Rambleramblemrablmebarmlbe

This year's summer dresses all seem to have tiebacks. Darn it, should have launched my own line before everyone else jumped on the boat. I want to go swing dancing!!! Round up the possums.

My sleeping schedule is so strange. It seems to have turned inside out, but only sometimes.

ITS SO BEAUTIFUL THESE DAYS

I have found that it is physically impossible for me to stay up longer than X hours without at least X/3 hours of sleep the night before. Power naps/unpower naps help a lot, but they only provide 1/3 of the waking energy time for each hour of nap I get. That's probably not a definitive function, but I'd say it's pretty close as of these two months.

Aspirations for One Day: make the dresses that I see and like BY HAND (and sewing machine), put together the other sewing crafty things that I've designed, bring my imagined paintings to life, cook delicious and beautiful food, including traditional chinese foods and crazy cakes and bento boxes. I've actually got a few bento boxes behind my belt already (literally), the latest of which is:

My bento, linked from Soy's blog! Click to for her post.

This is a bit late now, but a few weeks back Anna came and led a bento box workshop with us - she's the one who made the Walle bento that some of y'all might have seen ~ either way though, look at her gallery and blog! :) It's quite amazing. Click here to go to her post about the workshop. Go find mine! Haha

Anna's publicized "Walle" bento ~ click for interview

I've actually made a few bento boxes in the past, but they're nothing like these of course hahah

fafsafafsafafsafafsafafsafafasa CSSSSSSSSS

I'm really excited for Iowa. Good night soon.! .?

Happy New Year

It's the year of the tiger! That's my Dad's year :)

What a long time it has been since my last post... I don't even know quite what to write.

Life has been interesting... and it is so beautiful too. I find myself just needing a lot of rest right now - in perhaps every way. We all do need to take better care of ourselves :P Like not eating too late at night (or bingeing too much during any other hour)

I am very thankful...

Peanut Butter

Yesterday we had 汤圆! :D Super exciting. Mom said we might not have enough, so the following night I dreamed that to solve this problem, she simply cut each in half after cooking, so there were more pieces. My logic is make senses.

Also, I am having so much trouble packing up... The most I can do as of now is make a list and check it twice, and take out the shower flippyfloppys. Beyond that my mind just kind of goes 'NOOOOOO NEVARRRRRRR' and I am caught at a standstill, kind of strobe-like style though.

For future records

I had a dream that I was a yellow-orange origami pterodactyl. I had an olive-green origami pterodactyl friend, and we were seeking the friendship of a red origami pterodactyl, because he/she was much wiser in the ways of origami pterodactyl-ing, and we were leik teh n00bs LOLZ. However, I was soon crushed by a falling boulder the size of a mountain as I fled from a t-rex, and subsequently morphed into a triceratops. Does anybody remember the dinosaurs tv show? Freaky thing... Yea so I lived with a triceratops equivalent of that family underground, in something like a hobbit hole (complete with many rooms and furniture and a fireplace), and I kept fearing for the safety of the baby, because I thought the velociraptors were going to come and attack. And sometime midway through the dream, I realized I didn't know how to use my dinosaur legs, b/c I kept tripping and falling over myself. :/

Some things that I read

A devo from Purpose Driven Life that I read recently ~ God's timing is so perfect :)

Gracious Uncertainty by Jon Walker

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 (NIV) This guest devotional is from Jon Walker, author of "Growing with Purpose." When my oldest son first started playing baseball, he was still relatively young and not used to a life lived around clocks and calendars. So it wasn't uncommon for him to ask, "Is my game today?" "How many days until Saturday?" Jesus says this childlike nature is necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven. My son wasn't questioning if something would happen; it was a given that it would. Instead, he was dependent upon my wife or me to tell him when it would happen. Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest, writes "The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty." He describes this as "gracious uncertainty," where "we are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God." I would add we can be certain of God's grace while being graciously uncertain of the future details of our lives. With gracious uncertainty, we can be confident in our expectations, knowing our hope in the Lord will not disappoint (Romans 5:5). With gracious uncertainty, we can release the things we have no responsibility for, yet worry about anyway. My son can be certain I will get him to the ball game, but he need not be concerned about the gas required, the directions there, or even to drive. He can just enjoy being a child and simply live in each moment, trusting I've got a handle on the details and I'll let him know when it's time to go. If only we all had such faith, no longer requiring God to submit to our clocks and calendars. Our objective-in-Jesus is to grow confident each day that our heavenly Father will come through at just the right time in just the right way.

Psalm 121 ~ also something that I read recently, which also happened to be the passage of our sermon yesterday ~

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
The LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

One More Week

Exactly! Well, less than technically, because my flight is at 8am next Monday.

Time has definitely flown by. Why does time fly anyway? Where does that come from? Why couldn't it have been 'time zaps' or  something, because zapping is surely faster than flying. More stuff to research into while procrastinating! Just kidding, there will be no procrastinating. Other than this.

As a quick update to my last real update (although I am still quite sad that viennetta is no longer produced in the states), Anna and Nia came to visit last weekend! We had fun exploring the whole of London and throwing things on the ground and eating everywhere. Everywhere. Pictures will hopefully be uploaded after this week.

I just finished one final! Yaaay!!!! 2 more to go, to be completed by Wednesday.. and 2 more essays, one more pset. Baahh craziness! But not unwarranted, since I've really brought them upon myself (the papers anyway)

There's a lot that I would have still liked to do - to go to these places, see those sites, try this out and that out, etc etc.. granted, I haven't left just yet, but I don't foresee myself completing that list of wish-I-could-do's in the next week. All said, I don't think that those will be regrets, just a faint kind of 'oh, that would have been nice'. We shall see...

My brother sent me a flat Gabriel and I'll be making some last tourist rounds with him - a small taste of home as I look forward to going! Can't wait lah!!! XD To see family again, friends from home, and also for wonderful home cooking :)

All that stands in my way are those darned papers really... and packing, of course. I actually find packing fun, and slightly stress relieving. Just slightly, because as much as it's an intensive cleaning and organizing ritual, it's also generally combined with the travel, and all the fun and hectiness that entails. 

Wow, the entire lab room just burst into spontaneous laughter. I feel so left out :( I believe they're all laughing at some machine vision inside joke. That's why it's so full in here..

ALMOST THERE!!!1!!1!11!1!!11one

Viennetta

Why don't they make these in the states anymore? That is such a shame. SUCH A SHAME.








Why would you not sell this? It was one of their best. I remember eating it with my family when I was <10, and then one day, they were no more. Sad sad sad.

It's too late to be eating anything really, but I'm arbitrarily declaring that it's never too late for a slice of Viennetta. Indeed, one slice is not enough.

If only each slice were equal to a page of completed essay... mmmmmm