School & education related.

Pt 1: And it’s been a week too long, there were several things that I’ve been doing wrong. You see the time it takes for you, Is the time it takes for me

We’ve just had two long weekends in a row here in New Zealand – first it was Auckland Anniversary Weekend, during which we went to the Laneway festival (which I shall eventually get around to posting about, gah!), followed by this past Monday, which was Waitangi Day. Naturally, I’ve been trying to fit in as much fun as these last few weeks of summer holidays will offer me. I can’t lie, I’m not looking forward to university this year at all. Moreso than the average uni student, that is – because I’ve bitten off a lot for this year, and it will definitely be some kind of mental struggle with myself to stay on top of things right from the get go. Of course, next year will be much worse… but for now, let’s try and conquer 2012 first, right?

The boy and I were discussing personal goals we have for this year. That is, goals that are not academically related, and are, I suppose, meant to be more far-reaching into our lives and future in general. The only one he’s come up with at the moment is to read more – which is also one of mine, but to be honest it’s rather intimidating because he already reads far more than I do, especially since he doesn’t have as many time-consuming side-things like I do. Such as this blog. Anyway, obviously reading is something that I think is supremely important, but besides that, another one of my goals was to take this blog more seriously. Which isn’t going very well at the moment because real-life is first priority, but I intend on going back on things and definitely making posts on all the travels we did, and the other things I feel worthy of sharing and writing about in general.

So, onto the good stuff. I thought, screw writing about something from last month or last week, this is what I did this past weekend – we went and saw Dan Deacon play at Whammy Bar. Not my favourite venue, but we were pleasantly surprised at how well the venue actually worked out for Dan Deacon’s show, and the crowd plus the way he interacted with it was just amazing. Definitely one of the best and most fun shows that I’ve ever been to. I met the boy in town after he got off work and we had hours and hours before the concert started, so we just absolutely winged the evening and it was great. I’d wanted to shoot on film, so I ended up bringing our family’s old film point-and-shoot and carried it like a handbag slung over one shoulder. These are all the photos that we took that night, none were omitted. Each and every one of them are gems to me and truly reflect how we chose to spend and enjoy our evening as the sun finally fell and our alcohol purchases hiked in price. I’m no expert on such topics, but it’s during all these moments shown below and the infinite amount of undocumented ones that I finally seem to grasp the idea of being in a “relationship”. And all those fights and tears and past grudges and pride and all that shit just melts away and for a moment – or a touch longer, if you’re lucky to not be me – pure, untainted clarity presents itself and you can almost kid yourself that this is it, this is why I’m alive, I am so fucking loved. All you can see is your better half, their eyes, their gaze, whether reading your soul in that very moment as you are theirs, or even just glancing at the bottom of their pint, oblivious to your epiphany – everything just seems right, just feels meant to be: perfect. Or at least, as close to perfection as this world will ever deal you, and as “perfect” as you’d ever dare to ask for, really. And if not for these moments of utter happiness and raw, raw love, then why do we bother with anything?

And so, here is the happiest that a fat man has ever made us. I will definitely post a playlist including Dan Deacon soon!

The boy showing me where he sometimes eats his lunch at work. Like a bunny in headlights, he said.

Where we devoured a plate of wedges coated in cheese, bacon and a thick helping of sour cream. Delicious.

Knocking back a decent beer. Prime example of what close-range flash with an old film point-and-shoot camera does.

One of my favourite photos of myself. He should be proud of himself.

The feijoa cider was sold out but we found out that the Wine Cellar also does a yummy feijoa (and other flavoured) liqueur. For $25 we bought a whole bottle and mixed it with soda water and ice ourselves.

Shithole.

Dan Deacon setting up.

And starting up.

Then all hell broke loose.

He instructed that a circle was to be formed, which definitely resembled a circle of death, but luckily he also had quirky on instructions as to how to get the whole room dancing.

We were greeted with this after our return from the bathroom. It looks like they’re praying, does it not?

The boy’s proudest achievement of the evening (other than going home with me of course… ahem).

Knackered. He bought me a frozen coke from McD’s and my shirt stunk like everybody else’s sweat. We sat in the lobby of his workplace for a bit and I waited for him to go upstairs to fetch his stuff.

Now it’s off to bed to continue reading Game of Thrones. Need to finish it so the boy can borrow it, ha.

Nights I spend alone, I spend ’em runnin round lookin for you, baby. Lookin’ for love. Cause there’s something that I get from myself, And there’s something that you give to me. And if I’ve got one without the other, Then it’s not enough to be – I need your love

My blogging absence has been shocking. In all fairness though, I’ve had my grandparents, aunty, uncle and three cousins visit us from Taiwan for Chinese New Years, so most afternoons (once I wake up, haha) and evenings are spent entertaining the little ones, and letting them follow me around. As of today, my aunt and uncle have gone back to work overseas, but the rest are still here until the 2nd. Good news is, I’ve started (too slowly) working on a new theme for this blog because words cannot express how sick of its appearance I am!

But I really wanted to make a post before the month was out, and most importantly, because I have a big four days ahead of me. Monday is the Laneway Festival, and the boy and I couldn’t be more excited. We’re also really disappointed with the unfriendly timetable, and so a lot of sacrifices will have to be made on the day… I just don’t understand – why would they overlap Washed Out and Toro Y Moi?! And Twin Shadow. But especially the first two – they’re the same genre, and if you like one, then you pretty much will definitely like the other. Why couldn’t Feist or someone else (and I’m going to get shot for saying this in public) who I couldn’t care any less about, clash with one of these more “minor” acts, so that the crowds would be shifted away? Haha. That’d be the day! So by the looks of it, I have to sacrifice seeing Twin Shadow and The Horrors, but luckily I’ve already seen and photographed the latter before. A quick search showsjust how much I’d been looking forward to Twin Shadow. Sigh.

The other really big deal is that the boy and I have our one-year-anniversary coming up. All of my friends have commented on how much looonger it seems that we’ve been together, and I’ve been surprised to hear a few “it’s only been almost a year?!”, although I guess we’d been a long time coming and are very, very close. And we both feel that it’s just flown past; but in all seriousness, I’m kind of freaking the fuck out. A year’s a really long time. To me, at least. To the both of us. We were never quite the “long term committed relationship” type – and in fact I hate that label, but I guess we’re not “just for now, goodbyeee in a coupla months”, so hmmfph, yeah. Just ask any guy who’s ever been in a room with me, and you’d know what a freakish, unplanned and unpredictable piece of nature this relationship has been for me. I’m terrible at relationships and I’m just plain terrible. But I’d like to keep thinking that my crazy antics and mental instability is made up my sheer awesomeness. We still haven’t made concrete plans yet, so that’s a bit annoying, but oh whatever, it goes with the spontaneous territory that I am.

I’m super sad and pissed off at myself because at dinner last night I accidentally opened the back of my camera up since I’d forgotten that I’d put a roll of film in there already. The only two black and white photos I’d taken were of the boy and the cat sleeping… my two main men were angled just right, so fucking magically… but now they are forever lost to the grave of exposed films. It’s doubly sad because the boy totally hates the idea of sleeping with my cat, so it was a rare accident that he was in such deep sleep and the cat had slept next to him, rather than tried to sleep on him. Argh!

And yes, the travel photos and stories will be coming soon… for now, some film photos from the end of 2011, right before I went overseas:


2nd hand bookstore: self portrait #1.

2nd hand bookstore: self portrait #2.


Reflection of the sky tower. Managed to get this shot riiight before the light went green.

Post-exam celebrations at Non Solo Pizza.

Then he had to cut his hair for work :(

The boy’s room.

Beeeach.

but in the evening I will have to go, what I most want is bad for me I know

First post of 2012! I’ve been back from my trip for almost a week and I’ve really missed blogging, but have been far too busy to blog until now. I’m going to pan out the travel posts over a long period of time because the boy and I simply got up to too much fun to be able to blog about properly if I tried to do it in one go. Plus, I need lots of posts to spread out the photos in… once I’ve culled the thousands down to a handful per post, ahem. I think I’ll also try and write the posts in such a way that it can be helpful to people who may like to visit the same places! And I know that sounds rather unlikely, because Taiwan is yet to become one of the top places for people to visit, but it’s in Lonely Planet’s Top 10 for this year, and most people just aren’t yet aware of what it has to offer. Coincidentally, my friend happens to be swinging by Taiwan for five days with her family next month, so hopefully more people will be soon enough.

In short, these are the places I’ve disappeared off to for the past month, and the dates for each:

  • December 16th: Taiwan
  • December 18-23rd: China
  • December 23rd – January 7th: Taiwan
  • January 7-9th: Hong Kong

It looks really confusing, but it’s just that the short trip to China was kind of inserted in there at the last minute – my dad happened to be going on a business trip there whilst I was in Taiwan, so I ended up tagging along to Shanghai and Suzhou. But now everything feels like such a denouement after having slept in a tunnel of fish, sharks and stingrays in an aquarium, then spending New Years Eve (the best, ever!) at a rooftop party right next to Taipei’s 101 and its amazing fireworks. Especially since I got to experience all this with my sweet hand-holding, camera-lugging partner in crime. I just want to rave rave rave about the trip and rave rave rave about the boy, but he doesn’t need to let it get to his head, haha. A really new thing for me on the trip was the fact that I let go of my “do not photograph me, I’ll take your picture instead” attitude, so now there’s the most photos of me than there’s ever been in ten years. And I’m happy with that.

My grandparents and uncle’s family are visiting us for Chinese New Year and they arrive tomorrow, so I don’t know how many family obligations I’ll have in the next couple of weeks. But there will definitely be lots of yummy food which I’ll have to keep burning off with my 3-game-Wednesday nights and watch out for impending dread on the arrival of university in a month. I’m taking on a new degree at the same time as finishing my music degree, so we’ll see how that pans out, hmm.

For now, just a belated Happy, Happy New Year!

who’s the one that wants to slam it in the door and try to hide it, she’s a mystery girl

It’s official – between beginning-mid October and now, I’ve accidentally lost 5-6kg. I’m using the word accidentally because it really was – I’ve done absolutely nothing in the department of healthier food, more sleep, more exercise, etc to encourage it. And if anything, I’ve eaten more, worse, and exercised a little less. I think it was mostly from the stress of having to get through October that did it, but whatever it is, I don’t really care! Because today I bought a smoking hot dress on a whim, and I actually feel good in it, so what the heck. And off went the rest of my last stash of tutoring money because I also bought a leather skirt – but I’m so happy with both pieces that I gave up trying to decide between them and just went “oh whatever, I’ll get both, I can’t decide!” – which now means slightly less shopping to be done overseas, but I think I can live with that.

The annoying thing about today was that a friend and I were supposed to go to the beach on her day off work, but it just wasn’t sunny nor hot enough. We ended up going into town to see my piercer because the ball off my rook jewellery fell off and it’s an impossible place for me to get it back in myself. Buuut, the best bestest thing about today was when the boy swung round for a tiny little while after work because it’s our ten months today. Which is something I still can’t get my head around, but even with all the bumps and mishaps, it’s been a bloody good time. Which is why I’ve been up until 5 or 6 in the morning all week trying to finish a project that is to be part of his Christmas present. Although, I think that, his four-part present series is kind of a mix between Christmas and our one-year-to-be… so hopefully I’ll manage to finish it soon. The boy’s parents have invited my mum over to their house for dinner this weekend, so that’s going to be interesting. Our parents have never met before, and I don’t know how this sort of thing is supposed to work, so to be honest I’m a little anxious. Especially because – as the boy’s mother pointed out last night – mum is going to be rather outnumbered what with their household of five plus three pets! Ahhh, hopefully all will go smoothly and conversations will flow as the wine does. I mean, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t… but it just seems like such an occasion.

Going to try and hop into bed before the birds start chirping, for the first time this week! Not sure that I’ll actually succeed sleep before then, but at least I should tuck myself in to prepare for it, haha. Because mum and I are going shopping for peonies tomorrow!

Here are some photos from that birthday meal I organised and cooked for some friends the Saturday before last – I have never cooked so much steak in my life!

And oh, about that getting into bed thing… first I have to tame the now-very-awake-cat that has plonked himself down right down in the middle of the part of the bed in which I sleep. Great.

Yeah I’m just crazy, I’m fucked in the head. And maybe if I really tried with all of my heart, Then I could make a brand new start in love with you

I made a really nostalgic playlist that is pretty much comprised only of songs from 2008 and 2009. At first it started off as an accident that all the songs were from 2009, but then I sort of continued it on purpose. I’m the sort of person that has rather intense phases with a certain band, album or song in particular, so every time I sort of come out of a phase, I get a really lost feeling like, what the heck did I listen to before that? So here are some oldies:

 1. Lust For Life – Girls
To be honest I never really got into Girls until recently, but this was always pretty much their only standout song to me. Except now I’m way more hooked on it and hearing it reminds me of Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero and Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk because I had read both those books in around 24 hours each, both whilst listening to Girls for a significant length of time. I relate far too much to those lyrics (especially this weekend…) and it’s also where this post’s title comes from.

2. Skin of the Night – M83
One of my favourite songs by M83… It kind of ties for first place with Asterisk which I posted last month on this previous playlist. I don’t know where to start when it comes to describing this song except that it’s a must-listen. The lyrics are rather creepy to be honest but I guess that’s part of the beauty of it. And the buildup is incredible… it’s almost got like an 80’s synthed-up sort of feel as well, especially because of the drum sound employed.

3. Crystalised – The xx
I just realised another common theme (besides release dates) with this playlist – it’s full of first-or-second favourite songs by bands I like – and this song is no exception. I like all of these songs so much that I changed the blog post title three times before I left it alone, but it had originally started with lyrics from The xx. I will never get sick of calling their stuff sexy, sly, sexy music. Mmm.

4. With My Eyes Closed – The Raveonettes
It took me so long to decide which song from The Raveonettes’ Lust Lust Lust album to put on this playlist. It’s seriously one of my all-time favourite albums ever, and whilst getting the Youtube link for this song, I got completely distracted and spent like half an hour watching videos of the band discussing each track from the album, ha.I’ve said this a thousand times but I’ll say it again – this song makes me think of those old American movies where there’s a prom scene and the teenage couple are finally slow-dancing. Oh, how I want to slow dance. And dance in general. Sigh.

5. It Will All Make Sense in the Morning – Halou
Whilst looking for this song on Youtube, I ended up watching a trailer for some movie that is (according to the greater world wide web) classified as a “gay hustler” film. Ahem. It looks interesting though. I then went and read a review on it. But I doubt I’d watch it because 1/ I’d never be able to get hold of it and 2/ I don’t think the boy would want to sit through that with me. Oh, I should probably clarify here that the reason I saw that trailer at all in the first place is because whoever made it had used this song in the background. Gosh. Love this song.

6. Say Back Something – Tapes ‘n Tapes
This song always makes me want to cry a little… it’s tugs at my heartstrings every time. Besides the obvious, I can’t really explain why. My favourite lines are when it goes “when you say come back/why don’t you mean it in the morning?” and “say back something/why can’t you look me in the eyes?”, ahhhhhhhhhh.

7. The Thief – Secret Knives
I used to be so hooked on the EP that this song is from. I think they came up (from Wellington) to play shows in Auckland a while back but I wasn’t very onto it, and still haven’t gotten around to hearing their album. I think that might largely be contributed to laziness, rather than the “averaaage” review that someone once gave me. Either way, oh this song and this EP makes me so so sooo nostalgic for 2009. It’s one of the songs that just instantly take me back to 7th form, whether that’s a good thing or not.

8. 2010 – The Mint Chicks
Couldn’t find a better link, but skip like the first little bit unless you’re watching the video because the song doesn’t kick in for a little while. I had this song on a limited edition white vinyl that they had at their “farewell tour” thing a few years back, but a friend of mine kindly left it in my car and it melted in the summer sun and heat – I’m still bummed out about this because I liked that version better than the album version. Oh well.

9. Life Will Get Better Some Day – The Mint Chicks
My “other favourite” track from their Screens album.

I’ve had a really crazy couple of days this weekend and I’m too tired and touchy to talk about it. However, I’d have to say that I’m very proud of myself for pulling off cooking risotto and steak for ten people, as part of a kind-of-surprise birthday dinner that we organised for my friend Cara. And boy is right hand tired from all that bloody stirring! I’ll probably post photos from that later on.

Something from the boy:

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