no more plain unleaded petrol from July..? as i was made aware of in high school chemistry class, ethanol biofuel comes from plants... ie. land is needed to grow them (habitat destruction). n their energy output is less than non-ethanol blends (though i don't know how much of an effect this really has).. hmmmm hopefully like cities, the plantations grow up, not out.

i love winter. thank goodness summer so far hasn't been hot *touch wood*!
anyway, loving these cozy-looking clothes ;)

long sleeve tailored cardigan in heather brown (graniph)

elbow patch long sleeve sweatshirt in heather grey (graniph)

boat neck border long sleeve tee in green (graniph)

thermal border rib long sleeve tee in burgundy (graniph)
check out the space for your thumb!

highland green leopard fleece botas (toms)

kino bag!

got this super cute and sturdy canvas tote from Kinokuniya today! it was $7 and they had a bigger one too with an illustration of a girl.



i love how kinokuniya looks at the moment, filled with wonderful illustrations by charles santoso (click here for a link to his blog post with photos). i wonder what they're gonna do with all the posters when they decide to change the decor... i so want one!

(anyway, i should have more posts here in a few weeks - still have to do a few more placements for uni. pray for good weather this weekend peoples T__T i have to drive 10 hours or so to an area that's currently flooding in various spots. fingers crossed it clears up enough by then..)

see you again in one hundred years ;)

source: Azranom

damn letter

serious faculty letter gave me a short heart attack. yes i do know that i won't get my degree by the end of this semester as i am only in my 3rd year. no need to send an official letter with the word 'NOT' typed in caps lock. i thought i wasn't going to get it at all! apparently two other people have also panicked and contacted the office. ok, back to work.

desperation

Q. describe the fungus appearance in histopathology.
A. hyphae, fungus (not yeast), fungal spores.

Q. how would you treat this infection? include both surgical & medical treatments
A. surgically debride the lesion & use an antifungal eg. itraconazole

*background story: an entire exam section on diagnosing skin diseases was based on infectious agents which were covered in the previous semester's lectures & involving unusual and rare diseases.
also, another section seemed like it just asked the same question four times in slightly different ways. who made this exam.

share a coke with...

felt brooches

made these needle & wet felted brooches recently as gifts.

this rose brooch idea was taken from the spotlight inspiration room website. basically twirl some wool fibres with whatever shades of colour you want into a small circle, and needle felt them onto a felt sheet (i used dark green). then cut around the needle-felted fibres to make a rose shape. do the same thing, but with green wool fibres and cut it into a leaf shape. sew the leaf & bloom together. sew beads onto the centre of the flower. and finally sew a brooch back / safety pin thing on the back.

this next one was taken from the felting for baby book by saori yamazaki (amazon, book depository)


this one is just a matter of needle-felting two balls, doing the same with the green leaf as the previous brooch (but this time i wrapped the green wool fibres all around the felt sheet, instead of just needle-felting it on to the front side). to attach the two balls together without seeing any stitches, i just ran a threaded needle (cream/pale colour) through both the balls' centres a few times, but making sure to make only a small distance between where the needle exits and re-enters the ball, so that i can just cover the thread that is visible on the surface with some wool fibres (just grab some surrounding fibres to cover the thread & needle felt to cover it). and then did the same thing to attach the leaf to the balls. and then sewed on a safety pin back (sew it higher than what's in the photo, or else the brooch will be too heavy & droop when it's worn).

i actually tried both a dry and wet felting method to make the second brooch. so i needle-felted the fibres into a ball, then i dipped/soaked the ball into some soapy water (a small container of warm water with a small drop of detergent - not too much or else it'll get really bubbly). then i transferred the soaked ball into a zip-lock bag (or just a plastic bag) and squished it a few times in the corner of the plastic bag so that the soapy water can get all the way to the centre of the ball (basically the soapy water acts like the needle to lock the wool fibres together). then i squished the ball in a towel/cloth to get excess water out.
i repeated this process a few times, adding new layers of roughly needle-felted wool on top if the ball wasn't big enough.

i thought this method would be as easy as what's shown in this blog, but no. you can't just magically shake a bunch of wool fibres in a container of soapy water and it somehow transforms into a neat ball.
but oh well, i ended up making the leaf the same way. the advantage of this versus just plain dry-needle-felting is the fibres/ball ends up much neater.

ok. back to studying. bye.

thank you dr qin.