Er, yeah, H2A maybe?

Haha I can dream on. At the rate I’m (not) going, I might get a H2B if I’m REALLY lucky.

I just wrote another uni blog about TV. I should write more about my favorite topic but…I dunno.

Anyway:

What? Using Britney Spears lyrics? Atrocity!

I am writing this on the day that the new Glee episode Brittany/Britney is to air. I already have the songs on my iTunes, and have been listening to Toxic on replay since yesterday.

I have seen some screencaps on Tumblr of some highlights, and on Twitter I can see that trending topics include Heather Morris (the actress for Brittany, the blond cheerleader on Glee), and yet I won’t get to see the episode until 7:30 pm.

Watching TV isn’t just the act of watching TV anymore. I think watching TV has become something like living the moment of watching the show. Social networking sites like Twitter and Tumblr have made it possible for us to voice what we feel about a particular scene IMMEDIATELY. (Well, the immediacy is more a feature of Twitter, but Tumblr comes with pictures so in a visual media, that helps too.)

I’m not innocent of the need to broadcast my thoughts at the same time as watching a broadcast. Last week, when Glee’s Season 2 premier was on TV (I had refrained from watching it online three hours prior to 7:30, because a) I’d wanted to conserve bandwidth and b) I wanted to share the experience of watching it with people “around” me – online with me, in my timezone. Also I got yelled at quite a few times for revealing spoilers), I had been watching and tweeting all the moments that I found glorious. Someone replied to me, “I had missed these Glee tweets”, referring to the dry-spell when the show was on Summer hiatus.

Even when I’m watching a show not airing, such as last week when I was watching True Blood, or a while back when I was watching Chuck (neither of these shows are airing in Australia anymore), I still tweet about it. There is always going to be someone else like me in my larger social group who is a fan of a show not airing on Australian TV, and sure enough, my tweets gained a few “likes” on Facebook (because I am so connected, my tweets appear on Facebook too), and I immediately knew who else is a True Blood fan.

Ironically, when I am watching a show that DOES air in Australia, but ahead of everyone else (because we all know Australia sucks at keeping up with America, though they are giving it a shot with a few shows), I have to PROMISE people that I don’t tweet spoilers. I am currently ahead of Australia in NCIS, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory, and as much as I want to tweet about it, I shouldn’t, because revealing something about it would ruin the experience for other people.

Which brings me back to my title. I don’t have qualms about listening to a Glee song before the episode airs, but one of my friend does. She is a huge Gleek as well, and I asked if she wouldn’t want me to send her the new songs when I get them. She told me she’d rather listen to them at the same time as seeing it on TV, so when she later listens to them, she can imagine the scenes on TV. The two of us both love Glee equally, but we like to experience it differently. I like to have all the social networks at my fingertips as I’m watching, because I like to see what others think about it, as well as have others see what I think about it. My friend would rather be shut off completely and be only concentrating on the show, and that’s how she rolls.

Currently, TV shows don’t really interact with other forms of media when they are airing. I guess that’s the traditional way. I do remember that the Glee pilot had once aired a re-run where as the show is airing, the cast of the show is live tweeting, and their tweets and commentary runs across the bottom of the screen (this, again, wasn’t available in Australia).

I guess where I’m headed with this is that, maybe, TV shows in the future would become sort of INTERACTIVE with Twitter, or whatever replaces Twitter next. Those who are like me can use Twitter to enhance their viewing experience, but those with a more traditional viewing habit like my friend can still watch the show as it is, and then talk about it.

TV is no longer an experience as it was when it first appeared, with the family gathering around a set to watch it together – I actually don’t like having my parents next to me when I watch a show I want to concentrate on, despite being online while watching the show. As weird as that is, I like it better when I’m alone with the internet… – but it’s not exactly a complete polar opposite either. Personally, the generation and cultural gap between what my parents like and understand and my own tendencies renders my family a divided unit when we watch TV, but I’m more than certain that in some other families, there is still at times a show or movie that has the whole family sitting together in the living room (or maybe in different rooms but with the TVs on the same channel, cos that happens too) watching together. The experience of watching a show is just as interesting as the show’s contents itself.

Okay I think I’m excused for another week before I post again? 🙂

Alex.

I’m such a TV whore.

Alex.

P.S. What is a TV whore? I just felt like saying ‘Whore’.

What has been happening of late?

I suppose this is possibly the worst month of effort I have made ever. I guess it was a mixture of me not particularly having anything to blog about, and sort of just feeling everything is mundane. Don’t worry though, I haven’t written in my uni blog either. I think tomorrow I will blog there, then maybe start reading for my assignments.

I will do a quick catchup, though. I have finished Chapter 8 but I actually want to post Chapter 8 and 9 together (if not 10 as well) so, sorry, but you do have to wait.

In my actual life, not much has happened. We started on our mid-sem break, and I have put off work. I suppose I’ll work for the 2nd half of this week, and first half of next week. I also should organize all my notes, start doing reading in my leisure time (force myself to enjoy it) and prepare for my exams at the end of the year. I don’t have my schedule, so I don’t even know how early my liberation is.

I may or may not go to badminton on Friday at Monash, but most likely not. My body was very sore this weekend from its lack of exercise. But apart from my last venture to the other university, I really haven’t had much of a social life – and I want to keep it that way these holidays. Call me a shut-in, but sometimes I prefer some quiet time (alone, with internet, so not alone. Basically I can talk to people without having to be all presentable. At the moment I am in my PJs). In fact, I rented (and it costed me more than I like, so I will probably refrain for a while) the first two seasons of True Blood, and I suppose you can say I got hooked, but it really does try your patience for gore at some point. I don’t look forward for more hungrily (but then again, after marathoning 2 seasons in 4 days you do get turned off) as I do for NCIS, Glee, House, HIMYM, TBBT, The Vampire Diaries etc…

Speaking of which, NCIS and Glee comes back tomorrow, but Glee will air on TV pretty much straightaway (wow Ch 10 is REALLY fast-tracking. Then again, they’ll probably take a 1 week break randomly so that they’ll be a week behind, AGAIN). The Vampire Diaries is only a few days behind, and since I don’ t follow many blogs on Tumblr for TVD, I’m not too fussed about spoilers that I might come across. I watched HIMYM today, and it was a rather exciting preview to what we’ll learn in this season. My biggest beef is Dexter, which I don’t really have the bandwidth to watch but I know the blogs I follow will spoil them for me. I guess I will soon have to decide what to do.

Anyway, as per usual, an update about my life has turned into a rant about TV. Splitting hairs aren’t we?

Everything else is still the same. I’m nearly halfway through my Project 365, and literally nothing has changed about my life. I think I already emo’d about this, so I won’t today.

Mom has been home, obviously, and I think she’s getting a bit bored so she’s cooking a lot (which Dad appreciates, I think, except he still cooks most of dinner and on weekends). I know I’m meant to cook, but I really don’t like learning from my mom because she’s not a great teacher, but a great yeller. Dad usually just wants to cook and get it over and done with so he can rest and watch TV (they bought a crap load of new Chinese drama, but thankfully the DVDs play on the other DVD player which is a bit temperamental, so I don’t have to move from my position), so he doesn’t really want to teach me either.

Anyway, because she’s cooking so much, I’ve also gained weight that I didn’t actually want to gain. That, on top of my lack of motivation to exercise lately, means this summer will be spent indoors. I will start collecting as many TV series as I can from friends. And maybe get my paws on FRIENDS, too. Again, yes, shut-in.

Anyway, that’s enough of a catchup for now.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

Alex.

Along The Streets In The Rain

[Fantasy – My American Heart]

Glenny fest was on today, and man my feet are sore. This will result in a very short blog about it.

Woke up today to mom yelling that she’s not going to drive out so “late” (it was 10 am), so I pretty much got pissed off, dressed, and ran out of the house.

Got to the fest, and made Lois (Hallelujah, she lives close by) meet me. We walked around and started eating – which was more than we could do at the Jap fest yesterday. It started the game “Will Jenny Be Sick Eating This?”

Saw a trailer with those fun color balls in it. It made me really wish I was smaller (or there were more balls) so I could take a picture of me inside, and caption it “Bazinga”.

Lois had to go to church at some point, so I walked back, and met up with Evon (wow, I haven’t seen her in so long. She’s so tanned now), and her friend Coco (his name, by the way, isn’t Coco. But because he didn’t want to be called Coco, it made sense to call him that).  Walked around a bit more (the amount of walking I did was shocking. I think I did maybe a dozen odd rounds of the festival), and ate more food. I had an ice kacang, which, for 4 dollars, I thought would have been a ripoff EXCEPT they gave it to me in a HUGE ASS SOUP BOWL and I found it hard to finish it after Andrew and I noticed that the melted ice kacang looked a lot like…

Lois re-joined us, and we tried to find places to sit down. Lois realized that the eggs she’d loved to eat prior to church were all sold out. It was a heart shattering moment.

Went into the Glen to chill. We sat at the food court and talked about the previous day, and then we talked about skiing. The plan is this winter, hopefully over my birthday weekend, we’d go up to Buller to ski.

Hopefully.

There was more walking. We came across these 2 kids holding hands, and we reckoned they were probably 12 or 13. It started a 10 minute long conversation about what we did when we were that young.

So I got home at around 6, feet exhausted. I’m still pretty full from the day of eating (at some point I’d called Jenny to explain the food I ate, and it made her feel sick again. Honestly. Oh dear). OH and I nearly forgot, I bumped into Emily as well. It was nice of her to grace us East-siders, now that she’s living on campus.

Alex.

P.S. Josh asked me to clarify: He did not appreciate my calling him “his highness” and making it sound like he complained “more than he actually did” because the others were “too quiet to complain anyway”. I wasn’t being sarcastic; I was quoting him. Okay. Conscience lifted.

P.P.S. Speaking of conscience: Jenny, I’m sorry.

P.P.P.S. I just tagged all the food I ate today. So if you want to read it, go ahead.

This City Is On Fire Tonight

[Good Life – OneRepublic]

Thanks to Katherine who showed me that song! I finally got around to making that video montage for Sorrento today.

It was quite amusing going through the photos that I took, as well as the other girls, and having memories be revived. It also astounds me that around this time last year I went to Sale. ONE YEAR ALREADY! Yet Jen and I still make the same jokes.

I was contemplating whether or not to post the video on here but I thought perhaps that wouldn’t be wise. So search it up on youtube, or even better it’s on Facebook, not that just anyone can see it.

Jenny (from now on whenever I mention a Jenny it’s Jenny Z, unless specified otherwise. Jen is still Jen, a different person. Note to self: make friends with different names) introduced me to/pushed me to actually go on Lamebook and I’m pretty much hooked reading the stupidity of other people. I’d reblogged on Tumblr quite a lot of the good ones I’ve found (my Tumblr link is on the side of the page “SmellsLikeAwesome”) but go check it out for yourselves. My personal favorite category are the TypOHs.

I think I’m going to be spending a lot of time at home from now because of my mom (personal family issues, nothing to be too concerned about), but I look forward to maybe going to the mass IKEA hide and seek on Saturday.

On another note: TV shows are back! Just today, I’ve caught up on the latest episodes of HIMYM, House and NCIS, with TBBT, FlashForward and Lie To Me soon to follow, I think. And update: no jobs yet. I’ll keep trying but I’m getting kind of annoyed and depressed.

Take care,

Alex.