This is your chance

... to ask me anything.

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on vegetable preferences, favorite type of dance, life experiences etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

Leave a comment (preferred) and ask anything you wish :)

Coffee'd

Good breakfast with a cup of Latte (click to learn how to make your own)

Unrelated matters

I have to again say happy birthday to the bestest bitching buddy evaaa ;) Shike Jonathan Leow Teng Yiao - because you’re so speshal as the girl born as a guy with the amazing talent of ass-shaking! bimbo airkisses for you!

On a total unrelated note, I want a coffee date.

Today

I know well enough to believe that if I keep repeating “it doesn’t matter”, this halting anger I have inflicted onto myself will stop altogether and I will finally get the peace I think I deserve. There won’t be any time for grief, or anything else. It doesn’t matter if this disappointment is greater than everything else seems because of my want for it, It doesn’t really matter if I pronounce ‘dance’ the right way , it doesn’t matter if my ankles hurt after running, it doesn’t matter – that is what really matters. So it shouldn’t matter that this isn’t all that I’ve expected and what I have sought after for and get nothing. It doesn’t matter because it’s okay, I try to say that to coerce everything I currently am angry or passionate about.

It doesn’t matter

It really doesn’t.

...and everything's perfectly fine.

Priorities

I don’t even know what’s important anymore. Things that are supposed to be on the agenda pushed back with a sense of urgency to make way for other trivial things, today I spent half an hour on the phone with my dad talking about school and my inability to realise a joke quickly enough; then I am back to solving equations and sketching parabolas. For a fact that I know I’ve been living with heightened senses because everything is convex and collapses outwards. There is an implosion, a ruckus led by riots and armies without any due cause. Everything just sorts of float amorphously, uncharged batteries and reading half a page of a novel. I haven’t had time to talk to best of friends, because our excuses are “we’re too busy” which we truly are and account for but with each sorry that either one offer makes everything seems so much more distanced and subliminal, as if we’re bringing it to infinity and ignoring the nth.

I hope you dream well tonight, blessed with good dreams. Know that more than anything in the world, I wish you love.

Animania

Animania was fairly fun, nothing too exciting nor too boring but I got some cool stuff so I guess it wasn't too bad :)

Then we professed to be hungry (or maybe just me haha) and armed with a lacklustre of good navigational skills, we at last managed to direct ourselves to an alleyway dumpling shop, like back in Malaysia, kopitiam-style, wiping chopsticks and bowls 10 times before eating, dimsum and my carelessness spilling soup over the table. "hen hao chi! xie xie ni men" Marnie's love for Chinese and her opinions.

...afterwards it became a memory spiral because I can't recall what we did. (dear me I am not senile Erik!!! nooo) I just remember being really tired and walking and endless people abuzz, red lights, crossings and trains.

I asked during the course of the week if people in love really seem happier, if their faces glowed unanimously or smiles ablaze, but I don't suppose I'll really know.

"I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"

"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love", said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

One of the things that I do remember is I have been shortlisted for the school editorial board and my interview is tomorrow ;)

Freezing

Yesterday I saw posts titled 'KL Freeze' and so I thought it was some sort of event thingamajig BUT only till today did I know it was this






Likewise, in both London and New York too:





I think it's pretty cool. And imagine the sudden transition too! The London one was funny because there were some clueless tourists but it was quite phenomenal. And who would've thought that our home country has done such a thing???! Patriotism is speaking now. So apparently, the one in KL was organised by this person called Zain and the event was spread through facebook (no longer doubt the power of social networking sites!!) it took place yesterday, 13th of April in Pavillion,

KL Freeze is/was an event where human beings get together to do something in unison, without speeches or reference to their age, colour, sex, beliefs and background.

So it was organised by RandomAlphabets.com and 3 Facebook groups
1. United Colours of Malaysia - The 1+2 Campaign
2. Improv Malaysia
3. Malaysia(n): Travel Affairs

and introduced by Improv Everywhere.

Quite the unusual thing eh? Not the usual charity event or what's-em-called ;) It's nice seeing everyone get together doing something bizarre.

Cheers.

Invisibility cloak

Yesterday, I revisited Harry Potter mania. I remember 7 years ago, how Harry spoke in Parseltongue with his squeaky adolescent voice, I wonder how come 12 year old wizards can drive cars while I can't even brake properly, we share animated laughter at Snape and his 'darkness' - "Malfoy, perhaps?" points and turn - I see youth, I see spells, I see magic.

“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger

Today, I see truth unravelling and I see through myself, so does everyone else. So each day, I grow but I get invisible, wisps of smoke evaporate and I am gone.

Of chocolate cupcakes and hearts

I was actually going to talk about these batch of cupcakes I baked last week and how it tasted heavenly delicious but then I watched dcfc's video for I Will Possess Your Heart and decided that the video is more exciting than my baking adventures for now so...



(L) (L) (L) (L)

Will post about adorable chocolate cupcakes after dinner ;)

-

Ok, so last Saturday (or was it Sunday? oh yeah Sunday it was) I decided a round #2 for baking :)) Also because we were going to a bbq at our neighbour's house so I thought it'd be nice to bring some yummy treats over.

Our electric beater is kinda worn off already, sadly. We need a new one! Mom has a good one, back in KL with the stand and you just put it and let it run by itself. My hand was aching by the time all the ingredients were mixed :(

Mmmm, chocolate bater ;) This time I put the right amount of cocoa powder and it turned out super yummy!

I decorated the cupcake with love heart candies! They looked so pretty :) Though the candies aren't that nice, hahah but they're really pretty, as so:

It reads: Forever, Bless You, Hug Me, Trust Me etc. So cute! :))

I also added sprinkles! And then afterwards I doused them with cocoa powder, it looked amazingly vibrant and too pretty to eat :)

Ready to go into the oven,

Golden light beckons, half-baked.

End product :)))))) Don't they look gobsmackingly delicious??

Adorned with the pretty lil some some ;)

The ones this time was so much better than the ones I tried to make the other day, because I didn't mix the ingredients properly and screwed up somewhere along the way and it tasted bland :\ which wasn't too pleasant. 'Tis a happy girl I am, or so I like to think. Today, I found a recipe for cupcakes using nutella! Oh joy, I luuuuurve Nutella, and whilst I was in Rome, I saw these giant jars of Nutella, very very tempting:


(click to enlarge) and look at the King of Nutella in the middle,
I love thee, o chocolatey heaven :)))

I was devouring a mango sorbet ice cream. Long live dairy!

-

Today my words fail me, I'm sorry. Here's to you that I tell you now I need less than your foul discouragement and never-good-enough's, "oh yeah you're nowhere as near pretty as her" - not necessary in that conjunction but meaning it. I go into the shower drenched in warm streamlined jets of water, yelling and screaming and wash wash wash it away wash your filth away I don't want to be stained with dyes of your expectations, unassociated with you, till every inch is stainless and I am satisfied.

I hope everyone had a wonderful night, oh those dreamy brit accents ;)

What's the best thing the british have ever come up with?
My answer?

The Beatles, the stiff upper lip brit accent, black pudding, Harrods and Hugh Laurie.

"I'd rather drink hot choc and read"

I look in the mirror and I see an effusion, something fluorescent that juts out. Yet I see no perfect resolution, no similarity and no wide eyed surprise. Only the soothe in the black of my hair, then I spot something outlandish and peculiar. Something out of relativity, something that once was mine but not anymore. Then in seconds I remember vaguely of fondness and touch, something warm and exciting; spills onto a canvas deliciously like paint soaking through, in swift motion I remember that I remember you.


i sometimes forget that

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)


&

ee cummings is such an inspiration;


without any reason being, that I am unaware of this induced coma, this subdued silence. In a canopy of grief, shrouded with minimalist exposures, they are brief and elliptical, almost fragile and fit into the palm of my hand.

I’m fine, really that’s what I reason with myself and there is nothing personal about it. A pile of cluttered disposition, disarray of lights, excuses replaced in favour of an incognito ipseity and there is no affection in it. Just the echoes of silences that will fall short before me and you, but this is proof that I am barely there.

Today we drew caricatures of ourselves, and I am in pale comparison, almost invisible. Meek and disillusioned, hunched against the giant shadows casted by favourable aesthetic beauties, I shrink almost immediately. And then I am angry, thunderous voices I throw like rocks impounded onto myself, that I will never be half as far as everyone else has gone to.

And then when morning dawns, I wake up to find myself by accident again. Oh here you are

-

Nonetheless, today was a good enough day ;)

Bon nuit!

I Will Follow You Into The Dark

i held my tongue as she told me "son, fear is the heart of love" so i never went back

Lost hearts in Italy

The skies in europe are a different sort, a kind of cerulean blue complimented with fluffy white cotton candy clouds that attracts the eye and illuminates in photographs :) it makes you all happy inside, the way gelato in Italy makes me squeal in delight. The most enchanting thing is walking on the streets in Rome marvelling the architecture and buildings and walking through them felt like walking through a piece of history. Everything has a golden glow to it, and traffic lights and verandahs are haloed underneath these heavenly streaks, and everything sorts of come alive and wake up from hibernation. I was there during the end of winter, so most of the places had a very floral spring feel to it, but then there was still hints of wintry mellow days ;) it was absolutely wonderful.

Straight after i landed (KL – Paris – Rome! Sixteen hours worth of sitting and jetlagging afterwards) we navigated our way to Trevi de Fontana! There were so much alacrity in the air; and you don’t feel like it’s one of those popular touristy places where those busybody aunties talk loudly and boss their kids around to take cutesy pics haha because eventhough it’s obvious that the place is brimming with people, it's almost peaceful.

Italy is ice cream heaven. No doubts about that. It’s also coffee haven. I was downing cappuccinos during breakfast, lunch, and dinner that I was relinquished with the smell of coffee every morning I woke up and went to bed. I kid you not, I think Italians take their coffee breaks seriously. And have you ever tried espresso shots????!!!! You people only know how to drink Starbucks caramel/choc java chip fraps, and you call yourself coffee lovers?! SHAME ON YOU

A cappucino during breakfast + panini = ultimate yummyness :))) taken at Termini station - main train station in Rome, my hotel was about 3 minutes walk from there!

That aside, I did visit all the famous sites in Rome and I actually wanted to go to Florence but we were running short of time as we were leaving for Barcelona after Rome and didn’t make it there :( I promise myself that I will return and go there myself one day! I know I have volunteers who’d come along :D (hint mabel, erik and world maps haha)


Trevi De Fontana with people easing in and out. Sigh such pretty skies!

Gelato bar right near Trevi Fountain :)

A street performer - he's stationary though, and you can see loads of them on the streets and it's amazing how they can stay still that long!!! He's the statue of Liberty btw heh.

Rome at dusk :))) At Termini train station near my hotel

Walking through streets on Rome. Architecture and buildings looming overhead everywhere.

Spagna and Trevi Fountain are in opposite directions! Imagine I had to walk to both places on feet. Tiring but worth it ;)

Bubbles! People were selling bubble blowers on the streets

Spagna overcrowded with people of all ages: young and in love, photographers, tourists, shoppers from the high street (think LV, Dior etc) all gathering on the steps :)

Piazza del Popolo, literally means piazza of the people. In the middle stands an Egyptian obelisk.

From Piazza del Popolo, we just managed to stumble our way to the Vatican City! I had no idea where we were heading to, we were just taking a leisurely stroll along the river and then we could see the silhouette of Castel St. Angelo and I knew the Vatican City was near... Sigh such a bad travel planner I am :( I am no good with panaromic photos and you can just imagine the grandeur of the Vatican City and here are the sides of it, and only the facade of it,

After Vatican City, the last stop was to the Pantheon as you can see me hugging one of the pillars of the structure. We actually got lost on the way there, kept getting stuck in between the streets, going back and forth till my feet ached but at last!

:)

yeah and I kept all my train tickets from Rome so I have a collection-train tickets now ;)

alright it's back to school for me tomorrow, excuse me now while I go and moan and get depressed about it.

ciao!

Stationary stationery

So many things but where to begin?

Let me tell you about my addiction to stationery first - also because we went in to this amazingly attractive stationery store yesterday and I almost left my heart there (but not any money harhar) - and then I shall digress. I want everything from here

Heck, just buy me the whole store will you!

Tell me, how can I not love stationery?

I will tell you what I want just in case some Good Samaritan decides to get something for me ;)

*hyperventilates* !!!!!! *would add more exclamation mark but I will look stupid* moleskin notebooks, I've been raving over them for ages and ages and I found this shop somewhere in Bangsar, KL that sold them but there were well over the price I expected and they sell it cheaper here!

So dainty! But I have one at home so it's okay :) But I'm just showing you what pretty little things they have on that site of wonder

:D :D :D I'd love to use them in letters! I tried once to use a normal paperclip to mould it into a heart shaped clip but failed miserably :( It looked like an skewed dog-bite bone...

Gift cards! Although I'm sure some people make muchmuchmuch prettier cards than these :) but they're lovely all the same ;) ;)

Yeah and I ended up not getting anything at all from the store because I simply hadn't the heart to spend so much money on such deviously cute looking stationery :(

-

These phrases are foreign and new as I feel them around my tongue, finding their perfect spot for crisp clear sounds; tasting them, crude and raw. They etch their way around, so that I am tasting them perfectly. But with excessivesness. I can touch light and air so they find their way to entwine themselves around my fingers, some lights more intermittently than others; particles colliding to an excited state, emitting spectras of bronzes, sienna, umber, a certain copper, fuchsias and lilacs!, something complicated like heliotrope, soft lavenders and plenty more to live for.

Night and day,

I use them to decorate these subliminal states of dismayed reverie.

"In what happens between people, she reflected, there are these transmigrations, these episodes of smudged experience, in which the containers of memory and story become weak and permeable. Images leak like smoke. Emotions. Chance utterances. Rudimentary threads of being float outwards, and reattach. Fibres of some counterlife, that which make through others, join like the ganglia of an unlocatable, interstitial intelligence. We confederate. We are many. We carry others' stories." - Dreams of Speaking, Gail Jones