even if your voice comes back again, maybe there'll be no one listening

I'm pretty annoyed that people can just let things go without pressing. I don't think you should be doing it all the time, but I think that sometimes you should know that you have to guide the other person into talking. Some things aren't so easy to begin a conversation about.

I don't know if I've ever really learnt to take what I want. For so long, it's been a matter of taking out of necessity, acting dutifully and responsibly. For all that I can talk about being selfish because nobody else will be selfish for you, there's a large part of me that thinks that I don't deserve to have this. And I wonder if you're ever aware of how much I can hold back because I'm afraid of bothering you, inconveniencing you; because you most definitely have more important things to do than listen to me.

But.

Sometimes, I don't want you to believe me when I tell you it's okay, I'm alright, don't worry about it. Sometimes, I want you to be patient, to wait until I find the right words to say. Sometimes, I want you to tell me that it's okay if it doesn't make sense, that you just want to hear it.

Maybe I'm just being unreasonable. These walls have been built so high that I can't expect you to see me behind them, after all.

I'll find my words when there's no one talking / The room is spinning, I have got no choice / Be patient, I am getting to the point. 

In this city where even tear drops freeze apart / I'll be there to hold your hand from now on / I will be there by your side from now on 

I'm still drafting up a post about how my first week of placements have been. It'll come, in time. If not here, then elsewhere. 

전쟁이야

Today's post title has not much to do with the content, really. Sometimes I don't feel obligated to be deep or meaningful or anything. I should really be asleep right now, though. I taught my first real class of the year today, which didn't go too terribly, but which could definitely be done better. I'll post more about that at the end of the week (hopefully), by which time I'll have done the overwhelming number of two real lessons, ha. For different classes though, so it'll be interesting to compare the experiences. I might lock those though, just to be safe. You never know what can happen. Either way, they're going to have to get used to me - there's another 3 and a half weeks to get through. I intend on seeing this out regardless of what happens; failure is not an option.

My sleep is increasingly erratic and difficult recently, which is sort of a major problem but not one that I'm sure how to go about fixing. There's also the problem of what to do after hours - curse this place for being so small. I'm going to have to come up with something, soon.

In the particularly trying moments (by which I largely mean the moments where I'm struggling not to yawn or fall asleep in front of people) I think about these things:
- Maybe I should've gone to King's Cross Station and ran at a wall instead. You know which one.
- Why couldn't I win the lottery.
- Probably I should've learnt to understand the fascination with AFL.
- I feel almost like all that time I spend enamoured with cheesy Asian pop music was a waste because now what do I talk about with normal people?
- Maybe I should have gone and hung around gentlemen's clubs so that somebody rich would marry me, like we've been joking about for all these years.
- Probably telling everyone about my internet best friends wasn't the best idea.
- Why didn't I choose to go skydiving instead. Without a parachute.

Except that last one hits way too close to home and--yeah. Let's not joke about that or go there anymore.

On a lighter note and on the musical front: I'm back in love with AA. Mostly because Ageha Dance came up on shuffle for the first time since I first downloaded the mini, and well. (Also because RAINBOW HAIR *__*) The thing is that no matter what else I like to listen to, I will always be a pop girl at heart. (Because I'm Crazy will always be my favourite AA song though because look at Queen Woosang dance.) 

If there was ever a point to this post, I've forgotten what it was.

다칠 준비가 돼 있어

알고 또 빠진 난 다칠 준비가 돼 있어

또 떠나가는 널 바라보며 울고 있어

I need therapy, lalalalala therapy

Feels like a pretty accurate summary of my life and feelings right now. I'm also getting on this VIXX thing years late, I already know, shut up. But no, I refuse to learn anything about them. NO. YOU CAN'T SUCK ME IN THAT FAR.

ETA; Back when they first debuted and basically nobody knew about them, I'd already decided that I liked Hyuk, based on this one stupid clip (ugh I'm still screaming at how qt he is) that E (laughs bitterly at how we used to be 'friends') linked on Twitter. I'm...sort of regretting that choice because IT SEEMS LIKE HE DOES ALMOST NOTHING? EVER? (Not that I know anything anyway though.)

i do not have writer's block, my writer just hates the clock

It will not let me sleep / I'll get some sleep when I'm dead / And sometimes death seems better than the migraine in my head

I think I've forgotten how to blog. But then, did I ever really know how? In this generation, there are short attention spans galore... How do you make a blog post interesting? Perhaps I am just not so clever. Anyway, backlogs soon for those of you who still linger around here, I promise. 

trace that silver line

Happy Valentine's Day, self; here, have a whole ton of emotional pain :-)

Today I went on Facebook to go see what my former best friends are doing now that all three of them have ditched me and we are all running in completely different friendship circles. They seem to be entirely happy, which didn't really surprise me. I don't really want to wish them anything bad because I loved them a lot back then but... Well, I'm not all that mature in the end so I keep myself happy by thinking about all the aspects of them that are awful or could use improvement, and the fact that at least two of them will turn out to be complete messes in the future judging by the directions that their lives seem to be going in. But I guess I should probably be happy that they all got what they wanted in the end, even if they did have to dump me to get to that happiness. It wouldn't hurt to say "Hi, how are you?", would it? Though I'm not sure if there is anything left that we could possibly mend. 

Anyway, somehow or other I ended up back at one of my old semi-private blogs from high school this morning and read a few months worth of posts. It was my habit, back then, to constantly be linking to things without explanation of why it was relevant. So most of them are now rendered unlinkable, as is the way of the internet, and the ones that remain are a complete mystery to me. (One of the things that I fear now is that, in years to come, when I look back here I won't remember who all the people I talked about were.) A lot of things came crashing back though. Reach events and girls' breakfast; Sunday KFC runs; Playtime at Highpoint; Twins; First Aid camp; co-meets with 17th; S breaking her arms; the first time R and I really talked; Queens Park outings; after school fish&chips or HJ's; tobacco store ice cream; Myer couches always and purikura for all time.

I'm not sure I'm proud of, that I like, the person that I was then. I didn't know what I was talking about though - I was so young. I wonder if in the future I will look back here and feel the same way. I hope not. I hope that I've grown up; but perhaps I haven't, or at least, not as much as I'd like. But you know, life goes on and we grow and learn, about ourselves and what we want, and who we are. 

I don't want to be sappy here today. But I didn't intend on this post turning out this way either. I'm not really unhappy, despite everything I've talked about, more nostalgic, I suppose. 

星愿：I hope you can help me grow into someone I like, not just now, but in two or three years, too.

we're multiplying, there might be one here

Tonight I went to see 俺俺 at ACMI for the Japanese Film Festival. I've been looking forward to this movie ever since it was first announced because really, what could be better than a movie with Kame playing 33 characters? (A movie with Jin playing all the characters, tbh. Is my bias showing?) Even without the allure of seeing Kame onscreen, the plot itself is delicious. It's not a movie that I could watch regularly, but I'd still definitely put it on my favourites list. T and the older couple sitting beside her cracked up at me though for freaking out before the movie had properly started :( I'm sorry I have a lot of feelings. Subs for the movie are already out online, but mostly I wanted to go for the Q&A session that was hosted with the director afterwards.

It was actually a little awkward (which I expected, because of the disconnect between translations, but also because interviews are almost always a bit awkward) but most of the questions that were asked were great. (Except for that one woman who had a comment and a question and was talking for literally like 5 minutes. I wanted to punch because she would not shut up and I'm not even sure her comment made complete sense because that's what happens when you say things on the fly, ugh.) Satoshi Miki was really nice about it all though, and his answers were all really interesting to hear. I managed to get down most of the Q&A; at some point I'll probably transcribe that for KTL or KTWW or something. He was super nice afterwards too, hanging around outside the cinema to take photos and shake hands and sign autographs :(

I also managed to make new JE friends! Mostly because they were hanging around afterwards too and talking about things and I sort of slyly inserted myself into their conversation, haha. I think B and I will get along great. C and A seem really nice and fun too, as well as the rest of the group whose names I didn't manage to catch. We hung around outside ACMI for a while just talking and flailing about things, and eventually got told off by other people who were standing around in Fed Sq for being too loud. (What else is new though?) We swapped u/ns, and have tentative plans for karaoke in a few weeks, so I think we're going to be, well, pretty good friends. They all headed back to Flinders while A and I walked down Swanston since A lives on LaTrobe and I was meeting my sister at Rooftop in Curtin House since it was her actual birthday.

I ended up walking all seven flights of stairs because there was a group of people lingering outside the lift and I don't have the patience for that. It was probably good for me, anyway, considering that T and I lived the fat life today. It took me a while to work out where my sister and her friends were, I am not good at recognising people from the back, and even less so when it is dark, but I found them in the end. I don't really know many of her friends well plus I was pretty tired from being out most of the day, but I talked to D, M, and A for a while. Right before I left I ended up spotting L, who I haven't seen in months! This was pretty much the last place that I expected to run into her. So I chatted to her for a bit before I left and collapsed at home, about life and her plans and her scooter accident and shitty internet. We'll make proper plans for a real catch up, probably with the whole group, some time soon so that'll be the best.

Tomorrow I'm checking out the RDH function room for my joint birthday with my younger sister, and then on Sunday O is coming to stay over before he leaves me (again) for other, sunnier places, so the next few days will be fun too, at least.

metrics #4

This is the final metrics post for NaNo 2013 ! Exciting, I suppose, and yet, disappointing. I'll probably keep doing these metrics posts whenever I work on what I started for NaNo, whose title is tentatively being abbreviated to RTN. Quite apt, considering, if you are one of the few who a) know what it stands for and b) know the gist of my plotline.

Anyway, metrics for week 4 (and a bit): 8401. So, I have a grand total of 33291 for the month of November.

I'm a little upset that I didn't make it to the 50k mark on RTN. (I can feel the rest of you staring at me like holy shit, 33291 words in 30 days is fucking amazing; shh, you don't know what it's like.) Considering the monster that this is going to turn out to be, I probably should have made more of an effort to bash out as much as possible. Still, it's a nice number to look at in retrospect, and definitely more than the combined total of everything else I'd written in the rest of the year.

In case anyone was curious, here's some music that I've been listening to pretty frequently while writing during November!
Bridge Attack//Bill Whelan
Phoenix//Daft Punk
Mighty Micro People//Amon Tobin
Concorde//Glen Check
Drifting//Lucid Fall
Easy To Crash//Cake

Also, hello December ! Isn't it hard to believe that we're so close to 2014 already? Where have all the days gone?

don't stop sexy boyz

Yesterday I finally met up with my 妹妹 L for the first time in a few months! She was late in meeting me, which was fine - I went for a latte at Starbucks while I waited for her. The weather was not great, but that wasn't such a problem since we'd made plans to go back to her apartment anyway.

After she showed up, we walked a few blocks to this delightful French restaurant/cafe place for lunch that L had been to before. Since both of us are not particularly large eaters, we chose a few things to share. We ended up with French style pizza and crepes, as well as a bowl of fries because, well, who doesn't love fries, let's be real here. L also got an iced chocolate while I stuck with water. Even though the portions looked quite small, they were really filling ! We also got raspberry mousse slice and a strawberry tart to take away so that we could have dessert a little later, once we were done digesting a little.

Both of us have the habit of forgetting that we're actually meant to be dieting so we opted to walk back to L's apartment, stopping by at this super fancy supermarket on the way for juice. For some bizarre reason, strangers always talk to us when we're out together; it's more than a little creepy. This time, it happened to be the guy re-stocking the shelves. After making small talk and giving us advice on juice, he proceeded to comment on how we both had really good English, at which L and I both exchanged a look and told him that well, yeah, we'd been here for a while. (I was born here; L migrated from China when she was 3, iirc.) So that was not all that fun, but we managed to get back to her apartment without any other mishaps.

L cleaned up her room a bit while I sat around on her bed, and then we set up for what she dubbed our JE fangirling date. I gave her pretty much everything that I'd been able to fit onto my harddrive and we spent the next five or so hours alternating between past and present videos. She also tried to introduce me to some of the juniors! This probably would have worked better if she wasn't trying to point them out through video because no matter how HD a video is, when someone is not the focus it's pretty hard to make them out properly and make judgments on whether you find them qtp or not. We watched some of this year's Shokura's, as well as part of the SZ concert, some AnS, pv's and a bunch of other assorted things. I've never understood why people watch reaction videos, because I honestly find them not that funny unless you actually know the person? Also because it's 1028488934902x better if you're there with them in person. I'm pretty sure L cries some real tears during the afternoon at some point. The Star Rider video was pretty much her breaking point though, since she saw U's hair and was actually just lost for words.

I ended up staying until about 7.30-ish? which was a lot later than I'd originally planned, since I was meant to be meeting up with people for P's birthday, oops. So I trammed back into the city (and got caught for apparently not touching on even though I swear I did, ugh, going to have to appeal that when I get sent the letter) and met up with them only for cake. Not that I really minded, because I was actually still full from lunch. Terrible weather aside, it was a really good day. Which was made even better by getting home and watching L sob over Twitter as she made her way through a bunch of things that she'd never seen before.

L: "I REALLY CANT STOP CRYING MY HEART IS SPLITTING INTO LITTLE PIECES...I am literally going to die". Best moments of the day.

love, love, love 大家都需要

Wang Leehom's Open Fire Music Man II concert had its Melbourne stop last night. Anyone who knows me knows that Leehom is one of my absolute all-time favourite artists, and that without him I wouldn't be into Asian music at all. It's been a dream of mine for years to see him live, and it feels amazing to be able to finally check it off the list.

Attending was definitely the best decision I've made all year; Leehom was really super sweet the entire time and I had pretty fantastic seats (courtesy of getting tickets within the first three hours? Haha). I only partially regret not getting VIP seats, if only because of the extra close view and contact. Security kept having to grab people who tried to duck past the ropes to get into VIP when they all started crowding because Leehom was reaching out. My parents, though, would have refused to let me go anywhere for months afterwards if I had insisted on it though. The fanpacks that were on every seat were great though.

I've always been a sucker for ballads, especially ones in Chinese. I find that sad things are often some of the most beautiful to me. I've always had an affinity for anyone's ability to play instruments, too; perhaps because I struck out and knew I would never be anything of note at piano, despite my efforts. It was an incredible experience to be treated to Leehom playing the piano, violin, erhu and guitar all in one night. Despite how easy it is to jam to Leehom's upbeat songs, the best part was definitely the acapella. Although it was pre-filmed, it was still ridiculously cute and ridiculously good. I love seeing anyone of fame joke around and goof off a little. That Leehom did it with five or six other versions of himself was just a bonus.

The World Vision video was gorgeous and just went to show that my unfaltering love in Leehom isn't undeserved. He is such a genuinely good person, it hurts me. He kept reminding people in the VIP section not to push and to be careful, and when one girl apparently looked like she was about to get crushed, he pulled her onto the stage. He didn't even blink when she impulsively hugged him - he just hugged her back. He also hugged a baby and I think I was about a thousand times more jealous of that baby than the girl.

It was a really wonderful night and I cried when it was over. I still sob a little when I look at all my fancams. The concert was probably the highlight of my entire year, I really don't think there could be anything to top it for me.