Sayonara
10:48 p.m. on 2006-02-28

AHAHA, DIE!

I am abandoning this blog once and for all.

First it was the tag board, then my Gandalf background.

I don't think I can take a blog that keeps disappearing on itself.

And I have no bloody idea how to change the coding.

Woe is frightfully HTML-inadequate me.

So bye.

Will find another blog where things are not so confusing, yesh.

Aishiteruze Baby! For luck fulfillment
10:06 p.m. on 2006-02-28

Ha.

I guess it is always a good blogging sign when one still remembers the password for one's blog after years and years (i.e months and months) of non-blogging.

Out of sheer superstition, am going to start the first post of the year with something cheerful....

...like Aishiteruze Baby!

It's manga.

And it's shoujo to boot.

I don't know what it is about shojo that always makes me deeply ashamed to claim acknowledge any claims that I read it.

I bet it's tainted with childhood memories of utterly and unforgivably girly things I used to do ---> (read as) playing with Barbie (TM! who knows might be reading, those multinational corporate sharks) in all the glory of pink-ness.

So girly *manga* pieces can only be seen as "Eeek" and "Omg, how could you!" to the distastefull eyes of geeky shounen fans.

-.-;; (hee. you knew that was coming, admit it)

Funny it should bother me, considering how the main memory space in my 'manga' folder comprises of yaoi and shounen-ai* And that generally has hardly any plot or dialogue whatsoever.

... Not that I complain. Hello, Nearly 1GB of it!

*Did you catch that, O Other People Who Might Read This Apart From Cho? Lucky or unluckily you did cause I'm not mentioning it again. Slashes slash deep and stay in the closet, really)

Dude, what was I going on about again? Rigggght!

Aishiteruze Baby! (With the cheerful exclamation marks and everything).

15 year-old high school kid finds his playboy (for want of a better word. It's really not! but you'll have to read to understand) life gate-crashed by his bitsy 5 year old cousin who pulls Bambi eyes on him everywhere and hops a lot.

His life is ruined! So he makes her boxed lunches (proper term being 'bento' cause we're sekritly all sticklers to correct words) instead.

It's *so* CUTE* it will slay you.

Make no mistake, I've been dead a record of 5 times in one chapter.

"Dude, you oaf! It's still shoujo and bleargh, then" you say.

And it right be except half of it touches upon things like harassment and teen suicide and lots of other angsty things shounen.

...

The other half's utter crack but I've never seen crack dressed up so cute before so I'm completely sold.

P.S ChO! So burning for you even if you don't want it!

Waltzing Slowly to Yuletide
11:59 p.m. on 2005-11-19

*coughs*

*kicks previous angsty entry aside*

Shhh...

I'm preparing something special for Christmas at home for the 'rents.

Since I've learnt to download songs so splendidly over mIRC, I found a guy (or well, to give the person credit, 'WhatMan' could be a nick for a girl too) who had tons and *tons* of Christmas albums.

So, am compiling a mix CD list for Christmas.

If you like Christmas songs as much as I do, you'll have favourites too. I like that song... if only whatsisname sang it instead, man, barbra streisand's version is so much better! But I don't want to buy the whole album. I mean; *Barbra Streisand*, you know?.

So yeah.

What I mean.

This list will have no Jingle Bells because I have never heard a version that doesn't jar the nerves, nor will it have Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer because really, when you sing it 10 times in one night, for one week - house to house, you'll stuff your ears and vow never to listen to it again too.

What it will have is a list of people you probably don't know... like Johnny Mathis, who has an annoyingly throbbing voice when singing love songs but stick him in Jolly Holly Christmas and he does just fine.

It'll also have people you should know if you don't, like Sinatra! Who sings the loveliest Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas I've ever heard.

Ever *ever*

... and Dean Martin who does a mean White Christmas

[If you're bored by now, sorry lah. I did warn about Christmas carol raving, you know. No rule that you have to carry a Jesus card to love 'em.

Look at Kevin! He's Buddhist and puts up a Christmas tree. I hardly go to church and you see me denying the ting-ting-a-ling jingles? Damn straight.

Christmas. It's pretty much a consumer's right now]

Mangaka Madness
7:59 p.m. on 2005-11-17

Well ha.

Spent the half the day leeching manga off IRC wit So Much Love.

Then, the other half was spent skimming through pages and pages of Boy A angsting about his troubled past and how no one would love him because of it.

Shut up. It's shounen-ai, okay? They're not known for brilliant plotiness

Anyway, here's this Boy A who's all wispy hair plus eyelashes, clutching his head and staring at window panes in the rain.

You write it off as sexual abuse in childhood.

Because it's always sexual abuse. Someone needs to talk to all those mangakas out there and make them understand the meaning of a healthy relationship without violence. God's honest truth.

So I'm sitting here, bracing myself for the inevitable painful flahsback anytime soon and WHAM.

The angsting results not from childhood abuse but ... SCHIZOPHRENIA!

.
.
.

Bob's my uncle. That's 50 points right there for unexpectant twisty creativity, dude.

ETA: Turns out, it *was* childhood abuse. Schizophrenia was just one of the many twisty symptoms. Like I said, plotlines you can spot a mile away. Boo.

Catharsis.
12:15 a.m. on 2005-11-17

I think perhaps, I have never been brutally honest in this journal before.

I've always thought Eric's transparency in blog to be rather freeing. Has to be, doesn't it? To type whatever and not think about the repercussions and reactions from other people.

I feel like I have been doing that my whole life - thinking for other people, making sure I don't do something that won't end up hurting other people.

Well, screw that.

I believe them college friends have never seen me very angry or out out or depressed in that sense.

Brace yourselves.

Cause it always starts with mothers and after a lovely dinner at Marche's tonight, I had this conversation with the mum...

Mum: I don't suppose they bought you anything or paid for your dinner, did they?

And I braced myself for another round because conversations like these always end up with me wearily defending my friends.

It's true. I used to tell myself of the woe of having your birthday in November and everyone either forgetting or too busy with their own things to do something.

Minds and I even had this conversation before where we both agree that it doesn't bother us-- not getting anythign in return for our birthdays because well, I know Minds is just nice like that.

And I'm being honest. It doesn't bother me. Maybe it should? But it doesn't. Not really.

Sometimes I get sick of defending my friends to my parents. Like I have to constantly prove that they are the wonderful people I believe them to be.

I've had freaking arguments, loud screaming ones about how this bunch of MUFY friends have meant so much to me.

I've chosen them over fights with my parents.

You see, I've never had a bunch of well, *friends* friends before and I appreciate all of them so much.

There are times when I just sit back and wonder if I feel too damn much.

What if I'm the only one caring so much about everyone else and no one gives a damn about me.

Sometimes I feel like there are only 3 people in this world (not blood related) who would care if I fell off the edge of the earth and they are... Cho, Eric and Mindy.

I'm one of the girls but I'm never quite a part of them, they do their shopping and hanging out that I'm hardly a part of and the guys, well. Guys always have their own thing.

The lass on the outside, the other end of the looking glass who's looking in. Me.

*shrugs* In retrospect...

Well, self-paranoia. It grows on you. I think everyone has it. Look at Eric who thinks he's always the odd one out and I'd never have thought that until he said.

He is relatively braver when it comes to emotional matters.

If I had half of that, I wouldn't be here, angsting if people cared for me as much as I cared for them.

I say Whip It! Whip it good!
1:00 a.m. on 2005-11-10

Oh Eric, I hate you *this* much!

*falls over self laughing*

It is totally your fault you made me download this crack-infested song -- Whip It! by Devo.

I have and it's been on repeat for ages upon ages.

Everytime the chorus shuffles into play, I have a hilarious mental image of the first time Eric was trying to describe the song to me.

In detail. With hand gestures of an imaginary riding crop.

Good times, good times.

P.S. Eric my boy, I do worry about you and your nocturnal sojourns (um, i.e. dreams). Obstacles in the road, people hating and disclaiming you? You have issues that would give Freud wet dreams. Evidently you need to talk to *people*.

I am not kidding!

...

Also, everyone who has not read The Velveteen Rabbit, what have you been missing, people?

Do.

Regain back your lost minutes in childhood and all that.

It's about love, reality and toys that talk back. Only, unlike Enid Blyton's nursery chattering toys, the creatures in VR say awfully deep things.

Well, I think they're deep at any rate.

Flashes of Gold and Clashes of Light
3:44 p.m. on 2005-11-01

In which I have a very odd conversation with Tang-y (or so Natalya calls him).

Me: *frantic and brain-poppingly stressed about an exam I have no reason to be stressing over*

*dials number*

Dr. Tang: Yes. Yes?

Me: (mutters salutations) It's me. Maxine. From INT1020 (because I thought I ought help jog his memory since he admits having memory containment of a sieve)

Tang: Oh ha. I know. Sounds like you.

Me: ...

This coming from a man who wheedled passport sized photos of everyone of us so he could remember who we were as he graded us).

This man remembers how I sound like?

God.

I'm still tottering on the giddy edge of flattery because a lecturer remembered who I am.

It always is something pleasant when lecturers know who you are (for pracical reasons too, of course. They'll know who they are giving marks *to*) but coming from Tang -- Part-time lecturer of Doom and Sharp Tongues who may have suffered a blow to the frontal lobes of his gray matter.

Whoa.

Think I'll totter a little while longer.

When Tag Boards go Boom: A Tale of Mysterious Disappearance
3:30 p.m. on 2005-11-01

Uh

I think there is something seriously wrong with my tag board.

Just the other day, half of it disappeared and today, It's vamoose.

*squints*

What happened to it?

I swear I didn't touch the coding!

Now I have to find out what is wrong, damnit.

Tag board, Come back! I was ever so nice and tagged faithfully on your from time to time!

My Brain: Maximum Capacity of < 20ml
12:48 a.m. on 2005-11-01

OMG.

What kind of bloody subject is Contemporary Worlds anyway?

Gargh!

*snags hair on fists*

They give you one word, like 'feminism' or 'Indigenous People' and you have to write a paragraph on it.

Paragraph in this context meaning a maximum of one page, really.

Which is just about the bane of my existence.

It's like an impromptu speech which is good if you're in *public speaking* but not when you're being graded for an examination!

Examinations are supposed to be specific. It's suppose to test whether any knowledge within the 3 month learning period has seeped into your brain through osmosis or diffusion or something close.

You're suppose to talk about maybe "Give definitions of Indigenous People and list 3 disadvantages they face in their fight for land rights"

Ai.

Not this open-ended whatever goes thing. It's not right. Cause with open ended questions, you end up blathering halfway and writing nothign important...

... because there are just too many things to say, you know?

[insert GARGH here]

Tang (lecturer guy) says "Just pick a topic and focus one any angle and write"

-- and he waves his arms with the fervour of releasing offerings of peace pidgeons to the world.

Take Feminism, for instance.

I write what I remember and I have a very selected and short memory.

One of the last memorable books I remembered on Feminism that I read was by Sheila Jeffreys, radical feminist who gave up armpit hair shaving and men for the good of the cause.

And the title of the book was "Unpacking Queer Politics".

I wonder what Tang will think on a one-page essay expounding on how advocacy of the gay male pornography is an obstacle towards taking feminism and female abuse seriously?

Yeah, I guessed that too.

*goes back to tearing hair*

Why does my brain not have excess capacity for boring but relevant information!

Bah!

GARGH
11:57 p.m. on 2005-10-30

ARGH.

I forgot to renew my library books.

Again.

Now will have to wake up at unearthly hour to catch the bloody bus for college to pay fine and renew the damn books.

I don't mind the paying of money so much as I hate the waking up at 6 am with the mum who refuses to let me walk myself to the bustop alone

God.

*headdesks*

I'ma returning them all.

Bloody sick of forgetting the damned things.

*Headdesks the Books*

Calendar Girls and Lebanese Boys
9:24 p.m. on 2005-10-27

Usually I am not adverse to listening to oldies. 'It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's *old* enough' because the kind of oldies I like are suppose the be the genre that niggles nostalgic tears in the eyes of your grandmother. Presuming your grandmother didn't live her life listening to Chinese opera or keroncong like mine, anyway.

Neil Sedaka's Calendar Girls?

Not nearly old enough.

In any other mood, his chirpy yodelling of "I love, I love my little Calendar Girlsssss!" would be immensely trying but in a black mood of today, it's strong enough to bring out the inner hurler-of-heavy-things in me.

Had to scramble to get away from The Noise! The Terrible Racket!

And boot up the PC so I can listen to music. The kind that won't make my ear drums bleed.

Which apparently is Sting's Desert Rose.

*hangs head*

I know!

Sting.

That's some massive improvement there, lady, I hear you say. :D

We all make fun of the man but dude. His music is pretty neat. It's not hard to close my eyes and have a mind's image of Wani sauntering by with The Arabic Yodelling Man in the background.

Thinking fractured thoughts of beauty and all the Henry James I've never read and Alan Hollinghurst's lovely prose... and not so lovely gay! Who'd have thought he could get away with so much of the GAYcharacters.

I don't even like Wani. But the brain, you know? It persists on being immersed in the lastest thing I'm reading (although that would include Management but it's currently trying to ignore that).

So yes, sorry. Music. And Sting. Anything to drum out Neil Sedaka, really.

Incoherence Incoming
9:54 p.m. on 2005-10-26

And I spam my diaryland twice in one day. It is a strange and weird phenomenon, believe you me.

Minds sent a sweetly concerned sms about my doubtful studying skills, which I fear I have been deluding people with. You see, hang around long enough and you will be able to tell that the longer I spend at the library, the less attention I will be paying to the actualy textbook.

I'm just compensating for the guilt of not studying, really. See, if I was really studying, I'd be like freaky Eric, who goes out ALL THE FREAKING TIME and still gets enough studying done.

So me hanging out in the library so often? Making up for the guilt of not studying.

----

Maybe I should add that in my very short list of "Things That I Like In Malaysia" (very very short, as Cho can't even be on it anymore).

It's the only place (one of) that will allow geekery and nerdism to be a thing of pride. Elsewhere, in the jock-filled halls of white-man highschool, I'd be face down on the tarmac floor of a playground.

This came about when I realised I Do Not Have A Thing.

What thing?

The thing that makes everyone distinguishable. Eric has his acid-tongue and mad photoshopping skills thing, Cho had her zomg!writing and online BNF thing, Janu has her awesome frankness thing and Luqman. God, Luqman has tiny things that *thing* all over the place.

No, I am not drunk.

Even Mindy has her boppity every-guyand girl-shall-fall-madly-in-love-or-in-like-with-me thing. They all have their achievements -- I suppose getting Aries would counts as one too, for Mindy. Heh.

And I am here, sad and thingless.

(I swear, I'm not even on any illegal subtance)

What is my thing? Being weird and studying (somewhat). See? And I do weird unconsciously so it doesn't even count.

I cannot photoshop to save my life, have a phobia of people reading my stories in real life and look absurd trying to do a cute Mindy-boppity thing.

Argh.

Did I also mention that I fall for all the wrong people? The kind who do not even have the right biology to like me back? (Except Harpreet but he is an embarrasing blimp in a thirteen-year old life that I would rather forget) It's almost scary how self-destructive it is. (Not um, Harpreet)

So what does one do in an uncertain and scary world like this? One creates one's own thing and thus my thing is studying. Or was, anyway. The current Thing seems to be more inclined to be Slacking Off.

I put the pedal to the metal and find that hey! this studying thing ain't so bad. I'm actually pretty decent with books once I put my mind to it.

And that was my explanation for doing well in exams being so important to me.

You know how people say "Oh, I'm glad if I can pass this?" I've never actually said that and really meant it before in my entire life.

Except maybe that time when I failed an Add Math test. That one had 'incoming truck, straight ahead' written all over it. Or that time when I failed BM. Who in the world fails a language paper of a language you've been speaking you entire life?

The black shame of it.

Anyway. I've never done an exam and wished that I could only pass and be grateful. Even when I don't study. Stems from the stubborness of having made Exam my Thing for so long that like any other skill, I must always do and do it well.

Because that's the bad thing of having Things. Without it, you're out on a limb and feel like a strip of nothing.

Bunging Jobs Like It Ain't No thang
9:25 p.m. on 2005-10-26

Hmmm... I seemed to have bunged myself a job at Starbucks, one that pays 5 dollars an hour for full-time.

The flip side of this would be no languishing at home and boring every brain cell on end.

The bad side would be... aw, who am I kidding? I like the languishing. It took some semblance of self control not to balk at Tjia Wen's enthusiastic cries of how glad she was to be joining the rat race and not wallowing at home in boredom.

Lookkit me. I'm clinging to my bed on a daily basis and the term hasn't even finished yet. If I hadn't survived employment before (and quite liked it, rather), I wouldn't be considering job opportunities at all.

I'd debated about the internship/part-time job thing for a while and am thus feeling a little wronged by choosing the latter. Anyway, internship would be all impractical with my not being able to drive and NO ONE ELSE BEING ABLE TO EITHER.

Yes, I'm looking at you, blood brother of mine. *mutter mutter*

I know I will just have to drive now seeing as ho no one in this family's keen on doing it. (We have 2 cars and the dad still insists on biking to work everyday, such is the negative driving vibes we emit in the household)

Yes, I disgress.

Also, the money internship pays? It's criminal. They can take their talk of work experience, padded resumes and go hang because internships are no more than legally hired labour at way below cut-throat costs.

Uh.

So of now, I shall cling to my future 30 pieces of silver and think of the shiny new DVD drive/burner I shall co-buy with the brother.

God, there is no other way to watch Cho's Jeeves & Wooster DVDs and I'm awfully sick of cloak and dagger efforts to watch Mustafa's artsy (and by artsy, I mean shot full of unflattering nekkid people) DVDs on the player downstairs.

The Truth Shall Make You Fret 101
1:27 p.m. on 2005-10-16

There comes a point in life when every man, woman and um, lain-lain (:D) sits themselves down and think of the inevitable.

If he/she/heshe/shehe were Asian, it would be about marriage and procreation because it's in our culture, the cardboard banner carriers of matrimony and baby-making.

Be very, very afraid.

But ah, I was thinking more along the lines of academia, you know and if you're really taking a course you'd stick with for life.

If I were a betting-person (which I may turn out to be, depending on the stakes) I'd say that half of the people I know in Uni won't end up working in the fields of their degrees.

Especially Biotech.

Regretfully, if ever you do make it big, it sounds like the kind of job line swamped with melodrama and backstabbing of the Bold and the Beautiful magnitude.

Look at Da Vinci! There was the Catholic Church to clamp down on science then and there always will be a 'Catholic Church' of our times, hiding behind grates and ready to come out and cruxify your work in the name of lies and heresy National Security.

If not, then you might end up like that lady whatshername who took lovely photographs of DNA crystals while the male supervisor got the Nobel Prize and she died of cancer in the end.

(Too many Dan Brown novels? I scoff at you! I haven't read any yet.)

Engineering people will come out to be businessmen. They all do. That's the industry for you. Everyone's taking a course they can please their parents and relatives with.

Engineers will come out to be businessmen, biotech grads will start companies of their own and declare themselves entreprenuers. *Businessmen* will one day look out of their business offices to find a sea of faces they never thought they'd have for competition.

The only people who might (and it's a small possibiity, mind. The money lure is just too great) not defect would be the Mass Commers because somebody has to be there for PR and make everyone else look good.

I think I've got no other choice. For one, there will be nothing else I can do, seeing as how I have the business acumen of a bancrupt. I have to be the journalist.

And it will probably be newspapers. I don't want to commit myself to one thing but some callings are so strong, they shut everything off with incessant beeping until you pay it attention.

Writing is in my blood. Not um, fiction-wise because my blood doesn't go that way (I've tried. A lot. Doesn't listen. Stubborn things, haemoglobins) but journalism writing, you know.

Maybe the distinction's psychological but underneath all the stress and dowager-hate, it's heady enough to taste -- the words that I write and those that won't come out.

Tastes like pages off a new book and not inky-like as you would imagine words to be.

In my head, all articles are Washington Posts, with pizzaz and proper punctuation. The only problem is in the process to churn them out and they get all mangled.

If destiny is what you do best then it has to be this. It is the best-est that I do and God, Pratchett was right. The Truth Shall really Make You Fret.

Leave Black the Spot Between Your Ears
11:41 p.m. on 2005-10-03

The world is sad when your best friend first leaves for England, then disappears from the the World Wide Web.

People like her aren't suppose to just fall off all forms of contact-ability. Especially of the virtual kind.

You're such a common guest on the the Internet that it warms tea and rich tea biscuits waiting for your return to the little worn-out dent in the web.

Hope you are settling in okay and post your address soon!

*Missing you like I miss reading Swordspoint, which s a lot*

A little bit of Power goes a long way
11:18 p.m. on 2005-10-03

Oh Lordy.

The only thing scarier about emailing political parties for information is when they actually email you back agreeing to be interviewed.

Gargh

You'd think they would be all good with the haughty brush off with a first year communication student but wow. The scary.

Looks like they want to talk.

Wait, doesn't this mean I have power?

I have power.

Oh my.

I think I like this.

Couture bull on a catwalk.
11:12 p.m. on 2005-09-22

Dear lord.

The most surreal argument just occurred.

We had an argument about shirts. *Shirts*

The brother bought a shirt a size too big. Part of his fashioned blind-sidedness he must have got from dad or something.

Anyway, mum and I sat back and clucked, told him to return it because the sleeves were hanging off! He looked like a rapper wannabe that didn't research the street look enough.

Then dad descended with his Angel-of-Righteousness voice and demanded kok (pronounced 'coke' because that's just what I call my brother) listen to himself, followed his heart and in other words, be his own man. Because he not only takes a leaf out of Jonathan Kent's Book of Platitudes but bookmarks and highlights key phrases too.

In the background, mum was crying blue murder of the fashion-wronged. Since I can never tell when to leave things well alone, I added my piece in too.

The poor brother, sat there in his stool looking a little lost while cluthing his shirt because bear in mind, we were still going on about the shirt.

Oh well, sometimes I think mum and I turn out to be this Tag Team Duo of Oppression around my brother and arm-twist him into doing things our way. Of course, after that, I tend to guilt about it a lot but the situation is like a spinach on someone's teeth.

You just have to point out the vege-stuck-onna-teeth for the person's own *good*. The brother's path of thought is laid like a British railroad track. Straight all the way without any detours. Somehow when God passed out willfullness, the brother was out attending obscure mass.

I just know it.

Anyway, dad sees himself as the paragon of people Who Do Things Their Way. Like Mahathir. (God. I mentioned Mahathir in my journal voluntarily. I think I shall go bury my head in a sandbox full of shame)

Right, so he thinks kok should stand up for himself whilst tag Team Duo of Oppression (mum and I) keep trying fruitlessly to educate him in the crooked ways of shrewd reality.

The thing is, what all do is try our level best to make him see the error of his ways but kok along with his blessedly stroke-inducing naivete has enough stubbornness to fill Klang Valley.

When he makes up his mind, that's that. No say. Most of the time it annoys the hell out of me us but I guess growing up with a family like ours, it's a safety mechanism of sorts.

So today, we argued over a shirt that was one size too big.

Eh, I've seen weirder things in life. This one just ranks as it for today.

Born to be Free.
3:29 p.m. on 2005-09-20

Alright, this is the Freemason logo:

I never thought I'd see this next to Gandalf but he's in a secret order for wizardry anyway so pot, kettle, you know.

Think you've been seeing them everywhere? Worried you need to check you head?

Don't.

It's all true.

Freemasonry's everywhere.

According to the Masonic Leadership Centre anyway.

They've spotted Masonic symbols and inuendos from carpet rugs to background scenary in movies you'd otherwise think as apolitical.

I think I cracked when they came to symbolism in Lion King.

I mean, no. Just - no.

I draw the line at animated characters that sing Hakuna Matata. It's just wrong.

---

Other places...

Look at how they name their ranks.

Little Architech lording it over Grand Architect because Freemasonry has a twisted sense of humour.

Holy Order of The Grand High Priest, stuff about Royal Mariners...

The best has to be Little English Mater of The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. What do you do to earn a title like that? Maybe I might not want to know, you know?

Makes you think of the secret societies you formed in primary school only then, anyone who mentioned "Girls not allowed" got their heads kicked in royally.

Maybe these people just grew up and never got out of it.

The Mind Bendingly Good Stuff.
11:18 p.m. on 2005-09-19

*melts*

Dudeeeee...

I've gone all anglophile and abandoned local radio now.

I'm wrapped up in my own bubble of man-made reality, where there is no overtly angsty rock (angtsy *emo*, now that's different. My reality has plenty of room for that) or Black Eyed Peas warbling their jaunty tune about lumps and lovely lady humps.

My reality has violins. Lots and lots of them. That's like *better* than chocolate. Because it's sundae fudge for my ears. Ears that are flapping in the breeze and entirely content that I treat them so well.

I'm leet,
it's neat
I can't read music sheet
-s.

Radio 3 has a Bach Bonanza on Christmas Week!

Gah! Gahgahgah!

I mean, you think get all thrown off with this Gothic organ piece and all it's crazy sound (um, you know, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor one. That one.) but he's just throwing you off.

There are lovely light pieces that won't take over your head and fill it with dark towering trees and running in woods. At night. like Classical music can do that. Bach doesn't.

Plus, lots and lots of violins.

: DDD

I am so easy to please.

CRACK STOP GREAT STOP STUFF STOP
9:55 p.m. on 2005-09-15

I am in love.

Her name is Classica F. M and she's the snobby British girlfriend I met online. This new love, it must be fate because it's scary, how much she knows me. I thought I knew her type, the cultured uppercrust English but I've been fooled. The rest have been utter poseurs compared to her.

When she walks into the room (which coincidentally is whenever I need her most), problems fade away because they *have* to. Her spirit, it takes up so much space, angst wouldn't dare show up when she's around. Maybe it's the way she gently chides them and distracts me with her dry British prattle.

She's almost public property because everyone confides in her. She says the right things, laughs at the rights places and reads Jane Austen.

I can't always understand her but I don't have to because one can't think of anything else when she's around.

I don't know. Maybe we just like the same music.

Could be.

----

Ooh, this wasn't supposed to be an answer to your Fandom Love meme, really but I knew it was it when I typed the first line.

To those who do not appreciate my new girlfriend, you have no taste and it is true. But she's generous and won't hold it against you.

:D

BBC: Rocking your socks six ways from Subang.
11:46 p.m. on 2005-09-10

For those of us who are not Cho (:D) and were not in England to listen to Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy over BBC... there's nothing that can be done, sorry.

I hardly have the magic links for anything much less everything.

What I do have here are BBC download trials. W00t!

Some good came out from reading my communication text since they had this academic piece on BBC radio.

Come on, you can't say you haven't ever been interested to hear a BBC programme.

It's BBC *4*. We're talking about radio stuff that is not music. Things that are not supposed to be used to fill in background noise.

I downloaded the film review one.

This man on it, whoever he is, is terribly mean and funny. You get this feel of awe from his honest slamming.

Wow.

Tanking films left, right and centre without any mercy. He doesn't act all l33t about it, just takes the film and grounds it under his heel. All the while, nattering in this thick British accent.

It's brutal rotten-tomato-ing with flair and cutting humour.

Quite impressive.

Here's what he thought about Russell Crowe...

"I've always felt a bit ambiguous when it came to Russell Crowe. When he's good, he's very good and when he's bad, he's just a shouty annoying git."

Of course he called Frodo an elf too so well, I wouldn't take him all seriously, really.

Halfway, I got sidetracked by a Gaelic download.

It's pretty fun if you ignore the utter bore of it. It's even boring in Gaelic with all it's "ich" and "ack". Can't imagine how I'd feel if I actually understood it.

Makes you think how boredom can transcend language. Think of the possibility! Boring people across the globe.

Cool.

Brand New Normal
7:38 p.m. on 2005-09-10

This is a picture of a man on a bike.

Take a good look at him.

His name is Jerome Abramovitch and so far, you are thinking the oddest thing about this guy with the makes of a bike geek, is his last name.

Look closer.

Yes, he's not wearing a shirt but that's not the point. You think the point are his body piercings until the subtle bumps on his skin start to register something head.

You make a double take and the firing of brain cells make one almighty synaps, imploding your brain with realisation. The bumps have pattern.

To quote the characters of Bleach, you think,

"What *is* this man?"

Apparently, Jerome is first a photographer ( he doesn't just take pictures of bikes. I'm being nice here. The rest of his portfolio might scare you into next Sunday) and second a Freak.

By freak, I'm not talking about that term of endearment RayK refers to Fraser or the title you use to describe friends who can bend fingers backwards or tumbledown staircases and laugh.

This kind of Freak cuts his own finger off to turn it into a bleedin' *claw*, injects saline into his forehead, bulging it into bizarre proportions and gets mentioned on Ripley's Believe It or Not!

It's almost official. He's even been called freaky by the Body Modification magazine, some of whom have purportedly sliced off um, human testicles and eaten them fresh.

Yet he's a guy who wears sharp suits for his exhibitions and has a girlfriend who in all socially-bound tenets, is normal. Well, normal looking anyway.

He talks about bikes, photographing (because he does take lovely pictures) and looks awfully sweet with his lady.

The sheer polarity. It short-circuits your brain.

If you are wondering why I dedicate a whole post to him and where did I ever find him, it's not that complicated.

He has one of the prettiest smiles I ve seen (with the fizzy hair. Come on, is that not the most adorable thing you've seen today?).

As for the 'where I found him', I get around. ;)

Honestly, though, he's just an example of how a person can be odd and normal at the same time. One does not have to be bounded by confines of a single attribute or nature or belive that others should.

Jerome Abramovitch bucks the trend and creates a brand new normal for himself.

Plus, he's Canadian. Goes to show they can be a damn lot weirder than those crazy Americans by a long shot.

Cheers!

Rockstar need money, we don't like on baloney sandwiches...
10:54 a.m. on 2005-09-09

Oh. *oh*.

*cringes*

Bad post. Very bad post.

I plead temporary insanity.

I Whip Myself... Scorned! Scorned! Scorned!
7:59 p.m. on 2005-09-08

Today I looked into her face and remembered what I had been trying to forget.

You hurt me. You hurt me and I remember everything.

It was then I wanted to drag the others away from you because they didn't know and sat so close. Shared their table with you.

My head was screaming Damien Rice right back at me, broken and keening. He wailed my thoughts because my head is a synmphony that will never shut up. It's loud all the time with the noise of describing each memory with verse.

It was Fred in Angel all over again. She tried to make them see the decay but no one believed her.

She's razor blades and butter knives with unassuming serrated edges.

To the others, Why didn't you see? Did no one know her as well as I did?

I wanted to take them away because those blades are thin but when they cut, the bleeding just won't stop.

I know. And yet I didn't. Because I had to save myself. I'm sorry.

It was happening again. I always let it happen to me.

I loved you first as a sister and as a friend. Later, I loved you out of duty because we were so old. It was not precious but it had lasted. It would have been a shame just to throw it away.

So you have privileges. Ones so ancient I can't remember giving it to you, ones that I cannot take back.

Do you know, I was always always cordial to you. It was wrong to feel wronged and I wanted ever to be mature about it. Now I feel a hundred different kinds of fool for being kind. Always kind and hurt in the end.

You have something else of mine. Everytime I'm near you for too long, I feel it.

You are Gwendolyn to my Cat and take my spirit with that white ribbon in your fist that only I can see.

So I hide.

If she is near me, I will be cut and I won't do anything to stop it.

[/end] but never quite.

---------

That's about as close to my brain whirring as you can get because my thoughts are always jumbled and crazy like that, with various fits of bad fannish metaphor.

It's sloppy, I know but my brain is a place where slop hangs out and knocks back rootbeer floats.

If you are worried, Cho or Meena, don't be. It was earlier in the day and being rudely awaken can do that to you.

I'm not angsting and am okay as of this moment.

Resistance is Futile
3:29 p.m. on 2005-09-08

Right, right. So I'm breaking my cardinal rule of not posting any politics here but lj and I are estranged for a wee bit. It's nothing, m'just avoiding the sheer amount of flist I haven't read for the past month or so.

Anyway, so here it is:

Politics.

I'd bore everyone with Roberts replacing Rehnquist but why bother when there's more intersting news at hand?

California Says Aye

"Marriage should be between a man and a woman, end of story. Next issue," insisted Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia). "It's not about civil rights or personal rights, it's about acceptance. They want to be accepted as normal. They are not normal."

For a man with the name of 'Mountjoy', he sure seems certain of what constitutes as normal.

*snark*

Ah, but who knows? Schwarzeneggar apparently has veto right as the governer of California. It might never pass afterall.

Still, first Spain, now this.

It's a step. Small but good one at that.

Queers = 1, Rest of the World = 0

You can't run away. Don't try. They will infiltrate the population and TURN YOU INTO ONE OF THEM.

Resistance is futile.

Hee.

But I kid. You guys are so easy to play.

Feeling: Awfully smug and don't I know it.
Song: Paul Gross (Fraserrrrrr!) - Ride Forever (Due South)

That's The Way The Cookie Crumbles
10:37 p.m. on 2005-09-01

Note to self:

Oh my God. Get over yourself, woman*!

*Woman in context meaning me. Or perhaps Dowager as well but we're not being petty here, no siree bob. So woman = me. Or you know, girl. Dodgy thing, names.

Because I seem to have a truckload of excessive angst,t eh amount of which is quite enbarrassing, considering how everyone else in the world is busy being devastated over Katrina and possibly Iraq (or maybe not so much since it is the most newsworthy story since the Palestinian-Israel debate. Maybe just devastated every Saturday or so then?).

So anyway, angst, angst, angst.

About: Grading, Self-worthiness and your usual egocentric brain-hurt thing.

How about I do a post on what makes me happy instead?

Bear in mind it's a current list because these things tend to be seasonal. As of late, I'm in the season for some Canadian loving. <333

SO, list!

Things that Make Me Happy When I'm Not

(In of somewhat particular order)

1. Reading fic.

Fine, fine, reading slash. I like to believe being depressed sort of gives you a little more leeway in the acceptance of instant gratification. Gratify me instantly! Possibly with lots of NC-17 and R.

I. Don't. Care. It's my fandom where people write awfully well, see? They love to write slash, I love to read their slash. Characters get slashed. Happy happy all around.

P.S If you don't know what slash is, you probably would like to stay that way. Take my word for it.

2. Cho.

The only reason you're not in number one is because of my feeling vaguely teh guilty on dumping on you so much. Being dumped on takes on a lot of effort on the dump-ee because at the end of the day, you end up with *2* people feeling put-out.

Bad thing, indeed. I think of it as bringing out the big guns. Only for really, really important Feelings of Pain. Most of the time slash and possibly lots and lots of Due South tides in angst just fine. [refer to reason 1]

3. Friends. College friends.

I tend to run away from people a lot. Hide out in the library most of the tiem because really, I like the library. Library nice! But other times because I tell myself I like to be alone. Alone is underrated. Suddenly, in the company of friends, I find the plural so much better than singular.

4. Reading other people's livejournals.

For some reason or other, having other people whine about their day makes me feel a little less awful for whining about mine. Maybe it's the misery loving company (yaay! More people miserable!) or the fact that the world (thankfully) doesn't revolve around one Maxine Lim. Maybe it's just bananas.

5. Exercising.

I kid you not. Serious freaky thing works! Think about it, you're a whole lot less likely to mope on the downside of life when breathing is an issue and your knees are knocking together from the lactic acid build-up.

6. Angsty music. (If you think Avril Lavinge, I hit you hard. Where it hurts)

Like opera-ish because if there is one thing I kept from Smallville, it's Lionel's love for the melodrama. In fact, I only remembered this and it's a *good* one. Should be in number 3 or 4, at least. There's nothing quite like twiddling your toes and listening to Andrea Bocelli warble out your pain in an aria.

That's all I can think off the top of my head.

I was surprised what I thought would work doesn't quite.

Like chocolate. Lots of gratification but too instant. Boom! in your mouth and gone. And then you feel bad for eating it after, resulting in all 'round feelings of worse. Trust me, slash 'em hard and slash 'em good.

Also, books. I'm nowhere as l33t as I would like myself to be. Books involve work and emotional involvement whereas the moment is all about forgetting pain. I'd love to have books on my list but I guess it just doesn't work out. Besides, books and I in a bit of a situation that might open up to a whole new world of angst upon discussion.

Suppress!Suppress!Suppress!

Keeping Sweet Confessions Underneath My Tongue
11:16 p.m. on 2005-08-25

THE TIMES are nightfall, look, their light grows less;
The times are winter, watch, a world undone:
They waste, they wither worse; they as they run
Or bring more or more blazon man’s distress.
And I not help. Nor word now of success:
All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one—
Work which to see scarce so much as begun
Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.

Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal…

~Gerard Manley Hopkins

I know that you know, that I know; you know that I know that you know

and I am glad.

Thank you.

(Title by Sarah Slean ~ My Invitation because I am in a mood for plagiarism tonight)

Sideways Falling Off a Bus
9:50 p.m. on 2005-08-22

I slept on the bus.

Again.

Only I do that everyday except today was different because Vanilla Man (there's a tale to be told later on) woke me up when I overslept my stop.

Eep! I do sleep but it's always light as a cat and the rattling bus coming to a stop is sure to wake me up. The only time I slept past my stop was during a rainy day and the weather was sinful to not sleep in.

Today was nothing like so I blame it all on Mr. M and his movie, Sideways.

I swear, one minute I was dreaming a very strange but cool dream about Miles and Jack on another adventure, I'm sure, the next, I was gently shaken awake and greeted by Vanilla Man exclaming "Time to wake up" to me.

Which, by the way, so weird! Who in the world says "Time to wake up"? Gah. I mean, he was acting the part of a demented grandmother!

When I shake people awake, it's "Hey, wake up. Your stop is here" or something. Not announcing the appropriate time to get up.

Gah.

So yes, embarrassed quite and apologises red-faced to the bus driver who was wearing a quizically amused smile on his face. Although considering how I've never seen him have any expression but quizzical amusement on his face, I'd say it wasn't of much consequence.

I tell you solemnly, I'd never have slept so deeply had I not been dreaming. The worst thing is, I can't even remember whether it was a cool dream or not. Just a gut feeling that it was pretty spiffy, more's the pity.

Radio Ga ga, radio goo goo. What a crack-induced song that was...
1:44 a.m. on 2005-08-20

Yup, made the bidding for the Campus Radio Training on the 27th.

Boy In Charge told me that we could get in sans training so there's a dampened sense of achievement there.

Still, I made the bid!

Now think of that metaphor about taking steps, one small, one big and something about mankind.

I've forgotten it. You remember it for me.

All These Things That I've Done
10:16 p.m. on 2005-08-18

If there is one site you have to see before the Internet (that is the *World Wide Web* Internet not some ice cream flavour, mind) breaks down.

This is one: Postsecret.blogspot.com

This is his story:

One man with a lifelong interest in postcards asked people to send in postcards to him one day. It could be anything, plain, simple or pink but you had to write a secret in it.

Boom! said The World in answer and his mailbox exploded.

He could fix it, he told himself but it the lid would just pop open again and this time he might not be there to catch the postsecrets as they fell, right into the road.

He put a bin outside the next day, a big black one with a pigeonhole cut at the side. He could have put one at the top, he agreed with a slight inclination of the head but then one day of running after the neighbourhood kids who simply swarmed outside his home after the loud "pop" went off, was enough. He'd lost count of the baseball bats thrown over his hedge at the direction of receding bicycle tracks.

He had a mission. It was the mission of an accidental artist but a good mission nevertheless.

People trusted him to keep their secrets in a steel vault. Telling the inteviewers fromGuardian was like keeping a promise to the world.

So, if he had to bend the plastic a little harder to cut a ragged slot by the side of the bin outside his house, it was no sweat.

At least, a little part of him didn't die inside as he watched Mrs.Thompson's 9 year-old boys crow in triumph with a handmade postcard clutched in one uplifted hand.

----

Well, not *quite* his story but you get what I mean.

It's a really good site.

Check it out.

What, I don't know what induced me to fictionalise the man's life!

Don't mind me.

In which she declares war upon herself
11.12am on 2005-08-18

Somedays I think I've outfoxed them all and some days I wonder how I survive having a turnip for a head.

Today is one of those days where I pull through with the taproot on my shoulders (because a turnip is not a tuber, no sir. I know because I Googled)

How many times have the 'rents nagged about going to bed early? Enough to shrivel the ears, that's how much.

Do I ever stop to listen beneath the seething discontent of lost freedom? Nah.

Today the Dowager did her best to drag me into sleep. (If you're forgetting, that's my Feature Writing lecturer. Sometimes, I forget I call her that too. Such is her power)

If I had matchsticks, I'd have conveniently propped up them eyelids with it because this morning they needed the most support they could get.

In the end, it was pretty interesting. I tested out various ways on how to hide from the lecturer's line of sight. I hid behind one girl's back and another's fanning be'tudung'ed head.

Of course that didn't make the slightest difference because said friend in front commented how she kept looking at my direction anyway despite all the effort.

Ari told me she allegedly dislikes all girls and not just me exclusively (really? look at me, all hurt by the lack of attention) but I think he's just being generous.

Dowager has it in me, I can feel it in her cold glassy stare.

Afterall, why not? I paint a bloody target on myself daily by nearly sleeping in her class or um, writing Bleach coda of Ishida.

Maxine? You and I are enemies, you hear? I'm not talking to you today. There.

Stick it in a box marked "Done"
12:14 p.m. on 2005-08-16

There!

Cut, paste, stick it in a box marked "Done".

I dragged myself out of bed at the wee hours of 11-ish am (heh) and repeatedly hit the refresh button until 12 came and the bidding for the Campus Radio Training was open.

I was like a computer-page-refresh junkie on a mission. Had you stood in my way, I'd have poked you with my Finger of Doom (the same one I used to hit "Refresh") until you had surrendered in utter defeat and offered chocolates as a mercy gift.

After key-hitting number 1265887, I had mail! I was slightly thrown off and blinked at it a little before the internal nagging in head induced me to you know, send the email.

In the end, I sent 2 because the first one was incoherent without any saulutations or thanking. Nothing.

The second one at least had some semblance of courtesy but still, brusque. Borrowed time, it cannot be helped.

I cross my fingers. :)

You cross your's too.

Fortify Your Soul!
11:39 p.m. on 2005-08-15

We have a campus radio!

Or bakal campus radio any rate.

Anyway, I am this side of desperate to join it because gargh! Campus radio! How could that not be cool? Yakking on air, inteviewing people, the works.

Oh Lord, the mere thought of it gives me the willies. *Good* willies, mind.

The things is, there are about 15 posts with 12898621452 applicants and isn't that just a Greek tragedy in the making? We all have to rush to the computer by 12 noon tomorrow and sign up like it's some freaking Amazing Race (only with less bitchiness and drama) or bust.

Knowing my proverbial run of luck, the bloody server might actually *jam* when the time rolls by and I'd be left having to work on making Bambi-eyes of sorrow at the People-In-Charge to wrestle a position for the radio.

Eep.

Now despite the ringing of my dad lecturing "Giving up before the battle has even started is a sure failure!" or something (no kidding, he talks like that. I swear) I will indulge in a little self-wibbling.

So the chances of signing up for a part tomorrow (like bats outta hell) at *noon* are pretty much 50-50 and fill me with fear. Those are the kind of odds that make people shrug at life's cruel tricks on mankind and drown their sorrow in beer!

Gah! gahgahgah!

Even if I did manage to get a part, a small part of me (deep deep down because I squash on it so) grumbles to shut my mouth because I can SO do it.

If nerves do not claim me. Nor fear take me.

[/end self-wibbling]

Much luck you shall wish me for tomorrow or there will be a long angsty post about how my life sucks later.

Should I fail, there will be enlisting of Tristan's help to pen a long and morose poem, full of woe for me.

Ready yourselves.

With mind-bullets! ... That's Telekinesis, Kyle!
10:00 p.m. on 2005-08-12

Mualuka!

Something fandom :

Omg! Omg! Omg! (That's "Oh my God" for the dense although I hardly know anyone who doesn't comprehend this simple exclamation of awe anymore.)

The CDs have arrived! *Arrived* boo yah! Take that postal service! It only takes mail from Japan to arrive in 10 days, keep that in mind. Just in case, you know.

People who hardly know me send me CDs all the way from the land of the rising sun, hey! Ph34r my awesome power.

Well, and her amazing generosity, of course.

I will now be able to stew myself in Due South instead! Life is greatness.

"Due -what?" You ask?

You mean you don't remember that show about the very, very lovely Royal Canadian Mounted Police with his white half-wolf in Chicago? We were 12 when it aired. Surely you have a vague memory? No?

Oh, nevermind. You will not be able to fully appreciate the slashy undertones anyway! Ha!

*twirls*

-----

Something College... sorry, university related. *hee*:

Psst. I think my Feature Writing lecturer has it in for me.

Perhaps it maybe my fault somewhat but here's the deal...

It's a subject on Feature Writing and I've always had this feeling that it wasn't so much of a legitimate subject than it is a sort of 12 step programme on how to churn up a spanking fine feature article.

It's like going for English class in MUFY and secondary school. You never pay attention because next to subjects like Biology and Maths, English is always trivial and unimportant. Nobody pays attention during those English classes or I'll eat my hat.

The problem is, it's Mass Communication so it's more like sitting for a whole day of fluffy English classes. Not good.

Anyway, if this Feature Writing lec, let's call her Empress Dowager or Dowager for short, had a tagline, it would read something like "My Way or The Highway".

She doesn't tolerate laughter in her class nor does she a cheery disposition. Lame jokes are phlebian, didn't you know? And everything you say should be textbook to-the-point and chock-full of cutting edge ideas that threaten to put all journos out of work.

Hard news or bust.

The wondrous thing about all of this is that this is all transmitted through tiny frowns and eyebrow movements. You to get on the clue bus fast or you know, curtains.

I laugh aplenty in class, lame jokes are my middle name and I'm sorry if my tendency to giggle at articles on officiating an Underwear Day grates on your nerves. Also, I have the observational skills of a squashed pineapple.

In one lesson, I was grilled, specificly told to save my laughter for the cafeteria and stop looking at that underwear story, if you please.

I am Doomed.

Harry Potter and The Unending Dispute. I Declare War On You!
10:48 p.m. on 2005-08-10

Good Lord, Diaryland!

If I post more often, would you consider not trying to switch my entrybox size to the default setting?

~Love, Me.

--------

First today, we shall have something to stew over.

Is Harry Potter For Catholics? cry one Catholic exhange Dot Com website.

Ah, chalk one up for the Christian-Harry Potter debate, I thought. Whoo! And I read on.

Furthermore, Rowling succeeds in making good more interesting and attractive than evil.

Yeah, Brava, Rowling. You've succeeded in making evil and occult dull. How could the young ever fall now? Being bad just isn't *cool*.

Michael O’Brien, a prominent critic of the Potter series, has written a book called A Landscape with Dragons where he examines how much modern children’s fiction reverses symbolism in order to subvert morality.

Okayy...

But I charge that it seems that J.K. Rowling has read and absorbed Mr. O’Brien’s book, because she stringently adheres to traditional symbolisms for good and evil...

...For example, in Rowling’s world, dragons are always dangerous and untrustworthy...And serpents in Potter-world are always evil and tightly associated with the evil wizards.

Aiyoh. This argument is just long, weary and never-ending. Whose morality is being subverted here? What kind of symbolism are you referring to? Chinese people scoof at you, hello! Our dragons are *wise* and *ancient* and form bloody backbones of lovely rolling mountains. They must feel so utterly wronged.

What a waste of valuable time I could have spent doing my Management Assignment, dude. The rest of the article is in the same condescending vein; anti-authorianism is bad, dark symbolism are blasphemous, occult magic is the devil's work shop, yadda yadda.

It was a letdown through and through. I was really looking for something intellectual and objective since the author is funnily enough, defending Rowling's work but all I got was the same drivel from an author suffering from acute tunnel vision...again.

There are intellectual Catholics out there, or I'll eat my hat. Show your damned face! These people are representing us!

That's the problem. They all defected. Or got excommunicated, anyhow.

In this fiasco about a boy and his wand *snicker*, Rowling takes the alleged highroad.

"Another thing that impresses me is that Rowling, who has been fiercely criticized by the Christian community, has not retaliated at all, in fiction, or even, so far as I know, in public."

So, the million-dollar question "Is Harry Potter really suited for the impressionable minds of young Catholic/Christian children?"

Rowling is silent, laughing her way to the bank and the rest of us just frankly don't give a damn.

P.S...

Dear People On The Bus (POTB),

I have tried valiantly to avoid knowing who dies in the Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Usually I do not care to be spoilered because well, *Harry Potter*. She keeps making a big fuss about killing people off and never delivers. Except for Sirius, I did like him, crazy chap. But I got the book this time and thought I'd make an exception for once and not hound for spoilers.

Anyway, POTB, I know I frequently take the opportunity to nap on the bus and usually do it with success but you should not take the this misplaced sense of comfort to SPOILER ME WITH YOUR LOUD CONVERSATIONS!

Gah! I keel you! Weeks of avoiding cut-texts at LJ! Subtle hints I have ignored and I get told [insert dastardly name here] dies. On The Bus.