and back

from Republica Dominicana

aka the (tourism orientated portion of) land of abundant vitamin R(um) and every shop keeper is named cheapycheapy.

Don't have much photos myself, so will have to wait till the family friends send them over. Posts will be delayed. Happy belated holidays? XD



helloooooo to twenty eleven!

Jetting off

...to the Dominican Republic!
In roughly 7 hours.

Waking up at 3:30am. More like not sleeping until tomorrow night, funn.

Mom is forbidding me to bring my laptop, so I will be away from the interweb for a whole week. Informal digital detox haha.
Pretty lucky that the main mangas that I follow just got updated. Noblesse (specifically Seira) was awesome, other webcomics are good, Arcana and Masca are progressing, but omg Ciel left such a cliffhanger "orz
Instead I've armed myself with Bloom's Macbeth Notes, Becker's Denial of Death, (the 2 aforementioned cause I gotta prep for english essay) and an architectural magazine.

Back on topic.
Luggage is all carry-on, very proud of this fact. Hoping all of gritaly will fit into carry-on as well.

My plan is to swim for an hour everyday. "exerciseeeee!" Please don't fail me willpower. Also wanna try some cocktails (highfive Rui! ;D). Otherwise, r&r and forget about you all trapped in the cold~


Oh and

in advance.
(photo courtesy of Linnee)

ps: don't you hate it when a nail polish has the pwettiest colour but streaks like mad? "orz

Minecraft con't

Beta just rolled around, imma wait a few days (1.5 week since I'm going away) for the bugs to clear up.

Instead, let's admire Sky City some more ;D


Sunrise!
My house has a really great view of the sunset, will get a picture of that soon.


Another night shot, believe I did not fall down this time but was making stairs.


Not much of a living space, planning on making a beach house on a neighbouring island soon.


Finally a daytime shot XD

Tron Legacy

link to trailer since making it fit the layout of my blog would greatly diminish the quality.

ohhh my goshhhh the graphics! *u*
In Roy's words: "mind numbing graphics!"

Story is alright; predictable, a bit cheesy, but still pretty good.

Graaaaaphics!

Sound is pretty good too, Daft Punk's helmets are awesome.

GRAPHICS.
It's visual porn. Though I would not want to be the ones doing the fx.

Go watch it :]
(and get me a lightcycle for christmas)

Progression of mood

Not exactly mood.

tired->alright->tired->impatient->really full->thirsty but really full->really crappy.
blahhh.

I like the shirt and ring I bought though.
Distractions~

Being materialistic

Just got my cast card today for work! Free mooooovies~

Very sad that I am missing boxing day this year, so I shall make myself feel better (and plan for the January clearance) by making a semi realistic list of all the things I would spend my hard earned (and butter splattered) money on:

1. iPhone 5
I also don't like the 4, but for different reasons than Donna haha. New rectangular shape is so ugly e_e" Also prefer it to be a tad slimmer, so will wait on the 5.
That or a blackberry bold. But more people have the iPhone, so bbm will be less useful. Also less apps.

2. Urban Decay Naked Palette

This better be in stock for Gritaly or I will be very very very very very sad.
Both sephora AND UD's website is outof stock, really? -o-
(swatches in this post)

3. Zen 01 Bento Box

Does that not look beautiful :'D? Been looking for a stainless steel lunch box for the loooongest time.

The Nara is gorgeous too, but it's so fragile, handwash only and no microwaving (well same for Zen too "orz).
Those two are waaay expensive, so the Fresco is a more realistic option.

4. Moo Mini Cards
Having a business card just seems so professional, I just gotta do something worthy to put on it XD

5. Guerlain Aqua Allegoria

I forgot which one I liked, so here's them all ;D
The packaging probably has equal amount of influence on my purchasing decision as the product itself (badddd), and Guerlain has some of the prettiest bottles~
Also terrible fond of Miss Dior Cheri.

The only problem is I don't remember to use perfumes, it would be a huge waste of money.
(On second thought, if I am ever rich, I will collect Guerlain's perfumes.)

6. Les Tissages de Chanel Blush Duo Tweed Effect (in Pink)

I'm a blush girl. Will refrain from listing all the blushes I want.

---------------------------below is a wish list--------------------------------------

7. Mulberry Bags
Bayswater for Macbook 13" (in oak natural)
Lily (in light peach hairhalf)
Margaret Minibag (in drizzle ostrich)
My taste for bags has moved onto more structured and boxy styles, also mini crossbody bags *u*

8. Globe-Trotter Orient Luggage

I think the image speaks for itself. It cost $1060 euro. I will get it someday.

9. Mauviel Copper or Lecruset Signature Oval Dutch Oven
Win-win situation as I get my cookware and you get food ;D
A Kitchen-Aid stand mixer would be up there as well, except hand creaming butter and sugar together slowly grew on me.

10.Tiffany & Co


Tiffany Vines mug
I really want this cup ($40), stupid to buy one from Tiffany's though "orz

Jewelry wise:

Jean Schlumberger Rope bracelet


Tiffany Signature™ Pearl bracelet


Diamonds by the Yard® Bracelet

The charm bracelets with sea themed charms are also adorable.


Four Leaf Clover charm and chain
You know I have to post this XD


Paloma Picasso® Hammered Heart pendant
I have a thing for hammered finish, a thin hammered gold bracelet or ring would look wonderful too *u*


Crown Charm and Chain


Forgot to take down the name of this ring and isn't about to go through 37 pages again. It's Moroccan inspired though.

Almost going through the entire catalog helped me discover a lot of my preferences. Gold > silver/white gold/platinum, in terms of looks. Angular cuts of diamond with a simple band.

The more outrageous items I saw were a $300 spoon, a $6000 water pitcher, a $46000 bracelet, and a $6000000 diamond ring,


Yes this is what I spent my night doing.

First peek at Minecraft

I usually post about a game before or right when I start playing it,
but I didn't want to show you guys Minecraft without my creations in it.

Most of the stuff was built by Lyndon, Jason, and James, the waterfall house is my little contribution to our cloud city.

All the photos are from one view point...because I was stupid and fell "orz
and it's becoming night time, so everything's a tad dark.
Neverless, admireeeeeeee.





blueprints
Only bad thing about minedraft is that sometimes the blocks don't move properly when you pan, causing missing rows.

days of cookie

(Title comes from a series of posts from Lottie+Doof titled 12 days of cookies, one of my favourite food blogs)

I have not really touched my oven after the crazy amount of bake sales last year.
Until now.

Christmas season translates into bundling up and eating lots season, the latter starts with baking cookies and cakes.

Banana cake for co-op office:



Sorry for the crappy photos, at the point in time when the bread was done baking, my need for sleep overwhelmed my food photography (and later editing) pride.

I didn't have a taste of it, but according to a super nice email sent by my supervisor, it was pretty good. She could have been polite, but I'm just gonna let my ego grow.

Wrapped up some chocolates for school friends the same night. (I ditched minecraft for this! ;_;)

+more ego for nice ribbon tying.

Lastly today was spent loafing around in David's and Jason's house. Baked some peanut butter/oatmeal/chocolate cookies to up everyone's sugar levels. (I still really like that photo, very sharp ;D though the colour could be a tad more vibrant).

Spent my day mining gravels in Minecraft, laughing at people fail playing Starcraft 1 with my trackpad, snapping, I mean janicing, other people's hotpackz, and listening to Jason play the piano.
Payon > Prontera's theme.

renee

An interesting quotation from The Elegance of the Hedgehog

For millennia now, by way of 'knowing thyself' to 'I think therefore I am', mankind has been rambling on about the ridiculous human preorgative that is our consciousness of our own existence and above all the ability of this consciousness to make itself its own object. When something itches, a man scratches and is aware that he is scratching. If you ask him 'what are you doing?', he will reply 'I'm scratching myself'. If you push your questioning a bit further (are you aware that you are conscious of the fact that you are scratching yourself?), he will again reply 'yes', and thus ad infinitum to as many are-you-aware-and-conscious questions as you wish. Does this, however, leave the man with any less of itch to know that he is scratching and is aware of it? Can reflective consciousness have a beneficial influence on he order of the itching? Nay, not in the slightest.

Lots of reading material to prep for english essay :]

Indiana Limestone

I am done schoolwork for the year. The craftsmenship of it is so bad that I'm almost ashamed of it. Almost because it's still not enough for me to want to redo it. Lesson to be learned is to use ModPodge instead of diluted white glue. Water will always make paper wrinkle, you will not win.

There's a physics quiz tomorrow, but thats what lunch time is for.

I am reeeeeally bad at moving around in Minecraft. This is a problem XD

full on pho

Went to Trainhead, a pho restaurant, for Austin's birthday celebration today.

Melody challenged all the men to get x-large, David wanted everyone's leftovers; both of them didn't exactly live up to their goal XD

Had a mini pepper eating contest afterward, Lyndon was the obvious winner. Apparently he trained himself on wasabi everytime he was bored waiting for his parents to finish talking after dinner.
Qiqi and I took it pretty well, we were tearing up but managed to stay seated.
Kevin didn't really count as he only ate one.
Jason and Ryan on the other hand, were hilariooooooous. I get to laugh at them since I went through the same thing ;P Ryan promptly ran to the washroom after biting off half of an pepper. Jason stayed at the table for a few moments while displaying extremely agonizing emotions, but had to retreat to the washroom as well. However, he came back quickly as Ryan used up all of the sink's water XD

After various tries at toning down the spiciness, I have come up with a effectiveness list of various items that were at the restaurant. In order from the best to least:

1. Sucking on a wedge of lime. Completeeeely neutralized it, except this was the last method I tried, so it is slightly biased.
   
2. Having a breath mint. Seemed a little counter-intuitive, but works pretty well. Thank you Laurie for having a pack on hand.
3. Ice water. Didn't try this myself, but seeing as Ryan spent a good amount of time rinsing his mouth, I'd say it works decently.
4. Milk tea. The milk part helps, the tea part....
5. Tea. Bad, very bad. Makes it worse imo.
   
6. Doing nothing. It's not TERRIBLY bad, just really numbing. My lower eyelid started quivering haha.
   

Walked to Baskin Robin's afterwards for some ice cream cake. The men were having snowball fights during the walk, several people were head-shot XD We ordered a brownie cake which we ate by scooping. It has become the default method in which the group eats cake.

Happy belated birthday Austin :]

gear ratios

Things like this make me believe that I will enjoy being an engineer.

__________

In another not-feeling-like-doing-anything-blahhhhhhh mood/period. Especially not blogging.
Ideal activity = stare outside window with yummy drink in hand.
From past experience, it's best to wait it out. I'll fall behind on work either way, will play catch-up later.
I tend the overestimate how long I need to do something, work on it, procrastinate, underestimate when the deadline's a few days away and somehow catch-up. Hopefully this time as well.

sleeping it off~

french ultramarine

I realized that recently instead of days and weeks, I count time by tasks.
Dunno how many times I've said to people "I'll do that after I finish Shad".

WELL NOW I'M DONE.
except when I'm done before the actual deadline, I enter paranoid zone. Need to look over essay more, it's sooooo crappy.
Giardine is very correct in not giving too much time for assignments.

*will upload finished creative piece later tonight*
I was on-time ish according to my previous previous post. I finished it on friday minus one light wash of red.

One and a half week to do job board, this will be fun "orz

Minion

Janice's birthday celebration yesterday, went to watch Megamind followed by dinner at Ichiban.
T'was first time using perks from my job.

Megamind was adorable! Dreamwork's intoduction animation is getting fancier and fancier haha.
I felt accomplished when I recognied the Hamlet reference when Megamind (Ferrell) said to MetroMan (Pitt): "speak apparition!" ;D Mondorw must be proud as well haha.
(My holiday will be spent reading Macbeth in prep for the giant-ass essay "orz)
Highly recommended!

Dinner afterwards was nice as well. There was a corporate Christmas party in the room next to our table. It waaaay drawfed our Sushi Fun outing.
Tried salmon (sake) and tuna (maguro) sushi for the first time. Raw fish just never seemed very appealing. Steven, Jason and I shared a medium sushi and maki boat, so I had to eat my share haha. They didn't really have a taste, the texture was nice though. Ordered a yaki u-don as well, it smelled really nice but only tasted average.

I'll get you a gift eventually ;D

bamboo

I believe(hope) that posting my draft will motivate me to finish it tmrw.



Rough & planning for my Shad creative page. It's bamboo in multimedia.
Sidenote: my art teacher is right, darker lines look a lot better.

The finished product will(better) look amazing.

9+2+12+1

Happy Birthday Janice!

and now my belated report card post:

Info Tech (business course): 97 (easy course, so chill as well <3)
English: 87 (blah, english teachers. stubborn people they are)
Co-op: 95 and 88. (The 88 is suppose to be 92, teacher didn't change it in time.)
Chem: 89 (Will work harder to bring this up)
Tech: 100 HAR HAR HAR
Physics: 98 (yay, Caruana is awesomee)
Math: 82 (this is really sad. Shad ppl are gonna go 'wtf')
----------------------------
Avg: 92

It will be 1.4% higher without math. I'm saaaaaaad.

edit: co-op is updated to 92,
so avg is now 92.5, same as last term ;D