oh gaaawd.

omg. my pants are getting tight again.

damn it.

thanksgiving!

thanksgiving night was a fantastic night; everything about it. [although my significantly drunk and hungover friends might not altogether agree with that notion.] we had a gigantic meal comprised of an eight kilo turkey, honey-baked ham, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, corn casserole, carrot and celery sticks with dip, honeyed carrots, sage and onion stuffing, pigs in a blanket, and for the finishing touch, raspberry and apple crumble, all home made! yuuuum!

of course, the supply of alcohol was pretty incessant. we went through four bottles of vodka, twelve bottles of stella atois, beautiful cocktails called "constantine the great", shots of donovan's [bailey's rip-offs], one bottle of cabernet savignon, one bottle of chardonnay, and three bottles of limoncello. [courtesy of charlotte's mom] of course, this was between twelve people, so that isn't as bad as it sounds, but as i only had two glasses of wine and a cocktail, you can imagine how utterly hammered most of my friends were.

the things that you discover about people when playing "i have never..". haha! -shakes head in resignation-

here are a couple of photos from last night.

the legendary turkey, fresh out of the oven!

a really sweet, loving picture of sebbie and sookie.

the FOOOOOD.

a couple of the guys and girls in a group photo!

sookie, seb and i.

a great night spent with good friends does give people a general sense of well-being. :) still, i miss everyone at home sorely.. i really wish nemest was there to celebrate it with me; to meet my friends, to share in the joy. it's hard not to think of him during times like this, when i'm reflecting on a particularly good day/night and want to tell him about it but not knowing how. haha. and especially when i'm skyping with him and he's dancing to "earth, wind and fire". HAHA. my silly boyfriend. i love him so much.

i miss all of you, and i'll be back soon!

ciao!

nothing much to say.

ernest is nagging me to update, so i shall update.

reading week was last week, and it was pretty much the best week of my life so far here at uni. no tutorials and minimal lectures gives one time to catch up on his/her work [which i, admittedly, did very little of], go out and spend time with friends [which i, admittedly, did a little of] and generally slack off and sleep until three in the afternoon [which i, admittedly, did a LOT of].

don't look at me like that, i DID finish a 2,500 word essay. [albeit in 2,911 words]

matt's girlfriend, verity, came over to visit matt this weekend, and the envy nearly killed me. why doesn't ernest xue ren kai want to visit me...? :( such a nehneh. i miss him so much, and he doesn't even want to spend TWO DAYS [well, hee, and two thousand dollars] to come and pay me a short visit. haha. [i'm kidding, nemest.] but truly, it was fun hanging out with the flat again, going out to evil eye [now our usual haunt everytime we actually bother to go out] and teaching verity how to play mahjong and daidee. :P

we're celebrating thanksgiving this thursday! [even though, well, british people technically DON'T celebrate thanksgiving.] the only two yanks [although charlotte gets affronted when i call her that :P] in our flat are doing most of the organising and planning. hmmm. turkey stuffing and pumpkin pie. :) yummnm. how exciting! [gastronomically, of course. the commemorative significance kind of passes over my head :P]

anyway, i've got to finish reading my textbook before my next lesson in an hour so...

ciao!

photo updates: night out in town and guy fawkes.

these pictures are from a LOOONG time ago, but well, just thought i'd put it up to show you guys what nights out in york are like. usually we just catch a movie, but this was the first time we'd all gone out together to get a few drinks at a couple of different pubs. [although, well, i wasn't really drinking. :P] it was a good night: plenty of laughs, ribbing each other, and generally watching other people getting smashed.

us walking along the streets of york!

in orgasmic, second pub of the night.

sitting around the table in orgasmic.

craig falling off his chair and hitting his head. the poor guy was totally hammered. :(

craig!

the guys posing for a picture.

a group picture, kindly taken by i'm-not-sure-who. not everyone is in here at this point [where's liz and charly?] but oh well.

it really was a good night. everyday i thank God for my roommates.. they've made life here bearable. :)

ciao!

remember, remember, the fifth of november; the gunpowder treason and plot.

i see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

guy fawkes night at york was a pretty damned fantastic night, pretty much since i've never in my LIFE been able to set off fireworks. i launched into a little pyromaniacal phase-- all my flatmates seemed intensely tickled by the fact that i was laughing and clapping and jumping about whenever someone set off a new one. -_-" so anyway, i should have probably blogged about it a long time ago.. but i never really had the chance; i was sort of waiting for the photos from charly's camera because, honestly, one can't describe the elation one gets when you set fireworks off. :) it's brilliant, i tell you.

i only set off one or two roman candles that night, because we only had a couple of rockets, i think, and everyone was clamouring to set them off. but it was still fun. squatting in the grass holding huge matches to a fuse, and then watching the fuse light and RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE away from the explosives? best feeling ever. it's like a thrill to match no other. [again i display my pyromaniacal tendencies.]

another rather pyromaniacal character was andrew.. he truly went a little bit bonkers that night, and kept threatening to run TOWARDS the fireworks rather than AWAY from them everytime someone [or himself] set them off. haha.. he's such a hilarious character. charly got rather peeved after a while and just instructed everyone to restrain him and keep him away from the matches.

anyway, a picture says a thousand words [omg, the cliches], soooo here they are.

my flatmates and the usual usurpers of my kitchen in the hallway of our flat before we went off to set off the works.

the guys very graciously let the girls have the sparklers to play with [because well, there were only five.]

how bright the sparklers ACTUALLY are in the dark.

FIREWORKS!!!!

FIREWWWWWWOOOOORRRK!!!

the girls, posing for a little group picture. yes, i am THAT short.

the guys, posing for a group picture. [i don't know why there's this white sheen over it]

GROUP PICTUREEEEE! [from left: giulia, liz, meg, chaos, craig, andrew, matt, sookie, me, sebbie, charly and michael.]

they REALLY should allow fireworks in singapore.

ciaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaao!

update: after a LOOOOONG time.

hola! mi llamo jo, tengo diecinueve anos y vivo en york! soy de singapur, y soy estudiante! yo tengo una hermana, es mas pequena que yo, y dos hermano. tengo novio y [someday-to-be] marido, se llama ernest! mi padre y madre soy medico, y ellos viven en singapur!

well, that's about all the spanish i can say after two weeks. :( i am a gone-case.

anywayyyy! hello everybody, it's been a while, hasn't it? my life has been uneventful, or at least, relatively uneventful, and i was planning to wait until i got some pictures from my friends so i could make my life SEEM somewhat eventful and exciting but i decided that that was pretty pointless, since it's evident that my life is uneventful ANYWAY.

it's been four long weeks of proper schooling [woe betide whoever decides to go to university thinking that it's going to be a breeze compared to jc], getting into the swing of things [finally], using up all my foolscap paper, starting of tutorials and having reading lists piled onto you. i get the feeling i should be studying a lot harder than i am currently, but well, i figure i'll eventually get around to it when someone finally kicks me. [i'm only kidding, i do study hard. :P]

i've been called a LOT of things by my friends, or rather, FRIEND, recently: "uptight" is one.. "prude" is another.. and of course, who can forget the classic one.. "bitch." haha. i wonder how you're supposed to NOT take it offensively, but i know [or rather, i think] they, i mean HE, doesn't mean it offensively. well, if he does, -shrugs- what the hell, right? haha. i'm coming back soon, in any case. you guys love me, don't cha? haha.

well, if you don't.. it'd only be three more weeks before i head back here anyway. :P

i can't believe i'm making a joke out of my sad, sad life.

the weather's getting really crappy. one night, it went down to negative FOUR, and i don't have a warm enough jacket OR gloves so i was basically freezing to death. haha. i bought a nice warm scarf, though, and the nine pounds i spent on it was REALLY WORTH IT. the daylight hours are getting shorter and shorter, and it's beginning to turn dark at like five pm. :( that effectively means that i pretty much walk back from lectures on tuesdays, thursdays and fridays in the dark. it can get pretty creepy.

mostly i'm worrying if i'll step on duck poo without realising it.

sometimes i ring up seb and sookie to come pick me up and walk me back, and they ACTUALLY DO IT. such nice people. :) i think the constant darkness and the cold are getting to me.. i'm feeling slightly depressed and, occasionally, startlingly lonely. it doesn't really make sense because well, i'm surrounded by people almost all of the time, but yeah. sometimes you just need your family and your friends, and they aren't around, and that gets pretty tough.

i want to tell you guys more about the fifth of november and guy fawkes night, but i'll talk about it when i get pictures. :)

until then,

adios!