lemon and a slice of pie

more apple crumble!

2009-08-31T15:06:56Z

Hello, go to Fika for your next meal, it's at Beach Road, and the food is awesome and halal. :) Oh and Swedish. That's right. Halal, awesome, Swedish food.

And I will be happy, I will. No point in brooding.

Flawed

2009-08-30T04:19:01Z

"They have to see us a Gods, otherwise, we're just like everyone else. Unsure, scared and normal."
-Meredith Grey on doctors

YAY! I found a show to watch: Grey's Anatomy :)
Yeah that was the most pressing concern in my life, finding a show to watch. :P I guess I'm lucky.
Anyway thank you everyone who wished me/gave me presents/spent the day with me! And to those who didn't do any of the three, TSK, you know who you are! Kidding. Or not.

I mean, I indirectly wrote about this on Twitter, my own cousin whom I'm really close to, has never wished me, not once. And you may think I'm being childish or making a big deal out of what is just a single day in the entire year, but some things need to be said. Happy Birthday, or I love you, or I miss you. These things need to be said, otherwise, people may never know that you care.

RIP Farrah Fawcett. RIP Michael Jackson.

2009-06-26T04:19:39Z

I wish I was in London.

Just had bad briyani for lunch. Bleargh.

And I'm so bored I'm playing Pet Society on Facebook. My pet's name is Kai, which means ocean in Hawaiian.

Going for the press screening of Sunshine Cleaning later. Everytime I hear the movie title, I think Little Miss Sunshine. That movie was so awesome.

Met Institute Costume Gala 2009

2009-05-15T07:25:07Z

When I have to study, I'm suddenly interested in all the things I've not been keeping up with. TERRIBLE.
Anyway, my favourite dresses worn by the models and celebrities on the red carpet at the Met Institute Costume Gala this year.

Natalia Vodianova in Fortuny. Look at her cutesy bracelet!

Jessica Stam, in a mini Rodarte Fall 2009 Ready To Wear dress with Nicholas Kirkwood shoes.

Doutzen Kroes, in 3.1 Phillip Lim, Cartier jewels, and Christian Louboutin shoes, with Phillip Lim himself.

Coco Rocha wearing Isaac Mizrahi with Mizrahi.

Kate Bosworth in Stella McCartney Fall 2009 Ready To Wear. Don't quite like her, but she's pretty here :)

Du Juan in Jil Sander

Natasha Poly in Phi

Anna Jagodzinska, in Altuzarra and Altuzarra for Gianvito Rossi shoes.

Lisa Cant in Monique Lhullier

Claudia Schiffer in Versace Spring 2009 Couture

Michelle Alves, in Marchesa, with Jesus Luz

carousel.

2009-05-12T04:57:40Z

I'm in love with flea markets all over again, and Ann Siang Hill and Books Actually, ohhh Books Actually. All my favourite writers concentrated in one tiny place. Heaven. If you want to make me happy, take me there.

listen to this, i implore you ♥

2009-04-08T15:33:43Z

thelaendler @ 2009-04-06T22:18:00

2009-04-06T15:01:16Z

Two days after completing my 5,000 word teaching project assignment for MDIS-Mendaki, sitting for their 2 hour exam followed shortly by my individual presentation on the power of teacher feedback, and one day after handing in my Mach Band website project, I am scheduled to give another 30 min presentation tomorrow. On Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Oh the joy. Quite incomparable.

I am exhaustedddddd. Not been getting enough sleep! And I'm no longer normal weight, lost about 3.5 kg. Bloody hell. :(
Why oh why did I opt to present first (no one else is presenting tomorrow)! I knew I would be very busy with tutoring and MDIS course stuff but I just love lumping all my work in one week and torturing myself this way. Raiza and Jun Yan think I'm a sadist. :/ Oh well, at least I'm PREPARED. Been working till late and reading journal article after article on GAD.

In happier news, I've rediscovered my love for poetry.

Aubade
by Alvin Pang

"My love, I fear the silence of your hands." —Mahmoud Darwish

Overnight, my heart, the forest has grown cold
and every leaf shivers with the sure knowledge of its fall,
shivers yellow and maple-red and mauve, Summer remembered
in vermillion dying. When I walk the river now

it bears merely the lightest press of feet, my body swaying
to keep balance in the whetted breeze. I had to leave you
on the absent shore, a warm bloom nesting in the reeds,
an unfixed, iridescent eye. How we part

only the morning knows, and what we said already dew.
Tomorrow after tomorrow we will find the tongue to
remember our silences, or borrow words from the night's
vocabulary of sighs. Grief will teach you new names

and I will answer, hollow, in drumbeats and echoes,
in footsteps and softly closed doors, never looking
at you, never back. I place these words now in the vault
of sleep before it comes. Before the burial and the blood.

It's more than pretty words strung together, it's bittersweet and heart-rending. Isn't it?

On to an ever lighter subject:
Since some people IRL (Read: In Real Life) really want me to play Shoot Shag Marry and because I have so far annoyed them by refusing (I don't want to pick and choose out of my class people), Jess gave me some names of semi-famous people for me to shag marry or throw off a cliff. Hee.

Sooo the people she gave me are

Taylor Lautner. An actor in Twilight.

James Potter. Harry Potter's deceased dad.

Haaz Sleiman. Some guy I don't know who apparently acted in this movie called The Visitor.

Hmmmmm hmmmm hmmm. Well I like James Potter, but he IS dead, so that does complicate things a bit since I don't believe in necrophilia. But since he's passed on, maybe I should "throw him off a cliff", because it makes no difference?

However, I definitely can't shag or marry Taylor Lautner, he's only 17. I do not want to be charged with unlawful sex with a minor. Gawd. So I guess I should throw HIM off the cliff. Yeah.

Now this Haaz Sleiman fellow, I do not know anything about and he reminds me of Thierry Henry whom I do not like. So maybe I should throw HIM off the cliff? Oh no, what a dilemma. I think too much.

Ok I'm just going to go with what pops into my head. I'd throw Taylor Lautner off a cliff and (make sure Jess is at the bottom so she saves him!). Marry James Potter (Let us pretend he's still alive...we can do that because he's fictional!) And shag Haaz Sleiman.

not for long

2009-03-07T17:35:04Z

The real power of art is that it transcends everything. It reaches across time and space, age and race, and moves you in some way so profound that in that moment, if only for a while, you know that you're not alone.

I owe this reawakening of my love of the arts to the art installation cum poem in one of those ceiling to floor glass cases on the walkway to the Esplanade. It has a typewriter in it and the entire wall is covered with pieces of foolscap paper. Each of these has a single sentence typed on the middle of it. Like "My melodrama and your lack thereof", "Five years later, and your mother still thinks we're just friends", "Skin mapped by scars", "Unrequited love was the dress rehearsal", "Ben & Jerry's strawberry cheesecake ice-cream", "Your body curled like a fist under the sheets", and "Sock-puppet arguments".

I'm going to go back there and copy the poem. And then I'll paste it here. Watch this space. ♥

March 10 2009

Here it is :)

A hundred ways to say your name

I avoid speaking your name in conversation,
throwing it to the air as if
it were nothing more than an assumption of you;
it is my last mode of defence.
The last item of clothing to discard
before I realize I'm naked in public.

Even in that one short syllable
that means everything and nothing,
your name as common as you are rare.
As easy as you are not.
As simple as love should be but never is.

But when I'm alone I tie my tongue softly
round the familiar sound,
as if pronouncing with conviction
the phonetics of desire will cause
time to pause long enough
for the earth to hear me naming my loss.
- Tania de Rozario

my very own Snow Day (:

2009-03-03T03:56:47Z

I just wrote "Hi," in here thinking I was about to talk to someone. Hah.

This is not your typical snow day because it's Singapore, no cancellation of a school day due to inclement weather conditions for us. But somehow, events aligned to give me Free Day Tueday. Last night, my tuition agency informed me that the mum of the kid I'm tutoring wants to postpone the first lesson, which was supposed to be tonight, to Saturday. And then a couple of hours ago, I find out Psychopathology lecture, my only class for today, is cancelled. I literally did two happy dances!

Something I realized in between all that happy dancing is: I put a lot of thought into my online shopping decisions, given that you can't, like old school walking-into-a-shop shopping, actually see, touch, and test the real product. And then it hit me! Oh wait, I'm not even supposed to be online shopping anymore. I was so good for so many months, why am I doing this again! TSK.

I shall put the same careful thought process into Cognitive Neuroscience. It is actually not as brain-draining as I thought it would be. So far at least.

I want to play Left For Dead with my jc classmates again! Ethel or Robin or Elaine, if you're reading this, remember to sms/call me when you guys go!

I'm going out for lunch now then signing up for driving practicals.

something to remember

2009-02-10T18:42:27Z

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
- From The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Tomorrow, well, today, actually, I'm going to do laundry. Go for aerobics class with people my mum's age. READ THE NEWSPAPERS. WEAR MY GLASSES. Go to the dentist to check for wisdom teeth because jaw hurts when I open mouth. Pray to God that I do NOT need to have them extracted. Buy birthday presents. Buy the dress I saw today. PRAY. Read my psychopathology textbook.

I don't want to grow old.

hi i'm still here

2008-10-20T13:46:29Z

I don't have much to say

except that, cycling with friends and eating honey stars cereal were a great way to start the week.

I Wrote This For You

2008-10-03T09:06:27Z

If you have some free time today, I think it would be a good idea for you to visit pleasefindthis.blogspot.com by theguywrotethis.blogspot.com.

Favourite photos this past week

2008-09-22T04:56:17Z

NALEY! NATHAN AND HALEY! Sigh. Lovelovelove. I have no words. But they do.

Haley: I'll tell you a secret though, that's what I love about you. I remember the first time I saw you play when I was tutoring you, you were like a rock star out there.
Nathan: You sat with Keith, wearing that goofy hat. I scored 35 points that night, and each basket was like my own personal version of a Haley James pick up line.
Haley: It worked.
Nathan: Played that game for you Haley, and you know what, I'd give it up for you too. Because as much as I love playing the game and the person that I am when I play it, I love being a husband and a father more.

Regularly scheduled ~~programming~~ entries will resume on October 15! Stay tuned!

boo

2008-09-06T06:21:54Z

Well, my statistics exam was on the 3rd, and I think it was okay. Though I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to do hmmmm. Pray for me, unless you've got serious stuff going on in your lives right now, in which case, pray for yourselves first!!!

Now I've got two reports to complete for next week. And a statistics research proposal which is due on the 19th. I will refrain from calling it stupid. It seems like my whole life is school. And while it can be fun, it is mostly frustrating.

XD

Also the fasting month has not been easy for me so far. I feel tired and headache-y, but as Asra said, God gives strength. ♥

AARGGH I really want to go OUT with my friends and shop!

flights of fancy

2008-08-24T13:19:28Z

I'm such a lazy. I should be studying for my memory quiz but here I am on my laptop, watching Friends TOW No One Proposes. Chandler is so funny. I missed him. Haha. I'm not only lazy, I talk about fictional characters as if they're real. Yes. Go me!

So I found out I share my birthday with John McCain. :/
But also with Elliot Gould aka Monica and Ross's father. He is hilarious this episode!

And here is a pretty great editorial by US Vogue featuring Caroline Trentini and the Billy Elliot boys. They need to keep this up!

Rain, rain, please go away.

BACK

2008-08-16T13:59:22Z

Today I slept in! And then my family went to a wedding lunch and had yummy food, and it rained, and it made me think of this pretty picture.

The first week (1/8 - 8/8)
1. I majorly craved M & M's and Peanut Butter. Weird because I usually prefer savoury over sweet food.

2. Note to self: Must keep track of when library books are due. Darn library fines, I have to pay $3.45! That's like two and a half sandwiches.

3. Kudos to Keira Knightley's refusal to allow enhancement of her cleavage for The Duchess.

I've never been a fan of her or anything, but after hearing about this, I really do admire her courage in not buying into the idealised Hollywood construction of female beauty.

4. Started re-watching bits and pieces of Survivor: Panama which led to me naming my 1+ year old laptop Aras after the winner. Hehe.

This is Aras.

5. On the train on 1st August, I saw a boy around 10 years old probably. He was such a Torres-lookalike!

This is Torres.

5. The next day, I went to National Day Parade Preview with Ethel and Jia Ying. Ethel had gotten the tickets from her friend I think. :) It was quite nice. The RSAF Black Knights and SAF RED Lions put on a great show. But they did not play enough good National Day songs.

A mini-collage of the parade.

The second week (9/8 - 16/8)
6. Started liking streetsnaps more and more!

7. On Singapore's birthday, Jia Ying and I had a stall at the Lime Flea Market at Youth Park. We sold our pre-loved clothes and the clothes she'd brought back from Thailand. We made $86, not bad for five hours and a couple of first-timers. We made friends with a girl named Sherry who shared the big umbrella and table space with us. Also, the local music they were playing at the youth park was so good.

A mini-collage of the flea.

8. RIP Bernie Mac ♥

9. My mother's birthday was on the 10th. We had dinner out the night before but we didn't get a birthday cake as has been the custom for recent years. My mother doesn't want to "waste money". But I got her a Pierre Cardin bag anyway.

10. By this week, two group projects for Memory and Cognition and Advanced Statistics were finally completed! I loved working with my group members because we got along well, worked hard and also, laughed a lot!

10. Developed a stupid sore throat. And on the flip side, I discovered that I love chamomile tea.

11. I've not watched a single bit of the Olympics. Actually I've not watched much of t.v., in general. With the exception of America's Next Top Model, Cycle 9. It's actually now my favourite show of the moment.

12. Last night had a great gossip fest online with one of my friends about people in our school.

12. The Barclays Premier League starts TONIGHT! Go my LIVERPOOL darlings!

And please do this!
the disney meme

stop.

2008-07-27T12:21:24Z

I passed Final Theory of Driving! Can't wait to get in the driver's seat!
Changed my layout today which is the last update for a while because I'm going on hiatus till mid-August, see you all then, take care! xoxo

thelaendler @ 2008-07-16T20:52:00

2008-07-16T13:08:48Z

"I was a mistake. My mother didn't want me."
- Marilyn Monroe

Tell me a secret, a story, a confession, tell me anything and everything.

Post anonymously if you like, IP addresses are not logged.

♥

Dandelion wishes

2008-07-14T10:17:08Z

I baked doughnut muffins today and made a mess of the kitchen in the process. :D

thelaendler @ 2008-07-12T09:36:00

2008-07-12T01:38:59Z

"You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
- Mahatma Gandhi

I have found my heart and it is red.

2008-06-30T11:36:12Z

Spain are Euro 2008 Champions! ¡Viva España! I'm so happy, my whole year is made!

♥

Torres chases every ball.

And it pays off, darling!!!!!

The captain is really happy.

Everyone is really happy.

They completely, completely deserve this.

Jumps for joy!

Aragones gets tossed up in the air!

Love

And Victory

After 44 years.

peanut butter and jelly

2008-06-25T13:42:59Z

So I watched Get Smart today! It was funny. Though I found the Steve Carrell/Anne Hathaway pairing to be a bit weird. Even weirder than House/Cameron. My friend and I were guessing which movie different groups of people would watch and Ridiculously Tanned People and Bohemian Middle-Age Women, whom we thought would watch SATC, ended up watching the same movie as us. And then these three guys walked into the row right in front of us and Christian Bale's face was on the screen because the trailer for The Dark Knight was showing, and I went not-very-quietly, "OMG sit down sit down!". The only reason I buy popcorn in the cinema is so that I can throw it at annoying people.

Anyway, Carrell is actually super brilliant in The Office, his character is so insensitive, you love to hate him! But I did feel sorry for him in 2x09 but he was such an ass in 2x10 so I went back to hating him again. And how CUTE are Jim and Pam? JAM/PB & J = <33333 to infinity! Dwight is like...good for a lot of laughs. I hope we find out why he is like that.

New layout and userinfo! :D

fried-day

2008-06-20T16:59:03Z

We were eating lunch and watching tv and my mother, who is sitting on the couch, goes "I'm going to get you 21 burgers for your birthday.", so I whip my head around really quick and say "Really! From where?!", then she says "Don't know, but we'll release them into the air." and the voice in my head says "HUH...Oh she meant balloons."

SIGH. I love burgers.

Favourite pictures this week

2008-06-07T13:59:14Z

All that you can do

2008-06-05T11:41:11Z

2 days to Euro 2008! & exactly one more week to the end of exams! :D

Brain and Behaviour has got to be one of the most tedious modules ever; there is so much to remember. Our insides are so intricate. And the more I look at diagrams of our brain or our retinal layers or our skin and ear structures, the more alien-like they seem to me. We're actually pretty yucky.

I really feel like watching Disney movies such as Mulan and Beauty and the Beast now. Disney princess stamping communities must be the cause of this.

Oh and my friend's sister is out of the ICU. Thank you, God. The recovery process will be slow and painful though and my friend told me she is going to spend her 21st birthday (in 3 days) in the hospital. :(
The other day after my anthropology exam, we were talking on our handphones about how real things like her sister's illness helps put life in perspective. She can't believe that prior to this, she was complaining about not having a boyfriend when she turns 21 while I realized little inconveniences like having to deal with a mean ex-friend is nothing compared to the risk of losing someone who really matters.
I mean when it comes down to it, who and what are you willing to fight for?