GROUCHY, but I do not live in a garbage can.

Am kinda disappointed with my A- for the Utopias essay - was REALLYFRICKINGHUGELY needing an A for it, cos I think the presentation really SUCKED SHIT and my attendance is like "is she even enrolled in this class". My first test was so-so, prolly a B or B+ if I'm lucky. Final test was not too bad, either A- or A.. So the essay would have been the clincher here. I AM FRUSTRATED WITH MYSELF. If only my argument had that little bit tighter, my ideas that little bit more organized and developed properly. If only I hadn't assumed I'd write a killer essay just because I usually do.

Curiosity killed the cat, so they say.
Complacency kills the Kelly, now I know :(

Am scared shitless for the Pynchon essay now. 50% and I think it's WORSE than the Utopias one. FML ohmagawddd.

In other news, I got a 20/20 for my Governance research paper and 9/10 for the presentation. How is that even possible right! Unless everyone got 30/30 and I'm right at the bottom or something. :( OKAY I'm freaking myself out I shall stop.

Some of my outfits of the day this week, simply because I'm too tired to blog abt anything else or try to study.

  Wore this to my exam this afternoon. 

Was too lazy to want to dress up too much so just hid myself under a flowy, billowy top. 

I love my high-waisted shorts!! :)) And my Bimba + Lola leather bag, it's super pretty and goes with practically everything :) 

I need to funk up my colour palette a bit I think.

And I'm all sorts of tired, and therefore on edge now :(

Don't feel like studying for Governance paper AT ALL.

So You Think You Can Dance - and I really wish I could :)

I just watched the rerun of the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, and am totally in love with the final dance by Kathryn & Jakob. It made me all choked and touched, can you imagine! So beautiful, and I love Kathryn's movement.

Here's the vid of it, I'm not sure if you can view it from here but do watch it if you can!



It's amazing, I'm really not kidding. This, coming from a non-dancer! And the final tender moment when she runs over to hold his face after he thrashes on the ground, omg. Beautiful.






This was another of my favourite dances from the show, the Mr and Mrs Smith-like contemp piece by Ellenore & Legacy. I didn't like it so much the 1st time I saw it a couple of weeks back, but after seeing it again today, I have to agree with the judges that it's one of the most memorable performances of the season. It's so dangerous and sensual at the same time, it's really exciting to watch!


If I had more time and no Advertising paper to study for, I'd surely search through Youtube for more of my favourite dances from the show. Loved every week of it! Sometimes, I enjoy it more than American Idol, cos it seems like this season of AI isn't that fantastic anyway. The dances evoke a different kind of emotion from me, from somewhere deeper inside, and I like losing myself in the dance pieces week after week. :) Okay so maybe it's the novelty of it, cos I haven't really been following the series.. But I'll enjoy the novelty while it lasts then. :)

1-nil

Today marked the beginning of my three exams - and I'm sad to say that the scoreline of the Kelly vs NUS game currently stands at 1-nil, with the point going to NUS. I'm dead tired after the paper this morning (yes even though it was only an MCQ paper), and remained dead tired and extremely unmotivated until after dinner today.

Advertising exam on Wednesday does not bode well, and I fear the goal difference will increase by another by the middle of tomorrow. :(

Wish me luck.

The sun did come up, today.

Tonight, I feel a lot more inspired and positive than I have felt in a long time.
Could have to do with the fact that I've actually been fairly productive today, study-wise!
Could also have to do with the fact that I'm starting to not care so much. I mean, I don't have to repeat my class-topping feat again, I just have to do well enough to get an A. It's just there beyond my reach, I know I can do it. If I really do want to teach, I'll need to get a second upper - a couple of hundred bucks in pay every month adds up in a year!

The brokeness isn't bothering me as much anymore. Money is not the be all and end all anyway. I can always earn it back - which is what I'm doing when I come back to Singapore, anyway.

Yessiree, I'm starting to feel good about myself! So much to be optimistic about, I shouldn't be caught up in my myopic struggles in studying. If anything, I actually prefer studying to writing reports and essays, so that's one thing to be thankful for. :)

Okay shall continue studying for Advertising (have shucked PR aside for today already, cannot neglect Advertising!!) before catching Rurouni Kenshin on Animax at 2.30am :D One of my all time fave animes, loved it to the max when I was growing up. Feels good to relive those days, if only for half an hour each day only :)

Let it be.

The days are really slipping through my fingers, like fine silt-like sand, and I have no idea where the week has gone. The week that seemed to yawn ahead of me on Monday has compressed and fast-forwarded itself to Thursday and I am awfully, dreadfully behind on my studying - especially where Advertising is concerned.

I must not let my high score during the mid-term let me get complacent and assume that I'll do just as well for the exam, cos that will not happen by itself. I fear I'm on my way to falling into that trap, and I'm trying hard to fight my way out of the insidious trap of placid complacency. I know I'm not the best, far from it, and I need to keep reminding myself of how lousy I really am in most aspects, if only to push myself all the harder. I do admit, I tend to be slightly harsh on myself, but that's probably the way I function. But this method has bred a deep sense of insecurity and (perhaps even) a certain kind of self-loathing, which I suspect are not very healthy side-effects.. So many things I wish I could be, you have no idea. I pick on what I lack, hardly ever being grateful for the little (or what I perceive as little, anyway) I have, bewildered at why you would even waste your time with a nobody like me.. And I know this isn't healthy, this belittling of myself. And I try to recognise my strengths, try to see myself from your eyes - but I can't.

Times like these, when the odds threaten to overwhelm me (many things depress me at the moment: top two of which include my veryvery broke state after having paid for my accommodation and air/rail tickets for Europe, and my pathetic state of studying for my exams), I have to tell myself to let it be.

credits: flickr.com

& when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,

There will be an answer,

Let it be.

For though they may be parted, 

There's still a chance that they will see.

There will be an answer,

Let it be.

credits: flickr.com

If only I had more time to blog, this title would be way more useful!

I tried to study hard today, I really truly did. :(
It's so hard, my body doesn't want to co-operate with my brain. I still feel like I'm on a well-deserved break, which is so not the case!! Exams begin next week, I need to keep reminding myself of that fact.
And, I am so broke now, after changing money for my Euro-trip this May/June. Not funny.

Thank goodness to the max that I got the MOE teaching internship stint in June/July to look forward to! Will see a bit of stable cash flowing in, plus, I get to go back to IJ to teach - the best part of the whole thing, in my opinion! I'm seriously quite excited to go back to IJ, I spent the best 7 years of my life there, and if I ever do decide to go into teaching, I'd want to go back there eventually to the place that most made me who I am today. Will blog more abt all of that again soon, cos I really have to be getting back to my PR text.

In other news, the new BTO flats in Punggol were launched today... And Clem & I have applied for this round! Quite excited about this too, and will have to blog about this in yet another post.. But we were talking about our future plans over a warm cup of soymilk each just now, and I can't wait for our life together to begin for real. So much to look forward to - overseas postgrad education (hopefully in some big city like New York!), our (hopefully!!!!) new prospective home, career plans.. My silly three exams left pale in comparison!

credits: http://www.hdb.gov.sg

Okay I know wrong time to have this kind of attitude. So will stop my musing now, and continue another time when I have the time and am at liberty, without the prospect of a quickly-going-awry study timetable breathing down my poor neck.

Say hello to OFTD Installment 1!

EDIT: added more outfits! :)

So I promised I'd start blogging abt my outfits, so I figured why not today since I'm so uninspired to do anything else. Haha. Partly cos I'm determined to reclaim control over my renegade wardrobe again (it's seriously like a blackhole in there - I just have too damn many clothes), and partly cos I'm bored!

I received these two items over the weekend in my mailbox, so will start with these - easy peasy!

This one here is a dress I bought from hollyhoque, from their latest collection. It looked so good on the website that I HAD to get it! Love this shade of pink TTM now, have so many pieces of clothing in this shade of dusty pink in my wardrobe now. :D

Second outfit's something that I really like to do these days - tucking my top into a something high-waisted below! So old school right haha. But it suits me better than the low-waisted bottoms of a couple of years back, since I'm such a pear shape and my hips are the bane of my existence. I'm also liking this colour combination a lot: black, white, and mustard - it's fast becoming one of my all-time fave colour combis for outfits.

I'm not sure if you can see the lace portion of this black dress, but it's there, & I'm liking that a lot! (Am very into lace these days). Also, the dusty peach pink hobo bag is one of my fave colours this spring, and my bag collection ranges from structured to slouchy.

This hobo belongs to the latter and it's one of my everyday bags :)

I heart this skirt TTM!! Can't wait to dress it up for work, or down with a ribbed tank top :) Planning to bring it with me for my Euro-trip! :)

Some of the dresses I wore for my presentations last week. Check out the lovely back of the first dress, from agneselle! Threw a black blazer over during the presentations, took the blazer off while walking around in school. Blazers are starting to become a staple in my wardrobe. More about my beloved blazers another post!

Another work piece I wore for the Advertising Charles & Keith photoshoot thingy (thankgoodness for big sunnies that hide half my face so I actually look half-decent).
I actually like this dress a lot, even though it's a bit formal for everyday wear in school. But I reckon once I start working, dresses like that would start to develop a close relationship with me. :P



HAHA okay I have only these for today. :D
Back to work reading my CSR stuff for PR!

How to start studying?

Having washed my hands off all my projects/assignments for this sem, all I have left is to studystudystudy!
No mood to do anything at all since it's raining and I'm sleepy, so here's a sneak peek at the study timetable I've drafted out! I dunno why I sound so excited, but I swear I'm not actually heh. Am trying to study for PR now but am so distracted!!!

Hungry, sleepy, restless, and feel like I want to shop badly.

OHMAGAWDDDDDDDD I AM SO DEADDD

:((((((

4000 word Pynchon essay due in precisely 24 hours and I'm at a pathetic 1000 words. I need to produce another 1000 words by the time I hit the sack tonight or I'm never gonna make it. I am so damn uninspired you have no idea, it's terrifying to be so aimless and blase about it all when I KNOW I've got to make this work in 24 hours.

And, I'm daaaaaaymmn hungry, to top it all off.
And, I think I'm PMSing majorly. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Not a nice feeling. I feel like I need to sleep/eat/work all at once.
I cannot work on a petrified mind and a petulantly hungry tummy :(

Three things you should know about me:

1. I'm fiercely loyal to those whom I love, to the point of being overprotective. If you mess with any of them (you heard that Barbie wannabe who likes to pretend you're some arty-farty melancholic maiden; but I've got news for you: you FAIL), I'll take you down with me. I hate people who are patronizing, who try hard to be someone they're not, who are hypocritical, who pretend to be all innocent and blase but in reality, are devious vixens - my plastic cup has more personality than you and is definitely worth more space on my shelf than the oxygen you waste by living every extra minute.

2. I may not be the most beautiful looks wise, but at least I'm not trying pathetically hard to look like a dear caught in the headlights, and at least I know my nose will not melt if someone holds a match too close. It took time to come to terms with the fact that there's always gonna be someone who looks more beautiful or more pretty - and I've finally (albeit reluctantly, I'll admit that much) accepted that, and it's made me love me for who I am all the more, and love the people around me better too, at that.

3. I cannot sleep at night, no matter how tired I may be, if I have more than one thing pressing on my mind when I go to bed. Last night, I had my undone essay, my Euro trip, and my conversation with Cheryl on my mind (and my blood was still boiling when I went to bed) keeping me up in bed until 6am - even though I was so exhausted physically that I was seeing stars.



All that being said, you should know better than to mess with me.

I am going to start my style journal!

I've decided that I'm gonna start journaling my outfits so that I can keep track exactly of my tastes and preferences where clothes are concerned. I realised that I buy things that catch my eye, and many of my purchases are impulse buys. Maybe if I'm more aware of what suits me (cutting, colours, designs), and if I know what kinds of outfits I already have, I can maximise my shopping dollar. Hopefully hopefully! I also want to see the evolution of my style and see if I can tack a particular style to my way of dressing.

Will just be posting those outfit entries in this blog as well cos I'm lazy to maintain more than one blog :P Yes I'm a lazy bum heh. Start soon, like after I produce my 4000 word Pynchon essay by Friday! So, STAY TUNED!

Meanwhile, am just waiting for AI to start. Am reading one of my several Pynchon criticism books I borrowed from the library in the meantime..

Stay-In-Weekend

I am done with my utopias essay. Not necessarily the best one I've written (far from it sadly) but I'm gonna leave it so I can start reading as much of Tepper as I can for the test tomorrow. Patke's being brutal I tell you. Essay and test on the same day. :(

So this weekend, Clem and I stayed in both Sat and Sun to clear work!

Cooked our own dinner after going for 6.15pm Mass. Bacon & mushroom carbonara in full cream is really delish!! We're gonna cook pasta again for dinner in a bit, then hopefully watch a DVD or something after dinner - cos all work and no play makes Kelly a dull girl and Clem a dull boy.

Some peektures of yesterday!

 Clem's portion with lots of garnishing!

Before & after - don't believe his stuffed face though. He could still eat more. Haha.

Mine with a lot less green stuff :P

This was after dinner when he hijacked my computer to play minesweeper and ignored me completely hmph :(

OKAY TIME TO COOK DINNER :D:D

As Nigella says, every meal should be a special meal, no matter what the occasion. :)

I seriously suck at chess. Proof:

I am washing my hands off my 1984 section already. Moving on the Handmaid.
I bugged Clem to play chess with me to take a break from my essaying, but I'm more irritated than ever after this game!
Look at how ridiculous our game became:

What the hell right!!
The computer only had one king left but I couldn't beat him! I gave up chasing him around the board, spent 15 whole minutes trying to trap him. Grrrr.

Minesweeper and Spider Solitaire are EVIL.

I'm writing 1 line of my essay per hour, it's really incredibly bad :( So fricking distracted, and no mood or inspiration. I'm getting increasingly moody and grouchy, I think it's the time of the stupid month GROWLLL.

I don't really want anyone to face my frustration so I'm just keeping well clear from society and hermiting myself at home as I really struggle to produce a half-baked piece of work. Why's this essay so difficult to write ugh. I have a sneaky suspicion that it's cos I skipped so many of the classes that I'm just not really sure what's going on as a whole. See I hate it when I realize it's my own stupidity and laziness that comes back to bite me hard on the bottom when it's show time.

Everything else aside. I spent a HUGE part of my day obsessing over the games on my computer. Minesweeper, Spider Solitaire and some Mahjong thingy. Sigh every single essay-writing period, I find a new thing to obsess over. Last year, it was over blogshopping. Now, it's over these stupid games. Do you know I stayed up til 3am last night trying to win a game of Minesweeper on intermediate mode?? I kept making silly mistakes, trying to beat the clock and play quickly. Then today, I spent 2 hours trying to beat the hard mode of Spider Solitaire (the one with 4 different suits). It's impossible to beat I swear, I haven't come even close.



As you can probably tell, my essay lay neglected all this while. Lies neglected. I'm currently at 2 pages and a bit and it's all lousy work. I hate myself.

Bleeding Smuggy Hell.

I am really really peeved at the moment. I just found out today that the final copy of the Advertising report I'd slaved all night doing, painstakingly doing up the appendices at 4-bleeding-AM in the fricking morning, DID NOT GET SENT TO MY GROUP MATES.

I super hate NUS email!! It has played me out not once, not twice, but three bleeding times in the space of this past week alone! WTF. My mails with impt attachments didn't get delivered to my group mates. And I don't understand why my group mates did not ask me for the final copy - since I stated in the previous email which got through that that was a DRAFT. LUCKILY, that one had the main text edited already. You have no idea how heavily I edited.


GROWL

Little pocket of old sunshine.

This week and next are gonna be hell for me (hmmmmm didn't I say that last week and the week before too?)
I'm really struggling with my utopias essay cos I keep fluctuating between topics - I think Patke must be annoyed with my fickle-mindedness. :( I know I am!!

I'm desperately thumbing through one of the few dystopia books I managed to get my hands on while I watch American Idol. Talk about being unfocused and ill-disciplined. Sigh. Ima try to finish my essay by Friday so I can study for the utopias test on Monday. I know right, essay and exam on the same day, wthhhhhhhhhhhh. OHWELL. No point whining about it, and I should "face it like a man", like what Simon Cowell just said to Tim on AI about his handling of the judges' criticism week after week.

I will only worry about my 4000 word Pynchon essay next week, after I'm done with the utopias one. One thing at a time, or I'll falter and fall and not be able to scramble back up onto my feet. Speaking of Pynchon. I'm so ashamed of my yoyography offering in class yesterday. I hastily made a story up on the spot with the list of words I had scribbled while on the train that day, and just told it. And, I think it was very boring. But my very kind classmates did not have the heart to pan my lousy children's story, so I'm thankful.

So, in a bid to try to keep the creeping sense of panic from overwhelming me and paralyzing me, I'm gonna post up pictures taken of a happier time, taken with the spanking new 550D. Well, actually it was just last Friday - when Clem and I watched Clash of the Titans in 3D at Shaw. Though, in all honesty, it was pretty disappointing, considering the reviews it received (3.5 stars out of 5 in Today and something similar in Life) - like a pretty lousy, cheesy storyline, inaccurate rendition of myth (no way does Io even come close to appearing in the Perseus myth cycle - the Io myth involves her turning into a cow because Zeus wants to keep her from Hera, or similar versions as these), and just not very impressive overall. But, I quite like Gemma Arterton as an actress, so it was good seeing her on-screen.

Okay enough rambling.
Massive picture onslaught of that day coming right up!

This is our beeYOOtiful car!

Um okay reality sucks :P

Bwing & Swing <3

The posters look better than the movie really was..

TOOTHLESS I LOVE YOU!!

Random shot of me on Ion elevator. I think we were hoping Zara would still be open at 10pm.

(Which it was not btw)

Clem was so dissatisfied with his Macs burger! See him roar!

(We don't eat at Macs unless we have absolutely no choice heh)

The 550D rocks major socks <3<3<3

We tried out Bread Society (in Ion) for the 1st time - my Double Cheese bread wasn't the best: it was very hard and tasteless.. Clem's Almond Cream was good! And I like the paperbag a lot haha. :)

Teehee a little narcissistic I know, but I loved my outfit that day :P

WIW: dress from BonitoChico, bag from Tianfenlan, shoes from U.R.S & inc.

Now to bed, before I start work again!

I've literally worked myself to the ground and find myself sick like a duck at the present moment. My voice has all but disappeared and a bad cough's been dogging me for the past week. Dragged myself to the polyclinic (fricking 1-and-half hour wait just to see a doctor who didn't tell me anything I didn't already know GRRRRRR) to get medicine and an MC after the all-nighter I pulled on Weds night to finish compiling my advertising report. (If my group mates massacred it in the short span of time between when I sent it to them and when they submitted it, you will not hear the end of it here I promise.)

Went for Good Friday service at 10am this morning and sat down in front of my lappie to get some work done before I take a nap. It feels good to have a bit of space to breathe this weekend - having done my 5 summaries for my PR issue tracking project to send to He Wei so she can write the background (I'm so hardworking I actually did an extra one to fulfill the "international news source" criterion - so I did 6 in total), and sent Dr Teh my very shoddily thought through Pynchon essay topic, all I have left this weekend are my presentation slides for PR and Governance presentations. I feel pretttttttty accomplished :)

Since there seems to be so much time this weekend for me (it feels a bit strange not to be rushing some piece of work out or the other), I might take the opportunity to cobble together something for the yoyography exercise I am due to present in class on Tuesday. Or, I might start writing my section for the PR issue tracking project. Or, do tonnes of reading so I can start on Utopias essay this week, since it's due next Monday. Or, read the remaining Utopias texts for the final exam next Monday, too. Or, finish up Gravity's Rainbow so I can write my Pynchon essay.

Okay seems like I still have a pretty long list of things to get done. :P
But the nice part is, none of any of that are due on Monday. :):):)

Big pat on the back for myself - now to get well so I can get started on all those other things waiting for me to get through before I can even start studying for the final exams.