ORANGE

Lotsa little things happened this week.

On Tuesday, my stomach felt a little weird so I SMSed my cooperating teacher at Murchison Middle School to say I wasn't coming for my observation. She replied me four hours later: "Watch the news tonight and see what you missed." Turns out a teacher had heard a ticking sound coming from one of the lockers and the entire school was evacuated during the time I was supposed to be there. Nothing dangerous was found. But I guess you can't ever be too cautious.

I've been looking for Alexander McCall Smith's new book "The Careful Use of Compliments" (book 4 of his Isabel Dalhousie series, of which I am a big fan) ever since it was published on August 7. I didn't want to buy it, so I decided to ask the UT Library to order it. And the chief bibliographer said yes! It'll appear on our library shelves in a week or so. Yay :)

On Tuesday, I went to a bathroom in school before my evening class and discovered that the cubicle walls were covered with a very heated discussion on the war on Iraq. Girls were expressing their unhappiness towards Bush, and talking about how hard it was to have brothers and boyfriends fighting so far away. It was cool because it was an actual conversation, with girls responding to other girls' comments, instead of just a bunch of unrelated rants. And none of these girls knew who the others were. Just like a virtual forum, but on a bathroom wall. I'll take a picture of it soon but there's a lot of swearing going on so I might not put it up.

My kickboxing instructor got a new CD so instead of her previous Justin Timberlake techno mix, we are now kickin' to the sounds of Timbaland's The Way I Are. I'm sure Munyuk would approve :)

On Wednesday night there was a blackout in our area. Again! This time everyone got really mad. A lot of people got out on the balcony and started vehemently cursing Austin Energy. Haha. The guy above us was shouting, "I've got homework to do!!!" The guys below us got a guitar out and started singing a really off-key version of Howie Day's "Collide". After 45 minutes the lights came back on. After half an hour they went out again. GRRR. The 4 of us are gonna start looking for a new apartment in Spring. Oh, check out this ridiculous ad for our apartment I found in the school paper. What on earth is the blond girl wearing? I'm just not feeling the luxury:

Yesterday Kirsten, Chris and I went to Java Gardens, an Indonesian restaurant which garnered a pretty good review in the Austin Chronicle. We had beef rendang (a bit too salty) and deep-fried shrimp in butter sauce (lovely!) with rice. Was very filling. I miss the amazing Indonesian food I had in Prigen and Bali over summer.

Here are some pictures of last Saturday's football game against Rice. Very orange, very high energy. Felt proud to be a Longhorn.

Bye for now :)

PINK

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday! A Victoria's Secret bathrobe from my dear cousin in Toronto. Thanks Chels!

What Can I Say?

Just returned from watching Brandi Carlile live at UT with Beeba. It was the most amazing concert I've ever been to! While I'm still on a post-show high, let me put up some pictures.

The evening kicked off with A Fine Frenzy as the opening act. That's the stage name of Alison Sudol, who has a wonderfully rich voice and wonderfully red hair. Check out her "Almost Lover" video.

After about an hour, A Fine Frenzy exited the stage and we waited for about 15 minutes in the packed ballroom, amid other rowdy concert-goers, some of whom reeked of beer (there was a bar, but we were underage). After a sound check that seemed to last forever, Miss Carlile herself exploded onstage with her band. The crowd went crazy.

She had a pair of cute bald Lex-Luthor-lookalike twins as her backup singers/guitar players. They were great!

Though one of them tried to eat the mike :)

It was a such a great time. They played for two solid hours, and though my patent leather black peep-toes from Far East were killing me, I have no complaints about standing throughout. She did old songs, new songs, a totally acoustic number (no mike, even!), an awesome Johnny Cash cover... going from crazy rock chick to mellow coffeehouse crooner in a split second. Her voice is so unique - she can growl or scream or hum or do that funny yodeling thing that Shakira does all within one song, and it sounds SO GOOD. Ahhh. And there was this one song where she divided the audience into 3 sections and had us harmonize with her and her cutebaldguys. It sounded wonderful. After the song she threw her pick into the crowd and Beeba caught it! Well actually she cleverly hid it under her shoe till the guy behind us stopped looking for it HAHA. It's cute and green.
More pics below. I think she looks a bit like Lindsay Lohan and Keira Knightley, though she's nowhere near as girly.

The best part hands-down was the encore, where she did my favorite, "What Can I Say" and ended with a gorgeous version of "Hallelujah." 30 seconds was all my camera would allow me to record, but I guess that's enough. You can check it out below. Hear more of her great songs here and here.

My House, The Hair Salon

Just some photos of our resident hairstylist, JFoo, cutting my roomie Beeba's hair last Friday night, and turning her into a fabulous Indian Farrah Fawcett. Okay so I didn't take before and after pictures... I'll get them soon.

Pammy also dropped by that night to make me one of her famous fried egg sandwiches... doesn't she look lovely with a spatula!

And these roomie pics were taken last Monday or Tuesday night during a 1.5 hour long blackout in many parts of West Campus. Once the lights went out, after an initial period of loud whining, we did what all girls do: finished up the ice-cream in our fridge, sat around, took pictures and talked about boys.

L-R: Sobeyda, Beeba's beguiling eyes, me, Daphne

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a...

I'm trying to finish about 800 pages of Gone with the Wind by Friday for my "Civil War in Fiction, Fact and Film" class. It's a lovely epic novel, but it's been a while since I read such a long book. I bought the book for $12 at my school bookshop, then found a copy online for a dollar, so I returned the first one and bought that. Unfortunately (or not) the cover of the cheaper version looks like one from a really trashy novel, just like the poster above, with huge embossed letters. I'll have to rent the movie soon. It's FOUR HOURS LONG.

I went to my first kickboxing class today. It was great! It makes you feel so strong. Even though I probably looked goofy and uncoordinated, I totally felt like I could kick anybody's butt for that half an hour. I love the defensive pose, as Hilary Swank will show you:

Except I don't wear gloves. Anyway. I have a Texercise pass now, which means I can get into all the fitness/wellness classes. I've only ever been to Cardio Combo (which is 1/2 Step exercises, 1/4 kickboxing and 1/4 abs). I want to try out Power Pilates, Ab Lab, Full Body Sculpt Express, Aqua Aerobics and all these other classes with slightly cheesy names. Hopefully I can fit in one class a day. I'm waging a war on flab!!!

This weekend was pretty fun... We had our first Singaporean Student Association lunch at Buca di Beppo, an Italian restaurant (I think I mentioned it in this space before). It's funny how we always end up talking about food or restaurants, even while we're eating. Must be a Singaporean thing. For one of my classes, my professor told us we'd get one point if we posted up our favorite Austin restaurant on the class website forum. So now we all have a list of about nearly 100 places to choose from :) I had dinner on Saturday with Jill, an American who lived in Singapore for 5 years, at a great Indian place called Bombay Bistro. It was great talking to her about home. We had tons of naan and I ordered this chicken-breast-stuffed with-spinach-and-coated-with-orange-spices thing, which was so huge I only ate 1/3 of it. The remainder served as yesterday's dinner and today's lunch. Mmmm.

School is running along okay, and soon I'll be tutoring disadvantaged kids under an Austin public library program, and teaching and observing 8th grade English classes at Murchison Middle School. These activities count toward a teaching certificate. Should be interesting. I'll blog about it as I go.

Let me leave you with some (pretty underwhelming, I'd say) pictures of Austin:

The Tower, our pride and joy

My favorite trees on campus

Lovely grasspatch cum study area near the Liberal Arts buildings

Don't know what this building's called, but I love the railings and creepy lamp-things

Guadalupe Street, running along the edge of campus. Shops (L-R): c.jane - a dress boutique; Which Wich - great sandwich place; Pita Pit - excellent pitas; some bank or other; Intellectual Property (building with murals) - bookstore

For randomness' sake, here's a picture of my beautiful s!bBiEzZZzz*~ (minus Ky) whom I miss dearly!

And with that, I end this super-long post. Thanks for sticking with me!

Earthly Possessions

More outdoor pictures to come soon.

Tubing

Yesterday afternoon, after church, a bunch of us drove to New Braunfels (a town an hour away from Austin) and did this. I didn't bring my camera 'cuz I didn't want it to fall in the water, so I don't have any pictures. But it was a highly relaxing and enjoyable time. We basically floated and horsed around in the Comal River for 2 hours, with a little river ride thrown in somewhere in the middle. Kinda like the "Eye of the Storm" ride at Singapore's short-lived Fantasy Island. It was cool because we floated by all sorts of rented chalets and bungalows where people were having parties and barbecues. Really worked up an appetite. At the end, we were all herded, like dripping wet cattle, into a truck and driven back to our cars.

Today is Labor day and I'm catching up on my reading.