I need to get my story straight

[We Are Young – Fun. ft Janelle Monae]

I am aware it’s March, but I am also aware that I haven’t written on here since over a month ago. I think I’m either outgrowing this blog, which has to be silly because this is such a good place to record memories, or I’m simply too lazy. This doesn’t mean I am going to return to frequent blogging now, I don’t know, we’ll see I suppose.

So things happened since I last appeared on here. Most of February, to be exact. I hung out with the girl almost every chance I had. I had a job interview for Elwood which I didn’t win. Spent Valentines day doing that, too, and then watching Chronicle at Jam Factory, something that Mela didn’t like but she did it for me. Watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as well, which was really sad, but kind of well sculpted to be so. I did a lot of TV watching at home as well, burning through Bloody Monday, The Walking Dead, Alcatraz, Family Guy, more Doctor Who, but somehow not making such a big dint into Will and Grace and Parks and Recreation.

Celebrated 5 months at work, because we had bad timetabling there, but we decided to try celebrate it on Valentines day as well as 3 days prior, to make up for it.

Visited Cindy at her restaurant, and made her wait on us. That was terrific.

I capped my net usage on my phone somehow, and had to pay a $150 bill, which was terrifying and shit. I managed, though.

Went to Mela’s orientation days, which were sort of interesting but mostly just boring. They were not sufficient warning for how tough her course is though.

So then Uni started, and Mela was snowed in by how much work she has to do, and while I was getting it easier, I knew my life was gonna get tougher soon. Sure enough, I was notified almost too late that my internship was to start the following week (now the upcoming week), at the same time having to go to work (the internship is full-time) and keep up with my school work and suddenly A Wild Assignment appears! So yeah, pretty unstoked at the moment.

For the Wild Assignment is actually an interesting one: a short human interest blog piece. I interviewed my long-time friend Ping who has dwarfism, and just during the interview I was inspired to go out and rock my life. I don’t know if I can write a piece to do him justice, but I can try.

And, finally, I slept over at Amelia’s house – the circumstances leading to which included a lot of lies – and it was actually really nice, even though she had to study most of the night. She has a single bed, so halfway through the night she offered to sleep on the floor. When I got up to pee during the night, her dog woke up and followed me. I had to tuck Meg back in, which was cute, but strange that she wakes up so easily.

So yes, that was a quick catch up for my month past. I don’t get to see Mela as often anymore, which makes both of us really sad, and in the coming weeks I won’t get to see her at all.

Also, tomorrow is our 6 month anniversary. Easy.

I might write more when my internship starts, but I do have to be careful to write most of it positively, or objectively, or simply password protect it.

Alex.

Lazy Dayze

Yesterday was a long day…of NOTHING! Well, not really nothing…I did go to Mela’s house to give her some new episodes of shows and a bunch of movies she wanted, and we watched some of those episodes together. Then in the afternoon we went into the city to meet her cousin’s friends (who she in turn befriended) who have heard about me but haven’t met me.

It was quite nice – Mela really wanted to try the risotto I harped on about at Giraffe, so for the second time (did I write about shopping with Jen and Annie on Tuesday? I don’t think I did. It wasn’t THAT eventful, just a nice catchup with good friends) in as many days we went to Giraffe. Mela’s friends really liked the cafe, which I think helped them to like me a bit because it was all “wow good taste” and stuff.

We played Bullshit after eating – Mela barely managed to finish half of her risotto because she said it was too filling…which I guess it was but still – and I was winning until Mela took me down and gave me all the cards…and so knew what I had, therefore she knew when to call me out, causing me to lose more. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to call my girlfriend a liar, so I never called her – or anyone – out. We left in a hurry when we realized it was getting late.

And in fact, it was getting quite late, or at least it seemed that way to my parents. They had to give Mela a lift to the bus stop lest she wait alone for too long, and on the trip back told me it was very troubling for them to go to these lengths – as in, to go an extra 5 minutes out of their way in an area they knew well. Sigh. Sometimes I wonder how they even manage to call me selfish with a straight face.

Today I spent a good half a day sleeping, then waking up and watching the weekly shows, then marathoning Charmed while snacking and drinking beer and eating ice cream and hugging Mela bear. It as unproductive and I feel like I should accomplish something, but at the same time it’s nice knowing nothing is due and I’m not doing anything wrong.

I missed her while she was at work, though, which confirms the whole attachment/abandonment issue. We also confirmed today that I have a control-problem when I checked up her bus times for her. I suppose there’s something for everyone to work on everyday, and seeing as my day was uber unproductive, at least it’s nice to have personality shortcomings to work on.

Speaking of projects…I’m not saying that my Writing Project is coming to an end prematurely, but I haven’t really been working on it – nor getting the inspiration to do so – for a while, so it’s on a bit of an extended hiatus until I get my mojo back.

Alex.

CHRISTMAS! Baby, Please Come Home

[Baby, Please Come Home – Anberlin cover]

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope so far your day has been enjoyable, and I hope that you’ll remember it later on…

Anyway, I finally convinced my dad to take me driving today – he’s the guy who can’t drive but has a full license, so really all his license is good for is to take me driving – and despite him being paranoid I’ll hit every car parked on the kerb, it was actually pretty decent. MAYBE, for perhaps the 5th time I’ve said this, I CAN FINALLY GET ON A ROLL AND GET MY LICENSE BEFORE I’M 20 HAHA who am I kidding… at least I’m close to 17 hours now…

As I was driving, my phone started buzzing in my pocket – I think I should change one of my profile settings to Driving or something, and take off the vibrations (Silent has vibrations on so that if there is an emergency text/call at night, the vibrations can wake me up but not my parents – and dammit I do totally get emergency texts sometimes, but most of the time I just get woken up by Village Cinemas emailing me something at 3 am). I was wondering who would call me – twice – and I found the answer when I got home. Mom immediately told me that Dani had called – I guess this time around she remembered to identify herself before launching into a tirade like she did last time.

Turns out Dani – who FINALLY made it back to Melbourne – is asking me if I was interested in going to the Great Ocean Road with her some time this week (this isn’t for sure yet but I had to write about something). Considering that the last time I went to the Great Ocean Road, I was in Grade 4 and still had a massive carsickness problem, I said yes (hopefully my carsickness is better now. I do plan to be empty stomach’d most of the time though ha). Also I felt really warm and important that Dani asked me first. Being the favored “son” has its advantages.

Also, Lyshana. Dani put her on the phone (I doubt she still remembers me even though I was the cool 1-2-3-4-HEADBANG big sister), and Lysh was screaming “HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO” and then I heard Beep-beep-beep. Dani came back a second later and said “She put you on hold.” We agreed she’d make one hell of a receptionist one day. HELLO-HELLO-HELLO-hold.

I timed my driving very carefully – I had to be home on time to watch Eloise at Christmastime which will be on soon – that movie MAY have been the tipping point for me to want to spend Christmas in New York. Home Alone 2 was the movie that started the dream.

Anyway, quite a few interesting Christmas movies on today/tonight (The Grinch is on now, actually, but Eloise takes precedence) so I think I can even give Smallville a rest. Last week, Josh started a conversation with me on MSN asking me what my plans were for that day. I replied, “I’m going through Tumblr now, and after I’m done I’m going to watch Smallville.”

A few days later, as a matter of course, he asked me the same question. I started writing, “Tumblr now and then after that…” and realized that the feeling of deja vu was actually the ugly face of uneventful routine.

And now I feel like ice-cream. Triple choc ahoy!

Merry Christmas, again! I may not be religious but I still think this is a time of the year to be happy, generous, and try to see the good in everything.

Alex.

Make It Through With Hopes And Wrists Intact

[I’m Like A Lawyer With The Way I’m Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You) – Fall Out Boy]

That is a bloody long title. So this is another I-was-watching-TV-and-remembered-I-should-blog blog.

I’m sure that a lot of TV shows and movies do this to some extent, but the one I remember the most vividly is from Bring It On. It’s the scene where Kirsten Dunst is brushing her teeth and her new-found friend’s brother who will soon become her love interest is brushing his teeth next to her, and they take turns spitting into the sink.

I have no idea what the point of that scene was, but the whole time I was distracted by one thing:

There was no toothpaste foam to be seen.

Now, I’m not saying that when I brush my teeth it’s little Asian Santa Claus, but I mean, there is a noticeable slightly minty rabid look to me when I brush my teeth. When I spit..I actually have stuff to spit out. In the movie, their toothbrushes had NOTHING on them, and pretty sure they weren’t spitting anything out really.

So, I concluded that either I’m actually the odd one out in the whole world, or they simply were doing it to make the actors look good.

If it’s the second one, then I gotta say, that annoys me. I get it if, for aesthetic purposes, you fix hairstyles or put more makeup on than usual, but brushing teeth? Really? Is a little bit of toothpaste foam around the edges that un-sexy that you have to create a scene that is so annoyingly fake?  One excuse could be that the actors can’t enunciate through the toothpaste – but how many times have you seen actors pretend to have a mouth full of toothpaste when their mouth is completely clean? And how many people have been unable to understand someone with toothpaste in their mouth to the point of complete incomprehension? And if worse comes to worst, just get the actor to SPIT OUT THE TOOTHPASTE! It’s more natural than seeing someone brush with a clean toothbrush.

And that’s…how deeply I am thinking these days.

Alex.

Your Touch Is What I’m Missing

[Comatose – Skillet]

I will have to make the quota somehow, so I guess this is more a boring post than anything.

Anyway, I notice that on TV shows, when someone is doing something sneaky on their computer and they hear someone walking in, they suddenly change the screen to the desktop, and then says waits for them to walk in and say hi like nothing’s going on. The person who walks in then doesn’t suspect a single thing, and the perpetrator gets away with it clean.

I’m not going to call myself a buff in film techniques or direction or whatever, but if the director/writer wants to show someone snooping and getting away with it, maybe a blank desktop and a more nonchalant composure is more believable. I mean, if you walked into a room to have someone sitting in front of a clearly computer switched to the desktop, and them nervously greeting you as you entered, you’d think something suss is going on too.

You know what’s not suss? If you had Google open – and not the blank homepage, but maybe with the search result of a movie or something – and when they entered, you’re just casually clicking on a link, and you wait for them to start conversation, then it’s more natural.

And I’m saying this not only for TV shows, but for real life too. If you don’t want people to get all suspicious at you, don’t draw attention towards what you’re doing on the computer.

So today I got all my Semester 2 results back, and in short I averaged at 69 for the whole year, which isn’t great but isn’t too shabby, and it’s only a point below what I was aiming for. I checked all my subjects that I chose for next year, and I have not a single exam, so I think I’ll be good – I got low marks for my subjects with exams, and so I think I’ve found my problem.

Alex.

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.

Our Concentration It Contains A Deadly Flaw

[Maintain Consciousness – Relient K]

I finished the Glee season finale today! It was so emotional – without spoiling, it tied up everything pretty nicely…with plenty of hand-covering-mouth moments.

Which means I finished Vampire Diaries, NCIS, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, FlashForward and now Glee.

Yes, Lie to Me is still on the TV, I decided to watch House along with the TV even though I know it’s ending as well, and Dexter comes back in…SEPTEMBER!

So I don’t know what to do now, in terms of shows. I suppose I can keep working through my Conan.

I am still slowly getting used to the feeling of “I have nothing to do and it’s okay”.

Alex.

2 Weeks

My net uncapped!

But because for the next 2 weeks I have all my final essays to write, this is what I shall do:

Today: Watch 1 ep of NCIS from last week while nomming on coleslaw, then finish my Cinema Studies ACMI close analysis essay.

Then watch 1 ep of GLEE from last week, and then finish editing both my close analysis and my Creative Writing short fiction.

Then watch 1 ep of How I Met Your Mother from last week, and then start violently on my “Travel Piece” for Professional writing. Write at least 200 words.

Then watch 1 ep of The Big Bang Theory from last week, and then write another 200 words of Travel Piece.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I might be going out but tomorrow I aim to finish the Travel Piece, as well as the episodes of House and FlashForward from last week.

This month I aim to not download anything until the end of the month. I also figured that Megavideo streaming uses less downloads than those from, say, Zshare, so I will try my best to cope with the time limit on Megavideo.

I don’t know how I would cope with not getting new Glee songs.

I shall edit this piece later tonight to tell you if I managed to do this.

Alex.

/edit I finished Cinema Studies and I remembered that the Creative Writing piece can be workshopped on Friday so I don’t have to worry. Other than that I haven’t started on my Travel piece but I will bring a notebook to the city tomorrow and start writing it.

Breathe In So Deep

[Fall For You – Secondhand Serenade]

(I’m pretty sure I’ve used this song already.) Yesterday was the Melb Uni AAD and my audience participation in TAYG! So it was a long and very tiring day.

I got up at 7 so I could be at the Glen by 8:30 (it takes a while for Mom to get ready even though she seems to be okay to go back to work now). Why would I want to be at the Glen at this ungodly hour, you ask? Yes because Jenny said she’ll meet me there at that time. In the end she was 40 minutes late.

Took the train up to Melb Central with Jenny and walked around Borders while she tried to find the book that she wanted for her birthday. Couldn’t find it (I think if Borders didn’t have it…then…I mean…seriously…).

Waited under the clock for Pris who was 10 minutes late and made me worry a lot because I didn’t want to be late to our Info Session. Saw MacRob girls already, which was a prelude to how many we’d see throughout the day. Said bye to Jenny, as she was going to RMIT [insert giggle here…just kidding!] so Pris and I went up.

Saw some Brentwood people upon arrival, such as Huey, Swin and Jonga. Looks like the 2 parts of my life is going to join at Melbourne!

Then went on to Redmond Barry hall, and said morning to Mai and Jen. Went into our lecture theatre and there was greeted by the surprise of the month.

Spanna yelled out my name as I walked in. I had not known (despite apparently everyone else being clued in) that she was going to be in course, so you can imagine the speed with which I bounded up the steps to hug her.

The Info Sesh itself was pretty boring, and the lady and the guy more or less told us what we already knew. It was strange to see Esther from the previous year in our Info Sesh though. Asking around later I found out she’d deferred a year which is why she is now in our “year level”. It’s quite weird to think about that!

After the Info Sesh Spanna stayed in the Redmond Barry hall place, and Jen and I went to Union House with Pris. Pris left when we got to Union House and I met up with Mai and Jen again, and sat with them. Failing to remind me that there was a free BBQ, I bought lunch.

Oh, this is the point where I gloat that I managed to make one friend! (Yes, one.) There are probably around 6 Asians in our course, two of whom are males. So it was easy to notice the other Asians in the room. I saw a girl who was sitting by herself two rows ahead, and later on at Union House when I saw Sab- and Esther (different to the one doing my course) I saw that girl tagging along too. Her name is Anna, and turns out we have mutual friends! So there. I made a friend.

We saw many many MacRob girls there (and I saw Clare there too. I’d forgotten she was doing BA as well). So many, in fact, that we took up two picnic tables with our awesomeness (there were numerous MHS guys as well).

After lunch Jen went to a Diploma of Languages lecture and Spanna and I went to this lecture for Chinese. Saw Pam-, Andy, Theresa and many many other Chinese folks (duh). The guy who was in charge of the lecture was, as he reminded us many times, “only an ACTING consultant” as the real guy was on some “China Trip”. So in all senses he had no idea what any of the details were.

For example, when asked a question regarding which sort of classes to be in: “I really am not the person to ask that question. If you ask me I would probably say go to the website.” Pause. “Did that answer your question?”

No.

After that I found Jen again and we went to Brunetti’s near Lygon St and met up with her friend Martin. We had a drink, and talked about university, and then I had to leave to meet up with Swin so we could go to TAYG.

It was stressful to make sure that Mani and Michelle were at Southern Cross properly because, when I asked Michelle where she was, as I saw her train pull up a few moments ago, she replied, “the station.” Well d-fucking-uh.

Took the tram up to Docklands and went to the Channel 10 Studios. We waited outside for a bit, then got ushered into the audience foyer. Everyone was dressed very colorfully as the invitation suggests.

As we were going into the actual recording studio, we had to pair up, and since we were a group of 5, Wilson didn’t have anyone. So one of the security guards grabbed Wilson and shouted out to the rest of the audience: “THIS GUY DOESN’T HAVE A FRIEND! HE’S ALL ALONE IN THIS WORLD!” (Or something hilarious along those lines.)

The filming itself took over 3 hours. There was a guy called Michael who warmed up the crowd with some jokes and stuff. Then all the cast came out and greeted us. We cheered, applauded, whooped and pretended that we heard some jokes for the first time. I won’t give away what happened; you’d just have to watch it (it’s the 3rd episode of the new season). They threw lollies at us (and missed) and tried to get our cheer maintained so we were an awesome audience.

The show ended filming at around 8:30, and we stayed outside until Michelle got picked up by her family friend. Then we took the tram and trains back to Glenny. On the way back, Swin kept on making fun of me because I couldn’t hear her through my music. I COULD STILL TELL SHE WAS LAUGHING AT ME!

Today I went to Spanna’s house for her birthday, but that would be a different post which I am too tired to write right now. Tomorrow I have an interview at a Telemarketing company for a job (yes I know the irony is many layered), and going to one of Jenny’s friend’s house to hang out and have dinner. It will be a hectic day tomorrow as well.

Wish me luck!

Alex.