“Usually he does not know his own mind, does not care to know his own mind. To know one’s own mind too well spells, in his view, the death of the creative spark.”
Is this why I haven’t been able to write for such a long, long time?
:-(
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‘scream.
Starting on-job training at RWS tomorrow! I suspect I’ll have less time with this space, so a round of recommendations to make up for it?
Mid-way through J.M Coetzee’s Youth. I was raring to get my hands on that one, because the protagonist is 1) male (I love male protagonists, they’re much more tolerable), and 2) He’s 19! For awhile I’ve felt suspended at an age where good books were either above or below my age range. There were seldom any books tailored specially for 16/17/18 year olds that did not involve lots of sex and proms, things I have little interest in experiencing through text. Youth is, surprise surprise, very age appropriate (although sex is still prevalent) – John is full of ideals and the need to live alone and be all fantastic but fails a lot on the way. Also I heard J.M Coetzee’s text is used for this year’s ‘A’ Level Literature, so yay. Lit texts are always pretty good.
I’ve reached my goal of having Strawberry Cheesecake at 5 different i/c stores within a month! ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.
So in March, I decided to scout around for and then compare good Strawberry Cheesecake i/c because I can’t get enough of them things. Most of the time I get really distracted and order other exciting flavors, and sometimes they don’t have Strawberry Cheesecake so I end just getting strawberry or cheesecake. But anyway, with a ranking:
1. b&j
It’s actually kind of impossible, ever, to beat Ben & Jerry’s when it comes to Strawberry Cheesecake. At least for me. I love mine really rich, cheesy and salty and sickeningly sweet with that doughy, crusty texture. So far only B&J could reach that intensity of flavor.
2. baskin-robbins
This comes pretty close in the intensity. But it loses out on texture. Damn thinking about this makes me wanna walk down to Nex to get some. AND SELEGIE TAU HUEY. Which I had in the morning but am already dying for more.
3. ice age
Ice Age cafe along Kovan, where they serve ice-cream WHICH ARE REALLY. GOOD. but they charge insane service charges on top of their already steep prices. WORTH IT THOUGH. Just don’t eat it in the Cafe. Have it away from the crowd and save like two bucks or something.
4. candylicious
This is actually gelato, but it’s not as rich. In fact if you’re at Candylicious, get Peanut Butter. Celine and I had that for two days straight. The first day we shared and it was so good, the second day we had one each.
5. venezia
Although I love Venezia gelato, and could not stop eating them for a long while, their Strawberry Cheesecake is disappointing. GET YOGGI. No, actually, get Yoggi WITH Strawberry Cheesecake. THAT one’s explosive.
Next, to try Creamier, where Shereen’s working! And also to get Swensen’s Hot Fudge Banana with Rei-En. April goal: TRY VANILLA FROM 10 DIFFERENT STORES (Vanilla being my 2nd all-time favorite. Also my theory is that how Vanilla is a good measure of the ‘screams of a shop in general.)
I’ve been stagnant on the iTunes front lately. But here are a few good ones. OH, AND CALL ME MAYBE OF COURSE. This cannot be missed it has been playing in my head for A WEEK. Also, what we were trying to emulate during Sleepover:
I love the Ugly Casanovas, and this one borders on sublime, where there are layers. The part from 0:55 – 1:05 gives me braingasms every time.
I’ve never heard of Milo Greene prior to this song, I’m guessing their fairly new. Everything they have are brilliant. This one’s the best. So far (I’m hoping for more).
Okay maybe I’m slightly slow, but I’ve never wanted to listen to Black Sabbath because it’s satanic (maybe) and I’m a proper convent girl. But I came across this accidentally and couldn’t resist it.
THIS. IS. UNDENIABLY. BEAUTIFUL.
I had a sudden craving for Chick Lit, but couldn’t find any decent ones. There were some I remember reading awhile ago and would love to reread again.
Drama! by Paul Ruditis. Despite the very flamboyant title it’s actually a sleek, believable novel that well, yes, is narrated by a homosexual. But he’s subtle and non-raging and struggling with it. It’s about friendship and a lot about show theater, which makes up a good part of why I liked it. But really it’s one of the few series type novels I actually persevered through and was UPSET when it ended. (I suck at series reads.)
The Squad by Jennifer Barnes. I had this phase where I devoured spy chicklit. Especially if the protagonist was a computer whiz/hacker. By devoured I mean I read so many of them damn things running on the same thread that I can’t remember or even differentiate them. They’re just a matrix of prodigious children kidnapped or orphaned employed by some kind of loving family unit/organization where they had to flex their digibrains and it usually involves long-lost family members being the ultimate villain. The only one I can remember distinctively is The Squad. It has something to do with cheerleaders who are covert spies. I’m not kidding. But it’s still good. I was very upset when she wrote two and gave up on the series.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. E. Lockhart writes great stuff, but Disreputable History is the best yet. (The Boyfriend List was good as a single novel, but it went on for ages with increasingly horrifying and tragic storylines so I quit.) This one is smart, and surprisingly dark for chicklit. I loved the protagonist – she does that: make you love her without being able to help it. SHE IS A GENIUS (both E. Lockhart and Frankie.) I’ve made up my mind to borrow it in the near future. I remember it doesn’t have a perfect, happy ending which made me very pleased.
Good bye!
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Almost the complete set
Mug’s sleepover with nine of us, making it the nearest we’ve ever got to a complete set!
Becky’s mom, as usual, fed us lot with amazing food. I can’t even begin to describe just how – it’s… we shut up for a good hour while we ate which is quite a feat for us. Pesto and salsa and anchovies-eggplant spread and baked garlic MUSSELS (THE MUSSELS!!!). And then baked cinnamon banana, Cat’s apple pie and Xin’s lemon curd for dessert with Island Creamery. Life, right then, felt complete. If there’s one thing we have in common unanimously as the Mugs, it’s food. And cam-whoring. AND THE FOOD, OH GOD THE FOOD.
Being a strange lot, we migrated north to, wait for it… reenact the exercises we did for Transience. And then there was a brief period where we collapsed and died in a food/stupidity coma before going into what we’ve been waiting for THE ENTIRE WEEK (like the losers we are)…
MUSICVIDEOX OF CALL ME MAYBE. This resulted in noise pollution and half an hour of us just standing in a row NODDING to the camera (No, seriously. We did that.) Eventually though we did manage to get a handful of clips where we essentially crazy danced and knocked each other aside to primp to Call Me Maybe.
When I said we nodded to the camera for half an hour. I meant it. Nodding:
That was the maximum amount of productivity we could achieve. Everyone basically flopped around after that outside at the porch couch (attempting to play Kung Fu Fighting! and failing). Eventually we tried very hard to be Sleepover-ish and engage each other in Intense Conversations Which Are Intense.
That means we ate copious amounts of cookies while trying to outdo each other in snarkiness. Well no we DID achieve a fair amount of INTENSE CONVERSATIONS THAT ARE INTENSE all the way up till 6am in the morning (with some perishing along the way and the sole survivor being Beni). The rest of us slept for about an hour and woke up to do, again, what we do best.
Eat. The cycle repeats itself: after breakfast we descended upon porch couch and just lepak-ed the entire afternoon away.
I’m not sure how normal, sane teenagers find time to dress up and prepare fancy stuff for their house parties/sleepovers.
It’s like we have some kind of deficiency that binds us helplessly to pajamas and nua-ing. The bursts of energy come about in the presence of FOOD and when we get excited over retarded single projects that involves being caught on film and appearing like hyperactive, slightly spastic children. Attempts at board/party games, standard Cool-Dancing or social interaction disintegrate and we spiral into very, very migraine inducing yelling and chaos and (the occasional horrific unexpected episode where we somehow manage to set off the burglar alarm).
By all these, I mean I enjoyed myself very, very, very much and I can’t ask for better company.
:-)
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Why, Hunger Games, why.
Had dinner with the Ice-Cream Gang and it was lovely. We were basically a family unit headed by the sane parental figures and then the other slightly deranged baby-children who flounced around singing.
Anyway. The Hunger Games hype. Why. Why. Can I go through any website without being assaulted by Hunger Games fandom Thing is, I’ve read the books. I DON’T LIKE IT. AT ALL. It’s not that I have a problem with people not sharing my opinion, but – yes actually I do. PEOPLE, WHY. WHAT. I DON’T GET IT. THE HUNGER GAMES, REALLY? I was fine with people liking it, but the whole excitement over it just as the movie’s coming out and everyone’s posting photos of themselves with the book as if they’ve read it and it’s getting.. pretty.. annoying. I predict that a few years down it’s gonna be another Twilight (because it’s Twilight standards. It is.) where people get over it’s fancy-shmancy glitz action and start to see it for what it really is: another Twilight.
Why I Don’t Like The Hunger Games
#1: Expectations.
So maybe this isn’t much of the novel’s fault, but given it’s name and slight prior introduction, I was expecting something highly psychological. Not where people actually have to run around with arrows fighting for food, but something much more nuanced. Yes there can be bloodshed, action, and all. But The Hunger Games simplifies it down to gimmicks and hero-complexes, which makes up reasons #3 and 4.
#2: You can find books of this theme of WAY higher caliber. KINDLY REDIRECT HYPE.
a) Lord of the FLIES. Mind-blowing take on the psychological toll of CHILDREN fighting for survival. Completely realistic setting. AND THE ACTION? It COMES ALIVE. If you’ve read Hunger Games but not Lord of the Flies, PLEASE read Lord of the Flies and see if you can still stomach Hunger Games (haha. haha. stomach..)
b) Nothomb’s Sulfuric Acid. Another brilliant one. Slightly more surreal and less survival-fight-ish. It’s set in an unknown time period where people are likewise part of a TV reality program in a concentration camp where they were constantly tortured and essentially stripped of human rights. Their battle was largely cognitive, with lengthy asides of human nature, but it’s still a lot better than the artificial rubbish they tried to throw at me in the Hunger Games.
c) Battle Royale. Which the Hunger Games basically ripped off.
#3: Crap characterization.
I cannot emphasize this enough. This is Twilight, Maximum Ride, and all other teenage nonsense all over again. The characters all possess some sort of idealized hero-complex. Yes they all have flaws, but perfectly constructed flaws that are just there to facilitate the story. They aren’t human. Katniss: I LOVE MY SISTER SO MUCH. I NEED TO SACRIFICE FOR HER AND MY FAMILY. TAKE ME! I AM STRONG. I DON’T HAVE THE CHOICE TO DIE, ETC. Peeta: I LOVE KATNISS. THIS IS MY TRAIT. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS OR WHAT I SEEM TO BE DOING IT IS TO REAFFIRM MY LOVE FOR KATNISS. Hero-complex. And then there’s that elfish girl there to beef up Katniss’ hero even further. And the very painfully obvious group of antagonists.
After reading Natsuo Kirino, I don’t believe in heros anymore. He writes about the human nature and it’s inherent failings so beautifully, so truthfully, that anything that even tries to discount this truthfulness makes me want to hurl. The Hunger Games simplifies human so much, that if it were a dimension in Flatland, it wouldn’t even be that one-dimensional line. It would be the singular point that looks exactly the same from all angles.
#4: FANCY-SHMANCY GLITZY-GLAM NONSENSE.
Seriously. The sympathetic and fashionable stylists, the plastic-looking flamboyant hosts, her chariot is ON FIRE!!! SO IS HER COSTUME!!! CROWDS! CHEERS! HUGE PLASMA SCREEN AND PODS AND AN ARENA AND NATURE WHERE YOU GET TO MOVE AROUND LIKE AN ATHLETE (a la Twilight)! I don’t know. Over-usage of visual gimmicks is sometimes forgivable, but when it’s also CLICHED? No. The whole impressive scenery thing works only n Harry Potter where everything is TOO ORIGINAL TO DISLIKE. Points for creativity.
Everything on The Hunger Games though, are vaguely things we’ve picked up from the very basic fancy stage tricks we’ve seen all our lives. It just. Didn’t impress. I mean at all. I might have cringed while reading because it tried so hard to be fancy and grand but just came off common and base. It’s as if someone wrote it knowing it’ll make for a great movie (it probably does make an appropriate action blockbuster)(it kind of IS one now) and I hate it when people do that. We have an imagination. Stop writing for it to be filmed.
#5: Seriously, the romance?
Peeta. The fat baker. NO. Much as I didn’t like the novel, it had one redeeming quality. GALE. Who is basically the only tolerable character in the book. But no. There had to be a completely idealized, thoroughly maudlin, very TRAGIC and NOBLE love story which is ironically eagerly craved by the dumb Capitol which I find absolutely HILARIOUS given the whole PeeNiss fandom in reality. SATIRE, PEOPLE. DO YOU NOT SEE IT? Probably not, I doubt it’s even intended. It is like Coffeeshop Romance but ten times worst because Peeta is so ridiculously and inexplicably willing to sacrifice himself for Katniss. He is nothing as a character but a romantic hero. The bile rises…
#6: The faux-political theme.
WHY DO THEY EVEN TRY. It’s like they try to mash up all the possible popular themes to churn out a best-seller. Sometimes you just. don’t. attempt too many themes when you can’t even handle basic characterization properly. The faux-politics is laughable. The faceless Capitol, the brief introduction of how exactly Panem landed in that state (which I found unbelievable and thus un-frightening), the post-apocalyptic mess. The only thing I semi-liked about it is how every district had it’s own signature, and in varying degrees of wealthiness. But then again it’s a cheap, clever trick that any dystopian author with a brainwave could achieve.
Brave New World, 1984 and Iron Heel gave me a pervasively insidious feeling when I read it – speculative-political fiction should do that; make you somehow fear that it is possible no matter how absurd the setting. I don’t see Panem coming true any time. Logistically and logically, it doesn’t work. Once again, it doesn’t hit home.
#7: The plot itself…
Just gave me a million opportunities to go Please lah, you really want me to see this as plausible. It being a post-apocalyptic, fantasy type novel, of course you can’t expect it to be grounded in current day reality. What I mean is the way in which people respond to things, how characters carry out things, how things they do work out. It’s all just too… pretty. Yes the death and the bloodshed, but everything’s so calculated, predictable, meant to be, just so the story will the take the shape readers would like. Just the right amount of tears and adrenaline and happiness and everything.
I guess if you’re looking for feel-good and predictable, The Hunger Games would be an appropriate choice. If you’ve read too much ugly and truth to be drawn into another blockbuster novel, skip it.
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gelato.
Yeap, I’m off Facebook. This time there aren’t much fancy reasons. Basically, Timeline’s lack of privacy controls kind of creeps me out. It’s not that I particularly mind having information from years ago so easily accessed, it’s more of how I don’t see why they don’t give better instructions on how to make it Not like that. Lack of choice, essentially, made me quit.
Anyway, I’ve pseudo-started work and I like it already. It’s hard not to be happy when you’re in a theme park and everyone’s (including the staff) main objective is to have fun. I’m glad I chose Resort’s World over a $1,500 office job I’d probably have been miserable in.
I’m also incredibly tired, constipated, and messing up French tips. This is a very pointless, update-y type post, because there’s nowhere else I can say things on the net besides this space. It feels kinda nice. Like I can finally streamline my thoughts.
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Tradition is tradition.
This is the thing where I state the first thing that comes to mind. The one immediately after the word is my answer now, first word below is from 07, the next being from 06. Let’s dissect and check out how much I’ve changed.
1. Cigarettes: Stink.
07: Butts. 06: Tobacco.
I’m visibly less material/visual. You’ll see.
2. Friends: Awesome
07: French fries. 06: Lovely.
I was probably hungry back in 07. Awesome and Lovely are both really gross words, but I tried to stick to the immediate response thing. And my friends ARE kinda both those.
3. Relationships: Stink
07: Problems. 06: Lesbians.
Evidently I’ve never taken very well to relationships and still don’t. LESBIANS? What was I up to? I don’t remember.
4. Power Rangers: Rei-En
07: Gamma Rays. 06: Lousy
LOUSY? Don’t kill me Rei.
5. Marijuana: Chicken pie
07: Cocaine. 06: Nice name.
Marijuana IS a nice name. And I know why Chicken Pie. I was probably thinking pot and skipped a neuron to land smack into food.
6. Shit: Constipation
07: Chocalate. 06: My favourite word besides passion.
Shit is a disgusting word. Chocolate is a beautiful thing. What was wrong with me? And yes I am currently constipated.
7. Crack: ed.com
07: Head. 06: Crackhead.
where’s 8?
9. Love: Ice-cream
07: Boat. 06: Everyone.
I went from loving everyone to loving ice-cream. Something happened.
10. War: must occur for peace to have meaning
07: Ships/Chess. 06: Iraq.
I read that off somewhere.
11. Car: -wash
Chevy convertible. Rolls Royce
Less material, more hygienic.
12. Gas Prices: Kuwait
Soaring. Government
Still a political issue for me.
13. Halloween: Miley Cyrus
Pumpkins. Stupid Vampire in Japanese Vid.
14. Bon Jovi: Blonde
GAY. A woman with lots of sandy, curly hair.
15. Religion: Mine
Moss colored stones? A big bronzed cross.
SEE, LESS MATERIAL/VISUAL.
16. MySpace: Lame
Pretentious emos. Some website.
Always, always.
17. Worst fear: Lizards
Lizards. Stupid lizards.
ALWAYS, ALWAYS.
18. Marriage: Maybe
Sex. Commitment.
19. Fashion: Faux
Shows. The Devil wears Prada/Chao Ah Bengs.
20. Brunettes: Banana
Sex. Chao Tar Bananas.
I really don’t know brunettes remind me of bananas, I really don’t. And the sex is probably because I was a hormonal pubescent.
21. MISSING: Milk cartons
Milk Cartons. The Show.
22. Work: Load
Overtime & Schedules. Homework.
23. Past time: Forever
Bored. Bored.
I love this. Somehow I’ve grown out of being bored I treasure every damn second I have to do things I like.
24. Football: Mud
Grass. Football shaped cake with green coconut grass.
Probably that stint in soccer end ’10 made me realize it’s a lot more mud than grass. I have a permanent mud-ball stain on my shirt to prove it.
25. One night stand: Flunitrazepam
Sex. Cathleen Wong. (WTH!?)
26. Pet Peeve: Slow
Peeves in Harry Potter. Peeves the Poltergeist.
This means I need to re-watch/read HP more often.
27. Pixie Stix: Sour
Undersized penises. Condoms.
I’m glad I’ve gone down the conservative path.
28. Vanilla Ice Cream: ICE-CREAM.
Cum. White albino wheat grass.
Again, I’m glad my very disturbingly sexed up 07 self was tamed.
29. MISSING: (again? and 8.)
The Show. What the hell?
30. High School: Never Ends. I’ve been ruined by that damn song.
Never Ends. Ang Moh.
Damn song.
31. Pyjamas: McComfyPants
Cotton. Alibaba Alicia.
I LOVE PYJAMAS I WILL WEAR THEM ALL DAY IF I COULD.
32. Wood: chuckchuckifawoodchuckwouldchuckwood
Fairies. Kenny Sia.
33. Surfing: OH MAMA, I WANNA GO SURFIN’~
Hot/bleach blonde/amazing abs/tanned/drenched/surfer dude on surfboard. Hot dude in blue boxers.
I have also been listening to songs more extensively, you see. And less inclined towards hot dude on surfboards.
34. Pictures: ofyou, picturesofme
Cameras? Picasso.
And the bad music too.
35. First Love: Ice-Cream
Cupid. Infatuation.
And found an incredible love for food.
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this.
Between completing my applications, stocking up on smart-casual (I have a pathetic range of work clothes) and paying bills on AXS machines, I started reading my archives. What the Lord of the Flies said about a brighter childhood becomes relevant. I don’t know how this hits everyone – or when, but it happened to me this morning when I was eating a Kit Kat chocolate egg my grandma got me (they discontinued Kinder Surprises, you can only get them in German markets now), somehow fully expecting to see some kind of gimmick in it, but it was empty. And just like that I realized that I’ve been watching myself and my friends grow out of childhood. I don’t mean grow up. I mean grow out of something. Yes we unanimously still hold on to those childlike activities because as a group we are afraid of becoming jaded and boring. We do dance dares, we refuse to act responsibly, we watch Hannah Montana and make loud obnoxious sounds to defy the calm, steady tones adults are expected to have. I am somewhat grateful we have all that, a reminder that we can still have fun. But it doesn’t change that we’ve grown out of things that are much more than kidult activities. I have a photo of G and C in my phone, dressed up all wacky in our St. Nicks pinafores for their little hosting gig in the Drama Studio. Every time I see that photo (and I’m usually strictly non-sentimental), I get a strange feeling of loss. I’ve watched G face things no one should face in her two years, and without having to tell each other, we know something inside her would have changed. We grow out and learn things, learn that things we’ve believed without question for nineteen straight years might not be true. Don’t allow it to break us, hold on to one another, can only get stronger, but it is true that life isn’t as pretty as we wished it’ll be. I’m not terribly upset, I can only say it’s a pity – so this is growing up (out). Growing up, I have that. I’ve formed solid world views I spent years developing, I fully understand now what it is to love a friend (to feel concern for them more than you can for yourself), I can sense the center of control extending so strongly in my mind it scares me sometimes. I’m not saying I’m brilliantly intelligent, which I kind of am, but. If there is one thing my mind does well, it’s that I can categorize, compartmentalize, merge, delete, drag-drop, basically computer-function anything that goes through it. (G says, don’t over-rationalize too much) But I can’t help it. Because I know at the end of the day my mind is the only thing I have full control over, so I can’t possibly allow it to go. Archives tells me this thread of thought begun in mid-09, that was where I started to hoard and build a command center in my brain that would be absolutely infallible. That was my first sign of growing up/out. The first fully formed thought that nothing that happens to me can ever get to me. I mean, because I’m not a Vulcan (unfortunately), I still feel of course. But it takes me maybe half a day to get over things. To think it through so thoroughly I realize there’s no point sinking into it anymore. My logic goes like this. Yes you’ve done something I cannot forgive you for, but if I let it upset me – I’m the one responsible for myself being upset. Besides, it is your brain that has incited this wrong, this fault. Yes I am disappointed in you, yes I can now see you weren’t the mature adult I’ve always seen you as, but so what. It’s such a removed thing. You’re the one doing the wrong. I have done nothing, my mind has done no wrong, tripped no wires, breached no trust. As long as my mind is intact and unblemished, I can not care. This is how scarily it works, this is growing out. She tried to appeal to me; you wouldn’t know until you’re in my situation. I told her firmly no. It hasn’t happened yet but I have complete confidence I’ll never do whatever you have done – and I’ve never believed so strongly in anything I’ve said before. That was when I knew I’m finally done forming the beliefs I’ll keep from now on. Growing out. While my Vulcan-ian brain system scares the shit out of me, I’ve decided – whatever I cannot feel for myself, I do it for my friends. In a way, this has already been true for a while though I’ve never consciously registered it. How do you worry for yourself when you know whatever happens you’ll be fine? That’s needless worry. But I have no control over my friends and how they take things. I have influence yes, but because I’m not them I’ll always be uncertain of how things can go wrong for them. ‘Just tell yourself to stop thinking about it,’ ‘Don’t let whatever he says affect you at all,’ ‘Try to see it from this vantage point’, and they say yes I know I know, but I can’t. And when I so desperately want them to be able to, so they can be alright, I know it’s not something I can do for them.
There’s a lake where all things lost go and you have to dive in so deep that you feel like you’re almost crushed before you find it, hand it over to the friends you love and watch them put it on and they smile like they did five years ago and you feel like there’s nothing in the world that can take you away from this happiness.
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And it goes on and on
So recently I’ve been going on about either books or just straight off the tangent. Was planning to go into Franny and Zooey but I thought I’d save it for after Rei does one on Catcher.
In an attempt to fulfill the self-indulgence quota of online journaling, and to introduce some form of cosmos (Greek: order) (ah, words) into this space, let’s do one of those primary school favorites!
1. Are you in a job that you truly enjoy?
Starting next week at Resorts World and I’ll probably like it (a lot more than office jobs, I’m sure). I’ll much prefer unemployment though.
2. If you could do any job in the world what would it be?
Food reviewer and part-time mattress tester. Although I still stick by my dream of unemployment.
3. If you could be a character in a novel who would you be?
Charlie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For obvious reasons. Realistically though I’m much more of an Augustus Gloop (fat boy who can’t stop eating) or Veruca (SQUIRREL I WANT SQUIRREL!) Salt.
On a deeper level, because Charlie has almost no characterization besides being incredibly obedient. I can never imagine casting myself as someone else, so with someone character-less it’ll just be like possessing his body. And his chocolate paradise.
4. When it comes to spending time with those you love, do you think it should be about quality or quantity?
Quality. Always quality. I suck at the quantity part but I’m very fussy about quality.
5. Is there a job/career you wanted but realized you couldn’t possibly do for one reason or another?
Is this meme deliberately jabbing at my hopeless wishes to be unemployed forever? Because unemployed forever is what I wish for but can’t. Bastard meme.
6. If you could live anywhere in the world or out of this world where would you live?
Suspended in the middle of the universe, wherever that is. The point of singularity where everything else expands outwards from (although.. this may not actually be the case. Okay cosmo-geekery for later).
7. Which skill would you like to learn?
To play the saxophone. To master the dead languages.
8. What made you laugh today?
HAHA Theron: “IT FUCKING MEANS LITTLE MOON… I need to lie down.”
9. If there was one charity you could give a huge contribution to, which charity would it be and why?
SPCA. I don’t know I feel more for animals than anything else. Maybe because it’s so hard for them to articulate their suffering and they are so clueless.
10. What are your views on the smoking ban in public places?
AQ question [8m]
I don’t really care. Unless they smoke near my hair.11. Why do you blog?
It just happened and I haven’t stopped since. Seven years.
12. Do you have a favorite author?
Amelié Nothomb, bitches.
13. Can you play any musical instruments?
The recorder, the tambourine and the uke. I’m planning to learn the Jew’s Harp next.
14. What would your ideal car be?
A Volkswagen with a really sick audio system.
15. Describe yourself in one short sentence.
Are you kidding me.
16. What do you look for in a spouse/other half?
Intelligence.
17. Worst meal you’ve had?
WASABI ICE CREAM FOREVER. Celine Ong.
18. What do you do to relax in the evening?
Some after-meal dessert.
19. Do you get along with your siblings?
Considering the years I’ve subjected her to psychological experiments and torture, we’re alright
25. Do you you have any regrets?
Yes like anyone else, but I actively make sure I don’t do anything I’ll regret, and I’m good at justifying my decisions/getting over things.
26. Put your iTunes on shuffle and list the first 6 songs.
– wannapunch!, Shuta Hasunuma
– Academia…, Sia
– what the world will never take, Hillsong
– If you were an Alien, The Brunettes
– Tahquamenon Falls, Sufjan Stevens
– Title and Registration, Deathcab27. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Those I really want to are fictional, unfortunately, or dead. Maybe Stalin.
28. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
‘run after him, shouting, “Dear Little Beggar, Dear Little Beggar!”‘
29. What do you think about most?
Seriously? Food.
30. What does your latest text message from someone else say?
Nat: Just walked past some h&m adverts. Seem like they advertising boho eh
31. Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
Used to without but now with. Just not.. everything.
32. What’s your strangest talent?
If I rely directly on instincts, I can predict time to the exact minute. And this is after a few hours without checking the clock.
I believe that everyone has this ability actually if they trust their instincts enough. It’s like how you’ll set the alarm to 7 and wake at 6.59pm. Despite relativity and different experiences of the same time period, our biological clocks have gone through time for so many years it’s impossible not to be incredibly attuned to it.
33. Women…. (finish the sentence); Men…. (finish the sentence)
Women are humans; men are too. Attempts at psychologically dividing them are illusory and arbitrary.
34. Ever had a poem or song written about you?
Yes. I was traumatized.
35. When is the last time you played the air guitar?
I’m guessing with the mugs when we reach that embarrassing point of non-alcoholic drunken chaos.
36. Do you have any strange phobias?
I’m equal parts fascinated and terrified by aliens.
37. Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
Ew no, I don’t even stick my finger up there. It is truly horrific.
Celine on the other hand, stuck earphones up hers and amplified music through her mouth.
38. What’s your religion?
Christian.
39. If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
EATING. Why my life like that. Or doing social inappropriate things.
40. Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
In front of digital, behind film.
41. Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
Starfucker, but many others come close.
42. What was the last lie you told?
Z: “You’re getting prettier and prettier!”
Me: “No la, no la.”43. Do you believe in karma?
I have serious doubts about criminal justice, still can’t fully understand divine justice, and have even more trouble trusting karma.
44. What does your URL mean?
Rictusempra. The Perpetual Tickling Spell, as in the Harry Potter series.
45. What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
Pride; everything else.
swidt.46. Who is your celebrity crush?
Matthew Gray Gubler I guess? I’m not a very celebrity crush type person.
47. Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
No because that’s sexual harassment. Why I think that would stop me I don’t know.
48. How do you vent your anger?
I’m really lame. I just get slightly quieter and not show anything. Then I’ll cry when no one is around. Seldom though.
OR. As Cleo likes to remind me, what I shared during CME in primary school:
“I was so angry I knocked over the fan!”
Teacher: “Then what did you do after that?”
“I picked it up.”50. Do you have a collection of anything?
I used to collect Pokemon cards, batteries (before Arthur Weasley made it cool) and watches.
51. Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
If I’m wearing pants, video. I gesticulate and emote a lot even on the phone and without an audience that’s a phenomenal waste of energy.
52. In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?
Respect, trust and genuine concern. Oh and fun.
53. How did/could someone win your heart?
Impress me deep enough which is not very easy because I am deceivingly brilliant.
54. In your world, what brings on more creativity?
Integration. Of everything. Science, arts, ideas, people, nature. Creativity is how much your mind can merge varied or even divisive topics.
55. What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?
Taking Drama in St. Nicks.
56. Why did you break up with your last ex?
I’m not good at showing people how much I like them.
57. What would you want to be written on your tombstone?
“They are lucky to have her up there.”
58. What is your current desktop picture?
Minimalist Pokemon. Currently Cyndaquil.
59. If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?
I wouldn’t touch the damn button. Also, is this what’s behind Spontaneous Combustion? Scientists have been on this for decades.
60. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by WEEPING ANGELS. The Weeping Angles aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What would you do?
The Time Lord has taught me to locate the one without another angel staring at it and stare back and NOT BLINK.
Although if you want to get Doctor Who technical, this situation is highly implausible.
61. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?
Change color of things. I don’t trust myself with serious extraterrestrial powers. I’ll either kill myself or everyone else.
62. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
I’m good at blocking out or getting over things that upset me, especially if they were a past event. So if you ask me now there’s really nothing (I can remember).
63. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. (let’s say that you are both single and available) Who might it be?
All the musicians I like are sexually unappealing.
Pete Quaife of the Kinks? He is also dead.
Damn I love talking about myself.
-
TO NAP.
1.
recently i read two book consecutively and by pure coincidence they echoed each other, at least in a skeletal manner.
Amélie Nothomb’s Book of Proper Names and Anais Nin’s Children of the Albatross. at this juncture i need to confess that i’m now and always biased towards Nothomb. besides her ridiculous endings which are surreal to the point of being sublime, i can hold nothing against her. she’s refined but wild, seldom predictable and never pretentious. i don’t think i knew how to read before i read Nothomb. but that’s just me.
both were of orphaned dancers centering their life around ballet. Nothomb’s pursuing perfection in dance and the body, Nin’s similarly exploring the beauty of dance.
the Book of Proper Names was a Mobius strip of un-orientable surrealism – you start out thinking okay, i’ve got this, but it unravels somewhere (you don’t know where) and you find that you’ve exited reality so quietly you’re standing in exactly the same place but everything’s been warped to be completely unrecognizable. Nin’s on the other hand, starts with a creeping sense of unknowing but settles into what i call Coffeehouse Romance.
i dread Coffeehouse Romance in every book/film/cartoon/show i encounter. basically it is anything romantic that is pretty. i don’t know why it scares me so much, but love should be ugly and confusing and completely flawed and wrong because that’s the only way i can believe it. this is not me being disillusioned. Coffeehouse Romance has this insidious way of making me highly conscious of myself holding a book and reading words that are putting images in my mind. it reminds me that i’m reading which is probably the worst case of book-cock-block there is to reading.
probably the best book you can read that balances absolute strangeness with sheer truthfulness in relationships is Shopgirl. it’s highly cognitive, and this analysis is at work even at the novella’s most compact mass of weepy. read if only for Ray Porter’s dissection of how to romance and Jeremy’s intellectual breakthrough which was frankly incredibly sexy and makes me very hopeful about life and men.
the Book of Proper Names, fortunately, had a very hideous streak of romance that was completely weird – and came up only towards the end with a brilliant little front piece about it. like i told Celine, Nothomb’s endings are a shitload of crap. deliberately and rightly so. endings are probably the least important part of the book, and it is probably the least important thing about ourselves too. look at it this way – when it ends, you’ll have to no way to cerebral-ize, celebrate, or mope about it. in a way: it doesn’t matter at all. by extension – book endings don’t matter.
also. i always feel uneasy with endings. because from there there a million billion permutations of how it will. even if it ends in the protagonist’s death, what happens to everyone else? an ending that very explicitly feels like it says: ‘yes. it ends here. it is happy/sad and how it will be forever’, i feel cheated. of course there’s no way around this catch-22 so i live with all the endings i read and get blown away by crazy ones like Nothomb. maybe i should try sci-fi with gimmicky time-travelling. also i suck at writing endings.
2.
i stopped caring much about University. or at least not as much as people want me to. it’s not that i’ve gone complacent or nonchalant about education, but these few months made me realize how minimally school affects what i know.
i get excited thinking about re-entering a place where i’d be given topics to study and where i’d get to learn, but then i thought that right before JC as well. in a way it’s my own fault. i constantly compartmentalize ‘learning’ from ‘school-studying’. the only real way of learning is to build them neuron links – where you actually become more intelligent and shit. somehow i’ve stubbornly offered only the most shallow information-storing, copy-pasting part of my mind to school. we like to think that the education system is flawed and all – which partly yes because it’s time constraint practically forces us to offer only that shallow brain bit (most efficient in the short-run), but it’s about how much i wanted to give as well i guess.
also i have a serious thing about competition (I AM MORTALLY AFRAID OF IT) and i almost never want proper help from people. in J1 a teacher had me aside because she noticed that i seemed averse to asking for help from teachers. and i’ve known this about myself all along – i study best alone and in fact, i learn best when i do everything myself. by everything i mean picking what i want to learn, researching for information on my own, and self-evaluating. (that is probably most of my friends too.) this also means i am academically anti-social. competition paralyses me into wanting to give up and i’d actually much prefer if lessons go like: ‘ok go home and learn about the Cold War by yourself good bye.’ and then also i am incredibly adhd and distracted during everything except lit lectures.
in a very strange, warped way – the better and more effective my teachers are, the less likely i might actually perform.
that’s basically the summary of my schooling life from p1 – j2.
the only reason why i’ve not failed immensely in school is because nearing major exams (and when you’re near death you get that whole gungho, take the plunge shit) a part of me goes – dammit i don’t care already just do anything i want to do. and i’d basically do everything i’m not supposed to do and throw away a worrying amount of notes i’ve been hoarding and sieve out the essential parts and sleep A LOT and watch A LOT of TV (which i maintain is the only way to regulate brain activity). and somehow these techniques always work out right for me. but i don’t want last-ditch successes all the time.
i really, really want to have a stretch of school life where i actually start out right – meaning no one’s telling me how to do it or giving me resources that distract me from my own strangeling learning patterns. so while i’m excited about entering Uni, i’ve pretty much stopped caring which course i’m taking or where i’m going. because i realized it doesn’t matter. wherever you go you’re just learning the same thing. TO THINK. i just want someone to bark at me to learn something and i’ll head off on my own to be some kind of self-built supergenius.
3.
have you watched The General?
you haven’t. go watch it.
Q 