it was gay pride day a few weeks ago on june 27th. totally forgetting that it was gonna clog up the entire west village, i invited some friends over for a housewarming party/dinner/drink.

there were 8 of us and i had no idea what to cook. there was plenty of thinking to do and plenty of going up to those friends and asking, “wait, so do you eat a lot?” it also didn’t help that i have the tiniest kitchen ever!

i ended up making shepard's pie since it could be made in advance.

i also made some tiramisu for dessert.

in addition, i had some pork, peppers and pineapple on skewers that were marinated in a honey glaze. unfortunately, my oven is stupid (or i’m stupid and don’t know how to use my oven and broiler) but while baking the shepard’s pie and trying to broil the skewers, my smoke alarm went off and that was when one of the taller guys had to climb up on a stool to pull it off the ceiling! oh, yeah we did try to turn it off but it wasn’t working so we pulled out the batteries and took it down. didn’t wanna scare the neighbours!

outside, it was really hot and i had been running around in the morning getting ingredients for the party. of course, it was gay pride day and i had to make so many detours because of the roads that were closed up. it wasn’t fun trying to get through a sweating glitter-covered crowd!!

bleecker street was already filling up at 11am.

soon after my friends came at 8pm, we heard fireworks and realized i had a pretty good view of them from my window!

funny thing was, the boys were more interested in the fireworks than the girls. hahaha!

setting up the champagne flutes.

wonder what we were talking about here... looks like ryosuke's giving some class talk and we're all paying attention, right?

close-up of ryosuke's necklace. i want.

the guys got a kick out of all my hats, especially my sailor cap.

so of course they passed it around and tried it on.

i think it looks pretty good on all of them...

but it was koki who suited it best. i mean, seriously. there are definitely navy boys out there who look like this. we couldn't stop laughing.

as you can see, ryuji's the joker of the group.

ryosuke with my not-very-pretty tiramisu that i randomly dusted cocoa powder over. note to self: need to buy one of those strainer things to dust the cocoa next time!

i had such a great night. it was terribly fun. you know i’ve really hated new york quite a bit. i think new york = parsons to me, so for the last 3 years, every holiday break i’ve had, i’ve tried to escape from the city.

this is probably the first time in the almost 3 years that i’ve spent in new york, that i’ve been really enjoying myself and realizing that when you’re doing what you love and you have friends surrounding you, anywhere on earth could be heaven. yep, even new york.

i actually take pictures all the time. after all i have a dslr, a regular point-&-shoot, at least 10 lomo cameras, and of course, about 5 different photo apps on my iphone. so i don’t know why i never thought of uploading them just randomly.

how silly.

so here’s a whole bunch of them from the last couple of months!!

i've moved!! it was mad!! but i get a pretty good view with amazing sunsets each night. which inspires me to eat good food

i love instax. these are from 1 outing with my old class from parsons, and from the last time i went back to singapore

i went with some japanese friends to ikea, and for the first time saw someone doing some serious bed-testing

brunch at pastis with my visiting cousin, then walking around the west village and washington square park

while bleaching my eyebrows, i decided to practice the kabuki (japanese theatre) stare: one eye looking forward and one crossed-eye. oh, and my birthday treat to myself, a whole platter of uni.

it is about 11pm here in singapore as i type this, and in a couple of hours, it will be a new year and a new decade. i know it’s all cliche and i know everyone’s talking about the same thing, but this is really a time of year to reflect and think about my life.

am i going down the right roads, making the right choices? am i really following my dreams? am i becoming the person i want to be?

2009 was an amazing year for me. amazing because i can’t count the number of times i got sick due to stress and a weakened immune system. and amazing because it really was, truely quite amazing. the opportunities that came my way, the way things seemed to somehow work out, the people i met who had an impact in my life… after all these years of “dreaming” my dream, it was as if everything was finally falling into place and i seemed to be walking in the right direction.

a lot more is going to happen in the next year, and i’m really gearing myself up to be able to handle the stress and the sleepless nights when i would have to stay awake working. but i know it’s all gonna make sense in the end. i know i’m not going to regret the effort. i just know, deep in my heart, that 2010 is gonna be a huge year for me.

and i may not know you, but i hope with all my heart that it will be huge for you too.

we can make it happen. i know we can. i’m not an annoyingly positive person, but there are things that are in our grasp, things that we can control, and i just want to believe.

i want to share with you 3 of my favourite quotes that i have kept in some journal of mine for the longest time. to me, they are powerful and say so much in a few short sentences.

i wasn’t born this way. one creates oneself. i believe whatever i dream. whatever i dream, i want to do.
- grace jones

i’ve always been a rebel. i never do things the way they’re supposed to be done. either i go in the opposite direction or i create a new direction for myself, regardless of what the rules are or what society says.
- grace jones

a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
– anthropologist margaret mead

so you see, it is completely possible. we might not be able to change the whole world, but we can certainly change the world around us. don’t let “fate” be your excuse. you can create your own future. i am going to mold my own, and i hope you would too!

.

.

.

ok, so i’m not gonna be so pretentious and claim that i don’t have a wishlist. i do. in another more materialistic view, there are so many other things i want for myself now, and so i threw it all onto an image to share it with you, and to remind myself to go out there and work my ass off till i get this for myself!

(these photos belong to style.com, nozio.com, wallpaperbase.com, engadget.com, nikon.co.jp, and viviennewestwoodonline.co.uk. thanks!)

all these items from comme des garcons and junya watanabe that i’ve loved all my life (i’ve so many garcons items in my wardrobe but it never seems to be enough), from recent seasons that i’ve lusted and drooled over. i want want want so bad. i don’t care if it’s gonna take me another year to be able to afford them, i just hope i can find them for sale, one day when i get some money.

ahh yes, and those vivienne westwood pirate boots that i’ve also wanted for about 4 years now, but everytime i save up money for it, the moment it seems just enough, i somehow go out there and buy something junya. so erm, yeah, it’s time i learn how to control myself and finally get those boots!!

ooh an a dslr. i need one. no really, i’m not being greedy here, but i do need one for school and work. i can’t afford something super smancy-fancy, just a nikon d90 would do, thanks.

and lastly, i do so want to go to london. like how i always betray vivienne and fall back in lust with junya, everytime i think i wanna go to london for a holiday, i let that go and run back to japan. (after all, i did live there for almost 4 years, you know, i do love that place). but it’s like a relationship with a very very bad boy whom you know is so bad for you but he’s so fucking hot and when you get together it’s so damn good. you know what i mean? i know you do. japan is my bad boy and i want to be there so bad.

correct that, japan is the land where my bad boys live, and those bad boys come in the form of a 5 member group called smap. ever since i got to know about them and became such a teenybopper because of them, i’ve been going to watch their concerts each year. i had to pass up their last concert because i couldn’t miss school (another reason to hate parsons), and it killed me. i literally went through months of depression because i knew they were having a concert tour in japan and i was stuck in new york, very far away. so i need to go back, go back to being their fan, because that is one of the rare places where i’m just with a non-stop smile and i feel like i’m on cloud nine.

you see what i mean? smap is my drug. and i’m addicted. that’s why i have to go back.

and so i will, one day, i will move my ass back to tokyo. and 2010 will be a huge stepping stone for that to happen.

i’ve got big plans, i know. but watch me.

oh! and the clock just struck 12 and there are fireworks going off. happy new year!!

i know some of you have seen me in several outfits that are meant only for crazies, and yes, sometimes i wear those crazy shits to school. then again, that only happens when i actually get up about an hour ahead of class with enough time to figure out my outfit and take the subway to school.

during the last few weeks of school, i was so sleep-deprived and bordering on depression and boredom, that my outfits were really just, utterly uninspired.

if i even had the luxury of a few hours of sleep each night, i’d wake up probably after the fifth (or tenth) alarm had rang, and stay in bed cursing at everything before finally dragging myself to the bathroom. and because i just could not care less, or rather, i was too tired to even care, i’d just throw on some tshirts, some easy pants, a jacket and hat and go on my way.

the last week of school was particularly bad and my eyebags were almost up till my chin. and this was me, back home on the last day of my school semester. 3 minutes after these photos were taken, i took a shower and fell into bed where i slept for 18 hours straight, woke up only to pee, and then went back to bed for several hours more.

+ bear coat by mercibeaucoup;
+ hat by y3
+ tshirt by kidrobot
+ long sleeved tee by uniqlo
+ pants by vivienne westwood
+ opened-toe boots by undercover

so this is me, half of each week, running around new york city with a bag that weighs more than a 5-year old child, and feeling like i’m 50. not quite glamourous or anything stylish, but then, whoever told you fashion was glamourous was a big fat liar.

it isn’t. at least not to us, the people who work behind the scenes to bring you clothes.

hi everyone!! i’m a couple of days late, but merry christmas! how did all of you spend your christmas? was it white? did you eat a lot? did you exchange presents? did you kiss under a mistletoe? (do people still do that, or does it only happen in harry potter movies??)

i flew back home to singapore!! actually, i had so much work to be done, i thought of toughing it out and staying back in new york over the holidays to do my work.

but seriously, who would i be kidding?? there was no way i would have gotten anything done; i’d probably hibernate the entire month away and still end up with nothing at the end of it, so i thought i should go home. besides, i was just so so so so so sick of parsons, which meant that i was equally sick of new york, and i HAD to get away.

i had to get away from new york like it was the plague.

even if i wanted to stay behind, i would have no friends to play with because everyone escaped just as quickly. we went out and had fun on the last day of class, and most of them flew off the following day!

hence there was basically no way in HELL that i would spend christmas and the new year alone in new york. i think if that had happened, i would have hated it even more and probably set myself on fire.

so here i am in singapore! ta-da!

it was some kind of crazy everest task trying to get a ticket to come back too! everything was booked out for months and my option was to fly on christmas itself. wow. then my mom decided to be generous and transfered some mileage points to me, so i could exchange it for business class!

wooooohooo!! i had a business class seat on singapore airlines, yo! it was so amazing! i felt like such a vip, until i saw the number of kids who were in business and first class! i’m talking about a 6 or 7 year old girl and boy, and another boy of about 12, etc! what!?!? no fair, no fair! kids shouldn’t be allowed extravagances like that until they are older!!

anyway, it was so good. i had a ton of leg-room and the seats could recline till completely horizontal. helloooo mama! but never mind all that, i will never be able to stomach the food from economy class again after what i ate in business class! it was ridiculous.

from the simple pleasures of not having to use plastic cutlery but proper silverware, to having nice dishes prepared and nicely laid out on the plate. the meals actually came in 2 or 3 courses, with the hostesses clearing the plate each time.

ok it sounds like such a cheap thrill, but HEY. it was quite yummy, ok!?

see? i wasn’t kidding you, was i? it looked and tasted pretty darn good. i was so impressed i even took pictures! the photos are grainy because they were taken in poor lighting with my bummy iphone (turned to airplane mode, don’t worry!). but i literally ate so much and cleaned off most of my food, i worried that i would have a stomachache at 40282194 feet off ground. ewww.

anyway so much has happened, i don’t even know where to really start! so i will be unloading post after post on you, so watch out! you’ll be shocked that i, gilda, still remembered how to blog! this holiday season is for me to take my mind of work, anyway, right? so here i am, back again!

and if you still aren’t following me on twitter, do that. i am a complete addict and much more reliable on twitter than i am on my blog. haha. you might even get sick of me on twitter because i tweet more than a robin does in heat.

my sister, bib, came over to new york for a couple of weeks. it was her first american trip, and it was great but sucked at the same time coz i hardly had time to spend with her! she came with a group of her friends, and they went around sight-seeing while i was in class, and i would join them at night and on the weekends.

yo, even though i wasn’t technically traveling around that much with them, it was tiring!! i was tired! all day at school and then trooping around with the tour gang = tough work.

here are some pictures that we/she/they took. perhaps i’ve been tired of new york… just quite sick of it. but it was refreshing to look at new york again through a visitor’s camera lens!

it’s a photo fest, but i hope you enjoy it!

instead of getting 2 cabs, they got a limo from the airport!

first limo ride and all i did was sleep.

brunch at le pain quotidien

pizza on the go!

sir paul in the meatpacking district

going out with like 6, 7 people means you're waiting around a lot!

best hot dogs ever

the tsunami and chihuahua hotdog

grilled corn at cafe habana

somehow the west village just looks nice all the time

they went across the bridge!

while walking downtown

the fountain at city hall

trinity church

miss liberty

they went to watch the martha stewart show!

super grilled cheese sandwich

times square

i died laughing

inside grand central station

back in times square

horses at central park

central park

the boathouse

central park

peter luger's