Thursday, April 26, 2007

pre-mother's day inspiration.


a beautiful photo essay. a single mother and her dying son. her son was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. my dear bioscience friends you'd find this really familiar. remember our cancer lab?

anyway it nearly made me cry. it won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. i've meant to post this soon but it just slipped my mind. the photographer, Renée C. Byer, was a former Seattle Post-Intelligence (one of the 2 major newspapers in seattle; the other being the seattle times) photographer.

the link for the flash presentation is here. do watch the presentation with captions.
the link for the official site is here.

***

p.s. will be in portland for the long weekend. =) yayy.
pp.s please do use the links to posts on the right hand side bar. i only limit to 3 blog posts when the blog loads 'cos i don't wanna crash your web browsers. =)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

of spring, flowers, picnics and all things random.

ok. i got tired of uploading spring break pictures. so let me digress and start from the most recent. i went to a NBA game last monday, i think. i'm losing track of time. seattle sonics vs houston rockets. the reason why i went again is to catch yao ming in action. also because i felt like a boring person, staying at home all the time.

as the teams warm up. yao ming is a giant. seriously.

(quite) up close and personal. all 4 of us forgot our cameras. how smart right. this is as much zoom as my nokia n73 can take. we all thought houston will trash seattle like crazy. but it turned out to be quite an exciting game! houston wasn't on form. lots of mistakes. seattle was much better than the last knicks game. lost by 6 points. sigh. good game nevertheless.

ok here come more pretty photos. =)

cherry blossoms come to UW. and all over seattle. and spring weather clothes are in season!

i'm so in love with macro shots since i don't own a SLR and hence cannot do shallow depth of field. and the flowers, so beautiful, so transient.

the big blue sky, the pink flowers, the 3 towers and 1 fluffy cloud.

just chilling out with a book. probably catching up on readings. taken at the beautiful quad.

the petals fly in the wind and land on the green grass. the grass littered with pink.



movement against domestic violence week. that very same week rebecca greigo died at the hands of her stalker-exboyfriend.

the flowers grow on barks too!

one of my favorite flowers smiling happily at me. the daisies here grow everywhere! like weeds they spread out on random patches of grass.

once beautiful, always beautiful.

another favorite flower!! purple tulips. and purple is our school color. they also grow randomly around campus and seattle roadsides! it's amazingly pretty. washington state is the 2nd biggest tulip exporter after holland. =)

on the way to class, it's nice to pass by the cherry trees.

my red pointys. make for nice contrast against the pink and green ground.

=) for all of you in singapore.

lounging under the cherry trees. love the laidbackness of UW students. basking in the sun.




haha everytime i see this photo i wanna laugh. this is yanru, my fellow singaporean and also my oboe junior from TJ. and she gets attacked by UW's resident ducks during one of our picnics. yes very western-y of us. but picnics under the cherry trees at the quad is just such a nice thing to do. and it saves us money too 'cos we pack our own lunch from home. here yanru bought lunch from the cafeteria and the duck was pretty interested in that. =)

our spread. picnic #1

me and my cherries.

suhui and me basking.

picnic #2 with frisbee and tree-climbing!

and we all got on the tree safely. =) poor tree must have groaned under all our weight.

zaishan and me. this picture is totally random, our heads to the same side.

shian chi and me. on the cherry tree!

random shots from winter. mexican food! i have this liking for fajitas.

breakfast at cafe on the ave, one of our frequent study spots along university way. love their breakfast.

shian chi made me pose.

then we had to take one together! on the way home from school.

and we love to stop by Mix ice cream. you can choose your ice cream flavors and a whole big assortment of candies, nuts, toppings sauces etc etc. my favorite so far is strawberry cheesecake, raspberry and vanilla ice cream with crushed graham crackers. i think that's the mix. hmmm. but anyway ben and jerry's and haagen daz here is super cheap. like one pint is US$3. well not super cheap. but cheaper than back home and a whole lot more flavors. so we love it. everytime we have ice cream parties (which is more often than back home. haaa), there are on average 4-5 pints of different flavors to choose from. =)

part 2 of "shian chi made me pose".

this time was the first signs of bloom at the quad way back in winter quarter. =) smelling the cherry blossoms.

alright time to go. will be back with more pictures after my trip to portland.

me acting pretty with a flower above my ear. the daisy is too tiny. =)

oh yes. rufus wainwright concert was awesome. shall not bore with details. but great gig. looking forward to damien rice. =)

Sunday, April 22, 2007

vigil.

interrupting the spring break photos. photos here from the vigil for the virginia tech massacre victims. it's been almost a week. the mourning week, as declared by president bush.

the sun sets as i walked to the red square. seems such a beautiful evening.


the candle in the wind.

after the vigil itself, where 2 men, including the president of UW's "student union", called ASUW here, spoke to beautiful organ music coming from denny hall. then a moment's silence as the denny hall clock tower chimed 33 times. people were sobbing and crying and tearing, even when they didn't know the victims. somehow the bond as college students is so strong among everyone. their loss is like our own.

a group of people started to gather in a circle after the vigil.

prayers. people of all faith, all nationalities, all ages came together. songs, prayers, experiences.




america, the land of the free. and the price of freedom.

may there be comfort in every trial. light in every darkness. peace in every tribulation.

Friday, April 20, 2007

dark days.

so i think some of you may have heard about the virginia tech massacre. a korean american 23 year old english major killed 32 people in his campus before turning the gun unto himself. 32 students, professors were killed, mostly execution style. many have expressed outrage and tremendous grief. it is very very shocking and disappointing when i watch the news about his videos and photos that he sent to NBC in new york before going on his rampage. it's sad when i read about the immense grief that the virginia people are going through. i went for UW's vigil memorial at the red square last night. lit a candle and listened to the clock tower bell chime 32 times, in remembrance of the victims. with 200+ of my fellow UW students. maybe this will prompt america to tighten their gun laws even more. reports here.

ok. other than horrible tragedy, school has been hectic with assignments and readings and midterms are coming up! not to mention a presentation that i should start on before my sisters arrive in seattle, and a group project. hence the lack of updates. apologies!

here i continue for washington dc. i realised i took a LOT of pictures in DC. maybe because i was there for 4 days! darn my flight delay, or i could have seen new york more. speaking of which, DC is near virginia tech. =(

i thought this was cute. took it in the subway train. in DC it was very obvious that their rule for escalators is to stand on the right. the left is for walking people. just like tokyo. in singapore it's to stand on the left right? now i'm so used to the right i think i would need some time to change back to left in sg. so i'm NOT an escalefter! =)

we arrived at one of the busiest train stations in DC, union station. it's connected to the amtrak (US's train service that connects cities and states all over) too. it's really big and grand and has a fantastic food court and great shopping!

external of the train station. it was really white and blinding 'cos of the sun shining brightly.

we were here!

at the fountain.

walking to the capitol. beautiful day.

back of the capitol. it was so funny 'cos we happened to strike up a conversation with this man who was really nice and very eager to find out more about Singapore. turns out he was the president of a political consultant company and one of his clients was the democratic party. yayy for democrats. =) my political science module has opened my eyes to american politics a little more. and he is going to singapore next year. haha. he gave us his card too. check out his company here.

beautiful statues around the capitol.

me and the capitol. the US capitol "serves as the location for the United States Congress, the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government". wikipedia is great for information.

in front of the capitol is the reflection pool. i sat here and just looked out at the national mall and the washington monument in front. great place to think and chill.

me thinking. haaaa.

next we went to the library of congress. (oh we toured the inside of capitol. more later) while waiting to go in this little girl was running around and playing outside. and i love her skirt! it's so boho.

the majestic and beautiful interior of the library of congress. it is the "de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress" and one of the most important libraries in the world.

more beautiful interiors.

and more beautiful interiors. so glad they allowed photography.

nice paintings too.

where we were. the library of congress has a few buildings. the visitors' center was at the thomas jefferson (one of US's former presidents) building.


outside library of congress. wind was very very strong.

the department of justice. their court of law. superbly grand. end of the day! we went back to union train station to shop! and eat dinner. hehhh.

the next day we woke up really really early because we had to get in line to queue up for tickets to tour the inside of the capitol building. and by the time we got there, at 8.30am (ticket distribution starts at 9am, lonely planet did recommend going at 8am but we couldn't be THAT early. sleep is important, esp when travelling.) the line was already starting to snake around. and it just kept growing and growing.

but the sun was gone. gloomy day. we got tickets for the 9.45am tour and it lasted about 1 hour 30 mins. security, as usual, was super tight. no food and drinks allowed at all.

the dome thing you see at the exterior shots, here is the interior. an artist painted the top and it's really high and one time he almost fell to his death. the painting shows george washington surrounded by angels and clouds. very nice. i bought a postcard with the painting. so touristy i know. the painting is called The Apotheosis of Washington by Constantino Brumidi.

the paintings all around the dome. the tour guide was really informative and she was this cute girl who is about my age or older. and he just rattled on all the history and facts and ancedotes behind the paintings that described most of the major events in US history. like christopher columbus discovering america and the independence in 1776.

this used to be a study/reading room/workplace for members of congress, but because of it's elliptical shape or something, the sound bounces and when a person is speaking at one spot, softly, it can be heard at one particular spot across the room. our tour guide tested this amazing physics thing and it was amazing! she was across the room meters away, and i could hear her speaking softly, as though she was just right next to me! anyway they found it really annoying so they decided to not use the room and it became a place to display statues. haa. there are many statues spread over the whole capitol. and every state in US will donate at least 1 statue of a famous american that hailed from their state. quite interesting.

that's the weird shape of the ceiling of the statue room.

this white spot marks the center of washington dc. right in the middle.

the former courts, now no longer used, so its for us visitors to see.

the way to the toilets. so nice right.

one last shot just after exiting the capitol. more info on the capitol here.

i forgot why i took this shot. it has been too long.

my sticker! its good because all of such tours are free, like many things in washington dc. museums and all. so it's really good for budget travelers like us. you just need to wake up early to get the free tix.

alright, not wanting to crash your web browser, i shall continue another time. back to work!