some other pictures

my siberian tiger. (it's actually gail's and it's actually smaller than it looks in that picture)


wagner at the royal albert hall.


somewhere out there is the queen in purple, on her 80th birthday.


my uncle and my cousin..

one fine afternoon on june 11

this was when gail and i stood in line that sunday to get into church for united live. we arrived at the dominion at 4 meaning to get into the 4:30 service, but ended up queing for the 6:45 service instead.

if you zoom really closely, you can see joel houston right in the centre and marty sampson on his right.

it was totally worth it. the queue, the heat, the exam the next day... wowww.. all good stuff... can still hear marty sampson's pseudo-martin smith voice "swinggg lowwww....." in my head.. :D

finding of the month

the english.. :D

matt my flatmate and me

from some angles, he looks like hugh grant.
especially when he smiles.. and according to him, some people say also in mannerism.
:D

while ordering kimchi and tofu

so aunty wai and i met for our last tryst this season at oriental city..

and when aunty wai visits oriental city, it's like a celebrity making an entrance..

she'll wave at everybody and say hi to someone every 2 seconds.. and i get introduced as her "kai lui" (god-dotter)

too much fun. :D

anyways, i was returning from the korean store with my food when i saw the letter on the table. apparently it got mailed to her house a few weeks ago and she had left a message on gail's voice mail which i couldn't check coz her line got barred.. since then, she had been carrying it in her handbag with the hope of meeting me.. not knowing its contents... and me happily unaware of its existance.. (coz i was expecting something of that nature only in mid-august..)

so i opened the nondescript-looking envelope, and voila, inside was a letter from the financial office saying that the school's gonna give me a research studentship which will cover 90% of my incredibly expensive tuition fee for a year.

groovy hey.. so i now have a place to stay, have tuition (for the year at least) taken care of.. kinda.. yeah it's taken care of.. and a job when i return in september at my favourite photo developing centre on kingsway. heheh. is that great or is that great?

aunty wai thought at first that it was for 1,000 quid.. and then she found out that it was 10,000quid after examining it closer and almost fell out of her chair. the guy next to us, eating noodles, looked in our direction and said approvingly, "wow.. that's really good..that's a good skolarship", the guy behind us texting on his phone was staring and smiling at both of us.. and the family next to us were complaining loudly in cantonese that the food didn't have enough soy sauce. me, i was just sitting there finding it all quite amusing while practising my fake english accent (and manners) with aunty wai.

so anyways, i appear to be quite set for the year... god's so taking care of me and everything's so falling into place i'm quite in awe to the point that i'm just like wow.. ok god.. work your magic again.. i'm not even gonna think too much about it. hehhhehh... thanks to those who have prayed and been so supportive. this is as much yours as it is mine. then again, i don't really feel like it's mine. it's a strange love-hate attachment that i feel towards my studies... sometimes.. (maybe coz i sometimes think that it's all quite alotta bullshit.. ok that's not entirely true.. but it's not easy to do meaningful anthropology and you do end up reading quite some bs.)

but whattodo hey, it's been entrusted to me in the meantime. so rilek dan minum dulu.

and by the way, did i mention that

I CAN'T WAIT TO GO HOME!! TOMORROW WON'T COME SOON ENOUGH!!! WAAAAAILLLLLLLLLLLLL!!~! *sob

:)

*sob

what to do ya.. what to do.

*sob

so like that lah..

:D

and so how ya..

i'm restless..

just spent the day with my uncle, aunt and cousin whom i've not met in over 10 years.. was surprised we still recognized each other. my aunt kept getting me and abigail mixed up and we had to tell her a few times that she was indeed talking to g. lol. they were too sweet.. took me shopping, told me old stories about my mom and her london years, and helped filled up the missing gap in mom's family history. tough life and i guess every parent want more than they ever had for their kids.. and i think my mom's the same as well. with what she knew and what she had and what she could dream about, she perhaps dreamt for us, in her own way... and i am grateful. i think the older i get the more i realize how human my parents are, and how hard they try the best they knew how to. and i think that's all we can ever aspire too.. doing the best we can, making things up as we go along.. coz there is no prescribed mode of happiness, is there? there's no set one way to live as well.. with some heavenly butt-kicking along the way, the best we can do is to do the best we can. lol. talk about a circular sentence that..

and so how ya.. one life to live, one chance to make it, multiple chances to screw up or to take breaks along the way.. or to call a time-out halfway through this long long race.. in the end, may it all count towards something. if not, might as well die now hey.

may his grace be sufficient for you.

old song

he has brought us thus far by his grace
he has led us by fire and by cloud
to bring us to zion
his praises to sing
o blessed
o blessed be God

he has sheltered under his wings
and he's planned every path that we trod
he will bring us to zion
to look on his face
o blessed
o blessed be God

jabber jabber

jabber jabber
jabber jabber jabber jabber sharif jabber jabber
jabber jabber
jabber
*wink to d.

now reading

soldiers of light, by daniel bergner: a narrative of travels in sierra leone

beyond rights talk and culture talk, by mahmood mamdani

*sob

i wannnna gooo hommmmmmeeeeee waillll waiilll *sob

someday upon a moon..

i'll remember the time
we gathered
like family

WAILLLL!!~!~!~

i wanna go home. :(

so today

the power went off in church but we carried on anyway till they shooed us outta the theatre. weirdest part was that they gave the altar call after the worship (they usually do that after preaching) and 30 seconds after tim prayed with those who wanted to make their peace with god, the theatre went dark and i thought.. wow.. super cool. for about 3 seconds i thought it was part of the program.. you can never tell, with church. :D

like wow..

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously–no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
-C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory

midweek update

i accidentally got my flight invoice meant for the school's financial office. the amount of the ticket and the excess baggage i'm allowed (10kg) totalled a whopping 900 quid. wahhah. still find it unbelievable that someone's spending that amount of money on me.. and more..

got an essay result back today.. glad my professor liked it coz by the time i was due to hand it in, i had already read it a million times and was ready to rip it apart and start over.. :)

meanwhile, am exploring other horizons..

pleasant ways

i love the fact that even though it's my last month here in london for this season, i'm still meeting new friends who have in their own special way, made life a little more interesting. my flatmates, for instance, are too cute it's unbelievable. we had a problem with the landlady again coz the person whose room i am renting didn't exactly clear it up with her and she was a little pissed. the boys, however, were trying their best to be on my side and standing up for me even though they've only met me for less than a week.. heheh.. something which i find incredible. i think ax can qualify as the first proper english english friend friend i've met here and he is just so sweet while mt is quite mental. this little room in this crazy flat is definitely one of those things which i wouldn't have gotten even if i had placed a high-priority ad for it. too much fun and i'm quite thankful and surprised by joy.. again.

also met some incredible people by just hanging out on houghton street in school last week with the usual black suspects. had my boss's brand new Canon 30D with me and managed to capture howard davis on a bicycle.. met e from nigeria and we had the most bizzare conversation about a lot of nonsense which got crazier after finding out that we both attended hillsong. hehhehh.. brought him to connect group with me after bumping to him again in school just before i was heading off to waterloo last thursday.

saw tosca and turandot at the roh on monday and friday. turandot especially was pretty amazing.. imagine an italian opera, set in imperial china, playing in london... cool hey.. talk about cosmopolitanism. this monday, will be going for a turandot singalong at the royal opera house with kavita. have not been to one of those before so will be quite the experience singing nessum dorma with a bunch of other crazy people. :D

had dinner with friend from filipins now in london, marcel, and his friends today. brought them to my favourite chinatown restaurant which they all adored and declared their most favourite place to eat as well, and then we went walking around soho, covent garden and the west end. london's too lovely in summer coz it doesn't get dark till about 10 and even then, the night is bright. and the weather is just perfect..

so this week feels like a series of divine connections.. god's grace is just so super amazing and i'm just living this life not really thinking or in hyper-planning mode, but just..chilling.

flight's booked home for august 1st and i will be back in september. i'm calling things that are not as though they are.. coz nothing major's confirmed yet except the place on the phd programme and a place to live at bankside. oh and a job at my favourite kingsway shop. :)

london's beginning to feel like home.. as in, it's not as intimidating or unfriendly as it was when i first got here.. now i feel more ownership towards it.. if that makes any sense.

then again nothing much makes sense at 2:50 in the morning. problem was i slept in the afternoon today after cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom.. so sleeping pattern's a bit skewed. oh i went running at regent's park last thurs at 7am.. which is unusual behavior but i couldn't help it coz the sun was out and sleeping seemed like a waste of time. it's only been my second time there (coz st james park was closer to previous residence). it's so pretty though and apparently the roses are in bloom but i couldnt find any so i'm definitely going back. they're probably located at another section of the park.

also reading a few books simultaneously for dissertation. i figured i gotta write about 500 words a day over a period of 20 days to finish the thing before going home. the writing part isn't difficult.. i firstly just need to know clearly what i wanna say.. which is the tough part. need another miracle hey..:)

coda

so today's my last day at g17, 141-143 drury lane, london wc2b 5tb.
so sad to leave.. it's been too much fun here, definitely made sweeter by friends from home who were here to visit!! :)
i'm moving two blocks up to holborn into a flat with three english blokes. it's gonna be a bit tricky coz i'm subletting from the 4th english bloke who didn't tell his housemates that i was gonna move in, and didn't tell his landlady either.. so he's in trouble with them and her.. and one of the housemates told me that i'm in danger of being evicted..lol. but the housemates i've met so far are pretty nice and we get along and i think we even like each other (as people). they're decent final year lse students.. and i'm like the best flatmate anybody will ever get.. :) besides, i just want a place for a month to go to work at my photoshop on kingsway and church at tottenham court road and write my dissertation at nights and the location of that flat is so perfect i dont wanna move out or be evicted. so, keep praying for a peacable solution!! :) anyhow i'm gonna be there tomorrow and they can't get rid of me even if they wanted to coz i'm this poor asian girl with nowhere to go.. :D so help me, God.