Ubiquitous

I rarely write fashion posts for fear of sounding superficial or clich/e. But I recently came across Elie Saab’s Spring 08 Haute Couture collection in my RSS feed and it’s just absolutely gorgeous. Here are my few favourites.

Even the Elie Saab Ready-to-Wears stand out from the crowd.

Other than that, I really like Andrew GN.

Anyone else notice that the sunshine yellow is really popular this season? Favs from Derercuny.

Dolce and Gabana below. Hmm… looked nicer in the ads haha. And why is this Ready-to-Wear and not Haute Couture?!

Hmm… I just noticed that there is a very distinct style that I prefer in clothes. Let’s see if the trend continues. Versace.

Yea yea yea, I’m purposefully throwing in a lot of sunshine yellows to prove I’m right =D More Versace

And to finish it off with some of my favs from the Armani collection.

I love how they’re playing around with the idea of suits for femme, and adding a lot of glam to it.

Okay, enough runway shots… before I scare everyone away. Schoolwise, math HL and history mock exams were surprisingly… easy. Math especially, guess studying hard actually pays off. I think the class average will be 60-70%, and if I’m lucky I’ll slip by with an 80%. In my Math HL class, that means a 6 on the IB Scale and at least an A. Sometimes hard teachers come in use… because the rest of the class end up failing . I heard last year only two people out of thirty passed the mock in HL, and supposedly we’re the smartest kids in the school, HA!

French and English Mock tomorrow, Chem on Thursday, Physics on Friday.

Popularity: 25%

Isn’t it odd when an unusually large number of people have their birthday on the same day? Yesterday was my dad’s birthday (along with a handful of classmates’) and my family went to dine at the highest revolving restaurant in downtown Vancouver, called Cloud Nine. Fortunately, we had the first clear day in the past few weeks and got a gorgeous view of Downtown Vancouver, the English Bay, and North Van. It spins quite slowly so the visitors won’t get dizzy - about an hour to go around 360 degrees. I was laughing at my mum because halfway through dinner, she thought she left her purse on the window ledge (only the inner ring spins, the centre and the windows stay still) and nearly had a heart attack. It was under the table, thank goodness .

Later mother dearest was commenting how the view from our own house isn’t bad either.

Mum: YES! I measured the other day, we have a 220 degree view from our balcony!
Me: Mum, you geometry nerd! [she’s an architect LAWL]
Dad: Too bad it doesn’t revolve, maybe you can spin yourself…

My family amuses me. Next week, there are my six mock exams, and I have drawn up the schedules (which I’ll probably never follow but oh well!). Luckily - can one really call this *lucky* - we’re exempt from classes next week and get a note to go home tomorrow telling those IB Parents how their sons and/or daughters will be going through the first ring of hell before long.

IB Coordinator, this cool British Doctorate: You must take this note home to your parents. We don’t want you running around the corridors when you finish your mocks, because people tend to gather in the corridors while classes are still in session.
Me: ZOMG! HE SAYS “CORRIDOR” INSTEAD OF “HALLWAY” LIKE PEOPLE IN HARRY POTTER! *SQUEEE*
My friend: Uh… yes… Crystal…
Rest of class: *thinks* wtf is she on… *goes back to studying calculus*

Gotta love sudden outbursts!

Popularity: 25%

I’m happy to announce that I’ve finished the first book in my reading challenge - Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It coincidentally was the book from which the oral exam test passage came from, wow!

Title and Author: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Genre: Modernist fiction, historical

Unique features: stream-of-conscious narration, takes place in one day

Thoughts: I think Mrs. Dalloway is one of those books where we the readers either hate it or love it. Instead of a linear plot, it takes on the centre of consciousness of many of its over one hundred characters (though predominantly in the mind of Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh, Lucrezia Smith, and Septimus Warren Smith) where action is replaced by thoughts and memories and advancement in the storyline is replaced by the passage of time. The language is densely packed with sentences as long as a paragraph and peppered with commas, colons, dashes, parenthesis, and semi-colons to emulate the fragemented and wandering consciousness of each character, which, more often than not, inadvertedly cross with that of someone else.

The themes of death, passage of time, and the sense of empire are constantly mentioned throughout the book. Objects and people who symbolize the mighty power of the British Empire are dramatically juxtaposed with those who lost their jobs, self-worths, and, in the case of Septimus Warren Smith, their lives to the traditions of the empire and the values of the upper-middle aristocratic society. Empathy is essential for the understanding of this novel; otherwise readers will no doubt agree with critics on the “frivolous, useless” nature of Virginia Woolf’s writing. There are points in the book where I, with the combination of the effects of the content and language, experienced something like a near-epiphany on the subjects of human life and behaviour and other points where I was exasperated at the drawn out and repetitive nature of Mrs. Woolf’s writing.

Favourite passage:

[Clarissa] had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine, never anything more. But [Septimus] had flung it away… Death was an attempt to communicate, people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evade them; closeness drew apart; rapture fades; one was alone. There was an embrace in death.

Now reading: The Story Teller by Mario Vargas Llosa

As for the 28 Books in 2008 Challenge, we just hit 20 participants, get on the bandwagon folks!

Popularity: 11%