Instagrammin'

Sorry for the absence, since i went over to the dark side - and got an iphone - 6 weeks ago, i find it hard to part with it for even half a second. so, i kinda forgot i actually own a laptop, and an actual camera. instead i have been really active on instagram, me and two friends started our own a-photo-a-day project.

so, if you have the time/out of your minds, drop by and say hi?

november

it's been exactly a week since i submitted my 20k-word thesis. 8 months of slaving over journal articles and doing readings after readings, the stress and effort of planning, researching, interviewing fashion bloggers/readers and analyzing the barrage of collected data, finally bore fruit. when my course coordinator asked me how i felt as i handed to him 4 printed copies of my thesis, each consisting of 125 pages of the labour of passion, stress and late nights, i let go a huge sigh of relief and merely replied "i am...very relieved", and i smiled the widest smile, ever. he said i would probably be notified of the result somewhere in january next year, and everyday since last week i have been hoping for the best.

having barely slept the past month trying to get my shit together and to make this thesis work, for the past 6 days i slept whenever i have the time to, which is the entire day! my routine was: wake up for lunch, go online, play with the cats, watch some dramas/series, sleep until it's time for dinner, and then watch more dramas until it's again time for bed. 

will be diligently editing photos from november. although i have been on a "thesis-lockdown" the entire month, november was still an eventful month; his graduation, the malacca trip with his family, and other miscellaneous happenings, like finding the most amazing pork burger at ninja joe and photographing (before devouring) a whole box of macarons he got me from levain. these pictures are a preview of what will come in future posts, if i dont procrastinate any longer.

his graduation ceremony on the 3rd of november.

one of the landmarks of malacca, the christ church.

this is the big boss.

macarons from levain boulangerie and patisserie. 

i took tons of photos (like these) of every individual macaron. i think they are the most photogenic of desserts.

i shall leave you with a self-portrait of a very hagard-looking me taken on the day before i submitted my thesis. amazing backlight in the honours room, and i was waiting for about 250pages of paper to print, so, anything goes. and just because i have not updated this space for so many days. just because.

in battle

posting up some pictures from my phone and camera to prove that i am still alive, and eating and kicking. and grasping a little for air along the way 'cuz everyday is filled with writing and writing to get that 15k words out there. and in the process, pray for a first class at the end of this journey. meanwhile, last week back at penang,

this quiche from delicious is just, delicious!

gracie the cat-with-numerous-homes decides to sit pensively on the pastel coloured floor mat in our kitchen

then moves to sit around some more in our living room

back here at dread-land sunway,

i finally made grilled cheese sandwich! filled with tuna and capsicum and cherry tomato slices. a little burnt but still a success considering it's my first try :)

oh well, back to being digitally anti-social and also to continue ransacking my brains, i m sure my intelligence is hiding somewhere under its many folds of skin/nerve/brain cells. need them badly to write up this damn thesis. deadline in 16 days.

cat and warrior

such a pleasure to introduce to you, my new friends! do meet esmerelda satsukimasu the cat and takeru tsuyoshi the anubis. esmerelda is from japan, and takeru is from universal studios singapore! thanks monwei and andrea :) 

i think takeru looks magnificent here!

   

one story for two cats

it was nearly 9pm when dad drove up the road that led to our house, and as usual he signalled to the right ready to turn and park at the porch in front of our house. the rear lights of his toyota rush reflected off something in the middle of the road, it was a pair of cat's eyes. the kitty seemed to be just lying there.

"eeee! lengzai! eh no, lenglui!" i noticed the dark and white markings on her neck, but was not sure who it was as both of them have similar markings. i squealed in delight to my sister sitting at the back before unbuckling my seat belt, getting ready to hop off the car and play with her.

but as dad drove closer and closer to her we realized that she did not get up and avoid our car like all cats do. she just...laid there. our first reactions were "oh no, oh no no no!"

we opened the car door and leapt out onto the road. before i could reach her little body, tears have already started to pool in my eye. i could not bring myself to touch her, but i wanted to hold her and make sure she is okay.  

"lenglui...no no, lenglui, are you okay..." i stroked her body, no response. i push her a little and cried out her name once more, her name which meant "beautiful girl" in the hokkien tongue, but still, she lay motionless on the dark grey asphalt, darkness engulfing her. 

"jie...is she dead..is she still breathing? where is a cat's heart? is it still beating?" my sister knelt down on the other side of her, tears in her eyes, in her throat, attempting to locate the heart with shaking hands, asking all the rational questions.

"i dont know i dont know i dont know....." unable to think rationally, i carried her lifeless body with two hands, cuddling her close to my body, up to my chest, cradling a precious treasure next to my heart. i felt all her weight on my arms, she felt heavier than usual, but yet so limp and broken. her neck fell to one side, i can still feel the limpness of her neck on my left hand, like trying to hold on firmly to a piece of jelly, but unable to stop if from sliding away. like the life in her, sliding away, or have slid away. i massaged the place where the base of her neck meets the spine, and felt a devastating hollow in between, at the same time, felt a similar devastating hollow in the innards of my own heart, as my vision got blurred by a gush of tears, as i got torn apart by an overwhelmingly uncontrollable surge of grief and sadness.

we stood like that for god knows how long, in the middle of the road, two girls crying buckets of tears, stooping over a limp body in their arms. i just played with her 2 hours ago, 2 fucking hours ago. how long does it take for a life to just go away like that? and the uncle who takes care of them was just cradling her in his arms, stroking her body, massaging her tiny ears. "her eyes are no longer copper in colour, they are green now, most adult cats change their eye colour as they mature." my last words to her when she walked away from me was "bye bye lenglui", or was it "go, go to uncle", remembering that he was gesturing her to go over with his hand, as i walked home.

my sister and i thought we better tell uncle about this, and maybe look for lengzai as we have not seen him in 3 days, wondering if he too, was sick and unable to roam around. but we did not know that we did not have to bother looking for her brother. 

the uncle was not in when we brought her to his house, but his wife told us that lengzai died 2 days ago on the way to the vet, and that lenglui just got back from the vet yesterday. the vet gave her a jab and she was just fed her medications when i saw her in the evening. i can hear that auntie was trying to hold back her tears as she opened her gate and came to see lenglui for the last time, i spoke to her in my rickety hokkien and she replied to me in her perfect teochew, both speaking different tongues but still understanding each other perfectly well. 

"they had illnesses of the throat," auntie said in teochew, and we instantly recalled seeing a lump on the right side of lengzai's neck 2 weeks ago. "such a pity, uncle loves them so much, and you girls love them too. such a pity. thankyou for informing us, you girls are doing a very good deed, caring for these strays. may they rest in peace." auntie put her palms together and murmured a sentence of silent prayer for lenglui and stroked her one last time. and she said her goodbye. in our hearts, we reluctantly said our goodbye as well.

***

there is a little slope opposite uncle's house, on that slope is an empty ground where bushes and tress grow abundant, and neighbours line their potted plants at its lowest part. we decided to bury her there, close to home, so she wont get nervous waking in a strange land, so she wont get lost if she wants to roam around a little when her body heals. we dug a hole in the sand with a piece of broken tile and lay her down in it, pillowing her disjointed neck with some paper. we laid down a bunch of her favourite flower that hui plucked from the playground. we said our final goodbyes, we transferred tearful kisses from our lips to her forehead using our fingers. we started covering her with sand. 

we stuck the piece of broken tile next to the dune we made, a headstone for her. her final resting place.

bye, our little one. you left young, but you led a blessed life. dont get lost now, follow the light, lengzai will be waiting for you on the other side, far from sadness, diseases and illness. both of you were not buried together, but i am sure both of you will be frolicking together in the sun, scratching your backs on the same piece of smooth gravelstone, rolling around in the green green grass of your final homes. you will never be alone, i promise, you will always have a place to stay, forever welcomed in our hearts and our home.

if i called loud enough, will you be able to hear me and come home now?

i drove past her grave today after lunch, and smiled a smiled to myself. you are both safe now. 

ithasbeenthreeweeks

currently: 

babysitting xiaoxiao - waking up at 3am because she wants to play.

perfecting the perfect ombre/gradient nails - nowhere near perfection.

browsing malaysian fashion blogs- recruiting fashion bloggers and readers for my honours thesis. any takers?

catching up on dramas/tv series - finished glee; addicted to pushing daisies (why stop at season2!), the simpsons, criminal minds; wants to catch up on revenge, how i met your mother, and the ghost hunters series.

craving for durian - hands (and feet) up for a durian dinner! xiaoxiao loves it too!

all black

it's world press freedom day, so what better reasons to go all black! 

thanks monwei for the pictures! thanks also to the american ethnologist journals on the honours room cabinet for providing support for monwei's phone!

or get inspired by pictures of all black outfits,

\ 

or all black cats.

sorry for not updating frequent enough, thesis work and procrastination has finally caught up on me, and slowly kicking my ass.  

pic 2, 3, 4

rainbow cat

ahhhh nyancat desktop for the computer at my workstation in uni. i think it will only be temporary though, at least until i log out of this at the end of today.

randomphotosfromthephone

have not been taking much photos lately -- thanks to the utterly forgetful side of me to leave my memory card in sunway while my camera is in penang, and the perpetually lazy side of me to never lug my camera along -- but this means my phone camera is given the chance to be of service. with much needed help from photoshop, there you go.

naked tree branches at dusk along the walkway from sunway college to pyramid; new mint-coloured striped top from cotton on at 2 for rm70, paired with an old purple skirt = feeling like a brinjal; xiaoxiao under mum's car, obviously unhappy at being stalked by the creature-with-a-phone; lengzai and lenglui under papa's car parked by the roadside.

my weekend

consisted of developing a perpetual craving for sweet anythings and everythings, and stalking/trying to communicate with a black cat under a lorry who stares back intensely with his/her piercing golden eyes. ah and also perfecting my slides for an article presentation in class tomorrow.

wide eyed

to prove that i am still alive and well -- albeit busy with thesis research -- i shall leave you to swoon over these cuddleworthy pictures of lengzai and lenglui taken at home before i transported myself here to kl. enjoy !

reminiscing

the last two months of year 2011;

   

i graduated

i witnessed (and caught on camera -- thanks to dad's bulky 300mm lens) a lunar eclipse

i saw the eye of singapore and the marina bay sands AND a convertible vw beetle all at once.

i was mesmerized by a real life moving painting from the song dynasty. surreal.

i tasted the best satay yet.

swooned over cute painted united buddy bears at pavilion kl and agreed whole-heartedly with this quote.

and, i shot this picture of a no-eared xiaoxiao. she is getting fat isnt she?

and uh, i got hospitalized for viral fever, kthxbye :)