Liberation!

If I were God, the skies would be parting and breaking out into a very jubilant chorus of "Hallelujah" right now. Why? Well, because I am ******* done with my senior thesis! Yes, DONE! Hoorah! Ah, but since I am but a lowly human and don't possess any god-like abilities, and because things always have a way of going completely wrong when I least expect them to, rather than breaking out into song, what did the skies decide to do yesterday? They detonated and released a ginormous blast of torrential, tropical monsoon rain (something that would have been nice to look and stare out at had I been snugly cuddled up inside a warm, dry room) just as I was getting out of my car, arms laden with books, folders, loose sheets of paper, my bag, laptop and umbrella. I was going to open up my umbrella, so as to shield off the piercing drops and sheets of rain, but unfortunately both my hands were already preoccupied. Now what's the point in carrying an umbrella if you don't even have an extra hand to use it? Too bad I can't sprout limbs at will or bud body parts. But like I said earlier, me no got no god-like abilities.


I skittered off to room 107 in the pouring rain without much difficulty, since I've been fortunate enough to have had four years to master the tricky art of running to class late in a Thai university skirt, and managed to get there right in the nick of time. But because this is Thailand, and because Thais love to be extra slack with time, no one had yet arrived. Yay. So, I took my sweet time scurrying off to the bathroom to dry my damp hair under the hand dryer. I got a few odd stares from people drifting in and out of the bathroom (more so to check up on the status of their lipstick and straightness of their hair than to actually use the loo), but I didn't care. I had decent hair again. My feet were soaking wet and my shoes were in a sorry state, but my hair was nice and dry. Ahh. And as if sympathizing with my plight, it behaved too! Yes, no frizzies or erratic flyaways, despite the stifling humidity that tends to accompany tropical monsoon weather. If I could pet my hair, I would. Oh wait, I just did. Good hair, good girl. Maybe I should reward her with some steam treatment the next time I go to the salon. What do you think?


In a nutshell, my thesis presentation went absolutely fine. In fact, it went great. I hate giving presentations in Thai, since they have such fancy pants language for formal situations where you have to refer to yourself as "dee chun" and use all these other words that aren't generally used by most people in normal, day-to-day situations. But anyways, I somehow didn't foul up and also managed to give decent answers to all the questions that were thrown at me. You have no idea how relieved I am. I feel like this humungous load has been taken off my chest (that is, if I had a chest to start with). Since I've been tucking it away neatly in the dark, remote recesses of my mind - somewhere behind the Black Eyed Peas concert (which ROCKED, by the way) and the new Harry Potter film - I guess I didn't realize just how much it had been inconspicuously nagging at me until it was finally all done and over with. Mm, that was just a really long, run-on sentence. But I don't care. I am currently too busy tending to overwrought neurons to care about run-on sentences, so sorry if that was difficult to read.


Anyways, they're going to be shelving my paper in the university library. Maybe they'll publish it. How boring. Who in their right mind would stroll into the library and have a sudden and irrepressible desire to read about a study on Sodium Arsenite's effect on osmotic fragility in rat erythrocytes and the potential applications of a diagnostic kit for arsenic poisoning? Someone very boring, maybe. Heh, and since I wrote it, I guess that makes me very, VERY boring.


~*~


Anyhoo, I'm really, really excited at the moment because one of my bestest of buds, Siri Fliri Bananafana Fo Fliri, is gonna be competing in the Miss Siam 2004 pageant this Saturday at the Four Seasons Hotel! Yeah! I'm sooo psyched for her. So if y'all can watch Channel 5 over the Internet by means of broadband, then do so on the 12th at 10 PM Thailand time (11 AM EST), and look out for contestant number 7 (Siriratana Taweechotipatr)!


~*~

My mom has finally returned from her super long trip to Scandinavia and Russia, and guess how many pictures she snapped while she was there? FOUR-HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SIX! Gee, spastic finger much? Her pics have left me positively green with envy... maybe I should forget med school and just bum my way through Europe instead. I could live off of peanuts and live the life of a drifting ar-teest. But then again, that would mean no spare $$$ for chocolate... and I would die. DIE, I say. Oh well, it was a nice romantic thought while it lasted.

(There's a ton of pics here, by the way, so it might take a while to load. Oh, and you can click on the pics to see larger versions of 'em.)


~St. Petersburg~
R U S S I A


Entering St. Petersburg, Russia.


I believe these were taken along the University Embankment (someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm not sure if it was the lighting or my camera, but the blue effect is pretty cool.


Can you spot the prettiest flower?


Matrioshka dolls galore.


The Great Palace and the Great Cascades.
The pics that my mom took of the interior rooms show that they are incredibly opulent. Maybe a little too opulent for my tastes, but gorgeous just the same.


View of the Great Cascade to the Voronikhin Colonnades and the Sea Canal @ the Great Palace.
This pic is very reminiscent of the canal at Versailles Palace in France.


The Lower Park @ the Great Palace.
You can see the Roman Fountain off in the distance.








~Moscow~
R U S S I A


Palace Square
My mom said the European weather was absolutely wild - there'd be dazzling sunlight one minute, and then it'd be dark, foggy, and misty a couple of minutes later. Still, it seems to have provided some rather interesting photographic moments.


Walking through the Kremlin's walls and towers.


Still at the Kremlin...
Now what's up with that sepia-colored sky, hmm?


One of the many cathedrals at the Kremlin Red Square.
Nice blend of middle eastern and western european influences, eh?


Another cathedral.
Okay, so now the sky's suddenly blue again?


Just in case you forget you're in Moscow.










Can you believe that this is their Underground Metro?? Talk about ultra opulent!
The Mayakovskaya, Arbatskaya, and Komsomolskaya-Koltsevaya metro stations are even more ornate in design and detail.


One of the statues at the Ploshchad Revoliutsii station.
My mom also took some pics of the beautiful murals they have painted there. So pretty!


~Stockholm~
S W E D E N


Ye olde Viking ship.


Some more dark and dramatic weather.
Since it was nearly the summer solstice, my mom said it got dark rather late, and sometimes the sun would be out shining until midnight.
This pic was taken at around 1 AM.




Street scenes around Stockholm's city center.












I wish there were more flowers and greenery around Bangkok.
Too bad they'd probably die amidst all the smog.


On the midnight flight out of Stokholm.
Next stop: Denmark!


~Copenhagen~
D E N M A R K








The famous statue commemorating Hans Christian Anderson's the Little Mermaid.
She seems to be waiting for... Prince Eric?


Ah yes, there he is, looking as studly as a cartoon prince can possibly look.

~*~

Okay, that's enough pics for now (before you all pummel me for making your computers crash). I'm off to go get some desperately needed sleep. I'll celebrate the official end of my college education... later. Right now, I. Need. Sleep.

Have a great weekend everyone!




Currently Playing: Nuh Eh Ge Nan Na Eh Ge Nun (OST. The Classic)
Currently Reading: The Unwanted by Kien Nguyen