don't mess with me

so i was supposed to register for next semester's classes on friday at 8 am. i've been having such a busy week, i've hardly slept at all. well, to be brutally honest, most of it was just due to my utter lack of time management. i was supposed to do things over the weekend that i didn't, and everything just got pushed back, such that i was really just doing homework the nights before they were due. and of course, according to our favorite murphy and his (or is it her) law, everything that could mess up messed up, and i spent hours working on something that should have taken me less than half that time. in other words, i hardly slept all week and was a walking zombie. and i sure looked and felt shitty too. in the words of my darling friend anthony, i was a "train wreck".

on thursday night i spent a couple of hours pouring over the online registration page, deciding on my classes, and writing everything down. "all set!" i thought, and looked at the time. it was like, 3 am, and i was about to faint from physical exhaustion. i contemplated going to sleep because my bed and blankets were looking rather delicious, but i knew that if i had gone to bed, i would NOT wake up at 8 o'clock to register and get into the classes i wanted.

so i did what every crazy idiot would do (don't try this, kids): i stayed up all night. la-di-da-di-da. doing nothing. so what, right? well like i said, i hadn't slept in days. well yeah i wanted to get some work done, but seriously, my brain was not having it. it was shutting down, just like my eyes were, so i just sat around and watched x japan's yoshiki videos on youtube. (yoshiki is so damn cute i can't take it. sorry takuya, but i'm having a huge affair with yoshiki now. ooh! but don't worry you're still my one and only true love.) i had never heard him speak english before, and it was only after this youtube-ing episode that i watched videos of interviews that he had given in english. (here's one that i thought was hilarious. and here's another one when an employee pissed him off.) he's much better than i thought!! well he should obviously be fluent enough after living in los angeles for 10 years eh? he still speaks very much in japanese-english though. it's hard to explain but they have their own accent. and excuse me, why didn't anyone tell me he had a myspace page??? and he actually writes a blog too, for his own myspace as well as violet uk's. oh my god the way he writes is so cute. the best thing? he personally views each comment before they are published. (which also explains why the comments on recent entries are "0", because it's taking him months to go through hundreds of comments for each post.)

i gushed to my friend about yoshiki the other day, and she's no fan of all these japan bands that i love. (and to all you haters, i'm really not a teenybopper but when it comes to smap and x japan, i'll become a groupie if i could. pffffffffffft!!! *major wahahas*) she took one look at this video of yoshiki that i showed her, and she was like, "wait. isn't he really similar to that other guy you like?"

and i'm like, "his name is takuya and whaddya meeeean? what are you talking about? are they?"

"honey, they speak the same way they act the same way they smile and laugh the same way and they look like twins when they have sunglasses on. maybe you just like their noses and cheekbones. and maybe you just like it that they are so passionate about something."


wow. i felt like i had been to some quickie drive-thru guru or holy psychic mind-reader, who pointed out in simple words exactly what i like in guys!! i wanted to pay her 10 dollars. but of course, friends shouldn't pay friends. services like that within friends are for free!!! hahaha.


erm, strayed too far from my topic.

well i youtube-d yoshiki all night, and spent a few hours smiling like an idiot at my computer screen. at about 7:45 my roommate's alarm started going off (she's from parsons and had to register too), so i took a final look at all the classes i wanted to get.

at 7:59 i tried logging into the registration page. "you are not permitted to register at this time." said the system. "ok fine, so i was a minute early," i thought. i tried again at 8:00. at 8:01, at 8:02, and about 47 times at 8:03.

WHAT THE HELL WHAT'S UP WITH THIS PAGE!!!!

i walk over to my roommate's room and ask her if she's managed to log in. "yeah i'm in but like all the classes i want are already filled up."

"WHAT!!! i can't even log in!! ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

i went and dug through my mountain of random papers, and found the number to call up the registrar's office. when i called them, and complained that i can't log into the system and theybettergetmeinthereasapbecause *gasp* idon'twannagetintosomelousyclasswithlousyteachers, guess what the woman told me?

"the system says you're not permitted to register at this time."

HELLO WOMAN, I TOLD YOU THAT!

she wanted me to call up my fashion advisors and have them call her again to fix the problem, because they had to be the ones to give her the go-ahead and let me register. "why can't you call them directly and speak with them on the phone?!!??!"

i was nearly yelling.

"i can't do that ma'am."

"HUH?!?!?!? why not?!?!?! that's just pointless and makes absolutely NO sense. i'm losing out on precious minutes here."

"so you should put the phone down and call them as soon as possible ma'am."

i realized obviously that i was talking to a friggin' bafoon (is there such a word?? it's a mix between a baboon and a fool. i like this word. i just came up with it while typing. because she really was a fucking bafoon.) so i went "WHATEVER!!" and hung up on her, and tried calling my advisors in the fashion campus.

the head advisor didn't pick up the phone. but i got over that quickly since she never helps anyone anyway. i didn't know the extension for my other advisor but managed to get to her through the voice activated machines. i told her my problem and she said that she will have to call the registrar's office, let them fix me up, then they'll call her back, and she'll email me the moment she gets the phone call.

"b, b, b, bu, but how long's that going to take!?!?" i was boiling so much i started to stutter.

"i don't have control over the system so that's the route we'll have to go."

"ok but please hurry because my roommate's telling me that the classes are filling up really fast."

"don't worry because there are enough classes for everyone."

"that's not the point. the whole reason everyone's rushing in to register at 8 am is because there ARE preferred classes, and i'm not getting anything i want even though i tried to register on time, and it's not even my fault! someone on the school's side messed my system up and i don't see why i need to pay for it."

"....well let me just call them and we'll try to hurry this process."

i know she is actually a really nice advisor. but seriously, this is NOT the first time that the parsons administration people have fucked up big time. i mean, they fucked up before i even entered the school. i am learning a lot in that school and (most) of my teachers are really imparting a lot of knowledge and skills to me which i totally appreciate. (although the key word is, "most".) but for god's sakes, someone needs to take all these admin people by the toes and hang them upside down so that blood will hopefully rush to their brains and start up those rusty machines in there.

it's terrible and i know i'm not the only one bitching about them, although i bitch quite a lot at any chance i have. UGH!!!!!

i couldn't take it because my head was pounding, so i went to lie down and set alarms on my iphone like, seriously, every 15 minutes. just so i keep myself at a half-awake mode and not fall into deep sleep ala sleeping beauty, and wake up a century or two later.

i received an email from my advisor at 9:39 am.

i'm not the greatest person on technological stuff, but i'm not that daft either. how long does it take to locate my name in their system, especially when no one else has my name and they already know my student id? how long does it take to check a few boxes like "allow student to register for fall 2008?" and click a few mouses? does it reeeeeeally take more than an hour?

i could have baked an entire pie in that time, ok. not that i bake pies, but i could have!

and of course, all the classes i wanted were filled and the sections were closed, and i had to settle for classes that were not my initial preferred classes.

i hate them hate them hate them.

when you're operating a university as big as the new school is, and a school as old and as famous as parsons is, you really have to get your act together. don't bitch to us about our attendance and about how we should do this and that, when as a university, you mess things up yourself. the only reason why this school is fabulous is because of its teachers. as for all the administration, it's a pity that those who really try hard aren't getting praised, because there are bigger idiots who mess things up so big all the time it's hard to even realize their good moments. i don't know why my parents are paying US 40 grand a year for fees when we have idiots like that running the school. where the hell is my money going to??? why can't we even get decent irons that work properly? how much is a freakin professional iron? i don't want some lousy 300 dollar piece of crap that at-home seamstresses can buy. did you guys watch one of the later episodes of project runway in season 4, i think it was when roberto cavalli was guest judge, when jillian was panicking about not finishing her dress on time, and she got fed up with the irons in parsons? i remembered watching her curse at those stupid things and i remember saying, "YES!!! EXACTLY!!! thank you!"

plus, they send out emails telling us to vote for some student senate, and some other email about a competition on "what would you do if you had $2000 to spend?" or some amount like that. well how about updating the machines in school?

it's disgusting and i'm dumbfounded. flabbergasted. i don't even wanna compare it to bunka because bunka's facilities were top-notch and amazing. parsons should be ashamed of themselves. and they should really take a trip to tokyo and have a look at how great the amenities are there. HMPH! with a capital H!


another hellava bitchy post
from your favorite first-class bitch,

gilda xox

working girl

this is another one of my projects from the previous semester. it was for a bridge collection. for those of you who don't understand what a bridge line is, well it's a little hard to explain because it means a lot of things. we have the high-end designer lines, like donna karen, and then her bridge line would be considered dkny, where it is more affordable for the masses, and consists more of separate ready-to-wear outfits (although there are, of course, dresses). bridge collections are usually for everyday use, especially for the working career woman, sometimes to take her from the office to dinner. there are also some well-established bridge lines like dana buchman, tory burch and so on (although some people consider them more contemporary).

we were supposed to design a working woman's wardrobe, inject our own design aesthetic into it, and yet keep it wearable for the masses and to be able to carry someone to the office and then to a dinner.

BOY it was hard. i decided i wanted to do a masculine collection with a male touch, because although i do love crazy stuff, i also love the suit and i love jackets and i also love menswear, so i wanted something menswear inspired that a strong woman could wear.

besides my favorite white, black and navy colors, i also wanted to inject some brights in there with my two beloved neons, pink and turquoise. yes, ladies and gentlemen, you will see these colors in a lot of my clothes!!

ps: although i do wanna show you guys more of my croquis and the planning stage, i've decided that that might not be a good idea after all. i guess i have a need to keep some of my ideas to myself! heh heh!

jara jara japan

how excited was i when i found out that we all had to submit an entry to a japanese contest? pretty excited.

how excited was i when i found out i had no time to really put a lot of effort into it? not that excited.

it was a contest to design clothing for teenagers aged 13-19, and there were so many restrictions, it was a little difficult to keep myself in check. for starters, we could only use 3 different kinds of fabrics, and we had to create swatches of those fabrics on the computer too. for a photoshop virgin like me, not good news. and we could only design 3 outfits!!! too little. i also drew something that my teacher thought was "too costume-y" (seriously i hate that bloody word now. it's poison.), so i trashed that and redrew the whole thing.

i wanted something fun and casual, but still a little quirky like how i like it. unfortunately, we were all so busy with regular schoolwork, some of my friends drew normal tshirts and jeans and that was it. i looked back at my old sketchbooks and wanted to revive one of my favorite girls and outfit, so i drew her here in the middle and changed it a little.

my 3 fabrics were a washed denim in white, a silk jersey also in white, and a knit, one in pink with polkadots and one in blue with cloud embroidery.

so here are my girls in my jara jara japan (jingle jangle japan!!) collection!

seriously, i've drawn these stockings with black hearts in so many of my designs. i love it and keep going back to it. i wonder if there are already a pair of stockings out there that look like it. if not, no one better steal this idea (i'll come after ya)!! if i ever get my own line out there i'll definitely produce these. love it!

once you go black, you won't go back

or so they say.
haha.

no, i've never done that type of black before. (this is not a racist remark.)

what i have done, is colored my hair black! woohoo!

my hair had been pink and purple for some time now, and for over a month, the color was still extremely neon and vibrant. but around the start of the november, the color started fading and it wasn't as bright and vivid as i wanted it to be.

well, i also got slightly sick of it. you know me, i can't keep one look for too long. i needed change.

so change i did.

bye bye miss faded and jaded, hello miss rock-star black!

i did it myself in my bathroom. it was horrific. i haven't colored my own hair for a long time now, especially black! so when i was done with the color, my entire neck was a disgusting muddy black color. not to mention my ears and even shoulders, even though i had rubbed in a huge amount of vaseline to protect my skin! i freaked out! for a moment, i thought i'd have to wear a knit cap and scarf until the color faded. i spent like an hour in the shower rubbing the hell out of it.

and after all the rubbing and scrubbing, my skin was no longer black. yay!

but it was red. boo.


anyway the last couple of weeks have just been crazy. i decided to drop out of one class because i just couldn't cope. it was too much and it's just not worth killing myself over school. this means that i might have to take it in senior year (when i really want to be concentrating on my final collection and not taking other unnecessary things), but ahh, heck. i just can't do it now.

on the up side, i'm finally getting the hang of what my fashion concepts (where we basically draw and design clothes) teacher wants out of me. she's really nice and funny but honestly, she's crazy and has been loading us with so much work, all of us are stressed, exhausted and basically dying. we get so much more work than the other classes!! it's crazy! and she hates everything i do because it's apparently too costumey and over-the-top.

well i love over-the-top and i refuse to let new york jade me.

another teacher of mine, for my studio methods class (where we do sewing and all that), is like the cutest funniest person ever. i love greg. he's so damn smart and cute and so darn funny i wanna pinch his cheeks. hahaha. get this: he's 28 and has worked for people like karl lagerfeld before!! and, get get this this: i don't know what his exact position is, but he's either head pattern maker, or one of the pattern makers, of the victoria's secret fashion show!!!

yeah, you know what i'm talking about. i'm not talking about the stuff they sell in the stores. hell no. i'm talking about the famous victoria's secret runway show. some of their most famous models include heidi klum, naomi campbell, tyra banks, gisele bundchen, alessandra ambrosio and so on. they are the women whom men wanna lick and women wanna be.

and greg is one of their pattern makers. WOW.

he told us that when we first started the semester, and all of us just went wowowowow and that was it. but then the "wow-ness" of it all finally rubbed in last week when he told us, "i won't be here for class next week because i'll be in l.a. for the victoria's secret show."

holy crap.

how exciting is that?? he says that heidi, gisele and (i think he mentioned) karolina, are the most-est nicest people ever and he loves them to death. ooh ahh. i hope he comes back on monday with juicy gossip to feed my inner paparazzi.

greg also has his own menswear line that is really classy. he always wears his own shirts and i really like them because he pays attention to the smallest detail. and it's called godspeed the well-dressed man. how can you not love him.

wait, back to the victoria's secrets show... i wonder.... doing what he does, does that mean that he gets to touch their boobs and knows all their real measurements? wahahaha. i'm dying to find out.

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.

the swmsuit edition

so i walk out of my apartment on sunday and get a shock - the streets are closed and there are a million people out on the road.

it's a street fair/flea market!! i had no idea that was happening!! i was wondering why there were some shouting and all going on downstairs, but didn't know it was because there were SO many people out there. i love fairs like that and spent two hours looking at everything, only to regret later cos i had so much to do and should not have been at any fairs!!

it's been a crazy two weeks and i haven't been having much sleep. i woke up late yesterday and had a major panic attack. i mean, it's ok if i was late for class - that's just a "late" on my record - but i think because all this stress has been building up, i really had a weird panic thing going on and my heart was POUNDING.

god i'm stressed and i really need a massage and some time to go out and have fun.

so anyway, i thought i'd share with you guys what i've been up to the last couple of weeks. as part of my never-ending pile of homework, we've been doing swimsuit designs.

(did the title make you feel a bit playboy-ish?)

we started off with creating a mood board. a mood board is basically a concept board with pictures or words or sketches, that help convey the overall feel of the project. doing one helps to keep one's focus, by keeping all the images of inspiration together. our objective was to choose two icons, and bring them to two different places, and get our inspiration from there.

my inspirations were "napoleon goes to tokyo"

and "betty boop and the harajuku girls drink vodka in moscow".

then we did sketches and drew many different swimsuits, then picked five that we liked the best as our collection. while i was doing it, there were times where i just felt stumped and felt like i had zero creativity juices, but after everything was painted and i looked through it, i felt this odd surge of inspiration, like light bulbs were going off everywhere (you know how they do it in cartoons) and came out with so many more ideas.

i haven't finished it yet, but here's roughly how it is going. from next week on we'll be moving into designing dresses, which i am REALLY excited about cos i love dresses. i mean, the last time i wore a swimsuit was perhaps 10 years ago so i was really dying the last few days. it was also hard for me because i like over-the-top things and wanted to add on a million complicated details, but my teacher kept telling us not to make it too costume-y. this project killed me.

i find that because i'm not that fluid and confident with my sketching and drawing, it is really hard for me to convey all my ideas that are in my head and transfer them to paper. for those of you who love art and design as well, do you have similar problems? how do you work your way around it? i'm really lost and it's so frustrating.

anyway, here is my little incomplete collection.

well, i thought i wanted to share with you guys what i've been doing. it also seems that all my creative energy is being channeled into schoolwork right now and although i wanna blog more and i have some articles that i have lined up to write, it would be great if you could let me know if there's anything you want me to write about too.


i need to design more cover-ups for the skimpy swimsuits, and perhaps i'll post them when they are more presentable. what do you guys think? all constructive criticism and comments are welcomed. :)

gouache newbie

i've worked with watercolors before (well, i started using it 2 years ago for the first time) and was pretty confident with it, cos i knew how to manipulate the paint and colors to get an effect that i like. so when i found out that here in parsons, we had to use gouache (pronounced gwash), i thought i could handle it.

boy was i wrong. it's so difficult!!

i got so frustrated today when i was doing my homework.

it was a nice, bright and sunny day today so i decided to move out into the balcony to do my work. but all that good weather didn't put me in a good mood at all. i was going, "UGHHHHHHH." every 5 seconds cos i couldn't get the paints to do what i wanted it to do.

sitting out in my pajamas. it was kinda cold!!


my extremely messy table. i didn't even have a water container and used
a take-out sushi bento cover. how disgusting. i'm disgusting.

we were supposed to get pictures from a magazine or online, and use it to practice our figure drawing and painting skills. the drawing was okay for me but seriously i'm hating the gouache. i took forever to mix the skin color and i still could not get a color that i liked. i repainted (like redrew and then repainted!!) the whole thing twice but hated both pieces. i ended up with a really muddy color which no real person could probably have. well i've never met such a person anyway. i hate that i didn't know how to work the paints and blend them into each other properly. like i tried to paint in the shadows but ended up with super ugly blocks of color. yuck. i hate it.

we're doing swimsuits in class now, so i also did like 50 croquis, which nearly killed me or at least took away 26 of my 27 lives. these are also colored with gouache. it is not a pretty sight. i'll upload some of those when i've finished outlining them, so that you can agree with me.

are you a gouache expert? PLEASE give me some tips!!!! i'm on my knees!

the tv is on now as i'm typing this, and they're talking about a pickle festival that happened on sunday in the lower east side. shucks!! i was THERE in the lower east side that day, and my friend and i decided go take a look after hearing about it. but we stopped on the way to see so many other things, by the time we reached the place, it was closed!! i was so disappointed.

all that was left was this booth selling pickle pizza, which did not look appetizing at ALL, but my "i'm always hungry" friend ate a slice. ewwww.

bless my (poor) fortune

i've been attending orientation all week and it's filled with talk talk talk and more talk, and very silly "introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you" games. wow. i haven't done those since i was like... i don't know when. the "make-a-friend" game kinda works in a way though - the conversation starts off with, "i can't believe we have to do this kind of stuff!"

it's a mad rush to apply and register for classes and i'm gonna have a super packed schedule. noooooooo!!! that totally sucks. my latest class ends at 2040pm!! (that's 8:40pm for those of you who can't read 24-hr clocks...)

i took the elevator at school for the first time on thursday (30th), and got all excited just being in the lift. if you've ever watched project runway, you'll know what i mean. and yes, it's s l o w as hell and totally retarded.

disclaimer: i love it now, but when i start getting late for class because of it, you'll hear me complaining.

my iPhone has finally decided to come to life, hah-leh-loo-yah. i love it and it's so cool but seriously, it has some major glitches that i hope apple's geniuses are working on right now. so all you new yorkers, contact me so we can have hot chocolate together. or a strawberry margerita. i love those. contact me especially if you have tickets to new york fashion week and i will love you forever. i went to set up my bank account the other day, and my banker turns out to be a fashion designer, who's gonna show during fashion week. how bloody cool is that? banker-fashion designer. don't you just love how that sounds??

he invited me over to come see his show. i'm stoked. i have a ticket to another show, but it's nothing fancy pancy. but hell i'm a first-time new yorker so i'm happy with anything.

so. i've been busy looking for a place to stay for the next 6 months. yup, i have my reasons for that, but i'm only looking for temporary rental. it's hard - i went to see so many places and the moment i walk into the room i want to walk out. i saw this place for $2000 and seriously i didn't even dare go into the bathroom, so no way i could ever take a shower in it. new york, as magical a place as it is with so many things to do and see, is an awfully dirty magical land. i thought tokyo was dirty but hell no, new york tops the list. i just want a room to myself in a safe place, with a bathroom clean enough for me to bathe in, you know? of all the dirty things i can't deal with, i can't deal with dirty bathrooms. at all. nah-ah.

anyway, the family that i'm staying with is away for the labor day weekend cos they're sending their son away to college. so i'm house and dog sitting right now, but the dog (read: huge bull mastiff) is pining for his owner (the son) and i can't make him stop. i can deal with shadow whining, but his whines are ginormous. poor boy. he must be lonely too. he's not so cute when he's totally drooling over my clothes though. like major drool drips. i've been wiping his mouth with a paper towel when i see the drool hanging from his black lips. but this weekend i totally forgive him. even though he likes to put his head on my lap and leave me a puddle.

i ordered chinese today and got it delivered. i've always been fascinated with how chinese food is portrayed in american movies. it's like chinese equals take-out here. unfortunately i forgot the size of american portions, so when the food came, i basically could feed another 2 more of me. included with the delivery were fortune cookies.

that's another one of my fascinations. believe it or not i've never had a fortune cookie. i've been to possibly millions of chinese restaurants in my life and had never even seen one. i swear they must be an american invention. so i cracked opened my first ever fortune cookie, and guess what it said?

like, what the hell right? i popped it in my mouth and said, "fuck you." i don't believe in fortune-telling, but i wasn't gonna let this crunchy ass get the better of me. so i broke open another one.

wow. if my fate and fortune were decided by a cookie or two, i'd be dead meat by now.

obsessing sometimes isn't a bad thing

i went out with my friends from junior college (high school) last night - ewan, adrian and bob. we went to see nuts (aka natalie) at her home. it was her gorgeous daughter, angel's birthday. she was so cute. sometimes i see kids like that and i wish i had a child too. no. really.

then they brought me out to dempsey road. i just want to say OH MY GOD i didn't know that it had a major transformation!!! like hello?? 4 years away from singapore and now i'm a bloody tourist. dempsey road has turned into a major spot filled with gorgeous cafes, restaurants and whatever else, and in the middle of all this lush greenery as well! (but totally scary at night. where are the street lamps?!) i can't believe that after coming back to singapore for 2 months that no one took me there. hmph! and like it's totally near my house! it doesn't even take more than 5 minutes by car! i've gone by it sooo many times and never went in. damn.

we went to ps cafe. i loved it. it was gorgeous! the place is apparently famous for their desserts and when i saw those cakes, my eyes lit up. (i cannot emphasize enough how much i love chocolate.)

but!! this ang moh (singaporean slang which literally means "red hair", but actually refers to all caucasians. the slang started decades ago and today, is widely used and is by no means, a racist remark.) came over, pointed to the fudge brownie i wanted and asked his wife if she wanted that! there were only like 2 brownies left and i started getting anxious that by the time i could order, there would be none left!!! i kept going, "don't take my brownie don't take my brownie..."

well it worked and he didn't. woohoo. we ordered the soup of the day. bad idea. i think it was supposed to be cream of potato and leek or something?

well it was potato-boiled-in-water-and-add-some-cream-plus-some-leek soup. i couldn't taste anything. maybe my taste buds have been used to less bland stuff. we also ordered a roast beef salad. i thought it was quite yummy but i couldn't believe we paid $19 for a salad that came with 4 puny pieces of roast beef and a handful of veges. daylight robbery.

so now i know why the place is famous for its desserts. thank god for that. the cakes were sooo yummy and miss chocolate lover, me (duh), was extremely satisfied. in fact it was a little too rich. we shared the fudge and the white chocolate brownie. which i didn't touch cos i'm a dark chocolate kind of girl, no white chocolate thank you very much. the fudge had a slab of brownie at the bottom, and it was topped with tons of marshmallows that were sort of stuck together with chocolate that had been drizzled all over. it was fantastic and we couldn't finish. i had to drink like 5 glasses of water.

it was great to meet and catch up. it's been 6 years since we graduated and it was like time took a stand-still and although we've changed in some ways, we're all very much the same. they all seem to be doing exceedingly brilliant. bobby started who's going with his friends, and now he's also doing some great new venture that sounds excellent and i wish him well. ewan seems to be doing great at work also, but i tell her she's too busy and is harder to date than the president. and adrian, who's still in school, is going to prague next month on exchange, the lucky bastard!!!


update on parsons: i'm like totally freaking out now cos i don't know if i'll be able to get my visa on time. i've got less than a month left before i'm supposed to be going over to new york, and there are all these things left to do and it's driving me nuts. the next couple of weeks are going to be hell. i can feel it coming.

also, i've been pouring over scores of real estate websites online. i know i know, i shouldn't be looking at those gorgeous pictures because what you see isn't what you're gonna get. (oh yeah, i've had that bad experience the first time i moved to japan and no way i'm going through that shit again.) but oh they look so good and i just love looking at houses and apartments. i'll be staying at my dad's friend's daughter's house in queens till i find a place of my own. in other words, i'll be squatting at her place for a while. does anyone know a great loft/studio/one-bedroom apartment in manhattan, that i could probably rent/buy/loot/squat/live in for free? i'm desperate.


i've been obsessing over a lot of things recently. basically just going all nostalgic over memories from my childhood. i went with my sis to the kid's department in isetan a couple of days ago, when we were looking for a present for another friend's daughter. i took one long look at all the barbies in one section, and my little pony in another. i used to love them as a child. i spent my days playing with them!! i remember watching tons of videos over and again, of my little pony and carebears.

oh god; that reminds me. my first two dogs, two huge dobermans, were named after the ponies!! one was called rose dust, the poor dear. imagine getting called that, when you're a huge and snarly dog. luckily for her, at least, she was a girl. heh heh. i also remember losing my beloved care bear, a sunshine bear, in a hong kong airport when i was about 3. i cried buckets and would not be consoled.

anyway, we also went to the sanrio store where i found another one of my childhood loves: little twin stars. i remember using a cup of theirs till i was like 12 or something. they are so cute. i found this note book and multi-colored pen that i had to have. i'm not like, you know, going crazy over them, but everytime i find something cute that i can use or something, i buy it. in fact, i'm almost tempted to download the little twin star wallpaper.

i wonder if that'll be overdoing it.

also, i'm stoked, because i just unearthed a few enid blyton books. i must have read every one of her books when i was a little girl. i remember my mum buying me my first enid blyton. i was 4 and we were on the way home after one of my piano lessons. i got hooked after that and bought everything. i loved her books! i loved them all, especially the series!! mr galliano's circus, the famous five, malory towers, the magic faraway tree, the naughtiest girl, the wishing chair, amelia jane, shadow the sheepdog, the three golliwogs..... oh god i loved them. i read many of them over and over and over again. even when i had grown up, whenever i found the books, i would sit down and read them through once more.

(and yes, you guessed it right. my dog, shadow, was named after shadow the sheepdog. shadow first came to my home with a sister from her litter. they were tiny and could fit in a box. one was a dusty light brown, yellow and white. so i called her misty. that must have been a character's name from somewhere as well, but i can't remember now... the other puppy was brown and white, but she followed us everywhere. "perfect!!" i thought. i was 11, had read 'shadow the sheepdog' about 25 times, and badly wanted a shadow of my own. my darling misty, who was as rebellious, stubborn and defiant as me, died when she was just 7. shadow is 13 now, and still follows us everywhere.)

i think enid blyton's brilliant and i really grew up with her. i learnt about many things through her books. i'm really sad that many of my books had been given away to younger cousins. but when i have kids one day, i'm gonna make sure they grow up with enid blyton too. i'll buy them the whole collection. i'm tempted to go out and buy ME the whole collection.


wow. it was so great just reliving some memories by writing this. what are some of the things from your childhood, or from your past, that you used to love and still do now? i would love to hear all about it!


with much love, sheepdogs and rose dust,
gilda

OH MY GOD OMGOMGOMG!!!

oh my god i just received THE email!!!!

I GOT INTO PARSONS!!!

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my GOD!!!

like, THANK YOU GOD!!!

i'm like going nuts now i can't think straight.

i've called home

i've called all my friends back home

i've called all my friends here in japan

i've posted up on my japanese blog

and i'm posting here now.

WHO DID I MISS OUT!

oh man i'm like hypertension-ing right now

and my heart is beating SO fast!!

i'd actually just got back from dinner.

it's like 2:ooam now and i'm home and

just going CRAZY by myself!!

ARGH!!!

parsons!!

woohoo!!

bye bye tokyo,
HELLO NEW YORK!

maybe he is alive

something funny happened last night.
i recieved an email from the lady who gave me
my portfolio review when i went down to parsons
in march.

so obviously i wrote her back immediately,
telling her about the email i had received,
and that it honestly came as a huge shock to me,
blah blah blah.



then an hour later she replied, saying,
"I have your application on my desk.
I can assure that it will at least get reviewed this week."
.....(cut).......
"We'll do our best - cross your fingers!"

THEN, she emailed again almost immediately,
asking who it was who had emailed me,
because it was technically incorrect, and they are trying
to locate that person.

like holy cow what in the world is happening?

*blimey*

so she's being so nice and sweet and
helping me out here.

basically i wanted to write her an email saying

"i love you."

i swear i actually clapped my hands together,
looked up at my ceiling and said,
"thank you god! but PLEASE SAVE MY ASS, GOD!!!"

so she's asked me to wait cos they have their

weekly meetings, i think every thursday or friday,
and she'll let me know the outcome early next week.

oh god i really think i might die from a panic attack.

my heart's been beating so fast these last couple of days,
if ANYONE were to do anything to scare me right now,

my heart might over-beat and give one last good jolt,
and stop working altogether.

on a brighter note, i met up with suzie today
for just a while. she'd saved me a slice of cake...
you know, from that surprise birthday party of mine
that i didn't attend.
HAR HAR HAR!

thanks suzie.



but actually, what she doesn't know is,
if i add this cake, to all the other pieces of cakes
that i've eaten with other groups of friends,
i've already eaten FIVE!!!

yeah i know, i turn to food
whenever something shitty happens.
it doesn't help that shitty things happened
around my birthday, so suddenly,
all my broke friends became really generous
with all the cakes and puddings!!!

and DAMN. desserts in japan are just to die for.
i mean food, here, it's just too yummy to be true.
i never used to turn to food, but it started
ever since i came to japan.
i think it started when i first came.
you know, no friends yet, so all i had was the couch,
my best friend the telly, and my best-est friend,
the triple-choc fudge chocolate brownie.
or my other best-est friend,
the double-consomme potato chip.
yeah they are really good buddies.

i'll introduce you one day, i promise.

see how fat my cheeks are?
it only took me 3 and a half years to get those.
not bad huh?

so i would like to dedicate my cheeks to
mr brown and mr chip.
SANKYUU (read: 39 in japanese. ie, thank you)
very much.
i couldn't have done it without you guys.
really.

where are you god?

that's a question that i haven't asked in a long time.
i do sigh and think about things sometimes,
and in the quiet of my room,
i occasionally have conversations with god.

but it's been long time since i actually wondered.
where are you god?

i mean, i've believed since forever.
i was brought up with jesus in my life.
and no, i can't deny that i'm a lazy christian.
i dont give offerings all the time,
and i swear and all...
but i do repent, and i do believe,
and i always thought that was all that mattered.

i'd always had, more-or-less, a smooth-sailing life,
until i was 18.
it's been 6 long years now,
but the memories are still alive,
and the wound in my heart is still raw and fresh.

one of my dogs were dog-napped.
i searched for her everyday for hours,
putting up signs and calling every shelter or vet i knew.
a week after she disappeared, some vet called.
apparently, someone claimed they saw
misty getting knocked by a taxi,
and had dropped her off at the vets'.
but it was in a place so far from our house.
and my baby was so badly injured.
her pelvic bone and one of her hind legs had broken,
and the internal bleeding was so bad,
her entire body had turned purple.
the doctor said it didn't look at all
like a car had knocked her, cos
there weren't any external injuries at all, not a scratch.
rather, she might have been abused.
the same doctor then told me she'd be ok.

luckily i had the sense to take her somewhere else,
where the vet took one look and immediately hospitalised her.
she couldn't stand, let alone walk.
and she was in such pain, she couldn't eat.
we would send her in for drips each day,
and bring her home at night.

for the first time i had to buy a dog muzzle.
misty had never bitten me before,
but just moving her slightly was painful, and she would snap.
there were times when i changed her bedding,
that i wouldn't put on the muzzle,
and just let her bite me instead,
so that i could also feel her pain.

i cried so much that week.
each time i looked at her, each time i saw her wince.
i would hold her for hours, saying 'misty, i'm so sorry'.
countless times, i knelt and put my head to the ground
and i begged god to please heal her.
please heal misty,
please heal my baby.

shadow (misty's sister of the same litter),
would sit in the corner of the room, and cry too.

i really begged god back then.
but i never once thought that misty would die.
i just believed.
i even took misty to church and everyone prayed for her.
and i knew god would not let her go like that,
not suffering, not dying in pain.

there were these songs, that i would sing out to god,
basically asking him for help.


'heal me o lord, and i will be healed.
save me, and i will be saved.
heal me o lord. and i will be healed.
for you are the one, i pray, you are the one i pray.'

'god will make a way, where there seems to be no way.
he works in ways we cannot see, he will make a way for me.
he will be my guide, hold me closely to his side.
with love and strength for each new day,
he will make a way, he will make a way.'


all my life i had believed, that when you ask, it shall be given,
and if you prayed, that the doors will be opened to you.


a week after misty came back home,
she died.


i think up until her death, i refused to believe the possibility,
that she might die, even though the vet told us to be prepared.
the toxics in her body from the fractures and bruises,
were too much for her poor liver and kidneys to bear,
and her internal organs had failed her.

i couldn't stop crying.
not for over a year.

i hated myself for not bringing her for more walks.
i hated myself for not loving her more.
i hated myself for not being able to do anything to ease the pain.
i hated myself for believing, that she might survive,
and that belief made me ignore the option of putting her to sleep,
the option of letting her go.
i hated myself for believing in god,
that he will heal her, and give her back to me.

and in the end my faith was in vain.

the next few years of my life was hell.

there were many reasons that i can't type here,
but my family had a lot of arguments,
and day and night we were all shouting and screaming at one another.
i was so angry and hurt, and each day i cried out to god,
begging him to stop all the pain.

but the quarrels went on.
for 3 years, my prayers, my whole family's prayers,
went unheard.
there was so much hurt and anger at home.
i love my family, i love my parents,
i love my sister, and i love my brother,
and i would do anything for them,
and they for me.
but things happened the way they did,
and we just couldn't stop getting into screaming fights.
my uncle and the business had a lot to do with it,
and it was all his fault, and everyday i wished he would die.


i left home for japan at 20.

although i have to admit that a large part of the reason
for my coming to japan was because of smap,
the bigger part of it was that i just had to get away from home.

when i first got here, i couldn't speak the language,
and i had no friends.
i can't explain to you the loneliness.
it was my first time living overseas,
and my first time living alone.
that hit me really hard, but i guess
being alone at that point of my life,
was a lot better than having to deal with the pain at home.

many years have passed since then,
and i have in some ways reconciled with god.
i still ask him why, and i still don't know why,
but somewhere deep inside of me,
i still do believe.

the email from parsons had really shocked me.
i think the shock was so bad, i went past the crying stage,
straight into 'numb'.
i had been tense all day,
and because of all my asthma and breathing problems,
i've been feeling breathless too.
i think writing about misty, was almost a good thing.
for more than a year now, i had been trying to block that memory away.
but thinking about misty today, has released a whole lot of
pent-up tension and emotions, and i needed to really cry.

the whole day, i just stared at the tv, and tried to sleep most of it away.
i watched smap's concert on dvd. ever since misty had died,
and my family went into war or something, they have been the ones
to always make me laugh, and always lift my spirits.

so i did just that, i watched some smap.

i was supposed to go to my friend's party,
but i told her about the email and said i'm sorry i'm just not interested in
going to a party and mingling with new people,
and pretending to be happy when i'm not.

she told me to take it easy, then she said that it was actually going to be
a surprise party for me, and she had even ordered a cake.

i guess a huge part of me felt really guilty. i was thankful, really,
but i just couldn't go.

so here i am at 24, sitting alone in the dark.
it's been a bad week, and not a very happy birthday,
in fact, it might not be a very happy year.

but you know, i've been through worse times.
i can handle this.

i'll stand up again on my own two feet.
i can do that on my own.

but, dear god,
you've been silent in my life, the last 6 years.
and each time i reached out for you, you weren't there.
i need to know if you are still there.
i need to know if i can still count on you,
i need to know if i can still believe.

because trying, and giving my best shot,
didn't make it for for me this time.

and if believing would only make me fall harder,
then i think my flicker of hope might just blow out.

.

.

.

here's a pic of shadow. isn't she precious?
the photo was taken 2 years ago, when she was 11.

and these pictures are of misty.
my princess who mirrored me in temper, bite, and many other traits.
i miss you girl.