Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Stunted

Funny. In the past few days, I've written posts, really long ones even, but for some reason I just think other people will find them boring and uninteresting, and then the posts end up saved in my unpublished drafts.

Ergo, no visible updates.

I miss talking to my friends. Writing on your blog can't make up for that. Glad I finally went out with Gan today, then. Tomorrow, going to give out soup to homeless people in KL. It's not a planned programme thing, more of a turn-up-when-you-will-in-pairs-or-small-groups thing, so I'm kinda nervous. I don't like facing the unknown and I have a social disorder that renders me disabled when it comes to dealing with people. (I go through hell when ordering food, even.) And I have to do 24 hours' worth of this. If I go let's say, four hours at a time, err how many times do I have to go to the soup kitchen in KL?

Urrm the little voice in my head is telling me that this post is worthless and that I should just bin it, but Sze Li asked me to update so I'll defy it and press the orange button now.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

"It's like running away to join the circus, everyone wants to do it when they're young but then you grow up and get a proper job. But somebody's got to do it or you wouldn't have the circus."
-Katie McGrath

Friday, November 26, 2010

Every guy wants a Jacie

Second post of the day!

Ohmigosh. Do you know how much I talk? Why do I keep on blabbing and blabbing when I'm blogging? And most of the time that's only like, half of what I really do want to say. I talk too much.

So, moving on to something involving me not talking.

There are four definitions of Jacie according to urbandictionary, and here they are listed in order of popularity, spelling errors intact:

1. Jacie
A beautiful, sexy, artsy, free-flowing, daredevil who loves life, friends and family. This fly girl is the life of the party, friendly and inquisitive. Those who know her are lucky to have her in their life.

The Jacie skydived through the air.


2. Jacie
Jacie is the most gorgeous girl in the whole world. I would die for Jacie. She has my life and my heart. The love for Jacie is like the ocean it never stops being filled up. Filled up with love(: Jacie is Exterme extreme extremely sexy. I am allways happy when i am around her. You are the one and only person for me. My heart over follows with love for you. You are my true Love. I will love youe forever and ever no matter wat.

Jacie I Love You Sooooo Much!


3. Jacie
An extremly sexy girl, and a total badass, Guys are always all over her, every guy wants a Jacie XD


4. Jacie

a cool chick who looks like Taylor Swift


Is that Taylor Swift? darnit it's just Jacie


JACIE is also an acronym for some business thing. Look.

Taken from the JACIE website.

I'd originally wanted to fill you in on the history of my name, but as it involves my sisters' full names as well as mine and this is a public blog and if some stalker comes by it bla bla bla, I've changed my mind, it's not like you really want to know anyway, look I'm talking again.

So yeah. I really love my name and I'd thank you very much not to call me anything but my name. I have four names and you may call me any one of them as long as you do not shorten them. Come on, each name has only one syllable except the first and that has only two. And please spell my name properly. I know it sounds the same as JC but it isn't the same because it's spelled differently and three extra letters won't kill you.

Love, Jacie.

New Skin

Yeah, so my blog looks kinda different right now. My previous skin wasn't a Blogger template and that actually kinda sucked for various reasons. So I made the decision to change to a Blogger template, although I've always had misgivings because I didn't want my blog to have that typical Blogger look.

But after suffering for some time using the pretty useful Blogger designer and also reverting to good old HTML editing, I'm actually rather happy with the outcome. (Or maybe I just wanted to be happy so that I could stop breaking my back over the design.) No, really. I didn't mean for it to turn out quite so blue, but that was the background picture I chose from Blogger. I like that picture, because it sorta means something to me. You probably don't see it, but it's one of misty mountains and a snaking river. I wanted to put the unicorn picture as the header, but I put it at the side instead and I really do like it.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Romeo & Juliet

Since I'd finished studying my Dummies' Guide To Shakespeare, I decided to get a single copy of Romeo & Juliet and read it properly. I'd read it before, but I wasn't really that good at reading Shakespeare before this so I don't think it even counts. So I bought Romeo & Juliet at MPH - btw, our bookstores have really bad Shakespearean stock - and started reading.


The couple of hours I spent finishing Romeo & Juliet changed my entire take on the play. Before this, I thought what a lot of people thought. Two youngsters from warring families, fall in forbidden love at first sight, get engaged, get married, and get torn apart all in the span of 24 hours. (No kidding.) And then because Juliet doesn't want to get married off to someone else, she takes a sleeping draught that makes everyone thinks she's dead, including Romeo, who breaks into her tomb and kills himself with real poison out of grief. Then Juliet wakes up, sees Romeo dead and kills herself with a dagger. And this is me leaving out a lot of other killings too.

But while reading, I fell in love with Romeo and Juliet. Yes, I fell in love with the two of them. There's actually a lot of depth to the play, you know? More depth to the characters than you'd imagine. And now I could actually understand what they were saying, I found that what they were saying was beautiful. Truly. The play is funny, too. And this is me saying that even after a rather brief read. I didn't even refer to the notes at the bottom of the page, the reason I bought a single copy to read instead of lugging out my huge collective Shakespeare works. I'm going to read it for the third time now, this time including all the little notes.

But falling in love with Romeo and Juliet wasn't such a good idea, because the play is called "The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet". Check out the red-inked word. Now, I don't think the whole committing suicide thing at the end is stupid. I just find it really sad. Oh, how I wish that this play was a comedy, and that Romeo and Juliet had lived happily ever after!

I just watched the Romeo + Juliet (1996) VCD I had lying around. It's in a pretty modern setting, but they still use the original words of the play, although they did shorten some scenes, so for the first half of the movie, where all the really beautiful words are, I was sitting in front of the screen with the play in my hand, following the lines of the actors with the lines in my book. I think I'd watched the first ten minutes of this movie some years ago on Astro. I knew I gave up then because I thought they were all speaking funny and truth be told, the movie is weird - director Baz Luhrmann must be a pretty nutty guy.


But O me! (Haha.) I loved Leonardo diCaprio and Claire Danes as Romeo and Juliet! They were spectacular. Honestly. 

I can't compare them to other actors of the same role, of course, seeing as this is the only R&J movie I've watched, but I've never seen Leo act this well. He was really great; I loved him.

And Claire Danes, the star from Stardust. I think she captured Juliet  perfectly.

All in all...

...they substituted swords with guns...

...but some things...

... never change.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Kee Joey

Happy birthday, Joey Kee.



Last sister to turn sixteen, but the wait was worth it. Welcome to the club, youngster. Sunway Lagoon was an awesome idea, we had a blast today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and that was a lot. :D I love you Joey, I really do, and that perhaps is as much as I can say.

Happy sweet sixteenth.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Beautiful Roads & A Bean

My sister Jamie's like a Carrie Underwood fan, so naturally I hear a lot of this American Idol's songs as well. Right now I'm listening to a personal favourite, Wasted, which has pretty amazing lyrics I think maybe Sze Li and Xin You would like. Anyway, because of one of the lines in the song, I got inspired to post some pictures my dad forced me to have a look at months ago in one of those endless forwarded emails of his. After spending fifteen minutes of my life sifting through his emails, I realise that my memory played a trick on me and the pictures in the email, although very beautiful were pathetically few. Therefore, I shall use a little bit of elbow grease (think Ron Weasley) and google up some pictures for you.


cid:3.1079296415@web59810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com




cid:7.1079296415@web59810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com



cid:9.1079296415@web59810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com



cid:11.1079296415@web59810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com

cid:8.1079296415@web59810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com



cid:13.1079296415@web59810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com








I love roads. It makes me the happiest girl in the world to see a lovely road with trees lining either side, like in the English countryside. Maybe that's why I love roadtrips. Prefect camp journey was good, because in Lumut you can see pretty roads, as well as acres and acres of sawah padi and mountains, mountains floating on cloudbanks the way only Mt. Olympus should be able to. The sky was lovely too. Oh, prefect camp post. Why do I procrastinate? Such a bad blogger.

Oh, and here's something else that isn't a road, but it's man-made and lovely, so it should count, right? I saw it on Kristin Cashore's blog.


This is the Chicago bean. Apparently it just, erm, sits there, and reflects stuff.

Like this.




Whatever. It's amazing.

I don't wanna spend my life jaded, waiting, to wake up one day and find, that I let all these years go by, wasted. Oh, I don't wanna keep on wishing, missing, the still of the morning, the colour of the night, I ain't spending no more time, wasted.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Karoake and HP7PI

I'm still working on my prefect camp post. It's long and meticulous 'cause that's the way I roll, but honestly I don't see what good anyone will get out of reading it other than a newfound appreciation of bathing and wariness of perverted molesters.

Today we hit 1U to belatedly celebrate Gan's birthday by karaokeing at Neway. It was also Aqeemul's birthday today. Happy birthday mongkay, whatever you're not reading this, but we love you and we know deep down you love us too. Jumped and danced on the sofas like wild things with the waiters walking in and out staring at us. Next time we go to Neway I bet we'll see a sign saying "Please do not jump and dance on the sofas like wild things", with some spelling errors, because it's Neway.

And then just now:


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

In your face, suckers. That's why I sedang rajin blogging now. Just to rub it in everyone's face. 'cause I went to watch it with my sister already. Hah. Good movie. Thank God they split it in two. More time for fighting, conversation, character expansion or just breathing. They actually had time enough to follow the book. Not like in previous movies. Even split in half I couldn't get enough of the movie. Cried a lil at the end. Kay la I won't spoil it for you. Mostly I enjoyed the movie because Hermione was so hot. God. Hermione is hot. She was so cute when she was young and then she grew up hot. Plus she's pretty. No la, she was always pretty. But wait. Did I mention she's hot?









Now, because I do not want to end this post on a completely bimboticly lesbian note. (Please, I was kidding when I said Emma Watson's attractiveness was the reason why I liked the movie.) I've always taken one's appreciation of Harry Potter as a measure of his or her intelligence. It doesn't mean if you're a fanatic you're a mind-whopper. No, you don't have to like it. But the Harry Potter books are a really well-woven masterpiece, and if you will realise that only if you are intelligent enough to. Because the whole thing is just mind-boggling, and I can guarantee you there are few people in this world who can explain every aspect of the HP plot after reading it through only once. And if you think that you can do it, my friend, you're not digging deep enough. Lastly, respect must be given to geniuses where it's due, so respect must be given to Madame Joanne Kathleen Rowling. 

So stop comparing Harry Potter to Twilight.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Elaine of Astolat, The Lady of Shallot

Chapter 28 of Anne of Green Gables is entitled "An Unfortunate Lily Maid". In this chapter, Anne Shirley and her friends decide to reenact Elaine of Astolat's funeral after having studied Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Lancelot and Elaine" at school. And that is how, years ago, I first got acquainted with the tragic tale of Elaine of Astolat.

In Arthurian legend, Elaine of Astolat, aka Elaine the White or Elaine the Fair or Elaine the Lily Maid, is every bit as real as King Arthur himself. She is known for falling in love with Arthur's most trusted knight Sir Lancelot, who could not return her love because he was having a love affair with Queen Guinevere, who of course is married to King Arthur. (Love rectangle!) Because of that - stay with me here - Elaine of Astolat died of a broken heart - people in medieval times tend to do that a lot - and her death is what made her famous - or at any rate, written about. This is because before she died she made her father promise to lay her corpse in a boat with a letter to Lancelot clasped in her dead hands, and have that boat rowed downriver right into the royal court. Her purpose was to have Lancelot read the letter, and have the king and queen and the whole court to know why she died, out of her unrequited love for Lancelot.

No, do not laugh. This isn't a bit funny.

When Xin You gave me a youtube link to The Band Perry's "If I Die Young", I got obsessed with the music video (the song has its own merits, future blogpost will be dedicated to it) and played it over and over again. I'd leave my computer on and keep running back to it in between studying chapters for finals just to watch it. This is because the MV reminded me so forcefully of that chapter in Anne of Green Gables and featured Lord Tennyson's more famously known poem, "The Lady of Shallot".



"The Lady of Shallot" is not about Elaine of Astolat, strictly speaking. They say Tennyson just based the poem on her. It's about this fairy lady living on the island of Shallot. She has been cursed; she is never able to look at Camelot directly. So she looks at the lane leading into Camelot through her mirror. But one day handsome Lancelot rides down the lane; the lady gets distracted, turns and looks down on Camelot, and the curse is upon her. The lady then hops into a boat, heads downriver into Camelot singing her last song, and dies halfway there due to the curse. She floats dead into Camelot where Lancelot looks at her face and sees it is lovely. See? Totally different story, me humble self thinks.

You'd better not be laughing. I really like this poem.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when I found out the book Avalon High by Meg Cabot is a modern day tale centering around King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Astolat!  On the second reread now. After I return the one I borrowed from Chalystha, I'm so gonna buy meself a copy. You'd enjoy the book if you knew the  bare basics to the legends of Camelot. Although, it kinda confused me because I get mixed up between Elaine of Astolat and The Lady of Shallot.

So, I went online and read The Lady of Shallot and Lancelot and Elaine properly and got things sorted out. Probably the length of the latter poem got to my head, because then I decided to write a footlong essay on what I've learnt, so here it is, published in the only place I have to put out these things, my blog. I feel very proud and accomplished right now. : ) These four hours or so I've put into this research today is time very well spent. I kept sneaking online during studying for finals to read up on various Arthurian characters, such as King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Morgan le Fay, Mordred, the Lady of the Lake and so on.

And now I would kill to get my hands on the book Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory since every Wikipedia article I painstakingly come across goes, "In Le Morte d'Arthur..." Yeah. And since I'm putting books I would probably never ever finish reading and regret ever owning in this lifetime on my wishlist, why not ask for The Once and Future King and The Idylls of the King as well?

Although, since I'm not entirely stupid, I will take it upon me to hint that I would much rather an alpaca for Christmas, something I've always wanted under my Christmas tree.

Horizon, bred by Livanti Alpacas.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Gan Yi Quan

Today my dad told me to call "Ah Gan" (he calls him that) to ask if "Ah Gan" knew of a specific Thai restaurant that may or may not exist, near his place.

So I obediently rung my best guy friend up, the same one who turned sixteen last Friday.

I don't really know what to say. My potato. My basket boy. Mano, Gannie, vuvuzela boy, Alex Gan, Joey Gan, Watson. All these names I've given to him over the years. Well, it wasn't that long. And he's not like, dead, you know. All I know is it's about time I dedicated a blogpost to my best friend Gan.

Gan's one of those really rare friends who gives you the sense of security of knowing you'll always be friends. He's the kind you can spend a week not talking to and somehow still be on the same track, the same page. Even if you're not always on the same wavelength. Gan's a friend that you can spend hours with without saying a single word, because there's just that sense of comfort and companionable silence.

I can still remember a moment when I first started realising this, and I think it was in Form 2 someone says it's Form 1. He'd've forgotten all about it, but I still remember that time when we were both standing on chairs so we could look out those small, high-placed ventilation windows in our classroom in Block A. Well. We weren't really just looking out at the road for fun. I think we wanted the breeze. Anyway, I still hold on to that memory. And now I'm looking back at it, I'm quite sure Gannie and I became closer because of Lord of the Rings. Gan was an LOTR gamer, and I was a book-and-movie buff, but the second I found out he really knew his way around Middle Earth he shot up a few hundred levels in my esteem. After all, Gan was the one who memorised the Hobbit runes with me.

I don't know what else to say. My best guy friend, my IT technician, former Wall-to-Wall spam partner, ex-mapleSEA player, fellow LOTRian, almost like my brother in some ways. Like I said, he's not dead. And Gannie's never really been a fan of torrents of words either. So I'm just going to end it here. Sorry it took me so long to get down to it, Gannie-boy. Inspiration can't be rushed *cough*. Lunch on Thursday at MidV, my treat, don't forget.


GANNIE, WE EFFING NEED TO TAKE MORE PICTURES TOGETHER. THIS IS ONE OF THE FEW THAT HAS BOTH YOU AND ME IN IT.

Oh and my mom says happy belated birthday.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Subway Concert

Now here's the thing. This afternoon I was in major fangirl mode and I posted up some pictures of Sam Evans from Glee. And after a lot of mature deliberation I have decided to post this up too, even though it will *gasp* push Sam Evans' pictures down, which is, just, really, heartbreaking. So you must, must, promise me you will go scroll down and see the Sam Evans post, okay, okay? And since I'm pretty desperate, I'll give you a link, HERE, for you to go to if you have arthritis in your fingers and can't scroll down.

cid:part1.08010602.04010400@telus.net

  
 THE SITUATION    
In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing.  He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.


About 4 minutes later: 
The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.


At 6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.


At 10 minutes: A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly.  The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time.  This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.

At 45 minutes:
The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.
   
After 1 hour: 

He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all.


No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.  Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.


  
  
This is a true story.  Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities
  How many other things are we missing as we rush through life? 

Here I'm gonna cut out the cheesy omg-life-changing questions that are tagged onto the end of every omg-this-is-groundbreaking email such as this and slot in my own.

Haha. I hate all the forwarded emails my dad gets. Because I inevitably end up having to read them too, just because he likes them so much.

No but seriously. Have you ever stopped to think about it? I mean, I understand in the world that we live in now we can't just simply stop in the middle of the road and go, "OMG, LOOK AT THAT ANT. LOOK AT IT. IT'S A WORK OF ART. IT HAS SIX LEGS, A HEAD, A THORAX AND AN ABDOMEN. BRB, I THINK I'M TEARING UP."

Heck, that would be almost as stupid as stopping to pick up a one ringgit note in the middle of the street and getting hit by a car.

And now I'm about to go and say stuff like, oh, we shouldn't do that, we should do this, but it strikes me that I'm in no position to tell people what they should or should not do, and now I'm thinking twice about it, and all I really feel like telling people to do is to look to the sky every once in a while, because just today I saw that it was a rainbow of colours with clouds and stretched over the horizon like colourful cotton candy and purple light shining from behind them, so much so that I wished I'd taken a picture until I remember that it doesn't matter because I have a picture of it in my head, and now I see that this is turning out to be a really long sentence and if ever there was anyone who had the right to tell people to look to the sky, it's Gandalf and now Gandalf's voice is in my head saying, "Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn, look to the east" and now I remember that he said look to the east not look to the sky which is kinda depressing oh God I need to rewatch Lord of the Rings gahhh anyway what was I saying?

Erm. Just think about it, okay?

Oh gosh. That was a really long sentence.

Sam Evans

I'm sorry, I really am. I mean, I said that I had a million things to blog about and I did, but I also said they'd all poof and vanish as soon as exams were over, and they did.

Therefore, I shall introduce you instead to a new chapter in jacietanchenghwee's fangirlism life.




Not my pictures. This is Chord Overstreet. He plays Sam Evans in Glee Season 2.

Glee has been alright for me, you know? I've been watching snippets random episodes of Season 1 on Astro and I was happy that they were singing nice old songs. The first ever episode of Glee I watched was the finale of Season 1 (PLEASE DO NOT FACEPALM ME) and that was when I got so confused (I mean, there were people singing. And kissing. And giving birth. And adopting babies. All in one episode. And I didn't know who the heck they were) I decided to just start downloading from the very start.

BUT NOW, GLEE IS AWESOME.

WANNA KNOW WHY?

WATCH GLEE S02E04. YOU HAVE TO. YOU HAVE TO.

Sam Evans quotes from S02E04!

"Hey, everbody. I'm Sam. Sam I am. And I don't like Green Eggs and Ham."

"Lor menari."
"..."
"It means you have pretty eyes."
"..."
"It's Na'vi. The Avatar language? Lor menari?"
"..."
(Jacie says: Omg if it were LOTR Elvish instead of Na'vi...)

"Now she's just giving me these vibes. And those eyes..."

"Though, you might have to wear sunglasses whenever we're together."

"Does that work on the girls where you're from? The impressions, bad jokes, the... Na'vi?"
"I don't know. I uh, went to an all-boys boarding school."
"Makes sense."

Fyi this was not easy. Chord Overstreet has this funny accent and it's tough catching every word he says. But, we'll watch til we know the lines, baby.