japanese masking tape

Just finished my exam and took a long nap! O.o

Well, I'm jumping in the bandwagon for JAPANESE MASKING TAPE!!!
Here's from Uguisu

And here're from happy tape

There are also some suggestions on how you can use the tape in the blog. Here're are a couple of my fav.
As much as I want to buy them, i think i still have to hold that temptation. I'll definitely buy those later. hehe....but till i'm done paying off flight expenses, i should refrain from spending too much money!

Bible study

I really want to share about this. I went for my first Bible study group just now. I have just started to read the bible and what we went through in the Bible study just now really help me in knowing what I should be doing when I do my own reading or personal Bible study. I realize that i have not been doing it the "fruitful" way.

One of the questions from the study guide asks about how God's words have made me aware of an area in my life that needs to be brought into closer obedience to God. The most obvious area for me will be my "anxiety attacks". I'm a worried freak. I got-get- worked up over big and small issues. I know I have been dealing with this psychological issues for a long time. I think I take after my dad. I wished I could use past tense here, but I know i still haven't gotten over it yet. Well, I will freak out unnecessarily. I always think make a mountain out of a mole hill. I will make a small issue seems like a big disaster. My bf always asks me why I think too much over such a small thing, why i am filled with so much negative thoughts. My answers would be that i was thinking of the worst case scenario, I wanted to be prepared for the worst as I don't deal with "bad" surprises well. He would get angry with my over the top anxiety and I would get angry at him for getting angry at me and not understanding me.

I tried to change my mindset, but it always comes back. My bf suggested looking for "self-help" sections in the internet on how to think positively and/or learn about Lord's words. He gave me his extra Bible so that I can read it. I kept it in the drawer and didn't read it till a month ago.

I believe in Jesus. But I didn't made any effort to learn about His teachings and only seek Him in times of trouble. I made excuses into not getting "help". And then, some things happened and made me look at things from a different perspective.

There's a saying about how other people are the reflections of yourself? I think it's true. I saw what I was like to other people and I did not like what I saw. I did not like what has been happening. I have to take action and I started to take out the Bible from the drawer. I wanted to learn more and I started going to church with my friend.

" Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path" ~ Psalm 119.105.

Why should I worry so much? I just need to have faith in Him and He will guide me. As I learn to put my faith in His words, I feel like the big burden on my shoulder is being lifted up little by little.

birthday!

I haven't been blogging lately. Nothing much has been happening except that I was buried in homework, exams, and searching for data. School...

I just turned a year older on Friday... Unlike the previous 2 years, my best buddy- my bf- was not by my side. He suggested this idea. Each of us will have a cake and we will use the video call function on msn to celebrate! (i know some people will suggest Skype. For some reason, we haven't gotten around opening Skype account. I guess we're satisfied with msn messenger). I wanted a chocolate cake. My fav! I thought of buying a piece from walmart or food pyramid but ended up making my own cake. I saw a Ferrero rocher cake and wanted something like that. I don't think I can find that here. So, I decided to make my own bday cake. Sad huh? haha... . Although the cake looked terrible, I actually had some fun making it. It has destressing effect.

I made my very first dark chocolate nutella ganache and bought a cake mix to make the cake (picture below).


That's what you do when ur bf was not here and all your friends were busy. But, my "busy" friends decided to pay me a "last minute" surprise visit. I was immersing myself in data and a few minutes before my birthday ended, someone rang the bell. My first thought was who could that be, but after a few rings, I had a pretty good guess on who he- THEY- could be. The first person I saw when I opened the door was DoongEe (he's actually a Yorkie, not really a person). He was sitting there looking at the door and ran into the apt once I opened the door. And the rest just showed up from their hiding place. haha...

My cousins haven't sent me the photos yet.

Mojo Monday 124

It's February! My favorite month! It's not just because it's the month of my birthday, but it's also the "month of love",and this year, Chinese New Year falls on February too, exactly the same day as Valentine's Day. How cool is that!

Anyway, my hands are itching to make something. So, I visited Mojo Monday blog to get some inspiration and my mojo's kicking once I say this week's sketch (below). This will be my second Mojo Monday card.


I decided to make a Valentine's day card with Penny Black stamp of 2 cute hedgehogs... Love is in the air... Ta da... Here's what I came up with.

I was watching the 2010 S. Africa World Cup group draws... I felt so detached from soccer now. I remembered how I fell in love with this sport and the suave, athletic players. I became such a fanatic that I would wake up in the wee hours in the morning just to catch my favorite team in action, that their performance would affect my mood, how it would become the only topic I talked about for the day, how my english essays would be inspired by it, and how it took up much of my life for the majority of my teenage years.

Since I came to US, the passion grew lesser and lesser. Not only my passion for soccer, but for sports. I used to be rather sporty, playing badminton, skipping rope ( i remembered how I would skip with the rope made with loops of rubber bands everyday before tuition, during class breaks and after school in the garage), and try some other sports. Now, I prefer to stay at home, cuddle on my bed watching unrealistic dramas...

But lately, I discovered or may be rediscovered other passion--- crafting. I always like to make things be it personal handmade cards for my friends or family or other decorative crafts. I enjoyed arts classes (except when the teachers were trying to pressure me to come up somethings that I didn't know how and the hours it took to complete something). I would spent hours and even forgoing dinner working on my arts project or exams. I decided to let arts go during my upper sec. years and for that 2 years, I felt rather lost.My only encounter with arts was being a member of the Art Club but I didn't enjoy it very much. The stress of exams and "o" level blinded me of the joy I once had with arts and crafts.

Nowadays, cross-stitching and making cards help me relax. I wished I have better drawing skills or even apt with graphic design software then I can make more beautiful things easily. The sudden urge to take up drawing and designing classes.

Mojo Monday

I saw this sketch from MOJO Monday (MOJO 113), and my mojo is kickin'! Here's my very first card for Mojo Monday sketch! I used Penny Black stamp.

cards

I have made some cards two birthday cards (one for my friend and the other is a custom made request from a friend) and a wedding card for my teacher who's getting married next week!!!

Wedding card



I drew the bride and groom myself and quilled some roses and heart shapes to decorate the card.

Birthday Card 1
This birthday card is inspired by the painting below. The main colors for this card are purple, pink, blue, green and yellow.


Birthday Card 2

A friend requested me to help him make a card for his friend's birthday. He requested for this layout and gives me the freedom to use any color and pictures.

I drew the birthday cupcake and since it's for a girl, i think the polka dot themed papers would be cute!

weekend getaways

For the past three weekends, I have been driving out of town... For me, weekend starts on Friday as I don't have class and since I have to work on Saturday morning, Friday becomes my Saturday.

Weekend Getaway 1,


Zhi and I went to Oklahoma State Fair. I've never been to a state fair before and I have been wanting to go to one in US with my bf- the product of watching American dramas which the boy and girl will go to a fair for a date. Well, the fair was alright. It was not as grand as the ones I saw on tv but what can u expect from Oklahoma... Anyway, we walked around. Spend the longest time in an automobile fair where I checked out the Toyota and Honda. I was planning to buy a car and thinking of buying either toyota or honda and I preferred Honda's interior! So Honda it is!!! Besides, Honda has a higher resale value. Then, we decided to buy tickets to take the ride. We rode the cable car that bring us from one end to the other end of the fair. It wasn't that high, but it was pretty scary for me. I don't have acrophobia, but looking down at our seat, feet dangling in the air... it freaked me out. I was afraid my flats will fall off and the wind was blowing which shook our seats and freaked me out even more. It was pretty embarrassing to be so scared when looking at the opposite directions, the little kids looked like they were having a blast!


We took the Ferris Wheel not as romantic as it seemed on tv... then we ate Funnel Cakes (which not as nice as the one I ate last year at Homecoming). Then we headed home. While eating the funnel cake, Zhi mentioned, "ini baru namanya pacaran yah"... This seemed to be the first real date we have. Well, our previous date mostly consist of shopping in the mall and walmart, watching movies and eating dinner together. haha...

Weekend getaway 2:
Philsbrook Museum, Tulsa



I've been wanting to go there ever since I chanced upon the photos of its beautiful garden on the net. It was like a mansion turned into art museum and there's a huge garden. The garden was as beautiful, if no more, as the pictures I saw. Zhi was rather impatient while I looked around at the paintings.
Thereafter, we bought Krispy Kreme :)


Weekend getaways 3:
Fall break.


The university gave us Friday off for Fall break. It didn't make any difference to me since I've been having my Friday off. 9 of us decided to go to Eureka Spring, Arkansas and last minute trip to Branson, MO. Actually, I planned to go to Branson, MO at first but the suggestion of going to Eureka Spring sounded better. Both are 4 hours away from Stillwater.

The weather was real gloomy, dampening my spirits a little... I don't like cold weather. It was raining and cold :(
Anyway, when we reached ES, we checked in to the hotel first. There were more of us than the number of people we said when we checked in. So, this creepy owner spied on us and saw that there were more people than we said and kicked us out. We booked 2 rooms. We just entered into one of the room to use the toilets when the owner confronted us and accused us of lying and cheating him. He wanted us to leave right away and refused to give us refund. We told him the extra people were going somewhere else, but he didn't believe us. He had no proof that we were lying and unreasonably kicked us out of the hotel without giving us our money back. We just used the toilet! And it cost us $100 +++... We refused to leave unless he gave us a refund. He threatened to call the police and we were unfazed. We moved our things back to the cars and went to the lobby. Another guy was talking to the creepy, unreasonable owner. At first we thought they were in the same gang. But he was the neutral third party that we needed. A few minutes later, the police came. The guy explained that it was a misunderstanding... The police officer knew what happened very well. Apparently, it was not the first time this had happened. The owner did this to many people before and the police kinna tired to have to be called. This was not a crime case after all. In the end, the officer was on our side. We didn't have to argue much. We just watched the police "telling off" the owner. The guy told us that the only thing we could do was to call the credit card company and cancelled the transaction.

No wonder the hotel was cheap. There wasn't anybody else staying there! When we arrived we only saw 2 cars. One was the owner's and the other car might be his too.


We had lunch, went to see the christ of ozark statue and walked around the downtown area. It was cold, and most of the shops had closed. With no hotel to stay, we decided to go to other city near ES and stayed there. There wasn't much left to see or do in ES. I suggested we go to Branson, MO. It was just about an hour away and the hotels were much cheaper there. I knew this because when i was searching hotels to stay, the website suggested branson... So, we drove to branson and booked a hotel on our way. The beauty of having iPhone- not so bad internet access.

Branson was more fun. More things to see and visit. We went to Titanic museum and then went shopping before heading home.




We decided to eat dinner at Tulsa and meet up with Farrell who was in tulsa, too.

3 consecutive getaways from stillwater was enough... the next weekend was Homecoming so there's no need to escape. haha...

Winter is coming >.<

If you could see me now

I just read finished the book "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecelia Ahern... the same author as the book P.S.I Love you. If you are into romance ... this book is worth reading!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Could_See_Me_Now_(Cecelia_Ahern_novel)

The last time i read ps i love you, i read it so quickly so as to know what happened and missed the whole point of reading. The book didn't touched me as much as i thought it would be as i was reading it so fast for content and not for the literary quality. Anyway, I would definitely borrow the book again if i saw it on the library shelf.

When i went a few days ago, i came across this other book by Ahern and decided to give it a go. It's a story about forbidden love between an interior designer and her nephew imaginary friend... But what touched me is the way Ahern description of the feelings of the characters.

"When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg break, or whe a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks, it's completely silent. You would think as it's so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world, or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it's silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.If there is a noise, it's internal. It screams and no one can hear it but you. It screams so loud your ears ring and your head aches. It thrases around in your chest like a great white shark caught in the sea; it roars like a mother bear whose cub has been take. That's what it looks like and that's what it sounds like, a thrashing, panicking, trapped great big beast, roaring like a prisoner to its own emotions. But that's the thing about love- NO ONE IS UNTOUCHABLE. It's a wild as that, as raw as an open flesh wound exposed to salty swa water, but when it acutally breaks, it's silent. You're just screaming on the inside and no one can hear it."

summer

Day 5 of being back to Singapore...

Suffered from jet-lag on my first and second day... especially on my first day. It was so bad that my eyes closed as soon as sat down on the sofa >.<

Anyway, I managed to do some shopping and have spend more that I would normally do! GSS hasn't even started! But sales are everywhere already!

I finally opened the GRE practice book and it made me feel stressed. The english part is really difficult... and i forgot most of the things that I learned in E maths in sec. sch so the maths part is quite difficult too. *sigh*

I just hope that little by little i will be able to master the skill to do well in GRE by august.

*sigh*

It's really hot here!!! I missed the central AC in my apt in stillwater!

and as much as I love my family and thankful to be reunited with them again... I wished Zhi's here too.

Random post on my random thoughts...

I'm not in the mood to study at all >.<

Futures and Options--- I'm at total loss studying that and I can't imagine what next semester would be like when I took a course on that. I couldn't even understand those concepts in a chapter! It's as confusing as my future and the options I have... I know, it's not funny.

I'm trying to motivate myself but I was turned off by the chapter and my motivation to study was affected. Memorizing econ concepts seems more motivating! *sigh*

On the brighter side, I can't believe it's already may and i'm going back in a couple of week times... but the excitement of going back for the summer was a little dampen by swine flu issues. I hope things would be more under control soon.

New York

Parsons Morgan Stanley



The best burger in NYC !

St Paul
Central Park


City Hall
Statue of Liberty

The NY FED

NYSE