What's In My School Bag...

Red Longchamp Le Pliage in Large. Love this thing - it's so lightweight and goes with 82% of my outfits and is perfectly casual for school. Fits everything - it's the black hole! On top of all that above, I could fit a thick sweatshirt, umbrella, gloves, AND a pair of flats. Has been done before and it didn't look overstuffed! I literally dump everything in and out.. it has taken quite a beating.. but still looks new. Got it at Seoul's Lotte Duty Free for a good price. Also got the little black matching coin purse not shown.
. SFU clipboard folder with this week's readings and a bunch of lined paper. 2 Korean crayon-highlighters (so coool), 2 pens (I'm a pen girl)
. Pink planner from the dollar store in Korea.. a fill-in-the-date one. Has pictures of traveling (mainly Tokyo) inside that's why I like it.
. Pink Sushigirl keychain from my Auntie Sandy
. Pong Pong Happy Panda pass holder (I use it for my bus pass.. still has all Korea passes in it)
. The best bobby pins from Daiso (a Japanese dollar store)
. LG Shine Candybar cell w/ Tohoshinki 4th Live Tour 2009 charm
. Cenix S-300 8GB w/ Bose In-Ear headphones (really good headphones)
. Capitalism text (1 of 2) for contemporary capitalism course..
. Cheapie $10 F21 black patent zippered wallet with 15 cents (yes.. poor student) and stuffed with a lot of things... like even paint chips lol
. Neutrogena Lip Moisturizer (quite a good one compared to Blistex, Softlips, Nivea..)
. NARS Lip Gloss in Chihuahua
. phantom camera is there. yea. you just can't see it.
. oh and I ran out of the Wrigley's 5 gum in Cobalt.

Agnes B Cosmetic Case (from Japan):
. Crabtree & Evelyn Gardener's Hand Therapy Cream (mmm)
. Anna Sui lookalike comb
. this free pack of wipes for buying a 350ml milk carton @ a convenience store. So odd...
. Sparkly gold swirl compact
. Red knit coffee cup sleeve M got me for Xmas haha - for those coffee runs! Allows me to be somewhat eco-friendly + saves my poor fingers from the heat of my venti Tazo tea.
. Some Scotch tape (w/out dispenser)... you never know
. 2 gum/mints from Japan


I always find it interesting to browse sites like this and this to see what's inside other people's bags. I mainly look to see if there's anything nice in them, to make up imaginary thoughts about what sort of person I think they are (minimalist, book-lover, designer-obsessed, super girly girl, really social, trendy, an artist, environment-friendly, sale-lover, someone who likes to show off, teacher by day and something totally different at night..., makeup lover, cat-lover... etc.) though I know that it's not totally representative of them 'cause that's just their bag for that day. I don't carry makeup around to do touch-ups throughout the day during school, but that doesn't make me not a girly girl 'cause I know to a lot of ppl, I am the girliest girl they know. My school bag is practical... eh eh eh?
Anyway, the main thing I get from these sites is that I'm still lusting a black Balenciaga with gold hardware, a Prada calf-skin (my goal for Italy), and a Miu Miu bag... and that I love zippered wallets 'cause you can throw a bunch of things in without worrying it will fall out (like loose change and buttons)!.. and that I think it looks ridiculous carrying around full-sized bottles of perfume (though I guess the scent does change if you put it in another bottle..).



3 more days until the move! Grarararrar. Goodbye "Vancouver Special" Asian carpet! Goodbye hill! Goodbye sunlights and roof deck that provided us with the unique 360 view of the city, a cooler house during the summers (funny, we have like 5 fans in the basement storage of our new house 'cause we think it's going to be hotter w/out roofdeck), and non-mosquito-bitten sleepovers! Goodbye small kitchen! Goodbye cool marble on fireplace (nice to sit on in the summer)! Goodbye backyard where I held a few birthday parties, chased around my pet bunny, and buried all my hammies and Kimchi the bunny! Goodbye unfinished room! haha man I just realized my room has gone through quite a few transformations! I was 2 when we moved into this house. I remember I first had colourful alphabet wallpaper (with the letter Z, for example, and a picture of a Zebra next to it)... and then when my brother grew out of this small baby room, he took over my room and I got the room next to it which was my dad's office/weight room which I turned into a Mickey Mouse room! I wasn't all into Mickey.. I liked Winnie the Pooh more, but I remember picking wallpaper from Revy (yea, before Rona) or Home Depot and that was the only acceptable one.. and then after, my mom found a matching duvet in the exact same pattern! And I had a couple of Mickey tees and even Mickey short-alls! And then I had a yellow phase when I loved wearing a lot of yellow so I painted my room Winnie the Pooh yellow (again, unintentional - I didn't realize it was WtP yellow until my uncle pointed it out). It was bright and rich - but happy! I had a bit of a yellow and red theme going on. Didn't really plan the red theme (haha), but I happened to get this red framed mirror set from IKEA for a "pop" of colour, everything else happened to be red.  My mom got me red bed sheets and sewed a simple red cloth over my headboard. It wasn't until around four years ago that I grew to like more classic, traditional, and more mature decor. Nad came over and we spent the whole day (or was it 2?) painting my room an ivory-ish colour and I had tons of plans to make it the ultimate room for me with what I had and some DIY projects and some good, flea market finds. Unfortunately, I never got around to it because I had busy summers and traveled around and, well, those are just excuses. I never made the time to do it I guess.. and my room has been a huge mish-mashed mess ever since.
So after I graduate, I will have more time to focus on my so-called 4th attempt at decorating a room (so I hope)! Btw, I didn't realize how long I've been designing. I used to put "designing" as my hobbies back in high school haha. While I was cleaning, I found pictures of a bunch of modern penthouse layout plans and blueprint types that I printed out back in Gr. 8. I had "fixed" the plans to suit my wants and then traced the layout, organized where the furniture, plants, lights, and details would be.. and then I would draw 2D versions as of what that side of the room would look like if you were facing it. Not bad. Then I remember my favourite class ever: drafting and design in Gr 12! I think it was a tie between Mr. Bae's English class where he would spend every class practicing his lines on us (he was a comedian on the side and told really really good stories.. and believable scary stories, too!!). Anyway for drafting, besides a couple of mini projects in the beginning such as recreating objects using the CAD program in 3D and drafting.. using angles and such, I got to design my own house and create a blueprint on CAD. CAD was so cool 'cause you could build a scaled house blue-print style and you could choose from a ton of options - even the style of column you wanted! There was a function where you could make it 3D and actually "tour" what you built! That is my dream come true. I loved that class so much, I was sad whenever it ended because it was too short so I worked on it at home though it wasn't homework. haha it was like playing Sims - I always thought the best part of that game was designing the house and would spend hours and hours designing it, picking the colour hardwood on the floor by its durability, choosing the cabinets.. and then I would make my characters play on fast foward just so they could make enough money so I could afford another fireplace or a fancy bouquet in the foyer that the maid would water lol. My house for Drafting & Design turned out exactly as I had imagined it to - it had a raised kitchen, tons of recessed lighting, a round solarium/breakfast room, four grand french doors leading out to the meadow-like garden, ensuite bathrooms for every bedroom (it was a 2 floor, 4bdrm, 4 and a half bath house), a skylight for every bathroom on the 2nd floor, a walk-out half-circle patio from the 2nd floor, a super luxurious walk in closet for the master bedroom, and huge windows overall. I happily achieved my first (and only) perfect grade in a course.

So yea I wanted to become an architect for a few years there (but then I learned of how much math was involved....). I remember I even took an architecture class at Eric Hamber in the summer of Gr 7 or 8.. but I recall I wasn't too impressed because we had to make our structures out of ugly brown cardboard and then paint it using generic dollar store colours. I always took some summer class/course all throughout elementary school and maybe for first year of high school because my parents had to work during the day and I guess, at the same time, they thought my brother and I needed some stimulation/learning thing. They used to be fun things like pottery, sewing, painting, drawing, there was always a sports camp I loved.. used to take basketball camp up at SFU (that was kinda brutal - they had a lot of excellent players) and Science Alive at SFU and UBC for a few years.. and then my parents made me take classes like creative writing, speech-making... wow I guess I just realized how many classes I've taken.. and that was just for summer. Just in general, throughout my childhood, I did all the swimming levels, did synchronized swimming for a term (hated it so much but it helped me get super good at treading water w/out hands 'cause we had to do it for 8 min at the beginning of every class), joined Gators (a swim club) in high school that was outside of school, life guarding course, did figure skating for a number of years during the middle of elementary school for Canskate, Brownies and Girl Scouts for 3 or 4 years, rhythmic gymnastics for a year or two (they were short, seasonal terms.. we just tumbled, balanced on the beams with help, and jumped on trampolines and things.. I was quite young), baseball for quite a few years (I really enjoyed that), art classes in random years (indifferent), piano lessons (completed gr. 8), theory (completed Rudiments 2), Dr. Chin (I think that's his name...) math where we would practice math contests every Thursday (disliked this a LOT even though I did it with Nad and we wrote notes to our friend Cass pretty much all class.. at least that's all I could remember.. oh and notes to each other, too haha), I was in Brain Child for math until Gr. 3ish (zzzz the routine of going in with my plastic folder with star-patterns, I can still remember the smell of that place, doing that computer quiz that quizzed you on what you just learned the week before and singing along with the simple tune that played when you got the answer right, then completing the math questions (I was terrible at problem solving), going to the dudes who looked like they were in their early 20's in the front to have them mark it, and then working on my homework until my parents came to pick me up. I liked the prizes, though)... and oh yea, Chinese (Cantonese) school until Kindergarten when I told the teacher I wouldn't be going anymore 'cause I didn't enjoy it (though I did pretty OK at 95.4% - not bad for a preschooler who disliked it! I remember drinking grape juice during class, the distinct smell of a high school, and those red-and-black-striped pencils that had horrible erasers at the ends.. oh and my favourite character was "little" 'cause it was part of my Chinese name and "mouth" 'cause it looked like a mouth. I thought the character for "flower" looked pretty, too) and it's funny and interesting 'cause the characters I learned then are the characters I know now - the super super basic. Shows how much you retain when you're young! I guess my grandma showed me some more, after. When I would go to my g'rents house, she would take out allll her Chinese calligraphy brushes and paper and ink and stones and her and she would show me how to hold the brush properly and we'd do easy characters like for "hand" or "mountain" and then I'd repeat after her how to say it.

That's like, half my childhood story right there. Lessons, classes, courses. I'm glad I took them - I feel more... well-rounded if you will. I guess it was part of the process for finding things I liked and didn't like and what I excelled at. My brother got the better end of the deal, though. When I quit, he got to quit at the same time, too even though he's 3 years younger. See, I can't even remember if he went to Chinese school! And you'd think from all the lessons, I'd excel at drawing or math lol...


Gosh, I yap a lot when I'm tired but don't feel like going to bed, don't I? GOODNIGHT