Moonless midnight of the mind

I NEED a picnic.

I need a picnic. At the beach or in the gardens or a park, I care not where. On a big mat or with blankets, and a couple of cushions. To lie around under the shade of a tree, chat and watch the clouds drift across the blue sky. Read a book or flip through a magazine. Watch a light-hearted movie or play music from the laptop. Take polaroids. Fly my kite. Drink some wine or sip on tea. Juice would be good too. I want to make yummy picnic food. Egg in bacon cups. Brownies. Sandwiches. Fresh fruits and yogurt. Salad. Nutella cookie cups. Onigiri. I need a picnic basket though. A nice big sturdy basket. I've been searching for one for the longest time. They don't seem to sell it anywhere.

...and if singapore's weather were not so scorching, my daydream wouldn't seem so far from reality. RJ and I had two picnics backpacking around Europe - one in Amsterdam by the lake and one in Copenhagen in a park. It was a little too cool, especially with the wind in Copenhagen, but good times (':

sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

On a random note

Creamier; earl grey lavender and hokey pokey with waffles

So jen suggested a new cafe and we headed there after school yesterday. I haven't seen the busy girl for months. The place sells handcrafted ice cream and coffee and they have such interesting flavours. It's shown on their website here, although they don't have all the flavours available everyday. We each had two scoops of ice cream and two waffles, 'cause we're greedy like that, but I was so stuffed after I couldn't stomach dinner. Yes, dessert before dinner. you have to live life like that occasionally. The cafe has quaint decor, and the art pieces on display are all for sale, including pieces drawn by the post-it man. We didn't try the coffee unfortunately, but I'll be back.

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I've pretty much got my summer planned out all the way till Part B starts in July. As school draws closer to the end, people have been saying that we should treasure our remaining time here, we will miss it when we go out to work, and the like. It makes sense I suppose, and I guess I will miss going to school in a way, after I finally get out to work. But right now, all I can think about is just getting out of here, 'cause the tedium of school is setting in. Happens every semester, and I've been through 7, almost 8 now, semesters to be thoroughly tired of it. You know what they say, you won't miss it until it's gone. Although I've always been one to look forward. I do look back and think of the goods times occasionally of course, but it's no use dwelling in the past. 

Alexithymia

Trapped by Nathan Sawaya

Maybe you've felt like this before. Or maybe you know someone that feels like this now. There's always a way out, we just sometimes need a little help to find the way.

So the other day I finally got to visiting the lego art exhibition I've been wanting to view. It was very interesting, to say the least. And a little nostalgic, to be reacquainted with a dear childhood toy. The human form figures very heavily in the artist's works, and you begin to realize how amazing it is, when you think how the curves of the human body have been sculpted out of tiny rectangular bricks, making them look like three-dimensional, albeit pixelated, copies of the real thing. And the above piece is perhaps the one that resonated the most with me. Perhaps because the feeling of being trapped is a familiar one.

Would that I could just spill my guts out like that too, without having to resort to words. Wordsmith of sorts I would like to think I am, but when it comes to describing my own feelings it seems words fail me.

There were many fun pieces as well, and other interactive installations, and yummy food that J and I ate. More on that in another post. 

An awfully distracted mind,

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories

Like a butterfly, flitting from thought to random thought, never staying still for more than a few seconds. The eyes run over the words on the page, unseeing. The mind catches up, wondering what it was the eyes just saw. The eyes run over the same words again, but the mind does not comprehend, because it has flitted off once again. The cycle repeats. The eyes get tired of running over the same words again and again because the mind is always going off on a tangent. They feel like closing for a nap. The place is cold, silent, with the occasional rustling. Outside, the sky slowly turns dark. The eyes flick to the clock repeatedly. The mind taps the feet, counting down to the time to go home.

The mind just wants an adventure. The eyes just want to see new things. The feet just want to go someplace new.

Freedom day one.

Homestyle pancakes

Now that I think back on it, I realise they got my order wrong!! D: Suddenly recalled that what I ordered was the espresso pancake stack and not homestyle pancakes. But being me, I forgot what I ordered, so I ate what was served...hmm. The espresso pancake stack sounded yummy, sigh. Oh well.

Sticky date pudding with vanilla ice cream; walnuts; eggs benedict

Colourful x'mas deco at marina square; Keppel bay

This really friendly (or really bored) security guard auntie fiddled around with J's iphone and took 587231 photos of us, insisting that the lighting can be changed so that we didn't look shadowed against the backlight. ...in the end I liked the first photo best, 'cause I got tired of smiling in the later photos（＾＾；）

Then I met the girls to celebrate the end of another semester of law school. Time passes way too fast really. It's the end of the year again.

Tang posted a photo of janeegg with the 32 plates of sushi on fb and claimed she ate it all. AND EVERYONE BELIEVED IT. Now you know what your reputation is like, eggy.

Mandatory trio shot and ootds! 

OOTD - H&M camo tank, old black skinnies, montego bay club wedges, ralph lauren leather sling, black leather and studs wrist party - I was in the mood for punk yesterday

The lovely bbs (': I need to get an iphone soon; I'm inconveniencing everyone with my compulsive camwhoring

After we were done with all this camwhoring and were just sitting around getting started on our htht, this korean boy came up to us. At first we thought he wanted to borrow the 4th chair at our table, so we said go ahead, but it turned out he wanted to sit with us and he asked if we would mind joining him and his friends. Janeegg, who is always game for anything, said okay, and so that was how we ended up spending the night talking to three korean boys. I ended up having to play interpreter and icebreaker (-_-") the night ended on a slightly awkward note and that was that. 

On a random note, some cute stuff I saw while in town the other day:

Paper mache neko-chan and hello kitty sleep mask!

The paper mache neko-chan was a store deco in the JRunway shop; so cute I was almost tempted to steal it. But going to jail for stealing a cat made of newspaper sounds pretty dumb, no matter how you think about it. And the hello kitty sleep mask is from daiso! $2 only. But since I don't use sleep masks at home, and seeing as I won't be flying anywhere for the rest of the year, this frivolity would be unjustified. I control my impulses sometimes.

Instant strawberry milk tea with jelly; incoming mail; presents from the sister

The instant strawberry milk tea is fascinating. Sis brought it back from China. Basically you just empty the sachet of milk tea powder and the packet of jelly into the cup and add hot water a la cup noodles and voila! you get hot milk tea with nata de coco. It's like bubble tea, except warm. And it's yummy!

Also, my bustier dress from megagamie came in really quickly! ヾ(●⌒∇⌒●)ﾉ and it came with kaikai/jiajia postage stamps so cute ahaha. And souvenirs from the sister! Sentimental circus ヾ(´▽｀*;) shappo handphone accessory and bookmark. And a studded cuff and a kuroneko ring. And I am inordinately pleased with the presents because I do not get presents from my sis often /sadlifeofanoldersibling

random (procrastination)

And I want to rewatch silly cartoons like Spongebob and Crayon Shinchan and Azumanga Daioh. And all the Studio Ghibli films! And drama series I've been meaning to watch. And drink hot chocolate with marshmallows and have hthts through the night and then sleep in late and have a nice brunch. And it would be such a lovely day.

And I want to make this:

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Totoro obento! How intricate is this?! It'll take forever, and then you'll have to eat it all up...

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I'd so buy one of these, except then I'd have no space to walk around in my room...so I shall have one of these in my future home /decides ...and this is turning into a totoro appreciation post.

also, this is the cutest thing EVER:

I feel like squealing every time I look at it.

What I've been feeling recently

Life in pictures

One rainy tuesday afternoon, like we had nothing to do

(also, notice my new bangs)

Fav x'mas drink from starbucks - peppermint mocha (NOT toffee nut latte)

Happy things

Spot the bird!

A collage of cat and trees

This pretty tree with white flowers stands by the roadside just in front of my apartment block. Once a year it blooms and looking down from my room window it always looks really pretty, standing out from the rest of the trees. Then flowers die, as they are wont to do and the tree just goes back to being a normal roadside tree for the rest of the year.

Late-night musings part two

unusual words rendered in bold graphics

Running away. I've been running away for months now. Dragging my feet, procrastinating and just generally avoiding even thinking about my own future. When people ask, I just give an unsure "I don't know...", a confused smile and a slight shake of my head. Like if I don't think about it it will go away.

Must I go down the same straitlaced, conventional path? I balk at the idea of it. How is it that some people know, know with such conviction, what they want? Do they not question themselves? Do they not stop to think if something is what they really want? Or maybe it is what they want. Some cannot wait to get out there into the working world, to start earning their own money, be financially independent, etc. Or maybe for some it is just the way of the world; you study, you graduate, you work, you retire. The way things are meant to be. But how grey a view of life. Maybe they don't mind that. But I do not want to go through life not minding the things I do. I want to want them. 

Maybe I question myself (and life) overmuch. Maybe I am asking for too much.

But for me the thought of jumping straight into the working world is scarier than skydiving (not that I've skydived, yet. But I would in a heartbeat). For once you join the rat race, it would take a lot to get out. most people don't, at least not until they retire.

I go around asking for advice, but I know I have to find the answer within me. And now I finally have an idea of what I want, but I have to be brave enough to go through with it. I have to want it very much.

There is also the problem of social pressure. Maybe not overtly, but it is always there. People expect you to do certain things, to behave a certain way, go a certain path. And sometimes you feel all these expectations piling on your shoulders, pressing in on all sides, so much that there is no room to breathe, no room to consider that what they expect might not actually be what you want, because the tide of their expectations just pushes you forward, and you sail along, unthinking.

I am constantly plagued with the idea that there must be something more. And this 'more' resides in this pocket of emptiness in a corner of my heart. It exists, but not quite. Because it does not know what form to take, or what it's supposed to be.

Bad habits

The random things I buy when I am stressed/bored

Nude strap moustache watch from wonderstellar

Darling it's you ♪

Listening to: Darling it's you - David Choi and Clara C

"I hate it when people worry about me - makes me aware of how vulnerable I actually am"
Guess I can relate.

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有时还真是爱砖牛角尖，和自己过意不去（笑）
睡了一觉过后，世界又重现光彩！哈哈
谢谢大家的关心 ，不好意思让大家担心了！
m(_ _)m

Late-night musings.

"I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever."

- Andy Warhol

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident."

- Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli's Mandolin

"People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them."

- Veronica Roth, Insurgent

soaring, spiraling, spinning

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Sudden desire to go kite-flying like I used to when I was young. So young and carefree then. Why is it that school has only just started and I'm already so tired?! (_  _")

When things get tough and times get rough, I just have this urge to go on a shopping spree and buy something, anything. And dress as fancily and outrageously as I can. It's like clothes are my armour, you know?

Updates from the mobile

Photos taken with the mobile, 'cause that's the trend these days.

 Miki one night, randomly staring into space.

Atas popcorn smuggled in to the cinemas for Hunger Games. We bought the medium one, and managed to finish only half of it during the show. I spent the next two days finishing the rest. It's sickly sweet (the caramel crisp one), but also really addictive.

Dinner at PS cafe with Lingie. Caesar salad with chicken. The salad was humongous I think it took me maybe two hours to finish it. Don't ask me if I'm on a diet; you don't eat this kind of salad if you're on a diet.

Tangtang's work of art shall have a place on my blog. This is to commemorate me eating my first plate of food this sem, that is not from the western food stall...no okay she just took it randomly because I take forever to finish my food and she was bored. This is nasi lemak. I look like that because I was chewing, not because it was terrible, jsyk. It is edible, although the chicken wing is not very nice. The chilli is not bad though. ...and I don't know why I'm even reviewing summit food.

OOTD

Jane informed me that my dress sense is not that loud and attention-seeking, except when I wear oversized slouchy stuff...which is like 50% of the time. I would have thought that would be less attention-seeking than short skirts and skimpy tops?! Anyway, so this is my hobo look. I wore the necklace so it wouldn't look too much like I just flopped out of bed. I'm not sure it helped. (Yes let's just pretend I flop out of bed stylishly with makeup on all the time)

Anyway, about the lace necklace. I love it! I keep thinking of what to match with it. It's a bright gold, but I've always preferred gold to silver. The only thing is when it came in the mail the package was open, and one of the chain links in the necklace had come off. But nothing my craft pliers couldn't fix, so I've been wearing it a lot.

Bloral romper: bysi
Grey tee: kuala lumpur
Gold necklace: badangdangs