Its over.

Boy am I tired. The last paper came and gone, devastating my being the likes of Katrina. I was never good at cost management yet life somehow manages to throw it at me, time and again. I've been doing accounting since high school and not that I loathe it completely, it just takes up way too much energy and in the end, I just feel sad and empty, like all the effort put in was worth naught but the hollow feeling in my chest. After today's paper, I left feeling more haunted than ever. I know I made terrible mistakes in formulas and calculations so the fear of repeating this module is becoming clearer and more real than ever. Re-doing the exam alone would be fine, but worst yet, there's a project and presentation. Going through all that again is quite like fighting yet another war. After yet another war(semester), when all that's left are war wounds and self-doubt, I do wonder, what's it all really worth?

At the end of it all, all we get is a piece of paper, like a veterans medal, where 10,000 others have the same, it feels so mediocre & quite meaningless. (The fresh-baked pizza mom bought for dinner was way better.) Sometimes, I do feel that a purse well-made and seeing the smile on people's faces when they receive them is so much more rewarding.

And I'll do it all over again in a heartbeat.

A little dark... a little bright

I'm feeling a little down again. Its not PMS but seems to be hitting me out of the blue. I'm not sure if its school or the fact that I don't understand business statistics or that my law lecturer looks like an army sergeant but its not very useful to feel like this. Suddenly nothing matters in my life, not even the satirical Bizarro comics in the times paper. Apologies for griping like this, but its hard to tell this to anyone else without them feeling helpless. Its ok not to read this guys. Apparently, there's a lot of lurkers around here. I've been running, cutting down on the chips, candies and fried food, haven't bought clothes for a while, have been into sustainability living, reading zakka magazines, but still.... Do you guys feel like this sometimes? How do you get out of it?



Last night, I had to choose between finishing this "red" bag for the coming CNY (Chinese New Year means red, red & red) visits and to do up costing assignments for school. The lecturer was adamant about handing it in before 10am, or he cuts half the marks. Maybe this was adding to the stress. I drank espresso at the library and tried very hard to figure out what goes into the WIP accounts and where do the figures go to after that. It was a hellish night but I wasn't late today. (thanks to my DH who was my alarm clock. Apparently I kicked his head in the morning while he was trying to wake me. :P) Needless to say I was still pretty restless in class despite 2 cups of thick coffee & a danish. The AC in the lecture hall didn't work, so I had to spend the second half squinting the flashes in front (I refused to print the 200-page notes. thats a lot of paper!). I couldn't quite understand this guy anyways. He's focusing too much on the "doing" and not the explaining. Double sigh. I raced home after class, sat down and finished the bag. Its not leather, its not vinyl, its duct tape. Just 2 rolls of large duct tape and a smaller roll, plus some metal parts and your fav shape paper bag you want to see as a bag and voila, new bag. My relatives will be so shocked. I still refuse to buy new clothes for CNY. I made my own fisherman pants (below), my mum made me a top. All I bought was a pair of black mary janes from Crocs a while ago. I even remade a skirt. For once, I'm pretty tired of fashion.



I feel so guilty. Mum helped with finishing the 5 wallets today when I was out running and I wasn't in the mood to say thanks then. Thanks mum....you're the greatest. I guess I'll do something nice soon. Dad wants a cover for his GPRS thing. A lot to dooooo. Piles and piles. I heard that exercises makes people happy with the endorphins release and stuff. Its a mind bogger that I feel more depressed. I'm finding it difficult to locate the positive energy when I start to lose belief in anything. Not chai tea, yoga or pilates, anything. I need a vacation. I guess thats the only thing people say when they hit a wall. Working my butt off its crazy sometimes but its enjoyable coz I love making stuff. And packing orders at 3am feels great coz I'm doing it for people who love my stuff. The only thing that bugs me is spending time at classes. I know its good to do it, but being a year one at uni again is pure pain in the ass. Triple sigh.



phew! I think I feel a bit better after typing. For anyone who's read this far, THANK YOU. Its prolly going to sound nonsensical, but it means a lot to have an audience. I'm not advocating it, but perhaps griping once in a blue moon kinda helps I guess. The really really nice thing that happened today was this surprise from Jo. She super talented in rubber stamp carving and she's going to start an etsy store! I can't contain my excitement for her store coz I've been such a huge fan of her work and have been persuading her to sell her work!



If you have an etsy store, get her to do your logo, wow! She sent this to me after I requested for it! Thanks SO much Jo! I love love love it! Going to stamp everywhere. hehe

Going off to seek some happiness...

I need cheering up...Tastee Treats

School starts tomorrow. I guess this is about the worst phrase anyone can imagine? I'm not sure about you, but my second degree is a pain in the ass/arse. Its too clinical, unfeeling and capitalistic. Making stuff is my only escape from this unfeeling world of money money money. Worst thing is, I just found that out today. There's no time to mentally prepare. Plus, there's a problem with getting lectures online so I'm lugging my textbook there tomorrow. As if it'll help. I think the hour long bus ride makes me faint. DH is looking at my timetable now and he's knitting brows. I think he isn't happy.


Anyhoo...not to dump negativity on you fabulous people, I've discovered this really adorable silkscreen art print called Tastee Treats by lfop aka Little friends of Printmaking. Its the only thing that makes that tiny gleam of fire flicker in my sunken heart. Say Awwww! Do check out the other prints in their etsy store! They are sooooooo cute!

Lethargic week

Wednesday's lunch. A couple of days later and its old news. Pasta gets me through the day, coz I got sick of instant noodles. Sapporo soy handmade noodles or not. How do you guys like the 3-column blog? I've been toggering it for a while and I'm hopeless at html so the mention of those 4 letter words make me break out in cold sweat. Nonetheless, after the upteenth time I've failed, I decided to give it another go a couple of days ago before the Accounting exam paper on Thursday. I couldn't sleep and was pretty hyped up after all that cash flow statements. Looks fine with me, though the center text alignment's a bit off. I'm done fixing it coz I'm so confused on where those tags go and I'm pretty terrified about screwing it up like the last time.



After that paper, I pretty much feel like the banana peel in the bin. I took this picture coz it looked beautiful. Yeah, trashing beauty. LOL Neways, the paper was bad, 7 questions in 3 hours don't cut it. I couldn't finish and my cash flow statement did not balance, which is thoroughly embarassing coz I've been doing accounting for more than a decade now. Don't ask why they threw me back in year 1. I think the uni asked for "academic" credentials. I only had professional ones from ACCA. *eye roll*



Little packages of ribbon for the ribbon swap on swap-bot. I love ribbons and love packing them. I think I'll start a monthly ribbon swap on swapbot when I'm back from vacay. Hope my partners like them! There's 7 yards of fun in there!



Cookies to make me feel better when cramming. I'm trying hard to get my dumb brain to absorb macroeconomics right now but I seriously have a lack of good materials. The notes are skimpy and the text is hopeless. I don't know about you, but economics is a whole new way of looking at life, a whole new way of thought for me that I never knew I'd be doing it all over again since college days. I'd forgotten most of it and the equations and graphs are throwing me for a loop right about now. I'm praying for an easy paper.



A package for my one of my dearest customers. :+) Hope she likes! That gorgeous tag is from digital paperie at etsy. And take that handmade pledge too! & buy handmade this holiday seasons. There's so many beautiful christmas cards on etsy, I don't know where to begin to tell you!



Some jumbo laundry clips I whipped up a little while ago. I was looking for good clips but the local versions were plagued with splinters. I found these bigger (& therefore better!) version at Daiso. Smooth and pretty! I painted them withh enamels and voila! I'm imagining them a lot a lot bigger as a real life static installation. Mmmm.....installations. Love 'em.



Mum's kitchen. I love my mum. She's got really interesting quirks. When the glass panels of the cabinet broke, she replaced them with these lace panels. Much better, me thinks. Just thought I'd share. ;+)





This is about the best thing that happened all week. Some fabrics I'd ordered came and I was esctatic for a while. They are extremely lovely and they add to my pile. The private reserve is adding in at 4 big piles. They are utterly addictive. Pretty sure it'll get much worse at my trip to Tokyo this time. More goodies for you guys though! I'm bringing my folks to Hokkaido and we'll stop by Tokyo to pick up some stuff and walk around. They haven't been to Japan so they're prolly dragging me along for translation. Hmm.....or they'll be Lost In Translation. LOL Bad pun. Loved that movie though.

Tomorrow's my Grandad's 1-year-anniversary. I can't believe he's been gone for a year already. I really really miss him and have always stopped to regret that I hadn't spent enough time with him ever since I went to Sydney. He started disintegrating then. When I came back, his memory was gone. I hope he was happy. For some reason, the little shop he's worked for all his life is going to close. The only thing I could salvage from it is the abacus he's used for the accounts. I'd always remember him clicking and clacking on that heavy abacus. I spent quite a lot of time in that shop when I was young. Hopefully with that abacus, I can preserve some of those memories.



I'm ending on an upbeat! Pardon me if you're from those states. Singaporeans prolly find it funny. Its from Saturday's The New Paper. :+)

Darkest Hour, appreciations, new cell + wallets

Yeah, its high time I do a post. Its been yonkers (cybertime!) since I last appeared here. Loyal readers (if any!), I do apologise. If you all must know whats been keeping me off the blog, see above. Working with people for the Marketing project culminating to a 5000 word report with extra appendices spanning 52 pages. I haven't slept in days, literally. Before that, it was the marketing test. I mugged like nuts and worked my ass off, but there was this horrible dude in class who goes through life by leeching off others. Needless to say, I was estatic to find out, the day before I handed in the project (Friday) that I got a High D for the test. Then the next day, I found out this leech got a High D too. He was announcing happily after the class because of his height "advantage", he cheated and copied answers from students around him. Jerk. Now I feel like my HD is a joke, especially when put next to his. Did I mention he's in the same project group as me? And yes, he didn't do anything for the project, lamented that he wasn't given a chance to do stuff. Lies. We gave him a bazillion chances and he never once showed up with anything. He wrote his name on the cover of the project without a hint of guilt. Never in my decades on this earth have I met someone like that! Its both amusing and appalling. Its weird but grades never meant this much to me til now. It must be a HD curse. The stakes always get so high when you fare well. The pressure to keep up is mounting...



That package there is for a wonderful girl who supports me so much. I'm lending the picture to say thanks to people who have left wonderful feedbacks at my etsy account, emails of appreciations, condolences for the nonsense in school(eeep!), sweet comments at my flickr photos and random niceness of strangers and friends. Its a tough time, but all that niceness saw me through. All that's left now is the finals. Mugging alone seems like a good idea! Oh well, I learnt it the hard way. Never lend out your notes. Over my dead body! LOL



Moleskine has been my companion for years now. Funny how they're turning snazzy. Hell, the red really attracted me. I got this set from a local auction site and it came quickly. I'm loving the extra doodle book and stickers! Lying there beside is my new cell. The old pink one was giving weird problems so dad happened to get this one. Its pretty much the same phone, 'cept thinner? The last one was a V3X and this one's a V3xx. Funny how adding one X makes a big difference. Thats what they said about mathematics too...



New wallets! And more to come! Choco apples, mushroomated and pink sakura are still hanging around in my shop. Any takers?