a picture worths a thousand words

and if thats the case, i hope the pictures can make up for my long absence.

couple wallet! woohooo

brunch at caffe habitu with amiga...plus revision obviously as you can see my pencil case

for some reason this place makes you work harder than you usually do,

and it has some special healing power...

its not exactly feeling like home

its cozy, but special, not something you'll visit everyday

and because of that, you chat, and you chat with sincerity and audacity

oh perhaps its just the italian interior design that confuses me

or maybe it is the people i go with that makes me feel so happy :)

conclusion: don't ever underestimate kids' financial power. lol

those dark days during exam period...fighting till i see the sunlight

and keep reminding myself nothing is impossible...this is what i got after removing the cap

rushing off chinese!

trying to comprehend numbers and symbols...a poor attempt though i must admit

giving up is not easy at all...it is just another type of persistence. do you get me?

but you can see what intense studies do to your..uh...head.

oh and general health too! cos you're hot and you're cold, and you're yes and you're no

wearing cardigan upside down, flipping the bottom over my shoulder...

there you go, a 'poncho', if you would.

obviously freaked out...reading through Brighton Rock once again

(probably the worst approach ever for lit revision)

and that's when a cup of tea comes in...don't sleep don't sleep...

and how can you miss out comfort food! yoghourt with banana and cereal

no kidding, i survived!

amiga you've been too nice to me...eu amo voce. and i mean it.

the best experience for palates...my grandma's steamed chicken

the mother's-day-like father's day...in 20 years time this outfit will be mine muahaha

like mother like daughter...the shopaholics/hand-me-downs

oh did i mention i have cleopatra's hair?

rounding up the father/mother's day with shanghainese dinner

edit:

i almost forgot to write something about the layout. well pretty obviously i've changed it.

the new design templates are simply awesome and computer illiterates-friendly, which i'm very pleased about it. thanks google. and out of all the beautiful pictures, i chose this bedroom theme. it's quite metaphoric...its just the most (supposedly?) comfy spot at home, and there's where i usually dream, come up with my own thoughts, write a bit of diary...pretty much suits the purpose of this blog, but except this is a declaration of wordlove and a platform of sharing.

No We Can't

in parallel to Obama's Yes We Can, Hong Kong gives you No We Can't.

No We Can't. We cannot vote. You have not read me wrong, and I'm telling you, no we cannot vote in, say, 10 years. If we are not even able to defend our 'high autonomy' and exercising 'Hong Kong People administrating Hong Kong' when we've only returned to China for 12 years, I can't imagine 10 years from now. And for those who did not vote today, you have my sympathy for not even participating in a political activity that not every citizen around the globe is allowed to be involved in. I'm not even talking about civic responsibilities (enough of indoctrination) but it's a right. (For some procedure problem, I cannot exercise my voting right yet but if I could, I would have been the first one queuing up at the poll station. Oh no wait there isn't even a queue.)

Choosing not to vote doesn't mean you are any more intelligent, insightful, disapproving the so called referendum/the resigned legislators approach or aloof from any interests that only 'peasants' would concern. In the end, when the statistics show that there are less than 20% voters showed up and HK is again being criticized that 'politically unconscious', thanks to you, non-voters.

It is discouraging to see how nonchalant people are. I mean, puh-lease, the money is spent on printing the ballots anyway, its no longer about being eco-friendly or whatsoever. If you're talking about wastage, leaving the ballots untouched is the worstest wastage EVER. if you hate the re-electing legislators, vote for someone else. if no one can possibly represent you in the LegCo, throw in a blank ballot! Pourquoi pas?? At least you've made your stance clear. What is this, absent?! Absent =/= Abstain, no?

Everyone has different political views. That's a given. And that is exactly why we need to vote. Well, now that no one shows up, I guess we've come to an almost-unanimous decision, and that is... Ta-Da! We don't care! Awesome, I cannot wait to see how our decisions are made by our dear Central Government in China.

Don't even make a noise, not to even mention complaint and moan, when No We Can't really takes place. You did make your choice today, Hong Kong.

No We Can't.

breakfast at lily's

sorry for the cheesy title i came up with... cant come up with a better one yet. my brain is pretty malfunctioning these days. or maybe i'm recently more in need of it which makes me realise it has never been functioning at all.

so since today was mama's day. what could be more simple and sweeter than making breakfast for my adorable mrs. lee?

the whole plan was a bit arbituary...it all started from searching for mothers' day ideas at Vogue.com, then looked up for recipes on Nigella Lawson's blog, some grocery shopping plus a bit of dad's cover-up and white lies. it may seem to be a bit too casual (if the yardstick is in terms of the money spent), or too smooth to be true (comparing to the bookings and gift-shopping people usually do), but surprisingly, it turned out to be the best mama's day so far. and i just loved how simple it is. minimalism sometimes does apply on me.

basically i just made an avocado brushchetta, cut some smoked salmon into strips and placed them nicely in a zigzag pattern, garnished with a piece of lemon, lime and a bit of olive oil. oh and how could you not start a day with a cup of tea? so i just bluntly grabbed a can of earl grey tea leaves (my lovely souvenir from harrod's. ah i miss london...i should've bought more!) and pour searing hot water into our transparent little teapot.

and i just heard my stomach right after typing the previous stanza.

it may all sounded nice, but it still wasn't good enough (though i'm not a perfectionist) - the brushchetta was over-grilled, the avocado was too fresh thus too hard to be smashed, the parsley flakes i sprinkled on top of the open sandwich cant be tasted at all, the originally breakfast tray was moved from bed to living room by mama (cos she cannot risk messing up her nicely made bed), it was not earl grey but tea with milk in mrs. lee's style that she loves... and the list could go on forever. and when mama demonstrated what it really should be like to work in the kitchen and made me the real brushchetta, i just wondered, when will i ever be able to cook like mom? what would life be like if i don't have mama's breakfast?

mom used to teach me how to remember the word 'breakfast' when i was only 4. she said, breakfast means break fast. you stop yourself from fasting after hours of sleep. and i never understand why breakfast is so important, especially when i usually don't have appetite in the morning.

until a few years ago.

a few years ago, someone told me by slacking off breakfast you'll reduce your appetite and eventually lose weight. and i can tell you, having tried that for two weeks, yes i've lost 10 pounds (plus insane lunch slacks), but i gained prolly 20 afterwards. it does no help at all cos you'll obviously rebound but you'll simply fall into this desperately-crave-for-more pitfall and literally emotional depression.

breakfast is the key to brighten up a day. it could come in different forms, it may be a great session of swimming under the perfect weather, it may be some stretching and namaste yoga, but what i'm trying to illustrate is that, we all need some sort of power to energize ourselves and actually wakening our minds up. and given that not many of us have time to exercise in the morning, but (presumably) no one could possibly skip breakfast without feeling hungry a few hours later. plus, breakfast indicates the start of the day, it basically determines how good your day is, just like today! *teeheee* and in the end, food is love! why not treat yourself a little better by eating something green or something you love at the beginning of the day?

i would say i'm a very fortunate kid for being provided with mom's well-made sandwiches every morning, and hence being brightened up every morning. serving her back for one single morning is simply nothing but something most worthy of doing.

i love food, because my mom shows me what food really is.

i love life, because my mom taught me to.

i love my mom, simply because i do.

to all the mothers

and extra love for my grandma(s), my friends' moms, and my lovable lovely mom,

happy mother's day.

xo

p.s. i watched the proposal at home with mom to have some entertainment. i highly recommend it to anyone who needs a good laugh. (though i basically laugh at everything.) no seriously its good.

p.p.s. still owe my lovely blog loads of articles. just some highlights of upcoming posts: orabrush review, original version of my article for youtube artist/miss brand new star 2010 robynn yip, more on food, la mode, music...

p.p.p.s i can't believe i didn't take a single picture of the breakfast. so i'm sharing my source of inspiration here.

from Nigella's blog - the Breakfast Brushchetta

also from Nigella's blog - the presentaion of smoked salmon(?)

suggested by Vogue.com - Restoration Hardware tray

and of course - The Proposal starring Sandra Bullock

yes i know i am wasted.

and thats exactly why i need a haven from doing absoeffinglutely nothing. (thanks to ms chanwan for helping me to master the art of swearing so well.)

like i've said in my first post, i need this blog so badly, cos one of the reasons is that my article got rejected, and therefore I am here to be my own publisher! and here it is - i have to start using material from my little storage:

When Fashion Goes Eco-Friendly

What does newspaper mean to you? News, news and more news, literally papers of news? A subscription that you are made to make? Or some scrap paper to wrap up food remains before

sposing of? To Mr. Wong, newspaper has become his innovation in his bag-making career.

In the midst of city-wandering on a chilly Sunday with scattered showers, a few friends of mine and I got lost in the middle of the SoHo district in Central, trying to figure out where the famous-for-antique Hollywood Road is. Instead of looking for a map, my friend led us to try an error by passing through a narrow alley while I was still wondering if that is safe, especially when the street is utterly quiet with trucks unloading goods. Most of the shops were closed, but except one – a bright little shop with glaring florescent lighting out of the dark lane, with some tote bags dangling at the front of the store and a simple charcoal logo that reads “RECYCLED” with the first ‘E’ flipped to the left and uniquely in green.

We went into the shop out of curiosity, and as we took a closer look, these bags are no ordinary totes. The bags indeed were outlined by leather and buckles, but surprisingly you will be able to find large and small fonts here and there upside-down. If you are lucky, you may even find images like Obama’s big-headed pictures. The shop has got its name right – the bags are in fact made of newspapers, literally recycling uncontaminated, wasted papers.

A lot of bags these days are claimed to be made of eco-friendly materials that can be completely dissolved when discarded into soil, or even written boldly in fancy fonts to tell it is not a plastic bag. But these newspaper bags themselves have already carried the message – one that is much stronger, crystal-clear and more obvious to be easily understood in a glance.

‘You can feel the weather getting hot. Christmas in Hong Kong used to be cold, and I’m wearing T-shirts these days.’ said Mr. Max Wong, the shopkeeper as well as inventor of RECYCLED Bags, ‘Newspaper is something every family will use and everyone accepts. Who doesn’t? And it can be recycled. We could have saved a lot of paper by making good use of it. I just got these (newspapers) from the hotel next door. They (his products) turn out to be quite fashionable, don’t they?’

Not only is newspaper used for Mr. Wong’s bags, but a wide variety of recycled material ranges from traditional Cantonese rice bags to the red-white-blue canvas bag. If you still find these too dull and conventional, you can try the purses with bright tropic colours and shiny surface which are made of DHL express card boxes.

‘We are now also having Kowloon Dairy’s sponsorship.’ he said, as he showed me cardboards printed with the green skimmed-milk cartons we see every day in supermarkets. ‘They are sponsoring us for free, asking if we can turn these into bags.’

True, RECYCLED may be a small creative industry, but its sale is surprisingly fair. Celebrities like famous singer Nicolas Tse, the elder twin of the local ‘maverick film directors’ Peng Shun, Model Ankie Beilke have also shown their support for RECYCLED bags by purchasing several purses all at a time. ‘Westerners like the design. I guess they find it meaningful with traces of the Hong Kong style.’

Well, who knows? Maybe recycled materials and eco-friendly purses will be the vogue for the new decade. Girls, save yourselves some quotas from bland branded designers – an insightful yet chic design awaiting your appreciation and, of course, guilt-free usage!

(oh and you can actually carry Obama around! :P)

edit: after serious consideration and a revisit to the shop, i have decided not to advertise the shop, and therefore the address of the shop is deleted. i'll further explain on that in the next post. pls note that the focus of uploading this article to share my hardwork and to seek recognition of my dedication to writing. thank you so much, my fellow subscribers and passers-by.

oh fmsl.

and you're wondering what does the S stands for. bahaha afterall i have to swear. this is part of my language. duh.

and this is the greatest irony ever - i'm starting my 'fashion blog' (its not quite one yet) beginning with my school uniform.

it has been 12 years. 12 years living, studying, growing up in this everything-blue school. and for the ever first time in my life as a blue monster, i can feel the tiny little extent of freedom for grooming myself up before school without guilt or risk taken.

i guess it is some kind of reward for being loyal to the school for so long, that after all these years of traditional chinese styled education method, you now deserved to be not too explicitly liberated for a tad bit. and teachers are now your supposedly closer friends, so i guess it will be awkward to pick on every tiny details.

yes thats how i've been wrapping myself up with my scarf for...4 years. eh, yea, 4 years. (yes i know i am getting old. seriously, who doesn't?) oh i've never really looked at it this closely and wow surprisingly it doesnt look too grostesque, outrageous or colloquial (right i know thats everyone's wrapping themselves, but then this does look different, doesn't it?).

and there's this bun - the controversial part of my school outfit (ahemmm) - while some say it's like a flower, some say its a exploding bomb. a-ha-ha. and in the end i was suggested by disciplinary persons to be tidier.

and if you look closely, i'm actually wearing earrings to school (recently picked up my old earrings - more blogging on that to come), and if you look even closer, they are actually blingbling golden little hearts - even more controversial (wtf?!?) since our school, a very traditional one, restricts all sorts of accessories except a pair of round golden studs no bigger than 5mm right in the middle of one's earlobes ('oh puh-lease.' 'yea i know, but thats my school.'). but hey, it turns out not that tacky, and most importantly it brightens up feminine features, dont you think? :)

by now you should know why i'm saying fmsl. but then, if its never this suppressive, we'd all ended up mix-and-matching our daily outfits, pouring (very likely slutty - look at the past school picnics and funfairs) make-up on ourselves every single day (and gradually deteriorating our skin eww), flaunting designer clothes (let's admit it - we all are brand-crazy), wasting time on unnecessary extravaganzas while the time spent in total is good enough for revising the whole curriculum twice or thrice. and only by that you will truly treasure every single weekend you have and think carefully before you wear anything.

and still, there are still some ways to brighten up your look at school, aren't there? at least i feel better with my fluffy bun and shaped studs.

p.s. bahahaha credits to mrs lee for helping her daughter to order ORABRUSHES! now i owe this blog a product review.

redemption.

well i guess its not that serious. at least i dont feel sorry lol

this is a post to clear out one of the p.s.sss i've listed last night (technically this morning).

okay. this is more urgent and of higher importance-

top 5 reasons not to sleep late:

(yes you may say i'm a hypocrite, but give me some time, i'm trying not to be one. i promise.)

1. you look terribly gross the next day - panda eyes are a given, but what's worse is that you will have water retention. (well at least that applies to me.) New term, eh? (What is that?) it means you will have a puffy, round and faaat face when you wake up. Eh, gross enough to be the top 1 reason, i guess? i mean, it will be so unfair when you didn't gain any weight and seems to have when you have some your everyday female classmates/an uncle who just loooves to make fun of you new people (like your relative's new gf. you know who you are, my dear relative. lol.)/important people/to meet the next day. "Ooh, Kylie, you look chubbier than I last saw you!" Ouch.
2. you are actually deteriorating your liver at a slow pace in long terms. this (haha) i know the theory behind. since the human body begins to produce blood (cells?) and repair dead cells at 1am, you have to sleep to rest so that such biological processes can take place. and if you don't, obviously the outcome won't be good. the most apparent sign/greatest drawback of nocturnal animals is that their skin will turn pale and yellowish (since they lack blood and their livers will gradually fail). Again, gross enough!
3. you're basically daydreaming/sleepwalking when you wake up the next day. your brains is completely stuck and won't be able to think at all. my 2nd post is the epitome to that. and in long terms, you become stupid cos you can hardly think. yes, usually you will feel like you're not even sleepy anymore after 3am, but, firstly, you dont know what you're thinking, and secondly, you aren't even thinking. so....no no no no, babe, no no no no, don't lieee. plus, good night sleeps bring you higher efficiency. higher efficiency brings you satisfaction. satisfaction makes you love yourself and your work. loving yourself will break the vicious cycle of sleeping late while loving your work makes you stick to your work. sticking to your work = no more procastinating. ahahah. anyways we all need some good night sleep.
4. have you ever experienced insomnia due to hunger. haha i mean, usually that happened when you had your supper early and sleep late. but now, regardless of when you're having your supper, and you're procastinating (my favourite word atm lol) your sleeping time to evermore late night hours, it is inevitable your belly will go grrrrrrrrr. then you start to scrap out all the junk food and chocolate you have at home to comfort your aching stomach regardless of how much weight you are going to gain, work a bit more, and jump into bed straight after you're done...oh did i mention the later you eat the more weight you'll gain cos you didnt have 4 hours to completely digest your food?
5. if there are sorts of debts existing, sleeping debt must be the worst and evilest type. simply because it. is. never. completely. redempted. one day, you'll find yourself sleeping everywhere. your desk at school, on your chair, buses, anywhere at all. i've even seen people managed to sleep while standing in the tube. two main problems - a. again, you suck and look gross, and b. you are directly putting yourself into physical dangers if in public: being robbed, sexually harassed without knowing, getting lost when you overslept and missed your station, unable to escape from dangers like...eh let's just stop here before it got too unpleasant.

i think that sounds, eh, reasonable enough.

more to come, again, i promise.

and maintenant i really really should get back to my literature. xx

edits (with credits lol):

corrected by my huge-fan-of-biology friend. livers DON'T produce blood cells cos they are produced in bone marrows. instead, livers remove toxins in one's body. and still, delaying sleeping hours is bad cos you're procrastinating liver's work to be done. it does the best while you're resting. ;)

Donnez-moi une leçon de sorryology

Okay. seriously. what's so wrong with saying sorry?

I know sometimes I'm saying sorry a lot, but then, why is it even wrong when it is necessary (to me) and when everyone's interpretation and definition of "sorry" is different?

Let's put it this way.

Let Sorry be "dui ng ju"

Let Excusez-moi be "ng goi"

and Let ThankYou be "ng goi"/"doh jeh"

"ng goi" is always how i start my conversations. i mean, even in english, you would say "excuse me" to grap someone's attention. ...or am i wrong? it doesnt mean i'm feeling sorry for bothering you, but it was necessary to grap someon's attention. like, you won't go to an macdonald's counter and say, "Oy/Yo/Hey, can you fetch me a cheese burger combo?", no?

and when you bumped someone, or failed to help someone when being asked to do a favour, my habit is to say "ng ho yee see" but then, you won't say "excuse me" in that situation if you happened to be speaking in english. so instead i said sorry! i mean, you failed your friend, you wouldn't even say a word just to tell her you feel bad for failing her? please.

well at least i do care if it is me being failed by my friend. or a thank you from you if it is me helping you the tiniest bit of stuff. cos they are simple, very frequently used words. you're intelligent and comprehensive. you're civilized. you're nice. and you'll say it for the sake of provening that you are civilized and nice. and that's etiquette.

and that is why sorry to me has always been light-hearted. not that i'm using it casually, but it is because i've defined it as something like "oops/... (i was just about to type sorry again)". Seriously, its not that serious. if you get what i mean.

I understand everyone's definition for sorry/excuse me is more serious than mine, and because of that, and because of my beloved friends and my beloved mom's reminders, i'm changing catchphrases. atm i can see progress in myself. verbally i still cant really stop it, but its becoming less frequent in my casual writing and typing. just give me some time.

and its now almost 2am again. oh darn. i've completely ruined my perfect plan for tomorow. oops if you will excuse meee, i must go for now xx

p.s. okay no more late night sleep. and i have a list of reasons to share.

p.p.s. i still owe my blog something fashion-related. OOPS lol

p.p.p.s. yes i just a family dinner just now and if possible, there are loads to tell as well. oh god maybe i'm just too talkative.