today is Anzac day - day of remembrance for those who fought in wars.

 my flatmate made Anzac biscuits. here are his ingredients.
 here is one of them. yum.
and my other flatmate's mother gave him a cute bag of choc eggs for Easter, but he wants to lose weight so he gave him all to me.

watched Spider-Man 2 today.

the character development was good... in fact, the need to fight villians seemed distracting.
i liked Harry Osborn though. crazy blue eyes! i felt his brattiness.
Jamie Foxx... he didn't have much to work with. but his powers were damn impressive!

Andrew Garfield is the best! especially when he was hiding his face behind a tree while Emma Stone was trying to tell him something. that's so Andrew Garfield. hee.

and Emma Stone are the best! she is so exciting and cute and smart and interesting.
it's so sad that she had to go. :(

this movie brought home the point that sometimes, it's the good guys who do get killed, because they were brave enough to do something.

then on the way home, met someone from Guild House who worked at a sushi outlet at the shopping center. he was kind enough to give me one of the boxes of sushi he got from work.
nom nom.

the majesty of dolphins. and that guy's face.

reddit source
video source

in other news, i tried to buy some $10 wine when the cashier asked to see my id.
i showed him my Singapore driving license, but he wanted an Australian one, or my passport.
so i couldn't buy it.
frigging hell....

 went to watch The Lego Movie.
LOVED it.

it was awesome.
all the lame gags and references.
too bad the audience wasn't laughing much at all, otherwise it would have more fun.
guess it was because they were mostly kids.

Morgan Freeman's character back as a ghost, hanging by a nylon string.
super loved it.

they broke the 4th wall and related it back to the idea of 'play', where Will Ferrell was the dad trying to Krazy Glue his lego worlds so that they will never be messed up, whereas his son was putting all sorts of cool things together. i liked that a lot.
creativity is not reserved for the super talented person. anyone can 'play' and create things, like the double decker couch.
if enough people believed in their power to do something, a lot of good things can happen.

went to a friend's house for lunch. this is the cute kitchen.
he took over the old house of an old lady who was his grandmother's friend, after she passed away.
it was built in the 1940s as one of the 3 family houses built on a plot of land.

he made warm chicken salad. it's the medium way between hot chicken meat and a cold salad.

actually, this is the random friend i made at the cafe in school, who did screenwriting in L.A.
we both like to make bullshit stories and he calls me an "angry asian". lol.

---

going home from his house was exciting thanks to the scary drunk/high 50s-ish lady (wearing a hoodie, carrying a fleece blanket and plastic bottle) at the bus stop. the frigging bus was late so i got to see the lady's antics.

she was lying on the grass behind the bus stop, on the pavement in front of the bus stop, basically she kept shuffling around like a zombie.
i didn't want to get near her so i listened to music and stood far away from the bus stop, but at one point she started to walk towards me, with her toad-like eyes and her finger pointing at me, so i moved out of the way. then she sat where i stood.

after a minute she went back to the bus stop and i had to move again to a spot where i can keep an eye on her.
then she seemed to be coming for me again so i went across the car park to the shops. luckily she didn't follow me. but she went for this big moustached guy who just pulled up at the shop. i think she talked to him, but he ignored her after a while. then she sat behind him, near his feet. after a while, he got in his car, started the engine, at which she got up and started following the car. that was freaky!
he parked it 4 spaces from where he was originally.

the bus finally came and i got on after her. she basically went in, didn't stop to pay, and the driver didn't say anything. i stayed in front while she went to the back.
my music was on pretty loud so i couldn't hear anything, but when the bus stopped for longer than usual, and the chatty guy on the seat opposite me went to sit beside me, i suspected it was the scary lady.
she shuffled by, sat in the seat right beside the driver, seemed to talk to him, and after some tense moments, got off the bus, and everyone seemed to snap out of their self-induced trance and looked in her direction.

i was pretty glad i couldn't hear anything at all.

there was one good thing though. because this bus was late, i thought i would miss the connecting bus for sure. and it was a public holiday so buses only came every half hour.
but at the transfer station, my next bus just arrived, so i half-ran the 400ish m to it, and the driver wasn't an asshole - i think he waited for me.
i smiled at him when i boarded, mustered my most sincere "thank you!" when i got down, and i think i heard a reply in return from him.

 today is Easter Sunday. i woke up at 10.15am after some bad dreams and went to the common room.
they were having a Easter celebration thing - free breakfast and a scavenger hunt.

i met the friends i played Call of Duty with last night and we formed a team.
people ran around the whole compound looking for clues, and there was one team who was determined to be first.
and they did win. for the rest of the teams, including us, the basket of chocolate eggs at the back of the common room was the prize.
it was pretty fun.
but the highlight was the greasy breakfast - eggs, bacon, grilled tomato and hashbrown.

about Call of Duty - i learned to play the zombie survival mode on PS3 for a few hours.
i can't navigate on the controller or kill things and so was dead most of the time.
before that we watched Skyfall.
i could appreciate the acting better and pick out the special effects inconsistencies in the movie.
those who watched the Grand Budapest Hotel giggled whenever they saw Ralph Fiennes.
damn i want to watch that movie too.
anyway, thanks to the game, i dreamt about lizard-faced monsters that wouldn't die. :-/

so this is my new favorite blog of the moment:
http://vivianswiftblog.com/

she does watercolors. i am so going to learn when i stop procasinating.

and she was talking about Larry the cat..... omg......  new favorite cat! XDDDD
he's the Official Mouser at 10 Downing Street.
his wikipedia page is pretty funny.

source: vivianswiftblog.com

singing along to Emeli Sande's 2013 concert at the Royal Albert Hall while i'm working on my second chapter.
she is amazing!!
and she is born in 1987 - same age as my brother!

my flatmates went to watch the second Spiderman movie and they said it was awesome. i feel vindicated and glad they didn't go for Captain America.

also, i've been doing my video experiments in the flat with the GoPro on my arm, drawing weird looks and awkward encouragement from flatmates. haha.

i'm also yelling at the computer when i don't understand what they are saying. spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how to summarise Guy Debord in a way that's relevant for my document. it was horrible.

an unnecessarily complicated and strange origin for the word "hamster".


yesterday was the last day of work at uni.
and we have 2 weeks of school break.
and i realised i have very little time to do my dissertation.


hung out with some of the ex-colleagues at the Tav last night as well.
the tall one wore a "Pugs, not drugs" tee and an Easter bunny felt-wool bucket on his head.
two of the girls wore little black dresses with bunny ears, tail and bow tie.
when the dj changed and the music became unbearable, we hugged and i went home.

 crusty bread, chorizo with actual intestine casing, tomato and green stuff - $9.
from the cool Brazilian food truck.

 flatmate provided a big bowl of chocolate eggs for us.

did some productive reading in the library.


Wednesday's meeting with supervisor:
he made me see what i am (a researcher, interdisciplinary), what i am not (an artist), and how to put it into my writing (establish that in the first instance).
and how to meld my practice with my dissertation (will be damn difficult, but very useful and necessary).
basically, i'm not expected to be an elephant. i just have to write about elephants.
and gave me a pretty good mark for my project proposal, which was a surprise.


Interesting things we talked about today:
- work for Australian navy and you can pay off your mortage in 2 years while your wife takes care of 3 kids
- Toshibas are the Nokias of the laptop world
- Psycho Pass is a good anime about a dystopic future
- psychopaths and autism
- working for Kmart logistics pays $26 an hour for non-degree holders.
- the structure of the black box of a plane can survive 5 km under water
- near the end of the LOTR book, the shire was razed but Sam saved the day
- the impossibility of traveling at the speed of light
- Queensland is the Texas of Australia

every now and again, facebook throws up gems like this.

 how to eat vegemite.

vegemite. this mysterious black substance is uniquely loved by Australians.

to use, remember: "less is more".

step 1: toast bread
step 2: spread a healthy layer of butter over toast
step 3: smear a small amount of vegemite over the butter
step 4: eat

cultural exchange through breakfast food in the morning, 101.



cut outs at the wet workshop. 
origami butterflies were made and destroyed as well.
one does not set out to make art. art makes you.


mussel rice without white wine.
still highly edible.

learnt some archery yesterday.
the instructor apparently is qualified enough to teach Olympic grade archery.
but he can't hit bulls eyes anymore.

he likes to say how he will laugh if we hurt themselves, because these bows and arrows can be dangerous.
he gave a lovely description of how standing in front of the target when people pull out their arrows can result in an arrow going through your eye, with the 'pop' sound and the optical nerve trailing when you pull it out.

and i'll always remember this thing he said, "put your knock under and your cock out".
lol
the knock is the tip of the arrow that fits under the brass point on the string of the bow.
the cock is the odd colored feather on the arrow. named so because they used to get cockerel feathers for it.
the index finger goes above the knock point, the middle and ring fingers go under, and the string is held against the first segment joint of the fingers.

bows n arrows

nearby targets

nice stance

anyway, i pretty much suck at archery. lots of my arrows went into the ground.
but then i learnt to properly hold the bow by sticking my arm out straight first before pulling the string to the corner of my mouth.
that kinda helped my stance, but my pull was weak, my fingers hurt and i couldn't figure out how to aim. instructor said to close the left eye and aim the tip at the base of the third leg. hmm.

but i managed to hit one bulls eye, totally by accident.

my arrow in the center

that's a picture of it.
my arm totally hyper-extended and the string hit my arm, but luckily i had the arm guard on. by the time i looked up, the others were exclaiming that the arrow went into the center.

archery is more tiring than i thought. similar to bowling in that respect.
you need to engage the core muscles to have a good stance.
and pulling the string made my arms and fingers hurt.
but it was fun.

 just started watching some Stromae videos, he's a French Belgian musician, and he is awesome.
great songs, cool dances, funky beats, and he loves to mess with our minds.

in this lesson (no. 24), he's performing his song ''tous les mêmes'' with his alter-ego, Andrea, represented by some subtle eye makeup on one side of his face and a Princess Leia hair-bun.





that mascara and eye shadow. omg. gorgeous.

so in these 'lessons', he shows us something and it's always infused with so much style and personality.
he is my favorite person right now.

 this post will be more random than usual.


my mom sent me an email, i think she was worried about me after reading my distressed blog updates.
haha.
anyway, i'm better now.
my supervisor emailed me last night at 11+pm - just 3 words saying "thanks". wtf.
at least he didn't say it was a late submission.


have a new found appreciation for film making since reading "Making Short Films" by Clifford Thurlow. i read it yesterday when i was frantically researching for my project proposal.
it's an easy and enjoyable read about how to develop a compelling narrative, the work of the producer, how the director is the artist and how the editor puts the puzzle pieces together.


enjoyed chatting colleagues at work today.
these people are young, not even 19 years old. getting to know them is interesting.
i've always admired people who know a lot about their field, like experts. there's this boy who knows his physics stuff very well, and that was impressive. and there was talk about how wormholes and the possibility of multiple dimensions. i'm planning to ask the physics dept if i can do some stuff with light bulbs in their lab.
then there is this girl who went to Comic Con here recently. she pretty much changes her hair color every month. i was gutted that i may have missed the chance to see Billy Connolly when she said that the cast of The Hobbit was there, but then it was just the handsome hobbit, so it was okay. we talked about lollies i.e. their word for "sweets / candy", and how Australians liked musk, chocolate jelly beans, and Vegemite. and it's cool that she stuck to her determination to be vegetarian after knowing animal cruelty. her Singaporean friend is going to hang out with her at her hometown near Bunbury (175km south of Perth) and she is going to that friend's house in Singapore next year. jealous.


hung out with Screenwriter guy after work. apparently Los Angeles is much like Perth, flat, expansive, cars are needed. Melbourne is not that different from Perth once you're outside the city center. Sydney is vibrant and full of restaurants and bars, so it's really like New York. and he warned not to be too particular about getting the location / lighting right. he illustrated that with a story about how his friend was trying to book a room in an actual hospital for her short film. omg. i really can't afford to do that, but i know i will tend to do ridiculous shit like that. ><;;; :((((


Sam Smith is a fantastic singer. especially love this rendition of Bruno Mars' 'when I was your man'.


omg. a signed limited edition Banksy print can sell for GBP 1500 at least. but imitations of them are so easy to make. just an example of how the collectors' art market is totally crazy. i wish i can paint copies of masterpieces to hang up at home.

having a mental breakdown...

the handshake idea i proposed to my supervisor was violently rejected.
he made me see his point and after 1 hour of discussion, he concluded with putting me in a metaphoric prison and gave me about 1.5 days to redo the proposal and email it to him.
that was yesterday at 11am.
so i went home, tried to incorporate 'manus' into my title, went to work at the factory, got home at 8pm, looked at surrealism and artists who did video art, and worked on the title, abstract, objectives and background section until 4.40am.

then i started work at 7.30am today, went to the library, borrowed books on film making, went into panic mode, borrowed books on silent film, ended work at 3.30pm, started writing my methodology section, saw supervisor's email reply that my new abstract was good, realised that i didn't have to actually make a short film, finally finished the proposal at 7pm, went crazy when Google drive didn't export my document at all, resaved the document in Word and manually inserted all the images again, resent my email to supervisor.

this proposal is worth 20% of this unit's marks. oh man. and it was actually due on Wed but he gave me an extension. he had to inform the coordinator of the marks given for this assignment by Fri.
the thing is that he told me to email it to him on Thurs evening, but in the email he said Thurs afternoon, and i only sent the thing to him at 7.18pm, and he hasn't replied or anything yet.


argh.

at least there's only 1 more week of uni work. then i can hunker down and work on graduating this course.

---
it was really annoying when Persian Guy called again at 5.50pm when i was rushing this proposal. i say i was hell busy and he said he bought a Chinese textbook...... omg, like i give a shit. luckily he's very easy to reject.

i saw the Screenwriter guy again on Tues. that was the short and happy period when i thought i had a good project, before the supervisor said it's not right for my research. he looked a lot older this time, at least 42 years old. but he's fun to talk to. he likes Antique Roadshow and did ceramics for his undergrad at Curtin.

learnt some stuff at work today.
1. there's a popular French musician called Stromae. it's good to learn French thru music.
2. Dutch swearwords involve cancer and ball sacks.
3. Brunei has not-so-secret-police that will cancel your visa if you say anything about the Sultan.
4. Brunei Chinese people don't have citizenship status even though they lived there for generations.
5. someone projectile vomited while on the job last semester because of Gastroenteritis. the school nurse didn't answer the phone so his colleagues had to help him to the sick bay, which probably took ten minutes walking.