Achievements of 2012

Hello my lovelies!

At this time of the year, it's nice to reflect over the last 365 days and to think about some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the year, especially when it comes to making new resolutions. Personally, this year has been one of the best in terms of achievements and growth, but there have also been some down times too, the most standout one being having to let go of someone that I really cared about early on this year. But I guess you have to take the good with the bad, and just learn to get on with your life.

So, now for the summaries. This year, I:

Graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA and MSci woopwoop! This is one of my proudest achievements, because for the first three years of my degree, I really struggled to balance my work and play. My life was ruled by drama. My night would be my day, everything was turned topsy-turvy upside down. I scraped by with meagre grades and lost all confidence in myself because I was struggling so much, always behind, never really understanding anything that I was supposed to have learnt. But then this year, thanks to surrounding myself with a more positive environment, and thanks to some very special people who believed in me, I managed to turn it all around and make both my family and myself proud. There's one person in particular I have to thank, without him as a role model, I don't think I could've pulled myself together~ <3

Following on from that, I accepted a PhD offer at UCL and moved to London to begin grad school in September. All of this happened so fast - it was a last minute application mid-August, interviews in September and an offer made on the same day! Learning how to hunt for a house without being screwed over, and then moving in two weeks later. At that point, I was still doing a summer project in Cambridge, so never had a proper chance to say goodbye to my life there - that summer holds some of my most fondest memories. But having to sort out bills for my new house, organise cleaning rotas etc. made me feel like this was most definitely the start of something new, and that I was finally leaving the bubble of Cambridge and going into the wider world.

Realised that dreams can come true, that the un in the unattainable can disappear with enough confidence, perseverance and erosion. I know I'm being vague, but this applies to a lot of things that have happened to me, nay, that I've made happen. Taking an active role in forging my own destiny instead of sitting in the back seat just along for the ride ~ one of the most valuable lessons that I've learned this year, especially since it applies to everything in life: career, finance and of course, romance. 

Started to take an active interest in my fitness and well being. I started to go running after my exams were over, and in a few months, I went from wanting to give up after two minutes, to being able to run a 5km in just under half an hour! Unfortunately, in between this, I went to Morocco and climbed Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa, and this, combined with me increasing my running distance too quickly, resulted in me getting runner's knee and having to take time out. This was quite upsetting as I wanted to try out for the university lacrosse team at UCL but had to stop all running. Now I'm seeing a physio who is helping me to correct my bio-mechanics as it turns out my natural walk is causing problems, but in the meantime, I've taken up some new things like yoga and flexibility classes.

Added lots of new life experiences to my memories ~ worked as a student campus manager for Unilever, went to Morocco for two weeks, chatted to a milkman at 5am, celebrated my birthday with my beloved chemistry department, ahh, there are too many to list...!

All in all, a fantastic year! :)

Yishi x

The Hobbit

Hey there!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

Today I went to see The Hobbit - after hastily re-reading the novel over the last few days cuz I hate seeing a movie before I've read the book. Although, in this case, I had read the Hobbit before, only this was more than ten years ago, so I'd completely forgotten everything that happened in the plot which made it a nice surprise to go back to.

Lord of the Rings had always been a family thing - we went to watch all three movies in the cinema as a family, so a decade later, it was really nice to go see The Hobbit together, since these days, I don't get to see my parents often anymore. My initial thoughts upon entering the cinema went something along the lines of how can they make the book into three movies without dragging it out to the end of the world, but when I came out of the screening, I found that I'd been captivated for the entire duration of the movie.

I love the changes that they'd made, and how they brought loads of things together to set the stage up for LotR. The characters were great too, especially the dwarves, some of which were very pleasing to the eye hehe. As expected, Gollum was splendid - a friend of mine now has even more material to base his scary Gollum impressions on hehe. 

If the other two movies (which I hear they've already finished shooting!!) live up to this standard, then this may be one of the rare cases in which I find the movie better than the book! :O

Yishi x

AIEEE

Eeeek, yet another abandon!! >__<

Song of the summer: Whistle by Flo Rida

So much has happened over the summer...

 I graduated from Cambridge! :D

 I landed a chemistry summer project in Cambridge

 I got a PhD offer in London

 I went on holiday to Morocco for two weeks :)

 I became another year older

 I moved to London~

Phew! That brings me up to date with the most important of my life updates. Sadly I have no photos of Morocco because I lost my camera in a taxi the day after I got back... :'(

A brief trip home to see mama and baba

My parents have all of my graduation photos, but I managed to find this one ~ my back is to the camera though hehe. The man in the red gown is our Praelector, and he is straightening my gown because mine was looking a little too scruffy...

Class of 2012!

Interview outfit for my PhD, plus one of the cute/ugly mascots from the London Olympics!

My thoughts on London ~ it's very very big. And pretty neat. There's so much stuff to do here, and since moving down I've thrown myself into loads of new activities: knit class, yoga, pole fitness, aerial hoop, and I'm thinking of taking up a pottery class too! :3

When the weather gets a little nicer I'll put up a photo of my new house, but until then, take care my lovelies~

Yishi xxx

UP Girls again~

Hey everyone~

*crickets chirping*

OK, so it's been several several months since I last updated, and I guess for a while, I kinda gave up on the online world to focus on my finals... >_<

However, locking myself away -did- pay off in the end, I got the grades and now the world is my oyster! I'll give a looong update on what's been going on in my next post, but for now, I'll keep it short since I feel like I'm easing my way back into the online community.

Remember my post ages ago about a c-pop group called UP Girls?

I haven't been following Asian music recently, but thought I'd look them up to see how they were doing. Despite the lack of media coverage these girls have, I managed to find their new single.

Not gonna lie, this whole video still screams of k-pop, and I felt pretty bad for them during the rapping parts.  The girls pull off the cute look really well though, such a huge contrast from their previous video (see my other post) but all in all, the song did not work for me which is a shame, as I haven't come across any other c-pop bands that are riding the hallyu wave.

Anyway, best of luck to them, and if you are still reading this, then I hope you have a good evening! :)

Yishi xxx

Photo Diary: A day at the botanic gardens

Hey everyone!

I haven't done one of these in AGES, so I hope you are just as excited as I am. But first, I want to share this little story.

Song of the day: Super Star by Supernova (<3)

This afternoon in the department, we got an announcement system from the PA telling everyone in the basement to evacuate. Then a minute later, another announcement was made: everyone in the Unilever building evacuate. Puzzled, we returned back to what we were doing but then one final announcement was made: EVERYONE evacuate the building. Everyone in my office burst out laughing before filing outside. Later I found out that someone had dropped a bottle of a chemical which is put in the natural gas system so that if any gas leaks, then you'll be able to smell it. The person who dropped it didn't know what to do, so the chemical began to leak into the air and thus, the basement had to evacuate. People then disposed of the chemical by putting it outside. Unfortunately, they left it by the Unilever building, which had an air vent that sucked the fumes back into the department and circulated it everywhere, forcing all of us to leave.

That made me laugh.

Anyway, during this evacuation, S, Y and I got bored so decided to go to the Botanical Gardens for a little wander.

We went for lunch at a pub with some guys from our rival group.

It was a bit rainy so the sky isn't very blue.

There were too many male ducks and only one female.

Since it was a little chilly, we headed for the greenhouses.

It was like a jungle in here. And so warm!

There were lots of pretty flowers, but I saw no sign of the carnivorous plants that were promised.

When I was young, my parents would take me out to visit lots of gardens and botanical places like this.

Can you see the little fishies? ^_^

<3

We didn't really know what this was, or if it was real or not.

And then we saw lots more of them.

I find desert foliage pretty weird but fascinating.

Always wanted a cactus for my room!

Bees <3

As you can see, it was a very productive day indeed... T_T

Although I did get my dissertation finished, and had a quick chat with Unrequited Love.

Hope you guys had a good day too! :)

Yishi x

My Thoughts on Dakota Rose a.k.a Kotakoti

Hey guys,

Hope you're well and enjoying this Friday evening! (✿◠‿◠)

Song of the day: Labyrinth of Dreams by Nox Arcana (I love atmospheric music like this!)

Today I want to talk to you about Dakota Rose, a.k.a Kotakoti, a girl who has recently become famous on the Internet for looking like a doll. I've been following the rise of Dakota Rose for a few weeks now, ever since I came across a post about her from Cindy Tang's blog. In the post, people were arguing about whether or not she Photoshopped her images, and I found myself morbidly fascinated by the hype/love/hate around this Internet sensation, so I decided to research her a bit.

You can read more about her here:

Her gorgeous photos

The case of Dakota Rose

Dakota's Encyclopedia Dramatica

Kiki Kanniball, her sister

When I first started reading about her and her family, I was completely shocked at the amount of drama that she and her family have gone through. I saw some of their old Youtube videos where they were making fun of others, saw how they acted on camera and what they thought was acceptable to post on the Internet. After comparing it to how Dakota wants to be portrayed now: a cute, sweet, innocent girl, I found my jaw dropping in disbelief at just how blatant this girl is with her unashamed intentions of capitalising on the Asian market... ๏_๏

She found a niche where she could play her looks and styling to her advantage and decided to not so subtly capitalise on it. Her tags on Youtube videos are all in Japanese, Korean or Chinese, and she lists her keywords as: barbie doll, blow up doll etc. How much more obvious can you get?

If she was a genuinely sweet person then I wouldn't have felt so meh about it, but at the time, I found it pretty offensive that she was trying to take advantage of half a continent of girls where the cultural ideals of beauty are already beyond anything achievable without a certain level of high maintenance: hair dye, curls, circle lens, nails etc. i.e. styling beyond recognition.

On a side note, personally, I think the gyaru style is pretty cute, but prefer the ulzzang one as it's far more natural and achievable by an everyday Asian girl. Maybe I'm coming at this from a Western angle, having never actually lived in Asia, but as I've been infused with a healthy dose of British cynicism, I just find it depressing that so many girls feel like they have to go through all of this to look acceptable, and that there are entire shows all about makeovers, with it being completely acceptable to make fun of the girls before they have their makeover!

Anyway, going back to Dakota. What made me raise an eyebrow and then some was the fact that she denies Photoshopping any of her images, claiming that every image is her natural self. She denies using Aftereffects to edit her videos, thus to everyone who believes her, she has created a perfect image and a new 'level' of beauty that people are either worshipping or turning anorexic for.

On tumblr, there are whole blogs dedicated to outing her, even a forum: Pretty Ugly Little Liars.

I think the images she has created for her new online persona are beautiful, and her outfits are beautiful too, but by lying to thousands of people, by pretending to be sixteen and half Japanese to land a contract with Bravo Models, she is only setting herself up for a fall.

There are people who have done bad things in their past, (hey, I'm definitely no angel myself!), but by acknowledging the past and their mistakes, they can grow and heal. But all the lies that Dakota has created only serve as a cage, trapping the ugliness on the inside. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, since by becoming an Internet celebrity, there will be so many people watching her every move, both fans and haters alike.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

And this is a photo of the ducks at my college:

Peace out!

Yishi x

Ta-Dah! It's B.A.P!

Hey there sweethearts!

Happy Friday the Thirteenth! Did anything bad happen to you?

I hope not!

Song of the day: Friday by Rebecca Black (hehehe)

The only bad thing that happened to me, besides getting stuck on an exam practice question was that I started watching this show. And now I can't stop... ◔_◔




*goes back to watching the show*

Keep an eye out for this~ the premise sounds awesome! (✿◠‿◠)

Yishi x

Why I Love Music (◕‿◕✿)

Hello there lovelies! :)

Following on from my other small posts of randomness, today I want to talk to you about a small snippet of my life: my experiences with music.

Song of the day: L'Orage by Burgmuller (this is me playing it badly ahahahahaha :|)

I don't know about you guys, but in my community, back in the day, Asian parents tended to copy each other. A lot. You send your kid to this school, I'll send mine there too. Etc. So when mine heard that a close family friend's six year old son was taking up the violin, they asked me if I wanted to learn too. I remember saying that I wanted to learn the flute, but somehow I ended up with a violin in my hands in a violin class.

It was incredibly frustrating at first. I was never amazingly talented like my younger brother was, but I worked hard (shed many tears along the way) and reaped the benefits. Later on, I started the piano, and then the gu zheng:

Source

I tried to learn the guitar at uni but I could never stretch the bar chords so gave up... :(

Now I wish I'd kept up with these instruments because music is such a wonderful way to be creative. Music meant a lot to me when I was growing up ~ it was a way of expressing myself and a way to take a break from studying. But since I started uni, I began to let it slide, and I realised that I'm forgetting things, skills that I worked so hard for as a kid.

In fact, I became so wrapped up in other things that I was only reminded about all of this when a friend who is learning musical theory told me the other day that he wished he had the advantage of having a musical background. When you're pretty much bottom of your academic year group, it's quite hard to remember that there are things that you are or once were good at. In fact, it's been so long that someone was envious of me that this was a kind of a wake up call for me! :|

So tonight, I turned up to an orchestra rehearsal for a concert on Saturday, took my violin out, and played for two and a half hours. At first, it felt a bit strange but I found that I still had some remnants of muscle memory, and then it all came flooding back, as if I'd rediscovered a long lost friend!

The point I wanted to make is that tonight, I learned that you shouldn't neglect the things you are good at, or things that were once very important to you as your talents are part of who you are, so neglecting them means neglecting a part of yourself~ (✿◠‿◠)

Ah, life lessons. Don't we just love them?

Out of interest, do you sing or play any instruments? :D

Yishi x

The Oxbridge Boat Race

Hey guys!

Hope you are having a lovely Easter. Thought I'd share with you one of the things I got up to this weekend: watching the Oxbridge Boat Race! Although I couldn't be there in person this year, I watched it on TV and let me just say that this year has to be the most dramatic one that has happened in recent history~

Song of the day: Mama by EXO-M (eeeeee!!)

But first, a little background information about this event. For those of you that don't know about it, the Boat Race is a rowing race between the varsity teams of Oxford and Cambridge University. It occurs once a year on the river Thames in London, on the last Saturday of March or the first Saturday of April and has been going on since 1829 (wowww!).

Source here!

Members of the teams are known as 'blues', with Oxford being the dark blues and Cambridge sporting light blues. You can also earn a 'blue' by being on the varsity team of other sports at either unis. Oh, what I'd give to earn a blue!

Have a look on the Wikipedia page or the official page for bits of trivia and lore about the race, such as how it first started, accounts of mutinies and incidences of when the boats sank. One of the recent mutinies got made into a movie, but I hear from a friend that it's not very good. However, if it's like the Lifetime movie adaptation of the Royal Wedding, then it'll be so bad that it's fantastic... :D

This is a map of the race:

Credit here for the image!

Now, this year, Cambridge's boat were heavier than Oxford's by about 8 stone, so they were relying on brute power whilst Oxford were going for co-ordination and speed. The bookies placed Oxford as the favourites to win, and it really looked like they were going to pull ahead seven minutes in when all of a sudden, the boats stopped:



Because there was a guy swimming in the river... :|

It gets worse. Turns out he was intentionally there to block the boats ~ here is his manifesto. As someone from Facebook says, "I like the part where he implies the boat race causes genocide and transatlantic slavery" ... :|

This made me quite upset and angry because in his manifesto, Trenton Oldfield makes a sweeping statement about elitism and denounces Cambridge, Oxford, St. Paul's and a whole other number of institutions for being 'elitist'. After reading up his background, I found that he was privately educated, a graduate of LSE, and a member of the RSA (which, whilst open to everyone, would not be accessible to members of society who cannot afford the membership fees) ...he seems to embody the very thing he is "fighting" against, making him a complete hypocrite. Someone pointed out to me that I myself was being hypocritical to make judgments about him, but there is enough evidence out there for my judgment to be justified whilst he makes the assumption that everyone who attends what he classes as elitist institutions comes from an elitist background and is therefore elitist. To me, this is just blind sighted and utterly prejudiced.

If he really wanted to, he could have googled the facts and figures and seen the stats himself. It's just plain offensive to everyone who actually worked hard to get to where they are ~ I for one don't come from a privileged background and worked hard to get my grades. And if he felt so strongly about a political issue, he really should have taken it to a political platform...rather than cause a national disturbance and put himself and twenty other people in danger...hardly a peaceful protest. I will be very surprised if he gets taken seriously in the future.

Finally, he just comes across as a bit of a <insert profanity of choice>  in that manifesto.

</end rant>

After this disturbance, the boats restarted the race, but Oxford got too close to Cambridge and there was a collision:



Oxford lost an oar, and that was effectively the race over since without an oar, they were one man down. Cambridge cruised to their victory, but you had to give Oxford credit for finishing the race. In fact, their bowman overworked himself in order to try to make up for their loss that he collapsed at the end of the race and was unnoticed for about four or five minutes before he was attended to and taken to hospital... :|

It was pretty upsetting to see, and even though I supported the light blues, I felt really hollow about the victory. All in all, a dramatic day, and something of a distraction from revision~

Hope you guys had a good weekend! :)

Yishi xxx

The Hunger Games

Hey guys!

So I went off the radar for the last few weeks, on account of revision stress, but I have made myself a promise to come back and stop neglecting my lovelies here.

Anyhow, I guess I left you hanging with my last post...which ended on me asking you whether or not I should go to the UK Premiere of the Hunger Games. Well, when I woke up at 8am and logged onto Facebook to check the Premiere page, the updates from that page said that sadly there were definitely way more than 200 people already there. So that was my decision made... :(

Song of the day: Horn of Plenty ~ Hunger Games Soundtrack (this gave me chills when I first heard it)

I'm a bit gutted as now that THG is a worldwide franchise, the UK premiere for the next movie won't be as low key. I watched the premieres for both world and UK online, and they were both pretty exciting ~ the world one more so. Now that had a buzz that the UK one definitely lacked!

Anyway, I went to watch the movie on the 23rd with a large group of fangirls. I only knew one of them but it didn't matter since we all had lots to talk about. The cinema was absolutely packed, and it was such a good feeling to be surrounded by so many fans (or potential fans)!

I guess I should post my thoughts on the movie ~ semi review style. Note, there won't be any major spoilers here, just general plot outlines. Here we go!

I found the opening of the movie to be a bit jarring ~ not gonna lie but I'm not a huge proponent of the shaky cam technique. For me, the story telling here seemed a bit disjointed, like, scenes jumped too much and the dialogue didn't flow very smoothly (Effie Trinket's intro was definitely lacking!). I think they could have done the world building a bit better too e.g. show us more of the world that the characters live in, and show more interactions between the characters. I really wanted to see more starving people, dammit! But it got better after that.

I think the first time I felt a tear slipping down my face was during the reaping scene, and from then onwards, it was just a leaky tap for the rest of the movie. Drip drip drip. So glad the theatre was dark and no one could see me cry at the most random scenes.


The stadium!

 The Capitol was absolutely breathtaking. You know the sense of wonder you get when something really epic and cinematic is presented before your eyes? Well, it was like that. The costumes, the stadium, oh, the stadium of the chariot parade ~ it was beyond anything my imagination could have come up with. Seeing the beauty of that scene was definitely a teary moment.

There was something inherently creepy about the training centre ~ forcing all the kids to train together when they know full well that they will all have to try to kill each other at some point. The scene with Foxface doing the edible plants test at lightning speed reminded me of a Doctor Who episode where kids have their brains enhanced to become superfast to solve a computer code. Random, but yeah.

And then we get onto the meat of the movie: the arena! After seeing so many awesome fan-made renditions:



The Careers, kids who team up to eliminate the
rest of the competition before turning on each other



I was expecting a hell of a lot of gruesome action and violence on the level of Battle Royale, but sadly, this was not to be. Instead, we get a watered down 12A classification version, which, whilst tasteful, really lessens the impact the movie should have had. Despite this being a book recommended for children from ages 12+, there are subtle levels of complexity in here that is definitely more young adult material, which wasn't explored well enough in the movie in my opinion.

Grargh, the cave scene...needed more tender love and time, as did Rue. I'm disappointed that she was only on screen for what felt like five minutes, and that there wasn't enough convincing in the movie to show that they had spent more than one night together as allies. Same with the Katniss and Peeta scenes in the cave. And don't get me started on the mutts...

At the end of the day, I think that a movie will never be able to match up to a book, and as I went into the cinema with the first one so so fresh in my mind, I was able to pick up on every deviation from the story. My end verdict was that the movie felt too rushed and superficial, that it skimmed over everything but never really explored them deeply enough, but ultimately was incredibly enjoyable to watch. All of the actors did their characters justice, and I was totally engrossed by the world that Lionsgate had created.

Watching it the second time round was much better because by then, I wasn't as overwhelmed as I was the first time and had loosened up enough to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show! :)

If you haven't seen it yet, then you definitely should. After all, it's not the number one movie in the world for no reason at all? ;)

Yishi xxx

My love affair with The Hunger Games

Hey everyone!

If you're keeping up to date with entertainment news, then you'll know there are three buzzwords that have been keeping the industry raptured  for the entire year ~ that's right, they are: "The Hunger Games". A trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, set in a dystopian future where North America is now called Panem and split into a Capitol that rules over thirteen districts. Many years ago, District 13 rebelled against the Capitol but failed and was destroyed, so as punishment, every year the Capitol decrees that two children between the ages of 12-18 are to be reaped from each District and forced to go into an arena in a fight to death. This fight is televised live, mandatory watching for the population and is known as The Hunger Games. Predicted to be the biggest box office hit this year, and if you've read the books, then you can see why...

I think it's about time I came clean now with my love for this series.



Song of the day: Safe and Sound (Hunger Games soundtrack) by Taylor Swift (lovelovelove)

I haven't been this obsessed about a franchise since Artemis Fowl.

In fact, no book has been able to grip me quite as much as The Hunger Games has, and that is part of why the book is so magical to me. When I was reading this series, I was completely sucked into the world of Panem. I lived and breathed coal dust with Katniss, I felt her fear, her joy, her sadness, and...I became her. There is no other way to describe it. It was as if I left everything I know behind and traded it for everything that lay in the words on the page.

And boy, how I'd trade in everything I own for Peeta's heart! He is...perfection. All you could want in a guy. If I ever meet a real life version of him, then he is going to be mine before you can even wish me odds in my favour... :P




I really liked how he was portrayed in all of the books ~ he wasn't the stereotypical protector type even though he wanted to be, and for the most part he was the weakest character in the arena. He's physically strong, but we never get to see that since he always ends up crippled in some way. But what we do see is an inner strength from the boy with the bread and his unconditional love for Katniss, both of which I really really really hope we get on screen.

Because that will make or break the movie.

I have no qualms about Jennifer Lawrence portraying Katniss well ~ I mean, when it comes to tough badass chickery then it's not exactly too difficult so long as she has the attitude down to a tee.

At first, I avoided the series since I thought the concept was way too similar to Battle Royale and I wanted to stay loyal to it. But then I finally decided to read the books this time last year, and boy, I devoured them in a matter of hours ~ it was so fast paced that I got an adrenaline rush just from flying through the story! Forget that I was supposed to be backpacking (with a suitcase) around Bulgaria, I couldn't take my eyes off the Kindle. The one thing I kept on saying to myself was that I totally wish I'd read them earlier!

In preparation for the upcoming movie, I decided to re-read the first book a few days ago, but ended up unable to stop and finished the second and third book over the weekend. Next up was the merchandise hunt, but couldn't find anything that wasn't overpriced online. Totally drooled over these sweatpants:

Except that they were a large...

In the end, I went into town today and found a stash of merchandise at Waterstones! Thinking of my giftcard back in my room, I refrained from splurging and only came home with one item.

A Mockingjay pin! It was the last one in the store... :3

This trilogy has made me laugh, made me cry, and made me fall in love with the characters. I hope the movie can do the same. It's killing me to know that the L.A. World Premiere happened last night (totally stayed up until 3am to watch the live streams...), and that tomorrow, the European Premiere will be happening at the O2 in London. Because whilst there was no way I could get to the first one, there is a huge chance that I could get to see the London Premiere...

Metro, why have you made my life so difficult!?

What do you think? Skip the last day of lectures to go to London and wait at the O2 arena for hours in the hopes that I may be one of the first 200 to get a ticket?

Yishi xxx

[柚子] Pomelo ♥

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven't been active on the blogosphere as of late ~ real life has been eating up my time, but since I have a few spare minutes before bed I thought I would tell you about something that is close to my heart...and food related.

There's a fruit that I really like to eat which is called Pomelo:

Apparently the leaves of the fruit are used in a ritual bath, which the Chinese believe/believed(?) helps to cleanse a person and repel evil.

It's a large citrus fruit native to Southeast Asia and tastes like a sweeter version of a grapefruit (it's actually the ancestor of the grapefruit). In China, we call it 柚子 (you zi), and when my parents have friends round for dinner, they will often have pomelo for dessert as it is a nice cleanser after a meal. It's often candied and used in Asian desserts as well as Western marmalade. I think it'd also make an awesome breakfast or drink! ^^

Since it's a citrus fruit, it's a great source of vitamin C, and also of folate. For those that are health conscious, there's a full breakdown of the nutritional values of the fruit here.

It's quite hard to come by in the UK ~ we can usually only find them at local grocers or Chinese supermarkets, which is why most of my friends have never heard of this fruit! As such, I thought I'd tell you guys about it and spread the pomelo love! :D

Yishi xxx

Inside Out by Britney Spears

Wow, Youtube must be in sync with my emotions because it recommended me this song which I have now been listening to on repeat for the last half hour:

                        Original                                                   Remix feat. Eminem

I recommend the Eminem remix if you are feeling particularly angsty. Here is a ballad remake version that I believe is better than the original:

[Lyrics - Verse 1]

Said you’re gonna be here in a minute
Sitting in the mirror getting pretty
Gotta look my best if we’re gonna break up
Gotta look my best if we’re gonna break up

I can hear you knocking at the front door
And I know exactly what u came for

Trying to say goodbye but it’s hot and heavy
Trying to say goodbye but it’s hot and heavy

You touch me and it’s breaking me down
I’m telling you let’s just give it up and get down

[Chorus]

So come on won’t you give me something to remember?
Baby shut your mouth and turn me inside out
Even though we couldn’t last forever, baby
You know what I want right now

Hit me one more time it’s so amazing
How you shook my world and flipped it upside down
You’re the only one who ever drove me crazy
'cause you know me inside out

[Britney Spears - Verse 2]

I know that we probably shouldn’t do this
Wake up in the morning feeling stupid
Said that we were done but you’re all up on me
Said that we were done but you’re all up on me

Tell me how we got in this position
Guess I gotta get you out my system
Trying to let you go but it’s not that easy
Trying to let you go but it’s not that easy

You touch me and it’s breaking me down
I’m telling you let’s just give it up and get down

[Chorus]

So come on won’t you give me something to remember?
Baby shut your mouth and turn me inside out
Even though we couldn’t last forever, baby
You know what I want right now
Hit me one more time it’s so amazing
How you shook my world and flipped it upside down
You’re the only one who ever drove me crazy
’cause you know me inside out

Yishi xxx

If I could have a superpower...

...then mine would be the ability to fly.

Without a doubt.

To me, there is just something inherently fascinating and appealing about having a pair of wings or being able to defy gravity, which often translated itself into dreams I had when growing up. They don't come as often as they used to now, but when they do, it's such a mind rush!

Song of the day: Wings of a Butterfly by HIM (oh this song brings me back many many years!)

Maybe subconsciously, I just want to be an angel.
(image source unknown :S)

I know it sounds a bit weird to describe a feeling for something that I have never experienced, since how can you do such a thing if you have never felt it before? We covered this philosophical concept during my second year when I studied History and Philosophy of Science, and in the end, I guess it must just be a conglomeration of other feelings all smooshed together ~ theme park rides, hurtling downhill on a bike or a sled, jumping high high high on a trampoline.

All of these experiences give me the same thrill and adrenaline rush that I get in those dreams when I'm 'flying' out of the playground yelling "so long suckers", when I'm on a secret mission to save the world or when I'm flying away from people who are chasing me...probably because they do not wish for me to fulfill my world saving duties. HMMM. Does anyone else have dreams like these? O_O

This would avoid the hole in outfit problem.
(source)

Imagine the kind of scenery that you'd be able to witness from way up there? How awesome it would be if you could skip traffic queues, the money that you could save on transport?

Maybe the reality would be completely different to how I perceive it to be in my dreams. Maybe it would be really cold up in the sky, maybe I'd get airsick. And maybe it would just get plain annoying having to cut holes into the back of every outfit you wear to fit your wings through them. I'm not sure I could ruin so many clothes!

But since I'll never be able to find out, I can still dream, right? ^^

If you could have any superpower in the world, what would yours be?

Yishi xxx

P.S. On an unrelated note, I have done a Seven Deadly Beauty Sins meme on my style blog, so please check it out! :D

There ain't no party like a grad party

Hey guys! :)

This is a photo of my lab group in December 2011:

Two of the people have left though... :(

Last night, one of my lab mates held a party at her place, which was themed bright colours to warm up the winter ~ despite it no longer being that cold. But it was still a nice idea, and gave me something to look forward to during the day since I ended up staying in the department until 7pm to finish off some work for E...who then told me that his boss was making him work all weekend so he wouldn't have time to mark it! :'(

Nevermind!

Song of the day: Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (this came on a few times at the party hehe)

On the plus side, I was really happy that I was finally moving ahead in my synthesis, all thanks to the lovely S who was so helpful. He is quite a character, a wonderful guy full of witty banter and always lights up the lab (in fact, the title of my post is a quote by him). Although he refers to me as the lovable klutz and says he only helps me out to stop me from being a danger and hurting myself... -_-:;

Anyway, this is what I wore to the party:

Click the image to go to my style blog to find out more about this outfit! :)

There, I met my other lab buddies, and was finally introduced to some other chemists. Since I arrived late, S was already tipsy which was odd to see but I liked that he was really nice to me and was with me all evening (OK, I admit it, S is pretty cute~!). In retrospect, I felt really good about myself all night. Maybe it was because I was hanging out with people who were more chilled about life, since they had all graduated. Or maybe it was because I was just getting out there meeting new people ~ for the last few years, I've been pretty social and it's only been this year where I've kinda...stopped... :/

I found it really amusing that in the department, I seem to have gotten a reputation for always wearing heels, leggings and shorts, when a semester ago, no one noticed me for the denim and trainers. Guess my New Year Resolution of style change has been working...maybe?

We took a rainbow photo! :D

There was a really nice cocktail that was butterscotch, ice cream and cream, which tasted so yummy, like Angel Delight! :)

Inevitably, conversation turned to relationships, and it was kinda weird to sit there and listen to the grads chat about being engaged and stuff. I pretty much told S that it was a shame he was engaged (hehe) and also told him the identity of the guy who I had a high school crush on...my supervisor E...much to S's eternal amusement... -_-:;

"It's the brains isn't it?"

But one thing I learned from the grads is that if you like someone, you should tell them because life is too short. And that girls need to be forward. There was a girl I met who was engaged to another guy at the party...after driving away all of his girlfriends for the last few years. She said that she pretty much told him he was going to be hers and proceeded to make it happen.

Totally wish I had that confidence!

Although the situation here is kinda weird since E is my course supervisor so our dynamic is mainly a student teacher one. Which I really don't think I should compromise until after I finish my exams! E also has plans to go to America to do his post doctorate after the summer, and I need to focus on my exams so...what are your opinions and perspectives on this matter?

Yishi xxx

Today I won an iPad 2

And I don't even like Apples.

This afternoon, I experienced the awkward silence when a piece of cotton wool falls into your lab experiment and soaks up the measly single gram of product that you have painstakingly spent the last few months making. Luckily, we managed to recover most of it. As if the day wasn't exciting enough, at 6pm, we had a fire alarm and what I presume to be a real fire at the chemistry department! So I didn't get home until hall was about to close. After cycling home, I bumped into my gym buddy F at the main entrance to my college just as a taxi pulled up.

Using the high pressure tactics that only a seasoned salesman could employ, he managed to convince me to get into a taxi with him and go to a company presentation at the Cambridge Business Park. What sold it to me?

The free pizza.

So we turned up, and I ate a whole pizza's worth of Dominoes. Since I hold no interest in software, I didn't really pay too much attention to the presentations.

Neither did the other guys from Selwyn.

However, from what I gather, the Redgate employees have so much fun that I don't know how they find the time to do any work.

Anyway, there was a raffle, and being the strategic sharks that we are, a group of eight of us decided to pool our tickets together in increase our chances of winning the iPad 2 that was on offer. I had a feeling that 197 was going to be a lucky number but I decided to pool anyway...but sadly, logic failed me for once!

I went for the risk averse route, since the expected return is the same ~ a £400 prize with 8 times less chance of winning, as opposed to £50 with 8 times more chance of winning.

My number was drawn, and I looked onwards in horror as I realised the £400 that could've been mine had now dwindled to a £50 share...

One of the guys, F in fact, actually bailed out of the pool at the last second, but he told me that he'd rather be him than me, since he came and left with nothing, whereas I could've had much more... >__<

We made F take the obligatory photo.

I'm still in shock.

Like, I just don't win things. It's not in my genes.

But since I came here purely on a fluke with no intentions or interest whatsoever, I guess it's just a case of you win some and you lose some, right? So it's funny how quickly things change when the stakes become high. Guess this is why I should never get into gambling.

Guess it's just ironic that the girl who despises all things Apple ends up with the iPad 2.

If you are interested in buying it, do let me know ~ it's white, wireless and has 16GB worth of love...! Plus it comes in a pretty Redgate company bag.

Have you ever won anything of high stakes value before?

Yishi xxx