Last Exam

GETTING DISTRACTED EVERY 10 SECONDS AHHHH

Time is running out and I still know nuts about Chinese Politics

I have also run out of places to post my rants SO HELP ME GOD


On a happier note, I've discovered really useful things that I had the foresight to note down like "THIS SLIDE IS IMPORTANT FOR FINALS". The hints that my prof dropped came flooding back and I'm hoping against all odds that IT WILL BE ENOUGH

omg I'm crazy. This is the result of being over-caffeinated as well as a CBF attitude for my last paper!!!

Met Gala!

Out of all the celebrity events in the year, I love looking at Met Gala outfits the most!! Maybe because I feel like people dress more outrageously and lavishly, even flamboyantly than they normally would.

So here's my two cents' worth on the Best Dressed / Worst Dressed! Feel free to disagree, it really is just my humble and non-expert first impression.

First, the people who looked spectacular:

Emma Stone, in Thakoon

I love how young and fresh she looked!!! The colors of her dress, her hair and her makeup were absolutely spot on for me.

(Okay now when I look at it, her outfit may be a tad too plain for the Met Ball since many others turned up in opulent gowns. Regardless, I still love how she looked hahaha)


Diane Kruger, in Hugo Boss

I loved the silver sheen of her dress!! Under certain lighting I thought it had a lilac hue? I don't know if it's my eye playing tricks or if it's really intentional, but anyway she looked so elegant and glamorous in this simple gown.

Karlie Kloss, in Oscar de la Renta

I thought she looked stunning, I was wowed by her elegance and poise! She carries herself really well, and the more I see her the more I like her! Her leather gloves are a bit much though, no? (In other photos I saw that she took them off during dinner.) Anyway she still pulled off her outfit looking opulent and fabulous!

Reese Witherspoon, in Stella McCartney

Okay now I'm thinking maybe I'm too partial to pink but I thought she channelled Old Hollywood glamor, so sexy and glamorous! Her lip color matched her dress and it made her look so young and alive!


Arizona Muse and Liu Wen, in Zac Posen

The red of Arizona's gown is gorgeous!! She looked like a princess to me. Liu Wen also looked really elegant :) To be fair I don't think I've seen them at many other red carpet events, and their Zac Posen gowns are both stunning with their statuesque supermodel height and beauty... quite a winning combo indeed.


Other supermodels
Arizona Muse, Jourdan Dunn, Toni Garrn, (Kendall Jenner), Liu Wen

The three in the middle were in Topshop. Jourdan looks amazing, I mean the yellow on her skin was so gorgeous!! But I know I'm biased since she's one of my favorite models. Toni looked incredibly elegant and luxe as well. Kendall looked out of place to me... just another Kardashian Klan member whose popularity is being milked by designers.


Joan Smalls, Lily Aldrige, Kendall, Ming Xi

Joan is in Vera Wang, and I thought she was so bold to wear purple lipstick! She definitely stood out, and most people think she looked amazing but I thought the purple was only okay.
Lily is in Michael Kors, and I think she was stunning. I read people saying her dress looked cheap but I disagree, I thought she looked really elegant!!
Ming Xi, was ordinary for me. She's very young and energetic, but still lacks a little poise and elegance!


Rosie Huntington Whiteley, in Balmain

Honestly, she is so flawless most of the time. Her street style and red carpet choices always work really well!! I'm putting her photo here because she did look good. But her outfit probably fits last year's theme (Punk: Chaos to Couture) more hahaha.


Now for the power couples, who usually look good at every red carpet event anyway:

Gisele Bundchen, in Balenciaga, and her husband Tom Brady

Beyonce and Jay-Z in Givenchy

Rihanna, in Stella McCartney, and Beyonce hahaha

David and Victoria Beckham, in her own line

Are they not the epitome of classiness?!!

Jessica Alba, in Diane Von Furstenberg, and Cash Warren

She is sooo gorgeous!! In my opinion they're the sweetest looking couple!

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, in Gucci

They look really good together!

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield

They look good together too :) (but my opinion may have been influenced by Spiderman)


Chrissy Teigen and John Legend in Ralph Lauren

Charlize Theron, in Dior, and Sean Penn

I assume they are together but I'm not actually sure...


And now... the Misses :(

Lupita Nyong'o, in Prada

What was she thinking? :( she usually looks so elegant and amazing at all other events!!! No doubt the green goes well with her skin though, but she just looks kinda insane here, like some tree-loving gypsy. Sorry :(

K. U., in Dolce and Gabbana

It actually pains my heart to have her photo on my blog, I can't even bear to spell out her name wtf. In this photo she actually looks like some overgrown milkmaid. I feel like the cut of this dress was so bad on her and she somewhat tarnished Dolce and Gabbana's image for me. Oh well!

Katie Holmes, in Marchesa

Her hair makes her look so unkempt and so dreadfully old :( I read somewhere that she looks like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and after that I couldn't unsee it hahaha. Poor thing, not a very flattering look for her :(

Okay I'm getting tired of posting photos. Other misses include Shailene Woodley in Rodarte, Maggie Gyllenhaal in Valentino, and Elizabeth Olsen in Miu Miu.

I feel so bad for celebrities every time they make the "Worst Dressed" list because I imagine they (or worse, their children and unforgiving relatives) see it in the news / online and they feel so sad that they did not look like how they envisioned themselves to be.

Maybe they were sick, or their hair didn't turn out the way they wanted it, or their makeup didn't suit their face that day, etc. I still applaud all of them for going out and being under such intense spotlight and pressure from critical press and even more critical people behind their TV or computer screens.

I think they're all beautiful and everyone has their good and bad days! Anyway, they are the ones who were important enough to be included in the exclusive Met Gala guest list hahaha, I should think they all feel extra special based on that alone!

Sneak Peek

Today was a really random and uneventful day but I felt really happy!

Rushed to school with T and starved through the lecture because we had no time to eat lunch (pretty sure a lot of people heard my tummy noises).

Finally had lunch at 4+, JOY!!!

Here's a list of what ET and I ate:

1) Subway sandwich + cookie for me
2) Japanese bento set: mackerel and teriyaki chicken for ET
3) Both: a slice of watermelon, dragonfruit and papaya
4) Both: a french toast set
5) Both: a kaya toast set

Wow. I think we finished our food in half an hour and maybe we didn't chew and we certainly hadn't digested our food because I really think we ate a lot!!!

But anyway, played QuizUp in the library (my new favorite game and my favorite category is Modern Family - please play it and challenge me!!!), followed by a series of other battery-draining procrastinating activities...

*hours later*
Got down to studying and I feel so accomplished because I finished the last and most difficult chapter of Financial Accounting, AND I finished all my tutorial homework, AND I finished the hardest question after some googling and brain-cracking.

Dinner was at 10+ and we ended up at Hwa Nam! T will obviously say yes to Hwa Nam every single time we walk past because he absolutely adores their ... PICKLED CUCUMBERS. So weird!!! He is the only person I know who eats two freakin' portions of their pickled cucumbers. Based on my observations of friends, family and other patrons, I don't think anyone else even finishes one portion.

Anyway, maybe it's my hormones, my cramps, my hunger, but Hwa Nam's fried rice was THE BOMB tonight!!! So yummy T was eating off my plate before and after he polished off his own plate of Mui Fan.

Went to Salted Caramel after for some waffle lovin', but their waffles were sold out. Time for them to reevaluate their inventory because how can they let their best-selling waffles sell out?!
(To be fair, it was about half an hour before closing time so I guesssss it's forgivable that they sold out.)

So we left very disappointed :( even ventured into Udders so that I could satisfy my waffle craving but we left after sulking at the menu because nobody wants Udders.

Anyway I cheered right back up when I thought of the tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream I have in my fridge at home!! My favorite flavor - CARAMEL BISCUIT and xxx (I can't remember what), but the xxx is irrelevant because CARAMEL BISCUIT!!! *salivates*

On hindsight, I really have no clue why I'm in such a good mood, because we had such a normal day!!

I started thinking that this is like a sneak peek into our future together! I mean, we spend so much time together and it's so nice that we can sit quietly and devour our food, play our stupid phone games next to each other, talk and laugh about the most ridiculous things etc.

After all this time, I still feel so happy :)
Cheesy as it sounds, it's these random, boring, uneventful, normal, unexpected days that make me remember how happy we are together :)

Escape

Not feeling very good these days. I've been enduring (or letting myself wallow in) a general feeling of malaise and a lack of motivation to do anything.

I almost feel like I don't put in effort because I have nothing to work towards, no goal that makes all this suffering worthwhile.

More and more, I feel so disillusioned about college. What's the point of a degree when you're probably not going to use anything you study now in your job next time? What's the point of an education that does not emphasize on the value of learning but rather on memorization and regurgitation skills? What's the point of doing all this when you're just going to die anyway?

Everyone wants the easy way out. That's why the people who succeed are the people who have a goal and are focused and determined to reach it.

I don't know what I want, I don't know what I'm doing.

Sigh.

L'été à Paris

I can't apologize enough for my long absence.

After spending two weeks in Paris, I was back for a month then I went back to Paris and spent the rest of my summer there!

There are so so so many things I'd love to say about Paris. The places I visited, the food I ate, the people I met, the little things I discovered and everything I grew to love.... I should've kept a record of these when I was there! All that's left are fuzzy memories that I'm struggling to preserve in my head.

I will post some photos in an attempt to revive this space, and to demonstrate what I cannot say in words: the charm and beauty of Paris.

Paris

My favorite church in the world: Basilique du Sacré Coeur

Jardin des Tuileries

My favorite gardens: Jardin du Luxembourg

Parisian Cafe

Yuzu macaron from Sadaharu Aoki

One of the more charming areas in Paris: Le Marais

Le 14 juillet / Bastille Day

Château de Versailles

La dernière étape du 100e Tour de France

Disneyland Paris

Despite the unrelenting sun and the unbearable heat wave, it is so difficult not to love Paris. There are so many places that one would never discover as a tourist, and I'm so blessed I had the time to explore and fall in love with the unknown sides of Paris. Every time I chanced upon a new neighborhood, a new cafe, a new sight, it always managed to take my breath away. All my good friends know that New York City is my absolute favorite city in the world, but Paris seriously gives it a run for its money hahaha!

Anyway, I'm so thankful for the amazing friends I've made, and I'm so happy to say that my French has improved tremendously!! I hope the memories I have of this beautiful city will stay perfect and untainted by time.

Please do leave a comment if you'd like a recommendation of places to visit or places to eat at in Paris!