Review: "The Queen"

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!