Monday 28 June 2010

In Which I Was Enamoured With Prince Tus Than Prince Dastan

Yes, in case you didn't know, I prefer older brother Tus than Dastan from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Yep, went to watch it just now. Had a couple of free tickets so Dad and I went all the way to Mid Valley Megamall (Just because GSC 1 Utama is not on the list of GSCs where the ticket was applicable and the only one with PoP was MVM) to catch the 1.45pm show. Just in time, since we left the house at 12 something, reached at one pm, spent fifteen minutes searching for a parking spot, and by the time we were lining up it was almost one thirty.

Really, I forgot how much I hate lining up for tickets because the queue was absolutely long and it was seriously claustrophobic. Suddenly we heard over the loudspeaker: "All patrons who want to buy tickets for the following movies, please go to the Gold Counter." Then they rattled out a whole list of movies and I was waiting for them to say PoP: TSoT.

And then...

"....Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, normal..."

and I stopped listening, dashed off to the counter at the opposite end, following the footsteps of another guy in a white shirt. Unfortunately we ended up at the booking/reservations counter, where the guy kindly pointed us to the opposite direction. Whereupon I dashed over to the other side again, followed quickly by my dad (who later admitted that he hadn't been listening to the announcement and was just chasing me around) and got into line as I explained to dad what the announcement said.

Indeed, I think not many people were listening to the speaker because it took them quite a while (long enough for the earlier white shirt guy to dash behind us) to start exiting the queue and lining up behind our line.

As a result, we got our tickets with ten minutes to spare while the other people had to continue waiting.

Moral of the story? Listen to the announcements.

The movie was superb. The plot was quite decent, but Dad and I were watching it only for the parkour scenes. Seriously, I'm really keen to pick it up. It's a very decent sport. Besides, I always liked the idea of jumping around and running on rooftops. Sounds very....Zorro-ish.

Jake Gyllenhaal (?) was surprisingly OK as Dastan. The fighting/parkour scenes were cool, but must've been very taxing. I liked Prince Tus very much. So maybe I've got a thing for manly, warrior guys with longish hair. They look better with a long mane as scruffy, grimy warriors but they appear effeminine when they're in modern day tuxedoes and stuff right? Unless you tie it up and get a small beard and whatnot.

The only one I didn't like in the movie was Princess Tamina. Sure, her one-liners were witty (Thank you, scriptwriters) but there's something about her that bugs me quite a bit. And it's often a big disappointment where the script goes, "...And they say the Princess/Queen/High Priestess/etc is the most beautiful woman in the land" but when the actress appears, I get that sinking feeling in my stomach as my inner voice goes, Where's the beautiful princess?

Don't get me wrong; Gemma is a brilliant actress in her own right, I'm sure. She's just not one of my favourites, sorry.

Anyway, since we have 2 more free tickets (yes, guys. I have a total of 4 free tickets) Dad and I were planning to catch another movie tomorrow. Maybe Karate Kid? I don't particularly like Jaden Smith but I do like the fighting. Yes, this is a girl who actually like swords and blood and gore and stuff. Believe me, I seriously like Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (even though I haven't actually finished it yet - the beginning part was good enough to entice me in. Lend me, anyone?) even though my two male friends who'd watched the movie half-way said they had to stop due to the excessive amount of gore even in the first scene.

Hey, I'm not like other girls.

Thursday 3 June 2010

Writer's Block Ends Up Pretty Productive

Sometimes, my head comes up with the most amazing questions. All of which I have yet to find an answer for.

Such as, if you pour alcohol out of a bottle, and while it's flowing out, you light the stream of liquid? My mind always wonders if the alcohol would catch fire, and since it's flammable, would the fire travel upward into the bottle since there is still some left inside? And then I wonder, would the bottle explode? It's something I bring up in times of boredom. I start theorizing about the different ways this could happen, until I asked a pal of mine and he told me, matter-of-factly, that alcohol in liquid form won't burn.

And sometimes I wonder what the heck's wrong with words. Blood contains haemoglobin, which is iron. So naturally if you bit your lip and taste blood it'd taste like iron, yeah? Why then, does every other story I read (guilty of commiting the same crime myself) describe it as "coppery?" It hardly tastes like copper, does it?

I am p.o.'ed.

Really.

Just got a call from my driving instructor. My ex-driving instructor, may I specify. A couple of weeks ago I postponed my lessons on Sat and Sun because I was having my A Levels exams. The fella sounded alright at the time, so I thought, OK. Don't have to worry about driving in between exams. So I asked if we could have the lessons the week after, when I've finished majority of my exams. He says he's on holiday then. I think I got the wth? Driving instructors have holidays? look on my face when he said that.

So we settled that when my exams were over, sometime in June, I'd call him up and arrange for me. That's exactly what I did, the first working day after my exams, which happened to be this Monday. He replied that he's still on holiday and won't get his teaching schedule till Thursday which just happens to be today. It's OK, I can still handle it. But I was getting seriously fed up of talking to him. For one, he's a Chinese fella who can't speak proper English and hence, I have no bloody idea what the heck he's saying half the time. Secondly, when I do stuff wrong, he acts as though it's all my fault (which is technically true but hey, I've only started driving, what, a couple times? Dude, you think I wanna mess this up?) And third, he smokes. Teaching me to drive, he smokes. Teaching me to park, he smokes. (OK, so he's got a great technique on how to park, but dude, that's probably his only redeeming factor.)

As a result, I asked my dad to talk to him instead. So Dad gamely does it while I run out for ice cream, and I come back to the car to see he's visibly frustrated because he's trying to explain to the fella that he's the father of Yours Truly (not gonna put my name up here) -- that's the other thing. It takes close to three minutes to explain who I am because he doesn't get my name that well and all.

Sorry, cantonese subtitles suck like hell.

"Peing kor?" (Who is it?)

"Hello, Ah ..... I'm (insert my name)." Yes, I used English.

"Meh wah?" (What was that)

In exasperation. "Ngor hai (insert my name). Lei gao zhar che kor zhek lui zai.* Sorry lah, my canto sucks terribly. I understand better than I speak. I sound like some ang mo. Faltering canto. * Basically translates to "I am...... The girl you taught driving to."

"Pin zhek?" (Which one? God, does he not remember the klutz who killed the engine multiply times?)

"Menjalara kor zhek." (The one from Menjarala)

"Meh wah?" (What's that?)

Exhale. Inhale. "Menjalara kor zhek lui zai." (The girl from Menjalara)

Silence. Then..

"Oh! Men zha la ra gor zhek lui zai!" (Yes, he pronounces it Men zha la ra. Chinese accent lah. Took him so bloody long.)

By this time I'm yelling at the phone even though I prefer taking calls politely without raising my voice (don't you just hate the way people practically scream into the phone and the other fella on the line screams back with equal loudness that you can listen in if you just concentrate?) but when I speak with him I feel like commiting murder.

And this happens every single bloody time I pick up the phone and dial his number.

Back to the story. Dad is trying to explain that he's calling to confirm my lessons that weekend. Then the fella says that he doesn't have any free slots this week and wants me to postpone it to next week, I think? Understandably, Dad gets upset at this because my lessons have been postponing for a few weeks already and if it gets any longer, I may forget all that I've learned. So Dad gets p.o.'ed, and he hangs up, and calls Metro instead to arrange for someone else to teach me.

Then me and my big mouth mentioned casually that my pal had Mr Lee who is good (sadly, the good one is Mr Cheong who left. Mr Lee is the impatient one. Hope I'm not putting my head on the chopping block here. :/ ) So Dad asked for Mr Lee. Then there was another big hoo hah about the time and dates because apparently Mr Lee does not teach on Sundays or something like that so after much debating (In which my dad kept muttering, "Let's not talk anymore. Let's just settle this.") my lessons are on Sat, Sat and Sun. Sats are in the evening while Sun is crazy ass early in the morning which means I need to wake up before dawn, go for my 2 hour lesson and then church and hopefully do the test the next day. Dad was pissed when he finally got everything done.

Then at roughly two minutes before I started ranting about my driving in this post, the fella called and told me Dad had called him (yeah, like I didn't know. I asked him to call, remember? I was present during the call.) So he went on about how this weekend couldn't work out and I mentioned, Hey, dude, my dad's getting me a new teach so don't worry about anything alright? Not the exact words I used (Canto, anyone?) but I was already incredibly annoyed by this time so yeah.

He then asked, Oh? Your dad called the Metro already? (Yep, people, Metro is the driving school). So I answered, Affirmative, soldier. Or something to that point. I thought he'd be cool with that. Turns out, he goes around then saying that he arranges the slots for me, but then I didn't want them (hey! I let you know in advance!) and how I'm supposed to call him to arrange but didn't (Dude! I did! You didn't have your schedule. What can I do?) and now that he's got slots for me next week I don't want to go. Then he hangs up. Abruptly.

Gosh, this whole driving thing is seriously driving me nuts!

Thankfully, Dad was of the same mind (that the driving instructor was nuts) and he said, "It's alright. Let's just get it over with. Prepare you for real life."

Go, Dad!

Finis.

Wednesday 2 June 2010

With All We Used To Have

It's times like this I wish I can write sensibly.

Not that everything I'm currently writing is nonsensical, nor is everything I'm writing a complete and utter shit. It seems to me...that I type better than I write.

I try writing stories on paper, and they look bittersweet. Sweet, because the plot is lovely, but bitter because my handwriting isn't exactly the neatest. I can fix that though; it's what to write about that causes a bit of a block.

I've tried and failed, many times, to keep a journal. Not a diary; I loath writing "Dear Diary." It's a bit too...girl for me, and I hated nothing more than to be a girly girl. A journal it is, then. But the simple fact still remains that I'll probably never keep one, which is sad because I'm seeing so many notebooks that look just pretty, but I can never bring myself to buy one because I know they'll eventually go to waste.

The reason why I can never keep a journal is because I am only tempted to write in it when I have something profound and lovely to write about, or when I'm pissed off and mad and need to let off some steam. Unfortunately, the latter is more likely, and they never end up well. I still remember cleaning out my shelves the other time, and I remembered vividly how much I cringed when I reread a single entry about how I was mad at the world. It wasn't that it wasn't passionate enough; it just felt, weird? Childish? The words I used...so plain, so commonplace. I lashed out, and it was terrible, reading it again. Once more I felt like the strange kid with so much anger.

The fact that my handwriting wasn't exactly top-notch ruined it even more.

I have always envied the way people can stick to a diary or a journal for more than a month. It just feels to me that it's such a bother to write about daily feelings and all that. I much prefer to keep it all in my head, relive them. There was always this fear that if I ever wrote a diary, someone would one day find it out and read it. You'd probably think it be no big deal, but you have no idea how violated it feels.

A mate of mine used to write journals which she'd then send to me to read, kind of our little way to keep in touch. At first, I thought it was cool. I'd get to be updated on her life, and I'd get to see inside her head. Curiosity is always my biggest vice; there's always something inside my head that demanded for answers. How does it work? Why do we do this? Why does this happen? As more and more inadequate replies are given to me, I finally gave it up. I kept on asking questions, but instead of relying on others, I figured the only way I'd understand is if I do my own research. So I learn. So I know. It's probably one of the reasons why I rely more on my hands and myself and what I can do instead of on other people, even when I'm supposed to.

But I digress. (Which is weird because I never truly got what "digress" actually meant. Oh, it actually means to turn aside from a particular topic.)

So I read. And it was cool, for a while. Then as things started getting more and more personal, it felt as though I was violating her privacy, even though she'd handed me the journals with her permission to read them. In case you didn't know, I'm a really private person. It bugged me constantly, because if I already felt violated reading her deepest thoughts and feelings, how much more so, then, would I feel if someone had read mine?

Needless to say, after the first or second time of reading her journals, I completely stopped going through them for the remaining month or so before I returned them. It just felt wrong, is all.

Hey, you.

It's been a while since we chatted. I'm sorry, but it seems to me that, after a while, after we've exhausted everything, after everything that needs to be said and done has been said and done, I feel like there's nothing left. That there's this void that needs to be forded for something else to happen, for another topic of conversation to come up. Which will never happen the way you want it to.

It scares me a little that I feel strange in the beginning, when we didn't talk that much anymore. At first I thought that it's shifted, this whole thing. Then I realised that I was getting bored of everything. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. After we've done it all I feel the startings of boredom, suffocating me deeply. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm so used to the way you were always there that it's becoming routine.

Finis.