i've been waiting so long to take you home

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<3

you know it all

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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