The Chills

Brrr. Along with the pick-me-ups, there are the get-me-downs. I guess it's a combination of the sudden cold weather (1degC today), missing home, friends, family and preparing for finals. But I don't want to just hold out and tahan for 2 weeks til the holidays. I need Your peace, joy and strength. Thank You. Miss you guys, wherever you are.

"You can call me Flower, if you want to..."

I'm baaack! What a great weekend. Photos from Godpa soon (yes I forgot to use my own camera again).

Let's get the mandatory food bit out of the way, shall we?

Pecan Pie with Dreyer's vanilla ice cream is my new favourite dessert.

I watched about 7 movies in five days - action: The Sentinel (voted bo-rringg! by me, vic and el) and M:I 2 (great! better than the third!) and a late-night series of shamelessly chick-flicky chick-flicks in Victoria's room: When in Rome, where the Olsen twins still kinda looked alike; A Cinderella Story, with that hilarious "bend-and-snap" lady from Legally Blonde; and What a Girl Wants which I must admit I like a lot.

I watched the start and end of the restored platinum edition of Bambi, where I fell in love with Thumper all over again, and on the bus ride back the girl to my left was watching Little Women which I now believe is one of the most perfect shows out there.

And the movies were just a teeny part of Thanksgiving! Just hanging out with the coolest god-family in the world, hearing Christmas carols 24/7 on the radio (they're played the day after Thanksgiving) and being in a real home-home (not a college apartment) again was priceless. My first Thanksgiving will forever bring back memories of swinging my heart out at the CFNI playground and attempting to play basketball after dinner, hearing Victoria's shrieks, Godma's laughter, Peni-el's drumming and Godpa's wise counsel (really), making a surrealist-looking island with weird characters ("Take me to your leader!") with the clay Kellee and Harlen brought, trying to mold my piece of clay into an exact replica of a bunny a la Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit but failing badly, hitting the mall on Black Friday and seeing the crazy sales, finding the perfect pair of sunglasses for $5...

It was the perfect pick-me-up. :) Bring on the finals!

The Thanksgiving Post

First of all, apologies to those of you who can't follow the convoluted peach-club/ swirlyscentedpen discussion going on to your right... It's just a bunch of my sec 3/4 classmates reminiscing about our good ol' MGS days. That's all we do, basically. We can't seem to let go. So just indulge them.

I had one hour of class today and that was it! Yesss. Thanksgiving is upon us! It's almost like a Fall Break. Most teachers cancelled classes today, even though the official holidays are tomorrow and Friday. In about 5 hours I will be on my way to Dallas. And I have much to be thankful for:

Got my paycheck today! HaHA!
Watched the Longhorn Singers (school choir) on Friday and they did a frighteningly good rendition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller", complete with ripped clothing and in-sync twitching. Haha, guess you had to be there.
Went to pretty Zilker Park Saturday evening and then watched Borat. I think it was pretty good social commentary. There's no disputing Sascha Baron Cohen's talent. But...
Went to a UT Basketball game yesterday with some Nav people... The first live game I've watched. Go Longhorns! Wish you were there, Marko. Kevin Durant is amazingly good. And there was this blimp-like thingy shaped like a bottle of BBQ sauce floating around the stadium.
I'm starting to like fall weather. Especially when the sun comes out and its cold and bright. I just need a whole new wardrobe to match it. I should really learn to knit my own scarves.
I've been eating so much Mexican lately but I don't seem to tire of it. Rice, beans, guacamole, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese, onions, lettuce... It can't beat cai fan (1meat 2veg) from Bukit Batok but it sure comes close :)

I know I talk about food almost every post. I can't help it.

I'm still agonizing over whether I should take Latin next semester. It's apparently difficult for some and a breeze for others. Urgh decisions decisions.

Okay, I'm gonna start packing now. I'll be back with tales of turkey and pumpkin pie... unless the Chins are doing a Chinese dinner, which is perfectly fine by me! Bye guys...

Brew of the Day

I have a confession to make: yesterday I bought a cup of coffee just so I could look like everyone else. I had the impression that a cup of steaming hot coffee in my hand would would bring me complete and utter satisfaction. It seemed like the people who held coffee cups as they marched across campus looked like they had such a sense of purpose, like that hot drink in their hand was somehow helping them reach their glorious destinies. It's apparently the smartest accesory to any outfit, that perfect little accent which finishes off a look.

With those objectives in mind, I got a piping-hot Caramel Macchiato from Java City, my first hot coffee purchase in the US :) And it soon became obvious that I'm a terrible coffee drinker. The floating foam on top with the caramel swirls was fine, but beyond that - ew. In my inexperience I failed to stir it prior to drinking, so all the caramel settled at the bottom. So it was something like bitterblandboringbitterbitterbitterSWEEEEEEET!! Plus I burnt my tongue while trying to appear elegant while sipping. And the coffee gave my teeth a sickening yellowish tinge. And after I'd finished my head hurt and I felt kinda jumpy and desperately wanted the aftertaste to leave my mouth.

So I don't do coffee too well. Back home, as some of you know, I loved Coffee Bean for its creamy chicken pasta and Starbucks for its iced cocoa. For its Frappuchinos too, but mainly because of the strong chocolate flavor. You could take the caffeine out and it wouldn't matter. I guess that excludes me from the cool coffee-clutching college crowd, which is, right now, almost the entire student population, as the cold weather is creeping in and everyone's staying up late to study for finals. But it's okay. I can always pretend, right? I'll put my green tea into a Starbucks paper cup and walk around with it like I own the world. Then I'll belong.

:)

Thank You Mom

3 of my long-sleeved tops and 3 jackets... I will now stay warm and happy in winter. Oh, and I love the stickers!

The Ultimate

My roomie Sobe just gave me a Ferrera Rocher.
Mm-mm-mm.
Right now, all is momentarily right with the world, and I can study for at least an hour more.
So much power in a little piece of chocolate.

~

It's a month to finals. And I'm kinda not used to having a long Thanksgiving weekend of fun and turkey and celebration in the middle of this crucial period. Back home, the final stretch of a semester is one long month of living in the library, skipping classes to study, going for intense tuition sessions, stocking up on coffee... stuff like that.

But Thanksgiving is what's keeping me going right now. I'm going to Dallas to see the dear godparents and have a nice home-cooked meal, will be able to wake up after 5:40am on Thursday and Friday. Definitely something to look forward to.

I finished the third latest instalment of the Isabel Dalhousie/Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall Smith. It's called "The Right Attitude to Rain". It's the only book series I've ever followed in my life, and it's fun to be able to put a story aside and then return to the same characters again half a year later. I'm hoping that Professor McCall Smith won't hurry the publication of the next one - I like the idea of revisiting a place after some time. Namely Edinburgh, where the story is set.

Hungry. Bye.

TexRenFest 2006

I'm a terrible photographer. I couldn't be bothered to take pictures of all the knights, ladies, pirates, witches, monsters, etc. which were present at the Renaissance Festival so all you'll get is a shot of me and a troll. I figured there are much nicer pictures on the website.
It was still a fun experience (though half the day was spent driving there and back). I watched the joust (I think the results were fixed - England won every time!), saw some side-splitting medieval comedic acts, listened Shakespeare's musings on the current state of the world and ate 'battered pig' (basically a huge corn-dog). The fireworks display at the end of the night was really CLOSE and breathtaking. I love the type of fireworks which kind of glitter as they fade out.

Oh yes, and here's a belated Halloween photo of me as a crayon box. With my lovely crayons.

From the desk of Fluffy Livertushie

Get your silly name here:
http://www.scholastic.com/captainunderpants/namechanger.htm
I'm sure some of you have seen it before... Thanks, Ili, for single-handedly reviving this.
Beth and Mark - you guys are Crusty and Pinky Livertushie respectively. :)
I'm going to take a nap now... By the way, OC is alive and KICKING! I'm glad it's back.

Murphy Lives!

Was about to write a grumpy post on the demise of my beloved Murphy (my Zen Neeon mp3 player) which suddenly froze up as i was walking to school on Thursday. The screen was stuck on Death Cab for Cutie and it made this low humming noise. I couldn't bring myself to blame Creative, cuz I'd always been its staunch supporter -I refused to get an ipod for my 19th birthday- so I decided it was the cold weather. Cuz, you know, Murphy was, like, bred in Singapore and all, and was probably just... adapting to the weird temperature changes happening in Austin right now. Yeah.

Sure enough, I returned from the Renaissance Festival at Plantersville (more on that later) yesterday night to find Murphy ressurected and working perfectly again. Brrr. Stupid fall weather. Creative ROCKS, baby.

one other thing

I got an email from Sistic today (yeah i'm on their mailing list) saying The Phantom of the Opera will be coming to Singapore in March 2007. Noooo.. I've been wanting to watch that one since my parents saw it the last time they were here! I remember studying the program booklet they brought back and admiring the really good-looking cast. Hmph. Well, I guess it's a trade-off: Lion King's coming to Austin next March. But this is a heads-up to you guys anyway: get your tickets fast!

bag of assorted thoughts

Fall Retreat saw me attending my first Halloween Dance party. Yay! It was fun. I went as a crayon box, with six of my friends as the crayons. But we called ourselves the Prayons, with color names like Sword of the Spirit Silver, and Light of the World Yellow. Haha. It was a hoot.

Yesterday was actual Halloween, and there was no shortage of sexy nurses/policewomen/pirates walking around school. It's amazing how they survived in the pretty cold weather with so little on. Still, was fun to people watch.

On Monday, my Ethnic American Lit professor handed out Halloween chocolates in class out of a little plastic pumpkin lantern. I was immediately brought back to the Primary 4 days where Miss Soh would pass around Cheezels and I'm sorry Fish, but I have to mention the time you dropped the can and everything spilled on the floor, because I still can't get over how you deprived us all of the wonderful cheezy snack that fateful day. Now you have to go through the entire guilt cycle all over again. Get used to it - I'm pretty sure the memory will haunt you for as long as you live. :D

I was feeling a little homesick on Sunday night (I think it was just general Sunday-night blues) and suddenly had the impulse to read some Singaporean poetry. Don't ask me where that came from. So I checked the library and they had a few copies of Arthur Yap and Edwin Thumboo. After thumbing through Thumboo (TERRIBLE play on words, I KNOW, but let me have my fun!!) I felt a little better. I liked 'Ulysses by the Merlion' because it related to what I'm reading in Greek history now. I have to admit - most of Arthur Yap left me completely mystified. Deep dude. Except this one poem about 2 mothers in a HDB playground which was written completely in Singlish. That was completely Singaporean and completely lovely.

Oh yes, if i haven't totally lost you guys by now, let me tell you about my job, which is the BEST in the WORLD. I wake up at 5:40am and get to school by 6:30am to check the general IT stuff in 5 classrooms - DVD player, projector... blah. And by 7:30 I'm done and get to spend a nice half and hour eating a spinach bagel with cream cheese and preparing myself for class and doing my QT. Plus the pay is phenomenal - $11/hour and I get paid for 2 hours a day though I'm done in one. Awesome, right? I know that God closed the doors to all the other jobs I applied for so I could get this one. My supervisors are great and sometimes give us glazed doughnuts. And my roomies work with me too. It is such a BLESSING. And it's making me sleep and wake early... Totally revolutionizing my lifestyle. Yes, it's that much of a deal to me. I'm happy! Thank you God.

This Friday, I will be heading off the the Texas Renaissance Festival (www.texrenfest.com) to hang with medieval Scottish people and other cool characters from centuries past. Tell you more about it when I get back. Hope I'll get to try my hand at bagpipes.

It's also full-on mugging mode right now. Time to find a spot in the library I can call my own and live there until December. I miss the libraries back home; they're a lot prettier. I miss Cafe Galilee too. I am such a nerd.

Tomorrow's the OC season premiere which -would you believe it- is on at the SAME TIME as Grey's Anatomy. The only 2 shows I follow in the world. WHY do they do this to me?? But I caught the whole first episode on myspace, so all is cool til next week. Looks promising.

John Mayer's song "I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)" is really good. It's on his website, so I play it a lot and will probably get sick of it in a few days. But for now, it's lovely and slightly hearbreaking. Go give it a listen. You'll be boppin' along in no time.

I miss you. And no, this 'you' isn't a secret crush; it's all of you. All. Of. You. Bye!