If you believe I’ll deceive and common sense says you are the thief, Let me take you down the corridors

I just did something extremely cringe-worthy: I went back and read some unfinished blog posts that are still saved under “drafts”, as well as some posts from 2006 that I’ve long ago made “private”. 2006!!! It’s so scary to think how fast five years have flown, and how much yet little of me has changed. Ahh. I dare not dwell on it.

It’s late and my mind is boggled, but before I let myself ramble off in tangents – there are two main points to this blog post. Firstly, I’d have to say that as far as birthday presents go, the boy’s done pretty well for himself . He’s given me a huge stack of books, The Fountainhead being the first that I decided to tackle. Reading Ayn Rand’s novel has not only preoccupied me enough to leave him alone to study for exams, but it also made me cry, laugh, and re-read paragraphs pensively on many, many occasions. It’s such an amazing book that I almost put off finishing it, instead mucking around with the last hundred pages the other night, and finally allowing myself to finish it and sleep at 6am. Which resulted in me being terribly late for a meeting with the head of jazz, but that’s a different story. I had a discussion with the boy about the book yesterday, but I don’t think I’ve quite tidied up my thoughts enough to blog about it. Actually, I don’t know if I will ever collect my thoughts enough to write a coherent post about it, but all I can say is just read it!

Secondly, people don’t read enough these days. Or should I say, people my age don’t read enough these days. I was tweet-chatting to Rob the other night and finally decided to blog about this. It seems that most people who complain about “kids these days not reading” are older adults, so it was interesting to really step back and think about how I feel in regards to this topic – as I’m supposedly part of this “generation of non-readers”.

I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember. When I was still very young and lived in Taipei, I remember my family’s in-car entertainment would be “can Amanda read all the signs?” – because, as you know, the streets in Asia are overwhelmed with signs, of stores, ads, you name it. Later on I progressed to proper books in Chinese, and when we moved here when I was six, I learnt English mostly by being virtually the only Asian kid at my primary school, and by – you guessed it – reading. Never mind not understanding all the words in a book at the time, the actual reading itself, absorbing ideas, characters, gaining entertainment from reading was the biggest thing for me. And then when the Harry Potter phenomenon exploded all over the world, I used the series as my escape from reality. I always had a niggling feeling though, that many of my peers didn’t enjoy reading. But I never thought twice about it since even the kids who “hated reading” seemed to all have read Harry Potter as well… until…

…One day, someone in my class snapped at me, “don’t tell me what happens, I’m waiting for the movie”. That’s the day I really did a double take and thought, what?! you’d rather wait a couple of years for a bad film interpretation of the best children’s series of our generation, rather than read it?! I was shocked. But sadly, at the same time, not that surprised at all. It was a kind of disillusion, almost. And whilst I will note that the technology age has impacted a lot on the declining number of youth that read, I’m not going to sit here and blame television, the internet or various other sources of entertainment that have replaced books. Instead, I’m more concerned with what those things cannot replace. Too many people are too preoccupied with plots. And getting fast, instant results. That’s why TV is so addictive – you get fed a half-hour storyline with a cliffhanger, as opposed to spending perhaps two hours reading to gain the same amount of “plot development”. That’s why many people have seen movies based on books, but have no interest in touching the book whatsoever. Some people have told me that it’s “more convenient”, or “saves time” in terms of digesting the “classics” in the form of movies rather than books – but none of these people will have truly experienced what made that book a “classic” in the first place.

Personally, I know I get too tied up in the analysis of the writing itself – choice of diction, dialogue, how the plot is structured, how characters are portrayed and the contrasts between them in terms of writing styles employed, on and on… That sounds like a total exaggeration but I kid you not – I involuntarily do all this subconsciously, peeling things to pieces and re-reading phrases or entire paragraphs just to re-absorb the text in a new light (all my favourite English teachers should be proud!) – but I’m not saying that other people should or could do this, I just think that they should read so that their brains are offered a chance to even do so. I’m not slagging films or anything (I love them!), but I truly think that books are irreplaceable and I repeat – people get too caught up with the plot, and wanting to “find out what happens”. Although many books are judged by how much of a “page turner” they are, I think that with the best books out there, less emphasis is on “what happens next”, rather, “how it happens” and “why it happens”  is far more important – and that’s what non-readers are missing out on. They’re missing out on the gaps between time spent reading, where their brains absorbs what they have just read, and allows mind space for their own judgements, analysis and ideas to be formed. Don’t forget now, books and imagination are hugely connected, so youths who don’t read are often missing out on chances to explore their creative boundaries.

I’m sure most people have experienced (perhaps, once again with the recurring Harry Potter example) an occasion where they’ve seen a film based on a book and have either had their imagined settings or character appearances completely recreated onscreen, or have completely disagreed with the visual depiction they’re offered. And therein lies the beauty of reading – you’re not confined to any visual elements and are free to interpret the setting and descriptions in any way you wish. That’s where your imagination gets a workout! I remember when I read Twilight out of curiosity (the entire series, no less, I am thoroughly ashamed to say!!! – instead of studying for my 6th form AS exams), and I had pictured Edward as… well let’s just say that I don’t think Robert Pattinson does my mental version of Edward any justice whatsoever. But in stark comparison, I’d have to say Harry Potter (once again) was very well cast, and was a case of where I thought the core cast members were precisely as I had pictured them when I first read the books.

Also, when I say that people should read more, I’m not being a literature elitist here and trying to shove “classics” or anything down anyone’s throats. I just think that, yes, some books are more worthy of your time than others, but people aren’t reading enough for me to even begin to comment on what they do read.  I vastly enjoy the odd crime/thriller/action novel, but I also like to feed my mind with other books in which the plot is only the undercurrent to character development. I think a lot of people don’t realise how valuable these things are – how reading books with complex characters with different backgrounds and motives actually gets osmosed into daily life and how you view or analyse the actions of those around you. Ever wondered what the life of a struggling artist is like? Go read about it. Ever thought thank god I’m not the kid picked on at school? Go read about some poor kid. Ever wonder what might drive the ulterior motives of conniving people? Go read about it. There is so much eye-opening to be done through shelves and shelves of black ink, more so than people even realise. Reading isn’t just about “what’s going to happen next?” or “does the good guy win?” – it truly is about how it happens – and the conclusions we’ve drawn along the way, as well as perhaps some philosophies that deeper books may offer us.

I know I’d said I wasn’t going to rave about it, but I can’t ignore using it as an example: The Fountainhead for me felt really personal, on so many levels that I can’t even begin to describe coherently. But the underlying theme here is the fact that, through her highly contrasting cast of characters, Ayn Rand’s writing has put into words for me, so many conclusions, judgements and philosophies that I’d already drawn up throughout my life, but had never attempted to vocalise and summarise. The different “types” of people that I’ve spent hours of my life trying to decipher, to understand, to overcome difficulties with; how I feel towards them, and they towards me, why I love or hate the way I do… my illiterate scrawls in notebooks and hours spent theorising with my therapist – all these tangents of life compacted into a beautifully crafted novel.

To view this whole “young people don’t read enough these days” issue in a different light, I have to say that too many people struggle with English Lit at high school. Asides from tutoring my sister to pass AS English Lit in half a year (so that she could qualify early for a college scholarship in America), I’ve also helped out various people throughout high school, plus I now tutor a kid on a weekly basis. And I’m disturbed by the main causes of why I think they needed help in the first place: how the teachers are teaching (or not teaching); and how these kids never read except when they are forced to do so for class. Therefore, they don’t know how to read “effectively”, how to process what they’re reading, how to analyse and absorb things, what they’re looking for – which results in their inability to scratch beyond superficial meanings, let alone concoct an in-depth analytical essay in an hour-exam! What these people have in common is the fact that they don’t read by choice as a pleasurable pastime: when they’re faced with trying to get through behemoths such as Jane Eyre or Cat’s Eye for school, they simply struggle through the books, and are reading “up to Chapter X” by certain deadlines merely because they have to! I’ve discovered that an astonishing amount of people don’t even know basic things like what a semicolon or em dash is – I had to write up sentence examples and point them out in a book to my student who is 17!

I could go on and on about this, but I’d better not and get to bed instead. I will, however, freely admit that I’ve been guilty of neglecting books in recent years, but I feel that at least I make up for it when I have some time – such as now. So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I feel about this issue, at age 20. Maybe when I’m older I’ll look back and be one of those old grumpy adults still bitching about the same thing. Ha.

Something like a phenomena, baby, You’re something like a phenomena

It’s about to be my 20th birthday. I have mixed feelings about not being a teenager anymore, and it’s scary considering I was still 19 when I went to the supermarket this afternoon and once again didn’t get ID’d for buying alcohol! Earlier this evening, I went over to the boy’s house “for dinner”, thinking it was just going to be another fun but casual dinner. Turns out, they had cooked me a feast of lamb shanks (done superbly with probably the same recipe as mum, score!) and fresh brownies out of the oven with fancy ice cream on the side for dessert. It was such a sweet, sweet surprise, if I wasn’t so takenaback I probably would have jumped and given Donna a hug! I probably should have. Ahhhh. Anyway, I’m still in awe of how nice it was, to whip me up a hearty family meal to celebrate my birthday for me, when my family are away – I will never forget it. What a nice way to round of my teenage years.

Sooo… I decided to spend an afternoon (which turned into evening, which turned into all night) digging out old photos from my years of being a teenager. This is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done because – in case you hadn’t noticed – I rarely post photos of myself. And when I do, it’s usually ones I’ve taken, or got other people to take under my strict strict instructions. So what is beyond that “Continue Reading” link is actually hundreds of photos (mostly of me) showing my transformation during the ages 14-19. There are gazillions more photos somewhere, but I don’t have access to mum’s stash of photos at the moment, so I also don’t have any one hand from when I was 13. Regardless, even if no one is that interested in what little-Amanda looked like, I had a LOT of fun doing this, recalling so many events and memories that I had long forgotten about. I’ve posted things in order of age, and almost in perfect chronological order, so be impressed. It’s a little funny turning 20, because in New Zealand it’s not a big deal like 18 or 21 is, but in Taiwan, 20 is a big deal. It’s like NZ’s 18th and 21st birthdays mashed together, sort of. To put it in perspective, I can’t renew my Taiwanese passport on my own without a parent’s signature until I turn 20 tomorrow. Which reminds me I really need to get onto it.

Looking back, I’ve obviously grown up a lot throughout my teenage years, but I’ve also stayed the same in more ways than I had expected. I’ve done a lot of things that I’m proud of, but also a lot of things that I’m not. But I’m pretty happy where I am right now, and I’m just trying to look towards the future optimistically. And if you know me at all, you’d know that I’m not generally an optimistic person. Like… how I have to spend 13 hour at uni tomorrow on my birthday… I’m sure it will turn out fine though. Also, the exhibition opened yesterday, and I’ll probably post the official photos in the next entry, but there are photos of the gallery at the bottom of this post!

Oh, and you may be surprised to find that I hardly look different at all.

Age 14:

Taken at the house I “grew up in”. I wish my hair was that long again.

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Run to your house, undo the chains… I woke up wanting you

The exhibition opens tomorrow and I’m excited, despite being in the opposite hemisphere! These three photos makes up one of my collective pieces that I’m showing and is called Accomplice (accompanying text below). The lines in the sides of the frames are from the inaccuracies of using double exposure, but I like the authentic affect it has, so I’ve kept them as is.

All taken on Ilford HP5 Plus 400 B/W film; Nikon F3
“Our family cat has been everyone’s best friend and worst enemy. The best feet heater and the worst alarm clock. The best food recycling system and the worst mess. Much like me.“

Dedicated to my sister Liv, as Flakeypoo (that’s not his real name, but I call him all sorts of endearing things, I promise, it sounds better than it reads!) is actually her cat, but he’s become my most dependable friend and heater as of late. The boyfriend ought to pay him with chin tickles and treats for filling in on his job! He’s exactly what I want sleeping on my duvet – and sometimes under, as it’s getting colder now – to keep my feet warm, or to cuddle whilst trying to fall asleep to his soothing purrs. Honestly, I wouldn’t know what I’d do without our cat. Even though he wakes me up for a feed at 5am, which is unfortunately often barely an hour or two after I’ve managed to fall asleep, I still love him unconditionally. I thought it was funny the other night when the boy was over and Flakes was niggling at my feet, my response was, “I feed you, I sleep with you, I’m good to you, what more do you want from me?!” Irony.

What I want more of though, is time. I want to stop thinking about and basing my days on the time I don’t have to do things, time I don’t have to spend with people, time I don’t have to be alone and just mull over ideas and be a little creative.

In 21 days (or less, I don’t know the precise day my last assessment is), I will have completed half of my Bachelor of Music degree. It’s very exciting yet daunting at the same time, because then I will have to find some kind of temporary answer to the age old question of “what on earth are you going to do with that?!” Disheartening, yes, a little… maybe a lot. I found out this week that a friend of mine who’s a couple of years above me at jazz school currently doing her Honours course has just been accepted into Le Cordon Bleu. And yes, that’s the incredibly famous culinary school in Paris that was in the movie Julie & Julia. The main reason that this news struck a chord with me (oh haha lame pun, I swear I wrote it and then realised afterwards!) is because she also happens to be an asian female bass player, and we’ve known each other since college so often end up discussing the whole “upbringing vs futures” type thing.

I have a couple of non-jazz post-grad options that’s been swirling in my head since last year, but a lot can happen in a year and a half, so I’m excited yet anxious to see what happens in the next half of my degree, and what I’ll end up doing. I feel the northern hemisphere calling, and I honestly can’t wait to travel again in general. The thing is, I hate the idea of telling people what I might like to do in future, so I almost never tell… I hate the possibility of changing my mind completely, or flunking out of a path once desired.

All the jazzy musical intricacies aside, one of, if not the greatest challenge I have to face on a daily basis is to not panic. It’s the one skill that I keep being let down by, and have to work on constantly. I panic, then I blank, and everything I knew and practised just completely disappears. The upside to this improvisation-related panic is that I don’t get concerned about being put on the spot with difficult/awkward questions or situations. Admittedly, I’ve always been one of those “good on the spot” people (at least, until jazz school), but I’ve been waaay calmer and think a lot faster, deeper and creatively these days, because, heck, at least in normal situations, I don’t have to give a musical response!

So I’ve got to put this question out there – what did you study (or what are you studying), is it relevant to your job/career path now, and are things panning out how you had planned or did you kind of just wing it and waited to see what doors would open?

Something nice to round the evening off with – a playlist I threw together last night to doze to:

Also, this is possibly my last entry as a teenager. I turn 20 on Monday but I’m completely swamped this weekend, and will also be spending around 13 hours of my birthday at university. Yikes. And some very relevant words:

“The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” – Chuck Palahniuk

D A N G E R O U S. The most unsuitable pet, It’s been long enough so lets, Make a mess lioness

I’ve had a super topsy-turvy week thus far, and with tomorrow being Friday the 13th, I’m not sure how normal that will go either. I don’t want to talk about the assessments I just had, the assessments I’m about to have, and will continue to slave through until June. But what I do want to say is how happy and proud of the boy I am today. After the grueling process that the past couple of months has been, today he received a comfortable amount of offers for a summer clerkship at prominent law firms. I say “comfortable” because I don’t want to state how many, precisely, but a solid number. What’s more important is that he’s got what he wanted, so I suppose all I have to worry about now is what the hell I’m going to be doing over summer in 6 months’ time. By the way – I’ve noticed that a few of my readers have been mentioning my upcoming “summer” – but unfortunately I live in the southern hemisphere, so summer isn’t arriving in a month, it’s 6 months away! I’m currently tossing up my options in terms of staying and acquiring a full-time job to save up; or heading back to Taiwan to spend time with my dad and maybe work somewhere; or jet off somewhere else and maybe scope out some kind of internship. Regardless of what ends up happening, I already feel like it’s going to be a life-changing sort of summer. It’s scary to think that it will be my last summer as a student, ahhh!

The main exciting event of the month (besides my 20th birthday… for which I’m actually not excited) for me is actually taking place on the other side of the world. My mum and her female photography friends used to put on annual exhibitions in Taipei, but they stopped doing so after 1998 when we immigrated to NZ. This month will be their first show they’ve reunited for, and I had to drive my mum to the airport at an unearthly hour. The exciting thing about all this is that they had invited me to put in five pieces of my work! It took me forever and a half to decide what to submit, but I finally managed to whittle my options down and ended up with five compiled pieces that consisted of 27 photos total. I don’t think anyone else is showing as many photos, but they’re all themed and crafted in relevance, so I think it will be a good contrast and turn out okay. For my last and probably most personal piece, I even added poetic accompaniment, and I’m pretty anxious to see how that goes down. I really wish I was able to attend it, but obviously with all my assessments (on top of flight cost, the heat! in Taipei) it’s been impossible. The show runs from the 21st of May into early June, so I can’t wait to hear how it goes and see photos of how my photos look on a wall in a gallery!

I don’t want to spoil the anticipation of opening night – although I’m not sure who for, seeing as it’s not exactly a secret or anything, but I just don’t feel right posting the photos up here before the 21st – so I think I’ll just post random photos for now. Plus, I have a special one saved up, to be posted on a special day.

Here’s two silly photos I took of the boy, after mucking around with double exposure for a while. Have a great weekend everyone, and try this out, haha:

Ilford HP5 Plus 400 film; Nikon F3

And oh yeah… now I totally know why students love making their money by tutoring. I’ve picked up a student that I’m tutoring for AS English Literature and it was one of the easiest hours of work I’ve ever had. Not as easy as the “sit here and play boring background-type jazz plus a free dinner and we’ll give you $100+” hour of work, but still very nice nonetheless. I mean, I’m essentially getting paid to sit there in a flash house on an expensive street and ramble and rave about something that comes naturally to me, with minimal preparation. And it’s going to be a consistent, weekly thing. At least in the foreseeable future right now.I had said to the boy that his sister should totally go for the boy that I’m tutoring… because they’re in the same English class, he’s a swell kid – a good looking one at that – who also plays hockey! What more could she possibly want in a boy-person?! I should totally hook them up. Jokes. Mister boyfriend would totally kill me.

I say the right thing, but act the wrong way – If you wanna be with me, baby there’s a price to pay

I’ve fallen asleep in so many places in the past week that I haven’t really been home/online/at my desk, thus the slack amount of blogging. I desperately need some form of decent daily routine to up my productiveness, but the calls of partying is just too loud as the end of summer grows closer in sight. This past week has been quite a whirlwind for me, reconnecting with old ties, severing some recent ones and meeting new people all at the same time. I’m definitely guilty of biting off more than I can chew all the time – starting up more projects than I can physically juggle, and keeping up a sort of rotation-like social life. On one hand, I really enjoy it. I thrive off the copious amount of choices I have with anything from what music I want to listen to/play/write, to who I want to see/chat/dance/drink with, to what I want to be reading and writing in bed, before I sleep.

I had a cold a week ago, largely from Big Day Out, being cold, drenched and tired, and then partying too hard. When it finally eased up a couple of days ago though, what did I do? Drank too much and slept too little again. Aka partied too hard. That, and the storm that New Zealand’s been hit with hasn’t really helped the chances of my immune system with keeping up with me. It looks to be a relatively tame Saturday night tonight, but I think my Wednes, Thurs and Friday nights have made up for it, haha.

The other day I caved and bought these killer shoes for half price. Although, having said that, half price was still fucking expensive. They are ridiculously comfortable though (took them out for 5 hours of dancing, standing and walking around to test drive them that very night, haha), and has resulted in me listing a pile of shoes that I don’t wear on Trademe.co.nz. I’m also currently selling a Sufjan Stevens ticket (Wellington), dress and various shoes. Click here for my listings :).

These bad boys make me veeery, very tall. I’m 5’7″ to start with… the platform itself is 1.5″ and then a 4″ heel wedge…

Mum didn’t say much (guilt, guilt, guilt about retail therapy, but I’m happy with them, haha), except that she looooves the leather. So soft and amazing.

So uhh, I don’t know how my legs ended up looking this tanned in the photo, haha. Very messy room though, am tidying out my wardrobe – dirty laundry on the floor, etc. Typical Amanda.

Aaaaand I’ve finally gotten my Laneway Festival Media Pass. Just smudged out my media outlet’s name until I have the photos and write up to link to.

This track – listen to it. I am so hooked it’s not funny. It’s a mash up of The Strokes’ “Hard To Explain” and Christina Aguilera’s “Genie In A Bottle”. Asides from being pure genius, they happen to be two of my fave tracks – “Hard To Explain” was the first Strokes song I ever heard, and they’ve been one of my favourite bands ever since, so there we have it.

Conversations from Wednesday and last night have really got me thinking about the chronology of my music tastes. I get really flustered whenever people ask me “what music to you like/listen to?”. Because I honestly listen to such a wide variety that I don’t even know where to begin to describe what my tastes are. I know it seems really superficial, but being the music freak that I am, I really do feel that these days, to a lot of people, what music someone is into makes a big enough difference on the impression they leave – akin to that of a first, visual impression. I can’t be bothered analysing my own musical etymology right now, but put it this way, within the two past weeks I have: gone crazy on a one-woman-dance-rampage over Ratatat + relived the nostalgia of my youth in the Deftones moshpit + creamed myself (awful expression, I know) over Rammstein’s set and pyrotechnics from the 2nd row at BDO + gone clubbing at places where “everyone goes” and they play supposedly the “most popular” tracks + had a blast to Tidball’s set at Cassette 9 + spent the rest of that evening listening to pop favourites from the past decade with friends (think Britney Spears, Blue, Christina Aguilera, Back Street Boys, Liberty X, Mis-Teeq sort of stuff)… not to mention, in the next two weeks I will see an array of bands at Laneway Festival that are more akin to recent music tastes + go to see Rusko + be at Sufjan Stevens’ concert in Wellington… I would also love to see Queens of the Stone Age again, but I can’t really bring myself to fish out $85 ish in my current state of unemployment.

Don’t even mention it – I’ve been looking and applying for jobs. And I know that I’m picky, because I want to keep whatever job I get as a part-time thing for the next two years, like I did with my last job – so I don’t want to hate whatever it is!

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