The kin…

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.

You seem very well, things look peaceful. I’m not quite as well, I thought you should know

Sometimes, some things just aren’t okay. And don’t feel okay. And… well they just aren’t okay. And when there’s nothing more you can do about it, when you’ve done your very best according to you and everyone else you can find solace in, then what are you supposed to do and feel from here? I hate that so many things are great in my life right now, but it seems that fate will never let all external factors be okay with me. I know, I know, life’s not meant to easy. Neither are friendships and relationships with everyone and anyone in life – but it just seems like there always has to be something wrong in my life. When it wasn’t drama with one friend, it was drama with another friend, or drama with classes, teachers, classmates, drama on the sports team, drama in the music ensembles, drama in the family (okay, that never seems to and I know will never go away, but it at least has its calms), drama with boys, girls, more boys and more girls, drama oh drama drama drama, all the time. And it sucks so bad when it’s with someone so close to me, who I so badly want to talk to, hang out with all the time, and it’s not reciprocated. In this post from back in September of last year, I expressed the pains of breaking up with a former best friend, and how it feels like – if not worse – than breaking up a romantic relationship. It’s different of course, but you know. Anyway, some really messed up and traumatic thing from about 15 or 16 years ago unwittingly surfaced for me recently, and I’ve finally managed to deal with it head-on… and afterwards it just made me think, gosh, the things I really want to say, and the people I wish I could tell them to right now – the shoulder that I really need… isn’t there.

I was feeling really shitty and end-of-mid-semester-break-blue today, and got really cheered up by the surprise revelation that classes don’t resume on Tuesday as I had thought they were – classes actually don’t start until Wednesday! I was all frantic and “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?!!!” to the couple of people I was txting who replied with “I thought you knew”-type responses, but heck it made my day. Also, instead of getting anything legitimate done (okay, I did some more writing, but that’s not uni-work, thus not “legitimate”), I devoured three films with mum today. One was a Chinese film which at first seemed like commentary on life, romance, priorities, marriage, etc – but with a really warped and twisted sense of humour – but then it ended up really depressing towards the end when someone died of cancer and decided to hold their funeral while they were still alive so that they could attend it. I don’t know if there’s a proper name for when they do that, instead of an uhh “funeral”. And the latter film was Robin Hood. You know, the one with Russel Crowe, which I had largely questioned about the casting of, and was initially skeptical about but it ended up being enjoyable enough and wasn’t quite as the mother and I had expected it to play out as.

I’ve had a huge up-and-down of a long weekend, starting on Thursday night when the boy and I decided we were going to make it an overtly indulgent and decadent evening of fine dining and wining at home. The highlight of dinner was my chicken cordon bleu with pesto, and my god we drank so much wine that night that even with the copious amounts of food, I was drunk enough to doze off whilst watching Boston Legal – and it’s my all-time favourite, funniest show, so that’s saying a lot. The wines were a mix of his 21st birthday presents and leftover party wine, plus some Villa Maria that I had bought on sale ages ago that’s been stashed at the back of our pantry. Neither of us are habitual wine drinkers, but we’d been talking about it for sometime now, and watching the film Sideways the other night had helped to kick it off. Four bottles that night. Or technically three and a half. Not a bad effort. It was fun to mix and match up Riesling, Chardonnay, Sav Blanc/Pinot Gris (and also some Merlot) to see which best matched what food.

I’m hungry, just looking at this now.

A lot of capsicum. I had  kiiinda forgotten how expensive they were, but my god I love capsicums. Or as Americans call it, bell peppers.


Brock’s Italiano salami – my favourite – and brie. Another favourite of mine. Ahh!


These photos were all taken before I got too “happy”…

Another night later, another bottle of wine.

So many calories to burn off, but hockey training is getting tougher, and to make things worse, a fitness regime is also kicking in. But we are still young and must live close to the edge while we still can. Before we are too self-important, and too heavy with weights too dear to bear the risk of toeing the edge. And I will leave this post with this:

“Honestly, honesty never gets you everywhere. It may get you a lot of places, likewise your pretty face and ratio between your waist and hips, and those glorious breasts of yours that both sexes visually devour. But you hate that you can’t take any credit for how you look, so you feel more and more empty every time someone does a double take at you, or when strangers cross the room just to meet you. Because all they like thus far is to look at you, and maybe some of them like to hope that there is more to you… but alas, most often there isn’t much to them either so you’ve learnt to not get your hopes up. You need to learn what it’s like to look forward to something again, to be so excited for something that you’re counting down the days, hours and minutes as if nothing further down the line matters. You need to learn what it’s like to be free and young again. And worst but most of all, you need to remind yourself that you are indeed still young.”

Oh, and I ended up finishing Looking For Alaska the day after I started it, and am back to The Great Gatsby. Hopefully reading stays on track as my life starts to veer again.

This is more than I can take, I fear my heart will burst or break. If there’s a thing as too much joy, I will be taken away

I’m still completely physically shattered from the events of yesterday, so this is going to be a very image-heavy post. So yesterday I finally played my first game of winter hockey since 2009! The good news is, we won 5-nil and our captain got a hat trick. The bad news is that after five (if not more) shots on goal, I didn’t manage to get a single one in – one flew wide and the rest somehow narrowly got away or were saved, ahhh! And the worst catch was, it was pouring down with torrential rain. It was raining so hard that I had to constantly wring water out of my shirt and skirt so that it wouldn’t stick to me as much whilst I was running. On top of that, it’s obviously not the easiest thing in the world to hold onto, as well as exert force with a hockey stick, without losing grip of it. I put in a lot of reverse hits at the goal, although they weren’t flying high enough towards the preferred far corner, but for now I’m just really happy that I executed them all and didn’t skin my knees too badly in the process. New turf is skin’s worst enemy!

The rest of post and photos follow after the cut off. Photos courtesy of mum, from far far away at the top of the spectator stands where it was nicely sheltered, but you can see on some of the photos just how hard it was raining the whole time. In chronological order (I played as either Centre Forward or Left Wing throughout the whole game, in the #6 shirt):

I have no idea why or how my legs and feet look really awkward there.

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