Ice cream cone #92: rainy summer days

• Because it is like that in this city, summer begins when it starts to rain. I guess it's a good thing since the normal temperature is way too unbearable. On days like today, when there's obviously no sign that a raindrop is to be shed, people simply can't be romantic. I think I wrote about this before, but the happiness of humans in Saigon at this time of the year is reduced to finding a shade to park under when the traffic light turns red, and maybe finding a place with air-conditioning with drinks that don't cost them too much money.
• So on rainy days, when the heat's toned down a beat and the winds are cold, the Saigonese (as I like to call them) try to be as romantic as they can be.
• I like Au Parc. I like it even more when it rains. I looked it up on Google Translate, "au parc" means "at the park" in English. And it does feel like that. The café always has this dark and chilled vibe to it, with a really big window outlooking the park. There's always good music, and I mean really good, with jazz and soul and maybe some contemporary tracks that make people just wanna lay back and enjoy. I guess it happens to other people as well, to have a place that they like for just really small reasons. On rainy days, the guests in Au Parc would just stare at the glazed window and talk about their friends and what good places to eat. They're mostly foreigners, maybe a bit lost, or adventurous in such a chaotic and different city like Saigon, watching the rare rain in the middle of summer and maybe enjoying the music. I like watching people in general, maybe that's why I'm so fascinated with Andy Warhol, but the kind of people who stop at Au Parc always bring with them a story. I like to watch them secretly, follow their stories like a little stalker, and imagine what their lives would be like. I like to do that, not just with people, but with houses as well. I guess the imagination in my head is always hungry for materials, and the talks of the people in Au Parc are just spicy enough.
• It's true, from what I've observed, it's not easy to fall in love with this city. How can you grow feelings at all when you're always worried that your phone's gonna be stolen, that the streets are gonna be jammed, when for at least 20 minutes a day you have to breath in exhaust gas and when there's absolutely no pavement to walk? But you have to learn how to do that I guess, in order to make your life easier. Each day when you get home, feel your pocket and realize that your phone's still there, you're a winning warrior. Each day when you get out of the traffic jam, get home and reward yourself with a foot scrub, you feel like it will get better. At least that's what I do on a bad day, when the city gets difficult.
• I always have this intention in my head that before I go away, I'll spend an entire day doing memorable things with the city. Maybe making a random video, or taking some polaroid photos, or scratching my name on a tree in the park, just to have something to look back on.
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• Soooo, another eventful week. I wrote this post about a week ago I think, and a day passed by and I found myself craving to get in here to recite the things that have happened. But I'm glad I didn't do that, because as days went by, I was able to arrange my thoughts and write down things that don't only serve the purpose of getting the anger out.
• So this is the first step huh? I guess everybody carries a check list by their side, and when stuff happens, they tick on another box on the list of how to be a grown up. I can see why people want to go back to their childhood so badly as growing up does suck, but I'm trying to look on the bright side here.
• And the bright side is that, the more you grow up, the more you can have fun being yourself without being constantly told about how to do things right. That was probably one of the biggest things that I enjoy in my growing up process. I don't know about others, most of my friends are thrilled with this idea, but I know some people aren't very much. Growing up also means you get to be independent of your family. In my case, the more I'm independent, the more I appreciate the value of family. It doesn't even mean that you care less, it just means that you do the work in the family voluntarily. You do it because you care, not because it's something your mom tells you to do. 
• This post is gonna be long and wordy, so no need to read til the end. I'm just gonna babble about random stuff from this point on. It's International Children's Day today.
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• Rain season = shoes damage season. I'm in the hunt for a pair of jelly shoes that will be my savior when the rain decides to pay a visit. I think my Converse were really mad at me today, because they were soaking wet and are now super super dirty. But my problem with finding the right pair of shoes is that, I have elephant-sized feet, comparing to the average population in this country. Therefore, shoes shopping is a more than painful task as it only embraces how much I resemble a troll. Hopefully I'll finally find a pair of satisfying shoes before the rain season's over and all of my boots and sneakers and flats are completely damaged.
• It's been raining even more now, almost everyday this week. It's a good sign, since it's still sunny (a little bit too sunny if you know what I mean) in the morning, gets really pleasant at noon as the sky becomes cloudy and the temperature drops significantly, and then here comes the big ass rain that only lasts for an hour or so, depends on where you live. After the rain, everything becomes nicer. I'm trying to form a habit of taking a walk every evening before work, as it helps with the digestion of dinner and gives me more energy, therefore the rain helps with cleaning up the streets and cooling down the temperature. After about half an hour of walking yesterday I felt so good that I thought to myself "I have to make a habit out of this!". When you don't get wet, rain is everything that a person could dream of in this city.
• As my stomach has given me the final warning, and as for today I am no longer a third year student and have officially entered the summer vacation, I'm gonna set up a healthy lifestyle. I guess during the year I always convince myself that I didn't have time for anything, so I allowed myself to be a slacker when it comes to working. Last summer I thought, when I have the time, I'll devote myself to work completely, but it happened otherwise, which was that I spent too much time going out and doing whatever it was that I can't even remember, and neglected my work just as much as I did throughout the school year. That's why I'm a little bit scared that this summer's gonna be the same, unless I motivate myself from the start, that things have to be different. I have a few ideas to elaborate, hopefully I'll be able to do them all alongside with the travelling and going out with friends.
• Again, so so sorry for the length of this one, I just simply have a lot to say. The content of this post is the sum of around three normal posts, had I published them normally. I think the main reason is because tumblr has been really short on beautiful photos lately that I wasn't able to find any that were suitable for my mood. But as I'm feeling very motivated today, I'm gonna publish this long ass post no matter what haha. Please bear with me.
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• I have so so so much to write down, but I guess I'll take some time to form it more properly in my head and save it as material for another post. 

Ice cream cone #88: the eventful weekend

• I got sick this weekend, that was the main event. I have to be straight from the start because I'm afraid as I go into details about how many rolls of toilet paper I've used and how I was literally dead sleepy the other night after drinking that cold pill some of you who have high expectations and think that I actually did something eventful might get disappointed.
• But really, as I was fucking tired all weekend, and this Monday was also Camellia's 21st birthday, I overcame my sickness and intervened myself in a bunch of useless activities and found out about some things about my grade that I wasn't supposed to know anyways.
• So basically I stopped caring about whether I got the scholarship for about a year now, because last year I wasn't very successful with the Vietnamese subjects, which I believe none of the students were content with either, so I assumed why care. But this year I only have German, and I didn't do so much of a bad job at the tests so I thought, let's just break the rule and check out the required grade to get a scholarship. My grade this year is 8,00, and guess how much the required grade is? 8,03. Beautiful isn't it. Should never have looked it up.
• So basically when you're sick, you get bored, annoyed and angry at basically anything. I got mad at my mom (for the 1000th time) the other day, but thanks to the cold/sleeping pills I had to go to bed early and nothing happened the morning after. In my defence, I don't think anyone behaves well when they're sick, we're allowed to have a day or two when we get fucking mad for no reason at all.
• A couple of things happened today that made me rethink, was it my fault, again. Not mentioning the subject, because it's just worthless information, just the mere things that I did, were they wrong? But then as I was sitting on the bus home today next to a guy who secretly fought me over the piece of drape, I thought, even if it's my fault, would it even be right if I just run after trying to fix it? You've always wanted to be that kid who doesn't give a fuck about anything, and who can leave the fuck giving to everybody else, this is the perfect time.
• The homework is getting more and more, and it's not even fun anymore. 
• I don't even have the need to write down my flirting process with this guy in my class, only now because I feel like the post has happened too quickly and I need to expand by adding more information do I remember that there's a him. Ugh nothing special, very very boring even. I don't have the ability to do something so magical like making a guy like me, or being cute a girly and stuff. Like, I'm the antonym of cute and girly. I wear men's shirts for God's sake. So, whatever, I know it's baddddd and against so many of my moral rules when you're not serious about anything and just doing things out of interest and not out of thorough thoughts, but considering that he doesn't care anyways and I'm trying to find some inspirations back into my university life, I'm gonna keep doing it until it gets too obvious and weird I'm just gonna flash and laugh and leave.
• Jk about the flashing, but I'm gonna do something crazy then leave. Cause he graduates in like a month haha way to choose a target Jennifer.
• So here are photos that resemble summer because I don't know why. Summer feels so nearrrrr already.

Ice cream cone #86: me today

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• Hello again to my orange room. It feels like the longest time ever since the last time I stayed in this room. Every time I get to sleep in my own room again, I still wonder when we will be able to find a solution to this, and not having to move around every one or two weeks.

Ice cream cone #84: movies

• 5 days til Valentine's day. Ew. 
• I have to start school tomorrow, which means, more bus, more heat, less sleep, less life. Being back to school is soooo hardddd after more than a month of practically doing nothing.
• Anyways, some stuff happened that made me wanna write a short movie review so badd.

• American Hustle: I first knew about the movie through a Jennifer Lawrence fansite that I (was practically forced to) follow on facebook. And although I've watched The Hunger Game, out of curiosity, and Silver Lining's Playbook, with high hopes in JLaw's performance, what she delivered did not satisfy me, not even one bit. Let's talk about Silver Lining's a little bit, IMHO, she was very stiff in pretty much the entire movie, especially on the scene when she explained to Bradley why her husband died, I expected to actually feel something. And as imaginative and full of hope as I was, I couldn't relate, at all. All that was in my head was, maybe it's just bad performance, maybe it's better in the book, if there is one. Therefore, when I watched the American Hustle trailer, I inevitably paid more attention to JLaw's performance. But, after having watched the movie about three times, I'd say this movie is Christian Bale's game. Batman was Bale's first movie that I got to watch, then followed by The Prestige and American Psycho (which I slightly enjoyed, but not as much as Donnie Darko). And in all of these movies, I still see Bale, with his specially structured teeth and his accent and his way of acting. But in Hustle, I think he had a step up. Just by not having to focus too much on the fact that I'm watching a Bale movie makes me enjoy it so much more. His accent, his way of showing the struggle with his marriage, his way of falling in love and even his appearance in this movie makes me gain a big lot of respect for him afterwards. Bradley Cooper did his best to prove to the audience that he's no longer a pretty boy who does silly blockbusters, and for some minute in this movie I actually hate Richie. Amy Adams' was enjoyable, seeing her doing something so different from Julie & Julia and Leap Year was fresh. I'd say JLaw's performance in Hustle has this gap comparing to Adams, especially in the scene when Sydney tells Irv that she might fall for Richie a bit. I started out on this movie thinking that I'd be watching Lawrence's acting for fun, turned out her performance annoyed me the most when the rest of the cast was being in so deep with the script. Overall the movie was enjoyable, I still question the picture quality, don't know if I'd downloaded a bad torrent file or what, full of surprises, but when you've come to know the max, it's not gonna be the kind of movie that I'd wanna watch thoroughly for the second time. 3,8/5.
• Aaaahhhh I've got soo much stuff to talk about in the past few days. But first, I need to fully focus on the fact that hOLIDAY ENDS TOMORROW :((

Yoghurt cup #78: things

Well, of course, life is made up by things.

• The new boyfriend blue blouse that I bough from the flea market today that cheers me up so well.
• The bunch of perfume samples that I got for no reason. I don't know why I've been so deeply interested with using perfumes lately. And I have about 10 or more samples so I guess I won't have to even think about buying a full bottle in at least two months.
• The floral dress that (sadly, or gladly) that my mom looks better in than I do.
• Delicious crepes with delicious coconut-flavored ice cream.
• Braiding my hair.
• Getting to use the Chocomania shower gel. Which smells absolutely amazing.
• The Burberry Body perfume which lasts for-ever.
• Tomorrow's payday yay.
• Blue illustrated elephant.

Yoghurt cup #69: Death

• Growing up is not fun. The worst part is when you stand at one point, thinking that you haven't changed one bit since the time flew, and then you look back at the small but vital details and realize that you've grown into a completely different person it's ridiculous!
• Change is always fascinating to get used to, but, like my relation to the character in Midnight In Paris, the past has a mystery of a girl who is loved by every guy, but will never belong to anybody.
• Food heals, it's true. Well, more precisely, good food heals.
• I've been watching a lot of movies lately, and it's a good thing. French movies make me feel really really good after enjoying, don't know if there's more good French movies to watch hmmm...
• Anyways, short writing. I'm off to be a so-called adult.

my favorite things

Like that song in Sound of music, another all-time favorite musical of mine.

 This is the book that I'm currently reading, with a worse than hideous cover.

And this is the bookmark that is now in the book. This is a gift from my neighbor when she got back from Korea a couple of weeks ago. 

These are the infamous flowers that I mentioned yesterday.

 These are my favorite lipsticks: the YSL glossy stain #12 and the Shu Uemura rouge unlimited supreme matte #MCR 342. They play a role of my toys when I'm bored.

 This is my favorite blush which is Benefit's Coralista. It looks like a kid's toy at first but no kid's toy can be -that expensive in that size, and I always had this so-called self-ashamed time after I purchased any makeup product.

This is my favorite glass. I like it because it's big and can hold a lot more water than the other cups in my house therefore when I'm asking someone for water I'll get more than the rest. In the glass is my least favorite cereal ever but because ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten, I still treat them very ethically.

This is my favorite body mist that smells like moringa.

These are my favorite pens, all from Germany because I believe that Germany and Japan make the best stationery in the world.

This is my favorite postcard from Russia, which you have seen me featuring in my one hundred posts before. 

These are my favorite CD and DVD. I even got a tattoo out of the Mayer's record, you can imagine the situation. 

These are my favorite Danish butter cookies that I feel like I deserve to have after a long and hard day of doing absolutely nothing productive at all.

And this is my favorite me with my hair unwashed and my nails chipped off as usual, sitting in my yellow room taking no-face photos in front of a dirty mirror.

random yogurt cup

• Oh well, holiday's officially over, and I'm at a loss for words when thinking about going back to school.
• I haven't had much me-time lately, for the longest time I could remember. Possibly because my job got a hold in me, and all of the leftover time I consumed in tumbling and sleeping and going out eating.
• Which led to the fact that I've gotten chubby. And yet ready to taste every good dishes in this city.
• I've discovered lots and lots of places which has lovely views and magnificent food. And frankly, my definition of magnificent food is that they fry with butter and roast veggies with melted cheese.
• But you can't deny that they're not good!
• I didn't do anything productive in my holidays, spent a load of money on food and makeups, as usual, slept like a bum, watched Japanese anime and idol movies, slept a little more, went out and took photos with flowers in the background to prove that I still had a life, ate some more food and babbled about how boring my life was.
• I'm trying to make my life look a little bit more bright, like positive thinking and bright-colored items around me. I literally have to carry my facial wash and mud mask bottles everywhere I go cause I have to move around a lot lately.
• I'll have to run to school to get the textbooks, and then "travel" down to my campus to attend classes, in the excruciating heat of the all-year-round tropical city. Wish me luck!

Random June.

A couple of boredom photos to celebrate the fact that I screwed up at this morning's test and my sudden realization that I need human so much more than I could imagine.

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A few shots from last week. Trying a new uploader for my photos since the blogspot uploader makes my photos so much grainier than the original.
Having a day off today, I think I'm gonna go around the house taking photos of everything and make another post later. Have a nice day :D

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Some random shots in the room. Basically what I did today was to go have breakfast with Shire, google about lenses, listen to Death Cab for Cutie and Jakob Dylan, not be able to get over how awesome this new lens is. I swear I won't touch the f/1.4 or 1.2 because that will ruin the moment that I'm having with this baby.
I love weekends. And I'm sorry Alex for not going to the meet-and-greet with you this afternoon because I was too lazy to step out of the house at all, let alone climbing on the bus and going to a place that I know no one of. Although it's kind of a pity not having gone as I could've collected some nice tips on my struggling with taking photos of facial angles.
Wasn't planning on writing anything today, but I wanted to post these photos somewhere, so, that's it for today. I now am going to stand up and fall into bed and take the most random nap of the day just because. Have a nice weekend.