Starbucks and a girl

March 31, 2009 11:18 PM

sunshine soon

Rather than bore everyone with my endless frustrations over a silly essay and other things, here's a photo of the lu dan with braised pork and tau gua and chinese mushrooms we cooked a couple of nights ago.

We couldn't get the sauce to thicken, so it look more like bak kut teh than the lu dan we wanted. But hey, it tasted yummy and smelled exactly like home. It's time to give superficiality a run for its money.

And after much headache, we finally formed a travel group and made travel plans today. France and Spain here I come! (:

Labels: daily doings, moods

March 30, 2009 9:52 PM

because drawings do it better than real life

pk and i spent the entire night sitting in my room, ~~getting fat~~ eating chicken baked rice (pk says, which was damn good. okay fine i agree!), singing karaoke party (noise pollution levels went sky-high for a while) and stalking good-looking actors online.

Alas, the lack of the latter has inspired us two great artists to come up with these two pieces of artwork.

Vote for your favourite (scroll down, on the left hand side!) :D

psssst. you better vote for MINE.

Labels: daily doings, musings

March 28, 2009 6:41 PM

flowers in vodka bottles

we're constantly at crossroads. constantly choosing between the many paths we can take. will you take the road frequently travelled? the safe one? or will you take a risk and blaze your own trail in the pursuit of happiness?

or will you end up following the footsteps of those who have fallen, knowing full well that you, too, will fall, but unable to stop yourself from going down that path?

so many question marks i can't answer.

Labels: musings

happy birthday papa

haha, happy twenty-eightth :D (yes I know you're reading this)

Labels: birthday wishes

March 25, 2009 1:11 AM

playing with polariods

the holidays arent turning out to be fun at all. im constantly sleepy. tired. bored. lethargic. all i do is sit in my room and try to churn out essays. the only time i head out is to the library or for a swim or gym session. i just want to have fun. but i cant. essays. urgh. essays.

speaking of essays. just spent the day reading dworkin's law's empire because it was on the required reading for the tort essay but i've used zilch of the info gleaned from the book. nada. am i missing something, you think?

i feel like i havent laughed in a while.

actually i did laugh. a bit. i think my daily source of entertainment now is skyping with my mum. i've nothing to update her everyday except to tell her how many laps i swam. or that i went to tescos. so we turn to talking silly things. like we had this rather funny conversation just now.

mum: (about this unwelcomed guy who likes to come to our house and chat for hours) So, he was trying to act all smart and everything. He told me I should stop burning candles because they use up oxygen and I will have to fight with them to breathe.

me: haha, are you serious?

mum: yes. and please, i told him my windows are all open when I light my candles. Who is he trying to kid?

me: then tell him to stop coming to our house. one extra person, must fight with him to breathe.

mum: hahaha.

me: no even better, tell him if he comes, all the plants will die.

haha okay. it sounded funnier when you say it out. anyway my whole point of this is, i'm so bored that skype conversation is now the highlight of the day, as with going to the gym, going to tescos and discussing ludicrous kid's names with kelvin.

need. to. get. a. life. (and stop blogging useless posts like this) I shall tell you the story of the sandwich filler thief and how I caught her tomorrow. For now, my Gossip Girl is streamed (:

Labels: daily doings

March 22, 2009 10:27 PM

bloom.

Spring is officially here. The flowers blooming everywhere are absolutely stunning. I was skipping in the great outdoors enroute to the sports centre today. There's nothing a bed of cheery yellow flowers can't cure.

Holidays have been rather dull so far. Apart from trips to the sports centre, I've been mostly stuck in my room. I've completed an essay, but I wonder if three pages of bibliography and thirty-four citations are a tad too much for a 2,500-word essay. I hope I don't get marked down for that. Maybe I should scale down the research for the next two essays.

Which reminds me, the scope of the tort essay looks unbelievably wide. How do I scale down research and attempt to finish it as fast as possible? Gahh.

I feel like doing something. Too much pent-up energy. Honestly. It's the holidays!

Labels: daily doings

March 21, 2009 2:02 AM

sweet and succinct

Have you ever looked down at the bottom of the pool when the sun is shining brightly overhead? It's such a mesmerising sight; different rainbow-coloured lights and lines fusing together, in and out, molding themselves to the movement of the water. One moment interwined, the next moment apart. It's like a myraid of dancing, swaying lights.

I enjoyed my swim today.

Apparently, if you go to the indoor pool at around 2pm on a sunny day, the sun shines in through the glass panels and basks 8/9 of the pool in sunlight. It was quite cute, how the guys all prefered the sunny side of the pool while the girls shyed away to the sheltered side. I headed over to the sunny side though, basking happily in the rare warm glow that reminded me so much of swimming in the outdoors in Singapore, and secretly hoping for a nice tan (honestly, my arms and legs are getting grossly pale. they used to be so tanned in Singapore!). Sadly, no tan though. Because apparently glass panels block out UV rays. Sigh.

On a much much happier note, today is officially my most productive day since the holidays started (not too difficult since I have been slacking). Unplugging the internet cable does wonders to productivity I tell you. I just printed out my essay draft (slightly less than 3000 words) and now I have to retype everything out and cut it to 2500 words while keeping the words sweet and succinct in my mind. Hohummm.

And this was the little dinner party/ Chloe's birthday celebration in advance thing we had at Lakeside last night!

#1: Jerrick's very yummy chicken noodles! Mmmhmmm.

#2: Chloe and her "surprise" birthday cake! I think the surprise element disappeared when Jerrick, Keegan and I disappeared to go to the toilet together. Sigh. Epic fail!

#3: Chloe making a wish! Haha this silly girl has tons and tons of birthday presents from her family coming to my address. Lucky girl! Even her maid sent her a present! Lol.

#4: The yummy cake :D

#5: Group photo! (:

Okay I shall stop discussing old long-ago shows with keegan online and go watch something to reward myself for my hardwork today. Taaa.

Labels: birthday wishes, daily doings

March 18, 2009 10:51 PM

the third side of the coin

I feel like I'm torn into two sometimes. Like, how I can see perfectly both sides of a coin. How I argued the head sides of the coin to the tails, and vice-versa. The result? I come across as a stubborn, obstinate girl who refuses to accept others' opinions. But in reality, I understand both sides all too well.

It's not easy trying to juggle everyone's expectations, including my own, at the same time.

They say, once bitten, twice shy. But are you going to back away from the source so much so that you end up falling off the cliff on the other side?

On a happier note, the holidays have been quite relaxingly fun. I get my daily dose of exercise at the pool or the gym, attempt to study (not too successful on this but I'm working on it), laze around my room, watch mindless shows with goodlooking leads (wistful sigh), and cook interesting food. If only everyday was a holiday, and the exams weren't looming. Life would be good.

On an even happier note, housing is settled! We headed down to Coventry today to sign our holding form and pay up our holding fee. I'm so relieved it's all settled now, and we went to kfc for brunch to celebrate. Haha from not having any fast food in the UK before to have two fast-food meals within five days is quite a stretch. I didn't like the oiliness of UK's kfc though. Felt like puking while doing crunches at the gym but thankfully I didn't. Oh I miss Singapore's cheese fries :(

I haven't studied today. Maybe I ought to start. Like. Right now.

Labels: daily doings

March 16, 2009 9:07 PM

playing dress up with grown ups

First day of the Easter break went by pretty well. Warwick's awfully quiet again, but after going through this once over the Christmas holidays, I'm very much used to it. I embrace the solitude, in fact. Was cheered up mightily when the swimming pool was entirely empty (and all mine!) on my 35th lap. You never, ever get that during term time.

There was Peiying's birthday party, which broke the monotony of the first day of break. I cooked curry and it got good feedback so that was fun (: Chloe and I dressed keegan up for the party too (you'll see the photos below) and that was rather interesting too. Haha. From Keegan to Jimmy: A true story :D

Anyway, here are the pictures I promised from all the various events over the past week. Plus the trip to Birmingham on Saturday and Stratford Upon Avon on Sunday. Long photo post up ahead, keep your eyes peeled (:

Vanessa's Farewell Party

#1: Funny it was a farewell party but all I had were camwhoring pictures of us. Two of my favourite girls (:

#2: Mooting partner Jerrick :D

Singapore Day Briefing

#3: Just a silly random group photo for no reason. Oh, the orange juice at the event was yummy. Haha, and I liked the I <3>

Keegan's Birthday Surprise

#4: Again, funny it was Keegan's party but all I had were camwhoring pictures of us. Haha I obviously only seem to remember taking photos when we are all bored and waiting for the star of the party to arrive. Pengkun!

#5: With Val and Katie

#6: BFF, who left the party with me and we bumped into Vanessa and all ended up having a HTHT in my room. I think I should stop having HTHTs because I seem to be the most entertaining one. Hmphh.

Keegan's dinner "party"

#7: I don't know what this was for. To celebrate the pesky junior's presence? Haha, but oh well the eggs were really nice. Satisfied my craving for lu dan. Keegan, please use the cookbook and cook more yummy food please!

Birmingham

Headed down to Brimingham on Saturday with Chloe, Ian, Keegan and Bella. Partly to celebrate Keegan's birthday and partly because Chloe and Ian wanted to shop. We didn't shop much though, I think the highlight of the trip was food. Haha. Typical Singaporeans.

#8: We were so enthusiastic to eat that we waited a good 15 minutes outside the restaurant for it to open. Took pictures against the pretty backdrop while waiting.

#9: If you look closely, we're standing in front of this riverboat that has dining facilities inside. Like your cable car dinner concept.

#10: The restaurant we ate at. It looked quite atas but the prices were reasonable. And yes, this is the birthday boy. Take note of the clothes he is wearing (hoodie, track pants and trainers), it will come in important later (:

#11: The very, very tasty chicken wing starter!

After lunch, we brought Keegan shopping and gave him a complete makeover. Went into shops like AX, Fcuk and Topman. I think Keegan nearly fainted at the prices. Heh.

#11: This is where the earlier assessment of his clothes come in handy. Look at the makeover at Fcuk! Doesn't Keegan look like a cute geek now? So Clay Aiken!

#12: With the sweater :D Haha sadly the prices were too horrendously steep.

Spent the rest of the day shopping at Bullring. We stopped at Starbucks to rest after shopping which was so reminiscent of Singapore. I miss going out shopping and sitting at Starbucks for hours to rest and chat. Haha to be honest, my ideal shopping trips involves spending a lot of money in a short amount of time (like, speed shopping and buying tonnes of things under an hour), followed by sitting at Starbucks to sip coffee and watch the world go by. Mmmmmm. I want to hurry go back to Singapore and lead that sort of lifestyle again (:

We had Macdonald's for dinner (my first fast-food in the UK and it tasted pretty good, surprisingly) and headed back to campus. I went to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button immediately after reaching campus. The show was okay, the plot was interesting but some parts were really draggy. Luckily, the company and Brad Pitt's gorgeous face more than made up for it (:

Peiying's Birthday Party

#13: This sort of screws up my chronological order of events but I wanted to put this photo near the Brimingham dressing room photos so that there is room for comparison! Chloe and I decided to play dress up with Keegan with his own clothes in his wardrobe. Guess what, I think we succeeded in giving him the cute geek look without breaking his bank! Ta-dah! Comments, anyone?

Stratford Upon Avon

Kelvin drove up to Warwick again on Sunday for our monthly meetup. This time, we headed to Stratford, Shakespeare's birthplace!

#14: We weren't supposed to take photos inside the houses but I took some discreetly anyway. This was the house Shakespeare was born in.

#15: His fireplace.

#16: The house from outside.

#15: The knots (ha ha tying the knot) garden outside Nash's house

#16: Sitting on a bench at the knot garden, trying to take a photo when someone decided to be funny and gave his foot a shot at the limelight. Tsk.

#17: Oh pretty flower! Spring is here! (FYI, it was 14 degrees today and I wore my new footless tights and my wedges from Singapore oh this is great fun!)

#17: Flowers again! SPRING!

#18: Shakespeare's grave.

We ended up in Coventry having noodle bar for dinner because we walked the entire Stratford to search for Cream of Mushroom/Chicken soup and we could not find any! It was quite astonishing, because all we got were Parsnip soup, potato and leek soup and spinach soup. Urgh, what is the world coming to! No normal nice lovely cream soup?

But anyway, I had a lot of fun (: We didn't sit and bitch too much this time (because who wants to bitch and divulge information to a spy) but it was quite amusing have someone try to embarass you by doing the most socially awkward things. Hahahaha.

Okay, that's about all the updates I have. I need to sleep (I'm thirty minutes past my midnight bedtime) and wake up at half past seven to gym and start on work! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my holiday plans go well. I need to get a grip on my life.

Labels: daily doings, movie, outing, photos, travel

i just want to hide and hide and never wake up

you and your phone calls.
meaningless, pointless and frustrating.
i don't want to lose sleep over this.
i don't want to frustrate myself over you.
i don't want insomnia.
i just want to start my easter holidays nice and proper okay?

urgh.

Labels: moods

March 14, 2009 12:11 AM

another friday the thirteenth

Here we go again.

Friday the thirteenth. It's amazing how fast one month flew past like that. One month, countless of talks and heartaches later, it seems like we're no closer to reaching a conclusion.

Still, life's been pretty happy. So I'm not complaining.

It's been a hectic past few days. Singapore Day (free) lunch at the Students' Union on Wednesday. Jason's baking birthday party the same night. Keegan's birthday surprise yesterday. Poker night (where we played taboo, twister and sang cheesy songs) yesterday as well. And there was well, keegan's dinner "party" at wf9 tonight which consisted of me, chloe, the junior and keegan himself. Hahaha.

I'm awfully sleepy, so photos of all the abovementioned events will come out sometime. Depending on my mood. Don't hold your breath.

Housing updates! May I say how annoying it is to keep calling the agency non-stop and have no one pick up the phone? Gah. Anyway, Lola's staying with us making our group a perfect five for the perfect house we like in Earlsdon. Sadly, Rahul is flying off tomorrow so we still can't sign any contract till after Easter. Oh gosh, I really really hope we can settle housing fast.

Oh and thanks to Keegan's dinner "party" and chloe's evil plans to crash my room and drag me there, I didn't get to do my last-day-of-term tradition of reorganising all my work into neat files and drawing a holiday timetable. Sigh. I suppose since I'm officially starting work on Monday, I can do it over the weekend.

Weekend plans are busy and interesting! Birmingham and Stratford here I come!

I'm sorry if this post was utterly useless and high. I'm, as mentioned, awfully sleepy and I need to wake up at half past six tomorrow morning. GOODNIGHT WORLD.

Thank you for Little Miss Giggles (:

Labels: daily doings, thank-yous

March 12, 2009 3:41 PM

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the Arts Centre last night. I must say, it's a great film. Apart from the gorgeous, fairytale-like setting (oh now i want to visit spain!), the themes running through the film relate so much to life that you can't help but marvel.

The film starts off with best friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) jetting off to a summer holiday in Spain. Rebecca plays this sensible and practical girl in her approach to love while Scarlet does the whole sexy, sultry, I'm-not-into-commitment role to a hilt. At the start, you would have thought Rebecca (a breakthrough actress) would be the plain jane next to wild, flighty Scarlet but Rebecca endeared herself to me. I thought her acting was brilliant. Amazingly sharp-tongued one moment, yet soft and fragile the next.

The two girls both met and fell in love with Juan Antonio, a painter who, well, is a born casonova/charmer. Girls always fall for the bad boys, don't they? Then enter the crazy, deranged ex-wife (played by Penelope Cruz who was amazing) and you get a heck of a storyline. To cut the long story short, the movie ends with Vicky staying on in her sensible marraige (like she planned all along) and Cristina choosing to live without plans.

In other words, the movie ended exactly where it began.

Perhaps life is like that. Living for the moment and enjoying what you have. And afterwards? Who knows. Either your life changes, or you go back to your life before that, this time armed with a sweet memory of a distant, happy story. Or maybe you'll start seeking your next adventure, addicted to the taste of excitment and impulsion.

As Juan Antonio puts it, Life is short. Life is dull. Life is full of pain. This is a chance for something special.

Maybe he's right.

Labels: movie

March 11, 2009 1:33 PM

mink

I'm starting to get addicted to private plurking. It's quite exhilarating. You can pour out all your problems online and get advice from people you barely know. Yet, it doesn't show up on my plurk on my blog, so I don't have to avoid countless of questions that come with each cryptic line. This feeling's really addictive. Maybe I'll feel even better if I create an anonymous blog out there. Ha.

The day's been pretty good. A surprise breakfast bag which made my day :D I've been enjoying my walks to classes too. Warwick is so pretty.

Went for the Law Social with Jerrick last night. It was held at this place called Mink in Leamington. The place was really, really artsy and tasteful.

#1: The pretty lights and chairs of Mink. It's two storeys and the VIP longue upstairs is just as pretty and overlooks the swimming pool. If you look close, the green thing on the right is a BED.

#2: Jerrick and I, with the crazy Mink lights making the our skin (in the photo) look strange.

#3: With Lola, who may become future housemate if Simran doesn't like the house. We were upstairs and the lighting was red. Not my camera's fault.

#4: Although the place was really lovely, there really wasn't much to do. So we started taking photos with the MINK sign. Me, Mary, Jerrick, Lola.

#5: Plus Andrew on the right.

#6: I couldn't decide if this was a nice, candid shot of us all looking really happy or if this is an extremely unglam shot. But yeah, we did look happy. This photo was not faked at all. I think it was after I suggested let's do jump shots and the rest gave me alarmed expressions.

#7: The must-have mirror shot with every girlfriend (meaning him, not me, in case there's any confusion). Hahaha lucky there were mirrors outside since I can't drag Jerrick to the girls' toilet :D

#8: An hour into the party, some other Singapore lawlies arrived. Katie, who was dressed as stupidly as me in the cold.

#9: Tracy

#10: Yes, you thought I was joking when I said swimming pool just now? No, I wasn't. Look. And no, we didn't go skinny dipping. Lawyers have more class than that.

#11: Lincoln, with his red contacts (like a newborn vampire!) acting silly :D

#12: I was told to put a disclaimer that no, I did not forget to use red-eye reduction. Jeez.

#13: singapore law girls :D

#14: Everybody (:

So the night was not bad. Partly because we ditched Mink halfway and tried to go to Smack for a foam party. Smack was too crowded though, so we ended up at Koko's, this dodgy club which we didn't stay long at. Ended up having kebabs at the same kebab place as before. Jerrick insists the kebab guy was openly flirting with me, but I got this extra chilli thing in the end so that wasn't too bad. Hah. Imagine this, a night's out in Leamington and the most action we get is at the Kebab place...

I'm off to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Jerrick. Ta.

Labels: daily doings, outing, photos

March 10, 2009 5:49 PM

white roses

Apparently, delivered flowers don't go to the post room like all normal packages do. Rootes reception recieves it, emails your warwick account and you've got to go down and collect it with your student card.

Interesting.

Received a bouquet of white flowers from C today. Guess it didn't take me quite by surprise since I was given the hint that my room will smell nice soon.

As I've once blogged, I don't get excited over flowers anymore.

And this time, I really don't know where you're coming from. I hope you were being honest with me when you said that you don't know either. I hope you are right in telling me not to worry and think so much.

This is all so confusing.

On another note, the contrast is stark. Very stark.

Labels: musings

March 9, 2009 7:19 PM

because one-liners say it best

As usual, I'm the only one who remembers.

Little niggling seeds of doubt.

Spring beckons.

Those little seeds of doubt are set to blossom.

Unless?

Maybe the chill in the air will put a stop to it.

Or maybe not.

It was fun while it lasted, she said.

No, don't go, he pleaded.

She walked away.

Labels: musings

March 8, 2009 10:15 PM

London Loving

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I discovered the secret to curing homesickness on my first trip to london four months ago. It was a simple theory, really. Bringing myself out of my cosy little room in Warwick into the hustle bustle of London made me miss my home away from home. I was aching to come back to Warwick, and that little ache allowed me to see how much I've come to love this place and soothed my homesick feathers a little bit the same way a bowl of hot soup soothes your noisy tummy.

So you see, I didn't really like London. Maybe except for the awesome, awesome food. Sure it was big; Sure it was beautiful; With the bright lights shining and pretty shop signs welcoming you to bask in their glow. But I saw a side of London that was also grey and dreary. People rushing around in their black trench coats and black umbrellas, with plenty of elbowing and not a single pause to take a small breather. They were like black ants scuttling around if you took a plane ride and watched from above. As much as the lights and the food enticed me, I was doubtful if this senseless grey buzz was really my cup of tea.

Still, big and beautiful deserves its story.

I headed down to London last weekend again, partly for a City Law firm open day, and partly for Nic to show me around London. The delights of it- minus the grey, chaotic bustle. The little tour started out on Friday night, where we walked through the (then empty) Borough Market. It was quite serene, a stark contrast to what it usually looks like in the mornings.

#1: Crates of apples waiting their turn patiently come morning, to be displayed in their full glory.

We headed to this Oyster Bar for dinner, Wright Brothers. It's located at Stoney Street, behind Borough Market, and the food there was amazing.

#2: Wright Brothers Oyster & Porter House.

#3: Wine. Bread wih butter. Fish Soup. Fried Oysters.

The fish soup tasted awesome, and so did the giant grilled prawns that we ordered.

#4: Grilled Prawns with butter and lemon.

After dinner, we went for a little photography trip along the river and along London Bridge.

#5: Empty Street

#6: With a bus zooming past. It somehow reminds me of the Knight bus in Harry Potter.

#7: The river, looking all red and mysterious.

#8: Through the blinds, under the table.

#9: The river, through a beer glass.

#10: More beer glasses.

I went back to Kelvin's apartment for the night and the place was really lovely. I had a hard time deciding to watch one of the dvds, read a book or do my essay. The essay obviously lost. I ended up watching a dvd. So much for good intentions. Ha.

Started the next morning bright and early with a walk back to Borough Market. It was a lovely market! Honestly, I thought maybe all markets were that good. I was wrong, as I found out the next day. Borough market probably stood out best probably because they sold so much food. Haha. That's exactly what Singaporeans love, right?

#11: Frozen fish. Fresh Oysters. Mushrooms. Tarts.

#12: A couple sitting on the bench at the skirts of Borough Market enjoying their food.

#13: More mushrooms. Huge portobello mushroom. Tomatoes. Cheese. Filtering coffee. My cappaccino.

#14: Starbucks (which I haven't been to since the christmas menu deserted us. sigh).

After Borough Market, we walked along the riverside for a long, long time. Past the Golden Jublilee bridges, past waterloo station, I actually can't remember where we ended up. But it was a nice long walk with interesting sights along the way.

#15: Hearts on stairs.

#16: One of the most interesting "buskers". Amazing, ain't it?

#17: A spot for teenagers to do their graffitti and skateboard stunts. Just like the youth park in Singapore.

#18: We didn't know what this was, but we came across a place with children's books.

#19: Yeah, you see children in places like these (:

#20: Peeking through the books. A grandfather reading to his grandchildren.

#21: I've decided to start taking photos of little kids simply because they're the most adorable creatures ever. Look at this little girl! Pink cheeks, decked out in her ballet leotard and skirt. I fell in love with her immediately.

As usual, no trip to London is complete without a visit to Chinatown for some good dimsum. We went to Superstar (always a good choice for it's 1.50 per plate prices) and stuffed ourselves silly.

#22: Our favourite siew mai (which tasted heavenly)

We headed down to visit secondhand bookshops after lunch. It was such a great experience. I think time just flew by when we were there. We spent hours there, admist the musty books, each in his/her little own world of literary magic.

I bought secondhand classic! Jo's boys, by Lousia May Alcott. If you don't already know this about me, Little Women is one of my all-time favourite classics. I'm completely in love with Jo (even though she is female but I look up to her a lot), and Jo's Boys is a sequel to a sequel to a sequel.

#23: Secondhand bookshop

We spent so long at the bookshops that it was dinner time before we knew it. Went to this lovely Japanese Restaurant at Kingly Street. It's called Don Zoko, and the food there was amazing. It tasted better than the Jap places I've been to in Singapore!

#24: Salmon Sushi (the rice was really good). Hotplate tofu (swoon-worthy, I assure you). Udon. Crab Tempura (very good too!).

Met up with ccm early Sunday morning at Liverpool Street to check out the Bricklane market and Old Spitafields market there. But first up, breakfast at S&M!

#25: S&M stands for Sausages & Mash.

#26: Two complete random strangers who told me I could take a picture of them if I want. Hilarious!

#26: Array of mustard sauce at S&M. Workers' Breakfast. Kippers! (like in your Enid Blyton books). Old Spitafields market. Yummy food stall which we bought from and had a second breakfast. Carrot Cake.

#27: Tried my hand (literally) at Carem for the first time. It hurt my fingers like crazy!

#28: Sam is concentrating really, really hard :D

#29: Took a walk in Hyde Park after the markets and my fascination with taking children's pictures grew. Isn't the toddler completely adorable?

#30: Decided to try out nature photography. Flowers in Hyde Park.

#31: Focusing on just one stem.

#32: Like a durian plant, yes?

#33: Focusing on another branch, with a compliant model in the background. Haha.

#34: Photo of a photographer. I love her loud hair and domineering stance.

#35: Another kid photo! In a coat and on a pink skate skooter oh my. I absolutely adore pretty kids.

#36: Decked out in pink. Okay, I'm awfully biased towards little girls aren't I? (:

After Hyde Park, we went for tea/lunch at the best crepe place ever in South Kensington. It's called the kensington creperie, tucked in one small corner of South Kensington in between a chinese restaurant and Little Japan. Despite it's many accolades, the crepes weren't as fantastic as expected. Maybe the alcohol in the Original French Crepe spoiled it for me. It tasted bitter. Bittersweet maybe. Just like the conversation.

#37: The orignial french crepe.

Headed down to the Arcade lunch and had a complete blast playing daytona and all the other silly coin games. We were out to win tickets to claim our prizes. Spoils of the day: One orange pooh, one white pooh and a car (which I won myself ha ha).

#38: My orange pooh. It is absolute adorable. Much more adorable than ccm's white one which he post on facebook. Hmph.

Met up with Shengjun for dinner in Chinatown and as usual, meals with Shengjun usually meant assuming the role of a person with a bottomless pit. We ordered so much food it was crazy!

#39: Xiao Long Bao from a XLB restaurant. Then we went to C&R for Nasi Goreng. Wan Tan Ho (which is essentially hor fun to me). Roti Prata with curry AND sugar.

#40: Dinner was absolutely fabulous and tasty and Shengjun is a great food guide to London. Oh yes, I almost forgot, we order KANG KONG as well. Oh my love!

The rest of the night was spent talking to Kelvin in between his mouthfuls of Nasi Goreng at home, then going off to bed. Open day at Simmons & Simmons on Monday was pretty good. There were only ten of us so it was easy to get to know people.

As we sat in one of the pretty looking rooms in the tall skyscraper building overlooking the heart of London, I suddenly thought that it was so amazing to be there. Like how a typical Singapore student studying in the local universities will never dream of spending a full monday (school day) skipping classes and sitting in the office of a london City Law firm and sipping tea. And I suddenly felt really, really blessed to have come overseas.

Guess that more or less summed up the entire London trip. Big and beautiful proved to be more endearing than I had previously thought, but still, it feels lovely to be back in Warwick.

Labels: daily doings, food, musings, outing, photos, travel

March 7, 2009 6:05 PM

wake up wake up

I just did a really nosy, curiousity-killed-the-cat thing of going to the nj website to check out the junior's A-level results. I must say, I'm really really happy to see so many familiar names on the top students' list. Smiled each time a councillor's name popped up, grinned even wider when it was an exco member, and I'm perfectly glad that my lignum HAT juniors got amazing results.

But reading some depressing blog entries over the results made me ache. I emphatise fully. Not meeting your expectations is one of the worst feelings ever. I remember that feeling clearly on March 7th last year. Yet I've a lot to be thankful for. Despite everything, I still got my scholarship, Warwick and Law School. I feel so completely blessed, Like this was a wake-up call meant to spur me on, not mess up my life.

So. March 7th once again. Wake-up call time. Study hard sam.

Labels: musings

love actually

I'm enjoying my life right now. watching Love Actually all over again, gushing over the most adorable little boy on the show, vanilla ice-cream on apple crumble, learning how to play squash, a girly msn conversation with sumsum to catch up with every single gossip that's been going on...

This feels really good. Really.

On another note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUMSUM! (we camwhore together so little i had to post a shot of three of us. this never happens with me and shubha though! haha)

Labels: birthday wishes, daily doings

March 6, 2009 12:00 AM

stepping stones

I'm feeling awfully tired, but today I took my first trip to Tocil Woods and that deserves a short, photo post because the place was breathtakingly pretty.

It's quite amazing how I never knew what a lovely place existed just a mere walk's away from me. Maybe this theory should apply to life as well. There's something beautiful, right there, right in front of you. All you need to do is take a few steps forward and it's within your grasp.

But big steps are never easy. Baby steps; because we're all just so afraid to fall.

An impromptu trip to Noodle Bar for dinner. Good food, good company and an interesting conversation.

I wonder where life will take us all.

Labels: daily doings, musings, outing

March 4, 2009 6:58 PM

list

Being in the library used to be a fun thing. In primary school, that is. Running there the minute the recess bell rings. Breathing in the musky, old smell of books. Taking truckloads of books off the shelves only to realise I can't borrow them all. Then hiding them at the most obscure corners of the library. Oh what fun.

Now, being in the school library only brings the most random of thoughts to my head. Like:

1) I can't believe I'm here to study but typing this out instead.

2) I spy moving shelves in front of me.

3) I should play with them.

4) Should I?

5) Three hours is the maximum attention span any normal human has, I'm sure

6) Really. The people sitting around me who have been here for longer than that are INHUMAN. Or aliens.

7) I'm the normal one.

8) I really want to go home and eat and bathe and chill out in my room.

9) My eyes keep straying to the box of Krispy Kremes on my right.

10) I'm not even hungry.

11) I really want to go home.

12) Do you think staring at my computer screen so long will spoil my perfect eyesight?

13) I hope not.

14) Worse. Do you think sitting down for too long will give me a flat ass??!

Okay I give up. I'm going HOME.

Labels: musings

March 1, 2009 1:55 AM

from london with love

It's one am on a Saturday night and I'm sitting here in Kelvin's very lovely apartment, at the dining table, cross-legged on the chair, and staring at my laptop screen.

Yes, it's a saturday night.

Yes, I'm in London.

And yes, I'm here blogging instead of doing anything else fun.

But to be fair, I've just had a pretty amazing one and a half days in London. I'll blog more with pictures when I get back to Warwick, but just so you have an idea: seafood dinner, morning markets, caramel in a pot, taking photos, walking along the riverside, music playing in the air, dimsum, second-hand bookstores, amazing japanese dinner, and lovely company.

I took a nice long bus ride home on my own (and got lost subsequently, which was scary but I managed in the end so I'm rather proud of myself ha ha), and I am suddenly reminded of how much thinking I used to do on bus rides. With my ipod playing Boston on repeat, elbow propped on the windowsill, I stared out at the backward-zooming buildings while my thoughts did little pirouettes in my head.

I thought of the conversation we had over dinner.

I reached home safely (oh the brilliance!) and spent the night reading. Did I mention that there's a fantastic collection of books in the house? And quite a collection of DVDs too (watched flightplan last night and I really enjoyed it). Kelvin, I adore your apartment!

Oh. And the reason why I'm still sitting here blogging instead of bathing and sleeping is because there's no hot water. Or apparently, the boiler turns on at 12 midnight. Hmm. It's rather baffling. Guess we will find out all about boiler concepts when we live out next year. For now, enjoy the Whitefields water and... wait for the hot water to come (:

While waiting, and since I can't upload today's photos yet, here are photos from the very first London trip I completely forgot to blog about.

All dressed up for the Halloween party