flying out.

Realised at about 8pm that I needed to be on a plane tomorrow morning. Whoops.

Went off to the city today! I need to go shower and pack and research the uni etc, so I’ll be quick. No, I don’t know why I’m blogging.

- had a 32cm icecream. Yep, from the place that was closed when I went with Shirley and co a while back. In hindsight, it wasn’t a smart idea, considering the heat.

- karaoke! First time I’ve been in ages. I was impressed by their Jap song collection; some of it was pretty recent. Lol-ed at the extensive SMAP.

- New Moon. Wow. Words cannot express the pain. Texted five people, got a phone call (ty alice =P), went through 20 songs on my iPod and tried to sleep before the movie ended.

- dinner. Was nice, but I was still pretty full from the massive ice cream. Actually, my appetite’s been dying in the last few days. Maybe it’s proportional to sleep?

Stratty station is all nice and lit up for Christmas, with the tree in the fountain again. Went off to Gloria Jeans for a bit, wondered if I should head off to Stratty Park, decided against it.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt less up for an interview in my life. Maybe I need to go for another run xD

Please call me or something tomorrow. I’d forgotten uni holidays, so I’ll have noone to talk to at Monash. You know you want to put me out of my misery

moving on.

Decided that I needed a change

After my boring post yesterday, I realised I should be more constructive. It’s about time to get fit – I think I’ll be lucky to live `til fifty, what with the state of my lungs. So! Off for a run around 4:20pm yesterday, when I mistakenly thought that it cooled down. Forgot I had the AC running and regretted it the moment I stepped out of the house ==’

Dang. I haven’t felt this unfit since I died on the uphill parts of DoE. My plan for a 30 minute run turned into running a block for every four I walked. Heh. Realised that the crossword clue from this morning (when a part of the body isn’t getting enough air) might have been ‘hypoxia’ xD

Well, at least there’s room for improvement

I always feel more constructive when I’m out of the house. I ran past a childcare centre, ran back, then got home and dialled the number on their sign. Hopefully they’ll have room for another volunteer.

Then, started on a resume! How far back are you meant to go? Because I’d feel ridiculous if I put in stuff from Year 3/4. Heck, even before Year 9. But yeah, someone who’s had experience in this thing, leave me a comment

Watched Neighbours, Home and Away, Glee, The Amazing Race. It’s so nice to be able to watch TV guilt-free.

And well… if I don’t start doing something with my time now, I’ll just end up wallowing in self-pity when ATAR results are out *shudder*

No thanks. I’m considering not actually getting my results online etc – I mean, what matters is whether or not I get in, right? After that, it’s just a useless number.

Yeah, in case you’re wondering, this was actually typed up in the early hours of the morning.. but a decision made to not publish because blogs typed at this hour usually tend to be quite strange.

And this was when I took a break to go to sleep.

Back. 10am and this blog doesn’t look too bad, so I’ll just hit ‘Publish’ and go wait around for the childcare place to call me back. Is it just me, or does it always feel really desperate to wait for someone to call you? xD

cleanup!

I might go back to daily blogging – I miss it. Short blogs mainly, though

Firstly, a huge thanks to James for the sleepover at his place. Got my butt well and truly kicked in Singstar and Mario Party (was that what it was called?). Heh xD `twas fun, though ^^
Sorry I was so useless at helping pack up though *feels guilty*

I’ve been a little stressed lately, interviews and stuff. Yep, it was interview #3 yesterday – UNSW. Felt like some good cop bad cop thing – it was a little off putting.

I’m not sure if I did enough to get in though, what with my dodgy ATAR. But hey, we’ll see. There’s always Queensland =D

I’m taking a break from cleaning right now. Actually, ‘dumping’ is probably more accurate. It’s not like I’ll be using worksheets again.. and I have everything on computer, right? So I’m doing the environment a favour and throwing everything on my floor into the recycling bin.

I feel so much lighter already ^^

Learning to drive soon as well, should be fun At least I’ll feel like I’m being more constructive than the last few days – been glued to the computer. Heh.

Sorry this is another boring blog. I’ll (hopefully) go out and do something interesting soon

Hope you guys at nsg formal aren’t feeling too stoned! (btw krish, what happened to calling me back? Did you fall asleep? ==’)

life.

I always thought that I’d be posting something right after HSC (finally) ended, but somehow it felt like there wasn’t the time/motivation to blog. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing to really procrastinate about, except maybe interview preparation stuff.

So… here’s a general long, boring post about what I’ve been doing. Sorry if it’s not really of any interest to you – I guess I just want to remember these blissful days between the HSC and HSC results. I should really get a diary, eh? But at least this (hopefully) stops me from writing down too many stupid things. Some of the stuff from my diary entries from when I was about 6yo are hilarious xD

Anyway. This is my life.

Thursday(do I have any underline on this?)
Geography exam. I felt like I wasn’t at my best. I guess… I didn’t feel in the zone. In fact, I was thinking about how obnoxious these videos were during reading time. Seriously, one of the girls (whos about 13?) in the first video looks like she’s warming up for a career in the…. well, pron industry *hopes this blog doesn’t get hits for the wrong reason*

Flunked the entire section with the precis map, topographic map and photo because I didn’t notice the different times they were taken. Did this just cost me my HSC? Considering that geo’s always been two of my best units, maybe. But I’m trying to not think about it – no point dwelling on the past, right?

Started signing out, but felt too dead/disappointed after the exam to finish. Caught the 546 to Parra – took ages but the heat was kind of extreme. Then it was formal shopping, mainly with Krish. Spent a few hours walking around, didn’t like anything. Managed to slice my wrist on a coathanger – no, I still don’t know how I managed that. Must be my inner emo, eh?

Panicking that I still had nothing for the formal, I ended up dragging Krish (with a lot of convincing) to Redfern. Went back to the shop where I got my Year 10 formal dress and settled on this red one. There was another nice red dress, but it was full length and still on the floor when I wore heels ==’

I realised when I got home that it was actually a size or two too big. Heh. Too late to get it altered.

Friday
Up to Newcastle. Road trip!

Okay, I wish it was that exciting. It was med interview #2.. which failed epically. The interviewers ended up asking ‘did you actually research this course before you came here??’ ==”

Ah well. I think I might have shown I’d be a decent doctor, but definitely not one that should be studying at UNCLE.

Watched Go! (2001) when I got home. It’s a movie starring Kubozuka Yosuke (from IWGP). I can’t believe he (the actor) survived after jumping 9 storeys -_-’

But anyway. On a less morbid note… the movie was pretty good. It won a tonne of awards etc. I guess I felt a little..restless… when I was watching it. As in, it was a little hard to really enjoy parts of it. I think the problem was that the quote at the start (from Romeo and Juliet) and the bits that were Shakespeare-ish (quite a few parallels), as well as when he kept saying ‘this is my love story’ kind of made me think that it would be centred on some romantic plot. While romance is a part of the movie, it’s not the focus IMO. The focus is the trouble the zainichi have in Japanese society. And when you watch the movie keeping that in mind, it’s a pretty good film.

The scenes that really stood out for me were the bedroom scene (not the first one. Actually, that wasn’t too bad xD Wait, not for that reason) and the policeman scene right after.

Kubozuka’s acting was pretty good – at the start it just felt like he was the ‘King of G-boys’ from IWGP (which wasn’t bad), but I preferred the more serious moments.

Anyway. Enough on that.

Saturday
Went to Market City in the morning to hunt for formal stuff. Got there a bit too early, so detoured to the supermarket thingy to look for the dashi miso paste stuff and wakame.

After a really fun day at UTS (*shudder*) made my way home and ran into liv on the bus (see liv, I haven’t forgotten about you! Wait, do you still read this..?)

Got off at the park, called up Krish (who lives next door) and she brought the vicious three-headed monster from Harry Potter. Ran into Ragib as well (who knew the park was so popular?) and yeah.. it was good. I missed spending time with these guys <3 (well, maybe not Krish since I see her all the time. Kidding.)

Realised that Fluffy is fine with me, just not with Ragib or liv.

Went home at about 7:30pm, made miso soup for dinner in a rush and burned my tongue ==' But I still managed to get back to the park by 8:00 in time to watch the screening of Australia.

I thought the movie was pretty good – maybe because I had low expectations after it got owned in reviews. I thought it was a little long (I expected it to end after the cattle), but hey, it wasn’t that terrible. And I’m not really a fan of Hugh Jackman, so that’s not the reason.

Got home around 10:45pm. Realised I needed to wake up early the next day.

Sunday
Sculptures by the Sea! Planned to meet everyone at 10 (I think?), but certain Carlingford folk *cough cough* thought they’d get off at Wynyard to get to Bondi Junction.. and were still at Wynyard when we were meant to meet.

So! Went with Andrea to get food. Sadly realised that it was too late to get a hash brown at Maccas (just like what happened in Newcastle >=( ), so went to Oportos to try their coleslaw. Yes, I eat plain coleslaw. I bet you like weird food too!

DO NOT EAT OPORTOS COLESLAW. It was disgusting.

Anyway! Walked back to the station and saw that Lulu, Shirley and Cloi had all arrived

The walk itself was fun. But by the end, my unfit self stopped trying to work out the meaning of the sculptures and just went ‘yeah, pretty.. next!’. Heh.

It was quite hot, but the free orange juice and free hat helped =D

The sculptures were great – you can see them here. My personal favourites were the green wind twirly thing that looked IKEA-ish (yes, I have great artistic critiquing skillz) and the straw. Oh, and the kids playhouse =D

I shall add photos once I get permission to leach off Andrea

Had a $6.50 hot dog for lunch. Now, you may think that $6.50 is outrageously expensive (certain people did xD), but I reckon (Cloi can back me up here) that it was actually worth it, considering that we bought it at the beach where they were capitalising on hungry, tired people.

It was the biggest friggin hot dog I had ever eaten – not like the puny ones we get at school! And the guy gave heaps of onions – not just a measly little bit that runs out halfway ^^ And there was a lot of sauce

Anyway! Afterwards, I dragged everyone back to Bondi Junction to go bag/shoe shopping. I’m not that picky! No, really

Huge thanks to Andrea who stayed back while I dragged her everywhere (I love you! =D)
My shoes ended up being ridiculously overpriced, but ah well. My dress was cheap, so they cancelled out =P

There were these annoying guys blasting music at top volume on the train home. I think guys who walk around doing that on public transport are really just overcompensating. Sorry.

But that wasn’t it! I still had time to kill. So, I went to Burwood Westfield, ran to Strandbags before it closed, and picked a random bag. At this stage, I was just panicking about having everything ready for formal. Yay for last minute stuff.

Finally, it was almost 6 and I was back at Strathfield.. for Korean BBQ! It felt like it had been ages since all four of us were together at the station. I wish I could tell you what we ordered, but my Korean is pretty non-existent. All I know is that we had a chicken thing, pork thing and beef thing

Went off to Gloria Jeans afterwards, where we ran into liv, who had dogged us >.>

Ended up going back to Stratty Plaza and talking for a while, `twas good.

Monday
Off to school! Signed out fairly quickly, then went off to Parra with Krish and Jason. Didn’t really need to get anything, but ended up getting nailpolish and nail stickers because I’m too cheap (and don’t see the point) of getting my nails done.

Shopping was fun. Ran into Jessie as well =)

Oh! And we had one of the new New Zealand Natural Sooshi ice cream things! I had strawberry flavour, which was pretty nice. We should have bought a 6 pack.

In case you haven’t seen them- they’re $1 each and have what tastes a bit like an apple roll-up for the seaweed, ice cream for the rice and some strange fruit thing in the middle.

Here’s the official site – it’s worth going to, because it has pictures as well as a BUY ONE GET ONE FREE offer

Tuesday
Day of the formal. Spent the morning painting my nails – I think I became pro-er after Jungle Speed xD Nail stickers were fun to put on, slightly difficult to do for my right hand. Wow, being preppy is actually quite entertaining.

Krish came over around midday to work on hair – yeah, she was in my bedroom Kris, suck it up

Left to get makeup done at 3:30-ish, because I’m completely incapable. Huge thanks to Sharvika for saving me.

Got home at 5:50 or so, speed changed into my dress and ran out the door. I actually forgot my DNA earrings. Ah well. By this stage, I was kind of over the formal.

Picked up Krish and Sharvika, and got to Le Montage at about 6:30.

Formal. I thought it was ok, kind of overrrated in terms of the hype, as usual. Food was ok, preferred the scotch fillet thingy to the chicken, immediately thought of egg tart when I had the dessert. Music was ok – turns out the song list to the DJ never really got organised, but whatever.

Eurgh I saw the grade photo and realised I was right in the middle. I honestly didn’t even know I was there D:

How embarrassing. But whatever, my mum liked it, considering I was in too much of a rush to get out of the house to take a photo at home.

But yeah, everyone looked spectacular and it was nice to spend a day together with most of the grade. And a huge thankyou to Tina <3 (who, for the record, is not actually lesbian xD)

Wednesday
Now, it would be quite ridiculous to go out the day after formal, right?

Meh. Woke up at 4am (bloody garbage truck) and got ready to go to Macquarie. It was the first time I’d caught a train on the Epping-Chatswood link – I quite liked it, much more convenient that the bus. Anyone up for going ice skating sometime? Mind you, I’m terrible at it, but it sounds good in this weather.

Watched The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. I had no clue what it was about, just a vague memory of some trailer ages ago.

Wow. Best movie I’d seen in ages. I loved it. I think I want it on DVD.

I love things that mess with your mind

Loved the characters, `specially Heath Ledger/Johnny Depp/the other actors playing the same part and the Anton guy. Loved the puns. Won’t say anymore in case I ruin it.

The only thing I didn’t really like was the ending. But ah well, it was good overall.

Here’s the trailer, but it has slight spoilers. I’d recommend you didn’t watch it, actually.

But the highlight of the day would be someone’s expertise with the CityRail ticket machines

Thursday
Felt good to have a day with no plans. Watched Law and Order Criminal Intent, SVU, Psych, I Dream of Jeannie… then a bunch of episodes of Bleach. Then Glee and The Amazing Race. My eyes feel like they’re about to fall out of my head ==’

I wasn’t that much of a Glee fan `til this episode. Chris Colfer’s voice (Kurt) is amazing – he sang ‘Defying Gravity’, from Wicked. I can’t hit a high F like that. Actually, most high notes are out of my range. Drove my old piano teacher insane xD

…must be because I’m so manly.

Here’s what aired, and here’s his solo version (where he gets the note).

Anyway. That was a super long post. 2100+ words. Wow. Obviously I have nothing better to do with my time.

It’s nice =D

ラスト·フレンズ

Yes, I’m flunking my HSC. But hey, might as well enjoy it. Again, a break from what I planned to blog about.

So today, I watched Last Friends, a J-drama that came out in 2008.

I wasn’t going to watch the whole thing, so I decided to start midway (because the fist eps weren’t up where I watch) and stop. But.. dang, it grabbed me.

Don’t Wikipedia it! The DramaWiki should do. But I don’t think it really sums it up.

I kind of regret watching it out of order.. but hey, I’ll watch it properly after exams. Basically… it’s about.. hmmm…. Well, a lot. Mainly friendships/relationships.. and domestic violence. There’s more, but I don’t want to ruin it.

The theme song is Utada’s ‘Prisoner of Love’, which pretty much sums it up. I quite liked the opening – all the shattering objects seemed to fit.

I don’t know how accurate its portrayal of DV (as they call it) is – maybe cliché, but I think it worked. I was honestly scared of Sousuke – even when he wasn’t in the scene. The clip below is the only one I could find without major spoilers – the first 50 seconds or so is him ‘teaching Michiru a lesson’ after his freaking out because Michiru was cutting guys’ hair at her hairdresser place and talking to her friends etc. Everything after 0:50 shows snippets of how crazy he gets in just the early eps, without spoiling the drama.

I guess the drama really worked for me because the characters aren’t 2D. Sousuke (Nishikido Ryo) was easily my favourite. Wait, that’s not quite right. Most interesting character, more like it – he freaked me out. I’m not good with breaking cutlery, let along actual violence -_-’

I think the creepiest bit was how everything went between ‘fine’ and creepy. And how Michiru walked back in the next morning and the lamp was all fixed again. The symbolism in the drama rocked.

Psychotic, violent, creepy… but somehow, I couldn’t hate Sousuke at the end. Even when he asked why Michiru was crying (well no sh*t, why wouldn’t she be?)… it was still hard to hate him. He’s described in the opening as ‘contradictory’, and that pretty much sums him up. Watch up to 1:30 (or start at 0:41 if you’re lazy). The whole video doesn’t have any major spoilers, really – pretty good at showing how impossible it is to categorise the characters.

It honestly seems like he loves her the whole time, and it’s impossible to just write him off as the evil son of a b*tch that he is. It’s tempting to just let him be a character ‘with a problem’ or ‘multiple personalities’ or someone who ‘loves someone too much’ (Othello, much?). And I did find myself hoping that he’d somehow change.

But if you really loved someone, you wouldn’t hit them. I guess the drama shows how difficult it is to actually live by that. It’s too easy to see why Michiru believes that ‘it hurts him too’. Gargh.

I’d highly recommend watching it. It’s also pretty awesome to watch Nishikido Ryo in a role that’s completely different to his loveable-angsty-awesome-Asou Haruto; I think the casting was perfect. Definitely deserved his ‘best supporting actor’. Ueno Juri’s acting was also pretty good. Probably better than Ryo’s, but hey, I’m a fangirl. And I loved Takeru (Eita). Someone get me a Takeru <3 Hey, a make-up artist sounds perfect, seeing that formal is coming up. I still haven't worked out how girls learn to put on their own makeup – I can only make myself look like an emo because I fail so badly with eyeliner.

The ending was pretty good. I think Sousuke was a chicken, but hated/loved him in the end anyway. And it kept all the shippers happy – well, if not happy, at least not disappointed.

I think the worst part of the drama is the way it messes with your head. I expected that I'd be thinking 'what the heck. Just leave him already and get an AVO' when Michiru calls him again/goes over/defends him. But I admit that I sat there and thought, 'yeah, I'd definitely go back to him'. Yeah. I think I proved that I'm pretty weak this year. I'd easily be the person who rationalises and justifies it all out.

This probably sounds like a very superficial post. Sorry. It was just a great series. Maybe it felt like there was too much packed in sometimes, but I think it pulled it off. I like dramas that mess with my mind.

Watch the first episode, if you have nothing to do in your post-HSC time. It's subbed up at Veoh, but you'll need to get their player thingy. The first 20mins or so is just introducing each character, but it gets quite creepy towards the end *shudder*

On a related note, White Ribbon Day is coming up – 25th November. Anyone up for volunteering?

EDIT: Wait, this might be the right link for just selling ribbons.