just in time for spring

i've kinda forgotten how bitterly cold and miserable ithaca is 90% of the time, considering how smashing the weather is these few days. finally!


flowers galore!


i love the macro function. haha


sitting at the creek. we should seriously have a barbeque there one day.. swimming + barbeque.. ahh


we built the stonehenge. and destroyed it in a shotput challenge


ahhh.. some rants though, i think american weather + haistylists do not agree with asian hair at all. there are only two kinds of hair days here. the bad, and the plain freaky. geez.

of barbeques, tennis and sunglasses

just finished a whole slew of coding/work/homework/studying.

i could finish up my blogging about the conference @ yale, my london trip, but honestly, now all i want to do is GET OUT THERE AND ENJOY THE SUN!

Woot!

oh yeah.. go listen to circleslide.. somehow i'm looping their music in my computer (thanks to the ivy congress).. how interesting it is that the first rockish type of band performance i had was in a high class hotel amidst a chirstian conference.. haha

Living For Your Glory

What good is it to gain the whole world, but lose your soul?
What good is it to make a sweet sound, but remain proud?
In view of God’s mercy, I offer my all


And take my life, let it be everything, all of me
Here I am, use me for Your glory
In everything I say and do, let my life honor You
Here I am living for Your glory


The road I’m on that leads nowhere without You
And the life I live that finds meaning and surrender
In view of God’s mercy, I offer my all


Seeking first the Kingdom
Seeking first the Kingdom of my Lord

-- this song really moved me to tears at the Ivy League Conference today, with a culmination of inspiring speeches and heart wrenching pleas from the persecuted. I'm SO glad i came to the states. I'm so humbled and thankful for the fact that I have been so blessed. Take my life, God.

not a-mused

sometimes nothing serves better as a wake up call than a badly done prelim. hmmz

london journeys, part two

Day 2
so the riverside sojourn continues and honestly, i kinda fell in love with london at that point. everything was so.. romantic and just artsy and bohemian. lol



architecture heaven


prerequisite artsy dock-shot


i wouldn't mind a stroll down here everyday


tamesa oxo for our dinner! kinda pricey but omg... they serve THE BEST CREME BRULEE EVER. forget about madeleine's chocolate creme brulee, here they serve apricot creme brulee which honestly, was heavenly.


us rushing across to head toward covent garden for a night of ballet! haha.. honestly i was impressed. the ballet WAS good. and yeah 'sleeping beauty' got ian pretty sleepy as well.. lol


intermission time


the theatre is pretty grand.. something that looked like it was plucked out the phantom of the opera.


so after some great ballet, we headed back to the hostel where i had a most interesting conversation with my roommates, niall and marcellus. basically, a singaporean, an irish and a argentine talking about stuff from art to photography so the best city in the world and the worst. niall was just completely dismayed to be in london due to the horrid weather especially after vacationing in nice whereas I was just coming out one of the most beautiful walks in london. so yeah.. fun times. =)

haha.. this is going so slowly, but im gonna go sleep. nitez!

blogging about london, part one

london was a blast! here's a shout out to weihan, ziyang, ben, xiuf, lipen, william and so on so forth who were so welcoming and 'educational' in telling me where to go.

the trip honestly turned out more fun than expected and london just makes me wish I had chosen imperial to study in. lol.. i'm such a city kid.

day1 - south kensington - v&a, natural history museum, covent garden, riverside

day1 was pretty much a bummer because i was shagged out by no only the time diff and also because airindia has pretty much killed 80% of my brain cells by switching off the bloody ventilation for half of the flight. meaning it was as hot and stuff as India for half of the flight. wasn't too pleased.

well aniwez, we didn't want to waste the afternoon away, so we traipsed down to v&a for some modern art infusion.



entering via the subway entrance


when you have that as your centerpiece, you scream modern.


view from above


spot me? this was the balcony that allowed us to see the casting courts, which contained amazing reproductions of stuff like trajan's column, to david, to the school of athens. it's quite amazing seeing all of them in one same room.


this is really pretty amazing


view from outside. if you notice a difference in picture quality, YESS.. it's because i'm ripping off from brenda's photo collection, which is so uber good. haha

next up was natural history museum, where honestly i was so wiped out i was searching more for benches to rest and sleep rather than at exhibits


after night at the museum, nat history museums will never be the same again


this was the jewel gallery. pretty amazing shit here, but i was too comatose to enjoy.


i was in this slanted-shot and back-of-scuplture mood whilst taking photos.

we then traipsed to harrods before i left the motley crew to go find weihan. who hasn't really changed. haha. aniwez, he brought me to my favourite place in london - covent garden, where the bohemian spirit commingled with this sense of extravagance, where you had glitzy shopping boutiques right next to west end theatres with pret a mangers and street performances thrown in as well. uber cool.

day 2- sensing my enthusiam for covent garden, it's not surprising the next day i dragged everyone down to covent garden for more. =) well, not before a brief detour to bayswater for the legendary duck rice. well, it was good. haha... i think my tongue has been too exposed to good food that legendary is rarely part of my food vocabulary.



glancing at the royal ballet theatre brochure to decide what to watch. we actually headed to book tickets for sleeping beauty that night. the dancing was so amazing. both the male and female leads were just amazing.


then upon my suggestion we headed down to tate modern. when i say headed, it means we spent 3 - 4 hours detouring round trafalgar square, bankside, crossing the bridges, taking tons of pictures and yeah, reaching tate modern when it was about to close.



i thought u only saw such things in france


EMO SHOT! haha.. i couldn't resist. stupid henry spoilt the first shot though


the riverside is seriously awesome


EMO SHOT NO. 2! This place just screamed bohemian with the run-down brick wall facade and scribblings of the various muses of arts and culture.


true to form, we decided to head to this tamesa oxo place for dinner, which not only offered delish food, but a smashing view of the river thames. more of it later.


tamesa oxo in daylight


FINALLY, tate modern. this was the turbine room, which somehow reminded me of a concentration camp with the dark imposing steel columns and general starkness.


me foooling around with the crack on the floor in the turbine room


tate modern is my favourite museum in london. =)


more soon.. i guess, when more photos are up.

memories of NYC

wow.. time really flies, as I am clutching my jackets and figuring out what jeans to bring to London for spring break i kinda reminisce the awesome winter break i had traipsing round orlando, NYC and van.

Didn't really have high hopes since
a) I wasn't a disney person as sheryl put it, and well, I kinda went more for the rides.. which made me utter "dis..appointing at ever turn"..

b) NYC was dead. to. me. having been there 4 times or more and just having been to ever single free destination that was around, I was getting sick of it.

c) Van wasn't particularly appealing either. lol.

but hey! i guess going with low expectations helped out ALOT. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in all phases of the trip and yeah.. it was a blast.

NYC revealed herself much more to me thanks to cw guiding us around for 'photo assignments' as well as introducing great food places from momofuku (yummy tsukemen and overrated BBQ pork bun -_-), to the home-reminding nonya, to that quirky japanese restaurant where we over-ordered like crazy, then chilling at joints like brgr (ironic that we didn't even TRY their burger), as well as jamba juice (where i prompty took at dump at their toilets after drinking so much juice.. ok u didn't need to know that)

not forgetting the places, and even the gem of a hotel i found. gerswhin hotel was uber-kitsch and just a nice find, so well-located near to the flatiron district that shopping was literally a stone throw's away. we pushed some wierd cube at k-town in the middle of the night (instigated by cw), went shopping at every single possible shopping place, hit greenwich village (i still cannot pronounce that word) and quarreling with cw over which movie to watch at that meteorically expensive theatres at Times Square (i wanted to watch National Treasure 2 and he insisted on Sweeney Todd.. and we ended up watching the disaster of Beowulf-3D which honestly.. sucked.)

oh oh! and i think i went on a realty-tv contestant spotting streak (think linken's gonna think i'm a complete pathetic sod but hehe.. who cares).. saw Malan from PR3 shopping at Marc Ecko and then saw Neil from SYTYCD2 (i think) at the theatres queueing for.. Sweeney Todd. haha.. i think i'm wasting my memory on utterly useless stuff.

so yeah, i actually miss NYC.. glad to be able to spend half a day there before I head to yet another metropolis called london. =).. wish me luck!

games night and post-party fun

games night came and went amidst yet another week of frantic scrambling to finish work and prelims alike. honestly not doing too well and getting too stressed over it, but well, i think i needa chill. lol.

well, had my usual dose of tennis and snowboarding to keep me happy, though snowboarding on friday was a commingled mess of abject misery + pain as well as exhilration. pain because i didn't wear a beanie and scarf which meant that when i sped down the hill, snow and cold sleet smacked and slapped my face so hard I had troubled speaking coherently upon finishing the black slopes. thank goodness for my ski goggles. we 'tried' going down hercules, apparently the toughest black slope that greek peak could offer, and honestly, when i reached the edge of the 'cliff', i just sat down and pretty much panicked the same way i did at odessey. then i pushed myself off, starting sliding down the slop on my butt, and laughed all the way down this way. this was so reminiscent of our kiddie slides just much bigger, much steeper and much more fun... lol.. yeah, so i didn't actually manage to go down hercules. oh well.

aniwez, so saturday was games night, started off slow, but as critical mass of people came, things were pretty fun, i skipped dota to play a game of bang! in which i had to battle the combined wits of 3 outlaws intent on killing the sheriff who couldn't quite protect himself and with a vice who was sheryl. nuff' said. lol.

too bad it had to end at 11, but it was pretty obvious that various groups were still intent on playing. headed back with the 909 gang, not before stopping for bubble tea in the middle of the cold night and also talking alot of crap.. lol. spent nearly 4 hours playing citadels (or.. in the case of me and zee, we spent 4 hours trying to explain and progress the game). it was pretty interesting. we had gamers like joshua and joel who were reading every single rule within the book to find out winning strats, we had guojian and cheewei who were more intent on being kings/architects and then exclaiming about them.. lol..

i must says it was fun, different kinds of fun with different groups.. which to me.. was real cool. haha.. will quite obviously miss such times when the semester ends and u guys have to leave.. lol.. oh wellz

tennis tennis tennis tennis

ok that networks thing was just a castoff from another blog post that i was required to write for my class. I hate how when grading comes in everything that was once fun becomes so mandatory and un-fun.

but who am i to complain.. lol.. when i see cheewei mentioning about his thetr class and how it's it most fun class.. i kinda look at my classes and weep. The only remotely fun class is my networks class, but even that is saddled with a ridiculous amount of math, game theory and shits. and all i like is social network theory and how to analyze game plays of survivors using Social Network Theory and the likes.. geez.. i am so not an engineering student. (oh and if you haven't realized, the network shown is the favs tribe this season, with Yau-man getting the boot)

the week has been crazily busy, with two prelims back-to-back and a hell lot of homework. spent 2 hours yesterday agonizing over one question from my networks homework (my housemates said they heard me) and yeah.. realized it was a stupid reading error. omg.

speaking of non-academic stuff, i LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE tennis. it was a superb idea to get tennis lessons and then free up my whole tuesdays and thursdays morning. now (upon skipping 310 sections), my schedule on tuesdays and thursdays look like:

Wake up @ 9.00am -- Cook Breakfast -- Dawdle, QT, study -- Drive to Reis Tennis center at 11.00am -- Play till 12.00nn -- Head home, bathe and then saunter up to school.

WOOT! and honestly have i mentioned (yet again) that tennis is SO ABSOLUTELY FUN. imho it beats snowboarding even. the sense of accomplishment after ripping a winner down the court is.. wowz. that being said i kinda needa work on removing my prior badminton influences, like twisting my racket, not locking my wrist and stuff.. sheesh..

ok gonna sleep.

networks

anyone can figure out what this network represents? GY should be able to guess this.

wipeout

i had my first winter wipeout as I was attempting to run out of the house to get to the gym. slipped and fell flat, clutching my iphone desperately to save it. and yeah, in the process found myself sprawled on the floor, knees scrapped by the cruddy snow and keys strewned across the white mess.

i hate snow. they say that the first winter is the worst. bullshit. every winter is SO miserable, and the notorious february 14th snow that cancelled school last winter has unfortunately decided to spread itself out thin and slather the whole place with mounds and mounds of snow. which then melts slightly due to the salting of pavements, but then ices back into semi-skating rinks in the cold night. geez.

speaking of wipeouts, well, snowboard has been REALLY REALLY FUN. it's like a breath of fresh air and confidence to zoom down mountains relatively confidently, feel the cold breeze commingled with a sense of adrenaline embrace u, and just.. the thrill of black/blue slopes. =) perhaps the only joy of winter.

i was telling everyone how i wished it would only snow on friday such that we go boarding on saturday, then snow melts on sunday, and we have summery days for the rest of the week. rinse, lather and repeat. oh wellz. wishful thinking

happy cny guys!

well.. what can i say, time really flies when you're busy and well.. haha this sem is proving to be really hectic, with me waking up at ungodly hours of around 7 - 8 and then only returning home at around 6 - 7. geez. 12 hours at sch.. bleah

that being said, my courses certainly look more manageable and i thank God that I have been able to cope well with my work so far, clear my homework debt that piled up in the weekend, enjoy a pretty social cny dinner, had steamboat, joined a project team, taking ballroom dancing and tennis lessons (whoopee!), and basically having a blast of a time snowboarding and stuff

i kinda feel like this semester is the way i wanna spend my time - frenetic but with a point. lol. but well, the downside is that i kinda needa catch up on my sleep.

so yeah. nitez

now for the serious stuff

first week has nearly expired itself and honestly i find my resolve weakening (yet again), faced rejection yet again and well.. find myself scarily staring at what would be a repeat of last semester's doldrums. i don't want to give up.

thing is, sometimes i wish God would just show me my path in life, so we don't have to face the hurt of rejection, we don't expand energy chasing dreams that aren't meant to be for us, and instead channeling time towards things that actually make a significance.

well, through the experience i guess i DO thank God for certain things - for allowing me the strength and courage to try, for giving me sufficiently leverage to break my fall, to have time to think and not get permanently scarred. i KNOW that there are God's best plans for me still, i just.. haven't found it yet or realized it yet maybe..but yeah.. now's the time to reflect, to let the hurt ebb away. =)

yesterday was a cool potluck and post-postluck singspiration plus two rounds of wild picture games where an original message of 'a rolling stone gathers no moss' evolves to 'shit rolling down the hill does not smash into wall' and to the eventual 'snowman cannot jump over wall'. lol. honestly the most hilarious thing in awhile.

i'm not going to be contented about certain stuff. i'll try on and on i guess, and well, hope for the best and hope my heart can take the hurt from the rejections. =) why must i keep getting denied?

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9)

reality show updates

- i think aryn is pretty and did not deserve her bottom 3 placement. jay should be kicked off.

- methinks ronnie and shannon did the best job, with ronnie's pic being the absolute best. honestly, perry/casey's hardly made any sense and well.. wasn't in anyway sexual chemistry.

- amazing race lives up to it's reputation of having amazingly SHITTY endings. That's 12 seasons I've watched and so far the only winner I've supported was rob and brennan from the original TAR.

- PR's ricky needs to stop crying, and thank goodness that sourplum of a Victorya is gone.

- Survivor Micronesia is gearing up soon. and I am rooting for my past favourite, Ami. And FYI, Mark Burnett, I scarcely would think Amanda and.. omg what's that black guy's name ARE NOT favourites. give that to peih-gee.

- TAR:Asia sucks so badly this time round it isn't even worth watching. It is NOT the Marc and Rovilson show please.

- JDMA actually edits janice dickinson to be quite a real, caring character. i'm surprised that i'm actually rooting for her to succeed.

- American Idol is boring with a capital B. Just gimme my top 12 to skewer already.

sigh. all that's said and done, crushed dreams are the most fragile things of all.

musings

hmm.. just a few more footnotes..

1. today's sermon was pretty good, with a really moving story at the end that was greatly motivating and inspiring. it is where the goal of our lives is such that when people talk about our lives, they can't help but talk about God. that in essence is the life we should live.

2. i did a pretty cool salad inspired from my final meal at Burgoos. Yup, it is Spinach salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Here goes:
fresh spinach leaves
slices of bacon
cherry tomatoes
feta cheese
red onions

sauce-
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp grd black pepper
1/8 tsp sugar
1 tbsp balsamic vinaigrette sauce

so basically cook the bacon, then use the oil remaining to fry the onions and the sauce, and then spray the whole thing onto the spinach leaves, add feta cheese, cherry tomatoes and bacon and voila!

traipsing round vancouver

1. For some suspension bridge thrills, go to Lynn Valley instead of Capiliano. Capiliano costs money and seems more gimmicky. Well actually unless you're starved for options to sightsee, don't bother about these two. My mom poohed at the suspension bridge saying it was like the MacRitchie Treetop Walk whereas me and my sis were clearly not quite enjoying the walk across. I wonder who gave us the gene for fear of heights.





2. I learnt one more function of my camera! whoppee! (lol to Liksin)Well, aniwez I was pretty impreseed with Ian's photos and yeah wanted to learn a skill and two. Finally figured out how to blur the scenery behind the object of focus. (Yeah, I am writing this knowing I risk sounding ditzy, but oh well.. lol)


Kitsilano Beach.. honestly this was taken at like 12.00nn and the suns already making its way slowly down.. what a depressing feeling.


another view of Kitsilano


Up Mount Seymour for snowboarding!! Honestly, anything done on a mountain trumps Greek Peak soundly.


View on the roads near my sis' house


tons of snow geese in the parks


i like.


more indulgence in photo taking


i think those were nests.


i love the dusk shots


this is in victoria. which honestly is not worth going in the winter. and i don't think they encourage tourists as well considering how the planted the ugly crane there to destroy people's photo shots...


miniature world! possibly the few things worth seeing in vancouver, but we rushed through it cos there wasn't enough time. I HATE PACKAGED TOURS.


aniwez my camera kinda got a bit full with all the images.. so that's about it. school starts tmr! i'm kinda hyped up for it somewhat but what with the horrid schedule i have, and idea of waking up at 7+ every morning.. man..

things i learnt about disneyland

1. the Osborne family define the words extravagance and decadence. but hey, the christmas light up sponsored by them was fan-freakking-tastic.


2. the only rides worth mentioning are everest and fast-track. the rest serve to tickle you slightly.

this is everest. whoppee.



3. be AS kiddie as possible, go try everything, go pose with everything you can see, ignoring the glances whatsoever of other disenfrachised parents saddled with their kids and whatsnot. lol. ok, but draw the line at pink power ranger. -_-

we waited 1 1/2 hours for this. geez.


4. wolfgang puck is overrated.


5. despite knowing from psych class that the castle is only 3 levels high, it still is pretty awesome.


6. epcot yields gorgeous scenic shots.


see what i mean


my favourite shot


i think this was 'little' italy


7. epcot scores again for emo shots.


i like this shot cos it feels very 'in the moment' and 'high fashion' lol. taken in epcot's 'france'


i dunno what to say.. lol


notice how it's always guy-girl shots? hehe.. wonder why? think along the lines of the prev disneyland post. lol


8. bring a good camera to the safari. else just forget about the shots and enjoy the ride.


9. on that note, animal kingdom is a pretty good place for shots as well. otherwise it's outstandingly.. underwhelming.


ducks caught kissing


10. stay for all the fireworks display. they're the reason for the exorbitant cost of things in disney.