THE HIVE OF FIVE

I thought I may as well blog.

2010-04-10T21:38:00.002+10:00

I'm just going to share a few of the things which I'm dreading over the next month or so.

1. Zone Cross Country. lasdfihidhf;hihaD what was I thinking?!?!?! I only ran in the stupid school cross country because I'm a house office bearer and I thought I may as well get fit while skipping two periods of school. Now I'm going to fucking Macquarie Uni to run like 5 kilometres for zone? What was I thinking? I could hardly deal with the 2 kilometres of St Leonards Park. Dear god no. My peer support girl Julia will beat me, seriously. IN THE UNDER-13s.

2. SMH Plain English Speaking. I suppose my debating coordinator felt it was good for me and Sabrina to enter as we, you know, didn't get into the debating team. Seriously! I'm breaking out into like a cold sweat each time I think about it. ARGH! I blame sabrina for this, seriously. Seriously. I CAN'T DO THIS FOR SHIT.

Actually, that's about it. Most other things are pretty breezy. Huh.

By the way

2009-10-13T00:00:00.001+11:00

blog is now private, only 5.

It's pretty much dead so yeah

oh what fools these mortals be

2009-09-11T22:51:00.004+10:00

After all the cyberbullying lectures we hear at school, we kind of scoff, thinking 'like you teachers know better than us who basically stalk the internet.' But with this whole Jaebum fiasco, it's just dawned on me how scary the internet really is. (Well, Kai would probably think it was the 'krazy koreans'.) If you don't know who Jaebum or 2PM is, I'm relatively surprised since I'm guessing you go to Baulko. But maybe you don't have korean girls in your grade who've been wailing about this for the last couple of days. (There's a couple at NSGHS, I'm sure).

Fast facts

Jaebum was the leader of 2PM, a korean group that debuted in 2008 and has been ridiculously popular ever since. He was born and raised in Seattle, and tried out for korean entertainment companies there. At the age of 18, he flew over to Korea; without knowing the language, culture, way of living and not able to eat the food, having been accepted into JYP (the company responsible for the Wonder Girls, who are currently very randomly touring with the Jonas Brothers). He missed his family and friends, and was just really another korean-american guy that tlked lyyk this yo.

Context

Korea's a really conservative society on the surface - for example, Joo Ji Hoon, a famous korean actor, was found to be using drugs earlier this year. That might not seem like a great deal to us, but he was sentenced to months in prison although he got let off that with 200 hours of community service or something. All his projects that he was signed up on were cancelled, and all the main channels dropped contracts saying that they didn't want a bad influence on their TV. Seems harsh to us, huh? Difference of culture right there.

However, Korea is also full of CRAZY teenagers who have a mob mentality and are really good for marketing because if they see a popular actor advertising a product on tv (every ad is done by a famous singer/actor/whatever), they go off to buy it straight away. 99% of them, if you ask them what they want to do with their life, respond 'get into Seoul University' which is the top ranked college in the country. If the 'jjang' of the school (the hottest, best at fighting, most popular etc) says something, you all have to listen if you don't want to get beaten into pulp. Er, remember I'm being biased here because I'm really disappointed with the country at the moment.

The entertainment industry in Korea is so cutthroat - even if you do get to the top, there's a high likelihood the fame will only last for a few weeks until you're forgotten again. You have your fans who would spend $10, 000 on your birthday present but you also have antifans who spam your homepage with things like 'go die, you're useless, pathetic.' The amount of celebrities who have been driven to suicide the last two years is absolutely ridiculous.

But yes, to put it to scale, Dong Bang Shin Ki (DBSK) according to the Gusiness Book of Records, is the group with the largest fan base in the world. The things the fans worldwide do for them are pretty freaking amazing. However, if something is that extreme, there's always a negative. So for every fan for a group there's an antifan. Think Robert Pattinson fan meetings with girls actually getting trampled, times the scale about a million, and that's basically the life of a popular celebrity in Korea. No joke. Popular dramas such as Boys over Flowers couldn't film because of all the raging fans in the background even when the setting was kept an absolute secret, and so they'd have to creep out at 3am when there were only a few hundred fans still waiting around.

It might not be understandable to you - Australia's not really like that, probably because the entertainment business really relies on America. I mean, our favourite tv shows, music, celebrities. Come on, how many can we actually say we own? On the other hand, Korea thrives on their own and for such a small bit of land, it's pretty amazing the things they come up with. Asia in general loves Korea, always buying rights for dramas and such. Ironically, Korean groups are always trying to break through the Japanese market (Big Bang etc. Although DBSK and BoA have always been very well received.)

Erm, I've been rambling, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

The Situation

So Jaebum's thrust from America to Korea. He doesn't really get anything anybody's saying, he fights regularly with people in his broken korean and is blunt with people which is shocking - especially with JYP, the leader of his company, since respect and manners is #1 for the country. So on his myspace, after a couple of months, he says things like 'Korea's gay' and 'The people are wack' as well as comments saying he wants to go back home. Understandable, right? Being an overseas student is always hard, and on top of that, stress of working to become a singer can pull anyone into bouts of depression.

After a couple of months of intense training in his vocals, rapping, dancing as well as keeping up with schoolwork in a completely different language, he starts to get hang of things. He helps his classmates out, goes jogging with an overweight friend who said he was envious of his body, gives tips for basketball etc. He finds other guys in JYP who are from America too, who are to join the group called 2PM. He posts more things on his myspace saying that Korea's so fantastic for giving him a chance. The group debuts, and finds instant success. Great, right?

No. About what, six days ago, somebody finds the things he said four years ago to his friend on myspace. It's leaked onto the internet.

Explosion.

Thousands upon thousands of people call him an American who only looks like a Korean, came to the country to just earn some quick money and go home. In lots of crazy swearing, tells him he has no right to say these things, sucking their money while they'd supported him and his music. Over 3000 people sign a suicide petition for him to go kill himself. Under news articles, 90% comments are discriminatory saying that they shouldn't've expected more, he's a show off, a loser, taking advantage of Korea etcetc. This is all in the space of a few hours, mind you.

Jaebum just keeps repeating that he's sorry. Sorry to his group 2PM, sorry to JYP, sorry to Korea. The antifans intensify their complaints. Jaebum resigns, and announces on his cyworld he's going home before anything worse can happen because of him. A few hours later, he's at the airport, and over a thousand fans met him there. He had his head down the whole interview, just repeating he was so sorry for his mistake, and he left with letters written by his fans grasped in his hand.

He arrives in Seattle, meets his mum, and starts crying. They pray. And fans in America recording this and having put it up on youtube, say that he was still grasping his fan letters.

SO WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS?

In the last couple of days, some antifans and fans-turned-antis said they were shocked, didn't think it'd get to this point. The good things he had to say about Korea were then revealed, and some felt remorse. Others thought it was getting rid of something lesser than dirt. Don't get me wrong, a lot of fans were cheering for him, and all these post-it-notes were stuck on the JYP main office telling him good luck, that he has to come back, etc. (Same thing's happening in America's JYP office). A few celebrities have stood up to him, his classmates have given testimonials, JYP's released a statement. But the negativity's swallowed everything up. I was reading some articles released yesterday on it, and even there, I could only find one positive comment out of the fifteen I read.

So in the last three days, I've just been coming home, reading more news about all these happenings, crying, getting ridiculously pissed off, stalking youtube videos of Jaebum and 2PM, getting depressed, being embarrassed to be Korean and repeat emotions. Mind you - I didn't really know of 2PM just a week ago. I'd hear their music sometimes but that was about it. So it's not as if I'm a really huge fan of them that I'm being reduced to these primeval emotions, but the principle of the thing.

Jaebum did do something wrong. He did post up negative things up on the internet. But WHO DOESN'T? Netizens' responses:

#1. He's a celebrity, he should know better - well I'm sure you don't really know the life of a celebrity, but what you should know is that they go through a great deal of stress that comes with the job (ie DBSK's fiasco that's only quietening down now, where it was revealed some of them were forced to sign 13 year contracts with their company.) Also, he was just a trainee then, not in the limelight. Finally, he was saying it to a friend - I mean, yeah okay, you should be wary of the internet, but we all know that and yet we all still post stupid things up.

#2. (For the people who can at least admit people do stupid things). He's not Korean, he's American and thus cannot be so negative - Oh, he's not Korean is he? Just because he's lived overseas his whole life, you're going to ignore his background are you? And since when did all you hypocrites decide American things were bad? Just awhile ago you were so hyped up over Lady Gaga who came to do a few concerts, you're obsessed with anything that comes from the Western world - designer labels, singers, celebrities like Paris Hilton ...

#3. He only came to steal money off us and leave - Oh, come ON. He came, despite the difficulties facing him, to

achieve his ambitions, and he was definitely good enough. It was for YOU that he worked 24/7, always figuring out rap, beats for songs, melodies, dancing and singing. And you know the reason why he brought money up in interviews? Because his mother was sick, and he really needed to send money for her hospital fees. Yeeeeeah.

CUT HIM SOME SLACK.

For goodness' sake, it was FOUR YEARS AGO. I'm pretty sure everybody's done some stupid things at the age of 18 (except we haven't reached that age yet), and I'm more surprised there wasn't a large amount of swearing than anything else. He was lonely, depressed, sad and homesick okay? So he did something wrong - but do we really need suicide petitions? Spamming to tell him he's a failure, an embarrassment, for him to stop pretending he's Korean and go back home and throw all the money around that he'd stolen from the Korean public?

Um no I don't think so.

Give him some EMPATHY. Is it really that hard to come by? Or if that's too hard, can't you at least pause for a moment because you start posting up stupid lies on the net?

The reason the Koreans get so fired up about these things is because they're very proud and patriotic, due to the past with North Korea and Japan's invasion and occupation (let's stop before I start ranting about that), which is you know, understandable. They're going to be defensive and take things harsher than perhaps some other countries would, since Korea is so small and unknown in the world. (Some of my friends can't point to it on the map.) However, that is not a reason AT ALL to react so harshly to Jaebum's entries.

It's the mob mentality. People quickly jump in without thought of the consequences. You might ask why I'm writing SUCH a long blog post about this (especially after our blog's been dead for like half a year) but it's just proof that the world can be such a scary place. We've just finished studying Lord of the Flies in class, and this whole fiasco's just made me question what's different about Jack and what the antifans did. So what, the latter didn't actually kill him physically, but this is just as bad if not worse. Is our world really being led into a dark world of evil and no hope? I personally don't believe so, because there's always people like Simon who radiate hope, but it is definitely worrying.

I just wish people weren't ignorant, could add a touch of empathy to their personality and not have a need to know everything about everybody. Oh, and be moderate instead of all scary types of extreme - because now, the main fanbase of 2PM in Korea has decided to boycott all things done by JYP (because they don't think JYP should have just let him easily leave for America) and all activities of 2PM. That too, I think, is bordering on worrying behaviour - I mean, my heart is broken too with Jaebum leaving too but that isn't a reason to ignore all the hard work the six other members have been putting in. His groupmate Wooyoung fainted at the airport after his leader Jaebum left, actually. I'm pretty sure the members are hurting more than we are, and to ignore them in their time of need is just as bad, if not worse.

Speeeeeeed stacking

2009-07-15T13:37:00.001+10:00

Probably old, but fuck man I want to learn how to speed stack
That looks pretty intense. It's like the bottle game but... better.

Cygnis insignis

2009-07-09T23:08:00.002+10:00

Well it's 11:08 and I'm listening to gargantuan amounts of Regina Spektor. I have spent the last four hours on the baulko subject selections forum, board of studies, and wikipedia and it's been oh so productive.

I've been checking out the Cosmology past papers on board of studies, cause I find the whole subject incredibly interesting. I attempted the first page of the first test (the one concerning Modules 1 2 and 3), some questions like 'give a concise definition of: a. a light year; b. an astronomical unit', or 'state the FOUR fundamental forces in nature' were pretty easy, but then others are more obscure like 'Why is it beneficial to cool the radiation detectors used with modern telescopes?' and 'State and briefly explain the anthropic principle in cosmology' (which I was all wtf is this shitting at because what does anthropology have to do with cosmology). But I looked them all up on wiki to get an understanding.

From then on, there were all sorts of stuff to look at like: the anthropic princple, pulsars, quasars, AU, LY, parsec, parallax, redshift, particle horizon, event horizon, cosmic censorship hypothesis, cosmological constant, zero-point energy, Einstein's static universe, cosmic background radiation, big bang, metric expansion of space, isotropy, cosmological princple, copernicam principle, great wall (astronomy, not china), anisotropic, biisotropy, special relativity, speed of light, large scale structure of the cosmos, end of greatness, doomsday argument, earth's orbit, fermi paradox, friedmann equations, hawking radiation, hubble's law, binary function, black swan theory, chirality (particle chirality is pretty interesting), center of the universe,.

Of course I understood like 1% of these entire articles, but the parts that were comprehensible were pretty fascinating. Things like the possibility of two distant objects to be moving away from eachother at a speed > c - thus meaning that they cannot observe each other. That's fucked up man. Also the 'What is the universe expanding into?' section of metric expansion of space has a nice analogy of the expansion of the universe with a balloon.

Tomorrows the end of the term eh? Sic transit gloria term 2. (Sorry, in a bit of a latin mood right now. Doing that poem by wilfred owen, I was like ehhhhhhh- there's a regina spektor song that also uses Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori)

van she

2009-06-28T00:28:00.002+10:00

basically, that is what killed my entire saturday.

got into massive arguments with my mum about being able to go ... eventually just sneaked out to the city and 'compromised' with her, so that meant i was able to eat GORGEOUS TAPAS WITH AIOLI at casa asturianas, then basically bummed around waiting outside metro theatre until 8, and when we got in it was quite bad, the support acts were ... boring. or at least they were boring for me, not being able to hear the music and all.

so around 10 me and penny got separated from the others and then sophia found us and we escaped to starbucks (note to self: pay sophia back for mocha) and then we went back in for van she at 10:45 and the waiting for them to come out was agonising but it was gorgeous. they played kelly, strangers, cat & the eye, etc, i left halfway through though because my brother was constantly calling me. it was quite disconcerting (haha), what with storing my mobile inside my shirt.

also i think i saw people i know there, but haven't talked to in freaking forever. steph polivka or nat perez, i think you were there, but i'm not sure, here's a shoutout to you in any case

it was 12 o'clock and i was sitting on town hall steps, and this guy asked me for a light. do i look like i carry around lighters or what?!

and then i got home and had a shower to rid myself of the smell of teenage boy.

and now i've wasted my entire saturday and it's very early sunday morning and i'm trying to write a scene for page to stage tomorrow. utter fail, lindy.

"I'll Be Back" Terminator Monster Ballad

2009-05-28T16:00:00.003+10:00

What the theme song for Terminator should've been.

Didn't find it, LUEser did. (overthinkingit.com)
I'll be back

Model UN!

2009-05-26T21:01:00.002+10:00

So Sunday a couple of us from school dressed up all formal and went to the first round of the UNYA Perez de Cuellar model security council. It was quite fun, getting all dressed up and talking about the most inane things, socialising with - you guessed it - year 10 nsbs, and essentially having a pretty cool day out. This was only after my mum had forced me to take a million public transports, on a Sunday no less, from North Sydney where I had been collecting for the Red Shield Appeal ( we raised $165 between Logice and me!)

And on Friday, in a quite literal downpour, I got to the state theatre and got us 500 days tickets (!!) sounds excellent

hey guys, someone get jiye to post now

That's what I want

2009-05-21T18:18:00.001+10:00

Thats what I want! I want to laugh, I want to scream, at the biggest stars on wall to wall screens, I want to escape to the movies...thats what I want!

I want stadium seating and digital sound, I want my movies in full surround, I want to escape to the movies, Greater Union...thats what I want!

Science Research Project

2009-05-20T22:09:00.000+10:00

The amount of people's msn statuses that have "OMG SRP SUCKS" or "F*** YOU SCIENCE" is astounding. MAYBE IF YOU DID YOUR FUCKING WORK IN THE 8 OR SO WEEKS WE HAD BEFORE TODAY YOU WOULDN'T BE STRESSED FOR TIME YOU DUMBSHITS. ARGH!

Yeah i'm tired and in a mood to rant. I'll stop before I make some enemies

(YEAAAAAAH) DAYS OF SUMMER

2009-05-19T14:30:00.002+10:00

It's been changed to M from 18+
http://www.sydneyfilmfestival.org/Festival/Films/FilmDetails.aspx?id=43

oh yeah.

(RAGE) DAYS OF SUMMER

2009-05-15T19:17:00.004+10:00

Ok, so you know that movie 500 Days of Summer that I really want to watch (scroll down). A tentative release date is 1st October, which is a couple months after America's 17th July, so thats pretty annoying in the first place. But then 500 has a showing in the upcoming (June) Sydney Film Festival. The only trouble is that most of the festival is 18+ by default, excepting some movies mostly children. This is because lots of the movies there haven't been classified by the OFLC, so thus everythings assumed to be R18+. And then I checked the OFLC website, and they have rated 500 Days of Summer, giving it an M! RAGH RAGE. @ my youthfulness
http://www.sydneyfilmfestival.org/Festival/Films/FilmDetails.aspx?id=43
http://www.oflc.gov.au/www/cob/find.nsf/5c2433d416948a0bca25759f00820d25/cd8069ede4c9511eca2575a9002767bd!OpenDocument

counting calories

2009-05-14T21:03:00.003+10:00

So the title makes me sound like an annorexic chick that continually obsesses over her weight and carries around a book everywhere she goes, recording exactly what she's eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and maybe half a mandarin for a snack) to calculate the amount of kilojules, sugar, fat, sodium etc she's been consuming.

Which ... i'm really not. Probably the furthest you can get from it really - except for maybe my friend Jocelyn who thinks a diet is eating as many bananas as possible, alongside all the chocolate and doughnuts and tim tams and pocky and goodness knows what else.

Alas, when i exclaim over the amount of carbs in a product at lunch, laughing over it with my friends, girls who don't know me very well stare at me in disgust. You can hear them whispering, complaining about girls with image problems and how anorexia and bullimia is a fad and how if she wants to lose weight (which she really should) she should do it properly.

Pfft, like i'm going to change my eating habits any time soon. But seriously, counting calories and all of that stuff is so much fun! No, really!

It's like FUN maths (although i know you're sitting there going 'no dude that's an oxymoron.') You find the serving size listed on the packet, and estimate how much of each ingredient is in it, and see if you're right by checking the 'per 100g' column and converting it into a percentage! And at the same time, you're like whoa there's this many kilojules in uncle toby's yoghurt topped bars? that's the same as two apples or a big banana! or something along those lines.

You can blame this obsession on an exercise last year for biology where we kept a record of the percentages of fat and calories to see if we were over or undereating. It really is addictive, you know - because before you know it, you'll be comparing different brands of food to see which has more of what, and realise that sugar really does make a difference on the deliciousness scale. My most recent bout of calorie counting started off with the lindt box I received from a friend - 48% of those tiny balls that melt in your mouth is fat. Having read that, i got a bit of a shock because i happily ignore these depressing figures most of the time, figuring that not knowing is better for all aspects of my health - mental and ... um ... okay, maybe not physical. >_>

Of course, that didn't stop me from eating three (the different flavours! hazelnut, white and milk! okay, there was dark too, but i could refrain myself from eating that quite easily) lindt balls of course ... or eating home made cheesecake after seeing with my very eyes the copious amounts of sugar and butter thrown in the mix ... yeah, i can't ever resist temptation.

Come on, after seeing the cows being herded off to get killed in Armidale at school camp, I still enjoyed my hamburgers that night ... and the four or five slices of dominos pizza while watching reruns of 'friends' courtesy of my friend's birthday ... and the ramen and the chips and the natural confectionary and the buckets of KFC chicken delivered much later that night (also courtesy of my friend's birthday) ...

Needless to say I count calories for fun. But some of my friends NEED to know exactly what they're eating - take Amanda for example. As a hardcore hockey player and rower, she can only eat specific amounts of anything and everything. For recess, she'll eat this huge tub of yoghurt and nothing else, and then (very) low GI honey coated wheat. A few of us were all O_O 'dude just eat like normal, this is pain watching you eat like that' but it's a strict diet, and she has enough control to keep to it - (unlike someone I know).

So next time you see a teenage girl carefully studying the ingredients list or table on the back of boxes, don't roll your eyes. Go join her and explore some really interesting territory!

Well, unless her hair's falling out, and her skin looks really bad and dry, and her fingernails are all weird.

(On a completely unrelated note - isn't Benjamin Disraeli such a Lockhart?)

Definition

2009-05-10T17:36:00.002+10:00

What defines who we are? This is something i thought of while playing guitar hero, don't ask me why, but I was just curious and I couldn't come up with an answer. Is it our actions, what we do? Is it our personality, who we are on the inside? I just couldn't decide. Anyway that's some food for thought for you guys.

In other news, exams are half done at the moment. That should make me feel better, yet I can't help but feel a strange sense of impending doom at the prospect of our 3 PERIOD!!!!! science exam tomorrow. But oh well, hopefully the hours of study I did today will help me do alright. I think I've actually studied harder for these half-yearlies than last year's yearlies, which I guess makes sense when you think about it since year 10 is a pretty important year. This next couple of weeks will be hectic with engineering things due in all over the place and a few more tests. Plus SRP. But after that should be able to rest up for a bit.

Anyway, this is my first post since the blog went back up. Feel free to comment in the cbox, and despite many accusations last time that the colour of the cbox was crap, I still think it fits in well with our website's colour scheme. Props to kai for expanding the banner at the top, I actually remembered something about history during the test cause of that.

Laters

Gravitating

2009-05-09T23:42:00.003+10:00

I was bored, so I made some pick up lines.

Are you undergoing stellar nucleosynthesis? Cause you're like gold to me.
Are you a quasar? Because today you look especially radiant.
Are you related to the photosphere? Because you're makin' me hot.
Do you think I'm at my apoapsis? Because I think I'm falling for you.
Are you Sirius? Because you're the brightest star in my night sky.
You're the active galactic nucleus of my heart.

Yeah, I went there.

Deja vu.

2009-05-08T21:42:00.002+10:00

As Diana so eloquently put it, Canberra was full of deja vu.

I'm sure so many of us went there in year 6 camp, only that time, we were far more immature, it was far more fun, and we went to Questacon by ourselves at night. And since the sites are far more static than we are, it was a case of major deja vu. I felt it when we walked down the steps of the War Memorial, when we waited (annoyed) for the rest of our bus to join us from the Parliament House foyer, and when

Only this time, we didn't sing Christmas carols on the bus, nor did we hear male renditions of "99 bottles of beer" or "the wheels on the bus go round and round". Instead, I tried to block my ears from the constant singing of Love Story, Taylor Swift.

We did learn more. Instead of a secret ballot at Old Parliament House, we staged an cool re-enactment of a conscription debate in the actual Senate it was held in. We spent a heartbreakingly short time in the National Film and Sound Archive, which I would have loved to hang around with. Guys, that's where we're going on the return roadtrip from Melbourne.

Speaking of the road, we did get stuck in some awful Canberra traffic this morning - we ended up going round in circles around the ACT Legislative Assembly. You're shocked, I know - Canberra has traffic ?!

I'd not visited the Old Parliament House gardens before, but they were absolutely beautiful, on two warm, cloudless days. The Tent Embassy was thought-provoking, something we perhaps weren't mature enough for back then, and we met a partially-Aboriginal man who helped elaborate on the history of the embassy for us.

But nothing can really replace the human connections, the memories, the love and the friendships you have, those moments of bonding you'll never forget. And I'm sorry to say, but that Year 6 camp beats this one by far. I won't forget it.

Broadway in the 1980's

2009-05-08T21:19:00.008+10:00

must have been glorious.

Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon and Les Miserables?

Please, take me there. I would give virtually ANYTHING (except for maybe my violin and family) to see one of those onstage with the original cast.

Andrew Lloyd Webber I've been stalking for a millennia, but I was only interested in Les Miserables after I read Saving Francesca, and thank goodness I did - for more reasons than one. Miss Saigon was introduced to me by my elective history class, and we'd fight forever trying to decide which one was the best.

I've been listening to Les Miserables obsessively on youtube for the last few hours - and even the fights that occur in the comments, proclaiming Susan Boyle (er, I didn't realise she was such a phenomenon until a few days ago. Kai is embarassed to know me >_>) to be better/worse than Ruthie, can't ruin the bliss. Although some person was like 'Can we please stop it with the comparisons. Twilight vs Harry Potter was worse enough,' which I heartily agreed with.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high

And life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid

And dreams were made and used and wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung, no wine untasted.

I hope your dreams won't be corrupted by such experiences ... although it seems naive of me to say so.

... And if you have no idea about one or all of the musicals I have just mentioned, you should either go burn yourself alive or look them up - preferably the latter. I don't want to be hunted down by members of the police force just yet. I have a life to live! I need to taste all my wine, sing all my songs!

Yeah, I'm kind of back as you can see. I'll leave the ranting and complaining about my life for next time though, my brain's shutting down.

"Bring back this soul from Purgatory. Resurrection!"

2009-05-03T20:19:00.010+10:00

alternate title: It's pancake time!

Okok, so like two other people would get those references. And they probably won't read this blog. So because I was bored on this sunday, I decided to revisit this blog after I vowed to not post after Tim's attempt at creating a new layout: (DON'T KILL ME). I fiddled around the customization and eventually somehow got everything back to normal. So all's fine. (don't worry Tim, I forgive you now. Kinda)

Obviously, this blog has stagnated after that debacle, as the thrilling past posts will show you (Of note: 'Comeback"), so I hope this will be a Second Renaissance in terms of hive blogging, but hopefully with less robotic uprisings and squid-on-mecha action. So what has happened in the past term or so?

For me, Battlestar Galactica ended, and goddamn was the 2 hour two-part finale like the best thing ever. Kalana and Tim came over to watch it. Kalana's dad came over like an hour before the finale ended, but Kalana managed to convince him to go back home and come around again - i.e. time enough to finish the episode (In the end, he had to go just before it finished though, but whatever). Tim fell asleep just after a major plot development, so Kal slapped him. Good times. And sad times because the best show on television is over. I tried filling the gap with Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, but things just.. just weren't the same. Although Cameron was hot.

Watchmen came out. So awesome we watched it twice, the second time in IMAX. Uhh I can't be bothered recalling my feelings for the movie so I'll just leave it there. Oh and the best part of the movie was the All Along the Watchtower sequence.

Fanboys came out. And by came out I mean in limited release, in the States and Canada. Y'know that one obscure film about a group of nerds in 1999 who try and break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch to view The Phantom Menace early because one of them is dying from cancer? It's got Kristen Bell in it, and she's the best thing about the movie. It could've used more character development and it had the potential for more jokes, but it's still a good film. I especially love the dialogue references to the Original Trilogy. And especially the line: "Are you girls looking for love in Alderaan places?". Gold.

I actually listen to music now. Amazing I know. Pictured above, Anna Abreu of course. But I've also found things like School of Seven Bells, She & Him, Birds of Tokyo, some Regina Spektor, Laura Marling, etc.

Comics. I went to King's Comics in the city, which is a short jaunt from the apartment, and on a whim I decided to buy Y: The Last Man. The plot goes that for some unknown reason (well unknown for now, I still have 5 volumes to go), every mammal with a Y chromosome (So, males) dies simultaneously. The only male survivor is Yorick, and his male pet monkey. It's really quite an awesome comic. I also read Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, and it was also plenty good. The thing about comics is that they are so expensive blagh. Each volume of Y is 20 bucks and there are ten volumes. Still, money well spent.

Oh and I've gotten Twitter. Yay me. http://twitter.com/heirware Add me.

Things I'm looking forward to:

Star Trek. Oh god only a couple of more days now. Cannot wait at all. Currently 100% At RT 17 reviews, but obviously that's going to go down.
You can cross this one out and it was awesome and great and the soundtrack and everything. Quinto as Spock nigh-on made the film. Art direction with the lens flare was interesting. First 15 minutes or whatever were intense

500 Days of Summer. To die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die.

Samson and Delilah. (2 5 stars from margaret and david! Also, other people say it's good too)

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex. Talk about late australian release.
You can cross this one out. Watched it today, it was very good and very long. Interesting subject.

May issue of Wired. Apparently all these cyphers around the magazine, and it's guest-edited by JJ Abrams.

Moon. Indie sci-fi movie by the son of David Bowie

Ok that's enough for now.

Facebook is a life ruiner, it ruins your life!

2009-04-20T22:37:00.004+10:00

CODIE: has more chocolate than she knows what to do with
KAI: make a chocolate castle
DIETRICH: make two chocolate castles
TIM: make a giant chocolate ladder that stretches up high high high into the sky and then climb it and see what you find
TIM: maybe a cloud of pure chocolate, inhabited by chocolate men and they help you build a giant chocolate space ship from which you can travel to another planet made entirely of chocolate and since you are the only person who isn't made of chocolate you can become queen of chocolate land and eat any of your subjects that displease you or look tasty
TIM: you would reign for years until you realised that chocolate men could not make half human half chocolate hybrids and that their is no one to take over the throne when you die. Fearing chaos for your kingdom, you would appoint 10 of your bravest warriors to go back to human land and steal a man for you to have children with and continue your line. ... However you soon realise that you will need children as well so that your children can marry them as it is the only way to have babies. You eventually realise the impossibility of the situation and decide to commit suicide by gorging yourself on your chocolate castle. You manage to eat everything except the throne before you die. The chocolate men leave the throne as a tribute to the woman who came form a distant land and ruled them kindly for generations. They pass on the story from generation to generation, never forgetting the prosperous era they had under your reign.

64 comments about German chocolate.

KAI: needs summary
DIETRICH: needs a prequel, then you can pitch the idea as a movie
TIM: kai that was the summary
KAI: summary of summary
TIM: I would maybe watch that movie, only if they starred jessica alba or some other ridiculously hot chick as codie

Here's a quote from New Matilda.

2009-03-17T17:39:00.001+11:00

Finally, of course, there's the "Murdoch solution", as espoused by prominent climatologists such as Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt. This solution proposes, radically, that we solve climate change by doing nothing, because:

— Climate change is not happening.

— If climate change is happening, it's not our fault.

— If it is our fault, there's nothing we can do about it unless China sinks into the ocean.

— Even if we could do something about it, we shouldn't, because it's actually good to be a bit warmer.

GOODBYE

2009-02-12T23:39:00.000+11:00

I leave for Germany at 5pm tomorrow, and if I do any blogging I'll probably write a facebook note so if you aren't checking your facebook diligently for sporadic updates I'll cut a bitch. Of course don't stop checking here either because I may decide that blogger is the only blogging medium for me. Also I may just start a new one altogether: codieface.blogspot.com is reserved by me but I dunno. If I write a blog post SOMEWHERE you'll hear about it.

Dear Ps Danny Nalliah;

2009-02-10T21:05:00.003+11:00

fuck you.

Fuck you for exploiting a tragedy to make a political point.

Fuck you for making the 'pro-life' assumption that criminalising abortion will somehow get rid of it.

Fuck you for demanding that women stop having abortions but doing absolutely nothing to demand women can afford to go through with their unplanned pregnancies.

Fuck you for not demanding better access to contraception and sex education to reduce the abortion rate.

And fuck you for demonstrating such sensitivity to the women you are trying to protect from the psychological impact of abortion by calling them baby-killers.

so i discovered the coolest thing ever

2009-02-10T16:09:00.003+11:00

Robots in Diguise (a favourite band of mine who are now based in Berlin) are feminists wooo~

yep so basically

2009-02-07T15:38:00.000+11:00

my only contribution to this blog is posting videos

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

SUP

2009-02-05T15:22:00.000+11:00

oh no being skinny is so hard

2009-01-20T15:55:00.002+11:00

and skinny girls get discriminated against too and it's not MY fault I'm so pretty and fat people are so unhealthy and mean and FAT.

So basically I was facebook-stalking some people and I found my way to a facebook-blog by this girl, 'Defending My Right To Good Value Clothing'. Basically: being a size 16 is unhealthy (ignoring that women of lots of different body types wear the same size, AND sizes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer...) and she blames her dislike of fat people on two fat people she met once who were rude to her. No, seriously. And it was only once she met some NICE fat people that she began to regard them as anything other than 'distasteful and undisciplined'. As if fat people have to justify themselves as worth getting to know to her before she'll stop generalising all of them. As if she knows anything about the situation of heavy people to justify generalising them all as lazy.

Now, she DID say that these two fat people who were rude to her harassed her so much that she had to find another workplace. Alright fair enough those people probably aren't very nice. But if I were to say, 'well this brown-haired person I met one time wasn't very nice to me, so you know what, fuck brown-haired people. Never going to speak to one again unless they prove to me that they're worth speaking to.' THAT SOUNDS RIDICULOUS.

But the main crux of her argument is that it's so HARD being skinny. Fuck that noise. I'm a skinny bitch (underweight according to my BMI, as if BMI isn't flawed as a hard-and-fast rule of whether you're unhealthy or not) and I can GUARANTEE you that a fat girl is going to have a harder time of, basically everything, than what I'm going to have. The lady writing this blog post complains that 'people think she's anorexic and bulimic and she's only starving herself to look pretty'. I've been in that boat and I think maybe being accused of having an eating disorder once or twice is a lot worse than having people generalise you as distasteful and undisciplined.

She complains about how hard it is to find clothes that fit. But, it is hard for EVERYONE to find clothes that fit. Remember what I said about women of lots of different body types having to wear the same size clothes? Now if you have long legs and a tendency to carry weight on your hips, you're not going to fit perfectly into the clothes of a woman with shorter legs and a large chest. But, you both fit best into a size 12. In fact, I'll bet I have harder time that this lady finding clothes because I have the dimensions of a petite woman but the legs of a giantess. But do I turn that frustration into a rant against fat people?

SO GUYS

2009-01-19T13:33:00.003+11:00

My insufferability is about to go up 1000% percent because I am SUPER PUMPED about going to Germany. EVEN THOUGH AFS hasn't seen fit to give me my flight information yet, and EVEN THOUGH I'm not sure whether my visa OR travel insurance is going to go through. I'll tell you why?

BECAUSE DUDES I'M TOTALLY GOING TO GET A FRENCH HOST SISTER.

There's a very long convoluted story behind it but basically my host parents are going to be hosting a French girl from May-July - so for the last half of my exchange I'll be living/hanging out/going to school with my German host sister and also some rad French chick (I've never actually had any contact with her so I've no idea whether she's rad or not but she's rad, ok?). HOW COOL IS THAT? Very, very cool.

I also found the website for the charter of AFS I'll be under in Germany - guys I'm internet-famous! Well kind of. My picture is on the website (along with a girl from Costa Rica who is going at the same time I am - for some reason, they chose pictures of us holding babies. Coincidence?) And there are about eight year exchange students who will be leaving in July at the same time as me - most of them from South America. Don't know the appeal of Germany to South Americans but I'm not complaining I guess.

So, in conclusion, I am not going to shut the fuck up about Germany until I am on that aeroplane. And even then I'll probably be yammering away to Claire for most of the plane ride. And when I get there I'll be bothering the volunteers who take me to Hamburg, even if they don't speak English. And then I'll be there! Yayyyy Germany.

You know what's really wrong?

2009-01-17T22:33:00.005+11:00

A Noah and Jesus shipping.

I've read quite a few fanfiction stories with downright odd (and/or disturbing) pairings, believe me. Snape/Harry's always a favourite, which pretty much involves Snape being the half brother of Voldermort and the latter being all teenage!angsty about the Dursleys and cutting himself. Oh, and there's usually a new-found sister of Harry involved. Snape/Hermionie is a classic, and anything that has Draco in it makes me laugh. Except for the Harry/Draco ones, because they seem to be written by perverted boys who get turned on by disgusting images.

But nothing is worse than a Noah and Jesus shipping.

When I came across it a few years ago, the world skidded to a stop and I seriously just stared open-mouthed at it for a few seconds. It was so terrible that I couldn't even scream. However, now that I've seen such a ridiculous pairing, I don't get so easily disgusted. Well, except for the story I was reading because I'm currently judging a category at Some Kind of Wonderful (SKoW) Awards, which is the most famous awards site for fictionpress authors. A man sold his soul to the devil so he could start a business, and the payment was to cut off the his daughter's hands, and this was told in excruiciating detail.

Needless to say, I was turned off reading any more stories for a few days.

This is why Anne of Green Gables is so lovely. The most depressing fanfiction ever gets for it is when Gilbert's on his deathbed, thinking that the girl that he's loved ever since he was fourteen and he called her carrots, which led to her breaking a slate over his head, will never think of him anything more than a friend. Which is all just romantic.

Unless the author doesn't understand why apostrophes and proper spelling is needed. -_-

Onto lighter and squeeable subjects! I can be seen as quite fickle, because I fall in love with a different person each day, but come on, who WOULDN'T turn all fangirly for ... (this is just in the last couple of days.)

1. The juggler of cirque du soleil.

2. Hugh Jackman - the worst of my obsession only lasted a few days, but for kai, it probably seemed much, much longer. But really, his answer to 'Who would you turn gay for,' the famous last question of Rove's interrogation, is priceless. As well as his openings for awards nights. And just everything about him.

3. Kim Bum - who has the most gorgeous, cutest smile of ever.

4. Gilbert Blythe - I read the series all over again, and seriously, fictionpress guys, move over. I will never ever accept a proposal if it's not said by him. (And yes, that means I'll never get married. >_> Doesn't matter, I wouldn't be able to find a guy that meets my mother's criteria.)

5. Lee Min Ho - okay, so he's the leading actor of the korean remake of the manga hana yori dango, and I really didn't know somebody could look so hot in such a ridiculous perm that his manga character was so famous for. The drama started airing two weeks ago, and after the second episode, it was seriously zero to hero. Nobody knew about him before 2009, but he's now an instant celebrity and 90% of the korean population, both male and female, are in love with him. For good reason.

6. Captain Wentworth - although Codie's favourite, Mr. Knightley, does come incredibly close.

Whoa, I'm so proud of myself. 4/6 of these people are actually REAL. Although if I added my (extensive) list of male protagonists of the stories I've been reading due to my SKoW judging, the ratio would be crazily unbalanced.

My shoulders are suddenly so sore. (Too much alliteration.) Ow. That's what I get for spending eight hours a day in front of the computer. Which is much less than usual, because I've been out and about ever since my cousin from Korea came over. (First question my friends ask me: Is he hot? >_>) We took the ferry from Cabarita to Circular Quay, then one to Manly yesterday, and it really is such a beautiful place (the copenhagen icecream makes it x349834 better) - it really does catch the essence of Australia ... or what we advertise it to be, anyway.

And Tim, whenever I read, see or hear of you all I can think is 'STRANGLE HIM FOR WHAT HE DID TO OUR BLOG.' Your 179cm height will not daunt me from starting an uprising. Or just screaming a lot.

TSSE - Part 1

2009-01-15T19:57:00.003+11:00

So these past 3 days, I, along with bryan, martin and koong, have been attending TSSE, or The Siemens Science Experience. At TSSE we did a whole bunch of stuff, including 6 lab activites, an amazing race, a debate, a relay quiz, ice skating and a free bbq.

It was pretty mad fun, got to meet a few new people and hang with them (ahmet, eugene and alex).

Anyway, I'm just basically gonna talk about the lab activities and then the debate, which was some funny shit.

So - the lab activites were:
Logic - Where you basically had to connect circuits and stuff
Magic - Making cool shit with chemicals, slime and nylon and shit
Visual - Optical Illusions basically
Anatomy - Reflexes, BMI, muscles
Biology - Looking at stuff underneath a microscope
Photonics - Playing around with light and optical fibres

Yeah that's what we did, and it was pretty fun.

Now we get to the debate. It was basically an open forum for people to say who they thought was to blame for climate change and why. It started off alright, but then we started moving into some weird ass and funny areas.

For example,

"I think we should just do what my science teacher said and kill everyone once they get to old!" - Everyone went WTF at that.

"I just want to say, tofu tastes DISGUSTING!" - Everyone clapped and laughed

Then we have our own little comments.

"The older generation screwed everything up"
"That's a massive generalisation"
(between the 7 of us) - Yo face is a massive generalisation. - That was directed at the girl who kept telling us to shut up, she was really annoying.

AND FUCKING EUGENE

Some guy makes a point that owns some chick, and eugene decides to say "Ooh, snap, crackle, pop!"

Which was so stupid that we all cracked up.

Oh and my personal favourite "Humans will just die out, and you'll eventually just have one guy left to repopulate the earth"

Ahmet "Quick, grow a womb. Incest for EVERYONE!"

Part 2 involving some more stuff will be up later - CBF right now

Comeback

2009-01-13T22:11:00.003+11:00

The crowd roared with excitement. They knew a great event was coming. Their hero, the one they had worshipped since he first took up their all-favourable job was finally back. After months of silence, the series of tubes would once again flow with his purified water, removing all the muck from the system. Yes. You know it. The time has come...

3!

2!

1!

The crowd counts down.

0!

The crowd screams and rushes to their feet as their hero takes his position. Standing at 179 cm tall, he looks out over the crowd and gazes at everyone. "I know you have all missed me!" he yells, his capacious lungs louder than any amplifier. "I have taken a recent sabattical, yet I have returned with a new sense of purpose."

The crowd roar their approval.

"I promise to re-energise and reformat this place as we know it."

"I will bring new content 3 times a week to you all."

He is forced to leave the stadium as the crowd runs riot. They want him, they all want him. His style, his verve, his flavour, his manliness. As he leaves the stadium, he turns around.

His lips form the words "The fawesome five."

Smiling, he turns away and walks off, already thinking about his next blog post (on thursday night), that would re-instate his title, of king of the blogosphere.

Ann Coulter

2009-01-11T13:55:00.004+11:00

makes me want to punch someone in the face.

Lawrence posted on her, and despite the fact that paying attention to her validates her, when she is nothing but a hack in eyeliner, I'm going to give you the pleasure of some choice videos of her

A debate between her and Al Franken, a comedian who would later become a senator for Minnesota.

In this one, embedding has been disabled, but it is a graduation speech at her at her alma mater, the University of Michigan Law School. The most pertinent part: 'but then again, this is Ann Coulter's law school... Just as an aside, Ann Coulter recently gave a speech at my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, and for that appearance was paid somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20,000 as a speaking fee. Let me tell you this: had I known, how lucrative being a bitter and hateful circus freak with a law degree could be, with God as my witness, I would've come to law school ten years earlier.'

EDIT: you should look at this one too

DONT KILL ME

2009-01-10T21:28:00.000+11:00

IN THE MIDDLE OF REFORMATTING BLOG GONNA FINISH IT TOMORROW WE HAVEN'T UPDATED FOR A WEEK NO NEED TO PANIC EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL I SWEAR I WILL SORT ALL THIS OUT TOMORROW!

this tickled me:

2009-01-01T21:30:00.002+11:00

happy new years everyone!

a range of things

2008-12-27T22:03:00.003+11:00

When I woke up at ten am, the first thing I did as holiday routine dictated, was to turn on my computer - check my email for fictionpress alerts, complain on the soompi forums and get the daily presents from the advent calendar (on neopets >_>). At eleven, I remembered that NCIS and the latest episode of the korean drama had loaded onto youtube, so that took another two hours of my time. Finally, the jiyehunger forced me to trudge downstairs and steal some of the ramen my parents were eating.

It felt a bit weird.

Probably because it was Christmas Day.

My Greek friends would have been partying hard, Catholics still at church after the dawn service and Lindy had been cooking two days straight for a traditional Christmas lunch. (Codie only had Christmas breakfast.) But my family was watching television. My sister would probably have forced us to do something but she was conveniently in Europe at the time - Switzerland, with pretty snow falling around and a merry log in the fireplace.

I'd gotten my two Obama books from dad (they were priced at $27 and Hilary Clinton's under $10 ahaha) and since my parents were never into the presents-part of Christmas, that was quite enough for me. Especially because my school friends got me the twilight quartet and Sabs gave me an extra $50 gift voucher to Borders. However, all those were given to me quite a bit earlier so there was nothing to be excited about and wake up early for.

Funny, how even though December involves a flurry of activities and preparation for Christmas- Carols in the Park at Wentworthville with the surrounding churches (a guy from radio station 103.2 -that's the Christian radio station- was the announcer and a surprisingly fantastic piano player), the cantata the night before (where I was eight years too old to dress as an angel) and the festivities with my awesome church people ... the actual day itself, 25th of December, I was rolling around in bed, reading 'The Girl in Times Square' for the thousandth time.

In complete contrast from Lindy's post, this month is so ridiculously busy and full of stress for my church that while it's supposed to be the celebration of Jesus' birth, we're sometimes so caught up trying to make it the best celebration possible that we don't really get to celebrate it at all. For example, when my dad's delivering the sermon, I'm trying to remember the words for my solo and the men at the back are fiddling with the microphone volumes and some of the women are in the hall next door preparing the food and in the end, nobody's listening.

So this year, it was really after everything had settled down that we all got to have lots of fun. We left for Jervis Bay (which is about an hour from Wollongong and past Nowra which is actually not a hole, as Codie keeps repeating) on the 27th and it really is the most gorgeous place ever.

You know those places that really do seem to be too beautiful to be real? Standing there, with sand falling through my fingers, every wave strong enough to reach the tip of my toes seemed like a blessing, feeling the last of the sun's glorious rays reaching to the ends of the earth before it faded away ... I felt as if I could do anything. Sunset, twilight, dusk, dawn. They really are all beautiful, but like I wrote in my delirious text to random people, the night is what thrills me. It really does feel so alive, with its own palpitating beat.

But that's only in those special moments where I forget my fear of darkness. x)

Whoa, dream just crashed there. Anyhow, talking about church just reminded me. So the other minister (heh, reminds me of the first chapter of Half Blood Prince) was asking the couples a lot of questions for fun, and some of the ones that I thought were ridiculously sweet:

He asked the wife of Couple #1 the last time she'd heard 'I love you' and she said she actually couldn't remember. So then he asked the husband when he'd last heard 'thank you' and he replied 'I'm sorry to my wife for not creating enough reasons for her to say thank you or i love you to me.'

Couple #2, he asked the husband if he liked working at a florist better, or as an accountant as he does now. 'Definitely the former, but I spend all the time with the most beautiful of flowers' which was said about his wife. Funnier when you realise that her name does mean rose in korean.

Couple #3, he asked the man what he most wanted to say to his wife. (I absolutely adore this unconventional couple - the guy just turned 31, and the wife's 39 but she's petite and the cutest thing EVER, and they're so funny and easy to talk to.) His answer was 'Because we have two babies at the moment, we spend all the time caring for them that we don't really get to see each other. So I just wanted to say I love you, and sorry for not saying it enough.'

Unfortunately, Couple #4 was a failure. The minister asked 'What's the most romantic thing you've heard from your husband this year?' Her answer: "Give me food."

A Christmas story ...

2008-12-26T00:28:00.002+11:00

Let me tell you a story;

Once upon a time there were four girls. The first (let's call her Lindy) was the shortest girl in the class. The second (let's call her S) was school captain, she was exuberant and happy. The third, T, was sporty and popular. The last, (we'll call her C), was tall, cool and passionate.

The (okay, one of the) things that united these girls was that they all, during the allotted time weekly where the other kids would learn about Christ, Buddha and Muhammad, they would sit in a classroom, make silly baubles, do homework, chat randomly, play games. We like to call this non-scripture.

Then nearing the end of primary school, S became interested in Christianity, and started going to church. T (somehow, I'm not sure) got on the bandwagon sometime in high school. C started attending only recently. But the crux of it is, according to memory S, T and C all professed not to believe in a God.

I can propose one possibility of the many reasons S, T and C might convert: community spirit. I feel this especially acutely at Christmas. Where friends attend church services, go out and have a good time with youth groups, volunteer and help the needy through church groups, it's hard not to feel a little jealous of what they're doing and sad that you're missing out. Facebook groups like Stop Abortion and Keep God in Schools have far, far more members than any group devoted to secular humanism. Personal messages are full of "Jesus' bday" right now. The ISCF group at school has parties and camps and many members, while charity groups have few.

To say anything, it gets a little lonely.

I find myself wishing a lot of the time for a decent secular charity to volunteer for. Yes, there's Oxfam, but they have precious few volunteering opportunities. I wish I had a group of cool kids who got together every week in a common cause. I wish I could look cool in my personal message saying what I believed with popular opinion behind me. But none of this I want if it means believing in something I really don't. That's hypocritical.

What is Christmas's meaning for non-believers? It's a time to celebrate the year that has passed, a celebration of a good year lived, a time to be happy and to remember your friends and family.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Reflex Test

2008-12-17T22:15:00.001+11:00

Shamelessly taken from a LUE topic.

http://reflextester.appspot.com/

First time I got:

5%

2008-12-15T19:05:00.002+11:00

So Kevin Rudd has sold us all out. Only a guaranteed 5% reduction on carbon emissions by 2010? 15% is only going to happen if the rest of the world makes us, from the party that cruised to election victory promising change on our country's response to climate change. This is bullshit - one of the most important issues we are facing, something that is going to affect us all, and K-Rudd has decided to play politics rather than do the right thing. Bob Brown is right - he's failed Australia. He's failed every single one of us.

summer

2008-12-14T23:25:00.013+11:00

is love.

When lillian's dad came across my plc friends and I, being all annoying and squeal-y all he could say was 'I think I'm allergic to teenage girls,' a sentiment even I can understand.

My parents and I had to clean the whole house top to bottom, which wasn't that much of a deal, but cleaning the pool area/patio was a mess. We hosed the whole area down, and there were all these new cobwebs in the space of only a few weeks, but it was so hot (34 degrees on saturday) it dried in less than five minutes. I didn't believe the weather report until the actual day, but come on, it was raining a monsoon the night before.

It was supposed to be a farewell party for Sabs, who's leaving for NSGHS next year, but we just lazed around, pushed people into pools, and enslaved my mother who did everything, not the least cooking an awesome dinner. Love her to death. We even managed to take some half decent group photos, which is ridiculously surprising for us, because one of us always manages to ruin it (usually joce >_>). Oh, and our toyota jumps was an epic fail.

We were so tired by the end, understandably. So when we were all supposed to cry as Sabs was saying her speech (the goodbye at the end just reminded me of bilbo on his eleventy first birthday party) we were just kind of floppy. But still just as sad. I'm kind of in denial that she's leaving because I love her to death and I've been seeing her practically every day for three years, but it's a much harder blow for the girls who've known her from Kindy.

While the party was supposed to end at 9:30, and vivian's dad was supposed to arrive at 9, he completely forgot about her and picked her up at 9:58, heh. And emma brought the most beautiful chocolate covered strawberries ever. And there were caramel slices and quiches and the most delicious stuff ever, and Joce always had something stuffed in her face. Even in the water. (She also ate about 20 chicken wings for dinner).

My mum is absolutely hilarious. When Joce's father rocked up, she was all O_O. He really does look like he should be in a rock band, and when I told her he was a doctor, she thought I was joking. And one of my friend's' father really looks like Leunig. All the non-asian parents came inside the house with their shoes on and my mum was seriously about to die of the terror of dirt over our tiles. (They were also much earlier than the asian ones.) But it was a pretty awesome day, and now everybody's in love with my house. Which probably isn't a good thing, because they'll just crash it every second day from now on.

That's my (still growing) collection! (Well, okay, my sister bought most of them, but whatevs, the credit goes to me anyhow.)

Now do you understand why size and colour has to be balanced to create harmony? To be able to incorporate those factors along with the genres and differing authors, and the amount of books we have of each, it really is quite an art that takes years to perfect.

Mind you, they're only my pretty books. The uglier ones (their spines might have bended the wrong way, or they might be series' that are too small in size to look pretty) are all stuffed in the middle, closed section. There's about another 300 in there. Harry Potter obviously takes up most of the top left, (and Half Blood Prince just RUINS IT) although Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy graces the space next to it.

Try to find Meyer's works, Tolkien's, Isobelle Carmody's, Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, Anne Bishop, Matthew Reilly, Kate Forsyth and the classics (there's a shelf in the middle of them, but that's okay, because blue and black can be seperated by a few centimetres of wood.) Ooh, Mao's Last Dancer is quite obvious.

If you're still not impressed, I'll mention that my father has over 5000 books - and they're all to do with the history of religion (the roman times in particular) or analysis' of each book in the bible or such. And they're big, let me tell you that. Huh, that's next in line to take pictures of. There's a whole room in the church office devoted to those books, and it's PRETTY. =)

I don't think it's a joke when I say that if we sold all the books my family owned, we could buy another house.

(by the way, kai hasn't done ANYTHING on that list below.)

100 Things

2008-12-11T23:22:00.005+11:00

Yeah, yeah, two (borderline three) posts in a row. But hey, no on else is posting, and I'm bored at 11:22PM. So I was reading Quel Solaar. Apparently he may be releasing an Alpha version of Love next week, though the wording of it might indicate that it was a passing comment. And Cleolinda Jones, and I saw one of her entries with one of those '100 things, bold the ones that you've done' and since I've got nothing else to do, I thought I would see which ones I've done.

1. Started your own blog
ahem, yes.
2. Slept under the stars
I mean I haven't slept in the open out doors under the stars. Tents sure. I guess that isn't under the stars.
3. Played in a band
But I quit after a term or so. Ugh.
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
When I was younger.
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
When I was young sometime.
8. Climbed a mountain
Err, not really. I'll have to go with Cleolinda on this one with the whole 'I've been on a Mountain, but haven't climbed it per se' thing
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
I dunno, if you count Blender. Though I haven't exactly made any 'art' with it, I did do start it from scratch.
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
I'm pretty sure.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Been to New York though. I thought they limited visitors to the Statue of Liberty due to security fears. Though that may have just been the years after 9/11.
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Yes. It's always crowded around the Mona Lisa. In all it's glory behind a glass box.
20. Slept on an overnight train
Munich>Paris. And back again. It was cold, but we had blankets in this 3 bunk bed per side cabin. Very cramped, but they were all sleeping anyway. I couldn't sleep at all, just watching the snowy stations go past.
21. Had a pillow fight
Course I have
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
Sick Day in terms of School though.
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
Oh come on, everyones watched a bleeding sunset. Sunrise I have too though.
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
I dunno about 'Ancestors', but Indonesia will probably count.
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
Sure, camps and so on
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
in Indo somewhere.
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
Slight alteration, I've been to the topmost part of the Eiffel Tower that I could at the time. Renovations/Yearly maintenence at the top.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
Yeah, like one lesson
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
Course, sushi and so on.
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
It was full of advertisements.
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
Many a time in Indonesia.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
If you count like, fishing. O
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
o__O
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

So, 25/100. Pretty poor, but some of these are really America-centric, or adult-oriented (the job questions, etc.)

Bell Shakespeare competition

2008-12-10T16:23:00.005+11:00

Might as well post the photograph that we (Justin and I) submitted for the Bell Shakespeare competition

http://makeascene.spikemobile.com/

'

First - pick one of the Shakespearean quotes listed below as inspiration for your submission and interpret it in a unique, creative way.

Romeo And Juliet - 'I must be gone and live, or stay and die.'
A Midsummer Night's Dream - 'I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl'
Macbeth - 'Life's but a walking shadow'
Julius Caesar - 'Men at some time are masters of their fates'
Othello - 'I am not what I am'

Then...

Take a digital picture of your creation? be it a drawing, illustration, photograph, painting, sculpture, mixed media, cartoon imagery or any other still visual art imagery.
Interpret a scene using flash animation (3 minutes max).
Create a podcast using audio and still images (3 minutes max).
Make a movie (3 minutes max).'

People involved:
Photographer: Kai
Concept/Production: Justin
Editing: Seb
Actors: Justin, Tara, Howard, Nealan

Completed this a couple of weeks ago, didn't win unfortunately, though Simon(yr10)'s sister won one of the prizes.

hey mr. Real Aussie Bloke,

2008-12-09T21:50:00.002+11:00

protip: having the words 'MADE WITH SPANNERS NOT CHOPSTICKS' emblazoned on the back window of your ute only makes you look like a douche.

'Spooky' Photography Video

2008-12-09T19:47:00.002+11:00

Our video for photography. (second revision)
Starring Jeffrey, Antony, Deva and myself (behind the camera).
And yes, the sounds were taken from Cloverfield, as well as the transitions, so it does feel very clover-esque.
The beginning does deliberately not have sound.

And there was no script, everything ad libbed which was why the dialogue sounds terrible and mismatched.

how very ridiculous

2008-12-09T17:03:00.002+11:00

According to comparing friends on facebook, I am 100% more likely to succeed, smarter and better at science than the other, but I'm also 100% more likely to skip class. 100% more powerful, 14% more likely to win at a fight. Make up your mind, people! Oh, also, deeply offended. Nobody thinks I'd make a better mother. Just because I can't take care of my ever-dying neopet, my pot plants always die, and I never remember or act upon my to do list for the day doesn't mean anything!

By the way, Lindy is 100% more hot but 0% a better friend. Hee. None of us seem to be the loyal, caring type either. How narcissistic of us.

Surprisingly, Facebook is pretty decent (even if I'm ranked pretty much last in tetris.) I don't even have the urge to shudder when somebody gushes about it. And spying on other people's lives is always lots of fun. However, stalking korean celebrities and systematically reading through my bookshelves is what has eaten up most of my holidays so far - not that that's saying much, since it's only my second day.

With the amount of books I've received from people in the last couple of weeks, along with the five or so I definitely have to buy, I need to pack more of my mum's music books and shove them into the garage. The books my sister and I buy are prettier anyway. Other people might calculate money in terms of clothes or games, but I always divide by 25 because that's generally the cost of a decent book. Even when we're talking about millions. >_>

My Top Five Annoyances To Do With Books

#1. When publishing houses change the cover design, font or size of a book when it's half way through a series. It ruins the harmony and balance of the bookshelf. Yes, I'm looking at you, Christopher Paolini.

#2. When the writing steeply declines throughout, but we have to buy all seven books or such anyway just because an unfinished series is agonizing to look at. After that, we're broke for another few millenias.

#3. When because of the differing heights, colours and genres of books, the bookshelf just looks exceedingly awkward but there's nothing you can do about it.

#4. When the newest edition for a classic (Pride and Prejudice and Alice in Wonderland, particularly) is published. It's always uglier than the one before it.

#5. When, on a rare occasion the bookshelf DOES look pretty, it has to be ruined due to the sequel, another of its genre, etc is bought.

It's a delicate art, book arranging.

Sebastian, by Anne Bishop, has still not been able to sit next to its sequel Belladonna. Or Tangled Webs next to the Black Jewels Trilogy. And those two books have been out for more than a year. Oh, the heart-wrenching despair of it all. They're next on my list. (Go read her works. It might be a bit too dark and sensuous for your taste at first, but her ideas are so creative you can't help but be drawn in.)

On a complete change of topic, the last time I heard from my sister, she was on a day trip to Salzburg. Left Paris a few days ago, and I'm not sure what's next on her list. (If you didn't know, she's backpacking with her best friend across about eight cities in Europe for six weeks having finished her Honours in Psychology.) According to her, the English men are really gentlemen. On the French however, I've received conflicting stories. One thinks they're hot, and the other disagrees wholeheartedly.

an interesting angle,

2008-12-03T19:49:00.004+11:00

on the argument I was having with someone about decriminalising marijuana (I think it was Tim, could have had arguments with other people). We're studying the stuff in PD and were looking at some articles about marijuana, looking at it from different angles or whatever. My article was about a support group for people addicted to marijuana - a trial program that involved group therapy once a week. It was funded only for eight weeks before the funding stopped and it's effectiveness evaluated by the government. It was the first program of it's kind.

Now whether you think marijuana posession should be decriminalised or remain a criminal offence, the message the government is giving is unfortunate: marijuana is bad enough for you that you should be punished for using it, but marijuana addiction is not a serious enough problem for the government to seriously consider funding programs to help those suffering.

When I told as such to my PD class, they all clapped, which made me feel like an absolute knob.

Also, a response to the 'if you think marijuana should be legalised, why don't we legalise meth and heroin as well' argument, not only are hard drugs like meth and heroin too dangerous to attempt to regulate, I think that any action the government takes towards people who use meth and heroin should be focused more on rehabilitation than punishment - although I think that people who deal in hard drugs should be locked away for a very, very long time.

On a related note, which crime do you think deserves the death penalty the most?

so in korea,

2008-12-01T17:21:00.002+11:00

it's alright to rape a girl, so long as she is disabled.

A court handed down suspended jail terms to four family members who repeatedly raped a teenage relative who suffered from an intellectual disability.

The Cheongju District Court Thursday sentenced an 87-year-old grandfather and two uncles of a 16-year-old girl to four-year suspended prison terms for sexually assaulting and raping the girl for the last seven years. Another uncle received a three-year suspended jail term.

The court acknowledged that their crime was ``sinful'' as they used the young girl, who is their family member, to satisfy their sexual desires. But it gave the suspended terms, saying, ``The accused have fostered the girl in her parents' place. Considering her disability, she will also need their care and help in living in the future.''

The court added it took the accused people's old age and illness into consideration.

Citizens strongly denounced the ruling, saying the punishments were too lenient for the grave crime. Internet users said it is absurd to release them to ``take care of her,'' as she needs help from others, not from rapists. They also said those committing such a crime do not deserve consideration regarding old age or illnesses.

Some bloggers are collecting signatures to oust the judge who made the ruling. The prosecution also decided to appeal. ``One of them even has a previous conviction for rape but was given a suspended term. The ruling is unacceptable,'' a prosecutor said.

AFS camp was alright. I'm still really angry at my mother for not letting me extend my stay for a year, and I'm also really anxious I'm going to fuck up my exchange, and because I'm only staying for six months I'm afraid I'll ruin my experience. I'm also really afraid I'll not learn the language.

Other than my anxiety it was really fun though! AFS camps are the best. I stayed up all night talking to Venezuelan, Austrian and Dutch girls. Did a skit with a Japanese and a Swiss girl. Met a girl who had gone to Ghana! (I didn't really meet her, I was told her story and later that day asked her whether she'd seen my mum. Point still stands though). Hot French Dude was hot, and french, and there. My weekend went brilliantly.

Whatever my post was crap you still got a post though.

Lookie

2008-11-28T22:24:00.003+11:00

Someone else in my neighbourhood drinks Teh Botol. Must find this Indo and befriend him.

poor kai.

2008-11-25T16:42:00.003+11:00

every time any of us update, he does too and his posts always gets bumped down.
Don't worry, we still love you. =D

A few people were crying, and the rest were very devastated when I read my excerpt from Seven Ancient Wonders (the part where Big Ears dies, saving Lily) so mission accomplished for my speech exam. Then we finished watching 'Glory' in elective history, which is a heartbreaking movie about the first all-black regiment in the civil war. It's interesting: the main character in that is the voice of Simba. I was like O_O. And they were all singing around the campfire the night before the battle, and whenever a man got up to speak, the rest would all be singing in the background. This girl in my class asked 'why are they all such good singers?' and our teacher was duh, they're African Americans, they're the best singers in the world. Which I completely agree with.

My elective history class has watched so many bloody movies this year that we're technically not supposed to be watching since most of them are M15+ but as long as we don't tell our parents who thus complain to our year director or somebody even higher up, it's all good. So while the rest of us are crying, gripping each other in fear, there's this one girl in the middle of the classroom that cheers every time somebody's head gets decapitated or a dead men comes flying across the screen. She's quite the hilariousness, I must say.

Eight days! I can survive! I think some of us will be skipping on the second last day to have a LOTR movie marathon, yay. Because really, one of the many things I cannot stand:
People I call friends that haven't read Harry Potter or watched Lord of the Rings.

How shameful.

LOOK!

2008-11-24T21:45:00.005+11:00

By the way, kai posted below.

I entered blogger.com through google, and it actually worked!
I'm either ridiculously smart for figuring out, or ridiculously stupid for not having thought of it up till now. I'm leaning towards the latter, myself.

So, I never thought it'd ever happen, but I'm sick of Matthew Reilly. This is why one should never, ever focus on a topic they're in love with. Except, you know, my wish to analyse LOTR (the movie version) at school, because I would never get tired of the juxtaposition in Return of the King where the soldiers of Rohan and Gondor, along with Aragon, Legolas, Gimli and the hobbits are surrounded by this huge army of orcs in front of the Black Gate. And Gimli's all 'I never thought I'd die next to an elf,' and the person (well, elf) in question smiles, and asks 'What about dying next to a friend?'
'Aye.'
And then there's this beautiful image of Frodo giving up, because the burden of the ring is too great, and Sam shouts 'I can't carry the ring for you, Mr Frodo, but I can carry you!' and both scenes are just this declaration of friendship, of love, of hope when there is nothing to hope for and it's just so GORGEOUS.
And forgive me for my inaccurate quotes, and thus not really quotes. I really haven't watched Return of the King for a ridiculously long period.

Also, not really related to that, but I love how Merry and Pippin charge forward first, there's this awkward pause where all the men look at each other and then they all run and thus about three seconds later, the short little hobbits are so far back. Hee. You've got to say though, they have courage. Which was first apparent through Bilbo Baggins when his totally boring, acceptable life because fun and therefore strange and very suspicious, yay.

It's Tim's birthday tomorrow! If I stupidly forget because I'm running around doing my speech exam, lifesaving and speaking about the Albany and Birmingham Campaign in the American Civil Rights Movement in elective history, here it is early:

HAPPY FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY TIM.

There you go. Now you can't complain if I really do forget. ;D
... I just totally jinxed myself, didn't I?

Lindy said I was a lucky bitch because I only have eight days of school left (and my friends and I are really truly thinking about skipping the last wednesday) because the next day we have the huge rehearsal for the 120th anniversary piece, involving the whole school, and the friday IS the speech day which just involves lots of speeches by the principal, the president of the college council, a motivational speaker and many more. And aah, the orchestra usually sits backstage and plays cards but apparently this year we have to sit with the rest of them, and have a fixated smile upon our faces as we listen to an hour worth of speeches) but I'm really not.
Let's see my timetable shall we?

Tuesday: Speech exam. Ha. I should probably be polishing my speech, memorised pieces and goodness knows what else ... now. Right at this moment.

Wednesday: Debating tryouts (with a topic of 'That foreign aid is just a bandaid' and I haven't even decided how I'm defining it: quick, but temporary solution ooor something else) along with a geography assessment and my history quizzes to be handed in (which all got deleted on the school file server)

Thursday: my RE book is due. While I know every single thing I need to write down, I can't be bothered to do it. I've explained to my classmates so many times though, that Rahab is actually a woman and an awesome one at that, there are two Sauls and that they're looking up the Saul turned Paul who used to persecute Christians and did a complete 180, instead of the first King of Israel, that they had been overtaken by Babylon, which is when Daniel and his friends were thrown into the fire so no, you shouldn't be looking in REVELATIONS for him (although you need a revelation yourself for you to finish this task) and aaah, how can people not know anything about Jesus' parables after having attended a christian school for at least three years?

And I have two asssesments next week, and two tests on parabolas and other crazy things both this and next saturday at maths tutoring. And I hardcorely failed my test on trig, so I really need to step up.

But I came somewhere between 4th-6th this year, so that's pretty alright. And Kai fully eyerolled at my 'pretty alright' but this isn't Baulko, but a private school that's good at everything EXCEPT for academia. Some people in my grade get whatever they want, and I mean whatever, if they come in the top 50. Or top 30. And my atheist friend who hates Christianity in general got the religious education prize, and it was just so hilarious. And the woman announcing the prize list actually got my name right! She's now the 14th person in my life, who's not korean, that pronounced it right first time, without hearing it beforehand. I really am counting, you know.

And so many people joining facebook, yay! It's so convenient. I've caught up with friends from my first primary school, that I last saw when I was about ... eight, which is pretty cool. And I'm such a failure at facebook tetris it's not even funny. D:

And no, this is not the moment where you go look my scores up. -_-

Photography and Steph Meyer

2008-11-24T21:42:00.006+11:00

Здравствуйте.
Behold Castle Towers Dymocks:
From the 'Top Selling/Best Books' shelf:

Although the photo does cut off at the top, that's the end of the shelf. As you can see, Stephanie Meyer takes up a whole three lines - Twilight, New Moon, Breaking Dawn, Eclipse, The Host.
In contrast, Harry Potter barely takes up 1 (3/4 of the top shelf, 1/4 of the second).

Close up (also, the note is a recommendation by the dymocks folks)

And other random photographies as below (middle one has been HDRI'd. Heavily):

Three Brawlko vids

2008-11-21T19:19:00.003+11:00

Mikey from Year 10, Last two vids are him in the finals. Dunno about the first one.

Mikey's either Mario or Falco. The Semifinals were much more epic, but I was busy watching instead of filming.

edit: oh woops, the first two videos are parts of Round 1, second video is Round 2.

fairs

2008-11-21T14:28:00.003+11:00

make me think of those circus tents that spiral up into the sky, with gay ice-cream truck music playing and kids skipping with huge swirly lollipops in their hand. And Simone just piped up "fairy floss!" which is also very true.

Lucky you, with rides and screaming and "Are you Smarter Than a Baulko Teacher." I, on the other hand, was in science where we were learning about the Big Bang, which is apparently a misnomer because it wasn't big and it wasn't a bang. Oh, it's definitely the best theory humans can think of, except for that fact that they cannot describe HOW it came to be, WHY it came to be and really, anything about it. When Mr. Creedy asked us "Does anybody know any other theory?" a girl answered "Jesus!"

-_-

It's called creation dear.

(viv was here 08)

Simone is currently next to me playing tetris. I think we were supposed to be researching a socratic dialogue called meno, but shush. It's so strange how somebody so smart, and so logical can be such a massive failure at the game. We were trying to teach her yesterday at lunch, but really, what are you supposed to do when she's panicking about a block when the screen is BLANK?

School's pretty outrageous these days. I would think even the teachers are sick of marking papers, but I have eight assessments - all 10% of my SC mark (although everybody's like nobody cares about SC, it involves rankings for Year 10 at my school) and a speech exam in four days. I haven't even edited my speech, let alone memorised my two matthew reilly excerpts (it's the part where big ears dies! D:) - simone's proud of her 1,828 points on tetris. Yesterday, I'd told her to stack it all up and leave a space blank for the long block, except then she managed to stack it up all in one single column to the top so she DIED - so needless to say, i'm quite frazzled.

Eeps, the teacher's coming.

Suka

2008-11-18T19:34:00.003+11:00

So today, I learnt the Russian word for 'bitch' or what Julia translates as 'fuckin' bitch':

Сукa
pronounced as 'Suka'

Suka, coincidentally, in Indonesian means 'Like' or 'Enjoy'.

Make of that as you will.

pride, loyalty and compassion

2008-11-12T10:57:00.007+11:00

... is not what i'm going to be talking about, thank goodness. It's the name of the piece composed especially for the 120th anniversary speech day at my school. The melody is beautiful, but it is so obvious the composer has never, ever played a string instrument before. Ridiculously high? Fine. But when we're switching from fifth to seventh to second position on the E string in a matter of seconds, it hurts your hands. And when you practice it for three periods straight, it's not surprising that every single bone in each of my fingers seems to be dislocated. I tried clenching my hands a few times afterwards, and I could hear my bones crack each time.

For the last couple of weeks, we really thought it'd sound like ... well, think kids who first start blowing into the trombone and squeaking on their violins. The rhythm is so syncopated and crazy for the cellos that even the teachers can't tap the beat out. But now the voices, strings, brass and winds are all together, it sounds almost pretty, even if the lyrics are awfully cheesy. The title might give you an idea.

So that was my three hours of pain this morning.

But what's been annoying me for the last sixteen hours is that I got ripped off $1.40 at baker's delight! I could buy another blueberry and white choc scone with that money. And the worst thing is, if I'd waited about thirty minutes, I could've gotten each for 50c instead of $1.30. >_<>gorgeous) as well as a mansion in England, a palace in Asia, and a little Anne of Green Gables cottage with honeysuckle and roses in the Alps. Complete with their set of butlers, cooks, gardeners etc. In England, I would dress them up in the little black dresses and white aprons with mops always ready in their hands. And I'd force the maids in Switzerland to all have blonde plaits and yodel all day long.

Stupid imagination has gotten me all excited, ugh. However, being mad about Baker's Delight stopped me from worrying too much about the fact that I failed my matrix test on trig. And the current topic, parabolas, has me all looking like D: because I can't draw perfect curves. I sound so fickle.

More relatives are coming over tomorrow. I love my extended family (even if I've only seen the ones who live in the US ... once) but aaah, they didn't visit Australia for about 20 years and now they've all suddenly decided to come now! My grandmother's been here for a few months now, for the first time since I was born, and now her little sister and her husband's coming over too. (Doesn't little sister automatically make you think she's really young?) Now I have to be all polite and make my bed properly and let the sunlight pour into my room. And they want to hear me play the violin, aaaaaaaaah. Lucky Jiwon. She's leaving to backpack around Europe with her best friend in ten days, so she won't have to showcase her talents. *scowls*

Oh well. It just means I can steal her clothes and prance around in her room.

13 days until my speech exam, 23 days until the end of school. (unlike you poor public schooled kids)

now, i need to go and play tetris on facebook. DIETRICH, YOUR HIGH SCORE MAKES ME ALL DEPRESSED.

Psymetaphysiphorus

2008-11-11T21:21:00.005+11:00

***KAI ALSO POSTED, SCROLL DOWN AFTER READING MINE***

A sword. It's a piece of metal. It has different forms, yet they all were created for the same purpose. Death. More specifically, causing death. A sword is a weapon. A sword ends someone's life. Yet when you think about it, was it the sword that ended the person's life? Or was it the person wielding the sword?

Think about it.

The person is the one who wielded the sword. The person is the one who used the sword to end another's life. Yet, if that person had not had the sword, would they have been able to end the person's life. Of course it is dependant on the circumstances, but what it comes down to is that if the person had made the same move to end someone's life without the sword in their hand, nothing much would have happened.

The sword is therefore to blame, is it not? Yet the sword isn't a live being. It's not capable of conscious thought. It is just a tool, wielded by someone. Yet if that sword didn't exist, it wouldn't be capable of taking someone's life.

The sword isn't alive. It is simply a mass of cold metal. Yet blood is warm. Blood is part of life. Warmth is part of life. The sword came into being by fire. Forging. Yet it is not alive. However, when the sword strikes, it gets covered in blood. It could become warm. Does it mean then that the sword is alive?

Is the sword alive when it draws blood. Does the sword therefore want to be immersed in blood? In order to live? Does the sword then influence us, and make us immerse it in blood?

"Influence us! Pah, mind control you mean! What a silly notion"

That's what you say.

But, if the sword wasn't there, you would not attack. When the sword is there you attack. The sword wants to be covered in blood. But does it want? Or is it simply a need? Swords are made to kill, what other purpose is there? So maybe the blood is simply a natural part of the sword, like oxygen is for us. Maybe the sword is alive.

Just not in the way we think.

Timme

And now for something completely different.

2008-11-11T19:33:00.000+11:00

"Villains"

So I watched todays Heroes (S03E08 'Villains'), and it was pretty cool. I liked how it connected the characters without them knowing it. Also more Elle, so that's always good.

Anyway, I'm not going to spoil anything, so instead I'll just list my 7 favourite powered Heroes:

Eden McCain - She had a cool ability, though she was kinda stupid in the moments leading up to her death.
Elle Bishop - Cause it's V. Mars with Electricity. Though she does need to stop using frickin' ball lightning and start force-lightning everyone
Adam Monroe/Takezo Kensei - Props for living a long time and surviving an explosion (which would have incinerated his brain wouldn't it?). And also for getting with Yaeko's granddaughter at one point in time (o_O)
Daphne Milbrook - Yay for Heroes diversity, though she doesn't sound very French. I like superspeed.
Charlie Andrews - Probably favourite. Needs more examples of memory retention. Shame Sylar did the whole decapitation thing. Also the blood clot I suppose. And since Sylar has the ability now, we need to see more of him remembering stuff.
Sylar - Of course, though it's a shame he doesn't use Cryokinesis, Liquefaction and Radioactivity much (if at all. Lame. But we have Tracy for Iceman-emulation). His psychometric/clairsentience powers need to be fleshed out more. He killed that girl in the S3 premiere, but it hasn't been referred to much.
Ando Masahashi - Yeah, yeah no powers, but he did have Kamehameha/Scarlet Electricity in the alternate future. Loveable sidekick, but Hiro treated him badly after he saw the alternate future.

Honorable mentions: Meredith Gordon, Angela Petrelli.
Also evolved powers that need to be shown in the actual show (that were shown in the Graphic Novels):

Laser Emission (from his fingers!)
Plant Growth
Nerve Gas Emission (maybe a bit farfetch'd)
Disintegration Touch
Acid Secretion
Forcefield Projection (go invisible girl)
Bioluminescence (which is the reason why Noah Bennet needs glasses)
Electromagnetism (Elle's ability could turn into this..

feminism ruined my enjoyment of x-men 3

2008-11-08T10:46:00.006+11:00

It also ruined my mother's enjoyment of it, but that was mostly because I was ranting to her about it while she was just trying to watch her movie.

So basically the lady who can't touch anybody because she'll kill them is in a bad mood and her boyfriend is all 'what's the deal', and she huffily tells him that maybe she's a little bit annoyed that she can't touch her boyfriend without putting him into a coma. The dude is all 'grah when have I ever pressured you into anything' and the lady tells him that he's a boy! She knows what boys are like!

This is sexist on two counts: firstly, her boyfriend has the idea that SHE has no desire to touch him, her only motivation behind it is to please him. Which is so, so wrong. Ladies like to touch their partners and be touched in return! Girls ENJOY sex (or 'sexual experiences' anyway), and more often that not they do it for THEMSELVES, not just for the pleasure of their partner. (Of course wanting to please your partner is totally rad, but it's not the only motive ladies have)

On the second count, the lady tells him that 'he's a boy!' so he must be frustrated that she she can't kiss him. The lady is his girlfriend, surely she should know a bit about the guy - enough that she doesn't need to base her judgments of their relationship on stereotypes. Because the idea that all teenage (and non-teenaged) dudes are slaves to their hormones and can only think about sex is a stereotype and a stupid one. Not ALL dudes only think about sex, and guys can have satisfying relationships without it (or can be willing to sacrifice it to be with a lady they really like) - and this lady assumes that just because he's a boy he's unsatisfied with their relationship and that's sexist - see? Patriarchy hurts men, too.

I had a bunch to say about all the racism in this movie as well but my German tutor is coming soon and I don't have time.

In other news:

Another reason Barack Obama rocks: The Obama-Biden transition team states that it will not discriminate job applicants on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity (it is currently legal under American federal law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity)

(this song rocks)

Stormfront (white supremacist forum) never disappoints: "The installation of Barack Hussein Obama as America's 44th President is a catastrophic event for our nation and for the world.

Obama is a radically anti-American, anti-White Marxist who represents a hate-based political ideology."

OBAMA!

2008-11-05T17:58:00.003+11:00

OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA

(on behalf of Shushy and myself)

OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i have to do a science presentation tomorrow that i'm not at all prepared for...

but OBAMA!

obama obama obama

OBAMA

something that you probably won't like

2008-11-05T09:36:00.004+11:00

LOOK.
IT'S TREBUCHET MS.
WHAT DOES THIS TELL YOU?
Didn't you miss me so?

This is ridiculous. I didn't blog after my cousin's (very awesome) wedding, I didn't blog after the release of Breaking Dawn (my response to all the whiny, complaining girls out there who bashed her book), I didn't blog after I had a massive fight with lots of people about religion, morals and lots of other controversial topics that I love (and everybody else hates because I'm so annoying about it), I didn't blog after my week long camp with 48 other teenage girls (and one male teacher who weren't allowed to check up on us after we went into our rooms to sleep), I didn't blog about the division between private and public schools that Codie and I kept arguing about, but I'm here for the American Presidential Election?

How outrageous.

Quick explanation: Blogger for some reason doesn't work at home, so I have to write this at school and this is the first opportunity I've had in a ... long time. But no fear, I'm pretty much using the computers for most subjects these two weeks, so I'll have lots of posting opportunities, and oh, I'm going to take them.

So, politics makes my head hurt. And believe me, I don't know much at all about it, so excuse me if I don't make any sense. I try not to delve in too deep, actually. It's not as if I'm apathetic to which party gets voted in, because I care. But when I'm happy, somebody else isn't so really ... who's to say which one's better?

Democracy, good. Parliament, good. Leaders, good. Any government is going to try their best to lead their nation (and thus get another term >_>) but we have to realise they're going to make mistakes. (Come on, appeasement didn't work for WWII. Hitler stop at Poland? I don't think so. So the next time the allies decided to take action. Which also wasn't good, in terms of the Vietnam War.) They're not gods, they're human. If it's a few men over a population of millions, not everything is going to be fixed just with a click of fingers. If it is, that would mean checks and balances don't exist in our governments, and that would mean dictatorship.

We only think about what's good for our position: students and middle class. And then of course, there's our religion, culture, upbringing. But when we think the government is spending money where they ought to, they're also missing out on part of the population that also needs it- my friend's a diabetic, as is two others in her immediate family, and they have to spend $1000 a month alone, and that's not including hospital cover when they go into seizures and throw up for days on end. And now the government's taken away the allowance. However, they've raised the baby bonus- $5000 for each child now, and my mother had gotten none when my sister was born, and of course, the first home owners allowance has risen by 300% or something, if they're building a new properly. So in the end, never is everybody going to be happy- and really, imagine the pressure.

Okay, it just makes me sound like I'm going to lie low, and let other people trample over me. I just think that like in politics, as well as everything in life: you win some, you lose some.

I can almost imagine how angry I just made some of you.

I take myself as a citizen seriously, don't worry. =)

alright my homophobia post is getting old

2008-11-01T19:59:00.002+11:00

So have some video embedding love.

Still about gay people though. Sorry.

homophobia is not okay

2008-10-28T17:43:00.003+11:00

because guys guess what, gay people are people too. You may not have met a gay person, you may not be able to see someone of the same sex That Way, you may believe that a line in Leviticus means that your religion and homosexuality are incompatible, but a gay person is, undeniably, a person.

So high fiving somebody for saying that they should all be shot is not okay. Saying that my aunt should have a bullet through her skull because she was lucky enough to find a person she adores and who adores her, is not okay. Perpetuating hate is not okay.

Those who use Christianity - their religion and mine - as a shield from which to attack gay people are decently misguided. Jesus was down with gay people - and you should be too. Mark 28:29-31 for those of you playing at home: The most important one [commandment] is this... Love the Lord your God... The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself'.

Now I don't particularly relish being informed that I deserve to die, so maybe it's not too much of a stretch to think it would displease God if I were to tell other people as such.

So go back to Russia you commie faggots.

XDD

2008-10-25T17:07:00.000+11:00

~~timme~~ says:
haha
~~timme~~ says:
but duckwoman works better
~~timme~~ says:
because then you can be the mother duck
yingamon__=) says:
i guess
yingamon__=) says:
so, i am a man USUALLY, but then i turn into DICK WOMAN
yingamon__=) says:
OOPS
yingamon__=) says:
typo
yingamon__=) says:
aarrrgghhhh
yingamon__=) says:
DUCK
~~timme~~ says:
xDDDDDDDDDD
yingamon__=) says:
LOL DICK WOMAN
yingamon__=) says:
makes sense
~~timme~~ says:
I am so copying this and putting it on my blog

Love

2008-10-21T00:19:00.004+11:00

Yes, double posting, etc. But like the last one, this is just a video posting. I've posted before about 'Love' an MMO project currently being worked on by only one person, Eskil Steenberg. Well he finally got a preview trailer up, on RPS.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10/15/love-video/

His blog/love news is:
http://news.quelsolaar.com/#home

He has some really interesting blog posts that you should check out.

2008-10-19T21:40:00.002+11:00

Just posting about Red Alert 3 and Heroes.

Watched Eps 4 and 5 of heroes. Very awesome, mindblowing stuff.
Red Alert 3:

Crazy Train

2008-10-19T20:11:00.000+11:00

I think I'm going off the rails on a crazy train. Not good.

Recovery.

2008-10-19T17:39:00.003+11:00

Recovering from Duke of Ed, that is. It's rather like recovering from say, a plane wreck or a broken leg. Only on a much, much much more minute scale. My shoulders are aching. My knees are refusing to bend. My skin is refusing not to succumb to the intense heat that seems to grip every single Sunday nowadays. D of E expeditions accomplish na da. You get frustrated at the rest of your group. You tend to gain weight because of all the chocolate you eat. Your navigational skills prove to be perfect for leading you astray. The only good thing is having frequent deep and meaningfuls.

Actually, I've been reading and updating myself on the happenings of all the baulko bloggers and it's just a little bit sad that so few nsg's have a blog. So few. It's rather embarrassing, aren't we supposed to be the wonderfully modern, technologically-literate, socially democratic, intuitively creative generation? or rather school? Because we're certainly not getting up to the standards that we're supposed to be setting for ourselves. Ad Altiora - towards higher things?

Also how addictive is facebook?! It's more addictive that blogging can ever be, hey. Seeing everyone's (somewhat) intimate secrets out for the world to see is a guilty pleasure that you shouldn't really do but just can't help.

ahh must get back to nations

Alright So

2008-10-18T14:50:00.007+11:00

I should really really be doing the english essay on 'Raise the Red Lantern' that is due on Monday that I have barely started, and which is also my excuse for staying home, but, whatever. Homework (and studying, as i keep telling school certificate-bound Justin) is for lame people.

Also we had P.E. just under a week ago, and we were talking about blogs for some reason.Lawrence and Celia were on my team, and we (by which i mean Lawrence and I; Celia just had a kind of an 'alright ok whatever you say please stop talking to me before people think i am friends with you' look on her face) agreed to blog about what happened in P.E., which was basically:

Ewy and Tammy are such traitors. They DITCHED our team to join another one because 'nobody else would volunteer' to make the numbers 'even'. Pssh. So basically our team was left deficient in any real athletes. Except Lawrence. But he's only good at badminton so he was just as complain-y

Also I discovered that the only sport that I am good at is the sport of yelling abuse at the opposing team from the sidelines, and then mostly only at Shirley. Yelling at Yoosung's team only made me come off as a bit of bitch. But I'm not really! I'm just a feminist with a chip on her shoulder who hates all men and likes to use the word cunt a lot!

Also! it's still October!

Yay Noel Fielding!

Drums and Socks

2008-10-17T17:35:00.002+11:00

Hey all, no-one has posted for a while, so I thought I'd try and re-energize the blog.

So yeah, today was an alright day. Got some tests back, got 85% in history and 95% in science, which is ok. History I messed up bad though. But enough on marks.

So on sunday I got an email asking me to drum for the Soul Purpose band, and I said yeah cool. I learnt the songs, but for some reason we changed the song on the rehearsal on wednesday, so we had to spend thursday learning to new song, so that's why it might not have sounded so awesome today. But yeah. ANother thing, I took of my shoes in drama today, and my sock was a mess. both of them actually. Holes everywhere.

Check that out. It's awful.

I think I need new socks.

Just Thought

2008-10-12T13:03:00.002+11:00

That I'd take a quick break from my engineering report and write a post. Fun times. Yesterday I went to towers with a couple of mates, and we watched Eagle Eye. I know It's received some pretty shocking reviews, but I really enjoyed the movie, it was pretty interesting, and the musical score was really good. I downloaded it last night, and I'm listening to it now. I like it a lot. And now I feel guilty for not doing my work. Bye Now!

Timme

Blender

2008-10-07T15:32:00.002+11:00

The holidays are half over. Fun. So I've been spending most of it learning Blender, a free 3D graphics application. And I admit it's extremely confusing when you first start. Especially because it's GUI is different than what you would normally expect. Also it's reliance on hotkeys to quicken things up, which after I had learnt the basic ones, do, a lot. But anyway, I made my first model inadvertently. I just kept putting more parts on and on, so it started to look nicer. Anyway, here it is:

http://heirware.deviantart.com/art/Quickstep-class-Fighter-100038400
The texturing is just a quick job, downloaded from the Infinity forums (MMORPG game in the making, lots of people contribute models of spaceships, etc. and has a modeling community). And yes, it does look a lot like the ARC-170.

guys i'm fucking gutted

2008-10-06T21:39:00.003+11:00

kai's post ranking the zelda games caused more controversy than anything i have ever posted

)':

number of posts in the past month in which codie has posted

anything of substance: 0

noel fielding: 2

i think you guys are the real winners here

(also so as to not break with the only-posting-noel-fielding-in-october 'thing')

You know what sucks?

2008-10-06T13:00:00.003+11:00

When you're trying to sleep in, after staying up late, and you get woken up by your nephew screaming his lungs out. But that's not so bad. What's bad is when you hear your dad (who is as tall as you), complaining to your brother (who is taller than you) about how you beat him at mercy last night. Here's the good part. You overhear them say, let's get him back now. By this time you're probably going "oh shit". They come into your room, and they yell "stacks on!" and jump on top of you, crushing you. And then, just to add insult to injury, your brother gives you a massive nipple cripple. Yeah, that was my morning. Fun times huh?

Timme

The Living End

2008-10-05T21:42:00.003+11:00

EDIT: "Make the call" is also really good!

So today I was on my way to my grandma's house, and I spied a living end CD in my dad's car, so I put it in the stereo. From then on I spent 50 or so minutes listening to some of the best music I have listened to. It was their somewhat new album, white noise, and it's freakin awesome. The main singer is an extremely good vocalist, as well as being a wicked guitar player. The bass player plays a double bass rather than a bass guitar, and it sounds very good. The drummer is also good, but it's the bass and guitar that make this band great. Some of the songs, like "Hey Hey Disbeliever", "How do we know", "White noise", "Raise the alarm", "Loaded Gun" - I should stop, otherwise I'll end up naming all of them. These 5 though, are the best in my opinion. I especially love the guitar and bass rhythms in "Raise the alarm", "Hey Hey Disbeliever", and "How do we know". I'm not going to post links to any of their videos or myspace, because I think you should buy the album, or at least download the entire thing, because everything on it is well worth listening to.

Couple of other things - Grand final was today, and the sea eagles kicked storm's ass 40-0. It was a great match - Highlight was when a storm player jumped in the air to catch the ball and kicked one of his teammates in the head/neck. It was hilarious to watch in slow-motion.

And thankyou to the person who helped me out yesterday. I appreciate it.

Timme

this isn't a real blog post

2008-10-04T20:03:00.006+10:00

just me posting some more noel fielding-related video love

I'm also in love with Robots In Disguise (watch out it's a link to their myspace) and this is a rad song that you should listen to (although I'm not going to put it on any sort of autoplay COUGH EVERYBODY WHO OWNS A BLOG I'M LOOKING AT YOU)

New Nintendo DS announced

2008-10-02T16:24:00.002+10:00

http://kotaku.com/5057867/liveblogging-the-nintendo-press-conference-liveblog#c8090965

DSi. Looks pretty useless to me, if you have a DS lite already. It's got a .3 megapixel (...) camera and no GBA cartridge slot, is smaller, can download games to its internal memory (like the Wii's VC) and bigger screens.

Noel Fielding

2008-10-01T22:38:00.002+10:00

In lieu of real blog posting, I think I'm just going to give you guys some Noel Fielding love.

This one, it's difficult to understand him. But stick with it!

The Rankings of the Legend of Zelda Games

2008-09-28T17:53:00.003+10:00

Played some Twilight Princess today, starting off from one of my new files to just finished the Forest Temple. It was longer in my memory. I also forgot that you don't get Epona at that point in the game, which was a real kick in the teeth because I kept walking around Ordon, trying every Horse Reed and talking to the villagers, trying to find out where my damn horse was. Anyway, playing brought back memories of Majoras Mask and Ocarina of Time, so for no reason, I'll list them all (that I've played) in order of best to worst.

Majora's Mask
Link to the Past
Ocarina of Time
Wind Waker
Minish Cap
Link's Awakening
Twilight Princess

That doesn't mean Twilight Princess is terrible though.

INDIE KIDS SUCK.

2008-09-26T17:37:00.005+10:00

I haven't been doing anything nearly as cool as say, Codie or Jiye (15th birthday, yearly exams), and I'm too honest to make up anything incredibly interesting in my life. So let me entertain you with a post about the music I like, where I find new music, and why they even remotely matter to me.

You've noticed the title? It's actually part of the (numerous) graffiti signs on the wall of our changerooms at school, the same wall which is home to such delights as "if sluts could fly, north sydney girls would be an airport". "INDIE KIDS SUCK" is written very large above all the hooks for your bags and such, which got me thinking, apart from checking the artists on everyone else's ipods, what do nsgs listen to?

I guess that I will proclaim myself an "indie kid". Not necessarily completely indie, but a lot more indie than most girls in my maths class, whose best contribution to today's trivia quiz was to answer "Which band has Miley Cyrus's brother in it?" But then again, I have undergone a transformation in music taste over the last two years. Me, who used to hide Girlfriend magazines in my drawers and check take40 obsessively.

I can also tell you that the song currently doing the rounds in my head is You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos!. It's addictive and totally danceable, and all danceable songs not written by some ghostwriter behind a sugary-sweet pop twit earn a huge tick from me. I think it's so true that, however unfair, I tend to judge people by their playlist. Some people (believe it or not) have a cooler music taste than me, so therefore they must be way awesome.

And the thing is, it's very hard to change someone's opinion about their own music. It's an identity kinda-thing. According to my brother, his moods change with the music he is listening to. Specific music should be listened to when it feels right to. And, as we say in Alaska ...

MUSIC IS MY HOT HOT SEX.

Wikipedia Trawl

2008-09-25T21:55:00.010+10:00

Played some Halo, getting cheap kills with a tank. Fun times. Also making aircraft in the spaceship editor of Spore. Made a replica Viper Mk. II, but I don't really like it. The thumbnail looks ok, but when I use it, the fuselage is too wide to resemble a Viper. Also colouring/painting's a bitch.

And since I have nothing better to do, I've been just trawling through wikipedia. For some reason, I always end up in an aircraft-related topic, or something to do with games. Today I've learnt what 'Fox-2' in NATO Brevity code actually means (as well as glowworm, bandits, birds away, buzzer, the difference between 'cleared' and 'cleared hot', echelon, etc), how a flare countermeasure is deployed, that the only Israeli-only hotel in Mombasa was hit by a terrorist attack in 2002(and an aircraft fired at, man no wonder Israel's pissed), the difference between a starlight and an image intensifier night vision system, what a 'Tapetum lucidum' is, the code name of the original British-made chaff (but that's being unfair to the Germans, as they also invented it), and that the air force didn't like using the A-10 Thunderbolt II, because it thought Close Air Support roles were the duty of the Army and it's helicopter arsenal.

And yesterday, I looked over fulgurite, the Ho Chi Minh trail, Operation Frequent Wind, that the Raptor (battlestar galactica) was modeled after the EA-6B Prowler (but designed after an Apache helicopter), air interdiction (again), AWACS, all-aspect missiles (and subsequently head on engagement, side engagement, tail chase engagement), Starfish Prime (I wanted to go to one of those parties <_<), Fanhui Shi Weixing (recoverable satellites, which have a unique Oak Wood nose cone. wtf), the difference between aeronautics and aviation, and scoliosis.

It's a shame I won't remember most of it. And I think I had more that I wrote down, but firefox crashed.

Also, have I shown you guys this?: 'http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html'

This is a game to play with your friends, and for them to play with their friends.
Never enough to be crowded; never so few to be alone.
You can make your mark, but as in life, it’s not a contest.
It’s not about who you are; it’s about the things you do.
There is a small planet waiting for you to explore.
There is an empire waiting for you to overthrow.

It's a project by this one guy for a procedural MMO about creation, consequence and persistence. Interesting concept. Would be cool if it did not turn out to be vapourware.

Edit 26/09: Been playing around in terragen. Looked at it a long time ago, but I didn't make any sense of it. http://heirware.deviantart.com/art/Cold-Distance-99000552

i'm fifteen today!

2008-09-24T20:16:00.003+10:00

It has been a totally rad birthday today. I got breakfast in bed, which was the last slice of pan bread (<333), and got a decent amount of sleep the night before, so I wasn't super tired. I was feeling ill so my mum drove me to school, so I got there like twenty minutes before everybody else >_>

I had to hand in 40 Hour Famine money to Miss K, so rather than hang around in the quad and look at my ex-boyfriend I went to hang around in the D block corridor and look at documentation of the year ten/eleven Japan trip. Spoiler: I totally don't get a mention, even though I saw them all at a Tokyo train station.

Miss K was pleased with me, rather than a bit yell-y because the money was super late, and I went back to receive a birthday hug from Abi and Math. And then Angela came! And I think we are going out, because she gave me a rose (she did the floral arrangement herself, because she used to work in a florist and it looked REALLY pretty! Even though she tried to convince me otherwise) and chocolate (Tim Tams!).

Went to hang out at the library, where a few people wished me happy birthday (some even before Angela could yell 'GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS TODAY'), and then back to the quad where I got a present off Ying (a totally rad purse, and inside was a piece of paper saying NO).

Science! Was a video about gonorrhea and syphillis (apparently gonorrhea is the clap? I always thought it was chlamydia). Warning! Veronica Mars quote!

Health teacher: now each of you gets a card with an STD on it, and you have to tell your partner that you have it.

Gia: Miss? I think mine is a flower.

Teacher: Chlamydia is a disease, Gia.

Gia: Well we totally have it on a trellis in our garden.

Veronica: Your trellis is a whore. =)

Anyway, before we heard about this guy's adventures in syphillis, I got MORE Tim Tams off Ruben and Grumpy. I totally didn't hug Grumpy, which is a thing I shall rectify tomorrow.

In maths I got more chocolate off Ruben, and a card off Yeli and Tonia. It was awesome, because yesterday they were totally talking about how much their card was better than the other's, but apparently they decided to make a two-part card for me? Anyway, we sit on opposite sides of the room, and I was with Kai when Yeli came in and was all, 'Tonia do you have Codie's card?' and from what I gather her response was something along the lines of 'OH SHIT'.

I was kind of distracted at this point by Tim coming in and taking a packet of my Tim Tams. I protested, 'Hey! It's my birthday, you have to be nice to me!' At which point I was engulfed in a hug and, 'oh man! I can't believe I forgot!' Dude could've totally played it cool and just wished me a happy birthday, but now EVERYBODY knows he forgot. Also, I get to tease him mercilessly.

Now Tonia and Yeli have my card, and it is the best card ever! I kind of need photos to explain it but my camera isn't working, so I will try best as I can.

So it's a caterpillar right? Basically, a rolled up tube of paper coloured green with (scented!) highlighter, with antenna and eyes. And then, it transforms into a butterfly! Basically, a butterfly-shaped card is rolled up inside the tube. But yeah, it's a really pretty card and thank you Yeli and Tonia if you read this blog!

Also, Alex, Tom and Robert came to liberate our classroom and teach us socialist maths.

Dance! where we went off the weights room to jive. We only had one period of it so after stretching we danced like once and then bludged a bit >_> Then the teacher vs. year twelve softball game! Which I do not remember much of.

Also guys I got 2/25 on my non-calc (no, not joking, and no, I can't prove it to you, I threw the paper out). Ilke and Matt were being sweetie-faces and telling me that I shouldn't let it ruin my birthday, but basically I have a fantastic plan to get out of doing maths ever again:

Next year, I'm going to pretend I don't understand anything in Germany, then use the 'I was in Germany, I don't understand this!' for the rest of the year. Then! I'll do German Beginners with open high school for my HSC and not do maths. Woo!

So yeah, then we had lunch, where Raj, Akaash and Justin gave me a tetris-related poster/card. I promptly attacked them with hugs, which surprised Akaash a little bit. I then went off demanding birthday hugs from everybody that I saw.

After the softball game (we won!), Tom, Dietrich, Angela and I went to Parramatta to eat Hungry Jack's. The whole excursion was mostly just to eat the Quad-Stack: four beef patties, four slices of cheese and two rashers of bacons. Angela bet me $5 that I wouldn't be able to finish it. It turned out not to be that big, just dense. Man, it was a LOT of meat. The cheese was also gross: shiny, plastic, melted everywhere. Lots of grease on my fingers. It really wasn't that difficult to finish, so Angela owes me $5. I only started to feel ill after we ate some birthday chocolate of mine >_>

Angela wanted ice cream at 1993 prices, so we loitered at McDonalds for a while, where Tom gave me his present. A wallet, which is just like Angela's ('this will be a problem', she told me ominously) and a Radiohead album. Which he then promptly stole.

I couldn't fit it all in my bag, so he offered to keep it in his. Even though we saw them again after we left, because I am bad at direction, I only realised he had it as we were pulling away from Westfield -_-

So yeah then we got home, where I was greeted by the dulcet tones of my brother and sister's high-pitched whining. Mum kept my sister pacified by telling her it was my happy birthday and inviting her to sing for me, and then by making a big deal about giving me my birthday present.

And guess what it was? A laptop! Not as nice as the Pink Vaio... but it's pink and it's gorgeous! It's going to take forever to get it all how I want it, but it's just so pretty! And it's all mine.

Of course, this was kind of going over my head when my brother and sister were screaming and drawing on the walls and Piper keeps saying 'it's pink, mummy', and I can't get on the internet and Solitaire on Vista is REALLY WEIRD and it's nothing is right and I didn't even want a laptop in the first place...

Then I get an email from Taurima, the manager at the shop, wishing me a happy birthday from her and all the casuals. It's so nice that she went out of her way to wish me, a lowly volunteer, a happy birthday, and reminds me how much I enjoy working at the shop. And I don't have a shift until next Thursday! It's weird that I grumble about not getting work at a job I don't even get paid for, right?

So yeah that was my birthday.

You know what I hate?

2008-09-24T19:24:00.003+10:00

When people who are christians, supposedly good people, are incredibly slack to someone else. Teasing them about their marks, or their weight, or their dress sense, it's fucking slack and low. Seriously, just stfu and stop saying stuff like that, it's not nice, and you aren't doing anybody and favours, just pissing more people off. I especially hate it when people do it to try and fit in with someone else. I have noticed numorous people who I thought were decent say incredibly slack shit to others. Please, just fucking leave them alone.

P.S. sorry for all the swearing

so it's a fact.

2008-09-23T20:17:00.006+10:00

I'm the stupidest person in history.

This isn't about failing my science exam today, although I screwed that up. Or even my history essay, which was pretty much a failure too.

It's about the fact I don't realise the simplest things until AFTER I've done it.

So I'm happily typing up PD notes for tomorrow's exam on my sister's work laptop. As happy as you can, anyway, when it's about the disgusting side effects of various contraception and crazy times for hallucinogens, like having a distorted sense of time, depth, shapes. I finished at 6:15 and was feeling extremely proud of myself. Maybe I'd actually go to sleep before two am for the first time in these exam periods! (It's not because I've been studying either. I pretty much started at 10pm each night after reading fictionpress, soomping, and goodness knows what else. Then dad saw me do that three days ago and cut off internet connection, which should've stopped me from turning on my computer, but I played spider solitaire for hours instead.)

I knew I shouldn't have done it.

It's only AFTER I finish typing up about eleven pages from my PD textbook that I realise this stupid laptop isn't connected to the printer in my house.

Damn it.

So then I'm like, aha, I'll usb it. But then the stupid 2007 version of Microsoft Word froze on me, so I couldn't edit a word, let alone save the damned thing.

It was bad enough when I realised I'd have to type EVERYTHING UP ALL OVER AGAIN on a different computer. (And no, before you ask, I need notes, even though all the information is practically there in the book.)

Then I realised my sister's actual desktop WAS STARING RIGHT AT ME THE WHOLE TIME.
It had been there! If only I'd turned the desktop on, nothing would've gone wrong!

I was practically fuming then. It took me awhile before I sighed and started typing up everything all over again. So now it's 8:25 and it's two hours later than what it should've been because I'm such an idiot.

Ah well. I'm pretty sure the only exam I did well in was elective history and maybe English (depending on how the markers feel) so that's 1/4. Oh, whatevs. I'm just pleased they're almost over. Just PD after the informal and formal Year 12 assemblies tomorrow (that'll be so much fun <333)>

NO MORE EXAMS THIS YEAR. NO MORE STRESS. NO MORE OF ANY WORK.

Well, if I actually did my twenty minutes of revision each night, maybe I wouldn't be cramming and I'd get decent marks! But oh, wait! After a week of camp at our sister school in Armidale, we start Year 10 assessments.

So the work never ends.

But that's ages away. First I have to bask in the joy of having no exams, read Harry Potter all over again, buy a few books with the no money I have, celebrate, go out with my friends. Oh, and roll around in the hotel beds at Canberra from Thursday because my cousin's getting married on Saturday. =)

In Canberra.

Haha, sucks to be him.

so my mother says to me,

2008-09-22T21:34:00.002+10:00

"good to see you're still chasing after another girl's boyfriend."

It's been kind of strange thinking of myself as 'the girl who is kind of easy'.

a week before your wedding,

2008-09-20T10:20:00.003+10:00

fighting isn't the best idea.

Our whole family left for the city yesterday at 6, complete rush hour time to meet my cousin and his fiance for dinner. Except after about forty minutes of traffic, stuck in Town Hall, my mother recieves a call from him saying that they've just had a fight and he doesn't think they'll be able to come.

Not the best thing to say when we were stuck in the midst of angry drunk mobs, girls dressed in their best and businessmen all trying to force their way through crazy times of traffic. Running across six lanes with your hand held up to say sorry isn't good enough, when there are cars EVERYWHERE and their red lights are blinking on and off! So we were frazzled enough, but that was just the cherry on the cake. Or however that saying goes. (I so feel like Ziva from NCIS, except she's so allowed to because she speaks 239234 languages fluently. Yay, Dumbledore can speak Mermish. I just had to add that in, sorry.)

However, as Jiwon said, it would've been worse if they had come, putting up a pretense of fake smiles and fake compliments when they're so angry at each other. And for my cousin to say 'really, really, really sorry' ... it means a lot.

I was in the middle of exams, Jiwon left Sydney Uni expecting to be back in two hours so she can keep writing her thesis (and having heaps of paper lying around everywhere with statistics of the test results done by the guinea pigs of first year students. List all the ways you can use a book: throw at someone and knock them dead, put in bookshelves to look smart, pretend you're doing something when a cute guy walks past, just being some of them) so we were all like -___- no way does this happen.

But now that we were out in the city, and we didn't want to go home in vain, we went to an awesome buffet place. Being Asian, my mother made a beeline for the most expensive seafood but I was normal and went for the soup. Yum. After about sixteen plates each, we had all these delectable desserts that I'm not able to name. I can't make them, I just eat them you see. =) The waiters that kept coming back for the finished plates had a slightly bemused look, and the leftovers we handled in the Mr. Bean way. We've learnt so much from Mr. Bean. He is seriously my father's role model. Not that that's a good thing or anything.

My sister, Jiwon, was speaking in Korean about how she wanted to leave before the waiter came back because it was so embarassing just as he came along and said 'excuse me' in korean to my mum. I burst out laughing and couldn't stop, and Jiwon was mortified. She slid down into her seat and blushed like there was no tomorrow. It didn't help that we'd been commenting on how they only hired cute waiters, either.

So in the end, we had a decent time. I just hope my cousin and his fiancee is alright. They fight about the silliest things, I swear- I remember they'd gotten so annoyed at each other he couldn't even propose to her properly. He ended up doing it on a park bench six hours later. My whole extended family hadn't liked the woman much: their reasons being:
#1, too short (with ridiculously high heels she's still a head shorter than me, i think).
#2, had 'too revealing' clothes on.
#3, has too expensive tastes (which is true. you should see where they're going on their honeymoon.)
and much else besides. But I think she's a pretty decent lady, although she's just as stubborn, if not more, as my cousin which might not be the best possible thing.

It'd been a long distance relationship for ages, since they'd met in korea at this camp thing, and he wasn't really committed but she was absolutely in love with him. Two years down the track, they're getting married. *giggles*

So that's it. If you really love someone, hold on tight.

With that happy message, I should go off and study now. Civil War, American Revolution, algebra, confusing mathematical equations ... here I come.

Although I'll probably end up reading. Or lying in bed, twiddling my thumbs.

I have been missing in action.

2008-09-16T21:27:00.000+10:00

This is a placeholder post until I can think of something to write about.

Poetry

2008-09-16T20:52:00.002+10:00

Well, because we have been looking at poetry and stuff in English, I decided to write some today during school, because I got bored. They're pretty crap, but then again so is your face, so it's all fine.

The March

As we the fallen, head back from war
We enter a brand new place
A place, not home, but far away
We keep up our marching pace

And we march forward, on and on
Into the burning sun

And as we look into the sun
Our eyes no longer feel it's burn
Our pain has gone, far it has run
Leaving shame to take its turn

And we march forward, on and on
Unto the burning sun

And as we, the fallen, look back on our lives
We remember the pointless fights
Our brothers who lived, cursing us who had died
Our families who cried far into the night

And we march forward, on and on
And vanish into the burning sun

Enjoy,
Timme

feminist blog post yay

2008-09-16T20:33:00.000+10:00

So I ask this guy what he thinks about John McCain choosing Sarah Pallin as his running mate, and his response? Oh, she's very pretty.

Of course, of course, his first response is on her appearance. Because she's a woman, and the automatic response is to judge her, not on her position on any issues or experience as a politician or ANYTHING, but her appearance.

Everybody hated (and probably still does) Amanda Vanstone, not because they particularly disagreed with her party or her policies, but because she was a whale.

Everybody hates a certain English teacher because she's had a few kids and sometimes women put on weight. Quite frankly, I'm astounded at the woman's audacity to even go out in public, and put her offensive figure in plain sight, much less presume to teach us.

When I was in primary school and everybody hated a friend of mine for some reason, Don, being a hilarious guy, informed me that her weight was 'sideways eight. You get it, infinity? Because she's really fat!'. Never mind the fact that this girl wasn't even a little bit on the weighty side, and that we hadn't even begun thinking of our weight as a thing. You don't like the girl as a person, so call her fat! The most important part of any woman is her appearance, the best way to get back at her is to suggest that it is in some way inadequate!

Sucks to have a vagina, I guess.

I have no lollies and I must scream.

2008-09-15T21:23:00.003+10:00

No, I'm not that crazy.

All the collective 'Economy of China' tabs are glaring at me to do my work. I'd hit up Spore, but it sucks away too much time and I really have to do this economies assignment. So instead I've been watching the first season of Scrubs and playing a couple of games of Gameboy Tetris (the only real tetris). Yay for my high score being ~80k! But to be fair I haven't played in a while. <_<. I also have a strange cravings for sweets and to play super mario land, which usually isn't all too un-rare.

My hands smell like popcorn.

2008-09-10T16:35:00.003+10:00

Why do only private schools get awesome authors to go talk to them ):

Also need to re-read Saving Francesca so I get what Jiye is talking about.

ALSO, the T thing? What?

I remember a character in a Melina Marchetta book was named after Anna Karenina but, please explain?

Coincidence?

2008-09-10T09:27:00.004+10:00

I THINK NOT.

Melina Marchetta came to our school yesterday for a talk (Joce and Jenny had read a book of hers the night before to not feel out of place, eyeroll) and guess what?

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and a book about Trotsky were displayed in the library.

The T thing indeed. I was giggling for so long it's not funny. Nobody found it as hilarious as I did, although being in love with the book may be why.

She talked about her new book Finnikin of the Rock which is coming out later this month. It's so preeetty. It's also her first fantasy book, so I'll see how that goes. While the plot does seem a bit stereotypical, the excerpt she read out was quite beautiful. Lots of semicolons, which I quite adore. And the most exciting thing: she's writing a sequel to Saving Francesca!

SQUEEEEEE.

It's set when they're 21/22, so Will will be back in Australia, and Thomas is apparently the main character. So excited it's not funny in any way possible.

Oh! Wait, something doubly as exciting: While Will isn't based on a real character, Jimmy is practically a guy she used to teach named Nick. I don't care if he's 25 now. I want TO MARRY HIM. =DDD

Finally

2008-09-05T22:27:00.002+10:00

I am posting again. Maybe. Anyway, to kick things off, here is the story I submitted for my english major work. I haven't got marks back yet, but I'll put them on when I do.

Who are they?
The first of August. One week ago. That’s when the world ended. I don’t know if anyone else is out there. I might be the only one still left alive. I can hear them. Scratching at the walls, the doors, the windows. Trying to get in. Trying to get me. The world has ended. And all I know for sure is that I will die.

John looks up from his writing. The decision to keep a diary isn’t based on wanting people to read his story. He starts writing it to keep himself sane. It is the only way he knows how to deal with everything that has happened. He isn’t a fighter; he can’t take out his anger and frustration by killing them. He used to be a writer in his spare time, short novels his speciality. He is hunched over a small wooden table, the only piece of furniture in the small, bleak motel room. Dark shapes wander around outside the windows, inches from the glass. A low moaning sound invades the air from all around. John picks up his pen. He knows the only thing to do is to keep writing.

“John honey, I’m going to the shops. I’ll be taking Emily with me!” Those were the last words I heard my wife say, the last time I saw her, the last time I saw my daughter. The date was the thirty-first of July. The day had started like any other, waking up early, eating breakfast, showering and kissing my wife and daughter goodbye as they left for the shops like they did every Thursday morning. However, today was somewhat of a special day. I had an interview with Wallace & Co, a book publishing company. They rang me up to offer me a deal, an amalgamation of all my stories. I was nervous with anticipation. Unfortunately, this good feeling wouldn’t last.

John writes furiously, his pen scrabbling across the pages, ink flying across his hands and the desk. He pays no attention to the shadows that howl outside the window. They are loud now and getting louder. They are close now, and getting closer...

I couldn’t wait to call my wife. Wallace & Co had offered me the deal of a lifetime. Five hundred thousand dollars and all I had to do was hand over the books that I had written. My wife didn’t answer her phone, which wasn’t unusual. Rather than waste time trying to call her, I decided to head to the shops. Chances were that I would run into her there, considering she often loved to spend half the day there. I wanted to tell her the good news. I wanted to see the smile on her face.

I pulled up next to a black sedan in the parking lot. As I walked towards the escalators I noticed that they weren’t moving. It looked like the power was out. Walking up the escalators as if they were stairs, I approached the ground floor of the shopping centre.

Silence.

That was my first impression of the shops. No sound, not even a whisper of a breath. No music coming from any of the stores either. I began to get really worried. I pulled out my phone.

No reception.

It was dark on this floor. I decided to keep walking, trying to find another escalator or set of stairs. I didn’t like this ghost floor. I set off at a slow pace. I hadn’t walked for long before it hit me. There was supposed to be a glass ceiling on this floor somewhere, the food court I thought. Maybe everyone had headed there when the power went out.

John’s pen has run dry. This does not faze him. He has lost too much to simply give up now. He stabs the pen into his arm, coating the tip in red, like a grotesque modern day quill. He continues to write his story, all the while ignoring the increasingly frenzied shuffling coming from outside the room. The window has developed a crack in it, and the door is starting to splinter. It is only a matter of time...

I ran, my feet flying across the floor. As I ran I became aware of a faint sound, something so soft it was barely audible. The sound entered my ears, yet my brain could not process what it was.

As I neared the food court the sound grew louder. It reminded me of the sound a small toy makes. Toys. Toys meant children. That meant – I hoped – that people were there.

I continued on, the sound growing stronger with each step. I prayed a quick prayer as I ran along. “God,” I said, “Please let my family be ok.” I rounded the final corner.

It was empty. No-one was there. A lance of sunlight penetrated the clouds outside and made its way down to the centre, lighting up a few tables in the food court. A sense of confusion gripped me. The tables still had shopping bags and trolleys nearby. Food still lay on the tables, steam rising from the hot meals. A frown creased my face. Where was everyone? Purses and handbags were still hanging off chairs. Prams were still parked next to tables.

My heart rate increased, and suddenly I realised where I had heard that sound before. My daughter. Emily. She had a toy that sounded just like that. I scanned the food court frantically, hoping, praying that it wouldn’t be there. My wife had taken Emily in her pram. My eyes alighted on a table in the far corner. Climbing on top of the other tables, I raced across them, leaping from one tabletop to another. Plates clattered to the floor in my wake. I reached the table.

“No!” I screamed. “Please, no!”

Emily’s pram, and sitting in it, my wife’s handbag. I lifted the handbag. Sitting there was a small electric toy. It emitted a shrill beep as I picked it up. The sound stopped.

With tears in his eyes, John continues to write his story. Page after page of ink-stained sheets litter the small desk in the room. Suddenly his head snaps up. The noise - It’s stopped.

With a large bang the door and windows shatter. John rises shakily to his feet, blood seeping out of multiple wounds in his arm. He faces his adversaries head on, a determined look on his face.

“It’s over,” he says.

a conversation

2008-09-02T15:42:00.003+10:00

between these two year eights who I know decently:

"For Shakespeare Day, I'm dressing up as Portia. And Vanessa as the pound of flesh."

I swear I wasn't like that a year ago.

--

And OH MY GOD Kai has spore. How you stoop kids are going to survive him is beyond me. I don't know what's worse- me not being able to talk to him 24/7 on msn, or him chanting SPORESPORESPORE all over the place and forcing me to smash the computer into pieces.

In the school library waiting for debating training. Tim Bailey's coming along soon, to do the weather announcement: it's an advertisement for our Pet Show on Saturday that Year 9 organises to raise money for the guide dogs association. $30, 000 was made last year or something along those lines.

i am insanely jealous

2008-08-30T13:53:00.002+10:00

of myrika's bookshelf. She's my favouritest author in the world on fictionpress, and I always knew she bought heaps of books, but ... O_________O

http://moreta.livejournal.com/162888.html#cutid1

Where does she get all this money from! When does she read all these books again and again?

I WANT THOSE BOOKS. I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT.

I don't know how she'd ever want to leave that room.

And my sister and I thought *we* had a decent library.

so

2008-08-29T16:26:00.001+10:00

i broke up with my boyfriend, am going to live in germany for six months, and my favourite feminist blog is broken! i am having a hard week

UPDATE: feminsting is back to normal, so you can all rest easy folks

people who have known me

2008-08-28T15:34:00.005+10:00

for awhile, but not too well, always think I'm the type to laugh off the idea of love. A few have been surprised that I have emotions at all, other than my obsessive adoration for Harry Potter. But it's always the ones that are so loud and cynical that seem to be hopeless romantics. Well, most girls are, I've got to admit. And I'm one of them.

Well, for fictional characters anyway. Give me Gilbert Blythe, give me Captain Wentworth (Mr Darcy is so overrated) and I'd be happy, although Anne of Green Gables and Anne Elliot are such good matches respectively that I might even let go. (And yes, Edward Cullen. As well as all those millions of guys on fictionpress. I know enough about them to say I stalked them for a job. ;D)

But when the stories don't turn out right. When they end up leaving each other, or one of them DIES, or one just doesn't love the other in that way. I seriously end up moping for days, wailing and bawling. Nothing else can get such a rise out of me. And watching clips of Atonement, Little Women, Love Actually and Becoming Jane yesterday(I thank God for youtube every day) I felt like clawing my eyes out and throwing myself off a bridge. I respect the authors for their decisions and may come to like them even more for it MUCH, MUCH LATER but I always force myself to think they'd gotten together in the end- I'm a believer in Jo and Teddy, you see. Poor Jane Austen. If I was her, I'd have ended up not marrying anyone anyway, because nobody could win over her characters.

I haven't even watched Atonement, and I don't think I'll ever be able to unless I have lots of chocolate and my own Ryan Henderson next to me. Kai says it wasn't that sad, just a surprise at the end but how can it not be?

The few clips I hunted down of Little Women were good but not enough to satiate my hunger. It's a brilliant cast- Winona Ryder as Jo, who is perfect for the part, if a little too pretty; Claire Danes (Romeo+Juliet) as Beth; Kirsten Dunst as Amy and Christian Bale as Teddy. Yeah, Batman. I was all O_O and thought I'd be weirded out to see Batman as one of my favourite characters but it was very well done. The youtube comments are quite hilarious- mostly preteen girls going "You bitch, if you knew he was Batman you wouldn't've said no!" except with less sentence structure, broken grammar and an extreme overuse of exclamation marks.

I really must go and borrow it from the video store. Or ask dad to download it for me. But after exams. -_-

In Religion today, we got our assignments that we're due to do in the first month of Term 4 which is our Armidale Project. Three groups go down to Armidale, the week after each other, for a 'cultural experience' and stay at our sister school boarding house for a week and visit farms, museums and such. So for all subjects, when we're at school, we're expected to do our own 'Independent Learning' which is practically just sheets. But we got our Religion one early, since our teacher's off to supervise exams from next week and it's quite interesting. She was all "You only have to make a summary, although if you're Jiye Kim, you're going to end up writing six volumes of information on it." But there really is too little space. I mean, she gave us one line to explain the special duties of the Levites!

What cracked me up though was a quote Paul Keating had said about John Howard: "He's Lazarus with a triple bypass." When my teacher read it out, I was pretty much laughing my head off while everybody was like '...' Just because nobody else ever pays attention in chapel. >_> But still, at least a few should've known who he was!

And if you don't know who he was, he was Martha and Mary's brother, the one Jesus raised from the dead.

Now does it make more sense? ;D

EDIT; Oh! My friends now think I'm mentally unstable (not that they ever didn't) because I thought it was highlarious how one of my friends' older sister's boyfriend, when she broke up with him, sent her a last gift- a cd packed with viruses. I know it's outrageous and a terrible act, but isn't it kind of XD-able?

The Saddest Thing

2008-08-27T23:24:00.002+10:00

The saddest thing in the world is an empty restaurant.

Messing around with HDRI

2008-08-25T18:47:00.009+10:00

High Dynamic Range Imaging
Basically taking a photograph, repeating but with lots of different exposures, ranging from very dark to very light, then using a program to consolidate them into a single, awesome picture. Anyway, since none of us actually has a professional camera + tripod + remote picture taker, I have to do it in photoshop, which kinda cheapens it, but hey, it looks alright for our level right?

Used Justins images cause his camera is way better quality.

Normal
HDRI
Normal
HDRI
HDRi
HDRI
HDRI
HDRI, my own pic this time

six sheets of equations

2008-08-25T16:40:00.005+10:00

was what was left for us in maths, as our usual teacher was away for some reason or another. So whining my way through binomials, trinomials and whatnot I kept asking the substitute (who's pretty cool) if I could just skip every second or something. She said no, saying it wouldn't be engraved in my head otherwise. And I am quite very hopeless at maths: (Mum: Coming in the top five at a private school is nothing! What about all your friends topping James Ruse and Baulkham Hills!) but even I can do Year 9 level equations (JR kids do that at the start of Year 7, how is that Year 9 work, Jiye?) pretty easily.

So I blitzed through it, the fastest I could, in hope that she'd let me read Temple- Matthew Reilly's standalone- but nooo.

Substitute: Why are you discussing books with the girl next to you? Go back to your work.
Me: But I've finished it!
S: You were complaining the whole time! And nobody else has finished!
Ellen: Jiye's infamous for complaining her way through everything, and aggravatingly finishing it thirty minutes before everyone else. *everybody agrees*
S: You so have not, bring it over.
Sabrina: *checks* Wow, she really has.
Me: SEE!
Sabrina: Wait, you forgot this last page.
Me: *screams in outrage* What! I am not doing another page! I wish I could drop maths in Year 11.
Sarah (what's up with all my friends having names that start with S): You can, my sister did.
Me: I'm Asian, of course I can't drop maths. I tried to discuss it with a level head with my mum, and all she did was scream at me.
Sarah: My sister dropped it last year.
Me: Your family is the furthest from Asianness ever. They're nice, for one. Also fully Australianised to the point where you can't speak a word of Cantonese! And they want you to have sex before marriage and try different types of alcohol at an early age! How is that typically Asian?

The substitute teacher (and the rest of the class) thought that conversation hilarious, to the point where she let me go for disrupting everybody from their maths work, saying it was an interesting dinner table topic starter.

So this is all I am now. An interesting point of discussion.

(May I note here that my mother sounds very horrible in this post, but I love her to death and is verily decent. But as nice as she can be, she's Asian.)

85 degrees!

2008-08-24T16:32:00.002+10:00

That is a delicious cake shop on George St that is absolutely fabulous and gorgeous and wonderful and amazing. More on that later. The past few days have been a whirlwind of excitingness and fun that has basically just bowled me over. But it's been so fun, so joyful, and it restored my confidence in myself and the world.

Friday morning is Daffodil Day. Did you know, when you go to sleep early, you end up waking up at 3am, then 4am, then 5am in the morning, intermittently stabbing your inner body clock and generally getting very annoyed at the world. You feel half-alive when you stumble awake. Then when you have to take a bus at 5:30 in the morning, you're just really, really freaked out by the surreal emptiness of Epping Road, the lack of any other pedestrians or the feeling that there is any living thing around you. The bus steams through empty streets, and the occasional flash of light here and there is the light reflecting off workmen's jackets.

Plus standing for four hours continuously, putting on your best smile and your wonderfully awkward, inviting greetings is very very tiring. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to wear flats without socks for the whole of Friday? The merchandise was pretty (I want that diamante pin!) but the best thing was the silky yellow volunteer sash. Which, unfortunately, I didn't get to keep. Looking at a seagull sitting on top of Queen Victoria's head, listening to the bells of the town hall clock, and inwardly kicking Ivan the talking dog for four hours isn't my idea of a fun time, but it was fun getting the retail experience, helping cancer research and doing something no one else in my grade was doing.

Party-times on Friday night! Soooooooo organised. Organised to the maxx. Sabrina is a total sweetie and gave me a ticket to the plc movie because I had nothing else to do (someone quick find a creative way to repay her) and although the movie wasn't great, they give you a drink and popcorn with it, yay! 6:30 approached and we headed to Cafe Bello, amazed at sabs' scary decorating skills and her totally professional lolly boxes. Then as the totally-not-surprising-surprise, I got to either hide under the table or around the corner. I chose the latter, and I have learnt that I am very bad at surprising people.

What I have learnt from Friday's party:

Fake champagne is the best.
Never break bottles in front of people. It scares them.
Always point party poppers away from people's faces.

Saturday was the quiet-ish day. Only a tip for anyone reading - if you go to the Chatswood food court, and you go to the fish and chips store, they have the biggest calamari rings ever, and I really do mean ever. They are huuuuuuuge and gorgeous, and so are their chips. ;D free endorsement! AND CHURROS. Another free plug, Choclateria san Churros, at the top of Westfield, has the most goooorgeous chocolate dip evaaaaaar. Go go go. It's delectable and tempting and rich and creamy and sinful and totally bad for you, but honestly, when you're eating the chocolate out of the pot with a spoon, you don't care.

Hockey was excellent, played two games 8-0 and 5-0. Played goalie first game, I could have sat down all match and the ball didn't come anywhere near me. Coupled with a seafood paella and my first ever taste of french onion soup, Saturday was the fun times.

Today was interesting. I woke up in the morning thinking how excellent it would be if we walked to Chatswood today, I could get some excercise, a copy of Yen, get some food to cook for dinner tonight, we could get some more of those churros. By the time everyone else had woken up, I'd discarded that idea and started thinking about exactly how I would start my assignment. But then Norman, without any word from me, started saying how he'd love to walk to Chatswood too. Mum ruined the plan by saying how we should walk to the city instead.

Now might I clarify that walking even to Chatswood is no mean feat. It's about 4.5 kilometres, mostly uphill. It would take us about an hour. But walking to the city meant either taking a route on a major road, which we weren't very familiar with, or taking a up-and-down route which was scenic but longer. The route was at least 10 kilometres long. But we did it! We devised drinks (a Berocca with some sugar and salt) and took a packet of gummy bears. It was fun talking to my brother along the way, and soon into the walk we saw a number of interesting number plates, including the numberplate CAR. Stating the obvious?

It was funny at the time.

We got there eventually, stopping for a sourdough roll at Crows Nest, passing school, going down through Milson's Point trying to find the staircase to the pedestrian part of the harbour bridge, looking at the gorgeous cafes of Kirribilli, getting lost amongst all the tourist hordes in the Rocks, and walking down George St to the QVB. The best benefit? Working off the stomach I've gotten from all that chocolate, of course.

Got the groceries, got the copy of Yen, got a pretty new gray country road bag (my mum's choice, not mine). What to get now? Sweets, of course. I'd offered to get my brother easyway - like a good asian sister - but no. Why not stop at the cake shop up George St? I've just finished the most gorgeous strawberry hokkaido cake in between typing up this blog post, and it makes me sad looking at the bit of mock cream on the plate and the little 85° heart-shaped logo lying on the plate. I want mooore.

My roast lemon chicken is waiting for me. I should go.

>_>

2008-08-20T10:01:00.007+10:00

article: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/phone-a-friend-in-exams/2008/08/19/1218911717490.html
comments: http://blogs.smh.com.au/newsblog/archives/your_say/019793.html

This is the assessment of learning that my class undertook. The comments are quite devastating, and it's quite hilarious to see my classmates around me screaming their heads off, because people are gaining upon their money and status. I'm too outraged to think straight. Complain, but damn you smh comments, stop ganging up on freaking private school girls. AND STOP BITCHING ABOUT MY ENGLISH TEACHER. I highly suggest reading all the comments, they're quite hilarious/bitchy/ARGH-worthy.

What I wrote:

'Thank goodness there is more positive feedback than say, the earlier pages. My classmates and I, having done this task yesterday, read through many of the responses here and were quite outraged. Firstly, it is ridiculous for anyone to make personal attacks on either the teacher Mrs. Coleman, my school, or any private school in general. There are 'rich kids' in both the public and private education system, and in both, the majority of parents work in hope that their children can have a better future.

Also, may I point out that most of you do not even understand what the assessment task was asking. Having undertaken this, there are both advantages and disadvantages. As students of the technological era, this assessment task was just a taste of what could come in the future. Only a portion of our class mark, it had nothing to do with our yearlies, let alone the HSC. The comment made by Mrs. Coleman was radical thinking yes, but after all, didn't people complain just as much when any development was made?

It is not as if this task would overtake all the written exams in high school, but a mere task to see how well students of the Y/Z generation could incorporate technology that they used all the time - internet, mobile phone and such- into their work.

To all the complaints recieved, saying that this would only benefit the rich, private school girls with parents who could pay for private tutors, may I ask you this question. If students are memorising essays or at least quotes to use in essays, for their exams, is it any different than being able to find it on the internet? In today's generation, it is not the problem of finding the information - we can thank google for that - but being able to apply this knowledge.

Mrs. Coleman explained the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy to us, which I ask any of you doubters to look up on wikipedia. Knowledge is only the basis of the human brain, and the application of knowledge, such as evaluation and synthesis is the important skill, as I and everybody else learnt through this Open Techology Assessment.

We were taught conventions of sonnets, of persuasive skills used in oral, aural and written documents, and how to analyse them. And believe me, I have made less grammatical errors and spelling mistakes than many who are complaining that because of these assessments, we will be relying heavily on technology. Some of the questions, such as 'Is the Olympics a waste of monetary finances? Discuss' and evaluating Charles Dickens' Scrooge's character in an excerpt from the Christmas Carol, we did not bother using technology at all since we had learnt extensively on it in class. The education system will never change into a technological era, and I truthfully don't want it to. However, I think this was a decent exercise, especially for the 'real world' where cramming information into our heads the hour before the exam won't help. '

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EDIT; I'm not quaking in angriness anymore, hooray. After the media frenzy this created- many radio stations from all different states in australia, channel nine 6pm news as well as the foxtel one apparently, and the smh as well as the daily telegraph, I can say this for certain:

You thought the SMH was trustworthy? You thought the news was trustworthy? Think again; they modify all your statements, add some, delete some and pretty much do everything for attention.

I'm never, ever trusting the media easily again. Not even the Sydney Morning Herald. I've lost all faith in it.

Email

2008-08-19T20:16:00.001+10:00

Some people have been asking me stuff about the water bottle rocket and other such blog-related things. It's alot easier for me if you just email your questions to me.

timmeisthebest@hotmail.com

Enjoy (Note: This will be out in the sidebar under my name as well)