Departure

First of all, I’m sorry for the lack of updates. There were several things that prevent me from updating and lack of inspiration, the most major one would be the upcoming departure of The Boy. A little bit of history: We’ve been together for almost 4 years and now he has to go back to his home country until he’s accepted into a grad school. He’s leaving on the 26th but I’m leaving for my vacation on the 22nd (today!) so I won’t be sending him off, which is a bummer… but I can’t change my departure date as I’m synchronizing it with my aunt. So, that’s that. We’ll be venturing the long distance option of a relationship and I’m sucked at it. Though I will do my best this time and hope it’ll work.

At noon I’m leaving for a two weeks vacation in Canada where I will be meeting my aunt, uncle, and 3 cousins I haven’t met for almost four years. I’m excited to be spending Christmas with them and of course to visit Canada in general. I have never been there so it’ll be an adventure for me.

I’m sorry this post ends up to be rather personal. I don’t even have a picture to brighten it up. I’m not sure if I can be online during my vacation but if I can I’ll definitely catch up on all of your blogs and maybe update my blog a little bit. That said, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Pictures Spree: Snow, snow, snow everywhere!

Continuing on the subject of snow. Last week’s storm gave us about 8 inches of snow, they’re now still piling by the side of the road. I’m not a big fan of snow when it’s dirty and making my driving miserable and difficult. In hope to rekindle my love (and acceptance) of snow, I rummaged through my picture folder on my computer and found some snow pictures taken during my Southwestern (and Denver) trip last year. That trip itself was a pretty ambitious and daring as it involves 2 girls (me and a friend) fresh out of college, waiting for our work permit, and super bored. In the span of 1 week we drove a rented Chrysler Pacifica from Tucson, AZ to Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and then back to Tucson. The whole trip was about 2000+ miles. At one point, I drove for 12 hours straight (still my longest record). But it was all worth it. We saw beautiful landscapes, ate great regional food, and took too many pictures. Here are my 3 favorites derived from the subject: snow.

the Grand Canyon, AZ

The snow looked beautiful against the hard edges of Grand Canyon. My friend who was on her third visit to Grand Canyon was amazed all over again by this place as it was her first time seeing snow there.

Boulder Mountain Park, CO

We actually planned to go to the Rocky Mountain National Park that day but when we stepped out of the hotel the snow had already cover our car! It stopped once we were on the road, but it was too late to go to the Park. So we went to Boulder and found this park (thanks to our gps!) and it’s oh so pretty! Fun stuff happened there too.. our car got stuck when I attempted to do a U-turn on its small winding road. 15 minutes of snow digging and “forcing” the car to go back and forth and we finally back to the road.

Sandia Peak, NM

I didn’t edit this picture except for the round edges as it’d ruin the purpose. Sandia Peak in Albuquerque, New Mexico derived its name from the Spanish language and it means “watermelon”. It was said it was named so as during sunset the hill turns reddish in color, making it looks like watermelon. We almost skipped this place as it was the day before we had to go back to Tucson and we already felt the exhaustion from the trip. But thank God, we went! We took the tram up the mountain just as the sun was setting and it was beautiful! The hill did turn reddish and the view was breathtaking. We couldn’t stop “ooh-aah”-ing until we reached the top terminal.

Reminiscing about this trip is making me itch to embark on another trip! Thankfully the holiday is just around the corner and I do have some trips planned. Are you planning any trip during this holiday season? Have a great week and stay warm!

Snow day!

(wearing: thrifted plaid shirt/AE jeans skirt/Target leggings & coat/Ebay boots/circle scarf/red beret)

On Tuesday we had a blizzard that gave us 6-8 inches of snow. Hence we got two days off school! Now you know why I look so happy in the picture .

Anyway, yesterday we braved the cold and went out to get some pho for lunch. Good thing major streets are mostly cleared off but it was still an interesting drive. I really am not a big fan of driving on snow… good thing the boy was there to drive! After lunch we drove back and stayed in. I’m so glad I stocked up on dvds during the black friday sale. We had a House marathon before calling it a night.

I hope everyone have a great week so far. If you are in the northern hemisphere, stay warm

p.s. Do you notice the falling snow on this page? WordPress will have this as an option til Jan 4, i think now it’s the appropriate time to let the snow falls on my blog as it already has in real life

Weekend round-up

Friday: Being a hermit day

(wearing: ’70s men sweater/gifted FCUK tank/thrifted Levis short & belt/sweater tights/ebayed boots)

The start of the weekend and it was soo cold! I decided to be a hermit today  and stayed home. I did, however, created a havoc in the kitchen while cooking dinner for the boy and I as well as baking pumpkin pie. It was my first pie-making  in about 6 months! It’s funny how I used to be making 2-3 pies a week when I first know how to make it and then I just got tired and lazy of it. After Thanksgiving though, the boy had been nagging me about pies, so I baked one  that day to surprise him. He came home and said, “What’s happening? You’re making pie again?” I guess that meant mission accomplished. On Friday I wore the pumpkin colored sweater I found at antique mall 2 months ago. The tights is actually more of maroon colored than in the picture. I thrifted the Levis shorts 2 weeks ago and I can’t stop wearing it with tights. I think this gives me more warmth than regular jeans.

Saturday: The day of the crying red

(wearing: thrifted ’90s dress & boots/ Express black tank/Limited belt/pleather jacket/WeLoveColor red tights under Target black lace tights)

We went out to watch a major football game with some friends. If I haven’t mentioned it before, football is big in this town. When I first arrived here I couldn’t care less about it but with time, it started to permeate into me. It didn’t help when I worked as a tutor to the college’s student athletes. The best way to teach them statistics is by using pass’s attempted/pass’s completion example. Anyway, we had a chance to win the game but the (enter cuss words here) other team won instead. Oh, the tragedy! Maybe if we were not beaten by 1 point at the very last second of the game, it won’t hurt as much. Well, that’s sports for you… Anything can happen, just like life. So, to show my support for our team, I wore red. That baby doll dress was thrifted last week and I layered red tights with black lace tights. I kinda like the effects of double layered tights and it keeps me warm too, that’s always nice.  The picture was actually taken when we were still leading in points, thus the smiling face. Two minutes after that, it was all sorrows in our faces…

Sunday: I heart bookstore’s cats

On Sunday we went to the downtown’s bookstore so the boy could drop off some books he finished reading. I love our downtown bookstore as it has two cats roaming the space. The cats were adopted from a local shelter and I remember when we last went there, about 3 months ago, they were so skinny but now they’re as fat as Garfield! Yesterday, they were sleeping by the window while the snow was falling heavily outside. Surrounded by books and book lovers who love to pet them, looks like they have such a perfect life, don’t they? We ended up with $20 in-store credits but we couldn’t find anything interesting yesterday.. or was I behind on books selection? Do you have any book recommendation for me? I read anything from Paulo Coelho, Jostein Gaarder, and Orhan Pamuk to J.K. Rowling, Christopher Paolini, and Anthony Bourdain. Any suggestions will be very much appreciated.

Hope you all had a great weekend and a greater week coming up!

An Education

(Photos from rottentomatoes.com. Collage by me)

Last night was the $1 student night at our University’s movie theater so it was time to catch An Education before it finished its run there. I’ve been wanting to watch it since I saw its trailer while watching Coco avant Chanel (which I saw at the same theater and also on a $1 student night. It’s great to be a student sometimes ). I read it on other blogs too, which raved about its wonderful ’60s costume. The movie really did not disappoint.

The plot is rather predictable but the movie did not lose its charm because of it. My favorite thing about this movie is its witty and entertaining dialogues written by Nick Hornby. I might be biased though as Nick Hornby is one of my favorite author (About A Boy, anyone?). The characters too are engaging and charming (especially Carey Mulligan, she did an awesome job as the lead role). In addition to that, the movie has a pretty, pastel-y depiction of 1960’s England and Paris as well as wonderful wardrobe that made me sigh.

A dark comedy that is also light and charming. What’s not to like? And it makes me fall in love all over again with ’60s  dresses and beehives. I recommend this movie if you have not watched it and if you have, what do you think about it?