[Do You Know – Enrique Iglesias]
Day 08: Write a poem.
Boo, I’m too tired and uninspired to write one right now.
A is for Awesome, of which she smells
L is for Lethargy, the Hell of hells
E is for Energy, of which she lacks
X is for Xylophone, of which, like talent for rhyming and timing, she also lacks
Alex.
[Haven’t Met You Yet – Michael Buble]
Day 07: Write about the arts (music, art, dancing).
Well, the very idea of writing about something is the arts, isn’t it?
And seeing as how I am studying the Arts, you’d think I’d have a lot of things to write about.
Look, I don’t like it when Arts make themselves more pompous and contrived than everyone else. I don’t like it when, to be considered High Class, you have to go see an opera, understand the hell they’re singing, get the deeper message, and come out of it complaining that the soprano was actually better suited as an alto.
To me, music, art, dancing, whatever, it’s just something that should be enjoyed. And if you happen to enjoy slightly ‘trashy’ music, or you would rather pump your fists to a steady beat than to draw out some complicated rhythm with your damn shoulder-blade, or your idea of art is to draw a funny stick figure comic rather than sweeping swatches of emotions, then that’s great for you, and if it gives you good feelings, then that’s all I care about.
And if you happen to like shoulder-blade dancing and fancy paintings, and that makes you happy too, then go for it!
The one thing I do not like about studying Arts is the expectation of what kind of person I should be. I am an Arts student, therefore I must understand and have an opinion on Marxism, and smoke a pack before lunch, and slowly but surely grow a terrible haircut.
But if that’s what makes you happy. I can’t care less.
Alex.
[Bye Bye Bye – Further Seems Forever cover of N’Sync]
I just published a password protected post. It’s something I wrote over a year ago (June 2010) and saved into drafts and never published, and I came across it while cleaning up my blog categories.
It made me laugh. A lot of things changed in one year.
You can ask for the password if you know me personally, or if you ask really nicely.
The first part of it was a ragey sort of deal at a ‘you’. The irony is that, reading it now, I am not even sure which ‘you’ I was referring to.
The second part was a ragey sort of deal at myself. And I was glad to see that some parts of it changed – I did get a job, after all.
And it included that I was becoming closer friends with someone who now I don’t talk to at all. That made me laugh bitterly.
Alex.
P.S. Going to write up 2 of the 28 days thing. Because I sucked at that one so badly.
[Makes Me Wonder – Maroon 5]
I went to see the final Harry Potter installment yesterday/day before, but I will write about the entire 2 day thing here before giving my judgement on the movie.
I got up at 7 am to meet up with Vinchi to go see X-Men First Class (we’d put it off for ages). She’d never been to Jam Factory, so it was one hell of a tram ride of her asking we were there yet. It was also REALLY windy and cold, and the girl was wearing a flannel shirt with a light jacket.
We were a bit late to the movie, and the theater was pretty much empty save for one other guy. The movie was pretty good, despite my having seen half of it through GIFs on Tumblr. It was a fun moment when Xavier reached out with his mind for the first time and we saw Little Storm on screen.
After the movie we went back into the CBD to have lunch, and Vinchi took me to a really small Chinese-run Japanese restaurant (which is pretty much every other Japanese restaurant in the city), and I had super salty Katsu-Don. That wasn’t really a highlight, but I just had to remember that the place sucked. I forgot the name of the restaurant but it’s on Russel St close to Crazy Wings.
We walked back to Gloria Jeans on Elizabeth for her to quench her Ice Chocolate thirst, and I soundly beat her Fruit Ninja Arcade best score. Before we knew it, it was time to meet Dani, so I picked up my things from Vinchi’s convenient city-based apartment (10 minutes’ walk to Uni, 2 minutes to work, 30 seconds to a 7/11), and headed off to an awesome night of not sleeping.
We went to Dani’s mom’s apartment to help babysit Lyshana. This, by the way, is little precious and very intelligent and great at dancing (even at such a young age) Lyshana:
We played around with Lysh’s Legos, which basically consisted of Dani and I making cars or ships, and Lyshana ripping it apart and us pretending that our fleet of warships have been destroyed. The kid finds amusement out of our cries of terror.
We also filmed our questions video deal, which was funny to start with but Lysh kept on interrupting. Halfway through my video you can hear “I need to go toilet”. After the videos are done, we realized that it was pretty late and dinner time, so we took Lyshana to Bel’s apartment where I was going to spend the rest of my night (bar the movie, of course).
When we were at Bel’s apartment, her older sister Anita was still there. We got out some paper for Lyshana to draw on, and she was of course talking loudly, and Anita emerged from her room saying “I hear a baby, who does she belong to?”
Sonam, Tiff and Julia were at the apartment already, and Bel had gone to get pizza. I told Lysh to show Sonam her drawings, so she went up to the jetlagged girl (having just touched down from Canada earlier that day) with her masterpiece, to be greeted with “Oh wow, that’s beautiful! …What is it?”
We spent most of dinner discussing how creepy kids’ cartoons are these days, as well as reminiscing the awesome ones we had as children. Bel put on X-Box Kinect, and Lyshana soundly beat 3 19-year-olds in rounds of Rally Ball. After Dani and Lysh left, Julia, Tiff and I played a few more rounds on Kinect, with Tiff providing, as usual, the most number of laughs. Bel brought this huge container of Red Vines.
We then put on Deathly Hallows Part 1 to get ready for the movie later that night, but the mood was somewhat tainted by all of us (mostly me) making comments about the movie, and Sonam falling asleep and dreaming that we were the 3 Brothers. Bel sat by and made her tiny ships in light bulbs. When Dobby died, everyone sort of went quiet and there was a lot of blinking.
A bit before we left, we got out all the trundle beds, and having failed to bring a sleeping bag, I was told I’d sleep on 2 sofa cushions on the floor, wedged between two trundles. I’ll just say now, without meaning to, I ended up getting the largest sleeping area on the couch.
At around quarter past eleven, Annie and I had to leave for Hoyts, because we thought it would take us a long time. We got there perhaps 20 minutes early, and stood around feeling out of place, being the only ones in normal clothes. We saw a few what we thought were owls, a lot of slutty female Harrys, the treats trolley on the Hogwarts Express, a few Death Eaters, and a lot of just really random scars drawn on.
The movie itself disappointed me slightly. I suppose on its own it would have been pretty well done, but after the hype and the first part which I still deemed to be better, it felt rushed like the 5th and the 6th ones were. The Snape parts were good, but not as emotionally hitting as I wanted it to be, and the whole story of young Dumbledore and Grindelwald were COMPLETELY omitted. The movie aimed for many jokes, some of which were great, some of which kind of felt lame. It was definitely good to see it with an enthusiastic crowd, though, because everyone applauded and whooped when Ron and Hermione finally kissed – which, even after the eye-popping Hermione/Harry kiss, still managed to be an amazing moment.
After the movie, Annie and I walked the long walk back to Bel’s. We did our film-students analysis, and kept warm by practically jogging. When we got back, the others, of course, had already been back, and we did our washing up and Sonam and Tiff somehow had an argument over brushing their teeth. We sat around for a while because we found out Bel actually had to get up in 2 hours to take a friend to the airport, so we all stayed up talking and listening to Annie play Kpop on her iPod.
At around 4 or 5, everyone simultaneously decided to all just go to sleep. It was initially very hard because Tiffany was still wide awake and laughing, to the point where Julia told her to just close her mouth, and forget about closing her eyes. I myself prepared to try to sleep in the city apartment – having gotten used to the suburbia quiet – when Annie’s blocked sinus started announcing its existence in funny but very distinct little snores. When Bel’s friend called to be let in, it was nearly 6, and I had given up on sleep, instead opting to lie on my back and watch the light filter through the blinds like a weird zebra trip.
At around 6:30, 7, Sonam rolled over and pushed Annie off the trundle, making her fall on top of Tiff who took my little sofa-cushion bed, and so Tiff and Annie both became awake. Tiff was feeling sick from lack of sleep and how hot it was under the blanket, so after some rather noisy packing, she slipped out to go home for a quick nap.
Annie went back to exercising her sinus, and I sat awake, playing with my ring. I suppose my sleep deprived brain shut down temporarily, and I found myself waking up at around 8, then at around 8:30. At around 9, everyone got up, and Annie, Sonam and I got ready to meet Dani and April for breakfast at 10. We said goodbye to Julia who was waiting for Bel to come back to take her home, and left the apartment to…
Rain. Somehow we forgot which city we lived in, and were even slightly surprised that it was raining. We met up with Dani and April, the latter of which seemed to have stolen Timberlake’s sexy. We had breakfast at The Quarter on DeGraves, and I dropped my bacon. It was not shaping up to be a good day. To cheer me up, Dani took pictures of me on Instagram. Unfortunately, I was so tired that I came out looking super Asian – tiny small eyes.
After breakfast, April, Dani and I met up with Maggie at Flinders Station. We went to Chapel Street to shop – or rather, they shopped while I tagged along and dozed infrequently on husband chairs. I think at some point I just turned off all smart retorts and just told Dani her face was [insert adjective here]. Carmaine joined us a small while later, and they went to a lot of stores and got a lot of discount goodies at Op shops.
We went to Dani’s South Melb apartment in the afternoon (my God I missed being there. It felt so familiar climbing those deadly flights again), and I took a quick nap in Dani’s new makeshift mattress bed – it was strange to be in her room without her walls being covered by posters.
Went home, and had a lot of Tumblr catching up to do, so despite being at nearly 30 hours with no proper sleep, I stayed up. I slept at 11, and ended up gaining consciousness at 5 pm the next day. Oops.
It was a darn good day/night/day.
Alex.
P.S. Sorry for the very late posting. The original date of writing was 14th of July, which was timely. I forgot I’d saved a draft, so I posted it on the 26th.
[No Such Thing – John Mayer]
Day 06: Recommend some books to read.
The awkward moment when you don’t read as much as your aspirations allude to.
Just recently I got 3 of Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series for super cheap, so I’ve been reading those. They’re very good, but I suppose having seen the TV show first I compare the book in relation to the TV show rather than the other way around.
Also recently saw Tomorrow, When The War Began (so behind schedule), which has made me want to read the 7 books again, even though it takes so long, and they’re hard to track down these days. They were good too, but the last I read them was in Yr 8, so my memories and tastes might have been changed.
Other than that, I used to read a lot of teenage sci-fi, most of them about people whose bodies get enhanced, or who gets super awesome tech. Spy High and CHERUB were good series for my phase of secret agents, and who could forgo Animorphs? I also remember a series called Fearless, which was pretty cool, but probably a lot chick-y if I read back on it now.
Ooh Jackie French’s Outland trilogy was also pretty awesome in my memories. And Michael Lawrence’s Withern Rise.
And anything by Isobel Carmody, assuming you can slog through the thick volumes. And Gillian Rubenstien’s Galax-Arena trilogy was pretty neat too. (Very Australian selection, I know, because of my primary school library’s stock.)
Douglas Adams, who can forget him? Totally worth renewing his trilogy of 4 countless times just to work through it!
Yeah I’m nothing special when it comes to books recommendation.
Oh um, that wizards book that got really popular. Movies were made. With the hot actress. You know which one.
Alex.
[Such Great Heights – The Postal Service]
Day 05: A list of things you fancy doing.
Oh no, a Bucket List.
I always tell myself, start a Bucket List! You’re gonna regret not starting one when you’re in your mid-life crisis. I suppose its a good thing that I’m turning a new decade soon, so maybe I’ll start a Bucket List (a new page on this blog? Wow yes) on my 20th birthday, and just add on when I remember things. So this post will help kick the (Bucket) List off, so to speak.
I suppose you can always look at this just as a “list of whims” instead of “your Bucket List”, but let’s be honest, my whims are endless and insatiable. On an hourly basis, I change what I want to eat dozens of times.
Okay, so, obviously all the big favorites like
And the more artsy ambitious ones like
Things to happen to my body, such as
Things that happen by chance
Things that happen by my willingness to step out of my comfort zone
Geographically related
Silly, petty and childish
The list will be expanded and neatened and organized and re-considered in the future.
Hey, this is fun!
Alex.
[Screaming Infidelities – Dashboard Confessionals]
Day 04: Write about someone you love.
I’m doing pretty badly at this daily deal ha.
I find, though, for these kind of topics, unless you’re dating someone, or you have a best friend who everyone knows you’re best friends with, if you commit to writing about someone, you’re committing yourself to them.
Or maybe I have commitment issues I never realized or thought I would have.
For example, just a few days ago Jen was talking to me about possibly moving in together as room-mates in the soon-but-yet-unseen future, and weirdly enough I actually started freaking out just at her words – we could figure out who does the cooking, and we could take turns doing the icky jobs – and I was surprised I was genuinely freaked out.
It’s not that I dislike being around Jen – far from it, I don’t think we’ve ever had a boring time when we hung out – or that I think she’d judge me (much) when she sees what a slob I am – mostly because I’m slobby in public – but it’s more just living – LIVING – with someone else who hasn’t been part of my conscious day-to-day life since I was born (I am generalizing, because for me, my parents aren’t actually the ones who I consciously remember growing up with, but I did start living with them a good decade ago so the weight of the memories are enough) actually freaked me out. It wasn’t the thought of all the responsibilities I’d have, because I’m sure as much as I’d fail at it at the beginning, I’d soon pick up the rhythm and take care of myself, but it was just…SEEING Jen ALL the TIME.
There is no nice way of saying this.
But, back on track. Writing about a specific someone not only elevates them to a status of “First Who Came To Alex’s Mind”, but also “Now Expected To Always Come First To Alex’s Mind”, because why else would I mention them? I have a stockpile of who I can write about: Jen, obviously; Annie who I see all the time and who has been there during all the bad times; Dani, because Dani; Clare, because she gives great hugs; Bianca, for making me see the world differently; I could pick people who I don’t talk to all the time, whose support I sometimes let melt into the background, such as Katherine, who put up with a LOT of weird stuff from me; Catherine (yes…) who talks to me like we’ve never had any time apart even though we rarely do talk anymore; Julia, because haha I won’t revisit the random historical crap there but kudos to her; Steven who as a guy, manages to put up with all my weird ass mood swings, and over MSN too; Dom and Andrew who, at the same time but through different means, were probably my first proper guy friends in the era I call After Annoying-Adolescence.
But are any of them deserving of the ONE SINGLE mention? What qualifies them above the others?
Maybe I’ll revisit this question when I’ve gotten a significant other, and I can shamelessly put them above the others because it’s okay, no hard feelings, and no cold feet freak outs.
Alex.
the life and laughs of me 