Overwhelmed

It's so ironic to come home from helping a counseling client through her family issues and feel like my family doesn't even exist. These few weeks have been extremely stressful and I don't remember feeling this stressed before in my life actually. Well, I had prepped myself when I decided to take on a full-time study load while working full-time but I didn't expect it to be this tiring. Almost every single weekday is the same old exhausting routine- waking up at 6.30am, going to work, knocking off at 3.30pm, rushing down for my counseling session at 4.30pm, grabbing a quick bite at 5.45pm before starting class from 6-9pm, reaching home around 10pm, bathing and clearing some compulsory readings/school assignments till after midnight, before I can finally hit my bed in peace. Well not in peace exactly, since I've been so stressed that sometimes I can't even sleep in peace. But I've been able to sleep pretty well the past week simply because I'm just so damn zonked out! I don't know whether it's due to the stress I've been feeling lately but I really just feel like crying my heart out right now.

Harry P. overload

This HP themed party by bakingdom is simply wicked! Loveeee the cake!

  

And the paperkit for the 3D owl can be downloaded & printed from 3eyedbear. So cool! Haven't indulged in my favourite craft work in agesss. All because school work has been stealing all my time!

Dizzy with words & numerals

Tis' what I've been doing most of the time over the long weekend :'(
 














And despite that, I'm not even able to clear ALL of this week's assigned readings for 1 module! Let alone 3....Thank goodness there's no assigned readings for the other 2 modules this week or...

Now I'm even more certain that there's no way I'll be able to cope adequately with studying + working full-time, and I haven't even factored in my 3 hrs weekly counselling practicum which is starting next week! So yeah, despite my bosses' persuasions, am gonna have to stick to my original plan so that I don't end up zombified beyond recognition by the end of this year.

First week of...

Full-time course load while working = madness. Especially when there's the killer psych testing module which involves conducting 4 rounds of different assessments & writing 4 full psych reports in less than 3 months?!? Though I know this is gonna be a super useful & enriching course and the one which provides the training most applicable for my future work, I'm still really freaked out by the assignments. Anyhow, enough of studies and on to nicer things..

Recent nail art:
Inspired by my band uniform in sec sch













Nautical













City lights













In celebration of national day @ work
 













And recent gastronomical activities @...
Tiong Bahru Bakery (which serves the best croissants I've ever tasted)










 TWG

GWP hotel's high tea













Carpenter & Cook's scrumptious tarts

And I'll like to end off by showing some love for Harry Potter, my comical dad & my bestie who's getting hitched in Nov!

Fire!

The weather's maddening these days. Where is the rain & wind?!?!?! Our school had a fire drill today but while we were supposed to evacuate the building & escape from the "fire", we were ironically entering real fire because the sun & heat was burning everyone up. Seriously, it was hot enough to start a fire & cook my lunch on the ground.

The elegance of the hedgehog.

It's been ages since I've picked up such a good book which makes me laugh & cry and that's what Muriel Barbery's novel does. Despite plenty of rather lofty & pretentious discussion and analysis over art, literature & philosophy (e.g. what makes a table a table, how humans are nothing more than primates, the awareness of time due to the falling of a rose petal etc.) and the exaggerated praise for Japanese culture, which is typical of the French & most of which I don't get anyways, the style of writing is a delightful mixture of lucidity, wit, humour, sarcasm, intelligence, subtlety and poignancy. The ending was so beautifully expressed that I actually teared and I hardly ever cry when reading novels. And I really really love Paloma & her perspectives and the way she grows and matures as a person; she's really one of my all-time favourite characters from a novel!

Now it's time to watch the film adaptation and see how it compares to the book. Next up on my list: Hector and the search for happiness. And I really hope that I'll be able to get my hands on The particular sadness of lemon cake soon!

Nail @rt

First time doing ombre/gradient nails and I almost died. This is by far the most difficult design i've tried. Took hours and re-did it so many times only for it to turn out to be something crappy like this:















And being extremely dissatisfied, youtubed another design with a much better tutorial and clearer instructions. And though it's far from perfect, this one took just one try, lesser time and turned out much nicer!
 














Hols are (sadly) over and it's back to seeing the kids again tomorrow. Hope this term's a smooth one, especially with a new partner and my new study term beginning in another month's time.