The World is Ending

Okay, the world actually isn't ending until 2012 or whatever. But my nice, happy, homework-free world ends tomorrow because I'm back to school. I haven't really done anything recently except sit around on my butt and sort through the stupid 13-18 second clips I took at the aquarium. That's a long video to edit, so it'll be up when I'm done with it.

Last night was the Halloween party which was pretty fun overall considering there was exactly one teenager there, yours truly. Here's me in my costume, I pretty much took a dress I've worn to many events, a belt, socks, high-heels I wear all the time, and false eyelashes to create the look. (No shoes in the picture)

I was entered into the "Best Dressed" contest in the adult category (One of five) and took second place! It really broke down into commercially purchased costumes, creativity (me) and epic face paint (Dracula, who won). What was really lovely is I got $150 in food vouchers, and they work at Cold Stone Creamery! Needless to say, we went there today and I had strawberry with M&Ms and gummi bears.
I'll keep working on the video. In the mean time, I'm going to go make instant noodles <3

Sentosa!

Today was, surprise, another busy day. Because I'm a teenager there was no physical way for it to start before 12 noon. We took a taxi to the cable car stop and rode in a beautiful cable car to Sentosa, which is basically Singapore's playground. It has Universal Studios (which we didn't go to), museums, aquariums, a casino, hotels... anything you can think of, it has. My parents and I are super cool and ended up spending most of the day in an aquarium. There were lots of really interesting fish and massive stingrays- the video I intend to post tomorrow will show all of that. I was surprised by how interactive the aquarium was- you could touch fish in certain areas, feed rays and even feed sharks. We also attended a dolphin/sea lion show but naturally it got rained to an early finish. Anyone else noticing a pattern of, "we got there, it rained"?
Afterwards we wandered around towards the massive Merlion of Sentosa, which is like 30 something meters tall. Lots of the island was decked out for Halloween (including the inside of the Merlion) so we couldn't go inside without paying extra. Halloween on Sentosa is just more gory than in the US. I think the US relies more on surprise scaring people as well as some gore, but based on the posters all around Sentosa, gore is pretty normal here- I mean twin "schoolgirls" that were clearly dead with an eye missing and... I'll stop. It was pretty nasty. Perhaps I have a low tolerance for that sort of thing- but if I was a mother of a small child, I'd have my hand over my child's eyes!
We ended up at this shopping mall on the mainland to eat dinner, I forget what it's called but it was spectacular. The mall was, at least. In terms of food, I've had better spaghetti and meatballs. Those meatballs tasted sort of... deep fried? Whatever. It was a really fun day. Tomorrow is a Halloween party in our apartment building, I'm still trying to throw my "haunted doll" costume together. There will be pictures!

Okay, so I realize that it's Friday, which means yes I stayed up and waited for my video to upload. I figure since I don't have school, I'm good to go. If anyone wants to comment on this post, (if you can figure out how to) tell me if you think vlogging is cool or weird! I like writing blog posts, but I'm going to be trying to add more media to the blog. So, maybe make some sort of photo-sharing account on some website and put links to albums here? I'll figure it out when I sort through bird pictures.

So I clearly need to sleep. Enjoy the video :)

Chinatown and Birds

I've had a busy past two days over my fall break! Yes, fall break. It's from Diwali, which was yesterday, until Sunday. Then I have another day off soon-ish, though I can't remember exactly when. Yesterday we went to Chinatown, in the shopping areas. Except in China, I have never seen as many stalls of vendors selling PJ's, clothes, traditional clothes, baby stuff, cosmetics, perfume... you name it, it was there. I'm working on a video I will hopefully put up tonight if all goes well. Video editing is a slow process, and I do apologize for not putting a video up lately. We had a lot of fun looking around and I actually bought a traditional Chinese dress that I'm pretty happy about. Lunch/dinner was pretty nice too, we went to a Szechuan restaurant that was pretty spicy! The fatty pork was amazing, and all you Americans wrinkling your noses clearly need to go try it. 

Today it poured off and on all day, and we went to the bird park. It was amazing. There was every kind of bird you could think of and them some birds you've never dreamed of. There was a really cool African themed section with the largest man-made waterfall in the world. In addition, there was a Lorry-bird area in which the birds were pretty much hopping around and interacting with the visitors- you could pay  for a cup of nectar to feed them. Actually, you could just look interesting as well and the birds would fly over and land on you. Apparently my whole family was interesting-looking enough because at some point or another we all had a bird on our shoulder, playing with our hair/collars. My dad got some good photos of me, and I got some photos of my mother. I look very... flustered. I took about 200 photos there but I still have to sort through them before I post. Maybe tomorrow, if I'm not too tired from Sentosa. 

Time to go video edit/photo sort. Hopefully this isn't my only post for today, if it is, then the video will be tomorrow. 

Subway is Good

As I sit here eating my 6-inch turkey and ham sub that is nice and warm, I started going on the computer. Since I don't have any homework because of Diwali, I thought I was going to go on YouTube and waste time. Then I pulled up Google News by accident. There were over 200 new stories from the past week, some celeb news that no one actually cares about, and some big occurrences being covered that I hadn't been paying attention too. Libya is still big in the news about the rebellions, Turkey had a terrible earthquake, the US ambassador from Syria was pulled out. For some reason, just seeing the sheer number of stories that I haven't read made me realise that in terms of knowing what is going on around me, I know nothing. I've been focused so much on getting good grades that I haven't kept up with the world like so many other people, and I think that's sad.

On another topic fall break starts this afternoon. Which means 5 days of no homework and going to different museums and attractions of Singapore to get to know the area better. I can't wait. School is great and everything but sometimes we all just need a break, especially my dad who's always working. Sentosa, here I come!

The Leaves Are Still Green

I am really missing autumn this evening, and I think it's because I was just drinking some Swiss-Miss that my mom picked up at the store. There's something about burning your tongue that just transports you back to jumping in leaf-piles, getting snow all over the red kitchen floor, and getting stuck in snow pants. However, I'm here in Singapore where the leaves are still green even though it's technically the rainy season which is the equivalent to "winter". There was also a lizard in the kitchen yesterday and I'll post the video to that soon. Apparently that's a common occurrence! Well, back to History of China homework.... fun fun fun.

LET'S GO EAGLES

The easy way to explain yesterday and what today will probably be is simply, awesome. I was let out of every class yesterday for at least half an hour (math was out completely) to watch soccer and volleyball. The schools involved are SAS, ISM, TAS, ISB, ISKL, and JIS (Manila, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta). Essentially I've done nothing productive in the past couple of days and have actually gotten to bed at reasonable times lately. I have dance on Saturday, which is basically because we need more practice for this one dance that looks a bit like an explosion, but it will  get better soon hopefully. Can't wait to go watch soccer!