Five Things - Study Companions

I'd like you to meet my study companions.

Everyone, my study companions.
My study companions, everyone.

This is a cup of tea.

(source)

I used to have red bull but I decided, I'm going to be a tea person from now on.
(I can't keep off caffeine no matter how hard I try, so I figured I might as well get my fix from something light and soothing)

(source)

Music.
I think everyone would agree that this is the universal companion to studying. I happen to have a thrifted Tokyo Cafe: Stylish Cozy & Breezy album which is stylish, cozy & breezy just as described! I think the perfect music to study to. (cos I don't know Japanese and I wont be able to sing along!)
If not, I'd be listening to classical music or anything instrumental.

(source)

A bandage.
Cos I get callouses on my left index finger from all the writing! (I'm left-handed by the way)
My method of studying, I HAVE to write notes. TONS of notes.
Its like I'm imprinting the notes in my brain as I write them. I wonder if they crack open my brain, will they see  10+ years of notes imprinted in them?


(source)

Sugar fix.
Super unhealthy but gosh what a comfort in such stressful times. N'est-ce pas?

(source)


Not forgetting, Beautiful stationery.
My number one crippling weakness.  I love beautiful stationery. They're like my chicken soup for my soul. Be it note books or pens in every colours of the rainbows and in between.


So there you have it. My five study companions. What's yours?

I Am_________

 How do I feel of the hostage crisis that took place in Manila Philippines on Monday and the aftermath?

I am of course, saddened and angered at how the whole tragedy played out.

I empathize and sympathize with the Hong Kong government, its people and the victims. I have lived too long in Singapore to know that a government must take responsibility and not distance itself from such an ugly situation.

I am disappointed with how Ninoy Aquino handled the situation. He should have been involved in this from the start, he should have kept in contact with the HK government and its people.

It was bad form for him to smile at a press conference addressing the situation.

I am angered over the way how the police handled it. Yes they were unequipped and untrained but that's no excuse. Civilian lives were at stake, get them out. That should be their uppermost concern. It was frustrating  to watch it played out live.

I am livid at how some people treat this so lightly.

And I don't know if I should be amused or alarmed at this.

One thing for sure, I'd knock their heads together. Idiots.

Cigarette Pants. Its as sexy as it sounds.

Oh gosh, I want a pair.

I was blog surfing when I really should be studying,

(I promise I'll study after this! This is just to good that I have to blog about it!)

I came across these sexy cigarette pants from Size Too Small.

They 're from Urban Outfitter but I can't wait to see similar pieces in fashion stores here!

One problem tho.

I'm cursed with big hips.

Sigh.

And not just you know slightly wider hips but one size wider hips.

Can you imagine how frustrating it is to find a good pair of jeans or in this case Cigarette Pants?

Macaroons! Important lessons learnt.

(image from mysaltysweet.com)

Ever seen one of these online?

(cute delicious confectionaries - Macaroons!)

Ever wondered what it tastes like?

(Crispy on the outside, soft, fluffy and buttery on the inside)

Ever wanted to make one?

(I did.)

And I did.

And I was so EXCITED! Excited!

And this is how it turned out. D:

I was so excited! I even sat infront of the oven watching my macaroons become HUGE and Fluffy!

Even tho its all different sizes, I didn't care that much cos its FLUFFY!

But it deflated.

Lessons learnt in my mini adventures in macaroon making:

1. Don't be a wuss when it comes to food colouring. Put more to get a really nice purple colour.

2. Ditto for vanilla extract. (Sigh, that's like 50c for each drop of vanilla extract)

3. Use more icing sugar in the batter. Asia is more humid and humidity deflates the macaroons like a pin to a balloon. 

4. Don't use the wrong side of the baking paper. O.o

(At least the inside is soft like what macaroons should be!)

5. Let the batter sit on the pan for half an hour to let it settle to get the smooth top a macaroon should look like.

and the most important lesson of all.

6. Play Cooking Mama.

(To practice making the perfect circular macaroon)

How I process my photos

I confess, I'm a serial photoshopgrapher.

I especially love giving my photos the vintage or lomography effect and sometimes the process gets so tedious!

Well, I learn something new and I don't really like sharing my bag of tricks when it comes to editing my photos but I'll do it just this once because I'm trying to care & share. (I'm a very selfish person. Heh.)

So you want to learn how to turn this..

Into this?

Or this..

Into this with with just one click??

Let me tell you how. 

First of all you need a plain boring photo.

Like this photo of vintage cards I scored at an antique flea market.

And you need Photoshop. (I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS5)

Open up you photo in PS.

(you have to click the photos to see the larger version)

Look for the icon with the Play button. Circled in red above.

That is you Action button and is usually grouped together with your History tab.

Well basically what Action do is record what how you edited your photo and saves it so that it saves you the trouble of doing all the editing process again if you want to apply the same editing process to a batch of photos.

And that's what I did for the photographs in my previous post.

Select the action you want. For me I used the action I saved previously which is my very first lomography effect!

Then click the play button circled in red.

(PS: The selection should be the action and not the folder like you see in the above picture.)

Tah-dah!!

And here's one using one of the vintage effect action I have. XD

If you don't like the effect you can always revert it by going to File>Revert.

And as a bonus, Here's my Lomography Effect Action for download!

(See, I'm not so selfish after all!)

As for installing it, its the same like installing brushes, except you save it under the folder Brushes. Or you can just double click the .ATN file and it opens up on Photoshop.

If you are looking for more actions, there's plenty of free downloads floating in the internet. You just got to search for it.

So what'd you think of my first tutorial?

Any questions?

Sun & Fun

I spent the day at the beach on Monday. It was stormy in the morning making us almost cancel our plans but by afternoon the sky cleared up.

Being by the sea, it hypnotizes me and calls to me.

Do you have a favourite place that just sings to and sooths your soul? It sounds very whimsical but yes that's what it feels like when I'm there.

Went there with Mr. Wonderful and my best friend Fran.

Fran's Finger on my face. Lol!

My cute best friend!

We were busy playing Frisbee so I didn't take much photos. Strangely no photo of the sea. Huh.

I also took a Frisbee to my right eye courtesy of Fran. Thank goodness I didn't get a black eye.

Things I Love

Here's a recent list of loves..

My starbucks moments with Mr. Wonderful.

A starbucks moment is one where we sit down in a starbucks, with a drink or two and chat about anything and everything under the sun!

I love it because despite being together for two years, I'll be still pleasantly surprised to discover something new about Mr. Wonderful and its a wonderful way to bond than just sitting in a dark cinema hall watching a show.

Mr Wonderful's ipod touch is obviously well loved and its currently back in his possession. I miss it terribly already. D:

  (HINT)

And I'm totally in love with the present Mr. Wonderful got for me for our two year anniversary! Can you guess what?? Well the thing is I asked for it.

He was planning to get me a Krumpler five million dollar home for my second hand camera!

*GASP!* I know! How unromantic right??

Lucky I opened my mouth.

I shudder to think of our 50th wedding anniversary. He'd probably give a vacuum cleaner.

Hehe.

(PS: I told him to save the Krumpler for my birthday)

Okay its pretty obvious in this photo what it is.

He got for me Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice! My favourite book!

In hard cover!

Okay in my old blog I think I listed down what I wanted to own and one of them was a First edition, first run of publication of Jane Austen Pride & Prejudice.

Obviously the one he got for me isn't a first edition first run of publication but it is a hardcover book with beautiful original illustration by Hugh Thomson for Pride & Prejudice and its first edition text! No bridged or edited version.

I'm in bookworm heaven.

Now to get him to buy for me all Penguin's Beautiful Clothbound Classic...

Street Photography - Tourists!

Mr. Wonderful and I were at One Fullerton and I thought,

Why not take photos of tourists!

Well taking photos of tourists taking photos. Lol!

 Mm.. Starbucks and the Merlion. what a great photo-op!

Take not of crazy tourist on the merlion. Almosts makes me want to submit this to Stomp. Maybe I will.

Focus was all wrong above. Sigh. No time to review photos that day cos I wanted to capture as many photos as I can. But it still turned out nice I think.

Much better!

Another crazy tourist!

Aww. I wanna hug the mini merlion too!

I didn't know the merlion brings people luck if you touch it. Hmm.

Anyway that's it for that. I do have another set below.