Writing

I'm a deep thinker wrapped nice and tight under a frivolous skin - that's how I like to think of it, anyway. A bit like Phillipa Gordon, from Anne of the Island. So you might notice how I tend to shy away from writing on some things when I actually think them. I find writing them too much of a chore - thoughts are like fancies, free, flying things, too beautiful to catch and put down on paper. (More Anne-ish philosophy here.) Well, if you have the skill, that's all right, but I don't, so it's a different story.

But here is my task - I will - I must write down what I think about Inception. 'Twill be a writing exercise for me, something to flex the muscles of this indolent brain over here. I must be like Fire. I will use my brain!

But right now I'm just so lazy.

Ah, and 'cause HuiJan asked me to. Tee hee.

Live Traffic Feed

This is hilarious!

I love this feedjit thingy.

It makes me feel happy because I can see that people are arriving at my blog, even if they might not be reading it.

A pet peeve: When people read my blog and don't comment, or, even worse, when they don't let me know they read at all.

And I learn so much from it! Like, places my knowledge is sadly sketchy on.

Like, I didn't know Santiago, Region Metropolitana is in Chile! A Chilean's been at my blog - I find that very cool. And people from Mexico, someone from Bulgaria, many people from Australia, and various parts of US.

And if you click for further information, I just realised it's just damn-ass funny! They don't let you see previous visitors, just the few recent ones they are willing to display, so this, so far, is all I've got:

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan arrived from google.com.my on ":: journal of a jacie ::" by searching for how to pronounce chalystha.

Cha was that you?! By the way, you pronounce Chalystha as Ca-liss-tha.

And:

Butterworth, Pulau Pinang arrived from google.com.my on ":: journal of a jacie ::" by searching for Cheong Tzen Ren.

I might post on time to time on what I see from my feedjit. It's just very, very entertaining.

Sorry, no real updates on what I've been doing or how I've been feeling, because I've still not been feeling well.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer - Review

Yesterday Chalystha Lee lent me this book. I started reading it at 5pm thereabouts, and finished it by eleven pm. It's a pretty thick book to finish so fast, plus, it's a psychological thriller, but I just wanted to see how it ended. Like, really, really badly.

This book is something like the Nicole Kidman/Daniel Craig movie The Invasion. In this book, Earth is not the only habitable planet in the universe and humans are not the only - neither are they the most - intelligent species surviving. There are beings called souls, which are parasites in the truest sense, for they can only survive if they live in a host body. They take on that body as if it were their own, and the poor humans just fade away into nothingness once they get their bodies possessed by these souls. Except the very strongest ones. Even though these strong humans lose control of their bodies to the souls, they are still able to retain some sort of consciousness. And that's where the story begins. It's told in the viewpoint of a soul called Wanderer, who is control of Melanie Stryder's body, but can still hear Melanie's voice speaking to her in her head.

*spoiler alerts*

What I like the most in this book is the Wanderer-Melanie relationship. I like how Wanderer (Wanda) begins to respect that Melanie's body is Melanie's, that Melanie's life is Melanie's, that Jared is Melanie's. I like how Melanie understands that Wanda can't help feeling what she feels - I like how Melanie doesn't grudge Wanda for what she is, how she starts seeing things from Wanda's view, the way Wanda sees things through Melanie's. I like how the two of them, in the book, sometimes use the word 'us'. The loyalty between the two of them is something deep.

What else do I like? I like Melanie, a lot. She's my favourite character, actually. I like how Jared is fiercely faithful to Melanie (favourite line: "Melanie will always be mine. And I will always be hers."). And I like the ending, I suppose. No great big humanity-restoring change - because that isn't realistic. It's scary sometimes when you see the route humanity is heading down to.

Now, I liked all of that, but really, you can't get away from the fact that this book was written by Stephenie Meyer.

It was draggy. In too many places. Just like I got the feeling Meyer dragged out Twilight into four very long books for money, I get the feeling she spread The Host out for as long as she possibly could. Sometimes, the image of Jamie in my head, Melanie's younger brother, would get replaced by one of Renesmee. Wanda had too many of Bella's tendencies - being a bad liar, an overwilling martyr, an anti-social loner. Not to mention Meyer likes scenes where the girl tries to seduce the guy and fails. Oh, and who can forget - two guys kissing the same girl, all in the same day?

*end*

What a long review this was. It's what happens when you're having an unofficial holiday all to yourself. :) Didn't go to school today. Had a golden morning with daddy - we went to Dr. Cafe's. I'm sooo addicted to the coffee there la. Going to watch Salt tonight with the fam. Yay!

NCIS

Fox now enables me to watch NCIS all day long.

NCIS has now joined my list of crime-busting series like CSI, Bones, Criminal Minds and others my head is too fuzzy to think of right now.

NCIS stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service. It's basically crime investigation for the U.S. Navy. I don't watch every episode; I think I like only Season 6 the best. I didn't really like NCIS at first because I found the cast not to my liking. But now I really do love them.

 Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo is hilarious - he's the joker on the far right. He joined NCIS just for the guns and babes - his words, not mine. Abby, the Goth forensics specialist, totally rocks the house down. The little old man standing next to Abby is called Ducky, and next to Ducky is Gibbs, who has a serious personality problem but is the Boss of the team. Ziva is the Israeli agent, and she is awesome. Next to Ziva is McGee, the poor guy who always gets the brunt of Tony's jokes.

The script is just darn good.

Tony is cleaning out his desk.

Ziva: Must you do that now, Tony?

Tony: I have to. It's spring.

Ziva: And?

McGee: You don't have spring cleaning in Israel?

Ziva: We do not have spring. Israel is a desert.

Forgive the quality of this post. I'm feeling as nauseous as a seasick baby.

Sick Season!

Hello dear readers, I'm sick.

I saw this coming on Thursday night, but my premonition was only confirmed when I woke up on Friday morning after a gruesome nightmare to find myself feeling like mallets hammering on the inside of my head, my body was on fire and I was aching like a Zamboni machine.

(Okay, how did I come up with that comparison?! Clearly not feeling well.)

In the end, I struck a deal with evil mom - she'd let me skip the first half of the day, provided I went after recess for double period add maths. And then I collapsed most gratefully back onto my lovely soft bed.

At 10.30, I was left outside the school gate because my dearest daddy was too lazy to bring me into the office and sign me in properly. I had to sneak into school, trying to hold my bright blue bag in the most inconspicuous way possible, scurrying another way when I saw En. Shamsul from the distance. All this with my head screaming protest at me in about a few thousand different voices.

Funniest moment: My sitting in the R&S room, while Joey and Nicole walked by. Joey didn't see me, but Nicole gave me a casual glance and a wave. They walked right past the door, out of sight. Five whole seconds later, they did exactly what people in cartoons do - Nicole realised something was amiss and backtracked with Joey in tow, to check if she was seeing things. As far as they knew, I hadn't come to school!

I was really disappointed that I couldn't play netball in the Karnival Sukan today, as I was supposed to. I was actually looking forward to doing so. What a darned-y nice time to fall sick. I tried waking up this morning, at 7, but my head started spinning and I just went back to sleep. Sigh. At least there's still next year.

I was feeling better - no more fever, no more WWIII going on in my head - but then I started feeling pretty wretched just before leaving for Interact Installation. I was sitting through the whole thing willing myself not to throw up, and left early. But I went anyway - not because my friends forced me to - (hah! do you think they're that scary?) but because I forced myself - how could I miss this major event of theirs?!

And I didn't regret it!

It was a very good event, in my humble opinion. Sure, it had its glitches, but what school event - what Dewan Bakti-held event - doesn't? The video presentation was amusing and pretty impressive, and even though it was an installation, I didn't find it boring at all. The bright golden frames complimented the pillars nicely and the red carpet was taped down nicely.

I just want to say this for the new board - give them a chance. It's not fair to go jumping down people's throats before they've ever had the chance to shine or otherwise. And Nicole Low, keep your head up. No-one who's seen you looking all haggard, doing all you could and more, can ever say you're not capable of living up to your promise. Now you just get proper rest and don't fall sick like me.

Congratulations to all three of you - Low, Lee and Kee.

And Xin You, Han Wey, and Roshan who looked super today.

Sad

And she didn't mind the rain, but it seemed unfair to inflict it upon her guard.

I'm a generally happy person. I'm upbeat; I keep myself that way. No matter what. It's tough sometimes; sometimes I fail; sometimes you see me sad. When you ask me, "Why are you so sad today?" the first thing that runs through my mind is, "I'm sad half the time you see me."

So I'm not going to tell you why I've been sad, what happened, whether it was trivial, whether it was major. The line right at the top is a quote from Fire; and it is very relevant - I'm sad, but why should you - or my blog - be? And, this also brings to mind when we were all supposed to come up with a quote for - English class in F2 methinks?

Mine went this way.

In the darkest of times, look to the least darkest side.

August the First

Yesterday was my momma's birthday.

Not gonna wish her happy birthday here because she doesn't read blogs.

True to family tradition, we spent the whole day eating.

Woke up early as parents were serving in the 6. 30 a.m. mass. I went too - see, teenagers join the elderly zombie community too on their momma's birthdays. Went to Bangsar's Coffee Bean for breakfast.

On a whim we went to Euro Deli in Damansara Kim for lunch. Which is this place specialising in pork. PORK! I LOVE PORK. I LOVE THAT I'M ABLE TO EAT PORK HAHAHA. (Hehe, apologies to my Malay friends.) Anyways, we had like, pork ribs and pork knuckles and pork sausages and all. The place had really good pork. I'm so addicted to pork. Anyway, the only glitch about the place was that on the dining mat there was this caricature of a nice round pig - eating a pork sausage.

Now that's just wrong.

Went to d'italiane kitchen at Jaya 33. The food there is just yum. True quality Italian food. Really. To die for. Italiannies is nothing compared to it. We had pizza and aglio oglio and risotto. And mouth-watering dessert. I'm counting down the days 'til I can somehow eat there again.

Went to Dr. Cafe's (the coffee place my dad and I go off to at least once a week to get our caffeine fix) for coffee after dinner. Caramel macchiato and caffe latte.

I love birthdays.

Oh, and we camwhored a lot. Tee hee. Will post pictures on facebook.