summer is spelt s-h-i-r-a-z

what a lovely day it's been! sunny, breezy, lovely. but also, bad. bad as in i've been extremely lazy, and not done half the work that i planned to do. which is fine, because to waste a day like this would have been sinful.

i'm about a third through this Isabel Allende book that i recently bought. it's the first Isabel Allende book i've read, and so far, i'm loving it! plus, to get "into" the book, i went out and got myself a bottle of Chilean shiraz so that's what i'll be doing tonight: devouring a Chilean book, sipping Chilean shiraz, and munching on an English scone.

what are your plans?

now playing : The Way You Look Tonight by Tony Bennett from the soundtrack to My Best Friend's Wedding

one word

fear.

summer it finally is

it's warm! so warm, that i wore a skirt today. so warm, that i sweated buckets. so warm, that i took two showers today. so warm, that tonight, i'm sleeping with the window wide open. Happy Summer, everyone!

on my desk right now

phone, sweets bowl, paper, butter cookies, box of screen cleaning tissues, camera, corkscrew, sugarfree gum, headphones, Ella Fitzgerald box set, camera charger, cardfolder, RW-CD, brochure for the Paradise Project, rubberbands, bottle of mayonnaise, the Beatles beer mug, Alton Towers pencils, drumsticks, A4 printer, cables, paper clips, push-pins, post-its, penny, earbud bud, twopence, lip moisturiser, bottlecap, penholders, pens, pencils, scissors, Olfa cutter, cafetierre, glass, butter knife, earrings, tissue, bra, claw clip, book, purse, A3 printer, empty candy floss container, carboot lamp, bag.

it really isn't!

y'know, i feel really bad for the people who end up here searching for :

• philosophical crit
• intellectual clothes
• philosophical comments
• deep philosophical thinking
• philosophical phrase

they must feel really disappointed. although, i have to ask : what exactly are intellectual clothes?

hardly a hiatus

i haven't been the frequent blogger, have i? i've been around, though, reading other blogs, leaving comments, responding to comments left on mine, checking my stat counter ever-so-often (it's a sickness). anyway to those of you who've been checking in, i'd just like to say Thank You for stopping by, and I'm Sorry that there wasn't anything new to read. i have lots of excuses for not updating : i had a really busy, and tiring, weekend. but i think mainly, i haven't been updating because i didn't really feel like it. not that there was nothing to write about, i think that lots of things are going on that are worth more than a few words, but i think there was just this whole "i don't quite know how to put it" thing going on, that whenever i logged on to Blogger, i just thought "you know what? not now" and, well, went to bed.

but enough of that now, on to my weekend recap. Friday night, i got kitted out in a schoolgirl outfit (complete with fishnet stockings!) along with Supergirl, Captain Jack Sparrow, Princess Leia, a mafia kingpin, and a cowgirl. we went to around 20+ pubs in the city, collecting donations for Becky's charity trek. it was a really good night - people were generous (and drunk), and we ended it with dancing here. by the time i got home it was 3.30am, but couldn't risk sleeping because i was afraid that i wouldn't be able to get up for work at 7. oh, i should add here, that recent purchases of indulgence forced me to the Workbank, asking if they had any vacancies for any jobs that would pay any sums of money. so this weekend i worked two shifts : 7am-5pm on Saturday, and 12md-7am on Sunday/Monday, which will just about cover the costs. of course the odd hours did nothing to help my already messed up sleeping pattern, and no sleep (and too much drinking) on Friday night meant that i was cranky and hungover at work on Saturday morning.

Monday was spent catching up on sleep, and then, late in the evening, i headed over to Lauren's, and joined my cell, painting Lauren's nursery for her soon-to-come baby girl. i managed to get paint almost all over me and my clothes, and Lauren's cat (who now has very attractive green highlights in his all-black fur), and well, not much on the walls. that's what you get when you leave me with edge detail, and a big, sloppy brush! Tuesday morning (actually, 9 hours from now) is my first session at the gym i just signed up at. thought that some exercise might help with my sleeping problems, and the great thing about gyms and trainers is that they draw up sessions for you to be at, and they hassle you when you don't come, which is perfect for the lazy butt that i have. anyway, hope it goes well. the last time i was at a gym was, i think, last summer!

now playing : Candy Everybody Wants by 10,000 Maniacs from their MTV Unplugged album

if you only knew...

...how much i long to crawl into bed and not get up for a very, very long time, if ever at all.

quickie

hey, man. stick to reality TV shows, m'kay?

stop, thief!!

i was plagiarised today. at least, i found out about it today. i got a phone call this morning afternoon shortly after i woke up from TheThief, asking if i could help him with some printing. he sounded desperate, with good reason, because his submission was today, and he was already late. and since i was planning to go into the city anyway, and because i also had to get something from the print shop, i decided to head over and see what the problem was. turns out, he didn't know how to set up the files for plotting. didn't surprise me, because he had never bothered to learn. i was starting to get quite irritated, for making the trip just to do something so simple, that he should already know how to do because come on, haven't we been learning this for the past 5 years already?! well when i saw the file that he had opened, i noticed something familiar in one of his elevations. familiar, because i drew it. that's right. the little fountains in front of Beetham Plaza that i measured, the India Buildings that i drew, all the other buildings surrounding our site that i spent sleepless nights drawing out in the unnecessarily meticulous way that i do things, they were all there. in his drawings, which he obviously didn't do. when i asked him about it, his answer angered me even more : "Oh, yes, i got them from D***** (well we'll just call him TheBetrayer, shall we?)." TheBetrayer! we worked in the same group in the first semester, (on the same project that TheThief is now resubmitting, because he failed the first time around) so it's expected that he'd have a copy of the drawings. but it was not his to give away! i expect he didn't think much, if at all, of it, since he wasn't the one spending sleepless nights drawing it. and what pisses me off even more, is that TheThief paid for the drawings, along with some 3D renderings that TheBetrayer did for him. so my drawings were sold off, without my consent, by someone who had No Right to sell them!

i hope the lecturers see right through to the fraud he really is.

and i hope he fucking fails.

bandwagon, here i come!

ordered, currently being processed by the good folks at apple. should be in my hands within seven business days. next Thursday has never felt so far away.

* update : just got an e-mail from apple that says that it'll take 7 business days to build my iPod, and on top of that, 3-7 more business days for shipping, i.e. way too long to wait!!

** update #2 : apple says it'll be ready to ship by May the 26th. grr...

*** update #3 [19.05.05] : it's on its way! (hurray!)

you can shove that rabbit's foot...

happy Friday the 13th! and happy 23-and-a-halfth birthday to me!

woohoo!

in library now, just back from meeting w David an hour plus ago. currently, am feeling the excitement and exhilaration that always comes post-tutorial sessions. i have just spent an hour and a half reading through magazines, and i mean actually reading the articles, instead of just admiring the pretty pictures : a record, for me! plus, i'm also checking out some books for research and further pretty-picture-admiring. my brand-new Design Thesis topic, as it now stands, as vague as it currently is, is a Music Academy. it's fresh, new, exciting, light, contemporary, challenging, and i'm looking forward to it! (just thought i'd record this feeling for future down-times)

the day that could have been

yesterday, the 11th of May, around 30+ of my fellow coursemates presented their Design Thesis for what was the final crit of the semester, and thus, the final crit of their academic architectural years. this very moment, they are either : 1. stumbling out of a pub somewhere in the city after celebrating; or 2. passed out after what was probably 3 nights of no sleep. this very moment, i am blogging about this because : 1. i am not among them; and 2. while their semester has just ended for good, mine has just begun - for the second time this year.

while i'm still sure that i made the right decision by deffering the submission of my thesis to September, a little bit of me is regretting it slightly. a little bit of me is a little bit sad, because while everyone else attends their graduation ceremonies in July, i'll still be discussing my design scheme with David. a little bit of me is a lot pissed at myself that i wasn't able to do what everyone else could, and did. a huge chunk of me is unsure whether i can even pull it off the second time around. and it was for all those reasons (and some) that, although one of my closest friends was presenting the scheme that she and her group had worked on at yesterday's crit, i was unable to bring myself to attend, to show my support, to show her that i was proud of her, and that i knew that she could do it all along.

at 11am today i'll be meeting with David. we'll be discussing my scheme : whether i have decided to stick to my original topic (a Women's Shelter), or drop it altogether and start something new. it's 7 hours away, and i still have, despite mulling over it for almost 2 weeks now, only a vague idea of what the most important design scheme i will ever have worked on in the course of my architectural education will be. and what worries me a lot is the fact that i'm not as worried as i should be about it. and what worries me more than that, is the fact that i sense the tell-tale signs of the start of a vicious cycle of apathy, procrastination, panic, regret, withdrawal, that i know will just repeat itself all over again.

when i told my parents about the deferral, they were v supportive, God bless them. they understood why i needed to do this (from the reasons that i felt i could tell them, anyway). but i think that, although they say that they understand, and that they don't want me to work myself into a nervous wreck, that deep down, they're disappointed that i did not live up to be the person that they probably imagined i was - hard-working, dedicated, focused. the last time i wrote home was a while ago, and even then it was after my mum wrote me to thank me for a surprise presentation i'd put together for her, for the Mother's Day lunch my dad's Rotary Club had that weekend. i guess it's hard for me to tell them what i've been up to, when i've been up to nothing, when i should be up to a whole lot more. it's hard for me to say that i'm fine, when i'm not, but i can't find the words to say exactly why. so i remain silent, and allow them to think that the reason for my silence is that i'm hard at work, sleeping four hours a day, thinking about nothing but my design. it's disgusting. if i could, i'd probably tell them again and again that i'm sorry, and that if i had the courage, if i could, i'd just. stop.

done a good deed lately?

see the sidebar? notice the little something-something i added? that's my friend Becky. she'll be trekking up the Great Wall of China this September to raise funds for Let's Trek For Children, and the charities that that they support. here's what it entails : a week-long 70-mile hike 700m above sea-level up the Great Wall of China. it sounds like just an easy trek (actually no, it sounds like a hell of a lot), but it's not all easy walking. some bits of it are pretty steep, and some parts aren't even paved! and to top all that, Becky is really not one for exercise, so this is really something that she wouldn't normally do. But she's all signed up at a gym, she's even been going regularly to build up her stamina. she needs to raise at least GBP2500 by July. she's almost half-way there, but she could do with some support. so do give. click on the links to find out more about the charities she'll be raising funds for, and click on her picture to donate, or click here.

i just came back from Woody Allen's latest, which i really liked. a lot of what makes Woody Allen's films likeable : the witty dialogue, the way he makes the world's busiest, bustliest city so intimate and personal, the music! Oh, the music! and of course, the geeky loser guy (in this case Will Ferrell, who does geeky loser rather well) who gets the girl. and most importantly, the interpretation of life : comedy, or tragedy? of course at the end, the answer is obvious : no matter how you look at it, life is short; just go with the flow and don't over-analyse everything, because life also has the habit of ending just like that.

now playing : Little Rain by Jimmy Reed, from the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood soundtrack

you know it's time to get started on that diet when...

...the guy at the kebab shop calls out "You come in every Monday. See you next Monday!!" as you walk out of the shop with your order of a cheeseburger and fries with curry.

don't i just hate it when...

i've been MSN-ing (on and off) with this guy who added me after reading my Friendster profile for a few months now. we MSN maybe once a month or so, but Every Time, i have to do the whole Introduction bit. he just can't seem to remember any facts about me, although he has crystal clear memory about what we've talked about in the past. and every time we chat, he finds some way to dig around for facts:
"What's your full name again? 'nu' is so abstract."
"Where does your mum live ? In Aussie too?" (em... hello. i live in England)
"I'm glad tomorrow's Friday. What about you? Working? Or still studying?" (haven't we been through this before?)

Hitch was great! Will Smith was good, the guy from that Queens sitcom (at least i think it's him) was good. it was smart, funny, and oh-so-true! dating has become so superficial (or has it always been?) everyone's always so conscious about what they're wearing, what they're saying, what to order, which 'laugh' to go with. everything's so scripted. anyway i enjoyed it. worth all the hyping. and after the movie was over (8-ish in the pm) it was still bright enough to go a-walking around in the city, a-snapping some photos. it felt a bit weird, because although it was still bright, the city was almost empty.

tonight : dinner with Darlina, whom i haven't seen in 2 weeks now. some catching-up, gossiping, and general chilling out to do.

now playing : Like Lovers Do by Heather Nova from the Serendipity soundtrack

finally!

this morning i woke up to the most beautiful sound i've heard this week : the sound of the lift working! my room is next to the lift shaft and the stair core, and the lift has been out of order for the past one week. climbing 11 flights of stairs a day is a great way to work out, but i'd like to do it because i want to (which is almost never), and not because i'm forced to. so this morning, when i heard the whirr of the lift, instead of the thump-thump-thumping of someone's footsteps down the stairs, my heart did a little leap of joy (as it tends to do whenever something good happens) and the first thought that ran through my head was "I'll finally have some clothes to wear!". because the laundry room is on the ground floor, i have to go up and down 11 flights of stairs three times to do my laundry - the first time to put the clothes in the washer, the second 40 minutes later to transfer them to the dryer, and the third 50 minutes after that, to collect my clean, dry, nice-smelling clothes. so needless to say, after weeks of not doing laundry (and before you ask me why i didn't do my laundry before the lift broke down, i'll tell you that there was no way that i could've known that the lift would break down in the first place, and not be fixed until One Week later) my clothes were piling up, overtaking the room. there were clothes all over the floor (yes, even after my room de-cluttering), all over the bed - none of them clean, none of them good to wear. and i was running out of youknowwhats too.

now i've just came back from trip #3 to the laundry room, so much more fun because i am not breathless from climbing up 11 flights of stairs. although, when i was in the lift, i noticed a very odd "clunk" sound when the doors closed, and while the lift-car rode the 11 floors i found myself thinking whether it was better to climb up 11 flights of stairs everyday, or risk being abducted by the lift.

the weather looks really nice outside, so i think i'm going to take my clean, nice-smelling clothes out for a walk. later this evening, i may be watching this. i think i'll take the stairs down, just for the hell of it.

now playing : Sexual Healing by Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals from Live From Mars

red, red, red in my head, head, head

i worked the bar at Anfield tonight, where Liverpool played Chelsea, and won 1-0. tonight's game was a big deal, and i had no idea just how big, until Luis Garcia scored a goal within the first five minutes, and the crowd roared like i have never heard a crowd roar before. honestly, i thought the ceiling was going to fall on our heads. emotions ran high nearing the end of the game, and when it was certain that Liverpool had managed to hold its own, everyone erupted into the Liverpool anthem: "You'll Never Walk Alone", and various other Kop anthems. and Aboo would kill me for saying this but when 40,000 people get really emotional about their team, it wasn't that long before i found myself cheering and singing right along with them when they won. i can't really describe the atmosphere, it was something that i've never seen before. on the way back from Anfield, the whole bus was still singing away, and commenting (rather loudly) on how sports critics predicted that Chelsea would win, and look who got the last laugh now. walking back to the apartment, i saw strangers high-five-ing each other, the only thing they had in common was their support for the Reds. even as i'm typing this right now - it's 2.23am, the pubs and bars have just closed - i can still hear people in the streets shouting "Liiiiiiverpool, Liiiiiiverpool" - drunk on their victory (and possibly, more than a few beers).

i used to be a "big" football fan (soccer to ye Americans) when i was little. *flashback* to me, aged six-ish, struggling to keep my eyes open to watch the game on TV. because of the time difference, the live matches were always on really late - sometimes past midnight, i.e. way past my bedtime. i'd know when the matches were on, and i'd beg my mum to let me stay up to watch it. she'd always say No, but Dad let me stay up anyway, because he knew that i'd be well asleep before half-time. i don't remember what my fascination was with the game; why i loved it so much. apart from knowing the basic concept that each team's objective was to get the ball into the other team's net, i didn't really understand it. i didn't really know the rules, or the technical terms like 'off-side', or what happened when one of the centre guys went into the goalkeeper's box or whatever. the truth is that watching football was my way of having my very own personal time with Dad. he worked all day, and when he got back he'd work on the garden, or some other work that he'd brought home with him, and i hardly ever saw him. he refused to play my games - chasing the dogs, climbing the rambutan* tree, playing house with cardboard boxes, picking berries to play masak-masak** - i had to join him at his. so i'd fight my drowsiness, insist that i wasn't sleepy, force my eyes to stay open and alert, seemingly engrossed in the game. and 10 minutes later sleep would win. my dad would carry me to my bed and tuck me in, and then turn the TV off, and go to bed himself. because, as i found out a few years ago, he never really liked football anyway.

*this is a rambutan
**masak-masak : cooking

now playing : Sex and the City theme by Groove Armada from the Sex and the City soundtrack

grrr!!

relationships can be tough. the feeling of dependence is one that every person in a relationship tends to rely on, sometimes to unhealthy levels. sometimes, when disagreements happen, or when one feels disappointed, let down, frustrated due to the actions or inactions of the other party in the relationship, patience, tolerence and reason are thrown out the window, and one is consumed with enough pent-up irritation that renders a person really, really annoyed. nostrils are flared, feet are stomped, hair is pulled out, and things are thrown around in anger.

such was my relationship with the Internet today.

picnicking on Sunday was fab. the weather was brilliantly sunny and comfortably warm. there was junk food galore and drinks aplenty. i spent the afternoon running around from game to game, and my muscles are still protesting today, but in a good way. even had time to take some pictures with my Cybershot, which i intended to post up today; but thanks to the internet being fussy and temperamental, all my attempts to upload the pictures ended with a prompt that said that my "Document contains no data".

"what? why? what does that mean?" i asked. the computer remained silent, and so i tried again. refreshed the page. entered location of each picture. one. by. one. clicked 'upload' and waited patiently. the little arrows danced around in a circle for what seemed like ages next to the word 'Loading...'. when they finally stopped i clicked on the tab, but was greeted with the same "Document contains no data" message. shut down all programs, turned off the computer and had lunch. when i got back i tried again, and the same thing happened. after a long while, a nap, a shower, and many, many more failed attempts, i finally decided that enough was enough, and i'm going to bed.

because when someone's acting really pig-headed and stubborn and simply won't listen to your begging, your pleas, you have to know when to put your foot down and say "Fuck this, i'm not taking your shit anymore."

and then try again tomorrow.

notice anything?

i revamped my blog! by revamped, i mean changed it a little. by changed it a little i mean i tweaked around with the sidebar a bit. got rid of my Blogroll; mostly because it doesn't always show when the blogs i link to have been updated, and sometimes the list doesn't even load at all. so i've decided to manage my (rather short) list of links manually, and entered them laboriously, one-by-one. that means a lot of typing them "a href" thingies. (and yes, i just realised that i could have copy&pasted them instead)

sleepy now, so this will be a short post. tomorrow (as in Sunday) i will be taking advantage of the gorgeous weather spring has blessed upon us; picnicking away here. there will be sandwiches and other picnic-foodstuff (i hope). i'll be bringing a bottle of wine (or two). someone will be bringing a football and a frisbee, and we'll be doing things that people do when it's spring and sunny.

and later tomorrow, maybe i'll get down to posting things that i've been meaning to post for a long while now. til then, have good weekends, everyone!