Okay, so I've just watched Inception, which is a new sci-fi/action film starring Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic), Ken Wantanabe (Batman Begins), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (whom I have nicknamed 'The Hottie' from 10 Things I Hate About You), Marion Cotillard (Big Fish), Ellen Page (Juno), Tom Hardy (Wuthering Heights), Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins) and Michael Caine (The Dark Knight). The film explores the power of dreams and concepts of reality through 'extractors' - people who steal thoughts and implant ideas through dreams.
When I first heard of Inception, I knew it was one of those films I wasn't desperate to watch, but once I watched it I wouldn't regret it - like the Matrix, which is now one of my favourite movies. In fact, Inception has been described as 'The Matrix crossed with James Bond', which is astoundingly, mind-blowingly true - even if you think that those two movies simply couldn't be crossed, Inception is proof that anything is possible.
Inception has reminded me that there is still some intelligence in this world, but it's also awakened some very powerful, deep things that a mere movie probably shouldn't, couldn't arouse in a normal person. But I never claim to be normal, I never claim that normal people have these powerful, deep meaningful things inside them, and I never claim that Inception is a mere movie. Inception is philosophy, theology - in it's most beautiful, mind-fucking, thought-screwing form.
Death as portrayed in Inception has awakened something deep in my murky memories of childhood where my constant fascination with the world after Death originated. In Inception, if you are in a dream, if you are killed in the dream you wake up. I used to ponder this concept in my mind, and I still do. But it also breathes life into a particularly murky part of my childhood - my heart operation when I was five.
There are very few things I remember clearly from the hospital, only random snippets - I played with the mechanics of my hospital bed until my weakened body couldn't move, I remember what clothes I wore, I remember one of the nurses reminded me of my teacher. I also remember, perhaps erronously, that I never considered the very real fact that I could die, at the age of five, in that hospital.
This, I now realize, was incorrect. I always believed, that I, aged five, had no concept of death. This is only half-true - I had very little concept of death, but to say that I had none would be wrong. I now remember that there were a few brief moments I was frightened of the idea of dying, of never seeing my mother again, but I comforted myself with a simple, childish idea - 'when I die, I will wake up'. I believed this so fervently that I survived my operation, and that moment was nearly wiped from my memory. It's funny how your mind thinks of things to save you, but then wipes them, as though those ideas are simply to brilliant to be safely stored into a mind of a child.
The second thing that Inception has caused me to think about is something about my future. I have often wondered what my true goal in life is - and I realize it only now, even though I have been racing towards it all my life - I want to understand people, I want to understand the world we live in. I want to understand why people are the way they are, why they are so petty, why they are so mean to me, why he likes her instead of me. I have always believed that modern people have deviated somehow from our true beings, and how our actions and attitudes do not reflect the heroes and villains of times long gone.
Fitting in had once been my goal in life, but I realize that that has never left me. Instead, my dream is to understand just what went wrong, why is it that the people I grow up with are nothing like the people who lived in the past and haunt my dreams, and my dream is to fit in, not with them, but with people...people like me.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wavin' Flag
Mood: spirited away
Listening to: 'Wavin' Flag Remix' by K'naan ft. Will.I.Am and David Guetta
Hungry for: inception
Bella says: I. Hate. Baths. And. Haircuts.
Okay, so as you may or may not know, one of my favourite songs is Wavin' Flag.
Also, as you may or may not know, it has like, heaps and heaps and heaps of remixes, including the Young Artists for Haiti Remix (my favourite) and the Celebration Remix used for the World Cup.
So I was watching another remix, which said it featured Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas, and David Guetta, whoever the hell he is. But watch this video closely.
The David Guetta dude does not utter a single word throughout the entire bloody song.
This is like advertising this film as featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, only to find out that he never once appears in it. This is like what the film Twilight did, saying that the official song was 'Decode' by Paramore when it only features on the OST, not in the actual movie.
To other things...there is nothing. Nothing to say. Just nothingness. Goodbye.
Listening to: 'Wavin' Flag Remix' by K'naan ft. Will.I.Am and David Guetta
Hungry for: inception
Bella says: I. Hate. Baths. And. Haircuts.
Okay, so as you may or may not know, one of my favourite songs is Wavin' Flag.
Also, as you may or may not know, it has like, heaps and heaps and heaps of remixes, including the Young Artists for Haiti Remix (my favourite) and the Celebration Remix used for the World Cup.
So I was watching another remix, which said it featured Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas, and David Guetta, whoever the hell he is. But watch this video closely.
The David Guetta dude does not utter a single word throughout the entire bloody song.
This is like advertising this film as featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, only to find out that he never once appears in it. This is like what the film Twilight did, saying that the official song was 'Decode' by Paramore when it only features on the OST, not in the actual movie.
To other things...there is nothing. Nothing to say. Just nothingness. Goodbye.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Minority Report
Okay, so I should probably explain the story behind the name change.
As many of you know, this blog started out as The Secret World of a Misunderstood Writer, which was a bit of a mouthful, so I changed it to This is How a Renegade Thinks. Then I changed it to Tempestuous, as a reference to a quote from one of my favourite movies Ten Things I Hate About You. My new name, The Minority Report, reflects the direction this blog is taking - presenting a different point of view to the generalizing, stereotyping view of the majority. A minority report is an official term for a report presented by two or more members of a commitee opposing a majority-rules decision.
Because whilst everyone is trying to get the world up to speed with democracy, I disagree with the whole notion of 'it's right because everyone thinks it's right'. John Howard was elected democratically, and what a hero he was. If Tony Abbott is elected democratically, I lose my faith in democracy.
So now I want to know your opinion. What do you think my blog should be called, and why? Just curious.
As many of you know, this blog started out as The Secret World of a Misunderstood Writer, which was a bit of a mouthful, so I changed it to This is How a Renegade Thinks. Then I changed it to Tempestuous, as a reference to a quote from one of my favourite movies Ten Things I Hate About You. My new name, The Minority Report, reflects the direction this blog is taking - presenting a different point of view to the generalizing, stereotyping view of the majority. A minority report is an official term for a report presented by two or more members of a commitee opposing a majority-rules decision.
Because whilst everyone is trying to get the world up to speed with democracy, I disagree with the whole notion of 'it's right because everyone thinks it's right'. John Howard was elected democratically, and what a hero he was. If Tony Abbott is elected democratically, I lose my faith in democracy.
So now I want to know your opinion. What do you think my blog should be called, and why? Just curious.
The Farmer Wants a Wife
Mood: tired
Listening to: 'Airplanes' by B.o.B. ft. Hayley Williams from Paramore
Hungry for: dinner
Bella says: 'meh.'
Okay, so there's this TV show airing at the moment on whatever channel that makes rubbish prime time (i.e. most of them) called The Farmer Wants a Wife. The main idea is that the farmers in Australia live very isolated from the cities, which makes dating opportunites a bit thin on the ground, so the show helps to unite lonely boys in the country with girls from the city. TV plus love plus isolated farmers plus fussy, prissy, low I.Q. city girls does not a good combination make.
It's actually quite hilarious, how truly god-awful some of the women are on the show, most of them there not because they've got eyes for the blokes but for their fifteen minutes of fame. But the funniest part of the show is the layout.
The show starts off by introducing the farmers, and by explaining that they made videos about themselves and posted them on The Farmer Wants a Wife website. Women supposedly go to these sites, and if they like the profile, will send them a hard copy profile to wherever they are, and they choose their six favourites of all the profiles sent to them. These six favourites and the farmers meet, and then, this is the ridiculous part - they go on a date, for FIVE MINUTES. I'm serious, five minutes. Five minutes to decide whether this woman is farmer's wife material or not. 3 of the 6 favourites are then chosen to go to that farmer's farm - the exact location and isolation of these farms are unknown to these three women. And then the series goes on.
I am, of course, not against these drovers and farmers trying to find love, but finding love on a five minute televised date is ridiculous. Love is not something that can be found on something that is broadcast on national television - after all, love is part of a private life, called private for a reason. Television is about money, it's a bitchy, backstabbing world - not the ideal place to fall in love. I personally think, whilst the show is entertaning for its sheer ridiculousness, it cheapens love, makes love a kind of competition. Love and media don't mix.
Listening to: 'Airplanes' by B.o.B. ft. Hayley Williams from Paramore
Hungry for: dinner
Bella says: 'meh.'
Okay, so there's this TV show airing at the moment on whatever channel that makes rubbish prime time (i.e. most of them) called The Farmer Wants a Wife. The main idea is that the farmers in Australia live very isolated from the cities, which makes dating opportunites a bit thin on the ground, so the show helps to unite lonely boys in the country with girls from the city. TV plus love plus isolated farmers plus fussy, prissy, low I.Q. city girls does not a good combination make.
It's actually quite hilarious, how truly god-awful some of the women are on the show, most of them there not because they've got eyes for the blokes but for their fifteen minutes of fame. But the funniest part of the show is the layout.
The show starts off by introducing the farmers, and by explaining that they made videos about themselves and posted them on The Farmer Wants a Wife website. Women supposedly go to these sites, and if they like the profile, will send them a hard copy profile to wherever they are, and they choose their six favourites of all the profiles sent to them. These six favourites and the farmers meet, and then, this is the ridiculous part - they go on a date, for FIVE MINUTES. I'm serious, five minutes. Five minutes to decide whether this woman is farmer's wife material or not. 3 of the 6 favourites are then chosen to go to that farmer's farm - the exact location and isolation of these farms are unknown to these three women. And then the series goes on.
I am, of course, not against these drovers and farmers trying to find love, but finding love on a five minute televised date is ridiculous. Love is not something that can be found on something that is broadcast on national television - after all, love is part of a private life, called private for a reason. Television is about money, it's a bitchy, backstabbing world - not the ideal place to fall in love. I personally think, whilst the show is entertaning for its sheer ridiculousness, it cheapens love, makes love a kind of competition. Love and media don't mix.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Perfect Australian Government
The perfect Australian Government would:
- Legalise gay marriage (a marriage is a union between two people, regardless of gender)
- Support women's rights
- Improve parental and maternity leave
- Tax the miners (suck it up)
- Improve education
- Introduce fast broadband connection into Australia
- Have a more sympathetic immigration and refugee system (Tony Abbott, you try being on one of those goddamn boats)
- Withdraw from the Afghan war
- More funding for mental health care
- Make voting optional for teenagers (This is important! The Voice of the Young People have the right to vote)
But most importantly, I wish the Australian Government would stop waffling around. I wish they would stop pretending that everything's okay, because it's not. I wish the Australian Government would be more sympathetic towards refugees - after all, they're not just coming to Australia for a change of scenery. I wish Australia would stop saying that we're not sexist and rascist when we are and I just wish that Tony Abbott would go DIE IN A HOLE.
Go Greens!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
My Hero, Your Hero.
I don't have a lot of respect for sportsmen. I mean, I think Harry Kewell is hot, but...that's about it, really.
But I try not to blow them off too much though. I know it tends to upset some people. People who actually like sport, which happens to be most of the freaking population here in Australia. So I try not to let on too much that I don't really count tossing a ball a huge achievement, at least not an achievement worth squillions of dollars that could be put to better use, given to worthier people of a worthier cause.
One thing I do love is history. I first caught the history bug when I was eight, bored to death of our rather uninteresting and uninspiring history that spans less than two centuries and my mother borrowed a documentary of Elizabeth I to keep me occupied. That documentary happened to be narrated by David Starkey.
I love David Starkey. (if you don't know David Starkey, by the way, he's a historian who studied at Cambridge University and taught at the London School of Economics who rose to fame making documentaries of British history, his speciality being my personal favourite era, the Tudor Dynasty). I don't agree with his political views or views on women, but there's no denying he's a wonderfully gifted and enthusiastic historian, crazy knowledgable and his documentaries suck you in and won't spit you out until you can reel off all the names of Henry's six wives. He inspired me to enter the wonderful world of history, let me escape to a place where things had meaning when people had passion and defiance and bravery instead of the lumpen sacks of useless flesh that make up most of the modern day global population, a time of chivalry and knights in shining armour.
So yeah, it does piss me off when people laugh at his dramatic and flamboyant narration style, how his eyebrows move, his English accent, so different to our Aussie pronunciation (or mispronunciation) of things. You know what I think is stupid? How soccer players carefully cup their balls when a ball's coming towards them. I think the cricket teams wear the most retarded clothing. I think that AFL is basically scheduled, expensive chaos and I think that the only good thing about rugby is the All Black's haka. But I don't say shit like that to people, because they get a bit annoyed, shocked, even, that I think that their hero is a jerk or looks funny.
Trampling over other people is never a good thing - we all know it, but we all do it any way, even if we pretend we don't. But trampling on our heroes is like trampling on our souls.
But I try not to blow them off too much though. I know it tends to upset some people. People who actually like sport, which happens to be most of the freaking population here in Australia. So I try not to let on too much that I don't really count tossing a ball a huge achievement, at least not an achievement worth squillions of dollars that could be put to better use, given to worthier people of a worthier cause.
One thing I do love is history. I first caught the history bug when I was eight, bored to death of our rather uninteresting and uninspiring history that spans less than two centuries and my mother borrowed a documentary of Elizabeth I to keep me occupied. That documentary happened to be narrated by David Starkey.
I love David Starkey. (if you don't know David Starkey, by the way, he's a historian who studied at Cambridge University and taught at the London School of Economics who rose to fame making documentaries of British history, his speciality being my personal favourite era, the Tudor Dynasty). I don't agree with his political views or views on women, but there's no denying he's a wonderfully gifted and enthusiastic historian, crazy knowledgable and his documentaries suck you in and won't spit you out until you can reel off all the names of Henry's six wives. He inspired me to enter the wonderful world of history, let me escape to a place where things had meaning when people had passion and defiance and bravery instead of the lumpen sacks of useless flesh that make up most of the modern day global population, a time of chivalry and knights in shining armour.
So yeah, it does piss me off when people laugh at his dramatic and flamboyant narration style, how his eyebrows move, his English accent, so different to our Aussie pronunciation (or mispronunciation) of things. You know what I think is stupid? How soccer players carefully cup their balls when a ball's coming towards them. I think the cricket teams wear the most retarded clothing. I think that AFL is basically scheduled, expensive chaos and I think that the only good thing about rugby is the All Black's haka. But I don't say shit like that to people, because they get a bit annoyed, shocked, even, that I think that their hero is a jerk or looks funny.
Trampling over other people is never a good thing - we all know it, but we all do it any way, even if we pretend we don't. But trampling on our heroes is like trampling on our souls.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Things.
Okay, so I should explain my other stalkerific gadget, because on the surface it may seem a bit...weird. But what isn't? I wonder what word they used to describe weird things before Shakespeare came along, saw the gap in our beloved mother language, and invented that word along with about three quillion other words that are now used by people who think that Shakespeare is 'weird' but the word 'weird' is not.
My other gadget is a flag count, which means it keeps track of how many people stop by my blog in the different countries. If you click on it, it tells me how many 'unique' visitors I've had (as apposed to me making my feedjit feed look impressive by visiting my own blog obsessively). So that's that.
Another, completely unrelated thing I wanted to talk about is this interesting phenomenon I like to cal human senses.
Obviously, humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. But the ways this can be manipulated is amazing. For example, put two pungent substances, like spices, into two seperate containers, than both into another container. Sniff one of the substances, then the mixture. The substance you have just smelled will be mysteriously absent from the mix, even though it's obviously there.
Another thing that is funny is that if you don't tell people, they often can't taste things. For example, just now I was making sugar soup, an Asian thing, which is basically boiling water with pandan leaves, and various different sugars and honey (it was lacking ginger). For the hell of it, I experimented and added a splash of maple syrup.
You may think that maple syrup is a weird thing to add to an Asian sugar soup, but my reasons were justified. Reason the First, maple syrup is sweet, and the whole idea of a sugar soup is to make a sweet soup to add glutinous rice balls into. Reason the Second, maple syrup isn't as Canadian as you may think - there are maple trees in Korea, and I know alcohol is made out of it...I dunno, that's how I made the connection. Reason the Third, we have proper maple syrup, not that random brown goo that is sold as maple syrup, so it's not like I'm trying to combine America and China together and getting an amazingly fucked up ABC like myself.
I tried to sneak in the maple syrup without anyone knowing, but my sister walked down to the kitchen just as I was putting the syrup back into the fridge. She immediately started tirading, because after all maple syrup is, despite my Reasons, a pretty weird thing to add to the sugar soup, and also because she hates it when I deviate from my mother's instructions - because my experiments more often than not go disasterously wrong. But despite her pulling faces at my brilliant concoction, I was happy with it. It tasted really good, and the aroma of maple and pandan mixed together is weird but nice.
So my parents came down and drank up the soup, and none of them knew what was different about it until I told them, wherelse my sister insisted that it ruined it completely. Sigh. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
My other gadget is a flag count, which means it keeps track of how many people stop by my blog in the different countries. If you click on it, it tells me how many 'unique' visitors I've had (as apposed to me making my feedjit feed look impressive by visiting my own blog obsessively). So that's that.
Another, completely unrelated thing I wanted to talk about is this interesting phenomenon I like to cal human senses.
Obviously, humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. But the ways this can be manipulated is amazing. For example, put two pungent substances, like spices, into two seperate containers, than both into another container. Sniff one of the substances, then the mixture. The substance you have just smelled will be mysteriously absent from the mix, even though it's obviously there.
Another thing that is funny is that if you don't tell people, they often can't taste things. For example, just now I was making sugar soup, an Asian thing, which is basically boiling water with pandan leaves, and various different sugars and honey (it was lacking ginger). For the hell of it, I experimented and added a splash of maple syrup.
You may think that maple syrup is a weird thing to add to an Asian sugar soup, but my reasons were justified. Reason the First, maple syrup is sweet, and the whole idea of a sugar soup is to make a sweet soup to add glutinous rice balls into. Reason the Second, maple syrup isn't as Canadian as you may think - there are maple trees in Korea, and I know alcohol is made out of it...I dunno, that's how I made the connection. Reason the Third, we have proper maple syrup, not that random brown goo that is sold as maple syrup, so it's not like I'm trying to combine America and China together and getting an amazingly fucked up ABC like myself.
I tried to sneak in the maple syrup without anyone knowing, but my sister walked down to the kitchen just as I was putting the syrup back into the fridge. She immediately started tirading, because after all maple syrup is, despite my Reasons, a pretty weird thing to add to the sugar soup, and also because she hates it when I deviate from my mother's instructions - because my experiments more often than not go disasterously wrong. But despite her pulling faces at my brilliant concoction, I was happy with it. It tasted really good, and the aroma of maple and pandan mixed together is weird but nice.
So my parents came down and drank up the soup, and none of them knew what was different about it until I told them, wherelse my sister insisted that it ruined it completely. Sigh. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Typos
I have been re-reading some of my posts and I've realized that there are a hell of a lot of typos. But I can't bring myself to edit them out, unless they're blantantly nonsensical or rude. Why? Because I think, perhaps erronously, that they add character to my writing.
I'm not the kind of person who carefully structures out her writing and rereads and re-edits over and over. I write the second ideas occur to me, my fingers flying over the keyboard, not bothering or noticing mistakes. My ideas ebb and flow unpredictably, hence the reason I may have a writing famine for about a month and then have about five posts in one day.
I don't believe in spotlessly polished writing doled out regularly, predictably, boringly. I believe the true heart of writing is writing written in the heat of the moment, writing complete with errors and little imperfections. I don't think I've ever proof-read a post before - because, blog posts are only fun when one writes them or when you read them, all published, on a blog. The little window that I blog in is not interesting, and I consequently want to get out of it as soon as possible. When I do notice an error when I read the published post and go to edit it, I normally can't find it as the publishing window makes every word look like all the other words around it.
Just thought I'd let you know.
I'm not the kind of person who carefully structures out her writing and rereads and re-edits over and over. I write the second ideas occur to me, my fingers flying over the keyboard, not bothering or noticing mistakes. My ideas ebb and flow unpredictably, hence the reason I may have a writing famine for about a month and then have about five posts in one day.
I don't believe in spotlessly polished writing doled out regularly, predictably, boringly. I believe the true heart of writing is writing written in the heat of the moment, writing complete with errors and little imperfections. I don't think I've ever proof-read a post before - because, blog posts are only fun when one writes them or when you read them, all published, on a blog. The little window that I blog in is not interesting, and I consequently want to get out of it as soon as possible. When I do notice an error when I read the published post and go to edit it, I normally can't find it as the publishing window makes every word look like all the other words around it.
Just thought I'd let you know.
Friday, July 23, 2010
40 Hour Famine Donating
I have officially signed up for the 40 Hour Famine, and I have made a few edits to my list of things I am giving up. The official famine weekend is on August 20-22, but I plan to do it a week before to avoid doing the famine on my mother's birthday.
I have a page on the 40 Hour Famine website, where you can donate money to my famine effort online, and receive an emailed receipt. You can donate both to my personal cash aim or to the 40 Hour Famine in general, as much or as little as you like, whether you live in or out of Australia, with a choice of payment options. I will not be keeping any of the money raised for personal use. My aim is AUD $200.
All money I receive for my famine is given to World Vision to battle the Global Food Crisis - this year the countries in the spotlight are Kenya and Nepal. Please open your hearts to people much less fortunate than ourselves and donate generously. It doesn't matter how much you give, every cent counts.
My 40 Hour Famine Page is: http://40hf.com/ladyrenegade96. The url linking is not working, so please copy and paste it into your url boxy thing (really technical term).
Thank you.
I have a page on the 40 Hour Famine website, where you can donate money to my famine effort online, and receive an emailed receipt. You can donate both to my personal cash aim or to the 40 Hour Famine in general, as much or as little as you like, whether you live in or out of Australia, with a choice of payment options. I will not be keeping any of the money raised for personal use. My aim is AUD $200.
All money I receive for my famine is given to World Vision to battle the Global Food Crisis - this year the countries in the spotlight are Kenya and Nepal. Please open your hearts to people much less fortunate than ourselves and donate generously. It doesn't matter how much you give, every cent counts.
My 40 Hour Famine Page is: http://40hf.com/ladyrenegade96. The url linking is not working, so please copy and paste it into your url boxy thing (really technical term).
Thank you.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
MasterChef
One of my fondest memories of my childhood is racing home from school and turning on the BBC Masterchef Goes Large (I'd always miss the first couple of minutes), turning the volume to max and quickly making myself a big bowl of steaming, spicy instant noodles with an egg buried in the soup, and watching Masterchef with my ramen perched on a tea-towel covered pillow on my lap. These were the times when I had the house all to myself for about an hour, watching what I like eating what I cooked.
After that season of MasterChef Goes Large they stopped airing the British show, and replaced it with an Australian version. I didn't like the look of the adverts, because it looked far too commercialized - far too much like Biggest Loser of Big Brother. They had taken my favourite simple, homey, British TV show and completely wrecked it.
I have watched the second season of MasterChef Australia, which is currently airing, from the top seven onwards - which really isn't much of it, by the way. The grand finale is this Sunday. Apparently they've made some changes, and I think its obvious - the adverts are no longer offensive anymore, and I actually quite like the show. There's more emphasis on cooking rather than the hocus pocus that is most of Australian prime time telly.
So I went on the website of MasterChef Australia today, just checking it out, when a little window popped up and asked me if I wanted to take part in an anonymous survey. So I clicked on it, and I was about 90% through it when it asked what year I was born. I clicked on the 'before 1995' option. The survey immediately informed me that they could not accept my survey as I was under fourteen, but thanks for being interested anyway bye.
Gee, that's nice. For one thing, I am not under fourteen, I am fourteen. I am legally allowed to get a part-time job. In just over five months, I will be fifteen. So, basically, I'm closer to fifteen than fourteen.
Besides, this can hardly be a privacy issue. I didn't have to disclose my name, or my address, not even my state or email address. It quite clearly is the shocking fact that in this day and age, the voice of the youth is shockingly undervalued.
I know this sounds petty, but it is annoying. I have to lie about my age to log on to many sites I set up accounts on. It's so unfair, that I am underestimated and undervalued just because I'm fourteen, as opposed to 140. I mean, the voice of the young people is not as inexperienced and narrow as you might think. It's like being a gardener and only picking the tough, wilting plants instead of the fresh young ones. I'm not saying you should rely on a baby for stock advice, but just take us a little more seriously. Please.
After that season of MasterChef Goes Large they stopped airing the British show, and replaced it with an Australian version. I didn't like the look of the adverts, because it looked far too commercialized - far too much like Biggest Loser of Big Brother. They had taken my favourite simple, homey, British TV show and completely wrecked it.
I have watched the second season of MasterChef Australia, which is currently airing, from the top seven onwards - which really isn't much of it, by the way. The grand finale is this Sunday. Apparently they've made some changes, and I think its obvious - the adverts are no longer offensive anymore, and I actually quite like the show. There's more emphasis on cooking rather than the hocus pocus that is most of Australian prime time telly.
So I went on the website of MasterChef Australia today, just checking it out, when a little window popped up and asked me if I wanted to take part in an anonymous survey. So I clicked on it, and I was about 90% through it when it asked what year I was born. I clicked on the 'before 1995' option. The survey immediately informed me that they could not accept my survey as I was under fourteen, but thanks for being interested anyway bye.
Gee, that's nice. For one thing, I am not under fourteen, I am fourteen. I am legally allowed to get a part-time job. In just over five months, I will be fifteen. So, basically, I'm closer to fifteen than fourteen.
Besides, this can hardly be a privacy issue. I didn't have to disclose my name, or my address, not even my state or email address. It quite clearly is the shocking fact that in this day and age, the voice of the youth is shockingly undervalued.
I know this sounds petty, but it is annoying. I have to lie about my age to log on to many sites I set up accounts on. It's so unfair, that I am underestimated and undervalued just because I'm fourteen, as opposed to 140. I mean, the voice of the young people is not as inexperienced and narrow as you might think. It's like being a gardener and only picking the tough, wilting plants instead of the fresh young ones. I'm not saying you should rely on a baby for stock advice, but just take us a little more seriously. Please.
40 Hour Famine
40 Hour Famine is running this year, and I hope to be a lot more commited and raise a lot more money than my pathetic effort and money haul of last year.
40 Hour Famine is a great thing to get involved with, and helps to solve the Global Food Crisis and bring awareness to the fact that there are a billion people starving on this globe. A billion people. That is like, okay, this is where my math fails...okay, put it this way. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF AUSTRALIA is about 22 million. Put it into prospective - that is a shitload of people.
This year, I plan to give up shoes (thongs (flip flops) only), makeup (only cleanser, moisturizer and clear lip balm allowed), technology (computer, ipod, radio, phone, cell phone, TV, kettle, microwave), tea, coffee, meat, dairy, SOY SAUCE, sugar, honey, shopping, (I'm Asian - giving up soy sauce is like giving up...gold), junk food, furniture (bed, tables and chairs) and baths (I will shower, though!) - things I love and rely on the most - for forty hours. I am participating as part of my school, so all money I raise will go towards the school total.
I hope this year I can involve my blog somehow - as in, my readers can donate to my 40 Hour Famine if they wish. I will try and set this up with my school, and I will post details if I can manage this.
I hope you all consider taking part in the 40 Hour Famine, it's a great cause helping people in need. Peace.
40 Hour Famine is a great thing to get involved with, and helps to solve the Global Food Crisis and bring awareness to the fact that there are a billion people starving on this globe. A billion people. That is like, okay, this is where my math fails...okay, put it this way. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF AUSTRALIA is about 22 million. Put it into prospective - that is a shitload of people.
This year, I plan to give up shoes (thongs (flip flops) only), makeup (only cleanser, moisturizer and clear lip balm allowed), technology (computer, ipod, radio, phone, cell phone, TV, kettle, microwave), tea, coffee, meat, dairy, SOY SAUCE, sugar, honey, shopping, (I'm Asian - giving up soy sauce is like giving up...gold), junk food, furniture (bed, tables and chairs) and baths (I will shower, though!) - things I love and rely on the most - for forty hours. I am participating as part of my school, so all money I raise will go towards the school total.
I hope this year I can involve my blog somehow - as in, my readers can donate to my 40 Hour Famine if they wish. I will try and set this up with my school, and I will post details if I can manage this.
I hope you all consider taking part in the 40 Hour Famine, it's a great cause helping people in need. Peace.
Oedipus and Antigone
Mood: sore ankle :(
Listening to: 'Wavin' Flag' by K'naan
Hungry for: tangello!
Bella says: i no i am so coot can u peaz skratch tummi?
So, in English, I am still with my favourite teacher and doing a very interesting course called Heroes and Villains. What I love about this course is that it is a very specific area of English, yet at the same time so broad and diverse - I mean, we're covering everything from Greek poetry to Shakespeare to modern-day blockbusters. Lots of fun.
The main idea of the course is to learn about stereotypical and archetypal characters and storylines, famous and well-executed examples of them, and how we can bend and break rules to make our own writing original and interesting. This is an area I have found personally in my fiction writing that needs some work - originality is insanely difficult when I get immersed deeply in such heavily influential books such as Harry Potter, Twilight and The Time Traveller's Wife.
The first archetype we are studying are Tragedies, and stereotypical characters associated with tragedies. Tragedies are my teacher's personal favourite - I find them a little too dramatic, I mean, EVERYONE DIES, very depressing. At the moment we are studying Antigone by the Greek poet Sophacles, which is chronologically the third of the Three Thebian Plays, although going with the colourful confusion that is history, naturally it was written first.
Important events that happen prior to Antigone is in the first of the Three Thebian Plays (which was written second), Oedipus the King. The long story short of this play is that Oedipus is the wrong man at the wrong time who marries the wrong woman - she just happens to turn out to be his mother as well as his wife. Out of shame, she hangs herself, and he takes the brooches off her dress and stabs his eyes, as he cannot bear to look at his children, products of incest. His children are Polyneices and Eteocles, the elder twin brothers, and Antigone and Ismene, the daughters. When Oedipus leaves Thebes in shame, Creon, Oedipus's wife (Jocasta's) brother, rules as regent until Oedipus's sons come of age.
At the age of eighteen, there is a dispute as to which of the twin brothers should inherit the throne. It is agreed that Eteocles will rule for one year, then Polyneices, and then Eteocles again, and so on and so forth. Eteocles then becomes king, but after the year is up he refuses to relinquish the throne. Polyneices then gets foreign help to invade Thebes, causing shitloads of bloodshed, and eventually it comes down to a man-on-man wrestle. Unfortunately, the brothers kill each other.
Creon, a stubborn and essentially stupid sexist bastard, honours Eteocles as a hero, seeing him as the king who died for his city, but orders Polyneices' body to be left to rot and be devoured by dogs, without a cremation, burial, or mourning period. Antigone is given this message directly, but resolves to bury her brother's body herself to protect him from going to hell. She attempts to recruit Ismene, but she refuses, fearing Creon's degree too much and fearing death and punishment. Antigone bravely sneaks out to her brother's corpse and buries it with a thin layer of dust, leaving no trace. Baffled guards find the dust-veiled body the next day, which outrages Creon.
Antigone for some unexplained and highly debated reson goes back to the body that day, and is caught. Furious, Creon nearly orders both Antigone and Ismene to be executed - Ismene falsly confesses her guilt, whilst Antigone argues her sister's innocence - however, he eventually resolves to just execute Antigone. Antigone is led away to be sealed alive into a cave.
I didn't really read this next bit (or any of it, for the whole matter) word for word, but this I think is the gist of it. Antigone's fiance, Creon's son (so that would be her cousin and her uncle,which is...gross) attempts to defend Antigone, but with little success. Eventually Creon, with the help of his trusted Oracle, sees he is at fault at a) leaving Polyneices' body and b) punishing Antigone, and sets out to her living tomb to try and set things right. However, he finds that she is dead and his son has somehow sneaked in, and commits suicide. After hearing of her son's death, Creon's wife commits suicide as well. The play basically ends with Creon going 'shit.'
That ending right there is the main reason why I don't like tragedies. For me, it just feels like cheating. In no other genre can you kill off people so suddenly and indiscriminately and still get away with it.
But I do love the character of Antigone. Perhaps one of the first literary feminists, Antigone boldly and defiantly goes against the wishes of the men above her - Creon, the sexist bastard, often says that she forgets her place, as a woman, and that he would not be ruled by a woman, and calls his son a 'woman's accomplice'. I love how Sophacles portrayes Antigone as not one of those weak, pretty, feeble characters (*COUGH* Penelope from The Odyssey) but as a woman who thought from her heart and spoke from her soul and died for her cause. Her fiance, Haemon, replaces the typical weak character - he is the wussy combination of Romeo and Juliet to her toughened-up Danae, entering the play, having a fight with his dad, and then conveniently dying. Even her sister, Ismene, although backing out of her sister's outrageously defiant plans, shows bravery by falsly admitting to guilt to stay by her sister's side in death.
I hate Creon so much I almost love him. He's the typical sexist bastard that is glorified in so much insanely sexist Greek literature, yet in this play the sexist bastard is the one who's left crying in the shithole he buried for himself. As he should, I might add.
The storyline also emphasises in the clash between patriotic loyalty and loyalty to one's kin - something that clashes in many people, especially royalty. The major theme of Antigone (apart from death, death and more death), is Antigone's civil disobedience and her extreme, almost psychotic loyalty to her religious beliefs concerning death and the love of her brother, about whom she says 'now that our parents are gone, a brother is not like a husband or a child, that can be replaced', or something along those lines.
So what do you think of Antigone? Please post your comments below.
Listening to: 'Wavin' Flag' by K'naan
Hungry for: tangello!
Bella says: i no i am so coot can u peaz skratch tummi?
So, in English, I am still with my favourite teacher and doing a very interesting course called Heroes and Villains. What I love about this course is that it is a very specific area of English, yet at the same time so broad and diverse - I mean, we're covering everything from Greek poetry to Shakespeare to modern-day blockbusters. Lots of fun.
The main idea of the course is to learn about stereotypical and archetypal characters and storylines, famous and well-executed examples of them, and how we can bend and break rules to make our own writing original and interesting. This is an area I have found personally in my fiction writing that needs some work - originality is insanely difficult when I get immersed deeply in such heavily influential books such as Harry Potter, Twilight and The Time Traveller's Wife.
The first archetype we are studying are Tragedies, and stereotypical characters associated with tragedies. Tragedies are my teacher's personal favourite - I find them a little too dramatic, I mean, EVERYONE DIES, very depressing. At the moment we are studying Antigone by the Greek poet Sophacles, which is chronologically the third of the Three Thebian Plays, although going with the colourful confusion that is history, naturally it was written first.
Important events that happen prior to Antigone is in the first of the Three Thebian Plays (which was written second), Oedipus the King. The long story short of this play is that Oedipus is the wrong man at the wrong time who marries the wrong woman - she just happens to turn out to be his mother as well as his wife. Out of shame, she hangs herself, and he takes the brooches off her dress and stabs his eyes, as he cannot bear to look at his children, products of incest. His children are Polyneices and Eteocles, the elder twin brothers, and Antigone and Ismene, the daughters. When Oedipus leaves Thebes in shame, Creon, Oedipus's wife (Jocasta's) brother, rules as regent until Oedipus's sons come of age.
At the age of eighteen, there is a dispute as to which of the twin brothers should inherit the throne. It is agreed that Eteocles will rule for one year, then Polyneices, and then Eteocles again, and so on and so forth. Eteocles then becomes king, but after the year is up he refuses to relinquish the throne. Polyneices then gets foreign help to invade Thebes, causing shitloads of bloodshed, and eventually it comes down to a man-on-man wrestle. Unfortunately, the brothers kill each other.
Creon, a stubborn and essentially stupid sexist bastard, honours Eteocles as a hero, seeing him as the king who died for his city, but orders Polyneices' body to be left to rot and be devoured by dogs, without a cremation, burial, or mourning period. Antigone is given this message directly, but resolves to bury her brother's body herself to protect him from going to hell. She attempts to recruit Ismene, but she refuses, fearing Creon's degree too much and fearing death and punishment. Antigone bravely sneaks out to her brother's corpse and buries it with a thin layer of dust, leaving no trace. Baffled guards find the dust-veiled body the next day, which outrages Creon.
Antigone for some unexplained and highly debated reson goes back to the body that day, and is caught. Furious, Creon nearly orders both Antigone and Ismene to be executed - Ismene falsly confesses her guilt, whilst Antigone argues her sister's innocence - however, he eventually resolves to just execute Antigone. Antigone is led away to be sealed alive into a cave.
I didn't really read this next bit (or any of it, for the whole matter) word for word, but this I think is the gist of it. Antigone's fiance, Creon's son (so that would be her cousin and her uncle,which is...gross) attempts to defend Antigone, but with little success. Eventually Creon, with the help of his trusted Oracle, sees he is at fault at a) leaving Polyneices' body and b) punishing Antigone, and sets out to her living tomb to try and set things right. However, he finds that she is dead and his son has somehow sneaked in, and commits suicide. After hearing of her son's death, Creon's wife commits suicide as well. The play basically ends with Creon going 'shit.'
That ending right there is the main reason why I don't like tragedies. For me, it just feels like cheating. In no other genre can you kill off people so suddenly and indiscriminately and still get away with it.
But I do love the character of Antigone. Perhaps one of the first literary feminists, Antigone boldly and defiantly goes against the wishes of the men above her - Creon, the sexist bastard, often says that she forgets her place, as a woman, and that he would not be ruled by a woman, and calls his son a 'woman's accomplice'. I love how Sophacles portrayes Antigone as not one of those weak, pretty, feeble characters (*COUGH* Penelope from The Odyssey) but as a woman who thought from her heart and spoke from her soul and died for her cause. Her fiance, Haemon, replaces the typical weak character - he is the wussy combination of Romeo and Juliet to her toughened-up Danae, entering the play, having a fight with his dad, and then conveniently dying. Even her sister, Ismene, although backing out of her sister's outrageously defiant plans, shows bravery by falsly admitting to guilt to stay by her sister's side in death.
I hate Creon so much I almost love him. He's the typical sexist bastard that is glorified in so much insanely sexist Greek literature, yet in this play the sexist bastard is the one who's left crying in the shithole he buried for himself. As he should, I might add.
The storyline also emphasises in the clash between patriotic loyalty and loyalty to one's kin - something that clashes in many people, especially royalty. The major theme of Antigone (apart from death, death and more death), is Antigone's civil disobedience and her extreme, almost psychotic loyalty to her religious beliefs concerning death and the love of her brother, about whom she says 'now that our parents are gone, a brother is not like a husband or a child, that can be replaced', or something along those lines.
So what do you think of Antigone? Please post your comments below.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tools.
An artist of any kind - a writer, a visual artist, a photographer, whatever - should all agree with me on this one.
Many fields of work and study require tools and instruments, which is rather annoying - machines, that never do exactly what you want them to do, or tools that don't do anything good by themselves but independently have this inane ability to ruin your day. I believe that mathematicians and scientists have it lucky - artists rely the most on tools.
And it's annoying you know, when you realize someone's messed around with your brushes or mixed up your colour-coordinated eye shadow collection. It's frustrating when someone has changed the settings on Word just as you get a good idea pop into your head. It's mind-blowingly irritating when your camera just decides to poof all by itself.
Many people don't understand the horrible frustration of inanimate objects making fun of you, and try and put it to laziness, or pettiness, or procrastination. They just think us, artists, are a bunch of tools.
Let me tell you something: it's our tools that are tools, not us.
Speaking of tools, do you know who are really big tools? People who stare at you and give you dirty looks in class, especially if you answer something only a crazy obsessed wikipedia freak like me would know. It's insanely annoying, you know, so my dear ma told me a trade secret 'if they stare at you, stare back'. So I have staring competitions in Politics and English, my favourite subjects and the subjects I happen to be quite good at, and people are quite shocked. Nerds aren't meant to know the TRADE SECRET - just stare back, look away when they do, and then stare when they start staring again. But guess what? I know it.
My blog is a great source of comfort to me when I'm forced to have staring competitions and try and avoid rather rude gazes from awestruck/disgusted/freaked out people. Even in the early days when I had pathetic traffic, it still feels good. I see my world at the moment as a darkness, not always scary dark, but spooky dark, but sometimes a nice dark. I'm aiming towards the light. But somehow, my blog is my torch, my weapon, that I hold out in front of me on the long road ahead.
Is that too cheesy?
Many fields of work and study require tools and instruments, which is rather annoying - machines, that never do exactly what you want them to do, or tools that don't do anything good by themselves but independently have this inane ability to ruin your day. I believe that mathematicians and scientists have it lucky - artists rely the most on tools.
And it's annoying you know, when you realize someone's messed around with your brushes or mixed up your colour-coordinated eye shadow collection. It's frustrating when someone has changed the settings on Word just as you get a good idea pop into your head. It's mind-blowingly irritating when your camera just decides to poof all by itself.
Many people don't understand the horrible frustration of inanimate objects making fun of you, and try and put it to laziness, or pettiness, or procrastination. They just think us, artists, are a bunch of tools.
Let me tell you something: it's our tools that are tools, not us.
Speaking of tools, do you know who are really big tools? People who stare at you and give you dirty looks in class, especially if you answer something only a crazy obsessed wikipedia freak like me would know. It's insanely annoying, you know, so my dear ma told me a trade secret 'if they stare at you, stare back'. So I have staring competitions in Politics and English, my favourite subjects and the subjects I happen to be quite good at, and people are quite shocked. Nerds aren't meant to know the TRADE SECRET - just stare back, look away when they do, and then stare when they start staring again. But guess what? I know it.
My blog is a great source of comfort to me when I'm forced to have staring competitions and try and avoid rather rude gazes from awestruck/disgusted/freaked out people. Even in the early days when I had pathetic traffic, it still feels good. I see my world at the moment as a darkness, not always scary dark, but spooky dark, but sometimes a nice dark. I'm aiming towards the light. But somehow, my blog is my torch, my weapon, that I hold out in front of me on the long road ahead.
Is that too cheesy?
A new stalkerific thing
I know it looks a bit wussy at the moment, but apparently in 48 hours it'll all look cool.
mwahahaha.
mwahahaha.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Priorities.
I'll never understand why directors will splurge millions just to get the right (or, in the case of Baz Luhrman's Australia, wrong) breed of horses, when the can't even get the country in question right. I mean, The Karate Kid II, which was supposedly set in Japan, was filmed in Hawaii. You could even see the palm trees. How trashy.
I mean, I know some of the real arty directors just focus too much on the little and not enough on the big. I know, I do that all the time in my media projects. But really, when you have millions of dollars in your hand, it is not reasonable to spend it on things that have a nanosecond of screen time that we will not notice or remember.
Growing up, one thing that has been constantly drilled into me is priorities, but it seems that the world doesn't have its priorities straight. Why are we talking about new sports stadiums when there are still homeless on the street? Why are we talking about earning more money when there is a single jewel in the Crown? Why are we talking about cosmetic surgeries when there are so many who live in misery, humiliated by disgusting deformities? Why do people mutilate themselves in the name of beauty when so many die involuntarily in unavoidable operations? Why are we talking about the petty when we should be dreaming big?
It's a big source of frustration in me. When I was barely three months old, I had an extremely risky open heart surgery performed on me, which was repeated again when I was five. I'll have another in the next year or so. I'm constantly haunted by the fear I'll die under the knife. It's made me rush into life a bit. I want it all - college, love, life, family, career, money - and I want it all now. That's why I get frustrated when people judge and restrict me because of my age - I mean, for all of us, there is a chance that we won't be any older or wiser or stronger or more capable then we are now. Maybe we won't have the opportunity again if we don't take the chance now. Perhaps my goals not really realistic goals at the age of fourteen, but at least I have plans. At least I know what I want to do. I know for most teenagers, you feel like you have the world at your feet and a lifetime ahead of you, but even though you think you're safe in your teens, soon teens will become twenties, then thirties, then fourties, and before you know it you're at Death's door. I know many people don't have reasons as I do to be so urgent about life, but that doesn't mean you should be complacent, think you have all the world when really you're just a blink away from life and death. I know a lot of us are counting on fifty years of life to make dreams happen, but I believe you shouldn't bank on that. Anything can happen.
I know I rush life, but at least I don't sit around waiting for life to happen. You can look back and convince yourself that your life of regrets are caused by bad luck and lack of opportunities, but opportunities are there, every day, every second, we just chose not to take them because we think we have so much time. But we don't. Live every moment like it was your last one, but don't be so afraid of death that you don't go out and live.
I mean, I know some of the real arty directors just focus too much on the little and not enough on the big. I know, I do that all the time in my media projects. But really, when you have millions of dollars in your hand, it is not reasonable to spend it on things that have a nanosecond of screen time that we will not notice or remember.
Growing up, one thing that has been constantly drilled into me is priorities, but it seems that the world doesn't have its priorities straight. Why are we talking about new sports stadiums when there are still homeless on the street? Why are we talking about earning more money when there is a single jewel in the Crown? Why are we talking about cosmetic surgeries when there are so many who live in misery, humiliated by disgusting deformities? Why do people mutilate themselves in the name of beauty when so many die involuntarily in unavoidable operations? Why are we talking about the petty when we should be dreaming big?
It's a big source of frustration in me. When I was barely three months old, I had an extremely risky open heart surgery performed on me, which was repeated again when I was five. I'll have another in the next year or so. I'm constantly haunted by the fear I'll die under the knife. It's made me rush into life a bit. I want it all - college, love, life, family, career, money - and I want it all now. That's why I get frustrated when people judge and restrict me because of my age - I mean, for all of us, there is a chance that we won't be any older or wiser or stronger or more capable then we are now. Maybe we won't have the opportunity again if we don't take the chance now. Perhaps my goals not really realistic goals at the age of fourteen, but at least I have plans. At least I know what I want to do. I know for most teenagers, you feel like you have the world at your feet and a lifetime ahead of you, but even though you think you're safe in your teens, soon teens will become twenties, then thirties, then fourties, and before you know it you're at Death's door. I know many people don't have reasons as I do to be so urgent about life, but that doesn't mean you should be complacent, think you have all the world when really you're just a blink away from life and death. I know a lot of us are counting on fifty years of life to make dreams happen, but I believe you shouldn't bank on that. Anything can happen.
I know I rush life, but at least I don't sit around waiting for life to happen. You can look back and convince yourself that your life of regrets are caused by bad luck and lack of opportunities, but opportunities are there, every day, every second, we just chose not to take them because we think we have so much time. But we don't. Live every moment like it was your last one, but don't be so afraid of death that you don't go out and live.
You know what I think?
You know what I think? I think most people think that staring is rude, but if you're fat, wearing makeup, ugly, Asian, old, or wearing sunnies, it's somehow okay.
You know what I think? I think it's hypocritical when people say 'don't parade around your English prize, it might make other people feel bad', but yet they let race winners and sports prize winners parade around their flashy trophies in my face. I mean, and they were worried that my dinky little medallion would make them cry.
You know what I think? I think it's funny when people realize you're Asian, or an academic, they immediately talk to you as if you're disabled.
You know what I think? I think that movies make a big mistake of making it like boys like weird girls. I mean, I am living proof that that is not true.
You know what I think? I think people think that I made some illicit deal with a criminal gang to gain my talents, instead of being born with them like they would assume if I had other gifts.
You know what I think? Justin Bieber and all the rest always squint their eyes a little when they're 'smouldering'. So, really, all Asians are like, permanently sexy, 100% of the time.
You know what I think? I think that the best song in the world is Wavin' Flag. Airplanes is a very close second.
You know what I think? I think I live for life.
You know what I think? I think it's hypocritical when people say 'don't parade around your English prize, it might make other people feel bad', but yet they let race winners and sports prize winners parade around their flashy trophies in my face. I mean, and they were worried that my dinky little medallion would make them cry.
You know what I think? I think it's funny when people realize you're Asian, or an academic, they immediately talk to you as if you're disabled.
You know what I think? I think that movies make a big mistake of making it like boys like weird girls. I mean, I am living proof that that is not true.
You know what I think? I think people think that I made some illicit deal with a criminal gang to gain my talents, instead of being born with them like they would assume if I had other gifts.
You know what I think? Justin Bieber and all the rest always squint their eyes a little when they're 'smouldering'. So, really, all Asians are like, permanently sexy, 100% of the time.
You know what I think? I think that the best song in the world is Wavin' Flag. Airplanes is a very close second.
You know what I think? I think I live for life.
Just a thing...
So, this kinda connects with my most recent posts about the Young Artist for Haiti and learning French.
So I was listening to the Wavin' Flag Haiti Remix, and I was just getting to the French part (this being Canadian) when I realized that it actually sounds pretty funny.
The first French phrase is meant to be 'au nom de la survie' (in the name of survival) but it honestly sounds like 'nom de la souris' which is 'name of the mouse'.
If you know French, or bad French, as I do, listen to it. See if you agree with me.
So I was listening to the Wavin' Flag Haiti Remix, and I was just getting to the French part (this being Canadian) when I realized that it actually sounds pretty funny.
The first French phrase is meant to be 'au nom de la survie' (in the name of survival) but it honestly sounds like 'nom de la souris' which is 'name of the mouse'.
If you know French, or bad French, as I do, listen to it. See if you agree with me.
Learning French
Mood:
Listening to: Wavin' Flag Haiti Remix by the Young Artists for Haiti
Hungry for: apple pie
Bella says: 'zzz'
Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am astronomically useless at learning foreign languages.
Part of it is that my passionate, slightly obessively creepy love of the English language makes it hard for me to grasp foreign alphabets and sentence structures, part of it I admit is pure laziness and lack of talent, but a big part of it is a long string of rather useless teachers and broken learning programmes.
I started in the rather weak Australian public schools' LOTE program at the age of seven, a year younger than usual as a year two student in a split 2/3 class, too keep me out of trouble, I suppose, because I was wreaking havoc in the lessons I was beyond and my behaviour was even worse in the subjects I was struggling in. The language of choice was German, for some unknown reason - as a seven year old, I had never met a German or a German-speaker in my life, despite having a German cousin. German took place in a seperate classroom then the homeroom where we had the majority of our lessons, in the new demountables. I have fond memories of struggling to carry my plastic chair with my books and pencils perched precariously in the seat about 100 metres from my classroom to the LOTE demountable, tripping over and bashing my knees.
My teacher also taught Science and Health, for some unfathomable reason, and she could also speak French. Lack of focus prevented me from learning any German aside from 'Hallo', 'Guten Morgen', 'Guten Nacht', 'Auf Wiederzehn' and 'Ich bin sieben jahre alt', as well as a few broken verses of Schnappi das Kleine Krokodil or however the Germans spell crocodile and this rather silly nursery rhyme:
Ich bin Ich und
Du bist Du,
Ich bin ______ wehre bist du?
(I am me and you are you, I am ______ who are you?)
which got rather annoying when you chanted it three million times in one go, getting progressively faster and higher-pitched.
German lasted from the ages of seven to ten, because when I was eleven we made the swap to French, because for some inexplicable reason they decided that 'lower school' (years three to five) should learn German and 'upper school' (years six and seven) should learn French, as if they expected us to learn an entire language in two years based on biweekly lessons. So, in year six, we started learning French.
French for me was a lot more enjoyable. There was a lot less hacking and gacking or saliva flying in French. French was an elegant language, a seductive, provocative language that was exciting and new to us, newly minted adolescents. It was also bloody hard to learn.
My teacher, who started out quite jolly and nice, got increasingly more frazzled and short-tempered as each year passed under her tutelage. At the end of year six, she quit her job and left the school.
By then it became increasingly obvious that English and French were not the languages of choice in the world, but Mandarin Chinese. So the school employed a volunteer teacher's aide from Christmas Island to teach our mainly-white classes Chinese.
Let me tell you - Chinese is not an easy language for children who have spoken English all their life to learn. We're used to alphabets, not squiggles and wiggles and obscure ancient symbolism. We're not used to having to memorize 5000 characters - after all, in English, you only have to know the nine basic numbers and the 26 letters of the alphabet to get around the modern world. In English you can sound things out, guess, and there's a good chance you'll get the spelling roughly right. In Chinese, there is no alphabet. There is no guessing. It's just a shitload of memorizing.
Our lives weren't made any easier by our teacher, who to us, seemed to be permanently stuck in Stone Age China, despite being a Christmas Islander. After explaining to us in Pidgin English that her name was Mrs Foo but if we were to address her in Chinese we had to call her by her maiden name, so she would be 'ling lao shi' (a concept which I understood, growing up in an Asian family where married women kept their maiden names), we were still all confused, and ended up calling her 'Mrs foo ling lao shi', which eventually morphed into the easier 'Mrs Tofu'. Tofu, for white kids, described Mrs Foo/Ling Lao Shi perfectly - an unremarkably hopeless lump of goo.
Mrs Foo tried valiantly to teach us her language, but her attempts were in vain - the white kids mocked her mercilessly with her efforts to be 'cool' and her attempts to discipline us, and the Chinese kids mocked her elementary Chinese, which she used literally, word for word, ignoring rather comically some of the sayings and anologies common in the Chinese language. In the end, none of us could say more than 'ni hao ma' - which was how much Chinese we knew to begin with. I was considered one of the top students because I knew one other word - my Chinese name, Quan Zhi Xiu.
So after six years of a very motly LOTE education, I, along with the majority of the graduating class, remained stubbornly nonolingual. At least I was part of an alarmingly small percentage of schoolkids that can boast of a satisfactory grasp of our mother tongue, English. But ass horrible as we were to the teachers, I still don't think we are entirely to blame. I mean, when the only people who can speak another language are those taught outside the school by foreign parents, then there's obviously something wrong with the system. I mean, English schools teach French, and a larger majority of Brits know school French than Aussie kids know school anything.
I've always wanted to learn French. The exoticness that struck me as an eleven year old never fully left me, but more importantly, I knew that French would be a very useful language to learn - much more useful, it seemedto me, than Chinese, as I was intent on sticking to the Western World.
French in year eight was a hopeless story, with an Australian bloke with the same mental capacity as dear Mrs Foo and a horrible grasp of the delicacy of the French language, as well as the basic pronunciation. Ironically, this year is slightly better under the instruction of a slightly psychotic Italian teacher, but there was still the problem of being taught one thing and then the test being on something completely different, with confusing instructions written by Teacher Number One, as we will call him.
I still haven't given up on learning French. Perhaps I will learn it myself one day, pick it up, as I have picked up, rather incompetently, but still, I have taught myself basic html. Perhaps.
Until then, Auf Wiederzehn. Jai zian. Au revoir.
Listening to: Wavin' Flag Haiti Remix by the Young Artists for Haiti
Hungry for: apple pie
Bella says: 'zzz'
Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am astronomically useless at learning foreign languages.
Part of it is that my passionate, slightly obessively creepy love of the English language makes it hard for me to grasp foreign alphabets and sentence structures, part of it I admit is pure laziness and lack of talent, but a big part of it is a long string of rather useless teachers and broken learning programmes.
I started in the rather weak Australian public schools' LOTE program at the age of seven, a year younger than usual as a year two student in a split 2/3 class, too keep me out of trouble, I suppose, because I was wreaking havoc in the lessons I was beyond and my behaviour was even worse in the subjects I was struggling in. The language of choice was German, for some unknown reason - as a seven year old, I had never met a German or a German-speaker in my life, despite having a German cousin. German took place in a seperate classroom then the homeroom where we had the majority of our lessons, in the new demountables. I have fond memories of struggling to carry my plastic chair with my books and pencils perched precariously in the seat about 100 metres from my classroom to the LOTE demountable, tripping over and bashing my knees.
My teacher also taught Science and Health, for some unfathomable reason, and she could also speak French. Lack of focus prevented me from learning any German aside from 'Hallo', 'Guten Morgen', 'Guten Nacht', 'Auf Wiederzehn' and 'Ich bin sieben jahre alt', as well as a few broken verses of Schnappi das Kleine Krokodil or however the Germans spell crocodile and this rather silly nursery rhyme:
Ich bin Ich und
Du bist Du,
Ich bin ______ wehre bist du?
(I am me and you are you, I am ______ who are you?)
which got rather annoying when you chanted it three million times in one go, getting progressively faster and higher-pitched.
German lasted from the ages of seven to ten, because when I was eleven we made the swap to French, because for some inexplicable reason they decided that 'lower school' (years three to five) should learn German and 'upper school' (years six and seven) should learn French, as if they expected us to learn an entire language in two years based on biweekly lessons. So, in year six, we started learning French.
French for me was a lot more enjoyable. There was a lot less hacking and gacking or saliva flying in French. French was an elegant language, a seductive, provocative language that was exciting and new to us, newly minted adolescents. It was also bloody hard to learn.
My teacher, who started out quite jolly and nice, got increasingly more frazzled and short-tempered as each year passed under her tutelage. At the end of year six, she quit her job and left the school.
By then it became increasingly obvious that English and French were not the languages of choice in the world, but Mandarin Chinese. So the school employed a volunteer teacher's aide from Christmas Island to teach our mainly-white classes Chinese.
Let me tell you - Chinese is not an easy language for children who have spoken English all their life to learn. We're used to alphabets, not squiggles and wiggles and obscure ancient symbolism. We're not used to having to memorize 5000 characters - after all, in English, you only have to know the nine basic numbers and the 26 letters of the alphabet to get around the modern world. In English you can sound things out, guess, and there's a good chance you'll get the spelling roughly right. In Chinese, there is no alphabet. There is no guessing. It's just a shitload of memorizing.
Our lives weren't made any easier by our teacher, who to us, seemed to be permanently stuck in Stone Age China, despite being a Christmas Islander. After explaining to us in Pidgin English that her name was Mrs Foo but if we were to address her in Chinese we had to call her by her maiden name, so she would be 'ling lao shi' (a concept which I understood, growing up in an Asian family where married women kept their maiden names), we were still all confused, and ended up calling her 'Mrs foo ling lao shi', which eventually morphed into the easier 'Mrs Tofu'. Tofu, for white kids, described Mrs Foo/Ling Lao Shi perfectly - an unremarkably hopeless lump of goo.
Mrs Foo tried valiantly to teach us her language, but her attempts were in vain - the white kids mocked her mercilessly with her efforts to be 'cool' and her attempts to discipline us, and the Chinese kids mocked her elementary Chinese, which she used literally, word for word, ignoring rather comically some of the sayings and anologies common in the Chinese language. In the end, none of us could say more than 'ni hao ma' - which was how much Chinese we knew to begin with. I was considered one of the top students because I knew one other word - my Chinese name, Quan Zhi Xiu.
So after six years of a very motly LOTE education, I, along with the majority of the graduating class, remained stubbornly nonolingual. At least I was part of an alarmingly small percentage of schoolkids that can boast of a satisfactory grasp of our mother tongue, English. But ass horrible as we were to the teachers, I still don't think we are entirely to blame. I mean, when the only people who can speak another language are those taught outside the school by foreign parents, then there's obviously something wrong with the system. I mean, English schools teach French, and a larger majority of Brits know school French than Aussie kids know school anything.
I've always wanted to learn French. The exoticness that struck me as an eleven year old never fully left me, but more importantly, I knew that French would be a very useful language to learn - much more useful, it seemedto me, than Chinese, as I was intent on sticking to the Western World.
French in year eight was a hopeless story, with an Australian bloke with the same mental capacity as dear Mrs Foo and a horrible grasp of the delicacy of the French language, as well as the basic pronunciation. Ironically, this year is slightly better under the instruction of a slightly psychotic Italian teacher, but there was still the problem of being taught one thing and then the test being on something completely different, with confusing instructions written by Teacher Number One, as we will call him.
I still haven't given up on learning French. Perhaps I will learn it myself one day, pick it up, as I have picked up, rather incompetently, but still, I have taught myself basic html. Perhaps.
Until then, Auf Wiederzehn. Jai zian. Au revoir.
Young Artists for Haiti
Listening to: Wavin' Flag Haiti Remix by the Young Artists for Haiti
So, this is something I've been listening to pretty much non stop for a little while. This is a collaboration of Canadian musicians to support the Haiti relief movement after the devastating Haiti earthquake. It is based on the original K'naan song, Wavin' Flag, which also has dozens of international remixes and also the very famous Coca Cola/Fifa World Cup remix. This version was released after 'We Are The World', a more famous collaboration for Haiti, but somehow, I like this one better.
As the song says, even though the media's stopped covering and there's a little help from the government, it's still not all love in Haiti. Please give generously.
Soloists include: K'naan, Nelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne, Nikki Yanofsky and Justin Bieber.
So, this is something I've been listening to pretty much non stop for a little while. This is a collaboration of Canadian musicians to support the Haiti relief movement after the devastating Haiti earthquake. It is based on the original K'naan song, Wavin' Flag, which also has dozens of international remixes and also the very famous Coca Cola/Fifa World Cup remix. This version was released after 'We Are The World', a more famous collaboration for Haiti, but somehow, I like this one better.
As the song says, even though the media's stopped covering and there's a little help from the government, it's still not all love in Haiti. Please give generously.
Soloists include: K'naan, Nelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne, Nikki Yanofsky and Justin Bieber.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Politically Correct Censorship Bullcrap: Modern Tales On How Sad Our World Has Become.
Mood: ...kind of pissed off, actually. is it obvious?
Listening to: 'Airplanes' by B.o.B. ft. Hayley Williams from Paramore
Hungry for: nuthin', really.
Bella says: 'I DON'T WANNA PEEE!!!' (...that's nice, bella...)
Have you noticed how unbearably politically correct the world is these days? I mean, you can't say anything without offending at least half of the global population. You can't think or breathe. And if you don't, then you end up offending the other half of the population. Lovely.
I mean, I wish we could go back to the days when you could say something when people would laugh it off as a joke. I mean, jokes don't exist these days, unless they involve poo-poo and 'you're gay'. I mean, important things like 'I love you' are a joke now. But you know, normal things like 'Wow, the sky is pitch black' and then you have knives thrown at you. I mean, grow up.
I am in no way supporting racism or sexism or any other ism you can throw at me. I'm just saying, people are far too picky these days, far too petty. I mean, we're not allowed to say anything bad about anyone black, even if they're mass murdering bumholes, for no other reason except for the fact that they are black, and because of a shitload of shit that has happened to them throughout world history to their ancestors that are dead and gone by people who are dead and gone that their descendants are somehow immune to international law - it's somehow escaped our attention that our race really has nothing to do whether you turn out to be an angel or a devil or just normal. There are only so many things you can use 'you beat my great great great great great grandaddy up three squillion years ago' as an excuse. Political correctness has let so many 'historically alienated' or whatever the term is to basically get away with anything.
I mean, it's gotten to the point where Australia even has to change the name of a tree - we're not allowed to call blackboys blackboys anymore, we have to call them 'grass trees'. That is completely unreasonable - the contemporary reason why we call them 'blackboys' is because THEY'RE FLIPPING BLACK, AND NO, I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST ABORIGINALS and seriously, so what if it comes from slightly discriminatory roots? EVERY WORD HAS SOME KIND OF RASCIST OR SEXIST BACKGROUND. GET OVER IT. I mean, the word 'lord' comes from Old English for 'bread keeper' and 'lady' comes from the word 'bread maker', does that mean that we stop using these perfectly harmless words? Of course not!
Another thing I do not understand is how people make all sorts of bizarre connections between two completely irrelevant things, one being offensive and one completely harmless. I mean, if I say 'go away' I am not referring to some war between this person and this person when the dinosaurs roamed!?...
I'm serious, here. It's driving me crazy. Before I talk, I think and rethink everything about several million times, trying to analyze every angle, hoping I won't offend anybody, but someone always ends up hurt. And I really don't think it's my fault. I've been told...enough times to do some serious damage to my ego...that I'm just a fat insignficant girl. So why let a fat insignificant girl bother you? She doesn't bother you when she does anything good. So why let her bother you, why even bother trying to make bizarre politically correct connections? Why make me censor who I am?
Listening to: 'Airplanes' by B.o.B. ft. Hayley Williams from Paramore
Hungry for: nuthin', really.
Bella says: 'I DON'T WANNA PEEE!!!' (...that's nice, bella...)
Have you noticed how unbearably politically correct the world is these days? I mean, you can't say anything without offending at least half of the global population. You can't think or breathe. And if you don't, then you end up offending the other half of the population. Lovely.
I mean, I wish we could go back to the days when you could say something when people would laugh it off as a joke. I mean, jokes don't exist these days, unless they involve poo-poo and 'you're gay'. I mean, important things like 'I love you' are a joke now. But you know, normal things like 'Wow, the sky is pitch black' and then you have knives thrown at you. I mean, grow up.
I am in no way supporting racism or sexism or any other ism you can throw at me. I'm just saying, people are far too picky these days, far too petty. I mean, we're not allowed to say anything bad about anyone black, even if they're mass murdering bumholes, for no other reason except for the fact that they are black, and because of a shitload of shit that has happened to them throughout world history to their ancestors that are dead and gone by people who are dead and gone that their descendants are somehow immune to international law - it's somehow escaped our attention that our race really has nothing to do whether you turn out to be an angel or a devil or just normal. There are only so many things you can use 'you beat my great great great great great grandaddy up three squillion years ago' as an excuse. Political correctness has let so many 'historically alienated' or whatever the term is to basically get away with anything.
I mean, it's gotten to the point where Australia even has to change the name of a tree - we're not allowed to call blackboys blackboys anymore, we have to call them 'grass trees'. That is completely unreasonable - the contemporary reason why we call them 'blackboys' is because THEY'RE FLIPPING BLACK, AND NO, I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST ABORIGINALS and seriously, so what if it comes from slightly discriminatory roots? EVERY WORD HAS SOME KIND OF RASCIST OR SEXIST BACKGROUND. GET OVER IT. I mean, the word 'lord' comes from Old English for 'bread keeper' and 'lady' comes from the word 'bread maker', does that mean that we stop using these perfectly harmless words? Of course not!
Another thing I do not understand is how people make all sorts of bizarre connections between two completely irrelevant things, one being offensive and one completely harmless. I mean, if I say 'go away' I am not referring to some war between this person and this person when the dinosaurs roamed!?...
I'm serious, here. It's driving me crazy. Before I talk, I think and rethink everything about several million times, trying to analyze every angle, hoping I won't offend anybody, but someone always ends up hurt. And I really don't think it's my fault. I've been told...enough times to do some serious damage to my ego...that I'm just a fat insignficant girl. So why let a fat insignificant girl bother you? She doesn't bother you when she does anything good. So why let her bother you, why even bother trying to make bizarre politically correct connections? Why make me censor who I am?
Queen Bees and Wannabes - they still exist, you know.
So there was an article in the West Magazine last Saturday about my school, and about how everyone who goes there are mini Eintsteins and showed signs of a squillion IQ points when we were still in diapers and how we all live together happily in a Peaceful World of Einsteindom.
Okay, it's bad enough they try and brainwash us, as students, with that crap. But putting this in the most widely- read paper in the state? How it's all happy go lucky in our school of little nerdies?
Okay, so I'm not saying that our school is a Nazi zone or anything. It's a good school. We don't have major drug problems, or serious issues with alcohol or teenage pregnancies. Most of the staff aren't reincarnations of Hitler and Pol Pot and the curriculum is new, reasonably exciting and flexible. We don't have many unreasonable rules and we've got new buildings. I'm not saying that there's anything bad about our school, I'm not even saying there's nothing good about our school. I'm just saying that you can't make it out to be a Garden of Eden for Braniacs because it's not.
Of course our school has a social hierarchy. What school doesn't? It might not be Gossip Girl come to life but yes, of course we have the queen bees and dumb blondes and ripped jocks and disgusting idiots and bookworms and loners. What do you mean, we're all a like-minded cohort? Sure, we're all (in theory) smart, but whoever said that bright minds think alike or whatever the hell it is is a twit and has never met anyone with an IQ higher then that of a beetle. I mean, I'm a humanties major, does that mean I'll think the same way as someone who's in love with calculus? Of course not! There will always be queen bees and wannabes, even at our school - although, we do have a bit more brainpower, which sometimes makes things worse.
I'm just saying, you can't make something out to be what it's not. That's one thing I've always hated about Australian politics - and yes, a schoolyard is probably as, if not more, political then the Senate - is that we just tend to gloss over things, pretend everything's just fine, when it's not. I know - I do that when I clean my room - just drape something over the big piles of junk and BAM it's gone, but seriously, we shouldn't really do that. I mean, politicians are marvellous at dodging awkward questions by answering them with something completely irrelevant and off topic, e.g.:
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, is it true that you've spent 30 million dollars of taxpayer's money on a site that doesn't work?
PRIME MINISTER: It's a lovely day, today, isn't it? How about some coffee, hm? The Australian Government firmly believes in the value of coffee and coffee makers...
Anyone guess what the title is from? Hint: Mean Girls.
Okay, it's bad enough they try and brainwash us, as students, with that crap. But putting this in the most widely- read paper in the state? How it's all happy go lucky in our school of little nerdies?
Okay, so I'm not saying that our school is a Nazi zone or anything. It's a good school. We don't have major drug problems, or serious issues with alcohol or teenage pregnancies. Most of the staff aren't reincarnations of Hitler and Pol Pot and the curriculum is new, reasonably exciting and flexible. We don't have many unreasonable rules and we've got new buildings. I'm not saying that there's anything bad about our school, I'm not even saying there's nothing good about our school. I'm just saying that you can't make it out to be a Garden of Eden for Braniacs because it's not.
Of course our school has a social hierarchy. What school doesn't? It might not be Gossip Girl come to life but yes, of course we have the queen bees and dumb blondes and ripped jocks and disgusting idiots and bookworms and loners. What do you mean, we're all a like-minded cohort? Sure, we're all (in theory) smart, but whoever said that bright minds think alike or whatever the hell it is is a twit and has never met anyone with an IQ higher then that of a beetle. I mean, I'm a humanties major, does that mean I'll think the same way as someone who's in love with calculus? Of course not! There will always be queen bees and wannabes, even at our school - although, we do have a bit more brainpower, which sometimes makes things worse.
I'm just saying, you can't make something out to be what it's not. That's one thing I've always hated about Australian politics - and yes, a schoolyard is probably as, if not more, political then the Senate - is that we just tend to gloss over things, pretend everything's just fine, when it's not. I know - I do that when I clean my room - just drape something over the big piles of junk and BAM it's gone, but seriously, we shouldn't really do that. I mean, politicians are marvellous at dodging awkward questions by answering them with something completely irrelevant and off topic, e.g.:
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, is it true that you've spent 30 million dollars of taxpayer's money on a site that doesn't work?
PRIME MINISTER: It's a lovely day, today, isn't it? How about some coffee, hm? The Australian Government firmly believes in the value of coffee and coffee makers...
Anyone guess what the title is from? Hint: Mean Girls.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
10 Things Not To Say On a Date
Mood: pissed off
Listening to: 'Airplanes' by B.o.B ft. Hayley Williams from Paramore
Hungry for: pizza
Bella says: 'stupid haircut...'
Do you know how many articles I have seen in women's magazines of '10 Things Not to Say on a Date'? Too freaking many, that's how many. I mean, why are women constantly encouraged to censor who we are for men? Don't talk about periods, don't talk about sex, don't talk about the drama of hair removal. Wear makeup, but don't wear too much, don't let it look like you're wearing makeup, you know? Dress provocatively, but not sluttily, as if there's a difference, do your hair, but don't spend ages because you don't want to keep your guy waiting. We're told not to order a salad because he'll think you're anorexic but don't eat too much either, or he'll think you're gluttinous. Wear lipstick but don't complain when he complains about getting pink frosting all over his lips when he kisses you. Don't criticize, don't complain, just grin and bear it. That is basically what we are told to do when we date. In fact, we're not even allowed to grin - apparently men don't like that either.
Yet I've never seen an article telling men to get a decent suit and deodorant before a first date, I've never seen any journalist say 'shave but don't look like you've shaved, you know?'. We've been told a squillion times that men don't want to hear about your ex broke your fucking heart and humiliated you in front of the entire cosmos, but someone's never gotten around to telling guys that no, we don't want to hear about the cricket our the footy or how spectacular Lleyton Hewitt was in the Hoffman Cup of '07. Someone's never told guys that we don't want to hear how you can burp 'Twinkle Twinkle' or how many girls you've shagged, in order from best to worst. Even if we tell guys these things, they just brush it off, saying things like 'don't be picky', or worse, throw an all out hissy about 'how we're trying to change them' and 'controlling bitch'.
Maybe this is why I don't have a boyfriend. I don't have time to keep up with this shit. I don't have time to pretend to be something I'm not. And I don't have the patience to keep up with a world that preys on my insecurities.
Listening to: 'Airplanes' by B.o.B ft. Hayley Williams from Paramore
Hungry for: pizza
Bella says: 'stupid haircut...'
Do you know how many articles I have seen in women's magazines of '10 Things Not to Say on a Date'? Too freaking many, that's how many. I mean, why are women constantly encouraged to censor who we are for men? Don't talk about periods, don't talk about sex, don't talk about the drama of hair removal. Wear makeup, but don't wear too much, don't let it look like you're wearing makeup, you know? Dress provocatively, but not sluttily, as if there's a difference, do your hair, but don't spend ages because you don't want to keep your guy waiting. We're told not to order a salad because he'll think you're anorexic but don't eat too much either, or he'll think you're gluttinous. Wear lipstick but don't complain when he complains about getting pink frosting all over his lips when he kisses you. Don't criticize, don't complain, just grin and bear it. That is basically what we are told to do when we date. In fact, we're not even allowed to grin - apparently men don't like that either.
Yet I've never seen an article telling men to get a decent suit and deodorant before a first date, I've never seen any journalist say 'shave but don't look like you've shaved, you know?'. We've been told a squillion times that men don't want to hear about your ex broke your fucking heart and humiliated you in front of the entire cosmos, but someone's never gotten around to telling guys that no, we don't want to hear about the cricket our the footy or how spectacular Lleyton Hewitt was in the Hoffman Cup of '07. Someone's never told guys that we don't want to hear how you can burp 'Twinkle Twinkle' or how many girls you've shagged, in order from best to worst. Even if we tell guys these things, they just brush it off, saying things like 'don't be picky', or worse, throw an all out hissy about 'how we're trying to change them' and 'controlling bitch'.
Maybe this is why I don't have a boyfriend. I don't have time to keep up with this shit. I don't have time to pretend to be something I'm not. And I don't have the patience to keep up with a world that preys on my insecurities.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Pasta Point of No Return
So if you live in Perth, 'pasta' can mean any of these three things:
1) The frozen lasagnes you get in Coles that you shove in the oven when mum's going out and dad can't be bothered cooking
2) The mixed up share plate of goopy creamy yumminess that you share where you try to avoid the revolting pennes and everyone fights over the garlic potatoes (which is not really a pasta, but it is the best bit)
3) The enormous plate you get served at those fancy restaurants with heavy silverware and proper cloth napkins and ridiculous prices, with the tiny knot of noodles in the middle of this colossal Jupiter-sized plate, with a few drops of fancy but inedible sauce drizzled around.
So yeah, that's basically the state of Italian food here in Perth. It could be worse - the French here is non-existant, the Japanese is limited to some seriously good teriyaki and some seriously bad ramen noodles, and the Korean...don't even get me started on the Korean.
But recently, I've found this amazing little place called House of Pasta, which is truly good grub, man. It's a Cafe to Go franchise, but don't judge it on that - it doesn't skimp on quality or quantity. The menu is a mix of old comfort food favourites and weird-but-nice stuff for the eccentric gourmet, and just...I dunno. I'm in lurve. I'm pasta the point of no return.
I watched Eclipse a couple of days ago, and even though I did my usual rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought I should talk about it here.
Eclipse is an interesting movie in that there are normally good movies and bad movies, wherelse Eclipse is really, really, good in some aspects and really, really bad in others.
I'm a self confessed movie freak. I'm also a recovering Twilight addict. To tell you what was hot and what was not about Eclipse, lets talk about the other two movies first:
Twilight
This is the first book of the saga, and also the first movie to be made. The casting, I think, was great, with the exception of Robert Pattinson - as I've mentioned earlier, I reckon there are better actors for the job (see my posts The Perfect Edward Cullen (April 2010) and Just a few...random...notes (May 2010)). The special effects were good except for the 'vampire in the sunlight sparkle' - expolding a bag of Michael's glitter onto Rpattz would have achieved a better effect.
Twilight was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, an indie director - indie films meaning the deep and meaningful shit, where the colour of one's shoes shines a whole new light on a deep and meaningful plot. Probably not the best choice for an epic saga of much style and little substance, but it was an interesting take on things. The screenplay is strange, with scenes building up the suspense before disappointing anticlimaxes, and unforgivable plot cuts - I mean, the plot is bad enough already, why make it worse?
New Moon
The second movie, the action and drama and romance is amped up from the suggested themes from the 'deep and meaningful stares' of the indie first Twilight movie. Robert Pattinson goes from half bad to very bad, but the special effects were good and the acting got better from most of the class as Robert Pattinson's acting got worse (I know I'm picking on him - I know it is a hard role to play, but that's really no excuse for being that terrible). Taylor Lautner debuts his brand new abs, but he doesn't blend in too well with the rest of the pack, who are relatively normal looking compared to his glossy hair, smouldering eyes and high Keanu Reeves cheekbones. Bella goes from being a depressingly sad mess to that heartbroken highschooler any girl can relate to, which is great. The trip to Italy is rushed and confusing, and there's no nailbiting suspense leading up to the big scene with the Volturi like there is in the book, which is disappointing.
The director of this film is Chris Weitz, director of the (utter fail) movie adaption of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy - so basically, he's already established himself as a director that is shit at translating books to film. So why do it again!? The screenplay in this is still shit, but at least the script improves ever so slightly.
Eclipse
Eclipse is very good in terms of directing - the director for this installment is David Slade, who is a veteran at old-school horror, which is really cool - the movie gets the whole zombie treatment. Kristen Stewart's acting finally lives up to her reputation as the best actress of her generation, especially in her scenes sans Edward...but there aren't too many of those. Robert Pattinson...well, really, Robert Pattinson is being his usual moronic constipated self. Taylor Lautner ups on the drama without being tacky, although much of the dialogue is extremely tacky and cheesy in this movie, which kind of ruins it. Bella finally becomes a character of substance, intelligence and independence wherelse Edward loses all credibility as the next Mr Darcy and becomes a psychopathic controlling freak. The screenplay picks up a little in that the cuts made are good cuts, and the additions made actually make sense.
So there it was: my thoughts on pasta and vampires. They do make a lovely combination, don't they?
Just another thing, something I picked up from my favourite TV series, Gossip Girl. Every blog title from now (including this one) will be a spin on some sort of book or movie title or quote. If you can name the book or movie title or quote (try saying that five times fast ;)), see if you can be the first one to name it in the comments!
1) The frozen lasagnes you get in Coles that you shove in the oven when mum's going out and dad can't be bothered cooking
2) The mixed up share plate of goopy creamy yumminess that you share where you try to avoid the revolting pennes and everyone fights over the garlic potatoes (which is not really a pasta, but it is the best bit)
3) The enormous plate you get served at those fancy restaurants with heavy silverware and proper cloth napkins and ridiculous prices, with the tiny knot of noodles in the middle of this colossal Jupiter-sized plate, with a few drops of fancy but inedible sauce drizzled around.
So yeah, that's basically the state of Italian food here in Perth. It could be worse - the French here is non-existant, the Japanese is limited to some seriously good teriyaki and some seriously bad ramen noodles, and the Korean...don't even get me started on the Korean.
But recently, I've found this amazing little place called House of Pasta, which is truly good grub, man. It's a Cafe to Go franchise, but don't judge it on that - it doesn't skimp on quality or quantity. The menu is a mix of old comfort food favourites and weird-but-nice stuff for the eccentric gourmet, and just...I dunno. I'm in lurve. I'm pasta the point of no return.
I watched Eclipse a couple of days ago, and even though I did my usual rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought I should talk about it here.
Eclipse is an interesting movie in that there are normally good movies and bad movies, wherelse Eclipse is really, really, good in some aspects and really, really bad in others.
I'm a self confessed movie freak. I'm also a recovering Twilight addict. To tell you what was hot and what was not about Eclipse, lets talk about the other two movies first:
Twilight
This is the first book of the saga, and also the first movie to be made. The casting, I think, was great, with the exception of Robert Pattinson - as I've mentioned earlier, I reckon there are better actors for the job (see my posts The Perfect Edward Cullen (April 2010) and Just a few...random...notes (May 2010)). The special effects were good except for the 'vampire in the sunlight sparkle' - expolding a bag of Michael's glitter onto Rpattz would have achieved a better effect.
Twilight was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, an indie director - indie films meaning the deep and meaningful shit, where the colour of one's shoes shines a whole new light on a deep and meaningful plot. Probably not the best choice for an epic saga of much style and little substance, but it was an interesting take on things. The screenplay is strange, with scenes building up the suspense before disappointing anticlimaxes, and unforgivable plot cuts - I mean, the plot is bad enough already, why make it worse?
New Moon
The second movie, the action and drama and romance is amped up from the suggested themes from the 'deep and meaningful stares' of the indie first Twilight movie. Robert Pattinson goes from half bad to very bad, but the special effects were good and the acting got better from most of the class as Robert Pattinson's acting got worse (I know I'm picking on him - I know it is a hard role to play, but that's really no excuse for being that terrible). Taylor Lautner debuts his brand new abs, but he doesn't blend in too well with the rest of the pack, who are relatively normal looking compared to his glossy hair, smouldering eyes and high Keanu Reeves cheekbones. Bella goes from being a depressingly sad mess to that heartbroken highschooler any girl can relate to, which is great. The trip to Italy is rushed and confusing, and there's no nailbiting suspense leading up to the big scene with the Volturi like there is in the book, which is disappointing.
The director of this film is Chris Weitz, director of the (utter fail) movie adaption of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy - so basically, he's already established himself as a director that is shit at translating books to film. So why do it again!? The screenplay in this is still shit, but at least the script improves ever so slightly.
Eclipse
Eclipse is very good in terms of directing - the director for this installment is David Slade, who is a veteran at old-school horror, which is really cool - the movie gets the whole zombie treatment. Kristen Stewart's acting finally lives up to her reputation as the best actress of her generation, especially in her scenes sans Edward...but there aren't too many of those. Robert Pattinson...well, really, Robert Pattinson is being his usual moronic constipated self. Taylor Lautner ups on the drama without being tacky, although much of the dialogue is extremely tacky and cheesy in this movie, which kind of ruins it. Bella finally becomes a character of substance, intelligence and independence wherelse Edward loses all credibility as the next Mr Darcy and becomes a psychopathic controlling freak. The screenplay picks up a little in that the cuts made are good cuts, and the additions made actually make sense.
So there it was: my thoughts on pasta and vampires. They do make a lovely combination, don't they?
Just another thing, something I picked up from my favourite TV series, Gossip Girl. Every blog title from now (including this one) will be a spin on some sort of book or movie title or quote. If you can name the book or movie title or quote (try saying that five times fast ;)), see if you can be the first one to name it in the comments!
Monday, July 05, 2010
Book Review: Beastly
Mood: trilogied
Listening to: 'Fall to Pieces' by Avril Lavigne
Hungry for: bavarian coffee
Bella says: zzz, as usual.
Okay, so I've bought this book recently and, as I do, I've read and reread it several times, plus researched everything I can about the up-and-coming movie adaption that's due out in March next year, with Alex Pettyfer (Stormbreaker, Wild Child) in the lead role of the Beast and Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as his love interest, Lindy.
Beastly is a very interesting book in that it's teen lit, but not normal teen lit. Its brilliant teen lit. Simply written from the narrow-minded perspective of a rich, handsome and selfish boy as he loses his looks but slowly gains a heart, it cuts all the fluffy goo that normally accompanies chick lit romances (think Twilight), but instead cuts to the core of the novel, which is basically a modern retelling of the classic fairytale, The Beauty and the Beast. The book is a rarity in that it is deeply romantic and sentimental, but still every page is enjoyable, with none of the syrupy stuff being the cheesy, cliched, tacky cringeworthy jargon we're used to nowadays.
Because we all know the basic storyline, I'm not going to shy away from spoilers here. Just giving you a notice.
Kyle Kingsbury is a rich, handsome but cruelly selfish boy who has been raised by his image-obsessed father to believe that 'how much people like you is directly proportionate to what you look like', and consequently develops a deep dislike of 'ugly' people - particularly scholarship students in his elite school, Tuttle, as they have neither money, status or good looks, the three things he treasures most in life. One of his favourite pastimes is scheming with his 'evil bitch' girlfriend, Sloane, concocting plans designed to humiliate the 'ugly' people he so detests.
On one of his pranks the victim is a new student, a creepy, eccentric goth girl called Kendra Hilferty, who Kyle cannot describe in any other way aside from 'witch'. When she openly claims that Kyle is 'ugly on the inside, where it matters most' and that he is 'beastly', he seeks his revenge by pretending he has a crush on her, asking her out to a dance but then showing up with Sloane instead. Disgusted that he tried to inflict pain and humiliation on a fellow human being, Kendra, who really is a witch, casts a spell on Kyle to make him a beast with fangs, fur and claws. She tells him that because he exhibited a single act of kindness - he gave a girl who was a volunteer helper at the dance the rose corsage that Sloane refused (because, as a white rose, was considered too plain and cheap and was not the 'purple orchid' she specifically asked for) - Kendra says he can break the curse by making someone fall in love with him within two years, and proving that love with a kiss. Kyle believes this to be impossible, convinced that nobody could look past his horrible appearance and, somewhat truthfully, that aside from his lost good looks he has nothing worthy of love or attention. Kyle is left with a magical mirror, in which he can see anything and anyone he wishes to see.
Kyle's father desperately searches the globe for a cure for his horribly disfigured son, but when his attempts are fruitless, he puts Kyle in a house in total solititude, aside from the family maid, Magda, a blind tutor, Will, and his guide dog. Bored, frustrated and abandoned, Kyle begins to read literature about characters who are ugly and abandoned (The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and changes his name to Adrian King, Adrian meaning 'dark one'. During this time, Adrian joins an internet chatgroup under the name 'BeastNYC', chatting with other people who have apparently been changed by witchcraft as well. Adrian also starts a rose garden at the suggestion of Will, who is partial to roses.
After a year of solitute and several failed attempts to find girls to fall in love with, a robber, who also has drugs, attempts to break in to Adrian's house, only to be caught in the act. Terrified both of Adrian's gruesome appearance and the prospect of being arrested and jailed, the robber offers Adrian his daughter to live with in Adrian's house. Through the mirror, Adrian realizes that the robber's daughter, who's name is Linda 'Lindy' Owens, is the same girl he gave the rose corsage to the day he was transformed. Before she arrives, Adrian decorates a suit for her, complete with a king sized bed with designer sheets, a full private library and a complete wardrobe, eager for her to be impressed with his effort and wealth. Lindy arrives, however, frightened at the prospect of being a prisoner of a man she doesn't know, and is offended and unimpressed at her 'kidnapper's attempts to impress her. She refuses to come out of her rooms for several days.
When Lindy eventually comes out of her rooms and sees Adrian's gruesome appearance, her hostility melts away to a mixture of pity and compassion. They become friends, and Adrian begins to fall in love with her, but it appears that Lindy does not reciprocate. During the winter, Adrian's small household leave the brownstone they have been cooped up in and go to a private ski lodge for the winter.
Shortly before the second year of Adrian's curse is up, he shows Lindy his magical mirror, who sees through it that her father has become homeless and desperately ill as a consequence of drug dealing and excessive drug use. She wants to go back to see him and Adrian selflessly allows her to go, asking her to come back to him 'only if she wants to...as my friend, not as my prisoner'. Adrian believes that she would never return and thus never break his curse, having never shown any sign of loving him, but let her go out of love. Adrian and his household return to the brownstone, where he is resigned to spending the rest of his life as a monster. Using his mirror, he keeps track of Lindy, who has rescued her father from utter destitution but had lost her scholarship to Tuttle, as a result of being absent for nearly a year. Adrian looks on guiltily as she puts up with a rubbish downtown school.
Adrian then sees Lindy being abducted by a man armed with a gun, and rushes to her rescue, getting shot in the process. As he lays dying, he asks Lindy to kiss him, which she does, and by doing so she breaks the spell, causing Adrian to return to his normal body. Confused, she tries to run away from Kyle, not knowing that he is actually Adrian, but cannot escape from him because he is 'taller and stronger than he used to be'. He then explains who he is, and then they live 'happily ever after' in Kyle's brownstone, which is no longer a prison. Because of some selfless requests he made of Kendra as a beast, Will regains his eyesight and is given a temporary job as an English teacher at Tuttle as he studies in a university by night to become an English professor. Magda, the maid, who has been seperated from her family who live in their native land abroad, is reunited with them after being apart for decades. Kendra then reveals that she is actually Magda, having been condemned by the witch community to be a servant to a 21st century American family forever, seperated from her family, but because Kyle requested that if his spell is ever lifted Magda might be able to see her family again, Kendra is reunited with her own witch family, which is represented as a murder of crows which she joins.
Listening to: 'Fall to Pieces' by Avril Lavigne
Hungry for: bavarian coffee
Bella says: zzz, as usual.
Okay, so I've bought this book recently and, as I do, I've read and reread it several times, plus researched everything I can about the up-and-coming movie adaption that's due out in March next year, with Alex Pettyfer (Stormbreaker, Wild Child) in the lead role of the Beast and Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as his love interest, Lindy.
Beastly is a very interesting book in that it's teen lit, but not normal teen lit. Its brilliant teen lit. Simply written from the narrow-minded perspective of a rich, handsome and selfish boy as he loses his looks but slowly gains a heart, it cuts all the fluffy goo that normally accompanies chick lit romances (think Twilight), but instead cuts to the core of the novel, which is basically a modern retelling of the classic fairytale, The Beauty and the Beast. The book is a rarity in that it is deeply romantic and sentimental, but still every page is enjoyable, with none of the syrupy stuff being the cheesy, cliched, tacky cringeworthy jargon we're used to nowadays.
Because we all know the basic storyline, I'm not going to shy away from spoilers here. Just giving you a notice.
Kyle Kingsbury is a rich, handsome but cruelly selfish boy who has been raised by his image-obsessed father to believe that 'how much people like you is directly proportionate to what you look like', and consequently develops a deep dislike of 'ugly' people - particularly scholarship students in his elite school, Tuttle, as they have neither money, status or good looks, the three things he treasures most in life. One of his favourite pastimes is scheming with his 'evil bitch' girlfriend, Sloane, concocting plans designed to humiliate the 'ugly' people he so detests.
On one of his pranks the victim is a new student, a creepy, eccentric goth girl called Kendra Hilferty, who Kyle cannot describe in any other way aside from 'witch'. When she openly claims that Kyle is 'ugly on the inside, where it matters most' and that he is 'beastly', he seeks his revenge by pretending he has a crush on her, asking her out to a dance but then showing up with Sloane instead. Disgusted that he tried to inflict pain and humiliation on a fellow human being, Kendra, who really is a witch, casts a spell on Kyle to make him a beast with fangs, fur and claws. She tells him that because he exhibited a single act of kindness - he gave a girl who was a volunteer helper at the dance the rose corsage that Sloane refused (because, as a white rose, was considered too plain and cheap and was not the 'purple orchid' she specifically asked for) - Kendra says he can break the curse by making someone fall in love with him within two years, and proving that love with a kiss. Kyle believes this to be impossible, convinced that nobody could look past his horrible appearance and, somewhat truthfully, that aside from his lost good looks he has nothing worthy of love or attention. Kyle is left with a magical mirror, in which he can see anything and anyone he wishes to see.
Kyle's father desperately searches the globe for a cure for his horribly disfigured son, but when his attempts are fruitless, he puts Kyle in a house in total solititude, aside from the family maid, Magda, a blind tutor, Will, and his guide dog. Bored, frustrated and abandoned, Kyle begins to read literature about characters who are ugly and abandoned (The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and changes his name to Adrian King, Adrian meaning 'dark one'. During this time, Adrian joins an internet chatgroup under the name 'BeastNYC', chatting with other people who have apparently been changed by witchcraft as well. Adrian also starts a rose garden at the suggestion of Will, who is partial to roses.
After a year of solitute and several failed attempts to find girls to fall in love with, a robber, who also has drugs, attempts to break in to Adrian's house, only to be caught in the act. Terrified both of Adrian's gruesome appearance and the prospect of being arrested and jailed, the robber offers Adrian his daughter to live with in Adrian's house. Through the mirror, Adrian realizes that the robber's daughter, who's name is Linda 'Lindy' Owens, is the same girl he gave the rose corsage to the day he was transformed. Before she arrives, Adrian decorates a suit for her, complete with a king sized bed with designer sheets, a full private library and a complete wardrobe, eager for her to be impressed with his effort and wealth. Lindy arrives, however, frightened at the prospect of being a prisoner of a man she doesn't know, and is offended and unimpressed at her 'kidnapper's attempts to impress her. She refuses to come out of her rooms for several days.
When Lindy eventually comes out of her rooms and sees Adrian's gruesome appearance, her hostility melts away to a mixture of pity and compassion. They become friends, and Adrian begins to fall in love with her, but it appears that Lindy does not reciprocate. During the winter, Adrian's small household leave the brownstone they have been cooped up in and go to a private ski lodge for the winter.
Shortly before the second year of Adrian's curse is up, he shows Lindy his magical mirror, who sees through it that her father has become homeless and desperately ill as a consequence of drug dealing and excessive drug use. She wants to go back to see him and Adrian selflessly allows her to go, asking her to come back to him 'only if she wants to...as my friend, not as my prisoner'. Adrian believes that she would never return and thus never break his curse, having never shown any sign of loving him, but let her go out of love. Adrian and his household return to the brownstone, where he is resigned to spending the rest of his life as a monster. Using his mirror, he keeps track of Lindy, who has rescued her father from utter destitution but had lost her scholarship to Tuttle, as a result of being absent for nearly a year. Adrian looks on guiltily as she puts up with a rubbish downtown school.
Adrian then sees Lindy being abducted by a man armed with a gun, and rushes to her rescue, getting shot in the process. As he lays dying, he asks Lindy to kiss him, which she does, and by doing so she breaks the spell, causing Adrian to return to his normal body. Confused, she tries to run away from Kyle, not knowing that he is actually Adrian, but cannot escape from him because he is 'taller and stronger than he used to be'. He then explains who he is, and then they live 'happily ever after' in Kyle's brownstone, which is no longer a prison. Because of some selfless requests he made of Kendra as a beast, Will regains his eyesight and is given a temporary job as an English teacher at Tuttle as he studies in a university by night to become an English professor. Magda, the maid, who has been seperated from her family who live in their native land abroad, is reunited with them after being apart for decades. Kendra then reveals that she is actually Magda, having been condemned by the witch community to be a servant to a 21st century American family forever, seperated from her family, but because Kyle requested that if his spell is ever lifted Magda might be able to see her family again, Kendra is reunited with her own witch family, which is represented as a murder of crows which she joins.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Star Wars, Hayden, and random boy obsessions
Mood: star wars!
Listening to: star wars!
Hungry for: star wars!
Bella says: star wars!
Okay, so every now and again I get in this fangirlish mood and I watch like a stack of Star Wars fanvids - some of them are actually quite good. My favourites are:
An Anakin-Padme shipper, set to 'My Happy Ending' by Avril Lavigne
A vid about Anakin's fall to the dark side, and Obi-Wan's guilt that he didn't know 'how to save a life' - set to 'How To Save A Life' by The Fray
An Obi-Wan/Padme/Anakin fanvid about how Obi-Wan secretly loves Padme and watches from a distance as she falls in love with Anakin, which leads them both to their dooms. Set to 'Love Song Requiem' by Trading Yesterday
A Padme/Anakin fanvid about what Padme is thinking about when she arrives at Mustafar/gets choked to death by her psychopath husband/giving birth to Darth Vader spawn/dying tragically/when dead. Set to 'Please Remember' by LeAnn Rimes.
Another thing I have a habit of watching is entire movies on YouTube, or as many clips as possible, which I also do with TV series (Yi San). So I was watching some clips of Anakin and Padme from the prequel trilogy, who are, of course, played by Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman respectively.
I love Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. I love Natalie Portman because she's a great actress, but I really only love Hayden Christensen because he's great eye-candy. I mean, he's a shit actor, so bad that he drags the stellar Star Wars cast down epically. I mean, I really don't get how you can be that tragic at acting. Even I'm not that bad.
But as I said, Hayden is amazing eye candy, but he's one of a very long list of actor-obsessions - Chad Michael Murray, Orlando Bloom, then my buddy Hayden, Alex Pettyfer, Taylor Lautner, Paul Wesley, Keanu Reeves. Practically all of my crushes have been on actors...and really, really, really bad actors most of the time, but with really, really, really awesome six-packs.
What is it with us girls liking untalented David lookalikes? (David as in the Michelangelo sculpture). I honestly don't know. I mean, all my favourite actresses actually do have talent, but most of my favourite actors, with the exception of the late Heath Ledger and Johnny Depp, are like negative on the talent factor but off the charts sexy.
But you know what? I don't care. I've spent my whole life being smart and nerdy. I'm allowed to have a few shallow obsessions (I love you Justin Bieber!). Several freaky ones, too.
Listening to: star wars!
Hungry for: star wars!
Bella says: star wars!
Okay, so every now and again I get in this fangirlish mood and I watch like a stack of Star Wars fanvids - some of them are actually quite good. My favourites are:
An Anakin-Padme shipper, set to 'My Happy Ending' by Avril Lavigne
A vid about Anakin's fall to the dark side, and Obi-Wan's guilt that he didn't know 'how to save a life' - set to 'How To Save A Life' by The Fray
An Obi-Wan/Padme/Anakin fanvid about how Obi-Wan secretly loves Padme and watches from a distance as she falls in love with Anakin, which leads them both to their dooms. Set to 'Love Song Requiem' by Trading Yesterday
A Padme/Anakin fanvid about what Padme is thinking about when she arrives at Mustafar/gets choked to death by her psychopath husband/giving birth to Darth Vader spawn/dying tragically/when dead. Set to 'Please Remember' by LeAnn Rimes.
Another thing I have a habit of watching is entire movies on YouTube, or as many clips as possible, which I also do with TV series (Yi San). So I was watching some clips of Anakin and Padme from the prequel trilogy, who are, of course, played by Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman respectively.
I love Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. I love Natalie Portman because she's a great actress, but I really only love Hayden Christensen because he's great eye-candy. I mean, he's a shit actor, so bad that he drags the stellar Star Wars cast down epically. I mean, I really don't get how you can be that tragic at acting. Even I'm not that bad.
But as I said, Hayden is amazing eye candy, but he's one of a very long list of actor-obsessions - Chad Michael Murray, Orlando Bloom, then my buddy Hayden, Alex Pettyfer, Taylor Lautner, Paul Wesley, Keanu Reeves. Practically all of my crushes have been on actors...and really, really, really bad actors most of the time, but with really, really, really awesome six-packs.
What is it with us girls liking untalented David lookalikes? (David as in the Michelangelo sculpture). I honestly don't know. I mean, all my favourite actresses actually do have talent, but most of my favourite actors, with the exception of the late Heath Ledger and Johnny Depp, are like negative on the talent factor but off the charts sexy.
But you know what? I don't care. I've spent my whole life being smart and nerdy. I'm allowed to have a few shallow obsessions (I love you Justin Bieber!). Several freaky ones, too.
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