heavy.

Today Was a Fairytale by Taylor Swift

she's an Angel

.

before i came to Des Moines, i was Extremely Excited because i can finally Meet my Brother again.

you Know i know That.

now, Two weeks is up and it is Time for me to Leave this place when i Finally began to get Comfortable and Familiar with the faces and the places here.

the People, whom i grew Closer to as Time passes by. those who were so Friendly that made me feel Belonged. i Thank those, whose Hearts were so Kind, Loving and Caring.

you Know that i Feel so Incredibly Nostalgic as time for me to Leave drew Closer Gradually.

during the Sacred Giving and Sacred Receiving Ceremony, emotions ran Wild, self Control almost Gave in. Though, numbers were Less Important.

the feeling of leaving to the US is Back all over Again, which Ironically, True.

Heavy Hearted.

Significance of Absence Prevailed.

Yours truly,

Evelyn

drop dead.

Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO

Time check: 6.56am

Location check: Drake University dorm front desk

Role check: good sister accompanying brother

Self check: Not very tired

Duration check: Work time 4 hours
Duration due: 7am

.

Outside is cold.

Current temperature: -13 Celsius

Walking around the neighborhood felt like my brother and I were the last men standing.

Felt like a zombie apocalypse has strike. All dead silent.

Snow and frost remained on the ground. All was peaceful and calm.

Not a sound of a bird, nor cricket. Just, the heavy footsteps that echo in the ears.

I have seen it.

The soft and fluffy snow that makes up of millions of delicate and detailed snow flakes.

Intriguing it is.

I want more.

Here it is again :)

Lee Pei Ning

bruised-

Dota Theme Songs

Oh no, I don't play Dota. This time, I have no choice but to get stuck in between people who do, people like my brother and his friends.

Right now, we are just waiting for Cheng Kang to get off work so that he can treat us to some nice Froyo and off we go to dinner before going to play basketball.

For some of you who don't already know, I am now in Des Moines at my brother's place for the winter break

.

13th Jan, 2012

a week ago,

Approximately 11.50am...

I stepped down the Greyhound bus as I arrived at the bus station at downtown Des Moines. Spent the last few days in Chicago, IL touring around that windy city. Oh I can tell you the experience was so diverse and intriguing, frustrating at the same time. Updates coming your way as soon as I get hold of the pictures that I have taken.

I was literally exhausted after the last few rather hectic days in Minneapolis, extreme foot walking around downtown Chicago for five consecutive days and dreadfully long bus rides before arriving at this so called cornfield city :D

Thinking that I would be able to drop dead on the bed and rest for the night and the rest of the day of next, I was wrong. I was driven out to Walmart with the guys to get groceries and then back to brother's second home to hang out with the guys. No doubt that they are really fun to hang out with after a week chillin' with them doing things, but I was desperate for some adequate rest.

That was not all. Despite going to bed at about 3.30am, I had to wake up early in the morning because we were all heading out to Seven Oaks near Ames to ski! Rather thrilled with that idea but still doubting my body's capacity for energy drainage.

Skiing seems like a three year once thing to me. So periodical. The first time I was introduced to this sport was when I was in a tour in Korea. Second was when I was in Japan, with my host family and those four young girls. Now, the third, was with my brother and his friends.

They were rather fascinated about the zig zag ski pattern and were trying to master it. Well, I was just testing the waters again after so long and my first slide down the steep slope was definitely exhilarating. Oh the adrenaline rush was incredible! After a while, I was just sliding down the slope without wanting to try otherwise, afraid that I might be injured.

Seeing some small kids being able to do so much better than I, gave me the motivation to want to try the zig zag pattern. After the first try, I was starting to get it and was ecstatic!
As night falls, I decided to do ski one last time before switching to learning snowboarding. While I was sliding down the hill... *WHAM* I fell so hard my chest hurt like crazy. For a moment, I felt like I tergegar my brain and was too dizzy to do anything. All I did was kneeling down on the snow blanket and stare at the ground. I was crouching like a statue for almost a minute with my fist, pressed firm against my chest as if to stop the agony.
From a distance, I heard someone calling out to me, those going up the cable, "Hey miss, you alright?"
"Yeah I am. No worries."
"You sure? You don't look fine."
"Yes I am fine. I'm fine."
When I finally looked up, I saw all my ski equipments scattered all over the place. Tried to recall the fall but all I could remember was me falling facedown and the impact was great.
As I am typing this, my chest still hurts like a bitch when I press slightly hard on it. Still does when I sneeze. Bad. Bad
,

Snowboarding was yet another short episode of this outing. Was hard.
Started at bunny hill and after twice sliding down halfway the slope, I went on to the steep hills.
I guess I could slowly slide down by doing it horizontally, but I certainly do not know how to control the direction I am heading to. Kept on falling down it pisses me off. Sore butt after the whole thing and especially my left wrist, which I kept on using to support my body weight when I fall.
Overall was fun. Enjoyed it. The next time I go I will do snowboarding.
Did I mention?
Girls who snowboard are smokin' hot! Oh nooo... Too sexy :P
.

The next three days was hurting all over. No doubt. Yet, no regrets *:)

great success comes with great determination


EvelynLee

insecurity.

You and I by IU

3am. I was walking in the snow with a companion back from Drake University campus.

The occasional wind drove chill, fast as lightning up my spine. I was only dressed in my laced strap, covered by my thin fuchsia pink Nike jacket. The ground was already covered completely by a rather thick layer of even snow. So fluffy as I stepped on it.

That feeling when your conscience is constantly banging at the back of your mind when you are consciously destroying something exquisite and flawless. That was it every time i lay a step on the ground. Whoever feel sad and sorry when stepping on the ground? That was me, yesterday.

Turned around, two sets of footsteps trailed behind. It was just like footsteps in the sand, except this time it was snow instead. We started fooling around, creating funny patterns on the ground despite feeling excruciatingly cold. Walked in circles, thinking that people who will see our footprints in the future will think that we were lost souls. Acted like fools, thinking that the university police will wonder what we were up to at 3 in the morning.

Most of all, there was the feeling of insecurity. It was that if there was anybody with evil intentions out there, our tracks can be easily traced and the bad guy will know where we were heading to. He will follow our tracks and back to our home and...

Well, it was just a thought, but not something to take for granted. I still think untouched snow is dangerous as such.

(picture credit: loveforliana.com)

Pei Ning

kill joy;

Sunday Morning by Maroon 5

12th Jan, 2012

Today was hell.
Started out with some pretty damn good typical American breakfast and some snow flakes floating down from the clear sky above. Despite the colder temperature, I really thought it was going to be another awesome day. Guess I was wrong.
Before we headed out, Kate was complaining about her tummy feeling weird and till now, we still have no idea what happened. Food poisoning? Indigestion? Remain unknown.
Fifteen minutes into walking towards Millenium Park which was about 30 minutes away without snow, 40 minutes away with snow as obstacles, my boots were soaked with water. Feet became rather cold and started numbing after a while. Not fun. Millenium Park feels so far suddenly as the snow fall became heavier as the minute ticked past. After a while, it feels like the snow was just attacking us! It was a snow storm damn it! A snow storm! Too late to turn back or take the bus because we were there already at Millenium Park. Could barely see the Chicago reflective bean with all the snow falls. Even opening the eye through all the snow and strong wind was so tough and what more taking pictures. Managed to snap a few shots and time to keep the camera back into the bag. Pretty numb hands too!
The snow gotten even heavier by the time we left Millenium Park, heading towards Field Museum of Natural History which was another half an hour away. I tell you, that was one hell of an experience despite the freezing toes and strong wind. Route was pretty straight forward but still was holding the map to navigate a little just in case we took the wrong route and lead to a longer walk than necessary in the cold. Was pretty funny because it reminded me of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" where the father was struggling to make it past the hurricane to get to his son. Was rather cool.
When we finally saw the museum, barely visible despite being rather close, we rejoiced! Again, it was like seeing food for the first time in many days for a starving person. Imagine how warm and cozy it would be in the museum!
Coming back out to the cold to head back was tormenting. We took the bus back, stopped by a restaurant that we found the food delicious, Portillo's Hot Dogs and Barnelli's Pasta Bowl for dinner. Bed never felt as comfortable ever. Took some effort to dry my shoes then lights off.

13th Jan, 2012

Morning!
Again, delicious finger-licking good American Breakfast with authentic hash browns, egg, sausage patty and toasts. Walked down to Navy Pier felt like forever. Again, boots got wet. Nothing much till we dropped by The Cheesecake Factory. YUM!!!
Ate the first quarter of it and packed it away due to time constrain. Gobbled up the rest of it while waiting for the bus to Des Moine at the Greyhound Station :P

Des Moine here I come!
Brother Lee!! :)

Pei Ning

two weeks;-

Everybody Knows by John Legend

Two weeks into a brand new year. Have you been keeping up with your resolutions?

Two weeks into a brand new year. Have you had any impressive breakthroughs yet?

Two weeks into a brand new year. Have you experienced any extraordinary events yet?

Two weeks into a brand new year. Have you changed into a better person than before?

Two weeks into a brand new year. Have you loved more?

.

I know that some of you may have already started a new school year or even a new semester. If you haven't, I believe you will soon enough. Mine will start in two weeks time, that leaves me another half a month. This winter break as some of you may have already know through my previous posts, that I have flown from Plattsburgh to the midwest, Minneapolis, Minnesota to visit my friend. For that, I get people asking me why.

"Why Minnesota? Seriously? Don't you know that it is much colder over there?"

Also, I get people giving me funny comments.

"Minnesota? A lot of Vikings there." (you'll understand if you watch American football frequently)

"Oh Minnesota. Mall of America!"

Well, my reply would be that the residence hall closes so I had to go somewhere and I am taking this opportunity to travel around the US and am starting with somewhere I have place to bunk in.

Two weeks after, I decided to explore more of the Midwest by taking the Greyhound bus down to Chicago.

I would say this trip was a very well planned one as we carefully scanned through all the potential touristic spots and slowly prioritize on those which we can nicely fit into our itinerary. Of course, we did not forget about checking the weather forecast and decided to arrange for more indoor activities like visiting the museum for colder days.

As of the end of my Chicago trip tomorrow, I will be heading down to Des Moine, Iowa to where my brother is, approximately 7 hours bus ride from Chicago. It is a small town as well, but I guess it is spending more quality time with the brother and his friends while we do fun and silly things together. Time will eventually be well spent over there perhaps

.

Two weeks into a brand new year. It is all going great except for a few blue moments, which I think only takes up a small percentage of my overall happy moments :)

What about you?

xoxo

Evelyn

ms. inappropriate;

Don't Wanna Go Home by Jason Derulo

11th Jan, 2012

Today was by far one of my favorite day in Chicago, IL.

Day started off with one of the most famous hot dogs in Chicago at Portillo's Hot Dogs. Proceeded to John Hancock's Observatory at noon after lunch. Spend a whole two hours at the observatory due to the captivating view of Lake Michigan and the paranomic view of the entire city of Chicago. Fell so deeply in love with the view of Navy Pier from up there as well as the beaches. View of the skyscrapers are equally unique as well and that was what makes the observatory so worth the visit!

After that, we made our way to the neighborhood around Gold Coast area. Oh how exquisite were the houses built in the 19th century. This is the site of Chicago's richest and ritziest neighborhood as the houses are expensive and exclusive. We strolled down a few streets of these houses and even saw the mansion that used to house Hugh Hefner and his bunnies in silk pyjamas gowns, the Playboy Mansion.

Lincoln Park was next. Saw Abraham Lincoln's statue :)

North Avenue Beach was more satisfying than I thought it would be. Great scenery! The sand was so soft it reminds me a lot of the sandy beaches in Sabah, Malaysia. Strolled along there while waiting for the sun to set. Finally came to this perfect location along Lakeshore Dr. where we can view the city and the lake. That was definitely the flawless spot to camp out.

So we sat there, an hour before the sun set, eating my biscuit, drinking sweet tea I bought from Walgreens, browsing pictures taken, taking pictures, camwhoring as well as chit-chatting. Soon, it was becoming colder and I started shivering. My fingers were so frozen they started to hurt. Then, I decided that I have to move to get the blood flowing so I started running on the same spot, dancing, exercising and did all sorts of weird body movements. After quite some time, Amanda was starting to feel cold as well and decided to join me. That was when I came out with the idea of playing music over my phone.

You know we know that we are people who adore dancing and wouldn't mind doing it anywhere even in public. Seems like we have fulfilled one of Imani's most important New Year's Resolution: to be able to do silly things in public because in the end, nobody will care. We were actually dancing our shoes off in the public, couldn't care less about passersby. True enough, none of them actually took time off to stare at us any longer as they all hustled or jogged by quickly.

Today was also one of my worst nightmares. Hahahaha. Half way through waiting for the sunset, I felt the need to go to the restroom yet there is none at where we were. We had to take at least a mile walk down the long esplanade before I can find one. The sunset was one heck of a delay. It was torturous till the extent of hurting. I felt the immense pressure building up inside and I felt like I was going to explode anytime. What a great relief when I finally went for it. All weak after that (exaggeration) :D

Walked to the Water Tower Place and dined in the food court over there. Well, is it just me or the food court there doesn't even feel like a food court? It was so beautiful and had such formal setting and even great service. It was a people-serve and self-service thing yet they charged 7.5% service charge for our bill. It was rather ridiculous to be honest but brilliant business technique. Had a bowl of Classic Fried Rice from Big Bowl and a bottomless Soup Bowl :) Yum!

Dropped by a few stores and Four Seasons Hotel on the way back. Somehow nice hotels in Chicago is nothing like those in Malaysia where they have beautiful and big lobby to welcome visitors, whoever. Not fun. Went to Hard Rock Hotel as well and it was the same. Small lobby consist of the reception counter and the elevator to take residents up to their hotel rooms. That was it. Not cool.

Today was great overall. Took a lot of pictures and enjoyed the places and amazing scenery I saw. Can't wait to go to Millenium Park and the Field Museum of Natural History tomorrow. Not to leave out the delights of cheesecake from The CheeseCake Factory :D

Toodleloo~

PeiNing

panic-,

Mendelssohn piano Concerto No. 1 by Yuja Wang

I believe this year is going to be interesting.
Started out great, then few days into a new year, I got locked out of the apartment room. Great eh?
It started with Amanda's apartment having no wifi at all so I had to go down to the lobby to have internet connection. At first, she came down with me with the reason of her liking the environment there. After approximately an hour, she left me and went back up. I was so engrossed with browsing the internet especially listening to songs on YouTube that I totally lost track of time. When I checked the time at my watch, it was showing 3.00am (New York time), which means 2am already! I panicked! Oh you don't know how badly I panicked.
I turned off everything at such great speed and flew back to the room just to find it locked. I braced myself and knocked on it a few times, harder as I went. Besides the sounds of my heartbeat thundering against my ribs, all that was there was the faint sounds of the vent coming from inside of the apartment room and the echoes of the roaring sounds of my knocking.
I was seriously petrified. I was afraid that someone might hear my knocking and gets irritated by it and file a complain that might get Amanda into trouble. I was fearful about the unfriendly, forever scowling security guard who makes his rounds and happen to bump into me, an unauthorized resident making noise at such hour. I was terrified that I might get Amanda into trouble in whatever ways that resulted from me being locked out. At the rate of my knocking goes and the outcome of it, I was completely apprehensive about me being able to get in and sleep on the bed that night.
I went back down and tried using Gmail to call Amanda's phone but it kept on diverting into voice mail. That pissed me off a lot because that was the only other way to get in besides knocking, which was not a very wise move. I then logged on to Facebook to see if Derrick was on so that he can try too but he wasn't. Mitchell was though. Totally dragged Mitchell into the water asking him to call Derrick.
Jimmy was being nice though. Talked to me and understood my situation, offered me to stay over at his place and even offered to come get me. Well, wasn't quite a big fan of doing that actually. Decided to give another try, hoping that it will not yield the same result.
Again, I prepared myself to another failure. Took a deep breath, held it in for a while and exhaled heavily. There goes. I knocked as loudly as I could, feeling my knuckles hurt so incredibly from the immense impact against that wooden door. After a while, I heard responses coming from the inside. My heart skipped a beat. I continued knocking just to make sure I was not imagining anything.
Oh how relieved I was when I heard "What's going on?" a rather sleepy voice. I literally smiled to myself. At the back of my head, I was screaming with joy!

So apparently, Amanda left the door open for me but somehow it mysteriously closed.
The whole experience was rather traumatizing for me. It was tragic.
Here I am sitting at the same place and the creepy security guard just past me o.O

*jeng jeng jeng*

LeePeiNing

peeps *:)

Heartstring by Clara C

Hola!

Currently having my mood lifted up by listening to a whole playlist by Clara C.

Suddenly have this bad craving of star gazing. I just want to lie down on a fleece blanket laid over the soft grass in your arms under the beautiful moonlight while we admire the milky way. I want a getaway with no other, just hope that you will hold me the entire night.

We Could Happen by AJ Rafael

New Year started with waking up earlier than my usual wake up time. Went over to a2f pastor's house to make dumplings. It was really fun when you make dumplings with so many other unexperienced people as there was no one to judge our skills. We got to be creative with the square and round dumpling skins and everyone had a blast. Eating the self-made dumplings was a blast and was never as satisfying. We had a choice of fried and boiled dumplings. Well, personal preference, boiled dumplings were better tasting and healthier :)

Good Day by IU

Am pretty aimless now. Emotions rather disturbed as of the something that i went to just now. People there somehow made me feel a little uncomfortable. Well, just glad that it is over as of now.

Offbeat by Clara C

Just found out how useful YouTube playlist is, now that I can't download songs as i like. Well, just arranging and creating my playlist right now since I just learned how to use it. Kinda late and slow isn't it? Well, nothing's too late.

Really scraps of thoughts that I have right now. A great post to the start off the year eh?

As the cold is intensifying,

Till more inspiration comes,

Evelyn