无花果

My day has been progressing quite badly due to the following events:

1. Woke up feeling groggy as of the previous few days. My mind is getting kind of sluggish for some reason. I really hope it gets better soon!

2. As I was trying to start reading, a very disturbing drilling noise came from the apartment 2 floors down. How am I supposed to concentrate? Thankfully it has stopped now. According to the person doing the drilling work (yes I went down to ask when the drilling will end), today is supposed to be the only drilling day. There will be no more loud construction on the subsequent days, which will be GREAT.

3. Kept making the same mistakes! I am going to practice one more question and move on to the next topic. Let's get this right Inggrid!! :)

I was eating some preserved fruits by the name of the above title. I thought it is quite apt for this post and kind of describes how unproductive my day is.

I was about to leave this out but I guess I shall type it out. Okay maybe it is kind of silly to be hoping for something to happen despite the slim chance of it happening. I guess it is my fault for letting myself have that bit of hope for Shaun enrolling this year. It is quite a selfish hope, I know. So anyway it seems like he is advised to defer his enrolment for another year. Of course I couldn't help myself and felt sad. It's a natural (selfish) first reaction right? But I guess there's really no point lingering on this issue until there is a final decision. If it is really meant to be, then things will work out. Be it LDR or finding a job here or some other route that is still not in sight... it really comes down to effort (and maybe fate?). All I need to work towards now are good grades and a good degree because everything else is beyond my control.

One step at a time :)

Sent from my iPhone

USS

USS was fun although the company was quite a mix :)

It's the time before exams. I still can't believe it. Neither can I believe that I am 20 already!

Delusional? Escapism?

Sent from my iPhone

post essay adrenaline

The overflowing sense of euphoria upon the completion of the last essay for Lent term is keeping me awake at this unearthly hour (yes 2AM is now considered as unearthly). It is with no doubt that my under-eye area will be reflecting just exactly how badly sleep deprived I have been since weeks ago. I am definitely not thrilled at the idea of Shaun seeing me at this state. Henceforth, as of Monday the 21st of March 2011, I shall sleep by 11pm for the next 8 hours. Even though I still have 3 short essays and a quiz to go (all related to Microeconomics), which I will dedicate Tuesday to complete. I am in desperate need to banish the eye mess I have on me!

On a side note, I discovered a movie which is able to soothe my nerves and make me feel all nonchalant... it might be the actress and/or the genre/ period even. Total ♥! :D

The introduction itself soothes me greatly.

say Minestrone

It's mi-mi-minestrone! :9

From Wikipedia:

Minestrone (Italian: minestra [soup] + -one [augmentative suffix] hence "the big soup," the one with many ingredients) is the name for a variety of thick Italian soups made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes.

There is no set recipe for minestrone, since it is usually made out of whatever vegetables are in season. It can be vegetarian, contain meat, or contain a meat-based broth (such as chicken stock). Angelo Pellegrini, however, argues that the base of minestrone is bean broth, and thatRoman beans "are the beans to use for genuine minestrone".

Minestrone is one of the cornerstones of Italian cuisine, and is just about as common as pasta on Italian tables.

Another Italian dish under my belt! I decided to go for Jamie Oliver's (mobile) version of the soup out of convenience. It is still yummers and definitely easier than the fancier ones. Nutritious soup for this frail body of mine. Think celery (normally I would stay away from this), carrot, tomato, onion, garlic, potato and more greens. It's impressive. I never really liked minestrone soup so I am glad this version appeals to me! I have to admit it is comparably more Chinese somehow. Beans + real chicken stock next perhaps? :D

Oh yes...

Happy White Day! ♥ (I'm getting old...)

As it is apparent that 6 of my facebook friends have their birthdays today... happy birthday to them/you! Not forgetting the Valentines: I hope your love has been reciprocated. :D

code

gedditgeddit??

happy together

I am supposed to be sleeping right now, but I just couldn't resist sharing this ultimately sweet sight I see in front of me. I hope it'll stay up forever! Super cute addition to my room teehee :D

:'(

It's nice and heart-warming to be experiencing (and have) love in the midst of when things are going wrong. It's magical how it's able to give strength when one is feeling the most fragile. Just a moment ago, I just proved to myself that being sentimental is good. Looking through my box comforted me like how a bowl of chicken soup would after being drenched from a rainy walk home... no wait, that's an understatement of how comforting it really is. There's no word to describe it.

what have I done?

Let's keep this rocking!

I should really be sleeping

It's 12.33AM and homesick. How sad my night get?!

Haih. Tomorrow at about this time marks the very first week I am all alone in this country. All alone as in totally independent, solely living with myself and not with any kin within reach. It was a busy week full of nothing but packing. & today, just, to be exact, I'm finally done with it. YES! I am Done with packing. Even though my bed doesn't look very inspiring and how I wanted it to be, I've decided to close one eye and make good with whatever I have done for the last... fortnight? How pages of notes could I have read with that amount of time?! (morphing into a studious being for once) But I guess some things have to be given up sometimes.

Anyway more about my first taste of independence. So far, I find living alone can be quite domestically exhausting. Especially when I'm discovering my trait for hygiene. Other than that, I have been feeling like something is missing. It's likely that it's because I'm still missing my sister. Whatever the reason may be, it sucks so bad because I get this feeling of emptiness now and then. Hopefully socialising will help to fill it up! :D

More updates soon enough. Time for some beauty sleep!

beyond control

Tonight I felt heartbroken saying goodnight to you. Just 5 days left. The last five days of the 112 days I came back for Summer holiday. I've tried to not think about it but missing you makes me all weak and fragile. Ready to crack, go berserk and put down everything else that I have ahead of me just to have that warm snuggle and comforting hug. & never ever let myself go. Unforgivably silly, but you're that important to me. Even after our little tiffs or big arguments, I still really, really love you.

p.s. (mild humour) growing corn bits all over yet? ;)

p.p.s is it emotionally easier to send someone off or be the one departing?

got to get this out of my chest

Recent discovery. I hate it whenever I use "because you did that to me before" as a reason for why I did undesirable deeds to you. It's childish, I'm becoming childish and I don't want to be childish! Plus, do unto others what you would have others do unto you (Matthew 7:120). :)

plans for summer

One of the bad things with updating less is that sometimes you come back with so many things to talk about but none of which you can remember accurately. Or as excitingly. Another boohoo is I tend to lose the urge to blog. (Nooooo~) I shall prevent that from happening!

Tomorrow marks the 2nd week of being in Singapore. All I remember is being outdoors with either my mom, beloved or Rachel (since Mila was in Jakarta). Oh yea and bumping into a couple of people too! Since the GSS (Great Singapore Sale) is on, there's not much point staying home. Unless, of course, my parents decided to ground me once more. I've enjoyed the past 2 weeks! I've ate (inevitably gained weight as well), played and caught up with some people. Ahh good times.

Have I talked about what my summer will be like? I'll be spending time picking up some work experience for a huge part of this holiday. Yes! I managed to get an internship at a Corporate Finance firm with the help of an ageless mother (you can report this). It's a small firm where all the staff are seniors in terms of experience and it's quite intimidating if you think about it! My internship will be starting next week, which means I probably will not have as much chance to enjoy carefree times. On a brighter note, my CV will probably be more attractive and who knows who I'll meet in the 2 month period? :D

I was planning to learn Japanese during this break, which is not going to happen due to timetable issues. Brushing up on French (and English ahahaahhaha) during office hours doesn't seem too bad, since I was told that there will be times when there will be completely nothing for me to do. Omggg I can't believe I am going to be working in an office! I've never imagined myself joining the workforce, working on a typical schedule from 9am to 5pm, 5 days a week. Cross my fingers for the existence of office politics. It's a small firm anyway! Oh yes, I've been shopping for work clothes too. It's fun yet demoralising because the clothes are so matured and I feel so old. I still want to wear my tees and shorts! Le sob.

Anyhoo, something more academical: EXAMINATION RESULTS! The day falls on 14th July, about 3 weeks from now. I'm already feeling the butterflies in my stomach. How badly did I do? Omg!!! The jitters is killing me. Even though I initially thought that 40% being the passing rate will not be a problem, HEH, now I realise that I'm being a joke. A foolish, proud and totally idiotic teenager who thinks she can rule the world!* Seriously Inggrid, you think you can easily pass LSE papers? Did you see how crazy difficult the papers were?! Did you realise how retardedly careless you were for Maths and Stats?! Did you realise how bad your time management was for all the papers?!??!! AHHHHHHHHH this is driving me insane! It's super pressurising since LSE does not do resits. It's definitely one of the things that I'm not proud of being a (current) LSE student.

Other than those mentioned, I'll be extracting my wisdom teeth, hopefully sometime soon! I'll be taking summer one day at a time with my results being the next major thing. My beloved's heading to Taiwan in 2 months time for >= 20 days... and I've heard stories which are really unpleasant, but shutting it out! Out out out. Carpe Diem.

'Nuff said for now. A few pictures and then time for me to have some brown lovinggg ;)

I was at the airport a few hours early. 1.5 hours was spent shopping for perfumes, chocolates and random stuff. The other half an hour or so was spent sitting around, on the phone.

View from plane ♥ I always love how endless the sky looks. It's not cool when the sky scrapers are eating so much into panoramic views.

Limitations of a camera and a small aeroplane window. I had a rare window two seater all for myself! However, there were a lot of elderly couples and there was one who snored really loudly. I didn't manage to fall asleep, had a very bad jet lag and fell sick for half a day in Singapore. Lemon Chicken Rice was my choice of plane supper and it was the first time I felt that SIA food is bad.

Pitch dark by take off = gorgeous view of London.

Up, up and away!

SING-A-PORE! :D :D

Met up with Rachel a few days after I reached Singapore. Yong Tau Foo yumm the sauce yumm yumm yumm (hehe Mila)

Then we had tea at Cedele, chatted and read ViVi.

Rachel decided to walk me home because my stomach was feeling upset (AWW HOW SWEET RIGHT!). Then we saw this advertisement for men.

Enlarge to read. By the way, there's a couple more of them being hung up.

Oh yea this was the day when I gave Shaun a surprise. Teheheheheheehehe ♥ love you chubbs!

Ladylike, no?

SNOW CRAB RAMEN!!!

Rei had some ramen with butter, corn and shio pork. Looks really good too! :D

Gyoooooooozaaaaa!

Rei's treat at Coffeebean. Thanks lovelette!

Malibu (or something) was really good!! The cake was disgusting. Literal sponge cake (though it's supposed to be a tiramisu) with green tea powder.

Ended the day feeling super sleepy and the worst part of all: I LOST MY PHONE. Oh my God. I think I left it at the table and it got stolen. Sigh. It's such an old number and it's becoming a part of me. D: Anyway I've a new number now.

Dinner at Shangri-la Japanese restaurant with the Ngs invited by ageless mother.

Yummm $_$

Shaun's brother (what's with the pose), me and beloved.

Who is this skinny guy.

This was taken yesterday. Ageless mother was sending me home after which she went to a rock gig with her sons. Ageless isn't it!

Wow, that wasn't little! Toodlesss all, eat your poodles' noodles!

*I'm joking about the last part, just being dramatic.

P.S.: blogging on Chrome is officially a pain.

internal conflict

AAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEAAAARURGH. Stories can be scary. To know or not know? Having knowledge may help to prepare for the thing. Having knowledge may also ruin the things.

The days are getting tougher. Sigh.

Oh my Lord, save me.

• just had French paper 6 hours ago. C'était très terrible.
• my head hurts.
• I have 2 days to cram 3 modules of accounting. Not funny.
• mega depressed + super unmotivated.
• my phone is lapsing again. URGH.
• there is not a single word I can use to describe how much I miss you.

:(

How can I possibly forget the degree of agony I have to go through during exam period? COME BACK TO EARTH! This is war.

fascination

I was walking back from campus.

As usual, I took the park route since it's an awesome change of scene: green grass, trees and dogs running about (not liking the fact that the fierce looking ones are always unleashed too) compared to pavement, buildings and cars. Halfway across the park, as I was walking towards one of the exits, this particular man attracted my attention. Among the many people who were laying down on the grass(it was a sunny day), I think he's the most interesting of all. How so? He was wearing a full suit and basking in the Sun all by himself. His arms folded behind his head, one leg across the other and probably taking a nap. I have no exact idea why I was fascinated by the scene. Maybe it's because City people always seem like they are on a rush and have the impression that they don't ever stop. At least not in the day time.

I wish I took a picture of it. Observing the London crowd is slowly replacing my habit of listening to the MP3. Good thing. :)

Public goods here I come.

Eyjafjallajokull

An update! This probably won't be too long as I have decided that I shall finish French politics (literally in French fyi) by tonight. After which I'll have 6 more topics before I can announce that I am done with reading the society part of my French module. I'm never good at absorbing facts, sadly. It takes me ages before I actually register them. What's even more unfortunate is that this disability of mine has been getting worse as I age. Urgh, it sure suck to be old.

As you all (probably) know, the volcano in Iceland (with a really long and gibberish name) that recently erupted has given a lot of problems to air travel. Flights to and from Europe was cancelled for nearly a week. Today is the day when aeroplanes are given the green light to start carrying stranded passengers across international borders. A few days ago I was worrying that my flight which is due this Sunday will get cancelled. It will be a quite a grave matter to me as I have a listening exam to sit for on Friday and I wouldn't want to land myself in the situation of rescheduling my flight and waiting for airspace to resume. In fact, I am still pretty worried that there might be hiccups with airspace. Afterall the volcano is still spouting ashes into the atmosphere. Mother Nature... please let me get to London safely before anything goes wrong!! (Mother Nature reading blogs... hmm)

My previous week was occupied with my beloved. Spending time together with him easily reminded me of how CTC days used to be, minus all the college people and the awesome weather. Of course it felt different too. Actually, no, scrape that. It feels more like summer. Yes, summer. CTC days remains a part of the lovely memory of us that I'll never forget. :)

As I was saying... his company is priceless. Even though we just wasted our time away doing ordinary things that other couples do everyday, it's enough for me. Maybe it's because of the 4 month long deprivation that anything goes for me. For now. Come to think of it, I never really asked him whether he's fine with the way we were utilizing our time together- he did mention going to some local attractions. Ho hum.

Now that he's back in, I forgot how it was like to not have him around. I forgot how to handle some things and lost a bit of control. Egawd this is so hard to explain. It's just... weird! It's like something obvious is missing. Ok I shan't go on and on about this. (GROW UP!!)

I'm meeting up with lovelettes tomorrow and will be having Korean!! It's a serious meet-up that shall be filled with nothing except eating and studying. Oh yes, studying. I shall head back to LA VIE POLITIQUE before I waste even more time! :)

as for the 600th post

“A man snatches the first kiss, pleads for the second, demands the third, takes the fourth, accepts the fifth - and endures all the rest.”

— Helen Rowland

Dear beloved,

Is that true? O_O

With endless kisses,
Inggrid ♥

somethings that slowly dies out just have to be revived once more, e.g. this

guys and make-up

Currently having a midnight chat with my lovelettes, as always for the past week. Rachel mentioned about Rain making a come back and gave us a link to his new song. On the page was a few of his photos for the single. When I saw his picture, I sort of gasped a little. I perfectly accept the fact that some guys wear eyeliner, but...

FAKE EYELASH?! Someone's definitely taking it to the next level.

Mila also mentioned that Matsumoto Jun is the male ambassador for Fasio (Japanese make-up brand), mainly for their mascara. Seriously, what is this world turning into?!!

I need to start dolling up my beloved too. WATCH OUT FOR MY LIPGLOSS AND EYELINER!! ;)

boyfriend, friends and update

Le boyfriend in army uniform ♥♥♥ :D

My two lovelettes (new name!!) ♥♥

I've spent the first week in Singapore with my closest few. My mom went back to Indonesia on Monday, leaving me alone with my brother, who comes home late because of work. It gave me a lot of liberation, and of course, I treasured every moment of it, especially in Singapore because I normally have curfew of a 9 year-old. At first, I felt quite lonely and missed my mom. But by now, I am quite sad that it's coming to an end. No more coming home close to 10pm, dinner out, breaking house rules, etc. I suppose I can convince myself that, with her around, I'll have to stay at home and do what I should/MUST do this Easter break: STUDY. Obviously, that was not on my list of things to do in the recent week. I'm freaking worried now actually. My assignments are overdue. O_O

I'm scared to a point that my heart feels weirdish. Anyway, I took a nap a couple of hours back in hopes that I'll complete some of it. I must, must finish half of it by tonight. (out of 3) Arghhh, I hope my mom's existence in the house will inspire me to study. Yea, I'm THAT reliant. Boohoo.

Being stressed has pulled me into a slight depression once more. Right now, I miss EVERYONE. Shaun, Mom (and soon my liberation), Mila, Rachel, my sister... the list goes on. It never really happened before. My shell is cracking? Perhaps.

While Auntie Pat was sending me back home after sending off Shaun, I told her about my view of LDR and army. I told her that maybe, at least for me, LDR is helping me somehow to cope with the fact that my beloved is in army i.e. gone for at least 5 days of the week. I realised that ever since I came back, I miss him to a greater degree than when I was in the UK. It could be because I was not used to the cycle of seeing in for 2 days straight after 5 days of absence. I don't know how to explain it, yet. & I think I did a very terrible job at explaining it to her. It was so embarrassing! T_T

Alright, I must get back to work.

I miss you ♥

rain and thunder and Lush

wonderful...... no, wait, it's more of indescribable.

behavioural changes

The lack of punctuations and expressions in texting can be really be misleading. It normally passes off as "cold" even though it simply means neural/ what the content is about, nothing more and nothing less. Whether or not punctuations and expressions disguise affection, it really boils down to the relationship between the texter and the receiver. If you know the person really well, because you are close to him/her, you won't have to worry about the person because you should know why the person texts that way and there's nothing to worry about (or something). But is it closely correlated? Being close and knowing the person? Is it possible to be close to a person and not know how the person is like? Maybe. I'd say that this test is continuous variation i.e. anything's possible/ nothing is impossible. (wts?)

Back to my case. I am exceptionally lousy in interpreting texts without punctuations and expressions, especially if the texter is someone I am very close to. The closer I am to the person, the more worried I become when I receive a text with just alphabets strung together. Is it because I care too much? Paranoia? Have I got nothing else better to do other than thinking how the person is feeling? I'm not saying that I don't know the person that I'm close to, but sometimes you just have that doubt because people, well being the true nature of a human being, is liable to act out of the normal behaviour from time to time. & this assumption is stuck in my mind. Truth be told, it's very rare for me to not be cautious of someone whom I am starting to get close to. Again, it's human nature issn't it? It's self-defence.

I really shouldn't be spending too much time on this with my luggage yet to be packed, assignments yet to be done and errands yet to be run (ran?). I was quite bugged with a couple of texts these few days and I'm keeping it all in until now, which once again have proved that bottling is just not for me. When will I learn? :/

Henceforth, I've decided to settle with the fact that texters tend to leave out punctuations and expressions because they are tired. Full-stop. No more listing out of possibilities. No more of getting worried, acting foolish and adolescent-y. Just leave it and move on!

Obviously, through this post, one can see that Statistics has taken over my mind. I'm in desperate need of a getaway for a couple of days at least!! :(