Persepolis

So real, so beautiful. The movie is based on Marjane Satrapi's growing pains and struggles as a young girl living in Iran during the Islamic revolution. I may not have witnessed a revolution of the same scale myself, but I can fully relate to at least 80% of what she has been through in the course of her life. Definitely one of the best movies I've seen all year.

An exercise in purging

I had arranged to give away my old laptop to my brother so I spent most of Sunday cleaning out my files. I stumbled upon lots of photos, archives of IM conversations, poems, ad infinitum. All from years ago when I was still sentimental enough to keep such cutesy patootsie stuff. Funny how it seemed like only yesterday when I got so burned by what happened. Then again the human heart does know how to self-heal, and time has a way of changing things and perspectives. I must confess though that I did hesitate for like two seconds if I should delete all that "documentation". In the end, I decided to exercise better judgment, and I am happy to report that the files have been flushed down the black abyss of oblivion.

I've got a new laptop now. Time for new memories :-)

A photoblog of the past month

Chiang Mai - I attended an ASEAN-sponsored event called Workshops on Youth, Culture and Development first week of November. Stayed at this gorgeous nature-inspired boutique resort (our rooms were converted tobacco barns). Met lots of bright and charming young people from Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. But of course...Filipinos for the win! No question about it, they are brothers and sisters from another mother. Had my fill of pad thai, Chang & Singha (Heiny too), grasshoppers (yes, grasshoppers) and CHILLI. I nearly OD'd on chilli - it was pretty hardcore cos even their soups and salads had them.


ASEAN Regional Conference on Womenomics at the Manila Hotel - A good conference overall, but horribly disorganised and NOISY. Lesson learnt: At a conference FOR women WITH women, nobody really pays attention to speakers and lectures on gender issues because it is more fun to do girly things like chat and gossip and compare shopping purchases. It was literally like going to market, only with better-dressed people.

Painted a community library in Mariveles - One weekend in November I helped paint the walls of a beautiful children's library by the sea. The place had a lovely sea and sky theme.

My Wii & Videoke 26th - Had birthday drinkies with friends while playing Rockband and singing our throats out like retards. Good times indeed. Seeing my friends again that night (after what seemed like ages) gave me warm and fuzzy feelings. I may be jobless and broke and stupid at most things, but hey I've got all these mates so I AM GOLD.
An overnight spiritual retreat - My soul needed it. I see things differently now, and I am ever so slowly rediscovering God.

Breaking up, hooking up

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend I haven't seen in ages. Halfway through lunch, she called her boyfriend (the boyfriend is also a friend) and asked him to pop by. Boyfriend turns up, tells me I've put on weight (but was also quick to add that it looked good on me...men and their diplomatic skills!). Girlfriend shushes him. I agreed that it's true, I really did gain quite some poundage (I told him exactly how much). He goes, "Oh no, that is really quite a bit of weight!". Girlfriend asks him to shut up. This whole exchange did not leave me the slightest bit offended, I actually even found everything highly amusing. The guy is a blunt yet funny dude after all. We then left the place where we had lunch, had a few drinks at a pub and the rest of the afternoon proceeded without further incident. The following day I receive an SMS from my girlfriend. Apparently she broke up with him. For calling me fat. I honestly couldn't decide if the story was funny or sad.

My former roommie was also deliriously happy to tell me some weeks back that one of my good friends (she used to be my flatmate when I lived on campus) is now dating our mover. Bit of a background: my friend helped us out when we moved into our flat and that was how she met our Aussie mover. There were times when my roommie and I would both be out of the house and she would be the one to let the mover in whenever he'd deliver something. Eventually she hired him too when she moved into a flat in the city. Now they are seeing each other and last I heard he was gonna take her to the Opera House.

Isn't it completely bizarre how I was the reason behind the breakup and hook up of two different couples?! I always knew that I was a walking bag of contradictions, but being a relationship wrecker and Cupid simultaneously?! It's a gift.

PS As of last week Couple 1 already got back together. Thank goodness! Now I can breathe and not have that burden hanging over my head.

My "danceable" music list

I have never taken a liking to dance music, and I usually only find myself on the dance floor whilst heavily smashed. However, just recently I have learned to appreciate good danceable (as I define it) music. My preference has always gravitated towards indie rock and alternative, so I'm really a newbie at this kind of stuff. I'm not good at identifying genres, but I think it would be safe to say that the songs in question are a mash up of electronica, pop, funk, and rock. I just bought myself a decent entry-level ipod docking station and I have been cranking it up full volume and repeatedly playing these hugely enjoyable tracks. Sorry, but hip-hop and r&b songs still remain ostensibly absent from the list. I would rather slash my wrists than be caught dead listening to THAT music (I apologise for having very strong opinions about this. All of us are entitled to be musical snobs anyway).

1. Time to Pretend - MGMT
First heard it from Jim Sturgess' 21 and since then I have been hooked. Love the lyrics too.

2. Electric Feel - MGMT
Totally catchy! And the music video is a complete throwback to the 80's.

3. Must Be the Moon - !!!
I saw !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk...check out how they came up with the name) in concert last June and I immensely enjoyed the band. The album this song came from is called Myth Takes - not a five-star quality album but some of tracks are indeed pretty awesome. Must Be the Moon, underrated as it is, is hands down the best thing to come out of '07, methinks. This song will ALWAYS manage to get me in a good mood.

4. Frou Frou's Details Album
Imogen Heap is mesmerizing. I love all the tracks in the album. In fact, these songs have been on heavy rotation in my ipod and laptop for several years now. Pity that the duo only managed to release one album before they disbanded in '03.

5. The Whitest Boy Alive's Dreams Album
For a time I was listening to the whole album on repeat, every single day. According to the band's website, they "started as an electronic dance music project in 2003 in Berlin, but have since slowly developed into a band with no programmed elements". TWBA's vocalist/guitarist is Norwegian Erlend Oye, who is 1/2 of Kings of Convenience. His voice is truly soothing that sometimes you'd be torn between being lulled to sleep and bobbing your head to the music. Note: not all tracks are danceable. Majority are slow and mellow relaxation-ish fare.

6. UFO, and Pictures - Sneaky Sound System
These songs were massive last year in Australia. A bit too loud for my taste but I mainly like them for the nostalgia factor.

7. Sleeping In, District Sleeps Alone Tonight, Such Great Heights,
Nothing Better - Postal Service
I worship Ben Gibbard, so it only follows that I would also love his little side project. Jenny from Rilo Kiley also did guest vocals for them and that's another plus. Electronica has never been this good and listener-friendly.

**HERE'S MORE:
8. You Were the Last High, We Used to be Friends & other stuff by The Dandy Warhols
They've been around for ages (Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth was one of their earlier hits) but I only started to really listen to them after hearing We Used to be Friends on The O.C. (Adam Brody was dancing to the song) . Yes, I know that the series was pure hogshit, but you gotta admit that the soundtracks were crazy good.

Current TV addictions

THIS SHOW IS ABSOLUTE GENIUS BECAUSE OF...the Conchords' manager Murray, who insists on doing roll-calls at band meetings even if only three people turn up all the time. The Kiwi accent (which initially annoyed me, but now I find it quite cute and charming). How Bret (Brit!) and Jemaine randomly burst into song in every episode.The fact that the band only has one existing fan, a psychotic stalker called Mel. For writing such awesome songs like Business Time and Mutha Uckas, how can you not adore these guys?!

WHY I'M HOOKED: Toby Flenderson - the sad-eyed HR guy with an anemic personality. Michael Scott's extraordinary ability to embarrass himself. Jim and Pam. Dwight's gullibility. And at Dunder Mifflin, no one really does any real work.

Fast-tracking maturity

I turn 26 in a couple of months. Shudder. Knot in my stomach. Full-on antsy. I feel completely ancient. And inadequate. I am not performing up to par, no doubt about that. Tick-tock, less than three months to the date. Fingers crossed that will be enough time to accomplish all the unachieved goals on my things-to-do-before-I-reach-the-big-two-six-list.

More than ever I feel the pressure to expedite my growing up process. Recurring topics floating in my head as of late: Career, Savings, Stability, Future. I find myself frequenting forums on investments and mutual funds now. Well, I still allow myself to be a retard sometimes, but my better sense keeps reminding me to stay on adult mode. Better Sense appears to be constantly whipped by Retarded Side though.

New home for my blog

So I've recently migrated over to blogspot. This decision was really borne out of very frivolous and insignificant reasons, nothing earth-shatteringly major. If you really wanted to know, it was mainly cos of two things: 1) I wanted to add some fancy schmanzy widgets, and wordpress was giving me hell for wanting to install them, and 2) My white-as-milk theme was getting quite old and I didn't have the slightest idea how to create mastheads and stuff in wordpress. And maybe a third reason would be that I am currently at a stage where I am enamoured with the idea of starting things on a new slate, whatever that means. Oh, and being jobless at the moment also had something to do with it (what do I do with this ridiculous amount of free time??).

Initially I was hesitant to move to blogspot, because I was already quite happy with wordpress and I enjoyed the fact that it was the less popular of the two. I like most things obscure and underrated anyway, and I was reluctant to start a blogspot account especially since nearly the whole blogging population blogs with them (Blogger is owned by Google, after all). At first I equated the idea of my switching to blogspot with selling out, in blogging terms. I even told a friend that the act of shifting to the dark side (of blogging) reminds me of when Sugar Ray recorded Someday or when Incubus released Morning View.

Then again, at the end of the day, it's really got nothing to do with shifting allegiances or going down the sell-out path. If blogspot will let me have my widgets then fine, I'm there. No more over-analysing. But now the fifty cent question...how does one export wordpress entries to blogspot? I was faced with this daunting task made even more daunting by the fact that I am a big tech idiot. After some googling, I downloaded this nifty little application, read and re-read the instructions that came with it, and trial-and-errored my way to export more than half of my wordpress posts to blogspot (apparently the app can only export a max of 50 entries per day). I am usually quite modest about personal achievements, but this time I must admit that I am mighty proud of myself for that awesome little tech feat (if you could even call it that).

As I mentioned, part of the reason why I decided to rehaul my blog was because I wanted to add more colour and oomph to the layout, but surprise surprise, I still ended up with a rehashed white-as-milk theme. Well, at least I've got a header now. I guess this whole futile exercise is just trying to tell me that no matter how much I try to show people that I am a fun and creative person, I still cannot disguise the fact that deep down I am truly drab and blah.

11-20 August 2008: An Abridged Travelogue

11 August: Arrived in Singapore past noon. Stomach was grumbling with a fury. Needed to sort out accommodation problems pronto while at the airport. In a fit of desperation, I ended up booking an overpriced hotel on Orchard Road. Finally had lunch at 4-ish. Among the wonderful array of international food choices, I ended up having a Big Mac meal (when hungry I am unable to think straight and make sound decisions). Had dinner with friends - chili crabs, prawns, satay and jugs of Tiger beer. We bought more beer at the friendly neighbourhood 7-11 and hung out at Naumi hotel's infinity pool. Got home fairly late.

12 August: Checked out of overpriced hotel and moved into a hostel two blocks away. Had Hainanese chicken rice for lunch, a dish I always have to have when in Singapore. Went down to the MOM to sort out some stuff. Headed back to hostel to rest for a bit. I made sure I was at the Esplanade extra extra early for the DCFC concert that night. Didn't have much of an appetite so I just had a post-concert dinner of kaya toast and tea. My friends and I went back to our friendly neighbourhood 7-11 and we got more beers and a bottle of chardonnay (upon my insistence). Stuffed my face with leftover hainanese chicken rice, and this one was, without question, better than what I had for lunch. Hung out at the infinity pool again while watching the concert videos we took and almost every conceivable Youtube video with Ben Gibbard in it. When I got home it was almost sunrise.

13 August: Slept in and woke up embarrassingly late. Had another favourite dish for lunch, soy chicken with noodles. Went back to the MOM to finish off the paperwork. Headed back to hostel because I was dying of sunstroke and suffering from acute shops-fatigue-syndrome. Had riveting conversations with Chloe, a chatty girl from HK; William, an Indo-Aussie dude who worked at the front desk...interestingly, he also went to the same uni; Tristan, an Asian-Kiwi tour guide and Edgar, a Filipino from Leyte who was looking for work in Singapore. Went to bed without having dinner.

14 August: Had some more money changed. Bought my mom's moisturizer and searched in vain for my brother's Ipod thingo in Sim Lim Square. Went window shopping in Bugis but felt extremely annoyed that there were throngs of shoppers everywhere I went. By this time I was so sick of seeing shops (they have multiplied fifty-fold since my last Singapore trip) and people that I nearly had a nervous breakdown. Why are people always in malls, don't they have to work?! I am beginning to hate this culture of consumerism. Headed back to hostel to pick up my luggage and bade farewell to my hostel friends. Took a cab to the airport to catch my flight to BKK. Arrived in BKK late evening and took an overpriced cab to my hotel. Dinner, shower, watched CNN for Olympics news and Russia-Georgia developments then it was bedtime for me.

15 August: Had a hearty breakfast, then headed to the shopping places in the Pratunam Area. Bought a few clothes and some corn muffins at a random street hawker then went back to hotel. I find that I increasingly lose patience with shopping as I age, and it's just something I cannot bring myself to do the entire day. Took a nap, washed my face and then I was on my way to Siam Niramit. Took photos of the model Thai villages, had a buffet dinner, then watched the cultural show. Overall, it was an impressive production. Waited an eternity for a cab. It was terribly frustrating that when they hear me speak English, the cabbies would automatically shake their head vigorously (to say that they are not willing to drive me home). Good thing a cabbie took pity on me and so together we embarked on our thrilling adventure to find our way back to my hotel. Direction-giving was all done in sign language and map-pointing. Got home late after all the getting lost episodes and language barrier issues. Had an ice cold Singha beer, flipped through the channels for a bit then went to bed.

16 August: Went to the Jim Thompson house. Beautiful Western-inspired Thai house steeped in fascinating history. Thompson also led a very interesting life. Headed back to hotel (more sign language-ing with the cabbie again). Took a long nap, and by the time I got up it was already night fall. Had dinner at KFC (they give you real cutlery!) then tried to have a look at the shops but they were mostly closed. Went to the friendly neighbourhood internet place. Owner spoke good English.

17 August: Breakfast of champions - rice with vegetables, Thai noodles, dried fish, sausages, orange juice and fruits. Went to mass with a friend from uni. Had lunch at Siam Paragon. We then headed to the Grand Palace, because I told her that I really wanted to see their temples. My friend was in leggings and apparently this wasn't appropriate attire for the Palace so she had to change into a sarong. We checked out the temples and pagodas and gardens (it was also my friend's first time at the Palace; though she's Thai, she was raised Catholic). I had an attack of sunstroke again. We walked around the Palace's periphery and then we took a cab to her house. I met her very nice family. Her aunt and cousin went with us to Central World, and we had Vietnamese for dinner and Polar Ice for dessert (crushed ice with milk and fruits...it was to die for). Her aunt gave me the grand tour of BKK at night before driving me back to my hotel. It was a terribly long day and I was pooped and dehydrated as hell.

18 August: Had to wake up insanely early for my Ayutthaya trip. I was picked up at half past six am at the lobby. Driver picked up a handful of other people then dropped us off at the bus terminal. We got on the tour bus, and I sat next to a very nice French lady from Cannes . Her name was Sophie and she teaches geography and history at a middle school in France. First stop was Bang Pa In or the King's summer palace. The place is a mix of European, Chinese and Thai-inspired structures. We then went to three ancient Ayutthaya temples: Wat Mahathat, Wat Lokayasutharam and Wat Na Phra Mane. The first one reminded me of Siem Reap; the ruins were completely amazing and photogs are sure to go crazy over them. One of the temple guards berated a couple for striking a funny pose with one of the headless buddhas. The guard also insisted on deleting the picture in their camera. The last temple had a massive reclining buddha covered in cloth. After the visit to the temples we were dropped off at the pier where we got on the cruise ship. We had a buffet lunch on board while taking in the sights of the Chao Phraya River's banks. I was bone tired when I got home and I took a nap. I had a quick dinner and a quick shower before having a Thai massage. Had a bottle of Changi beer and then I proceeded to sleep very very soundly.

19 August: Checked out early and left my luggage in the lobby. The hotel has a few Filipinos in their employ. Went out to shop for a good few hours. Before I knew it, I could barely carry my purchases. Headed back to hotel and deposited my stuff. With the help of a Pinoy front desk person, I weighed my luggage - 20 for the ginormous suitcase and 7 for the carry-on (I am a packing genius). Had lunch at A&W, a restaurant of my youth. Checked the time and I still had a few hours to spare before my evening flight so I took a cab to Wat Po, the famous temple of the reclining golden buddha. I had a very deep and engaging conversation with the cabbie who drove me there - an amazing feat for a Thai who knew 50 English words at most and a Filipino who knew a grand total of three Thai phrases. The golden buddha was a sight to behold indeed - it was an imposing statue with feet made of mother of pearl. The various other temples and pagodas in the complex were quite interesting as well. After an hour or so I headed back to Pratunam to pick up my luggage and catch another cab to the airport for my flight back to Singapore.

20 August: Arrived at Changi past midnight. Six hours to go before my flight to Manila. I decide to kill time by reading Murakami, but eyelids were getting very very heavy. An Australian lady eventually sprawled herself on the seats and slept. I managed to get some shuteye before the check-in counter finally opened. With still a lot of time to spare, I figured I should grab a bite to eat. I was craving for kaya toast again (those things grow on you) and so I had two slices with a hot Milo. I bought myself the latest Foreign Affairs issue and read a bit while I was waiting for boarding time.

Death Cabbing in Singapore

Finally saw my favourite band perform live at the Esplanade two weeks ago. This is the first time that I have flown to a different country just to watch a concert - I guess that only goes to prove that I truly occupy top position in the hierarchy of Death Cab for Cutie fanhood.

I began to get all giddy like a fangirl minutes before the concert started. And when the band went on stage I felt an electric wave ripple through me. Ben Gibbard didn't have his glasses on and he actually looked a bit rockstaresque, nearly the antithesis of his usual geekazoid self. And wow do they sound better live. I was in complete and utter awe for the next ninety minutes.

I would like to believe that I am a very subdued type of person and on regular days I behave as if I'm on heavy doses of tranquilizers, but that night I was shrieking like a deranged fangirl, it was embarrassing. I would yell my tonsils out at the beginning and at the end of each song. And dear lord I was even singing along. Loudly. I was obviously not comporting myself normally during the concert.

And the most awesome line of the night from Ben Gibbard: I'd like to thank our opening act, Dead Air. I found myself letting out a very loud chuckle. Sigh. I heart dorky jokes.

Oh and I would like to mention that there were quite a few things that night which could have potentially ruined the experience for me but didn't, after all: Guy with the Massive Head standing directly in front of me, pretty much obstructing my view the whole night; the girl next to me who smelled like jackfruit (turns out she came to the concert by herself, the poor thing); my not-so-top-of-the-line camera and the fact that I wasn't able to take videos. That night I resolved not to take any videos anymore so I could fully enjoy the concert, and this was the best decision ever. Sometimes we focus too much on getting the perfect angle and not having shaky arms while filming concerts that we often forget to just listen. And watch. And enjoy.

I was so relieved that the band's Narrow Stairs songs didn't dominate the set list, seeing as I did not like that album very much. And I was also very pleased that they played good stuff from their past albums, songs from my college days which made me all nostalgic. And the best surprise was them saving my two ultimate favourite DCFC songs for last. How wonderful was that*

*Tiny Vessels is such an eloquently beautiful song. I understand exactly what Ben was trying to say.
**It's funny how everyday snippets of DCFC lyrics find their way to play in my head. As we speak this bit from Crooked Teeth is reverberating in my mind: I'm a war, of head versus heart/And it's always this way/My head is weak/my heart always speaks/Before I know what it will say

Their set list: (from Junk Online)
1. Bixby Canyon Bridge (Narrow Stairs)
2. The New Year (Transatlanticism)
3. Why You’d Want to Live Here (The Photo Album)
4. Crooked Teeth (Plans)
5. Photobooth (Forbidden Love EP)
6. Long Division (Narrow Stairs)
7. Grapevine Fires (Narrow Stairs)
8. A Movie Script Ending (The Photo Album)
9. Company Calls (We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes)
10. Title Track (We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes)
11. Soul Meets Body (Plans)
12. I Will Follow You Into the Dark (Plans)
13. I Will Possess Your Heart (Narrow Stairs)
14. Cath… (Narrow Stairs)
15. Styrofoam Plates (The Photo Album)
16. Expo '86 (Transatlanticism)
17. The Sound of Settling (Transatlanticism)

Encore:
18. Your Bruise (Something About Airplanes)
19. Title and Registration (Transatlanticism)
20. No Sunlight (Narrow Stairs)
21. Tiny Vessels (Transatlanticism)
22. Transatlanticism (Transatlanticism)

I desperately tried to get myself a shirt but the queues to the merchandise booth were massive and they eventually ran out of stuff to sell. The band had an autograph signing after the concert but I had nothing for them to sign (plus there were a bajillion people in the autograph queue) and that left me depressed as hell. Good thing a friend scored a shirt for me during their Sydney concert. Someone's a happy camper again.

Since the place got packed cos of the autograph signing, me and my friends wanted to outsmart everyone else and so we decided to go out of the Esplanade to try and get a good view of the band members from the glass windows outside. We did get a good view of their...backs. Plan:failed.

It was truly a pity we didn't get to interact with the band post-concert because I already had my whole We-came-all-the-way-from-the-Philippines-speech rehearsed in my head. Maybe I can finally deliver my spiel in their next one.

Tagged Again

Got tagged again, this time by the Queen Gambit. My answers to her questions:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Junior high school. That is all I remember. High school was a particularly traumatic phase of my young life so I'd rather not reminisce about it.

2. What are the 5 things on my to-do list today?

1. Sleep
2. Sleep some more
3. Try to introduce some semblance of order in my shitpit of a room
4. Scour the internet for employment opportunities
5. Venture out of the house for the first time (?)

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Not a big fan of snacking. My personal food philosophy dictates that I am only allowed to have two (three, on a good day) big meals a day, and no snacks in between. However, I make exceptions when the snacks in question are actually hard to resist. I hardly say no to cheese corn chips (Doritos...yummmmm), fruit cups, Lindt milk chocolate, my friend's Food for the gods...I have to stop now.

4. Places where I lived:

- Rizal (all my life)
- Madrid (one month)
- Reggio Calabria (three months)
- Sydney (a year and a half)

5. Things I’d do if I were a billionaire (Did I win the lottery?):

1. Put some money away in savings.
2. Travel like there's no tomorrow.
3. Hire a personal chef/masseuse.
4. Set up a massive home theatre in my new home.
5. Share some of the windfall to family, househelp and very close friends.
6. Rest will go to my favourite charities (Greenpeace, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, WWF, UNICEF, Operation Smile, etc).

Farewells are draining

The packing is killing me. Sorting out all my uni paperwork is a gargantuan task and getting my finances in order is a big bitch. Fifteen million things on my to-do list. Then there's explaining to my boss that I broke her transcribing machine and left the last interview unfinished. I probably would not have enough time to do my Bondi to Coogee walk and go back to my favourite museums. I wouldn't have enough time to say goodbye to everyone either. That, or THEY wouldn't have enough time. This day alone so many people have cancelled I've already lost count. I moved heaven and earth to keep tonight free so I can have a nice dinner at home and spend quality time with someone I particularly wanted to bid farewell to, then I get that disappointing phone call. Story of my life. I think I should just spare myself the agony and just get on the plane without going through all that farewell jazz. I was never good with goodbyes anyway. My heart rips into tiny little shreds every single time. Note to self: do not get attached to people and places again.

Holiday from myself

If my current state of mind were a song, it would be that obscure one by an equally obscure band called Minibar. It's so obscure that I think there's only five people in the world who know it. It's basically about someone wanting to have a holiday from himself, asking for "some time away from being me". Well, isn't that precious? It even feels as if I wrote the song myself. I googled the lyrics and the last bit is totally reflective of my emotional state at the moment. I seriously need a holiday from myself. I'm so sick of being me.

You who never arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Idiot

I amaze myself at how unbelievably stupid I could be sometimes. The last couple of days I have proven to myself that I am truly capable of sinking to the depths of extreme stupidity, it's not even funny. Now some relationships are strained, and it is entirely of my own doing.

To speak or not speak

My mother tells me that I started to speak earlier than most infants. Everyone in my family attests to this fact actually, and my dad even has the audio tapes to prove how irritatingly loquacious I was as a child. My mom recalls how frustrated she was that I just would not shut up while she was pregnant with my younger brother and I would keep following her around, bombarding her with my annoying questions.

My parents took such great pride in my talkativeness that they would let me mingle with their adult friends all the time. Thus I grew up always having adult conversations with actual adults. At a tender young age, I already discovered how wonderful it was to engage in verbal calisthenics.

At some stage in my adolescent years though, I just decided to not talk. I thought it might be more fun to keep to myself and only really speak to friends I felt comfortable with. Once in high school, a teacher had to sit my mom down and informed her how I never spoke a word in class while I would hand in pretty decent written work. My mom then asked me how this could be possible when, growing up, I was such an irrepressible and argumentative kid.

In college, I reverted to my former self. I was still painfully shy but I did try to be as sociable as I can. I was the president of an organisation and this role involved lots and lots of talking, and I think I did fairly okay. I made plenty of acquaintances, but my real and true friends were just a handful. I always preferred to operate that way.

I'm in my mid-twenties now and I'm as silent as ever. Last year I think was my worst year in talking. As a result, I met less people, and the few people I did meet got to know me at a highly superficial level. I just lost faith in words and talking. But more than anything, I guess I just became overly wary of people.

I remember how I spent most of last year by myself, in my room. I was leading a loser lifestyle extraordinaire. I hardly spoke in class, but if it would make a huge difference in my grade, I would. I became very business-like with classmates. I would study in my room, go to class, run back home, stay in my room again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

One night while walking home from a late evening class, I was about to cross the street. The red pedestrian light was flashing and I attempted to make a run for it. I stopped in midstep though, and I realised that I was such a moron for wanting to rush home just so I could lock myself up in my room again.

Late in the second semester of last year, I began to have some semblance of normalcy again in my life. I started to slowly talk to people again and drum roll please...make new friends. It's amazing how the few good friends that I have at the moment all made the heroic first move to befriend my pathetic self. A friend told me that I seemed like such a colossal snob and that I really gave off the vibe that I wanted to be left alone, but he still took it upon himself to try very hard to smash my wall of ice. I'm happy he did.

I still adopt a policy of silence when I hang out with people I barely know, but once I get comfy with someone, I surely can unleash a mouthful. I like being quiet and reserved. It gives me a chance to observe people more keenly and prevent myself from saying empty and stupid things. And isn't listening so much more fun since it involves far less energy compared to talking?

This is pure gold

More stuff from my most favourite poet in the world...

[somewhere i have never travelled]

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

Rudderless

Waiting for something to break
Left my heart out to bake
Nothing there in my glass
Wasn't air meant to last

All the way down to the lake
Found the lake was wet
How much more could I take
Better yet
Walked back home to my place
Tired of getting high
Guess I don't wanna die

Hope in my past
Hope in my past
Hope in my past
Hope in my past

Waiting for something to break
Left my hear out to bake
Slipped my mind that I could use my brain
I'll stay up all night and crash on the plane
Ship without a rudder's like a
Ship without a rudder

In awe of e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

When Vanity kissed Vanity

When Vanity kissed Vanity, a hundred happy Junes ago, he
pondered o'er her breathlessly, and, that all men might ever
know, he rhymed her eyes with life and death:

"Thru Time I'll save my love!" he said . . . yet Beauty
vanished with his breath, and, with her lovers, she was dead . . .

—Ever his wit and not her eyes, ever his art and not her hair:

"Who'd learn a trick in rhyme, be wise and pause before his
sonnet there" . . . So all my words, however true, might sing
you to a thousandth June, and no one ever know that you were
Beauty for an afternoon.

Random food-related ruminations

- Our oven exploded last Friday. We were attempting to bake the perfect pork rashers, but its drippings inadvertently ignited a flame which eventually became a fire. Soon enough our flat was filled with choking smoke and we had to douse the oven with water. All this quietly occurred in under ten minutes - no dramas, no panicking, no screaming. Surprisingly, everyone (all seven of us) kept very calm and for a while there it seemed like everyone OD'd on downers. We dealt with the fire in an extremely business-like manner. I thought I was the only retard who was thinking about how we could possibly rescue the meat, but during our post-fire conference it was revealed that all of us were thinking the same thing. The whole episode ended with us still salvaging the burnt rashers and eating them with gusto.

- I have been eating so much meat (pork, to be specific) lately and I am terribly ashamed of myself. Yesterday I had a handful of bacon for brunch and an immoderate amount of roast pork for dinner. Today's meals were not much different. If this goes on I will surely go to diet hell very soon.

- My appetite is legendary. What girl can out-eat the men in her family? I am also my friends' designated leftovers-finisher. Food for me is not just a purely physiological thing; I seriously think it should occupy a higher position in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Good food makes me sublimely happy. My personal vision of heaven is a place where I can enjoy all the food I want, without getting heart palpitations or puffed-up cheeks.

- Whenever someone would cook for me, I would always get that warm-on-the-insides feeling. I guess it makes you feel adored, somehow, because it is quite rare to have someone willing to go through all the painstaking trouble of making you a lovely home-cooked meal. Two people cooked for me last week. One is a good friend who would get horribly excited at the sight of me stuffing my face with her heavenly cooking. The other person made me a sumptuous Italian dinner. Such a sweet gesture, but a friend argues that men who cook for you tend to harbour hidden agendas. It's all quid pro quo, he says. He might be partly or wholly right, but my theory is that whoever exerts a significant amount of effort to cook for you would also be capable of wounding you emotionally at a later stage. Isn't there a saying suggesting that the stomach and the heart are connected somehow?

I wanna ditch the logical

So denied so I lied are you the now or never kind
In a day and a day love I'm gonna be gone for good again
Are you willing to be had are you cool with just tonight
Here's a toast to all those who hear me all too well

Put your name on the line along with place and time
Wanna stay not to go I wanna ditch the logical

All my time is froze in motion
Can't I stay an hour or two or more
Don't let me let you go

Here's to the nights we felt alive
Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry
Here's to goodbye
Tomorrow's gonna come too soon

5:05 AM

I woke up in the middle of the night consumed by the cold, a growling stomach and thoughts of someone. As we speak I am aching for human warmth. I am also experiencing a debilitating sort of hunger but I am just too lazy to get up and feed myself.

I'd really give anything to go back to those times when I could just ring someone in the wee small hours of the morning and the soothing voice on the other end of the line would just lull you back to sleep. You might even be sung to sometimes.

Loneliness is such a bitch. And I hate to be reminded of this while you're cold and starving in the middle of the night in winter. Especially not when you are thinking about someone who doesn't even give a flying fuck about you, or why you are friggin' awake at 5:05 AM.

Please please let me get what I want

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time

Resolutions for a better me (AKA My Ambitious Self-Improvement Project)

I've had a fair bit of time lately to reassess my life and I just realised how badly I've been living it, so I decided to draw up some self-betterment plans to address this concern. I'm also bidding adios to Sydney in a month or so and I figured I should stop being such a sloth and make the most out of my last remaining days here. A partial list in no particular order:

1. WEAN MYSELF OFF THE NET. I am very much ashamed to tell people how much time I actually spend online on a daily basis. The Internet is my oxygen, yet it is also my kryptonite. I obsessively check Facebook and my email inbox, it's not even funny. I foresee abysmally low grades for myself this semester on account of this fact. Anyway, from this day on I resolve to decrease my dependence on the net and only spend a maximum of two hours surfing daily. Cognitive-ish stuff like reading the news and intelligent blogs do not count towards the limit.

2. LAY OFF THE KFC. Colonel Sanders, your chicken is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I'm pretty sure your original recipe of eleven secret herbs and spices includes a generous dash of crack. I am completely addicted to KFC that sometimes it's all I could think about. Late last year, myself and a friend would eat a Megabucket Meal every week (think 10 pieces of chicken, popcorn chicken, nuggets, chips, mashed potato, the works). With bolgogi and rice. And I would finish all the leftover KFC for the next few days. Before I knew it, my face began to look like a sticky bun in photos.

In the last fifteen hours alone I have demolished more or less ten wicked wings with potato gravy. And chips. And Beard Papa. I am literally digging my grave with my teeth, and this has got to stop. To think I once used to be vegetarian and I'd religiously eat an apple a day and have green tea after every meal. So therefore I resolve to try to go off the KFC for a while, in an attempt to detox myself of all the evil evil food I have been consuming. On second thought, going completely off the KFC sounds highly undoable so maybe I'll just aim for limiting my intake to once every two weeks. This will be difficult, I know it. The withdrawal symptoms will be nasty.

3. GET SOME EXERCISE. I still think gym is evil and I would rather watch paint dry than go to one, but for this particular resolution walking a bit here and there would do, for the meantime. I've been so out of shape that even the slightest uphill climb would leave me tired and panting. To think that I was a pretty mean runner back in the day and I even played football.

4. GO OUT OF MY ROOM. Sounds deceptively simple and easy, but not when you're surgically attached to the bed, like I am. I plan to venture out more from now on, even to just go to uni and walk down the tree-lined avenues and step on the crunchy leaves strewn all over the campus. I think I need some sunshine as well cos I'm perpetually morose.

5. SEE MORE OF SYDNEY. I have a mental list of things to see and do before I leave. Next plan of action is to actually see and do those things. And take photos. I want to go back to the Art Gallery and look at the sculptures I like again, along with that uber cool Australia vs. England chess set. There's also the Sydney Observatory, which I've been meaning to go to for a long time now. And the Bondi to Cogee walk which I absolutely must do before it gets too cold that I'll die of hypothermia or something midway. At this point it doesn't really matter if I could get people to go with me. I mean, the company will be appreciated but if there's no takers then I'm perfectly cool with going on a date with myself.

6. MOVIES. Uni kept me from watching movies last semester and now I have a serious movie backlog.

7. SPEAK TO PEOPLE MORE. It's actually strange how I've regressed so much in the sense that I used to be a lot more sociable, but now I find myself only engaging in conversation with people I actually know. And this is coming from someone who loves conversations and debates and arguments and stuff. Thus I will now resolve to stop being monosyllabic and start talking to other people more than usual. After all, a stranger's just a friend you haven't met.

8. COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE OLD-SCHOOL STYLE. Out with online chatting and emailing. I should write letters more, by hand. And use the phone to call people, because last I checked that's what they're for. And have more face-to-face conversations, because all this technology-mediated communication, for what it's worth, still leaves a lot of things unsaid.

9. TAKE IT EASY ON THE ALCOHOL. I can only get plastered once a week, but I will make exceptions for special occasions. Hehe.

10. RECONNECT WITH PEOPLE WHOM I HAVEN'T SEEN IN A WHILE. I have a little more than a month to do this.

I experience epiphanies...

...while sitting on my blue thinking chair in the balcony, late at night when the streets are empty. While contemplating the vastness of the sky and the quiet stillness of the night. You really do have to hear yourself think once in a while.

Being the only person awake during the wee small hours of the evening gives me some modicum of happiness and makes me feel special, I just don't know how, or why. I guess it's because somehow I can delude myself that I own this entire neighbourhood, even for a mere handful of hours. And I guess I derive joy from not sharing this space with noisy humans, at least until they all wake up and pollute the place again with their meaningless noise.

Severe student's block

At this stage, I'm just going through the motions, really. This is the part where I dread turning up to uni. I have grown to despise every single paper and presentation that I have to work on. Everyday I wake up expecting that it's already the second week of June, when I can finally have that celebratory drink of vodka. Last week I was suffering from panic attacks and indescribable stress. But now more than ever, I think I've already reached the point where I've stopped caring about marks and GPAs and things. Well, not really. I'd still sell a kidney to get top marks, but I guess I've just lost all energy to try harder. This has been my worst semester (academically speaking) and I have just been turning in such a lackluster performance it's embarrassing.

I'm reminded of this episode from Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, which I thoroughly enjoyed as a kid. There was this African-American TV series writer who just lost his muse one day and his brains ran dry of funny things to write for his comedies. He fell asleep on the typewriter one night and his potted plant finished the screenplay for him. The plant did a pretty awesome job too, catapulting the ratings of the show. Sigh. Guess it's time to scour Sydney nurseries for wonderplants like that.

I need you so much closer

I just found out that Death Cab for Cutie will be having a Sydney concert on the...(wait for it)...18th of August. I leave Australia on the last week of July. There is a shortage of expletives to encapsulate what I feel at the moment.

When I got here January of last year, one of the first things I remember doing was googling the band's Australia tour dates. I found a site saying that they would be a having an April-ish Sydney concert. In a fit of excitement, I immediately contacted a friend and pleaded with him to watch the concert with me. After a bit I reviewed the email I had just sent, and I belatedly realised that the concert was April of friggin' 2006.

But back to their concert this year...talk about excellent timing. I seriously considered extending my stay for another two weeks just to see DCFC perform live, but I really doubt my scholarship would allow it.

When I heard the news this afternoon, I was absolutely crestfallen. I decided to just put on my pajamas and take a nap. And put their songs on repeat.

No puedo mas

I'm tired, spent, burnt out. Three weeks to go before I can finally claim my two degrees, but I'm already on the verge of a nervous breakdown and I seriously doubt if I can still reach that elusive academic finish line.

Ode to Mi Goreng

I was chatting with my mom an hour or so ago when she told me that my brothers were asking me to send them a couple of packs of Mi Goreng. They decimated a scandalous amount of those noodles when they were here last year.

All it took was for my mom to mention those two words and my stomach suddenly went mad ass wild. Stomach instantaneously sent feed-me-Mi-Goreng-now signals to the brain and I had to ask if we could just chat some other time because my hunger pangs have already rendered me weak. The thought of a bowl of hot Mi Goreng completely consumed me.

So yeah, I nearly finished four packs in record time (and I am the world's slowest eater, okay). I'm sure I could've easily finished the two remaining forkfuls, but I just had to restrain myself. My stomach cannot go on being a repository of KFC and instant noodles. A while back I was having Mi Goreng everyday, both lunch and dinner. Last week I even had it for breakfast. Yes, I badly need to check myself into noodle rehab.

Mad props to the brilliant Indonesian who invented Mi Goreng. I will build you a shrine someday.

My next tour destination will likely be Indonesia. A good friend from Java keeps bugging me to visit him, bribing me with all the Mi Goreng I can eat. How can I resist?

Melbourne madness and other asides

(I wrote this a while back and it is a tad bit late, but I just wanted to post an entry about my Melbourne sojourn last month)

Spent the Easter break in Melbourne with my roommie. I had a generally nice time, except for a freak allergy episode and popped eardrums on the flight back. Anyway, it was still good to get away. Also, I've always meant to see what Sydney's rival city had to offer.

Comments and impressions of Melbourne: clean, highly organised and CHEAP transportation, bustling art and music scene (the International Comedy Festival was on when we were there), erratic weather (four seasons in a day, indeed). It's also highly apparent that the cost of living in Melbourne is much less compared to Sydney. Oooh and I totally went wild over the wonderful street art installations we found everywhere we went.

We spent all of Thursday with a girl we went to HS with. She and her husband live in a lovely beach-front home in a suburb forty minutes away from the city. Unfortunately we couldn't head to the beach that day as it was ass-freezing cold. We instead just stayed in and had long and happy trip-down-memory-lane conversations over vodka and prawns. Til I had that surprise allergy attack which covered every square inch of me in rashes (couldn't even open my eyes anymore), gave me a puffed-up face and made me itch like mad. I totally looked like Will Smith in Hitch.

We spent the next three days in the CBD billeted in an el-cheapo hostel (we were warned that it would be dodgy but thank goodness it was okay). Since it was Good Friday everything was mostly closed but we still managed to stumble upon shops and restos that were open. My roommie and I walked around the CBD and the Royal Botanic Gardens. We then caught a tram to St. Kilda and it was such a fabulous place, with the bohemian vibe and all. Plus omg the shops and pubs are so close to the beach. I immediately fell in love with St. Kilda and I wouldn't really mind relocating there.

San Churro (a chocolate resto) lured us into its lair and so we spent Good Friday stuffing our faces with churros con chocolate, truffles, strawberries dipped in chocolate, chocolate pretzels, chocolate ice cream and a ginormous chocolate milkshake (wow, chocolate mentioned five times in a sentence). We had a stroll around the beach, took a couple of photos.

Saturday we went on a river cruise, had lunch at the Docklands (sort of like Melbourne's Darling Harbour) and beers at a pub. We attended the Easter Vigil that night then had Chinese for dinner.

Sunday we went to the Melbourne Museum, which was phenomenal (could've spent the entire day in there). Students get in for free, how awesome is that. My roommie left for an Easter lunch and so I spent half of our last day on my own. I booked a tour of the Royal Exhibition Centre (a World Heritage site) and that was very informative. The building is steeped in rich history and its interiors were well-preserved. After the tour I then headed to the Parliament, a dignified and handsomely designed building and took photos of its façade. I decided to catch the train to the Queen Victoria Markets to pick up some souvenirs but it was nearly closing time when I got there. I did find a T-shirt though which I might give to my brother or keep for myself as a sleep shirt. I was tired out of my mind but my feet managed to drag me to this café where I had a sausage roll and juice. I meandered some more, ended up in Federation Square where I took more photos and watched a transvestite busker putting on a comedy show.

We took the flight back to Sydney that night. As I previously mentioned my eardrums exploded on the plane, and I was deaf for a day. Anyway, Melbourne was lovely and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip.

Movies!

A list of films which I rented/saw at the cinema the past two weeks:

Once

Scoop

Superbad

Goodbye, Lenin!

Lives of Others

The Fountain

Be Kind Rewind

Lars and the Real Girl

There's lots of particularly awesome stuff on that list. I especially liked Once, Lives of Others, Be Kind Rewind and Lars and the Real Girl. Looking forward to seeing heaps more movies over the mid-semester break.

New job!

Got this email yesterday:

Thank you for expressing interest in a position at IEC. We would like to offer you a role which may be a combination of the positions in which you expressed interest. Largely based on Position 4, this would include elements of positions 5 & 6, include office organisation, management of files and literature searches and reviews. There is also material to be transcribed which we can discuss.

Yay, I'm totally stoked!

Jon Stewart quotes at the Oscars

A bit late, but here are my faves:

"Not all films did as well as Juno obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq war, let's face it, did not do as well. But I'm telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. I don't care if it takes 100 years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win."

"Democrats do have a historic race going. Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama. Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

"You have to give Barack Obama credit, he's overcome a great deal. Not just he's an African-American. Barack Hussein Obama is his name. His middle name is the last name of Iraq's former tyrant. His last name rhymes with Osama. That's not easy to overcome. I think we all remember the ill-fated 1944 presidential campaign of Gaydolf Titler. It's just a shame, Titler had so many good ideas. We just couldn't get past the name. And the moustache."

"Tom Hanks has won two Oscars but is not nominated tonight - so if you ask me, he's got no place being here."

"This year's slate: psychopathic killer movies. Does this town need a hug? All I can say is, thank God for teen pregnancy."

"In case you're wondering what we do in the commercial breaks, we sit here making catty remarks about the outfits you're wearing at home."

Responding to Javier Bardem delivering half his speech in Spanish, he said, "I took Spanish in high school. I believe he told his mother where the library was."

"That guy is so arrogant" (referring to Glen Hansard of Once, after he delivered his acceptance speech)

*the way he introduced the Oscars' 'tribute to periscopes and binoculars' followed by the 'tribute to nightmares' was seriously hilarious! I love this guy. I totally think he's the wittiest person on American television nowadays. I remember Oprah also said in O magazine that Jon's been one of the most intelligent people she's ever met.

...Oh, and when he called Marketa Irglova back on stage to give a speech after her mike got cut off...how kind was that?!

Back at uni

My nearly four months of summer holidays are over and I am now officially back at uni. Can't say that I'm in full-on uni mode yet though. I'm still in the denial stage but I hope I could finally get myself to accept the bitter reality soon. I'll really miss all those days of getting up very very late and not worrying shit about papers and presentations and things.

Our Cross-cultural Communication class had its first meeting last Tuesday, and horror of horrors, I ended up with Week 2 when we drew lots for presentations. Now I'm trying to make sense of all these readings in an attempt to come up with a decent oral report for next meeting. It's been hard to get back in the groove of things as I have lost a good number of brain cells during the break due to my reckless lifestyle, but I hope to gain them all back (and more, please!) since I will need lots of brain power to get through my last semester.

I've also been frantically looking for a new job since my brief stint as an Enrolment Assistant is now over. I only go to uni three days a week this semester so there's two free days to work. I figure I should get a part-time job to enrich myself (financially of course...did you think I meant it in a poetic way?!) as I am also saving up for some major purchases. I haven't had a call back yet but fingers crossed someone will hire me soon.

Romance on celluloid

For the record, I don't think much of Valentine's Day...it's a manufactured holiday, for crying out loud. But this post isn't a harangue about how the occasion is a cheap excuse to peddle chocolates and jack up flower prices. I just thought I'd put together a list of my favourite love stories on film as a tribute to this universally-celebrated idiotic holiday, because even if I'm entirely convinced that February 14 is the most vastly overrated and overhyped day of the year, I still wouldn't want to be called The Grinch Who Stole Valentine's.

1. Los Amantes del Circulo Polar (Lovers of the Arctic Circle) - by virtuoso Spanish director Julio Medem. A love story replete with themes of tragedy, fate, coincidence and cycles. The film emphasises the fact that life is an endless cycle of coincidences and circuitous circumstances. Storyline was so intelligently woven and leaves viewers with so much to discuss and mull over.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Can science assist people in successfully erasing memories of past loves gone wrong? This film gives a very interesting answer. Good cast (one of the few films where Jim Carrey didn't annoy me) and excellent acting.

3. When a Man Loves a Woman - Welcome to the dark side of love. No formulaic romantic comedy plot in here. A story of a married couple...guy is a pilot, wife is an alcoholic. I liked this one because it shows you that there are so many deeper dimensions to real human relationships (unlike what the shallow, cutesy plots of most Hollywood rom-coms make us believe), and it explores the stark realities of love and marriage. And also because it was not just another love story.

4. The End of the Affair - Based on a Graham Greene novel, this Neil Jordan film is about a married woman having an affair during the war. Turning point in the movie: while consummating their passion in their love nest, a bomb blast severely injures the woman's lover and he nearly dies. Woman falls down on her knees and profusely begs God to let her lover live, and in exchange she will never see him again. Next scene we see the lover very much alive, and already standing behind her. The woman (who prior to praying to God for that favour was an agnostic) now becomes a devout Catholic. She severs all contact with her lover, lover then suspects her of having an affair, then woman dies and a string of miracles becomes attributed to her. Phenomenal novel and an equally beautiful film. I like how Greene eloquently tackles themes of faith and religion against the backdrop of a very passionate adulterous affair.

5 . In the Mood for Love - The first Wong Kar Wai movie that I ever saw. The lovers in the movie hardly had any physical contact but their unspoken passion exploded heavily on screen. I also found the inclusion of classic Spanish love songs like Quizas and Besame Mucho in the soundtrack wildly original and creative (this was a Chinese movie after all).

6. Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Say Anything, For Keeps, Some Kind of Wonderful and all those other 80's flicks - What can I say? Growing up, I was Molly Ringwald's biggest fan, and I was and still am deeply enamored with the 80's (fashion and hairstyles excluded). These movies best immortalise the sweet agonies of young love (during the decade when I was growing up) and thus will forever make me nostalgic.

7. A Very Long Engagement - True love is indeed very very very patient. I especially liked how sometimes I am as superstitious as Audrey Tautou's character in the movie (If I reach the bend before the car, my lover will still be alive...If I don't break the peel, his comrades managed to save him).

I'll try to add some more to this list...

First day funk

Today was my first day as a Doorie (Door Assistant). Basically I had to manage queues, check that students had all the paperwork needed to enrol and direct them to available operators who would register them into the system. I started at 10 and finished at 6.

On the whole, things pretty much went well today. There were a couple of instances though where I felt monumentally inept, but I was able to escape such moments by asking people to 'Please speak to my supervisor' (I love our supervisors, they've saved our asses an infinite number of times today from irate students). I've always felt like The Worst Employee Ever in every job I've had, even if these things involve truly brainless grunt work like stapling and photocopying. Seriously. Not once have I felt like I was overqualified or too good for any and every job I've been in; instead I keep asking myself why these poor guys decide to waste their money and hire someone as stupid as me.

Anyway despite all the nervousness about making a bloody fool of myself, I did manage to survive the day unscathed. My supervisor even congratulated me (oh I think that's a hyperbole, she just said I did a good job).

It was infernal, pit-of-hell weather today, and at one point I thought I was gonna pass out due to heat stroke. Anyway, I shouldn't complain: the day went relatively okay, I made no major blunders at work plus I met a couple of nice doories (a Finnish girl who knows the phrase Mahal kita, a Chinese-Aussie who might be a potential mahjong mate and a guy who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity in Manila last year). And the icing of the cake is that we still get paid for doing nothing! I mean, the place does get busy too but for the most part of the day we were either feigning busy-ness or blatantly chatting with each other in front of the supervisors because we got too bored during lull periods.

The Djoker defeats R-Fed & other tennis-related sentiments

Breaking news: Roger Federer lost to Novak Djokovic tonight in straight sets, 7-6, 6-3, 7-6. Djokovic will play Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in Sunday's final. My roommie and I were on the edge of our seats while watching the match, shrieking at every unforced error Federer made. It was obvious that he was not in his element tonight. Also, Federer only won his Saturday match against 49th-ranked Janko Tipsarevic by a hairline (possibly one of the longest fifth sets in history) and it was quite uncommon and uncharacteristic to see one of the sport's greatest geniuses not playing his usual high-level tennis. It took a long while before my roommie and I could digest the fact that THE Roger Federer did not reach the final. We stared at the TV screen in disbelief for a good few minutes and we were absolutely crestfallen.

Not too many people know that I was totally into tennis back in high school. I used to dream of becoming the next Martina Hingis and I completely adored Patrick Rafter. I pretty much knew all of the Top Twenty players in both the men's and the women's divisions and I closely followed tennis tournies. I still play Virtua Tennis on the PS3 and the Wii every chance I could. I guess I got hooked due to the fact that tennis is a highly intense game and it involves an immense level of strategy and skill which I don't find in most sports. It also helps that most tennis players are pretty damn hot [my list includes Patrick Rafter, Mark Philippoussis (before he sold out and did The Age of Love), Tommy Haas, Rafael Nadal, Andre Agassi (when he was much younger)]. At the moment I don't have the same passion for the sport like I used to, but I have always, always, always admired Roger Federer's game. I actually rooted for Federer in last year's Australian Open like a crazed fan (he won the tournament without dropping a single set!) and my homework had to take a backseat just so I could watch him on TV. Though he isn't a power hitter like most of his opponents, he's an intelligent tactical player on the court and he comes across as someone very humble, subdued and level-headed. He also behaves himself quite well and thus far I have not seen him cuss, yell or fly into a fit of rage during a match. This afternoon I spent a fair bit of time reading up on him and I was surprised to discover a couple of interesting things: 1) he is Catholic; 2) he speaks fluent Swiss German, German, French and English (multi-lingual and Swiss do go together anyway); 3) the girlfriend who regularly watches his matches is also a tennis player and they met in the Sydney Olympics and; 4) he is actively involved in charity work and is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Facts 1, 2 and 4 left me extremely impressed. Too bad he's not very good-looking, although my roommie thinks otherwise (methinks he's a softer version of Quentin Tarantino).

In related news, 38th-ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga demolished Rafael Nadal last night, also in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2. Again, it was also very hard to accept that Rafa was defeated by a semi-unknown. We were watching the match from a bar and I was so distracted I couldn't bring myself to finish my steak dinner. I happen to like this Spanish señor for I find him ruggedly handsome, and his physique is to-die-for. Rafa is also a veritable powerhouse on clay, which he has very clearly made his turf. His whole sleeveless-shirts-and-capri-pants-get-up also works quite well for him.

Tomorrow Ana Ivanovic faces Maria Sharapova in the women's final. Funny how most commentators have dubbed the match as 'The Squeak versus The Shriek' (alluding to Ivanovic's squeaking shoes and Sharapova's noisy shrieks) and as a 'beauty contest', as both ladies are fairly attractive. Why does tennis get all the good-looking players?

Hodgepodge of updates

Back from blogging purgatory. Here's a cornucopia of things that happened while I was away for a bit:

- Went to see a couple of good movies: Darjeeling Limited, 27 Dresses (doesn't really measure up to my definition of 'good' though. Disclaimer: I was dragged by girlfriends to the movies to see it), No Country for Old Men, Juno, Atonement. My brother and I also watched Seasons One and Two of The Office (I got the DVD as a Christmas present). A few weeks prior I also got carried away and me and my brother rented so many videos: A Clockwork Orange, My Own Private Idaho, Dogville, The Squid and the Whale, Cinema Paradiso (Director's Cut), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (rented solely as a concession to my brother...it came free with all the rest though. NB I fell asleep twice while watching it. Don't get me wrong, I lurrrve Adam Sandler, but something was just...weird about the movie, I guess). I thus foresee that 2008 will be a promising year for movie-watching.

- I got a job at uni! I will be working as an Enrolment Assistant (a Door Assistant, to be exact) in the next couple of days. I start training tomorrow. Wish me luck. I really have to work this summer since I am thisclose to being bankrupt, plus I don't want to spend the next two months counting sheep.

- Was getting the house back in order after my family left. I'm also still in the process of getting my life back in order. Lol.

- My roommie and I recently signed up to be volunteers for Vinnie's (St. Vincent de Paul) and we've started attending their weekly meetings. The group is made up entirely of senior citizens and we initially thought this might be a problem, but they've all been such friendly and wonderful people that we've decided to stay on and represent the youth sector. Lol.

In other news, some friends and I are planning to go up to Port Macquarie sometime next month. I've already seen the website of the resort that we'll be booking and the photos look good. I hope it's a go.

Australia Day is this Saturday, and fingers crossed we'll get a good spot at Darling Harbour for the fireworks. A friend is also hosting a barbie.

In a couple of weeks another friend will be celebrating his birthday and we're planning to go OzJet Boating (yay!) and have a picnic at the Botanic Gardens after. Russell Peters (with special guest Jo Koy!) will also be doing shows in Sydney in February and March and I'm planning to go see him. A couple of friends also want to go to the opera next month, and we're still deciding between Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera and Puccini's La Boheme. There's also the Starlight Cinema (where open-air movies are screened beneath the stars...how romantic is that?!) and Govindas, a bohemian place where you could have a vegetarian dinner and see a movie after. Sigh...so many plans, so little time.

My roommie and I also bought a spanking new Simpsons-themed poker set for cheap on ebay and we're still looking for a good mahjong set. I figure we should devise more cost-effective means of hanging out cos we blow so much money on eating out and having drinks in pubs.

Ohana means family

At the Norman Lindsay Gallery & Museum, Faulconbridge, Blue Mountains

My brothers and mom recently came down to Sydney to spend the holidays with me. It was fun, stressful, happy, annoying, tiring and exciting...all in the same breath. Highlights of their trip included our endless shopping for anything Billabong/Rip Curl/Quiksilver, going up the Blue Mountains, seeing the fireworks on the Harbour Bridge on New Year's Eve, eating copious amounts of beef and dairy, strolling around Bondi and Manly, and all of us getting ridiculously dark and fat, among others. I also took heaps of my brothers' photos (in various poses) with either the Opera House or a koala or kangaroo as background. More photos in my Facebook account.

My 2007 in hindsight

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Went to a foreign country (where I hardly knew anyone) by myself. Lived in a flat with five other girls from all over the world. Moved out of that flat and moved into a new apartment with a friend. Assembled so much furniture, discovered how to operate washing machines and dryers, pretty much became self-sufficient for the first time in my life. Well yeah, in a nutshell, survived life Down Under largely on my own and with a little help from my friends (Thanks, Beatles, for that precious line).

2. Where did you study/ work?
Currently going to uni somewhere in North Ryde. Did a one-month internship at Greenpeace.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Hmmm...I don't think so.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My nephew Ziv.

5. What countries did you visit?
Oz.

6. Did you move anywhere?
Moved out of uni accommodation. Moved into a two-bedroom flat with a friend who is incidentally the bestest roommie ever.

7. What sporting events did you go to?
None really, except a few friendly games of soccer with uni mates.

8. What concerts did you go to?
Dave Matthews Band! And John Mayer (I'm not really a fan, but some friends just happened to have a spare ticket at the time).

9. Who was your Valentine in 2007?
Haha myself. I remember I gifted myself with a Mars bar.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the occasional cough and cramps.

11. What was your best month?
November and December.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Food, movies, rent, house bills, alcohol (lol!).

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My family's arrival in December.

14. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Heaps! But off the top of my head, Love Today and Grace Kelly by Mika, Straight Lines by Silverchair, Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani, Big Girls Don't Cry by Fergie, Hook Me Up by The Veronicas, Umbrella by Rihanna and stuff by Sneaky Sound System. I don't really like most of those songs but they were particularly big in 2007.

15. What did you do on the 4th of July?
I don't remember. Was doing my internship, I think.

16. What were the best...

* books you read?
The Globalization of World Politics and International Relations Theories. Haha, seriously I was remiss in my novel-reading all year.

* movies you saw?
Omg, there were so many! I saw at least one movie every week. Anyway, I particularly enjoyed Eastern Promises, Casino Royale, Babel, The Science of Sleep, History Boys, Control, Across the Universe (story-wise it was shithouse though), A Mighty Heart, The Good German, Pan's Labyrinth, among others. On SBS there was a handful of good films too, like Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside).

* CDs you listened to?
Haha, I mostly listened to mp3s only.

17. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I read more good novels, explored Sydney, socialised and spoke to strangers more. And I wish I didn't hole myself up at home so much.

18. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Hehe secret.

19. How will you be spending Christmas?
This question should be in the past tense but anyway, I went to Christmas Eve mass and had Noche Buena with my brothers and my mom. On Christmas Day we had lunch with family friends.

20. Did you fall in love in 2007?
I guess not.

21. How many one-night stands?
Zilch, nada, zero!

22. What was your favorite TV program?
South Park, Thank God You're Here, SBS movies and documentaries, Rove.

23. Compared to this time last year, are you:

* happier or sadder?
Happier, I suppose.

* thinner or fatter?
Probably fatter. I'm not really fond of weighing scales.

* richer or poorer?
Poorer!!!

24. What was your favorite summer memory of 2007?
Going to my intensive English classes everyday, I guess. That's where I met my first few friends here in Sydney. And life was much simpler then.

25. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
See previous blog entry. I turned 25.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Hmmm...I was pretty much still listening to the same stuff all throughout the year. Feist is quite good though.

27. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Hamish Blake! James Mcavoy! Diego Luna!

28. Who was the best new person you met?
Quite a handful. I went to this country knowing only a grand total of like, five people, but now my friends network has considerably expanded.

29. Where were you when 2007 began and who were you with?
At home, with the family.

30. What are your plans for 2008?
Finish uni and try to get higher marks. Save more money. Be more healthy. Kick old and nasty habits. See more of Sydney and hopefully squeeze in a trip to Melbourne and NZ if there are available funds. A quick trip to the US sometime in October. Get a job in the last quarter of the year. Simplify my life. Watch more movies and read more. Study Italian again. Be more responsible. Try to accomplish something major by year-end.