the weather outside is frightful and there's no fire to make it delightful [24 Dec 2009|08:59am] candycrazee greetings from NYC! i'm currently freezing my ass off in the hotel room with a little time to spare before heading out to dinner at jean georges! i hope the food is better than daniel's which was in my opinion kinda disappointing for a 3 star michelin restaurant (though the service was excellent). anyway NYC has been nothing but cold, snow, wind, and more cold. generally the temperatures are below 0 so you kinda get the drift. we've been here for the past 9 nights with 2 nights spent at niagara falls, but i don't feel like we've even done much. till now we haven't gone to the empire state building, nor have we even really gone shopping. i mean we have gone a little but its so troublesome to try stuff we end up just browsing. what is this right?!?! i know i know, touristy holidays much. 18 hours all the way up and we're tortured in the blistering cold with NOTHING TO BUY ): this is devastation at its finest. okay fine fine, i shall not be so melodramatic. the city is gorgeous though, the buildings, apartments, streets. especially now that there's snow all around. it's true though what they say about how the city never sleeps. every corner is thronged with masses, no matter what time of the day and macy's is open 24 hours (so hopefully it wont be too cold to go there later after dinner). i do however want to come back home already. i'd much rather come back in spring/fall when the weather's more bearable. anyway, i'll update more with pictures when i get back/have the time. just thought i'd drop by!  and even though i'm bundled up under 4 layers, somehow the heart isn't warmed up, without you by my side.  ( and a few pictures of girly <3 ) 2+don't you breathe.

my 23rd [24 Dec 2009|12:20am] glassmosaic sisters + red wine + common heritage + late night = drunken 2 hr trek to point of common heritage + illegitimate climbing over the walls with school logo as steps + thoughts of scaling clock tower to change the time = bumping into school camp people + sec 4 chinese teacher of all people. ended up not scaling the clock + 2hr chat with him about *omgboring* jobs (jie thinks its retribution from all chinese lessons i ever hijacked with sexy seow and T) + school inbetween smelling like an alcoholic drunken mess what the hell. then met a Giant trolley on the trek home and took turns giving one another a ride and then pee stop over at KAP and then falling asleep there till the wee hours of the morning + taking a freaking arctic 852 back home + totally zoning out for 10 hours there after don't you breathe.

The Beauty of Mainstream Biking in HCMC. [22 Dec 2009|07:28pm] glassmosaic Swift twisting bikes lay ubiquitous in the city of HCMC. During peak hours, bikers wind over pavements, engine chucking sounds warning the all vigilant pedestrian. Traffic rules are vague, if any, go unabided, but it somehow takes its course. Without the strain of road limits and yellow lines to follow, people are more aware of the surroundings, the pedestrians to avoid as opposed to a bunch of red yellow green lights, something that is meant for the good of the traffic system and its people yet is fundamentally mechanical, turning its abidents into slaves and ill-observers. The beauty of biking in HCMC is the openness it entails. You see them of all ages, profession, class, gender, numbers. Every unit is an open display of the disposition, place and role in society. The family, the working adult, the romancing couple. I saw a school girl twirling her sister's hair, another with her tiny arms wrapped tightly around her dad's beer belly. And the epitome of a high school friendship- Van and Ly whizzing through the cold night, neon lights flashing. The pink scooter of the office lady with impeccable hair and pencil skirt, the little boy squished between father and brother, peering with wide eyes. Eyes meet, and people converse. Interactions lay raw and open, less petty roadside quarrels, just lots of horning- strange that it sounds less threatening than those heard in the motherland. When strangers conquer a cranny in the road or wheeze through an overflowing drain there is something communal about it; sharing the heart of HCMC. I think it is the biking culture here that lends to the soul of the city and paves way for more interactions, more openness, more love. don't you breathe.

<3 [22 Dec 2009|11:04am] threedoubleyous [ mood | cheerful ] cassiechiong says: (11:02:18 AM) YAYZ cassiechiong says: (11:02:23 AM) omg then we can pack lovely thingws cassiechiong says: (11:02:28 AM) and choose a lovely spot cassiechiong says: (11:02:29 AM) and be lovely cassiechiong says: (11:02:32 AM) : DDDD hypestarr@gmail.com says: (11:02:39 AM) HAHAHA we are already lovely hypestarr@gmail.com says: (11:02:41 AM) ; } don't you breathe.

i feel it in my fingers..i feel it in my toes! [19 Dec 2009|03:59pm] augangle I'M HOME!!!! Went straight from the airport to 6 am prata in Simei, then spent the next five hours battling long queues and immense frustration at the immigration office applying for a new passport so I can go to Vegas after Christmas without visa problems. That part kinda sucked... BUT! i'm home, and I can wear shorts, and log onto websites without using a proxy, and watch movies on a huge screen in high def instead of Youku, and shower in hot water for ages.......home is SWEET. Off to decorate our Christmas tree now - photos to come!

xoxo [18 Dec 2009|04:54pm] augangle Aww, I'm a bit sad about leaving now. A lot of people are flying home this weekend, but mainly from Shanghai not Nanjing, so I don't have an airport buddy for later bah. Been doing the farewell rounds - some people aren't coming back at all :(. I decided to keep my room and pay rent over the holidays to avoid the hassle of moving everything out and in again, breaking my contract and the potential risk of not getting a similar room next semester and having to share a squatting toilet with 30 people instead. It was a really stressful decision because of the money involved, but A backed me up at 6 am and made it easier. Sometimes you just need someone to agree with you to feel better about a tough choice! Had my massage, but it wasn't very good today...I'm still cracky as hell, bah. People actually give me weird looks at the gym because my shoulders crack every time I'm on the rowing machine! I love the people at my massage place, though, they're really friendly and we always have a nice chat afterwards. My flight's in 7 hours, so I'm going to shower, have a nice chilled out dinner with my bestest Nanjing friend Sherilyn and get a cab to the airport. See you in Singapore!

How to Maintain Perms [18 Dec 2009|08:12am] glassmosaic put mousse, styling gel, sleep with a silk pillow or sleeping cap WTH, only comb hair with a wide-toothed comb when it's damp, put volumizing product. dab hair dry ONLY cannot rub the hair because it is fragile and poor thing. other than that must condition, treatment, hair mask it more often. must scrunch hair. (WTH is scrunch hair) every morning wake up 1.5 hours earlier to style hair so it wont be a bombastic mess. ok what the shit. for someone who puts on make up in 5 mins and goes to sleep sometimes without bathing/washing face/brushing teeth this is simply too much to handle. i want my long straight hair back now. don't you breathe.

In the interest of subject titles - what rhymes with Minnesota? [18 Dec 2009|05:08am] softplaces [ mood | :) ] I don't know what's more surprising in this entry - one, that I'm journalling at all, two, that I'm journalling from Minnesota (which isn't that surprising really, since I had been set to come here for months), or three, that weeks after my finals I sit here, subjected to readings once again. Right, backstory, on the third point especially. So I'm in Minnesota, relatively boy-friended, which is nice. What is significantly less nice is that that I have found myself somehow embroiled in boyfriendly exams, which leaves me here, cooped up somewhere in Minneapolis in a recently-festively-decorated house belonging to incredibly sweet people who house me occasionally (which coincides with when I decide to bugger off and leave said boyfriend to study) trawling through Derrida, Plato and about a million plays, and then readings on plays, and trying desperately to churn out intelligible notes on these to aid boyfriendly appendage. While Theatre Studies may be vastly more interesting and less tragic than say, the law of equity and trusts, and yes I do like reading plays, true, but not this much. I feel a lot like I've been subjected to round two of exams and related readings, which happens to feel less than amazing, especially when one looks out the window and goes "WHILE TODAY IS OBVIOUSLY A GORGEOUS DAY FOR FROLICKING IN THE SNOW, IT IS A MORE GORGEOUS DAY FOR DECIPHERING OLD DEAD PEOPLE AND READING OFTEN PRETENTIOUS DRIVEL ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES, YES!" But yes, all tragedy aside, at least I'm not the one doing the exam, at least there's that. I guess in many ways my Minnesotan jaunt hasn't been very much of a holiday - I've had school shit to settle, and now boyfriendly academic shit, and for a lot of it I was in post-exam pre-release-of-results terror/denial, and then some relationship angst about the sustainability of this particular long-distance relationship, and then more angst and general wonderment about how I find myself here and what I am going to do with my life, you know, the run-of-the-mill quarter-life crisis stuff. There are things I want to say about where I am right now (both in terms of the location itself, and whatever existential bullshit I seem to be reading a lot about today), and there are pictures I want to put up just because having lived under a rock I've never been able to imagine snow like this, or trees, or cold for that matter, but because I'm lazy here are a couple of pictures I took with photobooth in the library of Macalester College (where said boy is studying). ( Expect to be disappointed, but also, an exciting hat! ) Well anyway, I fly back in maybe four or five days, Minnesota's almost over, and it's been, well, mad, more than anything else. Amazing and confusing but largely insane. I'm not at all sure if and when I'll be back (yeah, that's just how sure I am about where things are going), which is pretty representative of the state of everything, really. I don't really know what's going on - this term's the first one I've had at school where I've actually done well, in spite of constant long-distance drama, and the usual aversion to law and school and any combination of these, and, perhaps most significantly, not actually doing much besides feeling less than hot about said boy being far off. And somehow, for the moment, everything's worked out - I'm in a gorgeous country with lovely people, and this boy, this boy I have no words for, and I feel like writing children's books (one about Mussolini) or interior decorating, or just rolling about in the snow because I've almost never done that before. What happens after is less important, for now - for now (that he is almost done with exams) we may ice-fish! 3+don't you breathe.

i can make you feel it [17 Dec 2009|09:43pm] augangle ( This )is why you should never stalk your boyfriend's blog! Lol. I really should get started with my my packing, 'cause I literally have to get everything out of my room. I feel like I don't have a lot of stuff, but then again I felt that way about my room in Bristol and I ended up paying a hundred pounds to ship a giant box home at the last minute, ouch. I'm trying to check in online for my flight tomorrow night, but Singapore Airlines claims that I "do not exist". UNCOOL! MISSION SKINNY IS OVER!!! Tomorrow I shall reward my efforts with an el cheapo massage and a dumplingfest :D.

DALAT [17 Dec 2009|01:18am] glassmosaic HELLO FROM DALAT. OMG ITS FREEZING HERE, and Van and i spent the whole of today exploring town, rode our bicycles in the relatively less crazy traffic along the lake, navigated along the streets with a soggy b&w map, found our secret avocado coconut ice cream dessert stall but AVOCADOS ARE OFF SEASON OMG but its okie we had this AWESOME coconut ice cream + mixed fruits, drizzled with coconut milk and caramel flan, vietnam style! central mkt for a less known one tmr. Van is singing to rhythm of the rain now we have beer and strawberries stocked for tmr whee hee Oh and check out my new hairstyle got in a crazy fit havent washed my hair for 24hours (and counting) cos no chemical treated shampoooo alamak don't you breathe.

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