MIXTAPE GOLD

when you crashed in the clouds, you found me

2010-08-23T01:53:00.012+01:00

Hello *brushes thick layer of dust off blog*

It's been a busy summer, and one of my favourites so far. Right now I think I'm happier than I've ever been before :)

Song for this post is Barcelona's "Please Don't Go". Band title is appropriate for the content of this post, and it's such a nice balmy summer evening song, especially with this relaxing video.

I started the summer working as a receptionist in Camden. Filing, scanning, calming patients down on the phone - that sort of thing. Not very exciting - in fact it was braincrumblingly boring, but I managed to earn a bit of spending money at least (and a little respect from my parents). Luckily I was saved from this tortuous dayjob by the arrival of extended family (cousins) in France...

Took a speedy Eurostar down to Paris to join them for general relaxation Gallic-style - shopping, pretending to be Marie Antoinette at Versailles, attempting to go clubbing and failing in Montmartre (nothing was open :P) - instead, got chastised by a couple of supposedly stylish Parisians who insisted that our style did not carry from day to night and simply wasn't "done" in Paris. Ouch!

Ah well, I wouldn't let a snide French remark bring my party down any day! So the next day we headed straight to Ladurée, purveyor of the best macaroons in the world! Oh, and inventor of the double-decker macaroon. Got a major sugar fix here! I swear I could live on the Caramel Salé flavoured ones...miammmm, as the French say!

After this Parisian interlude came our annual European family holiday - this time to Catalunya in northern Spain. Visited my old old friend Daniel at his house in Besalu, where I kicked his ass at Pokemon Stadium :P, pushed our bikes over a river (where I fell in twice...yes, that's right), watched a baker making bread and postres at midnight, and lazed around at the beautiful nearby playa (beach). Soundtrack to this part of the holiday was provided by "Flaixback FM" (pronounced "flashback") - special credit goes to DCUP's "We No Speak Americano" :P

Above: on the cool medieval bridge that leads into the town Daniel lives in!

Moved down the coast after that to Barcelona, a city we've visited a grand total of four times now, but never fails to disappoint. Beach, city and mountain (well...hills) rolled into one. Plus, delicious tapas (especially at Navarra on Passeig de Gracia - recommended!) and the flagship Zara store with about five floors of affordable high street. Love it. Plus I always have to have a fruit juice at La Boqueria market - it's just the best there! Especially the coconut and banana...mmmm, so damn good...

Went to the Fundacio Miro again too, always nice to see works I used to like in my childhood, such as the above sculpture, which sadly gets groped by all the male tourists who think they're hilarious. A lot. You can see why though, nice pair of legs she's got there...

Ooh yeah, and we went to the sculpture park round the back of the foundation too, always one of my favourites as a child and remaining so now. So awesome.

After this we moved on to Sitges, which unbeknownst to me, happened to be the gay capital of Spain. All right then, I thought - great even! Means I can lie out in my bikini without fear of the stares of pervy old guys and even maybe find a GBF (gay best friend) :D All this goodwill dissipated when I saw the men wandering around in nothing but their underpants though...that's right, UNDERPANTS. Not swimming trunks. Their knickers, darling. :D

Found an awesome Mario graffiti on one of the shop fronts!

God I look so rough here...must have been the day I felt tired from travelling and ended up watching hours of German MTV, namely the awful and addictive programme "Fist of Zen". Great for drinking games though...

Sitges in general was great though, really enjoyed it, despite ridiculously high tourist prices everywhere. The town was amazingly pretty and it had its own microclimate, meaning that even if it was raining in Barcelona (as it was the morning we departed for Sitges) it would still be nigh on 38 degrees and blindingly sunny in Sitges. Needless to say, I got horribly burnt below my bikini top line ;)

And that was it! Catalonia in a nutshell. Not the end of the summer though, far from it - next week, after Reading, a friend and I will be travelling to Turkey to see sites of interest in Istanbul (read: archaeological and artistic, sure, but also the BAZAARS! Turkish delight, awesome clothes, spices, helloooo there!) and the fairy chimneys (the name makes me chuckle everytime) in Cappadocia. Can't wait!

Oh, and in other news, my results actually came out okay :) Very unexpected, I managed to get 3 A*s and my offer confirmed at Cambridge. Deliriously happy and can't quite believe it - just waiting for someone to ring up and say "oh sorry, there's been a terrible mistake - you actually got 3 U's".

Touch wood.

<3

you were born for greatness

2010-06-18T21:42:00.007+01:00

stuff i'm loving :D

1) youtube and its endless zelda music links: fairy fountain, lost woods, spirit temple. geeky but so damn good!

2) the smile on this dog's face

3) the fact i have a mere five days before i'm finally allowed to enjoy my summer!

4) the world cup. yeah...i never thought it would happen, but i have officially become a football fan...particularly where it comes to...

5) mesut özil, the midfielder for germany's football team - that guy has serious ball skills :P even though the rest of the team crumbled without klose today, his playmaking was still eindrucksvoll. plus, i like his smile!

6) the red velvet cake my sister made - although it kinda collapsed in the middle, it was yummy!

7) this quote, by dr. seuss: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." applies to a lot happening in my life right now

8) tenderoni by kele, the song that the title lyrics come from. his album, "the boxer", is out in three days, on the 21st - i'm excited! but not as excited as i will be when bloc party end this silly hiatus and get back to making the magic :D

lots of love guys, work hard for the final stretch! not long to go now...

<3

lost my heart between the sheets of lightning

2010-06-10T22:04:00.014+01:00

if my life were a song
the chorus would be all about exams right now :( revisereviserevise, no time for anything else until the 24th

other things i'm singing about:

recent trip to the ministry of sound for joy's birthday with clemmie, maddy and her boyfriend ludo. to be honest, i really don't remember much about that night...the birthday girl had a LOT of free drink!

after that we had our leavers' dinner for oriental society with my beautiful oriental girlies...and erry :P

hate this photo but xin and erry look kawaii...so...*concedes defeat*

a slightly odd evening some might say? we chose a strangely empty restaurant in chinatown, where the crispy duck was pretty good but i didn't really like anything else. we over-ordered by wayyyyy too much, which was probs my fault. the rest of the gang MADE me order, even though i can't speak cantonese or mandarin. two of the others could :P too shy were they? more likely having fun at my expense :D i felt like i was blushing so hard because the waiter kept taking the piss out of what i was saying, and i could hardly understand him so kept saying.."what...? what?!" so embarrassing...

we wanted to go to purikura after, but the place was shut - and all the nearby karaoke bars were so...damn...expensive...ended up wandering the streets of soho contemplating gay clubbing as a last resort

so we went to erry's friend's house, also in soho, to hang out
this excursion can be summed up with the two following attributes, illustrated by my two lovely assistants inez and xin

honey and iron man. nuff said. and no, robert downey jr. is not my man.

squandered a bit more study leave at soph's house - which was basically a couple's night plus tamsin and inez...so we decided to be couple-y too! not gonna be beaten!

we played a lot of jess's mariokart on the wii...then the guys took over and played brawl for about three hours. i kid you not. so inez and i baked some pokeball cupcakes :D didnt take any pics...there was no point :P jess and iona's cupcake mix was HEAVY. it sat in my stomach for days after :P but the icing inez and i made was pretty yummy! we used red and white for the pokeball colours and then stuck reese's pieces in the centre for the pokeball clasp thing.

since then i've only been going out locally, did a study session with yuji in the park. i was productive, he wasn't, don't need to say any more :P also went for a waterfight with my old old friend daniel! then walking around queen's park and kilburn discovering random graffiti :)

these foxes are everywhere in queen's park! i love them, want to find the stencil so i can do some of my own...

i've known daniel since i was four, so it's pretty safe to say he's my oldest friend :D

oooh, i got a new laptop too (this was a while back...shows how terrible i am at updating this blog.)

lastly, yummy - and beautiful - malaysian kuih from tawana

sorry about the hurried post (on strict time limits here T_T) - i leave you with a quote that i found touching:

"We lose the people we love because we are meant to love someone else. We lose them because we are destined to find somebody else. It is a simple fact that this is sometimes hard to accept because we are too stubborn to let go of something that doesn't belong to us anymore."

found it on good morning good night, it's anonymous :)

title song = zorbing, by stornoway

and another fun song i've been listening to is "the bright side" by "we shot the moon". it's kinda punky, something corporate-style i guess?

<3

give me a word you can keep

2010-05-06T20:05:00.007+01:00

today, i voted for the first time ever!

i felt weirdly powerful, even though my vote is one of millions - but i didn't care! it really did feel like a momentous event.
despite my mum excitedly taking a ton of photos of me in the queue at the polling station, holding up my poll card, etc. *blushes* i think she was more excited than me...

it's been a pretty stressful week, for the following reasons...
a) my computer totally died. it breaks my heart to see the screen flailing about, the hard drive completely totalled. ah well, new laptop! a field about which i know NOTHING. going to have to ask for recommendations...
b) french oral - need i say more? actually, i don't want to think about it.
c) the sheer amount of essays i've had on top of my oral work. keep pulling all nighters to try and stay on top of them, but the little buggers just keep popping up...

tonight though, i'll be staying up to watch the channel 4 general election commentary. really, i would vote david mitchell as my prime minister any day...ooh, or david tennant. despite the fact i found out he backs labour...bah.

well, now that my oral's over, it's on to the fun stuff! hope to maybe go see iron man 2 tomorrow, despite its terrible reviews, and dinner with friends - and then some shopping on saturday, to help out a friend ;) yep, this is serious stuff.

started the post-oral celebrations a wee bit early with alex and hannah's party last weekend...
we went to annie's bar in camden (which was surprisingly nice). free drinks, free peanuts, free MASSIVE hunks of cheesy bread - what's not to love? although inez did hit me over the head with one of the hunks and it was like a rock. but anyway, i was out of the house for the first time in ages and so glad to get away from the books...

danced to the latest and greatest from dotsch's iPod...
thanks to therica for the photos, though she ended up breaking her boyfriend's camera in the process :P
the girl in green is my good old friend inez :) we've been friends since the day we first met at interviews for music scholarships back in year 6 - cheesily enough, we told each other we hoped we'd see each other on the first day of year 7 with scholarships, and we did :P

anyway, i was SO glad to have inez with me at the party - mainly because i didn't really know many people, and the friends that WERE there were all coupled up. PDA-a-licious, need i say more? even though she kinda left me at the end of the night for her hand-holding man ;) but it was fine, i knew people by then...

the bathroom was crazy. i mean, seriously. everything was mirrored, and some of the walls were at weird angles to one another - when drunk, this really wasn't the best place to end up...

and the sink was odd too - it was connected to the mens' room, so you could see hands underneath on the other side, but nothing else...and yes, i screamed when a random soapy pair of hands grabbed mine.

next to me there is alex (jess's new boyfriend) and so-chan, with whom i'm DEFINITELY going to finish twilight princess this summer. YES. but only if she refrains from showing me videos of doctors extracting knee tumours...or whatever those gross things were....ew.

last of all, today's song is "halfway gone" from lifehouse's new album "smoke and mirrors". favourite song of the moment is actually foals' "this orient" but i thought the lyrics from lifehouse would go better with the election theme :) the song's pretty good too...

happy voting guys <3

don't look away anymore

2010-04-30T20:52:00.019+01:00

this week's feature: ORIENTAL SOCIETY! (heavyish in terms of photos...as expected. click if you want 'em bigger :P)

yep, oriental society. the one club i still take part in at school..ha! well, all we really do is nom oriental goodies and fawn over hot asian guys (for example - THIS guy miura haruma, officially the only asian guy i've ever thought was attractive *dies*) but lately we've been watching weepy films - koizora for example. shed so many tears over that movie...

anyway, we decided to mark our love for o-soc with a yearbook page devoted to the club. and what better way than to camwhore for all we were worth to provide visual material for the page? yeahh, you know i'm right :)

we spent the best part of an hour at lunch taking pics for the page ;) standard

and we brought in cool asian stuff specifically for the photos. i brought a yukata (seen below), inez a mini kimono and a pink wig, jing her awesome sailor schoolgirl uniform!

pictured here with the gorgeous xin nee, who brought her asian loving to the yard with geek accessories - glasses, books, calc etc, cat ears and a soho tee (yep...cause chinatown is in soho...:P)

so the camwhoring began.
one example of a "typically asian pose": the sailor moon pose. "tsukini kawatte oshioki yo!"

sailor moon style:

oriental society style:

yeah inez, you know mine was the most accurate ;) kinda.

inez looks like a sushi chef :P or, y'know. a yakuza :D
then we took the asian loving outside...

in the stark barbican landscape in front of our school, there is very little in terms of nature :P luckily we found a willow tree to express the orientalism nicely!

miaow! finally beginning to get the nekomimi craze...

i made more peace signs than i've probs ever made in my life. AND I WAS PROUD.

poses choreographed by inez while xin took the photos ;)

getting sick of the shameless camwhoring yet? :P

tore some flowers off a bush for this pic. ah well, put it down to artistic licence

haha. despite practically skipping food (noming is very important in the orient!) to do this, we all ended up having a lot of fun. asian girls love nothing better than a good photoshoot...you know it! we should have one once a week :)

and the funny/ironic/retarded thing is, we didn't even end up using any of these pics for the yearbook. facebook screwing up made sure of that...GRR! ah well. we made a nice homage to miura haruma instead :D which basically sums us up.

japan IS coming! this is just a little taster of the oriental life ;)

ai <3

p.s. title lyrics come from "don't look away" by joshua radin. randomly been listening to it a lot this week...

words that would melt in your hands

2010-04-17T12:29:00.007+01:00

favourite band this weekend is two door cinema club! i know they're not strictly brand new, but a new term (my LAST term at school - ever :O) calls for new music. try "something good can work" or "undercover martyn", or better yet, listen to the entire album "tourist history" on spotify.

their sound really reminds me of all the lo-fi indie bands who were jostling for space back in summer 2008. already nostalgic?! whatever, it makes me excited for this summer! especially since today is the most beautiful day - last night the sky was full of stars and a fingernail moon, and today there are no clouds, just streeeetches of blue sky. haven't seen a trace of that volcanic ash from the eruption at all! also just wanna say, eyjafjallajokull = best name for a volcano ever!

no idea what we're doing this summer, though. all my friends have organized so far is a daypass (sucky) to a music festival and a potential camping trip, but i'm the WORST camper ever. feeling shards of rock under my head and condensation dripping into my sleeping bag is my worst nightmare. i really want to stay at a villa, but some people aren't keen on prices...so...ugh! i hate it when we can't reach a compromise. i will have *something* to do this summer at least - booked a 2 week italian course to at least teach me some basics, and then a holiday with my family if they'll have me ;)

maybe i should book another course with a friend. usually i go on piano camps abroad, but i did a cooking crash course last year and really enjoyed it! photography maybe? or another language one - mandarin? (really shouldn't use this blog as my personal thunderstorm/thoughtshower :P)

still being a fool where the last post is concerned. and i take all the blame for that. am in serious serious danger of slipping past the boundary between my happiness and depression again, which is definitely not what i need. so hoping to try and forget all that at least for a couple of months. they're going to be the most stressful ones i've had so far - A2s. i know that in a year i'll just look back and laugh, because these exams will have become so trivial compared to what i'm facing - but right now they feel so important, and i'm suffering from the stress a little...

just got to remember to eat fruit, drink water and sleep lots! the last shouldn't be hard, provided i get over my jetlag (from japan - more on that later :P)

bisous! <3

only human

2010-03-23T22:27:00.005Z

i thought the numbness meant i was over everything...
well, i was wrong.
it still hurts. i know it's natural in the early stages, but looks like you had no trouble moving on. in fact you managed to pretty damn fast.
but every time i think of you all the pain comes flooding back, and it's destroying me.
i'm just so sick of beating myself up over you. of jerking awake in the middle of the night fresh from going through memories of you in my dreams. only to remember.
i don't want to remember any more.
heartbreak is a bitter pill to swallow..:'(

everybody knows where we're going

2010-03-19T22:34:00.013Z

:D

despite the self-grounding bubble i've encased myself in, i've had a pretty good month!

had a girly sex and the city-themed evening with my closest friends: cue increasingly alcoholic cocktails (until one friend, i won't name names :P was downing straight vodkas one after the other). also the baking of these:

(thats my friend inez holding the tray up nigella-style for all to see, and katy doing what she does best! kidding..or am i? also spot the biology penis. and guess who moulded that one :P)

they actually turned out pretty yummy, despite coming from a ready-to-bake kit. yeah, we were feeling lazy. jess had brought (along with many goodies) a massive pot of chocolate dip, so much chocolate smearing commenced! the one downside to our chocolatey fun was that once you washed off the chocolate your skin wouldn't stop smelling of (bad) cheese until vigorously scrubbed..ew.

in that picture, katy's painting a chocolate face on my arm, just like one of the pieces of art in her portfolio - which got her into wimbledon art school yesterday! :D clever bunny.

next anticipated event was the joint CLS/CLSG disco!

just to fill you in on this pic: we're standing below a "year 9" sign since the disco was making up for one we missed back in U4th ;) so the dress code was 2005/06 school fashions - emo, nerdy and nu rave. popped the lenses out of some 3-d glasses; voila, easiest nerd costume ever!

and to be honest, it was just as awkward as it would have been had we been genuine year 9s. my friends and i don't really mix with city boys in our year, so mostly stuck to the ones we knew/in cliques. luckily there was the dance floor to hit up and student bands (xandria's bf max's band Fracture, and harry michell repping This Is Big) to entertain us. and lots of cocktail sausages. LOTS.

went to the bathroom (pictured here with the awesomely dressed xin nee and emma ^_^) to quickly change for the next gig of the evening: passion pit!
unfortunately i didn't get any pictures, but had a really good time. passion pit were better than they had been last summer at reading - they seemed much more settled into their performing style, and the atmosphere felt like a beach party! so awesome, everyone danced their hearts out and had fun.

well, since that gig i've pretty much stayed at home studying *ugh*. need to get those grades! been listening to lots of new music, including onerepublic's fairly new album "waking up" - especially the song all the right moves. im a little bit obsessed with that one - the lyric in the subject box is from that song! GNAGH so awesome!

another song i loveloveLOVE: her morning elegance, by israeli artist oren lavie. the video is amazing, and it's just such a good song to slowly wake up to and get dressed to in the early hours. i adore his voice...

after a measly week of self-incarceration, i've already started going mad. tried to combat this tonight by going out shopping with my beloved jexie - to perve on selfridges' wondrous food hall...and men's underwear. natch. in fact, jess and i love stalking around the men's department in general, fantasizing about how we'd like our ideal men to dress :) *sigh*

later we went to the beauty dept so we could stock up on eyeliners, lipstick etc, and jess had a mosey around the actual FEMALE lingerie department - while a nice lady curled my hair for free :)

next we went to the denim department - and i spotted a SALE sign. *asian instincts perk up - designer for cheap lah!* jess and i found some amazing citizens of humanity jeans, reduced from £215 to...£30. AMAZING. thats cheaper than topshop! bought.

afterwards: SERIOUS ice cream was had (hazelnut for jess, pistachio pour moi) and a bit of buffalo biltong too, standard. *chew chew* jess and i should by rights be obese..

LASTLY THE AWESOMEST THING EVER. the official adventure time site! complete with free wallpapers, screensavers and an amazing game. GO ON, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

ciao, o jaa mata ne! (im going to rome next week, followed by japan ^_^ so excited!)
<3

P.S thanks to xin and xandria for letting me thieve their photos for this post xxxxx

why can't you try and understand?

2010-02-02T17:42:00.009Z

so my day got off to a terrible start
no one in my french class had done their homework (finishing off a monster literature pack). in fact, i'd done the most in the class, but it just so happened my french teacher had to pick up my pack. i got a BOLLOCKING. only then did he decide to check everyone else's pack, at which point he realised no one had done their homework. and i was just sitting there, silently crying

so he gathered up his things and walked out for the rest of the lesson, ashamed

to be honest i wasn't crying just on account of the telling off, i've been feeling...a lot of things lately. that added to the insane amount of coursework/exam prep i have right now - the little polemic from my teacher just happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

in other news, my weekend...

went to jess's after school...she showed me her entire wardrobe (which is to be fair absolutely amazing), and then we decided we wanted to go out, so she lent me shoes and this dress:

we started off with good intentions by going to chinatown - lots of my friends came out for chinese :D so much food - peking duck, beef kway teow, kaih lan, seafood lettuce, wontons...and the waiters were all malaysian, so naturally curious about my origins and lack of hokkien/bahasa ;)

the rest of the night was failawesome...
FAIL 1: went to a pub in covent garden and bumped into our head of year and his wife (also a teacher at our school) awwwwwwkward. left.
FAIL 2: managed to get into a club, YAY! (since my friend isn't yet legal, she only had a dodgy student ID on her, so this was a big achievement for us!) as we walked in the guy on the door said "oh - just so you know, this is a GAY CLUB - that's not a big deal for you, right?" not at all, we were just happy to get in, so stuck around for a while, had a woman tell us how great it was to see females at a gay club, apparently they're a rare breed and she thought we were very comfortable with our sexualities. HELL YES. anyway, left.
FAIL 3: another club! this one actually looks pretty cool, the people inside are beautiful, it's right near soho. to be honest, what were we expecting? i almost wasn't surprised to see the neon-clad muscled men gyrating when we stepped in...
though the night was full of fail, i actually had a great time :) even had time to stop off at snog and grab a fro yo with strawberries and fudge....*dreamy sigh*

yum.

hurray for the new los campesinos and hot chip albums! new music honestly makes me so ridiculously happy :D (song is "can't finish what you started" by motion city soundtrack, btw)

haha, the way i'm clutching my ipod in this picture makes me look like such an indie/emo wannabe :P think i was listening to regina spektor...

til next time.
<3

no walls can keep me protected

2010-01-29T10:07:00.004Z

i'm poor, but pretty damn happy
basically been maxing out my card in the last few days, booking tickets to warwick for next weekend - trip to see ali and the wazza nightlife :P also, tickets to florence + the machine for hannah jess and i :) hopefully worth it!

currently...
listening to: lots of jack's mannequin and owl city, plus this song, by miike snow. when your love is gone, you carry on...
eating: cougar bars. with a wiiiild crunch. and for a pick-me-up, cryogenic cocktails from ice creamist. i wish. OPEN YOUR DAMN SHOP ALREADY!
reading: one flew over the cuckoo's nest <3
watching: just finished glee. wow. and episode one of the new series of skins, which i don't expect much of, after the celluloid atrocity that was series 3 :(
doing: school. the hot chocolate machine is spazzing and making rubbishy silty hot chocolate. the internet is dammmn slow. and i'm supposed to be finishing off a l'avare essay. but i will BEAT THE MAN by planning a jess-tammy excursion to chinatown for this afternoon - purikura and bubble tea time!

<3

no one will know that we're gone

2010-01-18T18:20:00.010Z

happy ridiculously late new year!!

lots of new stuffs in the hiatus since my last post...

firstly, i got into CAMBRIDGE :O frankly stunned after my shocker of an interview, and i'm still waiting for them to tell me they've made a mistake. track hasn't updated yet, so maybe they will *i didn't mean that!*

track updated today actually, but not with my cam offer - an offer for bristol! it's my joint 2nd choice, and a BBB offer *smiles maniacally*, my lowest yet...must not fall victim to temptation of putting minimal work in for exams...MUST NOT!

christmas was really relaxing, lovely actually. as i said i would, i went to paris with dom! and pretty much did the amelie tour of the city. wanna have a couple of photos? course you do.

on the first day we arrived reaaaally early - about eight AM local time i think? stepped out of lamarck-caulaincourt to find our hotel. it wasn't ready for public consumption, so we wandered around the area - which, amazingly, turned out to be montmartre. of course we had to go see sacre-coeur...

there's an amazing view of the city from up on montmartre (martyr's hill/mountain...not such a pretty name after all, huh?), immortalised in amelie <3. the dancing guy seems to like it too..

after breakfast, being true londoners, we went to check out the shops. i was really impressed by the shop displays, so much prettier than selfridges' this year. printemps were my favourite:

then it was back to the hotel for a much-needed nap :) that evening, we headed to the place de la concorde to...well, basically see what we could find really! adventuretime! (top of the post shows the ferris wheel we saw there).

there was a christmas market on, so we walked all the way down the avenue, from concorde to the arc. ended up getting dinner at around midnight, in pigalle - right near the moulin rouge ;)

then the next day, dom was ill - seriously ill. it was actually a lifesaver since i was wiped out from all the adventuring the day before, plus my interview the day before that. so i got to lie in bed all day :D! occasionally reading snippets of children's books to the invalid.

on the third day, he rose again. dom, that is - and we had breakfast in trocadero, on the bank opposite the eiffel tower. after that was more adventuring across the river. it had snowed and i had zerogrip boots, so basically slid down a hill. it wasn't funny. not funny at all. in fact i was screaming all the way down while dom laughed his head off...

but we managed to get there, to the premier tourist spot of france. i know it's a cliché, but it amazes me every time...

(photo taken by me, so it's MINE)

it was bitterly cold - about -5 degrees - and there was a mini snowstorm under the tower. so we headed back along the seine, got on the métro and went to galerie lafayette to buy lots of food. yay! had several mini heart attacks that night however - british airways got all twatty about the snow on the runways and we only just managed to get home on a rescheduled flight (if we'd taken eurostar, we'd have been stranded in the tunnel all night...). then back at heathrow, the bags took 2 1/2 hours to find their way from the aeroplane to the carousel. cue lots of shouting from my mother and the almost instantaneous appearance of the bags (dom's and mine first, of course), sitting guiltily on the carousel :D asian mums do come in handy after all!

today's song is "bicycle" by memory tapes, firstly because it's awesome - has had comparisons from the cure to passion pit - always a good fusion in my opinion - secondly because of the ridiculous number of vélib bikes in paris!

à bientôt! <3

i've been waiting so long to take you home

2009-12-15T18:52:00.002Z

thoughts of the day

-there is NO way in hell i'm getting a place at cambridge. honestly..i had my interview today, and....ugh. there was so much i wanted to say, but my tongue was like a brick in my mouth and i kept repeating myself. now my brain feels like it's been in the tumbledryer. just wanted to cry afterwards...

-cambridge is fracking cold. so glad for the pollution ensconcing london in a blanket of warm happiness. for once.

-i'm going to paris tomorrow!!! so excited i'm jumping up and down RIGHT NOW. dom is taking me as an 18th birthday surprise :) :) :) hopefully i can forget about today's catastrophe, or at least have my mind taken off it.

-SNOW!!! it's coming! tomorrow, or thursday. sadly i won't be around to witness the cold delights, but it's still exciting.

-i just ruined my eiderdown with red nail varnish...

-they may be cheap and not as posh as melt, rococo or godiva, but I LOVE FERRERO ROCHERS, goddammit. in fact i will eat some now. there.

this is weird. i feel like i should be slaving away for interview (as i have been doing for the last few weeks/months). my mind feels utterly detached. i want to go to the lab this weekend. don't care that it's insanely expensive, i just need to go out and completely forget about everything...

song = "love's a game" by the magic numbers. it's the song i listened to before my first interview today...*flumps down on bed in despair*

<3...

your words all over me

2009-11-25T21:05:00.009Z

i really really love fairylights...roll on christmas!

christmas season, how do i love thee? let me count the ways...
1. the lights all over oxford st, regent's st and carnaby st. shopping becomes 1000x more pleasurable...
2. getting to wrap up in proper coats again! everyone says i look like paddington in my new duffel :P and reuniting with my hat, scarf and gloves! (this is too exciting.)
3. watching brilliant xmas tv swathed in blankets and holding a mug of hot chocolate protectively. so many good programmes/films on...dr. who xmas special! among others.
4. indulging my inner pyro with a proper log fire. the smell it makes when you toss dried clementine peel in it...and speaking of which...
5. CLEMENTINES!!! love in a piece of fruit!
6. chestnuts roasting on an open fire...
7. jack frost nipping at your "buds" - the word my sister substitutes in for "knees", to everyone's delight.
8. waking up to a house toasty warm from the central heating
9. the parties - always the best this time of year! yayyyyy birthday coming up...
10. xmas songs on the radio. give it 5 days, it'll be acceptable to sing them again :D
11. the arrival of the xmas tree in the school hall and the excitement it causes for, oh, about a day.
12. the arrival of the FAMILY xmas tree! and decorating it :) invariably one of the biggest sources of stress in december.
13. my advent calendar. i wish i had one like that all year round. not just a boring regular flip-the-pages over calendar, one with little doors. with surprise PICTURES behind them! or chocolates!
14. the little-kid level of sheer excitement on xmas eve - running around the house and actually going to bed early "so it comes quicker". every year as a child (oh okay, LAST YEAR TOO) i remember reaching round in the middle of the night to feel my stocking to see if it'd been filled yet. at least ten times. and then waking up in the morning, heart beating fast, to find it full at the bottom of my bed...
15. christmas day itself - best day of the year! presentspresentspresents galore, calls from the various relatives spread over the globe, and my mum's fantastic roast dinner :) so happy we're spending xmas at home this year.
16. and lastly but not leastly...in fact most importantly...dom coming home :) :) :) so we can do all the do-able stuff on this list together! all of them are better with someone to cuddle! miss you so much, i really can't wait..

ahhh HELLO, you're wondering who "under the sheets" is by? answer: ellie goulding, who's getting a LOAD of hype right now. she's hailed in most musical columns as the new female act of 2010. wellll, i'm personally still not quite sure about miss goulding, but hey, this is a catchy tune, so have a listen.

one last thing! anyone who brings me/links me a cute fair isle/nordic print sweater wins a prize. i can't find one ANYWHERE!

they look like this:

or this

so cute, i want! and need to put on my wishlist for parents who need present guidance...

bisous!
<3

when you're lucid you're the sweetest thing

2009-11-12T16:50:00.002Z

sometimes it's nice to know your parents care
when i was little, in bed with the flu/other ailment, my parents used to bring me back a comic from the local newsagents and some sweets. today i crawled home from school with sinusitis and for the first time in ten years my mum brought me back a vogue and some carambars :) (and some horlicks and a pink rose. and doxycycline).

it made me feel better straightaway :P
im wrapped up in bed with ash's superlong intergalactic sonic stevens album and a nectacot, probably going to try and sleep the aches away

a sweet thing to tide over anyone seeking a pretty song...
<3

i'm froze by desire

2009-11-05T23:22:00.003Z

ZOMGWANT
with this hat (£10, topshop.com) i'd be one step closer to achieving my lifelong dream of becoming pen from adventure time. BECAUSE MY HAT WOULD BE AWESOME.
song = islands (currently listening to it) by the xx

<3

time together isn't ever quite enough

2009-11-04T22:52:00.006Z

"I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody that will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness...There is even a moment, right at the start, where you have to jump across an abyss; if you think about it you don't do it. I know that I shall never jump again."
-Nausea, by Sartre

this passage is by no means representative of how i feel about love - i just liked it. hurray for existentialism...i must have read the word "existence", "superfluous" and "absurd" about twenty times tonight :P

picture from weheartit.com, song by owl city. favourite new band, check out now now now :)

in other news...used my halfterm for creative pursuits...namely, dressing as a selkie for halloween. i thought a selkie was just your run-of-the-mill sea spirit which transforms into a woman, so i had it all figured out. bought green hairspray to look like bits of seaweed in my hair, and silver face paint to look like scales. then i found out a selkie is actually a SEAL which turns into a woman. NICE ONE. so yeah, fail on the costume front, but i had a good halloween - boyfriend dressed up as a mummy. completely covered in toilet roll. he always has the most dramatic costume! last party he decided to go as a tiger (the theme was "circus") at the last minute - cue frantic upper body painting with orange and black stripes :)

OH! and i was lucky enough to meet the members of bloc party - my favourite band! at the afterparty of their show in cambridge. basically dom was pimping me out to get autographs from kele, who was dj-ing, and then russell and matt too. remember aaaaages ago i said i had a bit of a crush on russell? probably don't. well. i was already a little bit drunk (thank you asian genes) and dizzyfied after the gig, so i had no problems with my nerves when getting autographs. i even had a nice chat with matt, the drummer, cause we're both from malaysia! hell yeah! but then dom decided he wanted to get friendlier with matt, so i did slave duty again and offered to do shots with him. he accepted. talk about being starstruck...i kept thinking "this is so insane" to myself...and it only got weirder. matt allowed dom to smear my orange glowpaint (£4 from reading festival!) all over his face. that's right. his manager made him go wash it off later, but HEY. he then proceeded to dance with us ^_^ which was...interesting. i vaguely remember myself half-insulting him - and myself - by telling him asians can't dance...the manager was also kinda nasty to laura, told her to back off because she and matt were dancing pretty close. bad manager. though he consented to show me the moves. that man can spin. (other highlights of the night - laura and i almost getting gangraped while dancing on a box, while dom and jack shared a happy little manhug in the corner, oblivious to our damsels-in-distress situation).

needless to say, i had a brilliant night. head still spinning a week later...
i'll put up the few photos we managed to take when dom finally sends them to me (hint)

and one last thing...i got a uni offer today :O! from warwick. so pleased, i can finally say i can (probably) go to university!

bedtime now, long day tomorrow...zzzz
and dom, if you're reading this on the 5th..happy 10 months :)

ciao <3

rummaging for answers in the pages

2009-10-21T19:16:00.003+01:00

Let us live, my Lesbia, and love.
As for all the rumours of those stern old men,
Let us value them at a mere penny.

Suns may set and yet rise again, but
Us, with our brief light, can set but once.
The night which falls is one never-ending sleep.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred.
Then, another thousand, and a second hundred.
Then, yet another thousand, and a hundred.

Then, when we have counted up many thousands,
Let us shake the abacus, so that no one may know the number,
And become jealous when they see
How many kisses we have shared...

-Catullus <3

let your heart keep time

2009-10-19T16:43:00.004+01:00

all is well

found this half-mushroom half-freckly mouse in a shop window in notting hill ^_^

<3

i'd never make it through without you around

2009-09-27T23:22:00.002+01:00

i miss you SO MUCH...

here's hoping the next 2 months fly by. time to throw myself into my work for distraction. i feel so empty without you, all sad and shrivelled up like the purple flower i left on your bookcase :( :( :(

collect conkers for me...

love.

i want this so, just more than you

2009-09-22T21:29:00.003+01:00

i saw magistrates accidentally at reading and fell stupidly in love with this song (ironic title..)

other bands i saw - yeah yeah yeahs, lostprophets, noah and the whale (who were so disappointing :( ), the xx, grammatics, vampire weekend, passion pit, bloc party. thanks dan and dom, who hoisted me up on their shoulders for my very favouritest songs, sleepyhead and flux :D :D :D also thankyou dom for rescuing me from the VIOLENT moshymoshy bloc party crowd - a girl got carried past us, her face covered in blood...:S

il put pictures up once dom gets his act together and puts his up :) :) :)

iv had a weird weekend. a weird month. this weekend, the police got called round...i ran away from home with bruises and scratches...had my phone smashed up...

it's been intersting.

and i should learn to spell interesting.

on the plus side, had a JIMPIZZA at fire and stone (german sausage, bacon, cheese, sour cream), stole some of dom's YUMMY macaroni with cheese and bacon (notice a recurrent theme here?) and got to watch my sassy girl this lunchtime...that cheered me up lots :) never fails to make me want to cry, in a good way!

ucas deadline thursday *gulp*

i wish cherry soothers could soothe hearts as well as sore throats...:(

the one thing that i'm missing here

2009-08-19T13:53:00.002+01:00

AGH AS results come in tomorrow morning
so, as tradition dictates, a cocktail party must be held to soothe frayed nerves and generally help us forget our fear.
it won't be anywhere near as good as last year though. because last year's was where i met you...

song: joshua radin's beautiful "i'd rather be with you"
picture courtesy of the lovely souvenirs blog

<3

i can't find my way in

2009-08-16T20:43:00.002+01:00

SOME DISCOVERIES
-this song
-banging your knee by falling all the way down the stairs makes pretty bruises. hello chairlift.
-lostprophets = unexpectedly awesome workout music
-not practising for a month makes stiff alzheimery fingers.
-the true meaning of an oxymoron
-my heart...and it hurts.
-that it's not that i can't be without you, it's that i don't want to be. but i'm going to have to be, whether i like it or not, because you don't want to be with me (most of the time). so i'm going to bite my tongue until i can hold you tight and make you forget. i am so, so, so sorry. i know that that word has no meaning. it's probably my least favourite one. but it's the only one i can give you until i can speak to you wordlessly again...
-that none of what i type makes sense anymore

i wish you could be there on wednesday night. i won't be thinking of anything but you (i won't be able to).

i'm off to fall in love with legolas all over again - LOTR trilogy marathon, hells yes.
<3

there's nothing like you and i

2009-07-03T15:35:00.011+01:00

Tristesses de la lune

Ce soir, la lune rêve avec plus de paresse;
Ainsi qu'une beauté, sur de nombreux coussins,
Qui d'une main distraite et légère caresse
Avant de s'endormir le contour de ses seins,

Sur le dos satiné des molles avalanches,
Mourante, elle se livre aux longues pâmoisons,
Et promène ses yeux sur les visions blanches
Qui montent dans l'azur comme des floraisons.

Quand parfois sur ce globe, en sa langueur oisive,
Elle laisse filer une larme furtive,
Un poète pieux, ennemi du sommeil,

Dans le creux de sa main prend cette larme pâle,
Aux reflets irisés comme un fragment d'opale,
Et la met dans son coeur loin des yeux du soleil.

Le Léthé

Viens sur mon coeur, âme cruelle et sourde,
Tigre adoré, monstre aux airs indolents;
Je veux longtemps plonger mes doigts tremblants
Dans l'épaisseur de ta crinière lourde;

Dans tes jupons remplis de ton parfum
Ensevelir ma tête endolorie,
Et respirer, comme une fleur flétrie,
Le doux relent de mon amour défunt.

Je veux dormir! dormir plutôt que vivre!
Dans un sommeil aussi doux que la mort,
J'étalerai mes baisers sans remords
Sur ton beau corps poli comme le cuivre.

Pour engloutir mes sanglots apaisés
Rien ne me vaut l'abîme de ta couche;
L'oubli puissant habite sur ta bouche,
Et le Léthé coule dans tes baisers.

À mon destin, désormais mon délice,
J'obéirai comme un prédestiné;
Martyr docile, innocent condamné,
Dont la ferveur attise le supplice,

Je sucerai, pour noyer ma rancoeur,
Le népenthès et la bonne ciguë
Aux bouts charmants de cette gorge aiguë
Qui n'a jamais emprisonné de coeur.

— both by Charles Baudelaire

i am currently head-over-heels in love with these poems (english translations for which can be found here and here - pick the one you like best). and i'm excited, because these are merely two poems from the great Les Fleurs du Mal collection.

title totally unrelated - i've just been listening to this song all day

you know it all

2009-06-30T22:56:00.003+01:00

woah it's been over a month since i last posted?
...how did that happen?

only a couple of hours of june left. that makes me sad. june is my favourite month! summery but not too hot (though the last week has been like a FURNACE, it's been 30º+ for the last few days >_<)
what have i done this month?
–eaten a LOT of random and awesome food (pictures to come). a highlight was the taste of london festival, where i basically got to eat a load of food from michelin-starred restaurants for free. ooh, and haggis and black pudding.
–assumed the identity of a snake and went dancing with my friends the zebra and the tiger. circus? more like zoo..
–made friends with a hare krishna ;)
–been HENNAED

–done a massive springclean, a little late admittedly, but i can see the walls of my room for the first time in eight years.
–started READING again. inferno, some baudelaire poems, MORE neruda. latest book = the knot of vipers, by francois mauriac, finished yesterday night :)

YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMY
saw this at cybercandy (sweetshop in covent garden) today. WANT SO MUCH. £4.70 seemed a wee bit too much to pay for cereal though (!), so bought some razzles and sour patch kids for the little sis instead.

HOLD THE PHONE
i've just realised this is my 3rd cereal packet i've posted on here. (and there's another one coming, in my looming humongous food post). hmm i wonder if cereal fetishes exist? i bet they do. what would that involve exactly? rolling around in frosties naked, maybe? licking coco pops off bare flesh? SIGN ME UP. maybe.

thoughts of the day..
-love for my new sneakers, but i want to collect them in a kaleidoscope of colours, and also buy some new ballet flats and flipflops. SHOES. also, anyone who disputes the awesomeness of jelly shoes clearly had a deprived childhood. GLITTERY PINK JELLIES = <3

-"thus, though we cannot make our sun/stand still, yet we can make him run." i almost cried when we got to study this in class today. absolute love.

-i seem to be spending a lot of time lodged under people's armpits, whether i'm on the tube or not

got 2 days off school - tomorrow for a languages taster course, the day after for an open day. what with everyone off on open days lately, school's been as empty as a sepulchre. and since i have 11 frees a week, or something ridiculous, there's hardly any point in me being in at all. sigh.

oh, and before i forget, post title is from "everything is everything" by phoenix. my goodness i was obsesssed with this song last month. and phoenix in general; i recommend ALL of phoenix's new album - favourite tracks are 1901 and lisztomania. LISTEN TO IT!

sunsunsun, all over our bodies (and lovelovelove) <3

the curse has got a name

2009-05-29T18:41:00.007+01:00

that girl needs therapy
she gets it by taking a plethora of photos
in the summersummersummersun.

title from my song of summer 2008 (well, one of them) - toxic girl by kings of convenience
less than a week to go til i am liberated from the chains of revision!
over and out <3

you said you meant it

2009-05-22T16:31:00.002+01:00

chanson de jack's mannequin

FOR GOD'S SAKE
i just broke my lamp. actually smashed it, not something i can fix this time. trying to yank out a bag of coins (i've collected £27 worth of coppers) i succeeded in spilling them everywhere AND sending my lamp to the floor with an almighty crash.
WHY DO I BOTHER?

HELLO
it's been a hectic week, but i've been slacking off today/yesterday/the day before that (hmm). finished french, english and half of hart, which means i've done 2/3 of my exams. so i figured i could relax a little, though i'll have to get back into my work mindset (with revision headband, cereal diet etc) pretty damn soon. tonight i'm going to take a break (oh, because i've been working SO HARD :S) and go see my friends for dinner, which will hopefully snap me out of my enforced social stupor somewhat. i CAN'T WAIT for the summer holidays - less than 2 months to go! ^_^

for me, summer =...
-lying outside watching the clouds twist themselves into animal shapes
-breaking my own record for how many ice lollies i can guzzle down in a day (it's 7)
-having spontaneous waterfights with friends
-the peachy smell of suncream
-falling asleep on the tube, which becomes my own personal sauna
-taking up tennis again (as i do every summer) and trying and failing to serve well. PLUS, wimbledon
-escaping the country via stansted/heathrow/gatwick
-FRUIT! strawberries, cherries, raspberries, OH MY.

i can't wait

i have suggested to myself (yes, becoming a hermit/cavegirl/social outcast means i slowly develop schizophrenia) an hour and a half of ovid before i slope off islingtonside. this will not work. tamsin = procrastinating on a facebook page near you soon. <3

now all the fingers of this tree

2009-05-10T23:00:00.001+01:00

now all the fingers of this tree (darling) have
hands,and all the hands have people;and
more each particular person is (my love)
alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we're
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before-
and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands;and i have no
you:and all trees are (any more than each
leafless) its silent in forevering snow

-but never fear (my own,my beautiful
my blossoming) for also then's until

e.e cummings knows me better than i know myself...

my head hurts.

i'm always racing against my mind

2009-05-04T14:48:00.005+01:00

see above for my fantasy made into a reality...

not much to say about this weekend really..(better than last weekend though)

-i saw a BONA FIDE ninja walking nonchalantly down my street, holding a GINORMOUS bazooka, totally unfazed. proceeded to text everyone in my address book to tell them this vital turn of events, dizzy with excitement. going to put "aspire towards ninjadom" on my ucas, yes sirree.
-i hate my black flipflops for making me look like a tramp
-i went back to cambridge (yes, again) for scones (pron. SKONS) and tea with old city girls.
-legs were required for jumping, dancing
-i discovered that i do indeed possess the asian gene that renders me stupidly drunk after about a centimetre of wine
-a nice waiter taught me that garlic grows underground
-a menu was accidentally set on fire. by me. of course.
-a squirrel stole my oat and pecan flapjack
-i threw a cup of hot chocolate ALL over a tube carriage on the circle line which in my opinion, bolstered my tramp image nicely.

sooo pretty standard really.

that's all for now folks, got serious cramming to do for wednesday :( blog title from "radio christiane" by the virgins. <3

the more i run the more i am convinced

2009-04-27T15:10:00.005+01:00

picture and song completely unrelated. i wanted to put up a picture of some blossoms because they're SO STUPIDLY PRETTY, and i'm gutted (YES! finally got to use the word gutted!) that they're on the way out. they made me well up walking through the park today, because the rain had reduced them to piles of mauve gunk. stupid..damn...hormones...grrrr

AND

i cannot properly express my excitement about passion pit's first album, MANNERS (out 19th May). the reeling is the first song i've heard from it (because it's been splashed all over XFM and radio 1) and it's not bad! video's pretty cool too. it doesn't beat better things though, which is my FAVOURITEST SONG EVER from chunk of change. but it is NOT bad. apart from that, only listened to little snippet samples on amazon, and i'm buzzzzzed, like the annoying bluebottle that refused to get out of my room last night. i quite like the sound of eyes as candles and let your love grow tall.

had a busy week and a half - sister came back from paris bearing gifts..SHE KNOWS ME TOO WELL.

she also brought me back a solitary smurf (or "schtroumpf") haribo, which made me love her that little bit more. yummm.

had a haircut. no pictures, because it's not even worth a photo. it's just a bit shorter and more layered. my hair just doesn't like new styles (even though i was down on my KNEES begging the hairdresser to make it look different).

went to cambridge to visit a few colleges - christ's and pembroke. going back again next sunday to have some sort of tea/picnic with old CLSG girls who are now at oxbridge. cam is so lovely in the sun. really wish i'd taken more photos.

the weather lately has been taunting me with glimpses of summer, and i'm wishing upon lots of stars for it to hurry up and be the summer holidays. hoping either to go somewhere in france/italy, maybe to do work experience or look at lots of art, so i can link hart with why i'd like to do mml. or perhaps a rainforest expedition in malaysia, which would be incredible. option 3 is maybe going with parents to turkey, but i'd rather go away with friends this year. that sounds so spoilt. maybe i'm addicted to that school trip feeling, where you wave goodbye to your parents at the airport, get on the plane and just feel so liberated when it soars into the air and you leave your family behind. wanderlust. that's not the right word, nor does it really have anything to do with what i'm saying, but i like it. i often..inject...random words into conversations, just so i have a chance to use them. chthonic.

man, i'd suck at debating

french oral next week. les bras m'en tombent (means i'm stunned, LITERALLY means my arms are falling). HELP. time to go and attempt revision (translation: stumble until my arms actually do fall off).

ooooo and happy world tapir day to everyone <3

i've reached my limit

2009-04-16T10:00:00.022+01:00

I'M BACK BABY
and i thought this song was kind of appropriate (still bummed i won't be seeing maximo this summer)

so now, down to business. oh the places i've been etc. FIRST STOP...

GREECE!

got up at the crack of dawn to meet fellow classicists at heathrow terminal 5 (it's SO PRETTY!). some of us got a little overexcited. *cough*. then i pretty much slept all the way to...

athens! an art historian's dream. some serious hart love here. as you see above, the parthenon - a prime example of fluted doric columns, triglyphs, metopes and a frieze (although much of it had been stolen by that scallywag lord elgin, so all the sculptures are sitting in the british museum. happy as clams. maybe.)

the agora. check out the spacing of those bays...*jimps*

the venus pudica at the national archaeological museum. what a tease.

THE BEST LOLLY EVER. (with the exception of maybe "BUM" from france, and twister, which is basically this with added cream...y...stuff). ladies and gentlemen, i give you the rainbow bazooka.

then we drove for six hours to the other side of the country (who came up with THAT idea?) - to OLYMPIA. thanks to multiple listenings (and viewings) of zero to hero, i stayed herculeanly fighting fit despite the MONSTER journey. sort of.

well, i managed to string together an (admittedly quite crap) daisy chain, so i can't have been all that dead.

finally we were allowed to cool off on the coast, in tolon. this was the prettiest hotel, overlooking the sea.

it's not too hard to spot me, is it? alsoalsoalso excuse the poor quality of the images, the teachers didn't know how to use our cameras so practically EVERY group shot is blurred >_<
we got up the next morning at six to watch the sunrise over the sea, which was an epic fail. damn clouds. but it was fun sitting on the balcony wrapped in hotel blankets, watching the sky gradually lighten...*lapses into poetical waxing*

and lastly, mycenae, home of king and general hero agamemnon himself. even though he was a twat for angering clytemnestra by sacrificing iphigenia. STILL A HERO. but that's another set text. anyway, mycenae was particularly breathtaking, because it was high high high up on a hill, surrounded by mountains. but i was grumpy and tired as hell from the sunrise fail that morning, so couldn't really enjoy it fully. hence i hate all pictures of me taken that day.

oh well. it was practically a fifteen-minute sprint from the bottom to the top to the bottom (<_<) of the hill since we were on a TIGHT schedule. then back to athens and HOME!

i had 2 days at home to relax (ish) before MALAYSIA :) :) which i'll save for next time *huff huff*

hope everyone had a great easter with lots of CHOCOLATE! spent my easter sunday falling out of taxi cabs which proceeded to break down, searching for highlighters to graffiti my arms with, and getting EXTREMELY squished in moshes at olympia (the one in london) for bloc party. mercury was brilliant, sat on gig buddy danzel's shoulders for it. and dan's 6"4, so i had THE best view. oh and i love you kele. (he dressed up in a bunny suit specially)

i want a bunny suit. til next time <3

do you miss me like i miss you?

2009-04-06T08:56:00.005+01:00

HELLO

i would just like to apologise (profusely) for the RUDE RUDE RUDE blogging hiatus

i've been away! lots and lots. had a 4-day classics trip to greece and now i'm on HOME TURF i.e malaysia. took me about 10 minutes to get this internet up and running (because it's all in MANDARIN, which i don't understand, so i was quite literally pressing buttons at random :S). i'm in a verrrry sketchy internet cafe at the moment, because it's practically the only place in the town (petaling jaya, just outside of the capital) that i know has internet. the other place is a GANGSTER bar. no jokes. it's how malaysia rolls.

there's also a daily thunderstorm here, at 5 PM on the dot. it's like clockwork. (creepy?) i was woken up by a thunderbolt (...er....thunderclap?) this morning. i say morning, but it was more like 3 PM, cause of the jetlag. malaysia is 8 hours ahead of the UK. oh and a thunderbolt hit our house a couple of nights ago and shorted out the electricity, so the whole house was plunged into darkness. i screamed like a baby. the shaaaaame

but on the bright side
I HAVE SUNDAY READING TICKETS!!! (thank you thank you thank you dan!) kind of glad i'm not doing the weekend gig, because camping is NOT my thing. and that's putting it lightly, duke of edinburgh was one of the most painful experiences of my entire life. anyways, the line up for the sunday is...
radiohead
bloc party (who i'm going to see next sunday ^_^)
yeah yeah yeahs
vampire weekend
brand new

RHOMBUS
okay, gotta scoot, my time is running out like hussein bolt on speed. i'll do an obese picture-filled post upon my return to the motherland. selamat tinggal! <3

i can't tell if i'm asleep or awake

2009-03-18T21:11:00.003Z

what's the time, mr. wolf? TIME TO EAT YOU UP. oh, and time to listen to this. of course.

o brave new world, that has such people in't! aldous huxley, i am in love with you, or at least with brave new world, which i finished in 3 1/2 hours. slow and steady wins the race :P. sort of. i want some zippicamiknicks. and to try some soma. only half a gramme though (it's better than a damn).

i adore this time of year. the air is heavy with the scent of spring, twitterpated animals, and pear, apple and cherry blossom. they're erupting everywhere like pink volcanoes. mm, they smell so nice. also, it's WARM! the perfect temperature, actually - not too hot and not too cold, just like goldilock's preferred porridge. mama bear weather. and soooo, i don't really need my coat anymore *shoves to back of wardrobe*. hooray! had lunch and fruity drinks with crushed ice in (apple juice pretending to be a slush puppy) out on the steps in the sun today, with katy-ku.

me lene tamsin. ei mai apo anglia. kalispera! EFHARISTO! greece is the WORD. one week to go til i make athens (and olympia, and tolon, and mycenae, and corinth) my KINGDOM. and yessss, i'm finally getting a camera! after i dropped my old one down the stairs. whoopsy. daisy.

i'm kind of tired and sniffly because of the intense rehearsage we've put in this week (TEN HOURS, or thereabouts) for the CLS joint concert. it was good! we played carl jenkins' the armed man, an orchestral-choral set of pieces, punctuated by an adhan (call to prayer) performed by was a muezzin. totally unexpected but immense. i'm going to download benedictus, because inez's rendition of it nearly made me cry. aw, orchestra, you're my buddy after all.

the time has come to PUSH THE BUTTON. on hotmail. sent one coursework, 2 to go. bye bye <3

those eyes i can't deny

2009-03-12T20:50:00.004Z

it's been a while, hasn't it...sorry :( i don't really have an excuse this time, just MAXIMUM laziness

this song was introduced to me by a certain miss lowrie robertson, who i refer to fondly as foxy :) not one, not two but three times she makes me feel alive! i love foxy dearly and can't wait to taste her special chocolate concoction which she's going to brew up for me at katy's next week ^_^ hopefully in a cauldron.

things i've done since i last updated!
-weekend - went to the british museum TWICE (they must think i'm keen) to see shah 'abbas and babylon exhibitions

-bought a mega pack of haribos for oriental society, then went to book club instead and ended up eating them myself. felt the effects for the rest of the day (rampant hyperness, permanent goosebumps, voice a few decibels higher than normal)

-trekked to cls for orchestra after school today (was forced to, was told if i didn't i'd lose my scholarship :S)

-went out shopping to buy stuff for greece and failed epically.

-started watching glengarry glen ross in english, which is the first film i've actually enjoyed in a while

-stepped into a gutter FULL of milk (at least, i hope it was milk). oh, london.

-got permission to go to READING :) now i just need tickets *starts praying*

-discovered atlas sound, beirut and vetiver

-found out that my skin makes lily of the valley smell like cucumbers, thanks to a "nose" named albertino whom i love and fervently wish was my friend

-got randomly given a momiji wish doll from my father, which i have named aiko; it means little loved one in japanese

-started a poetry club at school! well, trying to start one. it's been approved by library committee ^^

-drove a car for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE (that time on the beach in greece does NOT count). i sucked. it wasn't like the go-karts at legoland.

-was initiated into the stumbleupon cult against my better judgment, and am now all-out addicted. aside from discovering that i can read books online now (yes, i'm slow, need to get with the times) and compete with other people...that's right...REAL LIFE PEOPLE...in fridge magnet wars, here's some SU gems i've come into contact with...
1. the ultimate mario website. YEEEEESSSSSSS (i've already kissed my social life goodbye)
2. the option of sending an email to my future self. chloe did it in wild child SO WHY SHOULDN'T I.
3. i wish i could grow a beard now. no, seriously.
4. WOAH. new party trick anyone? *teaches self*
5. scariest non-elephants ever.

and that's just the tip of the iceberg

alrite better absquatulate, got 3 1/2 essays to do for tomorrow (2 english, 1 hart and an essay plan for latin. THANKS SCHOOL. peace out <3

i know you hate secrets, but try not to hate me

2009-03-04T20:02:00.006Z

écoutez ici

like in nausea, which i STILL HAVEN'T FINISHED...the back cover disintegrated on the train today, which was a bit of a cringe and a half >_<. ANYWAY. *cough* LIKE IN NAUSEA... there are little black tides being born in my heart right now. the past few days have been somewhat odd. and i got my AS mocks results back. pah. hah. hahaha. okay, some of them weren't as bad as i expected them to be, and i didn't outright fail comparatively, but i still wasn't happy. cmon tamsin..they're just mocks. just mocks. mooooooocks. *hyperventilates*

also, i stepped out into the road yesterday not looking where i was going. rapture had blinded me. i blame it on the nutrageous bar i'd just taken a sensual bite out of (wow...that reminds me of my immortal, supposedly the worst harry potter fanfic ever written, which had me practically in tears of laughter), and a tesco's delivery van came THIS CLOSE *holds index finger and thumb an infinitesimal distance apart* to running me over. no jokes. so that got the old heart thumping quite a bit. jesus, can't believe it took 8 lines for me to say i nearly became roadkill.

back to the cause of my near-death experience...nutrageous is the best thing i've discovered so far this month, despite it only being the fourth day of march. it's peanuts meshed together with caramel and swathed in creamy chocolate, with YUMYUMYUM peanut butter at the core. nomnomnom

had the BEST astro lesson on monday
no actual astronomy involved, though, aside from the nebulae i tattooed all over my forearm. noooo. instead, my good tomodachi inez and i made up names for our ENVISION group. it's a society whose aim is to raise money for the homeless charity shelter. here's what we came up with...

the good (heh, if you can call them that): chasing pavements, on the road, streetwise, streetlights, the long and winding road, H>
there was no bad. there was only the DOWNRIGHT ugly after that: tierra, can't buy you love, diamond in the rough, tramp camp, no hobo, 'chez nous', tramps o' lean, roadodendron, K.E.R.B (keeping eet real baby), we are one, circle of life, zero to hero, it's a hard knock life, sound of the underground, you are my homease

JOKES

went to book club today :) discussed dracula (it was put off til after halfterm). i'm happy, because next week we're talking about thérèse raquin, which has got to be one of my favourite books ever. i stayed up 'til 4 am reading it a couple of years ago (this IS significant...back in the days when i hit the sack at 10 on the dot) and oh god, it's creepy in parts. but thérèse raquin is the kind of book you can read from cover to cover in a night, because it's divvied up into nice manageable bitesize chapters. i love zola. after nausea/brave new world/enduring love, i'm going to start the fortune des rougons saga, which will probably take me the rest of my life to complete...

oh god, it's curry for dinner tonight, and my eyes are already watering like crazy. HOT HOT TAMALE. i'm so pathetic <3

our fingers they almost touched

2009-03-01T20:29:00.003Z

got to stop abusing this picture. it's my avatar for EVERYTHING (and it's how dom managed to stalk my profile down on TSR <_<). but i like it so much...

i also like i still remember so much. it's def one of my favourite songs by bloc party (ONE MONTH (OFF) till i see them...^_^). "every park bench screams your name". i love that line.

so yesterday...we went out to eat a STACK of nachos and an appley bacon pancake smothered in maple syrup. filmwise we settled for eden lake, then watched some peep show and doctor who, OF COURSE. (nope, still not finished with the last season). and i don't even know what i did with my today - somehow i found myself at 7 pm a-wandering and a-wondering. wandering in the general direction of home, wondering what had happened to my day...

heeeeeeere's another e.e cummings poem (sigh if you want, but i like it):

nearer: breath of my breath: take not thy tingling
limbs from me: make my pain their crazy meal
letting thy tigers of smooth sweetness steal
slowly in dumb blossoms of new mingling:
deeper:blood of my blood:with upwardcringing
swiftness plunge these leopards of white ream
this pith of darkness:carve an evilfringing
flower of madness on gritted lips
and on sprawled eyes squirming with light insane
chisel the killing flame that dizzily grips.

Querying greys between mouthed houses curl

thirstily. Dead stars stink. dawn. Inane,

the poetic carcass of a girl

it's almost emo! speaking of which...depressed, cause it's back to the humdrum of school life tomorrow. nyaaagh - got to get those disastrous mocks results back. luckily, i am being eased back into the machine gently - my sister made a DELICIOUS cheesecake and then froze it, so when i got my teeth into it today it was like ice cream. YUM - it's almost worth the end of the weekend. i know that doesn't make sense. i think i need sleep >_<

ohh, and a pinch and a punch for the first of the month :) <3

your love is such a tease

2009-02-28T15:33:00.006Z

dizzy has such excellent lyrics. i toyed with using other lyrical gems for the title, such as "you're monochrome delirious", "i'm drowning in your vanity", "your laugh is a disease". ooo thanks for letting me use your picture vera! girl's got the coolest earrings collection EVER. this photo brings back memories. reminds me of the general wine-fuelled atmosphere of castelfranc, the sound of summer 2008 (MGMT and noah and the whale on repeat), the epic table-tennis tournament, multiple cardgasms (and trying to learn complicated russian card games and failing), swimming in the lake, the SIZZLINGLY hot day we went into albi and touristed it up at the huge cathedral...

not much has happened since the last update to be honest. i just totally skipped shrove tuesday, i.e day devoted to pancakes (i cheated on them with krispy kremes instead :P). exam week passed by in a blur, with some horrors thrown in such as a last-minute discovery that my hart exams (visual analysis and themes in western art) had been combined and the general nightmare of both latin papers. just glad that it's over...trying to force myself to recognise that they were JUST MOCKS, but my school takes exams so seriously it's hard to relax...

last night i went to see hofesh schechter (hard to get your tongue round, that one) - a modern dance company at camden roundhouse. it was pretty good, with a voice that sounded JUST like the mighty boosh's the moon doing a trippy voiceover about the cosmos and how we're all tiny particles (existentialist BS), but i could hardly see for the first half, the crowds being gigantic and me being a wee lass. my, that was a long sentence. eleanor, iona, katy and i went to get ice cream at marine ices afterwards....just what i needed after a difficult, exam-packed week. eleanor got hazelnut, iona got honey & ginger, katy got melon and i got black cherry yoghurt...mmmm...

meanwhile, i've been rediscovering my inner child gaming freak.

PoKéMoN! (you've got to spell it like that). awww yeahh. it kind of scares me that it's been nearly a decade since i last played this on my gameboy colour (using an emulator now). i'm a GOD at it now, it's easy as 1-2-3 with the help of my pokédex, which i dug out of my bookshelf ;)

tonight katy, erry, dom and i are going to have another horror movie night round at dom's :) wondering what film to pick...i want a thriller that'll make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. meanwhile, katy is torn between something highly zombie-oriented, a shootout or a sadistic film, saw-style. or TEETH.

i'll be quaking behind a pillow tonight slash squinting at the screen through my fingers. that's right, i'm a HUGE scaredy cat. there. i said it. going to run away now *blushes* <3

i think about you maybe more than i should

2009-02-22T17:49:00.003Z

dear god i need relaxing songs like this one injected into my mind right now

tomorrow exams start, and my stress level has almost reached breaking point. and i'm tired :( fell asleep on my bed earlier, covered in notes. i guess i do it to myself.

tomorrow i start with english lit, which is nice enough. (though there's also a coursework due in which i'm madly trying to finish. an essay on transcendental love in wuthering heights. i'm supposed to drag a bit of jane eyre in too, which i haven't read since i was 11. i am screwed. wondering why exactly i'm on here rather than getting down to it...) then i've got my french oral. je vais parler de santé et la forme, which is ironique because i hardly do any sport (apart from a fleeting bike ride out in the sun yesterday) and my diet sucks. my dear mama made cookies and cakes over the weekend, with which i have been stuffing my little face. c'est la fin des haricots. i.e it's the end of the greenbeans. i.e i'm done for.

i think i'm going to go have a STEAMING shower to make myself feel better, eat a few more cookies (and GO ON some ice cream while i'm at it) cram for a couple of hours, then sleep. my level of willpower is pathetically low.

j'en ai ras-le-bol. i.e my bowl is overflowing. i.e i've had enough. i.e QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNMUGH

<3

wave goodbye to the butterfly

2009-02-20T20:14:00.008Z

we're not going to go into the SOTD today (although i found a cool new angly brushstroke) because i've decided to do a pretty pictorial post instead. oh, and CHECK OUT my plosive alliteration!

lately, my mother's gone a little crazy buying jewellery.
she was ADDICTED to ebay last month, i'm not even kidding - she was glued to the laptop all night, sometimes staying up til 4 am to make sure she won her bids...and every weekend was a market weekend. (yep, she was at portobello today as well)

the end result? a bedroom FULL of trinkets and gewgaws...

what you see above is only the BEGINNINGS of her collection. (and yes, those ARE clementines you see above - my favourite fruit. today's clementine count is at 7 and rising...)

anyway. it's ridiculous. she spends all her spare time nowadays getting thrills out of fixing necklaces and the like with surgical instruments (she's a doctor :S).

today i helped her make this...

that's really not bad for 10p, is it? i was proud anyway, seeing as i'm not exactly supremely gifted with my hands.

i made myself a chorizo omelette today and ate it with buttery toast. ANOTHER mission (i thought impossible) accomplished. i love food. suck at cooking. this is only rung one on the culinary ladder, but i am GOING TO GET THERE SOMEDAY.

although...i only cooked the omelette because we'd run out of cereal :'( but shhh that's not the point. i need activities to distract myself, since everyone's out at synergy tonight *cries* i stayed in telling myself i NEEDED to work but i've just found myself on questionable content instead. 576 comics to read 'til i get to the latest post. so it is productive, sort of.

comichopping here i come <3

it's a supernatural delight

2009-02-19T21:17:00.003Z

what a song

mehh got a bit too excited with the brushstroke. and this photo's probably more a dancing in the streetlight kinda picture, but C'EST LA VIE

today...
i was dragged out of the house for the first time in three days to view cinematic fluff (confessions of a shopaholic) with my sister *sighs heavily* i remember reading through the whole shopaholic series aged fourteen on a trip to thailand, because i was so sunburnt i couldn't lift my arms up and hence couldn't leave the little shacky thing we were staying in. so i read and read and read instead - mostly holiday trash; loads of dan brown, the shopaholic books, shanghai baby, the beach...

leaving the house today wasn't all bad though because there was a waterstone's opposite the cinema, meaning i finally managed to get my filthy paws on BRAVE NEW WORLD! yeahhh. i also bought a mini french dictionary, because i realised we didn't have one in the house and i needed it for french oral prep. and also, not having a french dictionary's an OUTRAGE. nuff said.

back to my other purchase. as i turned the first page i realised that i'd found myself tangled up in a polygamous literelationship! (hah..what's new?) currently i am reading brave new world, why i write, nausea and l'étranger. why does that make me feel bad? irrational guilt about cheating on books with other books i guess...

in other news i'm kind of annoyed because i wanted to go to kensal green cemetery tonight for daniel's art project. morbid, but i can't lie, i've always wanted to check out a cemetery. anyway, i tried to argue with my parents into letting me go but my motion was denied. makes me think of m83's graveyard girl...i might go tomorrow, but according to daniel it has to be dark (alarm bells screaming POTENTIAL RAPE ALERT should be going off in my head, but funnily enough they're not.) so might take the bus there after sundown. we'll see.

i feel happy whenever i flick through my new moleskine and see it full of tidy colourful hart notes :) <3

there's beauty in the breakdown

2009-02-18T22:14:00.006Z

hmm. this post became a lot more emo than i intended. whoops.

OH WELL. this is simply one of the most chillingly beautiful songs i've listened to in a while. heard it in the final scene of garden state, one of the many films i watched while up in cambridge :) right now is serious revision time and "let go" has been on repeat (12 plays so far in the last two days). and i'm not sick of it yet. now i just need to find the score somewhere so i can irritate the hell out of my family by constantly playing it on the piano as well.

and in a pathetic effort to procrastinate from studying, i've been gorging myself on love poetry. ginsberg, neruda, yeats and especially master of the orthographically avant-garde (what a mouthful), e.e cummings. here's one of my favourites by him:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what is is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

words cannot express how much i adore that poem right now; in my hypersensitive, slightly OCD state (induced by revision) i've been reading it over and over again with "let go" as its near-perfect accompaniment. a girl must have her sustenance, and poetry and music are mine at the moment. and that's not being pretentious, there's just genuinely nothing else to eat right now. i ate maple and pecan cereal for lunch because of the severe lack of food in the house...

methinks it's time for a trip to sainsbury's <3

you've got my heart you know

2009-02-12T19:02:00.005Z

i'm on a blissful, dizzy high

mainly because it's HALF TERM TOMORROW! god i need the holiday so much (although it's going to be spent working >_<)

but also because the best friend and i went shopping today after school :) we came out of oxford st and the first thing we did was do our little ritual and get these. first on the menu. they are PURE ecstasy for your mouth. literally. you bite into the puff and out spills the most delicious vanilla cream...mmmm

then we went to ann summers and tried on kinky roleplay outfits. kidding...or am i? :P katy ended up buying some strawberry body paint. it tasted like milkshake!

next up was MOAR food. (to be honest...if you're surprised by this point, you haven't been reading properly.) a piping hot waffle from next to the station, £1.90. yumyumyum. by this time it had started to snow heavily and we were COVERED in stubbornly regenerating snowflakes - so it was an emergency waffle. totally vital for our survival in the severe weather conditions, trust.

lastly, we took a side trip to carnaby st. to lust after crazed-up colourful wigs and browse hippie tack. i've been planning a london day out for MONTHS, and when i finally get organised enough to DO it i'll be swaaaathed in london merchandise. a union jack jingly hat. matching union jack sweatbands. an "I <3 LONDON" tee. i'll be maniacally flicking a london-themed lighter. hell, i'll even be wearing tube map knickers.

that is how much i love my city.

and that day WILL happen! someday. yeah.

and ahhh, i've rolled back into my humble abode feeling ridiculously happy, because striding through a snowstorm listening to slide with the volume turned WAY UP is one of my new favourite pastimes. oh, and i've juuust started jean-paul sartre's 'nausea' - so i've got that feverishly excited new-book feeling. (just realised how geekish that made me sound...nyaaah). so. not bad as far as days go.

oh god, nearly forgot..."a thing for me"...linking in with the sort-of valentine's day theme for today (since i'm going up to cam this weekend ^_^ and won't have time to post) by metronomy - check out the video, it's insanely cute and makes me want to do karaoke and play pingpong simultaneously.

billions and trillions of <3's for everyone, whether you're single or coupled-up this weekend!

emotion you cannot define

2009-02-09T18:49:00.006Z

ahhh! i haven't listened to heartbeat in the longest time. although i actually prefer the demo version to the official single. o i am falling head-over-heels in love with its brilliant lo-fi-ness all over again...

today...
-marks the start of french week...shamelessly promoting for mfl society wooHOO, dont je suis follement amoureuse >.<
-all my nails are painted a different colour. pink, acid green, turquoise, sky blue, purple, silver, coral, red, grass green, baby blue...let's just say i had a LOT of free time (on my hands :P) yesterday.
-i love magic stars more than anything else in the world. best chocolate ever. bags baby star.
-i've decided to save up to buy coloured contacts (violet or green...mm)
-i'm quickly brushing up on my dracula knowledge for wednesday's book club.
-i sprinted home in the rain. it was kind of cool because it was totally quiet; there was NO ONE else out but me (because dammit, it was pouring) and a bedraggled black cat who ran alongside me for a couple of minutes. typical me, i accidentally ran straight through a GINORMOUS puddle, and now my trainers are soaked. they're drying next to a radiator now.

oh yeah, the silent rave was mental...15 minutes of complete MADNESS
check out the guy who stripped!!

bisous à tous <3

freedom is mine

2009-02-06T00:11:00.008Z

ok, so i was feeling good (this is a lovely cover, by the way), until i saw the letter pinned to the fridge...
WHAT?! i'm not allowed out at lunchtimes for the next week (goodbye pret, goodbye eat, goodbye generic eateries that crop up on every street of the square mile). it's all my fault, of course. i'm being punished because i've been late four times this term. in my defence, twice was because of snow delays (ha)...but NNNGH. now i'm actually going to have to make an effort in the mornings and obey my alarm clock when it starts squawking at me at 6.50. yup...a mere five hours after i hit the sack. (OOH...SLEEP DEPRIVATION = FAINTS! hmm...the pieces of the puzzle are slowly slotting into place. i'll get there in the end.) if i don't come into school on tiptop punctual form, i get put on 'early morning report' - where i have to get up at the crack of dawn to be in school by 8.30. oh, the days when i used to WAIT AROUND OUTSIDE school, bouncing up and down, longing for the gates to open at 7.50...

so yeah! anyway, the snow was great :) i love how it reduces EVERYONE to the mental age of about six! i made a snow pingu out of crystalline water with little sis. the garden was gorgeous under its 8-inch thick blanket of snow.

and in other news, i'm trying and failing to make plans for tomorrow night. (i.e...tonight...crap) currently the plan is to go to a silent iPod rave at liverpool st. station at 7pm. something i've always wanted to do, so i'm excited ^_^

we STILL haven't got our mocks timetables *mutters* incompetent teachers. so far i've only found out my poetry exam time (two weeks on monday) so i'm doing serious revision for that. i have plath poetry spilling out of my eyes. have a snippet from "tulips"...

the walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
the tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
and i am aware of my heart; it opens and closes
its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
the water i taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
and comes from a country far away as health.

good night my lovelies, hope you enjoyed the snow. supposedly, there's more on the way <3

feel the heat, oh yeah it burns

2009-02-02T08:41:00.006Z

i am RIDICULOUSLY excited! and it's all down to this.
there are huge fat flakes falling outside my window, and we've got six inches :D no transport equals no school, so i'm gearing up for what's going to be the MOST epic london snowfight ever ^_^

yeah...experimenting with a new illustrator brushstroke. and this SOTD probably makes for the most oxymoronic blog title ever given the insanely adverse weather conditions, but whatever. listen to/watch around the bend here. it's so 80's it hurts.

i'm not saying trains are just for boys - but if i WERE a boy (cue beyoncé in my head for the rest of the day..hurray...) i'd probably be a TOTAL railway geek. i love trains and walking along old disused railway tracks. really really want to go on the orient express and the shinkansen. i went on the maglev train in shanghai, where magnets are used to suspend the train and whizz it along (apparently, maglev trains can go up to 4000 mph) and got a bizarre thrill out of it. yeah. i think the trainspotting society is missing a member. ME.

had an interesting weekend...most of it spent studying. arrived at a friend's house at half past seven on sunday morning post-party to discover dom cocooned in a duvet. he was TOTALLY passed out from jailbreak (he and his partner got to turin ^_^). so i basically crashed the morning after..nice! another friend cooked me bacon and eggs for breakfast. mmm! there's nothing like a fryup. we went home and spent the day lazing around, half-watching the jungle book. sort of. anyway, the snow screwed with the tubes, so after dropping dom off at king's x my dad picked me up. we had to walk through a blizzard to get to the car...crazy stuff!

MAJOR EXCITEMENT. back to bed for a couple of hours, then up for SNOW WARS. THERE WILL BE BLOOD. <3

addiction to the slumber of disconnection

2009-01-29T21:47:00.005Z

the beautiful vocals of twin sisters interweave with dreamy synthesizers to create this lovely track, my favourite off alpinisms.

i've become SO lazy. just been kicked out of bed by my fourteen-year old sister cause i spent the last 2 hours sleeping. (and me actually getting up at all is a miracle; mostly motivated by my desire to see what happens next on skins). damn whoever it was who introduced me to power naps (even though i know perfectly well who it was...and you're going to pay ;)) as far as i can tell, they're rubbish...they: a) make me feel groggier than usual b) make my contacts dry up in my eyes...nice. c) take a massive chunk out of my day d) intensify my nocturnal habits.

so why have i got such chronic napatitis? (it's like the anti-insomnia...)

gotta write an article for the oriental society we relaunched at school this week. *adds to ginormous workpile in for tomorrow and contemplates it momentarily before heading downstairs to watch skins. good choice*

p.s. to add insult to injury after my extended nap, i decided to do a couple of posture exercises after getting up and smashed my lamp. NICE ONE.

<3

say cheese

2009-01-28T21:38:00.005Z

i'm tired tonight.

have a snapshot of my life as a SOTD substitute? sorry.

I AM...
-listening to: franz ferdinand's new album. (favourite track) also, THE VIRGINS. alsoalsoalsooooo, i can't believe i've jumped on the be your own pet bandwagon just as they've disbanded. sob.

-watching: SKINS!!! okay, the new season isn't as good as the last two, not even close...but dammit, giraffe-necked freddie's a cutie...
ooh and it looks like fear and loathing in las vegas is on film4 in 10 minutes...might watch the second half of that if i get my history of art essay done in time.

-reading: just finished breaking dawn, the fourth and final part of the twilight saga. yes...i am a PROUD MEMBER of the twilight fanclub. anyway, now i'm tackling proust's 'the way by swann's' (à la recherche du temps perdu), which has a few more intellectuality points than twilight, i guess. i usually eat books up like they're oreos (mm), but lately i've only had time to read on the tube, so i'm slower than a sleep-deprived snail. only 58 pages through so far >_<

-eating: chocolate a plenty. dad has been forcing it on me since my little fainting episode yesterday. mm, phenylethylamine. oh, and anything that tastes of artificial cherries (cherry soothers, cherry tictacs...)

-wearing: my newish clare college hoodie :) thank you dom! plus my blue teacosy hat, pretty much every day, cause it keeps my ears warm. the mercury on the thermometer is currently at about 4ºC but it feels warm, due to the fact it read -12ºC a couple of weeks ago. oooh...give bloc party's mercury a listen if you haven't already, it's brilliant. another grower. i speak from experience.

and OH GREAT i've just stereotyped myself. typical brit behaviour, talking about the weather.

one last thing: read this yeats poem, it's so sad and lovely...

never give all the heart
never give all the heart, for love
will hardly seem worth thinking of
to passionate women if it seem
certain, and they never dream
that it fades out from kiss to kiss;
for everything that's lovely is
but a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
o never give the heart outright,
for they, for all smooth lips can say,
have given their hearts up to the play.
and who could play it well enough
if deaf and dumb and blind with love?
he that made this knows all the cost,
for he gave all his heart and lost.

right. i'm going to go collapse into bed now, armed with my moleskine notebook, a pen and a printout of botticelli's birth of venus. it's essay time! zzzzzzz. <3

hijack my heart

2009-01-27T17:44:00.004Z

i'm in utter lust with dusk till dawn lately. mmm, can't get enough of that delicious 80's echo.

i fainted on the tube today :o! i'd woken up a bit late, so i skipped breakfast and positively sprinted through baker st station to catch the tube to school. my heart was pounding and my breathing laboured when i pushed my way on, but i'm seriously unfit, so i thought nothing of it. then i started feeling all cold and clammy, so i yanked out my headphones ("spitfire" by prodigy was playing, which makes my heart palpitate anyway) and seized the pole in front of me for support, but my knees buckled under me and i passed out. i felt people grabbing me by the arms and dragging me off the tube and on to the platform. when i came to i recognised my surroundings (euston sq). there was a jolly station manager clutching a first aid box in front of me; he brought me a glass of water and made me lie down on a bench. though i saw i wasn't worst off - there was a woman in shock next to me who'd tripped over a banker's bag strap and broken her middle and index fingers. her bones were protruding through her skin. i nearly fainted again. i know i really should get over my squeamishness, but YUCK.

anyway, i was lucky because my dad works near euston square, so he picked me up from the station and bought me breakfast at the nearest greasy spoon. he was going to let me go home but i wanted to go to school (missed far too many lessons for my own good lately) and he insisted on driving me. thanks dad!

got my provisional timetable for AS exams today, and they are approaching faster than orcs gunning for gondor. DAMMIT. mocks are even sooner. and since my mother has imposed a midnight bedtime tonight, looks like i'll have to do work now and play later. grr. til then. <3

never mind an sms, what you need is a sweet caress

2009-01-26T20:29:00.004Z

get your lovin' here. official video's been removed, so it's adolescents jumping around instead. ah well.

i know some people who are vehemently anti-PDA. are you? alrite - yes. my stomach does turn somewhat when i see new couples practically swallowing each other's faces in public - but come on, they're not trying to do anyone any harm. so if you're tempted to accidentally-on-purposefully whack that blonde kissing her boyfriend in the back of the head, RESIST. they're wrapped up in their own little world :) aww. and everyone knows the start of a new relationship is one of the best feelings in the world!

ohhh and while we're on the subject of new love, i've developed a sudden yet violent crush on russell lissack, lead guitarist from bloc party...

it's been a tiring weekend. and yup, i discovered smatterings of bruises all over my body post-paintballing, which pleased me in a morbid way. (i like having injuries to show people, like battle scars!) let's just say i wasn't the most proficient paintballer on my team, which is probably why we lost by roughly 24 points. oops...

spent sunday hyperventilating over possible interview questions. example: "franz kafka said that literature is the axe for the frozen sea inside us. do you agree?" i want to paintball kafka in his damn frozen sea. an axe would have no effect on a frozen sea anyway...nnngh

today's chinese new year! the year of the ox. my good friend wikipedia tells me that those born under the sign of the ox are good leaders, dependable, calm, modest and capable of achieving great things...chinese new year means red packets, and red packets mean MONEY. YAY! i'm kind of short financially right now 'cause i keep frittering my pocket money away on sherbet and music magazines. i'm going to try and get a job at the local library this week.

anyway, gong xi fa cai! later <3

i've got holes in my new jeans for you

2009-01-23T18:32:00.002Z

i can't actually remember how i discovered this song...discover it here :)

hello friday! you're my favourite day of the week. friday means i get to dump my bag in my room and take the night off, watch some music tv, go out for duck noodles with the fam, catch up on missed eps of gossip girl and heroes, hang out round islington with my friends. tomorrow it's a friend's birthday which means i've got to be in ZONE SIX (outskirts of the city...GRR) at the unearthly hour of 8.30 AM. so i'm going over to a friend's house now so i can get up at 7.30 rather than 6.30 tomorrow to get there, she lives closer to the tube station than i do. cue a night of watching cheesy movies, painting nails, having a good nattaaaaa...sounds good to me. exactly what i need to wind down after this week, it's been hell.

tomorrow we're going to go paintballing ^_^ it'll be my first time, so i'm excited, but it'll probably leave me quiiiite bruised-up. hence the song of the day. hurray! ohh you should probably know, i'm the kinda girl who'll spend most of the session hidden in a bush only shooting my precious paintballs when i'm TOTALLY sure i'll hit someone...i got the GRANNY score in laserquest when i was 11 cause i spent the whole time camped out in the reload area worrying that i was going to get shot. THESE THINGS DON'T CHANGE WITH TIME.

and oh god, what happens if i get shot in the head with a paintball?! yow. <3

this world has turned to see-through

2009-01-22T20:11:00.003Z

bah. let mumm-ra get you high here.

dammit, willa holland. she's the type of girl i'd aspire to be if i had the guts. she's only half a year older than me, yet she's already achieved that effortless cool...you know, that vibe that says, smirkingly, "you can't stop looking at me, can you?" and everyone just falls in love with her. grrr. *jealous*. right, going to turn off the girl love tap now.

anyway. speaking of things that get me high...i've got maximum adoration for this t.s eliot poem we read in english a coupla days ago. i loved it so much i wrote it out and stuck it up on my wall. here's a condensed version (which would probably make eliot turn in his grave, but hey, they're my favourite parts, and that's what counts):

marina

those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
death...
are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind,
a breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
by this grace dissolved in place
what is this face, less clear and clearer
the pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger -
given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye...
this form, this face, this life
living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
the awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

like it? read the full version of marina here

one day 'til the weekend! <3

your heart sings to me

2009-01-21T14:48:00.006Z

get down to vanished here!
when i first listened to crystal castles' eponymous debut, i thought "nngggh, not sure i like them..." well, it's true, the splashy electro mixed with white noise isn't exactly a soothing balm to the ears, but they've really grown on me now. especially since at the moment, i'm really into any music that sounds like its old home was a 80s games arcade. and crystal castles fits under that genre nicely.

no post yesterday because i had a pile of history of art which, when sat on my desk, was literally higher than my head. no jokes. the homework task was an essay with a side summarizing each topic theme we've covered this year (subject & genre, materials, techniques and processes...you get the drift). i was up 'til 3.30 am trying to finish it off >_<

2009. it's the year of uni application - filling out the dreaded UCAS form, writing a personal statement, hopefully getting a couple of interviews, generally stressing out. i spent the second weekend of this year going crazy in the charing cross branch of foyle's (when i mean crazy, i mean i spent £84 on guides i probably don't even need) and with a panic drumming away in my breastie, went on a frenzied prospectus application spree on the internet. i now have about 9.

but it's okay. i'm a girl, i'm allowed to freak out over these things :)
later! <3

i hope this song will guide you home

2009-01-19T16:07:00.000Z

listen to "such great heights" here.

ooh. looks like i've finally found a place to sound off...
so. i've named this blog MIXTAPE GOLD and that's what it'll be - a blend of awesome, of the many things i feel are deserving of my love - fashion, people, food (mmm), inanimate objects in general and music OF COURSE. oh, and because i love making/receiving mixtapes. OLD-SCHOOL STYLE.

'til next time <3