brogue

Replacement oxfords arrived today! ;D
Waait, are they legitimate oxfords? I'm under the impression that leather shoes with decorative detailing are brogues? @_@ Durr haven't learned much despite all the menswere blog I follow (help me out here Gil ;P)

I recall posting about my previous pair, but failed to find it @_@" They were sooooo comfy, like wearing socks haha. But alas the heel is completely worn out. My goal to take care of shoes isn't going so well, my mom comments every chance she gets about my notoriously short footware turnover period.  Let's see how long these last eh?

Continuity

I go to sleep and wake up thinking: "ugh shoulda slept more".
Whoo.

Quotation from current bedtime reading:

"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humour to console him for what he is"

- Francis Bacon

nami

More good songs from the Solanin Songbook! ;D
I'm pretty sure that it's the 3rd most mentioned...eastern literary piece (most specific categorization that encompasses live action movie, anime, and manhwa) on this blog. Honey and Clover being obviously first and likely Ares second. If Lacus is goddess level for David, then Icarus is probably god in my eyes. He's so perfect ahahaa.

Anyways, Solanin!

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

It was good ;__;
Now to sleep on it.

 ...
and to spoil the moment, Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights: Bill C-31. It's similar to SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/whatever new bill some other country decides to put out. 
I really don't get it, on what basis are governments assessing the feasibility of these bills on? Oh right they're not. <_<"

metaphors

Exams are oveeeer. Too bad there's no summer break to follow.

English was just bad. Everyone I asked wrote slightly different versions of the thesis e_e"
Math was pretty easy, no jinxing myself e_e"

I credit my survival to the following items:

• Milk + honey + matcha, aka green tea milk. Feel slightly dumb for not discovering this earlier, obviously did not get the hint from Starbuck's green tea latter.
• Songs by Nujabes, a Japanese hip pop producer and dj. Thank you Tumblr for introducing me. I've had A Day by Atmosphere Supreme, Prayer, and Aruarian Dance on repeat for the past few days. Not the mention the album artwork is just awesome ;D

Time to catch up on rss feeds without feeling guilty *u*
(and of course there's the 3 assignments due next week, ahahahaaa)

vincere

Schoolwork has conquered my desk.
I am so ready to have exams over with. Ugh, June will not be fun at all.



Camera+ is worth the dollar, the filters do a pretty good job. Only complain is that you can't stake them @_@"

happy lunar new year!

via: danbooru. Another awesome picture.

If I was back in China I'd be eating ridiculous amount of foods with relatives and playing cards until the wee mornings. But no, I'm studying for exams "orz

but I did enjoy some authentic 川菜 <3


Baked fish. So, so delicious. Looking forward to eating more of this when I head back this summer.


Chicken, rather hard to find under the immense pile of peppers. This is pretty much a signature dish of the cuisine. Despite how it looks, it wasn't actually all that spicy.


Seafood casserole 锅巴 (not sure what it's called in English, it's just the rice that's stuck to the pot). Made me very happy seeing this dish for the first time outside of China.

"DONT PANIC"

Weekend tasks listed in their order of priority:

• study for math.
• sleep.
• read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe.
• look for a prom dress (tentative on this one). 

and saw a great TED talk (educational procrastination whoo!)



His other talk is amazing too

The opening line is great xD

The two talks have converted me into a fan.
Also just discovered that he's the author of The Architecture of Happiness, which I believe is mentioned in 500 Days of Summer. The 2012 reading list has several new additions.

spins

I couldn't find a good screencap of Takemodo's spinning bicycle wheel, so the ferris wheel will have to do. I'm not exactly sure of my intentions placing the image here.

That was a good 261 days.

rosemary hill

/start being even more of a hermit.
English and advance functions finals are in a week, wahoo!

As always, filler materials for the blog:


I do not get the mv, and wiki's on SOPA blackout e_e" It'd be disastrous if the bill was to be passed. 

king of a nutshell

I have a confession to make,
after all these years of hating on sweatpants, I must admit that they serve their intended purpose well. Lounging at home with sweatpants on sure is comfy *u*
But I still feel strongly about never wearing them outside of the house.

Also this is a great manga: Gin no Yuusha (...silver hero?)
It's seriously heart warming, enough to pull me out of a post physics test depression (this and the test I got 80 on are really the only two times I recall being extremely sad so far in the school year). The art is also great to boost, the mini dragons are adorable *kya*

arrow of time

I think I've figured out my purpose for keeping a blog for this long.
It is to provide the me in the future a good laugh.

So I was going through my old tumblr posts trying to find good resolution images and came across these 2 gems which I now find hilarious:

Q: when is the best time to tell someone you love him/her?
A: before someone else

and

The world can't end today, it's already tomorrow in Australia.

Literally stared at myself in the mirror laughing for a good thirty seconds. I'm lame I know hahaaaa.

good times man, good times.

6-3b-a / 7

hurr durr.
To get my mind off the one question that I did not get on my math test, I read a seven page essay on the morality of eating lobster (by David Foster Wallace, familiar name but don't remember exactly what he wrote and didn't bother to google).
All that ran through my mind was English exam stuff, what is the thesis? what is the function of this paragraph? are there any rhetorical devices? "orz

I feel great doing completely irrelevant stuff the rest of the night though ;D

eg. drooling over this gorgeous photo from Nina Ricci's Pre-Fall (via vogue.com)

This would be my outfit once Rui and I have enough money to rent a studio apartment in Paris for a week. I would "live in the Louvre and on macaroons" (and of course other delicacies, hey I'd be getting exercise from all the walking!).

Another getaway would be to the English countryside (especially this hotel). Sigh the places I'll go if I have money (and time, which seems to be mutually exclusive).

Need a good system to manage all my saved links. Currently it's bookmarking to Instapaper, but that doesn't support a lot of metadata. Also not very motivating to manually browse through pages of links. Any suggestions? Preferably in webapp form (debating on evernote, but thinking of something akin /lolenglishclassjoke/ to pintrest but more geared towards links?)

Oh and I want to print a selection of my tumblr likes in business card size (mainly because the image resolution isn't constant). Stuck on a method to display them though @_@ There's probably not enough (or too expensive) to fill up a whole wall. Hmmm.

This rambling post is evident of a day's break I have between my tests (Y).

multiple choice

Is stress eating or stress shopping worse?
Easier to lose weight or easier to make money back? Does extra fat compound, credit card debt certainly does.

durrr. Been doing almost nothing but math for this week. All there left to do is pray to log that I do well. Chem average rose to 95 though ;D Although it isn't final transmission mark, still relieving.

Relating the two is the half an hour I spent on Etsy browsing through various leather pouches, which is my latest obsession. They look soooo niceeee *u* And I assume good quality too, if leather was able to protect the innards of a cow, then it should be sufficient for whatever stuff I have.



first // second (herringbone!) // third (especially handsome, heck everything in that shop looks amazing. Gonna buy a camera strap there once I can afford my X-10.)

Oh the list of things I'll buy once I have money xD

log

Two videos to fill blog up while I stress over math:


filmed in Type Bookstore in Toronto.
Good marketing right here! Makes me want to visit, shall dump into trip to the paper store with Grace. Must remember to make concrete plans for that.


Short film by Masaaki Yuasa (whom I know as the director of Kaiba). Found via tumblr, which the description "moving, beautiful, and slightly traumatic".
(Y)

天天向上

"Vegeta, whats the engineering tuition?" 
"It's over 9000!"

this is Ryan and mine motivation to do well in university.
It will be up on a banner in our rooms.

oh gosh xD

in other news:
Got my headphones!
It actually arrived on Dec 14, but concierge did not put up a notice so I thought the package got lost. After sending an inquiry to EZ Shop, I figured out the fault actually lies in the concierge. I would recommend this seller, my item was actually shipped earlier than estimated and they replied to me within a day :]

Spent the majority of my second week camping out at David's house with Donna, our official unofficial office.  Full Credits is coming along, long chains of email at a time xD Planning a venture takes so much time and effort haha, good experience though. Also quite fun hanging out with them, we get off (to interesting) topics too often~

annnnd back to school tomorrow. Should have perhaps started reviewing for math sooner.
Projected assignments:
English - IRP notes, with a better format this time.
Math - test and then exam. Will get perfect on those, cannot let mark drop! D<
Chem - lab report durrr
Physics - test, hopefully not in the first week (especially not on same day as math T_T)
Earth & Space - major project. Ugh, don't wanna teach about planets, can't we move onto more interesting subjects? D:

sleeping early!

camel paper

A new period of obsession with stationary items has begun @__@" Spent the past evenings rummaging through various stationary blogs and forums.

Item of desire: Midori Traveler's Notebooks (specifically the 5th anniversary edition)

What I can only hope mine will look like ^

Another promotional image with other Midori products

Sooooo pretty *u* and soooo expensive too. Quite hard justifying spending $50 on a notebook even if it's really nice leather. Oh there's refills (apparently the paper is of good quality according to reviews) and add-ons too, easily more money spent "orz

Also the additional hurdle of already owning (way) too much notebooks. While the majority of them is too impractical for everyday use, I still have a bunch of moleskines (previous notebook obsession). So I have assigned scheduling work to my planner (which is showing signs of age, though ungracefully) and creative/list-making to this future notebook. Heck I even came up with names for the two, albert (Einstein) for moleskine and niels (bohr) for TN.

Satisfying conclusion is that I will look for them in stores when I visit HongKong. If by then I have not blown my budget, I shall purchase one.
(If all fails, come back and order online xD)

2012 goals

Cause New Years resolutions like exercising more and being a better person (not that I wouldn't want to do both) are too vague and are never accomplished anyways.

1. 95% scholarship average. 
This is going to be a tough battle "orz Gonna have to keep math and English up (log test, adv func exam, english exam, death over hamlet essay etc), while stop being stupid in sciences. It is entirely possible to get 100% on every physics test and can at least aim for 95%+ on chem tests. And then there's calc...

2. Early (pre-april) acceptance.
Slightly difficult as engineering admission would want to see my calc midterm mark. All that can be done is done, focus efforts on goal one.

3. Have a beautiful place to live in for uni. 
Gonna be exciting living on my own for the first time :] Though the excitement will likely be displaced by complaints of doing my own cleaning in a month. Nonetheless, looking forward to DECORATING *u* Gonna hang photos on strings, prints from accumulated dA favourites, lantern lights, have way too many jars etc etc. Too much inspiration from tumblr haha.

Also edit closet and general belongings. Less stuff I have less stuff I have to clean >D

4. Figure out an adaptable plan for uni. 
Yeah I realize that my identity is very much built around academics right now xD So far I'm progressing nicely on this, already gone through the civil eng department's course list and planned out my summers:

• gr 12: determine which extracurriculars to participate in (aiming for some sort of position in EngSoc, perhaps class rep?), textbooks, explore the area.
• year 1: take extra courses, or in case that I don't have the prereqs, internship. I could always take misc interesting courses (prob some language courses? or ancient chinese lit LOL) if I can't take minor requirements.
• year 2: internship or extra courses if I didn't get the chance in year 1. I figure that I'm more likely to land a position if I have more knowledge, especially since 7/8 first year courses are general ones.
• year 3: likely going to be my PEY year, so prep for that. Otherwise a summer exchange will be amazing. Really want to go to Kyoto haha. 
• year 4: TRAVEL! Blow all the money made from PEY haha. Europe or Asia, yet to decide. 
• year 5: graduate and job search "orz 

 5. Deliver on projects
Not really a goal but a must do xD FullCredits is slowly being put together. Should start thinking about personal domain. Also should update resume, almost forgot about a lot of involvements for supp apps.

6.  And somehow fit in hobbies
Last but certainly not least (oh the cliche), read more, draw more, game more. Debating whether to start attacking the self compiled reading list or some classics, should set a goal of hmm, a book a month?
From the top of my head (and telegraph.uk):

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams: shame that I haven't read this.
• A Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez: I considered taking PoCo just so I can't procrastinate on reading this.
• Something by Kafka, recommended by English teacher. Considering Metamorphosis. 
• Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy: bought this ages ago, should start on it. 
• Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
• Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• Light in August - William Faulkner
• 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami: gotta see what all the hype is about.