*500 - THE FINALS ARE OVER :D

In the last week or so, I handed in 4 papers and took 3 finals, and I'm done I'm done I'm done :D

Since my last paper on Friday morning, I did a million loads of laundry, vacuumed, etc (other domestic things), listened to Nicholas' amazing pi pa performance, sent dearest Nicholas off BOOHOO, had my last Appel dinner with Inchy, rushed back and stuffed half my wardrobe into a suitcase, struggled down to Valentine Place with Wentong, invaded Kenneth's room, had Earl come over with dried mangoes and a (really good) guitar demonstration, back to Balch this morning to get another suitcase-ful of stuff, had my very very last dining hall meal with Katie and Wentong, back to Balch to vacate it totally, struggled back to VP, went to P Mall and Tops to buy groceries, struggled back to VP, bought air tickets, and no one except me is reading anything I type anymore.

To sum: finals are over, the semester is over, and we have officially been kicked out of our dorms.

It's pretty much a ghost town right now, cos everyone's back in their homes except strange people like me and Wentong living in VP. Oh well! I have much to do to keep me occupied for the next week or so, before I fly off to Houston, and then to Mexico :D Exciting! I can't wait.

I'm really really tired now; moving out was pretty intense physical exertion, as was being constantly on the go. Sitting here feels so good. My legs are happy. I am sleepy. I have a feeling I'm tired also because I haven't properly recuperated from the exam period, when I was sleeping at (earliest) 3 am every night (morning).

Tomorrow shall be my take-a-break-and-stagnate day. Besides, we're probably going to be snowed in. Predictions of a snow storm tomorrow. Result: many flights cancelled. Poor things.

Two photos before I drop off to sleep.

Snowy view from my window at Balch



Preparing for hibernation



Off to hibernate as well. Zzz.

*499 - return of ELISA AND EVELYN!!

"We'll probably have to augment her breasts, they're a bit pointy."

(We were talking about mannequins.)

Elisa and Evelyn will be coming back into business soon!! I'm rather scared to send out the email to our mailing list, because I don't know what to expect - zero sales, or a deluge?

Not all of our old designs are back up, but we've got a couple of new ones, and a whole new exciting section that actually WON'T be up until we get our mannequin with the pointy breasts that are in need of augmentation.

I'm excited.

:D

(The irony is that I'm in the middle of my finals week as we gear up for our fabulous re-launch.)

-

10 minutes later...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
SEND SEND SEND ARLEADY"

(We were talking about sending out our "welcome back" email to our mailing list.)

Omg.

People, ELISA AND EVELYN ARE BACK.

-

The next morning...

All my cute clay earrings have sold out!! ):





I didn't know they would be so popular!!

Maybe I'll make more, but they're not worth the $15 I priced them at - looking at the (literally) days that I took to make each of them, I would have priced them at something like $25 instead haha, but that would have been totally unreasonable.

(SHARON, sorry about that, and thank you!! :D )

*498 - inspiration

HA 174 Business Computing lecture.

Doodle --> Earring.

(It's harder than you think making connecting circles out of one piece of wire!)

*497 - mish mash of events

The past few days have been crazy hectic.

Weekend: rehearsals and Pandora Released!! :D

Much love to everyone who came to watch us! I had so much fun performing. And it's been really challenging, which was the exciting part: now I know how to do decent straddle leaps, reverse split leaps, switch leaps, triple turns, fouettes, etc. It's great. And I actually ventured out of my comfort zone (think: lyrical, graceful, slow) and totally rocked it out :D Fun fun fun.

Lovin' the storm



Pandora girls!



Pandora Hotelies! :D (That's, like, 1/3 of Pandora haha.)



Photos courtesy of Earl! :D More when I have the time. Don't worry Earl, you'll feature front-page soon ;)

Monday & Tuesday & Today: back to reality ):

Finished up an 18-page business computing report which stressed both me and my poor laptop out. Slept at 3 every night, and so imagine my horror when I woke up this morning at 11 when the paper was (physically) due at the Statler at noon. Bundled up, rushed down, printed my report once wrongly (forgot to make it double sided), printed my report again but with an error this time (my pictures all turned out black), printed my report again and zipped off to submit it with 10 minutes to spare. (:

Other eggciting events

Noteworthy moment #1: Skype-ing with my dearest Smaddyo, who couldn't figure out how to work her webcam ): For some strange reason, I ended up performing strange modern dance bird movements in the middle of my room under the (verbal-only) instruction of Maddy. "Raise your left arm ... 5, 6, 7, 8 ... now wiggle your fingers and lower yourself to the ground ..." Bizarre!!



I <3 Maddy

Noteworthy moment #2: Skype-ing with the family, who have moved into the NEW HOUSE! :D It's really beautiful and I can't wait to go back to a new home and have parties on the rooftop terrace thingy.

Sister says: "when you live in this house it's a very new and special feeling coz of all the glass, i love drawing back the curtains facing the atrium in the morning, and opening my eyes to soft daylight, and peering downstairs to see who's up. it's all very exhibitionist and open, you can even see the silhouettes of the parents when they bathe, but they don't know yet hahaha and i shant tell them sekali they shy."

Sister's hilarious. House's gorgeous (though in a mess at the moment).





Noteworthy moment #3: I was getting ready for bed at about 3 am, when Pebbly suddenly told me to look out my window because it was really pretty outside. So I did, and it was snowing really really hard, and we impulsively decided to go and play in the snow. At 3 am. So, I leapt out of my jammies, rushed outside to the courtyard to meet Pebbly, and we made snow angels and our virgin snowman! (As in, it was our first snowman ever.) Really cute. Froze our asses off and retired back to our dorms at 3.30 am. Fun times. Photos another time.

And now ...

... I have a Snow paper to write that's due tomorrow at 10 am, and an OB report due Monday, Business Computing final on Friday, Human Development final next Thursday, and Micro-Econ final on Friday. And that will be the end of the term.

Whoop-dee-doo.

Break over, back to work.

*496 - broken heart

It seems to me               that maybe
It pretty much al          ways means no
So don't tell me you         might just let it go
Actually, I can't study wi      th music on. Nor sleep.
There is one thing about J       ack Johnson though.
I bought this CD for mo     re reasons than one.
but really I wou     ld give anything
almost     anything
alm     ost
t   o
.

*495 - i wanna go home

Just had a couple of hours of rehearsals and I'm whacked. I can't believe our show's tomorrow!! :D Pandora Released. (Which is kind of funny because Evil was released from Pandora's Box, and only Hope remains. From what I remember about Greek mythology.) I'm a little nervous because in RGS/RJC we would practice and practice and practice until there was no possibility of anyone screwing up in the dance, but here, we've practiced about 1/4 as much and the show's tomorrow. Wow.

Wrote that yesterday, but forgot to continue. Dance performance today!!

There are so many random things I've been meaning to talk about: Dr Carroll's $50 giveaways, Black Friday, Thanksgiving break, highlight of the week (talking to dearest LIRU), last week of classes, SNOW (everything's white!!), Christmassy things, settlers, new house back in Singapore (pretty!), study break, projects, finals, ...

But meh. Feeling under the weather all over again, and that has nothing to do with the fact that it's -8 degrees C now.

Really thankful for the very coincidentally timely call from Kenneth last night (even though we ended up talking about his gf for the most part hehe), because it came just at the moment when I was on the verge of crying myself to sleep. Reminder that God makes all things beautiful (everything good, everything wonderful). And puts great people in my life as well. Yup.

Sent an SOS text as well and I think Josh must be sick of me and my whining but I also think he is one of the few who understands without me saying anything for the simple reason that he was part of the whole mess and must be going through what I am though in a completely different way. Either that or he could be just humouring me heh. But whatever it is, his little piece of advice has been running through my head on repeat since 2 am last night, and though it is easier said than done, I think that's eventually what I'll have to do.

More cupcakes for Josh haha.

And now I'm crying again but that's because mummy sent me the best email ever.

"Of course I too miss you very dearly. When you said you're homesick, I also cried and I'm crying now. For all these 19 years, I've been taking care of you and now I miss "mummying" you. It's hard to let go of my children. Yes, Evelyn, mummy misses you. Take care. Mummy loves you."

I just wanna go home.

I even checked out the ticket prices, but I can't afford to spend S$3000 on going home for 2 weeks. Since I already made plans to go to Cancun in January. Sigh.

I really do wanna go home.

*494 - i miss, i miss, i miss

I never found my camera again, so I bought myself a new one. It's the same one because the "better" versions were a lot chunkier and uglier.

Welcome back to my lovely sleek pink Lumix!

And here are the first few pictures I took with the new camera. I took them through the window pane, and this is what you get when you look out of a window of a 4th floor classroom in Statler. (ie. botak trees)





-

Desperately missing the family. As much as I took them for granted for 19 years of my life, being away from home really forced me to realize just how much my family has always been there for me.

Daddy. He's my wall. We take walls for granted because they're just there, but then they're there quietly holding up the entire building. In my eyes, daddy's invincible. If something goes wrong, daddy's always there to fix it up and make things okay.

Mummy. She's the cutest mummy ever, she's so sweet and caring and loving and nurturing, and she's everything a mummy should be. When I'm a mummy, I want to be just like her.

Joel. The big brother everyone wishes they had. The big brother who looks out for me from afar - not enough to baby me, but enough to let me know he's there.

Elisa. The best sister in the world. I don't even know how to explain why, because there are too many things she does that really really make her the best sister in the world.

Strange. I'm just sitting here thinking about my family and sobbing away. Seems like it took three months for the homesickness to truly sink in.

*493 - mixed emotions

:)? :(?

:(.

*492 - team reports

I submitted a 25-page report this morning and a 72-page report half an hour ago. SEVENTY-TWO FRIGGIN PAGES.

Doing a victory dance around Cornell now.

:D :D :D

*491 - dancing amongst the trees

Frolicking in the Arts Quad some time back right after dance practice, when the leaves were still mostly green and when one could actually walk around in a t-shirt.

*490 - email from Mumsies ...

" ... My biggest joy was to see how much you have matured in this short period of time. You sound so confident, express yourself so well and listen so attentively to what we had to say, more patient with us and so cheerful. You look slim and healthy. I'm so happy that we made the right choice to send you to Cornell."

Aww Mumsies ...

:')

Reminded me that the parents put in so much to get me here, and I really have to make the most out of my experience here.

*489 - back to baking

My first time baking in Cornell: white chocolate cupcakes with white and blue vanilla frosting (: Yuanhong/Pebbly helped with icing some. He really has some talent, I was so impressed!

Unfortunately, I still don't have a camera, so we had to settle for crappy webcam pictures.



1. Pebbly and I with the cupcakes!
2. The bunny that I'm really proud of
3. It's snowing!
4. Pebbly the engineer (spot: pencil behind ear) and Evelyn the pig

Significance of #3: I was meaning to bake cupcakes to give to my friends in my Snow class on Wednesday - the last Snow class!! So, I decided to test my cupcake baking/icing techniques out just in case they had left me.

The icing was kind of weird, probably because I bought a slab of not-butter that claimed "I am not butter". It sort of crystallized and tasted weird. I thought it would be a healthier alternative, but I guess I'm sticking to real butter from now :P

Baking for the first time is expensive ... you can imagine how much money I had to spend on buying everything, from an entire tin of salt (for that pinch that I used in the cupcakes) to electric beaters to measuring cups and spoons. Good investment though. I missed baking (:

-

Couple of (terribly) overdue replies:

Sarah I miss you too!! Of course I will <3
Bernice Aww, eco-friendly cupcakes, just as I baked some (: Hehe! How's life?
Banana <3 <3 <3 <3
Maddy <3 <3 <3 <3 (By the way, the family's moving in a week or so, I think.)
Emerson Thanks, God is great (:
Passerby The camera I used was a Lumix. It was a sexy camera. Haha! Thanks (:
Jingwen OEI I MISS YOU what have you been up to?

*488 - black friday

I think I spent more than US$300 today :\

*487 - blockheads

Finally got to Skype with the family again today (: Nice!

And I realized that one resource I totally forgot to tap on when I was looking for internships and stuff was my very own daddy. I only wish that I could get involved in the IRs but they're probably not going to be doing much when I'm back for summer next year.

Anyway, my sister and I have never looked alike. In fact, I've never looked remotely like any of my siblings.

EXCEPT FOR TODAY.



Blockheads Elisa and Evelyn :D

And here are the parents laughing over their blockheads' antics (:

*486 - break's here!

I think the weather knows that today's the start of Thanksgiving break - it's warm and sunny and positively delightful. 14 degrees. I can hardly believe it. Yay (:

Just got back from our Snow presentation. I'm so glad that's over. Huddling over our laptops in my room until past midnight for the past few days was no fun at all. Nor was walking back to Statler at 9 pm yesterday to practice till midnight for our presentation. Now all we've got to do is to write a 1914832 page report by next week :\

(Who said Hotelies don't do work?)

Here's to 4.5 days of much-needed break :D

*485 - constants

Random nothings have been setting off those tear glands lately. Trudging back from dance one cold Saturday morning, in the middle of worship, in the shower, heck, even in the Statler library while writing an emo letter to nobody in particular.

It's kind of strange how I've become such an emotional wreck. I think it's the whole fragility of being so far away from the comforts and familiarities of home - you are plunged into a new environment where you start off with close to nothing, you develop new constants in your life, you cling like hell to them because they're all you have, but when they're wrenched away from you, you're left flailing, empty, vulnerable.

Psalms 34:18.

*484 - gone

The past week or so has been almost too much for me to bear. I'm at breaking point now, and if just one more thing happens, I don't know what I would do.

I don't know whether I'll ever see you again. But most importantly, I hope you get better. It hurt me to see you sick. Maybe one day we'll meet again, maybe when you set up that hotel in Singapore, with that squashed up "S" for the logo ;)

It's hard to say goodbye, even when you know it's for the best.

-

Really thank God for the people who've been keeping me sane. I haven't really told anyone what exactly happened, but his dad and Josh knew everything, and they really, really helped.

Especially after crying my eyeballs out last night and not daring go back to my dorm and be alone. Slept on the couch with a headache and swollen eyes, woke up at 4 am to see biggie and his huge cigar staring down at me, completely lost my cool, and ran to shake poor Josh awake. I'm such a baby.

And then I totally teared up in front of Brownell today when we were discussing how to go about completing our group project minus one member, and that was horribly embarrassing.

-

In other news, it snowed.

*483 - (: and ):

I don't think you even realize when you're being mean and make me feel like crying. I don't think you ever noticed when my eyes welled up with tears.

But that's okay (:

-

I had the most bizarre night a couple of days ago. At around 1 am, Kenneth, Joel and Simian drove up to Balch, and we bought a bunch of fries, subs, and hot chocolates. I forced everyone to sit under the big tree in the middle of the lawn, in the dark, and have a picnic with me. It was awesome - I mean, how many people have actually had a picnic on the grass at 1 am (and in their winter coats)? :D

Other strange things happened that night, including sprinting with Joel after the bus from NY (and splashing hot chocolate all over him in the process) to catch Jingxiong, missing Jingxiong and sadly giving up on seeing him, then discovering Yuanhong at RPCC buying chocolate, and then discovering Jingxiong at RPCC buying a sub. You have to realize this was near 3 in the morning, which is not the time you expect your friends to be randomly walking around.

Also, I lost my camera some time between taking a photo of everyone under the big Balch tree and settling down in RPCC. I'm terribly upset because it was a pretty decent camera, and it was PINK. Haha ): I'm going to wait a while and see if it turns up anywhere; if it doesn't, I'll just buy the same camera again because I already have the battery, charger, memory card, and wire thingy. Sigh. What a waste.

-

Studying has been hard; I know I can't blame it on anyone but myself for being distracted, but I've just been sooo distracted by everything that's been going on in my life. I've been totally moody and constantly kind of upset over the past few days, but I do think that things are slowly going back to normal now, and everyone's getting better, so. No excuses anymore. I have to work hard for the finals, because I haven't been doing as well as I had hoped to for my second round of prelims. It's complacency, definitely. Gotta start studying again to pull my grades back up.

-

To end on a happier note: Hotelie ball! (: It was really fun dressing up. The theme was "red carpet" so everyone was looking pretty sharp.

Joel and I went together (:


Waving to the paparazzi!


Checked out the 14-man house at VP for the first time (haha I still can't believe so many Singaporeans live together in one house). Gossipped until something like 5 am, made use of daylight savings and gossipped until 5 am again (this sentence totally doesn't make sense), concussed, and then woke up for a dim sum brunch. Which wasn't great, but it was dim sum. Haha :D





-

Meh. Time to get some work done before going off for dance. I haven't done any work since last weekend.

*482 - hospital part 2

It's been a long day. In and out of the hospital, but mostly in. Depressing place to be in, really. 9.45 pm, and I'm settling down for dinner (cold salad in my room).

I have so many papers to write, but at times like these, you don't even consider thinking about homework. Trivial stuff, homework.

At any rate, I'm feeling a lot more at ease now that I know he'll be alright, thank God. That was pretty darn scary.

*481 - cayuga medical centre

2 visits to the hospital in 1 day. The first one was quite a shock, the second one was a complete trauma. Totally broke down when I heard the news, and I must have scared Kenneth to death when I ran to him sniveling and pulling him out of his seat in the middle of church service.

Looking back, it kind of makes sense. I've been so worried over the past week; I guess my worries weren't unfounded after all.