Back from really really long trip.
China was the place I went to that I’m most used to. Because clearly Milan and Istanbul are my best friends.
China is crazy expensive right about now…a shirt is like 300rmb, which translates to about 50 Canadian dollars. screw it.
I saw Twilight translated into Chinese. I think I died.
Beyond the barf-inducing, I also saw Harry Potter 6 in theatres while I was there. In Chinese. Wait. That kind of falls in the category of barf-inducing. sigh. It wasn’t that bad (…but my expectations were ridiculously low). Just horribly awkward. And Ginny still looks like a little girl.
That was a whole lot of rambling. Ninety words of rambling if I’m not mistaken.
I got two albums while there. I found Nicholas Teo’s new album, 沉默的瞬间, and an album called 我没喝多 by 王喆. Pretty much that translates to I’m Not Drunk by Wang Zhe. He’s classmates with my mom. Craziness. Who knew my mom knew celebrities? If only she knew Jay Chou instead. Jokingg.
The Chinese culture is really different from the one in America. In some ways, Chinese people are a lot more community-centered. That also means more family-oriented. Friends are very familiar with each other. Like when my parents’ friends came to get us from the hotel, they just came and knocked on our door half an hour early with no warning. Clearly wouldn’t happen around here…we seem to have a “visiting houses” phobia.
I actually find that Asian and European mentalities are kind of similar–they have a lot of the same kind of structure in cities, relationships, communities, events, everything. In Milan, they had a street market that pretty much was exactly the same as the ones they have in China.
Istanbul was especially interesting because it sits on the Euro-Asian dividing line. Our hotel was on the European side but we saw lots of influence from both cultures. Istanbul also has crazy architecture. As I understand, there’s been quite a variety of religions holding base there–there are mosques and churches and other things. The mosques in Istanbul are incredible.
What people will do for religion are astounding sometimes. As someone that isn’t religious, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to actually have a purpose for life, an ultimate resting place, a reason for everything that happens. It’s been found in studies that religious people are on average happier than those who are not. Maybe having the comfort of thinking someone is watching over you would make you feel a bit more at ease.
Religion can compel people to do the most incredible things–how many of the world’s most crazy buildings are churches, mosques, synagogues, etc? I still remember the church (Sagrada Família) being built in Barcelona that I saw a few years ago designed by Gaudi, an incredible architect. They’ve been working on it since 1882 and it’s not due to be finished until at least 2026. Imagine working for around 150 years on a building–this building would be fit for the gods!
But religion also prompts people to do crazy things that aren’t so cool either…how many wars have been fought over converting people? How many people have been hung, killed, or punished for believing in the wrong religion? How many people are prevented from learning or accepting certain ideas because their religion doesn’t accept it?
I know religion is a touchy subject, but what do you think about it? Nothing is as simple as good or bad, especially when it comes to religion; it’s a complicated concept.
哎呀~~
今年过的好快哦，好快哦。
我怎么记得好象就是昨天我才开始上十二年及？然后吪啦一下就完了！
不只是今年过的快呀。 我真的不可理解…我在HAVERGAL这六年都去那儿啦？
倒是还没完全上完高中。我还剩下两门考试。但是…还是快了！
哎~ 叹一口气吧~
明年我就去加利福尼亚了！ 朋友们呀…我会想你！ 别怕给我发信，发电邮…你想发什么，就发吧！ 而且…给我打电话呀！ 我想听你们的声音！ 我到了加利福尼亚以后买一个美国的手机；直到那时，用SKYPE吧！BLACKETHBYTE
或者是给我发电邮~ HILARYXS@BERKELEY.EDU
<3
This year just went sooooo fast.
How is it that I remember it was just yesterday that I started grade twelve…and now it’s over?!
It wasn’t just this year that went fast either. I really can’t understand…where did those six years I spent at Havergal all go?!
Although technically speaking I’m still not done high school. I still have two exams left. But still…it’s been fast.
Sighh.
Next year I’ll be in California. My friends…I’m going to miss you guys. Don’t hesitate to send me mail, send me email…anything you want, send it to me! And call me! I wanna hear your voices! When I get to Cali, I’ll buy an American phone; until then, Skype me! Blackethbyte.
Or send me an email: hilaryxs@berkeley.edu
<3
Now is the month of Maying where merry lads are playing fa la lalalalala please shut up.
It’s May.
James made an astute comment that I missed out in updating in March and there is NO WAY I CAN GO BACK AND FIX THAT =(
As a result, I am making sure I update at least once a month.
AHAHAH what a joke. That’s not going to happen over the summer, when I will be in CALIFORNIA, MILAN, ISCHIA, ISTANBUL, and CHINA. Das right. Envy me.
So as for this update, I thought I’d take some time and talk a little bit about graduation and the inanity of Havergal graduation in particular.
But before I get started, shout out to Akshay and buttons and cheese. There is in fact a correlation between buttons and cheese, because when I first saw buttons I thought burritos, and burritos are filled with cheese. As for how they pertain to Akshay, let’s just say he’s full of awesomeness, as is a burrito, cheese, and buttons.
Ah, so where was I before that tangent? Right, Havergal graduation. This Tuesday, in TA, grads were handed a sheet of paper filled with questions about their time at Havergal that we had to fill out and hand in on Friday [which I did not, because I wasn't at school on Friday. awesomesauce.] so that our admin could go over them. The idea being the admin will read over our sheets and write a little blurb for every girl to be read out when she goes to get her diploma at graduation.
I went to graduation last year actually. It was three hours long, as around 115 grads got their two minutes of fame and glory. I’m sure it was special to every individual and their parents, but I really don’t know. Some of the blurbs were full bs. At Havergal, everyone is expected to have accomplished something. They don’t seem to understand that you really don’t have to have accomplished anything. We’re at a young age, at the cusp of our prime time. Really, we can’t be expected to have won the Nobel Prize while we are aged 12 – 18; awesomeness starts at around the 20s. If Havergal weren’t so results-oriented, they would see that really accomplishing nothing is perfectly ok. Maybe even beneficial. Time in school, and high school especially, is about transition into adulthood, and to have survived that transition is already enough. To have learned something along the way is also pretty awesome. To have solved child poverty, learned to play all Bach symphonies, and also won OFSAA hockey while at it is ridiculous. Yeah.
Havergal has the facilities to make an enriching experience, but not the mentality. With the stuff but not the attitude, what does it matter? We have an awesome athletic centre, lots of instruments, and even our science department isn’t completely crazy [although distribution of funding at Havergal seriously is an issue but I am not getting into that]. But even with our double pool and too many computers, if the teachers and admin are all waiting for us to prove ourselves through crazy Olympic feats, how are we supposed to have fun? Youth is wasted on the youth. That statement is true, but if we’re going to waste it on us, we might as well have fun while at it. There will be time later to accomplish. Right now is our only time to have fun.
Wow that was an inane post. It was kind of a Twitter-esque stream of consciousness in any case, but yeah. All I’m saying is that having done nothing is not something to be ashamed of. We’re not supposed to have done anything yet.
The Oddities of KPop and Fandom
Trying to tell apart the members of SHINee is more of a losing battle than trying to distinguish all thirteen members of Super Junior.
The members of SHINee are all the typical Korean boy girls. At least Big Bang and DBSK are made up of different people [kind of. DBSK is pushing it]. SHINee could just be one person photoshopped five times. Copy paste isn’t that hard to do. Please please please. There are some people who like it when guys look like guys and girls look like girls.
And as I was telling Jess…the only people I can tell apart in Super Junior are the Chinese one (obvi), the girl, and the fat one. And I’m not even going to start trying to get the names. Who wants to be called Cinderella anyway? Honestly.
What really freaked me out the other day was when I was looking up the girl from Super Junior to try and see WHY he was such a girl, or [more peculiarly] why he ENJOYS being such a girl. I didn’t find much. I suppose he was born with a chemical imbalance. But as I was looking, I /did/ find a disturbing livejournal of some random girl that I can only suppose is a rabid Kpop fangirl.
She’s got pages upon pages of fanfics. About these Korean boy bands. These fangirl fantasies [did you enjoy my alliteration there?] are actually quite quite quite puzzling. Her stories are pretty much just putting members of these bands together…it’s as if she was sitting around one day and was like “HEY! YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD MAKE ME AN EVEN MORE RABID FANGIRL? IF CHINESE GUY AND RANDOM GIRL FROM SUJU GOT TOGETHER! OH SHIT THIS IS MAKING ME SUPER RABID, I NEED TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT IT SO I CAN PRESERVE MY RABIDNESS.” And then hallelujah, there’s her “inspiration”. Then she starts writing some sexually explicit story [that must be rated from PG to R...she's got a variety] about these two band members getting it on. Sometimes there are multiple members…or crossovers between bands…or just multiple pairings from multiple members. Woo. Orgy of kpop singers. How…charming.
The really really weird things about these stories [aside from their disturbing content] are: their popularity and the // nature.
The popularity is surprising because you’d think that said rabid fangirls would enjoy fantasising about THEMSELVES ending up with a boy band member…you wouldn’t expect them to eliminate their chances by imagining these members going after EACH OTHER. That’s just. Decreases probability. I mean, rabid fangirls do not enjoy [for the most part] if their precious boy band members get together with some korean girl actress or singer. Why would they not mind the boy band member getting together with ANOTHER boy band member, effectively decreasing their changes twofold? Simple mathematics, really.
And their // nature…I really don’t understand how people enjoy yaoi. Edit, how girls enjoy yaoi. Is it fun for girls to watch guy on guy…? I mean honestly. Try running around and screaming “I LOVE WATCHING GAY GUYS GETTING IT ON” and see what happens. That’s my only comment.
And you may ask WHY I read one of these stories. Lucky me, I picked an R one that was R for the drug use, not the sexual content. At least. AND IT WAS A BET/COMPETITION. Nothing more.
SHINee: a girlboy x5.
I could talk about Suju’s new “song”, Sorry Sorry, which consists of five words and one note, but I think I’ll call it a day with bashing. It’s all in good nature of course…I do like SHINee and Super Junior…to some extent.
Anyway, new layout. I figured something happy might make me feel better. Also, I’d like to introduce a new link on my blogroll — Tangential Living by a friend from CUTC. Which was awesome btw.
Smiling Pasta: Asian Invasion Post
So I’m sure most of you know that I started watching a drama a few days ago. Not sure exactly how many days ago. Anyway it’s called Smiling Pasta, or 微笑 Pasta. It’s a Taiwanese drama that was shot in 2006 I think. I got into it because of Nicholas Teo, because I was looking into him. He’s pretty cute, I guess. The drama drove me crazy though. But since this is a media thing and I haven’t done much on Chinese media, especially not dramas since this is the first [and last] drama I’ve watched, I figured I might as well cover it.
I finished watching the drama mere minutes ago. I haven’t been able to do anything with my spare time except watch it since I started. It’s one of those things where you just need to finish it. I can’t remember much about the series at all, except that the plot hit on every single cliche convention known to man.
The basic plot is this: an idol singer, He Qun, randomly bumps into and falls on a random girl on the street as he runs from the paparazzi. They fall onto each other in a suggestive pose, which the paparazzi of course catches. The girl’s name is Xiao Shi, and they are forced to fabricate a relationship between them to explain the photos; therefore, they begin to get to know each other. According to Jess, like all dramas, they begin by hating each other but slowly begin to like each other. It takes a painfully long time for them to admit their feelings for each other, they fight, and both sides get hurt. Et cetera et cetera. Eventually, in the last two episodes, they finally admit their feelings for each other and He Qun proposes to Xiao Shi. Happy ending, with the painful tension and suspense typical of dramas. According to Jess. Don’t ask why he knows all this stuff about dramas.
The characters are all immensely annoying, from He Qun, to Xiao Shi, to He Qun’s younger brother (Ah Zhe), to He Qun’s ex (Rita), to He Qun’s father. They all can’t face their true selves, meddle in each other’s business, and just are maddening. The only good few characters are those in Xiao Shi’s family, because they’re always supportive and awesome to her.
There’s a lot of feminist issues as well, thanks to Xiao Shi being a princess all the time and needing to be “rescued” by He Qun, Ah Zhe, and even her ex (Peter). It’s just maddening. It takes the whole series for every character to be resolved. Pretty much they all resolve in the last episode, except for He Qun’s dad. Gosh. I think I just have issues with the way dramas are. I’m sure they’re all like this, so I shouldn’t be too hard on Smiling Pasta. There were some really nice moments that made me cry. If you like dramas, maybe try this one. I don’t have much experience with dramas [read: none] so I don’t have much to say.
The only good things about this drama were, as I said, Xiao Shi’s family characters, and the OST. The OST is pretty sweet. Happy music. I really really like Little Turtle and Tears from Polaris by Nicholas Teo. Just because the drama sucked, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look into his music. It’s very nice.
I realise I haven’t talked about music in a while since my short rant about the Jay Chou concert. I haven’t had much time to look into much, but I do like Nicholas Teo, as well as Kenji Wu. The group 183 Club is kind of nice, minus their really really sketchy outfits and ugliness. Additionally, there’s a pretty catchy song by Son Dam Bi called Crazy that should be checked out; Ashley sent it to me. Unfortunately. It’s kind of repetitive but you can’t help…getting it stuck in your head…unfortunately. On the topic of Korean music, I’ve also listened to a few songs by Super Junior, a supposedly popular Korean boy band. Uh, no comment. Pretty much.
In the way of English music, I’ve been getting reacquainted with some of my old favourites: American Hi-Fi, Kamelot, Rock Kills Kid, Senses Fail, Symphony X, Three Days Grace, and Tokyo Rose. Additionally, I encourage people to have a listen of Low Level Flight, and Bell X1. Two very different kinds of music, but they’re both very good. Unfortunately, they’re both kind of obscure, to the point that I couldn’t find some of their songs on YouTube. Good luck, they’re worth it.
Two things worth complaining about.
So we’re back to me ranting and you ignoring my nerdy ranting. That’s right.
So what would I rant about? Let’s think…what’s one of my favourite things to rant over? Yes, grammar. Aaaaand…who shares my passion for this ranting…? YESS. RUSSELL SMITH. Let’s all bow down and worship him. Anyway, he runs a weekly column in the Globe and Mail on Thursdays in the review section, for those of you who have not been gloriously enlightened yet. And last Thursday, he talked about those insane Brits. Yes. You’d think the prissy and proper British would not be messing with our language. Of all things, because it’s THEIR language to begin with. But no. Mess they do. And big time. Over the past few years, there has been a discrepancy in the inclusion of apostrophes on street signs. Some signs have them, while others don’t. Recently, the Brits announced, for consistency, that they were just going to screw the apostrophe. No more apostrophes anywhere. On any signs. From now on. The guy who released the statement gave a few reasons:
1) Things in Britain are public domain [pfft, yeah, right, as long as you can afford them], so nothing should be owned. The church is everyone’s, not just St Paul’s, so clearly it should be called St Pauls Church.
2) The apostrophes confuse GPS systems.
3) Anyone should be able to find signs on maps or suchlike, even if they’re not anal-retentive about grammar [cough, read: like me]. That is, even if you aren’t educated in the use of apostrophes, you should be able to locate streets and locations on a map.
So now Russell, being the amazing person that he is, writes his refusal of all these claims. As for 2), he simply says it’s untrue. The GPS companies released a statement saying in no way whatsoever are the GPS systems confused with apostrophes. They search street names with the first few characters, or even by zip code, so really it doesn’t matter at all. An apostrophe won’t be in the first few characters. For the rest of his column, buy the Globe and Mail [honestly, the G&M and Russell should pay me for this].
As for the first and the last reasons, please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks they’re BALLS. Honestly. For 1), it doesn’t matter that it’s public domain or not. Seriously, St Paul’s Church was named AFTER St Paul. I doubt St Paul is still around. If you lived on Wendy’s Street, would you be offended? Like “gee, I’m mad because I live on this street and it’s public domain and Wendy has no right to claim it as hers because clearly Wendy is still alive and consequential and lording it over the street and RESTRICTING MY STREET RIGHTS!” No. People would not do that. Only freak grammar nerds who thought about apostrophes. Normal people would not even give it a second thought.
Ironically, the third reason is that eliminating apostrophes evens out the playing field for uneducated grammar children. SERIOUSLY. This is what is called a positive-feedback loop. It’s like TV. When TV and TV commercials became mainstream, researchers observed an overall drop in attention span. Why? Because the TV is such an ADD product. To watch TV, you only NEED a tiny attention span, so eventually long attention spans are dropped. So how do the marketers writing the commercials respond? They make the commercials even shorter, thereby shortening our attention spans more, thereby creating the necessity of even SHORTER commercials. Soon we’ll only be able to focus for five seconds. This feedback loop is the same with this uneducated-about-apostrophe business. If you create the environment as somewhere where you don’t NEED to know about apostrophes, then naturally fewer people will. It just encourages inattention to detail and grammar. Goodness. On top of that, it’ll make it harder for teachers to teach about apostrophes because all the street signs and other signs [like for St Paul's Church] won’t be using the apostrophes correctly. If everything you see is wrong, how are you supposed to learn what’s right?!
So now you’re thinking “yeah right, an apostrophe, whatevaaaaaar. This is stupid.” Firstly, you just used a hanging pronoun…but I’m not ranting about that this time. SECONDLY, and more importantly, an apostrophe may be an apostrophe, but think of the IMPLICATIONS. If the Brits are so willing to mess with the language, what will happen? Honestly. You don’t mess with language. You let it evolve by itself. And anyway, by the way it’s going, I don’t particularly enjoy how it’s evolving, but that’s not the point. These things are supposed to be left alone. The language is a gift from our ancestors for us to use, not something we can dick around with. Think about the poor babies that will have to grow up and deal with the lack of apostrophes. Or other atrocities the Brits will come up with. Jeez.
Wow, that was long. Anyway, continuing with my ranting…my second item is also from the newspaper. This isn’t so much a rant as a question. It’s been proposed recently to redo Jarvis Street. Jarvis used to be a cultural icon of Toronto. People used to walk down Jarvis street and be all old school, kind of like a walk down Yonge around Empress Walk now. Enjoyable. Small cafes, tree-lined sidewalks, parks, etc. And then the city mowed all that down to add a fifth lane for better traffic control. Only city planners NEVER LEARN. Making more streets and bigger street doesn’t reduce traffic. It increases it. No matter how many streets and lanes you build, there will always be enough cars to fill them. Goddammit. Anyway, so now the city wants to reverse what it’s done by getting rid of that fifth lane, widening sidewalks, planting trees, and encouraging street cafes and those quaint little things they had in the 20s, I’m assuming. Anyway. The commute will definitely be longer. I think the official time is three minutes more between Bloor and something else [how do they get these numbers anyway? Is that what government people are paid to do nowadays?]…it doesn’t really matter, the point is that it won’t be that much longer. And the city rebuttal for those commuters is that “yeah sure it’ll be longer, but you’ll enjoy it more”. Yeah huh. They want to change Jarvis from somewhere you go THROUGH, to somewhere you GO. You know, not just a highway in downtown, but actually a nice destination. What do you all think about this proposed idea? Too bad my wissues class hasn’t finished the Jane Jacobs yet, or else I’d have a super progressive look on this topic. Right now I’m pretty neutral, so I’d like to hear what you guys all have to say.
Drop a comment about either of my newspaper rants =]
Protected: Just remember…
On a cruise and Jay Chou.
Jay Chou was awesome, I took pictures and recorded clips, they’ll go up somewhere when I have the time and get back from my cruise.
CRUISE? You may ask…Yes, I AM ON A CRUISE. I left on Friday morning when Toronto felt like it was an optimal time for a snowstorm…I fell asleep on the plane and wondering whether our flight would get snowed in… [I ALSO SAW THE CUTEST ROBOT WHILE WAITING FOR THE PLANE TO TAKE OFF AND NOW I WANT TO MARRY IT] and I woke up looking at palm trees and ACTUALLY USING MY SUNGLASSES, it was awesome. We board the cruise tomorrow so technically speaking, I’m not on the cruise yet.
See you all in a few weeks, loves, and have a good break.
more emo poetry.
this is what happens when i muse
in bed
after studying for exams
my mind is racing, my body is tired, but i can’t sleep
so i lie there… and i know its bad because i have exams in a few hours
but i just can’t get to sleep
my mind wanders
and wanders
one sheep jumps over the fence…
and falls down the cliff to its death
two sheep jump over the fence
and three, and four, five and soon i’m counting into the thousands, the millions
next thing i know my alarm clock is ringing its sharp melody in my head, damn is it time to get up already?
—This was not written by me. Used without permission.
Desktop background change.
It’s about time. My old one was in for like. At least two years:
So…what does my desktop look like now?
I wonder what he’s looking at @__@
Another background recommendation:
Pokeball
