of the ferocity of memories

The wind’s so fierce; carrying all that it can, making them scuttle-fly-twirl-dance across the road-air-garden. It teased lazy, fluffy white clouds into crossly grey, amassing together in belligerence of their treatment. The sun’s rays broke through the heavy angry clouds, as if trying to lighten their sullenness.

It was so beautifully scary and I watched on in quiet awe.

As I drove down my street, three kids were playing with a light baby blue parachute that’s seen better days. Okay, maybe not playing, it looked like they were trying to pack it away or something, but the mischievious wind has other plans.

I wanted to stop and take a photo, but I didn’t. I wish I had the guts to just get out and take photos and to hell if people don’t like me taking photos of them.

I think that’s why I suck so much at taking people photos… among other reasons like I don’t know how to take photos of moving things, of things that can get annoyed if you take too long in tweaking your camera settings or making sure that the composition is right. Gotta learn to be more versatile and quick I guess.

Today’s weather reminded me of the time Ruby and I were riding our bikes to Johnny’s place (about 45 minutes away). The sky was leadened by angrily black clouds, accentuated by flashes of the occasional lightning, driven by howling gale-like winds, and grumbling its discontent.

Debris, big and small, were being blown against our backs, into our eyes, mouths and faces. The ferocity of the wind almost snatched our breaths away. The storm was right on our tails as we pedalled furiously to shelter.

It was mere seconds when we got to Johnny’s place that the sky hurled big, fat raindrops down in torrents – a sheet of water casading down to the wind-whirled earth.

It was so exhilirating.

It was almost scary.

I can’t remember the last time I felt so alive that I tingled.

of chocolate uggs

I’ve been wanting a pair of ugg boots for a while now, especially so for the New Zealand trip. Sadly, they were either: a) too expensive, b) too ugly, or c) really too ugly – which meant that I didn’t have any uggs to keep my toes toasty warm. >_< Bah.

New Zealand, I thought, would be great for ugg boots since it’s Sheepland (for those who don’t know, but to every one New Zealander, there’s 10 sheep). It was, but it wasn’t. The prices weren’t all that cheap and some of the wool I felt wasn’t as soft and warm (a bit too synthetic) as it should be.

There was this one pair, however, in Wanaka that passed all my stringent standards *sic*… but it was NZ$94, which Ram thought was just too expensive. I left the shop pouting cuz I ended up not buying it and when I got home to cold, cold tiled floors I regretted my decision and now REALLY wanted some uggs.

Somehow I managed to find the company that made those boots (I wasn’t even lookin for them! O_O), found the exact pair I tried on, and bought them without batting an eye. $65 for uggs! FTW! (includes postage and handling)

Ordered on Monday and I was expecting them to come in about 2 weeks time…. but they came on FRIDAY!!!! Oh lordy, I was sooooo happy.

They are little heavens for my feet ^_^

So there was a Lindt factory sale thingy…

I’m still eating the chocolates I got a week later ^_________________^

of snowboarding and the 5-day tour

A total of 18 people went to Sheepland New Zealand, specifically Queenstown, to snowboard *cough*or ski*cough*. Most of us endured a 2-hour wait at Christchurch Airport as paperwork had to be filled in for our vehicles. The 6-hour drive meant that we didn’t get to Coronet View Apartments til 22:30ish. I think we’re all in agreement that next time we’ll fork out the extra 180 or so bucks to fly to Queenstown. =P

Coronet View Apartments was such a great accommodation. It was the little things: the nice shampoo (none of those dodgy, cheap ones… it was Fructience), the towels, electric blankets, condiments, tea, coffee… oh lordy, the list goes on!! Not to mention the beaut view:

I was so nervous and filled with trepidation on the first day of snowboarding. What if I had forgotten everything? What if I manage to break something? Ugh… But it wasn’t so bad. I think I improved quite a bit from last season. I got some really helpful tips and tricks from Rowan (I can still hear “BEND YOUR KNEES!!! LOOK where you’re going!!!” lol), Ram, Nogz, Duy, and Dly. By the end of the third day, I was able to link turns the majority of the time. They weren’t perfect links, but it felt so good being able to do them! I also amassed a whole bunch of bruises on my knees and bum (mainly near the tailbone). Charlotte and I compared our knee bruises on the 2nd or 3rd day and she kicked my butt – hers were huuuuge, on both knees too! hehe

It was going so well… The Big Easy is such a great beginners’ run. After a while, you just know where and when to turn, where it’s icy (and it got daym’ed icy by the end of the 3rd day), what the terrain is basically. And then, we went to the Remarkables. Some people took a day off ‘cuz four days straight of snowboarding was a bit much. I wanted to take a day off too, but I thought “why not, I’m here anyways, I might as well”. I think I should have taken the day off.

I wish I could have said I finished the season with a bang, that I could link turns confidently, that next season, I’ll be properly ready to do blue runs. Okay, at least do the green runs faster =P … but I can’t. I started to hate the Turquoise green run @ the Remarkables. I hated the fact that there were too many people on the runs, not just n00bs, but experienced skiiers/snowboarders heading to the terrain park or the chairlifts to the other peak of the mountain.

I hated that it was icy, that the terrain was unpredictable, that it had traverses, and that by the end of the day, I couldn’t even see the terrain – it was a total white-out. To make matters worse, on my last day on the slopes, it snowed. Visibility was pretty much nil, it was cold on the chairlifts. I hated the fact that I couldn’t get over my fear of stacking it (had that dreaded feeling that one more bad stack and I was gonna break something). I was tired, I was sore, it hurt to even sit down, I couldn’t see, my nose was running….and then I began to PMS. -_-#

Oh Lordy, I was a mess on that last day. (I know I was being a big sulk). Thank goodness for Helen and Wenjai. We called it quits after a few runs and chilled out in the cafeteria. Kea’s turned up outside and Helen and I chased them around (just a bit!), trying to get a good photo of their underside wing.

The Remarkables was excellent for one thing though: using our snowboards to toboggan down to the car park. That was incredibly fun. I think it really made my day after having a crap time on the slopes.

We had to fit snow-chains onto our cars on the way up and had left them on for the trip back home. We took it easy on the way down – a few were grateful for the fact we had a bus in front to also slow us down. Out of the blue, we heard Alan quietly say over the CB: “Guys, be careful going down okay? We spun out and almost died.”

Later, Ruby told me what had happened: one of their back wheels hit a patch of ice and threw them into a 270-degree spin - Wenjai, who was facing the wall, ended up looking over the cliff-edge. They had to drive all the way back up to do a u-turn.

It was chilling to hear their re-encounter of the event and they were visibly still a bit shaken up about it – understandably so. It was terrifying just to hear them talk about it.

I think it was on the third day that Rowan hurt himself. He had spotted me at the top of the Big Easy and the nose of his board hit a drift or something. He fell and tore a ligament in his left shoulder >_< On the same day, Deelai fell really heavily on his knee and it swelled up like a balloon - it hurt like hell as well. It was kinda funny watchin him tryin to protect it from people nearby waving their hands around or slapping him in jest. =P

Charlotte had the same injury done to her right shoulder on her last day =T Poor gurl had to be stretchered down.

Mmm, just fast-tracking... Here are some of my random photos from the first half of the trip:

Charlotte, Nogz, Ram, and I left Queenstown on a crisp Thursday morning, farewelled by a glorious sight:

Stopped rather non-briefly at Lake Te Anau (got stuck feeding the ducks) and the info center.

We also stopped at Eglinton Valley (which I thought looked a LOT like Rohain in LOTR – but Ram said Rohain was more desolate looking). This is also where Nogz needed to relieve himself (and did so, much to Charlotte’s chagrin). We took our first jumping shots here, which was taken by Char’s camera… but which is now on Ash’s laptop =P

Going on the recommendations of the lady @ the info center in Te Anau, we stopped by Mirror Lakes and literally ran through it ‘cuz we spent too much time with the ducks and needed to make the last cruise @ 13:30 for the Milford Sounds tour.

Thankfully, we arrived @ the wharf with enough time to dawdle about and lunch on our egg and mayo sandwiches (washed down with shots of coke – cuz we had no cups… only 100 plastic shot glasses =P). Milford Sounds, we learnt, is really a fiord as it was created by a glacier many eons ago happily bulldozing through it. I’ve forgotten what the dude said what a “sounds” is, but WordWeb sez it’s a “large ocean inlet or deep bay”. Either way, it was so pretty and awesome in its hulking height (does that work grammatically? O_Oa)

On our way back to Te Anau (that’s where we were staying overnight), we dropped by Mirror Lakes Ram raced the setting sun to get us for a few more photos of Mirror Lakes. We managed to get there… but in my hurried state, I didn’t make sure Ram had a good grip on his camera – and Ram thought I was still holding onto it… and his camera dropped. I felt so bad and very much responsible. He picked it up and there was a merry tinkle that drove an icy stab into both Ram and my heart.

There were lots of words said. Words I rather not have here.

“Why are you guys still here?” Ram almost snarled. “Go… GO! I rushed here so you guys could take photos!” Don’t make it all for naught was the unspoken plea. How could I take photos while he can’t? I compiled anyway, feeling like a coward and so very guilty, and shot over my shoulder as I ran, “Maybe it’s just the UV filter…”

Ram had to prise the lens cover open to find out the extent of the damage. This pretty much says it all:

The next day, we got stuck in traffic…

… and in Cardrona, we went passed the Bra Fence. The boys were too embarrassed and so stayed in the car while Charlotte and I ran across the road to take photos. It was longer than we both thought it would be. Some bras look like they’ve been there for … well… a very long time. The colours had washed out, the weather wasn’t kind to them – tugging and tearing the material. We did notice one thing though: they were all relatively big cups… like D’s… O_O I got cheerfully beeped at while I was there =P

Wanaka sports a Puzzling World place. We did the maze challenge (girls vs. boys) *grumbles* the boys won *shakes fist* and went into the Illusions Room, which was quite fun. But the slanty room disorientated me so much that I felt ill. I feel lop-sided just thinking about it -_-

Lake Wanaka’s so pretty at sunset…

Frost is also pretty ^_^ Was taken by a snow-chain fitting area… or a rest area =P they all looked the same to me. This reminds me of a fluffy caterpillar’s mid-section.

I love NZ’s signs. They’re so much more informative than ours… once you get use to the huuuuuge black exclamation marks on reflective orange, diamond-shaped signs… and the red encircled cross with blue background (which was actually “no stopping”, which frequented alavanche-proned areas). And some of them were pretty funny ^_^ hehe

Stopped at Knights Point Lookout for a stretch…

And then went on to some hiking on Fox Glacier. Charlotte decided not to do the 4hr hike because her arm was still pretty sore. I was a bit worried cuz four hours is a long time to wait and felt a bit guilty that she wouldn’t experience the glacier hike, but we would. After some strenuous climbing and grabbing onto chains firmly bolted to the cliff-face, I was kinda glad she didn’t come – it would have been really tough with just one arm and hurt her shoulder lots for the climbing bits >_<

On our second last day, we went to Hanmer Springs for its thermal spa/pool, but dropped by Greymouth for a tour at Monteith’s brewery. It was pretty cool… we got to (re)learn about the beer making process…

Got to do some beer-tasting…

And Ram came appropriately dressed.

We were pretty much running late to Hanmer Springs. A bit thankful that it closes at 9pm… And then it started to snow… rather heavily. I dunno if you can tell from the photo, but a couple centimeters of snow was built up rather quickly. It was scary, but exhilarating. We passed a van driven by a Jamaican who didn’t have any snowchains and was losing traction tryin to get up the mountain. I hope he made it to whereever he was going. The snow delayed us a while, but somehow we managed to check into our cabins and race out to the pools with half an hour to spare.

The sulphur pool was great, a nice, eggy 40 degrees. This poor kid threw up near the toilets ‘cuz the smell got to him I think. Reckon I would have done the same if I was in there for longer. =P

We eased our way into Christchurch, checked into our flight, and I was astounded at how cheap the carpark was. Less than 15 mins was free, we took 30 mins and that was 2 bucks NZ. TWO BUCKS!!! For that same time, Syd. Airport would have charged us 6 bucks… at least! -_- *shakes fist* Anywho, we went off to eat in the park… except Charlotte and I had already eaten in the car (the boys were a bit put out by that) and so they dropped us off at the markets we saw at the Arts Centre.

The Arts Centre reminded me of Europe a bit… the architecture and whatnot. Made me miss the times I was in europe, roaming around when I could… *sighs* Anywho, we couldn’t find the markets at first, but then we did… and although it was really nice, it was also pretty small. I dunno about Charlotte, but I was a bit disappointed – just a tad =P

So that was pretty much our trip to NZ’s South Island in a nutshell… =) I miss it already… the rolling hills, the snow-capped mountains either looming over us or in the far distance, the sheep! (they were so cute), the non-traffic… Definitely going to go back – hopefully soon!

of freaky green eyes and a tin princess

Freaky Green Eyes (Joyce Carol Oates) is one of those few books that draws me into its world so completely that reality does not seem as real any more. One of the reviews I read called it a “predictable plot” with “stereotyped parents” in almost disdainful tones. So what if it’s predictable? If it makes you still feel anxious, your heart beating a quicker tempo, flipping the pages almost frantically… then hasn’t it achieved something? As for “stereotyped parents”, may be this is just me, but if Oates had portrayed the parents in any other way, the reviewer would have labelled them thus anyway. What doesn’t constitute as stereotypical parents? What kind of stereotypical parents were the reviewer alluding to? Ach, I’m just being pedantic – don’t mind me rant.

I guess you could say I don’t entirely agree with her review – each to their own *shrugS*. I haven’t read Oates’ previous novel, Big Mouth & Ugly Girl, to make a comparison to, but it makes me wonder – why do we have to compare it to previous writings? Why can’t we just judge it purely on its own basis? Meh.

Personally, I loved the book – I guess because I also felt like I could relate to the protagonist, Franky. Feel what she’s going through.. though Oates writing style made it easy to.

Some books do not go beyond “ooh I want to know what happens next, but that was a nice/lovely/terrible ending” – not having that kind of impact on me to make me think of things in terms of my life. That’s what particularly struck me about this book. It made me wonder about marriage, relationships, how things could get so bad without you realising… or not wanting to see. Blindly loving, easily hating – wanting to believe the things the person you love tells you, that their word is truth, that they would never lie to you.

A couple of reviewers also mentioned the impatience of waiting for Franky to realise and understand the reality of what’s happening between her parents. I know I’ve experienced that in so many books, once I actually threw the book across the room because I was so horridly upset at the main protagonist that I would happily have throttled her stupid scrawny neck if she was next to me. (That was extreme, yes I know *hangs her head in shame* BM was shocked and appalled at my actions, and I felt bad, but also resentful that the author wrote something like this to inflame their reader so.) But, in this book, the slow-to-realise-protagonist worked. I actually didn’t get impatient with Franky, frustratedly yelling at her to just open her eyes to see. I understood why she chose not to see, I sympathised, but I won’t say I didn’t mentally urged her to just open her eyes and see how manipulative, emotionally and physically, her father was.

It scared me to think that people could be like this – if this book portrayed stereotyped parents. Manipulating people closest to them for their own motives/gain, or even worse, believing their own innocence, in their own twisted reality. To have such power over people, bend their thinking to yours… is absolutely a terrifying thought for me. It’s almost like losing your own identity and substituting someone else’s idea of who you are, what you should be,and how you should think, as your own state of mind.

It was an excellently heart-wrenching book; I got rather teary in it several times. I loved Oates’ writing style, the way she conveyed the emotions running rampaged, the characters she detailed. I loved how it drew me in, how it made me question my views on life.

Freaky Green Eyes ~ Joyce Carol Oates
Published by HarperTempest in 2003
ISBN 0066237599 (Hardcover, 341 pages)

The Tin Princess (Philip Pullman) was beautifully told and I wanted a happy, fairytale ending – a Hollywood ending that we’ve all come to maybe secretly want, but hate. (Tom Cruise should never have been left living in The Last Samurai for example)

I guess it was a happy ending of sorts, but I left me wanting more – I guess he’s leaving the door opened for more adventures for the protagonists, as I rightfully suspected and guessed, he had written books prior to The Tin Princess that had featured these protagonists, or rather protagonist-turned-supporting-characters. *sighs* Because I’m pedantic, I was slightly annoyed that I started “in the middle of the series” (so to speak, as the prior books turn out to be a trilogy and this is just a… umm spin off? Kind of?).

Here is another author who’s written a book that wickedly pulls me into its reality, not wanting to leave, wanting to help out and set things right. Pullman is an exceptional storyteller, making things seem believable and not too overly fantastic that it couldn’t happen in real life. Hehe, rather you would want it to happen!

Looking forward to read that trilogy (i.e. Sally Lockheart Trilogy) and “His Dark Materials” trilogy.

The Tin Princess ~ Philip Pullman
Published by Scholastic Ltd in 2004
ISBN 0439977797 (Paperback, 277 pages)

of coldplay, gorillapod, and soggy weetbix

On 21 October 2005, Corporal Cow and floopyj bought 4 Coldplay tickets: B Reserve seats, section 34, Row A, Seats 11-14. There were lots of excitment and a few bemoans about how long it would be until the actual night: Wednesday, 28 June 2006.

Most of us had totally forgotten about it til the weekend before, realising that the day we’ve been waiting for was almost upon us. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited and hyped up… but all was “full of sound and fury,signifying nothing”, as we were pretty lacking in the organisation department. Myle and Corp. Cow pretty much polished off 2 bottles of wine between them during dinner @ Menya and was a tad “happy” whilst waiting in the queue.

The opening act was Youth Group, who had already started playing as people were filing in. We really wanted to hear them play “Forever Young” and fretted that they had already played it. Our concerns were for naught, as we heard the familiar chords wafting on the expectant crowd. There was a crazy burst of cheering, screaming, and whooping.

Their other songs weren’t too bad either, quite mellowing. =)

But then, when their time was up… we waited for a whole hour for Coldplay to appear. Floopyj almost fell asleep and I was right on her tail. hehe

The crowd went mad when they finally did appear, us included. There were lots of screaming. They were great performers, drawing in the crowd. Chris Martin was pretty funny – he stuffed up twice in two songs and made jokes at his own expense… especially when he tried to bust a balloon with his guitar, but it bounced off. Heheh cute…

We were sorry when it was all over, especially when he ran up to a section of seated audience!!! We were kinda cursing that we got the seats we were in hehe. They played most of our favourite songs, and we left satisfied with a smile plastered on our faces.

Saturday night saw us at The White Horse in Surrey Hills for a friend’s farewell drinks thingy. It’s a pretty place. I just wanted to blog about it so I can put up the pretty pictures I took with my gorillapod and camera attached. I love gorillapod.

After The White Horse, BM raced over to this Korean BBQ place in Belfield. The meat was quite delish, while the other food were so-so. All-you-can-eat for 26 bucks. Some said it wasn’t worth it… mebbe it was because the fire under our hot plate thingy kept going out, before finally it went *poof*…. *white plume of smoke* T_T

Yup, it blew a fuse, but it kept working after he put in lots of wood =D Yay! I was so stuffed.

We went to have ice-cream somewhere in Concorde. We were all freezing our butts off, but it was pretty fun, just bumming around and chatting about silly things ^_^

After waiting 3 months for the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (it was on “request” @ Bonnyrigg library – there were like 6 ppl on the waitin list before me T_T), I FINALLY and happily borrowed it today. While digging into my Weetbix quickly before it could suck up all the milk, I opened up the book tingling with a quiet excitment and anticipation.

I read the first couple of boxes before placing the event at the middle of the movie. Then I noticed something… something that sends a chill down a bookworm’s spine and strikes fear into their heart… being able to see the book’s bindings. It’s like someone breaking their leg and seeing their white bone protruding from their skin.

My eyes quickly darted to the top of the page… A bold “83″ was printed there. “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,” I wailed. I cursed the person who lost 82 pages, I cursed the kinds of people who are destructive and uncaring of public property, I cursed my luck. I realised that if I had bought the book when I wanted to, I would have already received it, read it, and basked in its glory. *shakes fist*

I put an order for it @ Abebooks and belatedly remembered about my Weetbix. Daym. It had sucked up all the milk -_-

On a bittersweet note, I have finally managed to get my grubby hands on “The Thief Lord” by Cornelia Funke, which has been on my “to read” list for a loooong while but never could find it in the library, and a couple of Phillip Pullman’s books. w00t!

of umaimon and blue mountains

of stupidity and for the love of food

of car accidents

We were beginning to be a bit restless during this Project Management seminar when a few of us at the back of the room heard a car revving quite a lot, followed by the screeching of a burnout. Huh! Hooligans, I thought idly and wondered if it was a blue WRX. (I have NO idea why I thought of a blue WRX)

Much to my surprise I heard the tire screech again, but this time it was as if it was braking really hard, but losing control as it skidded over gravel – making a loud SSHHHHHRRRRR, shhhhhrrrrr sound. Half of me hoped they weren’t losing control, the other half perked up and was waiting for….

*CRASH*

I quickly sat up from my slouch and looked out at the window (why do we do that even though we know we can’t see what we want to see?) with a half gleeful, half shock expression pasted on my face. My eyes inadvertently met Daniel’s eyes (a fellow Peer Networker) and we kinda shared a look that said, “OMG… a CRASH!” He pulled a “man, that’s gotta suck” face, while my face was still stuck on “pleasantly shocked”.

I’m so terrible. When I heard the crash, there was this elation that just shot through me and I distinctly remember thinking, “oh my gods! FINALLY I heard a crash!” I so wanted to run to the window, press my nose against the glass, and peer down at the street to get a glimpse of the wreckage.

I don’t want anyone to be hurt, gods forbid! But I think there’s something about a *screeeeeech* and then *crash* that sends satisfaction through you – that it’s a sound that’s completed. You know what comes next and if you don’t hear it… well, I know I feel cheated. =P

When the seminar was over, I totally had forgotten to check it out =P But I got to see 2 fire trucks, in all their glory of noise and lights, pull up in front of the Hilton Hotel on George St. for some reason or another =D haha more excitement for the day.

Anyways, me getting all excited about car crashes and stuff reminded me of this flash clip animated to a segment of Dane Cook’s stand up material: http://www.danecook.com/?video=32

Heheh, it’s pretty funny ^_^ The last half of the short clip is what I was reminded of.

I’ve been meaning to post this up for a while as well, but well… =P You know the deal.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Marin’s birthday party. We got to tour his beautifully decorated house (Pannette has got such wonderful tastes and a good eye for things that match!)…. anyways, we somehow ended up watching this really dodgy Hong Kong movie called “The Twins Effect II”.

The fighting scenes were quite terrible and unrealistic, especially after watching Shinobi (or something like that), but it was a light-hearted movie with some real good dorky bits that you can’t help but laugh at.

During the climatic scenes of the movie, one of the main dudes ran to get his (magic) sword that was stuck high up on the wall. He ran towards it, used the throne to climb up as high as he could, stuck out his hand and the sword detached itself, flying right into it! We were like, what the… If it could do that, why didn’t he do that where he was standing?

I tried to give the “flaw” the benefit of the doubt and suggested, “Maybe it’s only works at a short range.” To which Corp. Cow said, “Maybe it’s bluetooth!” XD

“Bloody good call” as BM would put it.

*sighs* Alright, I guess it was a you-had-to-be-there thing =T

Well…. we cracked up lots and I know I can’t look at bluetooth in the same way again =)

Weird Places to be bitten by a mosquito: my eyelids has has always had the trophy for this one. Followed by between the toes. (You might want to stop reading if you’re a prude… or you just don’t wanna know ;P)

However, last night’s bites stole it rightfully away – the underside of my boob. And yes, I was wearing clothes! So I have no idea how it got in there to do such a darstardly deed. -_-

I just hope it doesn’t get itchy while I talk to my would-be supervisor for my thesis later today.

Meh.