Suki's fond memories of 2010

What a year 2010 has been! I personally found it to be one of the happier years of my life: I finally went off to pursue a degree after years of waiting after graduating from high school, I discovered a quaint city I fell in love with upon arrival, I have met and gotten close to some very wonderful people who will most certainly be life-long friends, and most importantly I have been fortunate enough to find in Scott a soul-mate and best friend.

Life could not have been more perfect this year even with its downs (the amount of times I have been ill this year has been considerably fewer than other years but the severity of each bout of flu has been terrible!) and I am so grateful that my beautiful parents have provided me with the opportunity to further my education and have been so very supportive and loving at all costs and at every hour I have needed them.

I have lost two very cherished pets: Jodhaa (Jodi), my barely a year old guinea pig earlier in the year and Pebbles, my fourteen-year old cat just this month. However Scott and I have our two adorable hermit crabs, Jackson and Trent, while my parents still have our two remaining cats, Sydney and Prince as well as our beloved still-nameless tortoise. Pets are beautiful additions to a family and I have benefited from all of mine in so many ways and 2010 has taught me to cherish them that much more.

2010 has taught me so much about myself and changed me in a lot of ways too. I was able to become a better person this year and most definitely a happier person for which I am most grateful for. Scott, my family and friends are an incredible support system in my life and they all are too amazing for words. It is them I thank for all the happiness and success I have gained this year.

Enough of me rambling away! I leave you with some photos of this year and a tale of each.

From the moment I arrived, fell in love with Adelaide and university and college life, 2010 has been amazing. I can only thank my parents for giving me this opportunity to study abroad and further my education and my life.

Life in Adelaide has been fun no matter what everyone has to say about the quaint, sometimes slow city. Trust me, after a 1am jaunt to Glenelg and getting a photo with a police jeep life is never unexciting unless you choose to be boring (:

The people I have memories with are ones I hope I know for life, because they are beautiful and like I did with Laura on the engineers pub crawl, there is always much fun to pursue and laughs to have.

Scott is the most amazing person in my life and probably the most important after my family. With him I have experienced so much and have yet to experience more with him. He is the one person I want to go through life with, he is my best friend as well as my boyfriend.

From wind farms...

...To caves (:

And not to forget, some very long car journeys together.

Our tradition is going to the zoos of SA and hopefully in the future we will be able to go to others.

My memories of this year show how much I have changed as a person - me stealing even a candle?! That was unheard of a mere few months prior to me moving to Adelaide!

I have kissed pandas...

...And gotten slushies from my boyfriend when I need them the most (:

I take myspace style photos unintentionally but love the people I take photos with.

My girlfriends are SO important to me...

...And we always get up to no good!

This year has been full of experiences...

And I cannot wait to go through it all over again with Lex as my partner in crime (:

I thank all the professionals I have gotten to work with this year and for the beautiful photos they have given me.

Let me know what your fond memories of this year have been!

In Between: As Usual, A Life Update (P.S. My 100th Post!)

Just a little filler, just whiling away my days

Oh readers, it feels as though every time I get a start on my blog something happens and I get so distracted with real life and neglect to post. I am so proud of the followers (you!) I have accumulated throughout this year and I am grateful my blog has been relatively constant since I decided to start blogging again. I definitely feel like I need to change up some of my posts and will be looking into a new post structure for the rest of this year and hopefully by 2011 I'll have The Suki Chronicles the way I want it to be.

So what has been going on in my world?

Since Pebbles passed away - exactly a week today - I have been trying to keep myself occupied and not mope. I have wonderful memories of Pebbles and she is the last part of my childhood having been in my life for 14 years. We rescued her from a drain in Singapore and from there we took her with us to Hong Kong along with our other cat Jessica and then from there to Sri Lanka - alas, without Jessica who passed away from a tumor in Hong Kong. Pebbles was the old crone in our family and everyday I think of her, missing her usual presence in her usual spots.

Mummy and I have caught up with my Aunt (Mummy's sister) and gone to see a play as well as a jewelry exhibition. The latter added a new lust to my wish list and that is green diamonds which are very, very rare and also extraordinarily expensive but decidedly my new future investment.

And along the lines of diamonds is one of my favorite advertisement tag lines: Mummy says if he cannot afford diamonds then he cannot afford me. So true! Something to consider, ladies.

My grandmother arrives tonight and will be staying here with us for a while. I leave for Adelaide in about eighteen days though and unfortunately due to certain circumstances I won't be attending summer school as planned but instead will be pursuing several job opportunities. I'm not sure where this all will take me but I'm hoping fervently that there will be a happy ending to all of this and 2011 will be a happy year for me.

So I leave you with two looks I forgot to post from last week. Not very exciting but I promise to try to come up with some outrageous looks come next week.

I hope you all are doing well!

Does anyone know what's up with bloggers refusal to rotate?! I'm going to find a way to override this in my next posts! Grrr...

P.S. How adorable is this?

Pebbles ♥

Thank you everyone for all the love and support for Pebbles, you are so amazing and I love you all and appreciate all the kinds words you have provided me with.

I just wanted to let you all know that Pebbles passed away on the 9th around 9pm. She went peacefully and she had us with her until the very end. My parents and I are coping okay, after all we can't be selfish as we had Pebbles for a great 14 years, but we of course feel a great loss and it's devastating.

She was beautiful even in her last days, her golden-green eyes still bright and purring as best she can even when she had absolutely no strength. With her, my childhood is gone in a way but I'm glad we had her for as long as we did.

In Between: LOTD And Life Update

Just a little filler, just whiling away my days

I've been a little lax with the posts because honestly life these days leaves me unmotivated and exhausted. My cat, Pebbles, is getting weaker daily and has now come to a point where our vets are starting to say, 'She's not doing so good', and that is the hardest thing to hear. I'm dreading the day when they suggest that we put her down as so she's not suffering; it has been over a week since she has eaten and since last Tuesday she has been surviving off saline, glucose and protein drips twice a day.

If I suddenly disappear, it's because I'm focusing on my main priority: family.

Here's my look of the day for today. Darling Girl Cosmetics always cheer me up because they are such feminine and beautiful colors and the owner of DGC, Susan, is an absolute sweetheart.

I know my eyebrows need maintaining and my skin could do with more hydrating and my hair could be cleaner and my facial expressions could be happier but you know what? I'm not going to apologize for any of that and instead I'm just going to point my flaws out to you, shrug and ask so what do you care? (:

I used Frolic and Plunder and loved how they worked well together. Definitely made me happy as it's a subtle daily look and yet purple is involved but not overbearingly so. Before I felt restricted to only mixing purple and black together...well, black and every color really but thanks to the blogging world and learning more about makeup I'm more open to trying different colors together without playing it safe.

Being home in Sri Lanka this time around is surprisingly relaxing and I'm loving being at home for the holidays. I'm grateful for the time with my parents and of course my adorable critters...

I haven't mentioned this before but we actually have a tortoise! When we first moved into our house two years ago our gardener discovered a tortoise outside our gate with a broken shell. We took her to the vets and got her shell fixed up (that yellow, globby patch on her shell) and adopted her. Much to my surprise she has grown quite a bit since I last saw her and is still as frantic and solitary as ever!

Another surprise: I expected to arrive in Sri Lanka and face over a month of sunshine, humid days and blaring heat but instead it rains daily and we are pretty much flooded daily too! Ironically enough, back in Adelaide there has been torrential rains as well resulting in flooding. Could this be Earth giving us a hint?

I had a lot more posts that I had planned but I really have no motivation to do them unfortunately, stressing out about Pebbles' condition and my university career is just taking its toll on me. Hopefully soon I'll get some posts done. Until then I hope everyone is doing okay.

In Between: Pebbles, Books, Life and Giveaway

Just a little filler, just whiling away my days

Today I took a break with the makeup since Mummy woke me up saying we needed to take our 14-year old cat, Pebbles, to the vet. Pebbles hasn't been eating lately nor has she been drinking water so we're naturally worried as she has been really weak. We went to the vet yesterday and Pebbles got a booster that was meant to stimulate her appetite but it did little to motivate her to eat and this morning Mummy was worried as it seemed as though Pebbles was wobbly and unable to move much without collapsing in exhaustion.



So we took her to the vet and she got a saline and then a glucose drip. It was good to see her eyes become less glazed and to see her looking more lively after a while. There were some dogs at the vets and I had to endure a poor puppy howling in pain behind me while he got stitched up ): Apparently his owners had unknowingly overdosed him on antibiotics after a pharmacist had instructed them to give three tablets when it should have only been two. The poor thing had fits and has some brain damage! It was lucky the owners got him to the vet in time.

We have to take Pebbles to the vet tomorrow and probably the day after as well for more saline and glucose. Hopefully it'll give her a little more time. We know that she's rather old and it's rare for cats to make it so long but we're hoping we get a little bit more time with her. She's such a tough old thing, I'm glad I'm home now and get some time with her; I don't know when I'll be home next.

Anyway, I'm exited because later today after an appointment at the dentist (yay for not having to take my wisdom teeth out until later!) we went to a bookstore to find the sequel to Lauren Kate's book Falling, Torment only to find two L.J. Smith books that I never thought I'd get to read in this lifetime! I'll probably finish them both in the next few days so I'll do a review then!

Life otherwise?
Tiring. My birthday is in two days (on the 3rd) and I'm really starting to feel my age (which I won't discuss: it's unladylike to talk numbers!). My whole body is sore and aching and I'm starting to worry now, I think I'm going to do more exercise like Pilates and just general cardio. I really don't want health complications...

That's all for now dear Readers, thank you to my 10 followers! I was thinking the other day that if I reached 10 followers I'd do a giveaway and I honestly thought that it would only be when the moon turns to cheese that I'd get a 10th follower (Thank you!) sooo...watch this space? It'll only happen when I return to Adelaide so that'll be in January 2011 but still, it'll happen! (:

In Between: Back Home For The Rest Of The Year

Just a little filler, just whiling away my days

 

Being back home in Sri Lanka is great thus far but I have to admit I'm glad I'm only here for a little over a month - there honestly isn't much to do over here! So far all I've been doing is eating, talking with Mummy and sleeping. Not exactly the greatest way to stimulate my braincells that I need so desperately to keep me from flunking university nor is it great for my waistline...

Anyway, one nice thing about being home is being back with not only my parents but my three cats - Pebbles, Sydney and Prince as well. I've missed having pets in my daily life back in Adelaide (before Scott and I got Jackson and Trent) and there is nothing like cuddling a furry creature.

Got to love how Blogger refuses to upload photos the way they are. Anyway, another critter back home is our tortoise who is seemingly afraid of water. As it has been nothing but rainy since I've returned, it's amusing to see our tortoise scurry around the garden trying to get out of puddles.

Another great part about being home is proper food! Australian food is literally junk food to me and I miss the rice in my diet. Also the fruits, there is nothing like proper bananas and pineapples of a tropical country. I think I'm just going to stuff myself sick with fruit before I have to return back to the fruit of Adelaide!

Unfortunately during the 10 hours and extra hours of in between traveling, my Fyrinnae eye shadows leaked out and I have a feeling it's the way I packed them up - loosely and without padding to keep them secure. The jar lids unscrewed and I spent quite a while cleaning up the mess. It was tragic but I'm glad I didn't lose too much product otherwise I would've been crying! Especially since one of the main casualties was 'Herbivore' and 'Meerkat' which are my favorites at the moment.

 

 (I have no idea why Blogger uploaded this upside down...)

Just a warning then readers, don't pack your eye shadows as I have done (in my iPhone box). Be smart and pack them up tightly or risk a big mess!