things which make me feel in control

- Wearing my orthodontic elastics

- Arriving 2min early for my train

- Eating a nutritious breakfast

- Successfully printing double-sided lecture notes

- A compliant fringe

- Snug jeans tucked into sturdy boots

I've been pretty good at maintaining all of the above every day so far this week. 

luck

I am not a superstitious person, but today I had such a Hitchcock encounter with a black cat that any happy feelings about the nice weather instantaneously became ominous suspense.

After a satisfying brunch, I had been gliding leisurely to the train station listening to Sigur Rós' Heysátan when suddenly, the sound of a baby wailing pervaded my ears. At first I thought it was part of the song, brushing off the absurdity as Icelandic quirkiness. But all too soon, a slender black cat came pouncing across the narrow street towards me, back arched and baring its fangs. Its meow was shrill, and there was something grotesque about the redness of its mouth and its yellow eyes. I hastened my pace and looked back only once. The kitty stared back, menacingly.

For the rest of my walk and the train ride which followed, I thought about the implications of bad luck. Disappointed by my lack of imagination, I retired to reading my book and forgot about my imminent misfortune. It wasn't until I checked my emails just before did my superstitious nerves come back to life.

I don't know what consecutive numbers mean in terms of luck, but this did make me feel very lucky.



Does this mean my spell of bad luck is over before it even began? I am still very anxious.

multitasking

Sometimes when I'm in a hurry, and have to do 10 things at once, I use my webcam as a mirror. This way I can do my hair/make-up and check emails/weather/etc. all at the same time, whilst sitting on a comfy chair or even in bed. Have you ever done this? Or am I just over-juicing the photobooth application due to my lack of motivation to learn about other Mac functions? Hmm....

strawberry

Cupcake baking is a self-indulgent hobby of mine. My joy does not come from watching others enjoy my cupcakes, rather, from shopping for ingredients and wearing impractical clothing while baking. Today it was strawberry essence and the outfit was a new sailor top which arrived in the mail yesterday.  

highschool

I miss highschool, but not the one that I had. I miss the highschool which American movies make me think I had, where cliques are immiscible and everyone has lunch on plastic trays in the cafeteria. Sometimes people break out in dance, and self-discovery is more important than chemistry tests. I find myself depressingly nostalgic for these quintessential memories which aren't actually mine. In 50 years time, I probably won't even remember that I went to a girls' school with a pine green uniform. Instead I will be convinced that I was actually the kooky art girl with purple hair that was generally a loner, except nobody knew that the star QB secretly had a major crush on her. In these memories, I am also caucasian and speak with a heavy New York accent. 

when midnight internet browsing gets out of control

Oh damn, the lol-ness that is this blog, Cute Boys Make Me Nervous, is obstructing me from my 6 hours minimum of sleep/night. And not even because of the implied eye-candy; rather, the author's psycho-but-hilarious commentary. I hate it when this happens! 

photochromic lenses

I have thought long and hard about this topic. Although they theoretically sound like an ingenious invention, in practice, they make everyone look like Elton John (which is not a good thing 99% of the time). The truth is, the small delicate frames of optical glasses just aren't a good look when worn as sunglasses. Especially when the wearer is exposed to medium sunlight, and the lenses are a somewhat 60s translucent brown (Terry Richardson comes to mind).  



The only solution is to find a pair of frames suitable both as optical glasses or as sunglasses. Bonus points if they also have a 'retro vibe' so that the awkward 60s tone looks intentional. Something similar to Wayfarers would work quite well. 



Photo of woman who resembles my highschool principal from google and the handsome grey-haired man is from the sartorialist. I am happy to have photoshop back.

things which still baffle me

- the postal system

- the perpetual flow of snot produced in my nasal cavities

- early morning joggers' determination

- raw veganism

- seeing baked goods rise in the oven

- small boats which stay afloat in turbulent seas 

- the fact that Macaulay Culkin is almost 30 

future diy project

Antipodium Don't Sleeve Me Skirt from my favourite nemesis Creatures of Comfort. Always effortless styling, and always that anonymous, pale-skinned, wholesome-looking model with a Mona Lisa smile (or at least from her nose down).

harry potter and the half-blood prince

Every time I watch a Harry Potter movie I become depressed at my own lack of magical abilities. But today, as I walked home in the dark from the latest installment, I felt decidedly content despite the mundanity of my own life. Perhaps it was the exhilarating chill of the midnight air or the satisfying crunch of the packet of Maltesers I was steadfastly devouring - whatever it was, I was definitely 100% happy for about 100 metres, at least. 

I may not have a wand but I do have a pointy red chopstick! I am wearing a Gryffindor scarf I knitted for my friend back when I was 12 - she got over Harry Potter, unfortunately, so the scarf is back in my possession. Indefinitely.

instructions

I have been trying to change my subjects for next semester and am reminded of how irritating instructions from authoritative organisations (ie. universities, government bodies etc.) can be. They are patronising in that simplicity of their system is implied, yet instructions are convoluted, involve contacting a range of different departments and often draw upon both old-fashioned as well as modern modes of communication. What's worse is when they stress that one-on-one help is always available(if you are incapacitated enough to not understand their 'simple' instructions), yet when you do take the effort to make a call, the person at the other end of the line is generally vague, snappy, the wrong department or out to lunch. 

Other than that I am having a good day. A mini Pushing Daisies marathon, the laundry out of the way and apple cake in the oven. 

job search

The magnitude of my spending is horribly out of proportion to the amount that I am making, so I have once again been job searching. This ad, in particular, intrigues me very much. 

"Must be able to carry out fine needle work type of operation on very small flower buds"

If only I could drive....

galatea of the spheres

I went to the Salvador Dali exhibition this morning (which was a journey through at least 6 or 7 rooms of work spanning from when he was a teenager to when he was an octogenarian - I was hungry by the end of it) and decided this was my favourite piece. It was inspired by his fascination with nuclear physics and atoms in particular. The idea of the world consisting of particles suspended in air, never actually touching each other, is beautiful and fragile. 

seldom comes

It takes me longer and longer to finish a roll of film. I'm not sure if it's because my 'creative eye' has become jaded and can no longer bother to find little gems in mundane life, or that I just put myself in situations where little gems are seldom. A question to all photography enthusiasts out there: do you feel as though your camera is obtrusive? I feel as though mine is growing larger and larger, so it stays on my shelf collecting dust for most of the time. Most people at university don't know I like taking photos, but then again I don't know them well enough yet to impose a lens in front of their face. I wish cameras were invisible, or that I could take screencaps from my retina and somehow transfer them onto something physical. A future project for bio-engineers perhaps?

Anyway, I'll stop contemplating now. Here are some photos from the start of May through to today.

I actually started this roll intending to finish it in one weekend. It was a camp I went on with others in my faculty. We had good weather, a pleasant surprise. 

Skipping rocks in the ocean is hard.


A starfish.

Alana on one of our brunch dates.


A quaint little shop which I insisted on furtively taking photos in. I later saw a sign saying "You are under video surveillance".

Alana said she had been pointing it out to me earlier but I was being non-responsive. We were not reprimanded though. The  old lady at the counter just smiled when we left sheepishly.

A coffee date with Maddy during a break between my exams.

Pretty rainbow thread from a sewing party I held.

Delicious cream cheese icing...

...with magnificently vibrant red velvet cake underneath! 60mL of red food colouring was sacrificed in the making of this cake. The process was rather macabre at times.

Coffee and dessert in the park after a satisfying lunch. Gabby is prying apart the pages which have stuck together. The books is new but 2nd hand, and it is of poetry by John Donne. We have extremely different taste in reading material. 

Oliver's pretty long tresses.

Sensuous reclining position...

I thought about rationing this roll of film and only posting a few pictures at a time, in weekly or fortnightly intervals, so that there wouldn't be such a long gap between photo posts. But that would just be silly.

things which make the past 48 hours pretty good

- Waking up at midday 

- Eating large juicy segments of pink grapefruit

- Listening to Louis Armstrong

- Walking to the tramstop in the sun

- Doing the above three simultaneously

- Finishing up a roll of film

- Deep pockets

- Hiding frilly socks under long jeans

- Recognising songs in movies

- Wearing the exact same outfit two days in a row

- Non-stringy fringe

- Changing to a better internet plan

- Enjoying a large cookie in the park on a sunny afternoon

yi yi

爸比，你看到的我看不到，我看到的你也看不到啊。我怎么知道你在看什么呢？

恩。。。你问的这问题爸比还没想到过呢。。。可是我们不是有照相机嘛？那我教你拍照你又不想学。

爸比，我们是不是只能知道一半的事情啊？ 

你在问什么？ 爸比听不懂。

我只能看到前面看不到后面。这样不是就有一半的事情看不到了嘛？

你问题好像太多了。。。

An excellent piece of dialogue between Yang Yang and his father from the movie Yi Yi by Edward Yang. Admittedly, I had only borrowed this from the video store because the title is the same as my Chinese nickname....Sorry, if you don't understand Chinese, but trust me, it's worth Google translating. 

cheap-ish perhaps, but never free

Maybe I am yet to be disillusioned, but right now I wish there was more truth to the statement "the best things in life are free". Hm...where is my sense of imagination?

florals

Anyone who has ever been shopping with me knows that I have an incontrollable attraction to florals (liberty print, in particular, cause the most volatile of reactions). I was just trying to create some order in my wardrobe when I realised that almost everything I own is either floral or a neutral colour. Yet even at this dangerous state, I still can not stop my insatiable desire to adorn myself in flowers, flowers and more flowers. One day I will be so consumed by this sartorial tendency that you will not even see me. I will just be a mobile humanoid flowerbed. People will hire me to be the organic entertainment of garden parties and I will create a great ambience.

analysis of two chicken cup-a-soup flavours

Creamy Chicken and Corn Cup-a-Soup is not really creamy at all. It is most similar to the consistency of Italian hot chocolate, but not nearly as tasty. The viscosity and blandness combined make the soup very difficult to swallow, the only motivation being the somewhat exciting rehydrated kernels of corn. Similarly, there is nothing Chinese about the Lots-a-Noodles Chinese Chicken flavour, but it is undeniably more satisfying than the Creamy Chicken and Corn. My biggest criticism would be that there appears to be bits of parsley present in the soup. An unfortunate faux pas as I'm pretty sure parsley is not used in Chinese cooking.

It would be impossible to rename the two flavours 100% accurately without causing an adverse affect on their sales, but an equilibrium between honesty to customers and profit margins could probably be reached with names such as Chicken and Sweet Corn instead of Creamy Chicken and Corn and Hearty Chicken and Noodles instead of Lots-a-Noodles Chinese Chicken. Whilst the corn kernels are only sweet if you let them linger in your mouth for long enough, it is at least a more truthful promise than "creamy". As for the Hearty Chicken and Noodle, images of rustic hearty stews do conjure in my mind when I see the satisfyingly plump rehyrdrated noodles float to the surface when hot water is added. My conclusion is that the marketing directors of Cup-a-Soup need to focus more on the strengths of their soups' flavours, rather than just throw in any adjective that may sell the product. I think good parenting should reflect a similar approach.

another way of making online communication more confusing

A "like" button next to people's names on their facebook profile page. 

a precariously perched crown of five orange plaid butterflies

I really like to make bows.

activities which cancel each other out

- Sucking on a lollipop whilst exercising

- Staying up late when sick to drink chicken soup

- Eating ice-cream with the heater on

- Buying new clothes to get more wear out of old ones

- Wearing a scarf and sandals at the same time

(I am guilty of all 5)