all in a weekend

SO- i went to Brussels on saturday, ah the wonders of eurostar trains. so voila!, in two hours we were in Belgium. okay, so cher and i arent the best street navigators, and i think the tourist map we were given is rather dubious because the 'shopping street' was as empty as any other street that we were at, but at least we got to eat good food;) the street stalls around the st catherine church was really good: we mistakenly ordered raw oysters instead of raw mussels (shame on us level2 frenchers) but hello hello it was good! damn borough market you cheat our money. then we walked around and got lost and went back for another bowl of soupe poisson, which was just what we needed to warm our bodies.
belgium waffles do live up to their name;) it was chewy! well okay so technically we didnt have the real one but what the heck it was so delicious i didnt care if choc sauce was all over my gloves (and face).
well i got to see the EU side of brussels, the schumann part was quite pretty,and disappointingly there werent any lobbyists.
it snowed quite heavily the whole day, and cher's hands were too cold to hold the umbrella so i had to do it, but i kept poking her eyes/head/cheek/nose, and the umbrella kept collecting snow so it was very heavy to actually hold it high enough for her. damn you all tall people.
there were more english people than locals out on the streets. the locals were surprisingly really nice and friendly whenever we ask for directions (which happened erm quite a few times)
and then of course we went to the supermarket and wiped out the entire shelf of maple syrup waffles. i bought one pack for all my favourite people :D so if you get one you're loved by me. its quite crazy though i have to wait for like 3 weeks till singapore before i give any of them away so i hope i dont actually eat any of them before i go home :)
towards the end we camped at this place called le grande cafe; and we sat there for ages (not realising it was that long- 2.5hours!) but the food was good, we both had beers (hee) and i was quite proud of myself until i looked at the alcoholic content and it said 2.9%. well alright there how did the waitress know i dont drink!

THEN- sunday was shopping spree at bicester village. yes, spree- the word both evil and indulgently satisfying. i will (and shall) never understand the allure of versace/ugly luxury fashion brands. but nonetheless i bought quite a few things and did my christmas shopping. lets just say i cant wait for it to rain in london (so i can use my new brolly)!

headlines

the guardian, "barack obama arrives at the white house for meeting with george bush" but channel NewsAsia had to go with "Obama makes triumphant white house visit"
asians.

in other news, both my favourite people (rosh and cher) are back! got a call from rosh yay and cher showed me her battle scars (and vege soup, very dubious). ;)

jonny was very friendly today at the library, and it just makes me wonder why im so surprised at people's friendliness. maybe ive been conditioned into a city alien, hm.

"rise up"

i hate it when greys makes me cry.
cos its about death and not being able to let go; old people who love each other to the ends of the world, and then the eventual reality where one part of you dies and you have no control over it;
or old pasts that creep up on you when it is least expected and you are put in a situation where you have to look at it in the face (there is not much of a choice); and face it, so you can move on, go on with life.
(although i think people never truly move on. its all a myth to make everyone feel better about themselves. i think people simply make do with what they have, at this very moment)

and theres denny duquette, that strong alpha scent of a man. he has that sad, warm look in his eyes and ah i just cant get enough.
then they crack you up with sloan and everything seems better;)

the emotional becoming of teojiayun begins with greys, and ends with, hopefully, something less fictional. ;)

meanwhile, im lusting again. for that shiny diamond on the dot of oui.

ive come halfway

i watched woman in black last night, and it totally freaked me out. i was clutching my poor little bottle of pringles and my coat close to my chest, huddled up in one small ball hoping that she wont appear again. and yes you will scream too when they build the suspense up like that. even when i was relating the story to cher in dirty martini over all the music i got goosebumps just thinking about the story.
but thank god for the drunkards and good ol dancing after that.

--
this tickles me, alot. and the best thing is that i see it everyday on my way back home from school. and hearing jess say 'i installed the mother of all broadband!' was really funny too. ah what do i do without my lovely friends ;)
--

id have you say hi to my new asus baby when it comes. i finally bought it cos i saw wanjun's and then i read an article on guardian saying that retail prices here are going to increase by 15% so accommodate the low pound/euro. SO good time to buy before prices go up. besides, bringing my laptop to sch is really a pain. of course now that conversion is so low it was really quite cheap.

--

this weekend will be all work and no play, with my lover (no shawn im not going to stop calling her that!) away in bristol to cut trees (i wish her good weather) and tons of work piling up. ah the life of a student.

hello mister president

sometime early this morning i heard may totter out of her room and asked lulu about the results of the us elections. but i was too tired to get out of bed yet.
so the first thing i did when i woke up was to check the news. and there it is- barack obama, the new president of the united states.

the music video that caleb showed me still rings in my head, as does his speech in new hampshire primary after he lost, where 'yes we can' caught on. but since then ive been slightly wary of him winning, simply because of the overly positive reviews about him on the news (and the corresponding disapppointing news on mccain and his incredible palin); and also the zealously enthusiastic responses from (frivilous) young people, whom, i thought, were simply doing it cos it was the popular thing to do.

yet i cannot help but feel excited as i watched his victory speech on bbc; my goosebumps in his first few opening lines '.. tonight is your answer' ; his ease, his cool factor (as Time put it) and his charm; the way he smiles when he thanks michelle; and the very fact that the time has come, where we have come full circle of what martin luthur king has tried to achieve. and having read his biography earlier this year i cannot help but marvel at the way history has played out- all the bloodshed of the civil rights movement, rosa parks, the selma to montogmery march, and the very essence of the spirit of being an american, where everything is possible.

so i'm glad barack obama won. i cannot wait to see what he can do.

although it seems like he has already done so much.

'with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea, to shining sea- yes we can'

your gorgeousness.

okay so i spent the whole night before wishing it would rain and googling erm gastonbury pictures ;) we planned the day trip to bath way before but i was pretty tired from all the halloween-ing. we managed to wake up in time though (not before i gave my lover five calls, one of which she hung up on me and she claims she had no recollection of the missed calls and the one hang up) and caught a train down to bath.

so yes thats me, wearing my beloved wellingtons from joules :D (fyi its from the kids section) and i totally love it. ive had varied reactions about it (lulu: WHATS THAT! - to - lover's omg its so adorable!) but of course ive been wanting one for the longest time and it was raining in london the other day (as always) ;) well. whenever it rains i shall thank wellies for my dry feet.

i was really having fun spotting puddles and splashing around in them, although at the first puddle i was probably too enthusiastic and made too big a splash. lover kept running away in disgust with all the splashing about so she wasnt very entertained, but i clearly was ;)

the rolling hills; the numerous 'shaun the sheep'; sally lunn's buns (cinnamon butter and clotted cream, ah heavenly godly food); fudge factory (was licking my fudge while watching quantum of solace); and yes, i watched bond, and i didnt fall asleep this time!; and very friendly people who smiled all the time; and cheeky rascals who when asked for directions to the cinema says 'if you let me go in with you id tell you where!'



such a beautiful place;)

sniffles

i think i kinda like the feeling of being drugged- the paracetemol laced in your breath, drug-filled brain and wooziness all around. and then of course, the afternoon nap that you didnt know you took, but eventually takes up the whole of your day and then you slowly wake up feeling cold (damn the cold feet) and hungry, and you realised its quite dark already; after which you go make yourself some crappy dinner and then you go straight back to bed (not before some guy calls to offer you three issues of marie claire magazine for 1 pound, sigh) cos thats all the energy you have. i dont know how other people do it- blocked nose and muscle aches and all and stilll out there, fighting the cold and going about life as though the cold has no effect on them. i guess i am just weaker than i would love to be; or as jon always say, 'lazy lazy lazy!'

thanks though to my lover for the lemsip and good 'ol trashy fashion mag;) ah she knows me so well.
(lover truimphs all)

may the nasty cough never descend upon me!

happy diwali!

and this is how my diwali day went:

9am: decides not to go for make up medical class. sorry stuart andrews!
11am: michael wilkinson is doing jurisprudence! i really think he's a nice guy but i just dont get him when he lectures. rachel and i debated whether he's lost or gained weight.
12noon: goes for jurisprudence class. i teach my bbc friend another hokkien swear word.
12.01pm: nose works come on and valerie keeps looking over, oops.
12.58pm: my handphone rings in class, and my tutor concludes he's gone over time. ;)
1pm: get my hairdryer back from jessica, finally, but my ears were so blocked i couldnt really hear what she was saying...
1.30pm: i finally make my way over to meet jon to discuss about trial moot. no rooms in the library are available (fully booked til 5pm) sooo we make our way to the new academic building's new cafe.
1.45pm: we realise we cannot find a good argument for one point.
2pm: he makes his way to his class, and while walking he notices my new hair colour! yay
2.10pm: tries to find a free computer in the library, to no avail. make myself comfortable in one of the table facing the wall downstairs.
2.30pm: my ipod dies after singing its last breath on Ingrid Michaelson's Far Away. as soon as i put down my earphone, this old lady beind me says 'oh please go get a handkerchief, the sniffing is so annoying!'
2.31pm: i recover from my shock and apologise.
3.15pm: i stayed at my spot longer than i intended to, and in defiance sniffed loudly before i left. TWICE.
3.17pm: cannot find a free computer. panic, because i have to send an email before lecture.
3.20pm: spotted: two girls abusing the quick access computer policy by hogging the com spots to study. i go over and ask to use the computer. i stand and try to finish using the computer as fast as i can, while half debating whether to tell them to go find their own study spots.
3.30pm: ivan spots me and borrows copy card from me.
3.40pm: still stuck at the com, not going well and i figured i cant finish before lecture starts. sends email promising to attach the full authorities tonight.
3.45pm: hand towel thing in toilet is stuck.
4pm: medical law lecture. didnt have the notes cos i didnt go for class, so i simply sat and listened.
4.02pm: sees the essay questions,panicked a little when i didnt understand two of the questions; then realised i was being silly because we have not done those two yet.
4.25pm: finished my can of coke ;(
4.55pm: jay comes over and tells me how she loves my clothes. weekly ego booster;)
5pm: public international law lecture. spotted: tristan lookalike, again!
5.55pm: my bottle of sparkling water erupted all over me and my books. brilliant.
6.05pm: starts to drizzle a bit when i walk home, we tease judy about her saliva.
6.20pm: meets cheryl for groceries, and as soon as i walk out of my house it starts to pour.
6.21pm: it hailed. ! in oct. !
8pm: we spend way too long in waitrose and i end up with snacks. and also lots of fruits to balance it up.
8.20pm: i have oven baked fish and chips, which cheers me up a little, sigh.
10.13pm: finished dinner, sent email, and my lover is making me jealous.

and now i will go have an early night.

edit:
10.20pm: ITS SNOWING!

barely midterm yet

and im sick, again, but this time im actually going for makeup classes tomorrow, which says alot;) i might have been going out too much, but hey roshni was down for the weekend and i really enjoyed the indian company that one saturday afternoon. honestly ive always had friends from all races and colours but it was my first time spending so much time with a whole group of indian people who kept cracking indian jokes in that really funny indian accent;) ah goodness gracious me!

my ingrid michaelson cd came, finally, and im a happy girl. i want a mr lobster man too!

cheryl's house has turned from a poker house into a gaming house, with the new purchase of a ps3. they bought one game after another, and so this morning i forwarded ian the hmv newsletter which said grandtheft is on discount. and mr hopeless said they didnt want to get too addicted but oh they've been playing the whole morning.
which reminds me- i should go dig out my ds lite ;)

laughs

joke of the day (yest):
shop assistant: hey you look like an american
eddie: !!?

and my (not too fantastic) logic tutor reminds me of wilson from house.

before and after

before and after

okay you cant really see the gradiented cut of my 'after' shot (i tried my very best to photograph that in) but hey. cheryl is a damn good hairstylist (with lotsa patience, i think ma knows what a fussy girl i am with my haircuts) and the best thing is that she did it all with her nail scisscors. yes the tiny scisscors you cut your nails with. i kept asking her if her fingers are cramping and she said no.

so there! im bringing overseas student scrimping habits to a new level.

funny thing is how people dont notice that ive cut my hair though. its quite short now compared to what it was before! tan is the best. asked him whats different about me, and he stared at me for damn long before asking 'erm, something with the hair?'

rushing off to meet eddie now, after going out for three consecutive days (funny thing was i couldnt recall what exactly ive been doing at supper last night to shangjun) but hey its been fun not doing my readings, yet, which i will get to tonight. i will!

life

ive always kept a diaries, travel journals, and scrapbooks of kind. simply because i dont trust my own memory (i dont rem half the names of the people in lse after summer) although i claim to be very good with names and faces. strangely when i leave a place, ie when i left tkgs, i find that i could no longer recall everyone's names; remember the events that happened while i was in tkgs; funny incidents, stories, gossips, all the drama. so i rely on my little memory aids. i guess ive always felt very afraid of not being able to remember things about my life; that my life will simply pass me in a flash and i find that i have lived, but i cant remember for what and how it was.

alas my computer crashed when i went jc and all the camwhore pictures of myself in sec sch is now lost. (thank god, but still). then now, i realised that some of my pictures didnt manage to copy onto my ext hard disk, as a result i have now, once again, lost some snippets of my life to computer virus. sigh, i am truly sad. the funny thing is, the old pictures are all very intact, its the recent ones that i lost. mostly from last year, so i really should try not to lose anymore pictures of my life!

funny things

me, trying to bandage cheryl's finger, but totally missing the spot where the cut is and causing more blood to flow out cos im lk squeezing the finger. you should see it though- the bandage goes on but theres more blood. eeps.

my little nephew, and my aunt's attempts to get him off snacks.
upon hearing the ice cream man's bell- "the ice cream come from china one!"
on peanut butter - "you still dare to eat its from china!"
and now the poor boy doesnt eat either;)

in other news, its been lovely weather today, which is rare in grey london, and i cant wait to hit the markets tmr ;)

first week in school

and its been really alright considering classes havent started yet. nonetheless ive been very happy because i got to watch ingrid michaelson at monto's water rats last night. !!

im rather peeved cos none of the pictures i took did her justice- but i guess its rather hard to capture the kind of charm she had over her audience. haha she cracked alot of jokes and she was cutesy which surprisingly, i found very endearing. now on top of loving her songs, i love her ;)

best moment for me: when she tinkled the opening refrain of 'breakable' on the piano and everyone swooned ;)

after the concert she came out and interacted with us normal people, and in an effort not to lose the opportunity to get close to a star (my virgin experience) i had this chinese man to take my picture with her, which, was a very wrong choice (the chinese man not ingrid) cos you can only see our faces in the picture so im not showing that to anyone. what a waste!

opening acts of the show: i really liked this big curly haired doll called fiona bevan, so much so i even bought her cd after. when she did her bluesy rap thg she reminded me of a female jason mraz; her style was rather happy folksy and (huiije) and i really liked the lyrics.
although there was a swedish guy who had incredibly cool flippish hair which made my heart jump everytime he flicks it;)

so yeah school started well :)

cant wait

for school to start;)

meanwhile ive been:

1. getting a new bed
from this:to
tip: when you can fold your bed into half (ie like my old one) then you know its a really good call to change your bed. anddd you can get fabulous bedsheets from ikea!

2. trying to fix my com. had to reformat my computer because i had a virus/spyware/goodness knows what (thanks again shangjun!). so now everything is fine, but im running without office, jsut for the time being.

3. inspired to be hardworking by ding's (and hc's) notes. so i didnt wait for school to start and i crashed king's public international law lecture today. 9am lecture okay! really good.

4. meeting new people; something which i never thought id do as a third year.

5. freezing my ass off because my radiator isnt really working. london is so cold you cant imagine it was only summer a month back.

and of course i got my new ipod nano (aw shawnie) but i have no songs to add to it, cos i thought 'oh i dont download anw and all the songs are on my cds'. but now its pathetically bare and im quite sad. nvm, hmv having sale.

one more weekend, and school starts. about time!

seasame street

they sing together!


i love her.

but the best:

'doughnuts with a bite out of it looks like C but it doesnt taste as good!
a moon sometimes look lk C but you cant eat that, so...
C is for cookie, and thats good enough for me!'

haha and so i spent the whole afternoon looking at such videos. why cant i just spend life singing, counting and saying the alphabet too!

i adore neil patrick harris

watch the youtube video here!

if you watch 'how i met your mother', or even harold and kumar you will understand why im so thrilled to find him as a fairy. on seasame street. singing about shoes! i do think he's hilarious.

and i so miss seasame street why dont brit kids watch it!?

goodbye backaches

and hello new bed. (lets hope ikea is good). all hail to good night's sleep and sweet dreams.

i have one more year here i dontttt think i should break the new bed. i dont think so. i really hope not.

;)

insomnia

i was tossing and turning and i can hear all the cars driving past outside my house so i decided to give up trying to sleep. okay i shopped on asos, which makes me very guilty but hey i have insomnia! (yes i do need every excuse to shop).

i was surfing for wellington boots and i just saw the most gorgeous pair, (joules, this polka dotted one) but i shall reserve that until i do get a job- another incentive for me to get one real soon- and also for lse to give me my timetable real soon.

i have a half-eaten mooncake on my desk, and a two month-old cereal (which still tastes okay; after eating expired food for 11 weeks in poland i think food as long as its not mouldy or showing obvious signs of decay is fine).

i have not used the skipping rope; nor have i actually woken up early enough to run. i did try to do the yoga poses that the therapist taught us in poland though.

i have been getting backaches ever since i got back, and i seriously think its my unspringy mattress that is giving me the aches. i have half a mind to change it, which i think i will, even though im only going to sleep on it for a year at the most. and btw, another plank on my lousy bed broke again. so not my fault i dont think i gained that much weight...

i have to say, old drama serials do rock. 双天至尊 is such a classic, i can hear my mum screaming in the background 'how can like that one!' 'that doesnt make sense lor!' 'eh i can be the director already'. but its nice seeing singapore, and hearing cheesy chinese lines, and seeing how li nan xing got uglier from his younger self, quite unfortunately. he was quite good looking i dare say. that young, skinny, tanned heroic image which then turned into a shabby goatee slightly out of shape manly self.

life is brutal.

in londoness

so im back in london, and it sure feels strange to be back. it was a hasty departure at the centre even though we knew we would be leaving that day; it was just that the therapist only gave us ten minutes to say goodbyes and pack everything up. of course we took more than ten minutes, but still it felt too short for the 11 weeks of staying together and doing everything together. all the way back to london i felt something missing , and even when i got off at kings cross and i saw the familiar red bricks of the station, i marvelled at the beauty; yet i still did not feel a sense of belonging. london will and forever will be, simply a place that i studied at for three years, and not a place i make my home. that i am ever more certain of.

life at the centre was difficult to say what it was, since i had a good time making merry (as shimmie puts it) with the people there; yet at the same time i struggled against thinking too much about what i am actually doing there. the experience of staying at a halfway house will stay special to me, im sure, as will the friends i make there. there are certain moments at the centre where i felt so inadequate for not being able to do more, but then again there are some moments which i can remember very clearly; moments which i will make sure i remember to remind myself of the relationships i had formed. a guy's confession of insecurity of not having 'anyone in the world for him'; a guy choking up because of a reminder of the countdown to his beloved's visit back to poland; dreams of migrating to other countries, in search for a better life; random hugs; a pink fish eraser. ;)

there were a few moments in the centre where i felt overwhelming emotions- i think its something about the regimental schedule and strictness of the place that makes you want to embrace anything that is in touch with the sentimental side. it was this guy's 18th birthday (which to them is like a 21st) and his family came down and he felt so emotional the whole time he was crying. then we were talking (cos everyone else was working) and he told me that he loves his family alot and he started crying. and i did, too. abit. ;)

as i told eugenia, my life is really too comfortable!

on arrival back to london shimmie and i had woojung, which was too spicy for me. today i spent the whole day unpacking and cleaning up anything and everything in sight. and only first day back in london and im back to my usual diet- noodles, chicken and cherry tomatoes with soy sauce and chilli oil. (i was going to add a smiley but now im not so sure if its something to be smiling about).

im not so sure when school is starting; damn im not so sure i want to find out :) im going to start watching 双天至尊!