:: journal of a jacie ::

Darcy Movie Fanfiction

2011-10-10T16:20:00.000+08:00

I know I'm supposed to be studying, but it's always when you start getting down to it when things several million things pop up to completely distract you. But guise. Look at this! It's hilarious. It's something I wrote three years ago. Three years ago! I don't even remember having written this. I wouldn't have believed it was written by me if it weren't for the "by Jacie Tan Cheng Hwee" at the top. And I think I should write more. I mean, it's not like I don't have all this stuff omnipresent, floating around in my head, every single day of my life. But for writing it down. What is this? What were you thinking, fourteen-year-old self?

So I think this is like, uh, a novelisation of one of the scenes in the movie Pride & Prejudice (2005), from Fitzwilliam Darcy's point of view. I think you'll only get it if you'd watched the movie. First of miserably few chapters: completely untouched. I can't bring myself to edit out the cringingly embarrassing parts.

The moment Fitzwilliam Darcy stepped into the Meryton Hall Assembly, total silence struck. The merry dancing and music, heard even from outdoors, stopped abruptly. Everyone seemed to be standing and staring. Then almost at once the whispers began. The door had scarcely swung closed behind Darcy and the two Bingleys before the phrases “Pemberley, half of Derbyshire”, “ten thousand a year!” and “fine figure, very handsome” struck his ears.

The silly Sir William Lucas, the one who had taken it into his head to invite Bingley to the ball in the first place, came to welcome them and take them through the sea of people to the other end of the hall. It was far worse than he could have imagined – what was he doing in this place? He could feel Bingley and his beaming smiles on his left and Miss Caroline’s radiating haughtiness to his right as they made their way through the bowing and curtseying crowd.

It was not until they safely reached the fireplace at the other end of the room that the music started again. Darcy watched disdainfully as people began scrambling to find their partners and continue the dance. As if nothing had happened, he thought. As if they had not just all stopped and taken him and his companions up for observation. Darcy felt by no means in an amiable mood, and was already counting the hours until they could leave.

A parade of young ladies came up to them, led by a more elderly woman. Sir William Lucas introduced them, one of them his eldest daughter, and the rest of them all Bennets. Bingley, of course, was delighted to make their acquaintance and directly began speaking to two of the Bennet girls. Darcy could hardly remember their names.

The second dance began, and Darcy was to learn that it was the beginning of a long night. He stationed himself at the side, having no desire to neither dance nor speak at all. Miss Caroline Bingley faithfully positioned herself near him. There was not another man in the room whom she would ever consider dancing with, so he was her only hope. Darcy, however, knew he was about to disappoint her. He had no intention of doing anything but observe the country bumpkins waste their time in spending away the evening.

A Miss Elizabeth Bennet, too, stood with him, most probably watching her sister dance with Bingley. After a while, she attempted to draw him into conversation, something, as aforesaid, he was not at all interested in.

“Do you dance, Mr Darcy?”

“Not if I can help it.”

He did not bother observe the effect of his abrupt answer on her, and thankfully she went away, leaving himself in peace.

At an interval, Bingley came to Darcy to try and draw him into dancing, or at least talking. He commented on the prettiness of all the girls, to which Darcy coolly replied that Bingley was dancing with the only handsome girl there.

“She is the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld,” agreed Bingley. “But her sister Elizabeth is very agreeable.”

“Fairly tolerable, I daresay, but not handsome enough to tempt me. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Darcy watched coldly as Bingley took his advice. It was true, that Jane Bennet was very handsome, but even if Bingley stopped dancing with her long enough for Darcy to apply for her hand, he did not think it would have agreed with him at all. He planned to dance with no one at all at that disgraceful gathering, least of all a probably senseless country girl.

An unfortunate effect of being Bingley’s companion was that Darcy had to stand with his friend while all those empty-headed country dwellers attempted to converse intelligently with him. Darcy witnessed one such conversation between his friend and the Bennets; Darcy was beginning to dread the name of that family.

“Your friend Miss Lucas is a most amusing young woman!” laughed Bingley to the Bennet ladies, after dancing with the aforesaid.

“Oh yes, I adore her,” said Miss Elizabeth.

“Yes, but it’s a pity she’s not more handsome,” said Mrs Bennet. Darcy could not help looking at her rather long, for fear he misheard her; Bingley’s expression, he had heard her perfectly well. The woman’s daughter Elizabeth tried to hush her, but the silly creature continued, “But Lizzy would never admit that she’s plain; of course, it’s my Jane that is considered the beauty of the county – ” here it was her eldest who contrived to stop her – “she was only fifteen when there was a gentleman so in love with her that I was sure that he would make her an offer – however, he did write her some very pretty verses – ”

“And that would explain it,” cut in Miss Elizabeth laughingly. Darcy’s attention was turned to her. He could not help wondering how she was going to create a diversion for her mother’s sheer impropriety. “I wonder who first discovered the power of poetry in driving away love!”

Bingley laughed, but something made Darcy say, “I though poetry was the food of love.”

Miss Elizabeth gave him only the shortest of stares before returning, “Of a fine, stout love it may, but if it only a vague inclination I am convinced one poor sonnet would kill it stone dead.”

“So what do you recommend?” asked Darcy, before he could stop himself. “To encourage affection,” he was forced to continue, to better explain his interruptive question.He would have done better, though, to keep his silence than to satisfy his curiosity, for with a playful, almost impertinent smile, that Miss Bennet replied, “Dancing; even if one’s partner is barely tolerable.” Just as he surmised that she must have overheard his conversation with Bingley, she curtseyed, turned and walked away.

Thankfully, the evening then passed without his encountering anymore Miss Bennets, except for his watching Bingley devote himself entirely to the eldest. Let him, thought Darcy. It would take his attention away from me. For Darcy’s own attention was beginning to stray toward one in that very same hall; he could not forget his own conversation with a Miss Bennet, the first time he had seen such archness and intelligence in a young woman who had dared to spar with him, in the verbal sense of the word at least. And there was the fact that her dark eyes were full of expression and remarkably fine; finer even than her elder sister’s. Again and again in his mind he replayed the clever way she used her words, in that playful manner; it was not, as he had first thought, impertinence, but an easiness about her that he couldn’t name. And it was not until rather late that evening that he realized that Miss Elizabeth had, in fact, successfully diverted his attention from her mother’s poor display.

2011-10-09T14:45:00.000+08:00

Haha. Did I seriously think I could do this? My head's scattered in a million different places at once. Sigh. I want to write. I haven't in so long.

Killer Elite

2011-10-05T19:51:00.001+08:00

Killer Elite was a very nice movie. Not exactly mind-blowing, but, well, I really really liked it. I decided to go watch it because it's been really long since I watched a good old assassin-based movie, and because, it's a Jason Statham-Robert de Niro movie, and, all right, maybe even Clive Owen factored in a little.

I am a Jason Statham fan and always, always will be. No Jason Statham movie can ever, ever go wrong. From The Italian Job to In The Name of the King to The Transporter to The Expendables, I love him so, so much. GAHH I LOVE JASON STATHAM. He is a BAMF, and a BAMF with a British accent, at that.

And there was Robert de Niro (click on the link if you want your life changed), too, that really old famous actor whom I had no idea existed, but fell in love with in Stardust - (an all time favourite movie, puh-lease). Needless to say, his acting was impeccable, but I never expected him to be so adorable. He actually made managed to make me cry a little (shaddap, I know it's not exactly difficult, but I never expected to).

Third famous name, Clive Owen, whom I know from Shoot 'Em Up and King Arthur. He portrayed the sort of character I always thought he would play best - the annoying, get-under-your-skin one. How can anyone look at that face - and that moustache - without wanting to punch it?

And there was a likeable, very real female character in it, too, one who doesn't have to have her hand held and shushed when screaming. (Unlike the trailer for the movie Abduction.) Oh, apparently she's the girl from Chuck. No, I don't watch Chuck. Come at me bro. No wonder she's so pretty. Plus point!

The storyline was inspired by the non-fiction book The Feather Men, and I wouldn't be surprised if this movie was banned in the UK, but I don't get why it's branded 18+. I mean, only like a dozen people died in it, tops, and not in very gruesome ways. Wait. Maybe more, if you count the unimportant cronies.

We were the first ones in the cinema, which was pretty cool for a while, until one middle-aged man came and sat in front of us. And then another middle-aged man came in. And then another. To our slight relief (we were beginning to think we were the targets of an assassination plot), some other younger guys came in as the advertisements started. Juicy tidbit about me: I love watching cinema ads and trailers. But all in all we were the only girls in the movie hall. Which was pretty funny, because every time Jason Statham punched someone in the balls (he did that pretty often), all the guys around us would go "Ooowwww", one headbanger behind us even going, "Woii, dei" at one point. Li Sar and I were... not quite as affected, I suppose, not being in the position to empathised with the unfortunate victims.

Girls, y u no go watch Killer Elite?!

Update

2011-10-05T18:19:00.001+08:00

Here have a picture.

LOL. I can upload that here from my extremely under-utilised camera phone now I never knew gosh I am so cool sometimes

Lately I've been having a lot of thoughts. Sometimes my head is like a whirlwind full of them, and sometimes there are just one or two thoughts that stay in my mind and don't go away. I think I've been wondering what my life would be like if it were a movie, or a book, or a song. And I've been feeling that it wouldn't be a very good one. Silly thoughts to have, I know, and not very original ones. But oh well. I'll save my deep-rooted confession of how I hate that I'm not good at anything at all for later.

"It's the deep breath before the plunge."

LOL I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THAT HAS ANY RELEVANCE TO ANYTHING AT ALL BUT IT'S AN LOTR QUOTE AND IT MADE ME FEEL BETTER SO LET'S MOVE ON TO HAPPIER THINGS NOW

I've finally got the chance to just talk a lot with the girls lately, and it's really nice - it seems forever since we really just talked about all that nonsense that's in our head. Like the other day during our first forage into prom dress shopping with Nicole and Chalystha, or Monday, when the five of us spent the whole day in school whiling away free periods like we always used to, or yesterday when three of us were conquering the tree trunks in the tapak perhimpunan (I'm glad I got to do that before I left school; it was something I always wanted to do, and the weather was so lovely and I felt like a hipster) - amidst stares from the Sixth Formers. We're going shopping again this Friday and I am very much looking forward to it - I honestly cannot recall the last time the five of us got to go out all together.

Yesterday it struck me and Li Sar that it had also been a long time since we went out on a "date", and so that's what we did today. It was supposed to be lunch, a movie, yumcha and shopping. First thing I did when we got there was buy popcorn. (It's been that long since I've been to the cinema.) We watched Killer Elite, my choice. It was a really nice movie. I was going to post my thoughts on the movie here, but changed my mind, seeing as I am already dying from embarrassment everytime I look at my feedjit and see people arriving at certain posts I made when I was in the most critical fangirl mode - either on Romeo & Juliet, PotC, or *cringe* grey-eyed princes. I don't need someone to search "Killer Elite" and end up reading about my life instead. So I'm going to make a separate, albeit shorter, post on the movie. Lol.

Oh well, but our date was cut short after lunch when Sar had to unexpectedly rush off home. And then I was left stranded in TCM by myself. #foreveralone. After deciding there were no dresses there worth looking at, I texted Xin You, who lives like two seconds away from TCM, to see what he was doing, and he turned out to be in some Indian shop nearby with his watermelon friends. And then miraculously, some time later, Xin You, Calvin and Tzen Ren "bumped" into me in Borders. :) #notforeveraloneafterall. Haha, they are so cute. Even Calvin, who either really really hates me, or just doesn't generally maintain eye contact with humans. It was like when they so chivalrously decided to walk me home after school that one time even though it wasn't anywhere near on the way to wherever they were going. 5A boys. Gotta love 'em.

The Three Musketeers with Gannie-boy tomorrow. Gonna see Legolas and Mr. Darcy act as something other than an elf and a romantic legend! I wonder if it'll be good. I'm going to go and watch the 1993 version tonight and try to read the Alexander Dumas novel tonight, just to be prepared.

I need to read more classics. I'd take a tonload of them over slaving over addmaths any day.

Borders

2011-10-01T14:51:00.000+08:00

I love Borders. A lot. I actually call it my "favouritest place in the world". Which isn't strictly true, but you know. I don't know if it's truly Borders I love, or just, well, the books. I suppose if I were overseas in places where there are other bookstores, I guess I wouldn't really care about Borders. But here, it's Borders I really love. In fact, I am pretty addicted to Borders, probably more so than the average bookworm. Here is how I came to this conclusion, no exaggeration, I swear:

The air in Borders sends me on a high.
I will go inside a Borders outlet just to stand and sniff the air inside it.
I will do anything to smell the air in Borders.
When in a mall, I lie and say I need the loo but in actuality I dash to Borders to sniff the air.
Thanks to my internal Borders GPS, I can get to a Borders with my eyes closed.
I can run from one end of any mall to Borders in heels in record time. Proven.
Sometimes when I haven't been to Borders in really long, I mutter "boh-duhs" repeatedly under my breath and pretend I'm breathing the air there.
When given a choice of mall to visit, I will choose MidV or The Curve, because they have big Borders outlets there.
I will purposely ask my family to take me out with the made-up excuse of spending some quality family shopping time, just so I can spend the day alone at Borders.
I will pretend I'm looking for a shop that doesn't exist which happens to be near Borders.
I will plead out from any shopping party as soon as I can so that I may go to my beloved Borders.
I study in Bangsar Coffee Bean because it's in the same building as Borders.
I study in Bangsar Starbucks because it is in view of Borders.
Once I was supposed to go on a desperate shopping trip alone the weekend before Christmas but when I was dropped off in midv I spent the whole time in Borders.
There is no joy like seeing the big logo of BORDERS from the distance.
It causes me physical pain to be in the same building as a Borders and not at least walk past it.
It is difficult for me to walk past a Borders without entering it.
I can spend hours just sitting on the floor of Borders, even without reading a book.
I love the black armchairs of Borders.
Borders is the only place I can finish books in single sittings.
I consider it an indignity to ask the Borders help desk for directions.
I think I know the Borders shelving system better than most staff there.
I like the way Borders display their recommended books.
I'm running out of reasons.

Goodbye.

Trials

2011-09-29T17:04:00.001+08:00

Trials have officially ended today.

There's nothing particularly special about how I went through trials; I experienced symptoms none too extraordinary - severe lack of sleep, general lack of appetite, unhealthy dependence on coffee, deprivation of favourite things to do, and the occasional breakdowns, neurological or emotional.

The only thing I seem to have contrived that others haven't, however, is a shocking deterioration language-wise, and coupled with some lack of coherence thought-wise, this is going to make for a very unreadable post, but I've wanted to write this for really long. For say what you like, trials were really tough for me, but I got through it, and not by myself.

I love everyone. Like my mum and dad. They took a lot snipes and snaps and outright refusals of food from me that they'd never have taken otherwise. And they supplied me with coffee. (Words cannot express how much that means to me.) And ice cream. And my mum stayed up with me to study most nights. I don't know how they did it and my parents rock.

I love the beautiful girls Nicole Low Yen Yi and Chalystha Lee Yie Qin. Whatsapping with them every day kept me sane. Although sane might not be the operative word. Think about that. Take one girl studying like mad for trials, multiply that by three, and put it into a group conversation, and you won't find anything that makes sense. You'll get a lot of emoticons, that's for sure. (I am addicted to the whatsapp emoticons. Today I put "television" as my answer in Physics because all I could think about was the cute little TV icon whatsapp has.) The two of them reminded me that I wasn't #foreveralone - we were all in the same [insert emoticon of "boat" here] after all.

Ho Hui Jan. I love her sooooo much. Every single day before my papers she would text me a good luck ♥. And they would make me :DDD like anything. It just means a lot that she would take time to remember me stressing out over trials, and make me feel better. Idk what I ever did to get a friend like her and guys, she is just awesome.

I owe Xin You thanks too for he has kept me off the edge several, several times see he can be pretty rockin' when he's not being annoying. (Kidding.) Not least to the ones who keep me company all the time while I'm studying, fellow whatsapp buddy Gan and especially Terence. Never forgetting several awesome teachers I am so lucky to have teaching me, oh you know all the schoolteachers besides that one, that one and that one, but also to Pn. Z and Mr. R.

And to continue in my all-the-speeches-at-the-Grammy's-combined fashion, I would like to thank the music that I listen to, my sort of music, all those amazing, amazing artists who are responsible for the permanent misshapening of my ears due to the earphones of my beloved iPod Alethea - music keeps a person on track when everything else seems off. And I would like to thank my coffee, I love you coffee, starbucks, coffee bean, perak coffee, and of course my one and only drug, my thick black thick black thick black beautiful aromatic lovely wonderful indescribable amazing intoxicating thick black Penang coffee. And my energy supplements and other vitamins. Without popping those five pills a day like a pro I would be sick by now lol.

But one thing I'm going to ensure is that this won't be happening for SPM. I will be ready for it, and I won't be having coffee instead of interstitial fluid in my brain, I won't be pulling three to four eyelashes out every time I aim for my contacts due to lack of sleep, I won't be not eating, and I won't be freaking out. I hope. Sigh. I never thought I would be afraid of failing any of my subjects for trials, either (thanks, addmaths), when I was anticipating this before.

I'm giving myself a week of freedom before getting to for the SPM, during which I need to cram in as many things as I can, such as watching all my beloved TV shows, reading a Bordersful of books, study LOTR to the max, rewatch a bunch of romance movies, tumblr, fangirl like a freak, spend quality time with certain beloveds, and go prom dress shopping. Lol at the last.

Oh, but wait. You want to know what the funny thing is? A very tiny part of me didn't want these trials to end. Because this was the last exam we sat as a class. We're not going to sit for SPM like this. As 5A. 5 perAlihan. Yeap, that's us. I'm not going to be able to turn around and know exactly where everyone's seated, in alphabetical order, anymore. We're not going to be able to do all those stupid things we do during papers that we're not supposed to do. No more "SSSSH"'s from Tzen Ren when someone drops a pencil on the ground. No more tossing around of staplers. No more annoying idiots making water droplet sounds during the paper. No more insanely tense class atmosphere whenever we're all cramming together minutes before the exam starts. No more forever starting late because we always start late. This was our last paper. And now trials have ended, and we're not even going to be a proper class anymore. Today we took down our pictographical "duty rooster" and handed the keys over to the PMR brats. Our time together's up.

Trials have officially ended today.

LAST PAPER GUISE

2011-09-29T15:34:00.002+08:00

AAAAAAAAAKFJEOURIEOINMFSKJOIXDUFOIESUROIENFSDOIFOIEUROISFNOIDJW

LOL THIS POST TITLE IS A 5A JOKE

YOU WON'T GET IT

EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU GET IT

HAHA BUT YOU WON'T GET IT, GET IT?

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA MY BRAINSSSSSSS

Sick Dream

2011-09-23T14:59:00.001+08:00

Warning: This is a shit post

I wonder if after I write this post whether I will change my mind and delete it like I did to the previous one

You wanna know what's freaky I had that previous post up on my blog for all of five minutes and in that five-minute window Hui Jan somehow manages to read it five minutes oh come on

But that freaky is nothing compared to what you're about to read next

I just remembered what I dreamed about last night and I storied it to Cha it was disgusting I am disgusted with my own subconscious know like seriously I feel like horrific right now

Here goes

So I dreamed I was in this warzone place. Like in Iraq or something. It was deserty. Sandstormy. Bomby. I was like part of a unit or something. We were moving through like one sandy tunnel to another in sleeping bags. Yeah in case you didn't get that I was in a warzone.

And that's where I met this demon cat

It looked just like a normal cat. About the same colour as Crookshanks, but it didn't look like a walking carpet bag like Crookshanks does. It was one of the sleek, handsome, pointy-eared cats. Yeah, I said this already, but it looked just like a normal cat.

But it could talk. And boy was it sadistic. It was evil. This cat was evil. It was a demon cat. Purely villainous. And it just kept talking to me. It followed our unit for days. It wanted to kill me more than anything else in the world. Me and my unit. And because it was a demon, it couldn't die. There was no way I was getting rid of it and I would be foolish to try.

But after days of fear and desperation in the warzone, unable to sleep because of the talking cat watching me and talking about my impending doom, I finally reached my breaking point. I seized the cat from under the armpits (you know the way you carry cats) And I took a knife - a standard Swiss Army Knife - and I stabbed it where I thought its heart would be. But the cat just laughed at me and told me I couldn't get rid of it that easily. And that the minute I let the cat go I would be dead. And so I kept stabbing its white-furred undercarriage trying to find its heart, which was still beating, but to no avail. And the cat kept laughing at me and I knew I had to kill it so I started sawing off its limbs. With a Swiss Army Knife. I started sawing, one by one, paw by paw, and it was such a painfully slow process. I knew everything in detail. Like when you cut through the thin layer of fur and skin and then flesh and then you hit the bone and you have to start sawing and I saw bone marrow and muscle and sinew and ligament and warm blood gushing over my hands and the whole time the cat was still talking so I kept sawing and hacking and sawing until I finally sawed off its head and all I was left with were cat body parts.

And then I left the cat's remains behind.

In a pile.

There was fur and blood all over my hands.

But at least the cat stopped talking.

I am a murderer.

September the 11th

2011-09-10T22:58:00.000+08:00

I'm not here to make a post on the conspiracy theories, or the numbers, or the heartwarming stories, or even make a semblance of a very good post at all. There are plenty of those flying around in the whirlwind of the past week or so, with the whole of the United States counting down to the tenth-year anniversary of the nightmare of 9-11. No, this is just me, an ignorant Malaysian girl, for me, taking time off from trials to remember this.

I was only seven, but ten years ago I can still remember being glued to the old television screen, watching the live broadcast that interrupted almost every channel on TV with my parents. I think we started watching the minute they had footage of the first plane crash or something. Yes, I can remember watching the whole thing, for all four coordinated attacks (so many forget that there were four coordinated attacks). It's not something you'd be likely to forget, as far away and irrelevant as it may have seemed to me that decade ago, and it was the only time in my life I ever saw footage of the 9-11 attacks. I remembered almost every thought that went through my head, too, and I'd like to take some time to record down here some of those things I think I should always remember.

Firstly, of course, the victims in the World Trade Centre. So many people, just trying to live through a gruelling day of work, that didn't live through it, and not because of the piling amount of paperwork or their sniping bosses. The ones who died instantly, and the ones who didn't, some of the latter choosing to end their lives by jumping off goodness knows how many stories instead. I think watching that - those people, jumping off to their deaths to avoid another death - was what chilled me the most when I was seven. I asked my mother why they would do such a thing, and my mother told me it was because they had no way out either way. I kept on thinking how bad it must have been for them to have done that. And I distinctly remember wondering, how would I have chosen if I were in their shoes? It was horrible, really, the whole picture of it. The ashes, of course. But another thing I remember was the papers. Papers, papers, so many, flying everywhere, in the air, on the ground, just everywhere. I also found it slightly worse somehow that the buildings didn't collapse straight away - I don't know how, but it just feels worse.

The passengers in the two planes that hit WTC. I'd wondered whether they knew if they were flying to their death. I think the fact was that they didn't. But they knew that they'd been hijacked, and I'm sure some of them must have seen their aircraft flying towards the city and those two buildings. It's no wonder it so deeply rooted a phobia of flying in so many people in the aftermath. Because all these people wanted to do was fly home, or to a family holiday, or finish a business trip, and in the end they get hijacked by terrorists and used as a tool to kill some thousands of other people.

The emergency responders who lost their lives in the rescue attempts. Oh my God, my heart goes out to these true heroes who went in and tried to save lives and had to give up their own in the process. Taken from Wikipedia: The New York City Fire Department lost 341 firefighters and 2 paramedics. NYPD lost 23 officers. Port Authority Police Department, 37. Eight EMTs and paramedics from private hospitals were also killed. Because they went in. I don't know how they did it, but they went in. It was insane of them, but they did it anyway, to try for the long shot, to - I don't know. I'm at a loss of words to describe what these people did - woke up to a nightmare in their very own city and walked straight into it. They made a tribute film some years ago, World Trade Center, I think, and I went to the cinema and watched it and I cried throughout the whole thing.

I don't know much about the Pentagon attack, for some reason, but just because the death toll wasn't as high, it doesn't mean it was any less sickening than the deaths of those in WTC, of course. But what really touched me was the passengers of flight 93. "The Flight That Fought Back". They say this plane was meant for the White House, I think, but it never made it there. The hijacked passengers, after receiving calls from family members about the other hijacked planes and where they ended up, decided to revolt. They all stood up and revolted, and clearly would have won, too, because the hijackers gave up their mission as a lost cause and crashed the plane in a field. The passengers doing that, caused them their lives, yes, but saved what could have been a potential of so many others, and nothing can be said about the bravery of what they did.

And the families. The families who woke up to hear that planes - planes were crashing into WTC, and the very next thought that flashes through their mind is that my wife, my brother, my sister, my loved one, he or she works there. Do you know how many remains of the victims were never found, not at all? The families of the passengers, those who were called by the victims on the flight, to say their last, tearful goodbyes, and those who never got to even hear their voices. The families of those emergency responders who must have been so, so angry at them for going into a deathtrap, no matter how proud they felt. The scars of these families are what is still being felt today.

I need to go now, but I'm happy with what I wrote here, because I don't pretend to know much about anything, but I've gotten it all out, and so there. There's not much you can say to wrap up such a sad post, so I'm not going to try. Thank you for reading.

My Dreams Are Weird

2011-08-29T14:56:00.001+08:00

Okay so I have this amazing ability to have like really long dreams and wake up in the middle of them and then decide I really like the dream and go back to sleep to continue right where I left off. Also when I dream like that it's usually two or three dreams sometimes unrelated that I dream back to back because my mind is in epic dream mode. And I usually refuse to wake up and sleep for like twelve hours straight because my dreams are so awesome.

Unfortunately I can only remember bits and pieces, but here you go.

So in the first dream of my dreams last night, I redreamed an alternate-universe version of the last Harry Potter. I swear if it had been made into a real movie the ratings would've topped Inception let me tell you that. It was like mind-blowing, I swear. The movie was set in India, in a part slum, part ancient ruin part of India. It was amazing. The story line started out following Harry, Ron and Hermione who were on the run from Death Eaters. They kept on hiding out in various Indian slumhouses and being helped by various Indian people-who-lived-in-slumhouses. Then they met McGonagall and kept running from the slumhouses that kept on getting blown up. The whole time they were counting on Snape to bail them out, because they already knew about Snape being a quadruple agent and his past with Lily but he didn't die (see my version is so much better). And there was one extremely pivotal part when Harry & Co. were being jinxed at and they were waiting for the stone doors of this ancient open-air ruin to open so they could like get in and not be jinxed at and they were waiting and waiting for the doors to open so desperately like, God where is Snape, and then suddenly the ancient stone doors swing open, and the jinxing stops, and Harry looks at Snape standing dramatically in the way, waiting for them to run in and take cover, and for one fleeting moment Harry looks into those cold black eyes and has a wavering doubt. Could he really trust Snape, he wonders. But then there's a beat and a flashback sequence ensues, and from the still bat-like figure of the standing Snape a silvery, Patronussy Snape figure steps out. And the flashback sequence takes place so that only Harry can see it while in reality time has frozen, and he with tears in his eyes watches a most beautiful series of scenes outlining the pure and sweet yet tragic love that Severus Snape has always had for Lily Evans. Yes, there was also a silvery Patronussy figure of Lily in this awesome flashback sequence. And then there's a huge explosion behind Harry, bringing him back to the present, and Hermione screams his name, forcing him to make a decision, and this time Harry's sure: he surges forward through the gateway, and Snape joins them as they all scramble to push back the stone doors against the Death Eaters and for the moment, they're safe.

That's all I can remember really of the Harry Potter dream. The dream then changes to uh someone (don't ask who) using my MyKad for something which is bad because bad guys are after me and that's like unfortunate because well bad guys want to kill me and then it changes back to me being stuck at this castle-like school where we are all dragon riders and I'm very special like a chosen one or something and people still want to kill me and my family the villain is this evil woman with red hair and a green high-collared dress btw the dragon I ride (my very own dragon, very huge!) is pale jade green in colour. And there was this awesome guy who helps me when I'm like trying not to be killed haha his dragon was blue.

This is almost as bad as the other day when I dreamed I was a detective investigating how people keep getting kidnapped/murdered whenever they leave this departmental store. So I'm checking out the departmental store when I realise that it's because the kidnappers/murderers are leaving messages inside the envelopes of greeting cards for sale and that's how they lure the victims. As I make this important discovery my fictional best friend is with me and she's getting all snappy I see that it's because she was behind it all along. She pushes me to the floor and rushes out of the departmental store and my head is bleeding and my fictional boyfriend helps me up but I realise that he was in on it with my best friend all along but he says he's sorry. And then I make my way home to an orphanage on top of the hill with my bleeding head where I meet all my church friends and then we have to cover up the blinds because duh people want to kill me now. And then the orphanage is having a walk around town and I have to go but I can't on account of my bleeding head so I get this enormous flying gorilla to take me on his back instead.

You see guise, this is how my subconscious works. It's not a very sensible place up here, I'm afraid. I'm sure people have weird dreams too but I'm also equally sure not many of them have dreams as weird as mine. And these are only the ones I can remember. So give me the benefit of the doubt when I say I think I have dreams weirder than is generally considered weird.

Sunshine

2011-08-27T18:06:00.000+08:00

Sunshine

by jacietanchenghwee

Take that golden sunshine

And collect it with your finger

Drip it off your fingertip

It'll be just like golden butter

Take that sunshine, spread it far

Spread it yonder 'cross the earth

Because with that sunshine there'll be stars

And smiles and laughter will be birthed

Don't forget to remember me

When you're giving out sunshine free

Don't forget to remember me

In your sunshine-spreading spree

I'll love you, yes, I will, I will

If only you and sunshine come,

I swear my heart will be yours to still,

If you gave me sunshine, oh just give me some.

haha omg what even I don't make sense sometimes you know that?

2011-08-16T22:49:00.000+08:00

Guise, I'm not eating. If you know my appetite, you'll know how bizarre this is, because it's not even exam period. I don't know why. Everytime I see food I feel like throwing up. Is it because my mind is all calm and unstressed so my body needs to make up for it by being depressed instead? If so, then dear body, please cheer up, because you've successfully sobered up the mind, seeing as how undernourishment does that to someone.

Sigh. Going to go drink coffee now.

2011-08-15T16:07:00.000+08:00

Hi guise. Sorry I never really have time to blog, as much as I do want to. Blogging is pretty tiring work. I started on a post on Kellie's Castle yesterday, but then I realised I was rambling, which is not good. So then I decided to put in pictures to offset the rambling, but then I realised it was taking up too much time. And now I have no time at all to even ramble. Haha.

I really enjoyed myself, though, yesterday. It was a great trip with the parents, I got to drive for over an hour on the North-South Highway, and I fell head over heels in love with the shambled old stone castle. You would, too, if you had an appreciation for British colonisation-era architecture and an imagination. Everyone should go to Kellie's Castle.

Do go check out the pictures I took of the lovely place - there are pictures of the place, yes, even if I happen to be in them! - just in case I never get down to writing the post. ):

Click. :)

One Day by David Nicholls

2011-07-08T18:07:00.001+08:00

So I was in Borders TCM and a book called to me again. I read the first chapter there and went home and downloaded it onto my Kindle. Bless my Kindle.

One Day is a very unique novel because each chapter tells the story of only one day of a year. Basically, the novel visits the lives of Emma and Dexter every 15 July starting on the year they first met, 1988, and spans twenty years. They are sometimes together, sometimes not, in each chapter.

It's a life story, not really a love story, and that's the greatest part about this book. Em and Dex, Dex and Em, they're best friends, which is pretty hard to believe, because they're so incredibly different. When they spend graduation night together in 1988, Emma's got double first-class honours and dreams of changing the world, and Dexter's a wealthy charmer who want to smoke as many cigarettes and dance in as many bars as he can.

As we follow their life stories, we see these two evolve from university graduates to young working people, from young working people to family people, and these transitions are not the typical story-bookish kinds - Nicholls isn't one to shy away from the darker side of life, the harshness of reality, the bitterness of disillusionment. Unemployment, unglamourous jobs, peer pressure, loss of friendship, loss of family, the ending of dreams, and broken love - it's all there. It's a bit painful, really, not usually my sort of book, especially towards the second half and ending, but I like it all the same - partially because I feel like I can relate a lot to Emma, and wholly because the murky adult life is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Also, this book is very British, which adds a few couple thousand plus points to it. Thanks to this book, I now want to go to Scotland not only to fulfill my lifelong dream of getting married in a castle (clearly this book hasn't been that much of a wake-up call for me), but also to visit Arthur's Seat. Fifteenth July is known as St. Swithin's Day, by the way - I didn't know that! Another couple thousand bonus points to the book for highlighting this poem.

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain nae mare

Now as you can see, I've put the movie cover of the book up as a picture because this is one of those rare instances where the movie cover is much better than the original cover of the book. Yes, it's be made into a movie; it should be out August, and I can't wait, although it probably won't even reach Malaysian shores. I've seen the trailer (which I recommend you not to watch if you dislike spoilers.)

It stars Anne Hathaway (I love Anne Hathaway!) but I'm feeling a bit apprehensive. I think she's a bit too pretty to be Emma Morley. Also, I've heard Anne's British accent in Becoming Jane, which was borderline atrocious. Emma's supposed to be Scottish! I agree with some of the people online who think Carrey Mulligan would've been a better choice. Or maybe not, because remember Emma is a character who ages twenty years throughout the movie, and that's not easy to carry off. Jim Sturgess (whoever he is) seems a bit too soft to be Dexter, as well, but that's only what I can tell from the trailer. Still, I do have high expectations for this movie!

Read the book, if only once through, and hurry - do it before the movie comes out.

I'm Sorry

2011-07-07T17:28:00.000+08:00

It's funny how one minute I can be like talking and laughing and the next just crying. I think it's a bit like forgetting, and then at the slightest trigger, the cover's blown and you remember that you're miserable again. But I never used to be able to turn on the waterworks quite so easily. (Books and movies not included.) It makes me hate myself, a little. And if I hate myself, how can the people around me not hate me, too?

I hate myself for not even having a legitimate reason to be an idiot.So what if things are a bit stressful at home. At least I have a home, right? No, that's not the real reason. If I looked very carefully at the patterns I've formed, I'd know exactly why I'm being so retarded. But I can't say it out loud. Because it's churlish, ridiculous, and just plain stupid, and maybe if I don't say it it will go away, as if it were never there in the first place, and then I will be stuck with being difficult for no apparent reason.

I feel like I'm a walking time bomb, a stress trigger about to blow, which is immensely self-centred than me, because there are millions of people going through much worse than I am, because I'm not going through anything at all.

So I'm not the easiest person to be around right now. If you haven't noticed it, then thank you, because that means I'm doing a good job. But what a stupid thing to thank someone for. There are several someone's I would like to thank for really good reasons.

Thank you, for ignoring my ill-founded fits of lack of self control, and dealing with me when I'm like that. Thank you, for being sincerely oblivious to them, and having your normal cheerful days so they always bleed into mine. Thank you, for always catching me when I'm about to walk out the door. Thank you, for bothering to speak to me to try and get me off the literal floor. Thank you, for putting up with the snarkiness you would never have normally put up with.

You may know which you you are, or you might not even be reading this blog, but thank you anyway, and I'm sorry.

The Silmarillion

2011-06-29T15:13:00.000+08:00

This is why the copy of The Silmarillion my neighbour lent me maybe two years ago roughly looks like. It was published in 1979, so its pages are completely yellow, with extremely tiny font, and every time you turn a page there is a one in two chance that you'll tear the edge a little. At the time, what happened was I got past the first chapter, nearly died, skipped ahead to the eagerly-awaited chapter Of Beren and Luthien, didn't understand a word, went to the last chapter, which I finally grasped, then gave it up as a lost cause. But I never gave it back to my neighbour (eheheh) because although back then I succumbed to weakness and gave up, I knew that one day I was going to master The Silmarillion once and for all.

Friends. That day has come.

First of all, let me explain. The Silmarillion isn't an easy read - at least, I found it exceedingly difficult, and I've tried my share of classics. It's basically a history of Middle-Earth, wa-ay before the setting of The Lord of the Rings, that was written in bits and pieces by J.R.R. Tolkien and later compiled by his son. It's about twice as hard to read as a sejarah textbook. Alright, for me, reading The Silmarillion is just impossible to do. You have to study it. Half of the names of everything is in Elvish - worse still, each clan of Elves have a different tongue - and you have to know the meanings. Until now I'm still floundering in the complex geography of the book. If you think the geography of Middle Earth is bad, wait 'til you realise that in The Silmarillion, you have to know the geography of the divine realms as well, and how it's connected to the mortal lands. (And the names of these places keep on changing.) There are a lot of confusing names, of both people and places, that sound alike - take for example Fingolfin and Finarfin, brothers who have sons named Fingon and Finrod, and the worst part is, many of the characters have more than one name in more than one language. Almost everyone is interrelated as is expected with early civilisations, and you just completely forget who belongs to whose house and whatnot. The omnipresent Valar, which are something like gods, except they're not, are also always there to divinely confuse you. In fact I think the Valar was the most complicated part of all.There is no story, just tales and tales that go on and on, and that's why I like to say that The Silmarillion is like a textbook, except that our textbooks chaptered are far more systematically. They would throw you a fleeting line at the beginning, like, oh, this guy thinks this fair maiden is easy on the eyes, and then two hundred pages later, when the lady marries someone else, you're expected to know that the aforesaid guy is furious at heart because he liked that girl before, and of course you don't even remember that singular sentence. The book covers a very long span of years, with a very big number of battles, which means that the book covers a lot of lives and a lot of deaths. Basically, once you get introduced to a character, more than half of the time as soon as you get to know them they die, in numerously painful and imaginative ways. If it weren't for the helpful family trees and index at the back, I never would've gotten through this book.

But I loved it. I feel very "learned in lore", and I'm over the moon. I got through every single word, no shortcuts, right up to the index, and this has been a tremendous accomplishment for me. Any Tolkien fan would love this book, although not every Lord of the Rings fan would. It's pretty much unconnected to LOTR, with few character crossovers, only Elrond, Galadriel, Sauron and minimal Aragorn. Alright, I'll be honest. I wanted to read this book just for Beren and Luthien, the ancient tale which was mirrored by the fate of Aragorn and Arwen. Why I didn't just read that one chapter I'll never know, but I'm glad that's not what I did. The Silmarillion was an amazingly rich, brocaded tapestry of history and mythology, a hundred per cent fictional, insanely detailed, and inspiringly original. It was beautiful and heroic, tragic and powerful, fully worked out high fantasy legend, all out of Tolkien's impossible head, and as if I needed any further convincing, it truly proves that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was one of the greatest writers that ever lived.

Alrighty. Now that's done and over with, I'm going to go re-read The Lord of the Rings.

LOTR Love

2011-06-20T15:50:00.002+08:00

Today in school I felt like how I did when I stayed up til 4.30a.m. to watch the FIFA games.

Which is funny, because all I did was watch eight hours straight of the Lord of the Rings before going to bed at one in the morning.

Note to self: When embarking on a LOTR marathon weekend, make sure you spread it out over the weekend instead of cramming two movies into the latter part of the last day.

I always thought that the extended versions of LOTR were like three hours per movie. It turns out I was far off the mark.

Time flies when you're watching LOTR.

It's nice to know, that even after all this time, I can still say some of the lines before they're delivered.

It's nice to know that LOTR can still cure anything.

Headache today was worth it. I'm the happiest girl alive.

My Sacrament of Confirmation

2011-06-13T16:05:00.004+08:00

I've been looking forward to getting confirmed for a really long time. Before this, I'll admit it was for not so very noble reasons, but I think when the year started, something kicked in that made it mean so much more. After dutifully fulfilling my 24-hour social service, my two-day Living the Spirit Seminar, my four-day camp, these three events which successively grew in awesomeness, I was readier than ever. To tell you the truth I lived the week or so after Confirmation Camp in a feverish frenzy just waiting for the big day. And, I hope you know me well enough to realise that as superficial that this post may seem, I had a hold on both my head and heart.

Well, 11 June 2011 finally came and went, and I received my fourth sacrament, the sacrament of Confirmation. :)

This a card from my godparents, which I would love even if it weren't from London, which it is.

With a necklace and a "Remembrance of Confirmation" ribbon. Loove.

My confirmation name is Elizabeth, by the way, which would make me Jacie Elizabeth Tan Cheng Hwee if I cared to put into my IC. Why? Three reasons.

Elizabeth, mother of John of the Baptist

Elizabeth Bennet

Elizabeth II the Queen

Don't laugh, okay. It's a very nice Englishy name and it's most importantly, biblical.

Wearing a nametag sucks even when it isn't confirmation day.

Lol, and this is something I bought myself last Christmas.

My confirmation mass was held on the weekend of Pentecost, too, which I think was really lucky, being it the weekend of the Holy Spirit and all. :)

I've been dreaming about my confirmation dress for years now (lol at me go ahead) and last year my sister Jamie gifted one to me. It was the loveliest, prettiest, sweetest white dress I'd ever seen, exactly what I'd been looking for, and I love her so much for it.

There was a bit of a rush finding a cardigan for it in the end, but I think it still looked nice.

*jakhoonface*

Also bless Carlo Rino for having 50% off on the rockingest pair of white wedges ever.

My hair was a problem, since I didn't want to go to a saloon but if you've ever tried to style my hair you'll know how difficult it is to do anything with. In the end, with the help of the Lord of the Rings and the worldwideweb, I found out what I wanted. It looked simple, but was made possible only by my mommy. Kudos to her, man. She practiced diligently for ages until we finally got it right (with the help of hairspray, of course. Lots.) And thanks to Chalystha for advising. :)

The mass was *sniffs* beautiful. Celebrated by the archbishop, Fr. Simon Yong and some random third person. Haha sorry I seriously don't know who he is, a friar of some sort. I will ignore the fact that I was sweating like a mad cow because I got a leeedle bit of fan where I was sitting and I was sitting right in front so I couldn't fidget. (Lol this is the seventeen-year-old newly-confirmed talking!)

And now, let me tell you a story. Jacie wants badly to be confirmed by bishop. There is 80% chance those on the left will be confirmed by bishop. Those on the right will be confirmed by priest. Group 1 sits on the left. Jacie is in Group 1. Jacie is happy. Jacie discovers she is among those reading Prayer of the Faithful. These people sit on the right. Jacie has a sad. A very, very big sad.

But in the end I was confirmed by the bishop. ;)

It was a very stone moment for me. Actually, a couple of very long stone moments. It was so stone that looking back I'm a little bit scared at how stoned I was that if I ever wanted to do drugs before I definitely never will now. It's so scary when your mind doesn't know what your body is doing. Everyone was like stalling when we were supposed to go up and I was, well, stoning and I didn't even know that that was the moment or that I'd actually gotten the bishop like I'd wanted and I forgot that I was supposed to reply him (but I did, okay, because if you've been Catholic long enough you just know the responses to these things) but I was just really happy 'cause he said my name really nicely so it was worth wearing that stupid name tag and then I was anointed with the oil and then it was over and I slowly stopped stoning and slowly started feeling happy. I'd been looking forward to this so much it's good that it wasn't anticlimactic or anything but it sure was pretty funny that I didn't know what was going on.

Haha, and of course my Prayer of the Faithful has to be the longest with the most punctuation.

Oh, yeah, and Chalystha and Xin You came. :) Chalystha has with me this long-standing promise that she would attend my confirmation mass, and she did. I was so freakin' happy she came. And with Xin You, of course. I can't believe the two of them sat through a full-blown Catholic mass for me. I've already told them it meant a lot, and I'll never forget it. Haha, and Andrew Chin came as well. To see us all get confirmed. :)

Call me cheesy if you want, but I felt blessed, because it's on that kind of day that you want to be surrounded by people that you love.

Sarah Nunis, one third of my girls in SFX :)

Kristie Chew, the dancer

Jane Wong, my group member

My sponsor

My precious Rachel

Our Richard

Chalystha and Xin You :D

Philip Philip Philip Tay. I don't know why I'm so glad he's my Confirmation CC, but I am. The picture is as blur as he looks. :P

My new godparents - Aunty Immilda and Uncle Anto. Watched me grow up, they did.

Last but not least, my family. I love them so much.

Oh, and the bishop, minus hat which fascinated me throughout mass and before and tongkat.

And now I feel guilty that I don't have group pics so this is half of my batch LOL.

People I didn't get pictures with but wanted to: Stuart Thomas. Herman Ramanado. Andrew Chin. Monica Kok.

Sigh.

So ends one journey, but opens up another, which shows you that faith is a path you walk that really is forever.

2011-06-01T21:48:00.000+08:00

I'm teetering on the edge of indecision.

Confirmation Camp was equal parts awesome and good.

Two completely different things.

Should I attempt to blog about it?

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-27T15:36:00.002+08:00

After spending my three-week midterms shutting my eyes whenever they flashed me a trailer, clapping my hands over my ears the instant they played a quote on the radio, and savagely flipping over newspaper ads, I did the only logical thing a Pirates fan would do - I went and watched the fourth installment on the very day my exams ended.

I really, really liked it. More than the previous two movies. I'm so glad I didn't give myself the chance to listen to any of the bad reviews beforehand, because I really enjoyed On Stranger Tides. I find it really sad that so many people didn't like or even hated it, but I suppose I can see why. It's very rare that a franchise starts up a movie after the end of a trilogy, and when that does happen, it's usually strung-out for money and very dry. I've also heard that people have gotten tired of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Gotten tired of Captain Jack Sparrow!

Incomprehensible!

After The Curse of the Black Pearl, the movies have all gotten successively bigger and bigger, and with Pirates 4, they realised that they couldn't make it - well, any bigger. So they brought it back down to focus more on the very essence of the movie, the characters, which, of course, means Captain Jack Sparrow.

Jackie had me in stitches from the beginning to the end, and he was so very Captain Jack Sparrow it's so nice to see he hadn't lost it. Whether it was the fight scenes, the one-liners, the sashaying, his compass, his love for the Pearl, the amazing ways he gets himself out of scrapes, he was so essentially Jack Sparrow that for me, nothing was left wanting in his character, and that of course left me very happy. I was so afraid that Jack would be all moony over his love interest, that Penelope Cruz girl Angelica, but he wasn't, and it was all done very well in total Jack style. Jack Sparrow FTW!

I really like the plot (although it was marginally marred by inconsistencies of Angelica's character) and though people hated it because it was the typical find-the-Fountain-of-Youth tale, one of the reasons I loved it was because of that. It was a legend, and I love legends. It's been done before, but every interpretation is different and since everyone's already doing new things already, I don't see why others shouldn't have a shot and recreating something old. Personally I think if ever anyone needed a sip from the Fountain of Youth it would be Keira Knightley's character, but I agree that Elizabeth and Will's story was already played out and I'm glad they didn't come back.

And then there were mermaids.

Mermaids.

Mermaids.

MERMAIDS!

Mythical creatures being a pivotal part of PotC, and those mythical creatures being mermaids, interpreted in the only way mermaids should be interpreted, are basically my wildest dreams come true. Every sequence with a mermaid in it was done amazingly well. The mermaids were as deceptively beautiful, hauntingly hideous and insanely deadly (they have fangs!) as mermaids are supposed to be, especially the incomparable First Mermaid Tamara, played exceedingly well by Gemma Ward. I keep saying that I understand how sailors would willingly be pulled overboard to be subsequently killed - I would, to get a kiss from that mermaid. And Astrid Berges-Frisbey, our dearest Syrena, mermaid with the best accent ever, looks like Arwen from Lord of the Rings. I suppose I don't have to express my joy at that last bit.

Speaking of which, I doubt that any hopeless romantic can watch this movie and go away disappointed, because I sure as hell didn't. :) That's enough said, and I plead the Fifth. I refuse to go on on the grounds that it might incriminate me. I do remember that this is blogger, not tumblr, and shameless fangirl ships is not frowned upon here.

Because there was a little bit more breathing time in this movie, I got to marvel at the very subtle themes of it. Every movie, action or adventure or whatnot, has something in it that can make you think - it's just buried a little bit deeper and takes a little bit longer to unearth. (Even chick flicks, I suppose, although you might kill your brain in the unearthing process, which would henceforth render you unable to think.) The thin line between right and wrong, and the ever-shifting balance of trust and alliances in Jack Sparrow's character, with the double-crossing and hidden agendas, did keep me happily occupied amidst the sword clashing. I found it funny that it seemed that they were all after the same thing, but they weren't, not really.

Bonuses: Barbossa, who will beat Blackbeard out any day, even though Blackbeard is a legend and Barbossa is not. The Black Pearl, considerably shrunk in size, monkey still intact. Wriggle-in-ecstasy-bone-chilling-goosebump-inducing music, by the one and only Hans Zimmer. Seeing pirates on land. Having a missionary on board a pirate ship. The British. The Spanish (hahahha Catholics). The comforting feeling you get when you know pirate ships still work no matter how many holes they have in their sails.

Never a perfect movie, but getting me to say it wasn't good would be like getting a Potter fan to say that about one of their movies.

Who am I kidding I am a freakin' Potter fan too okay gotta go bye.

William & Kate's Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T22:26:00.004+08:00

I've always been somewhat a fan of the royal family. Besides that, what hopeless romantic doesn't love a fairytale royal wedding? So I've been a-looking forward to today for the past two weeks, resolving to even skip school to watch it live if need be - ergo it was a relief that the ceremony was to take place at eleven a.m. British time. Due to several complications, I came home from school today with a splitting, skull-pounding headache, which is lingering until now - which meant I couldn't watch all the specials if I wanted to catch some shut eye before the ceremony. I compensated by sleeping with the TV on until 4 p.m., when I got up and was dutifully glued to the screen for the next five hours.

It was a beautiful wedding. Why? Let us enter Jacie Tan Cheng Hwee's ever-hurting, ever-tender cauliflower brain. (Pride & Prejudice & Zombies reference.)

Watching all the guests arrive in all their British splendour (and hats).

Seeing trees in Westminster Abbey.

Seeing the glorious Bentley in which the princes arrived.

All the other cars - Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars.

Seeing Prince William in startling army red, with his special blue sash and pilot wings.

Anti-Charles&Camilla-ing.
Nearly tearing up when Kate walked the aisle.

Pippa's lovely, simple white dress with the awesome neckline!

The fact that Harry was just laughing and smirking the whole day.

HARRY AND PIPPA. THEY NEED TO GET TOGETHER. NOW. ZOMG LOOK AT THE WAY THEY WERE WALKING TOGETHER ARM IN ARM AND STANDING TOGETHER LIKE FREAKIN' BFFS

Anyway.

William having to face in the opposite direction as Kate walked down the aisle. Harry was the one who was looking at her over his shoulder, and then he gleefully whispering to his brother, (allegedly "Right, here she is now" and "Wait 'til you see her") before having to turn his back as well. ~~To which William probably responded shut up asshole look in front they way I have to~~

GAHH I LOVED THIS MOMENT

William telling Kate she looked beautiful as she joined him at the altar.

William's voice. (Bald patch or no bald patch, it doesn't matter when you're a prince and you sound like that when you read your wedding vows.)

Kate's voice.

All the seen-but-unheard conversation between William and Kate throughout the day.

The Bishop of London's address.

The ring almost getting stuck.

Today being St. Catherine's Feast Day. (I always thought Friday the 29th was a stupid date for a wedding.)

Kate's arrival at 11.01 (it was the struggle with train in the car that made her late!)

William's getting into the wrong side of the carriage.

Kate's smiles the whole day, and her energetic waves. (She obviously never watched Princess Diaries.)

Kate struggling with her train upon arrival at Buckingham Palace (where was Pippa?!)

I loved Kate's dress. I thought she looked absolutely lovely. It was all very elegant and modern and highlighted her natural beauty. The neckline was so very Kate Middleton and the lace was so pretty, it made up for her very simple dress and train. The veil was the crowning glory - it was draped beautifully and had lovely flyaway edges and was so sheer it was beautiful. Her tiara - which belonged to the Queen Mother (William's great-grandmother) was exquisite. Her earrings were a wedding gift from her parents. And I loved her bouquet. The only complaint I had about the dress was that it disabled her from walking on anyone's arm. All her father and William could do was grip her hand, and even then William was forever stepping on her dress, and, well, he didn't to get to lead his bride out on his arm!

Oooh, and the balcony part. (In case you didn't notice, Harry and Pippa were standing together.) Kate gave a spontaneous "wow" when she saw the crowd. The first kiss was so disappointingly fast. William gave an embarrassed smile and Kate bit her lip - they were so shy! But William listened to the chanting crowd (Kiss again!) and they gave a second, longer kiss. I personally think they should've gone for a hattrick and kissed thrice. Then again, they probably would've gotten into a lot of trouble seeing as you're really only supposed to kiss once.

Photos from tumblr, as usual, click for link.

From the Huffington post

Click to see this lovely tumblr picture post.

I'd go on here about the royal family, the history of it, the importance of the existence of the monarchy at this time, its future the change Diana brought about, and why she was so loved, but maybe another time. :) Lots of love, from the long-winded, detail-crazy headachy girl, me.

Broken Strings

2011-04-26T23:28:00.001+08:00

By Jacie Tan Cheng Hwee

Laura sipped her coffee as she watched the greyness of the rain, falling down past her window. Tucked up in her robe, she sat still as she let each thought sidle through her mind. It was a Sunday morning. Her coffee was a full-bodied roast. The rain fell down in a straight line, which meant it wasn’t being slanted by the wind.

The kitchen door opened then, and Jack stepped him. Laura looked at him, dripping water on the tiles of the floor. He’d just come back from his morning jog. They stared at each other for a while, and it occurred to Laura that she ought to say something. But she realised this too late, and Jack was already making his way to a towel.

He was back too soon, seated in the chair opposite her, a matching cup of coffee in his hand. Laura looked carefully at the wood grain of the table. It was hard to believe that this was the man who used to make her laugh like she’d never had before, that this was the man with which she could spend the whole day not talking and still call it one of the best days of her life.

It was different now. The silence between them was tense, weighted. The worst part about it was that it was becoming all too familiar.

Jack gripped his mug handle tightly, and took a swig of coffee. It was too hot and it burned his throat on its way down. But even the pain was preferable, in comparison to the nothingness.

When Jack first saw Laura, it was like a ray of sunshine had walked into his world. Her eyes shone like stars, her fair hair shone like newly spun gold, and her smile could stop him dead in his tracks. She was wearing a red and white floral printed picnic dress, perfect for a day in the park. Jack had let her go by that first time. He ended up coming back to the same park, every day at the exact same time for a week, before he found her again. This time, he wasn’t taking any chances. He went up to her and spoke to her, and when he’d heard her voice for the first time, he was lost for good.

Eighteen months later, and here he was, sitting in front of that same celestial Laura. She had to be the same. She was just as beautiful, and just as lovely. But although she was the same, she had changed. Either that, or the way he saw her had.

She raised her eyes to his, and in that fleeting instant he realised that if Laura had ever seen him in a special way, then she’d lost it, too.

That moment, that one wordless moment when their eyes had locked, Jack and Laura were more honest with one another than they had been in a very long time.

Lightning struck and a clap of thunder ensued. Jack blinked, startled, and Laura jumped up. “You should change,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Jack, agreeing to what she said, as he had always been doing of late.

“I’ll get the mugs,” she said, reaching over the table to take his. Her hand touched his as she did, and from the oddness she suddenly felt, Laura realised it had been some time since they’d even touched hands. She bit her lip.

“I love you,” she said, after some hesitation, and she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.

He didn’t say anything as he got up and left the kitchen, and she didn’t even resent him for it. Leaving the water to run as she turned to stare at him leave, she realised that the words didn’t mean anything anymore.

And they now both knew it.

I have no idea what this is. Written from 10.52p.m. - 11.20 p.m., in one go, no editing. I will regret this later. "Inspired" by James Morrison and Nelly Furtado's Broken Strings. With a little Karyn White's Superwoman. I need to go get a life. I don't write short stories.

Updating for the sake of updating.

The WWII Times Square Kiss

2011-04-09T22:03:00.001+08:00

One of the most famous kisses of all time, photographed by both Alfred Eisenstaedt and Victor Jorgensen. It was the day the President of the United States announced that the devastation that was World War II was officially over. A sailor went wild on the streets of Time Square, grabbing every female in sight - young, old, married, he didn't care - and kissing them. Alfred Eisenstaedt captured this picture - which until this day remains indelibly stamped in popular culture. He says he only took the picture because of the sailor's black uniform and the nurse's white dress. Several people have come forward claiming to be the nurse and sailor but really, nothing can be truly confirmed.

Victor Jorgensen's shot of the scene.

It was an entirely spontaneous kiss between two complete strangers, in celebration of the ending of an inferno. Thanks to these photographs, it became an entirely spontaneous immortalised kiss.

Sigh.

Out and In

2011-04-04T15:37:00.001+08:00

I went for ICC this year, because it was on Cha's birthday, and because the amazing Kee Joey and the amazing Nicole Low were performing.

Happy belated birthday, Chalystha Lee!

And congratulations Deviation! You guys did really well.

Letters #3, #6, and #9 done solely by yours truly.

Basically on that day what we did was zoom around the whole of KL on trains. I've not had much experience taking public trains, but the amount of train rides I took on Saturday was more than enough to make up for it. I am now a pro.

Two little first things happened on that day, as well, one good, one, er, not so good.

Firstly, as Gan and I were leaving Fahrenheit 88 mall, I saw a popcorn vendor. On a whim I went up to the popcorn dude and asked him how much was one. He told me it was free.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but I got free popcorn. :')

The second thing was that someone called me a hooker.

-___-

It isn't nice, when you're walking a KL street in broad daylight, to have one of those losers sitting on the sidewalk waiting to get hit by a car go "Amoi, berapa harga" at you.

-___-

Okay, no need to say KL la. It's about an eight minute walk to my church, five if I run (six if I'm running while choking on my toast), along a main road, and half the time I don't make it to church without being whistled, honked or leered at, and there's not a single day I can walk without having to worry about getting snatch-thefted by motorcyclists. Sometimes I wonder if the extra minutes of sleep is worth the hassle I go through walking alone to church on a bright Sunday morning.

And don't think you're safe, anywhere. School isn't as safe as you think it is, girls.

Okay, I need to go now. I have decided that if I'm going to sit for BK I'm going to do it properly, so this is what my reading list looks like right now.

The Atlas of Past Times (for BK and Sejarah)

The Old Testament of the Bible (for BK)

Hamlet (for myself)

About 8 textbooks (for my mom)

I need to be able to read this fast.

Help

2011-04-01T15:17:00.002+08:00

Sometimes I wonder if I really do have some mild form of social disorder.

How do you find out if you do?

Keep Reading

2011-03-31T17:13:00.002+08:00

No point apologising for sporadic and nonsensical updates if this blog is my own, and not an obligation, is there? So, yeah. Akjdaoiruoeurio Pn. Manjeet finally marked our essay (note the singular) after two whole months (note the plural), and I'd love to share it with you all, together with the one I wrote for last year's exam to do with a suicidal girl talking to trees. They're mediocre compositions but I do love them and I hope I don't forget!

However, the things I have to do nowadays after school (more or less in order) is fulfill fangirl cravings, homework, talk to myself, and sleep, with eating in between, and they're all respectively time-consuming.

Oh, and reading. It's hard to fit it in but I manage.

I'm studying Hamlet very meticulously and am hoping that I am well on my way to becoming one of those insanely intimidating people who can quote by act and scene number. I'm surprised how enjoyable I find Shakespeare now and I can't wait to be done with Hamlet so I can reread Romeo & Juliet.

Girlfriend Wanted

2011-03-31T17:01:00.002+08:00

Because this is just too afkajroisx, I'm afraid I have no choice but to let it have a post of its own. This was taken from actor Matthew Gray Gubler's wordpress blog and shows how special he just really is.

Girlfriend Wanted

Matthew Gray Gubler

must love decorating for holidays
mischief
kissing in cars
and wind chimes
no specific height
weight
hair color
or political affiliation required
but would prefer a warm spirited non racist
cynics
critics
pessimists
and “stick in the muds” need not reply
voluptuous figures a plus
any similarity in look, mind set, or fashion sense to
mary poppins
claire huxtable
snow white
or elvira wholeheartedly welcomed
i am dubious of actresses, fellons, and lesbians
but dont want to rule them out entirely
must be tolerant of whistling
tickle torture
james taylor
and sleeping late
i have a slight limp
eerily soft hands
and a preternatural love of autumn
I once misinterpreted being called a coal-eyed dandy as a compliment when it was intended as an insult
I wiggle my feet in my sleep
am scared of the dark
and think the Muppets Christmas Carol is one of the greatest films of all time
all i want is
butterfly kisses in the morning
peanut butter sandwiches shaped like a heart
and to make you smile until it hurts

If that didn't make you smile until it hurt, I don't know what will.

Also, I found this picture on tumblr and saved it, but try as I may, I could not find the original source, so I have no idea who made it. So I'm really sorry that I can't link to the rightful owner.

Thank you, tumblr.

Láska

2011-03-28T16:53:00.010+08:00

I've been neglecting my blog. Maybe because mostly blog posts aren't good if they don't have some thought to them. And I'm just so afraid of thinking nowadays. I just don't want to. It's tiring, and since I have that coveted ability of going days on end without thinking, I decided to make full use of it.

But here's the post, thought-based or otherwise - which will probably just take forever.

Post title means "love" in Slovakian, so you know what this is about.

No, don't roll your eyes at me, the Jane Austen. I'll keep this short. (In case you didn't get it: Jane Austen was the spinster authoress of six love-centric love novels.)

I think you could find out a lot about someone just by asking them what they think about love, if they would answer.

(There, that was short, wasn't it?)

Oh, since we're on the topic of l'amour (French), let me tell you that after I perfect Pink's Effin' Perfect, I went chasing down a lovely song I've heard a Vanessa Mae rendition of. It wasn't easy. It's the "Love Theme From Romeo & Juliet", which was on the soundtrack of the Romeo & Juliet (1968) movie as "Time For Us". It was very popular, meaning there were a lot of different versions, which just complicated things. In the end I had to listen to it and write down theoretically-incorrect notes (on self-drawn barlines) in order to play it on my baby - my violin. This, for someone as unmusically inclined as I, is extremely difficult to do.

These are the three versions that helped me (credit where it's due).

This is the movie soundtrack version. I cried when I listened to it - it has that much raw emotion in the song and movie clips.

The Vanessa Mae rendition that helped me the most.

Andre Rieu

Romeo & Juliet was one of the greatest love stories ever told, no contest. Just look at the legacy it inspired.

I still haven't really made up my mind about Titanic.

Oh, and one more thing.

I don't like Bruno Mars. For some reason I think he looks like a dentist. Must be his freakishly perfect teeth. I miss the music in the 90's and the noughties. If this is what girls nowadays call romantic, they really need to broaden their music range.

Although Glee version was awesome... come on."We're looking for something dumb to do - oh look let's get married - noone has to know! Don't worry, if we wake up and you wanna break up that's cool, at least it was fun, girl."

and no I don't find Grenade romantic, either.

This, on the other hand, would just make one...

Girlfriend Wanted

Matthew Gray Gubler

...smile until it hurts.

Tumblr & Violins

2011-03-25T15:07:00.006+08:00

*Edit

My family's delighted that I've gotten back to playing these couple of days. My sister stood outside my room door holding up her iPhone on recording without my knowing when I was playing Pink's Effin' Perfect, to play it back to me, because she said, "Mommy said you wouldn't believe you sounded good."

It still sounded like cat's nails screeching down on a chalkboard, but it was really nice of her.

Click on photos for link.

Oh, and watch this. It's just raw talent - this is me refraining from making snide, cutting, envy-fueled remarks - right there. :)

I'm Insane

2011-03-18T17:38:00.000+08:00

I don't know why I've not been updating. I wanted to write about this one thing but it's like really serious and requires some work. And I've been really busy sleeping twelve hours a day and watching old episodes of Criminal Minds since the new ones are breaking my heart. Anyway. Writing's always really hard for me, you know? Maybe because my thoughts are always so abstract and fluttery, like wisps zooming around the inside of my brain, that it's hard for jaded, unskilled old me to catch them and pin them down into something as solid and inanimate as words. Plus, I'm sure you've all heard me rant on how inadequate our human language is? So inadequate I can't even find the words to tell you how much so it is?

But come. Let's try. We'll do this really enlightening exercise where I just type out whatever is floating around in my brain.

If reincarnation were to really happen, what do you wish to be reincarnated as? Look, I'm just thinking out loud here, as a person whose religious belief does not involve reincarnation, so please do not take offense at my ignorance. I've heard people say that you, as a human, should do good things so you don't get reincarnated as, let's say, a beetle. But honestly? I think being reincarnated as a beetle would be better than being reincarnated as a human. Because if you believe in karma, you shouldn't want to be reincarnated as a human, as compared to a beetle (in my opinion). Why? Because beetles aren't evil. They're not like humans. Beetles don't lie or bitch or grudge or be mean. So, given the choice, would you rather choose a life where you would inevitably inflict evil on others or a life where you would do good and (depending on your belief system) be celestially rewarded for it? I quote Mark Twain: "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."

Since we're on the topic of reincarnation, imagine if you were reincarnated as a human body cell. Tee hee hee, what a ho-hum that would be! Like if you were a nerve cell, you'd be really stuck-up, because nerve cells are irreplaceable ergo super important. If you were a white blood cell you'd be oozy and gooey and squeeze through capillary walls to chomp off bacteria (om nom nom). Or if you were a skin cell, and flaked off and died before you even had time to make friends!

Imagine if raindrops were alive as we knew it. They'd make friends as they formed from water vapour, racing against each other to see who got fatter faster. And then imagine what they would say as they made their way down to earth! Would they go, "Wheeeee!", seeing as it's probably the moment they've been waiting for their whole life? Or would they just sit back, tuck their arms behind their heads and talk about, well, I don't know, the weather? Would they be exchanging fond farewells? Or would they be seeing as much as they could see, possibly seeing miles and miles and rivers and valleys and highways and buildings?

Yeah. So. Just to clear some things up.

I stole that quote from Criminal Minds.

I do not really want to be reincarnated as a beetle.

Nor a human body cell.

I should do this more often, but I realise I hardly make any sense at all.

In conclusion, jacietanchenghwee should keep her thoughts abstract because a) bringing them into this world is too much work and b) they should just stay that way.

CM Life and Ditzy Me

2011-03-03T15:06:00.000+08:00

Please do not read this if you are not utterly bored and have nothing else better to do.

I feel happiest when I'm talking about Criminal Minds. Chalystha and Joey both saw episode 100 of CM, and I was like the happiest girl alive. Now I can tell them about random episodes of CM I've watched and that is just like the bright point of my day.

I saw the sun today!

It was like an orb! A great, big, orange orb!

Today Nicole captioned a drawing of the sun as "Future Jacie". She made me so happy, y'know? Here's one thing I bet you've never known about me. I've always wanted to be reborn as a star. On account of reading books where human beings go, "I was once a star."

On tumblr, I follow a bunch of Criminal Minds freaks. This means my whole entire dashboard is just full of CM pictures. They're awesome people, you know? They're hardcore. Show them a close-up of a character and they can immediately tell you what episode it's from by the clothes/hair. I can do that too, but only with my favourite episodes. They're tumblr friends, these hardcore CM-ers. Like calls to like!

Anyway, I saw a tumblr blog with the description that goes something like, "I would have kicked ass at debate if it were about TV and not... things that matter."

Which brings us to the next thing I want to tell you today!

Today in class I "sort of" debated for the first time. The biggest regret I have about coming to a fluky school like Samad is the demise of my public speaking life. Yeah, I suck like crap now. Can't speak fluently and start shaking like an aspen leaf whenever I public speak. Who knew I used to the be good at it in primary. When Pn. Manjeet (!) asked me to speak impromptu today (all of 5 seconds after she gave me the topic) I blabbed like an idiot. Lol. Shush. Erasing that memory starting NOW. (I'm good at that.) But, what I really wanted to say was, my first title, where I was actually given 5 minutes, was entitled, "Parents should be held morally and legally responsible for their child's crimes".

I stood up and was shaking and all but I just focused on what I was planning to say. Which was on Criminal Minds. My whole entire isi was from CM. The whole time I was speaking I had Hotch talking to me in my right ear and Reid on my left, and the backdrop of the BAU in front of my eyes. CM saved my ass from further embarrassment in class today. I used their adolescent sociopath theory and cases of fathers raping their kids and legal implications and all that. So I think I did pretty well! When I sat down it was one of the proudest moments of my life! I love Criminal Minds in my life!

Incidentally (NOT that I was leading up to this the whole entire ditzy boring blogpost), I nearly died of joy yesterday.

I was wasting time away on the computer. (Monthly test next week yes I know I suck.) And I was bored. So like any other normal person I went to google and typed in "spencer reid fangirl".

OHMIGOD!

Hahahahahhahahaha because I saw my name as the very first result on google search!

Right there! journal of a jacie! Please go try it out! Now, before it's too late and it changes! Homg, I know you want to!

Always been a life mission to be the first hit on a google search, that doesn't involve my name of course. And now it's come true!

Thank you, CM!

Tomorrow sejarah video presentation homgggg.

Yes, there's something wrong with me.

I'm not feeling so good.

Can I have some grapes?

Poison by Sara Poole

2011-02-27T13:31:00.001+08:00

Sara Poole's Poison called to me in the Borders outlet of The Curve. I felt it to fulfill all the points of my checklist and bought it without reading it through first, a rarity. I spent the whole afternoon and night reading it, and I can't believe I thought I would be able to defer the second half to the morrow. I couldn't put it down, as draggy as it seemed to be at certain parts.

Before the Tudors, there were the Borgias.

I would recommend YOU to read this book, except I know that it may not be to everyone's tastes. Here's a short synopsis.

It's a historical fiction based on the house of Borgia. The Borgias were like an earlier, Vatican version of the Tudors in early Renaissance Rome. Known as the original crime family in history, it is this family that Mafian The Godfather was based on. This was in the late 15th century when everyone killed everyone and slept with everyone and cardinals counted away the days until which the blood-drinking pope would finally die. In this book, the main character is Francesca Giordano, the poisoner's daughter very skilled in poison herself. When her father is murdered she seeks justice, and in order to put herself in a position of power Francesca kills her father's replacement and becomes the employed poisoner of Cardinal Borgia himself. Somewhere on the way she murders/attempts to murder quite a number of other people and her internal indecision at the state of her soul is very intriguing. She also has to help the zuperr corrupted Cardinal Borgia become Pope Alexander VI. All this is set against the historically accurate backdrop of a very screwed up Catholic Church.

LOL.
(Yes, this is what I've filled my head with when I ought to be studying.)

If you actually read through that and are feeling rather nonplussed right now, I don't blame you - I'm kind of shocked at myself as well. But, if you are not, this book is a must read!

I don't know if I'm happy or not that this book is the first in a series yet to come. Sometimes, books that are great as a stand-alone novel are stretched out to become a series and it's not always a good thing. Ah well, I'll wait for April 2011 and then we'll see.

Attempting to Explain Reading

2011-02-25T15:01:00.003+08:00

The way I find my favourite books is rather indescribable. I'd be walking in a bookstore, I'd see a title that catches my eye, I'd read the back, stare at the picture, start reading, and know that this is it. It's a calling, really, a calling of books to me.

I'm always at a loss when people ask me what sort of books I read. What a question. Well. I read classics. (Mostly I slug through them so I can triumphantly claim the accomplishment of finishing it, so it's more of an obligation for me to do so than personal enjoyment, with the odd exception.) I read modern-setting books as well, of course. I shy away from hardcore science fiction and hardcore chic lit. Hmm. I don't have that many books in my house. So, I'm forced to re-read more than I read. You see, I kinda read every day. Even if I'm tired shit or have exams or whatever. You can't read every day and claim you have enough books to read. So mostly every book I have in the house gets re-read at certain-number-of-months-long intervals. Which makes buying books is a big deal if I don't wanna buy a book I can't reread. See the curse that has been inflicted upon me.

But thanks to the influence of Tamora Pierce, whose books I have an amount of twenty-six, my favourite type of book more or less needs to fulfill this checklist.

Foreign pre-Industrial Revolution setting

Main character an able female striving to prove herself in a man's world

The character's coming-of-age mission of good principle, however conflicted

The main plot not being one that focuses on getting the girl together with a guy

A love story on the side that isn't annoying/stupid/disgusting

The presence of royalty/nobility

Yeah. I think that's it.

This is the type of book I will be willing to forgo sleep and food for, in order to finish it in one reading and don't have to spend a night waiting to continue it in the morning.

So now you know, and so do I.

Christchurch 2011

2011-02-24T14:49:00.002+08:00

I nearly cried when I saw the Christchurch report earlier.

It was so bad, you know?

And they had just required from an earlier earthquake.

Just.

How do you even begin to start rebuilding a city? How do you go about doing it?

I was in Christchurch, when I was eight. Loveliest two days. I loved Christchurch. It was such a beautiful city. I still remember it. Now it's pretty much half destroyed. If I had all the time in the world I'd scour through the unorganised New Zealand pictures in scattered photo books to post up photos of us touring the amazing cathedral in Christchurch.

This one.

Which now looks like this.

No more pictures. If you want to fill your screen with horrifyingly heartrending stills, feel free to utilise google image.

I read in the article about the survivors who said they only lived to tale because of their split-second decision to dive under a desk or something like that.

Imagine that blind, panicked, split-second choice you make determining whether or not you live or die.

Imagine people screaming and running all around you and you have no idea where to go.

Imagine seeing a woman with a baby in her arms being killed right in front of your eyes.

Imagine being trapped under rubble for days while the people who call the shots decide not to search in your area as the odds of finding any survivors are just too slim and they have other places they need to be. And then dying. Alone, unnoticed, unheard.

Imagine having to have your leg or arm cut off, left under the huge slab of cement crushing it, in order to get the hell out of there.

And then the aftermath.

How lucky are you, really? If you're alive but your loved one is not. If your home and everything in it is dashed to bits, and you have nowhere to go, nowhere to live. If you're alive, but dismembered.

Just that one thing I love about Malaysia.

Fact vs Fiction

2011-02-22T22:26:00.001+08:00

They say we go to school to learn new things, to be educated, to find out how things work, and why things are, and that we come back with our minds filled with knowledge so we may see the world in a whole new enlightened way.

Bosh.

The more I learn, the more miserable I get. This happens in Physics class more than anything else. The most prime example:

What is an echo?

An echo is a nymph, a lovely fairy who lives in dells and open spaces, who imitates your voice perfectly in the way that only she can.

Yes, I suppose I really believe that.

(This in response to the incredulous question posed to me by people whom I've told this to.)

I wish that rainbows were really the path of the Greek messenger Iris between earth and heaven. Chase it to its end, you'll find a leprechaun with a pot of gold. That every tree - a proper, woodsy tree, has a dryad. That sleep is a place, which is why we go to it every night. That stars don't die in supernovas and end in blackholes - they move on to be reborn as something else, mostly in human form. That Helios the sun-god drives his fiery sun-chariot from the east to the west each day. That when night falls, an immense curtain of dark velvet is actually being stretched across the bright sky - stars are the holes in it, so you can see light shining through. That the moon - no, don't get me started on the moon.

No, by the way, I'm sadly not brilliant enough to come up with all this on my own - these are just some of beautiful things that you could get from books, legend, and cartoons. But no bemoaning, right? With every day, every hour I'm not in school, or wasting time on the Internet, or studying for SPM, or lazing around or hanging out - every hour I reserve for myself for things like this, I will be able to learn.

"I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn't prevent my thinking there is." -Anne of Avonlea

Day Fourteen of Month II

2011-02-14T15:36:00.003+08:00

A thank you to Chalystha for our lovely valentines. :')

The day of year when all those not in relationships are either whining or hurting and all those in relationships are... not.

(A sweeping statement - a generalisation.)

For the latter, do cherish this day. It's St. Valentine's Day, and it's supposed to be very sweet and special.

For the former, knock yourself out on these posts author Kristin Cashore posted.

Link 1

Link 2

She calls it Interplanetary Be Who You Are Day, a step up on Singles Awareness Day.

And whether you belong to the first group or the second, here is the sweetest most loveliest thing in the world everyone should share in.

In Taylor Swift's album Speak Now, there is this song called Enchanted. I've always loved loved loved that song, and later I found out it was supposed to be meant for Adam Young of Owl City. Well yesterday I found out that Adam finally responded to Taylor by doing a modified cover of Enchanted.

Ajaksodroiueroixudfoiudosfuiiaouerioueoiaudsk.

Please don't be in love with someone else,

please don't have somebody waiting on you.

Oh Taylor I was so, enchanted to meet you, too.

I was never in love with someone else

I never had somebody waiting on me

'Cause you were all of my dreams come true

And I just wish you knew

Taylor I was so in love with you.

Happy Valentine's Day, or Happy S.A.D., dears.

Reid Cover

2011-02-12T17:19:00.002+08:00

HOLY HELL

I CREATED A FREAKIN' MASTERPIECE

why hello 

HOLY.

WHAT MASTERPIECE? 

A FREAKIN' COLLAGE BABEYH

HAHAAHA

collage? 

of what? 

omg dont tell me of reid

HAHAHA IT'S OF REID

OMG.

-.-

Haha.

Chalystha Lee.

Gotta love that girl.

Last year, I found a picture of Merlin and Arthur posing for the Merlin in Need charity programme with a very cute yellow Pudsy bear. It was so ridiculously adorable that I stretched it out to A4 size and got my mother to colour print it for me. I then proceeded to use it for my school file cover.

This year, I decided to use Matt Bomer (who plays Neal Caffrey), and so I went a-hunting. Finding hot pictures of Mr. Matt Bomer is an understandably thing to do - all I had to do was find one the right size, and I got it, in the end, courtesy of those lovely people on tumblr.

But now it's February and I've gone mad and I've decided to let Mr. Caffrey-Bomer stay on one side of the file while I give the other to - Dr. Spencer Reid/Matthew Gray Gubler. Since Reid cut his hair, he has turned much more photogenic and almost all the people I follow on tumblr are Reid fans and they flood my dashboard each day, thus providing me with so much fuel for my Reid fangirlism, and, well, after an hour or so of very hard work (look, I don't know how to edit pictures and all that so all I could do was move them around a bit but still I was a novice even at that), I finally got my Reid collage together.

Many thanks to tumblr (I laugh every time I remember that I once swore I wouldn't get addicted to it) and my mom. She's my rock. I love you mommy. I couldn't have done this without you. What a life achievement. Tolong print cantik-cantik ya.

Addiction

2011-02-10T17:24:00.000+08:00

Now I know what drug addicts feel like.

tumblr

twitter

The song meant something?!

2011-02-07T19:24:00.001+08:00

Sorry I haven't been updating.

But free time is precious now, and I've spent every moment of it I have on attempting to write, which really really really sucks, ~~because I suck~~, or watching Criminal Minds, and tumblr-ing Criminal Minds - go and visit my tumblr *link!* and you will totally get what I mean. Yes I am in a Criminal Minds/Dr. Spencer Reid/ Matthew Gray Gubler phase, I've noticed tyvm!

Hui Jan this is for you.

Things about this 1-minute video that make me deliriously happy:

Morgan strolling in like the hot guy he is.

Morgan looking so crinkly-eyed and happy to see Reid.

Morgan greeting Reid with his "Pretty boy!"

Reid accustomedness to being called "pretty boy" by Morgan

JJ's happyface.

Prentiss, Morgan and Reid's confusion.

JJ singing!

Morgan's jealous face.

Morgan's jealous storming off.

Prentiss' utter delight.

"Didn't you hear JJ?"

"No - no, I missed it!"

Prentiss at a loss for words.

Just... Reid's face at the end there.

(If only Hotch were in it too.)

I'm sorry, did I just narrate the whole video for you? Suck it up.

Anne and Gilbert

2011-01-30T13:56:00.004+08:00

In a superlatively good mood.

Might have something to do with the song Kiss Me, or the ongoing rain, or the three back-to-back-to-back Criminal Minds episodes last night, or the fact that I didn't get to dream about Reid again but dreamed of Neal Caffrey instead.

Or it could be because of this...

Today there were only four of us in Bible Knowledge class. Today was also the first day I actually really spoke to a boy in my class named Gilbert, who of course also attends confirmation with me, being the same age. And because it was the first time I actually spoke to this Gilbert, I decided to screw up all my courage and tell him why his presence in BK class, together with another one of my BK classmates, a girl, has made me so inexplicably happy these past thirteen months.

You see, Gilbert's name is Gilbert. (Of course.)

The girl's name is Anne.

AKLSAJROUEROUIDSFJLKAJSADSRKJJDFKSDJOF.

Gilbert. And Anne. The only Gilbert I've ever known, and one of the few Annes I do know. In the same class. I remember there was one time last year when Gilbert and Anne sat together. I think I spent the whole of that class fairly wriggling with ecstasy, and I remember it until today. I remember how indescribably delighted I was the first day Gilbert joined our class, and how my mind made the connection instantly.

My most favourite picture of Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley ever. From the back of my own copy of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables.

This does not mean, of course, that the Gilbert and Anne of my BK class will ever end up getting married with seven kids.

Yes, by now you will have realised that this whole episode is just proof that I am rather mentally unhinged, comparing my BK classmates to literary characters merely because they share the same names. But so sue me. For as long as I attend BK classes for my SPM (yes, I am taking it!), and as long as both Anne and Gilbert are in it, I will continue being the happiest Bible Knowledge student in my class.

P.S. Gilbert (the real one) took what I told him well in his stride. I don't see why my sister thinks I shouldn't have told him when I only just started talking to him, do you?

Kiss Me (She's All That)

2011-01-28T19:32:00.002+08:00

I love this song.

Kiss me

Out of the bearded barley

Nightly

Beside the green green grass

Swing swing

Swing the spinning step

You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress

Oh, kiss me

Beneath the milky twilight

Lead me

Out on the moonlit floor

Lift your open hand

Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance

Silver moon's sparkling

So kiss me.

Kiss me

Down by the broken treehouse

Swing me

Upon its hanging tyre

Bring, bring

Bring your flowered hat

We'll take the trail marked on your father's map

Kiss Me, by Sixpence None the Richer.
Lyrics hand-typed.

I love this movie.

She's All That, one of the most popular teen flicks of the very late 90s. Don't judge.

And so of course, I am duly obsessed with this music video.

Quick Wish

2011-01-27T22:35:00.003+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY

22 January

2011-01-23T14:37:00.002+08:00

Yeah, so going to school on Saturday really sucked, except for the Hank the waterwaveripplestrobolighted Tank, but skipping out for the rest of the really awesome day made up for it.

Hui Jan's birthday yesterday!

Bob tangkap gambar, but honestly, models should get more creds here.

Because I love this picture.

Happy birthday Ho Hui Jan. You know I love you, you extraordinarily awesome person.

It was a surprise picnic at KLCC park, and it was great! Hui Jan you have amazing friends you know, and kudos most of all to Sze Li who did the majority of the planning! I take my hat off to her hehehe, go Sze Li. There was music, food, drinks, games, getting lost in shopping malls, a lot of chasing guai lou people, picture-taking, fun and LRT ride home. All those ex-Form Fivers haven't changed a bit, still like kids only wan. I had a lot of fun, and Hui Jan says she did.

Credits to Maddie.

I came back home, watched 20 minutes of Criminal Minds, and then to the next event of my busy day: my church's 50th anniversary Chinese dinner.

Angel in disguise Chalystha Lee teman-ed me. I love that girl. Thank you thank you thank you so much for teman-ing me Chalystha, you saved me from an evening of boredom tee hee hee. But it wasn't that bad for you right? We did have fun! My first yee sang of the year with you girl!

For Philip, if you're reading this: Hahahahahahahaha. You know what I'm laughing about.

Criminal Minds S01

2011-01-21T13:53:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, in addition to watching the new episode of White Collar, Bones, and NCIS, I watched a Season 1 episode of Criminal Minds. (I went on Wikipedia to read the episode guide so I could choose which earlier episodes to watch.) You see, I only started watching Criminal Minds in about Season 3 or so, so watching Season 1 was a bit of a shock for me. Reid had very, very bad hair, and dressed like a nerd who lives in a library. Garcia too hadn't really developed her sense of fashion yet. Morgan was very mean to Reid, before he started showing a lot more affection towards the our beloved Spencer.

But the greatest shock was Aaron Hotchner.

Hotch used to smile. He used to laugh, make jokes, and in Season 1 I could actually see his eyes - because he wasn't wearing his perpetual frown! And how happily in love he was with Haley, before his work started eating him up! It made me so sad, that I started remembering all the sad things that ruined Hotch's life in the later seasons I'd watched, mainly due to what the Reaper did to him. I came to school today to sit Gan down and make him listen to me tell him the story of Aaron Hotchner's life. I felt so depressed while telling it I nearly cried. I think I even managed to affect him slightly by my very miserable tale. He did offer his standard "It's just a show!" reply, but I pointed out to him that since I spent an average of 24 hours a season watching it, that argument is not really valid. If you want to hear the story (zomg sadist/masochist!), do come let me ruin your day. If you know what I'm talking about, if you're not feeling the slightest bit of empathy right now there is something extremely wrong with you. This is the real reason why I stopped watching Criminal Minds for a while. Not really because of Reid. I guess I just used fangirling over Reid as a way to get over Hotch's story.

Anyway, the episode I watched yesterday was L.D.S.K., S01E06. Spoiler alert! I chose to watch it because I read that Reid failed his gun qualification test, and then was taken hostage together with Hotch. Hoho, it was a very good episode. Not too gory either. (L.D.S.K. stands for Long Distance Serial Killer, which basically means sniping, which is very clean-cut as far as Criminal Minds murderers go.) It was so, so, cute. Morgan tackled Reid to the ground, because poor Reid was the only one who wasn't told that the sniper was about!

"Reid, get down!"

From tumblr.

I felt sad, though, when Hotch had to say a lot of nasty things about Reid and kick him repeatedly while he writhed on the ground. No, not really. (Everything was fine when Reid whipped out Hotch's gun and shot the insane dude in the forehead, execution-style.)

"You alright?"

"Yeah."

"Nice shot."

"I was aiming for his leg."

And then the sad part came.

"I wouldn't have kept kicking but I was afraid you didn't get my plans."

"I got your plan the minute you moved the hostages out of my line of fire."

"Well I hope I didn't hurt you too badly."

"Hotch, I was a twelve-year-old child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school. You kick like a nine-year-old girl."

It's sad. It is. Because Reid was a victim of bullying, and bullying is a terrible thing. I've never thought that bullying occurs in my school. Does it? I know all the people in my form - I know the Chinese gang, the Indian gang, the Malay gang (not being racist - that's just the way they're segregated!) and I can't believe that any of them would truly terrorise a smaller kid. Would they? How could anyone be so truly inhuman and cruel?

Aih, extra-long post today to make up for the lack of one this past week.

P.S. Have I mentioned that in every episode of Criminal Minds, one of the characters would quote a wise saying, or a proverb? I live for those quotes. I love them.

A Spencer Reid Fangirl Post

2011-01-14T15:48:00.008+08:00

I can't watch Criminal Minds anymore. Not because the many twisted ways of killing multiple people for really sick reasons are starting to get to me. No, it's because I now spend the whole of my forty minutes watching Criminal Minds jumping up and down shrieking ReidReidReidReidReidReidReidReidReidReid, non-stop, at the top of my lungs, which is not healthy for me, the bed, or the ears of those around me.

Dr. Spencer Reid is the most adorable nerd that never existed. First off, he's a genius. He graduated from high school at the age of 12, has a eidetic (photographic) memory, has 27 degrees (still growing) with Ph.Ds in Mathematics (this he got when he was 16), Chemistry and Engineering, B.A.s in Psychology and Sociology, and is working on one in Philosophy. He joined the FBI at the age of 21. He's the only one referred to as "Dr." instead of "Special Agent" because noone in the world would guess that young Reid has all those doctorates. Reid knows everything. He memorises anything he's read immediately, like the whole Bible, chapter and verse number included - he can read 20, 000 words per minute. Need a voice recorder? No fear, Reid is here HAHA.

Reid's FBI co-workers love him as much as I do. He's the youngest, the most gullible, the one they can bully to read through files and memorise them. Noone can watch Criminal Minds without falling in love with Reid.

Click on the pix to find the tumblr site I got them from.

His pals may love bullying him, but...

...they look out for him. (Even though he has his own gun!)

The Reid-Morgan Epic Bromance.

Reid is very inept around current occurrences...

...and around girls...

...but he does have his moments.

Did you know, Reid has no idea what the song "____ and ____, sitting in a tree" means?

All in all, Reid is just adorable beyond belief and I love him very much and I will find a way to start watching Criminal Minds again, maybe while waiting for my heartbreak to heal over Bones and waiting for White Collar Season 2.5(!!!!!) to come out.

Yes, I did my Reid fan post before I did Neal Caffrey, because Reid was there earlier, my thoughts are still in too much of a fangirl frenzy over Neal, and, well, Reid is just that much cuter.

Midweek

2011-01-12T16:32:00.005+08:00

DEAR PETER,

I HAVE MOVED 1.6 MILES

87 RIVERSIDE AVE

XOXO

Neal

"XOXO"
Oh gosh, the details you miss out on when you don't rewatch/reread something.
This is Neal's note to Peter from White Collar S01E01.
SO. CUTE.

Second week of school. I need to finish Interlok soon. Can't stand all this talk going around and me not being able to have an opinion just because reading this book is like cycling uphill backwards without oxygen.

I can't wait for the weekend.

TV shows

2011-01-10T21:54:00.000+08:00

Lately, I've been very obsessed by White Collar, but I've been just as obsessed by Bones, Criminal Minds and Merlin in the past. And then I started thinking, hm, what shows do I follow, as in, I watch episode, and what shows do I watch, off and on? I started drawing up a list with individual categories, but they started overlapping and getting me all muddled.

However, before I got confused and gave up, I did manage to see the light a bit. To cut the story short, these are the TV shows I've watched at least two seasons of. In no particular order.

Bones

Criminal Minds

NCIS

CSI: Miami

CSI: NY

CSI

White Collar

Castle

Sue Thomas: FBI

Without A Trace

Family Law

JAG

The Good Wife

~~Army Wives~~

~~Leverage~~

~~Glee~~

~~The Nanny~~

~~Bewitched~~

~~Merlin~~

Okay. Now I've gotten scared. I'm sure if I thought harder I can remember more, (or maybe I left one or two out), but I think this is enough. I've cancelled out a few already, leaving just the TV shows that have to do with the justice system or crime-solving. And I already have thirteen. This is not counting the shows I watch off and on, remember. Haha, but I hardly watch TV!

Honestly though, I don't find this to be a waste of time at all. I've learned things by watching these shows that I'd never have been able to learn otherwise. To me, watching these shows - the first thirteen, at least - are a lot more educational than watching any documentary on the Discovery Channel. It's exactly like reading fictional books as compared to reading an encyclopedia. You learn new things. Learn new words. See characters develop. Widen your scope on the world. All that jazz. I wouldn't be the person I am today without these shows.

*wipes away tears*

One day, I will have to learn how to order my thoughts properly and put them down as words, unlike the garbage of a job I've done with this post.

One day, Jacie. One day.

Babuuun.

2011-01-07T17:00:00.000+08:00

SO EXCITED FOR MERENTAS DESA.

I ALWAYS AM. EVERY YEAR. I AM THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ONE WAN. HAHAHA.

WENT SWIMMING IN KGNS ON A WHIM THIS AFTERNOON, TO BUILD UP MY STAMINA COUGH COUGH!

Ohmigosh.

I had a thought as I was gasping like a fish out of water in the water just now.

What's my favourite TV show?

Omg so hard to answerrrrr.

It's like, What is your favourite book.

Impossible!

HAHA OKAY BYE GONNA CONTINUE READING INTERLOK NOW DAMN I WISH IT WAS KONSERTO TERAKHIR INSTEAD KONSERTO TERAKHIR WHICH I REREAD ALMOST EVERY YEAR SINCE I STARTED READING IT LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME!!!

In case you were wondering, a bimbotic post every once in a while is good for the soul.

Good Day

2011-01-06T15:46:00.001+08:00

When I woke up today the rain was pouring down in comforting, sleep-inducing torrents, no, sheets really, in the way that makes you seriously weigh up the consequences of just not leaving your bed and adamantly refusing to go to school. But I got myself to school and fully expected the rain to stop in a while, leaving the rest of the day stuffy and gloomy and hot, but it went on raining and raining and raining and raining!

Things that made today a good day.

I ate breakfast and put in my contacts (accomplishments).

The delightful rain that lasted the whole cooling day, and the way it transformed the view from our class window to something else altogether.

The rush of pure joy when I found out that Mr. Thanabalan wasn't coming into class (meaning no science lesson the whole day!!!)

The satisfaction of telling Pn. Norma I did her stinking work.

The high of searching for Neal Caffrey/Matt Bomer pictures on tumblr yesterday that had yet to wear off.

My very long spell (three days!) of not watching White Collar, ended, yesterday.

Shoving my bee-yoo-ti-ful new file cover (guess who was on it tee hee hee) under everyone's nose and carrying it wherever I went.

I bought my black G1 pen in MidV yesterday and could stop borrowing Nicole's.

It was just me and Kalia at duty again. X)

There was no Add Math today.

Just sitting and talking with the girls about everything from, well, anything, to pig-human hybrids.

Fourth day in a row that marked one of our classmates as absent.

These are just some of the little things you know, that make a day beautiful.

Whoa

2011-01-05T22:00:00.002+08:00

How could my mom make me to go out to a mall on a weeknight when I didn't want to.

On the way back, I brought up the discussion we had in Datin Kokilam's class on religion, and spoke my mind on one issue in particular about Christianity. This led to a debate of sorts between my father - who raises his voice when making a point - and I - who as a teenager will instinctively retaliate in kind - which went on long after my mother cut in with an equally loud "shut up".

Hahaha, such family discussions are healthy ones to have every once in a while.

I'm only so cheery because this one was a rarity and actually ended with a mutual back-down.

Gasp.

Gonna watch White Collar now. Omg was in withdrawal weyh. Three days never watch, like three days without... sunlight.

Addict.

P.S. Loving tumblr because of all the Matt Bomer pictures.

School Again

2011-01-04T15:24:00.002+08:00

School's back in, and everything's the same.

Well, not everything, but there's still that comfortable sense of familiarity which, more than anything, I will miss when we leave. My classmates and I have slipped back into our old routine as easily as one slips into the same pair of shoes each day.

A Form 5 student? Me? No way. I don't feel like one. The great big

SPM = 10A+

left behind by the previous 5A students is annoying, but surprisingly easy to ignore. We had far more "SPM lectures" from the teachers when we started Form 4 as compared to this year.

And no, I am not taking English Literature for SPM. I know it's a waste. You don't need to tell me anymore. Who's the one it will be a waste for? Me. I know.

Sigh. I suppose I'll have to decide whether or not to really take Bible Knowledge soon enough.

I miss Hui Jan and Bob, and the knowing that there is a whole entire form occupying the floor above you.

The Book and the Magic Box

2010-12-30T23:18:00.001+08:00

These past few days, two interests have been wholly occupying my time.

1) The TV series White Collar. Thanks to my mom, who doesn't comprehend that it is not cool to finish an entire season in the span of four days, are averaging three of four episodes a day. In case you were wondering, no, I am not only watching it because the lead character has grey eyes, I really do like the series and so does my mom... and Hui Jan's parents.

2) The book entitled The Reluctant Heiress @ Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson. On the second read now and I'm drinking every word in every minute I can get.

I'm also playing Plants vs. Zombies, but who's counting, really. School's coming back. Soon.

Here, I promise, to myself, to make full updates on items 1) and 2). Soon.

Another grey-eyed prince

2010-12-27T00:34:00.001+08:00

Omaigod. Like seriously. I can't believe my mom has been watching this show all and I've, well, not. To be fair, she did tell me what it was about. Several times. But I never listened. Because my mom has been witholding one crucial piece of information from me.

The main character has grey eyes.

Ajdskafjdrokjd, ajsdrieou, iasuroiuerios djofiuxfius adskjowiuxcnjd!

In case you were, well, wondering, what show this is.

Haha. I think I'd like the show, though, grey-eyed dark-haired as-close-to-Brigan-as-you-could-possibly-get conman aside. Since I'm in between seasons of Leverage now, I need my healthy dose of honest thievery. If only I could stop jumping up and down squealing "Grey eyes!" long enough to actually watch it properly.

Oh. His name is Neal Caffrey. That helps. One of my favourite Tamora Pierce characters is named Nealan of Queenscove.

Whoa. Just found a load of pictures of this grey-eyed hunk on Tumblr. Tumblr seems to me to be an unhealthy place to be. Lookit this. http://fuckyeahmrmattbomer.tumblr.com/ ?!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T21:56:00.001+08:00

I don't care IF Jesus wasn't born in December. Today is the 25th of the last month of the year, so it's Christmas.

In my head, Christmas means everything. Giving, receiving, shopping, business, food, cooking, family, friends, excitement, anticipation, decoration, Christmas-related love songs, real Christmas songs, red, green, wishes, snow, movies, giftwrap, laughter, merriment, the Christmas spirit, everything.

In my heart, Christmas means only one thing, and that thing is everything:

Christ.

So, regardless of whatever it might mean to you, Merry Christmas, everybody.

Bustle

2010-12-23T11:32:00.007+08:00

Yesterday went grocery shopping and shopping in OneU for five hours. But because God invented crocs (haha), I made it! Skipped through the entire mall attracting stares because I was singing loudly along to the Christmas songs being played, often having to switch in mid-song when I went from one shop to another. Why were people staring? Season's spirit mah!

Just so you know, I slept at 5.30a.m. yesterday morning. Yeap. Caffeine... has its downsides. Spent two hours in bed with my brain racing at full speed ahead and swearing to never drink coffee again.

Anyway, I came home from One U and made tong yuen for the Winter Solstice. (I have a thing for solstices and equinoxes, thanks to Tamora Pierce, and I've permanently memorised the dates in our Form 1 geography textbook, which are on the page which has a mistake because they mixed up the Cancer and Capricorn tropics, omg geek alert.) I did all by myself - made it from scratch from glutinous flour - because noone helped me. Har har. Two reasons why I'm obsessed with making tong yuen when noone else in my family is - one, I like to eat it, and two, I always used to make it with my maid. I make two colours only, pink and white, and put it in sugar water, no ginger, thank-you-very-much. Thank you bestfriendNgLiSar for reminding me when the tong yuen day was.

And then I went to SS2 mall and bought books at the Times book fair.

Today, made chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies and talked to my eldest sister over the phone - it's her birthday! I'm going to have to wrap presents today - something I put off doing for very long - because I loathe it. Last year, I spent three hours wrapping presents. Three hours. What say I try for two this year?

Two of my all-time favourite Christmas songs, which, incidentally, are non-Christ-related:

My Only Wish - Britney Spears

Last Christmas - originally by WHAM, but also re-recorded by almost every artist living (exaggeration)

Bonus:

Ay Ay Ay It's Christmas - Ricky Martin
Baby It's Cold Outside - Kurt and Kurt's Vampire Boyfriend

Psst. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve.

Happifood

2010-12-22T00:56:00.002+08:00

Haha. What a sarden mess that previous post was. But I won't delete it. We learn.

Anyway, now I'm very pumped!

Asked the parents bring me go to Coffee Bean Bangsar (becoming regular liao!) for TripleDeckerCheesecake tee hee hee. I also ordered a Large Iced Mocha Latte to share with my mom, but looking back, I kinda think I drank it all. Oops.

On the way back from the good ol' sugar-and-caffeine dosage I had a startling revelation. You see, some days back my sister and I went to delicious at OneUtama for dinner. When we were standing waiting to be seated, I caught the eye of one of the waiters as he was, well, waiting on someone. So I gave him a small smile - because I'm such a friendly person, and all - and he started to give me a smile back - and then both our smiles froze and we stared at each other for like two seconds - I did, because he seemed so familiar. (Gahh, if my life were a movie the guy would be my handsome charming prince and I would be married by now, but moving on...) I spent the rest of the dinner ducking behind my hair the whole time he was serving us trying to rack my brains and try to remember where or if I'd seen him before.

And just now it struck me! The guy was my Confirmation mate! I'd spent the last two years having weekly classes with him! At least two years! Ohmigosh this shows what a terrible relationship I have with my confirmation yearmates. HE must've recognised me. I mean, if he wasn't as stupid as I was he would have. I did talk to the guy before, you know. I felt so BAD! I turned to my sister in the car and said, "I just realised that one of the waiters in delicious that day was my confirmation mate." Immediately my sister said, "You mean that Chinese boy who kept on staring at us non-stop?" Wham! And the wave of doubled guilt slams into me! Eeeee, I am a horrible person. He probably thought I knew he who he was but was deliberately refusing to acknowledge him. My mom said he was probably thinking I was "stuck-up not a word". Yeah, my mom, sister and conscience had a fine time beating me up on the way back home. I am so ashamed of myself, and yet, I keep on feeling this mad desire to laugh.

So sue me if you don't find this funny.

The car ride home isn't done yet. Two streets away from my house, my sister glanced out the window at a electricity wire and went, "Monkey!" And of course nothing would do but for me to go monkey-hunting, even though the creature sorta looked like a cat, which probably meant it was a civet cat (musang). The second we got down from the car, before my dad even killed the engine, I took my mom by the hand and dragged her, at ten past midnight, when it was pretty dark and miserably lit by the orange glow of streetlamps, to go two roads away and see if it was indeed a monkey. (She thought I was kidding at first.) The monkey/cat/musang was still there, sitting there all hunched over, which meant that it wasn't a monkey, but a cat/musang. And then my mom and I stood there for five whole minutes in the dark on the corner of a street, staring up at the creature and having a very loud argument about it. My mom said it was a musang due to the length of its tail. I said it was a cat because it was sitting like how witch's cats always sit in cartoons, and witch's cats can magic themselves up to sit on electricity cables even if normal cats can't.

Haha. After those five minutes, my dad finally arrived to check if my mom and I were still, well, alive, it being midnight and dark and lonely all, giving me the courage to walk with him to the spot directly where the cat/musang was sitting, making the cat/musang unhunch itself and gracefully reveal the shape of its snout, meaning that my mom was right (boo) and that it was indeed a musang, albeit an extraordinarily small one.

And then we walked back home.

Thank you for reading this very long caffeine-and-sugar-fueled post, and have a nice day!

Busy Bee

2010-12-21T20:53:00.001+08:00

I spent the whole of last week Christmas shopping.

Just when I took a break from Christmas shopping, I decided to spend time with my girls these past two days.

Yesterday, I watched Rapunzel 3D with Chalystha. It was awesome, obviously. And then we went to LiSar's cousin's apartment to meet up with Kee and Ng for gym and swimming time. Then I came home and after dinner, I watched three episodes of Bones back-to-back with my father, just like I did on Sunday night.

Today I went to LiSar's house to watch a disappointing movie, City of Ember. Except the guy looked like Prince Edmund from Narnia. Oh, Narnia. Narnia is bad for my soul. Narnia rips my soul apart until I could have as many Horcruxes as Lord Voldemort. I'm not ready to say why. Not yet. Please don't ask.

And now my sister just interrupted me to remind me once again what a hopeless human being I am just as I was typing this non-stop and I feel all deflated and I'm reading what I just wrote and it looks like crap and gosh I seriously have writer's block right now.

Anyway moving on. Me and Sar went to gym and pool again, LOL. Haha, not very funny. Feeling very depressed gonna go and watch three or four more episodes of Bones laterrr (which btw are currently very depressing, character-development-wise).

Going to One Utama tomorrow. Need to pick up the last few presents.

You Wish

2010-12-16T22:31:00.004+08:00

"I think I love you."

"Oh my God, are you proposing? We've known each other for six weeks. Stand up. You're freaking me out."

Sam and Quinn forever

Trip

2010-12-13T18:06:00.000+08:00

This is what I did for the past four days.

1) Eat

2) Eat

3) Eat

4) Eat

5) Eat

6) Eat

7) Eat

8) Eat

9) Drink

10) See 1-9

LOL.

It's insane, being cut off from the Internet for four whole days. For example, I missed out on welcoming Hui Jan back into the cyber world. I also missed out on the plans for Han Wey's birthday celebration, and because of that, I made the decision to go help homeless people today instead of going to attend it. AND THEN I REGRETTED IT LIKE WTF BECAUSE GAN WENT AND REWATCHED RAPUNZEL WITH DUCK. AND I WASN'T THERE. AKJDROAIRUOIEURI. FACEBOOK IS A NECESSITY, NOW I KNOW.

And now all I want to do is go and bury myself in my newly bought Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper: Bloodhound until I finish it so I got no mood to blog, so bye.

RAPUNZEL: A TANGLED TALE

2010-12-08T23:32:00.001+08:00

JUST GOT BACK FROM WATCHING RAPUNZEL!

IT WAS AWESOME!

OMG DISNEY YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT DISNEY!

IT'S A PRINCESS STORY SOMEMORE! AND IT'S AMAZING! IT WAS SO FUNNY! HILARIOUS! AND AMAZING! I NEED TO GET BETTER ADJECTIVES! BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME!

AND RAPUNZEL IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PRETTY!

WITH LOOOOOOOOVELY HAIR!

THIS IS WHAT DISNEY IS REALLY ABOUT!

I WOULD LOVE TO GO ON, DEAR READERS, BUT I'M OFF TO PENANG FOR A LONG WEEKEND, STOPPING AT CAMERON'S AGAIN ON THE WAY, SO SEE YOU MONDAY!

YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS! YOU CAN'T NOT WATCH THIS! YOU HAVE TO!!!

THEN YOU WOULD KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! OMG I LOVE THIS MOVIEEEEEEE!

St. John's

2010-12-06T18:12:00.005+08:00

These are my last school holidays. About this time next year, after I finish my SPM, I won't be having school holidays. No, I would be done with school - secondary school - forever. It's December now and Christmas is coming; I'd say time is slipping away if I'd ever gotten hold of it in the first place. But I'm not complaining. I'm tolerably happy with how I've spent my hols so far. Watching as many movies as I can, watching my TV shows, reading (Shakespeare), malling, sleeping, eating, blogging. It doesn't take much to make me happy.

Today was my third visit to the kitchen at St. John's, and through skillful coercion I managed to get Gan to come along with me. I feel rather a veteran now with the food preparation, washing and cutting vegetables (WE DON'T DO THE MEAT HAHA!), although serving is never the same from day to day. I think I know how to deal with the homeless people now, though - I don't talk to them. Or take notice of them when they get pushy. Or look at them when they're staring. And we definitely do not believe them when they come up to us in serious, authoritative tones saying they need to interview us for something, do we, Gan? I'm sorry I keep calling them homeless people, I don't know what else to call them. Actually, some of them really don't look homeless to me. Dyed hair, big shades, handbags and necklaces and all. But who can blame them - it's free food, much better than the food prefects get to eat at camp, and the menu varies each day. If you don't mind the oily plates. The homeless are required to wash up after themselves (thank God) and they don't do it very well. The first day I was there me and Chris re-washed the 120 plates because we were so disgusted. Now I don't bother anymore lol.

The homeless ones I really do admire are the ones who actually help out. I've volunteered thrice and there are always only the same few people who are there in the morning to lend a hand. I can't help respecting them for at least working a couple of hours for their food. Somewhere down the scale there are those uncles who at least help to arrange the plates of rice or pour out the tea. It's better than merely waiting like anxious wolves for the food to be served before pouncing. And believe me they do pounce. No, it's not just my imagination. One of the nice guys helping out today decided to rescue me by taking over my job as the chicken-server and letting me have his task of dishing out vegetables instead. People harry the chicken-server, you see, but not the vegetable-disher. Well. I did do fish and chicken on the previous days, it's just that today the crowd was extra testy.

And yeah, in case you missed out on that digit earlier, we average on about 120 customers a day.

My parents, and my dad, specifically, are very happy about me volunteering at St. John's. After I wrap up at 12.30, my mom comes from work, and my dad from the house, so we can all have lunch together in KL.

KL FOOD!!!

Lol.

Three more days to fulfill my 24 hours.

Oh, and sometimes monopolising your own glass of kopi o' ping turns the world into a sharper, more defined place. It's a drug.

2010-12-02T20:06:00.001+08:00

Suddenly, my eyes are smarting so much it hurts to keep them open. In the afternoon today I unexpectedly went and watched Harry Potter 7 for the third time. Tomorrow going soup kitchen again. Pictures of the last time I went are up on facebook. Bye, very tired.

Update with a smile

2010-12-01T23:48:00.001+08:00

When I published my previous post I honest-to-goodness was not fishing for compliments, but when I got them from Sze Li and Xin You they made me feel better immediately. Sometimes, a kind word is all a person needs to "get that warm fuzzy feeling" (Eminem!). Thanks guys!

Picture

Today I had probably the busiest day in the whole of the holidays, which is a bad thing, because it wasn't really that busy at all. Oh, woe to unproductive me. It was my first day carrying out my church programme feeding homeless people. I've spent the past hour and a half writing out the post for it. I'd decided to make it very long and detailed because I'll have to write a report for it later anyway. Aha, Sze Li and Xin You, don't regret all those nice stuff you wrote in my cbox when you see it tomorrow. :)

My dad came from home and my mom came out from her office to meet me up for lunch in KL. Oh, we are such foodies. We were standing outside a allegedly famous chappati shop trying to decide whether or not to eat there. My mom was saying, "They say that the chappati here is very good - " when a lady exiting the tiny shop heard the latter half of the sentence finished up with "Chappati is very good for health, yes!" Haha. She was probably trying to help us poor befuddled Chinese people out. I laughed. The chappati was very good, btw.

My dad then made me follow him to the Daughters of St. Paul shop, which is run by nuns, before we went home. And then the sister there tried to get me to consider a vocational life. Not kidding. She told me that I was still young and I had a lot of options and tried to get me to sign up for a workshop and spoke to my dad about it. Then she asked for my contact number so she could phone me about any programmes they have. Honestly, I didn't want to give it to her. Giving up my whole life to become a nun is something I can never even consider unless I get "the calling" one day. It's impossible. But she strong-armed me. I had to give me real number too, because, well, you can't lie to a nun! That would guarantee you an express ticket straight to hell, surely! And she being so nice, too!

I was really tired when I finally reached home at three, and I wanted to cancel the plans to go swimming with Li Sar and the girls, I was so sure I would just fall asleep in the pool and drown. But it showed how much I really wanted to see those idiots, because at 4pm I went anyway, and I had a lot fun with them. Hadn't swum in a long time. By the way, I can't swim.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to wake up pretty early to attend Uncle Gerard's funeral mass. It will be the first time I attend someone's funeral. Uncle Gerard has always been very good to me. Right now, I keep on remembering how happy I was when he gave me a box of chocolate-coated almonds all those years ago, one of the many kindnesses he's shown me. But he's moved on now, and I hope he's in a better place. God bless his soul.

Stunted

2010-11-30T22:38:00.000+08:00

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.

2010-11-28T23:05:00.004+08:00

"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

Every guy wants a Jacie

2010-11-26T13:37:00.004+08:00

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

2010-11-26T13:22:00.000+08:00

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.

Romeo & Juliet

2010-11-25T01:38:00.006+08:00

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.

Kee Joey

2010-11-21T23:18:00.000+08:00

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.

Beautiful Roads & A Bean

2010-11-19T18:14:00.000+08:00

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.

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.

Karoake and HP7PI

2010-11-18T00:16:00.004+08:00

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.

Elaine of Astolat, The Lady of Shallot

2010-11-10T00:04:00.002+08:00

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.

Gan Yi Quan

2010-11-07T18:49:00.002+08:00

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.

Subway Concert

2010-11-03T23:18:00.005+08:00

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.

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

2010-11-03T18:16:00.004+08:00

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.

Brink

2010-10-31T15:51:00.000+08:00

Just came back from tuition teacher's super belated raya open house.

What a lovely open house. I love our teacher.

Stupid Low spilled drink on my feet, twice.

Talked to Joey's father for the first time.

He was... friendly. :S

You know when you go out with friends you got mood to blog wan?

Well I've been dying to blog these past two weeks, about nice thought-worthy and squeal-worthy topics. When I'm studying I'm actually like blogging in my head, and I keep thinking, after finals I'll blog this, I'll blog that.

Today's the day before our last two papers tomorrow. Betcha after tomorrow I'll be sitting at the comp wondering what in the world to blog about.

Anyway, just wanted to tell you guys that CHEM III & PHY III are our last papers and after that we goin' paint this town red, yo!

And...

2010-10-19T15:14:00.002+08:00

My biggest, utmost regret is that fate never permitted me to be part of your life.

Minding

2010-10-09T12:03:00.001+08:00

Some things have been happening lately, all little signs that I should finally get down to writing about something that has been a constant on my mind for years and years and years.

However. FINALS NEXT WEEK, JACIETANCHENGHWEE.

So, instead, I shall post pictures of Arthur being gay that I've found on the web.

If the last looks familiar, it's because it's on my file, baby.

Shipping Time Away

2010-10-06T18:20:00.006+08:00

It's called "shipping". Getting obsessed with a TV relationship between two characters. Usually they have cute little names for these "ships", like Brangelina - in this case, for Arthur and Morgana, it's ArMor. It's an unfairly doomed ship, and I found out on youtube WHY they make Arthur fall for Gwen instead HERE, unfair because they started it out in Season One and then suddenly killed it in Season Two...

Been reading up on Arthurian legend, watching youtube videos, searching for pictures...

What am I doing?

Wasting time.

And...

Heck, I don't know what's with the last one.

From here and here.

That's what you get when you study mod maths. You hear Pn. Norma's voice in your head, and then run screaming to get onto the computer to find something to distract yourself.

Oh, and, a smiley face for Nicole Low.

Nicole Low

Inconsequential Nothings

2010-10-04T17:55:00.003+08:00

Some inconsequential bits of nothingness before I kiss the computer goodbye.

I nearly said the F-word to Pn. Manjeet due to my frustration at my stupid speech being postponed to Friday for no apparent reason, when all I want to do is come to school late on that day, just for addmaths after recess.
Thanks to those who wished me good luck for it, and for Cha and LiSar for coming for nothing today, 'm afraid you'll have to wish me again for Friday.
I am very pissed that finals have been brought forward to next Thursday.
I am very pissed that finals are the standardised paper, which is ridiculous seeing as we have finished only the Pendidikan Moral syllabus and other schools aren't quite as stupid to actually use it.
I can't wait to finish watching Glee Season 1 so I can blog about it. But looks like that'll have to wait.
Time is precious; must skip school whenever rationally beneficial.
My appetite is, as usual, waning.
We had four periods of Physics today - more to come in an effort to finish up syllabus.
I actually called my dad to come pick me up to ponteng school after recess, but bailed and stayed due to extra Physics when my girls went back.
Pn. Rema asked, when you see Boyle's Law what do you think of? Answers: Susan Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire, Crabbe & Goyle. By Chalystha, unknown source and myself respectively. Pn. Rema just thinks of boiling water.
Am ditching Dr. Cafe for Coffee Bean.
Admitted by Hui Jan into the no-highschool-relationship club she and Tharini belong to - I've been single and unattached for sixteen years, and I resolve to continue it for the last remaining year.
I suddenly realised Roshan and I are using the exact same ballpoint pen and yelled out the fact of it right smack dab in the middle of Physics. Onnly two of us in the class have it; Pn. Rema: I can hear the harps playing in background.
Han Wey spit his saliva into my eye.
Will miss Hui Jan once I cut down going online.
My phone bill due to texts is off the charts.
Never listen to Mr. Elvin.
There are a lot of hotter Indian guys in my church.
I'd play a song on loop for hours on end while studying.
I want to marry a guy named Jesse. Satyan: So I'll see "Jesse weds Jacie" at the wedding?
I like Iris-y songs.
I miss Arthur and Morgana so bad.
I want to rewatch A Walk To Remember.
I want to watch How I Met Your Mother.
I want a cup of yoghurt ice cream everyday.
I want to read "Shit My Dad Says".
I want to matchmake people.
I want to curl up into a ball and cry.
I want to yumcha with my girls.
I should do this more often.
Thank you for making me smile.