.::Sweet As Me::.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Cowboy Bebop + Harry Potter

Since uni's started there really hasn't been much to blog about, but I've suddenly felt like blogging, so here I am.

The title probably reads weird, but it helps me to determine the timeline of my life. Next time when I'm 50 I'll click through my archives and know approximately when and what happened. Right now I only feel like talking about Cowboy Bebop, since I've already discussed HP at length with my friends and cousins already. It'd just be a tedious process to type all I've said out again.

I've noticed that whatever drink I buy from Boost, I dislike. And somehow, I always go back for more. I just don't get me sometimes. Anyway.

Yeah. Cowboy Bebop. Have I ever explicitly warned people about stereotyping and making assumptions? I do that all the time, especially when I had to defend the Transformers movie. If not for my cousin I would have fallen into another trap and been deprived of an old but classic, stellar anime. I know I know. At first glance this anime just looks like just another anime set in the future, replete with spaceships and aerial combat and the proverbial bounty-hunting to add that cool-ness factor. But figure in unique jazzy music, strong and well-fleshed out characters with all their quirky vices and hobbies, non-stop action that will leave you slavering for more and just the right amount of mystery, and you get a brilliant anime that lives up to all the hype that has been built up around it throughout alot of years.

No wonder anime such as this never die in popularity. Like how some of my friends keep reiterating that Jay Chou would be a star that will never stop shining, I believe, likewise, that Cowboy Bebop will be just such a star, along with popular raved-about classics such as Ghost in the Shell and Neon Genesis Evangelion and Full Metal Alchemist. So if any of you people out there dismiss Bebop with a wave of your fingers as "just another aniime", you'll be missing out alot on what I believe is an anime masterpiece. Replete with unforgettable music as well.

Plus it's only 26 episodes. It's not like you'll burst a vein trying to finish it, unlike Naruto or One Piece.

Ahhh. That was such a raving good review. I feel so much better now. All that remains is the formidable prospect of having to hanker down with my Law readings after I finish this post. NOT FUN.

I love my creative and professional writing classes this term. The people in my workshops are all so talented writers, I love it when they read out their writing in class. Some of it is funny, nostalgic, tragic, sentimental, and others are just plain frank, raw and reflective. How I'm going to be able to compete with all these sub-human geniuses is beyond me. All I can do is try my best and hope that I don't get smothered in the process. I really really hope that one day I'd be able to reach a literary level that will be on par with theirs.

Meanwhile, today, I missed out on lunch, not because I wanted to, but because i had no money on me. Literally. I forogt to top up my bank account and had no cash with me (despite the fact that I was so loaded down with coins so recently). I ended up trudging off to afternoon class clutching my dismal bag of gummy bears I always keep handy in my school bag for just such occasions. Needless to say, when dinner came along I wolfed down my usual portion, and then some. :) Though my aunt's curry was a tad hotter than it usually is.

I'm getting mighty sick and tired of wandering around campus on my own. Everywhere I look I see people walking around in twos or in groups and I think to myself: why is it that I'm always walking around campus on my own? Then I answer my own question: because tehre never is someone with the same next class I have, and because my uni friends are just not, well, on good enough terms with me to warrant a lunchtime hang-out session. And so I was thinking this as I walked past yet another student BBQ. You might have wondered why I didn't just dip in and get some free sausages, but I wasn't sure if the BBQ was a free-for-all, and it's just awkward going to a BBQ on your own. Most everyone near the pit were laughing and talking with friends.

That's something else I've noticed about me and uni life. I've started talking less often. Sometimes I can go for whole stretches not uttering a single word, and it can get kinda depressing, considereing how chatty I usually am. But what can a person do if there's no one THERE to talk to? I can't very well go about campus muttering to myself about how insanely crazy the wind was today. I can't help but wonder if this would have been the case had I gone to NUS instead, or even attended JC. I find it easier to speak up when I'm around people from similar backgrounds. It's just harder for me to voice my opnions in a roomful of foreigners.

Maybe it's a mindset problem. I always think of myself as an outsider, the International student amongst all the locals who speak so freely and easily, as well as the Aussie-born Asians, who speak just as easily. I miss the days at Trinity where people would just refuse to answer questions and be too afriad to speak up. I felt more at home there.

Oh no. Here I am getting all nostalgic when I have who-knows-how-many pages of Dispute Resoluations to read. Have to go. BYE!

...is what I said. Savvy?

8:11 pm

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Timetable Vigil

Riiiiight. Now I'm currently waiting for 12.01am so that I can change my timetable. I have this feeling 99% of Melbourne Uni students are currently awake right now too, all for the sake of getting the perfect timetable. GGGRRRRR. Why is our uni so special? Why can't we do timetables like RMIT, where we get to choose every tutorial time and arrange everything on our own? That way, it would have saved me a lot of 烦恼-ing over where to switch slots and how. The only reason that's helping me stay up late is the thought that, if I don't, I'll end up with a horrid timetable like I did last semester, with my last classes ending at either 5 or 6pm most days. I am SO not going to repeat my past mistake.

It's just something about the concept of fastest-finger-first that gets to me.

I think it's mainly due to the fact that I am very mindful that my fingers may very not be the fastest. Oh well, even if all does not go as planned, my latest classes still end at 4.15pm, not as bad as last sem's 6.15pm. Still, I'd rather like to have most of my afternoons free, thank you very much. :)

I spent the morning gathering cute animated GIFs, then got bored of staring at the stupid screen and got down to reading The Half Blood Prince. Right now, I think I'm, what, 1/3 finished? Haha, I have to admit, I miss reading Harry Potter books. It's been since the Order of the Phoenix first came out that I've read a HP book. J.K. Rowling's style is still as light-hearted and intriging as ever, and I love how she keeps the sinister undertones running, even with the more comedic fronts her later HP books sport on the surface. If ever she comes up with a new series, or just another new book, count me in for the ride. She is one of the few favourite authors I read who have not died, like Roald Dahl.

What's more, the floppiness of the book and the material used for its pages appeal to me even more. Weirdly, if I like the texture or the paper used for a book, I'll tend to feel like reding it. Even if a hard-cover book with stiff pages had a better storyline than a soft-cover book with floppy pages, I'd be hard-pressed to read the hard-cover book first.

With the final HP book though, I guess I won't have any choice, since everything will be in hard-cover. I honestly don't see why people think hard-cover books count as "special" books. For me, the hard-cover just makes the book more cumbersome and less reader-friendly, and the stiff pages just give the reader a hard time when flipping pages, and bending the book at the right angle so the light catches the words you want to read.

I bet I'm sounding like some book freak here, but really, it's not my fault. As I'm blogging, I'm looking at the PC clock and willing it to turn to 12.01am. Right now it's showing 11.54pm, and I am seriously contemplating whether to strangle it or not...

HAYAKU! ^(-_=)^

...is what I said. Savvy?

11:39 pm

Monday, July 16, 2007

超级 Revamp

I think I finally realise why Jess takes quite some time to do blog reconstructions. I TOOK ALMOST A WHOLE DAY. GAH. But at least I'm satisfied with the result. I'm so proud of it, haha, since this is the first time I have made my own layout. YAY!

I also caught a bit of a cold, and my aunt is making me drink Ribena for the whole of today and tomorrow, not that I mind. :) It's been so long since I've drannk Ribena, and now I'm drinking it as a substitute for water. Supposedly, my aunt says that whenever she catches a cold she does this, and her cold always goes away within 48 hours. I wonder if that's true, lol. She says it's because of the Vitamin C, BUT isn't vitamin C only good for PREVENTING colds? What's the use of drinking truckloads of vitamin C if you've already caught the cold?

:x

For this current layout I've chosen Blood+ as my theme, since I harvested so many delicious pictures off of the Internet in my Blood+ frenzy. I'm glad I did though. All I had to do during the Photoshop process was open my Blood+ folder and yank out anything that looked nice (which was almost every one. I almost split my head trying to decide). At first, I didn't intend to put any words on the final picture, but then once I started I couldn't stop. WHEE!

Hope you guys enjoy this bright and cheery layout! X3

...is what I said. Savvy?

5:59 pm

Sunday, July 15, 2007

JUMANJI!

Ok, not really lar. It's just that we (me and Jess) went to the ZOO today! WHAHAHAHA. I felt like a kid today. Such a pity that I felt lethargic for most of the time. My mind was in some kind of haze and I was mostly walking around in a kinda daze. GOMEN Jess! Did I spoil your trip? I meant to be as enthusiastic as possible leh! :x I know how much you wanted to come see the moo-moos and the caw-caws and the eek-eeks. But I think I had lots of fun taking all the pictures. Sorry if I made you frustrated also, haha, I know I was maniacally taking lots of pictures, and most of them weren't really that good anyway. But a Zoo blog entry wouldn't be the same without pictures, and since I'm finally feeling hale and healthy upon reaching home, I shall upload all my zoo pictures immediately and post up the better ones.

I just hope they're not all blurry, especially the tiger ones. OMG the tiger ones were pure love. I don't have many pictures of birds though, because the Princess didn't like going into the bird exhibits. LOL. And we missed the reptiles and the peacocks, but I reasoned that all the reptailes are busy hibernating anyway, and I felt much better. I know Jess feels devastated because she didn't get to see her beloved crocodiles and the iguana that she says looks alot like me. (I almost bashed her for that, except that I knew the zoo staff would restrain me and call the police...)

Oh yeah, before I start posting the piccies, I just wanna say that I managed to pay Jess back for her Trojan.M virus trick. HAHA. I told her there was bird shit on her jacket and she believed me. OMG I feel so moved by the power of our deep friendship. HEHEHE. HOHOHO. HAHAHA.

Here's one of the first few animals we saw: a snow leopard. Cute right? I've always had a soft spot for cats, whether big or small. That's why I'm always so gleefully happy every time I come to the zoo and look at the cat exhibits. HAHA. You can say I sorta "get high". This first big cat was pretty cool, I liked that it was white. I've always thought white animals have some sort of mystery around them, but that may be due to the fact that white is not a very common colour among animals. :)

This was the bear exhibit. Although we didn't linger here very long, I feel that the bears needed some photo time. :) Hey, after all, one of the most greatest inventions on Planet Earth was the teddy bear. You'd think the creatures who inspired such ideas deserved some respect. LOL. I'm NOT crapping. I'm being totally serious. It's just sometimes people laugh when I'm talking about serious things. Why arh? O_o

The Four Kings of the Savannah. HAHA. When we arrived at this exhibit, Jess was like, "Why all of them got the same expression one? So funny!" And then went on to remark that they looked like F4. O_o So hilarious lar, but I have to admit, those "kings" look really fat and lazy. Plus there weren't any lionesses around either, so I have no idea what they're looking so high and mighty about. Jess says that lions got very popular after Lion King scored at the box offices. I'd have to agree with that.

I call this picture the 2-in-1, because I managed to get a giraffe and an ostrich in the same shot. HAHA.

Ahhh. Australia's signature animals: the kangaroos, or kangaroosies. :D They were so kawaii! I have some close-up shots of other roos, but this species is my fave. They look so cute yet majestic and so humble. Haha, that's what I like about roos: they look so harmless and adorable, but they can put up a heck of a fight. :) MY ASPIRATION!!! *ahem*

Pure kawaii-ness! My heart melted when I saw this wombat. It was TOO TOO adorable! Just like a gigantic hamster. :P A snub-nosed shy little cutie.

What's the big deal about two ducks? Well, when I took this picture, it reminded me of the movie "Spurn Left, Spurn Right", the one that comes after "Turn Left, Turn Right". HAHA. I know, weird right, but I thought it's an interesting fact. If you think I'm wuliao THEN WHY ARE YOU READING MY BLOG IN THE FIRST PLACE??? My blog has always been the wellspring of wu-liaoness. So if you can't stand it, too bad. My other posts won't be much better. ;X

OMG *swoons and faints* The star attraction! <333 For me at least, lol. Everyone was like pushing and shoving to get a good look into the tiger exhibit. Where can I start? I love every bit of these majestic and powerful creatures. Their presence is so powerful and inexplicably commanding, yet they're still an endangered species. I can't fathom why people can find it in their hearts to slaughter these beautiful creatures, so sleek and so graceful. If ever I have a second life, I'd like to be reborn as a tiger. Jess asked me who would win in a fight: a lion or a tiger. Realistically, I think the tiger would win, because their one of the biggest most powerful predatory cats that exist. But then again, we'd never knw, right? Since tigers live in tropical rainforests and lions live on the dry plains of Africa. Oh well. It's nice to wonder about this though. Feels something like the question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The sun's rays look photoshopped right? Haha, I'm proud to say that they're not. I just managed to catch the evening sun at just the right angle. It was just a pleasant coincidence that those elephants busy feeding each other are in the picture. HOHO. So huge yet so lovable. I remembered when I was in Thailand I fed the elephants there pineapple husks and bananas. So fun. It's like they eat anything. :)

These orang utans were showing off can! Think they so pro... ok, actually they were la. HAHA. I just chose to put up this particular picture because he/she looks stupid right now. It looks like it was warming up la, just hanging there. We had fun watching the orang utan exhibit, since these monkeys never stayed still. We spent our time there watching them clamber up and down and up and left and right and down and left and up. So fun!

Oh, this arh? This is a very rare breed of albino gorilla. This particularly rare species (it's the only one of its kind in the whole entire world) has a psychological anomaly: it believes it can fly. So, as a result, this particular species of gorilla constantly spends its time flapping its arms while walking around the zoo, making weird noises as it goes along. This species of albino gorilla is pretty harmless, therefore it's given alot of freedom to run amok. :D Oh, and its favourite colour is pink. Just so you know.

Feeding frenzy arh!!! PANIC PANIC. It was feeding time, and all those parakeets (I think) were SO SO SO damn noisy lah. Their only saving grace was the vivid colours on their feathers. Other then that, they were like all beauty and no brains, just flapping and screeching and making havoc like those fangirls you see in manga, constantly gathering around some shuaige and going "NYAH~!". O_o;;

Lookie, a meerkat! Haha, it looks more chubbier than Timon on the Lion King. Oh well, the rounder the better, haha. The fatter the cuter. XD So chubby! I felt like squishing it. *ahem* In a good way, not the squash-flat-and-die way.

OMGWTFLOL. #&$%@! Look mom! I folded a paper swan and it turned into a REAL one! I'm SO UBER-TALENTED! I'm a tensai, a genius! Everyone stand in awe of the only person in the world to ever turn dead matter into a living thing. SQUUEEEEE!!! *faints*

I love buying exotic soft toy animals. This zoo trip was no different, haha. I brought back a small little Red Panda, and it looks like a cross between a raccoon, a cat and a bear. HAHA. I've decided, after much serious and profound deliberation, to name him Benji. Jess wanted me to name him Pee Pee, and I gave her the "Look" (c). So right now, in my room, I have my giraffe soft toy called Wuffle, my unicorn I have yet to name and my red panda, Benji. :) I'll probably forget these names and rename them in the future, but for now, I feel these names fit them best.

After being surrounded by a real jungle, we set off for the concrete jungle where we ate at Chilli Padi at Melbourne Central. WTH??? It was like such a high-class place can? We were a little intimidated at first, but the waitors and waitresses there were really professional, so that made our experience more enjoyable. But one bowl of laksa cost us $14??? @%$#! At keast the bread and butter pudding we had for dessert was good, although I couldn't seem to taste any bread in the pudding.

***TODAY WAS THE FIRST TIME IN A FEW YEARS I ATE A CINNAMON BUN FROM ST CINNAMON!!!*** I was reminiscing the past while munching on all the savoury sweetness of my sticky yummy bun. HAHA.

Gah. My eyes are almost shutting down *the Windows shutting-down jingle plays*. GOOD NIGHT and oyasumi everyone! <3 See you next time and hope you all enjoy all my gorgeous pics and recognise how talented I am.

;3

...is what I said. Savvy?

8:46 pm

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Budding Entrepreneur

Yepyep, that's me. Ok lah, not really anything that great. All I did is set up an eBay account and started selling unwanted DVDs. :P But still, I'm starting my own business leh. I feel super grown up. ^-^

Besides this, I've started watching Full House, and it's fantastic! Despite the fact that I dislike watching Korean Dramas because I don't like the language, this show is pretty much worth the somewhat uncouth language. If it wasn't for the storyline I wouldn't watch the show even if you paid me. :D But what am I doing??? I have so much to blog about and here I am talking about this. URRGGHHH.

I had this last-minute sleepover at Jess' house on Sunday, because thanks to some stupid heroin-abuser lying down on the tram tracks and refusing to get up until two police cars arrived, we ended up eating dinner super-late, like around 9.30pm. So then I called my aunt and she told me she'd feel better if I didn't travel home so late at night. In the end I had to crash at Jess' place, haha. I bet she was secretly happy lah. Just don't want to say only, hor? *poke poke SLAP*

At first we fiddled around with SDO. Wow, I have to say, the costumes in the game are really elaborate and pretty! As compared with Audition, that is. Plus the dance moves on SDO are infinitely more realistic than in Audition. :) It's so nice just watching the dancing. I mean, seriously, can a real-life dancer turn on his/her head for 10 revolutions or more??? I can just imagine myself just sitting at the computer trying on different looks. HAHA. Damn fun.

Since Jess' daily circadium rhythm starts at around 4am, I decided to accommodate her somewhat eccentric sleeping habits (some might say vampiric, but to her it's a compliment, so I'll just keep quiet) and I stayed up to watch Meteor Garden with her. Guess what? Although I really hate staying up late cuz it messes up my own rhythm, it was TOTALLY worth it. Why? HAHA. For one reason, and one reason only, and this reason is so simple that all I have to do is include one picture, and all you people out there will know why I willingly stayed up until 5.30am, despite my obsession with my precious beauty sleep:

HAHA. Ok. That's just my hormones blogging. Ignore them. They only know how to communicate in pictures. ^^ After that, we slept (fitfully, thank goodness), and the next morning we went to makan and book Harry Potter tickets. YAY! Oh, and I was flipping through my (very limited) Idol folder and came upon another pic I've almost forgotten. :) Ichihara Hayato-kun!

Today was supposed to be zoo day, but Jess woke up 2 hours late. HAHA. I didn't really mind though, but I know she really really wanted to go to the zoo. :) I put that 2 hours to good use though, and then when I finally made my arduous and dangerous and costly journey *nudges said person* up to College Square to fetch Her Majesty, I was equipped with my DVD set for Full House. :P We ended up crashing Rachel's apartment to check it out, and OMG it's so claustrophobically small. I will never ever want to live there in a million years, even if there's unlimited Internet. LAWL.

I think we went a little crazy there. Need I mention that mobile phone dog strap game thing? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Better not. I don't want to get admitted into some psychiatric ward. While I'm on the topic of being crazy, I want to mention another thing. I met up with Eunice from Trinity near Melbourne Central, and we chatted for about half an hour. Turns out she's attending Monash Caulfield right now. It's so nice catching up with old friends. Such a pity we never bump into them often enough! Anyway, after that pleasant chat session, I don't know what made me do what I did, but I walked past Famous Amos and suddenly decided that I should get some cookies. I wanted to get the 100g at first, but there was an offer on the 200g that gave you extra 50g for free, so I took it. Then after I bought it, I wondered why I did that. OMG. AM I GOING SENILE??? Now I have a bagful of cookies with no home to go to. And my stomach seems to be denying any more. Oh well. Nankurunaisa. 船到桥边自然直.

To compensate for today's non-zoo trip, I want to show you all something so profound and meaningful it will bring tears to your eyes:

And how could I forget this? LOL. This picture made me rethink the concept of Japanese porn:

...is what I said. Savvy?

10:06 pm

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Nankurunaisa

"Everything will work out in the end."

Hehe. My my. I've been away for so long...

BLOOD+ rocks! Bloody, wicked and bittersweet stuff. :) It's been so long since I've watched an anime with more dark and sinister themes. Like human genetic manipulation, Chiropterans, bloody battles with lots of gore and death and a cool katana to top it all off... Not to mention the numerous bishounen in the series. :D

Will blog more soon, right now I'm in a BLOOD+ kind of a feel-good-but-bittersweet phase... Just wanna blog here to show I'm not dead or anything. Just really into anime. HAHAHA. Can you blame me? BLOOD+ is 50 episodes long lar. Lemme include an image so that all you people can get a glimpse of what I'm on about.

Haha. Hohoho. I was thinking of stopping there... but I harvested so many mouth-watering pics of Haji from the Web that I simply MUST share it with the world, and show how he's the most shuai-est bishounen vampire in the whole entire world!!! <3

And all these pics of Haji have got me thinking about the other bishies I love in the series: namely both Solomon and Moses. Ok, don't get me wrong, it's not like Kai (the other guy beside Saya in the 2nd pic) is not shuai. He is. Just not shuai enough to compare with the general degree of shuai-ness of the other characters. I couldn't get very good pics of Solomon and Moses though, so I'll just put up one of each. Daisuki-des!

Here's Solomon *fan-girl squeal*:

And here's Moses (he's the guy at the bottom) *fan-girl sigh*:

Now let me go off and listen to the series' exquisite songs. One thing good about this many episodes is that you get to listen to so many new songs. :3

See you all! <3 Don't all these pictures make you wanna watch BLOOD+ too???

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, "NO"??? -_-;;

O(^~^)O

...is what I said. Savvy?

10:30 pm