my friend, mr jew

before i start, i just want to say that all smart-aleck comments by yours truly, is meant only as a joke. it's meant to be funny. so don't take it to heart, because i love jews just as i love you.

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ever since i came to new york, i have been stuck at home doing work most of the time. i haven't had the chance to make any friends outside of school, and all my friends from school are just as busy as i am. really, it's completely opposite from any glamorous lifestyle.

so when i complained how bored i was, andy told me to come to his apartment building's halloween party. i didn't think we're really go, until about an hour before the party was supposed to start.

obviously, i had nothing to wear.

so i just went as me.

BORING.

on the other hand, when i reached andy's place and met him, i could not stop laughing. when he told me he was gonna dress up as an orthodox jew, i thought he was joking. (andy is jewish himself but not orthodox.) when the elevator's doors opened and i saw him standing there, i went into hysterics.

it was so fucking funny.

it was even funnier when we reached the party and there was another "orthodox jew" in the house.

ok. i giggle everytime i see that photo. hee hee.

obviously, the look doesn't suit me. boo boo. i should have tried on the glasses and a beard too. shucks.


well, the fun kinda ended there. the party was a little boring and full of people who couldn't speak english. where the hell did they come from. so we left, had take-out in his apartment, and decided that we were both really tired. he took a nap in his room, and i fell asleep on his couch. fast forward to 2 hours later, our plans to go bar-hopping changed and i went home to do work.

my life is just full of exciting moments.

i wonder when it will be my time!

when i was younger, i used to imagine that i'd get married when i was 24, have kids at 26, blah blah blah.

well i'm 24 now dammit.

no boyfriend in sight either.

boo.

some of you might remember me mentioning that i was going to a wedding. that was on the 20th, and was held in hartford, connecticut. i only knew the family that was getting married, and andy, whose mom grew up with the bride's mother. andy's parents were kind enough to offer me a ride up to connecticut, so i took the car together with the 3 of them.

they were so cute and bickered all the way. i miss my family. except that in our case, we'd be really fighting with each car ride. 5 stubborn people can't get into a car together. it's war.

anyway, i brought like 4 different things to wear to the wedding cos up till the very last minute, i couldn't decide what to wear!! i had so much work to do that weekend, i brought my macbook to the wedding and was working on it till about half an hour before the ceremony was to start. it was pathetic.

then it was major panic mode. i think i took off and put on each dress about 5 times. seriously. i need to lose weight and i need boobs.

i'm fat and flat. what kind of deadly, very turn-offish body type is that!! pooh.

it was the first wedding that i have attended in the last... god knows how many years, and my first ever jewish wedding!!! now, i know nothing much about the jews and their customs. the only exposure i've had to jewish weddings was on sex and the city when charlotte got married to hairy!!

i mean harry. but i got to see first-hand all the uh... i don't know what it's called, but the cute dance, the couple being lifted up in chairs (looked like a totally scary rollercoaster ride!), stuff like that. it was all so exciting!

god i hate my camera. it's so lousy. but can you at least see the last picture? that's the chair-lift thing. it was so fun!!! i was gawking and smiling with my mouth so wide open, two flies could have flown in.

the wedding was gorgeous and the couple looked so happy. the two of them were childhood best friends!!! they've known each other and been together for 12 years now. can we all say, wow?

andy and i had a discussion about this, if we would ever marry our childhood friends. seriously, i just can't imagine it. i mean, i tried to imagine alex and myself, and i almost shuddered. (no offense alex darling, you know i love you xoxo. heh heh.)

but when you know all sorts of crap about someone, and they know all sorts of crap about you, and if you're just so comfortable with that person you could (almost) fart in their face, and if there were seriously zero sparks, i could never get married like that i think.

although i'd have to say that if there was an attraction since you were kids, that's like a fairytale come true, very disney-cartoon worthy, and totally romantic. i would get totally jealous of people like that. especially if they could fart in each other's faces, roll over laughing and still kiss. now that is what i call true love.

going to the wedding really made me think of when it might be my turn. at the moment, i seriously can't imagine myself getting hitched. i think i need to learn more about myself, love more of myself, (and start by getting a boyfriend) before i can even think about that chapter of life.

*major sighs*

i felt so out of place at the wedding. i was one of the extremely few asians there, uh, i had bright pink hair, i just felt so out of place. as the night wore on, i realised how bad i was at communicating with people. i couldn't start conversations, and i just felt like an idiot. i don't know whether it was because i was tired, or was i more shy than i thought i was...?? most of the people there were close friends or relatives, all distant cousins of each other... there were kids and then there were the older folks. and all those people who looked around my age were either bridesmaids and best men (and were hence busy running around), great friends of the couple (and were thus squealing and hugging permanently), or were the regular stuck up typical bitches. yes, that bitchy girl in every american movie.

• black satin dress with jewels by betsey johnson. i bought this at the betsey johnson sample sale. 80 dollars!! woohoo!!
  
• black heels by irregular choice
• turquoise hair feather thing by me
• spoiling soon camera by sony (i will miss you)
  

(why did i decide to take photos in front of the toilet bowl like that. how gross.)

anyway around midnight, the party was still going strong and i was just about dying of boredom. everyone was dancing disco and while i loved all those old songs, i just needed to have more friends around to be able to go wild and enjoy myself. andy found me sitting outside the ballroom texting and talking on the phone with my classmate. i think he was bored too. so we got the hell out of there and decided to go out to town and "discover" hartford.

there was nothing.

the whole town had like 4 bars, filled with regular college frat boys and girls who were rubbing up against them.

i don't understand how they do that. call me a 50 year old prude, but i couldn't do that. a few guys tried to chat me up but they were so young and immature i basically smiled and walked away. ugh.

the bars and clubs closed at 2 am, and standing outside in the freezing cold and no jacket, guess what happened?

for the first time in my life, i heard gunshots from a distance.

i'm not kidding.

they were real. i know you are thinking, "how would you know?"

because it was different from anything i have ever heard before. a total of 5 of those pierced through the air, and then i saw a group of 4 black guys running towards us and to their cars nearby. then i heard police sirens, and then everyone started running. it scared the fuck out of me. i was already blue with cold but hearing that, the color really drained from my face. andy is a native new yorker and it was his first time hearing gunshots too.

and who would have thought we'd hear them in no-one-land, hartford?

here's the only picture that andy and i took together. he was my saviour that night, i would have died if he weren't there, seriously. i hate this picture of myself though. i look like garfield.

ahaha.

deniminim

i live in denims. jeans, skirts, dresses, whatever. so doing a denim project was just super!!! i had a lot of ideas and it was sooooo hard to decide on what i wanted to do! in the end, i picked a theme that i loved.... birthdays!!!!!!

who doesn't love a birthday party??

i know i do.

i scoured the internet for gorgeous, colorful pictures of birthdays and birthday parties for my inspiration board. thank you thank you to gala darling, for your rainbow bursts of pictures too!

these are the sketches i came up with. ok i swear, i can't wait to start sewing in class cos there are just SO many things in this page that i want for myself!!! ugh!!!

and here is my mood board for my project, as well as my completed finished edits.

i'm actually quite proud of this collection. i think i managed to pull of some crazy pieces, but still keep myself in check and restrain a bit of my craziness!!! i made sure that i added in some simple, plain pieces. a friend questioned during our critique session as to why i had such simple tshirts and why they were just white. well, i felt that because i had some pretty mad stuff, i needed something simple that could be paired with any of the crazy pieces. and i love white tshirts - i own a ton of them myself - and i feel everyone should own a couple of good, white tshirts!!

i cheated a little in the sense that the outfit on the left (with the white shirt and penguin pants) is something that i have already designed and sewn previously. hee hee. but hey, at least i made them! what i really want a black leather biker jacket, that pink balloon skirt, the skirt with the swirls and hearts, and those pink jeans and shredded white skirt!!! ahhh!!!

dress me up

when i was younger i never used to wear dresses. and i mean never. i was the biggest tomboy and i had short hair for the longest time. frankly i really did look like a boy and there were many times when i went to the restrooms and would get told by some old lady, "boys go that side!"

i think i only started wearing skirts and dresses when i was like...maybe 17 or 18. and even then i probably only owned like 3 skirts. it wasn't until i was 19 or 20, and after i went to japan that i started really loving dresses and found how well i love expressing my individuality through them. i think it must have been that singapore only had really boring dresses, nothing that i wanted to wear. when i went to japan and found this whole array of different styles, it was like a whole new world had been opened up in front of me.

designing dresses for class was something that was really exciting to me, but i tried to rein myself in because my teachers have said that i can get too costume-y.

our inspiration had to come from architects, and after some research, i decided i found many inspiring ideas from herzog and de meuron. the duo from switzerland used to design really simple buildings, but their recent projects show a different side of them that i found really exciting. they were using a lot of lines and almost grafitti-like swirls, and combined with sharp lines that they still use now, i just imagined so many different clothes in my head. they are also the pair behind the fabulous prada building in tokyo, as well as the beijing olympic stadium - which looks like a bird's nest. i love it!

here are the rough sketches that i drew. they are so ugly i can't stand it. i really wish i could draw better. initially i wanted them to be brown in color... then as i painted a few in brown, it just bored the hell out of me and i changed my color scheme to red, blue and plaid!! thank god!!

below are the 6 dresses that i picked from the lot as my finished edits...

then i redrew and painted them, and voila!

i know, i still have that costume-y thing. my teachers tell me that people won't wear things like that, but i don't understand yet. because i would! i would totally wear them. i don't design things that i wouldn't wear myself, and i wish people here understood me more.

oops

don't worry, i haven't died or gone to heaven nor hell.

i've just been busier than you can imagine and getting zero sleep!!! i got back home from school today at 4 and slept till about midnight. after days of not sleeping or getting just 2 to 3 hours of sleep, i feel soooooo good!!!

anyway i'm so disgusted with myself for not updating often enough. but a whole load of pictures coming up tomorrow so hang in there and don't abandon me. :)

halloween fever

i had some shopping report that i wanted to get done, and after drowning myself in cold tablets and antibiotics, i felt better for the first time in two days. at least i wasn't blowing my nose out and having everyone within 10 yards shooting me disgusted faces.

so i made my way down to the patricia field store again. now, her window displays are always gorgeous, but i really loved this halloween theme!!! it is brilliant!!

when i popped inside, something else that was lying on the register counter really interested me...

ooh, so exciting. i hear that carrie's wedding dress was borrowed from vivienne westwood all the way from london. and my friend who lives on bleeker street tells me that they film there all the time. bah. too bad i'm too busy to even lead a life, there's just no way i'll ever get to catch them on the streets!!


speaking of halloween, what are you intending to dress up as?

i have never had a real halloween before. i think the closest i'd ever felt "halloween-ish" was last year when i went to tokyo disneyland!!! i got invited to a huge bash this year and it is apparently the craziest one in new york. which will be my first halloween in the states, and i'm a bit excited! i don't wanna spend too much money on it though, but it will be pretty cool to be able to really dress up! i just can't think of what i wanna be. well in fact i don't have much time to actually think about it! boo!

what are your plans for halloween this year and what was your best costume ever?

mom comes to visit

so my mom was here in new york for a week from the 4th to 11th. it was her first visit to new york but i guess she came to see me more than the city, just to find out how my living conditions are, and stuff like that.

problem is, i am just soooo busy with school, that we hardly had the time to go out. so most of her one week was spent like wandering around by herself and then we'd meet up for dinner. good thing we managed to squeeze in some tourist-y things to do during the weekend!!

we started off in times square and boarded the double-decker open-top tourist bus that takes you around the city. before we got on the bus, we wanted to take pictures at the famous times square buildings.

but the naked cowboy was there, so we thought, heck we'd go take pictures with him. i mean, that's what a tourist in new york would do, right? i've seen him there a million times and have zero interest, but he was standing where i wanted to take photos from, so it was a "might as well" situation.

he is basically a character who parades himself on the most prominent corner of times square dressed only in his cowboy hat, boots, and underwear. i think he looks retarded and sure ain't good looking if you ask me.

well since it was just my mom and i, i thought i'd get someone to help us take photos. turns out that the naked "cowboy" has a manager who was handing out leaflets for his website, so i asked rather politely if he'll help us take some photos.

guess what he said?

"are you gonna tip me?"
"uh, okay." and i reached into my wallet.
"are you gonna tip him too?"
"uh...okay..."
"so you are tipping me right?"
"yeah."
"ok. just making sure."
"if this is a paid service how come you don't have a sign for it? isn't tipping like a gratuity thing? are you supposed to ask for it?"
"well i ask for what i want."
"what?"
"so yeah tip me and him."

i got so pissed off i put the 5 lousy bucks i had in my hand back in my wallet and took out two bucks. the way he said it, the tone of his voice and all that, was just disgusting.

then we took our photos with the cowboy and we got robbed - totally molested and it's not like he's some gorgeous dude that i'd even want to get molested by, you know?

i might be smiling in those shots but trust me i wanted to kick him in his balls. actually i'd rather kick his manager's, since he was the real bastard. then i took my camera back from that slime and gave him his two bucks. i mean, that bloody fuck isn't even worth a ten cent that had dropped on the pavement that i wouldn't even bother to try and pick up.

he took it and walked away but guess what i overheard him saying to the cowboy?
"she gave me one lousy buck. how the fuck does she want me to pay for my kids through college with one lousy buck!"

well i've got one thing to say to you, asshole. buy yourself a better attitude. and if you can't afford that then you've gotta sell your ass to the gays cos with that attitude of yours, that's the only way you'll probably ever make money. bloody dumb ass.

so if you EVER come to new york, don't even go near that stupid prick. it's NOT worth your time, nor your two bucks.

anyway.

it was really hard juggling schoolwork and going out with mom. like on the weekdays i'd be at school till evening time, then we'd go out for dinner or something, then i'd come back home and while my mom slept, i'd stay up till like 4 or 5 a.m. to finish up my work that i needed to get done. i was really tired and i was getting like 2 or 3 hours of sleep maximum, each day.

i brought my mom to la bonne soup, which alex and i had gone to twice when he was in the big apple. my mom loved it too. i'm telling you, it's really good. we went there for dinner once and then for a late lunch again! haha!!

with my lousy schedule, we only managed to have one great dinner, and that was with some really old family friends - ron, debbie and laura sheiman, and andrew. ron and debbie have been friends with my parents since like god knows when; i think before i was even born. i met laura before many years ago when we were still kids and the sheimans came to singapore, and i remember her and her sister, jill, so well because they taught us this really hilarious, full of hand actions, song. it was called "joe and the butter factory". have any of you heard of it before?

it's been years and i can't remember exactly, but it goes something like this:
"hi... my name is joe... and i work in a butter factory. i have a wife, a dog and a family. one day, my boss comes up to me and says 'hey joe, are you busy?' and i say 'no'. so he says 'churn the butter with your right hand'." then left hand then right leg and so on, you get the picture.

ok it's so corny but hey, when you're like six, it's the coolest game ever.

laura's getting married on the 20th, and if you recall me saying, it is her wedding dinner that i'm gonna be attending and i still don't know what i'm gonna wear!! help me!!!

andy's mom grew up with debbie, so she introduced him to me, just so i'd know someone in manhattan. she can't stop singing his praises and that's because he's smart and funny and at 23, doing really well in the real estate business. when i found out his age, i immediately felt old and like a failure. ugh.

well that dinner was so fun and i had such a great time. it was SUCH a pity though, that the waiter who helped us take a picture, did such a lousy job!! i'm so disappointed that the photo turned out blur.

after dinner the sheimans drove us around the city to show my mom how it is at night, and we stopped by grand central station. check out what i found on the bins!

Gilda's Club is a free-of-charge, non-profit organization that aims to provide meeting places where men, women and children living with cancer, along with their families and friends, can join with others to build a personal network of social and emotional support as an integral part of cancer treatment.
i made a small donation, and if you can, please do so too!!

my mom left at 6 a.m. on thursday, the 11th. on the 10th, the weather had gone really funky and it went from hot and humid to really windy and cold! summer to start of winter in one lousy day! where did my autumn go?!?! i haven't even had the chance to wear any light jackets and coats that i love!!

i walked my mom out to the cab and came back to sleep, but when i woke up, i had the worst headache ever and my nose was stuffy and my throat was itchy. i thought to myself, 'this is just great!!! my mom leaves and i get sick when i'm stuck here all alone and can't have anyone cook for me!?!?'

i guess all the stress and lack of sleep finally caught up with me and my body was telling me that it can't handle all the shit i'm doing to it. i was really tired, but getting sick now is just making the situation worse. i don't have time nor the luxury to lie back and rest!!!

my flu and sore throat quickly went from bad to worse and i'm really quite sick now. i had to force myself to go to school on friday morning cos we were having a quiz. but in the middle of it, i suddenly felt so nauseous i had to run to the toilet to puke. i was feeling horrid, but i think the toilet was so gross that i puked more than i was supposed to.

then this girl asked me if i was pregnant.

". . . . . . . . . . . ........."

huh? no i'm not. does my tummy look big?? ack! my nose is stuffed up and my throat hurts and i've got a temperature and i sound like a toad but no i'm not pregnant! and does my tummy look big!?!? ack!

so i'm on this antibiotics now and it's really helping a lot, although i still sound like crap and i carry my own box of tissues even when i leave the house. somehow i felt well enough on friday evening to go do my shopping report downtown, and i went to the patricia field store again. (more on that later!!)

today's get-up 04oct2007

my classmate, ramona, and i, had talked about how much we love betsey johnson and heatherette, then the next day when we get to school, we see this sign on the notice board outside of class:

so we went to my first ever sample sale together yesterday (thursday), bright and early in the morning. i was ecstatic. betsey johnson dresses for $80. ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't get much better than this. we were one of the first few there, and when we got into the huge warehouse, it was like i had walked into a room of cotton-candy. i was deeply in love.

and here was what i wore!

• black teeshirt
• purple gingham jacket by comme des garcons
• black skirt by comme des garcons
• black tights
• pink rabbit brooch by hinagiku @ tokyomade
• dark purple boots by maison martin margiela

my god i hate my fat legs.
make that my short, fat, stubby legs.

hello-oh i have a major formal black-tie wedding to go to in less than a month and i have nothing to wear, so i need to lose some damn weight cos nothing's worse than having 'nothing to wear' than 'fat and nothing to wear'.

and to all my doubters who emailed to check how fast my pink and purple hair is fading and how much my pillows are staining, i have this to say:

my pillows aren't pink nor purple, and although the color isn't as vivid as it was, i still get people stopping me in the streets about my hair. so there!

i went to a musuem after the sale, then as i headed home, i walked past the studio for the david letterman show, and saw this whole horde of people crowding around an exit.

i walk past and while looking at the door and grooving to some song on my iphone, this woman gives me the thumbs-up sign. i remove an earpiece and say, "sorry?"
"cool hair. and nice skirt."
"oh! thanks!!.... who's everyone waiting for?"
"rihanna."
"who?"
"rihanna, you know, the singer."
"oh rihanna! was she on the show today?"
"yeah she's supposed to have come out at 4:30pm and it's like six now and she still hasn't appeared."
"are you a fan?"
"yeah i am. are you too?"
"uhm...no, not really, i was just walking by on my way home."
"oh..."
"it'll be cool if i could catch a glimpse though."
"you really should."

i told myself i should stay put and wait a little. i mean, how easy would this celebrity sighting be, right? and i could put it up on my blog, log, log, yeah, yeah, yeah. (you better know what i'm talking about.)

but after i waited there for like, 5 minutes, i decided i was too tired to even bother, and walked away.

i detoured to buy a drink from the nearby drugstore, and when i came out moments later and turned to look, the crowd had dispersed. oops. rihanna has left the building!

while i was buying my coke.

oh well.

today's get-up 03oct2007

boy, it's been a hectic week. i'm mentally and physically drained. i've been so busy i haven't even had the energy to feel homesick or lonely. pooh!

if you can't tell yet, i absolutely love these pants.

• turquoise hairband
• super avant garde jacket by balenciaga (bloody genius)
• sarouel pants by comme des garcons
• red and blue heels by irregular choice
  

i was walking around soho with a friend and found the irregular choice store!!! it had opened just the day before!! i was so surprised to see it and it was SO damn cute. i walked in and exclaimed that i was so happy to find them, cos i've always only been able to find them online. then the salesgirl says, "cos it's the first shop ever and we opened yesterday!!!"

woohoo!!

and this pair of shoes were chanting my name and calling out to me. i tried to stop myself from buying them but they voodoo-ed me. it's not my fault.

how cute are they?? just HOW CUTE ARE THEY!!! they have ankle straps too but i have short enough legs and don't need to make them look even shorter, so i took them out. i wore them for the first time today while carrying my bag that (really) weighed a ton, and it was so comfy!! absolutely amazing.

i am not a 'heel' person and the last time i wore a pair of heels, i think it must have been more than 6 months ago. i love heels, but it just doesn't suit my lifestyle. so yes, i walk like a bear in heels. but these were so cute and cushion-y. i almost felt special.

hee hee!


quick life update:

1. my mom is coming to new york to visit me tomorrow and i'm insanely excited.

2. coming soon, my dresses collection! keep a lookout for that!!

3. i finally purchased my own domain name. queengilda.com!! i've been waiting and trying to buy gilda.com, which is an empty domain parked lifeless on cyberspace, but it didn't work out and i'm so disappointed. so i went with the next best option. haha! eventually i'm gonna move this whole blog onto my own space online, but for the moment, while i'm too busy to even scratch my bum (eww gross), the url will be a forwarding url to this blog. so lovebirds, remember to change your bookmarks!