Honky Town + more substantial summary/reflections on the tour.

Good morning from Hong Kong. I've only spent a night here, but I've already managed to have dinner with my aunty and most of her family, which was full of happy times. 

So what's there to look forward to in this place? Mostly shopping and eating, I imagine. Wooooo.

That's enough about the future. On to the past. Namely reflections on the tour.

The tour was amazing. I particularly liked the mix of mostly depressing days, and almost always fun nights. I don't know about everyone else, but the mix kept me from being overwhelmed by all the death and destruction that we were reliving in the death camps and mass graves. 

These fun nights only came about because of the people on the tour though. And most of these people were absolutely amazing. For the most part, kind-hearted, generous, fun, and funny, and I'm glad to have met them. I'm already starting to miss them, and I think I'm getting withdrawal symptoms because of it. The symptoms manifest themselves in things like thinking that Scarlett and Sarah were shouting for me from the back of the plane I was on, hearing what I thought was Flick being outraged at something, thinking Sam was shouting 'oi' at me at the airport, and thinking that I heard Louise laugh on the plane. It's not happening anymore, so don't call a doctor or anything. 

A substantial part of the goodness of the tour was due to the people on it, and it wouldn't have been half as awesome without them. Thanks guys. 

My favourite part of the tour is a toss-up between Chopin in the park and the random jam session in Sejny. Chopin in the park because Chopin's music is beautiful, the setting was beautiful, and it contrasted wonderfully with what we'd been seeing and visiting on the tour up until that point. Chopin played again while we watched The Pianist on the bus on the last day of the tour, and I thought it was a coincidentally amazing conclusion because of that. Both Chopin in the park and The Pianist almost made me cry. The jam session because of the awesome randomness of it all, and the mad clarinet solo. 

My least favourite part was probably the (mostly self-inflicted) chronic lack of sleep. Most days were something like 2 o' clock sleep, 7 o' clock wake up. But yeah, even this was a consequence of having fun most of the time, so really, it's not a complaint. 

I think that my actual least favourite part was leaving everyone, and having to adjust to being without the mob. Oh, and Louise getting hospitalised. That was kind of a worrying episode.  

Most random/fun thing was probably going clubbing in Lithuania. What. 

Or the random gay guy in said club who was hitting on Sam and telling him that his drink was spiked, while he was drinking from said drink. Or the ensuing talk about life and stuff that Sam and I had in my hotel room bathroom. 

Or having about five run-ins with the police. Street cred level 100 right here. Don't mess with me, cos I'm a real G. 

Or that time we broke into a concentration camp. Irony level 100. 

Or raving to 'Call Me Maybe' on an open-air minibus to and from dinner in Krakow. 

Or going on random H&M raids in various countries. 

Or going for a highly impulsive and unnecessary walk in a thunderstorm in Warsaw with Sam, Sarah, and Jamie.

Or finding that amazing rooftop bar in Berlin.

The random moments were numerous, and probably the most fun. 

Despite all the amazingly fun times had, I did manage to get a bit of learning and reflection in regarding the Holocaust. I still don't understand how people could have done such a thing, and I've kind of learned that there is no explanation. The entire Second World War was a horrible aberration that can't be explained. The destruction, the death, the Holocaust, the horrors in Asia, the atomic bomb. I did find it incredible that Germany seemed to have confronted and more or less dealt with its role in the War, whereas Poland has more or less not. 

A warmer part of the education was found in learning more about Jewish culture, which I did not have much of an idea about before the trip. Very interesting stuff.

Anyway, that's enough about the past now. Time to engage my brain again and start doing actual stuff soon. 

But man, they were fun times.

These could be the best days of our lives.

Word of the Day: Fun

   

Most excellent

The past two days (this one not inclusive) have been some of the best that I've had these holidays.

Well, it was more Thursday that was the great day. Went up Mount Dandenong with some homedogs that are close to my heart (awwwww). Once we got settled down for brunch and started, I laughed harder than I had for a long, long time. No, I'm not crazy. I didn't start laughing spontaneously. It was mainly to do with Rui being a clown.

So after eating, and laughing at Rui eating his scone like a sandwich (amongst other things) and roaming around the mountain like Asian tourists, we went to Cold Rock for dessert. I promptly got lost trying to get Kanji home. It eventually all worked out. The day had already seemed massively awesome up until that point.

Good times. It was like a week's worth of goodness, gloriously crammed into one day, spent with some of my favourite people.

And there will be more to come. Because yesterday, I sorted out the venue for my 21st. And I am so relieved just to be able to get that out of the way.

Hopefully I'll be able to organise some more fun times for next week.

Oh, also, Sarah's coming back from her massive holiday in France. All in all, good stuff.

I'll leave you with this song that I deliberately chanced on today. It fills me with a strong feeling of vengeance and bitterness. But it's such a good little song.

Tell everybody that you know
That I don't love you no more

Currently listening to: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2
Word of the Day: roaming

Merry Christmas 2010

While this Christmas has been relatively uneventful compared to the last few, I reckon it's actually been good that we've been able to just enjoy some family time together. Would've been a lot better had Sarah not been in France, but that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

I'm fairly disappointed that Kris Kringle didn't go ahead this year, but again, in many ways, it's not such a bad thing. Although I do like exchanging presents, but there's no real point to it if nobody's up for it.

I was tossing up whether to go to Boxing Day 'sales' tomorrow or not. I'm now leaning heavily towards the 'not', mainly because I don't really have all that much to buy, or all that much money to spend. And really, the 'sales' that most stores offer are either on one or two dodgy items, or they're sales you can find at any time of the year. Also, too many people. I have a mild phobia of crowds. A mild, mild phobia. And it's not irrational. I think it's an extremely rational fear.

Plus, it's either sales or working for dad tomorrow. I think I know where my loyalties lie. And possibly, if we smash out enough work tomorrow, I might be able to catch the Arsenal game on Tuesday. Not that that has anything to do with me wanting to work tomorrow or anything.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all. Hope you all had a fantastic day today, full of laughter, quality time with friends and family, and, most importantly of all, love.

Word of the Day: Phobia

Like a G6

I'm so stoked right now. It has been an amazing day. Australia winning the World Cup bid tonight/tomorrow morning would just absolutely make it.

I'm so stoked that I'm hoping this isn't a dream. We'll list things according to importance.

First up, I passed everything. I'm so unbelievably happy, mostly due to the fact that I thought I failed Accounting again for sure. But anyway, I passed, and I think I'm back on track. And I didn't have to disappoint my parents yet again. A big shout out to Eugene, who was there for me when the going got tough, more than happy to help me even though he must've been snowed under in study himself. A friend in need is a friend indeed. And Andrew does not forgot acts of kindness directed to him. He also speaks about himself in third person frequently.

Second. I had lunch with Irene, who I haven't seen in absolutely AGES. well, for like, a month. Which is a long time. Oh, and two friends-of a friend-of a friend Parisians were at the lunch too. Good times all around.

Best part was the train trip back. I miss train trips with friends. That was the best part of my day back in high school. Train trips after school with friends.

Anyway, we get off the train, head towards my car, and it starts absolutely bucketing down. This, while fun for a while, became not very fun quite quickly.

A quick recap of the weather. Rainy in the morning, eased up when I left the house, was scorchingly sunny when we got to the city and had lunch, became cloudy on the way back home, and started bucketing down while we were walking to the car. Which is where my story was.

I was absolutely drenched. I think the last time I was that drenched from rain was about two years ago, walking home from the tram stop for 20 minutes. I looked like I had swum to my car in my clothes. Irene, having good fortune as always, had to foresight to be wearing a big jacket.. The rain made her hair look amazing, whereas it made me look like a floundering...something. And she had the nerve to complain that she was soaked.

Anyway, the rain went nuts on the way to her house. Thankfully, it eased up when we got there, so I didn't have to take up space in her house and cause a disturbance sheltering from the rain. Would've been an interesting experience though. I've never been in there before.

I got home, dried myself off, and the sun came out about an hour later.

Third thing, Sarah finally called home from Paris. I got frowned upon (verbally) by the French dude on the other end of the line earlier in the day when I tried my French on him, so much so he decided to speak English to me, just so that I'd know that he'd identified me as phony phoreigner. Well done, Frenchman. But yeah, kind of thankful that I didn't have to go through that who rigmarole again.

And hopefully, a fourth thing, in a few hours, Australia getting the World Cup. That would be awesome on so many levels. As if give it to Qatar. Surely it's time Australia got a lucky break. And Arsenal won twice this week. Surely that's a sign of double the level of good luck.

Oh, and U2/Jay-Z concert tomorrow. Life is so good right now.

A song to sort of capture my mood at the moment (I've used Supersonic by Oasis too many times).

Word of the Day: Stoke

Choc top bonanza

Just continuing on yesterday's theme/topic, it also annoys me quite a bit that I almost always have to organise stuff to do with other people, and it's hardly ever the other way around. So this lack of contacting other people is kind of my way of protesting against that. If they're fine and dandy without my presence, I'm fine and dandy without theirs too. It just annoys me how it seems as though I'm always wanting to catch up with them, but they don't really want to reciprocate that. Whatever.

Having said all that, last night was a fairly good night with friends, as far as nights with friends go. After having dinner with the James and Yvonne Cheng and family, James and Yvonne Cheng and I went on down to watch The Last Exorcism in Glen Waverley.

Movie was not my choice. Neither was the amount of choc tops we bought. Both decisions, in retrospect, were quite large mistakes. The movie was interesting for the first five minutes, then it was all like, "Why are these people so dumb? Just call the cops!" But it was a slash-and-hacker (a genre of film I detest, by the way), and they never really do make much logical sense. But I guess that's why I don't like them. The funnest part of the whole thing was James and I texting each other during the movie out of sheer boredom.

Also, I spent half the movie wondering where I'd seen the main character girl person. Then it hit me. She looks very similar to Linda Markov. Weird.

Anyway, good times. Hopefully this dinner thing that I'm organising (weird how these things happen, huh) comes off. Doesn't look like it so far, so I'll probably just end up trying to do something constructive instead. Like clean my room. Worst thing is, Sarah, my sister, is leaving for France tomorrow for six weeks, so it'll be like mass boredom when I'm at home and not out doing stuff.

Word of the Day: Dandy

Like the battery

So, like, it's 1:36 a.m. in the morning, and I feel really energised. I have no idea why, but here I am.

I've been kind of in a post-midsem lull. I've squandered a lot of time, even though I took the day off on Tuesday, and I really have a lot of stuff to get through. Story of my life, I guess.

Moving on. Just then, I watched my sister play in her recital-practice-performance thingy. I've got a vid, but I don't know if she wants it on the net. I thought she played brilliantly, except for the second piece, which was a bit bad. But she may think otherwise, so I'll refrain for now, and master my uploading impulses. However, I do have this awesome clip of Sonny Chua, and I managed to have a conversation with him as well. It went something like:

"How you doing? You probably don't remember this, but you taught me for a few lessons once."

"Oh really, were you a good student?"

"I tried to be."

So on and so forth.

"So what do you do now?"

"Arts/Commerce at Monash."

"Oh. Tallon does Arts too."

I forgot to tell him that Tallon's not doing Arts anymore. Anyway, I'm supposed to say hi to Tallon for him. This all happened while he was walking me to the toilet. Yes, I needed to be walked to the toilet, because MacRob, being an all-girls school, has about two male toilets in the whole school. Reminds me of something. That something contains the words 'karma', 'Melbourne High School,' and 'female toilets'. Hmm.

Here's the clip. The narrations by me speak for themselves. Enjoy.

Word of the Day: Chua

Dun dun dun

Week 8 of uni coming up, and my sense of impending doom isn't quite as strong as it was last semester. Perhaps it's sort of a sign that I'm working slightly harder.

And in a complete contradiction to this, I went to Eugene's 21st last night.

Well, it wasn't just me. But I did go there.

A good gig overall. Not much else to say apart from that. Apart from wondering why I always get a pimple before parties. Ruins the photos. Not that I'm exactly photogenic in the first place.

Also, I dislike how that Jonathan guy mocks me. Probably thinks he's all that just because he's good-looking.

Good Father's Day today too. Had coffee with the family, minus Sarah, and went to visit grandpa later because it happened to be his birthday as well. I give money to grandpa to buy himself some food (don't worry if you don't understand, it's a very Cantonese thing), and Sarah tells me that I'm her hero. I don't know why. Personally, I don't think I'm the very heroic type, despite what I told Meng last night about me going to protect Gotham City (I was trying to get away from him. Quickly). I'm also not a particularly good role model. But yeah. I'll take it as a compliment.

On the topic of good-looking, I haven't gymmed in a while. Like, 1.5 weeks. I feel my muscles atrophying. It's so lame. They take so long to toughen up, but they go away so quickly. Kind of like...trust. Yeah. Muscles are like trust. Profound to the maximum.

Word of the Day: Profound

20th

Ok, so it didn't turn out too bad.

Sure, I spent the day doing stuff that I'd normally do anyway. Swimming in the morning, shopping for an iPod case for Sarah, waiting for a message from Linda, watering the cabbages, studying for real estate. Nothing special. No-one really to spend it with. Or, more nobody available to spend it with.

I guess it's a reflection of myself. Not an overly-exciting birthday, but solid.

Emo song lyrics that I've created pending.

The highlight was the text from Linda. Sad, but also wonderful, how something so small can make me happy. Texts from my other friends were also much appreciated. Glad to know that people think of me. It means a lot more to me than I'm willing to admit. Anywhere. Except here.

The second highlight was the sign that Michelle made for me, and the card that both my sister's gave me. Phully the trippiest present ever. Display. In. My. Room. Now. Sarah also made me some blog layouts, which I am yet to try out, but I'm sure they're good. Thanks guys.

And most of the people that didn't wish me happy birthday were of the unreliable type anyway, so I guess, in a way, it was expected. Not forgiven, but expected.

Strange. I just view it as a common courtesy, like saying "Thanks" or "Hi." But then, yet again, I'm not surprised at this turn either. Many people lack common courtesy now. Especially at uni, people find it incredibly, disproportionately difficult to say "Hi" or "Bye." Many people also struggle with the concept of appreciation, and acknowledgement of this appreciation with a "Thanks." "Sorry" is also a bit of struggle word. I hate saying it sincerely, unless it's completely warranted and I'm in the wrong.

In summary, I've had better birthdays. I don't think I've ever had one where I haven't done anything at all during the actual day, but it was compensated for by friends who care. So it wasn't the worst I've ever had. Now I need to think of how to deal with these Facebook birthday wishes. Bothersome, but in a good way. Like...five people calling you one day. It makes you busy, but makes you feel popular. Yeah. Whatever.

Word of the Day: Twentieth

Soul sisters

So, like, yesterday my boredom-o-meter peaked just before work. So I read a bit of Sarah's (my older younger sister) school magazine, 'Ethos'.

I read this whinge and whine article about how males never return calls and texts. I find this generalised accusation completely false. For one, I return 99% of my messages and missed calls within five minutes, which is better than the late Connex's delivery of trains. Secondly, most guys that I know, bar two notable examples, follow this statistic. In fact, I would contend that, if we must make generalisations, it's more of a female thing to do. Not returning messages within the hour, etc, I mean.

Not that I took the article seriously or anything. I just don't understand where they got the idea from in the first place.

And in other news, I believe Michelle (my younger, younger sister) has just helped our family break a record. It better be a record.

That's right. All three of us have now been School Captain at the same primary school. Three siblings, all school captains. I think you'd be hard pressed to find three people with the same last name that were school captains. And that, my friends, is a hat trick.

Word of the Day: Sisters

Oh, cruel world

So I'm choking half to death on the kitchen floor, and the input that I get from my family is something along the lines of:

"Man up!"
"Why do you have to be so disgusting?"

A little sympathy towards this damaged soul wouldn't go amiss, I think.

Well, there you have it. Now you understand why I turned out the way I am. Family.

Ok, so I choked on a can of Solo. Ok, so it might be funny if it doesn't happen to you. But that feeling, when you're drinking soft drink, and somebody makes you laugh - it's like a form of torture. And all I get from my family is "Walk it off." Cruel, cruel people. And one of these family members caused this laughter as well, which makes it even more abhorrent that sympathy was not forthcoming. Boo.

Word of the Day: Solo

Salvation for those that hate flowers (and their friends)

Just to clarify about last post, I'm kind of over the crush. Kind of. I have pretty much moved on. Except it's been on my mind lately, for some inexplicable reason. Probably a combination of too much Maroon 5 and coffee. And sometimes, for extra craziness, both at the same time! I live life on the edge.

Today was mad. Went to the market down in Yarra Valley and bought some stuff. Discovered an awesome gift to buy people that don't like flowers. A bit pricey, but not something I couldn't create with my craftsmanship.

What was almost highlight of the day was the busker there over-hearing my sister go "OMG, he has a guitar! I hope he plays Oasis!" and accordingly doing so. Just to keep you in the loop, he played 'Songbird' and 'Wonderwall'. Two of the nicest songs by Oasis, and executed very well by Buskerman. Definitely in the top 10. Props to Buskerman, and applause all around.

I want a guitar. I had my friend's for a while, to strum around with, but I didn't really put much effort into playing it, which I regret now. It's weird though. Even though I haven't played for about half a year, I pretty much remember what I learnt up to. Guitar and me = natural affinity. Oh em gee, I can write poetry.

Word of the Day: Buskerman