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 thought i’d share with you my view of the sky.

i love clouds. and i love sunsets. i guess, i’m a little romantic at heart? HAHAHA. i uploaded some random pictures of the view from my room a little while ago, but heck, i can’t help but want to take more photos. i take one almost every other day when i realize how colourful it looks outside. granted, it’s not the best view there is, but i’m thankful enough!! thank goodness there aren’t any tall buildings blocking the sunlight!

i find a lot of peace just looking at the skies. very typical and cliché, i know i know. but all the cliché things about loving cloud formations and sunsets are true. i mean, it takes my mind off the lousy parts of life. you get put in your place and you remember that you’re part of this amazing universe, and there’s so much more out there, so much that you can reach for.

here are some grainy pictures that i took with my iphone. some are with the regular camera, some with photo applications. i love the grainy-ness of these photos and the high contrast of the apps. which is no surprise, since i’m a lomo addict with at least 10 different lomo cameras!

and the crazy part? these pictures were all taken in ONE day. i swear. over the span of an evening, till the sun finally went down at about 9pm.

this is how lovely the world is. beautiful.

gorgeous, right? i know. get jealous.

i’ve never been to one of those huge public events to watch the fireworks. i can only imagine myself sweating like a pig and getting itchy and painful skin allergies because of the heat, and not to mention probably peeing on myself because i can’t get to a toilet. or worse, finding one and then vomiting from the smells.

hahaha.

the 4th of july is such a huge american holiday. and of course, i’m not american. instead of partying like a wild animal, i really do enjoy loafing around in house parties, with friends, drinks and random food. i spent both 2008 and 2009 at patricia field‘s home for her yearly barbecues.

it was always fun, and i love the people there, but this year i crashed my friend’s loft for their wine party. it was relaxing, hilarious, and just an all around warming-the-heart type of day.

heading to get more beers from the deli

ryo was already high when he poured the 1st bottle of champagne

we bought like 3 dozen cans of beers. i’d brought along 4 bottles of white wine, and they’d already gotten 2 bottles of champagne. so yes, we were ready to have some drinks! a pizza, mashed potatoes, chicken wings and barbecued ribs later, i think we were all nicely high!

my pajama-ish clothes

in summer, you’ll see me in either sleeveless dresses or some seriously baggy and shapeless clothes that do not cling to me and piss me off. i don’t care that people think i’m in pajamas. comfort is key and i will not be in anything that makes me annoyed!!

+ ne-net straw hat
+ cabane de zucca tshirt
+ rêvasseur betty boop sarrouel pants
+ undercover open-toe canvas boots
+ mercibeaucoup; necklace
+ rêvasseur woven cuffs
+ rings from maison martin margiela, h&m, vivienne westwood, number (n)ine

taking a break from the "madness"

gotta love the holiday feeling!

WHY did i not bring a proper camera?? my iphone photos all suck!

at about 9:30pm, we all ran up to the rooftop where we had unobstructed 360 degree views of all the new york fireworks!! i’d never really seen anything like that! we could see them coming from queens, the hudson river, and all sort of random spots whose areas we couldn’t figure out. it was amazing and felt really good!!

they've got a dj booth in their loft! this is dj shoryuken! hahaha!

when we got back to the loft, ryuji climbed up to their dj booth and spun us some tunes. it was hilarious. i mean, he put on some japanese pop songs and added all sorts of ridiculous shout-outs and random noises. we were doubling over laughing. ryosuke took some fucking amazing photos of ryuji in his booth. i need to get those from him to show you. he made ryuji look like a class A dj. super good times.

yume and i

playing the yamanote line game, a really popular japanese drinking game. wine's in the middle for the loser! poor ryosuke lost 3 times. hahaha!

have you heard of this yamanote-line game before? it’s named after the yamanote line, which is the main train line in tokyo. it goes in a circle, and there are people in japan who can memorize each train stop. and so that’s how the game goes. you sit in a circle, and answer according to the some topic, with some clapping. you can’t hesitate, you can’t break the rhythm, and you’re also out if you repeat an answer.

we were so pathetically funny, i wish i took a video of this!! we came up with really easy subjects like “name the capitols of the world”, “colours”, “american states”, and “countries who took part in the world cup”, etc. considering the fact that we were already a little high, everyone sucked. HAHAHAHA! i had to take a drink when my mind went blank and couldn’t think of a colour (so pathetic!). but poor ryosuke had to down the wine about 3 times. hohoho.

and then they somehow started playing soccer in their "indoor garden"

the night winded down at about 2am when they wanted to watch some horror movie but couldn’t find the dvds. haha! i guess that’s what happens when you get 4 boys moving in together and putting up walls by themselves – sometimes you just don’t know where things disappear to!

you know it’s hard to put this into words but i’m really glad to have gotten to know these guys. i really respect them for what they do. tossy’s working as a buyer for some stores in japan and starting a streetwear brand called slon, ryo and ryuji are working in bars, kyoko’s in a ramen shop, koki’s a photographer’s assistant for a japanese bike magazine, martin aka dj martin deejays at a bunch of clubs here in downtown manhattan, and ryosuke is a photographer for his own website, fadsnap.com which has amazing photos of tokyo and new york streetstyle and parties. they love new york. that’s why they are here. and they are doing what they love.

every time i meet them and listen to them talk about what they do, i get inspired to work harder and do better. and it doesn’t hurt that they really remind me of the amazing times that i used to spend with my friends in japan when i went to school in bunka. i miss it. a lot.

on a completely unrelated matter, i painted my nails and made it all nautical. my favourite concept = sailors. i have a fetish. not for sailors like the people, but for their uniforms. i’ve got a sailors hat, a captain’s cap, a nautical swimming suit, and so on, and the obsession won’t stop. the plus point of this nautical themed nail art session? it was in red, white and blue. perfect for the 4th of july! yay!!

captain nails

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!

.

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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!!

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.