fefefefaensi

was extremely delighted to have participated in sadhana's raw food "degustation"- whatever that means i still havent looked it up in the dictionary yet. it was certainly not disGusting heheh

went with sylvia, coincidentally my singaporean vegan speech senior -what are the odds???- and she brought me to green gourmet which served more lovely vegan cakes!!! and that was when i realized, that stretch of road called newtown is the buzzing hive of all things wonderfully vegan. tofutti, cacao powder, vegetarian dumplings, pies (not for me tho) even an assortment of vegan ~beef~ jerky. we also talked about the lul of singapore life during the three week break. well hopefully not!!!!!!!

i'll hopefully volunteer again at one of the pathlight excursions if they do have and cycle more w my dad to the beach since there's a +1 bike in the house

maybe get a penny board too because my cousin's one looks mega pretty 

!!!!!!!!! ugh ugh *flops on the floor and dies*

imagine all the stuff i can do with the skateboard (basically skate around a lot acting all hipster)

"when i go back home i have decided to buy a lot more clothes from blogshops coz i've always been getting things from bugis."

"everyone has that phase."

LOLOL that phase of realisation that bugis buys just isnt going to cut it anymore plus w the collective pressures of peiying bethea cindy sylvia (the serial blogshopoholics)........ it's time for me to get some proper clothes. 💁

ok i think i rly need to focus more effort on achieving the reasons of why i'm here (studying)..... i have a terrible disorder of feeling dumpy because i do fun things when i feel all i'm supposed to do is to make use of my time to study. 

my moms birthday is coming up and what would make me really happy is to make a cake (or two) for the occasion; a chocolate quinoa cake and another undecided cake type ❤️ i do look forward to seeing everyone again, im going to look at the world from a different lens :-) definitely brighter ones. 

shower epiphanies: the horrible scenarios you project in your head of people hating on you and your actions don't exist if you take notice of it. 

and i feel happy to receive a pm from ariel whom i havent seen in ages (was it dec 2013, jan 2014???) about how she feels happy seeing my instapancakes heh and that sort of was the defining moment of resolution for me to continue what i do, this lifestyle which i've always wanted to show the world through food pix!!! there are seriously so many insta accounts out there about the raw food vegan paleo lifestyle that i absolutely love :") 

taking pictures of the picture on the dslr always produces wonderful effects hahahahaha 

✨✨✨

this week is triple whammy birthday celebrations; cindy stacy and peiying!!! i love how we can fool them all (with stacy taking the blow twice) by saying no one's going to celebrate your birthday 

then showing up in the end, full strength. 

the shoot-em-down-&-bring-em-up tactic ™ daz what im seyin'

sweet sweet freedom, i smell you

dated 24th june 2014

i had chocolate and it was cloyingly dense and good:

coconut oil 

lotsa peanut butter 

cocoa powder 

dessicated coconut

mixed and frozen for 45 mins 

yet another one of my 6 am bakes

just for laughs i decided to cut out a shopping centre brochure so i could add comic-like feels to the food. baked gooey bread loaf today, like how i did in sg, but this time with psyllium husk flakes!!

<i've missed you SO MUCH, kale!!!!!!!!>

<so have my housemates :")>

<reasons to eat lunch #1>

exactly 24 hours more before:

holiday plans getting into action and 

i get to adrenalin-run against the wintery cool breeze in the morning 

pancakes- spinach pancakes with eggs and cherry toms sound splendid 

GoLd CoAST. GOLD COAST WITH BREN JO. RIDES! BEACHES! ah ma and ah gongs! (we are planning to stay at an airbnb place run by a lovely little old couple bc cost is everything for the college kid)

i wanna plan to do a coldplay parody 😂 they recently came down to play at newtown, near where i live, and i didnt go bc of exams... had two the next day. their official vid for sky full of stars was taken at newtown itself!!! so it'd be fun to do it like they do (sans confetti)

these nights i've already been dreaming of singapore & its lovely lovely people!!!! 

runs at east coast to catch the sunrise of course 

sashimi 

cheap nuts at bugis (prince albert?) for raw cakes!!!!!!1111

mom's birthday cake 

penny board 

nua-ing 

playing with PAWS ^ included 

sashimi???

tj + friends. :-) 

making big batches of granola!!!! 

no more damage

studied for HSBH1003 sociology and teared a bit. i ruminated a bit too much; on facebook, then in my head. chanced upon one of my secondary school teacher's family life on facebook and all the picture perfect family shots and i just got directed to my own. family. how it's all going to be better once i come back. sydney has honestly changed me, i say this with conviction and crazed ecstasy. no more am i a prisoner of my negative self-thoughts. no more do i assume the worst of others in every situation. no more am i afraid of judgement as i choose to stand by my own and do things that i actually like to do. no more am i afraid anymore.
housemates- they've been an integral part of my life throughout this emotional joyride.
they taught me how to love selflessly; meal times and everyone cooks and let's all the others have a bit out of their own meal. i've tasted wonderful things like tom yum soup, teriyaki chicken, spicy spaghetti, smoked salmon, roasted chicken, stir-fried kangkong with onions. everyone helps each other out and genuinely cares. and i wish i learnt to see that before i left singapore. the beauty was there, just that i wasn't, to appreciate it. when i was feeling terrible with my sudden bout of feverish flu, bethea made me a hot glass of honey and lemon, and wrote me a note attached with a packet of chinese herbal tea leaves. i could sense my parents concern a continent away; my dad telling me to make some manuka honey with a +20 or more "it's more nutritious". "make yourself some soup with meat bones, have something hot". ah yee maria cares nuf to text me occasionally asking me about my weekend, her casually mentioning things that happen in the house, or her pedicures with mum, etc.
back again, at housemates, where everyone's just fiercely protective over each other. no one wants anyone to get hurt, physically or emotionally. peiying's rough patch and stacy mentions that "her heart broke when she heard about it" and all talks of violence breaks lose which is amusing and amazing because- the lengths we would go through.
them talking about their lives and their desired projections into the future helps push me in the direction of how i should shape mine. and just their actions of kindness that i experience puts me in a good mood everytime.
their trust in God is encouraging and heartening and hopefully i will learn one day to do the same.

being here, isolated from home has made me more self-dependent emotionally. motivation to exercise is self-dependent, motivation to eat well is self-dependent and does not require approval from anyone else anymore. discovering little cruelty-free, vegan shops along glebe st and newtown has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. sometimes i go a little overboard in stocking up on healthfoods in the house and hoard glass jars which i stash under my bed (just in case). and i'm glad that i get an additional bonus gift of having a vegan friend whom i can talk to (LOLOL).
tbh i was just extremely afraid of walking the vegan path when i was starting out!!!!! ugh the perceived pressures and judgements i thought i would receive was just. overwhelming and extremely deterring. but

it seems impossible until it's done

and once i did it, the path was almost radiantly clear. it was one that i want to base my own adventures on. it's one that i definitely want to share with my family and am excited to do.
all the judgements that i thought friends would have are shoved under the carpet. I'M DOING IT GUYS THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!!!!!
this is my happiness path
after all these dark, broken teenage years of self-inflicted pain and having an inferiority complex....... i feel i have reached the end of the stupid dark tunnel. i don't regret it because i learn from my experiences, anyway, i'm just glad i feel liberated from the chains that once held me down and restricted me.
the binge period that happened last year i promise to myself, is never again going to happen because i can control it. i can never let myself see food as the enemy. i am never going to treat it as an outlet of my pent-up emotions. rather, it's going to be my source of joy everyday.
like :) breakfasts :) of pancakes, oatmeal, mini-springform cakes and muffins.
and blended juices :)
and veggie meals flavoured with pesto dips or hummus :)

and now with a better mind, i try to overcome this last and final hurdle of the semester;
finals!

edit: hazel also posted this wonderful collage of vlogged memories from her backpacking trip with bren zhihao and accompanying friend and that made me tear up to no end too damn hilarious and overly dramatic...... it was sad because the video was so happy laughter and candid shots of the scenery. it genuinely made me happy for them to experience what the world has to offer. i also miss their faces because the remnants in my head of what is left of them is classified as pre-sydney and right now there's just the current sydney part of life. :-)
although i do feel pleased that i don't have the pent-up overly-insecure thoughts that i used to have!!! that's a first hurhuhrhurhurhur

off to bake granola and c'mon reb....... hsbh 1003 tomorrow.

live for yourself and yourself alone *a little overwhelmingly radical header*

not too long ago, i thought soups could only be made with store-bought chicken/veg broth. and pancakes could only be made perfect if i used betty crocker's pancake mix. i've been living in such a holed up life where food brands dominated in every aspect, it's good to take a step back and ask yourself "hey wait a minute how did people in the olden days get by without these convenience foods?"

today i tried out a soup broth with some multi-seeds (barley, lentils, blackbeans, chickpeas) i got from the food co-op, a carrot, half an onion, half a head of broccoli and dash (or ten) of paprika which coloured my soup red as a result. 20 mins flat and i got a happy warm meal to fight the chilly winter blues. it was faster than i'd expected!!!!! plus i got to save half a pot for dinner afterwards. and speed is key rn since finals are coming :-) made risotto yesterday and it took twenty-five minutes-ish so maybe i'll keep it for future meals. it was good though and typing about it now makes me want to have more and more an d moooo re.

thank heavens for tofutti in the house which i kennut get enough of. all the instas/blogs rave about this so i'm ecstatic to get a taste of it for myself.

tastes like the ice-cream you've always loved as a child

thank heavens for the housemates and the warm chats in the common area and most importantly for being cool of my ~paleo/veganism~ lifestyle and for being receptive of all the lovely foods this brings along
btw, goat's yogurt??? aWeS0m3z. peiying videoed bethea's and zhiying's reaction to it yesterday hehehehehe

waoaaw @ pre-exam period life woaaow at feeling like i can be immersed in my notes without being victim to other distractions like in As (i think it's the weather)

has it already been thirteen weeks?

feta cheese, onions, hummus with smashed avocado spread on crispbread- one of the sunday lunches

AVOCADO SEASON!!! i love it our entire apt is going bananas over avocados. ok i admit i used to detest it because i was confused at the taste (why is the fruit creamy why whywhy fruits aint supposed to be creamy yet taste like vege) but after a bit of um *mental persuasion* i composed myself and tried it and loved it and i'm not going back to dem avocado-hatin days nuh uh 

a postponed raw food degustation dinner led me to the main USYD campus, where it was illuminated with lights and colour for VIVID SYDNEy, a night light festival 

i only knew of its postponement just 15mins bfr the event but allizwell because i contacted the really cool cafe owner and she signed off with "with love and light" and i just found that very inspiring and yogi-ish and it got me quite motivated to sign off like that one day, when only happiness and joy is attained and negative thoughts are rid from your soul *ohm* *ohm*

happy campers when we made a spontaneous detour to have dinner near our sch- korean fuuuud :Q

& thats ☺️ our contented faces ☺️

oh and we met a nice koreanfriedchickenshop owner who gave us a generous portion of fries as an apology for making us wait long and it was there we laughed at a worker with an apron on that had glisteny abs on it 

post presentation euphoria ^ shown in bethea's penchant for doodling on her snaps in korean style *kawaii*ness lolsies

feeling all too grateful that the Stress and its Effects on Cardiovascular Health presentation for HSBH1003 is over ☺️ i guess our time spent fretting over it was all for naught as our frantic meetings nearer the date helped pull things together

I WANT TO OWN THESE STICKERS 

handsdown

best thing ever 

the oven is working and does not smoke as much ^ made some quick granola with it and nomd it with almond milk

super inspired by sadhana kitchen's raw granola with buckwheat and all the good stuff.

those are w raisins, almonds and rolled oats drizzled with honey.

in the past i was reluctant to make granola because i thought replicating the cerealbox ones were going to be a failure + i thought they wouldn't be able to stick together very well, but once i tried it, i can never really stop making it. granola's one of those happy oven things and i seriously gotta make some for when i am home :-)

hyak hyak ^ number one supporter ^ since 2011 yez. thank you for sending me that (playbill, is it called?) i am immensely proud of your choices and seeing your happy things makes me happy too!! u rox my sox :D !

caught a terrible fever/chill yesterday. that's weather 1-0 me 

got some 4 for $12 microwaveable soup bowls and manuka honey and going all non-pharmaceuticaldruggy on this illness, hopefully it'll just be a quick unpleasant feeling. i do feel like i have 4 concerned mothers in the house though 😊😊😊 + back at home, where my mom is also suffering from a sorethroat. 

rdy for winter because i have to be because it's here 

altho i'd rather prefer all-year summer....... ☀️

here's to you happiness buddy :-)

hope you had a good morning and will continue to have many good mornings ahead xy :-) what a pleasant surprise to end my day (frantically gathered what was the charred remains of my hypothetical revision plans after procrastination done many a time) and i wish nothing but the best for you (KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME THOUGH AWW)

all the times when we talked about ourselves and our future im glad you have another to share with and i'm certain he is a lucky one -or the lucky one- either way he is one lucky bloke 😎

this truly is a great chapter of your life :") 

all my love,

❤️

You Do Not Need To Be Broken To Be Interesting By Laura Jane Williams

Listen. (And I mean this with all the love in the word, okay?) We’re all broken.
We all have a past, ghosts that haunt us, things that – against everything we ever might’ve dreamed for ourselves – forced us to become the imperfect, flawed, goddamn damaged human beings that we are. Personal history doesn’t make you special. We all have it.
It’s how you live well in spite of everything that could’ve beaten you that makes you captivating to be around.
You don’t have to pretend to be fine when you’re not. That’s not what I’m saying. What I mean is that brokenness isn’t as interesting as surviving, and surviving isn’t as magnetic as thriving. It’s about energy, the age-old cliché that people seldom remember you for what you said, but for how you made the feel. Make them feel, then, strong, and capable. Inspired and kind. Worth something. This isn’t about you.
Being interesting is almost always about the other person. Being interesting is being interested. And you can be interested in the story of others without having to say: well, here’s the shitty thing that happened to me, too. Or at least, contribute your story to a bigger narrative. Don’t present it as your whole. Because you’re so much more than that. You are.
Your tragic story is conversation enough for a dinner, or a drunken evening spent with your new BFF in the kitchen at a mutual friend’s party. Maybe it’s enough for pre-dawn hours in bed with a lover, for the first time, when what you really mean to say is, “I’m making myself vulnerable to you and I’m afraid.”
Your tragic story isn’t enough conversation for a lifetime, though. You’re going to have to move past it if you’re going to live a life with rewarding relationships, friends who feel like family, family who you would’ve chosen as friends, challenging jobs with thought-provoking colleagues and hobbies that become obsessions because there is just so much awesome in the world!All of that good stuff is what you deserve.
Do you understand that? That you deserve every good thing you’ve ever wished for somebody else? Because you do. Thinking you have to be some kind of spoiled good in order to have something worth saying is not your truth. It’s lazy.
(I told you this was tough love.)
Being defined by your past events is idle. It takes somebody truly in charge of themselves to step outside of the past and take responsibility in the present. Feel pain, yes. Be aware of circumstances that have shaped you. But ultimately, the best company is the company who is prepared to work through all the bullshit that comes with simply existing to deliberately cultivate positivity in the same way that we cultivate knowledge, or cash in the bank, or shoes. Being interesting is soldiering on without a backward glance, and making something of yourself even when – for those darkest, most agonizingly debilitating hours when it was at its worst – you really thought you might not make it.
It’s really fucking hard. Choosing happiness – and it is a choice – is a religion for The Interesting. It takes dedication to a personal creed. Focus. Practice. One doesn’t become a Catholic, say, by going to church once. Oh! Guess I’m done here then! No. We go to church, or temple, or the synagogue, week in, week out, and that’s what being interesting takes: daily commitment to pushing forward, finding the good, resolving to change the things we can, and letting go of the things we cannot. Learning. It’s a process that lasts our whole lives and that’s what makes it so exhausting, not for the weak: there’s no end point.
Interesting people aren’t the ones who spend a life telling you about the stuff that has made them miserable. Interesting is “Sure! I’ll try that!” It’s “So I read this article…” It’s “Tell me more about that” and “This is what excites me” and “Let me help you.”
I’m not saying you have to hide anything. It’s simply about refusing to live as a misery memoir. You are not That Bad Thing That Happened.
Pay attention when I say this: you are complex, and mystical. Multi-faceted. Bold. You’re terrified and ecstatic and surprised and lonely, and you’re loved and loving. Not broken.
To be interesting you have to be engaged, and to be engaged you have to feel a part of something bigger than yourself. Make that something bigger a community – of friends, of family, of colleagues, or volunteers or other parents or twentysomethings or pensioners, whoever, whatever, you are – who also understand that very straight-forward fact, and trade in the same simple currency.
You do not have to be broken to be interesting. In fact – it’s kind of a bore. 

snippety snippets

i took out my avocado and i told zhits and ying about how i was gonna change my life around and love avocados and they were soooo dis-supportive 

me : "check it out guys im eating an avocado but mashing it up first"

they: " no prisss dont lie to yourself"

*they take a bite of avocado raw*

me: "ew gross respect for you guys youre eating a confusing tasteless fruit/veg thing

/

my many desperate attempts.... but thats wokay, then i can have inspiration to make better pancakes!!! pancakes themselves are pretty lovely things especially as a reward after completing a morning run. time seems to stretch a lot so its a lovely feeling bc then you feel like you are in control of your day. all after a teensy run!!! amazing. want kjnda desperately to pound the pavements in east coast, fresh air and salty breezes and occasional beautiful sunrises 

did other stuff like zis..... in the shop as asian shop assistant looks on. two thumbs up!!!!, FOR ONESIES (that sentence had 3 numbers 2,4,1 and now 3 hurhur)

this makes me happy :-))))))))) its a lvely feeling to wake up early woohoo