flying down to Louisiana tmr for a week.... my last holiday before heading home on the 15th :)

various flowers were blooming in my own backyard and couldn't help taking parting pics of some. these, i fell in love with one year ago and they are all over in the backyard.. as well as along our street... on MLK... on campus... these buds actually come enclosed in a huge green 'bud'/pod... and they burst open to become like that... then bloom into elegant pretty purple flowers...
i've also realized how much effort gardening takes! my landlords just spent the whole of yesterday and half of today tidying up their plants... pulling out the weeds... much as i like flowers, i seriously doubt i'll go to that extent to produce a pretty garden myself :P a lazy bum like me instead leeches off pretty flowers in other ppl's gardens :P
was also treated to a farewell dinner by my landlords and can't help but feel a little sentimental that i will be leaving real soon. it has been a great year, living with them... i couldn't have asked for better housemates, really! and the other day when i looked at Kai, he really wasn't as little as he used to be when i first moved in! after all, it's been a year and a little bit more... time flies...

craigslist has become my most frequented website this past week or so; with so much stuff (often in good condition) i need to get rid of, the best solution is to give them away to ppl who actually want it... and good old craigslist has been extremely handy in helping me do that. and somewhat uncannily, almost every item i post has just one or two interested parties... items for sale were sadly a lot less popular, expectedly though. unfortunately, after half a week or so of massive cleanup, room still isn't as bare as i would want it to be :P sigh, come monday, most of remaining items would have to go to the dump... it's actually pretty interesting to see what use ppl have for things that you dun want-- someone picked up my old twin mattress pad and sheets for a foreign exchange student coming in a week; a mother was surprisingly excited upon discovering my bag of random art materials cos apparently her daughter would be real happy to have them; another volunteer was delighted that the wall map he picked up would be real useful for the refugee family he was working with.... it made me happy too that instead of prematurely contributing to land pollution, these items manage to play small roles in bettering ppl's lives... :) hmmm so... perhaps if you want to superficially feel like a good individual... give something useful (but which you no longer need) away!