Advance planning, temporary sanity, bottomless (deficit) of account (single intended)

Control your time wisely. Running Man joke intended.

It’s been 10 days ages since I updated. Wow. It felt longer than that, because I completely lost track of time.

This is mostly going to be a mass block of text until I find something awesome to post. If you’re bored, you can always just look through my Instagram… even though I don’t really use it all that much.

Just an outdated pic to make this post seem poetic and emotional.

Met up with friends here and there in the past few weeks, so that was good. Sociability restored! I need to do more of that soon, but sadly for me, time is just not on my side. I’m so bad at organising my time… time is precious yet it’s something I don’t control well at all.

So these few weeks I’ve been looking after work, really. Le boss and wife went away on vacation for two weeks so I had to make sure everything was functioning fine. To be honest I’d prefer not to take upon such a big responsibility, because I’m a seriously paranoid person. In that respect, probably I was a good candidate because I was so paranoid about everything - but what can I say? I did my best to keep things normal, and let’s hope that they’re fine with it now that they’re at work after 2 weeks’ vacation. I finally have today off after working 6 days straight, and all I can say is that I’m exhausted. Usually you don’t feel tired if you’re working non-stop – you only know you’re tired when you have time to suddenly stop… that’s when your body tells you it doesn’t want to wake up… and that in fact it is sore, tired or overworked. Body, Y U NO LOSE WEIGHT/ MASS.

I’ve recently discovered that I probably have been shrinking in size… but only my wrists =_= my bracelets are too loose and I have to buy smaller ones now. But whenever I step on the scale, it’s the same heaviness… damn it. It’s such a pain and headache when it comes to these things… I shall continue on my adventure working towards my ideal body type, which I will probably sadly never be able to achieve ;A;

Holiday Planning

A lot of my time these days (apart from 9gagging – go on, I dare you to ruin your life) is spent doing research on Hong Kong. I can’t believe how fast time is flying… literally next week I can begin my duty free shopping… here’s to the death of my bank account.

As I mentioned before, I’m pretty paranoid so I need to know exactly how much stuff is going to cost me, where I can get it, how I can get there, and how long it will take. I know holidays are meant to be stress-free and “take it as it comes”, but I’m just like that – I need to control everything or else I know I will get nothing done. For now, I still can’t decide what bag to take with me (I think that if I carry a big bag on board, it will look soooooo awkward if I take it with me every time I go to the toilet… paranoid much?)… eurgh. Too many decisions to make. I still don’t know if I want to go to Causeway Bay on my first night there… because Forever21 closes at 1am. 1am. I can still make it OMG.

I have over a month to still plan what to do each day… guess I’ll slowly map out a trip for each destination I choose first and then assign them to particular days I’m there. Hopefully.

I’ve also been struggling with “presents” to bring back… I’ve been torn between going back to HK in a glorified manner or a shoestring budget… especially since it’s presents for people – ahem – family who haven’t bought… well, anything for me every time I went back. I finally solved my problem by deciding to buy a gift for the *unknown family relationship* – what do you call your cousin’s kid? Or is there no real relationship? :\ Anyway. I’ve never met or seen (she’s around 14 years old already – holy crap) and getting craploads of chocolate for everyone else. I’m not sure if that’s the best way, but I guess it’ll have to do. I honestly didn’t remember much about bringing presents back to Hong Kong… but now that I recall, we did bring things like toys, chocolates, mangoes… I even remember we brought back flour, olive oil, milk and even FRESH FISH back… but to be honest, I don’t ever remember being thanked genuinely for it… the response was always like “meh, we have that here in Hong Kong.” Eurgh, someone shoot the pessimist inside me! But I decided that I can be pessimistic towards everyone except for my grandma (who did actually prepare the odd present or lucky envelope) and the young (innocent) girl. Everyone else can eat chocolate and get fat. *trollface*

My bank account is forever an abyss of bottomless expenditure. I really really saved up hard for the past few months… BAM, it’s back to square one now :\ I still have a lot of stuff I want to and need to buy, considering I will be able to claim back my GST via the TRS at the airport. (For international readers, we have a tax called GST, Goods and Services Tax – it’s an additional 10% on top of the price of whatever you buy, but usually you will find that the prices you pay already include GST, so it’s not 10%… you divide by 11, if that makes sense. If you spend over $300 in the one shop within an hour or so, you can claim back your GST at the airport for international flights. If your receipts do not total to $300 or more, you will not be able to claim GST.) I’m in a dilemma where I’m like “might as well claim back tax since it’ll be cheaper that way…”- eurgh. I have a feeling I won’t be buying much in HK at this rate… a lot of the stuff I have on mind will be fairly expensive… I guess I will claim tax that way. Oh, and duty free – hopefully they have what I want there!

Exchange your money when the exchange rate is high.

I know this sounds really stupid, but it’s really just common sense.

I admit, I used to not think about exchanging money because if you exchange money at HK, it’s a higher rate… but considering the dollar these days has been unusually high, it’s only a matter of time it will slip. I know it will climb back up slightly, but it’s uncertain – you know what it is today, but you don’t know about tomorrow.

I was kinda lazy a few weeks ago… I had 2 days off and I decided not to go out on my first day and decided to bum around at home… I then checked the exchange rate the second day and it fell I quickly got myself out of the house and went to search for a place I found via the Internet which claimed to have good rates (or at least other people claimed it was good) – and to my dismay, the place closed down. Trololol – I went up the 18th floor of a building to find an empty suite.

The place next door, however, was still open and is a popular destination to exchange money… most people will know this place. This place is called KVB Kunlun.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Kunlun, but in the short 10 minutes I was there, I honestly wasn’t really impressed. There was a line of about 4 people in front of me, and there were only 2 people at the desk… and they were taking their sweet time doing whatever it was they were doing. I overheard a lady’s query (in Chinese), and it didn’t sound good to me… Kunlun charges a fee of around $10 – $30 (I couldn’t hear the exact sum because I was really far away) if you exchange less than the equivalent of $2000AUD.

Now to be fair, who really exchanges $2000AUD in one go? I mean, if I knew that the Australian dollar was going so strongly, I wouldn’t exchange everything in one go. The lady was exchanging for USD though, probably to make a slight profit or whatever it was she wanted to do, since USD is handy wherever you go. She was only exchanging for about $700 USD, and she had to pay a fee. She argued that the last time she did it, there was no charge – there I was sitting thinking “hurry up, she’s not going to waive you the fee just from you arguing!”.

Here’s another thing – Kunlun makes a profit from the exchange rate, AND they charge you commission/ transaction fee now. *shrugs*. I think that was certainly enough reason for me to stand up and leave the damn place… their customer service isn’t great considering how slow they were working… and well, the exchange rate was crap. The Chinese lady exchanged her AUD to USD for 1.022 when the official rate was about 1.05, so that’s around a 3% profit on exchanging money – PLUS a $10ish transaction fee. I walked past UAExchange in Market City which charged no commission and the rate was 1.026 – even higher than Kunlun, but NO commission. Even so, UAExchange to me isn’t that great – especially when you know it’s possible to find a place which will charge no commission, and only have a 1% difference in the official exchange rate.

Well, I managed to find a place, but that place had limited Hong Kong dollars… only managed to exchange for half of what I intended to that day… but at least I exchanged some money and guaranteed myself that a good portion of my money is exchanged at a highish rate. Yesterday I exchanged some more money seeing that the rate wasn’t bad (even better than the first time I exchanged!)… and I called in advance to make sure they had money in stock. Today, the exchange rate is shockingly low. I kinda regret not exchanging more… but I’m sure that next week the exchange rate will improve a bit more. Or at least return to what it was before – but only time will tell. Maybe it’s even better when I’m about to leave…?

Anyway, my message to all travellers out there is that you should exchange money whenever you feel is appropriate… don’t wait last minute. DO get a credit card with a low rate… I can’t be assed so I’ll be taking my usual MasterCard debit with me which charges a whopping 3% – but that’s because I don’t like credit cards, I like to pay things off immediately without any nasty surprises. It’s just my way of controlling my money… I don’t believe in spending money you don’t have yet… that’s kinda stupid because it’s a trap into debt. That’s what I think, anyway.

Rapidfire random list of stuff going on in life at the moment

• Finished Dream High 2. Officially wasted 16 hours of my life. Dafuq did I watch?
• Still haven’t finished Shut up! Flower Boy Band because I just couldn’t be bothered doing so. Kind of strayed a bit far away from what I initially liked the drama for… not sure if I like or not. I will finish it… later.
• Started Kpop Survival, Rooftop Prince and Fashion King. So far I really like Rooftop Prince – it was a lot more than what I had initially expected. I also literally side-eyed Kpop Survival because it’s aired on Channel A, and its logo looks exactly the same as Dream High1/2… turns out it has a way better story in the first 4 episodes than in the entire 16 I watched for DH2… everyone’s taste is different, but at least the funny parts are actually funny… EURGH. As for Fashion King, I was going to watch it for Yoo Ah In and oogle at Shin Se Kyung being pretty… but in this Shin Se Kyung looks different D: Like, what happened to her face D: I dunno, haven’t brought myself to watch past episode 1 although the first episode was promising. I am most interested in Rooftop Prince and Kpop Survival… more Rooftop Prince though, because Han Ji Min is awesome. And it’s hilarious.
  I mean, if it’s possible to watch the drama with your mum, you know it’s good. *shrugs*
• Le workplace is situated in a shopping centre, and they fixed the speaker thingy and they’ve been playing music 24/7… wait did I write music, sorry I meant to spell out NOISE instead. The music is so bad it makes me feel like I’m working in a fricken nightclub and it gives me headaches because it’s an idiot at a set of turntables doing “beats” and repeating them even though it sounds CRAP. Why would you repeat a melody if it doesn’t even sound good? And they pump it up so loud… can you please play something more workplace or family friendly?! At an appropriate WORKPLACE noise level? I don’t appreciate it and I’m in my mid-ish 20s… let alone seniors, who actually make up a great bulk of customer base. PLAY MUSIC RESPONSIBLY. AND IF IT’S NOT MUSIC, DO NOT PLAY IT.

I will update properly later this week, because I only get to work 4 days for the next few weeks \o/ Having a crapload of days off is awesome. I’ve been kinda lazy doing my Hong Kong research so I better pick up on that and quite 9gag… doubt it’ll happen LOLOLOL. Still haven’t planned any days yet… and to think I can do duty free shopping tomorrow… AWWWWW YEAAAAHHHH. I better get a move on. I’ve decided I won’t be taking my camera with me,  but I will however update my trip quite frequently because I was given a SIM card today which I can use as soon as I step off the plane in Hong Kong. I won’t be doing any live blog posts though, because typing on an iPhone honestly drives me up the wall. I will save that for when I return. For now, I’ll plan what my next post is… and it will be useful, trust me. It’s something I’ve been delaying for a very long time… I’ll get round to doing it… I hope

(I haven’t even posted up my resolutions for 2012… I shall repeat the same resolutions from 2011… if that’s alright with everyone )

Pet Peeves, Level: Infinite – hypocrites, lame excuses (aka lies), unkept promises.

I’ve felt a lot better these two days – unexpectedly got to work with BOTH of the girls yesterday which was really a surprise, but it also made my mood a lot better. Today I also got to skip a few hours of work to go see Thomas Sabo’s new collection. Schweeeeeet. Not that I skipped any work – because seeing the collection was… work… lol.

It’s been a really long while since I’ve written a pet peeves post – but during the past few days after thinking things clearly, I thought of things that made me more sad, and things that probably made me more annoyed. Overall though, I’ve finally concluded that, yes, actually, the problem actually does not lie in me. Usually, anyway. If anything, the problem belongs to other people.

This is quite a personal post… not directed at anyone in particular. Just a bunch of my recent thoughts… and me making sense of them…

… in the respect that I really had to dig out memories I didn’t want to remember. To be honest, I don’t really remember much of the past few years nowadays… in an attempt to forget things I have  bits of my memory blanked out. To have me remember is probably the equivalent of you telling me to shave my hair to 5mm long… the consequences are very bad… but at least things will eventually grow back to normal, and my example has taught you all not to do the same. Or perhaps on the other end of the scale, I hope that maybe you may follow me and share some of life’s stories, as painful as they are, so that others don’t make the same mistakes. As this post is quite personal I probably haven’t really written as straight to the point as I’ve hoped… I guess please take this as a way of me sharing and reflecting.

I know, we all can be hypocrites. I am one myself – in recent months a (well close-ish) friend of mine kinda pissed me off (and this was at work, and literally EVERYONE I work with believed that it was HIS problem not mine) so I would jokingly find myself saying “psssh won’t see him ever again.” The problem though is that I probably won’t see him again – because he’s working overseas. Who knows if he’ll ever come back :\ Of course I feel sad. As much as I like to say “omg never trust blah blah blah” and all, I will miss him. I mean, if I had known that last time he came to visit me at work was the very last time I could possibly see him in my lifetime (perhaps, it’s very extreme and melodramatic, but hey, WHO KNOWS?) I probably wouldn’t have been pissed at him. In fact I’d probably give him a farewell hug. We’ve known each other for years. How can anyone be used to having someone around to talk to and then suddenly finding out they’re gone?

He was the only friend of mine who actually consistently came to visit me at work every now and then – yeah, we all say it’s annoying… but I did really appreciate it. Even if I said something mean, it was out of anger – I didn’t really mean it. He actually made an effort to come around and say hi, if he knew that he was going to be around my workplace. Now that he’s gone, I really do feel that something’s amiss… that kinda added onto my feeling of loneliness… because he really did remind me at times “ah… someone remembers me.”

For this short story, I am the hypocrite – and yes, I do kind of hate myself for being bitchy, especially since now I might not be able to see or contact him. It really sucks.

Then I thought back to other very similar events in my life during the past 5 years – and then I realised that my hypocrisy probably isn’t that much compared to the other shit I’ve had to put with.

I’m the type of person to probably say something really awful but not really mean it (unless I say it with glaring eyes, point at you with a finger and am very serious about it) – half the things I say are jokingly. But when I make a promise, I promise I make a 95% effort to actually mean what I say. If I do say something mean, and really meant it, I probably did it because there was a reason for me to do so – my way of caring is being cruel to be kind. If I think you’re in misery, I’ll most likely do something pretty rash to make you have a reason to hate me. That’s my gift to you – a tranquiliser in disguise. I don’t mind being misunderstood. That’s fine. As long as I know what I’ve done (which was not out of bad intention), I don’t mind. That’s a different story for another day.

Rewind back to my ever first relationship, long story short my parents didn’t like him. Really. That’s what I told him, but it sounded like a lame excuse. I told him that we should keep in contact, be good friends – and of course when someone says this, the response generally is “yeah, okay, sure.” And I believed him.

By the time I asked him if he had time for lunch, his tone on the end of the phone was hesitant, reluctant, and he said he was busy. A lame excuse later, he never got back to me as promised, and I never bothered to contact him again. By the way, that was probably less than a month after our relationship ended, and he already started dating another girl.

Why can’t you just be straightforward and be honest? If you’re not cool with keeping contact with me, at least tell me. I don’t want to have an alert at the back of mind going “oh hay, thingy might talk to you one day and you might need to go out and meet up” – especially if it’s not going to happen. Just tell me straight up, “sorry, I have a girlfriend now, I kind of don’t want to meet up with other girls, I hope you understand.” That’s FINE. I’ll leave you alone, okay.

Is it that much to ask for a bit of honesty?

I understand that perhaps it wasn’t originally intended to break a simple promise as “let’s be friends” because things pop up, but don’t be so damn shady about it.

Fast forward 2 years later I get a Facebook friend request. Yeah, thanks a lot okay – if you’re wondering why you can’t see my profile in full, it’s because I’ve hidden all my stuff from you – just like what you did with me before. Don’t act all friendly with me when I was the one who was trying to stay friends. Just because you sent me a friend request does NOT equate to you wanting to stay friends. You never made an effort. Hypocrite in this case? Certainly not me. I did all I could to keep my promise. That’s the best I can do.

As much as it really hurts to remember how my second relationship crumbled, what he said was “I want to be someone who can still care for you even though we’re not together”. My reply was “I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” I really meant it. I wiped him out of my life even quicker than folding a days’ worth of laundry. I don’t even have a means to contact him any more – that’s how much trauma I went through. The several months as things went downhill all I could remember was crying every other night. I was unhappy. I broke down in a computer lab filled with students in the middle of the night whilst rushing a final project with just barely days to spare. Did he care? No, he didn’t.

Thinking back, I was probably just too polite and too conservative – possibly too optimistic. Thinking back to what happened, if a guy makes you unhappy, cry so frequently and give less than a rat’s ass about it, how could anything he says ever be trustworthy? Care for me? Since when? And caring for me in the future… what?

I don’t want to be unfair because I know at one stage he probably did care, but under absolutely no circumstances should being in a relationship be so damn depressing.

Of course I want to believe him. I don’t want to believe that I had a relationship with someone so bad they couldn’t keep their word… but there’s no point in believing him.

It took me literally months, possibly anywhere up to a year… maybe more. Maybe I’m still not recovered even now.

All I have left in my memory are the times when I was just unhappy. I mean, crying alone at probably 2 or 3am in the morning even though you had such a busy lifestyle studying a subject I did was not normal. After it all ended I remember going to class for the first time after several days. I had probably cried every day, cried myself to sleep. What hurt me more was the hurt look on my parents’ faces… they couldn’t bear to see me so upset. I would sit at the dinner table and uncontrollably have tears falling down my face. I was a real mess and I really dreaded the idea of taking off my sunglasses because they hid my tired and swollen eyes.

I had my friends pull me up – people who I know who rarely judge others would actually tell me “he wasn’t good enough”. Really, the nicest friends I have who hardly ever say anything bad about others probably couldn’t bear me to see me in such a bad state they actually say something so out of the norm… I heard the same phrase worded in a variety of different ways from several people – I guess even until the very end I was still blaming myself for not doing a better job.

What hurts me the most probably isn’t the reason why my relations ended, or how I was treated. What hurt me more was realising that I was promised a whole lot of promises, but they were all fake. Here I am, after all these years, still hoping that at least people had the decency to keep their promises and perhaps on the other side of wherever they are at least thinking about “oh yeah, I promised… it’s a shame I couldn’t keep it… but if I have the chance to… I’ll try again.”

I dug out some of the experiences I’ve had that I feel really did hurt me. I’m probably a bit crazy for digging out something so painful to remember, but I really want to put out a message: don’t make promises you can’t keep. Even if it’s small like “I’ll reply you in a week”, at least reply after 2 weeks. If you can’t reply, don’t say you will. If after a long time the reason is “oh I got busy” or whatever, it’s just a lame excuse. There are 52 weeks in a year, and that makes 104 days of weekend you can either catch up with people or have spare time to write a reply. A reply only takes several minutes of your time and can be done while sitting on the toilet (OMG WOW! Y DIDNT U THINK OF THAT?). This is just an example okay – but if all your 104 weekend days are filled, there are still another 104 weekend days of the next year. FIVE MINUTES, OKAY. Can you like, sleep less 5 minutes on just 1/104 days of the year?? Am I asking too much? No matter how busy I was, I still managed to make time to go out – relationship or friends. I’m a lot slacker now, but with a good reason since I’m working full time – my days off are only Fridays and Saturdays, but I’m more than happy to take out any of my 52 Saturdays to meet up with good friends. If it’s not this week, it’s the week after; I promise.

Of course the truth hurts – but I rather know it sooner than continually being lied to and then finally finding out at the end. It’s tiring. And I’m not that narrow minded – I might be angry, hurt, sad upon knowing the truth, but I can be fine afterwards. Just don’t add bullshit into the equation.

Seriousness aside though, only condition under I can’t keep my promise is if I need to see my friends at night time and I don’t have a means to get home. So don’t make me a hypocrite by deliberately asking me to come out at night – sorry, I can’t. But I can do lunch.

So yes, I can be a hypocrite at times. But when I say something, or make a promise, I at least make an effort. And it’s a decent one, not a half hearted/ half assed attempt. I rather be a hypocrite than a liar, at least.

This pet peeve of mine is probably something that really is quite personal and is something that particularly does hurt me more than what others would normally expect. It’s just me. I don’t know about others… but in my case… broken promises just disappoint me…

I know I sound really picky and fussy over minute details, but in all honesty, I’m just a really simple person. I really don’t need all that much. I just want honesty and at least some dedication. If that’s too much to ask for… then… I really don’t know what to say.

Slightly off topic -  I know I really did stray off my path of thought in this messy post, but upon reflecting back I am only starting to realise that a lot of what I went through was not what I deserved. It’s not what anyone deserves. I promise myself I will find someone better. Someone who won’t make me so unhappy, won’t make me cry so frequently, won’t be so damn sloppy and half assed. Nobody deserves anyone like that. Hmm – if I manage to keep thinking this way, which is probably what I should be thinking naturally, then I won’t have such a hard time. I’ve still been blaming myself all this time, including times when I’ve been disappointed all over again, so I’ve never been able to move on. I hope none of you get to experience it, because I don’t think it’s any good at all.

Ironically, my personality is actually kind of tough – or at least it seems to be to people I know. Most people would have never expected that I would be able to put up with all that for so long…

Guess from now on I’ll be true to myself – I won’t let myself go through that again, and that includes believing false promises.

I deserve better than that.

Emo Post

I rarely write anything depressing in nature (I do, however, frequently like to rant about things and write things of a negatice nature, but depressing is more like 1 in every 20 posts) but today is just one of those days when I just feel sad – but it’s not just today though, it’s a continuation from yesterday.

There are several things that can put me in a bad mood, and one thing is wasting time – if I feel like something stupid which shouldn’t have happened wasted my time meaning that I could miss my bus and be late for work, I will be extremely grumpy. Another thing that can instantly put me in a bad mood is remembering or noticing something that triggers bad memories when it’s totally uncalled for.

I don’t deny it – I do what other people do, I avoid things that make me unhappy. If it’s within sight and it annoys me, I will remove it. It’s that simple.

Everyone has been recalling stories about when they were 24 years old (the supposed “bad luck” year) and they told me stories about how they were just really really upset and depressed the whole year. I’m generally not that superstitious so I really hope that this isn’t the case for me this year – but unfortunately I’m starting to feel it. I feel really alone for the first time in years. After a disaster of a break up, I was a complete wreck and I was luckily pulled up by my friends. I thought to myself, I could make do without a relationship if I had awesome friends around me. For now, I really do feel that my friends are slowly drifting – and it’s not necessarily my fault, though it feels like it – in the respect that it makes you ask yourself “what went wrong? What did I do for this to happen?” It could just very well be that they have their own lives and they’re just busy with whatever they’re doing… but as we all know, we don’t quite think so logically like that.

I’m not really a positive person either – I tend to look on the darker side of things because I think I just have the worst luck when it comes to things people find ordinary in their every day lives… it’s my way to deal with disappointment because if I don’t expect something good, I won’t be disappointed. Every time I try to be positive, I find that I’m disappointed – I’m not sure if it’s because I’m just way too optimistic at the wrong time, or if I’m just asking for too much. Am I asking for too much? I don’t know, a lot of the time I really don’t think that I’m asking all that much… but when people treat me in a way like “U MAD?”, I start to question myself and the self-blaming game restarts itself all over.

I really try to be confident, but I can’t. I really want to move on and be a better person, but I can’t. I just find it so hard to just be myself and yet have people accept me for the way I am… it’s really tiring because most of the time I’m the one who gets disappointed the most. I’m the one who apologises even when I’m not wrong. I’m the one who is left behind even though all I ever did was just look out for people I care about, even if it was in a strict way.

All I can really say is that at the moment I’m really stressed and I’m not all that happy. Yes, I do have feelings, and although I might appear to be really tough on the outside, I’m the one who gets hurt the most. I don’t really have anyone to turn to these days to talk about things because people these days don’t really listen. For now I just hope that when this post ends, I can then continue on with my every day routines, cry my heart out, get some rest and hope that my unhappiness ends at midnight and tomorrow is a brand new day.

Tagged Post :)

Got tagged by Vermillion

Usually I’m one of those people who try to ignore these kind of tagged posts because I’m lazy LOL. I’ll take this opportunity to blog since I’ve been a bit slow lately. Been really tired/ busy.

Here the rules:

• Write 11 (random) things about yourself on your blog
• Answer the questions the tagger set for you and create 11 new questions for the people you tag
• Choose the next 11 people to tag and link them on the post
• Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her
• No tag backs
• You must post these rules

11 random facts about me

1. I was born in the year of the dragon
2. I don’t listen to music that’s in English, rarely watch the news or read it
3. My favourite colour is green, yet I do not own any green clothes
4. My favourite music genre is hip-hop/ rnb
5. I don’t like my hair being black, so I dye it brown, though nobody can tell I’ve dyed it
6. The only overseas place I’ve ever been to is Hong Kong (and the outskirts of Shenzhen)
7. People call me via adjectives such as “emotionless”, but I’m not emotionless at all, and I really suck at hiding my feelings
8. I have really fat fingers, lol
9. I got my ears pierced when I was 4 years old… at the head office of the jewellery store I work at now
10. Although I am fluent in Cantonese, I cannot sing Cantonese songs; however I can sing Mandarin songs without a problem
11. I am single. LOL.

11 Questions

1. What are your pet peeves?
Oh wow, too many to list! I even started a series of blog entries highlighting these, I’ve practically lost count. I guess I shall try to list three of these? Haha – I’m actually a person who really complains deep down about these things >:\ I think one thing that annoys me the most is people who walk really slow in front of you when you’re walking down the street – and it’s really hard to overtake them, I hate it when that happens.  Straightening my hair just for it to curl slightly after I’ve finished. Finishing something just to find out I’ve missed something, or having someone tell me to change something – I really hate it when that happens.

2. Ever wished that you were taller or shorter?
I’m 165cm (that’s around 5 foot 4) so you can say it’s the ideal height for most girls, or super common, average height. I can’t say I’m tall, but I can’t say I’m short either. I did (and still do) wish that I were taller – around 167cm would have been my ideal height. I did grow a centimetre in 2009, so I guess there’s a bit of hope…?

3. What are your favourite type of shoes to wear?
Anything that looks cool, really, but need to be comfortable. I walk and stand quite a lot, and although I have small feet, they tend to swell up a lot and pretty fast too :\ I also think that shoes need to be good quality and usually I equate quality with the price tag or label. I now try to have all my shoes “Made in Italy” (I find they tend to last a heck of a lot longer) – so I guess anything that fits under those conditions, I’d buy.

But honestly, I have a thing for boots – I really really love boots in all forms, be it ankle boots, high top sneakers (they can be considered boots too!), knee high boots, heeled boots, gumboots/ wellingtons - you name it.

4. Do you listen to music on your phone or portable music device?
Neither – I rarely listen to music when I’m out and about. If I listen to music it’s probably via my PC with my headphones on.

5. Did you learn a musical instrument when you were younger?
Yes, I learned the keyboard LOL. It was lame, I think I got to grade 4, but I still couldn’t play with my left and right hand both playing simultaneously. Then I quit.

And then there was the recorder, which was a compulsory instrument in junior high… but seriously, who CAN’T play the recorder?

6. Do you prefer online or instore shopping?
It really depends on what it is – online shopping has so many awesome bargains, and it’s all mailed to me so I even get to save time and transport costs. I love shopping for skincare online because it’s a lot of cheaper, but for things that involve colours or sizes (such as pants) I really have to buy them instore. Most of the things I order online are either one size or are dresses, because I know there’s a 95% chance it’ll fit me.

Even so, 90% chance is if I order a dress online, it’s way too short on me, so I end up wearing them all as long tops.

7. What’s your fondest memory of your childhood?
I didn’t really have a great childhood to be quite honest… possibly the best memory I had was one of my birthdays… I had a fruit cake, took lots of photos and got to sit on my dad’s lap.

A close second would probably be in Hong Kong with my cousin – we argued to no end while I was there, but towards the end of the trip I taught him how to say “cheeseburger” in English and that really made my day. I was 4 years old, he was 10 years old at the time.

8. Do you learn any languages?
Not officially – it’s all kind of “along the way” thing.

There are 3 languages I usually list on my resume as languages I know and have little difficulty with – English, Cantonese, Mandarin. The unofficial languages I know include Japanese and a dialect named Hakka – I used to actually translate Japanese manga, songs and various other crap in my spare time, so I was kind of fluent in a literal since. Hakka is a dialect I understand by ear, but cannot utter more than basic sentences. It’s been a very long time since I’ve used or encountered either one, so they’ve kind of dwindled and died inside me. If I have the chance, I’d like to pick them both up again.

At work I’m really trying hard to learn Mandarin – as in, polishing it up. There’s also the occasional Cantonese slang, but my manager is kind enough to explain it to me so I’m not clueless lol. I think my Mandarin has really improved drastically these few months as it’s all I’ve been using to communicate with my workmate – at least I don’t have to pause for about 5 seconds before any sound comes out of me lol. No really, I’m a lot more fluent than before.

The only language I’m genuinely interested in picking up bits and pieces at the moment is Korean. I knew how to read and write the alphabet in high school, but it’s only now that I’m really listening to their music, watching their drama and variety shows that I’m slowly picking up really really basic bits. Let’s just say I know enough to know if a Korean customer just doesn’t like a product or thinks it’s too expensive or thinks it’s pretty. It’s sometimes really nifty because we do have some Korean customers who know little English, and I kinda know what they’re trying to say.

9. What type of books do you like to read?
… manga/ Japanese fashion magazines? Lol, I really don’t read much these days. The most literate I get is reading something like www.fmylife.com or www.cracked.com – hardly any scholastic merit, I must say.

10. Do you like to collect anything? If so, how big is your collection and when did you start collecting?
I go through phases, so if there’s a collection of anything, it’s never really all that big. I stop collecting when I start to think I’ve got a terrible obsession that really needs to stop.

My ongoing collection will probably be my stash of designer goods, I suppose. I started when I was about 21 years old.

My collection is really getting out of control… it’s hard to say how many items I have because I have bought a lot of what I consider “borderline” designer branded items… but for items that are definitely designer (Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry, Prada – you get the idea) as in boutique style items, I currently own at least 43 items (there are probably more, I probably did miss a few items). The items include things like accessories (belts, jewellery, sunglasses, watches), clothes (tops, jackets, pants), shoes, scarfs, hats, keychains, bags, wallets.

I did not include items such as skincare, cosmetics or fragrances.

Just a small portion of crap I own. Yes, I have a Burberry newsboy hat. Why, I do not know.

Out of the brands I purchase, the largest collection is surprisingly from Burberry, at 12 items. That includes a travel bag, three jackets (to be precise, one jacket, one coat/cape, one quilt jacket), two tops, a jumper, three pairs of shoes, scarf and a hat.

So yeah. I bought all of these items (none of these were gifts, believe it or not). I’m turning 24 this year… so it means I got on average about 15-20 items each year… >_>

My collection is relatively small compared to some people I know, but still, it’s the biggest collection I own, because it’s the most expensive… and I know it’ll only just get larger because I have a lot of things I have yet to buy…

11. Do you prefer typing or writing (by hand) your notes?
By hand, by far. The only time I like to type is when I blog, but if it’s taking notes, definitely by hand. I find that if I type my notes, I don’t use them. Never used them, actually, lol. I mean, even several years down the track I can still find my handwritten notes and they are still useful now. Awesome.

And so I shall tag…

@onthebeat, @lolitium and @camillesioco, though y’all are under ZERO obligation to do it LOL.

Here are my 11 questions anyway…

1. The one thing you’re really particular/ obsessive compulsive about is…?
2. Are you particular about grammar?
3. Were you a good student/ are you good at studying?
4. What is your favourite type of food to eat?
5. Do you have a favourite place, if so, where and why?
6. What are your dressing habits?
7. Face to face socialising or virtual (phone, computer/ net) socialising?
8. Where are your favourite places to shop?
9. What is your heritage?
10. In regards to self improvement, is there something you would like to learn/ pick up?
11. What are your long term goals in life?

Wow, that was long. Hope you all enjoyed my massive block of text… I’m really drained now LOL. Work tomorrow, good night everyone!

Let’s be realistic. Seriously.

Well, it’s yet another wake-up call to myself to write a post that is actually of some substance rather than a bunch of crap on stuff I bought.

I’ve decided to present you all with splash of text to wade through. It’s food for thought, but it will probably fill your mind up with more questions than answers. Is that a good or bad thing? I’m not really sure, but I guess it’s about time to think about these things, especially if it concerns life.

Recently (or rather, ever since I started to work) I’ve been exposed to a variety of amusing, frustrating or shocking experiences – and with this comes a lot of passive absorption of other people’s lives. I’ve been immersed in an environment where the girls I know are in either stable relationships or marriages and with steady incomes – a lot of the customers (and people I have met) could have the same description applied to them. There are also instances where there are customers who come in and ask why a Casio Baby-G is so expensive, when I’ve never actually heard of anyone use the word “expensive” to describe them before in my life.

Looking at various types of families and speculating about people’s lifestyles makes me wonder what exactly a “standard household” is. What is it, exactly?

More importantly, what do we expect to receive or achieve in life – what is enough, and what isn’t enough?

For instance, since the majority of people who read this blog are presumably (like myself) female, what standards do you have for a wedding band or an engagement ring?

We’ve had customers come in asking for $500 engagement rings (by “Western” standards, this is the definition of a single solitaire diamond on an 18K gold or platinum setting – but don’t get me started complaining about platinum, it barely exists these days), or even a budget of $100 for a PAIR of couple rings. My colleagues demand very firmly that they won’t accept a marriage proposal unless their engagement ring is one carat or above, with specifications like D colour, VS1/2 and a triple excellent cut.

You don’t need to understand diamonds or jewellery in depth like I do to basically get the gist of what I’m saying - basically there are people who are content with a $50 silver ring, and there are others who won’t even budge unless you present to them a $15,000 engagement ring.

My question now is – is it ridiculous to be expecting a marriage proposal that is over $10,000? I’m not saying wanting, I’m saying expecting – there’s a difference between the two, and well, expectations are clearly either met or not met. Is it perfectly normal to be expecting a one carat diamond or above?

Sometimes I just find that some expectations aren’t really quite as realistic as they should or could be. I’m not saying that they won’t eventuate, because I’m sure with a good income and a stable lifestyle with little problems along the way could easily lead to the one carat ring without much effort. But not everyone fits into that category; there are some families who are so well off that their lifestyle and what they own is unimaginable – then there are some who find it hard to pay off their credit bills, have little savings, and barely own things that are traditionally thought to be valuable (by this I mean things like gold, Swiss-made watches – some designer goods – stuff like that).

The expectations are quite a serious issue, I think, because if you’re a guy and you intend to give your future wife a one carat diamond (which, by the way, apparently is known to be standard in terms of diamonds used for engagement – fear not though, if that’s not within your budget, anything over 0.75ct is fairly standard as well), you might need to start saving up pretty hard for it… now. Really. If you have to pay for things like a car, rent, a social life, bills, bits here and there – you WILL find it harder to save up for a diamond. Especially with the prices going up, the “standard” of $10,000 will soon be $15,000 probably by mid 2012 at this rate. In fact, $10,000 probably isn’t even standard any more considering that can only get you a D/SI1.

I admit – I’ve considered buying a diamond NOW just for personal use because I know the prices are going to continually rise. I’ve dispelled that idea for the meantime though, because I can’t afford it (unless if it’s a smaller one – gg dude I cannot freaking afford a one carat diamond – same goes to how I can’t afford a Hermés bag – they cost around the same price anyway) and I’m simply not particularly interested in diamonds. Don’t get me wrong, I work with them almost every day and I really do like diamonds – A LOT – but it doesn’t motivate me enough to take out money to actually buy them, considering I’m still young and I’m more interested in items to do with fashion rather than accessories… that and I’ve made a pact with my colleague to save up for a particular number by the end of the year, meaning that probably 97% of my income is going straight into my savings. Whatever I’ve got left over is for bills, transport, the random social expense and I’ve left a pretty tight budget for a present for my mum and a Christmas present for myself. And that’s literally all the room I have.

For someone like me (literally zero financial burden, but with a very limited income), I find it difficult to even consider a diamond, let alone the other people out there. If I think I can’t even afford it, how can I possibly expect to receive something of that value from someone? I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to react or what exactly I should be expecting as such.

Of course, there are lots of people out there who can easily afford them. The richest person I know scoffs at the idea of one carat because he thinks it’s small. We have customers coming in to ask about buying diamonds and putting them aside, presumably for their children later on when they need to propose. Our society is a mix of the crazy and maybe not so crazy – as for which is which, I can’t even distinguish myself.

It’s not only just monetary related expectations, of course. I think there are other expectations that really need to take a second thought – expectations of other people, what a job is like and what life should be like. I’m sure everyone dreams of a perfect husband or wife and a wonderful job with a really awesome boss. Realistically speaking, nobody’s perfect and there will be hardships along the way – it just depends on the degree of hardship and what they concern.

I’m not sure if what I’ve just written is burdensome to readers or not, but I guess it’s just something to think about. From what I’ve gathered in the past few months I’ve seen the best of the best and some of the worst. My advice is to not really have high expectations, or at least set them realistically. I’ve seen what it’s like to have a ridiculously rich lifestyle and to be honest, I did imagine and dream about what I could do if I were to indulge in such a lifestyle – being realistic however, I know that it’s already an honour to have a peek into what that lifestyle is like. If I by chance do get to have a lifestyle like that, that would really be a blessing and accumulated karma from several past lives LOL. But for the way I am now, I’m already content, because I know that I wouldn’t even compare to something like that. Then again, nothing is comparable because everything has its own joy in itself. I have my own joys in my current lifestyle, as tight as it is.

So what are “standards” and what do you expect later on in life? What is realistic, and what is pushing it?

10 minute post

Yes, I’m giving myself 10 minutes to just quickly brief any readers on what crap I’ve been up to the past week.

Finally got a haircut – OMG. Best haircut ever. And I mean this because I’ve been stuck with horrible hair for the past 6-8 months since I got a super sloppy and inexperienced hairdresser from hairdresser N (no secret, just go through my old posts to know which one I mean). Enough is enough! I went back to Kim Sun Young since they were my essentially my hair headquarters. Yeah, the hairwash was really sloppy – it was like a quick lather, rinse, half assed attempt to wash, but not and then a condition. The hairwash literally took 5 minutes and it was the worst hairwash I’ve ever had in my life. But the cut was good! The hairdresser spent a good amount of time cutting and then thinning it out. I was super satisfied with the styling and all in all it was a pleasant haircut, minus the wash. I’d rather a bad wash than a bad haircut any day, so need I say more? I shall never betray KSY ever again and leave it for something else.

Speaking of haircuts – OMG YAY – washed my hair, it’s super sleek, soft, feels healthy/ alive and I actually didn’t shed any hair when I washed it. This was NOT the case with my previous hair cut! Anyway, I just realised that each time I cut my hair, the darker it appears. Never mind that, I’ll be dyeing it this upcoming weekend (I think), as I was supposed to do it the weekend before, but since I delayed my haircut, I couldn’t squeeze in two hair related things in one day. On that note, Solfine Crema Colour was on sale (it might still be, I don’t know) – I stocked up on two colours. Two very excitingly scary sounding colours – medium blonde and hazel blonde. And just to make it a bit better, they’re actually a medium shade of brown, not blonde at all.

At work I was also given a bottle of Repair and Shine serum by a really really sweet customer (she bought something the day before and then she started going around the city doing a promo thing) – well we all got a free bottle. That stuff is amazing. Makes your hair really soft and sleek without making it oily. I’ll probably write about it in more detail in another post just to give them some free advertising for being so nice P:

Enough about hair -

On Sunday after getting my haircut I met up with friend P whom I haven’t seen in perhaps 6-8 months. We occasionally meet up, which is pretty rare and amazing considering we are in completely different subjects and different years (in terms of education and age – obviously I’m the old fart here). P is one of those few kind souls who actually bother to catch up, so I give kudos for that. We just had a modest lunch at one of my favourite Japanese restaurants, Musashi. I ordered a sushi nigiri set (it was yummmm) and the (crap I forgot the name) – berry concoction drink that they had. That was nice too. After that we went to have a look at the new Galaxy World at Market City – HOLY CRAP THEY HAVE DODGEM CARS – WHAT THE HECK.

According to the game Rambo, my shooting skills were  terrible (they are, because it wasn’t until about 3 missions later that I realised that the red shots were mine – and they were nowhere near where they should be… lolol…). My air hockey skills are clearly lacking (both arms are now achinng immensely – I NEED TO EXERCISE), and my DDR skillz are deteriorating. I also suck at Daytona too, though I caught up amazingly – I couldn’t steer properly at the  beginning because I forgot how to drive – trolololol. Then I flunked the next round because my bag on my lap was falling off – and I messed up. No need to say more.

Chatime ensued, a quick visit to Missha for some Anti-Trouble patches (btw, buy 10, get 1 free), and then some $1 pool at the Shark Hotel. I suck at pool – it’s just been too long. Though I won 2 games vs 3 games, so that wasn’t too terrible, considering I have literally no aiming skills.

Won the long awaited February Top Bloggers February and promptly had to spend it all in a largeish haul since there was a bazillion things I needed desperately, but couldn’t bear to spend real money on :S. So more black things to add to my wardrobe; life is pretty depressing. I need to dedicate a day or several hours of a day to cleaning up my wardrobe – all I see is a huge pile of work clothes thrown in the centre. The sad thing is that I tend to keep wearing the same few pieces over and over because I lack the bravery to wear some pieces. Said haul will include a wool trenchcoat (I know I already have several trenches, but I stupidly bought a size 12 Witchery coat – SIGH – it’s way too big, not to mention pricey. IT LOOKS GOOD THOUGH), a multitude of leggings (guess what? The Hello Kitty Stockings from Haul 10[?] have all imploded on themselves – with less than 20 wears combined, both stockings ripped and have made their way to trash lalaland), a pair of shoes (I HOPE THEY GIVE THEM TO ME THIS TIME), a bunch of Etude House (because EH is cheap, and I need to stock up), some Laneige sleeping pack samples (because samples equating to the full sized amount is half price… HALF PRICE. I’ll do with half price even without English instructions or the box!!) to help improve my horrible skin, and that’s it. Really, that’s really it. I shall facepalm in retrospect because that’s not a lot of stuff I wanted to get a dress as well (for work, le duh) but alas the funds in my cash balance were limited. Somehow I managed to ace this order and used up all but 140 odd Won in my Cash Balance. LAWLS – 10c; that’s pretty damn good.

I also have a load of crap coming for me in the mail – all totalling to less than probably $6AUD – I think I’m going to give false eyelashes a try – so I ordered a pack of 10 pairs of false eyelashes (just for the cheap factor), some Koji eyelash glue and something to make my hair look funky. eBay sometimes works wonders – and this time, it’s pretty good, surprisingly enough. It needs to come in now! But it won’t, so I shall just wait patiently.

I think I’ve raced through and talked about all the stuff that needs to be talked about. I’ve given up on watching My Princess temporarily – started watching The Duo which is actually pretty good – hope it’s not just the first few episodes – the concept isn’t too bad and it has some good potential for some medieval angst. Obviously this post didn’t take 10 minutes – more like 30 (but hey I wasn’t here for the full 30 minutes, I had to do other stuff in the meantime too you know).

Oh, and the latest nail craze I have at the moment is buffing them – I have yet to buy the implement myself (I’ve been using the “public” one at work – spare time, we haz it), so once I buy it I’ll be able to blog about it and then fill up this dull page with some pretty useless photos and use your precious bandwidth up. SCHWEEET.

I’ll be back soon – probably Friday night! Until next blog

Musings of the past week, numb toes and muscles.

HALLO THAR.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated on my life – erm, this will mostly be a text post because I don’t have pictures to post Feel free to skip to parts or skip this post altogether lol.

Work

This deserves a new category since I am now officially working.

I’ve officially completed my first week at work, though it was in actual fact just 3 working days.

For those who have forgotten or didn’t know, I’m currently working at a jewellery store (note: it’s a fine jewellery store, not jewellery like Diva). I must have glossed over it last time lol. But yeah, it’s a pretty nice place to work but there’s a lot to learn. I’ll pick it up quickly though.

The days are kinda long, but time flies by pretty quickly and it’s fun working there. There’s a lot to remember and learn so that’ll just come over time, but I think I’ve picked up quite a lot in my first 3 days so I think I’ve accomplished my own personal goal. It took a while to adjust and business doesn’t come easily, but when it does it’s quite satisfying.

I’m going to spend a significant chunk of my first pay on *drumroll* items from our store lol. The main reason for this is because I don’t wear any jewellery to work, knowing that it’s not stuff our store sells. The closest I have to what we sell is Tiffany&Co so I doubt I’d ever wear that to work. I have sold a few items (with help) so that’s pretty reassuring since they told me that I didn’t have to serve for maybe the first month or so (lol >_>).

Music

January 20 2010 was one of my days off which coincidentally marked the date a bunch of anticipated music came out.

This included Seungri of Big Bang’s first mini album which made me super excited – I really really liked “Strong Baby” – not exaggerating, it’s one of my favourite songs by “Big Bang” (with quotation marks since it’s Seungri’s song). There’s something about Seungri which gets me all giddy and a lot of it has to do with how he’s an excellent choreographer (though you don’t really see this talent displayed much – I saw it in the Big Bang documentary and the dance he choreographed was pure gold) and how he’s a great way to get a time machine back to music from 10 years ago or more

His mini album named “VVIP” (probably the first V standing for Victory, VIP = Big Bang’s fanclub, hence Victory VIPs). I’m pretty much putting his album on repeat – it’s amazing. The track featuring GD currently is my favourite track off the album, but I’m really digging his concept and I really appreciate that all the songs except for one on his album were either composed/ produced/ written by him. Good effort Strong Baby – I’m very tempted to buy the CD

Another song release I’ve been really looking forward to was SS501′s Park Jung Min’s “Not Alone”. I was curious about it ever since I saw the teaser, and it really didn’t disappoint. I’m not a fan of SS501, but I was just really curious.

Having said that, the song is actually better and amazing when performed live (search it up if the link is broken and you’re interested in seeing it; they’re really fast at removing live performances off youtube ) – he has a whole bunch of people with violins, excellent dancers and it’s just… *__* I really enjoy his hair flicks lol. There was something inspiring about the song I can’t really describe. I’m not really listening to it (I just enjoy watching it live lol) but it makes me happy

I’m generally happy with music nowadays and I’m happy since there’s actually some good stuff that’s not heavily autotuned to listen to. I’m still wondering if GD&TOP will ever perform “Don’t go home” or Bokigayo live… if they did I must have missed it, but oh well. For now I’m going to stalk Seungri’s comeback and hope that he’ll perform with GD on stage (I am aware that GD is sick with a cold/flu, and for those who didn’t know, now you do ) – EXCITING STUFF.

Then Big Bang’s album will be released next month – YAYERS.

Aside from that, Teen Top is fairly impressive with their new song Supa Luv, though Niel is the only one who is really fierce in the group (the kid is pretty amazing because he sounds perfect live) – I can barely hear Chunji sing I wish they engaged the others more so I could actually HEAR them sing damn it, I wanna HEAR it – not just watch their amazing synchronisation. DAMNIT. At the moment it’s one vocal, one rapper, one random backup vocal and a bunch of dancers lol. Oh well.

Drama/ Movies

I pretty much spend whatever free time I have when I get home from work to catch up on drama or at least download it. I apologise if I’ve already written about these – I can’t remember exactly what I have typed lol – but this is just a summary of what I’m watching and things I recently finished.

I finally finished Mary Stayed Out All Night – it wasn’t all that bad, but the last few episodes were terrible. There was little consistency for their characters (as in personalities) and the low budget slow one or two person scenes made it really boring to watch. Overall it wasn’t bad though, but I wouldn’t really want to watch it again. I could tell everyone was trying really hard to act (and they acted well), but the scripting and slowness just made it crap. I feel bad for the actors because they’re really good, but omg sadness It was definitely the staffs’ fault.

I finished Jungle Fish 2 and it was overall really enjoyable. I liked the personal episodes more than the mystery of Hyo An, but oh well. It’s well worth a watch – it’s pretty good.

I also finished Secret Garden and as much as I understand the Secret Garden bandwagon, Hyun Bin looked like a skeleton by the end – the poor thing. I thought his face was going to rip open since his cheekbones were protruding out so much His eyes were also red and tired for the last episode especially. In a nutshell – I enjoyed the first 10 episodes, I really did – but then the last 10 were just awful IMO. The only thing that saved it for me was OSKA and that was about it. The drama failed to make much sense - why would any mother remove their own son’s shares? This is why I have a lot of trouble liking Secret Garden despite its excellent start – it just fails to deal with realistic issues or sophisticated issues. This is a similar problem I have with My Princess – who would honestly strip their children or grandchildren of their entire wealth? I wouldn’t do that to my own children, especially if it was an only child (and we’re talking only children here) – it really just fails to make sense.

My Princess is far too cliched and slightly embarassing to watch. It was funny at first, but now it’s just “OMG I KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN JUST HURRY UP”. Apart from that it’s just something I put on TV to fill up my living room with noise. The first 4 episodes were excellent though – it’s currently up to EP6, getting a very good response, but even I find it boring now even though the “best part” is just starting.

Athena is getting less people watching it and I can understand why – no wonder people are watching Dream High instead. It had an explosive and gory start which really made me feel like I was watching a Hollywood blockbuster – but the main character is just SO DUMB. In fact everyone on screen is so so dumb. For those who don’t know, Athena is the sequel to IRIS. What’s the difference, you may ask? In IRIS, it starts off with a lot of question marks – you’re faced with a mystery – why is this happening, who is doing it, why him, what will happen next? In Athena however, you already know who the bad guys are, you already know what they’re after – there’s no conspiracy, there’s just some guy nobody really cares about who needs to be protected, and I can’t give a stuff or care enough to think that he’s worth protecting. Really, it suffers from a weak story line, and if Athena was written to be like this due to complaints about IRIS being too confusing, well it was the wrong move. I rather be confused and feel suspense, than know everything and still be apathetic yet confused as to what’s going to happen next. I am disappoint. But the action scenes are pretty good.

Dream High was a drama I was going to pass on because I am NOT a fan of JYP or JYPE. However I was really interested in it since IU is acting in it, so I decided to give it a try. It’s full of a bunch of despicable characters (at times only), but the acting is quite decent and the plot is simple but enough to generate interest. Sometimes the most simple plots will give the best results and I think that this is one of those dramas which fit into this category. You get a lot of music, dancing and singing, so it’s not half bad if you enjoy watching these things on youtube. Even my mum has been interested enough in Dream High to say that it’s the best thing we’re watching currently, so honestly, it’s not that bad

I also took the liberty to FINALLY download Antique which was bookmarked in my Internet browser for the longest time. I’ve seen the Japanese drama (found it boring because it had crap subtitles), so I was actually really surprised to find the Korean movie adaptation to actually be quite witty, fast paced, intriguing and above all – entertaining. It was actually closer to the manga than the Japanese live action drama which was a big surprise. It was actually really enjoyable to watch – not to mention Kim Jae Wook is doing an excellent job at acting awkward. Plus Yoo Ah In is also in it – it’s hilarious and made of gold.  Plus the gifs people make from the movie are also gold.

Speaking of Kim Jae Wook, I realised that the type of idols I ‘ship totally have not changed since high school. Not sure if I should be feeling sad or what :\

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Believe it or not, I’ve already typed over 1700 words at this point, so I shall not bore you people any more I will probably have more to write next week, if not I’ll just publish a random beauty review from my queue (if there are any of those left… *pause*) – but anyway, hopefully I’ll go out next week some time. Maybe I’ll finally develop my film. One day.

PS: I had a dream last night where I could develop 4 rolls of film for $20, but they used normal paper to print my photos, instead of glossy or matte ROFL – I woke up and thought about film today and was like “Oh it’ll be cheaper if I take another 2 rolls first…” – then I realised I got confused. Heheh – dreams are weird. I also dreamed of this guy who was giving really stupid directions for bus commuters – he told them to get off a stop and switch buses, because it’s apparently faster to do that than to sit on the first bus and eventually arrive at the destination. What the…?? Yeah, I know, my dreams are weird.

Until next blog 

Pet Peeve 08: Room Etiquette and People who fail at life

I’m so sorry for having to spam 2 posts in a day, but I just felt that I really needed people to just know about these things. Even if it’s not particularly useful or if I’m not really suggesting the best way to go about things, I just want everyone to be safe out there and avoid douchey situations.

Room Etiquette

I’m back at home now because I can’t stand being in that crappy computer room. People bumping into chairs and stuff, you doing people a favour and people don’t even say “thank you” – seriously, what kind of a world do we live in these days?

If it’s a security room, make sure you take your student I.D or whatever it is you need to get access back into the room. There’s nothing wrong with the swipe card system lately, so don’t go knocking on the door because you’re too lazy to take your I.D or even swipe it. It’s not on.

I’ve had my fair share of being the nice person to open the door for others, but frankly I just got sick of it because maybe only 1 in 5 situations do I actually get thanked for doing so, and it’s moreover a waste of my time. I don’t have time to get up, open the door, and have you act like it was your right to have the door opened for you. Why don’t YOU open the door and clean my carpet for me? You wouldn’t do it, right? Don’t expect others to do the same for you; you’re not any more special than anyone else.

People who fail at life: ie. people who ask you for money – not once, but twice or more. Ie. what I call deliberate adult delinquents.

I understand it when you open your wallet and you realise you are short of money (say 50c) for a bus trip. It’s not a problem and if someone comes up to me and asks for some money to do so, I wouldn’t mind giving you money.

I’ve had my fair share of giving away money. For those who have been following and know me, I’m unemployed. I’m a student. I’m pretty much the poorest out of the poorest. Even a part timer will have more money than I ever will at this current stage.

I like to be charitable; I do donate money, but only to causes I’m well aware of (and NOT OVER THE FRIGGIN TELEPHONE – STOP DOING THAT – I can’t verify who the hell you are over the phone so stop telemarketing charity; the concept is disgusting okay).

However, there are some people who really annoy me.

As I was leaving Uni today this pensioner looking Caucasian man stepped and blocked my path and asked me for $2 or $1 for bus money.

Usually I would consider it, but this time I automatically replied “No, sorry” without even looking at him and I coldly ignored him.

Oh but why Misa, that’s so so cruel!

Reason why I ignored his face

The story is that I remember that asshole (you’d call him that too if you were in my shoes) from several years back; I was only 18 years old at the time, walking home, with a fragile wood model in my hands. The very same guy asked me for money EVEN THOUGH I HAD MY HANDS FULL. I put down my model and I gave him $2.

I was young then – and I didn’t know whether or not he was a violent man. I was the only one on the street, albeit a busy main road. Even if I wanted help, I wouldn’t have been able to get it. I didn’t want him, out of all the things, to swat the model out of my hand and break it, if he was angered over the fact I refused to give him money. I also hesitated because I realised I was not carrying a knife that day (don’t go thinking on a tangent; we bring knives to make models and stuff) so if I really had to scare somebody off, I would have very dismal chances of doing so.

I just sincerely hoped that he was really needing some money to catch the bus, and left it at that. I really really did hope that he was just a forgetful old man who needed to get home. $2, yes, but it wouldn’t kill me. My model, my life, is worth much more than that.

However today when I saw him again I really felt  tempted to say “next time you ask someone for money you better remember their faces because you still owe me $2 from several years back” – seriously, if you had a problem back then, and it’s the same now, you need assistance, not money from poor students who are struggling to make ends meet. If you have a pension card you could ask the bus driver (showing them the card) and asking them to perhaps give you a free ride. Offer the bus driver whatever loose change you have. It’s not a big problem, a lot of bus drivers will let you on. Chances are, Mr Bus Driver would let you on without charging a cent.

So here are the fails in summary -

• Pensioner looking man is seeking money in the form of not loose change, but specifically GOLD COINS on COX PLATE DAY. If I wanted to win some money, I’d give my dad the money; he’d make it double. I would NOT be giving it to some random guy who would verbally say “thanks” but mentally think that I’m stupid or possibly even make discriminatory comments about me despite my charitability. I’m not quite so naïve to believe that people are thankful when I give them money. I bet when you hand it over they think “lol what a dumbass.” Only exception would have been a homeless man we walked past in Melbourne who asked for any food, money, drinks or accommodation – that was the one and only time I really wanted to give someone something but I didn’t have anything on me. If I had food, I would have definitely given it to him without any regrets.
• Said man asked me for the SECOND TIME in my 5 years of study, so it’s not the first time. This is a habitual thing, not a coincidence.
• Asking people for loose change and getting it has less chance than actually asking a bus driver for a free ride and getting it. Seriously. If you don’t have money to get home, f*** that, you shouldn’t even wander away from where you live within walking distance. If you went out knowing you wouldn’t have enough money to get home, then that’s your own fault. Not like you were mugged or anything, it was like 1:30pm and you were wearing a backpack. DON’T TREAT PEOPLE AS IDIOTS – people are more intelligent than that.
• A grown man asking for money in the front of a University entrance, targetting young students for money. This is made of absolute and most fail because students have the tightest money allowance ever. I know you might think what I’m saying is utter crap considering how many reviews and hauls I make, but don’t forget – I don’t need to buy textbooks for architecture. I only go to Uni like, one day per week and I walk to Uni. I have a lot of expenses taken out. I also get “free money” to spend by writing some of my reviews. On top of that, I really don’t have much of an active social life; I haven’t seen my friends for the past month and a half. So yes, my money IS TIGHT. Currently in my wallet I have about $10 cash. That’s just enough to get me a Chicken Nugget meal from McDonald’s and that’s nothing spectacular. It’s not even enough money to  buy a MyBus2 Concession ticket!

So, girls in particular who go to UNSW, Sydney (not sure if he asks boys, but boys be careful too), please beware of a Caucasian man of about 168cm height, square build, in his 50-60s with white hair. He carries a backpack and will most likely call you “darl” or “darling” and will ask you for $2 for bus money. He typically asks money probably around 1pm-2pm (this time was 1:30pm, last time was about 2pm) Do not give it to him unless you, like me several years ago, are completely alone and felt like you could possibly be in danger. This man is a habitual money asker, and he does not need the money. If he needs money, he can go get help from Centrelink or whatever – that’s his problem and NOT YOURS.

Please be safe girls and boys. If the situation is dodgy, give them the money – it’s better than risking any dangerous encounter. If you were in a busy spot like I was right at the entrance with people coming in and out, politely decline and avoid eye contact.

I was simply lucky today and thankful he asked me at the entrance. I think he started to realise that it was too hard to find people who were isolated so he switched to a busier spot.

Until next blog!

Rant

I rarely rant about things because I like to keep my blog informative rather than being obnoxious, but I can’t help but complaining – our computers are so slow.

I came to uni because I wanted to be productive. Instead it makes me about 5 minutes to erase a line, or rotate the model, or whatever. I seem to be doing the SAME thing over and over – clicking and clicking and it does NOTHING to the model. You don’t know how frustrating it is to have this kind of situation happen when something which should literally take about 5 minutes to do is taking me over and HOUR to do. I’ve been here for about an hour and forty minutes – did I make any progress? Absolutely NOT.

Time is super precious to me at this moment because time is ticking down and fast. I need to get this done not by the date of the presentation, but ideally TWO days before presentation, so it means that I absolutely do not have any time to spare.

I am very disappointed that I am paying what, like $3750 in school fees and to have a piece of crap of a computer like that to use. Seriously, the university makes plenty of money – even my laptop and desktop are faster than this junk. A high quality computer bulk buy (desktop) could very well be about $700 only – wtf – stop cheaping out and get us some DECENT computers to use.

FFS =_=

Onto other matters, I’ve been receiving positive feedback and I am on the right way. I’m making good progress and I’m not going to let this crappy computer business stop my progress. If it weren’t because of the abundant Internet, I wouldn’t be here.

I am so leaving by 2:30pm. Cannot afford to lose any more time.

Random block of text is relevant.

Need. Rest.

In case if you haven’t noticed, I am lacking vitamin D and exercise. This is why the way I write is so delirious. I’m not high (I’m anything but that) – so if it seems like you’re reading the same thing over and over, I apologise. I’m just really bored out of my mind :\

Just today I’m going to bum a bit. Seriously this whole thing is making my head explode. I need to do quite a bit but before then I want some rest. Stupid weather last night kept me awake! I probably woke up and got out of bed maybe 4 times last night! Why is it so windy in Sydney? This sucks so much. I am meant to be able to go outside with nothing more than a dress and a cardigan and go for a nice stroll in a park – not have my hair messed up by the wind like such!

This weather belongs to September, plz go back to September. ‘Tis October. And no, daylight savings shouldn’t mess up months as well as time. Get your priorities right, weather – k thx bye.

Mysterious Stats.

I don’t want any more traffic coming to my homepage for the purposes of monitoring stats. But for some reason lots of people have been searching up a particular search term and landed on my homepage over 200, 300 unique hits (or at least I believe they are unique) in just a day! For ONE search term =_= I generally have been getting over 200 hits per day but that’s spread over (a) bunch/ multitude of/ everything relevant which people end up here on more or less. I don’t want to write the search term or I’ll be bombarded with hits, but just STOP. I hope it’s just an anniversary thing or something because that one search term alone has been screwing my stats over!

Australian Dollar rise, rise, rise – add yeast, proof and rise! (insert inappropriate reference here)

The Australian Dollar has been ridiculously awesome the past two weeks. Makes me regret buying my bag since I could have saved like $20 I’ve put in two orders recently which I will hopefully review once I get them. Yes, I will be taking some time out of my jam packed schedule (not that it exists) to take some photos and review some stuff. I’m excited and I want my shiz now. NAO. Mostly because I can’t concentrate anyway. A lot of the stuff ordered from memory was just all stuff that was “necessary” and on the boring side. But hey, saving money = yippee. I’ll definitely have a surprise lurking around the corner. I think. Maybe. I’ll think about it.

I’m just currently hoping that I get a shizload of freebies; I can’t imagine otherwise why the package would be so heavy *skips* – but I can’t get my hopes up. But seriously, it’s a very heavy package considering I didn’t buy that much. Confused.

“Lowlight” of Friday

I randomly had a Kopiko craving on Thursday and expressed this.

Then on Friday from you-know-who I got one of these:

What the hooligan is a Kopiko MILKO? Wtfcoffeebeans.

Oh come on, you came all the way on Friday just to give me one Kopiko lolly. STINGY MUCH.

I kid, I declined and didn’t want any, but one of these made its way to my bag =_= This happens too often. I think it’s time to buy a padlock so my bag will be sealed shut. FOREVER.

For those who don’t know what Kopiko is, you’re missing out. It’s a coffee flavoured toffee candy which tastes like well, duh, coffee. But its awesomeness is beyond description. Grab one from an Asian supermarket. I’m gonna buy myself a packet when I’m out in the city next. Mmmm. Yummy.

And I had my pho craving satisfied on Friday too. Hmm. Pho. <3 I should take a photo of it next time.

Saturday rampage

It’s not what you think! It’s more like I did something good for myself:

This is how much crap I realised I had in my drawer which I needed to throw out. There’s more (including face creams/ moisturisers) – but they’re not suitable for my face/ skin. I’ll be using those as leg cream. I KNOW. SAD. One of them is actually an Estee Lauder cream too, which retails for probably $60ish. My mum can’t use it either, so there’s not a lot I can do about it.

As you can tell, a lot of the products above look very full – namely the nail polish bottles and even the blue thing on the far right. The problem is that I’ve had them for so long that the colour has changed =_= Yuck. As for the pink gloss, that was actually used. It was my holy grail of all lip glosses, but I am not generous enough to buy it. It’s a Clinique lip-plumping gloss. I don’t care for the lip plumping but it lasted long and the colour was great.

The thing under the gloss was Estee Lauder’s Lash XL Mascara which was also a holy grail. Never smudged on me. I had finished it ages ago but neglected to throw it out for some reason. Probably because I had to take a photo of it before I throw it out – but wow it was probably 2 years ago. No wonder I have so much crap in my drawer.

Then “The Style” pen eyeliner (the actual name is “Perfect Pen Eyeliner”) was a piece of crap. It still is. Can I pose a question to you girls – can you ever understand it when a tightly sealed product… runs out on its own? This pen I barely used for about maybe 20 “days” and it’s dried up! I might as well buy a texta from a store and use it and I’d be able to draw more with that on PAPER let alone on my eyes than this thing. The idea was cute, but it was craptastic. The ink never stayed and if you have tried to draw on grease paper with an ink pen, you’ll know what I mean. It was like THAT. I’m keeping it for the meantime to use what’s left of it to draw on paper, but eurgh, it was terrible.

The Missha nail polishes were also terrible, but thankfully they don’t exist any more since they hauled in the new range. The only one I’m keeping (not pictured) is the clear one because the white and the pearl pink has crapped itself. Even the pearl pink one has changed colour. Gross. I know it’s normal for nail polish to do that, but I seriously haven’t had these for THAT long. >_>

Last but not least, the far right blue thing was a part of the AC range (for acne) and was a stick you’d apply to cool pimples. It worked alright but it wasn’t anywhere as effective as the new patches.

All in all, everything here that is Missha, sucked. I’d like to say good things about them, but I really can’t. The only thing I’ll ever go back for is maybe a black sugar scrub, sheet masks, Super Aqua range or their pimple patches. I have no intention of trying any of their ranges. Even their BB cream sucks in comparison (I don’t know what Missha watery BB is like, but Skinfood BB has been working excellent for me without having my face look like a waxed apple by the end of the day). I find their cosmetics rather expensive and not really great quality compared to say, VOV. But anyway, that’s just what I think considering that they must have changed a lot. And I haven’t bought many of their “new” items since I find other brands cheaper – so I go for those instead. Missha is just simply too expensive here in Australia and the sad thing is that prices shipped from Korea are similar to retail here. Why pay $22 for a Missha black sugar scrub here when a Skinfood scrub in a bigass tub costs maybe about $15?

If any random day I ever have to switch back to Missha, I’ll need to be persuaded really really damn well to consider them again. For the meantime, their prices aren’t doing it for me.

And sorry this turned into a beauty review all of a sudden. All the Missha products above are no longer relevant since they’re all discontinued. If you havae any experience with their new products, feel free to let me know if they’re good or not. So far I only really like their Super Aqua and pimple patches. I reckon their nail polish is still so-so. I have zero faith in their eyeliners, lol.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll be off to do stuff. And by stuff, I mean productive stuff. CANNOT WAIT FOR MONDAY EVEN THOUGH IT MEANS I NEED TO DO WORK. PARCEL PROLLY WILL COME. MAKES ME HAPPY THINKING ABOUT IT <3

Until next blog!