*861 - forty-nine pieces of love

49 roses in my room in an array of vases. Reds, pinks, oranges, the occasional white. All lovingly dried and arranged--a scrapbook of the past year.

The prettiest, deep red one: his first rose to me. A dozen of perhaps the prettiest pink roses I've ever seen: his post-dance performance congratulations for being a na-na-na-diva. Half a dozen vibrant orange roses that deserved a vase of their own: six roses for six months. Etc.

I thought they would last forever and I would some day have wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling masses of lovely dried roses in every color.

Well, they've lasted until a few unnaturally humid (for Ithaca) days ago. They went from brittle to saggy in just a few hours! :( And today, cool and dry, has made them turn brittle again--but now in the same saggy form.

Not all are damaged but ... I'm sad :( How will they make it to Boston with me?

*860 - quack

Perhaps the most painful bicycle ride in my life. I tied a sweater over the bicycle seat and forced a grin as I thumped over all the little bumpity-bumps. But still, it was wonderfully picturesque, cycling along the long canal to the quaint little neighboring town, breeze in hair, sun in eyes, boy in tow, and pain in groin.

The ducks were amazingly cute, amazingly hungry, and kinda made me hungry too if I thought too much about duck ... Wish we had ducks in Singapore to feed. Mummy would be so happy.



Well-prepared with bread to feed the ducks!


Rest stop! It looks as though I failed at launching, but I am actually mid air. I think.

*860 - it's official

I'm moving to Boston for a job, and will be staying in the US for the next few years, at least!

:) I can't believe I'm actually staying!! A blessing, really!!

:( My family!! And friends back home!!

*859 - sport

OGMOMGW!?!R!

I don't even watch tennis but I just happened to catch the ending hour or so of the most epic match in history. 11 hours and 5 minutes. This is what playing with your heart means. I almost cried at the end of it.

!!!

*858 - ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!

*857 - flowerpower

Purple and yellow: one of my favorite color combinations, largely because purple and yellow remind me of Liru.



These little yellow flowers were struggling up amidst the strawberries: proof that "weeds" can make our world prettier too!

*856 - the dancer who eats

Having two big passions in your life being (1) dancing and (2) baking / cooking / eating / inhaling food is such an inconvenient contradiction, isn't it? One (most unfortunately) demands a sylphlike physique, the other endeavors to make me jolly and plump.

I guess the solution is to develop a third hobby to help offset the ingested calories, something along the lines of ... becoming a gym rat, cross-country sprinter, brisk walker with the cute waggly hips, obsessive Bukit Timah Hill climber ... something like that. Nah.

*855 - dinner cruise with the parents

It was a rather lovely cruise around Cayuga Lake, right around the time when the sun was setting. Shutter-happy me took a gazillion pictures of the view from the cruise over three hours, which all turned out looking (not too surprisingly) kind of the same. Most of the cruise was filled with little old couples or little old groups of friends, which I thought was terribly endearing. The young, Asian family (the three of us) stuck out like a sore thumb, but oh well! It was nice anyway :) I can't believe I spent three years in Ithaca without sailing across the Cayuga waters!





(This photo is testament to how a good camera can make bad food look good. This molten chocolate cake tasted dismal, in fact.)



(But this photo is testament to how a good camera can't sufficiently capture the true beauty of the beautiful sunset over a lake!)

*854 - missing the parents

Can't stop crying because I miss the parents so much--they left 15 minutes ago. I know I'll see them soon but it's always hard to say goodbye.

*853 - black cafe

By the way, if you're in Singapore and pottering around Raffles Place or Orchard Road and hankering for a good coffee, visit black (there's one at Hitachi Tower and one at TripleOne Somerset: click here) for amazing coffees, home-baked desserts, and fresh-made food. Featured in 8 Days and I-S Magazine.

In particular, try their carrot cake, because it's made from my secret carrot cake recipe that is SO scrumptiously good that it is now against my morals to eat any other carrot cake because all other carrot cakes pale in comparison to this one!! Impossibly moist and bursting with carrot-cake-y, cream-cheese-y goodness. Seriously, try it. As well as everything else on their shelves.

Also, support my dearest sister because she helped open this cafe. Much appreciated if you drop by with a surprise message from her baby sister: "HELLO SIS!!!!!" (extremely loud with extremely large grin, please!)

*852 - frolicking, this time underwater

The underwater Kodak moments from half a year ago in Cancun and half a semester ago in Puerto Vallarta have finally made their way to my eyes. What joy! In the age of digital cameras, we've lost that suspenseful moment when the film has been developed and the carefully taken photos reveal themselves one by one like little treasures being unwrapped.

While snorkeling:





While scuba diving:









Under the waterfall:



And some plain old fun in the swimming pool:

*851 - yet another strawberry photo

Does this lovely mutant strawberry not look exactly like a clenched fist to you?! :)

*850 - how terribly interesting

I just discovered the intrigue of the "follow" function. I've never been the subscribey type of person but there is always a first. Hmm. I suppose it's only useful for blogspot users.

*849 - strawberry fields

Strawberry-picking today was so delightful. We waddled merrily through the strawberry fields, lovingly examining each strawberry for maximum ripeness and plump juiciness, eating a gazillion fresh-picked (and slightly muddy) strawberries along the way. I am especially partial towards the mutant strawberries because they are the strawberries that reject commercialism! Superficiality! Stereotypes of what the ideal strawberry should look like! Anyway. They really are delicious :)

With a slight grimace because they were kinda muddy


One of my lumpy mutants :)


Washing them so we could eat them right away


While driving! ... naww. Given my driving skills, we would not have been quite alive.


Pretty strawberries in the sun :)

*848 - fangirl

After watching fourteen entire cycles of America's Next Top Model (mostly during the last three exam periods), Nicole Fox (cycle 13) is by far my favorite contestant ever, with Elyse Sewell (first cycle) being my next favorite because of her ridiculously fabulous and witty blog (which has since been abandoned, boohoo).

Also, cycle 14 is so bad that I can't even be bothered to watch the finale episode to find out who won.

(Okay, I just did. Meh.)

*847 - bleu de chevre

Who knew that Ithaca had so many hidden gems? We visited Lively Run Goat Dairy and had a blast. Mrs Owner was cute and knowledgeable and let me slice her curds. But the highlight of the trip was definitely the baby kids (just a couple of weeks old)!!! Lively, friendly, nibbly. Cuuuute!!!

Why, hello there.


Slurp.


Say cheese!

*846 - arepas

Cooking tip from Mrs. A: keep cut avocados in the fridge with their pits to prevent discoloration. It actually works!

Fancy arepas with avocado chicken, lemon garlic shrimp, brown sugar roasted ham, munster cheese, romano and parmigiano shavings, and homemade salsa.







It's been WEEKS since I had my last dance class. It's been an abrupt change from hours of dancing every day to near-zero calories burned per day. Eww. Time to hit the gym for the first time in ... a year, perhaps? Running hurts me so bad--just one half hour session is enough to leave me me sadly withered and trembly for days :( How pathetic! But it does me good. Now that's irony.

-

Back from a half hour jog. Huffed and puffed, face as purple as a beet, blister on toe, quivering uncontrollably, and staggering about even more so than when smashed.

*845 - overdose

Nagging and incessant fretting = representation of love. Repeat to self.

Actually, they understand me so much more than one might think.

*844 - frolicking

Through the vineyards:



By the lakeside:



In the fields:



And with the parents looking on serenely (having grown accustomed to my antics over the years):



Also, Mum is mabuk (new Malay word learned tonight) asleep in bed, Dad is perfectly fine, and I am secretly mabuk as well but they don't know heehee. Good thing the Asian glow genes don't run in the family.

Hermann Wiemar Gewurztraminer, delish!! Knocking me out conveniently at midnight, seeing that we're rise-and-shining at 8 in the morning.

Also, I miss you dreadfully.

*843 - graduate

I am now officially a proud Cornell alum. Wow.


The obligatory poised, smiley photograph with the parents.

Yes, the parents are here and it's been tiring but fun. The Meeting of the Parents, waterfalls, picnics, beer, wine, fancy dinners, simple home-cooked meals, bakwa and bahu, beautiful bed and breakfasts, etc. Ten more days till they leave! And who knows what's going to happen after that.


(A tiny little section of the Buttermilk Falls that you have to hike up 153576985067 steps to! Proud of the parents.)