Graduation ball

A week has flown by since my last exam and I've been out everyday its crazy. I guess I'm fulfilling my promise to minimize time spent indoors after that exam period hibernation I had.

Last Friday was graduation ball, which is my third one ever, and this time I did the all the makeup and hair myself. The end result wasn't too different from getting it done by professionals (80%?) so I guess I'm not toooooo bad. 

Spent the longest time doing my nails:

Hair make (I've only used the curler less than 5times? it was a struggle XD )

The event was at the grand Mayfair Hotel. Forgot to bring my dslr so had to take photos from random sources i.e. the hundreds of other cameras there that night lol.

Ferrero Rocher tower at the entrance.

Random entertainment of the night. X) She was really lively.

 Awards from that night

 Chocolate fountain was fun. :)

 Dance floor after

Anyway, its unbelievably late (early?) now so I'll update again next time!

Well done

I thought the mini flag on my burger was an apt sign to conclude the night, when earlier in the day I finished my last ever exam paper for my undergraduate degree.

The paper ended at 1.10pm, returned my library book, paid fines, returned locker keys, recieved deposit, went out for lunch with coursemates, returned to the jcr for pizza leavers party and got a lsop mug, went home, went to get solution to declog completely clogged sink, went for dinner at Byron's down the street, finally after passing by it umpteen times and remembering my friend's recommendation of it.

Its a hip, causal place with nice, friendly staff. No frills, just burger. I must confessed I had the many images of burgers from seto ayumi's instagram stuck in my head (that girl seriously eats it for every meal) when I walked into this place.

Now at 2.20am, I'm exhausted, from the day, the thought of all the things I have to do before I leave London in 2-3weeks, and from the gravity of what this day means for me, the end of 4 years studying abroad, whose impact is immense and no doubt changed part of me and the course of my life forever, from the moment I took the flight here, at 19 years old of age, to the person I am now, typing this at nearly 23.

P.s. the 3pounds sink deblocker solution when dumped down the sink, caused the previously stale stink water to go glug-a-glugging down the sinkhole in 2mins, as if it was never blocked in the first place, the only sign being the scent of chlorine in the air. Now if only I can dump a bottle of solution on every problem and it just melts magically away....

I need sleep. goodnight. My summer awaits.

Magic pre-battle drink.

Looks like an advert, but well really I've been drinking this stuff (chicken essence from various brands) before most exams since primary school due to the extremely successful ad campaign by brand's essencse of chicken which showed a whole classroom of primary school kids each with a bottle on every exam table. XD but well i like the taste and placebo effects can be real. Anyway last bottle I have, last exam tomorrow! Its worth 6.7% of my degree, but I probably have put a disproportionate amount of effect into this one compared to all the other graded stuff. :/ bah at the very least I hope I pass!

Final paper!

Sunny weather photos taken right after my first paper.

The examiner said at the end: "Don't worry the sun is still out!" lol.

The parks in London are becoming like beaches again during the day.

Lovely weather for alfresco chilling.

There was a man playing violin outside the tube.

And I am ecstatic about my new choker which arrived in the post today! 

Its a really cheap yet delicate handmade find on amazon (love amazon so much, why don't we have it in Singapore!??) So tempted to get another in a lighter colour.

One more exam to go in a week and I have yet to start studying. Been on a break since the last paper yesterday morning. Need to concentrate, last ever exam (unless....I took a postgrad and excluding pre-reg...)!

2 weeks, 3 papers, freedom! / Memories of Animeskies.

till then, i need to concentrate!!

Recently I did a search for my old anime graphics design website "Animeskies" and ended up on tumblr with tons of pretty pictures like the one above with the hashtag. It was a good decade ago when it was popular (or at least I think it was more so then, or perhaps it was just me who got out of it) to go to graphics sites to get your layouts (found one submission!) blogskins, neopet profile design (called lookups), wallpapers, animation sprites, downloaded calenders, midis, japanese lessons (someone kept a copy of some translations), photoshop tutorials, manga drawing tutorials etc, and such sites even give each other "awards" which are like graphics you can display on your site with an awarded title. 

Like this :P I gave out awards too! Essentially, sites ask you to judge them and you decide the category they receive  X)

Sigh nostalgia. Gone were the heydays! Haha, it was such a teenagish hobby all conjured up with photoshop and dreamweaver and ftps etc. That was around the time when the internet started taking off. I wasn't born into this millenium. u.u

We (I had a team of contributers! Friends, classmates) actually had a good amount of hits too! I had to deal with bandwidth problems and looking for hosts. Started off from angelfire, then to freewebs, then to  Jennifer who hosted us at our last address (animeskies.endlessrain.org) . I actually found an analysis of the website. There were the people back then who frequently comment on tagboards/chatboxes. But I guess now those individual design sites are superseeded by tumblr etc where people post their works directly onto the sharing sites. Oh man, I'm starting to feel old enough for reminscing! The little details from those few years are coming back to me now that I start looking at these things again. Its amazing how much you forget with time. Its only when you look back that you see the things that have changed. My writing 10 years ago was terrible lol. To be fair the graphic designs were very basic too! lol. Teenage hobbies.

Some screenshots of the oldest layouts (yes, it was fashionable to change layouts to version 1.0, 2.0 etc X) )

I don't have a screenshot of the last ever one. :( I could go on forever, but I've been distracted long enough today with 3 days to the exams so... Better get my butt off non-related tabs. :(

Haha, I'll end off with a blinkie from then as seen in the screenshot above! :p Till freedom!

Mitsukoshi restaurant

Just came back from dinner at Mitsukoshi restaurant near Piccadilly circus with A. We both had an interest in this mysterious and authentic looking japanese restaurant which is located in the basement of the same name departmental store which always has tons of japanese tourists in tour groups shopping there (its filled with branded goods). The prices for this establishment is expensive too. The meal for today would have cost us a total of 42pds but since we had a groupon voucher it was about 50% off.

 I like the shisamo smelt tempura. ししゃもの天婦羅山葵ディップ :) Also ordered the fried mochi お餅と野菜の揚げだし　柚子胡椒風味, and it was alright considering I'm not really a fan of savoury mochi, or even the korean rice cakes. :S

Kawaii~ ^u^ The chilli that came with the shishamo smelt tempura. The waitress warned us it was really hot and to be careful, but she ate it so nonchalantly! 

Dinner set with sashimi and tempura.

The food was nicely presented, and the taste is nothing to complain about, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary I think. But overall I'm happy (with the discount haha). I still think the sashimi from Atari-ya is better and maybe slightly more affordable.

Can't wait to eat japanese food in the origin country itself! Hopefully it will be cheaper and tastier than London's overpriced restaurants!

Today's coordinate:

New tights that I finally wore, and rings bought yesterday

OCSEs in less than a week! 

10 days to the first final exam

試験は十日後すぐ来ます。Grim I know.

Original artist: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=10315963

I've taken to visiting tumblr again after a long hiatus almost daily to fill my mind of pretty things such as the picture above (Not claiming credit!). I'm still taking things pretty easy everyday to be honest, which I'll probably regret very soon...:( Doing therapeutic frameworks just seem to be such slow, slow progress compared to reading lectures. :((

Depressing, looming things aside, I just booked tickets to Tokyo, Japan for 2 weeks in July with 2 pals woohoo! Time is going to fly really soon, during this exam period, and also the period after till September when I begin work. I shall be very sad bidding many things farewell.

Anyway until the 13th of June, I shall give it my best. 今から六月十三日まで、頑張ります！

Till then! xx

じゃまたね！