No idea no idea how I will survive this week... sob.

rainy rainy day

Enjoying a cup of coffee before I run to work. I've been going to all my classes this week!! Gold star for me. Maybe there's hope after all.

Been perusing new perfumes online. I think I'm going to go for something citrusy and bright. Something to counteract the rainy rainy-ness of spring time in ithaca.

To try:
I love love by Moschino
Light blue by D&G
Capri by Aqua di Parma (super expensive... worth it?)

Wonder what it takes to be a perfume connoisseur. A good nose?

on a scale of one to ten...

My stress level is a six. But this time, I'm keeping it under control! Yep, back at school for another six, seven weeks. A lot will be happening in the next few.

For now, I'm learning a little-but important-life lesson in stress management. First off, does stress actually accomplish anything? Is stress one of those things that's OK in moderation? Or, is it just a waste of time... When it comes to stressing about stress, why stress when you can do something productive with your energy?

This subject gets a bit mind boggling for me. And there is no doubt that the topic of stress becomes a catch-22 in itself. Yoga, deep breathing, visualizing the ocean... I don't think these things ever worked for me. For now, you just have to learn to compartmentalize what you can. And for everything else, there's mastercard? No, silly. There's... hmm... Get back to you on that one.

Just another story that proves vintage dreams do come true...

Spent a lovely day in Rhinebeck with an old friend. The drive up there is so calming--a comforting thicket of forests, old shops, and the hudson river playfully peeking in and out. Collective sigh here. The best time to go is Sunday afternoon, when the farmer's market sets up, and brunch menu is slowly melting into the dinner. You can grab coffee on the go and make it to Vanderbilt Mansion for the sunset. What can get more perfect than that?

As for yesterday, we drove into town for lunch. We chose this brasserie-type restaurant, which looked more like a congress house on the outside. Salad, soup, and mussels. So new england... unbearably quaint!! We left and something out of a dream happened. A vintage collector's dream.

You're strolling down some impossibly cute town sidewalk and suddenly find a hole-in-the-wall thrift store, literally tucked away and out of view. Walking in, nothing looks particularly interesting. Old dress shirts, brand name knock-offs, the usual. THEN, you stop to look over a really cute bag hanging on the wall. Wow, it's classic. It's only $32. It's... FERRAGAMO. As in SALVATORE FERRAGAMO, designer god of shoes and handbags, of which usually cost in the thousands to own.

Needless to say, I floated away on a cloud, hardly realizing if I had actually taken out my credit card or not. The only thing on my mind was the vintage ferragamo... that I now owned.

Yep. Just another urban myth proved to be real. Dreams like this can come true!! Verified by a real, live ordinary person.

getting into routine

Knock knock groggy groggy
Splash of cold water. Freezing!
Eggs and toast for breakfast
Big stretchhhh, cup of tea
Wear are my shoes?
Clunk, can of paint, paint, paint, scrape, scrape
Drips in my hair, splatter, splish splash
On the newspaper, smudge smudge
Big stretchhhh
Paint, paint, kneel kneel
Ouch my knees!
Reach, reach, swipe of paint across the face
Splash of cold water. Freezing!
Lunch, munch, munch
Cup of coffee, some hamentashen
Apricot is my favorite
Check my email, "Oh, the economy!"
Barack and basketball?
Blah, blah
Big stretchhhh, back to work
Paint, paint, cough, cough
Sweat, sweat, kneel kneel
Ouch my back!
Last... few... bits... paint... paint...
Did I just blackout?
Last bits, clean, clean
Garage door, must be time for dinner
Check my email, munch, munch
School work? No, ice-cream sounds better
Chat, chat, online TV
Sis is home
Chat, chat, chat... chat... chat...
Sleepy, very, sleepy
Snuggle with MacBook, chat, chat, chat
Battery, 24%, ...18%, ...11%, 6%...
"You are now on reserve battery."
Time for bed, shut down
Splash of cold water. Freezing!
Brush teeth, brush, brush, mm minty
Snuggle snuggle, think, think...
Think, think, think, think, think....
Think, think...
Snuggle, snuggle, think... think...
Groggy, groggy... snooooooooze....
Snooooooze....
Knock, knock.

Changing my room into a bed and breakfast

So, I am at home in Poughkeepsie for spring break. Woooo... As much as I wish I were far away on a beach, sipping from a coconut, the fact is... I'm not. Nonetheless, I'm keeping busy with my next favorite thing to do: home modeling (second wooo...) Although not quite Extreme Makeover Home Edition, I do plan on making my home-away-from-home more comfortable, design-wise that is. My parents and I are going to eventually re-do the whole house. I think they plan on selling it... we'll see how that goes.

As for my room, it's been cleaned, scrubbed, and emptied of all paper recycling, plastic recycling, and trash. I wish I had a chance to take a "before" picture. But at least I remembered now! Courtesy of my mac laptop, here are some cleaned before pictures:
































































And now how I hope (i.e. dream fantasmically) my room will turn out in the end... I am going for a sort of comfy-Alice in Wonderland, bed and breakfast, cosy feel. A little Midsummer's Night Dream. Perhaps some Paris/Capri/Greece thrown in there, why not...






























































































































Keep you updated on the transformation!

No more black!!

I am determined to come out of my all-black winter wardrobe. I'm excited! And scared. This is a big step for me. I'm a black-clothing addict. Must. quit. (Big breaths in... count to ten slowly.... repeat mantra) Here goes! Yay spring freshness

The week before spring break

Doesn't look too good. I was sitting, clutching a cup of coffee, the other day. Thinking about how I used to love coffee. Coffee meant sitting, lounging around a cafe with a friend or two. Leisurely reading a book or magazine, while I listened to coffee shop music. Now, a cup of coffee means a long night ahead of work. I dread coffee. I have at least two or three cups a day. It made me so sad to realize this.

No more cherry blossoms
I overslept this morning and felt awful. I need to do homework, write an article for the Sun, cram for French midterm (tomorrow), and cram for Econ midterm (Thursday). It's the week before Spring Break and usually that would keep me motivated, but things just look pretty dismal. Spring Break used to mean seeing cherry blossoms in D.C., Long wood garden in Pennsylvania, warm weather, daffodils, swings at the park, doing nothing guilt-free. Now it means a ten-day period of boring nothingness, internship applications, studying for the second round of midterms, and feeling like a waste of life.

I dread the "where-are-you-going" question for Spring Break. Almost as much as I dread coffee. Aren't things looking a bit topsy-turvy lately?

Updates of la vie:

• Just got accepted into both of the study abroad programs I applied to. PARIS je t'aime!
• Crush party was a Speakeasy å la Gatsby theme.
• Model UN is starting to prepare for the high school conference we hold in early April.
• The Fashion show for the design league is at the same exact time. Fml?
• Where should I live next year? Still don't know.
• I'm running out of steam.

Thinking in Bullet-Points |

• Still cold here!
• Back-and-forth rivalry continues between both Palestinian and Israeli Student Groups on displayed protests on the Arts Quad.
• Reality check: I do not know how to time manage. My organizational skills are but an illusion.
• Ludacris performed on campus, yesterday.
• Forty-five new sisters were initiated into the sorority today.
• My article about Hipsters published in the Sun.
• I need to figure out a way to boost my G.P.A. PRONTO.
• Mind turned into mush.
• Spring Break looks pretty dismal.
• SPRING 09 LOOKS FABULOUS.