I'm back on LJ where I rant about TV shows and pretty boys. >_<

At least you could be happy for me. :(

Got a pair of boyfriend style jeans the other day and I realised: shit, the last time women had comfy pants were back in the 80s!

Although now it's evened out so that guys can wear skinny jeans, yeah. :D

The most glorious weather today. Went for a walk with Mum and I stepped on a bird! >_< I'm inconsolable.

ARGH POLLEN WHY? D;

Can't...breathe...T_T

In other news:

-My master made me this collar. He is a good and smart master and he made me this collar so that I may speak. SQUIRREL!

-Do you want to play a game? It's called See Who Can Go the Longest Without Saying Anything.
-Cool! My mom loves that game!

-I hid under your porch because I love you.

-Now, you must wear the cone of shame.
-I do not like the cone of shame.

So much ♥

The smell of spring is in the air. Yes, it's pollen season again. On balmy nights the air is almost sticky sweet and oh-so-nauseating.

I just read Thom's lengthy waxing on the glories of Hong Kong and the golden, sepia-tinted memories of his childhood.

It made me think of growing up in China.

I think everything was more beautiful then. Everything was a greater glory and a deeper mystery. The sun shone brighter, the people smiled wider, the birds sang sweeter. Perhaps the sky was more blue and the rain rained wetter.

Think of all the BBC adaptations of Austen's novels. The greenery. The countryside. That's how I remember feeling about the place I grew up. Not so wild and empty, perhaps, but still with that pristine and natural glow around the edges. I remember scooping frog spawn from the pond and the two pagodas that sat in it, reachable by wide, flat tops of stone pillars in the water. There were rock gardens and the fiery red Japanese maples that grew gnarly towards the water. These are almost scenes from period dramas, the way I remember them.

I remember climbing in and out of neighbours' gardens with my friend through the broken pillars of their fence. Stealing sunflowers for to harvest and plant their seeds with dreams of cultivating my own crop the next summer. I caught brilliant red, orange and yellow ladybugs and pried open their shells to see their translucent, black wings and dropped them in the middle of the wide cups of poppies. I watched and stalked preying mantises and snuck up on butterflies and snapped them shut in a book. I ate the strawberries that dotted the ground and painted my face with the crushed leaves of a plant I would no longer recognise.

When it rained I sat on the sofa and looked out the window as the sand from the rooftops were washed off by the pouring water. My Grandmother watches a period drama and knits. My Grandfather has quietly dozed off only to wake up for the relevant plot points. I eat Go-shaped egg biscuits and wait for it to rain so much that it floods. I go exploring in the house and try (again) to find the hidden compartment to the massive redwood wardrobe--the only remnant of our affluent days before the Cultural Revolution. The wood smells sweet and paper is yellowed and translucent and glossy. Workbooks of sums and English even before I was five. A kite behind the door. Brown glasses of cod liver oil pellets. A book of flattened butterflies.

I climbed the willows that drooped into the pond and listened to the cicadas as my Grandmother smacked her mop against the banks. I walked under an arched walkway of climbing laburnums so heavy and thick with flower that you could barely see out. I skipped pebbles off lilypads to see if I could dislodge frogs and watched the lily flowers grow from the mud, bloom and then into seed.

I went back in the year of the heavy snowfall. It's different now. Things change. Everyone is looking forward and moving with progress and such perfect, sepia-tinted memories of childhood are left behind.

Hannah makes me want to read period novels. Gaskell-ian novels. I know I'm going to start on that and move in one of two directions: either on to the Great American Classics (GUH Steinbeck! Hardy! ♥) or into steampunk and then toddle off into sci-fi. Speaking of which, I've maybe found something that's passably readable. Amtrak Wars! I'm not giving half a rat's about its shining literary quality (none at all) but it's interesting. Of course, there are incredibly irritating facets but they're ignorable. :) What I'd like is to find the gusto with which I used to read Asimov or Clarke. I wonder where it went.

That God subject's first assessment essay is due in 5pm on Monday. It's worth 18%. Yes, many a raised eyebrow over that randomly calculated number. Obviously this is an Arts subject. :P

WTPA comp. is tomorrow. I was debating whether or not I should attend (see: 18%) but then I checked and saw that the wordcount was only 750. Come on. Even after two years of number-crunching, I could (probably) do that in my sleep. It's when we get to the 2000 word, 50% finally essay that I'll consider missing out on seeing AWESOME. FEATS. OF WUSHU. Until then, tappity tap tap.

Is eating badly part of every student's experience?

I used to think that I'd never fall to the entangling depths of ramen or biscuit meals but, honestly, since my IB years, I've taken to eating all sorts of crap for meals. Thanks, education.

Well. Fuck you very much, too.

Doris is scary. :P

Guh!

:D

I used to have my earphones turned relatively low but recently I've discovered that it's some sort of great, mental happiness when you turn it up so that you have a head full of music. Mmm.

Tomorrow's last day of first week of semester. I'm all washed-out-feeling.

Stood around for a few hours today in the wind. Ate lunch with Katherine. :D

Gotta go to Wushu tomorrow, too. =_= Tie-tie, lah.

And, due to uni, I haven't hogged up all of this month's bandwidth yet so I'm hurriedly trying to finish the remaining few gigs tonight before turn-over day after tomorrow.

Zzz.

New semester!

Two hours of lectures in the morning and then chasing after people for errands and to get second-hand books off of.

Went to JB and bought The Boondocks, The Wire (season 4) and Moving Wallpaper (season 1). Guh. I'm going back.

Going to get my Docs tomorrow. No soft-leather so I'll have to go with the normal ones if I want 10-hole lace-ups. :)

And I'm so damned tired already. =_= Urgh. Sugar-low all day.

Alright, so. Important news of my life:

I GOT A BAG! FOR UNI! FINALLY!

Ok, so no more hassling shopping, no more irritating store music, no more overwhelming smell of fake leather. NO MORE SHOPPING--THANK GODS.

And! I'm waiting for some soft-leather Docs to come in so that I CAN BUY THEM! No more nagging mother. No more hobo shoes (I didn't mind them that much myself...) No more trying on of the shoes. =_= Oh fortune, thank you, thank you.

In summary: NO MORE SHOPPING! YES!

But shopping of the fun kind: JB's still got their Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale going on, so Sisi and I are heading over on Monday. Anyone want anything? :D

North Korea creeps me out. Reminds me of everything I know about the Cultural Revolution but in the 21st Century. Anachronisms. Ugh.

In other news: eclipse today!

Another day of frustrated bag/shoe shopping in the city. Gods damned. I wish I didn't have to do these inane things.

In other news, I bought Wes Carr's The Way The World Looks. Apart from Fearless, I don't think that anything else on there was noteworthy.

More Veronica Mars from Yo. ♥ And a bunch of stuff from Ben. :D

Oh, and finally got me a copy of Two Wheels. Yeah~ XD

And I'd like a pair of Docs, please. ._.'

Over at Sisi's with the rest of the crew for a sleepover last night. Hah. We're (me) so old but so awesome. Didn't really end up paying any attention to anything we were watching but BJ and I ended up taking a shitload of retarded photos. Sorry, private viewing only. Suffice to say, we were pissing ourselves laughing, sharing a La-Z-Boy, through Jeremy Iron's pathetic facial expressions (just the one, really) in Lolita. In retrospect, our high-ness may have been as a result of the plum wine. :x

Sisi's really adorable in bed. *perv face* No, as in, like, a cat adorable. -___-

Much later, we tried watching Carrie but I don't deal well with Stephen King at night--sends me right to sleep. :)

Then this morning we went to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was quite good! So many laugh-worthy parts and (gosh, am I really saying this?) the acting's getting better. XD BJ would disagree with me regarding Ginny Weasley but I tend to ignore that. Draco cuts a dashing figure in his suit! :D And this was the first HP in which I thought Snape was awesome-worthy.

The Hurt Locker.

WHO'S COMING WITH ME? WHO'S COMING??

What a near perfect day. It was the shopping that was stressful. Hoa and Jet were...supportive. -_- Supportive like a pair of laughing hyenas in the background with good advice. Le sigh. Didn't get anything in the end. X'D The mater's pushing me to get a new pair of shoes, though. *cry* Everyone associates (worn) Blundstones with tradies. Fine.

Plans for tomorrow.

Meeting people around 11am at MC. Go to Uni and buy tickets, collect violin, shop around for a bag (high priority--need a replacement for the current fill-in before Uni starts, damn things falling apart all at once, at least I got the wallet fast-ish,) eat lunch and then go watch The Hangover with posse at 3pm. Yes, I call you guys my posse. ♥ I might even get youse all (ocker accent here) yer own liddle gangland nicknames as well.

Funtastical!

Have I forgotten anything?

Southland is fantastic. Southland fandom writers are fucking ace. *dirty smirk*

Second season is due in September. -frownface- I can't wait 2 more months! T__T Oh, but damn, they'll all be back at once. NCIS, The Mentalist...-braingasm- Glory be.

And we ran into a protest (rally?) in REB gardens this afternoon. It was over some guy who was killed but his killer only received a measly 2-year sentence? There were 'racism' banners and lots of cultural diversity. I still have no idea.

TV--that eternal love of my life. You were almost killed off by the entirely high-brow level of broadcasting here in Australia (drip, sarcasm, drip) in the past decade but were rescued from the evil clutches of those puerile minds by the greatest cast of friends to ever grace the Earth--with the most impressive collection of GREAT TELEVISION for the particular connoisseur.

So the mater and I have been ensconced in my study with The West Wing for the past three weeks since I finished exams. Forty-five minutes an episode and about 3-4 episodes every other day and we're almost finished with two seasons. I love you, Ben.

This level of intellectuality reminds me of my Year 12 days when I used to watch Yes, Minister (and then, of course, Yes, Prime Minister) during study breaks for my IB exams. Oh, those halcyon days. I much prefer the old, British political smart-arsery but I have to admit that The West Wing offers a greater cast of loveable characters.

Alright, so in the past few weeks I have bathed myself in the glory of:

• Whitechapel (Ruperty!)
• The West Wing
• Law & Order UK (...Ben Daniels! Jamie Bamber! Damn, I really want to watch the Hornblower mini-series again.)
• 上海滩 (the new series, I tried to find the old one with Chow-yun Fat but couldn't.)
• trying to finish what I have of Friday Night Lights--the hysteria gets old quickly but I still love Matt Saracen.

Next up, I have:

• Southland (Michael Cudlitz!! Cops! Ben McKenzie! :O)
• Wire in the Blood (old but I never got around to watching it when ABC had it broadcasting.)
• finish off Life (and then cry over its cancellation.)
• might re-watch Firefly--that's always good for the soul.

Oh! Yes and I didn't fail anything this semester!

I'd been having these crazy fucked up examination nightmares for the past week and I'm glad that that's all over and done with now. Didn't do so peachy either but that's a problem I'm able to tackle. I think there's great room for improvement since I do all of jack shit amount of study now.

RE: hipsters.

This is all thanks to young Thomas.

My taste in reading material has changed somewhat over the years. I remember once that I used to love sci-fi and now I can rarely put myself through the trouble of reading one from cover to cover without intense psychological pain.

I've wanted (I think) to read Obama's few books since before he was voted in. I saw them the other day in Borders (shelves and shelves with a 'Borders recommends' tag under them) and I just thought, Well, how crass and didn't buy myself a copy. I don't think I would borrow a copy from the library either now. Somehow their hipster trendiness is a greatly distasteful factor for me. Like when I wanted to read Sacred Book of the Werewolf and this troupe of the aforementioned retards walked by me with it in their hands. Turn-off. :)

Two really good reads lately have been My Family and other Animals and Gorky Park. Please don't let the hipsters start on them now.

I've found a stack of CDs that I borrowed from Yo since...the last time I had the occasion to wear shorts. Summer. Now I've hopped on to the Veronica Mars bandwagon--that is, I'm waiting with bated breath for when I can get more of it off of darling Yo. XD

Neko Case's Hold On, Hold On is my new love. Uh, what was the last time that TV shows had good music? Must have been when Life was still broadcasting. Damn it. All the good ones go and we're just left with trashy reality shows and soaps.

In other news, today may have been the last time I needed to go and visit my orthodontist. Score! :D

And photos of yesterday's BBQ can be found here. There are 5 vids up as well.

And! I'd really wanted to go over to BJ's tomorrow. :( FML.

It's been raining all sodding week but hopefully tomorrow will be full of super happy funtimes! However, I have been informed that Suzy has a fever and will be missing out on the fun and games. -wryface- Great timing, Suzy.

Still, I'm hoping for a pause to the rain. No wonder people get so depressed during winter.