......... but yeah to cut a long story short i was completely grossed out. i also watched Gowcaizer (by accident) and didn't like it.

and then when manga started to go shounen-ai, like most girls i got all flustered and everything (early brushes with gayness what to do) until i stumbled upon hardcore yaoi doujinshi, and then i had to stop. talk about manga porn! with your favorite male character getting done by another male character! seriously. cannot take it. :'(

in a more real-life context, i've seen lots of relationships crumble and fail because of porn. it's usually the same scenario, girl finds out guy's been secretly watching porn, gets upset, fight fight fight, everything blown to smithereens. most of the time i happen to be friends with the guy. which makes things extra difficult for me because I don't condone porn watching. and i wish porn didn't exist, and i wish men had more self-control. it's ridiculous how they try to justify it; it's like when women try to justify spending $1000 on a designer bag. porn doesn't cost $1000, but it is an addiction (like smoking, doing drugs, shopping, etc) and often puts you at the risk of losing some other really valuable things, like TRUST.

seriously. it's bad enough girls (including me) feel bad about our appearances because of how heavily airbrushed everything is nowadays. it's bad enough we feel insecure as shit when we watch Transformers and Megan Fox shows up on screen in all her bodily glory and there is an audible gulp or sharp intake of breath from every guy in the room. but porn is.... seriously THE LAST STRAW. it makes girls feel inferior as women, and inadequate as partners.

wtf are all these "because we can" articles? porn can be justified? men think about sex more than women and that's why they watch porn? because they're just biologically programmed to do so? fuck no!

and... i don't mean to say that it's more justifiable if done in the know, but isn't watching porn in secret the same as lying? hiding info is just like giving false info. wtf is transparency in a relationship if guys have to hide their dirty addictions that [most of the time] they don't try to get over anyway. it pisses me off so bad! everyone says that girls who get upset about their partners watching porn are paranoid and insecure and blah, but really, i don't see any reason not to get upset or feel insecure? and worse still, it just shows how much the women's liberation movement has backfired. we're still being looked at as sexual images, being dominated and made to spread our legs for money wtfbanana.

sorry got a bit riled up cos i'm trying to help mediate a fight between two people who used to get along so well and don't anymore... because of porn. i dunno la. in public i generally try to project a neutral stand on porn just to not seem like such a prude but... in all honesty?

FUCK PORN.

boo hoo :'(

2010-12-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

i am really very sad, cos everything is going wrong with my appearance. ever since that RIDICULOUS acne outbreak in the summer, i've been looking like complete shit. i have heaps of pimple scars, and i want to pile on makeup to cover them all up but the more makeup i use the more i break out.......... wtf so much for mineral foundation! and the annoying thing is, these days i only ever get huge red pimples, the VERY PAINFUL kind. and not the kind that swell and turn white (because of all the pus gathering beneath); just the kind that swell and hurt like crazy. these are (apparently) called cystic pimples.

and to make matters worse, my hair is a shitty length and texture (because fumi didn't layer it enough), it's got some crazy black-brown ombre thing going on from previous dye jobs, and it's just really stringy and ugly 99% of the time.

AND if all that isn't enough, my teeth have moved a LOT. this is mostly my fault because i haven't been very disciplined in wearing my removable retainers... but also the dentist's fault cos he didn't do a very good job securing the lingual retainers (that is, the ones behind my teeth). he's terrible la, never mind if he's a family friend, he charged me SO much for braces and he didn't even take into consideration the shape of my smile - as a result i ended up with less of a monkey/horse face, but a very weird smile. boo hoo hooooooo

to cut a long story short, i am looking quite hideous at the moment and totally not fit to appear in public!!! GOD HELP MEEEEE

post-tg

2010-11-27T14:24:00.002-05:00

had a big big big thanksgiving meal at uncle chee keng's place! so big even 13 people in attendance couldn't finish all the food haha. there was turkey, a massive ham, noodles, lots of little korean pancake thingies, and this really awesome pecan cake that jin ai made. and several rounds of taboo. i think me and x'a should really go on to world taboo championships or something (if got such thing la). we'd win for sure HAHA.

we brought fermata with us - he turned out to be more well-behaved than i expected, except for when he almost pooped on the car seat and i picked him up just in time... and he ended up pooping on my hand and on his bag. ROOAARR. and letting him loose in the car wasn't a great idea either because he seemed to think it'd be fun to get in between xa's feet while xa was driving.

no pictures because... I DIDN'T BRING MY CAMERA!! sob.

also, quick shoutout - DON'T RENT FROM HERTZ!!! they are fucking expensive and not even rightly so. i guess it's because i've always sat in zipcars ($7/hour, $69/day, FREE GAS) all this while that the masssive $300+ bill just killed me. seriously. $300 = > RM1,000. for TWO days? not inclusive of fuel? and you MUST return the car with a full tank otherwise you have to pay a premium? what kind of crazy service is that? i understand that yeah, the car needs to be gassed up for the next renter, but hertz @ park plaza has a gas station within its premises. it's not like they need to travel across the atlantic to fill the cars up, so what is this $8.99/gallon bullshit.

and pretty soon we'll find if we were gypped into returning the car late. hertz has this "convenient" after-hours return thing, where you're allowed to return the car after the store closes, as long as its before 10pm coz that's when the garage closes. but what they neglect to tell you, or at least word quite vaguely so you're not really sure, is that you could be charged for an extra day's rental because you returned the car when the store was closed. then what's the point of writing down what time you returned the car? it doesn't make sense. i think i should sit down with the CEO of hertz and have a long talk about how inconvenient hertz's "convenient services" are.

wish we'd applied for zipcar earlier and got everything settled, then it would've been so much easier. i guess the reason why zipcar's so cekap in MA is, their freaking headquarters are in cambridge HAHA. that's probably why there are so many zipcar pickup locations throughout boston. maybe we'll take a drive to the beach or summat with the ferret in tow again (speaking of which, he's cuddled up in a bunch of old sheets next to XA's bed, fast asleep).

and speaking of the ferret...

xiao'an and i will be gone for winter break, and are having a hard time finding someone who'll be around over christmas, who'll look after fermata while we're gone. most of the international kids who aren't going home are planning to travel around the states - can't blame them, really, boston in late december is just as good as the arctic - and i haven't been able to find any mass residents whose moms don't have problems with ferrets.

amos said he'd help find someone, and then asked me how much i would pay. i honestly never thought i'd have to pay someone to look after a ferret. compensating for food and bedding is only normal, but paying for a service? by someone who's not a professional, but just some animal lover who wants to help out? i dunno. i guess paying some makes sense, but i think that's something i should offer to do, rather than be asked to do.

SERIOUSLY though.

(curled up on marina's beret, that's how freaking small he is)

WHO COULD POSSIBLY RESIST THIS!?!??!?

haiku

2010-11-12T13:45:00.005-05:00

六ヶ月
悔恨は無い
愛してる。

rokka-getsu
kaikon ha nai
aishiteru

translate that.

thank you, x'a

2010-10-30T02:02:00.000-04:00

i know i don't really show it because my paiseh-ness always gets in the way, but i'm immensely thankful every day for you, and all the little happy, annoying, befuddling, crazy (and oftentimes SMELLY) quirks that remind me every single time how much i love having you around ♥

?

2010-10-22T23:20:00.000-04:00

say someone tells you that as a friend they have no expectations of you. then what happens to standards? someone once told me at school retreat, i think, that part of the fun was in watching the perfect image of your friend disintegrate into something more imperfect, more human, almost. but surely we don't also first expect our friends to be gods? so we don't want to be friends with established liars and conmen, but we'll readily be friends with liars-and-conmen-to-be? i mean, it's all so contradictory. GRRRAAAHHH

me having expectations of people, i think, is not so much a tacked-on item as it is a fundamental role. of course i want my friends to live up to standards, be good and upright people, be successful, etc etc. and of course i want them to want me to live up to standards, be a good and upright person, be successful, etc etc. you know, help push each other along, all for our own good. i don't expect anyone to give me money anything like that, but what's a friend if you're not looking out for one another - emotionally and morally? i'm not just a cold advice-dispensing machine that goes, "here's my two cents, take it or leave it, doesn't matter what you do with it because it's your life."

the minute i say "i have no expectations of you", i am a fucking liar, because i care, and hope that my friends won't do stupid or foolish or rash things like drown puppies or jaywalk when there's an oncoming truck or hisap dadah. i EXPECT you to be smart enough to know what the hell you're doing when you're standing on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street. i EXPECT you to respect people's feelings and not toy with them. how are any of these expectations selfish? if anything they're only going to stop you from getting the shit beaten out of you.

i dunno, i guess it's a just matter of asking oneself what the difference between a friend and a mere acquaintance is. i don't really mean to impose my idea of friendship on people; whatever works, works. BUT i don't think that sort of selflessness (or attempt at it, anyway) is necessarily destructive (this is where friends keep each other in check as well). i've always considered it an honor or privilege to have people expect certain things of me, because it means they actually give a shit about how i behave.

but for all my talk, i'm not exactly that nice a person either. i try, and often fail - HA - to be there for people... and then guilt surfaces later on, like an afterthought. boohoohoooo. so much for growing up in uncle sam's household.

p.s. uncle sam is my dad, not america.

nak masak

2010-10-12T23:18:00.000-04:00

oooookaaaayyy so i haven't been doing much cooking since i got back to boston - scratch that, i haven't cooked AT ALL. i've made food, i.e. toast, jell-o, peanut butter ritz cracker sandwiches, milo, boiled some eggs, but haven't actually prepared a proper meal in a while. i've been camping out at xa's place for a while but it still ISN'T where i live haha - and even though i'm paying for groceries too i still get that feeling of "oh i'm in someone else's house and i shouldn't touch the foodstuff".

anyway i stumbled upon a bunch of things i want to try making!!! i doubt i'll even get through 1/4 of the list by the end of the semester but if nothing else i will at least have a LIST (which will hopefully motivate me to get up and start cooking like a girl should).

(click for links to recipes!! :D)

1. sweet pear cake
2. REAL MAC & CHEESE
3. apple crisp
4. pumpkin casserole
5. halibut + ratatouille
6. peach cobbler (also here)
7. nikujaga (technically really easy to make, almost like making oyakodon, but i can never get it to taste quite like my host mum's...)
8. kimchi jjigae
9. tang yuan
10.KAYAAAAAAAAAAA
11.perut ikan
12.pandan chiffon cake (love love LOVEEE i used to ask my mum to buy a whole cake from king's confectionery every week HAHAA)
13.nyonya pork ribs (my mum does this really well, i miss home now :(
14.fo tiao qiang

i wish we had a proper oven at home, our kitchen is kinda boring :( i don't know if it's because my mum wanted to keep us from baking too many goodies and getting fat, or if she just doesn't know how to bake. i don't actually know how good my mum's cooking skills are since she doesn't cook often. on the rare occasion that she does it's usually pretty good.

most of the savory items on the list are soupy; i come from a hokkien eating background so it's always about the soup for me. it's got to be chock full of herbs and stuff for flavor (instead of adding 10 million condiments) and not salty. soup's good cos most of the time it doesn't have an in-your-face sort of taste (so you don't get sick of it too fast), and you get to eat as well as drink :)

k hungry now :(

because there is love

2010-10-08T22:58:00.000-04:00

because there is love,

it's okay to break down and cry.

it's okay to not be able to see, hear, or speak.

it's okay to throw a tantrum once in a while.

it's okay to be overweight and out of shape.

it's okay to not dress like everyone else.

it's okay to not have arms and legs.

it's okay to not be the richest man in the world.

it's okay to not be top of the class all the time.

it's okay to suddenly break out into song in the streets.

it's okay to be covered in burn scars.

it's okay to be completely different from everyone else, and each other.

it's okay to be jealous.

it's okay to want each other all to yourselves.

* * *

some of you might remember this as the note i wrote for nate and amanda and jules and basically everyone who was going through an emotional down / relationship crisis of some sort (mass depression?) some 4 years ago. reading through it again made me a little weepy... it made some interesting memories resurface. gabes asked why i never got around to dedicating it to anyone (in part because i forgot this note ever existed) specific; haha well, partly because of the way it was written, and partly because i am just too pai seh la omgwtfbanana.

but but but BUT BUT just because i am pai seh it doesn't mean i don't love my guitar-playing bespectacled pile of garlicky blubber to bits, in fact it's a good thing that i'm pai seh about it or he'd really be in bits (which is not very nice... anyway, shit joke) HUHUHUUU.

ok now i need to go be normal and do normal things like tend to my aching tummy and wash dishes and make sure fermata doesn't roll out of his hammock and break his back...

so...

2010-10-04T14:36:00.000-04:00

x'a was saying something just the other day about how i go out much less often these days. i wasn't aware that i used to go out a lot, though i think my being more "domestic" nowadays might have to do with how my circle of friends has changed a great deal from the time i first came to berklee. i think it also has to do with the fact that boston's just not very... fun. it's harder to go places, the T doesn't take you everywhere, there's not much to do, really. i guess being in NYC did spoil me quite a bit. i miss being able to go just about anywhere via subway and not get totally lost and frustrated and scared i might get robbed in the dark.

ANYWAY my point being : i decided to haul my ass over to allston (but not without dragging a number of key people with me hehehe) to get my pet rabbit, and lunch/bubble tea on the way at Super 88.

to cut a long story short, at the pet store i threw all ideas about getting a rabbit out the window and set my sights on a chinchilla instead cos it's so much cuter (!!!!!!!!) but XA got drawn to the sleeping mini sloth that's now our pet ferret, Fermata.

i haven't managed to take any good pictures of him yet because he moves around so fast, so i stole some pictures kat took and uploaded on facebook:

isn't he adorable :)))))

he's ridiculously naughty though, and hyper for the 3-4 hours he's awake each day.... and you know all these weasel-ish animals are nocturnal so they sleep the day away and wake up when you're asleep. and when i'm not around to let him out when he does get restless, it upsets him and he'll whine and whine (which sometimes wakes me up at 4-5am @#$%^&*). he's incredibly curious and likes squeezing through crevices and stuff, which is a bit problematic because sometimes he goes behind the bathtub/stove/fridge and i have no idea what's there. need to figure out a way to ferret-proof the place. MAN I FEEL LIKE A MOM.

but i mean, he is a cute guy. and he's just like summer was when she was 3 m/o and teething - chewing and scratching to bits everything in sight. ahhhhh kids.

SS10 : minidresses

2010-09-30T10:48:00.000-04:00

i'm not a very trendy person - that is to say, i don't really jump on the bandwagon and dress on trend every season... because it's just too expensive to buy new arrivals all the time. it's much cheaper to wait for a season to go by and then shop clearance sales and still be sort of fashionable, if a little on the edge of late. but anyway enough of that what i'm trying to say is OH MAN fashion week just keeps getting better and better!!! seriously. fashion is SERIOUS ART these days. doesn't always have to be crazy and otherworldly i.e. john galliano or alexander mcqueen - some of the simplest dresses from SS10 really blew me away.

here are some looks that really struck a chord with me, looks i'd love to wear if i had the money to buy them and the body to wear them. i'm starting this off with short dresses (other styles will follow in separate posts later).

left - loewe / right - sonia rykiel

AHHH THE COLORS. i'm not much of a brown/yellow/burnished orange kind of person, but perhaps it's about time i changed a little. i wish i was skinny enough to wear leather and/or ribbed knit dresses, it sucks having boobs coz knit stuff makes them look bigger and leather makes you lose most of your shape (unless it's unforgivingly tight). i loved most of sonia rykiel's stuff for Spring '10, really gorgeous and fun and girly in a not-too-girly way :)

left - j mendel / right - matthew williamson

cocktail/party dresses i'd dieeeee to have. i don't think i can pull off the plunging neckline, but the bustier/short bubble hem works really well for my body type :) again, not really my usual color, but i've been wanting to try out beige for a while. i've sort of gingerly ventured into the area with a few light pink dresses and LOTS of brown/beige shoes, but i'm still kind of scared to go all beige/brown.

left - bottega venetta / right - thakoon

fabulously casual dresses. i just don't get all the sheer though. why are clothes so, so see-through nowadays? i'm really not thin enough to be wearing lots and lots of layers to counteract the sheer :(

left - jason wu / right - ralph lauren

jason wu is so awesome! i wish i could buy all his dresses, they're so fun and flirty and girly without being too sexy/slinky. slinky's nice, but i think i'm really more of a lace/ruffles/bohemian vibe kind of girl at heart. AND HOW ADORABLE IS THE WHITE DRESS ON CHANEL IMANNNN :))))) people always give me shit for glorifying designer stuff - i mean, come on, look at how well made this stuff is! fuck la i wish i had lots and lots of money :(

errr, updates?

2010-09-25T10:20:00.000-04:00

errrr sorry i seem to be becoming more and more boring! i guess it comes with age? hmm i dunno. also... i haven't been through any major emotional turmoil lately (which is good la of course) so... ya, i generally haven't been sitting around and moping and thinking deep thoughts. reflecting(?) on how i've changed over the years makes me laugh - i used to be so withdrawn and pensive and pessimistic and emo and shit. i mean, i'm still slightly withdrawn, and extremely easy to sway emotionally, and i get all weepy and stuff damn fast but it's not my default persona anymore. on a normal day i am just me, slightly kooky, slightly hyper, food on my mind 24/7 (i find i think more about food now that i'm thinner; WHY!?!?!?)

see i'm so rambly wtfbbq. guess that's good too, coz me in a bad mood = very very unpleasant and scary. most people find angry me scary... except xiao'an, who finds it frustrating cos when i marah i dowan to layan him and he ends up getting angry himself.

i bought a bunch of stuff - so what else is new, hah - and found that i am a PERFECT SIZE 8 WAIST DOWN, as proven by my ability to fit into a pair of super skinny trousers from Miss Selfridge. PETITE EIGHT OK NO SHIT. sadly i am not a perfect 8 all over cos i have jiggly things on my chest that get in the way of a lot of things :(

the most exciting thing in my life this week is probably this :

please ah, it's not a razor. it's an EPILATOR. and i've never used one in my life and always wanted to get one because shaving sucks, waxing hurts like a bitch, laser too expensive and cannot go into the sun for a while, tweezing takes donkey years and shaving is just stupid. and hair removal cream is ok except it splits your hairs so you end up with two extremely fine hairs growing out where there used to be one thick hair. but an epilator - what a fine invention! it essentially rips your hair out like wax does, but you don't have to worry about burning yourself or getting sticky wax all over your clothes and shit. it's just like a turbo tweezer lah basically.

bought from braun because it's braun, i mean, everyone knows braun can be trusted and makes great products. even my electric toothbrush is braun (but i haven't used it in like 2 years). and it's quite a cute looking epilator. there's this thing called a smartlight on it that lights up when you turn the dial, and IT IS FREAKING BRIGHT. something like 10,000 lux (this is obviously not true, seeing as i don't know how bright 10,000 lux actually is.)

now that i've proven to be completely and utterly airheaded and bimbotic by enthusiastically blogging about a hair removal device, i shall leave you gaping and go to class now kthxbai.

trying

2010-09-19T07:31:00.001-04:00

you can't quantify love, and if you try, you can end up focusing on misleading factors:
stuff that really has more to do with personality; the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship.

but beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there.

love is seldom - almost never - an even proposition.

little imperfections

2010-09-11T00:04:00.000-04:00

"in the end, it's these small things that you remember.

the little... imperfections, that make them perfect for you."

:')

updates

2010-09-07T15:08:00.007-04:00

some quick updates coz i have nothing substantial to blog about haha.

got into boston after a 33-hour journey (a day-long flight + bus to MA) and self-proclaimed nice guy xiao'an came to get me at South Station, around which time i kind of realized my bags weren't actually that heavy. funny how that only occurred to me when i was dead tired from all the traveling.

i've pretty much been staying at xiao'an's place since then, because when i got back yui was still occupying peter's room and alek hadn't made any effort to get out of the apartment. when he finally did get out sometime around friday morning, he left behind a great big pile of dust and random shit for the rest of us to clean up, as well as an extremely short-notice announcement that our internet contract had ended. i've moved in proper now, but i can't sleep in my bed till my new bedsheets from delia*s arrive, coz alek kept loaning out my mattress to random people without asking me and there is NO way i'm sleeping on sheets that thousands of other people slept on, that also touched the kitchen floor.

after taking doxycycline for about 8 days and not seeing any positive effects, i started noticing red patches of skin on my neck/chest, and have no idea if it's (a) an allergic reaction, or (b) photosensitivity as a result of taking antibiotics. it's kind of annoying, because my skin keeps tingling and it feels REALLY WEIRD. guess i'm gonna have to slather on sunblock every time i go out :(

edit: turns out i really am allergic to tetracyclines. woooo my first ever allergic reaction! i got rashes/bumpy patches of skin all over and was totally grossed out but a few antihistamines later they went away :)

met up with amber, greg, kippei and john (my cinematography heeeeerooo :D) to talk about the music for kippei's film. it's always good when other people on the crew are music people, because then you can get good input from them. and more often than not they know what they're talking about. not like me. i have a hard time explaining things :( i think i'm like, mentally retarded or something. i can do things, but i just can't explain. most of the time it's just a vocab issue, but i've found that even after taking writing classes and everything i'm just terrible at retaining verbal info. i forget terms and theories and stuff. i just remember sounds and visuals. guess that's why i'm made for the film industry? haha i dunno.

i also just found out that X broke up with E. i kind of had a hunch but didn't want to ask. now i know for sure. and i dunno if i should be happy or not. like, there were times when i wished i could punch his brains out. I MEAN HELLO HOW CAN YOU STAND BY AND WATCH SOME ANNOYING RICH BUGGER MAKE HIS GIRLFRIEND CRY. @#&$^%#!!!!! i hope a piano lands on his head.

hmm and what else. Berklee dropped me (without warning) from 3 classes because the system is just shit. i managed to get one class back but lost the other two :( at least i get to take lessons with Danilo Perez, which should be pretty awesome :) i am by no means an awesome pianist, but i hope the masterclass will at least push me hard enough so that i'll start shuffling faster in the direction of awesomeness. right now i'm at a crawl and slowing to a halt. good thing is i can still hear lines, so my ears haven't totally let me down yet! :)

alright, going to get ready for class. toodles ♪

la dee dum

2010-08-24T12:45:00.001-04:00

i need to get my sight reading speed up again. it's slowed down tremendously aggrrrrrrrr. and i need to get back to writing solo piano scores because i need the practice. the problem with writing for my own instrument is, it's very hard for me to have a objective (you could say) aural view of how something should sound, as opposed to how i would play it. because a lot of the time i'm not scoring for myself; i'm scoring for someone with bigger hands, better skills, etc. in some ways it's more complicated than writing for orchestra. essentially i'm trying to create just as big a sound with just one instrument, regardless of the context of the music. it sounds a bit abstract and wtf but i'm not very good at explaining things.

anywaysssss. bleh. don't you think that's a nice picture? haha. compared to other pictures of me, anyway. most of the time i look shitty in pictures, but i suppose that's because i'm not exactly jessica alba in real life also. SIGHHH WHY CAN'T I BE A REALLY PRETTY GIRL TOO :(

trip trip (it's a kokia song)

2010-08-21T12:05:00.011-04:00

soooooo i'm back in hot & humid malaysia, which doesn't feel unlike a rainy boston day in july. i think the worst part of this whole coming back business was the flight home. first leg i got moved from 14D to 42D to accommodate some family who wanted to sit together. stopover was nonexistent cos i had no time in between disembarking and boarding, so all throughout the bus ride to the terminal and security checkpoints i was fretting my head off. the second leg was ok, food was WAY better and the air stewardesses were WAY nicer, but the seat sucked too. no legroom (and i'm already so short!) and hardly any recline :( how Qatar got its 5-star ranking i honestly don't understand.

but i got home, and borak-ed the day away with the gang of sitiawan people who conveniently show up at my place every weekend, and nicholas. didn't really sleep much but that's because jet lag tends to hit me late (case in point: i slept 16hrs when i got back from singapore thursday night HAHA)

i've done pretty much next to nothing since getting back, except practice a bit, write a bit, talk to loads of friends, and visit some very special people in singapore. i'm uh, kind of lazy to blog about my singapore trip, but in a nutshell, it was chill :) xa's house is like some balinese holiday resort, i can't think of a better word to describe it than phwoar. anyway, some pictures!

sue jan also came with me (again!) :)

the sky park looks really nice from afar both day and night, but at the top it's kind of shoddy. it feels a like a very crowded country club, especially coz it has those yellow cobblestone walks most country clubs have, random hot tubs scattered everywhere and buckets catching rainwater. the view wasn't too hot either, heaps of construction everywhere. hopefully it'll be nicer next year when i visit sg again.

pretty tablepiece we saw upon entering fullerton, which i originally wanted to dine at coz in the pictures the restaurants all look really pretty :D but we only strolled around and wah-ed at the interesting architecture - what the hotel really is is a refurbished post office hq.

using the jacuzzi in the guest room for the first time! it was a bit of a squeeze but we managed haha. the bathroom's nice and has wood panel flooring with spaces in between for the water to run out. i like wooden floors :)

xiao'an's dad brought back a trumpet from not sure where some years ago, and x'a just managed to blow a 1 octave scale on it. this is his best dizzy gillespie impression HAHA

ok lah it's not like we didn't do anything else. we met up with chunky, who took us to far east and because it rained we couldn't really venture out. chako for dinner with xa's brother xiaowen and then klee after for a drink or two with his eldest brother xiaoping + wife. the drinks were decent and the place was nice but the handle kept falling off my armrest, and none of the staff came up once to fix it or apologize. minus 10 points. and minus 20 points for no baileys (wtf) and minus another 10 points for the snotty look the bartender gave me like i don't know my liquors :(

we went to uniqlo the next day and met di yang & samantha, who joined us for yummy burgers at relish; and elaine, who came all the way to changi from NUS to say hi :') buzzed through millenia walk and bought overpriced novelty chocolates from chocolate research facility. also got to try singaporean tau foo fah near the SOTA building that suejan is now infatuated with, you tiao and or luak. i dunno la, all singaporean food ever tastes like to me is extremely watered down malaysian food. it's no wonder singapees always come to malaysia and wax lyrical about our food after. too bad the same can't be said for our fucked up infrastructure haha.

suejan took more pictures documenting the trip so i'll wait for her to upload those!

p.s. i was a right grumpy kid sometimes, sorry about my moodiness, but it really, honestly was nice to see YOU again :)

i could not ask for more, xa

2010-08-17T21:10:00.001-04:00

lying here with you, listening to the rain
smiling just to see the smile upon your face
these are the moments i thank God that i'm alive
these are the moments i'll remember all my life
i found all i've waited for and i could not ask for more

looking in your eyes, seeing all i need
everything you are is everything to me
these are the moments i know heaven must exist
these are the moments i know all i need is this
i have all i've waited for and i could not ask for more

i could not ask for more than this time together
i could not ask for more than this time with you
every prayer has been answered
every dream i have has come true
and right here in this moment
is right where i'm meant to be
here with you here with me

these are the moments i thank God that i'm alive
these are the moments i'll remember all my life
i've got all i've waited for and i could not ask for more

i could not ask for more than the love you give me
coz it's all i've waited for
and i could not ask for more
i could not ask for more

* * *

headache

2010-08-14T11:20:00.005-04:00

edit:

i was talking to some not-particularly-close girlfriends about... well, things under the sun, and the topic somehow moved to physique. and they started talking about how they wished they had less boobs and slightly more ass. and how large-busted girls are slutty and capitalize on their boobular-ness to pancing guys but really are airheaded bimbos - at about the same level as prostitutes, i suppose. and i just sat there the entire time not knowing if should just not say anything or be loudly defiant.

the whole "i want less boobs" to me was totally wtf because all my life i have been surrounded by boobless people (including said girls). more ass on anyone is, i suppose, nice - i really don't have any ass preferences - but all this hoo-ha about skewed perceptions of breast size is just @#$*^&. and i know how skewed it is, because as i was growing up i was terribly depressed about being a B cup while everyone else was an A, and with every size up i just kept thinking that maybe i was developing breast cancer or something. for a while i even wore the wrong bra size just coz i couldn't come to terms with my own boobs.

anyway. C went on to lament guys who go out with girls with assets, saying stuff like, oh they're only interested in boobs and ass la, relationship sure fall to pieces because it's only driven by lust and physical attraction. no true love, no this, no that. guy (who doesn't really love his partner beyond her boobs anyway) gets jealous coz other guys also suka, then get angry and then... DIVORCE. wtf like trying to say only ridiculously ugly or ridiculously skinny people are made to last in relationships.

then a slightly chubby girl walked past us in a minidress and everyone perked up and started saying in hushed voices, omg you see her boobs damn big, such a slut, boobs damn big, only good for sex, boobs damn big, you see that guy staring only, boobs damn big, boobs damn big, boobs damn big boobs damn big boobs damn big boobs damn big

at which point i decided to speak up and say: "thanks. i'm a fat slut who will never ever experience true love because my bra size is also bit big."

and then i got up and left.

i think i should be feeling angry, but really, i'm only angry because i now do feel like a fat whore whose bust size brings nothing but trouble. play piano also hard, during period also damn sore, naik LRT and creepy people stare. wtf la i didn't even ask for these.

* * *

sometimes i wonder why i look forward to going back, why i think so fondly of everyone back home, when every single year it all just turns out the same way. get picked up at the airport, get yelled at for not coming out on time, get dragged to see por por and then get yelled at again for having poor chinese, get brought home and get yelled at for not waking up on time for dinner even though i've just had a long day right after a long flight. all while watching ah mah and whoever the maid is also get yelled at for no reason. old people don't deserve to be yelled at; they don't ask to be senile. maids didn't ask to be brought up in rural indonesian kampungs where no one speaks english or uses a washing machine.

i guess it's like living in snatch-thief-ridden malaysia, where hawker stall hygiene is extremely questionable, where pos malaysia tries to con you by imposing ridiculous non-existent taxes on your purchases, where you are a part of a discriminated-against race, and still being able to go abroad and say: "i love my country."

wheee weekend

2010-08-07T01:00:00.003-04:00

had a couple of recording sessions this week, most of which were a little iffy (probably my fault? +_+) ... i recorded jude's fountain again, which apparently didn't go over so well with bob the first time. he got in an entirely different band this time (yuhan on vibes, kiho & turbo on violins, tom on sax and andrew on drums), and an extended version of the old chart. i think we kind of got the fountain sound down this time (the snare rolls during the interludes are REALLY annoying but do a great job mimicking someone hammering away), although i'm not sure if anyone else but me was giving it any thought at all during the session.

and on friday i went to mariam's senior recital! it was fun, with a random nakashima mika song wedged in the middle of the set list - that was a bit awkward haha. and there were like 10+ songs so mariam sounded kind of breathless towards the end, but the band was tight (all singer's night players, go figure) and all. the ponto de luz cover in particular was soooo beautiful i got goosebumps :)

and HIGHLIGHT!!! there was this one african(?) song with lyrics that were supposedly a poem about love, and... errr i don't know if anyone ever gets this, but it really did feel like love. it was really odd, in a wonderful way. it kept evoking images in my head of past significant events involving some people i really love, like my dad, my grandma, and some really good friends. it was like watching one of those flashback-y montages in a movie. and all throughout it felt like someone was holding my hand tight and stroking my hair. it was such a warm feeling. i felt really... loved? haha. i don't know if that makes any sense.

i love those little unexpected moments, when something touches me out of the blue and reminds me how much meaning the smallest actions can carry - how just singing a simple folk song can touch a troubled heart, how just laughing can brighten up someone else's day, how just a dollar can save a life. i'm glad card-making companies too recognize the power of no-occasion surprises; they're a nice departure from the clichés of valentine's day and birthdays and other present-giving days.

ok off to bed, newport in 8 hours ♪

yabber

2010-08-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

it's been a while. i'm glad it'll soon be time to bridge the gap :)

* * *

i saved some little things that cheered me up in the recent past, and here they are:

Li:
lo
where are you
on skype you seem offline
but you commented on faceboojk
so you must be at the computer and online
either that
or you commented on your phone
but that is improbable
since it is 839am in the morning
and recent history has shown that your feet do not generally touch the ground unless they are dragged there or till 5pm for an early dinner

Me:
HAHAHHAHAA

Li:
funny meh

* * *

Me:
hello hello

Keeks:
ho
skank
bitch
cunt

Me:
wtf

Keeks:
squirrel

* * *

hongy: eh i had chicken rice ball for lunch
hongy: syoknesssssss
ennie : from where?
hongy: and the best bandung in the country
hongy: i can die a happy girl now!
ennie : haha where did you go for lunch?
hongy: i'm srsly super kenyang now but SO HAPPY!!!
ennie : where is this place la
hongy: if i were stranded on an island with only one choice of food let it be chicken rice ball
hongy: with lots and lots of garlic and tau yew
ennie : eh are you going to tell me where this fabulous chicken rice ball place is or not
hongy: omg my mum just bought apam balik
hongy: APAM BALIKKKKKK
hongy: shit ok i need to go eat it now while it's hot
hongy: brb
ennie : die la you

to the proud and the homebound

2010-07-29T08:44:00.001-04:00

wanting to go home and help the motherland shouldn't be about exuding an air of superiority. it shouldn't be about looking like you're a class above other "less educated" citizens. it shouldn't be about exclusivity and/or elitism. it shouldn't be about expressing controversial opinions freely just because you can buy your way out of trouble.

it is about stooping lower than your wealth, digging deep and getting yourself dirty, till you get to the roots. sometimes you get threatened, sometimes you get clapped behind bars, but sometimes that's the only way to achieve your goal.

we can't let a team of corrupt officials decide that indians and chinese are foreigners to the land, nor can we let angry chinese and indian people incite a second rusuhan mei 13. we were all brought up there, tanah lahir kita, tanah tumpahnya darah kita. tanah milik kita semua. there is no such thing as ketuanan melayu; we are all the same. in the past our chinese forefathers waged war upon the malays; subsequently they also waged war upon us. history books taught us that this dissension was the work of the british; knowing this, how can we continue to fight like children after having been independent for over 50 years?

i am glad that many young people now are expressing a desire to go home and fight to free the country from corruption and backward over-pious thinking, instead of running away and migrating. i am glad there is a large community of malaysian political science majors in america, all rearing to kick up a rumpus in the name of law and human rights when they return home.

i pray that the fires of their desire will not be put out by the alluring freedom so prevalent in america, that they will not lose their vision, that they will remember why it is they chose to return home in the first place. not for the sake of opposing a higher force. not to make headlines. not for their glory, but for the glory of the malaysian people.

* * *

on another note, i'm compiling a selection of demos to send to japan. if all goes well i'll have my most long-distance gig ever! :)

blessed assurance

2010-07-24T07:03:00.000-04:00

thank you so much for a wonderful time!!! initially when fio told me what we were meeting for i felt a bit like a cripple, but i really appreciate the time you made to come out for some cosy together time, which i think we all quite needed :)

i know i've got a lot of bad skin to shed, a lot of horrible habits to give up, and a lot of emotional issues to deal with, so i'm extremely touched to know that there are people by me who for some reason or other were willing to spend their precious time hacking away at my crusty outer layers to get to the core because they thought they'd find something interesting(?) inside. i didn't quite manage to show my appreciation very well yesterday, so i think a personal shoutout is in order here (don't worry my blog is private now)

thank you, FIO, for organizing the whole shenanigan (and on such short notice!?). i never knew people held get togethers for such reasons, haha. throughout the years you've remained the most logical/down-to-earth person, never swayed by my outbursts, and never quick to get angry. thanks for anchoring me to the ground.

thank you, CY, for a very special gift we all know about (heh heh). you are a very very very very very VERY special person. and i don't even know why. you just are :)

thank you, JULIE, for all the motherly love and care you've shown ever since i scraped my knee some 8 years ago!? thank you for a very important slap, and for being my Miss Moey away from home :)

thank you, GABES, for coming all the way down from providence, and for being pretty much the greatest blessing in my life. you made me love piano again when it was starting to lose its meaning for me, you taught me to always see the good in people, you helped me become much more patient, and best of all, well... you know what la :) don't want to sound too clichéd and dramatic, but you are that manifestation of Jesus' love in my life.

thank you, EUNMIN, for a very unexpectedly vibrant (and blessed!!!) acquaintance :) you bring so much cheer to my life. although perhaps it's time to take the sexual innuendos down a notch, haha.

wtf this feels like Friendster all over again! haha anyway i really really do love you guys to bits. i know i suck at showing appreciation and all that in person coz i'm so paiseh, but i really... um... well... I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PUT IT IN WORDS LA, let's just say i really am very thankful for all of you and there isn't anything (perhaps short of dying) i wouldn't do for you. screw clichés, you know i'm serious when i say this kinda stuff ok.

sorry i was such a sobbing wreck yesterday... errrrr. haha. there go months and months of trying to steel my heart and tear ducts down the drain!

and thank you huang, mel and jung for the beautiful hallmark card (yay hallmark!!!). i'm not even going to ask how it's possible that you all wrote in it; i suspect some forgery might have gone on but hahahaha it's the thought that counts, and it gave me a really warm & happy feeling. AND i laughed till my perut sakit, thanks ah mel.

♥

um, things?

2010-07-18T23:12:00.000-04:00

wheeee i happy coz gen rong says i am fashionable (omg like small kid only HAHA).

which is kinda funny because i've never been particularly fashionable? i think? i mean... i know what's on trend because i keep up with shows and i read heaps of magazines, but knowing what's in and what's not, or what looks good and what doesn't, doesn't necessarily mean it translates in what i wear on a daily basis.

anyway if you look at my old pictures you'll know what i mean la, i went from super tomboy to emo to la-la to extra colorful person whose life's purpose was to wear as many colors as possible at a time. thankfully i have outgrown all those ridiculous phases and realized (albeit a little too late) how much money i spent on the most ugly ass clothes ever, and i also downsized a little bit (you have no idea how difficult it is to wear nice clothes when you're fat boohoohoooo) so YIPPEE :)

autumn and summer attire respectively ★

now i stress. coz i have to keep up this "fashionable" image which i accidentally created by just trying on a bunch of clothes that happened to fit well and look decent. oh dear. oh well. at least when i go to singapore i won't be chastised for looking like a bum. HAHA.

:)

2010-07-13T03:46:00.000-04:00

eeeeeee so excited!!! yuli's sister is expecting and due in november and yuli's asked me to come up with a little musical item at the baby's (no name yet) full moon in december! i think it's really cute how she and her mom are so kan cheong about the whole thing, first grandchild and all :D

anyway! i've decided that i'm going to arrange an acapella version of All 4 One's "Beautiful As U". most people use it at weddings but i think it's a perfectly lovely song to dedicate to a child too, the lyrics seem pretty apt :) maybe one day i'll have someone sing it (coz i can't singgg) to my errr, son or daughter. haha. if ever got children la.

if you don't already know the song this is it:

heartwrenchingly beautiful right. i love all 4 one :) jim brickman also did a nice cover of it, featuring the wonderful voice of wayne brady. it made me tear up :')

eglub

2010-07-09T23:49:00.000-04:00

...is BULGE backwards. and it's what i really need to get rid of!!!!!!!! :O

i was wading through chunky's pictures from when she went to krabi with her boyfriend and... errrr. i dunno la, feel damn fat now :'( chunky and i have always had some kind of body rivalry going on, it all started when she gained lots of weight from O Levels stress back in 2004, which was the year i got back from japan and worked like crazy to lose all the pounds i gained in nagoya (AND WEIGHED A RECORD 46 KG), and when i mentioned that to her over the phone she went nuts and started dieting like crazy.

now she's a perfect S and i'm all flab and unnecessarily boing boing wtf.

got about 3 weeks left before i go home, gonna try and lose at least 1.5 kg more so that'll give me some room to pig out in KL. although i'm pretty sure when i go to SG i'm going to feel like shit anyway because everybody is so skinny wtfbanana!

I NEED TO GET INTO SWIMSUIT SHAPEEEEEEEE

so that if i ever go on some beach holiday with my girlfriends i won't have to cry about how they all look so hot and i'm just some flabby old lady.

i'll breathe again

2010-06-29T00:47:00.000-04:00

it won't be long till i can feel again

till i fall into the soothing warmth,

brush against the familiar roughness,

lie cocooned in downy comfort,

gazing up at my heart.

bad times

2010-06-26T22:06:00.000-04:00

everything's just going wrong this week

caught in the middle of so many things and trying to swim against the current

need to stay afloat

edit:

to the wonderful people who never gave up on me,
thank you for being the stars in my sky :)

thank you for helping me get through the past 8 months or so. it's been a pretty tough time and i'm still trying to come to terms with myself. i've been mulling over some really important decisions that i don't really want to make, and i'm going to try and get them settled by the end of the week. gotta grow up and take things into my own hands, yes?

it'll be kind of shitty for a while, but i'm sure in the long run it'll prove to be beneficial. wish me luck! if all goes well i can rest easy for a bit, and maybe my pimples will go away :)

wanna go home already

2010-06-20T00:16:00.000-04:00

this is essentially the same picture i put on fb, just cropped and overexposed. it looks like i have makeup on leh! BUT it's just blusher :) without it i look really colorless and sickly :( i fly all the way to america to get rosy cheeks, almost 3 years have elapsed and STILL NO ROSY CHEEKS!!! boo.

i. cannot. describe. how excited i am to be going home next month! it's a bit shitty la, going home for only 15 days. some more i'll be going to sg for a bit (hopefully it's not flooded). on the up side, that means 3 sundays in church - i'm thinking of visiting EMC once, just to... i dunno, reminisce and pay respects? i am technically a senior member.

there are a bunch of things i need to do when i'm back:

1) walk summer 3x a week! (good exercise for me too)
2) get rid of unwanted clothes
3) pack more clothes (esp for ebay)
4) EAT LOTS OF M'SIAN FOOD
5) learn how to make ah mah's yam chicken, spicy chicken + cashew nut, claypot chicken rice, fo tiao qiang, pak koh soup, sesame tong shui, mee rebus, bubur cha cha (ah mah's version, not my sickly yellow mushy version)
6) READ ABOUT PLANES + quantum mechanics!!
7) try to finish chopin and dukas books
8) memorize czerny exercises (so i don't have to lug the book around)
9) learn chinese
10)insert interesting activity here

wheeeeeeeee and then of course there's the singapore trip. dunno what i'm gonna do yet haha. visit sam yee and get my retainers fixed. then maybe go universal studios. maybe shop (since sarawak is coming with me i may as well, coz no one else gives me good fashion feedback wtf). drink with chunky if i don't pass out first in whatever club she tries to drag me to. go to gen rong's house (which, apparently, is just a few minutes' walk from xiao'an's place?) and ring the doorbell and say hi to his mum. marvel at the super skinny sg girls and feel like shit about my weight.

wah!

2010-06-15T00:02:00.000-04:00

had such a whirlwind of a day!

i just got back from a jam that potentially could've been a lot of fun, but D was tired and didn't feel like playing jazz and i was still feeling a bit miffed with a certain someone. alvin got a bit pissed off towards the end too (not at me though, thank goodness). oh well. when jamming with alvin, follow alvin's rules. otherwise you may never jam with him again.

today i stayed up to finish another piece and got in 3 hours of half-assed sleep before forcing down a double shot to stay awake.....

.....then right after RUSHED to the T station to meet emily, who's starting at harvard this fall. awww such a genius (like her sister haha). everyone's growing up and everything! makes me feel like an auntie haha, now everytime i meet younger kids i start my greeting with "waaa". it's like when my aunts rush out in a horde to greet my family at CNY, going "wa!" "wa!" "wa!" (i realize this is another odd singaporean thing i've picked up; the only people who spell "wah" as "wa" are singaporeans)

we hung out a little and about 80% of our conversation consisted basically of me gushing over how ridiculously smart em is and congrats, congrats, congrats, etc. haha.

there are heaps of people i am extremely proud of at this point in time, and i don't think i can name them all, so if you remember telling me about a test you aced, an acceptance letter you received, a gig you got (whether or not you were able to make it), a good deed you did, a concept you finally understood, chances are i'm immensely proud of you too :) *loving mom mode on hahah!

一ヶ月の想い

2010-06-10T23:38:00.001-04:00

in my darkest hour, He comes to my rescue. every time, without fail, and fully renews my hope gauge. oh how i love Thee, my Guardian, and my Father :)

* * *

on another note,
happy 1 month ♥

x'a, thanks for being around to skype, it's one of those things i rather look forward to after classes/homework/blah; it's always nice to hear from you about how you're doing back home, and to get a little dose of x'a-brand lameness each day :) nevertheless i hope the next 2 months whizz by fasterrrrrr and you come back with a spanking new guitar and really awesome hair! tra la la ♪

grumbles

2010-06-04T01:10:00.000-04:00

woooooooo so much writing to do in between classwork and all that wonderful shhhtuff!!! i'm trying to do more woodwind-centered writing, so that maybe i'll get to play flute on my own pieces (if it ever comes to that) :D and i'm thinking of picking up either a string instrument, trumpet or tenor sax because... well, it'll probably help my writing considerably. maybe trumpet. i already know how to buzz, so what's left is just pitching and transposing. wheeeeee.

i haven't been skyping with sarawak often, feels damn weird. and it's only been like 2 weeks since xiao'an went home but why does it feel like 2 months!?!? ROOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR time gets so messed up when you miss people :(

ARGH x(

2010-05-29T23:57:00.001-04:00

so i thought i'd start this entry off with a bit of extra perasan-ted-ness. HAHA. well no. i actually just wanted to show off how chubby i've become since summer semester started, because i've just been sitting at home doing a lot of writing and not much going out. and on weekends i pretty much sleeeeep the days away. even then for some reason i still am lacking sleep in general, so i've developed two huge zits i can't hide with any amount of makeup :(

BUT ON THE UP SIDE!!! jesse suggested i add a choral part to one of the tracks i wrote, so we sat down and churned out SATB parts in an hour and gathered a 20-strong choir (thanks to greg's strings-pulling) to sing and it sounded BREATHTAKING. i really wanted to cry at recording, because of jesse's amazing writing skills, and because of how beautiful everyone sounded. man, film music really is the best :')

speaking of film music, i've been thinking hard (for about 2-3 years now), and i don't know if i want to stay in america and write film music because the only way to make money scoring films is to break into hollywood, or, at least, the academy award-bound independent films. which basically means get famous and make HEAPS of cash - which i don't really want to do. i wish there was a way to just be a little bit famous and make a moderate amount of money, but in the american film industry that's a bit tough. you're either making it big or you're a pauper.

i also thought about moving to east asia, i guess to follow in yoko kanno's footsteps, but it seems a bit impractical as well, since right now i don't really have connections in japan. and i don't really have the courage to just get up and leave my country behind and just brave it all on my own. i'd be risking drifting farther away from the one other thing that's really really important to me - family.

i could just go home to malaysia, and try to do something that would actually contribute to the development of the country. help out the film industry. revolutionize english teaching. try to conduct all those workshops dad keeps telling me to conduct. volunteer with SUFES. i probably wouldn't make a lot of money from any of that, but it'd be more satisfying emotionally. i dunno. i say this now, but it's probably going to feel a lot more ERGHH when i'm at that bridge, trying to earn a living and support my family while not compromising my desire to contribute to the community in some way. HAH, there's my INFP talking.

but yeah, i'd be bummed if i didn't have a family to support. feels a bit lonely and pointless earning money for myself wtf. i'd rather be running around a house chasing kids and making them sit down and look me in the eye so i can have serious talks with them about how mummy does love them to bits and that's why she goes to work to earn money to buy them video games and books to read, and she'd rather not have to smack them, so please stop breaking vases and getting Cs in school. or i could be like my parents - skip the talk and get the cane out right away. haha, errrrrrr i think not!

so many things to think about now that i'm no longer in my teens. people say, oh you're still young, you have a long way more to go, and while i do want to try and stretch my studies out a little more and not graduate too early, i can't not think about what's going to happen to me once i'm out of school. especially since all my UK friends are graduating and getting jobs already wtf. am i going to apply for OPT? move to crazy expensive-to-live-in new york? go home and take advantage of the contacts i already have to find work? get married, settle down? what?

some advice would be helpful, even though i don't have a specific question. too much stuff gnawing at my mind right now. growing up is kind of annoying, but... it has its perks too. bleh.

i leave you with a picture of my fabulously buff housemate, johnstone:

updates!!

2010-05-23T13:52:00.000-04:00

1. went to cheesecake factory with xiao an for a quiet-ish birthday dinner haha. we meant to go to the melting pot with dan but he ended up not getting back till the day after so we tossed that idea out the window. i know you're reading this, boyfriend, so thank you very much again for dinner ♥ i'll see if i can't figure out how to make avocado egg rolls before you do!

2. the walrus is leaving for home. booooooo. but i'm gonna brave it out for a couple of months and be JUST FINE, because I AM AN ADULT NOW. hah, how's that!

3. talked (sort of) to a new singaporean girl caleb directed to me. so hard to ajak her go dinner cos she always dowan. damn busy with this and that and orientation and then suddenly complain got culture shock. finally managed to get her to join us for lunch. whew.

4. signed up for a couple more classes so i'm doing 11 credits now instead of 9. better sign up for CLEP too. i'm such a dilly-dallyer man.

errrr i guess that's about it? sorry if i gave you the impression i had much more to say. haha. these days i have nothing much to talk about la, i'm just trying to busy myself with work and shit and not be such a pig. stupid medicine made me sleep most of my summer break away @#$&%^. it'll be expensive but i'm probably going to throw out what's left and buy a new bottle of non-sleepiness-inducing pills. can't afford to fall asleep in class!

oh, bugger it.

2010-05-18T07:29:00.000-04:00

as i bask in the peaceful glow of the morning sun's rays, next to his slightly haphazard sleeping figure, worn out from a long day of practicing, cooking, dragging me out of bed to write songs that i never end up writing, and being a rather licky puppy, i ask myself (and silently, the world) why i have an annoying ear condition, why i have to take stupid lipoflavonoids and anti-motion sickness drugs that knock me out for the rest of the day, why i am so slow at grasping new concepts, why i whine so much, etc, etc, etc.

i think, for the most part, i am quite an unlikable person? maybe this isn't reflected so much back home because of my dad's influence, but once i'm out of the shelter of my dad's wing, i kind of lose a big part of my identity. i become a completely different person, someone i'm not always glad to be, even though it seems like i'm more accepted here than i am at home.

it's one of those annoying dilemma things. what's it called, a conundrum? an odd situation? i dunno lah, i'm not as good with words as i sometimes make myself out to be.

but that aside ohmygoodness WHY OH WHY. what will it take for me to write as well as kazu or jesse? it's that sound, it's that finesse, it's that experience honed from 5 or so more years of writing for orchestra. but i think, given my circumstances, that i'm not doing too shabbily right now. right? right? right? ROAR. i suppose x'a is right, i should study my harmony more properly. bleghsktphx.

perhaps now i just need some alone time to mull over things. project you-know-what has ended, i've officially dropped my case, it's a new chapter in the book of my life now, so hey ho let's go, right? now i've got other things to worry about...

and a theme to write. oh fugufish :(

living & breathing

2010-05-11T01:02:00.002-04:00

edit: talk about weird timing. haha. two hours after i published the original post the unthinkable happened, so i guess this doesn't quite make sense anymore :P

i think sanbyoushi, despite its bad english, accurately describes how i felt (and hope to continue to feel) about a certain someone :)

spring semester happies

2010-04-30T02:52:00.000-04:00

when will it be me?

2010-04-23T15:46:00.000-04:00

sigh, love is so fleeting :(

i remember reading sailor moon comics as i was growing up, and the disparity between my fascination with usagi's dream to be a bride and my childish insistence that when i grew up i'd never ever ever get married (you know how little girls hate little boys). and then at around 9 puberty and backstreet boys and love songs kicked in, and about 7 years later i had decided on a song i wanted to sing on my wedding day to whoever was crazy enough to marry me (i will be here by steven curtis chapman!!). haha. yeah, i guess a guy would have to be pretty crazy to make that decision.

UGHHH ROOAAAARRR gotta stop thinking about stupid things and get my priorities straight!!!!!!! work work workkk

HELLO THERE!

2010-04-18T18:57:00.000-04:00

updates! coz i'm too lazy to blog properly.

1. recording the score to cy's film is about 70% done!!! huge thank you to melissa and greg for procuring such an amazing bunch of players. one of the greatest feelings (for a composer) is hearing (live) your pieces played to a different kind of perfection each time, because there is never an "ideal" way they should be played, every orchestra brings something new, and that's the beauty of music - the lack of a need for a formula.

2. been gaining weight! GAAAHHH. even though weejon said i look thinner(!?!?) i've been weighing myself every 2 days. i definitely gained about 1.5 kg over the past 2 weeks. what is going on??? :( just exam stress, i hope.

3. sunshine bear came to the recording session ♥♥ and gave me a piggyback ride home from the T (i hope no one i knew saw me hahaha) it's been such a long time since we hung out and did fun things. i love every minute we spend together, and i do hope we remain good buddies forever. いつも笑わせてくれてありあがとう :)

4. had a rather amusing conversation with heathy about gillian's parenting! haha. jill is like, the nicest mother in the world, but oh man can she rotan a kid or what! i think kids are all right, and i believe in the administering of discipline; i just don't think i have it in me to smack my kids, or anyone else's kids for that matter. scared i piak too hard then the nose come off then howwww, the poor kid will have an off-center nose... :(

5. got offered another NY gig wtf. i where got time to go NY :(

6. got asked to play in a latin jazz recital wtffffff. i can't play latin jazz :'( if mooncake were here he'd tell me to take the gig and then furiously work on my latin chops for the next couple of weeks, but... but... BUT.... *huge sigh*

7. got offered 2 film scoring opportunities!! aaahhh :D took one and turned the other down, but went the extra mile and recommended someone else the director ended up liking to bits, so good for them! (grrr job security a bit threatened now though hahaha)

8. FINALS WEEK AROUND THE CORNER AAAAHHHHHHHHH

help.

emotional masochist

2010-04-11T00:11:00.000-04:00

the good and the bad, i'll take it all, if only out of love, and (hopefully) not because of some selfless need to inflict suffering upon myself. although..... in an almost masochistic way, i sometimes think that [bearing the shit of others] is a necessary pain, because... well, you know,

i'm not the pretty girl with the long flowing hair & the sweet voice,

i'm not the academic overachiever,

i'm not the 10-time gold medalist,

i'm not the best cook,

i don't have particularly nice fingernails...

sometimes i wonder if i decided to try to love everyone as much as i could,

to make up for my inability to love myself.