Undefined

Growing Up

2007-09-28T16:02:00.000-07:00

This post is long overdue but I've been so insanely busy lately and my computer is absolutely begging me to throw it out with the amount of times it has screwed up in the past month. Once again, it's September, the days are growing shorter, the weather growing colder, and once again, it's back to school season.
For many years now, going back to school has always given me pretty much the exact same feelings every year: excitement, a little sadness for the official ending of the familiar routines of the previous years, and maybe comparing my height to people I haven't seen for the whole summer in hopes that I have grown a micrometer or two. This year, however, the feeling was a little different. It was as if the idea of "growing up" had finally hit me. I mean, its not as if I've been oblivious to moving through the grades or growing taller over the years, but maybe deep inside, all along, there's a part of me that can't quite grasp the concept of one day being "grown up" and being an adult. Maybe it has something to do with sleeping in the same bedroom since I was six years old. I mean, its not that I think the same way or (thankfully) look the same way I did back when I was six, but whenever I'm asked the classic question of what I want to be when I'm finished with school, it still feels like I'm thinking about what I want to be when I "grow up".
This year, when I walked in the school, I saw that "popular" girls in my grade have given up on the sluttyishly tight TNA clothing and have gone on to wearing clothes that actually look good. Almost everyone worked over the summer and alot of people are still working part-time throughout the school year. I see people from my school working at grocery stores, clothing stores, and fast-food restaurants. I feel like people around me have all blended into the world and I'm still sort of stuck halfway between childhood and the real world.
As I am now a senior high school student, I am leading ten grade eights so they have someone to "look up to" and the school plans activities for them to help them adjust to high school. When I see them, I feel so old. It doesn't seem that long ago when I looked lost in the hallways and everybody not in my grade was a "big kid". I see them facing the same problems that I faced like losing touch with elementary school friends and I suddenly feel so old. Suddenly, I know all the people who are in Cafeteria Class that prepare my lunch who are all senior high school students. Suddenly, my friends are the ones in Vocal Jazz and not some older students that I don't know. Suddenly, I'm lugging around a huge Biology textbook and I realize that high school really doesn't last forever and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.

The "M" Word

2007-08-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Oh! The root of all evil, bits of coloured paper that we spend all of our lives labouring over, and something that people claim to hate but we secretly all love it to death: money. I think the older you get, the more the importance of money hits you.
I was five or so when I wanted pizza for lunch instead of leftovers from the night before, I asked for it and my mom said no. "I'll buy it with my own money then!" I exclaimed and dug out my savings from the odd five dollar bill that my dad sometimes gave me. Of course, my mom retorted by yelling loudly, raving about how I haven't even started making money and I was already spending it lavishly and how I'll grow up to be an idiot that only knows how to spend money and not how to make it. The little five year old me tucked the five dollar bill back in my pocket and sat down spooning the leftovers in my mouth, angry tears threatening to fall. Money did not feel too important back then.
I was seven or so and it was my birthday. My dad asked me what I wanted and I said I wanted Pokemon figurines. We went to Zellers and I picked out a box of two 11cm stuffed animal looking figurines in plastic for $11.99. We came home and my mom yelled at me for not picking out something more practical and wasting money on toys like these. She yelled at my dad for buying it for me. Money did not feel too powerful back then.
I was eleven when our class went on a fieldtrip to the province capital. To go there, we each got a box of chocolates and had to sell them to raise money. If you didn't sell them all, then you had to pay for what you didn't sell. My mom and I went to the Skytrain station near where we lived. I stood by the staircase where people left the station and shouted "Chocolates for sale! $3 a box!" Some people bought them from me out of pity, since they had to do the same when they were kids, I got kicked out of there by bus drivers and Skytrain attendants numerous times for selling the chocolates there without a permit. None of my friends had to do this, their parents worked in nice offices and their parents took the huge box to their offices and got them all sold in a day. My mom worked in a factory (still does) and my dad worked as a lowly paid cook in a small restaurant (still lowly paid, not the same restaurant). Their co-workers would never fork out $3 for a small pack of chocolates. My friends lived in nice houses and their parents own two cars. I live in a small apartment and have ridden in public transportation my entire life. Money began to become something important.
Now, my computer is constantly lagging with a RAM of 128MB, I've had it for six years and I want to get a laptop, my parents have said no. I took my Learners driving test today and passed (written test). My mom complained from the moment we left the house (and she's still complaining now) about what a waste of money and time it was. She told me that she didn't think I should drive until I'm 22 and driving lessons would be a waste of money since she didn't think I would be able to get my Novice License with only 20 hours of driving instruction. "Also, I hear of new drivers crashing their fancy sports cars all the time," she said. I don't have a sports car, in fact, we don't have a car, period. I have no college fund and since I went to Asia in July, I can't find a job and I've been looking since I returned. Money feels indeed both powerful and important now.
I think I've become a bit obsessed with making money. I've started writing on Helium, a site that pays you when people read your articles. I'm making pretty much no money right now, please click on the link below and read my articles. If you want to join, please give me your email so I can refer you and earn some extra.

My Helium Account

I'm about three clicks away from adding Google AdSense to this blog and I really don't want to because it would defeat my purpose of having this blog. Plus, I think I'd make about three cents each month with the amount of traffic I get. *Sigh* Money, money, money...

Last of the Travel Log

2007-08-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

This is it, I'm sitting at home happily in front of my computer and my days of eating and shopping as a past time are now over. It was an interesting experience, with good and bad. I met my cousins, and got along with all of them except one. She was extremely rude to me even though I was polite to her the entire time and she said that Harry Potter was for little kids, which of course is not true, and the ironic thing is that she's twenty-two years old, and watching some kiddie cartoon when she said that. Though I suppose one of the reasons why she said that was because she failed her English A-Levels and probably wouldn't be able to understand any of "Deathly Hallows", which I spent two days obsessively reading. I spent alot more time with my mom simply because I had no choice and I feel that through the process, we both learned more about each other and have become closer. I know a bit more about her past, seeing where she lived when she was younger and we spent more time talking about what I thought about things, and surprisingly, laughed together.
I guess after being in a hot and crowded place for a month, my little apartment suddenly seems very nice. Even breathing seems easier as the days of suffocating from pollution are over (somewhat). I think the thing I do miss about being in a hot crowded city is the feeling of walking through such a city at night; when people begin to head home after dinner, the vendors close up their stalls to go home to their families, the weather cools, and the city just doesn't feel the same. It feels more...romantic.

Anyways, here are some of the pictures I took on the trip: (most are randomly and badly taken)

Feelings About Harry Potter 7 (NO SPOILERS)

2007-07-23T02:23:00.001-07:00

I finally finished reading the book today! As I was reading it, I was caught between wanting to slow down so the moment of finishing the last HP book would not come so soon and reading quicker to find out what happens next. All I can say is that JKR is brilliant. The tone of the book is definitely not directed towards the kiddie audience of elementary school children. The style of the writing departs sharply from the rest of the series and the contrast between the war and peace could be seen clearly in the way JKR plays with humour. Characters that one could say were important but flat are fully fleshed out. As I was reading the book, I could really see why it took JKR so long to plot out the entire story. There are seven books but it really is one story with a very intricate plot and seemingly unimportant details from previous books are brought up, I must say that I admire her intelligence. The story is deep and rich in wisdom with the way Harry's character develops. The plot twists and turns, its impossible not to be addicted. Alot of theories from fans that I've read online have come true, including theories in the shipping (romance for those of you who don't know) department. I really don't think there's anything left to debate about for the hardcore shippers now, haha.

From reading this book, I could see why I have never really gotten into the Book 7 fanfiction stories. Fanfiction writers usually only use the good side of the characters when they write, JKR knows her characters, she made them come fully to life by exposing their weaknesses and made them react realistically in difficult situations. I guess after reading the book, the story feels complete. I mean, I want to read more in the world of Hogwarts and magic, but at the same time I could see why JKR wouldn't write another book in the Harry Potter series. I still feel sad though. Its as if a long time good friend is moving away. I would still hear from them in the form of phone calls and emails, but its not the same as seeing them in person. The movies will still come out, there's always fanfiction, but its not the same. I think the books have changed my life in the sense that I've discovered the world of fanfiction and the hobby of writing and using writing to express myself when I can't get the words out of my mouth.

I suppose some day, I'll be eighty years old and sitting in my rocking chair telling my grandchildren, "Oh, dearie, I remember when the Harry Potter books came out..." and show them my first edition hardcover books yet again as they clutch their Random House Classics edition in their sweaty little hands.

*sigh* The end of another page in history.

The Shopping Experience

2007-07-21T02:19:00.000-07:00

Before I begin this post...

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is released today, yay! I'm on chapter four right now and I decided to take a break to blog and talk to my friends back in Canada. Secondly, when I saw that I had a comment for my movie review yesterday, I thought it was going to be a flame, but instead it was a comment by a very nice person preferring to remain anonymous who agreed with me. Thanks!

Moving on...

Travelling is always an interesting experience because you're being thrust into somewhere that is simply different from what you are used to. Shopping in a different part of the world of course has been a very amusing and memorable experience. The other day, I saw a bag that I really liked and it was priced at eighty-nine dollars in local currency. Since the store wasn't in a big retail chain or anything, obviously I attempted to bargain.

Me: Come on, that's so expensive!

Vendor: This is a really good quality bag, totally worth the price!

Me: I'll give you fifty dollars for it.

Vendor: No, no, if I did that, I'd be losing money, sixty-five.

Me: Fifty, last offer.

Vendor: Sixty-five is a good price.

(I start to leave)

Vendor: Okay, okay, fifty it is!

So in the space of two minutes, the price of the product dropped by 44%, advice for people travelling to Asia: BARGAIN!

Next, I had a rather bad experience. I saw a pair of Converses on sale, they were in a sort of brightish green so I had some doubts about how they would look on me but I figured: it never costs any money to try anything on, so why not? Since the shoes were wrapped in this plastic wrap or something, the store owner unwrapped one for me to try on. So I tried it on, the colour was sort of bright but I was wearing one so I wasn't totally sure. I asked her if I could try the other one, so she unwraps it and I try on the other shoe as well. With both shoes on, the green was way too bright so I decided not to buy the shoes because of the colour. With that, the owner of the store proceeded to yell at me, saying that I shouldn't ask her to unwrap the shoes if I didn't like the colour and kept yelling while I walked out of the store even after I apologized. I found the situation rather ridiculous seeing as she expected me to buy the shoes right away just because I tried them on and the fact that she was chasing after a customer and yelling loudly.

Whereas the prices in Asia are pretty low, they could work at their customer service a bit more.

Review: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (NO SPOILERS)

2007-07-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

Even in Asia, I managed to watch OOTP in English, yay!

For me, the Harry Potter movies have never managed to bring the magic of the books onto the big screen and OOTP was no different. In terms of the plot, as usual, a ton of detail was cut out as more than seven hundred pages was squeezed into about two hours of screen time. Many things were changed to simplify the plot in order to shorten the movie. It wasn't cut down to the point of GOF where the movie did not have a complete plot and was more of a bunch of scenes from the movie stuck together as a companion for fans of the book. At the same time, however, there was so much cut out of OOTP that the magic of Hogwarts: the students, everyday life, Harry's interaction with his friends, etc. The main plot of the Harry Potter books is of course Harry vs Voldemort, but what makes fans everywhere get sucked in is how we can relate to Harry and through him, "live" at Hogwarts and do magic. In the movie, I just couldn't feel that.

I didn't find any part of the movie particularly boring, but at the same time, there wasn't an emotional high point, this left me with a blank feeling when the movie ended: not good. Those of you who have read the book must think that I'm crazy, but its true. The book is packed with emotion with everything that happens but the way the emotional scenes are presented is so cheesy. It felt like something I've seen in a soap opera or a bad movie. I couldn't feel for Harry the way I felt for him in GOF when Cedric died. "Love conquers all" is the basic theme of all the books, but in the movie it was presented in a very lame way that doesn't allow me to feel the message that is presented on screen. It seems like I've already seen the technique that all these scenes are presented in. I, and movie audiences every where, are tired of melodrama.

I didn't find the acting of the three leads particulary spectacular, I didn't see improvement in terms of acting skills, maybe it was because of the faults in the "emotional" scenes. However, I thought that Imelda Staunton did an excellent job playing Dolores Umbridge, all pink and evil like a piece of poisoned taffy. Her actions fits the description of the book perfectly: evil but pretending to be nice at the same time. She didn't over or under act, she made you hate her, but you feel like you know someone like her in real life, which makes you hate her more.

The costumes were interesting, especially how in certain scenes, charcters seemed to be wearing clothes that the fanfiction reader, writer, and shipper (supporter of certain relationship theories in the HP fandom for those of you who don't know) in me was dying to get a screencap of for banner making purposes of future fanfiction stories. I like the musical score better than the one from GOF, I think I will get the soundtrack once I get the chance.

Overall, I liked it more than GOF, but it still doesn't meet my standards of what a good movie is.

Overall rating: 3/5

I heard somewhere that David Yates is directing the next movie ("Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"), this worries me.

Beach Frolicking

2007-07-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Ahhh haven't been to the beach in ages, finally had the opportunity today. There's something about beaches that I really like. It feels really relaxing to feel the warm sand underneath my bare feet, feel the foam of the waves licking my legs, and see the water stretch for what seems to be an infinite distance. When I almost arrive at a beach, I can always tell by the salty smell of the water. I like to stand where the waves roll in and feel the sand move beneath my feet, there's something strangely comforting about standing on a surface that's not solid, letting the ocean take what it wants and give back what it wants when the waves roll in.

Unfortunately, going to the beach isn't as fun as it used to be. I have to constantly watch every step I take so I don't step on broken glass or any of the other crap that people leave behind. Swimming there is completely out of the question after hearing all the nasty things that people have been dumping in the ocean. Of course, there's always alot of sunbathers, which means I have to carefully walk in between a whole bunch of beach towels laid on hot sand instead of drawing my own path on the sand. The most horrible thing that happens is when sections of the beach become part of private property and while the nice fancy homes are being built, all the construction noise and dust doesn't exactly make it ideal relaxation enviornment. I suppose this is why out of all the recent times I've been to the beach, I didn't take my shoes off, there just didn't seem to be any point.

Maybe someday, I'll do something extremely hypocritical if I ever become stinking rich and buy a house with a private beach property backyard. Meanwhile, maybe all the enviornmentalists will make a difference and we'll all get our nice beaches back.

The Louis Vuitton Bag

2007-07-14T01:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sure there was a time when someone walked down the street with a Louis Vuitton bag and everyone came to the same conclusion that she was a woman with wealth and class, able to afford such a luxurious and beautifully designed bag. Nowadays, when I walk down the street, especially here in Asia, I see imitation LV bags being sold for less than $5 or $10 in Canadian dollars and everyone from the seven year old that doesn't even know what LV is to the twenty-something wanna be to the forty year old that doesn't give a damn what brand the bag is as long as its useable seems to have one. So now when somebody walks down the street with a LV bag, nobody thinks she's a woman of class and wealth, we're all guessing whether the bag is real or a really good imitation. Its like that with practically every single luxury brand of clothing and accessories. I suppose the reason why people would spend so much money on something in the first place is for the feeling that one can "afford" the luxury and its a status symbol. (Yeah, I know I'm shallow, but come on, everyone has had those moments in life where you need some item to raise your self esteem.) However, the status symbol of these luxury products have diminished significantly due to all the imitations. So by buying the imitations, we've stripped the real product of its meaning. So then we must ask ourselves, what's the point of all of this?

Review: "The Queen"

2007-07-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

This movie definitely came out a long time ago, but I watched this on the plane over to Asia (refer to previous post) so I figured I might as well write a review for it. I had a choice of several movies to watch but I chose this one simply because Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her performance. The movie is basically about how the death of Princess Diana affected the British royal family, more specifically, Queen Elizabeth. Mirren definitely deserved her Oscar, she completely humanized Queen Elizabeth and made me feel for her. Most of the time, I see the Queen as some rich old lady leeching off of the British when she doesn't really do much to serve the people. Mirren showed the struggle the Queen has of maintaining her personal traditional values of how the monarchy should behave and the attack of the press and the loss of her people's love. There was no over exaggeration or cheesy melodramatic acting, just the expression of Mirren's eyes in the moment when the Queen was at her lowest point where Tony Blair advised her to lower Buckingham Palace's flag to half mast, return to London, and how her people that she was sorry for Diana's death. There was the look of absolute despair in her eyes for that split second, and then the iron determination to do anything to keep her throne for her son and grandson.
However, there are some negative points to this movie. Its based on events that happened not very long ago so there aren't any surprises in terms of the plot. Most of the teenage crowd will probably find the movie boring even if I found it quite interesting.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Travel Log

2007-07-10T01:35:00.000-07:00

Haven't had a chance to blog yet, but I'm currently in Macau, staying at a relative's house. I'm feeling extremely miserable. The fucking mosquitos won't leave me alone and its so damn hot here. I can never towel myself completely dry because nobody uses nice big fluffy towels here and when I hang my towel in the bathroom, the humidity makes it impossible to ever dry. I hate living with relatives, I don't have anyone my own age to talk to and its boring me to tears. I can't believe I threw up on the airplane getting here, I have never thrown up on an airplane before. Argh, this trip was doomed from the start.
However, on a more interesting note, I've discovered a strange cultural difference. Instead of products that give you a fake tan, brands of skincare products like Neutrogena, Olay, etc have skincare products that make your skin fairer. I suppose since in Asia, its considered better to have lighter skin, unlike in North America where everyone wants a tan.

Fathers Day

2007-06-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Just last night, I had a look through my baby pictures out of boredom and found a whole bunch of them of me and my dad together. In all of them, we're smiling or laughing together. My favourite is one where I'm wearing a frilly dress and he's crouched down beside me and we're both laughing. With the background noise of my dad yelling at me while I sit in my room and study the picture, I wonder what happened between when the picture was taken and the present. Maybe there was something that allowed us to laugh together when I was two that is no longer there now that I've outgrown frilly dresses. I suppose there are moments when a part of that is still in our father-daughter relationship. Sometimes when he's the one cooking dinner instead of my mom and I just help out here and there with little things like flipping something over with the spatula or adding more salt. Its times like that when the kitchen is quiet in a soothing way with only the sounds of food cooking that I really feel the love between us. Unfortunately, there aren't too many moments like this and I suppose maybe we both have to work at getting along. Anyways, to my dad and all the fathers out there, happy fathers day!

Chat Room Oddities

2007-06-10T21:15:00.001-07:00

I was never a big fan of chat rooms, I mean, I'm sure most of the people on it are perfectly normal, but there always seems to be a random weirdo. Somebody gave me a site displaying some of the oddities that can be found in these chat rooms. I would post the quotes here, but some of it contains more... adult material and alot of swearing.

Harry's...wand?

When fanfiction and video game freaks mix

Isn't the world a such a small place?

Chess addict

When cyber sex goes wrong

When idiots show off

Why you should not multi-task on your computer

A lesson on punctuation

When "your mom" disses backfire

For more quotes, go to bash.org

"I'm Arriving"

2007-06-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

This video is so racist and stereotypical, but I can't help but laugh. If you're British, or more specifically, English, prepare to be offended.

Forgive Me

2007-06-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Two strings tied in a knot,
One wrapped around the other.

Your arms around mine,
I am warm and safe.
Murmur your love to me,
I am as cold as ice.
I want to jump, fly, swim,
I want to run away.

One string pulls away,
Both are curled and frayed.

Behind the Chocolate Bar

2007-05-31T19:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone has shopped at a department store at least once in their lives. I'm assuming that since you're reading this blog, you have access to a computer and the internet, you're probably not living in a third world country. What runs through your mind every time you buy a chocolate bar from Wal-Mart or a t-shirt from American Eagle? Slaves harvesting cocoa beans? Somebody working for ten hours a day sewing shirts in an unhygenic enviornment for ten hours a day with pennies as wages? I certainly never thought about that until I read an article about sweatshops in an old issue of Times or Macleans or something like that the other day.
A sweatshop, for those of you who don't know, is basically a factory that offers no benefits for its workers, pays them in pennies, makes them work ten hours or more a day, offers little and badly organized bathroom/lunch breaks, and is usually located in a developing/third world country (i.e. Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, etc). Many of these countries have very poor labour laws to protect workers, which is why major brands such as Ralph Lauren and Banana Republic establish factories there to lower the cost of producing their products. While they pay their workers pennies for working ten hours a day, they charge you $60 for a t-shirt...
A very depressing bit of information for me was that 80% of all cocoa beans (main ingredient of chocolate) is harvested by slaves. I'm a chocoholic, I eat alot of chocolate, especially the cheaper candy bar variety such as Kit Kat, Coffee Crisp, Aero, etc. The candy bar types usually aren't Fair Trade chocolates.
Besides slavery and sweatshops, child labour is also another nasty side of producing goods. Children are paid even less to work longer hours since owners believe that smaller bodies = smaller pay. Children are often hired to make things like soccer balls and baseballs because they have smaller fingers and its easier for them to do detailed sewing. Here is the extremely famous picture that proved Nike used child labour to manufacter their products:

Now, I'm not saying that we should abolish child labour in these countries. Before your eyes widen and you re-read the sentence or think that I made a typo, let me explain why. In developing countries, people often have large families and everybody in the family needs to work in order for the family to meet their basic needs. If the government decides to not allow children to be hired for jobs, what will the families do? What we need is labour laws to protect those working children, make sure that they can go to school, they are paid fairly, and they work reasonable hours.
The opposite of slavery, sweatshops, and child labour is products produced under fair trade policies. These policies protect workers' rights and the products to be labeled as "fair trade" so consumers can recognize these products. Fair trade products are usually a bit more expensive than the regular products, but come on. I'd pay fifty cents extra for a chocolate bar knowing that I'm not supporting sweat shops. But I'm not innocent from all of this, let me look at what I'm wearing right now and see where everything is made.

t-shirt: Mexico
shorts: China
bra: Bangladesh
underwear: Honduras
socks (technically I'm not wearing them right now, but I was wearing them earlier today): China
Shoes (same situation as socks): India (Nike brand! I'm ashamed...)

None of these countries have very strict labour laws to protect workers' rights as far as I know. But, the good news is that I found a few sites with info:

Definition and more on Wikipedia
Sweatshop Watch
IFAT

I just searched "sweatshops" on Google, you could probably find alot more info looking up sites yourself. I only found sites on sweatshops but haven't looked up some about child labour and slavery in the chocolate industry. Perhaps somebody could do that and send me a list?

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean 3- At the World's End

2007-05-29T21:31:00.001-07:00

Ahh, all good things must come to an end eventually, eh? Unfortunately, the reason for that may be that the quality of "good things" tend to deteriorate as time goes by until they can no longer be labeled as "good". Now this rambling and not-too-logical introduction to this review basically sums up my opinion of this movie: better than "Dead Man's Chest", not as good as "Curse of the Black Pearl". I liked the added romance bits in the plot, especially the ending, very bittersweet. There was a confrontation scene between Elizabeth and Will that I really liked, very romantic. However, the action sequences got pretty repetitive after the first forty minutes. Attempts were made to add humour to the plot by having Jack Sparrow talk to himself...with the different sides of his personality appearing in front of him. It was funny the first time, after that, it just became plain weird. I liked the little bit of plot between Davy Jones and Calypso, except the accent of Calypso made it difficult to understand the dialogue at times. Will Turner doesn't have a very big part in the story in this movie as the plot is centered around Jack Sparrow and the Pirates vs English Navy storyline. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Orlando Bloom in there... Anyways, if you stay until after the credits are over, there is a teeny weeny additional scene .(by teeny weeny, I really mean teeny weeny)

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Spiderman 3

2007-05-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm writing this review because my mom has decided to constantly remind me that being a journalist is a difficult job and apparently, girls can't do it. Well, I'm going to try my hand at being a critic and write some reviews...

On the day after the release of Spiderman 3, I eagerly headed to the theatre to watch the long-awaited third installment of the Spiderman series. The movie was not exactly a disappointment, the action sequences were great, it was the storyline that I thought was a little messy. Now its not that I don't like the drama aspect of the plot in the Spiderman series, in fact, one of the things I enjoy most about the Spiderman series is that unlike alot of action movies, they actually have those sentimental-y life lesson plots that actually work and don't leave me exclaiming "oh man, not again!". However, the romance plot between Peter and Mary Jane was just pushing it. When I walk into the theatre to watch a Spiderman movie, I don't want a chick flick with all the "Peter, I love you but...", "Peter, Mary Jane and I kissed...", etc. He kissed her but then she was actually with somebody else...too much chick flick drama! The whole Spiderman becoming evil and dark didn't work out too well either. It was more comedic than suspenseful and the fact that Peter ended up looking like Hitler without the mustache in the cafe scene didn't help matters much. However, I did like the new characters of Sandman and Venom, the fighting sequences were great, especially that scene where a section of the building fell off. The storyline with the tension in the friendship of Harry and Peter was great. I must admit, I could feel myself tearing up a bit at the ending.

Overall Rating: 4/5

The Unbalanced Scales of Love

2007-05-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Why is it that in a relationship, one person always loves or cares about the other person more? I've been on the side of the relationship where I care more, many, many times. It sucks and I know it. Now I'm on the side where the other person cares more, should I be happy? Maybe I should, but I'm not. Every time I am told something that should theoretically go weak in the knees or blush or be flattered or just something, I just don't feel anything. I feel so guilty every time this happens and I don't feel anything, instead of standing there in awkward silence, I just say something back or I kiss him or something like that just so I feel less guilty. I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm incapable of loving anyone but myself or maybe I'm just a cold and hard-hearted girl.

Undefined: Redecorated

2007-05-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

I think people who regularly check out this blog (and there aren't that many of you out there) probably have noticed some of the changes made to the blog. In case you haven't, I figured I would point them out to you. By the way, take a minute to visit http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com if you would like to make changes to your blog, this site/blog makes everything so much easier with simple instructions.

Layout Change
I changed the template from "snapshot" to "minima" and the page has three columns instead of two. I played around with the colours of the titles, etc. I also made a header banner, it doesnt look that great but I'll make a better one later. The picture of the banner is from the Ralph Lauren Romance perfumes. Since it has a pink undertone, I used a bit of pink in the banner so all the text, etc of the blog had to match and now everything looks so girly.

Sidebar Changes
Theres quite alot of new things in the sidebar. There's the "Song of the Moment" box, where I change the song regularly according to how I feel and I also write a little blurb explaining why I chose the song. The song won't play until you click on the "play" button and you can also stop the song or change the volume whenever you want. I know how annoying it is to arrive at a page and have a really annoying song playing loudly over and over again while I read the contents of the page. There's also the "Google Translator" where you can view this page in another language of your choice using Google Translator. Beware of the fact that literal translations don't always make sense though! There's also quite a few tiles in the "Thanks to..." box. Since I wanted more traffic to this blog, I've listed it onto several blog directories and they require blog owners to link back to their directory so I put all the links there.

There will be more changes and updates coming soon!

Mother's Day

2007-05-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

By the way, I didn't make this cake (actually, it looks more like a pie...) for my mom, I got the picture from Wikipedia. Well, its Mother's Day today, so I figured that I'd blog a bit about mothers and my mom. Whereas I don't think I'll ever be a mother and I actually don't get along that well with my mom, I do respect the mothers out there. Its a 24/7 job with no breaks or holidays and you don't get paid in any type of currency except for smiles and love. As cheesy as it may sound, I think my mom has made the biggest impact in my life. Its through her that I've learned how to be strong and believe in myself. When my family first came to Canada, neither of my parents spoke English and we came here because my dad was offered a job. Well, it turns out that my dad's employer was cheating him of money and since he didn't speak English, there wasn't much that he could do. Well, my mom stormed to my dad's boss with the newfound knowledge of Canada's labour laws and in her fiery temper, demanded that my dad be treated fairly in accordance to Canada's laws. Another instance where I really admire my mom...her cooking skills. I'm salivating just thinking about those meals she cooks.

Like I mentioned before, I argue alot with my mom and I do feel bad for it because part of it is my fault and sometimes (actually, a lot of the times), I'm too caught up in my own problems to think about where she is coming from before I open my mouth and start yelling back.

Anyhow, while you're thinking of ways to show you appreciation to your mother, why not read about Mother's Day on Wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day

Little Miss Scary (or rather, INSANE)

2007-04-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Weeeeeeeee!!!!! After all these months of bottled up anger and stress, I think I've finally gone insane. Everything seems strangely emotional to me nowadays, even "Spongebob Squarepants" seems strangely touching. All the people that want to "look at my work" in socials class tempt me to throw a loud temper tantrum on the spot. All of a sudden, when I think about Theatre Company, I want to laugh. A friend pointed out to me a few days ago that we're all in Theatre Company because we need to mask our insecurities with being in the spotlight but once one of us actually gets the spotlight and the attention, we have to go about bringing that person down because we can't stand the idea of anyone but ourselves in the spotlight. Doesn't this seem funny? Deep inside, we're all a bunch of school yard bullies with attention-whore complexes. I spent most of today watching alternating episodes of "Prison Break" and "Sex and the City", two things that do not mix at all. While watching and even right now, I kept playing with my tape measure keychain, trying to see how long I can stretch the tape measure and then pulling the button back without getting lashed by the tape measure. Meanwhile I am also ignoring the fact that I have alot of homework to do and instead, am slacking off. I feel extremely blocked in terms of fanfiction right now and I feel almost like giving up. Today I spent hours in the mall testing various brands of foundation on my hand and trying out perfumes by spraying it on those little cardboard. The result: my hand smelled like alot of perfumes (primarily the Calvin Klein ones) mixed together. I felt like I was having a girly day out with myself.

If by now you're still reading this post, I think you realize that none of this makes any sense at all.

LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA

The Underappreciated Careers

2007-04-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

The only thing I can say right now is that April sucks. I'm stressed, pissed off, and slightly sad. Thirty-two people died in a shooting at Virginia Tech, I am once again, going through my college/university options and career choices. In the midst of all this, I succumbed to my unhealthy habit of emotional eating, which led to my realization that one of the most admirable careers in the world was being a farmer. Even with modern technology and huge ass tractors instead of oxen and plow, being a farmer still isn't easy. You have to risk losing your crops to uncontrollable elements like the weather. The biggest reason for my admiration is that farmers are the ones who grow our food. You could be Bill Gates or the King/Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, it doesn't matter. If you want your lettuce and tomatoes. If you want your bacon and eggs, you get it from the farmers. Despite all of this, my mental image of farmers has always been some guy in overalls, boots drenched in mud, pulling stuff from his field. What were my feelings towards a farming career? It seemed so... backwards and unambitious. Its like those movie cliches where the uneducated boy in plaid and overalls has a piece of straw or wheat or whatever it is hanging out of their mouth and start talking with a strange accent while sitting on top of a rusty old tractor. But I suddenly realized how important farmers were in my life. They don't exactly affect me directly but I have three meals a day (not including snacks) and the food definitely didn't appear spontaneously out of mid air. Of course, my parents paid cold hard cash for the food, but I still admire those farmers out there. I certainly can't imagine waking up at five in the morning to tend to my crops or anything like that. People go around thinking off all these professions that influence people: doctors, lawyers, politicians... Nobody ever thinks about the people who grow the food that the influential people eat to stay alive and be influential in the first place.

This led me to think about all the other underappreciated careers there are out there. What about garbage collectors? I never thought much about the neon orange/yellow vest wearing individuals who I notice pull by every now and then to pick up the garbage. (I live in an apartment so we have a garbage compactor, therefore there isn't the generic vision of the garbage man/woman pulling up to the front of my house and collecting the trash) A few summers ago, (now that I think of it, quite a few summers ago) the garbage collectors went on strike. I don't think it takes too much explaining to feel the agony of walking past an alley on a hot summer's day with the stench of weeks of garbage wafting over to you.

Oh no, I just heard on the news that the garbage collectors might be having a strike again! Just as the weather is growing warmer....

Now I'm completely off topic and should probably go back to working on my fanfic.

Weekend Store Hours

2007-04-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

I really don't understand why stores close earlier on weekends. It makes no sense at all. I mean, weekends are when people don't have to go to work and therefore have more time to shop. Stores are open late on weekdays when people are too tired to shop after work or they have to go to sleep earlier because they have to wake up early the next morning. Doesn't it make sense to extend store hours on weekends? I mean, they would make so much more money by mall-lingering people like me who can spend the entire day at the mall. Well, I mostly window shop but that's not the point. This pretty much takes out half of the things one could possibly do on a weekend when staying out late. I mean, come on, this is ruining the country's economy here!!

Okay, fine, I admit it. The source of this frustration comes from me taking the goddamned CD-ROM/DVD drive to the store for an exchange/refund and finding it closed. ARGH!

The Computer Drama

2007-04-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

God, if I can use my computer to crack open beers, maybe I'd feel a bit more mellow and less pissed off at this piece of crap. Before I go on any further, if you don't know already, I'm not exactly a computer expert and don't know much about computers beyond the basic stuff.

This horrid tale begins with my CD-ROM drive no longer functioning. Now my computer is a little more than five years old, but for some reason, it can't even play DVDs and I've been thinking of getting a DVD drive for a while anyways so this gave me an excuse to get a CD/DVD drive combo that all the new computers now have. So I skipped along to the neighbourhood Future Shop, a place where they over-charge you for the same metal crap you get everywhere else. Now I'm aware of the red-uniformed vultures (also known as salespeople) who prey on computer idiots like me. They had an internal drive for $60 and an external drive connected via USB cable for $70. Ohhhh the external drive, what a beautiful thing, what a wonderful thought! I must admit, my pulse quickened at the thought of not having to open up my computer and mess around with the inside, which always makes me uneasy. But... (there's always a but) the thought of paying seventy bucks is not a very appealing thought. So as usual, I asked around a few friends who were better with computers. They advised me to get an internal drive since it would be faster and to go to this store that sells everything factory-direct. So I went there today and got an internal drive for $25. I thought "This is great! Same product for a fraction of the cost!" Boy...this is where the trouble began. I have a HP Pavillion 7917 with its stupid goddamned plastic outercase and a spare space for an extra drive. So first, I started off with trying to take my original drive out. For some reason, one of the screws just wouldn't come out no matter which screwdriver I used. So I, I decided to put the new drive in the spare space. There's a metal covering in the spare space so I guess people won't accidentally stick things inside their computer. But getting that piece of metal out... I think the scratches on my hands and that splotch of blood that's still on the inside of the lid explains the story very well. Afterwards, I still couldn't stick the drive in because there wasn't enough room so I had to unscrew some things. So I stuck the drive in and screwed the rest of the components back in. I figured, finally, the easy part has come: installing the drive. Now this is the part where I think that whoever designed the packaging must have very low I.Q. THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL WAS ON CD-ROM!!! If my CD-ROM drive was working, I wouldn't need to buy another fucking drive, would I?! The drive can't read the CD-ROM if it hasn't been installed. So I opened hardware manager. It said there was something wrong with installation. So I figured maybe I plugged the wrong plug in or something, so I shut off my computer and opened it up again. After switching the plug, I turned on my computer and had to wait 15 minutes for my internet security suite to load so it would stop blocking all my attempts at modifying the computer's settings. I tried installing: same message, wouldn't install.

Three hours worth of installation attempts later: the same result.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Petty Revenge

2007-04-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

This is my 100th post on this blog! Its not a particularly happy or deep and soulful post. It is a post of petty revenge that I have resisted until this day to act upon.

This is a picture of someone that I will call "Dick" for the purposes of protecting his identity despite how much he does not deserve it. Also, of course, the double meaning of the name gives you a sense of what his personality is like. No offense to any of you out there named "Dick". In my previous rants about Theatre Company and the Spring Play, I have mentioned the group of people determined to have their way and ignore other people's ideas. "Dick" is the ringleader. In the drama studio, there are quite alot of pictures of people in Theatre Company in various plays. I have quite a few pictures posted on the walls. The other day, I noticed that in almost all of my pictures, somebody took a sharpie and decided to blot out my face. My immediate emotions of course were rage and different methods of revenge ran through my mind. I knew that "Dick" and his "followers" did it. They are the ones that hang around the drama studio all the time and they are the ones who, when being reprimanded by the director, immediately demand to know from the people around if I was the one that said anything, as if I would sink to his level. After calming down slightly, I decided to take matters in my own hands, not in an act of revenge, but to look at the big picture. Sure, I could stay in Theatrre Company next year and endure all the little acts of petty revenge taken on me. I know my friends in Theatre Company really want me to stay and the director wants to as well. But I know that I will never be happy and be able to relax and have fun if I constantly wonder if people are talking about me when they split up into groups and talk. I could stay and "stick it out" for another year, but in the end, who wins? I'm the one that's going to be unhappy. Does it really matter so much who "wins"? If I'm happy, I know I've won. I'm not the one that has to scrap for the spotlight on stage to get attention. I walk with my head high and know I can shine no matter where I go. As for the picture? My little act of petty revenge, returning the favour of what he had done to me. Only this picture is plastered on the internet for all to see...

That felt good.

A Good Christian Girl

2007-04-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

Despite the picture, this is not a post mocking religion or anything like that.

During one of the heiniously long Theatre Company rehearsals the other day, I was talking to one of my friends (he's a guy) about various things and both of us were the type of people that don't find it very awkward to discuss sex and stuff like that. So we were talking about reading smut and watching porn and he said with a half-surprised tone, "I thought you were a good church-going Christian girl." Even though he didn't say it seriously, that line stuck in my head and I couldn't stop thinking about it and I suddenly felt like a very, very bad person. I felt like I was slandering the religion by being such a bad representation of Christianity. It striked me all of a sudden that my confused emotions towards religion was not because of certain beliefs of the church that I go to, the problems come from me. All along, I was just looking for the excuse to allow myself to break all the commandments in the Bible. I realize that just because I disagree with one belief from my church doesn't mean I should stop following the basic beliefs of Christianity. It doesn't making okay for me to be selfish or to lie. I never stopped believing that God existed in the first place, I was too lazy and weak to follow His rules.
This also lead to another thought: how did I get from the "cooties" stage of childhood to enjoying being...sexual. I remember the nurse coming in to talk to us about sex and condoms in grade five. I couldn't imagine anybody wanting to have sex. Having somebody stick the place where they pee into my "private part" didn't sound very enjoyable at all. I couldn't imagine my parents having sex. Surely there must be some other way of making babies besides having sex, right? Masterbating... why would anyone do that? Mom always says that its dirty "down there" and you should only touch it with your hands when you clean it. Having sex before marriage?! Out of the question! Everyone knows only bad people do that! Now that I look back on how I used to see these things, I feel that I've both grown up and have lost my touch of innocence. I feel a little sad when I look back. The boundaries of good and evil seemed so much clearer back then.
Now this lead on to a thought about morals. (yes, I obviously have no life, therefore I have alot of time to ponder about things) Where does our sense of conscience and morals come from anyhow? Christians get it from the Bible, from the ten commandments. Stealing, lying, and cheating on your lover is bad becuase God tells us so. Then where do the atheists get their conciences from? If concience is something that is instilled in us since the moment we are born, I think that is a sign that God is truly with every one of us.

Am I a good Christian girl? I think I know the answer to that one. Do I want to be a good Christian girl? Maybe that is truly the question I need to ask myself.

Determination Versus Bravery

2007-04-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I wonder if its braver to suck it up and stay in an unpleasant situation or just to walk away and give up. If you stay, you're suffering, but its familiar routine. If you quit, sometimes you find yourself missing the old familiar routine and some fun aspects of it that you didn't realize was there before. But it takes bravery to stand up and leave a familiar enviornment behind. Then you have all these sayings like "Winners never quit, quitters never win". I guess I'm one of the losers in between like the picture above; constantly halfway between quitting and continuing on. Always wanting to take the stairs to the fitness centre but ending up on the escalators anyways.

*sigh*

No Life in April

2007-03-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

See those orange X's? Thats all the days I have to stay after school for Theatre Company rehearsals. As you can see, I will have no life at all in April and no time for fanfiction. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Why I Hate To Cry

2007-03-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Despite all the reports about how crying is healthy and it does actually feel good afterwards, I don't like crying. I guess its from when I was little and my parents would yell and me and hit me more if I started crying so I just learned to suck it up and hold it in. I hate how weak I feel when I get all choked up by sobs and the mountain of kleenex keeps piling up as I get all slobbery and I feel like sinking into a puddle. Like today, I know I shouldn't care about what other people think. But it hurts to think of these people holding their grudges because I disagreed with them and talking behind my back saying stuff like "I want to slap her [me] across the face" when every time they forget a line or stumble in a play, I was the one encouraging them. It makes me question why the hell I stayed in theatre company despite all the times I said I was quitting. Its so hard to stand on stage for hours during rehearsal and wonder whether I'm amongst friends or enemies. I felt like crying all day after I knew what these people were saying. Of course, the other part of me wanted to snap her fucking neck into two pieces but thats a whole other feeling. Finally, at home, talking to the only friend I could trust, I cried. I felt like a loser for crying, but I know that after the kleenex is cleared up and the tears are dried, I, once again, stand strong.

Post-vacation Lag

2007-03-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wonder whether or not the vacation is really worth the suffering when its over and its the first day back to my normal routine. Not only is today the first day back from spring break, but its also a Monday. Lets just say, it took me fifteen minutes to drag myself out of bed this morning and I can't even describe the effort involved to keep my eyes open while brushing my teeth and having breakfast. In fact, as bizzare as it may sound; even with my mp3 player on at full blast and the icy early-spring morning breeze attacking my face, I felt sleepy while walking to school. In fact, throughout the entire day, I had to fight to stay awake in class. Even while typing this post I want to sleep. You may be wondering why I'm posting instead of sleeping. The reason: homework on the first day back.

I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep...

Bored

2007-03-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

I think I'm at the point in my life where I'm absolutely bored of everything and I'm dying for some sort of change. Everything I do seems to be for the purpose of completing a task or living up to a commitment. Nothing seems fun and shocking. I need to go out and see the world; meet some new weirdos that I have yet to get used to their weirdness and away from people who already have expecations of who I am. I want to hear music from another land, inspire new people and in turn, be inspired by their differences. I need to get away from this similarity in my life that seems to blend one day into the next. For once, I want to wake up in the morning and not know what's going to happen throughout the day.

Argh, I need a vacation or a drink.

Maybe both would be nice.

From Me To You

2007-03-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

Me.

I stand with my white jacket stained,
School bag on my back.
I am muddled, confused, and lost.
I tell you, I need an excuse to arrive late.
You promise to stay.

You, a crown of forbidden glory on your head,
Heart humble on your sleeve.
Voice deep like a man's,
Laughs coming easily like a boy's.

I call out and you reply.
Words flow out like a stream,
We turn a block from school.
I laugh and you smile,
Another corner in the path.

I whisper goodbye,
You smile and wave.
As I walk away;
Away from your scent,
Away from your voice,
Away from your heart.

I find myself melting,
Melting into,

You.

Unbelievably Lost and Confused

2007-03-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what I'm doing with my life right now, I feel so confused and lost. It seems like lately, I've been changing my life in a decisive and dramatic fashion. I've had my eyes set on such impossible and bizzare goals. At the same time, I question whether or not I'm making the right decision. Am I screwing things up rather than changing my life for better?
I quit the Ultimate Frisbee team because it took me two years to realize that I never liked the sport in the first place. What I liked about it was the feeling of togetherness when I played side by side with my team members and the feeling that I belonged. I only joined in the first place because my friends joined and I didn't want to feel left out. I remembered in grade eight when they all joined the Library Club and it seemed too boring for me so I didn't join. I ended up sitting alone by my locker whenever they had meetings; I didn't want a repeat of the same events with Ultimate. So for two years, I spent every practice staring at my watch, hoping for practice to end soon. My skills improved, but not enough for anyone to pass to me during a game. I would run around for two hours, get exercise, but never get the disc. My friends were (and still are) crazy about the sport, I played along, but always felt like such a fake afterwards. I guess I'm finally tired of pretending. My friends don't quite grasp the concept that I don't like Ultimate and just think that I'm being irresponsible and lazy. I would explain again but its not worth my time to do so and I'm not obliged to explain anything to anyone in the first place.
With my friends, lately, I've been confiding in my guy friends more than my close girl friends. Around my female friends, I feel the pressure to act like a goody-goody. They are the type of people who would feel awkward and embarassed if the subject of sex ever came up and have probably never said the f-word once in their lives. With my guy friends, it seems so much easier to confide in them because there isn't the pressure to censor everything before it comes out of my mouth when I feel the need to rant. But at the same time, I miss the closeness that I share with them, but then I don't really want to seek them out and talk. I guess the arrogant side of me thinks that if they don't come to me, why should I waste my time going to them? I don't know whether I want to stand out amongst my firends or fit in. When I stand out, I feel lonely and left out, but whe I fit in, I feel as though I'm just a part of the crowd and not a distinct person.
With religion, I am especially confused. In a sense, its too deeply imbedded in me for me to ever practice Wicca or become a Buddhist or anything like that, but I always feel so fake whenever I sit in a church. Most of the things that the pastor tells me not to do, I don't want to stop. As much as it sounds so great to many people to be all moral and everything, its just not me. There's so many don'ts in Christianity. Don't think lustful thoughts, don't masterbate, don't date non-Christians, don't have sex before marriage, don't swear or take the name of the Lord in vain. Most of all, the thing that disturbs me the most is how intolerant Christianity can be. I remember that one sermon that probably planted the seed of doubt in my mind. Apparently, according to my pastor, being homosexual is a sin and isn't something that you are born with but something that you choose. Despite being straight, this is exactly the opposite of what I believe in. I believe that people should love whomever they wish without being prosecuted.
With my future career, I want to be something that involves writing. I want to be a journalist and make a difference in the world with my opinons. My goal is to some day, be as influential the way Oriana Fallaci was. But at the same time, I know that being a journalist is not a very stable career and not very many journalists manage to make it big. Also, being a successful journalist would mean sacrificing the opportunnity to get married and start a family. Even though I highly doubt I'll ever be a wife and mother, the idea of living alone for the rest of my life does not sound very appealing. Plus, I could be sacrificing this and still turn out to be unsuccessful. I've also thought about being an English teacher. I had the chance to teach a Drama 8 class the other day and it felt really good. The teacher thought I was great and I had a great time. On the toher hand, being a teacher isn't exactly feeding my ambitious dreams. But educating the society of tommorow is a very rewarding thing. I don't even know where I'm going for college yet. I want to go somewhere far away, experience life, see the world, and get away from my parents. But I know I can't afford it because my parents never started a college fund for me. Despite my Honour-Roll grades, my parents never felt that they should save up for my education. In fact, they were about to start a college fund for me a couple of years ago when tehy learned that the Canadian government gives $500 to your fund or something, but they gave up on the notion when they realized that the child had to be under 12 or else the government wouldn't pay you anything.
Argh, I hope I'll pull my act together in the end.

Theatre Company Woes

2007-03-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've never really quite understood why the world of celebrities always seemed to be filled with assorted scandals until recently. I was a drama student ever since I entered high school. Even before that, I always enjoyed giving oral presentations and being on stage for a few moments in an assembly or a small scale play. I love acting, it gives me a chance to be someone else for a period of time on stage. The first time I was in a large scale school play, I felt like I was the one tht held the audience's attention, in the spotlight, they only had eyes for me. It was a feeling of triumph, ecstasy, and power like no other. Afterwards, people came up to me and told me I did a good job and that it felt cool to see someone they knew on stage. I auditioned for the Theatre Company at my school, the drama class that produces the large production plays and is made up of the best actors in the entire school. I got in and for most of the year, it was a good experience. I had the chance to meet people from different grades and had the opportunnity to not only act in many quality productions but also opportunnities to work with industry professionals. However, in the past couple of days, I discovered the uglier side of being in a room full of actors.
Now I'm going to admit to you right now that actors for the most part are egotistical people and I'm including myself in this comparison, even though I'm speaking in a third-person perspective. In a sense, I suppose its understandable. Actors are the ones with the ability to remain composed despite of nerves, they're the ones with the loudest voices, and the ones with the best lying and deceiving skills. However, its getting to the point where its getting absolutely out of hand and I can't stand it anymore. This is the situation: every year, we put on at least one huge production. This year however, we are in a bit of trouble. There were problems with budgeting for the original script chosen, so we couldn't do that. Our drama teacher, and right now I'm going to say this for anybody out there who has not been to a single drama class/workshop: I have never met a normal drama teacher before; they all seem to be eccentric in some way. Anyhow, the drama teacher brings in this woman with ideas that are....rather more appropriate for the sixties. Lets just say, we're not into the whole hippie stuff anymore. So the entire group confronted the teacher, we didn't like where this was going. After much argument, it was decided that we would come up with something on our own. We decided to do a Shakespeare production, I have no disagreements with that. After all, Shakespeare is considered to be one of the greatest playwrights of all time, it'll be pretty interesting to work on that. But, there's a select group of people that I have not had a problem with until this point in time. All they want to do is to be "funny". Now I put that in quotations because humour can be divided into two categories. There's the good kind and the crap kind. The good kind would be like the movie "Forrest Gump", where humour is written in a way that makes you laugh from the heart; with clever dialogue and an intelligent but comedic story. The crap humour would be like "Date Movie". Its humour that gives you a quick laugh, but you leave the movie theatre/playhouse with nothing. For some reason, a particular group of people feel the need to make the play "funny". Well, that's alright, different strokes for different folks, right? You like the play funny, I want something with more substance. Its the way they're acting that pisses me off. They wanted to completely change Shakespeare. This isn't the part that's annoying yet. I didn't like the idea much though. Having all the characters in the tragedies fake their death and then pair Hamlet up with Juliet, Ophelia with Nick Bottom in donkey form(wtf?!), etc. Okay, in a way its sort of like fanfiction, I can deal with that. I did however strongly disagree with quite a few of the changes they made and sort of became the voice of half of the Theatre Company that agreed with me. The leader of the other side seemed hell-bent on having me as the co-script writer for some reason despite my open opposition against his ideas. But he was probably hoping that if I would be bribed with the opportunnity to write the script for the school play and stop telling him that his ideas are crap. Then we had this huge discussion with half of the class that cared, me, him, and the teacher. The disagreement was more between me and him and the teacher was more on my side. So finally, she decides that we should just find a new script thats already written up that we can all agree on using instead of wasting our time arguing about a script that hasn't even been written yet. So we look for scripts and hey automatically trash every script we come up with without even looking at the script. In fact, they trash talked everyone that didn't agree with their ideas. They automatically assumed that if it wasn't a comedy written by them, it was crap. In fact, this is what one of them said: "The play can be sad, but it has to be funny." Is it just me or does that make no sense at all?
This is where the uglier side of actors comes in. We can all lie and conceal our hatred and emotions so well that you seem to not know who is truly your friend. The person who says they support you in front of you will turn and tell somebody else that they think you're not worthy enough for Theatre Company. I'm sick of constantly having to choose between expressing my opinion and not being hated by the actors, at least the select few that seem to have a problem with people who disagree with them. In fact, as surprising as it may sound, alot of the actors are followers, not leaders, as you can see with the quote earlier. I'm embarassed to be associated with people like that.

I'm quitting.

Siege

2007-03-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've been hacked, both my computer and msn account was hacked yesterday. I feel like I'm in one of those historical fiction novels where the city is sieged and the enemy has finally broken though. A year and a half ago, I wouldn't have cared too much if anybody hacked into my msn account or computer, but now I've got fanfic. As much as I would like to just walk into school tommorow and tell everyone what I do in my spare time, to be honest, I don't have the guts to do it. There are people like my friends who I know will support me, and by friends, I mean the actual friends that I've known for years who've stuck by me, not the casual accquaintance "friends". I know there will be people who will whisper and hate me just simply for being who I am. I admit that I'm a coward and I will never have the strength to speak my mind in front of a crowd. I used to have a blog on Xanga but I stopped going on. I had to censor everything I put on it because I knew that people would read it and I was afraid of what they thought. I mean, I know there are people that read this blog, albeit not very many, but I don't know you guys personally and would most likely never meet you in person. I mean, there's so many scenes in "Last Summer" alone that would have them whispering. Is the goody-goody A-Student a ho? There's a whole load of posts in here that I would be uncomfortable sharing with some people. Fanfiction, internet, blogging, this is my personal space, a little (maybe not so little) place where I can speak my mind and not have to constantly censor myself. Its a place where I can be myself without worrying about what others think. Why must you take this away from me?

I know who the hacker is. Yes, if you're reading this, I know it was you. Since you've hacked into my files and probably read through them, I might as well tell you this. I can't believe I actually liked you. You decide to flirt with me as if we were dating one day and the next, I see you with anohter girl. All week, you decide to walk me to my locker, flirt with me, talk to me. Next, you tell your friend that you're hacking in revenge for me "annoying" you when you know perfectly well that I was never the one that initiated anything that could constitute as "annoying". You have been the one seeking me out. Thats what hurts the most. To know that I've wasted my time with someone like you when there were other guys more worthy of my time surrounding me and I was blind to all of that because I only had eyes for you.

The thing I don't understand is why do you have to do this to me? Are my judging skills so bad that I couldn't see that part in you? The irrational selfish part that likes to torment other people for your own pleasure? I'm disappointed in you, but I'm more disappointed in myself for succumbing to my weakness: you.

Valentines Day

2007-02-14T17:04:00.000-08:00

Once again, its Valentines Day. As usual, it was boring, butttttttttt I made a list of Valentines Day fics/books/movies/other stuff. Though the list is pretty short since I'm having a brainblock right now and can't think

Links

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/valentines-day.html
Some family friendly G rated info about Valentines Day, kind of interesting though and in very simple language.

http://www.singlesawareness.com
Some anti-Valentines day people! Go Singletons!

Fics
I'm not gonna give links because I'm too lazy to find them.

On http://www.checkmated.com

Going Through The Motions by Slayerette
The Good Fight by Slayerette
Weight of the World by Slayerette
The Book of Morgan LeFay by lavenderbrown
The Final Reckoning by lavenderbrown
See Hermione Score by arios1
Fellytones and Fuzzy Slippers: A Love Story by TheTreacleTart
The Devil's Triangle by fresh pickled toad
Between Fantasy and Reality by jocjarmom

On http://www.thequidditchpitch.org

Sailing the Dark Ship by kjcp
War and Passion by RedBlaze
Fire and Ice by RedBlaze

On http://www.dracoandginny.com

Keeping Christmas on the Death Train by Anise
Along Came a Wizard by fallenwitch

On http://www.siye.co.uk

It Happened One Night by Sundevil05

Movies

The Notebook
Breakfast At Tiffany's
Titantic
Love Actually
Bridget Jones's Diary

Books

Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult
Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
See Jane Score by Rachael Gibson
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Happy Valentines Day!

(or Singles Awareness Day if you prefer)

The Woes Of Love And IM

2007-02-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

You would think that all the new gadgets would make it easier to connect with people (ahem the male species), but after years of using said gadgets, I have concluded that this is a big fat lie that corporate companies have been feeding us. Think about this: way back when, the only way to communicate someone without actually talking face to face with them was to to send a letter. When they don't reply, you have millions of excuses. The guy delivering your message could have ran off with the post thinking that you sent money. His horse might have broken its leg and in a strange and long winding turn of events, the letter was never delivered. The messenger might have met bandits on the road and was robbed of everything, including your letter. Even when we fast forward a couple of centuries into a more modern mail system, lots of things could still go wrong. Cars broke down, boats sank, if you sent the letter "postage collect", maybe the person you're sending the letter to didn't want to pay for the letter and decided to return it to the sender instead. Now fast forward through a few decades, maybe you would send a telegram instead. Of course, a million other things could go wrong. The telegraph operator could have misinterpreted the message you wanted to send, for some strange reason, some weird technical difficulty might have prevented your message from getting through. Or when the person delivering the telegram might have lost it for some strange reason. Now lets fast forward to telephones. When telephones were first invented, every time someone called in one house in the neighbourhood, all the phones rang. Every household had a special ring so you had to learn to recognize your ring. That person might not call you because they're shy and they don't want the whole neighbourhood knowing that there's something between you two and its way too easy for other people to eavesdrop on your conversation. Now lets fast forward to emails. You might not get a reply to your email because for some reason, it got lost in cyberspace, or that person doesn't check their email inbox. The point is, in all the above ways of communication, there's always some excuse you can make to yourself as to why that person isn't replying to you, but with instant messaging technology such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, etc, there are no excuses you can make. You can see their status as clearly online and every time you message them and they don't message you back, you feel stupid and like you're obsessing over him or something.

As you can see, we were better off with the letters and the horses.

"I'd rather get rechargeble batteries..."

2007-02-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

Ahh yesss, "Sex and the City", the single girl's T.V. friend(s), here to defend us against the violent Hallmark Valentines Day attack. The stormy sea of red cardboard hearts drowns our protesting cries of overcommercialism while Cupid's arrow decides to stab our lonely ass. However, I saw on the news the other day that Anti-Valentines day cards are now available at Carlton Cards, whaddya know? I tried googling for a picture of it but I couldn't find it...but I found this little gem:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/airport_sleeper/99466837/

Only three more days to go before its over, hang in there!

Canadian Idol

2007-02-03T18:19:00.000-08:00

Walked past the long line of people lining up to audition for Canadian Idol today. It seemed that every fifteen steps or so I took in the mall, I walked past somebody with a number stuck on their back, a guitar in their hand, wallowing away at some tune while inwardly I shook my head and said "Man, you're not gonna make it." There was also a huge crowd watching the potential contestants line up and various news stations were there with their cameras. I guess everybody wants to be a star. I mean, sure you hear about the scandals and the tabloids with the unflattering pictures on the front page but at the same time you see the nice clothes, the great parties, the admirers... Enough to make anybody with no vocal talent to grab a guitar and belt out their shower tunes.

I Take It All Back...Gladly

2007-02-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

Back when "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" first came out and everyone made a mad rush to the theatres to watch it, afterwards, as usual, the main discussion amongst the female population was the bath scene where Daniel Radcliffe is half naked. All my friends were going on and on about how great his chest looked and I absolutely disagreed, he looked scrawny and a bit too pale for my liking. I mean, he's a great actor and all but out of all the actors in the Harry Potter movies, Tom Felton is the best looking, hands-down. However, I find that my opinion was challenged when I saw this picture:

The picture here is a bit small so you can't really see but the stubble on his face and the chest... *drools*. I mean, the stubble sort of scratches if you're kissing the guy but I always think that guys look better with a little stubble. And the chest and toned arms...need I say more? I mean, I thought he just looked horrid when the OOTP promotional picture of him was released with the dorky haircut. It sounds really harsh but just look at this picture:

The two pictures look as if they're of two different people. Too bad "Equus" is only performed in London, or else I would go and watch it. All I can say is I take back all the comments I've ever made about Daniel Radcliffe lacking in the looks department. *drools over the other promo pics*

"Tyra Banks is Fat"

2007-01-28T16:40:00.000-08:00

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/ktla-tyra,0,751970.story?coll=mmx-home_bottom_hedsh2o

Oh man. Do we really have to go there? From my years of shopping at Superstore and browsing the covers of various tabloids and magazines while I wait in the heiniously long lineups to the cashiers, I've seen all the pictures of the celebrities at their worst from"Mary-Kate Olsen in Rehab for Anorexia" to "Britney Spears With Celluite at Twenty-Two!". Then of course, next week, you see the exact same magazine print pictures of the same celibrity looking all glamorous on the red carpet and the headlines commenting on how great they look. I mean, its not like I'm sitting here with my great morals telling you how I'm sickened every time I hear about a scandal. I mean, I'm like everyone else, I can't help but subconciously rejoice when I hear about a "perfect" person screw up. However, hearing about the media go on about how Tyra Banks is fat sickens me. I mean, for God's sake, everyone's heard about America's Next Top Model and everyone has watched at least one episode despite what they tell you and pretty much everyone's watched the Tyra Banks's Show before. Why won't the tabloids ever think about how much of the female population looks up to Tyra Banks? She provides the model wannabes and people who are struggling with their body image that being thin isn't everything and that females have curves and thats natural. We're not supposed to look like sticks. I saw one of the episodes of her talk show about little girls who think they're fat and they're dieting before they've even learned how to spell the damn word. It just depressed me, you know? I mean, kids are supposed to be all innocent and stuff but look at Barbie dolls. Which girl hasn't wondered why she doesn't look like Barbie when she's playing with the doll? I mean, I certainly wondered why I didn't look skinny like that and still miraculously have boobs. I don't particularly admire Tyra Banks and I do think its slightly hypocritical of her to preach healthy body image when she used to be a model, someone that sells their looks for money and she hosts a modelling competition that is again, all about looks. However, I do admire the fact that she's made a decent effort into talking about body image with the whole wearing a fat suit to show viewers how prejudiced people can be to people who are overweight. Now how are the little kids going to look at this and her efforts in changing people's views towards their body? What kind of message are the tabloids trying to send?! For once, can't they shut up and pick on somebody that at least deserves to be picked on? I mean, if you want to plaster pictures of Lindsay Lohan drunk, I don't care.

Open-Closed Mind

2007-01-21T17:27:00.000-08:00

So I saw in a newspaper today that Hilary Clinton was running for President in the United States and I remembered a conversation I had with someone a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about how the way people thought changed over time and prejudices about race and women changed. When you think about it, really it hasn't changed much. Think about politicians. How many are women? When David Emerson switched from the Liberal Party to the Conservatives after the Conservatives won the election, sure they called him a traitor and all but they didn't say he was "whoring" himself in the parliament the way the did when Belinda Stronach switched from the Conservatives to the Liberals. The Premier of Alberta commented that "Belinda Stronach never had a Conservative bone in her body except for one, if you know what I mean" referring to her ex-boyfriend that was also in the Conservative Party. I mean, alot of male Politicians have been involved in scandals, but the media just doesn't seem to judge them unfairly the way they judge women. Even in wages for common people. For every dollar a man makes, a woman makes sixty-seven cents. If a man isn't married by thirty-sixish or so and he has a great career, he's an eligable bachelor. If a woman was in the same situation, people tend to look at her as if she has some sort of problem for wanting to establish a career before having a family. Even my parents comment that "a girl shouldn't be this messy" or "even boys clean up more than you do".

Are we really open-minded? I somehow don't think so.

Vertigo and Lethargy

2007-01-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

For some strange reason, for the last week or so, I've been feeling strangely drained. Sometimes, I would feel sort of dizzy for about five minutes, then feel somewhat normal and most of the time, I feel like falling asleep. When I'm at school, I'm just bored. I just can't seem to feel the fire and passion I've had in the previous years for learning and studying. When I'm at home, I want to get out because I can't stand listening to the sound of my parents yelling. When I'm out, window shopping is just pure torture because the thing with Christmas money is, its easy come, easy go. Also, once I'm out, my parents constantly call me on my cellphone once its past six o'clock to demand when I'm coming home. I've grown to hate my cellphone ringtone, the reason why I'm not changing it since I don't want to end up hating the Mozart ones on there. I can't even stand to hang around my friends since they just have to bring their boyfriends along and remind me of my messed up love life and since this year, this certain person has been barging into the group. I admit that I'm brutally straightforward. When I'm not talking to people in my group of intimate friends, I can sugarcoat everything and be fake, its not hard. When I'm with my close friends, I prefer to be real. To be honest, in the begining, I didn't think too much about her tagging along and I was just myself. Of course, she "isn't used to the way I am" and started obviously antagonising me and all my friends seem to be taking her side. I know there's all that stuff about real friends will stick by you and the only thing I know is the loner has no power and is therefore the scapegoat. Me, having read way too many historical fiction novels for a teenger definitely understands throwing a tantrum or acting out won't give me the upper hand in this situation. So now I have to act all civil and nice towards her even though I will never trust her based on both gut feeling and because I know of the female tendency to hold strong grudges. I can barely stand to go on my computer because I know I should work on "Last Summer" but I just can't seem to get the words out the way I want them to and when I can, only depressing angsty stuff comes out because I just can't seem to get fluffy light cute ideas.

Deep breath, inhale, exhale. Must not forget to breathe.

50 Greatest Canadian Inventions

2007-01-11T18:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbc.ca/inventions/

On a sudden rush of patriotism, I decided to see just what the 50 greatest Canadian inventions were. Found a couple of interesting things. I never knew that the Wonderbra was a Canadian invention. In fact, I didn't even know what a Wonderbra was as I'm not a big fan of buying multiple, identical lingerie items in a box. Canadarm, the robotic attatchment on the International Space Station was number 14 on the list. The fattening Poutine was number 10.

No wonder we have a shortage of professionals in the medical field. We love Poutines too much to want to know about the artery disease risk and the Canadarm isn't nearly as important to us as increasing the plunge of our cleavages. The Wonderbra was number 5 on the list.

The list wasn't picked by a board of old geezers or anything. People voted according to the "things they couldn't live without."

A Touch of Nostalgia

2007-01-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

The weather is really weird on the West Coast of Canada this year. Its snowing like crazy while on the East Coast, where they usually get the snow while we get the mild weather, are enjoying conditions of which its warm enough for guys to go out jogging in shorts without their shirts on. Meanwhile, we're bundling up in big puffy jackets, toques, scarves, and boots like some sort of fluffy present before leaving our electrically heated havens. It reminds of me of when I was little, back when I was four years old and under in Saskatchewan where it didn't just snow, it blizzared. (is that a word?) The weather was so cold that ice froze on the windowsills and I used to poke at the ice while I looked outside at the white blanketed landscape. I used to live in the capital, but even then it wasn't a big city. The same bus driver worked on the same bus route for years and people actually became friends by sitting next to each other on the bus. People seemed to be in just a little be less of a hurry than they are here and drove just a bit slower. We went to small privately owned stores most of the time instead of the huge corporate mega markets and chatted with the owners while we shopped.

At the same time, I remember alot of horrible things about being little. I remember the helplessness as I didn't know how to defy orders of obedience without being punished. Being short and tiny, the only power I had were the power of tears. I know I got my "resistance from tears" genes from my parents because of course, crying never bought me sympathy. At least, not the type of sympathy I needed. Now that I'm older, I realize that my parents yell at me and hit me/threaten to hit me when I cried when I was little was because they couldn't stand the sight of me doing that and they knew that if I continued crying, they would give in to me in the end and they didn't want to do that. But I've had enough experience when I was younger to know that tears must not be lightly shed. Each drop is shed with a plan, a strategy, at the right moment in the right circumstances to get what you want.

I guess I was never really innocent, eh? Always schemingly evil with no good intentions except to advance my own interests. Coldheartedness does start at an incredibly young age...

Understood...or not?

2007-01-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

This is one of those questions that I always ask myself: do I want to be understood or not? It always feels good when you have someone agreeing with you; reassuring you that your point of view is "correct". I mean, that's the reason why we spend all those hours on the phone with friends, right? That's why we spend so much time arguing with people until we finally get them to agree with our point. At the same time, I feel like I don't want to expose that part of myself to people. Maybe its reading way too much historical fiction novels or something but I feel like if I do tell somebody so much about myself, I have no backup plan if somebody decides to backstab me. I mean, there's that bit of an almost guilty pleasure knowing that you're not what people think you are. Of course, that causes problems because then I have one more thing to pity myself for when I'm feeling all depressed and shitty: "nobody understands me". I suppose at the same time, there's the big romantic inside of me hoping to find that one guy that I can trust enough and we can be soulmates and all that bullshit. Though of course, there's always that whole thing about how your lover can't be your best friend because then you wouldn't have anyone to complain to about your lover.

People Actually Read My Blog!

2007-01-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

I finally switched this from the old Blogger to the new Blogger yesterday and I never got around to it before since I was too lazy to deal with the Google accounts and all that and when I finally did... (*drumroll) I discovered that people actually left comments!!!! The thing is, I never knew that they did because for some reason, the comments wouldn't publish until I allowed them to and me being a technology idiot never realized it.

Another crazy thing is the rant I wrote back in August (http://theunknownforce.blogspot.com/2006/08/rant.html) when I was extremely pissed off was actually featured on http://blogoftheday.org under the "Rant" section and it was given the comment:

"A rather long but well structured rant on the struggles of being a teenager. "

At the moment, the only structure I was probably thinking about was how to destroy the structure of somebody's human body, but holy shit, somebody actually took the time to read through my extremely long rant filled with alot of swearing and self pitying.

I'm also going to stick an apology to GINNYPOTTER18 on HPFF and I'm going to try and contact you somehow since I didn't realize you left a comment on my blog.

All along, I thought nobody actually read my blog. I wonder if there's some sort of way you could check how many hits you get on your blog. Now my mind's floating back to all those times I posted all the weird things here and how many people across the world have read it. It makes me cringe in embarrassment but at the same time, I can feel my head floating in the clouds...ahh life's weird, eh?

"Don't let your morals get in the way of doing what is best for the patient."

2007-01-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=81b8727e-b470-4382-a646-386121d9109c

Okay, saw this link on Google News today and my first thoughts at the reading the caption underneath the picture was "this is sick". Basically, the parents of a nine year old girl with the mental state of a 3-6 month old baby had her uterus, breasts, and appendix removed and placed her on Estrogen treatment for two years to stunt her growth and development so it would be easier for them to take care of her. Of course, something like this will have millions of people arguing and debating over whether or not its morally correct to be "altering what God has created" or "deciding what's best for the patient". On the other hand, you have the argument that the life of the patient would improve if it was easier for the parents to take care of the girl and its not like the girl can tell the difference anyways since she has the mentality of a baby less than a year old. I suppose I have no right to express my opinions about this since I have no personal experience in taking care of somebody in that way and I'm not a manically obsessed theologist or anything. It was just something that stuck on my mind after I read it.

New Years Day

2007-01-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

This has got to be one of my weirdest posts yet in terms of when and where I'm posting. I'm at a friend's house where I slept over for New Years Eve and I actually didn't ask for her permission to use the computer but I can't find her and I'm the only one awake and my ass is going to get bored off soon. The sleepover was crap, well for me anyways. The boyfriends came over and of course, those of us that haven't fucked up our love lives like me got their New Years kisses while I just sort of stood aside and tried not to stare. Meanwhile afterwards, some shit happened and it turned into a sob fest and me being a cold hearted bitch felt rather apathetic but tried to have some sympathy and by the end of it, everyone just decided to go to sleep.

For some strange reason, even though I got less than four hours of sleep last night, I feel oddly awake.

In 2007, I will not fuck up my love life and will find a guy who is actually worth my time for once.

By the way,

HAPPY 2007!!!!

Last Post of the Year

2006-12-31T12:44:00.000-08:00

It ends tonight. 2006 ends tonight.

Saddam Hussein Executed

2006-12-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

Turned on my computer today with someone on my msn list with the news of Saddam's execution on their display name. So I quickly went on Google News to check if it really was true, so, clicked on this: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-12-30T082755Z_01_KHA021421_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=SciHealth-R6-MostRead-2

I don't know whether I'm happy or sad that he's dead. On one hand, Saddam killed loads of innocent people and deserves to burn in hell for eternity for that. On the other hand, with putting war criminals on trial, there isn't really justice. After years of brutality, the side that manages to kill enough people to win gets to write history and execute the other side as war criminals.

I suppose I feel rather apathetic towards Saddam's death.

Boxing Day Madness

2006-12-26T20:01:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, its Boxing Day again. The day where all the Scrooges emerge from their wallowing pity parties at home and shop their asses off at 7:00 am. In various electronic stores, families are tugging and trudging along, grabbing camcorders, computers, printers, etc, exclaiming at the deals while the kids pull on the him of their parents' jackets for the newest PS game. Meanwhile, long lines form outside clothing stores where crowds of teenage girls wait to get "good deals" on extremely expensive clothes. Of course, how can we forget the camper shoppers; the ones that bring their tents outside Future Shop at 8:00 pm on Christmas instead of spending time with their family and rush in the doors at 7:00 am to make a mad stampede for the stereo aisle.

But in this shopping season, we can't forget about the tsunamis that his southeast Asia two years ago and the lives that were stolen causing families to be ripped apart. While showing off your latest purchases today, think about the misfortunes of the people who today, still haven't gotten their homes rebuilt and be very, very thankful.

Christmas Day

2006-12-25T14:39:00.000-08:00

Its finally Christmas. I have come to the conclusion that Christmas is overrated, the same way that I do every year. There's always the hype on Christmas Eve, you know? Like the thought that maybe this year, Christmas would be a good day for once. Of course, I'm disappointed every year as all of my friends are off doing sentimentalish things with their families whereas Christmas isn't a particularly big thing at my house. Instead, my mom has decided to yell at me from morning to about two hours ago about the state of my room and how I never help out around the house and about how selfish and lazy I am. Of course to add to this, I got stood up by a certain BASTARD.

And a very Merry Christmas to you too.

Christmas Eve

2006-12-24T16:47:00.000-08:00

Whaddya know? Christmas Eve today and its pouring outside, wind warning and I had to turn on the lights at 1:00 in the afternoon. Strictly its not "Christmas Eve" yet as its still four in the "afternoon" if you can call it that since it looks very eveningish to me at the moment.

Don't really know what to say at this moment. Sort of feeling a mix of disappointment and fatigue. There's so many things in my life that just pass in and out every day and many I don't even realize are a part of my life and suddenly its not there and it just feels weird. Like deep inside you, you knew you had this safety net so if you ever fall, you won't die and now you know its not there. The net has been removed a long time ago and you climbed without knowing that for such a long time and now suddenly you know. Now you suddenly feel like you've forgotten how to climb.

Its just a funny, funny feeling. I've always wondered why people call weird things funny. Like if there's some weirdo passing on the street, you would point and say "that man is acting a bit funny" when really there's nothing comical or laughable about something out of ordinary or weird.

The English language is a funny thing.

Two Days Before Christmas

2006-12-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

Once again its December, January seemed like such a long time ago. I looked in my stash of old movie tickets today, I've watched seven movies in theatre this year. So many things have happened before, in between, and after each of the movies that I watched. I didn't even begin writing "Last Summer" back in January. Now I've finished chapter 19 and it seems like I've always been working on the story. Over the last twelve months, so much has happened. I've fallen, stood back up, and fallen again. I've met new people, made new friends, stuck with my old ones, and did a whole bunch of things that I never thought I would do. Now its almost Christmas. Is it really "the most wonderful time of the year"? All I know is that I have a headache right now and the world is a rather unpleasant place at the moment.

Irreplaceable?

2006-12-18T21:17:00.000-08:00

I think by now most of us have realized that nothing and nobody is ever irreplaceable. When someone tells you that you'll never be replaced in their lives, its obvious bullshit. Just think back to your best friend in grade 2, how you hung out with them every day and ate your PB&J sandwiches together at lunch. After they moved away, did you bother to stay in touch? To this day, you probably don't even remember what they looked like, let along what the name of the person was. Same with everything else, maybe your computer broke down, yay! You can get a new one that runs faster.

In the same way that you've replaced me, I've replaced you. Go ahead and flirt with all my friends, walk all of them home, pretend to be a gentleman, I don't give a damn.

Christmas Shopping

2006-12-16T20:19:00.000-08:00

I'm an absolute scrooge, I hate going to the mall around this time of the year. There are so many people all rushing around with shopping bags loaded with presents and I can barely breathe inside the damn stores because the thermostat is turned up so high and all these people are pushing and shoving while asking loudly for the opinions of their significant others what they should get for Aunt Shirley. Meanwhile, I'm of course trudging along with the crowds trying to figure out what I get for various people while knowing that they'll throw most of the stuff in the back of their closets or exchange the presents in January. On Christmas Day, instead of spending time with family, I'll just get my ass bored off sitting at home and watching the rain fall because it never snows on Christmas and my family never spend Christmas together anyhow since we don't care about the holidays enough to fuss about stuff like this. Besides, we argue like hell whenever we sit together at the same table.

To cheer myself up, I made a list of things I want for Christmas because I am an insensitive and materialistic girl.

new mp3 player
hoodies
"The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemmingway
"Breakfast at Tiffany's and other Stories" by Truman Capote
"The Fellowship of the Ring" by J. R. R. Tolkein
"The Two Towers" by J.R.R. Tolkein
"The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkein
"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkein
"The Man" by Oriana Fallaci
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Two-Disc DVD
gloves
"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
one year subscription to Vogue, Seventeen, or Allure
Lindt Lindor chocolates
Rocky Road flavoured ice cream
new cellphone
Adobe Photoshop CS 9.0
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Front Page

Yes I am greedy, yeah point your fingers at me and call me a pig.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

2006-11-12T17:34:00.000-08:00

Wanna know what it means?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Latin_proverbs

Haha, if only I know how to pronounce them properly...

Windows Parody

2006-11-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

For all of you that feel like throwing a brick at Bill Gates whenever your computer crashes, you might find this amusing:

http://www.hallikainen.org/windoze/winrg.swf

I love the Microsoft Word section.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T17:30:00.000-08:00

Halloween once again. I haven't gone trick or treating since I was eleven so I'm doing what I do every year since. Sit at home and eat lots of sugary foods. I did dress up though, I was a private school boy, note that I'm not a private school girl because its way too cold to be walking around in a short skirt. Not that I would do actually do that unless I was going somewhere with my close friends, in which case it doesn't really matter what I'm wearing. The surprising thing about this year is that nobody has set off a fire alarm with firecrackers. I was so surprised at the end of the day, I kept waiting for it to happen. I kind of miss having Halloween the way I used to when I was little and it seemed like such a big thing. We would have class parties in elementary school and I would be so bubbly and excited for the entire day and I would keep waiting for the sun to go down so I could go out and get candy. It seems that with every holiday, it becomes less of a big deal as you get older. Christmas used to have the whole Santa Claus, hanging up stockings, the big dinner where all your relatives come over and you get to play with the cousins you don't normally see. Now its just scoffing at the commercialization of every major holiday, dreading the horrid shopping trips for presents, and writhing with agony inside as you get interrogated by various relatives and being forced to make conversation with cousins that have nothing in common with you. Same with Easter. No more hope that the Easter bunny will come and give you chocolate or having Easter Egg hunts. The only exception might be Valentine's Day. It becomes a bigger deal as you get older. You find yourself hoping you might have a secret admirer out there with roses and chocolates for you when you see all the "happy happy" couples out there celebrating (some celebrating with more PDA than necessary), but that's a load of complaining about my crappy love life that could be saved for another day's blogging.

Happy Halloween!

A Not Very Exciting Existance

2006-10-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get that feeling that you really have no life? At times when this person's on a date, the others have their one million and one extra curriculars and you're sitting at home with a Math textbook in front of you trying to study your ass off and convince yourself that you do in fact have a life: a math nerd existance. Except of course, you're actually borderlining failing because you just don't understand math and you don't even like the stupid subject except its one of those basic subjects that everyone has to take to get into a somewhat decent college. To top that, your love life sucks. All the guys that you have a non-platonic relationship with turn out to be jerks. And of course, your friend decides to babble on about her boyfriend 24/7 and whatever comes out of her mouth is about said boyfriend and how wonderful and sweet he is and you feel that if she says his goddamned name one more time, you'll let out an inhuman scream and bash someone's head against the wall. Apparently, she doesn't care how miserable you feel about your recent...heartbreak or she lacks the sensitivity to care. And finally, your latest fanfiction chapter gets 6 reviews. The chapter is 6700+ words long and you spent about three long weeks on it since you're so overloaded with homework.

Blah.

Thanksgiving Long Weekend

2006-10-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

Its Thanksgiving once again, the holiday of turkeys and families. We don't really do the turkey thing in my family so its pretty much like every other normal day of the year, except I get the day off and that makes me happy. I'm in a relatively good mood right now so I might as well talk (type) about all the things I'm thankful for. Since you don't realize how important something is until its gone and I feel somewhat happy at the moment, I'm thankful for all the things that I have. Not just materialistic things, but things like family, friends, and the fact that I can sit here and type these horribly phrased words and not get bombed by the government accusing me of spreading lies or something. Its pretty horrible of me to base what I'm thankful for on other people's misfortunes but come on, I mean its true. I'm glad that I have a roof over my head, I'm not in some war ridden country where women have no freedom, I'm not in a coma in some hospital, I'm not paralysed from the neck down or anything. Sure I want more in life, I'm not happy with parts of it, but hey, compared to a big chunk of the world, I'm living a luxurious life, and for that I'm extremely thankful.

A Whole Bunch Of Things That Make No Sense

2006-10-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

When everything seems to swirl and you're absolutely sure you haven't taken drugs or consumed any alcohol, you know that something's wrong. Just what is the foothold that you stand on when you climb the big mountain of life? No matter which way you step, no niche in the rocks will ever feel comfortable for your feet. No matter how strong the rocks look, its always crumbled by what people seem to see as the weakest elements; water, wind, sand. I suppose over the years I've learned that pleasing people isn't going to make me happy. As humans, its impossible to become satisfied and you'll always demand more. I guess I always hold back just a little so there's always space to back out of relationships, don't get too attatched. But sometimes, it seems like there are some threads that are impossible to sever. What I've wanted all along still hasn't changed no matter what I tell myself.

I love to hate desire.

No, that doesn't make sense, does it?

No, I don't give a damn.

Yes, that's a double negative statement, grammatically in correct.

I will stop rambling now.

SIRC Guide to Flirting

2006-10-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

While you're sitting around twiddling your thumbs wondering if he's really flirting with you or how to improve your flirting skills, why not check this guide out:

http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html

I always laugh when I read these things. Its so funny to see these things put in 'professional lingo'.

Light a Candle

2006-09-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, I got this site from an email:

http://www.lightamillioncandles.com

Normally, I don't pay too much attention to emails that are being forwarded or the ones that tell you to go take some personality quiz because forwarded emails usually mean chain letters, which can be fun to read when you're seriously bored, but otherwise, a pathetic waste of time. But this time, I visited the site because I think its really a good cause. Basically, for those of you who are a bit too lazy or afraid to click random links in people's blogs, its a site that's trying to raise awareness about child pornography. Its really sickening how people would actually do this to a children younger than three sometimes. Its bad enough that they're abusing them this way but they have to leave a record of it and post it online for millions of other perverted people to see. These people who are looking at the pictures are abusers too. Just because they weren't there doing anything directly doesn't mean they didn't participate in the act. By looking at the pictures, they become one more person in the world who has seen someone's worse memory without permission, one more scar on their skin. I do know that some of these people who look at porn have a psychological problem and they can't control themselves and they should probably get help, but the thought of a cute little baby being hurt this way disgusts me. Click the link, visit the site. It won't take you any more than five minutes and pass it on to your friends. Make a difference.

He's Just Not That Into You

2006-09-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

Intuition, female or male is something that guides us. An inner instinct that we use in everything from whether to cross the street when some creepy guy approaches to how we move our lips when we kiss. But sometimes, it just seems like intuition gets clouded. When you want something badly enough, it seems like your mind creates illusions to humour you. When he sits next to you, you feel like he's sitting just a bit closer than he needs to. When he dances with you, you think he might be holding you just a little closer. When he talks to you, it seems like you're the only person in the world. When he sees you passing by the hallway, he always does something to show that he sees you, and you're special. But as time goes by, you notice that he treats other girls the same way, he never calls or msgs, yet you still cling on. In an almost pathetic sort of way, you replay all the good memories of him you have, all the times he's done something sweet. You find yourself remembering all the conversations you've had with him. Finally, in desperation, you find yourself going after him, but he brushes you off like a piece of lint. You're not important to him, you never were. You were just another girl out of the sea of a million faces. Finally, you take a step back and look at the big picture. Its as if you've been released from chains, shackles. Because now, you've woken up, you've realized that he's just not that into you.

Fanfiction in Wall Street Journal

2006-09-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

I saw this link on somebody's blog:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115836001321164886-GZsZGW_ngbeAjqwMADJDX2w0frg_20070916.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

It would be so cool if people actually came out with HP fanfiction books, but I would still prefer reading them for free online.

The Blame Game

2006-09-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday September seventeenth. Its drizzling outside, the sky a depressing shade of grey, weather of winter, me sitting in front of my computer. The weather of course, isn't the only depressing thing that seems to linger in the air. Just last week, a twenty five year old takes three machine guns into Dawson College in Montreal and starts randomly shooting students. One girl was killed and I think nineteen injured in the hospital with three still in critical condition. As usual, when something major like this happens, every newspaper, television station, and radio station drags every specialist they can think of out to talk about why someone might be compelled to do this, have some psychologist talk about emotions, the dangers of violent video games and the goth culture, etc. I suppose I have no right to talk about these things since I'm not a psychologist and I'm not directly affected by this incident, but I'm going to be a big mouth and talk about them anyways. I'm not a goth, I don't have any goth friends, I don't know much about the culture except for the fact that Marilyn Manson wears too much makeup and they sort of have this facisnation with death. On the other hand, I suppose all of us do. After all, every religion answers the question of what happens after you die and most horror movies use death, violent spirits, or haunted places as their central theme. I saw on the newspaper that the guy said that 'Life is like a video game, everyone has to die sometime.' If he were some nobel prize winner and he said that I think people would marvel at his philsophy and wisdom, of course because we know a murderer said this, it brings this chill in your heart. When someone goes out there and shoots twenty odd people for no reason and kills one, can we really blame Grand Theft Auto and Marilyn Manson? Do we ever think about what would really drive someone to do something like that in the first place? As a human, besides our basic needs of food and water, we also have other needs of survival. Things like love, friendship, and companionship. It sounds corny and Hallmark-y but its true. Could you imagine your life without anybody to call when you're bored or have no shoulder to cry on when you really need it? Memories are very complex things and can pop up when we least realize it. It leaves a deeper scar than any physical injury and will never heal completely. We can blame others all we want, but we are the ones to blame. If you've ever put down someone even without words, maybe with your head or with your body language. Maybe you stand further away from someone waiting for the bus with you because he has ragged clothes as opposed to the guy wearing a suit and tie. Maybe you don't want to talk to someone because they're 'uncool'. Maybe you don't want to go out with someone because they're 'not good enough'. Everything builds up over time. I've done most of these things before, I'm not a nice person, I admit that I automatically judge people when I see them, conciously and subconciously. All I'm saying is that we should at least make an effort to prevent creating another person angry at the world, determined to kill themselves in the most violent way possible and taking down as many people as they can along with them.

My greatest condolances to the family of the girl that was killed and I hope all the injured get well soon. Any school, no matter how boring, how difficult, should be safe. Nothing should ever change that.

9/11

2006-09-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

Today's the five year anniversary of the terrorist attack. I remember on that day, I was starting level six swimming lessons. I heard that something big happened somewhere in the U.S., but I wasn't really sure what. So after school, I went as usual to the pool and I took a short cut through the shopping mall. Now, there were a whole bunch of stores that were closed because the owner lost friends or relatives in the attack. I didn't even know what happened until I saw on the news that night when every single television station devoted the entire news hour or had some sort of special broadcast that replayed the footage of the planes crashing into the twin towers. You see the big cloud of dust swallowing up people as they run frantically away away from the falling towers on the street. The chaos, screaming, and death. I mean, planes crashing into towers are the thing of movies. On the big screen, we admire the team of special effects people that made the fire, the explosion, the noise so real. When things like this happen, you just think that its not real. But an even worse fate for being killed in the attatck are the people that are left behind. The wives, husbands, childrens, friends of the victims. When the planes crashed into the towers, it left a hole in their hearts and lives that will never be filled. Also, the people living in Afganastan and Iraq. I'm not a specialist on Middle East affairs, but I don't know whether their lives have changed for better or worse after the US invasion. You always hear about suicide bombers, roadside bombing, how many civilians were caught in a crossfire and were killed. I wonder if there will ever be a day where all the events of 9/11 are settled and the dead can truly rest in peace.

Update On My Life

2006-09-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

Oh la la, haven't blogged in ages. I've spent most of last week going out with friends. I think I've consumed more ice cream and sugar in the past two weeks than I have in the entire summer combined. It was fun though and suprisingly, I seemed to actually have a life outside my computer for once. Unfortunately, I'm now back in school and I can't seem to settle back in. I'm already counting down to the end of the day, procrastinating (sp?), and I hate my timetable.

Ugh, I miss summer.

Summer's End

2006-08-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

Back when I first started volunteering in the beginning of summer, I genuinely hated it. I hated the kids. They wouldn't listen to me, I couldn't get them to listen to me and I just didn't know what to do with them. I didn't know the rest of the volunteers, they all seemed like one big group of friends and I was always the outsider. But as time went on and I got to know everyone better, I actually grew to like volunteering. Its kind of weird, because I used to see it as a job now its more of something I do to have fun. Now its the last day and I feel kind of sad. There's something about summer that let's you go just a bit crazier, do something you've always wanted to do but was too scared to do it. Summer isn't about rigid schedules and commitments. Summer's about freedom and maybe...love. But the most important thing about summer is that there's always a bit of it inside of us, underneath the layers of winter and responsibility. Its always there, always has been, and always will be.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide

2006-08-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm

http://www.checkdomain.com

*scoffs* So much for privacy and internet security.

One Year Of Fanfiction Writing

2006-08-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

Whadya know? I just noticed that today, I have officially been a member of HPFF for one year. Of course, I was reading fanfiction for at least a month before that, but it seems so weird that I've done it for a year now. It doesn't feel like that long and I actually haven't read fics at HPFF for awhile. I can't believe I've been a somewhat obsessive HP fan for over a year. I mean, I've always been a fan of the books but it wasn't until after HBP out and I discovered fanfiction that I really began to switch from ordinary fan mode to obessive mode.

Yes, obsession is very unhealthy.

Ah well, might as well say happy birthday to my fanfiction while I'm at it.

The Woes of Technology

2006-08-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

Seventy dollars, thirty minutes of installation, hours of virus/spyware scanning later, my computer is now completely clean thanks to Internet Security Suite. Its not protected with firewall, unfortunately, this means that my internet connection is currently three times slower than before and it wasn't that fast to begin with. And I can't sign into my msn messenger account even after adjusting the program settings on firewall.

How I hate technology.

Back To School?!

2006-08-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I only have sixteen days of freedom before I am once again enslaved to homework.

This can't be happening! Summer can't be over so quickly, I haven't even done anything exciting yet!

Nooooooooo!

Angry Angry Angry

2006-08-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

I need three software programs soon or else I think I'm going to bash my head against my monitor and die from a combination of frustration induced heart disease, anger induced cancer, and bleeding from the head from the head bashing.

I need:

Some sort of Anti-Virus software
Adobe Photoshop (legal)
Microsoft Office

Unfortunately, it will cost me about six hundred dollars combined if I include tax. I don't exactly have that type of money lying down. In fact, I'm flat broke from summer shopping/spending, I was planning to save money by surfing the net as entertainment.

You Tube

2006-08-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Haha, I discovered a new source of online entertainment during the last couple of days at http://www.youtube.com. I love watching the Draco/Hermione fan videos, its so cool how people make it seem like they're smiling at each other when really they're on seperate sides of the room. Though I've seen at least three videos using a GOF DVD "Behind the Scenes" special with Tom Felton and Emma Watson dancing as part of their video clips. Speaking of DVD video clips, there are actually alot of Special Feature clips people have uploaded. I didn't get the GOF DVD yet because I'm waiting for the price to go down...I couldn't resist the temptation of free entertainment. There's also alot of funny home videos people have uploaded online. Too bad my slow internet connection takes like thirty minutes for one video to buffer.

Ramble

2006-08-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, I feel very pissed/depressed right now. Yes, I seem to be feeling like this alot these days. I can feel a headache coming up, I just don't feel like thinking reasonably. I hate logic alot right now, I don't feel like being the person with all the answers or being dependable. Because if I'm one of these, I will always let someone down, someone will always be disappointed in me, someone will always be dissatisfied. The same way I am never satisfied with what I have, the same way I always want something more, something better. No matter what time it is, what happens, I'm never in charge of my life. I'm always obligated to duty, people, morals, rules. I like to see these things on other people. I want the people I can always trust to stay that way, I don't want criminals running loose, at the same time, I want to break free. Its not possible, I know that. I know its not even reasonable for me to want more. I know people starving, dying in Africa should deserve to break free. Children living with abusive parents should deserve to break free. Wives living with abusive husbands deserve to break free. People dying, suffering from deadly illnesses deserve to break free. Not people like me. Not people who haven't done any good for the world or cared very much for people other than ourselves. Perhaps, if I was given the chance to help someone break free, I would give it to someone else that deserves it. In only that could I ever possibly redeem myself for everything that I shouldn't have done and the things that I should have done, but never did. Maybe life is fair. I act like a bitch, people bitch at me. But if I don't do this, people will walk all over me. This goes back to Machivelli's (sp?) theory: Its better to be feared than loved, because people won't oppose a leader out of fear, but there will always be someone not satisfied with a leader they love. I want to be the person everyone loves, but I know that people take advantage of you when you're nice. Sometimes, thinking feels painful. I end up doing more harm than good by trying to figure out my problems. Ignoring them doesn't exactly do a lot of good. My mind feels really cluttered, I just can't get the general feeling of sadness out of myself. I don't think I even deserve to feel sorry for myself. Then what is it that I deserve? Punishment or reward? Most of all, what is it that I want?

Far Away

2006-08-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not even a Nickelback fan, but I really like this song. Haha, I was on http://www.songmeanings.net today and everyone seems to have a sob story that relates to the lyrics of a love song. I don't know if people are making it up or if there are really that many sad people out there. Anyways, the lyrics:

This time, This place
Misused, Mistakes
Too long, Too late
Who was I to make you wait
Just one chance
Just one breath
Just in case there’s just one left
‘Cause you know,
you know, you know

That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I miss you
Been far away for far too long
I keep dreaming you’ll be with me
and you’ll never go
Stop breathing if
I don’t see you anymore

One my knees, I’ll ask
Last chance for one last dance
‘Cause with you, I’d withstand
All of hell to hold your hand
I’d give it all
I’d give for us
Give anything but I won’t give up
‘Cause you know,
you know, you know

That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I miss you
Been far away for far too long
I keep dreaming you’ll be with me
and you’ll never go
Stop breathing if
I don’t see you anymore

So far away
Been far away for far too long
So far away
Been far away for far too long
But you know, you know, you know

I wanted
I wanted you to stay
‘Cause I needed
I need to hear you say
That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I forgive you
For being away for far too long
So keep breathing
‘Cause I’m not leaving
Hold on to me and
never let me go

I hate the music video though, it doesn't even relate to the song.

I Need Anti-Virus

2006-08-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Arghhh, there's some stupid virus on my computer, whenever I use the internet, after about a half an hour, the task bar and Start button disappears, reappears three seconds later with all my windows rearranged in different order. Then, two hours later, the screen will flicker and suddenly it will say that I'm offline, but my internet is still connected and it won't let me disconnect so I can start over. So I have to restart my computer. I tried downloading an anti-virus software this morning and it won't install, I don't know whether its my computer or the crappy software. I would dish out seventy dollars to get Norton Anti-virus, but I'm flat broke. I spent so much money in the past month just going out and shopping. Looks like I'm going to have to beg my parents for money or ask my friends to lend me their anti-virus software. Neither option sounds very appealing at all. At the moment, I really hate my computer and the internet.

The Meaning of Life

2006-08-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

Just a few minutes before, my computer decided to crash again and I just flopped down onto my bed in frustration. Twice in two days, I felt like shit. Then I had a sudden thought, is this how my life is? My happiness depending on a machine? What is the meaning of life anyways? To fall in love? To help others? To change the world? Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose on this planet? Am I causing harm or good? Have I left my imprint on this Earth so that my life has not been lived in vain? Do I have a place in someone's heart that will never be erased? Have I succeeded in my goals yet? Do I even have goals?! Where is my life heading? Will I be able to look back to my life as I feel life draining away from me and honestly say I'm proud of what I accomplished? Have I found my meaning of life?

My head is going to explode.

Evolution

2006-08-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

I know this is very nerdy of me, but I always wondered how it must have felt for neanderthals (sp?) when evolution first started. I mean, it might have started off with the baby with the slightly weird chin, then that baby grows up and has a kid with the same chin. At first, the odd chin is shunned from the rest of the clan, then eventually as time goes past, everyone in the clan has the weird chin. But what about the initial fear of the first guy with the weird chin? He must have felt like a freak at first, but eventually the weird chin must have helped him survive. (don't ask me how) while the "normal chin" people died out. So are we still evolving today? You hear of these babies born with weird, almost mutated functions (or perhaps a product from me watching too much X-Men) could it be that they're evolving? Could it be that someday, a new species of humans will walk the Earth and Homo Sapiens Sapiens will become extinct? Will there be archeologists studying our remains and houses? Will my diary be placed into a museum? They'll probably talk about our primitive wedgy alphabet and they'll probably think that braces are some sort of rank distinguishing jewelry and lockers will be coffins and shopping malls will be regarded as palaces. Computers will be some sort of shrine placed in people's homes. I mean, its entirely possible that we think people before us had primitive cultures but maybe they didn't and its just the way we're interpreting it.

Well, what a surprise. The rambling nerd strikes again!

Ikea Furniture

2006-08-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

There's always a love/hate relationship between me and Ikea. I always look forward to their catalogues and I love going there to try all the furniture out. The displays always seem to be perfect, all the rooms with different themes. There are warm toned kitchens that I can imagine a mother making pancakes for her sons in the morning while they scramble and wolf down their breakfast before going off to school. There are living rooms where I can imagine a happy couple cuddling, surrounded by glowing candles while its snowing outside. There are bedrooms where I can imagine me sitting there, dreaming of the future, myself, and everything else about life. Theres something about the lighting, or the happy laughing people in the pictures of the catalogue that make me feel almost envious. I want to be laughing with my family in a nicely decorated room. I want my house to have that clean, soft white light they always have in catalogues and air refreshener commericals. It seems so picture perfect, I almost feel like photoshopping myself into one of the Ikea catalogue photos. I suddenly feel very pathetic as I'm jealous of a furniture company's catalogue with names of furniture that I can never pronounce with stores that are simply too easy to get lost in. Sickeningly pathetic.

Pride and Prejudice vs. Ron/Hermione

2006-08-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Just found this fan video. The Pride and Prejudice fan and Ron/Hermione shipper within me begged me to click on the link. I wasn't disappointed. It even features Harry as Mr. Collins and McGonagall as Mrs. Bennet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge5pUSJIRY

Forums

2006-08-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

I've been on a couple of forums and I have accounts in a few places and I've been on the internet for a while, but all this time, I've only been on the popular sites, the popular forums. So today, I decided to have a look at those forums with extremely few members and virtually no hits. I felt kind of sad going through forums with only five members, twenty posts, and the most members they've ever had online was two. I've always liked the idea of starting a forum where I'm the head admin and I have full control over the content of the boards, I set the rules, I can ban people, etc. But now, I don't think I'm ready for something like that. I mean, to start off with, I would need a group of people I trust to be staffers and help moderate. I don't like to go on forums where I discuss things with people I know personally, because that would be somewhat pointless. If I wanted to discuss something with them, I could always call them. So I would have to rely on e-friends. Unfortuantely, I don't know that many people on the internet and I don't want to rely on random strangers to help me. Also, I would probably have to be somewhat familiar with coding systems to help the boards run properly. And there's the biggest issue of them all. In order for a forum to be effective, I would obviously need members. Judging by the number of boards I saw today with less than ten members, I doubt that any forum I create would be a success. *Sigh* maybe someday...

Old Fashioned Chivalry

2006-08-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I always find the vision of being able to lean on a guy and cry on his shoulder while he strokes my back very comforting. The vision is always in black and white, I can never see his face, I can only hear his voice. I know that people say chivalry is so old fashioned, annoying, sexist. But sometimes, I find it kind of sweet. I do admit that I'm a bit of a feminist, I believe that females can do anything males can, (With the exception of certain bodily functions of course) but admit it. If you had to pay for a guy's dinner on a date, you would be pissed and wouldn't want to go out with him ever again, right? If a guy paid for your dinner, you wouldn't mind. I think its a really nice feeling sometimes. Just the arm around you, the jacket when you're cold and you can still feel his body heat on the jacket against your skin, letting you go in first when he opens the door. Its almost politeness that I rarely see on some guys. Chivalry is the only way where they won't be afraid to actually act somewhat polite and not be viewed as a wimp. The only chivalrous thing I wouldn't like is the whole hankerchief thing. Thats just gross. Its like offering someone a used tissue. However, I suppose that could be replaced with a pack of tissues. Anyways, I don't think chivalry is dead...at least, I hope not.

My Adventure in the Self Help Section

2006-08-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

So the other day I was in Chapters and I walked past the Self Help book section, I was pissed off and felt slightly depressed for no apparent reason other than I couldn't sleep very much for the entire week and was really tired, so I figured, maybe I should read some books "that will help me help myself."I found the book titles really weird, almost no creativity needed. It was good in a way that everything was simple, the book is what the title says it is. Its not like books in any other genre where they have weird titles that have you wondering what they're about. I mean there's all these "How to be Happy," "Ten Steps To a More Successful Life," as I read these titles, I wondered if the authors actually used their own advice. I mean, would they really go and talk to people they hated and resolve the conflict? Its like those advice columns in magazines, the only advice they usually give is for you to talk to the person, but the thing is if the person who needed advice could actually talk to the person, they wouldn't have needed to write for advice in the first place. Sometimes, I wonder if advice is a good thing or a bad thing. Its true that an outsider's perspective could usually give some insight to a problem thats harder for the person in the conflict to realize, but the person giving advice isn't living the life of the person with the problem. Everyone's life has their own set of dramas, which is why I'm very reluctant to give advice to people. I'm always scared that I'll ruin their lives in some way if I give them my crappy advice. So in the end, I didn't end up reading/buying any of the books, (though I did flip through a couple of pages of one of the body language ones and I found it slightly amusing that the way I sat was sending sexual signals all along. However, that was how I discovered the book wasn't accurate as I have a very non-existant love life at the moment.) I went volunteering, excercised alot, and fell dead asleep last night, sleeping at least ten hours in a row.

Sometimes, its best not to overthink problems, the solution for me was simple all along. I just needed to get more excercise and to get out and do something.

More Computer Troubles

2006-08-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

My internet wouldn't connect yesterday and for the most of today until a half an hour ago. I finally realized that the 'Help and Support Centre' on my computer never has solutions that actually solves the problem. So I sit in front of my computer all frustrated that I can't connect to the internet and soon even Limewire starts freezing on me and I can't even listen to music to calm myself down. I try calling my internet service provider, but the line is always unavailable or there's nobody to answer the call so I have to leave a message. What kind of customer hotline doesn't have call waiting?! What kind of crappy service is that?! I want to swtich my internet service provider!! I wanted to yell at the customer service people so badly even though I know its not their fault, but I couldn't even connect to there. I was so relieved when for some mysterious reason, it started working again. I never got a response from the customer service people. But I logged onto my HPFF account and found out that chapter 14 of Last Summer has been validated and I got 19 reviews in my inbox. That cheered me up a little, though I was quite amused when I was watching MTV Cribs while my internet wasn't working and they were showing this BMX rider's house. The guy thought Crystal Light was Cristal. He didn't get why people say Cristal is so expensive when he got a six pack of Crystal Light for three dollars. Sadly, he doesn't realize that Cristal is expensive because its champagne. This proves that just because he's rich, doesn't mean he necessarily knows more about extravagance than the rest of us.

Computer Problems

2006-08-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

Argh, my computer is acting up again. Its been doing this for the past three days. In the beginning, everything is fine, after maybe an hour or so, the screen suddenly flickers and my start button and the bar disappears for about a minute. Then it reappears and all my windows are scrambled in different order. So everything is fine again, after another hour, the same thing happens except this time, the start button and the bar don't appear again and all of my desktop icons have disappeared too. The msn window that pops up when someone on my contact list signs in or I get a new email pops up in the upper left hand corner of the screen instead. The next day, when I turn on my computer, everything is fine again. I think I have some virus or spyware on my computer. Sometimes I really hate technology. Actually, its a bit more of a love/hate relationship between me and my computer. When everything works fine, I love it to bits, when it messes up on me like right now, I want to throw a brick at the monitor even though I know the hard drive is the one really at fault.

Running in Circles

2006-08-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

There's something about hobbies that I've noticed. It seems that all our hobbies involve filling up some inner void that we have. For example, I like to read, because my life isn't terribly exciting and reading allows me to have adventures. I like to go on the internet, because I won't be able to feel degraded or left out with people that I've never met and alot of those people have never met each other as well. I'm fond of pretty things, because I don't feel beautiful very often. But sometimes I feel that by running from my emotions in life and putting them into hobbies, I seem to be running in a circle and in the end, feelings of despair are still lingering behind and it actually feels worse than when I face these feelings in real life. Its like after all this time spent 'enjoying' myself, feeling good that I'm just as good as anyone else, it all seems to fade as time goes by. Every problem as a flaw that becomes its solution and every solution has a flaw that could possibly prevent the problem from being solved. There seems to be no ultimate solution to problems and all I can do is use these temporary escape solutions and the negative feelings seem to get bigger like a snowball rolling down a hill covered with snow. In the end I still feel stupid, unworthy, and ugly. Sometimes I ask myself why I bother still trying to run away and deal with people who are obviously not nice no matter how much they try to appear to be or why I try to still do things to make myself feel good when in the end, I just end up feeling like a failure. I end up feeling really mad at these people I deal with from a combination of hatred and jealousy. Then, I seek out some other solution to these problems and in the end I still feel the same way. I think that maybe its time I leave this world of internet and go out in the real world, try some more new things instead of being who I know I will never be satisfied being and try to enter circles of friendships I know I will never fit into.

Love as a choice?

2006-08-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Can you choose you you fall in love with? This is probably one of the most common themes in romance. I mean, look at Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo had a choice, he wouldn't have been stupid enough to put himself in the agony of being in love with the daughter of a rival family and vice versa. The idea of love being something that you can't control, some force in the world beyond anyone's understanding is extremely romantic of course. The whole thing with a kiss being more powerful then lets say, a gunshot. But then of course, you have all the religious people walking around saying that you can choose who you love, therefore if you marry someone who is not in the same religion as you, thats a sin, and if you decide to fall for someone of the same sex, thats a sin. But the thing is, if love really is a choice, why would anyone be stupid enough to choose to torture themselves? Why would we choose to fall for someone that we know will neve return our feelings? Why do we get stupid crushes? Why wouldn't we just give up on love all togther? Might as well end the agony and complications and be free. Yes, we won't get the wonderful feeling of love but in exchange, we won't have to risk suffering. I'm sure there are alot of people out there who will gladly choose to give up love if that was possible. What about all those extremely ambitious people out there who want to succeed and will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals? Surely they wouldn't want to have a soft spot hindering their progress. I mean, even Hitler had a wife. I don't remember too correctly but I think they had a small, private cermony after the Germans surrendered and then commited suicide together. Something like that. I mean, Hitler would probably have chosen not to love if given the choice since bestowing his feelings on someone would give him a weakness that his enemies can use against him. They may kidnap her in exchange for his power, or he may have to use a lot of security to protect her, therefore weakening his own security. Or, she may try to talk him out of his plans, and he might soften in her emotions and give into her demands. But of course, religious people always tend to drag out Lucifer/Satan/The Devil, saying that he's influencing our subconcious. Though I tend to think that it would make more sense for the devil to offer us some sort of anti-love treatment since alot of religion is saying that God is love. So wouldn't it be smarter to do that and drive us away from God instead of making us fall for the wrong (wrong being defined as people disapproved by our religion) people? Religion and logic are two things that seem to continuously drive me crazy. Must stop thinking so much...

Out of Shape

2006-08-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

I seriously need to excercise more. I went biking for a half an hour this morning and my legs already feel rubbery, and part of the distance was downhill too. But I guess I also went uphill alot so that makes me feel a little better. I think I'll try biking everyday, everyone always says that exercising releases endorphins (sp?) and I do feel alot more relaxed after biking. The unfortunate part is I still have to spend at least two hours playing sports with kids during volunteering and unless I somehow magically erase the soreness of my limbs in a few hours, I'm going to be so dead.

Rant

2006-08-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

So I'm wallowing in self pity right now and I'm fucking pissed at the whole world, so what? What right do all these non-teenage beings have to criticise me when they do exactly the same? So I'm supposed to be thinking about all the dying and starving people in Africa instead of dwelling on my pity issues? I do think about them and how sad it is that they're starving, but that doesn't mean you have to take away my self-pity rights. Its bad enough that I have to try and not feel like a fucking idiot 24/7, but all these 'mature' people out there have to take a way my self-pity rights. These are basic human rights, right after the right to eat and sleep. No one has the power to tell me to stop doing this. You call sitting in front of the T.V. on Valentines day drinking vodka, eating chocolates, and watching sappy romance movies while complaining about the commercialization of Valentines not self pity? You call masterbating in front of a poster of a supermodel while telling your friends at work that you've had a good fuck over the weekend not denial and self pity all mixed into one package? If one of you can honestly tell me that you have never felt sorry for yourself, then I will stop this self pity and bow down on my knees to you. People always go around saying that teenagers are so disrespectful and stupid and a smudge on the beautiful window of society, but maybe you should all think about respecting us first and actually trying to treat us as people and not overgrown, dangerous toddlers. What about fairness for a change? I'm always too young when I ask for something, but I should always take responsibility because I am now too old to rely on my parents when it comes to them wanting me to do things for them. I come home from school with six fucking A's on my report card and nobody even cares. God, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I'm not that stupid, I can tell when you're trying to side step things. I don't even know why I even bother spending all the time doing my homework and actually trying when at the end of the day, I'm still the bitch and the brat. There's all that bullshit about letting your parents down, but whats the fucking point about trying not to do that when they routinely tell me that I let them down anyways? There's no point in trying anyways, no matter how hard I try, they'll never be satisfied. Respect in this fucking house is about how much housework you do. If you clean the toilet, you're the queen of the world. Who cares about the A's? But if you come home with a C in math, its 'you have to spend more time on your schoolwork, don't go on the computer all the time.' Its bad enough that I have to feel like a pathetic loser in front of all those bitches out there, I don't need that at home too. You know what happened on my fifteenth birthday? I came home from school, all happy that all my friends took the time to wish me happy birthday, buy me presents, and surprise me with food even though I didn't have a party. I have this fucking science project due so I spent four hours slaving in front of the computer, then when I finally decide to relax and go on the internet a bit, I am fucking bitched at. Its on my birthday and I can't even have a little fun. By fun, I'm not talking about chugging beer, or getting stoned, I'm just going on the internet and I'm not talking about normal 'bitching.' Its yelling and screaminng and threats that I'm going to get hit if I don't turn the computer off this instant. Its my fucking birthday and I'm yelled/screamed at probably so damn loud that the neighbours probably heard. I spent the rest of my birthday holed up in my room crying while watching Bridget Jones's Diary. One of the worst birthdays ever and I can't even cry to my friends on the phone about it because they won't understand. I'm so jealous of one of my friends, she tells me that she has this ritual with her dad and every night before she goes to bed, she would chat with her dad for a bit and then her dad would tuck her in and she trusts her dad so much. She says that she believes whatever fact her dad tells her. It may sound like she's naive to you but I'm so jealous. I want to be like that, I want to think of my dad as my hero and think whatever he says is right. Maybe I can't have that much but bottom line I want to at least feel respected. I don't want to be called a piece of trash or constantly have my faults listed in front of me. Its bad enough that I don't know who I want to be or what I want and I'm finding all this so confusing and I always seem to be less perfect than someone else, it seems like I can never win in this game. To top that, my parents aren't even taking me seriously. Do you think I've honestly never tried to talk to them about respect, feelings, etc? They just think I learned the speech somewhere or I copied it from some movie. I'm so sick of being lied to, ridiculed, and yelled at. All I want is some time to figure out who I really am and what I really want, is that too much to ask for?

The Gamble of Hope and Disappointment

2006-07-30T18:37:00.000-07:00

You know how people go around talking about the evils of gambling and how its a sin, etc. I agree that gambling is bad, but we're always gambling in day to day life anyways. Whenever we dare to hope for something, we're gambling our happiness. If we win, well we get happier, if we lose, we get disappointment. If we decide to love someone, we're also gambling happiness, how much we fall is how much we're betting. People say that hope is what keeps us alive, if there was no hope, we would all eventually die, but if we hope and get disappointed, isn't that what stops us from hoping? Fear of disappointment? So is hope driving itself away?

Grrr...

2006-07-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm so fucking depressed and angry right now, I don't even feel like putting in the effort to act all perfect and happy-go-lucky. Only my parents can make me feel degraded, stupid, and retarded in under five minutes.

Midsummer Resolution

2006-07-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have decided that since there is only one month left of summer, I will turn my life around. I've already started writing in a diary again, cut down my internet time, and I will start biking again. I'm going to reorganize my room and turn my life around. Yes, I have one month and by the time I go back to school, I will no longer be the sloth and slob.

Temperature Drop

2006-07-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

The temperature has finally dropped! Yay! Last night it was still pretty hot until about midnight, then there was some wind all of a sudden and I actually needed my blanket. I think I fell asleep within five minutes of the sudden cooling wind and I actually slept all the way until seven thirty and then I was half awake and half asleep and got out of bed at ten thirty. I think it was the most satisfying sleep I've had for two weeks.

I hope the weather stays like this...

Bumblebee

2006-07-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

I know that bees are good insects (or is it bugs? I can't remember how to tell the difference), they spread pollen to help plants reproduce and they produce honey (well some types do), but last night, I was forced to kill one. Yes, I know I'm a murderer, I'm cruel, I'm coldblooded, etc. But I have a good excuse. Last night, at about eleven o'clock at night, I just finished watching one of my DVDs and was about to go to sleep when I heard a buzzing noise coming from near the window. I turned and saw a huge bee on the wall next to the window. It was about 3.5 cm long and I could clearly see the parts of its body with the head, the stripes, etc. And it was just buzzing like crazy, flying around my room, and finally deciding to attatch itself to my curtains. (my curtains have a flower print on them) My parents already went to sleep, I considered waking them up for help, but I knew that they would keep saying how cowardly I am and how I should be more independant and saying how would I expect to survive alone in the world if I can't even deal with an itsy bitsy bug (or insect). So thanks to my stupid pride, I decided to take on it myself. At first, I was going to wave it out my window, but it kept attatching itself to my curtains, so I had to keep waving my curtains, hoping that it will move away and fly out the window, but it decided to attatch itself to my pineapple decoration that I had in my room instead. It wouldn't move away no matter how hard I tried to move the pineapple decoration. So, desperate times calls for desperate measures, I took a plastic bag, quickly placed it over the pineapple decoration (along with the bee) and I tied a knot over the bag and left it by my apartment doorstep. When I woke up this morning, the bee and bag were gone but my pineapple decoration was by the door. I think my mom probably took care of it. Anyways, I'm not totally cold hearted, I do feel kind of bad. If it was a mosquito or a fly I wouldn't feel bad since all they do is spread disease and irritate all living things. But a bee is a good (insect/bug) so I hope that somewhere in heaven, this bee will forgive me because I wouldn't have been able to sleep at all if this bee was flying around my room and buzzing all night.

Heat and Insomnia

2006-07-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

For the past few days, the temperature has been around thirty degrees celsius. For me, that is total hell. Cold is easy to face, just put on some extra clothes or get an extra blanket at night, but there is only so much you can do to face the heat. I mean, I'm melting even if I sleep naked and I can't even do that because I live with my parents and I don't think its a great idea if my dad suddenly decides to check on me while I'm sleeping just for the heck of it and I'm lying there with no clothes on. Too add to the misery, I sleep on a pillow top mattress, which feels great during the winter, but just not that great during the summer. Oh oops, I forgot to mention, I have no air conditioning in my apartment. I have two fans, but the wind is warm...so not much help. Actually one is right next to me right now and is currently scattering papers across my desk with the wind as I'm typing this. I haven't been able to sleep for more than four to five hours since the temperature started going up. I feel really drowsy in air conditioned rooms but once I get home, the heat keeps me awake. I go to bed at about 11:30, wide awake. I fall asleep around 2:00, wake up at about 7:00, but try to force myself back to sleep. So I get out of bed at about 8:30. This morning at church, I almost had to force my eyes open while the pastor was talking because the air conditioning just felt too nice.

Also I'm going to attempt something that I've never succeeded in: sleeping without a fan for the entire summer. I've resisted the temptation so far, if I last the whole summer, I will buy myself something nice in September. I'm not even sure why I'm doing this as its totally pointless and I'm just torturing myself, maybe I'll just say its to save electricity so I won't look and feel so stupid.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2

2006-07-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

I finally watched the movie today, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I waited for awhile and today, on impulse, I decided to go alone, something that I've never done before. Anyways, back to the movie...

I must say that Johnny Depp was brilliant as Jack Sparrow, he had the charm and the humour to bring out the character. Almost all the humour came from his character and his acting is great. He managed to make Jack humorous, cowardly, but a captain at the same time. Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom were kind of bland. I mean, their acting was alright but it was just overshadowed by Johnny Depp. The story itself wasn't as good as the first one but the special effects were much better.

But I think I'll still watch the third one when it comes out. (yes, I admit, Orlando Bloom is one of the reasons)