lemonbarleystrawberry

just like cupcakes and fruit tarts.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

le petite this time round was not as good as i remember, but i was too hungry to care. and i needed all the energy i could conserve.

which also explains why i sat down whenever and wherever i could.

before embarking on our ambitious attempt this bleeding hot saturday afternoon.

the crystal-like, peaceful, beautiful reservoir was misleading.

and so were the relaxing monkeys.

because the roads were treacherous and endlessssssssss.

but then we were hot-blooded youths with too much energy to spend.

ok lah.

we are OBVIOUSLY not.

freaking tired, can?

might as well be our death march.

but then again…

the signs have spoken.

and another good motivation came as a scary thought – getting lost and dying in the wild, with our rotting bodies being thrown in forgotten wells by the monsters at night.

and so after two hours and a thousand miles…

hereeeeee we were!!!

our destination.

worth it?

if we could see further and see more of the reservoir, perhaps.

and so we lugged back to civilisation, worn and thirsty, hot and bothered.

but somehow very, very proud of ourselves for having met our exercise quota for the YEAR in just under four hours, hahaha.

and chilling at our new favourite hangout place, with a big glass of refreshing lychee tea was so heavenly all fatigue was gone.

we should do this more often!!!

ok maybe not.

HAHAHAHA.

our very own princess D deserves a special birthday surprise.

birthdays are fun.

i will say that while i still can afford to, that is.

not our most glamorous moments but who cares…

YOUTH TRIUMPHS ALL!!!!!

been SOOOOO long since i last wrote a book review. i feel my blog becoming dry, bimbotic and frivolous without these nourishing posts, hahaha.

today, i want to recommend two books i read some time ago.

the first is called incredibly close, extremely loud by johnathan safran foer.

it’s a book i cant help but rave about every time my friends ask me for books recommendation.

i was on a random dinner date with may when we started talking about i dont know, tragedies or something, and she told me this story. it was so good i immediately went to get one copy after the dinner and started reading on the bus trip home.

to my relief and delight, the book is as good as may had made it out to be, or even BETTER.

if you like quotable, emotional, melancholic books like me, you will like incredibly close, extremely loud.

practically every paragraph has something quote-worthy, and they are not the cheesy kind which are so kitsch (a new word i learnt from another book i’m going to recommend) in tearjerker novels.

to put it in a nutshell, the story is about nine-year-old oskar schell trying to cope with losing his father in 9/11. oskar is intellectual, earnest, curious and more often than not, reminds me of autistic christopher in the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, another of my favourites.

the story mainly hinges on oskar’s search around new york for the meaning of a strange key he found inside a blue vase in his father’s closet. somehow, he thought it had a hidden message from his father which could help him understand the whole tragedy. somehow, i thought so too.

on the other hand, the subplot is just as riveting, involving oskar’s paternal grandparents who told the story of their childhood, courtship, marriage, and separation before the birth of Oskar’s father. it is a very sad reflection of the struggles in a relationship burdened by guilt, grief, unrequited love and shared haunting memories.

i love the book so much i read it all over again the moment i finished it the first time round.

and of course, just like every other book that i have picked up, this one has been turned into a movie too, coming out next thursday.

though i doubt it will be any better than the book, may and i have arranged to catch it together, excited much!!!

next, the book that i’ve just finished reading is called the unbearable lightness of being, written by milan kundera and originally published very long ago in czech.

it is a largely philosophical novel, revolving around the lives of a womanizer surgeon and his rather emotionally estranged wife, their dog, the surgeon’s mistress and her lover in the erm…prague spring of the czechoslovak communist period in 1968 (what a mouthful).

to be very honest, i dont know if i’ve fully understood the overall picture of what this novel is about. i do appreciate the plot, the development of the characters, the nuances, the historical background and the theme of the individual chapters even.

but then when it comes to the bigger picture, the metaphysical theory and its interpretation that the book is trying to convey, the concepts and hidden messages…i feel rather confused.

i like many ideas raised, like how life is a result of decisions, coincidences and misunderstandings. and since we only have one life to live, with nothing else to compare the consequences of actions and decisions with; making choices, no matter how difficult and onerous, actually does not have much weight in the bigger picture. and it’s this very paradox that causes the unbearable lightness of being (woot, that is the title!).

confusing? hahaha…

it’s like looking at a world renounced art piece, impressed by its colours, the strokes applied, the subject and its interaction with its surroundings but not being able to tell what exactly the artist is trying to say.

it’s very frustrating that as much as i’ve enjoyed the little details of the book, i’ve failed to admire the overall picture that the individual pieces have come together to form. and most of all, it’s disappointing to not be able to understand and appreciate the profoundness of such a good book.

the other only thing i like about this book is when i chanced upon this article somewhere (newspaper or time magazine, i think) which says that our soul actually has a weight. it’s incredibly little, at only 21.3 grams.

it’s a conclusion from a very old experiment where it was observed that a consistent amount of 21.3 grams was lost in dying patients who were weighed before their death, and just after.

of course if you want to be really strict and technical, you can see there were many flaws in the experiment, which you can read more about online, but i just like the idea.

if our being should be incredibly light, our soul free and pure, there shouldnt be any weight to it, for weight is too hmm…mortal a concept, no?

but still…i cant really explain my fascination with the idea. i just like knowing that our soul weighs 21.3 grams, hahaha. and since i found out this cute little nugget of trivial when i was reading this book (about lightness and weight and all those philosophy about life and being), my interest for the story was intensified.

that’s all.

thank you for your attention if you have actually finished reading this whole 1000-word post about the two books i have read recently, hahaha.

and i hope you like them too, if you happen to read them some time!

if like me, you suck at jump shots, picnics are good occasions to practise.

ready?

set.

JUMPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and when you manage to land on both feet, laugh out loud and do it all over AGAIN!!!

sketchbooks and colour pencils can be your best friends during a picnic.

because looking at all the colours make you even happier during the already happy picnic.

and drawing and colouring makes you look artistic, hahaha.

this is a cardboard airplane you can build during a picnic.

you slowly put the pieces together.

you look happy with your new airplane.

and you use the green, soft grass as the runway for your cardboard airplane to taxi and take off into the blue, blue sky.

my little cardboard airplane flew away so fast i couldnt take a photo of it before it disappeared into the clouds.