re-runs

Films I currently want to watch again (I love these so much):

- The Science Of Sleep
- The Motorcycle Diaries


Films I have to watch again (because I fell asleep partway through or otherwise):

- Anchorman
- Zoolander (I've seen this a few times in as many years and STILL haven't finished the damn thing!)
- Be Kind, Rewind

this post is ironic..

..but, why am I so verbose?

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In other ponderments - why is it always harder to get down from someplace that you've climbed up?

under the guise of anonymity.. almost

I try to keep this blog as 'neutral' as possible, i.e. I try to avoid mentioning names as much as possible to maintain an element of privacy and generalisation rather than writing tales about specific people. The generalisation appeals to me because I feel like humans all have a set of similar experiences so that they are able to relate to somebody's writing.. but when you start including names it becomes different.. okay I'm rambling again.. but I'm mentioning this because I find it quite difficult to omit names in some instances. So trying to hide the fact that this blog is mine, is not really possible I believe, given the nature of the content.

Thus I will continue to write without trying [too hard] to maintain an element of privacy - I have my handwritten journal for that.

sandcastle, then sandman

I was browsing a friend's photos from the annual Yr12 trip to Balmoral, and I suddenly had to ask myself-

Why are we so fascinated with creating sandcastles?

Is there some kind of hidden symbolic relationship between the sandcastle and our life aspirations?

Hmmm..

I shall ponder this briefly as I fall asleep. Time for bed..

music, the other love of my life

I was about to write that music was the love of my life, but I feel like the boy takes first place nowadays. That said, I'm no less obsessed about music than I was before (which says something about how obsessed I am about my man!), and today I've been rediscovering jazz vocals. Mostly Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. I absolutely adore the old-school recordings, the slightly fuzzy sound quality and the bouncy walk-along style beat that reminds me of black-and-white musicals and film recordings you see in documentaries about the jazz era. I love how lots of different singers and instrumentalists have covered the same jazz standards - it's even more fascinating when modern-day artists do it in a very different style (e.g. Jamie Cullum).

Currently listening to Perry Como - oh my what a voice! Reminds me a bit of Frank Sinatra but I like this more because to me, Perry Como isn't as well-known/commercial as ol' Blue Eyes.

Maybe this kind of music is a bit of an acquired taste for people my age.. I think most of my friends would be totally disinterested or think of this music as cheesy if they heard it. I don't think the boy would be particularly excited by it either. But this kind of music makes me so happy-go-lucky and content sometimes, I wish I had somebody to share it with.

Actually now that I think of it, this music isn't quite jazz, but it isn't quite Broadway/musical either.. it's the kind of music that features in the opening credits for movies like Bambi (Disney). Bambi was created in the 40s (1942 to be exact, according to Wikipedia), so I will conclude that I am currently listening to USA-in-the-1940s-style music, and I am totally in love with Perry Como's voice right now.

A digression: Also getting back into my love of R&B, and looking forward to listening to the likes of Maxwell, Chris Brown and Ne-Yo. When I have the craving for R&B tunes, I feel that extra bit closer to my boy, and it makes me happy from the inside out.

love jazz. love R&B. love music.

but most of all,

love you.

happy in love

Love.

I can't function with it, and I can't survive without it.

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I dont need me a basketball player
All I need is somebody that's down for me
And he don't have to have money
His love is just like honey
It's so sweet to me
He can have everything in this world
But he'll sacrifice it all for me
And I made up my mind
I'm in love this time
And it feels so real

And I
Know that he won't break my heart
And I
Know that we won't ever part
It's time, time for us to settle down
And I
Wanna be with him forever

They can say that I am crazy
For makin' him my baby
But that's how it's gon' be
See I done been through many changes
But this one I ain't changing
It's gon' stay the same

I can have everything in this world
But I'll sacrifice it all for him
And I made up my mind
I'm in love this time
And it feels so real

I love you
And all of the things that you do
Oh baby please
I need you (I need you)
So believe me (I do)
I do (ooh)
Cause I love you (I love you)
And every lil thing baby (you do)
They don't know how I feel
Cause I know this is real

-- Ciara, "And I"

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Let's go back in time
When seeing your ID on mine
Made me crazy
Ooh baby I'm saying

Let's go back there
Let's take it there

I'm talking 'bout
Back in time
When you wanted to know my every move
Tried to keep it smooth
Keepin' up with me
You drove me crazy, ohh baby

Let's go back there
Let's take it there

When you
Didn't know me
Didn't need me
I wanted to touch me
Couldn't leave me
I couldn't know how
Far this would go
I couldn't know if
This was for sure
We just could not
We just could not get enough of it baby, let's go

Have that wreckless love
That crazy love
That off-the-wall, won't-stop-'til-I-get-enough kind of love
I need that love
So baby, let's go

Have that wreckless love
That crazy love
That I-don't-really-care-we-can-have-it-anywhere kind of love
That wreckless love

Let's go back in time
When our kiss was brand new
An adventure not perfected
A little hesitant

Let's go back there
Let's take it there

Take it back in time
When forever was a minute, and eternity was a second
I'm stressing that we have to go back there
Let's take it there..

When you
Didn't know me
Didn't need me
Wanted to touch me
Couldn't leave me
I couldn't know how
Far this would go
I couldn't know if
This was for sure
We just could not
We just could not get enough of it baby, let's go

Have that wreckless love
That crazy love
That off-the-wall, won't-stop-'til-I-get-enough kind of love
I need that love
So baby, let's go

Have that wreckless love
That crazy love
That I-don't-really-care-we-can-have-it-anywhere kind of love
That wreckless love

Ooh baby, let's go

Have that wreckless love
That crazy love
That off-the-wall, won't-stop-'til-I-get-enough kind of love
I need that love
So baby, let's go

Have that wreckless love
That crazy love
That I-don't-really-care-we-can-have-it-anywhere kind of love
That wreckless love

-- Alicia Keys, "Wreckless Love"

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Let's go back there..
Let's take it there..

a culinary mistake

Ok so I asked for some Mi Goreng for dinner tonight.

We have two packs at home that I bought ages ago - one was the standard MG, and I decided to buy a satay-flavoured one for a different taste.

Mum calls me out to the kitchen because she can't remember what to do with the flavour satchets, so I begin emptying them out onto the plate as usual. Except there seems to be quite a lot of packets to open! It looks a bit odd because I recognise some of them from the standard packet, but there's also new satchets I've never seen. Therefore I assume that they're all a part of the satay-flavoured MG.

I go back into my room to do something, and then Mum calls me back out to eat the noodles.. and I see a huge pile of noodles on my plate. At this point I realise what has just happened - she'd opened both packs of noodles, hence the many flavour satchets.. oh man.. biggest mistake ever! I can't believe we ended up mixing both packs of noodles together. It wasn't very tasty. My first mistake was probably the purchase of the satay MG - maybe it was because of the unfortunate combination, but there was a weird aftertaste that I really didn't like. The noodles were also a little on the runny (i.e. too moist) side because the water hadn't been fully drained out. Oh man.. I think this is the stuff epic fails are made of.

In an effort to save the noodles, I mixed in a generous amount of sweet chili sauce into the noodles and managed to eat at least half of what was on my plate. But I definitely wasn't able to finish it. Let's never do that again.. probably serves me right, I should be making my own dinners at my age..

it's a dance dance revolution

Bumped into a good friend of mine at uni just before class, so we agreed to meet up afterwards. Gave him a call and joined him at a group meeting he was having, somehow ended up talking about where I was born and where I live now, and ended up being offered a ride home by one of his group mates! Wicked!

So the three of us were walking out of the building and then we run into another friend who knows all three of us, which is also great, and as he also lives in our general direction we all walk together to the car. It was such a random happening, but so much fun - KLour and Phromjom are two of the coolest guys to hang out with, and Harish was a legend for offering rides to all of us. A very generous chap :) Phromjom's the only one who lives in a completely different direction so he was dropped off at the station while the rest of us headed home.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because of the conversation that ensued in the car. The remaining three of us somehow got to talking about dancing and dance forms, mostly of the "urban"/"street-dance" variety. Popping, locking, groove, boogaloo, animation, robot, krumping, crips and bloods, battling, clubbing, .. to name most. We talked about the history of various styles and their associated techniques, how they were formed, who created them, dance legends, the culture and misrepresentations of hip-hop and gangsta rap (amongst others) in the eye of the general public.. it was such an enlightening and fulfilling conversation. I learnt so much in those 40 or so minutes, I wish we'd chatting at home or in a bar instead of being on the road because we could have talked for hours. KLour is a passionate person about dance, and he knows so much about the hip-hoppin' world that I've wanted to learn about but never really gotten around to doing.

Although there has been a steady stream of dance movies over the years (Center Stage, Save The Last Dance, Step Up I & II, Rize, Stomp The Yard to mention a few), I think shows such as SYTYCD and America's Best Dance Crew have really brought dancers into the spotlight and re-energised peoples' interest in various forms of dance these days. Salsa dancing appears to be the growing trend within my social circle, and I've always had a group (or groups) of friends interested in the hip-hop culture and dance forms. I personally really enjoy dancing and learning about various styles from those who excel and/or are passionate about it. It's like stepping into a totally different world - it's so easy to just dance however you feel, but once you decide to get serious about it, it's like trying to devour all the books in a library in a single day. There is a huge wealth of knowledge waiting to be taught to those who wish to learn.

I guess what I'm trying to get at with all of this, is that I think it's easy for people to write off dancers as being "unintelligent" simply because they don't bury their heads in numbers and books. But it's a whole different culture and lifestyle that those people are missing out on. Dancers make the dancing look easy. But you can't just spit out a good technique like you can copy out a maths formula.

Similarly, the hip-hop culture is in my opinion often overlooked by older generations as being rowdy (sub-woofer, anyone?) and dangerous (gangsta rap and all that East-side/West-side rivalry, etc) and so on. But again, there is a depth to the culture that many people are not educated about. I admit that I don't know a huge deal about it all, but I feel that I know enough to be able to respect it for what it is, and would love to learn more about it.

Anyway I'm rambling now so I'd better stop. Artists (in both performing and creative arts) are so underrated sometimes!