i think my transition to tumblr has been kinda natural...i no longer have the time to write long rambly posts, and tumblr allows me to easily put up all sorts of formats, like just photos or links. my thoughts are way too scattered these days to be nicely penned down in one long smooth entry.

this is my attempt at resurrecting this LJ, but not sure if anyone still checks this! haha.

this semester is a real killer. i have major deadlines plus thesis deadlines every week, the average semester workload that i used to have is now doubled and i really used to be such a genius at time management. i could watch multiple dramas and tv shows, study, do my weekly readings, finish assignments and projects, do personal grooming like plucking eyebrows regularly... now i think even bathing is a waste of time. and you guys should see the amount of emails i'm getting everyday @_@

i kinda like all my classes and the work i have to do for them, really. i can do my assignments and projects on topics i like, like the Korean music industry, cos the teachers give us a lot of leeway. i even like my research class, cos i feel like i'm really learning, unlike in NM2102, even though the workload is MEGAHEAVY. i'm not digging regulations class so much, but at least our project is on cultural industries and at least our prof is fun. social media class prolly hits the bottom of the list, cos i dunno, class presentations and lectures so far haven't been really engaging, plus the project is the one i'm most worried about. we don't have any plans for it at all, we're totally floundering :(

my thesis topic is also pretty awesome, and i'm loving it, although it's pretty unprecedented so i have to do a LOT of first-hand research, but hey, you know me, ambitious and always wanting to be original.

singapore arts festival rehearsals also start this week. my work for it has totally come to a standstill........................

and one of the worst things to top this whole semester - i'm experiencing a really bad case of adult acne. REALLY bad. the medicine the derm has prescribed is so hardcore it makes me drop hair and get aches and diarrhoea. but i'm so scared of scarring! and i kinda feel a little more...unsure of myself, a little less confident :/

well one good thing about being so unbelievably busy is that i spend less money on online shopping zzzzz

i am here today to document my vicious cycle of obsession for the summer so far:</div>


the primer craze is essentially part of a complexion obsession... my skin has been going crazy since korea last year and i still can't figure out what's wrong. that said, i'm always wary of putting on non-powder things on my face, cos it's that much more suffocating for the skin. well, let's hope the testing is favourable?

i've cleaned out my brushes regularly, switched out products that have affected my skin (hi, hada labo. you were an amazing moisturiser but you gave me little bumps and i don't need more of that :( ), thrown out old cosmetics/toiletries, minimised the amount of make-up i use, doubled up my cleansing regime, drink more water, taking vitamin E, C and evening primrose... it's definitely something happening from the inside out, like my derm said.

so from TODAY onwards, i'm going off caffeine, i'm going to try my best to avoid fried food (i actually don't eat fried food much in the first place), i'm switching my milk to soy milk (even though i think fresh milk > soy milk by faaaar) and i'm making sure i eat veggies and fruits everyday!!!! i'm terribly haphazard with my diet... hopefully i can stick to this resolution, and also stay off potato chips and cheetos. oh i do love my cheese... maybe it's cheese?!?!?!

 1. i have found the perfect fashion blogger - keiko lynn. she wears what she wants, crazy colours included, she's admittedly self-conscious, she makes/alters a lot of her own clothes, she's a prude, she can be obsessive, she's not super skinny and she doesn't wear too short shorts or sleeveless tops or bikinis or too tight bandage skirts, she doesn't have anything in her closet that cost her more than US$50...

in short, she's like my ang-moh half!

2. i have a twitter, of the same username. hi everyone, i have a nerked series! haha. i don't use it that much...not yet i guess.

3. you know how i go through obsessions... my current ones are rings (omg jean), rope-y stuff (like belts, bags, bracelets), woven stuff (like straw bags, or braided things), clutches and blogs (mainly fashion and interior design). however, i do not get how ppl find clutches functional. the only ones that i carry are about the same size as my laptop HAHA.

i am a little old lady and i need my water bottle, umbrella and sometimes, my cardigan.

4. i suspect i have dry eye syndrome...which means my eyes are unnaturally dry and it makes my vision blurred and my eyes sting :( so i've been wearing my glasses to work these days. what i hate about glasses is that i'll get pimples on the bridge of my nose where my glasses sit and that my ears are lopsided so the right side of the glasses is lower than the right... disconcerting!

5. i actually really want to catch Eclipse. despite the fact that i know i'll be disappointed again! i just need to complete the series...and hope that somehow maybe someday it'll get better.

6. Inception is AMAZING. FAVOURITE MOVIE OF THE YEAR. DOES MY USE OF CAPS AND BOLDING CONVINCE YOU? samjo had free tickets to the opening! and very nicely asked sarah and i to join him (: he always offers us the good movies. the last one was The Hangover which was HILARIOUS. and samjo's the nicest boy ever. i am inexplicably very affectionate towards him despite the fact that we aren't that close.

the plot, the cast and the whole sci-fi fantasy thing was an absolute winning combination. Joseph Gordon Lewitt is unexpectedly very manly and Ellen Page is unexpectedly quite good at the whole serious drama thing! no one actor stood out really...the cast was stellar as a whole. the plot and the visual effects... WOW. cue googly eyes! *_*

7. i want to cut my hair...like a lot of it. after my hair goes un-curly, i'm going to cut prolly about half of its length and rely on drastic layering to keep the frizz down. it just feels...old and tired and not fresh now. although some days it looks gloriously thick, shiny and curly! :D
8. i went to my first ever flea in Singapore with Jeannie last sat. before that, we hit Salvation Army, so there was a pretty good haul at the end of the day :D although we were all hot, sticky and bothered afterwards. haha. the Salvation Army trumped - the auntie there gave us a 40% discount on everything. we got $2 vintage sunglasses, $6 blazers, $3 pants...

the flea, on the other hand, was ridiculously overwhelming...so distracting, with people and things EVERYWHERE, and it was outdoors, and many self-proclaimed fashionistas were there, giving everyone the once-over as if assessing their outfits... as my sister would say, very gao wei. haha!

9. i really like my fellow CC interns and how we gel together. sometimes we have nothing to say to each other, other times we are laughing hysterically over a discussion as to why on earth people would want to enlarge their ear holes, we know each other's habits by now (Michelle's way of suddenly talking very loudly, Jeannie's gaspy way of laughing, Raymond's burping...HAHA). wah heng sia. that i have such great colleagues.

10. i find that i have lesser patience now... why is that? i used to be really good at being patient, after spending many of my younger years being impatient. maybe it's a cyclical thing. i have to be impatient to become truly patient?

i know i'm not an easy person to handle. i demand a lot from my friends and i can be really intense... not a lot of people have been able to stick with me through the years so it's kinda amazing that i have such amazing bffs still!!!

when i was 12, i discovered this notebook in which 5 out of my 6 friends in my clique had been writing bad things about me... like how they wished i'd fall down the staircase and that sort of horrible stuff

when i was 15 and went to OBS and discovered two friends who previously had nothing to do with each other (one of whom kept eating my rice and the other who made me feel better about having a rotten kayaking partner) and then we went back to school and although we had sat very far apart from each other before, we pulled our desks together at the back of the classroom and i discovered another friend whom i never would have thought i'd be bffs with

when i was 17 and dee told me it was too much for her to have me as a single best friend because she had never had a single best friend and while we got on so well, she felt that the friendship had become like a sort of commitment

and then afterwards she said something to me which i'll never forget, which is

you're a really lucky girl. you always seem to get what you want.

in a really non-spiteful, matter-of-fact and cheerful way and it really made me understand exactly how goal-oriented i can be

and then clare became my best friend but then her bf resented that she spent so much time with me and banned her from being my best friend -_-

and then like some miracle, just like the Nerks, cand and krist transferred into my class and while cand and me got on crazy well with each other, i disliked krist at first, but hey what do you know look where we are now!

when i was 20 and went to korea for exchange, and i always wanted to plan trips properly and i hated it when things didn't go according to plan and a great friend named milky turned to me one day and said

liyana, you need to relax. you can't spend your whole life worrying or stressing out.

when honestly she prolly just really wanted to strangle me and then she told me frankly that even though i was 2 years younger, my black face could scare the shit out of ppl and that i needed to stop taking life so seriously

when i was 21, and i acted in Almost Left Behind, and had prolly spent the whole time feeling awkward and lost about myself, but after that i became better friends with liting and kai and i saw that i had totally lost track of what i wanted to be and i could talk to people who really truly understood exactly what theatre meant to me because it meant the same thing to them

amazing! i have been so blessed. how did i get such awesome friends who will tahan my obsessive, sometimes needy, intense and bossy personality?!?!??!?!?!?!

 tumultuous weeks at work, thanks to filming. if we weren't filming about shopping, i think i might have just about gone crazy! haha.

i finished and submitted my poster to good50x70, but i'm thinking of submitting a second one if time permits. i had a bad shock the night before the original deadline (they extended it), because i finished off 2 posters only to find out that the briefs had been changed! i assumed wrongly that because the briefs had been more or less the same the past 3 years that they'd continue like that for this year, so imagine how devastated i was at 1:30am to find out that climate change was no longer a category!!!! 

i whipped up a new one about the whales' marine reserves and collapsed at 5 am haha. 3 hours before the deadline! only to wake up at about noon to discover...that they had decided to extend the deadline -_- by 10 more days....

the count of monte cristo has also been keeping me up at night. who thought that such an OLD and THICK book could be such a compelling and exciting read? fantastic. it has such an excellent plot and the main character is as kind as he is vengeful. shows you the basic human two-facedness we all are born with.

anyways, here's a little something bri (as in brittany) left us with on her tumblr. it made me realise exactly how many spoons my papa had each day, and what kind of deficit he had to be on when he left us. i think...he had been running on one spoon for too long by then. please read it if you have the time! it'll help you to understand friends and family who are not as healthy as you.