thank you to those who wrote kind comments in the previous post or sent me such lovely emails :) i really appreciate the time you guys took to comfort me or to leave me a little bit of your stories. the primary purpose of that post was closure, and i believe i’ve finally found that now within myself, with Martian, and with all else. and having achieved that, i want to close this chapter of my life. i thank all of you for your kind comments, but i really am so done with all this baggage. right now i just want to chase that bit of happy. happy that is found in things like:

#1 cupcakes! these are my favorite red velvet cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery in London, and they truly are the best cupcakes in the world. you think Magnolia is good? nothing in New York compares to this. absolutely nothing. these came with much love all the way from across the Atlantic, on an almost-missed flight, and really brightened up my week. i finished them all the first night they got here, and now i regret not making them last :(

#2 emily coming from the UK to stay, though i dont have any pictures of us :( actually, i barely saw her while she was here cos i was so busy with deadlines. wtf. she went out shopping one day and then couldnt come back into my dorm room cos i’d crashed after finishing all my work and didnt pick up her calls… so she had to go and stay with her other friend. yes i am the worst host in the history of the universe. /ashamed

#3 SPRING IS HERE. I LOVE THE WARMTH AND THE SUN.

it’s even warm enough to sit out in the grass now. i spent a delicious afternoon yesterday catnapping in the sun and getting a bit of color back into my pallid post-winter skin. it’s so good to be able to wear shorts again.

#4 Friday Me-Days. last friday was the first friday in the semester that i actually didnt have anything to do, papers to finish or people to meet. of the nine fridays this semester, i’ve spent three of those out of town, and the remaining six agonizing over work that just never seems to diminish… so it was absolutely lovely to have a nice spring friday all to myself to poke around the city. i used to have such frequent Friday Me-Days during my first few months in NY, but ah, how times have changed :) i have, quite tragically, become one of those college students obsessed with obtaining a 4.0. nevertheless i had the best friday i’ve had in a long time, exploring Hell’s Kitchen and having a quiet brunch by myself with a good book <3

at Good Enough To Eat, my favorite breakfast place near college!

Good Enough To Eat is really into cow motifs. the cuteness!

an anti-doormat at a card boutique in Hell’s Kitch

#5 The Strand, a huge secondhand bookstore in Union Square, and one of my favorite places in New York. i can spend hours in there just reading. spent half a day there last week reading a volume of Virginia Woolf’s letters, random cookbooks and travel stories, perched on a ladder in a quiet corner of the bookstore. the smell of crusty paper remained in my hair hours after i’d left. bliss.

#6 prawn mee. even if it’s americanized. it’s STILL PRAWN MEE.

#7 awesome things in the mail :) truly AWESOME things. i know i’ve been neglecting my What I Got In The Mail category… but one day very soon, i will put up all the pictures of the beautiful cards and gifts that you guys have sent me over the 8 months that i’ve been here. y’all have no idea how much i appreciate these things and the thought that comes with them. miraculously, i always find something in the mail whenever pangs of homesickness and sadness hit me hardest. sigh. and then i am happy again because i am reminded what’s most important. some sneak peeks:

yes i really did get this in the mail… haha.

#8 Food Expo. omg yesterday we had this Food Expo in our dining hall where random food n beverage companies set up stalls to give out free stuff during brunch hours. i wanted to kick myself SO HARD for having eaten breakfast and thus couldnt really eat much more. BUT THEN… i got a free sample bottle of what is now my new favorite tea — this brand of fruity tea called Guayaki. the passionfruit flavor is yums.

#9 umbrellas. when i first arrived in the city and was constantly getting rained on, carol sent me the cutest stripey umbrella in the mail. last week i took it out during a rainy night and accidentally left it at a bar :( went back the next day to get it but it was no longer there. sigh. as commemoration, here are some pictures of me, the lovely carol, and our umbrellas, meant to be put up a long time ago, from a day that carol and i traipsed down to Chinatown in search of bak kwa and hokkien mee:

#10 one of those days where everything is just perfect. oh and canceled meetings on sleepy afternoons :)