oh life, the most variable and constant thing of all...

I have been wanting to make this blog for a long time but due to moving around very frequently and lack of internet I never really found the time.

I'm in Taipei at the moment at the DongWu Hotel; we flew in on Tuesday from Hong Kong and before that I spent 2 days at my grandparents' apartment in Guangzhou.

I used to visit Guangzhou with my family every 2 years or so and I used to think it was an overurbanised, overly-grey concrete wasteland. However, as I grew up, I somehow started learning things and becoming inspired whenever I go back to visit. There is just something irreplaceable about a hometown, albeit one that I can barely remember. The important thing is the tiny snippets of memories that flood back to me when I stand at the physical locations of my childhood -- the shop where I bought small mantou snacks next to our house, the paved courtyard of the kindergarten where I would wave goodbye to my grandmother every morning and make her promise that my grandfather would pick me up in the afternoon on his bike (very important, I would be deeply saddened if he showed up without a bike), the commercial sector of town where I would go shopping with my grandmother and politely go with her choices of clothing which would always end up making me look like unicorn's vomit.

It is a wonderful coalescence of the past and present.

I found my uncle's old diaries lined up neatly on his shelf. I picked a blue one up -- 1986. 7 years before I was born. It was so menial -- date, weather, temperature, recount of the day's events. Twice a week, consistently, for a year. The writing reached just halfway through the notebook; the rest of it was blank. And then 1987 began -- a green notebook. It's amazing to think that at the time it was written, there was no such thing as internet or personal, affordable computers. The everyday events in that notebook were so ordinary and yet, from the perspective of our society, so extraordinary. Nobody would lead such a boring life! This is why I find it amazing. Although at that time it was just a way for him to write down and record events in his life and to spend time on when bored, its sheer age makes it so precious today; I felt as if the paper could disintegrate in my hands and cherished history crumble forever.

The room where the diaries sit is a record of my uncle's life. Outside of the shelf, there is a large stack of WoW giftcards. A large frame containing his wedding photo hangs above the bed and a gigantic teddy bear sits before the pillows. There are many shelves in this old apartment room, as he has since moved out. The older ones contain his old bug collection and holiday photos with his friends -- I see my twenty-year-old aunt in a group photo in Tibet; the first time they met. The newer cupboards had the inescapable essence of woman -- my aunt's jewellery, her perfumes, her makeup. It's amazing to see how life can change.

This time, since I was only staying for a short time, my uncle took half days off work to show me around the city. I always found it so interesting how my uncles are always so friendly and familiar with me even though I barely talk to them normally. But as I flipped through the old photo albums, I saw myself a small-potato-sack-sized baby in my uncle's arms. The date read September 1993. I was 2 months old -- my uncle looks almost identical to how he is today, minus a few white hairs. It's interesting how quickly things can change. I flipped another page and saw a family photo with all my cousins. 2002. In just 10 years between 1992 and 2002, my family grew by 4 children, all of whom the adults loved dearly. I was the first, though perhaps not necessarily the first to realise how amazing the potential of the present is; what we do now will certainly determine where we end up later. And it is this unknown that is so beautiful.

More travel updates soon maybe. I felt inspired at some point but no time/energy to turn inspiration into words ):

From beginning to end of high school.... part 3

And then... this year.

I grew closer to so many people this year that I never knew before. Everyone is so friendly and warm, and staff members treated us like peers. It is an environment that promotes community and natural maturity. I love being able to sit down and talk with anyone in the year 13 uniform and have a chat. I love being able to pass them in town or newmarket and wave and smile, even if we don't share any classes or if we have never talked previously. There's just something about STCC that ties everyone together, and there are no ulterior motives, or reasons, why I would want to say hi to someone I barely know. I just do it because I want to. Plus, this year made me feel like I grew up so fast, I didn't have time to look where I was going or take care with where I was stepping. But, all turned out well.

What an awesome year it's been. It's been such a different experience than previous years; like a roller coaster ride, it's gained its own momentum and events just stacked up week after week, day after day, and before we knew it we are here -- at the final stop on the train schedule. It's been a long ride, but it's time to get off the train now and make our ways up from the underground subway station into the busy world, our feet firmly planted on the ground and only the empty sky above us containing our growth.


Subway Entrance by Themeny

Walking out of school today in my white shirt and long skirt, knowing that it's the last time we will ever wear them, was a strange experience. I will never walk into the school as a student again. It's time to put away our 'mauve' ribbons forever. I will never have to address my teachers as 'Mr.', 'Miss' and 'Mrs'. I will again never be constrained into the "St. Cuthbert's Student" suit, and yet I will miss it.

I will miss the traffic jams between Hunter and Robertson, I will miss Mrs. Ali's unreadable handwriting, I will miss intruder drills where we all hide under the desks, I will miss the THUDs from Mr. Torrie running into walls in adjacent classrooms, I will miss Cheeky's perfectly-timed wolfwhistles, I will miss Mr. Cuer's bright turquoise shirt and lunging at the whiteboard waving markers, I will miss Mr. Bryden's lying about making all the physics equipment, I will miss Mr. Ball's dry jokes, I will miss Mrs. Saunder's kitten heels, I will miss wobbly desks in exams, I will miss the "draw a heart/smiley/elephant if you are bored" engravings on tables, I will miss badly timed fire drills and having to walk with disgruntlement all the way over to the sports field, I will miss waiting for year 9s to pass with their house bags, I will miss seeing Gabby's face all around the school on Open Day, I will miss Mrs. Rodgers writing on the wall in Year 10 and telling Ruby not to talk back, I will miss wheelie chairs in the art department and I will miss the (questionable presence of) fleas in the common room and I will miss getting up early to ensure parking on market road every morning and I will miss Zoe running into me in corridors and Marijke playing shooting games in English class and Steph JY punching my boobs (okay I just realised how amazingly lesbian that sounded and I apologise for any awkwardness but in my defence you are the one punching my boobs), but most of all I will miss everyone for all their eccentricities and awesomeness and presence around me...

I think it's true, not many people graduating from their high schools would have had the experiences we have had, and we have been giving such amazing tools and background for our future. I can be anything I want now, and yet under this paralyzing freedom I don't know where I will go or what I will do, and I can do nothing at all for the time being.

I require time to get a sense of my bearings, which hopefully this long summer holiday will provide.

Being vomited out of the subway station now, we see an intersection. Roads in every direction, people scuttling past -- which road will you choose to travel on? Retracting back into the security of the warm subway is the only option our freedom doesn't grant us; life is a one way train, and we did not think to buy return tickets before we came.

From beginning to end of high school.... part 2

I just watched the leavers video and teared up a little bit at the end ): I don't know why, I'm happy to graduate and I'm ready, but I'm just really touched by everything the school has given to me and I feel really, really lucky to have been given the opportunity to attend such an amazing environment for the last 7 years...


Picking up from where I left off last time, year 10 was one of the years that really changed me. At the beginning of the year, I hacked off all my hair. I don't really know why it happened, but I just decided to cut my hair short suddenly, the day before school started. I was still pretty withdrawn, but starting to take more responsibilities and be more socially conscious. It was a slow growth mainly haha, but I think I grew up a lot in the second half of 2008. This can be largely attributed to Kahunui. I came out of my shell a lot. I guess I never really realised how isolated and quiet I was til people pointed it out. I tried to open up more to people around me, not only close friends but classmates as well. I learnt that it didn't matter if we weren't familiar, because all friends are strangers at first as well. Spending a month with these people brought out frustration, boredom and helplessness as well as confidence, self-realisations and fierce independence. And it is the latter qualities that are permanent; hardships are temporary, but experience is forever. The last time I cried, truly cried, was on the last day of Kahunui. I don't really know what caused it -- it was as I was hugging the instructors, and I realised that I will probably never see these people ever again, yet they have impacted on my person so much and changed my perspective on the world so dramatically -- Kahunui is naturally an experience that I never want to forget.


^4 leaf clover found at a firedrill

Year 11 turned out to be one of the most enjoyable years so far. At the beginning of the year, I was seriously considering transferring to AIC. I even went to sit their entrance exam and had an interview. I got a scholarship, but ultimately decided not to go. Maybe it was intuition, and I'll never know what would have happened, but I can't imagine not staying at STCC for the rest of high school. The environment at AIC seems so stark, so cold compared to at STCC. I'm so glad I made the choice to stay. I had a mini crisis school-wise in the choice between IB and NCEA and subject choices later on in the year. I had to do a lot of soul searching and decide what I really wanted... it was the first time I had to make a tough decision like that and make it definitively. For anyone who knows me well, you know that I suck at decision making, so you can imagine how agonisingly painful this period of my life was for me hahahaahah. But, it all worked out. And i have to say, choosing to drop biology was one of the best choices I have ever made. I think I grew and matured so much in Year 11 that I regard everything prior to the summer between 2009 and 2010 to be 'the last stage in my life'. I feel like I have been reinvented through change that year; I don't know whether it's a good or bad thing, but that's just how I see it.

Year 12 was not really memorable for me school-wise. I just feel like the entire year was spent in the Art Department, and it was here that Art became such a huge part of my life. The Art Department at st. cuths is absolutely amazing -- as MKD said, St. Cuth's students come out with an amazing work ethic and skills at 2nd or 3rd year university level. We don't notice it, which is a credit to the way the department is run and the atmosphere within the school. I never considered that art could become such a big part of my life before -- it was already something I enjoyed, but it didn't truly become a passion til then, and I never actually noticed this transition until just now as I was typing this (This is why I blog!)... I also grew closer to staff members this year, having gotten over my semi fear (?) of older and more qualified people haha.

Without STCC, I would never have been given the amazing opportunity of experiencing Europe. It opened my eyes to another lifestyle in another country, and it was really amazing how different it is. Therefore it is worldly education, both literally and figuratively, that STCC has given me, and it has truly been up to us to choose which opportunities to take because there are simply too many to do them all. Even though I look around at my fellow graduating class and feel jealousy for some of the things they have done, I remember that we are all simply trying to grasp and hold everything the school hands out to us. It's impossible to hold it all, especially for someone with hands as small as mine :P

...to be continued...

From beginning to end of high school.... part 1

Just came back from leavers' dinner. It was pretty surprising that I still remember everything that was mentioned from year 7 til now. It's been 7 years at this school, and after going so long without graduation it really feels like a big deal. I can't even imagine what it would feel like for someone who's been there since year 1. I don't think I could ever say that it hasn't had an impact on me. The education at this school has changed the way I think and the way I respond to things. Yet, I feel as if I didn't take away from it all that I could have. But then, I'm not sure that I could ever have been a part of that world.

When I first heard I was going to St. Cuth's in year 5, I deeply resented my parents. I didn't understand what the difference was between private and public education, I didn't understand the difference between single sex and coed, I didn't understand why I couldn't continue onto MRIS and stay with all my friends. Year 6 was one of the best years of my life, even now. It may not have been the most morally instructive, I was surely not mature, but if I have to think back to my happiest memories, a lot of them were at that time. There are memories from then that stick with me even now, shared with people I still hold dear. It might be weird to think about it now. That was almost 10 years ago now, and I was merely a child. But a child is the foundation for an adult, and my experiences then remain very much a part of my identity.

When I entered Year 7 at St Cuths, I remember thinking on my first day that it wasn't really weird at all that it was all girls. I didn't even notice, because the different personalities were all there. In fact I CLEARLY remember that it was 3rd period before it even occured to me that yes, this is an all girl's school, and I was going to be spending a lot of time here in the year to come. Beyond that, I couldn't even fathom. Who knew that 7 years after that fleeting thought I would think back to it somewhat amused. What a long way we've all come since then!

That's not to say that an all-girls' environment didn't impact me eventually. I remember missing the company of guys several times during that year and the next. It was pretty hard to keep in touch with old friends at that time because there was no facebook and we only had MSN. Nobody really felt the compulsion to keep in touch with me since I moved away and most people went from MRPS to MRIS, so they saw each other all the time. The only person I remained really close to was Lucee, because we lived so close. We could take walks all the time in the park and talk about our schools, and how different things were in intermediate. She would tell me all the things that were happening in MRIS with people I used to know. She was like the gateway into the world I felt my parents had kept me from.

I didn't feel like I fit in much at my new school. Even though I had Joy who I kinda knew from MRPS, I actually got to know her better at St Cuths than at primary. Mind you this is back when I was pretty obsessed with anime haha, and I don't think ANYONE at that time had the same interests. Nevertheless I found a few friends and stuck with them. I didn't feel like I was as close to them as I was with MRPS friends. Plus, I was in the middle of my awkward shy stage so I felt really self conscious all the time and I was very veeerrryyyyyy quiet.


Y9 Bernie + someone else studying for exams :) ohh such is the crappy quality of 2007 camera phones.

Despite all this however, I feel like I learnt a lot in Year 7. Mrs Johnson is really one of the best teachers I've ever had. I learnt a lot of life lessons in her class haha, the most important of which is probably the importance of being resilient. When I look back now at that time, she was preaching to a bunch of clueless 12 year olds about this, and most of us probably learnt our lesson. When I look around now and see so many people my age and older who give up so easily, who are so thin skinned and don't get back up when they're knocked down, I am really in awe of Mrs J's foresight in teaching quite a diffult-to-grasp lesson to girls so young. I am equally impressed that she still remembers all of her students even now; she called each of us a few weeks ago and wished us luck for our final ncea exams, and tonight when I saw her we had a nice chat about plans for next year etc. Even though she pretty much retired a few years ago, she still works for the school. I have to say that she's definitely one of the people who have had an impact on me growing up at that time.

Year 8 was a lot better than Year 7 socially speaking. Maybe because we got to pick our classmates, so most of the people in my class were people I could relate to easily. I had a lot of good memories with people in this class, including doing $1-$2 drawings for Ally, but gave up when she tried to get me to draw jack sparrow cos I couldn't do realism at that time LOL, and certain sporadic poker club meetings which turned into weekly shared lunches instead cos it got so big that we couldn't actually play poker properly, and trying to think of an example of 'innuendo' in ms vos' class without making it sexual... yeah it was a pretty good year. I still felt pretty small sometimes, cos it felt like EVERYONE was sooo confident and outspoken, but I was still shy. I remember there were a few girls that teased and mocked me a bit, but it was like Regina George type semi friendly bitchiness, so I couldn't really say anything. It didn't really feel like bullying, but now that I think back I did feel pretty crap about it. However I didn't get suicidal or depressed cos I didn't really care about those girls ahhahaahah, it didn't seem like anyone else really liked them either so I just accepted that's the way they are.

I still met up with Lucee really regularly and she'd tell me about MRIS, but I didn't know most of the people she hung out with. Interestingly this year was the year that she started talking about Yujie cos that's when she moved to MRIS. I guess I consider this time to be the time I 'met' her, even though I never actually saw her in real life at all. But I heard so much about her I felt like I kind of knew her hahaha. When I actually did meet her in Year 9, we both already knew who each other were, so I smiled and waved and tried to make friends. I moved from sitting with my year 8 friends in soft tech to sitting with her cos she looked lonely haha. Through her I met Laina and Jimin, and we claimed Molly the Tree.

It's a little bit sad now that we didn't hang out at Molly much this year, even though in year 9 we vowed as a group that we would stay there until year 13. Since then, a lot of people have left the school, a few have joined, and different people have moved around and found new places to hang out. I remember either Tara, Ally or Roxy drew "HEART molly" on the tree in purple vivid at some point, but that's probably gone by now hahaha. (EDIT: just found out it was indeed Roxy :D) From the memories of Molly, Holly, Polly and Fred (who sprouts pink blossoms in Spring, and has grown sooo much since year 9 -sniff-), to the legend of Jonathan Livingstone the seagull, year 9 was still full of relative carefreeness. I guess year 9 marked the beginning of a lot of friendships that are the ones that I still have right now. If I had an awkward time fitting in in year 7 and 8, year 9 was a lot easier. I joined a few clubs and meet some upperclassmen, and was in general a lot less antisocial hahaha.


Hahahahah Eunji ♥

However, I was still pretty quiet and shy with people I didn't know. Adults and teachers and authoritative figures in general I didn't like dealing with. To be honest I still kind of have a thing with this and I tend to get flustered easily and don't know what's appropriate to say when I'm talking to adults, but it's a lot better now than it was hahahhaahah. I remember not liking how Mrs L is so friendly with students because I just couldn't think of her that way and it was awkward when she insisted on hugging me but yeah there you go

I started blogging on this blog at the end of year 9 actually... wowww this blog is pretty old huh.

Anyway, that was my brief recount of Years 7 to 9 at STCC. I don't know, someone might find it interesting I suppose, or it's a good time to say it all so I can read back and remember one day when I am old. I will cover the rest of my high school experience in part 2 and maybe 3, in a few days. It's getting a bit too late in the day for this now hahaha :P


ok so this is actually year 10 but naww isn't laina cute :)

EINSTEIN'S ANGELS

I woke up this morning from an epic dream but didn't have time to blog about it because I thought i should do some study first. Seeing as I just crammed 620 french vocab words now (omg poor brain...), I thought I was at liberty to share my dream now :) but I've already forgotten quite a lot of it...

anyway it was like. I was part of a group of teenage superheroes whose job was to 'guard' the planet, except we were kinda vigilante so the police were after us as well. our main enemies turned out to be these kids who could defy physics and their dimension-altering abilities were dangerous to physics as we knew it. We had to protect classical physics so that the world didn't disintegrate. I HAVE THE NERDIEST DREAMS I KNOW...

anyway the part I remember the clearest is that at one point we were in the middle of a mission, except police were after us. So, I led the group into this big tower thing, except there were stairs going up and down. It was like the scary concrete staircases in big hotels or apartments, that seem to go on forever. But there was no time to waste cos we didn't want to get caught, so we just kept running down and down and down into the earth several 10s of floors. I was thinking at this time "omg we have to climb up all of this later fml..." At some point a pair of kids passed us going up. I could hear the policeman a few floors above us chasing us, and I was praying that we would lose him at some point. Then we hit the bottom, and there were 2 doors and a long hallway -- the doors seemed like they could be opened but I was scared of where they would go so I didn't open them and instead when through the hallway. To my surprise, at the end was a short set of stairs and then daylight. Yes idk how going down into the earth 10 sets of stairs = 1 set of stairs back up either.

After we came back up, it was like a big field with people having picnics and stuff. We though we were safe, but I couldnt help but feel strange as if there was still someone following us... then I suddenly see from the corner of my eye the hedge move forward. It was like one of the rectangular hedges, neatly trimmed and everything. I thought I imagined it at first but we went forwards a few steps and I definitely saw it move again. I was like "GUYS, THAT HEDGE IS FOLLOWING US", and everyone was like WTF? and turned around indeed the rectangular hedge was like skewing and squishing up into a cube and going back into a hedge and stuff, and then suddenly we're like RUNNNNNNNNNN and run away, and I turn back to see the hedge is now changing colours from green, flashing rainbow colours and flying towards us in the air. Then at that point we realise it's an ambush by the dimension-altering kids @_@ and so we're trying to fight them off and stuff as all these hedges start flying toward us, and some of them transform back into human form. We try to fight them off but there were too many!!!

"MUAHAHAHAH WE ARE GONNA MESS UP THE WORLD'S PHYSICS"

THEN SUDDENLY, ARNOLD FROM HEY ARNOLD APPEARS and is like "hey kids it's time to play baseball!" and the kids go out of their huge uncontrollable rage and all transform back into little kid form and are like "yaay!!!!!" and they play baseball with Gerald and Arnold while the rest of us are like "wtf?!? omg thank god you appeared to control them..."



Then the whole scene turns into some birthday party or something while kids are playing baseball inside, and there's a sushi train kinda buffet so I go over and Arnold comes over and tells me to try the "snail sandwiches", which turns out not to be snails at all but a sandwich of bacon and pork with the bread inside (so like, an inverted sandwich...). I have a hard time picking it up with my chopsticks because it is so slippery.

Then the meal ends and we are sitting in an amphitheatre and we're watching a performance. For some reason Jade has dyed her hair brown and has extensions in and is singing to us. At some point Joy starts singing along behind us with her and then the whole amphitheatre starts singing, and Mrs L is trying to control the crowd being like "respect the performer! stop disrupting" kinda thing. At this point we realise that Jade has disappeared and in her place is this other random girl who doesn't know why or how she got there, and her face goes all red from embarrassment and she almost faints, and someone offers to take her to the nurse so the two of them walk out of the amphitheatre. Everyone is still singing and it is a massive chaotic scene of people being disruptive.

And then I woke up. :/ the end? My favourite part was the part with the rainbow hedges flying around. It was like a video game glitched and everything buzzed out... except in real life :O

politics from the point of view of the politically ignorant

DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to be politically intelligent and if someone could educate me it would be welcomed. I am merely posting what I have gathered from the last few weeks and also from my own thought processes. Take all that I have to say below with a grain of salt. I have not done much research prior to typing up this post...

So with the elections coming up this weekend, it seems like most parties have been and are continuing their campaigning quite thoroughly in the last few weeks. This morning I got 2 letters in the mail, one from the current MP of my electorate and 1 from Labour in general, directed towards young people telling us to vote for them.

Just to be clear right now, I usually tend to have centre-left perspectives (according to online political personality tests I have done, reallllyy accurate I know, but it's the best we've got to compare to right now :P), however this post will probably seem that I am biased against Labour just because my family tends to vote National and also because I have become really really pissed off by the way Labour has presented itself to me lately.

From what I have gathered , Labour's dreams to increase the benefit base, close the gap between poor and rich and alleviate tax impact on the less fortunate have been good intentions definitely. HOWEVER. I find myself questioning where this money will come from (just as I have with Greens. Their grandiose dreams are nice to think about but so damn expensive and they are like children crayoning in wonderful worlds that they have no idea how to create in reality). The obvious conclusion is to increase taxes for those with higher income. For a party that encourages people to work harder, it seems highly hypocritical to be punishing those who work the hardest. Especially when the TRULY well off, the 'rich' who are well ahead of the poor, are probably trust fund babies who live in million dollar houses yet have no set income and therefore pay no tax. I acknowledge this is a gross generalization but they exist. The main issue most people seem to have with Labour's benefit policies is that it in fact creates an unfair society where those who are unwilling to work are given help on silver platters whereas those who work harder to get ahead are slowed down to help them.

YES, there are families whose circumstances cannot be helped, but there needs to be a balance between helping them get up on their feet and crippling the hardworking to help bums. How we get this balance, I have no clue (and quite honestly, it's not my job to know). I just wish politicians would stop playing their little power game and actually get shit done. Cos you know. That's their job and all. This is a very difficult issue to talk about so I will just move on now.

When Labour, Green and National came to our school to introduce themselves earlier this year... I found the Labour MP incredibly immature in that she kept trying to attack everything National had to say. It was not supposed to be a debate. I could attribute this to her young age but that would be so ageist lol, I really expected the leaders of this country to at least treat their jobs more seriously, although it was entertaining nonetheless. Likewise, in the letter I got from Labour today, I saw:

"At the last election, hundreds of thousands of young people in New Zealand didn't vote. Their votes would have been enough to decide the election... Under National, only the better-off are better off. They'll be hoping that this election young people still don't vote. Don't let them get away with it."

It seems to me that Labour is trying to get votes not by their own good ideas but just by trying to put down National. But it isn't really productive to simply say why someone else's ideas are shit, alternatives have to be given. Not to mention how NO EXPLANATION is given to us as to WHY either party is doing the things they're doing. National is planning to sell Air New Zealand and I hate the decision. To this day I still have no idea exactly why they have to sell it. To cover debts yes. But why specifically ANZ???? ): I love ANZ... Also I find the act of selling HUGE NZ owned assets to be a really dumb move, but what do I know, I don't do economics.

Maybe politicians want the public to remain politically ignorant so that we may be manipulated more easily in our democracy. I always did think that was the major downfall with democracy -- most people are ignorant and actually have no idea what are good for themselves and their country. These were my thoughts as I read their letter this morning over breakfast...

New Zealand's youth unemployment problem is one of the worst in the developed world

National is planning to sell off our power companies to overseas buyers

They've made it clear they want to mine our conservation land
(Why? both this and the above are National policies I personally don't like. But I also believe they must have semi-justified reasons for them at least. These 2 statements will sound bad to anyone, which is why Labour threw them into this leaflet in the first place, in order to keep people from voting National, but knowing that we must question why National would be doing it despite all this stigma. Sometimes things that are good for you are things that you will not necessarily like.)

They're widening the growing gap between rich and poor

(Statistics would be nice)

The country's credit rating has been downgraded

(This has happened in most western countries because the economy is weakening globally, not purely an NZ problem)

Labour will: Pay off the country's debt without selling off the power companies and other state assets -- providing a future we can all own

(How? Also the last bit is cheesy and is only there to sound good)

Increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour

(sounds good considering inflation)

Change the tax system to make sure everyone pays their fair share

(curious about a plan of this and how they're planning to do it)

Make your first $5000 of annual income tax free

(taxes would increase past this $5000 to make it the same anyway right, except worse for those who earn more, usually those who work harder? dunno not sure don't do eco, but seems like the natural conclusion)

Create more jobs and use the dole to pay for thousands of extra apprenticeships.

(How are they going to 'create more jobs' honestly, I don't get it...)

As I was reading the first letter from our electorate MP (National), I thought how it must be strategically beneficial to have power in the first place because you CAN send out a letter before the election this way and have an upper hand in getting re-elected. Usually unless you have been a really crappy MP, people wouldn't have much to complain about. If it weren't for the letterhead and signature on this letter, I would not have known that it was from National. There was no attack on other candidates. It was a pure simple "this is what we have done in the past years, and this is what we will be doing if I get re-elected." I liked that. It was incredibly refreshing and less didactic especially after I read the Labour leaflet.

Without all the propaganda, I am likely to be a person to agree with Labour's POV compared to National's. However, due to the shitty and unprofessional way Labour has decided to present itself to me in previous weeks as well as having next to no vision for their ideas and instead of working out a way to make their goals happen they have been wasting time bashing the National government in an effort to get votes, it seems that I will end up voting the other way this Saturday. I do not want immaturity ruling the country I live in. Honestly I miss Helen Clark's competence. It's a bit like Apple losing Steve Jobs.

Actually it probably doesn't matter too much which way the election goes. The government is made up of all these parties and both these major parties will be well represented. It's been shown that they agree on almost 50% of all bills presented to Parliament anyway, and I am happy to have Labour represent its ideas for equality in government. It has just become clear though, that since they have no means to actually support their own views, maybe the answer is to let someone else take care of the details who actually seems like they actually know what they are talking about.

"I wanna build this treehouse!" the boy said to his father, showing him an elaborately detailed drawing of a palace nestled in the tree he had done in felt tip pens at school. His father chuckled and took the plan off him, smiling.

"Ok, son. We'll get started soon. I just have to make a few technical plans based on your drawing."

And the boy beamed.

The treehouse ended up a bit boxier and less shiny than he had imagined, but at least he ended up getting one.

Moral of this story? If you can't build your own perfect treehouse, don't complain when someone else tries their best to build it for you, even if it's not as good as you think it should be. Bitch.

Of course, the problem here is that National doesn't seem to have much of a clue of what they are doing either and their decisions to sell off companies to cover the national debt will probably end up screwing over the country in the long term. But you know what, at this stage I am just so pissed off with Labour's incompetence that like I said, it MAY JUST BE choosing the slightly less shitty out of 2 shitty options.

END RANT? God I hate politics.

Because politics shouldn't be about sides, or who's right or wrong, who's the 'better' party. Our parliament is made up of MPs from all different parties, who all have ideas on how to make the country a better place. Parliament needs to work together and get shit done, not re-enact some kids' game of King of the Playground over an entire country whenever election day rolls around.

We grow up being told, "when you are older, you will understand."

We look up to our parents, older siblings, the 'big kids' on the playground with such wonder. It's so far away, the responsibility, the freedom. We cannot even fathom being part of that world because the time it would take to get to that stage is longer than we have even lived.

Slowly as we grow older, we experience new things. A million firsts, a million ephemeral moments of excitement. Yet we hardly take it all in when experiencing it, never saturate ourselves in the gaining of such knowledge...

We continue to look forward to the next goal.

Then one day, in a fleeting moment of peace, when we finally do look down at the edge of the childhood-imagined cliff we have climbed, we realise that the journey consisted only of a very long and flat hill, where the gradient was so gradual that we did not notice --

we never noticed that the world full of wonder that we were told we would one day inherit, the state where anything is possible if we choose to pursue it, where the future is at our fingertips

-- has already become ours.

Look at the city lights below, the rainbow on the horizon, the northern lights of human experience, beautiful and terrifying; see how they shine for you!

We're in the real world now. No more safety nets, no more childish idealism, no more restrictions. A messy, chaotic and wonderful world -- let's get ready to go and conquer it, hand in hand.

new layout :D

haven't updated the layout since august 26 last year, so decided to do it now :)
ripped the search bar function from Cathee's blog hhahahahhaha i love how html is open source :) hope you like it

Seals and a lot of other random stuff.

Okay so I was sleeping in my dream (inception!!) and then when I woke up, I saw frank there, and wanted me to feel his fake abs, which he had created using layering lots and lots of duct tape on his stomach LOL. somehow though when I closed my eyes and felt them they actually felt pretty legit. then for some reason he was taking me to the zoo. Turns out he had somehow taught one of the seals there to talk, so I talked to his seal for a while and he disappeared. I watched a film on an iphone (my iphone?? idk, I don't have an iphone...) right there inside my dream. I think it was the lion king, not sure tho. I fed the seal some abalone and it was like MORE PLEASE so I ended up giving him the entire bucket and then I slapped it on the face being like "you're a good boy :)" and he smiled (can seals smile? anyway it was a cute as seal) and swam away under the bridge. There was some news about the enclosure being demolished soon so that the seals would be able to return to sea or something, and then I walked out of the movie cinema because the whole seal episode had for some reason been a movie at film society???

I was with yujie and we saw tony across the room, so we went up to him and asked how he found the movie. He said he was so good in how it was simplistic and just feel-good and that not all movies had to have a really deep theme etc etc and he really enjoyed it, whereas I said I felt like 90% of the film was focused on the seal which I found a bit boring and found the lion king a much better film about animals. Then for some reason rose and christine were playing dota on the table in the room we were in, and I had to go outside to find my parents, but then my dad called me saying something about going to the restaurant by myself. I saw an old guy pulling out of the driveway of the place we were in -- he had a texan moustache and white beard. I gestured asking if he was gonna take yujie and tony there (I guess they were coming with me..?) and he nodded, but then he pulled out of the driveway. I thought that they were in his car, but I realised I didn't have my keys so went back inside to get them to find yujie and tony still in the room. Lucky I forgot my keys otherwise I would have just driven off....

I ended up driving to this school that looked a lot like hogwarts, where some kind of fight/battle was going on. there was a lot of 'lost properly' strewn across the main atrium from the battle and a lot of scarves, capes etc. Me and yujie went to art???? and I realised that I had forgotten my painting and my paintbrushes and my paint, so I didn't know what I was doing. So to avoid talking to MKD I went to the back and washed brushes all the time, except it kept being people's birthdays and we had to sing every 5 minutes LOL... random as

Some other stuff happened (Which I can't remember) and I remember just walking around trying to find people, but everyone had disappeared. Then I saw a vending machine which sold 4.0 USBs, and one of them was a 9TB one and it was $948. Which was dumb, cos for some reason the 1TB one was only 10 bucks. I took a photo of the 9TB USB and moved on. There was an ATM like computer in the corner of the room and I saw clark there trying to hack into ms waalken's administrator account? But he didn't know her login or password, but for some reason his friends had her ID card, so he ran off to get it.

Meanwhile, I turned around and there was a huge moving painting on the wall promoting sustainability. It was like a mini movie, but I don't remember much of it except the line "but in fact, we should be protecting our family HERE", and then cartoon animals (elephants, giraffes etc) rolled out of this pile of sleeping bags wrapped in sleeping bags like rolls of sushi, and then they swirled around the canvas in a circle before morphing into a picture of the earth and the words "Sustainability: It's your world" appeared on top of it. HAHA.

Anyway after that, clark returned with nail polish on his hands (not on his nails, on his hands. they were completely pink). when questioned, he said there was a hand recognition software or something, and he typed in her login and pw, and then the picture showed "please put your hands like this" with the thumbs one on top of the other, and the computer scanned his 2 pink thumbs crossed over and then asked for voice recognition, he had no idea what to do so he was just like "hi" in a DEEP voice LOLLL, and it was like "access granted!" I was like wtf. So I just watched him going thru the admin stuff, realising that he could actually change people's grades and stuff and being like "holy shit if someone comes here we are both screwed" in my head. the interface of the computer was a lot like the early mac UI:



then, for some reason (maybe something happened in the part of the dream I forgot about), this guy who I don't know in real life but who I knew in the dream whose name was peter comes up to me like a dog and brings me a 9TB 4.0 USB in my hands in his mouth, slobbering all over my hands and panting like a dog after dropping it off. I was like :O is this for me? for free? and he barked happily and ran off. It was a cool as one though, like it was supposed to be a USB but you could press a button and it would pop out like an indiana jones ancient gadget thingie, but it was all circuitboard looking, and when it opens you can put stuff in it like a locket. and the people behind me were laughing and stuff being like "haha, you have to wipe all that saliva off your hand. make sure you don't have rabies."

And then I just woke up haha.

I am a massive stalker

Today I will tell you all about the ways in which I am a massive stalker. Okay actually that term is a little negative; I prefer to think that I just get to know people very easily... sometimes without their knowledge :P Like most people, I go out and meet friends of friends. But unlike most people, I actually remember them -- usually the next time I see them on the street, I can recognise them and remember their name, but 70% of the time they don't remember me so I just don't say anything haha. It's nice when they do tho :)

I started young... Remember how the class roll used to be alphabetical by last name? Yeah... I knew the order off by heart, including everyone's last names. From years 1 to 4, I could literally write down the class roll in alphabetical lastname/firstname form off by heart. There were typically 30 people in my classes. This was partly spurred by my early passions to become a teacher, and I guess it just became a habit, even after that point where I didn't want to become a teacher anymore. Perhaps that's why I have an affinity for remembering people's names now haha. Useful skill to have I guess, even if its roots are extremely weird and creepy even by my standards hahahahahahah.

Speaking of creepy........ I liked a guy at the end of primary school and continued to 'check up' on how and what he was doing over the next year or so even though I have never seen him since then. I had his msn, but we didn't talk much. Now, remember this is the time before bebo or facebook. I googled his name, found a website with one of his classmates' emails and contacted his CLASSMATE, with my own anonymous email address, to ask how he was. OH MY GOD I AM SUCH A CREEPER ):



I do like to know the people around me in my everyday life, even if they are people who I don't have immediate contact with. Friends of friends, especially if they are close, would be people that I know about even if I have never actually met them, or if I've only met them once. Yes I facebook people after I meet them. Sometimes I add them too hahaha, if I think we might meet again, or if I'm interested in getting to know them better. This prediction is only ever ~40% accurate. I have a lot of people on my list who I never talk to, but I actually do know exactly who all those people are and I don't accept random friend reqs. Sometimes people add me who I know of but who I haven't actually met myself, but I accept mostly because I'm curious as to who they are behind the facebook info page which I have stalked so many times before :P

I like to think that I'm generally friendly to people tho, despite my closet stalker tendencies. Sometimes I think I may come off as a bit of a snob :/ or, extremely shy and distant. It just depends on the day I meet someone. Some days I just feel more amiable than others, and sometimes I just don't feel like being social? But even if I'm not feeling social... I still remember people I meet :) And always feel a little rejected when I see people I know but who I know don't remember me anymore haha.

I guess you could say people are very important to me, even if I am not important to them. Not even individuals either, but anyone is important to me. I remember most if not all of my classmates from Paris -- actually another point, I had no links to anyone from my school over facebook in Paris since Blanche didn't have one, but I did some pro friend jumping to find people I know. I literally went through Meghan to Marilou (her french exchange partner) to her sister (who actually went to EA, since Marilou went to LLLG) and scrolled through all her friends, and some of her friends' friends, to find someone who I had met in Paris thus far. It's a life skill I swear...

I also periodically google people I know's names on google to see what'll come up. the weirdest stuff appears sometimes, I had no idea one of my friends used to be a Yugioh master who went overseas with the NZ team to d-d-d-d-duel :O

The internet is an amazing tool. People share so much about themselves online (and I myself am no exception)... some might say it's dangerous, because if even someone like me can track people down so easily, then it's not a very secure place to be sharing things about yourself. However, in this age I do feel that those who do not share anything about themselves online tend to disappear, at least in my mind. Since it's where I get my information about people, if someone doesn't have a facebook, or bebo, or even email address (yes I know people who do not use email), their presence is not as prominent in my mind and thus in my life... sad but true I guess :/

It is important to spend time with people out of the internet. I do prefer to spend time with people in real life, in small groups or one-on-one -- this is indisputably better in building relationships. But, I think we're getting to that stage where real life interaction may not be enough, unless it is every day or very often. We are beginning to not be able to live efficiently without imprinting our identity onto the web anymore. In a world where more and more people are meeting through online dating (and having successful relationships and marriages!), we must still be aware of the horror story internet predator; but at the same time, we must be aware of the benefits our virtual identities can bring, and learn to utilise them well.

Of course, one may argue that casual stalkers like me utilise them a little too well ;)

Personality Disorders

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Personality Disorder:	Low
Schizoid Personality Disorder:	Low
Schizotypal Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Antisocial Personality Disorder:	Moderate
Borderline Personality Disorder:	Low
Histrionic Personality Disorder:	High
Narcissistic Personality Disorder:	High
Avoidant Personality Disorder:	Low
Dependent Personality Disorder:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	Low
-- Take the Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Info --

People with histrionic personality disorder are constant attention seekers. They need to be the center of attention all the time, often interrupting others in order to dominate the conversation. They use grandiose language to discribe everyday events and seek constant praise. They may dress provacatively or exaggerate illnesses in order to gain attention. Histrionics also tend to exaggerate friendships and relationships, believing that everyone loves them. They are often manipulative.

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by self-centeredness. Like histrionic disorder, people with this disorder seek attention and praise. They exaggerate their achievements, expecting others to recongize them as being superior. They tend to be choosy about picking friends, since they believe that not just anyone is worthy of being their friend. Narcissists tend to make good first impressions, yet have difficulty maintaining long-lasting relationships. They are generally uninterested in the feelings of others and may take advantage of them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh man....
& the moderate ones:

A common misconception is that antisocial personality disorder refers to people who have poor social skills. The opposite is often the case. Instead, antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a lack of conscience. People with this disorder are prone to criminal behavior, believing that their victims are weak and deserving of being taken advantage of. Antisocials tend to lie and steal. Often, they are careless with money and take action without thinking about consequences. They are often agressive and are much more concerned with their own needs than the needs of others.


Many believe that schizotypal personality disorder represents mild schizophrenia. The disorder is characterized by odd forms of thinking and perceiving, and individuals with this disorder often seek isolation from others. They sometimes believe to have extra sensory ability or that unrelated events relate to them in some important way. They generally engage in eccentric behavior and have difficulty concentrating for long periods of time. Their speech is often over elaborate and difficult to follow.

well that was interesting. :P

lateness

So this morning I woke up at 8.40, had a little mental UGHHHH as I realised that I had to be at school by 9am and slowly crawled out of bed and got ready to go. I didn't rush or anything, and at 9am was in the kitchen having breakfast and having a nice chill chat to my grandma. It made me think wow, I'm totally not stressed that I'm going to be late. This is a stark contrast to how I used to be -- when I was younger, I was always the early one. I'd turn up 15 minutes before the bus was scheduled to come (and so when it was 15 minutes late, I had spent half an hour waiting at the stop). I'd always be the first one to come to the meeting place when going out with friends, and the first one over to someone's house. I'd be the one waiting -- and I do wonder, how much time have I wasted in my life waiting? I could never understand why people showed up half an hour late to gatherings when we'd agreed to meet at a determined time -- I never understood how people could be late to school either.

I remember once in year 9 I went to watch harry potter 5 with tina and lucy (who were in y12 at the time). tina ended up being so late that she missed the movie and had to watch a later session. honestly I had no idea how she managed that. But of course, as I also grow up, I have somehow gotten lazier myself and this morning when I realised I was late and not stressing it made me think of all these things and how I have changed. I don't really know what this is indication of at all though. Adults always seem so rushed in their lives, but still end up being late. Maybe I should just flag the stress and accept that I will sometimes be late (which is happening more and more often nowadays...).

It's weird because in the period where my parents were away I woke up on time everyday and got my brother to school earlier than my parents would and felt fine about it all the time, but the MOMENT they came back, I started going back to my old later getting up habits again. Maybe the lack of responsibility made me lax?

AND, do you find that if you try to do things too early, you end up being later than you would have been if you had just done it at the right time? like when I started doing my SATs (early as usual, sat my reasoning jan 2010), and then still felt on top of it when I sat my math last october, but when I left my 2nd subject test to this october, I was like oh shit why'd I leave it so late... and with studying as well, when I was sitting my MAX test I started studying 2 weeks prior but ended up having to do a mad (unsuccessful) rush the day before because I had forgotten what I'd studied 2 weeks before since it was TOO EARLY... and one time when I was waiting at the bus stop, I thought I'd walk down to the next stop cos I got there early, but then it came while I was halfway between the 2 stops and I ended up having to wait another hour. ): this also happens in the mornings when I wake up too early and think OHHH I'VE GOT AGES, then do everything super slowly and end up actually late.

It's not exactly GOOD to be late, but maybe it's not as bad as I thought when I was younger. It sometimes somehow just happens (although I still assert that it shouldn't; it's not exactly hard to be on time), and we shouldn't really stress too much and just go with the flow. Of course, there are certain things that should make you freak out if you're late hahahahaah, like, if your period is late. That's probably a good reason to freak out :P

But this morning wasn't too bad, I just ended up arriving at 10 past 9. On top of oversleeping, I ended up having to wait for a bird to cross the road since its wing was broken so it couldn't fly away, so I waited patiently for it to cross the road. Made me smile a bit as I saw it reunite with its parent bird on the other side of the road. Mehh yeah, just chillax and life is a bit happier. :)

SPRING...?

So like normally I'd have a really nice blogpost on the first of September because spring represents new beginnings/end of cold harsh winter/hope/warmth etc etc but this year what happened?

Well it's not like I forgot. But September 1 this year just wasn't that special. I remember I parked my car a bit from school because I wanted to walk in on the first of spring to enjoy the weather, but halfway there it started raining and I got drenched. So, not really an enthusiastic start to the season. Then with the added stresses of upcoming exams and viruses flying around the start to this month has been honestly pretty shit. I've been sick for a few days now; on Wednesday I pushed myself to go to school even though I had a fever because I had to get this french internal done. I woke up at 6am that morning with this pounding headache and muscle aches but went in anyway, and tanked the whole day (which may or may not have been a wise thing to do, but sure as hell shows me that I can get through things if I have the willpower), even drove there and back... when I got home I took a really really long hot shower and went to sleep.... although I woke up feeling like I was on fire and still headache, so I took my temperature... 38.6 degrees. YUPPPPP I'm sick. It's k, I've been taking my brother's prescription paracetamol since then so it hasn't been as high as that since. Although that night it randomly dropped to 34 degrees after dinner. I was experiencing mild hypothermia. I guess you could say my health is really fucked up right now?

So yeah yesterday I stayed at home. I missed like 4 photos and kept getting txts like WHERE ARE YOU???? ): SIGH... Instead I ended up watching grave of the fireflies and the notebook at home. Both were very good but I didn't cry in either. I don't really know why everyone keeps making the notebook out to be the saddest thing everrrrrr... I kept expecting something really big to happen but it never did. I went into school during lunchtime with my mum for the upenn talk. It wasn't that useful but made me realise that I need to get my shit together and start my uni applications like asap. Which of course just adds to the long list of stuff I have to do. ):

So as you can tell today I'm also staying home due to my retarded cold, near OD-ing on pills and shit, and it's only the 9th. To come: finishing my painting board, studying for mocks, studying for SAT, uni applications -- filling them out, getting references and writing essays, studying for externals. And all before november is over. IT'S GOING TO BE A GREAT SPRING.........

I'm starting to experience what Mr. Torrie referred to as 'going off the rails' last year. I'm starting to wonder what's the point of all this, to the point where on Wednesday I really could not give 2 shits about how bad my french internal went. I mean I had stuff prepared, I just didn't use any of it in the end, and had a lot of awkward pauses in the conversation where I had to think of stuff to say. I don't know if it was because my attitude has gotten more lax or just because I'm sick. Because, I told myself, I didn't need those credits -- but that's never been an excuse. It's not a competition with the system, it's a competition with yourself. But when you can't be bothered competing anymore, what's left? It's been long enough I think, and I'm ready for uni. Even if I don't know exactly what I'll be doing yet, I'm ready to start something afresh. High school has begun to get too old and stale for my tastes. That's why I think it's so hard for me to focus lately. And this last run of important exams is just...... ughhhhh....

Fuck Spring 2011. This is what Spring is supposed to be like:

(november 2010, cornwall park)

Welll, it's probably just the sickness talking. But I really am pretty worried about the rest of this year. At least the sky's blue today... makes me feel a little better.

I like to take personality tests when I procrastinate...

http://psychcentral.com/personality-patterns/ TRY IT :)

Discover the top 10 traits out of 90 that uniquely describe you

Aesthetic

You appreciate art, beauty, and design; you know that they are not superficial but absolutely crucial to living the good life. You have good taste, and you're proud of it. Those with a high score on the "aesthetic" trait are often employed in literary or artistic professions, enjoy domestic activities — doing things around the house — and are enthusiastic about the arts, reading, and travel.
You don't think it's pretentious to be moved by art and beauty. You're not one of those who believe it doesn't matter what something looks like as long as it does its job.

Intellectual

You are thoughtful, rational, and comfortable in the world of ideas. People find you interesting to talk to. You're the living embodiment of the saying "You learn something new every day." In general, those with a high score on the "intellectual" trait are employed in such fields as teaching and research, and are enthusiastic about reading, foreign films, and classical music.
You do not avoid abstract conversation, experimenting with new ideas, or studying new things. It bores you to stick to the straight and narrow of what you already know.

Original

You are constantly coming up with new ideas. For you, the world as it exists is just a jumping-off place; what's going on inside your mind is often more interesting than what's going on outside.
You don't feel that the road to success is to be a realist and stick to the program; you never stop yourself from coming up with new ideas or telling the world what you're thinking about.

Curious

You like to get to the bottom of things. You're not content knowing what someone did; you want to know why they did it.
You don't simply take things as they are and move on; you're not content skimming along on the surface; you don't feel you're wasting time by digging for the meaning of things.

Innovative

You come up with a lot of ideas; if one doesn't work out, there's always another waiting in the wings. You often have interesting solutions to difficult problems. You're practically a one-person brainstorming session.
You are less interested changing the world than in dealing with things as they are. Unlike those who spend all their time trying to solve problems, you prefer to zero in on things that work and stick with them.

Loose

You feel that a clean, orderly desk is the sign of a person who doesn't have enough to do. Schedules and "to do" lists feel stifling; you thrive on a sense that anything goes, and know that the world won't end if you don't clean up after finishing a job.
You don't need to know that everything is in its place; it is not empowering to you to feel that the world around you is neat and organized. Mowing down every item on your "to do" list, every day, does not bring you joy.

Assertive

You behave in a confident and forceful manner, take charge of the situation, raise your hand in class, stand up for what you think is right, and lead others. Among those who have a high score on the "assertive" trait, many have jobs in which they are valued for their organizational skills as well as their talent for supervising others.
You are not interested in fading into the woodwork, leaving everything to fate, taking more time than necessary to accomplish a task, or avoiding confrontation.

Organized

You like to think a task through before you embark on it. If it's the slightest bit complicated, you make a list (even if it's only in your mind) and methodically work your way through it. When you have a goal in mind, you're not satisfied until you reach it.
You are not one of those people who ignore the details, and you don't understand how anyone can get anything accomplished without thoughtful planning ahead of time.

Optimistic

You are a "glass half-full" kind of person, always on the lookout for the silver lining. Your happiness is contagious, which is why others like to be around you.
You do not feel that the world is an intrinsically depressing place; you are not the kind of "realist" who thinks that only fools find joy in life.

Creative

You are good at solving problems, coming up with original ideas, and seeing connections between things, connections that most other people miss. People with a high score on the "creative" trait often are employed in such fields as finance and scientific research, and enjoy avant garde and classical music as well as literary fiction and scholarly non-fiction.
You do not shun abstractions and concepts in favor of the concrete and tangible.

just thinking

You know, this morning I woke up feeling like I was in a time loop. It was the weirdest feeling ever. Last night I went to sleep at 9pm and woke up at 7am this morning, which may or may not explain something. Other than that my day was unremarkable, except that I had to do a resubmission for physics which freaked me out because there were so many errors and now I'm not sure if I'll be able to get an E or even an M because I had to doctor my method and results to make everything seem alright (Except he kept the original so it would be pretty obvious that I had doctored stuff, but then again is he allowed to count me down for that because he is supposed to mark the resubmission holistically as if he has never seen the original???) I think I'm rambling.

Anyway I don't think I ever mentioned this but I turned 18 at the end of last month. This made me realise some things about myself: I'm an adult and I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing with my life.

This was amplified when my cousin got married last week to a guy who she met 8 months ago and hasn't even been in the same country with for the majority of said 8 months. She moved to the states 3 weeks ago to live with him, they got engaged at the beginning of last week, and they were married on Friday. From the people I've talked to, it's not just me who thinks that is ridiculously rushed and fast. This scares the bejesus out of me. And since the guy is a family friend who my mum has known since he was little, the chance of divorce is extremely low; my cousin is a very traditional chinese bride and this guy was her first boyfriend even after a bachelors and masters in auckland university engineering. Not saying he's a bad guy, he seems like really good guy for her, and he takes the most amazing photos (link to his flickr)

Wait, what's my point? Well, I realised that I am completely different to her and cannot look to her for guidance. And I have nobody else to look to either, because after her I'm the oldest of my generation in my family. I can't exactly fuck up considering my track record either. It's like climbing a mountain without safety ropes with my bare hands, now I'm far enough from the bottom that when I look down it's scary and if I fell it would be catastrophic, yet when I look up I can't really see the next hand or foothold and there is no observable peak.

When I think about myself sometimes I am disgusted. I know a lot of people think that I am confident in myself and my decisions and thoughts, but actually I'm not. I'm human just like everyone else, and I feel pathetic sometimes when I realise the facade I put on. I wonder if everyone else is the same, or if it's just me putting on such a mask to fit in. I know a lot of people also think that I'm self-righteous and too stubborn for my own good. I think I know that about myself but don't really want to admit it too much because I prefer to keep cool about these kind of things. Maybe if I tell myself that I don't care then I won't care in reality. To some extent I think that's worked, but it still concerns me a bit when I hear about people saying that about me. I know when they say it they don't intend for me to ever really find out so I'm not really blaming them, and actually it annoys me that I'm bothered by it at all.

When I look at my actions sometimes I can't understand them. The other day I was driving to the orthodontist and for some reason I took the wrong turn, even though I know the way. The whole time I was turning, my brain was screaming "you're going the wrong way, where are you going???" but I kept going. It's like when I walked past a 20 dollar note on the ground as well, my brain was screaming PICK IT UP, but I just kept walking. Why? I wish I knew. My body doesn't listen to reason, or maybe my brain is just irrational subconsciously.

Actually words can't fully describe how I feel. Language really limits emotion. I wish I could pour my feelings out of my brain (and heart, although technically it comes from the brain...) and into this blog so you could actually feel a little of what I'm feeling; human emotion is perhaps the most isolated in the world; no matter where you go in the world, whatever you do, whoever you meet, you can't ever reach into them and feel what they are feeling for real. No matter how empathetic you are, you cannot ever be sure what it is that everyone else is feeling. This realisation has ruined so many happy moments for me to be honest. When I'm in a situation when everyone is happy, I sometimes stop to think if everyone is really happy or if some people are pretending. This in turn makes me stop being happy if I was actually happen and start pretending myself.

Mrs L's quote,

«Il ne faut pas avoir peur du bonheur. C'est seulement un bon moment à passer.» ~ Romain Gary

sounds good in theory but it's too hard to control your thoughts and feelings. Even if I wanted to enjoy my moment of happiness, sometimes I can't because I'm thinking too much.

This blogpost is incredibly badly structured and fragmented. I guess that's the state of my mind at the moment. If I look back to my teenage years, I think I can treat everything between 13 and 16 as one chapter and after 16 as another. Maturity wise I think after 16 I've plateaued a bit. I can feel growth coming right now a bit, but that's something I can reflect on in another 6 years. I actually can't remember 13-16 very clearly, but every now and again very strong memories come back and it's like I've been hit over the head and can't believe I didn't think of that memory before. It's very odd. Is it that nothing from those years were significant enough to me? I don't get it. Some things definitely shaped who I am today, so why can't I remember them?

I'm 18 and I still don't understand myself fully. When will it be before I know what I am? Even if I seem sure of myself to others I can't lie to myself. And even then, some other people see through me easily. Maybe when I'm 25...

No I won't be bothered to reorganise this post. It will be incredibly uncomfortable for someone trying to read it but whatever it's my blog I do what I want.

pot luck #4

It's been a long time since I've updated properly and there's been a lot of stuff that's happened that I wanna talk about and blog about but just didn't get the time/motivation to actually do it, so I guess this is gonna be a pot luck post.

for any new readers of my blog POT LUCK is the series of random posts I do from time to time with little things that I think of that aren't big enough to warrant their own posts, + anything else random that may come up at the time.

Well firstly, last night was grammar ball :) I had a pretty good time, although time seemed to go by quite fast and I can't even remember what I actually did to pass so much time because we weren't dancing for long lol... slept at 9.30 this morning, woke up at 1.30 in the afternoon. ughhh so fucked. almost lost all of my voice, sore throat, blocked nose..... omg so sick ):

hehehe love you yujie.

I have also recently learnt a lot about people? or something like that. Anyway on Friday morning I was reading an old email from an old friend and it made me realise something -- the odd thing is, I'm not exactly sure what I realised, but it made me feel good. Then more recently I was just thinking and I realised some more things, of which I am also not sure of the specifics. I guess it's like, thinking about why people do the things they do, and how their emotions really do dictate their actions. But then, many people hide their feelings really well. I'm someone who wants to know what people are thinking, and most of the time I think I can get pretty close on the superficial level, but for the deeper emotions it's harder to understand; there are lots of people I see where I just can't get what's happening in their heads when they do the things they do. It may be to do with a lack of consistency (but all humans exhibit all actions to some extent anyway), but I'm starting to question whether on the fundamental level everyone is the same.

I'm just going to take the example of sexual attraction here. When you're little, you tend to like 1 person and tease them or however primary school kids show that they like someone else. When people find out, they will tease you about that person all the time. But sexual attraction is not limited to 1 person at a time; it's more common that you will like more than one person at once. This I know is universal. But what differs from person to person is what they choose to do with these separate attractions I think... that's what I find interesting to observe. You get the players that just try to go for everything they want at once, or those who choose to ignore some of their attractions and just go for the one they like the most (although sometimes this isn't possible because you can't choose), or those who keep oscillating or those who decide to not do anything at all. Actually I'm not sure if many people even realise that they subconsciously are attracted to so many people... well I for one am willing to admit it at least :/

Another reason I find this point interesting is the question of what's worse -- cheating emotionally vs cheating physically. Personally I think that cheating emotionally is 'worse' in the sense that it hurts more, but I also find it more understandable, because it's natural to like someone else and you can't really control your emotions, and if you cheat physically it's like you don't respect the other person enough to actively go out of your way to cheat on them, so that's 'worse' in the sense that the person who does it is a douche. actually after I asked this question on formspring, most people didn't give a definitive answer because both are bad. interesting.

And that also made me question, what makes people like people more and more? Something I still haven't answered. But if feelings are so ubiquitous and spontaneous as they seem, then maybe nothing means anything. But I'm sure that some people's feelings must be stronger than that... deep love must have some kind of foundation... mmmm well I'm currently falling in love with a certain amazing guy (: and I'm finding as time goes on the more I forget about the instinctive attractions... so i'd like to know that there's some meaning in that at least.

and wow it's been like 2 hours and I still haven't written that much hahahaha fail... keep getting distracted by msn facebook and google+ and testing chen's program for photo uploading onto it. it actually works pretty well, chen's amazing.

did you guys ever realise that the economy is restaurant city is retarded? there's a barter system where every ingredient is apparently worth the same amount (eg. water is the worth the same as lobster)which is like, 4000-7000 bucks on the ingredient market, apparently the same cost as half a roof and several tables and chairs. then again, dishes last infinite time so you could say a lifetime's supply of those ingredients would be on average 10x4000=40000 gold (levelling the dish to level 10) -- but each dish sold is only worth 2 gold, so that means a lifetime's supply of ingredients = 40000/2 = 20000 = 20000 dishes must be sold to earn back what you spent on that dish. HOWEVER, I guess it's true that you do get a free ingredient every day... which also makes no sense because in life nothing is free apart from the air we breathe :/ I also can't believe that a table is worth 1200 gold in this game. that's 600x more expensive than a dish of food. I mean the average meal I eat is 10 bucks, so that's like saying a table should be worth 600x10=6000 dollars in real life. NOOO WAYYY..... ok rant over lol, this game's economy makes no sense.

watch this!!!! it's so cool :)

I feel artsy.

He used his voodoo magic

and slashed open her ribcage

passion waterfalling

arrhythmia growing

drinking the life elixir

until it is barren and hard as diamond

He is the surgeon

who stitched her back

each pinprick pierce perfectly positioned

yet uncomfortable, unnatural

closing a gorge that had grown for centuries

The rivers are refilling now

diamonds softening, drought ending

But when she bleeds

Is it from an old open wound

Or from the needle that digs into her skin?

Mrs Reid and the Lightbulb Adventure

BTW this is a dream.

It all started in the art department, which for some reason had my house on top of it. I was in my room and it was getting dark, and I tried to turn on the light but they wouldn't turn on. In fact all the rooms in the house had bulbs that wouldn't turn on and for some reason MKD said it's cos all the light bulbs are blown, so I need to go out to get some more. At this moment Mrs Reid walks thru the art dept and she's like "come with me I have something to show you" and MKD was like "can you give her some extra lightbulbs on your way" so we set off on our adventure ....

turns out all she wanted to show me was these new cups and water cooler in the school atrium. there was this other group of y13s there as well, and some of them were like involved with a photoshoot for school magazine, and it was like a model shoot LOL, there was one where Mrs Reid and Kim were like posing in a tree, and while we walked past the robertson building I saw Miss Clark (the year 7 teacher with the white hair) climbing up the tree with her whole y7 class looking from below making sure she doesn't fall hahahaahahah

Then when we were in the atrium she asked us if we would do the shoot again next year, and Kim was like "but I'll be with my brother in university" and someone else said "and I'll be buying diamonds and pearls and getting married to my rich husband" and Mrs Reid was like "what! we can't lose you to men" and the girl replied "i don't know then, you should've known when, you decided to use for this photoshoot year thirTENS." guys I make poems in my DREAMS. HOW EPIC AM I.

So anyway after that we went to see the year 7 and 8 french lunch or something (which is not even a real event at school), and someone had written "WELCOME TO FRANCH" above the glass doors going out of robertson next to the conference room next to the hall. nobody except me noticed that they misspelt "france" ... or maybe it was meant to be like that?

Anyway they had STYROFOAMED THE ENTIRE HALL, like outside it was just an extra coating of styrofoam in the same shape, so that the hall looked exactly the same except fatter and made out of styrofoam. I was like "what happened here" and mrs reid said "it's so that the children don't break the hall." LOL. We walked in and it was like how the tables are set up in King's College's dining hall, rows and rows of rectangular tables with like 10 seats around them. Kings boys were there as well. I had no idea that we had that many year 7s and 8s at our school hahaahahaha. Some of them were wearing wizard hats. I remember looking down and I was wearing my gold nikes.

After that we exited the hall and Mrs Reid was like "well I have a meeting now so I'll have to go back, I guess you should all go to your classes" or something along those lines, but we STILL HADN'T GOTTEN LIGHTBULBS so I was like "but I still need to get lightbulbs!" she didn't say anything and just walked off. At this moment I saw a flying slowpoke (the pokemon) and I decided to chase it. there were speed bars next to it like in a racing game. IT WAS GOING AT 140KM/H. I was just running after it, and when I did 2 more popped up, green and blue (the first one was the normal pink colour). I had to run faster, but I got that feeling you get in dreams when no matter how hard you try you feel like you're going really slow, but the speedbar said we were going at 207KM/H.......



anyway I ended up chasing them to this beach and they disappeared in to the grass, and I could see the art dept/my house on the other side of the bay, but I was tired from running, so I sat down, and there was a meowth there with all his meowth friends making chocolate money. I asked if I could have some and he threw me a gold 50c and a silver 50c. I ate the silver 50c and left the other one for my friend who was next to me suddenly for some reason (and I'm not sure who it was either).

And then randomly I woke up. Yup that's all haha.

why I want to be a weed-like flower

Flowers are pretty. The gentle curve of the delicate petals that unfold to reveal its modest heart, flamboyant but fragile, beautiful and symbolic of an upper-class, expensive sophistication. A girl wears them in her hair, ties them into chains around her wrists, eagerly waits for a bouquet of a dozen red roses on Valentine's Day; flowers are indeed nature's jewels.

By contrast, weeds are ugly, and grow everywhere. No matter how much you try to get rid of them, they come back, persistently annoying. Weeds adapt to survive. They are not concerned with superficiality or prettiness; the innate goal is to simply thrive.

So the question is, would you rather be a flower, or a weed? To be a flower would be to stand as the tall poppy, beautiful, rare, sophisticated, better. Yet to be just a flower is to accept that you will be picked for your beauty, used for your assets and thrown away once you start to wilt. It's somewhat ironic that couples give each other flowers to show their love I suppose:

Roses only last like a couple weeks, and they really only exist to be pretty. That's like saying "my love for you is transitory and based solely on your appearance!"(Bash.org, IronChef Foicite)

To be a weed would be to be able to adapt in any situation, but never be noticed for your assets. Versatile, but never noticed; sometimes even annoying people because you tend to be everywhere. But, no matter how much they try to get rid of you, you'll live on.

However, despite the common thought that weeds are ugly, flowers such as dandelions or daisies can sometimes be considered to be weeds because they tend to crop up and grow in places where they are not wanted. However, from this we can say that sometimes weeds are not ugly -- because flowers are pretty, right?

"To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, The soil is this, that thou dost common grow." (William Shakespeare)

Shakespeare agrees that in the same soil, both flowers and weeds will grow. I think this extends to the soil of our lives; we all have a bit of flower and weed in all of us. It's just important to accept both sides.

That's why, after thinking about it for a while, I decided that I would be a weed-like flower, so that even if I'm annoyingly adaptive and versatile, people will still love me because I'm awesome. I think it's important to be robust like a weed, yet make sure your abilities and potential are noticed like a flower. For example, if I were a dandelion, people could blow me apart but I'd always float peacefully on and land safely to grow again, bigger and better. And if I were a daisy, I'd be content that I'd be everywhere for people to pick and tie into chains for their wrists, so it's like I could be reassuringly holding their hand all the time, no matter where in the world they are. :)

- Daisy - by ldinami7e

Actually, it doesn't matter if you want me to be your daisy or not, if you see me as a flower or a weed. I hope to be a bit of both, and if you ever need a chain to be around your wrist I just want you to know that I'll be around, where ever you may be.

TRANSFORMERS 3: DARK OF THE MOON

DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS!!!!

Ok gonna make this one short and sweet. Overall enjoyed the movie. I went into it expecting explosions and action, and I got explosions and action. Michael Bay knows what he's good at and I applaud him for making yet another visually stunning film. However I acknowledge there are things wrong with this movie:

1) Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. I accept that opinions will be divided but to me she's just not suited to the role. I found her annoying in scenes where she was being whiny and overall just a boring ass character who was obviously there to look hot. I mean come on, the 10 second scene where she's just standing there while explosions are going on behind her? Megan Fox was a better actress and filled the role better. I felt she had more offer in terms of plot and the dangerously-sexy character. Megan Fox can have dirt on her face and mud on her clothes and still look hot. Ok I acknowledge Fox stepped way out of line which is why she was taken off the franchise, which is unfortunate because Rosie Huntington was just too perfect through the entire film; her white blazer was still pristine by the end! WTF?! She looked like a Victoria's Secret model because that's just what she is. Her accent was distracting and her lines were boring; it's extremely obvious that an actress was replaced by an inferior model. Well that's just my opinion.

2) Slow beginning. I get that he was trying to set up the story but tbh I went in wanting explosions and didn't care so much for the story and felt the prelude was just a littleeee long. This also caused problems later on with the flow of the plot because it seemed that he needed to cram a lot more in a smaller due to what was sacrificed for the longer introduction.

3) Action scene flow. I agree with many here in that the ending was a little disappointing. The last action scene seemed to be just of OP (optimus prime.. who is also overpowered HAHAHAHA get it?!?!?) taking down Sentinel and Megatron. The whole thing lasted less than 30 seconds. I think in films action scenes are supposed to get bigger and bigger (moviemaking 101?) and imo it wasn't the best scene to end with, there were much better scenes in the movie. Maybe it was just to have it wind down a little? It was also kind of an abrupt ending, somewhat anticlimactic and seemed rushed. This may have been due to them not wanting it to drag on for too long but I think the pacing of the movie WAS a little weird (probably due to the long as introduction I talked about earlier) For me the best action scene was probably the one with shockwave going through the building. The animation on that thing was just amazing, it's a pity they let him die off so easily ):

4(?) is this a minus point?)The chances of a sequel???? I just feel that with so many characters dead the possibility of a 4th movie is slim. Although this is perhaps for the best because I DO NOT want Rosie Huntington in another transformers movie.

Despite all these though I enjoyed the film overall, I got what I wanted going in, lots of explosions, lots of awesome robots and cars, which is about as much as I can ask for from an action film. The dialogue was funnier than I expected, there were a lot of laugh out loud moments (although disappointing that Ken Jeong's character got killed off so early, his character was great comic relief). Animation was amazing as usual, music was good (well I may be biased cos im a LP fan). I'm happy with it :) I'd give it about a 7/10.

unfinalised fantasies

So today I logged into msn and saw one of my contacts listening to "suteki da ne" from final fantasy x. I actually thought wow, it's been ages since I've listened to that. So I went on youtube and youtubed it... and boom nostalgia.

Some backstory. Around about year 5, I went through this obsession with final fantasy. It was around the same time that x-2 came out. the funny thing is, despite this obsession, I never actually played it. The only ff game I have ever played is the original ff7, which I didn't actually play until about 2 years ago & I have not even finished. It's really strange that something that didn't really take up a huge part of my life can affect me so much, isn't it? At that time I knew all the main characters' names from VII to X, listened to the songs and at some point even started conversing to another friend who was as obsessed as me in Al Bhed. I drew a lot of fanart and read a lot of fanfiction... I remember distinctly going into EB games once and seeing the release manual for X-2 and wanting it so badly...

Wtf was wrong with me you ask? I don't know. I just remember it was somehow a big part of my life at some point. And watching that video just brought back all the memories and I felt something in my heart. I was watching it and thinking how most people have never heard of it. How most people will see it as just another video game. I wonder if playing it would have done that for me too? Final Fantasy is so much more than just that for me though. It represents a part of my childhood and is just special to me, for no particular reason or another that I can remember, even though I never even played it. Isn't that weird? Yeah, it means more to me than to people who have actually had it take up more of their lives.

And actually it's not just this song. It seems that most FF songs, whether it be instrumental or sung, just have that effect on me. They're just heartbreakingly beautiful. I really don't know any other way to describe them. I'm serious, my heart actually hurts when I listen to them. I never had this experience with feeling so strongly when listening to any piece of music before.

There is just some kind of ethereal quality to them. I remember at that time when I was obsessed with it it was just taking over my life. I don't remember it clearly either, which is maybe why it seems to be such a big deal in my head. If I think about it now, it's totally illogical. Life is set in reality, not in a video game. What made it so powerful for me? Perhaps my then still idealistic visions of life and love? Is that part of me still buried somewhere deep deep inside? Regardless, watching that video and listening to that song that is so sweetly familiar and yet so distant... my past was still able to brush against my heartstrings.

It's not often that I'm hit with a wave of nostalgia strong enough too feel like the wall of ignorance fell over my head. And I just find it somewhat interesting that it's this of all things, which was never a formal part of my life at all that had this effect. Like in its own story where in a last ditch effort to save their company, Square Enix poured all their resources into a game that would be their 'final fantasy' (and it was wildly successful and has spawned to this day over 12 sequels), the fantasy I had in my youth is seeming to go on after being pretty much forgotten for all these years. Despite how much I've grown and 'matured' (if you can consider it that?), something as simplistic as this video game that I have never even played can make me experience something so amazing.... the fantasy is obviously not over.

But then, perhaps it ought to stay that way? We all still need a little bit of idealism in our lives.

SO PRETTTYYYYY.......... square enix is amazing ):