I Know a Place

Two weeks into the break and already in dire need of sleep.

Last weekend I went to Kent with my friends from church for a weekend away. I had previously thought that I was made for the gorgeous outdoors, albeit with a chic appearance, given my seemingly endless amounts of energy (yea, right.) My romantic notions were squashed when I realised during a walk in the countryside that I detest getting my shoes dirty! .\\//. Nevertheless, the manor we were staying with had some very cool equipments to clean boots with, which was good. They understand getting muddy is a part of life.

(I love paved or stony walkways.)

Secondly, I have been devoting much of my free time to help out a third year student - see past post for explanation. Although I love earning money, it has not been my primary motivation for helping her out; I simply would love to be lent a pair of helping hands when it would be my turn to do my graduation collection. It takes a lot of time, practice and patience to neatly finish a garment. The girl I'm helping out used to work at Alexander McQueen for two years, so she now has an eye for details - and the technician she employs is also a person for details. I'm so blessed to be able to see that every little button and every little way the thread goes through the fabric turns their finishing into a little work of embroidery. Besides, I also get fed a decent dinner before I leave every night... which is good!

Living at home with parents while studying is certainly a blessing. I totally understand that they may turn into nitwits who don't fit the description of 'cool' and 'flexible', but nevertheless they are a great help when it comes to being with you when you're going through a slog in your life. Sure, I can go through life independently, but there are times when I sit back on my bed and wish my parents were around to bother me so that I would move on.

I'm planning to go to Stonehenge on Monday. Between Monday and now, then, what I would do is sleep and rest as much as I can have. I might to go Tate Modern to see the slides. I'm just a kid who refuses to grow up play-wise I love playgrounds ^__^

Lastly, London tube map is a great design invention, but it's highly misleading when it comes to being a guide for pedestrians. I just found out that I live not that far away from a lot of museums, which means more walking on foot and more sightseeing! Plus more exercise for my lazy body. Tee hee hee :))

Have a good day!

When the whole world lets you down
And there's nowhere for you to turn,
'Cause all of your best friends have let you down, do-o-own
Then you try to accumulate
But the whole world is full of hate
So all of your best starts just drift into space

I know a place where we can carry on
I know a place where we can carry on
We can carry on, we can carry on
We can carry on, we can carry on

(one odd spring day)

Cherry blossoms, a herald of spring, were spotted as early as mid-January about 10 minutes away from home in London. They were again spotted late last week as I went around to help out the sewing (see my post on myesight for pictures.) And yet it snowed on Sunday... and Monday... and today. In what order should these natural phenomenons happen anyway? Blame it on climate change if you'd love to, and blame it on yourself for creating carbon footprints (myself included.)

Yesterday (Monday) was supposed to be a relatively snowy day. I was pretty disappointed to wake up to a blue sky. When later in the afternoon a brief snowstorm hit, I frantically tried to capture its images to no avail. But then, I was really lucky today. I went to Anne's place, and the snowstorm hit literally right after I got into her room! Call me a lucky lass if you'd like to ^^ so what we three never-really-lived-in-snowy-seasons girls put our boots and jackets back on, then ran as fast as we could down the stairs and onto the courtyard! Nevermind the chilly bite ^^



Hang on... I was planning to talk about wagashi as well. Due to the fact that the Japanese enjoy imbuing every facet of their lives with seasonality, and also to their love of sakura/cherry blossoms, some very creative people/chefs created what is affectionately known as sakura-mochi. Yes, as its name says, it is mochi made out of sakura.


The variety sold at Minamoto Kitchoan is not tinted pink. Regardless of its colour, it basically consists of a ball of sweet red bean paste that is wrapped with proper mochi (made from mashed-up steamed glutinous rice), which is then wrapped with a salty-flavoured preserved cherry leaf and topped with [yet another preserved bit of] a cherry blossom. It looks properly fancy. It inspires me to hit the store bedecked in a kimono attire that's properly of the season too ^__^

I wonder where I can get these preserved cherry leaves and blossoms... it would then mean I'd be able to recreate sakura-mochi whenever I choose to, although I'd rather reserve it for springtime occasions.

Oh yeah, the preserved cherry leaves and blossoms are also edible. I must be joking.


I also had a bit of fun by playing Monopoly. It turns out proper financial and strategic planning can be easily ruined just as easily as rolling dice. Playing Monopoly also sharpens one's sense of business dealing and bargaining... nevermind the fact that five grown-up Asians are playing at it. While trying to abide to the written rules, we feverishly over-invested on and over-developed our respective plots, and happily gave out soft loans when a renter could not afford the rent... as well as developing various tracts. (The I-pay-peanuts-when-I'm-on-yours-and-you-too-when-you're-on-mine kind of agreements.) It was like there was a secondary money market other than mortgaging properties to the bank. There was simply not enough money circulating in the game while we spent every little pretend cash we had on building hotels. Amusingly, the exercise had an ironic ring that sounds so close to reality. It did dawn on me that the whole banking/financial system that is widely enforced in the world bears the essential spirit of the exacting and calculative Moors (which in turn spread their influence to Europeans.) Probably it was just what I observed; do please correct me when I'm wrong.


At the end of the day, it was one good day... and I'm happy for it ^^
Have a good day, everyone!

Sweet Soul Revue

For me, kopipakegula is a highly entertaining blog... because it's fun to read ^^

I'm into rows and rows of neat lines and organized blocking partly due to the fact I used to organise a corporate website, but there are times when I'm tempted to write a post with smatterings of icons and images all over the place. It would be... so not me. *peeks into wardrobe* >__>

But then, I enjoy collecting series of smileys and icons to use in instant messengers. So that's where I might really have my oh-so-kitschy-cute fix. Hee hee hee ^_______^

(cooking again)

Submissions aside, it's socialising time for me.

Friday afternoon was spent sewing bits of lacing strips and hooks-and-eyes. Lesson learnt: no matter how accurate you've measured your hook-and-eye placement, always sew them 2mm further apart from the [supposedly accurate] markings. Lesson learnt #2: curved needles are definitely H-A-N-D-Y to sew them with.

I also went to friends' place for what was advertised to be 'a Mongolian BBQ' night. It turned out to be a stirfry night. Oh well, I had nothing to complain because it was fun to be able to cook with an abundance of ingredients and seasonings! I have neither oyster sauce nor sweet chili sauce in my pantry cupboard (woe me for the lack of space), and consequently haven't tried to whip up anything fancifully Asian at home since I moved to London. Anne is against buying new bottles or jars cooking condiments so I haven't got much to experiment with at her place. But last night was... amazing!!


I first tried to be discreet about my desire to handle a substantial part of the cooking process, but when people were wondering who should be assigned what to do... I kinda jumped into the kitchen and blurted out "the chicken should be sauce-y and have carrots and broccoli, and probably some of the peppers can go in there too." And since I stayed in there to cook and season... well, it was pretty obvious I was into it. It was good that the other girls didn't mind and chatted happily while we cooked. Overall results: out of the four dishes, all are edible and bordering on delicious. I got compliments too on my cooking, which ain't bad after all. Plus, it was fun seeing the boys crowd the kitchen to cook, while having disagreements on whether the Guinness should go into the lamb or the gut.



One good side-effect of hanging out with the [cool and younger] English is getting a good dose of learning about slang vocabs and how they are used. And since it's been over 12 hours since I had a decent meal, I'm gonna go off to lunch. Have a good day, everyone! :D

(warped)

Now, to think that I have a gazillion things to finish. An essay to hand in, two sketchbooks to submit, a CD to deliver. And yet I spent yesterday *helping out* a third year student do her final collection. Talk about being stupid and having lame time management!

On the other hand, I got to see how painfully passionate third-year fashion student can get to be. Not to mention practising to secure yards of yellow jersey fabrics onto what seems to feel like a boned felt board.


(I'm gonna do it again tonight. Hee hee hee. I'm not such a learner for time management, am I? :D)

Astaire

Spring is finally here. Yay!

This year's spring kinda slips unnoticeably... I had preoccupied myself for the past month or so, first with BA application interviews (done now) and then with spring term's submission (not quite ticked off). I have been trying to make my life hard for the past couple of weeks. It got to a point where a colleague of mine said this with a straight face: "Marsha, don't make your life difficult."

Well, don't I hassle myself a lot ^__^;

The good thing about hassling myself a lot, I find, is that I learn to tackle problems I've always thought as 'inherently unconquerable' or 'too difficult for my current skill level'. So far I've worked out how for the moment I can cut chiffons to a predetermined pattern shape: use spray mount on your piece of pattern paper and let dry, spread fabric, mark then cut (simple stuff.) Yet I still have my 'homeworks' to find out about... so I'm still on a learning curve.

Secondly, I have photographed some of the pages of work I did this term.


This is a series of quick (10mins) drawings done in visual study class. I can definitely do drawings that actually look like people and resemble people colour-wise, but... the session was about using more than three colours when the model is freckly pale and wore an all-black ensemble, as well as incorporating a piece of sticky tape (I tore mine into three.) In the end, I used six or seven colours.


This is part of SDS (self-development studies) for Visual Studies... I don't really favour working on A3 sheets since my existing sketchbook is a minuscule A5, which kinda explains why my portrait homework is so... small. Anyway. This image would reappear towards the end of this post.




I was bored waiting for my turn to be interviewed, so I got my sketchbook and fine pen out then started scribbling random bits and stuff. At first I wanted to do designs based on The Emperor's New Clothes (which I did)... and ended up drawing people's feet and bags. I got carried away in the Tube and in the bus. It's interesting how people shun themselves away from the camera but they are keen to peek over your shoulder when you hold a pen and a sketchbook.

Sometimes I come across people who want to learn how to draw, but they don't even try to draw. Trying to draw doesn't involve having prodigious artistic talents; drawing is as simple as making lines that do NOT constitute writing (in any writing system you're familiar with.) I know people who could barely draw anything at the start of their foundation year; they forced themselves to do these silly-looking lines (and agonised for a short period of time) and are now confident enough to draw from observation in public. As for myself, my first drawing was comparably much worse than that of my sister... so I took a fresh sheet of paper and re-did it again. The new sheet looked better than hers. Well, we just have to try and learn...


I honestly have no factional/political aspirations whatsoever, but I just found the images... amusing. So I put them together this way, along with bits of fabrics and hardware ^^; This A2 page is taken straight from my BA interview pile, and it originally consisted of two A3 pages stuck on a piece of A2 paper. I did about ten to twelve of these visual research pages... they're pretty enjoyable to do. Some turn out to be sweet and so delicate while others are rebellious and plain satirical. At the end I still use various elements from this page in the actual garment designs.

I'm trying to tick things off my list on this post... and what I haven't quite managed to do is to sew up three garments. And cook ayam goreng bumbu kuning during the spring break. Hee hee hee :))

My handsfree connector cable was recently split open. It's not so nice when you can't work along to a nice beat of music, but it's quite good to spend my time on the Tube to observe fellow travellers as well. It also makes me think that Sony Ericsson might really aspire to have its customers change their mobile handsets every two years, but I am NOT going to do *that* (if that's what they have in mind.) Anyway, after fasting quite a while on portable music, I found today's song echo the zeitgeist of spring.

Have a good day! ^__^