Moving to LiveJournal
10.27.09 (5:09 am) [edit]
Thanks to inkspector for telling me about the plight of tblog. I'm moving over to LiveJournal now: supremeanna.livejournal.com
I hope you'll all come visit. I had a great time here. :) Take care!
Soapy
10.21.09 (6:35 am) [edit]
I just can't say no to a good soap. I'm currently watching a Taiwanese one - Devil Beside You. Isn't that a great title? There is no literal devil, though. The male lead is your typical alpha male who enjoys posing randomly all over a university which he only seems to attend to stir up drama. Watching it takes me back to college when I used to watch Meteor Garden with my friends and swoon over Dao Ming Si's random antics. Seems like a long time ago, especially since today I was presenting about my Ph.D dissertation. I was the very last person, and people didn't pay attention, just as I predicted, but worse than that is that our presentations are open to the public and ugh if we didn't get a few unsavory visitors. Well, for me, just the one. Can't people take a hint when you fob them off with, "Oh, my phone hasn't been working"? Dude, I have money. I could've gotten it fixed. I just didn't want to talk. Period. Geez, I hope my life isn't turning into a soap. Aside from that, it went okay. Got lots of good advice, things to mull over. Course, it rained and then the skytrain was stalled, but yay, get to stay home tomorrow.
Final thought: Off to watch my soap.
Final thought: Off to watch my soap.
Musings on entertainment
10.19.09 (1:26 am) [edit]
Just watched parts of The Night Porter. Not the whole thing - it was too emotionally intense for me to sit through its entirety. It's a strange film; I'd almost say Oscar-like, but it's definitely not vying for an Oscar. It tells the story of a destructive relationship and that said relationship's effect on its participants and people around it. Charlotte Rampling plays the female lead and she's beautiful, in a fragile sort of way. Her performance - well, the whole film, really - unnerved me. I liked that, because sometimes films should push you to the limits of your comfort, but it also got me thinking about my entertainment tastes. This is a continuation of a inner analysis begun yesterday after catching up with Goldfinger. I was telling him about my current TV habits (because we're both products of the 20th century, and as such, TV rules our lives) and we realized we have quite divergent tastes. I'm not terribly surprised, considering his DVD collection is crap. Still, it makes me question again how it is that I manage to hang out with people who don't seem to like the same things I do. No one I know likes Supernatural (although people agree Dean Winchester is a babe). No one I know likes origami. No one I know laughs at corny jokes suitable for a second-grade sense of humor. Is it normal to hang wholly with people without shared interests? I thought shared interests were the defining foundation of a friendship. I doubt any of my friends would've sat through even part of The Night Porter. That's okay, it just makes me wonder.
Lazy Friday
10.17.09 (3:42 am) [edit]
Rained but the sun was out. I read somewhere that's called Devil's Showers or whatnot. Makes me think of Supernatural, where they're waging a war between heaven and hell at the moment. Every time I finish watching an episode of that show, I start hyperventilating. I am such a TV baby. Was supposed to go out with my best friend today, but she's under the weather, so stayed home and caught up on some reading. I have a project to do, but I think I'll start on it tomorrow. It's shaping up to be a nice, lazy weekend, which pleases me. I just ignore psycho phone calls and all is well. One of the best parts of modern technology is that you can ID people without them ever knowing it. Makes life a lot less messy.
Final thought: I need a snack.
Final thought: I need a snack.
Ugh
10.16.09 (4:04 am) [edit]
Something I've realized: just because a guy graduates from a well-known school and speaks three languages doesn't make him an instant hit with other people. Especially if he's more than a little bit of a snob. Buying a girl a cheap plastic bracelet for her birthday and expecting her to swoon - although not saying it in so many words, but she can tell - is pathetic, to say the least. Asking a girl if she wants to go trick-or-treating in a country where they DO NOT OBSERVE Halloween in a way that sounds more dirty than inviting is not charming. It's creepy. Telling a girl that once you land a scholarship to Kyoto University you'd be pleased "to show her the sights" and emphasize the word "sights" is gross to the extreme. Stop it. To think, I might actually have to author a textbook with such a person. I was kinda ambivalent at the beginning, but the sheer volume of ugh is getting to me.
Final thought: I gotta stop hanging out with losers.
Final thought: I gotta stop hanging out with losers.
Glee = joy
10.15.09 (3:18 am) [edit]
Glee is my newest TV-must. It's just the right combination of corny and catchy. Plus, the female lead - Lea Michele - can sing. I think that woman could belt out a commercial jingle and make it sound like a Broadway hit. She's amazing. I'm a bit apprehensive though, since Ryan Murphy (of Nip/Tuck infamy) is one of the driving forces of the show and the man has this way of coming of the gate blazing and then dying in a raging, hellish fireball. This show is too good to be dragged down by plotlines from Bizarro universe. It's not a perfect show yet, by any means - everyone's still finding their footing, but at present, it's a wonderful forty-plus minutes of high school cliches, fab Billboard covers, and all-around good fun. Next week is the first time I officially present my dissertation proposal and I definitely need some silly no-brain stuff to occupy me. I'm nervous and I've been put in the very last slot of the very last day. I hate that. I like going first because you get to set the bar as high (or as low) as you want. People always go easier on the first to present. Last one at four-thirty on a rainy Tuesday? First-time comedians have it better.
Final thought: Too bad I can't open with a joke.
Final thought: Too bad I can't open with a joke.
It quite possibly is too late...
10.14.09 (3:17 am) [edit]
Been taking a lot of intensive courses that run six hours a day, five days a week - on top of which there's homework and projects. And life. And I have a cold. So I haven't felt like blogging and when I did, not fully, coz I was just out of it, so I just ended up updating my Facebook status instead. Goldfinger just finished his exams; I wonder if I can coax him into coming down from Chiang Rai. I miss him, to be quite honest. He's one of those friends who doesn't hold your moods against you. He listens to constructive criticism - doesn't always take it, of course, but willing to listen, and willing to say he's sorry. I like that about him. He makes me feel like we're on equal ground. I don't have a lot of that in my life. The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm in a lot of uneven relationships. The major ones are my own fault. I let the other person take control, take over to a point where it seems insane to them that I should be my own person, with my own thoughts, and my own feelings. It gets to the point where they make me feel like I don't matter anymore. And in a way, I guess I don't matter. To them. Which hurts, when you feel like you're friends but you're not - you're just kinda THERE. It's like they start thinking they're the light and I'm just the shadow; somehow, I don't exist when they're not around. How messed up is that? I'm my own person. I have a right to my own life. I realized that and things just started opening up for me. The other person, of course, doesn't get it - how can they, right? They always think we'll fall back into the same patterns. That they can be let off the hook without any apology, without any show of regret. The worst part is that they even think that I want to go back to that emotional hell. Absolutely not. I'd rather be punched in the nose. If I've learned anything at all these past year or so is that I'm much happier sticking to my guns. I just want to tell the people who've walked all over me (Mr. Heartbreaker comes to mind, but he's not the only one): Screw you and the horse you rode in on. This is my life and if you want to be a part of it, get with the program. Wipe that smirk off your face. I demand an apology and even if you give it, I reserve the right to refuse it. You hurt me too much for me to just brush it off like it was nothing. Think what you want but I once valued your friendship and I tried to show it. If you ever valued mine, show it.
Final thought: Chances for reconciliation are rarer than a blue moon, but I doubt the people I'm thinking of are even smart enough to realize that.
Final thought: Chances for reconciliation are rarer than a blue moon, but I doubt the people I'm thinking of are even smart enough to realize that.
Bummed out
06.29.09 (1:51 am) [edit]
School has bummed me out to an intense degree. I hate homework. I didn't know just how much until I had a three-year break from it and am once again confronted by loads and loads of it. I'm reminded of something Chandler Bing said on friends - "You know I can only dish it out!" Who knew you still had to do homework when working towards a Ph.D? Sometimes I think being a goody-two-shoes geekgirl is going to be the death of me. God knows I almost died of an ulcer getting my master's. My doctor always says the same thing: "You have got to calm down." Gee, thanks, Doc. Got a pill for that? While we're on the topic, you got a pill for clearing out memories of jerk ex-friends or to repel annoying new classmates? I promised myself I wouldn't think about it, but I've been watching old episodes of Friends (interspersed with reading up on learner autonomy and interlanguage) and they've reminded me that it gets harder and harder to make true friends as you get older. I can't help thinking about certain people who promised to stay with me through it all, only to turn around and trounce off to the nearest bar/beach with their new crew the moment the going got tough. I'm not saying I was completely in the clear; I accept my fair share of responsibility for what happened, but there's only so much someone can take before they just have to call the whole thing off. It doesn't help when the other party protests cluelessness or blames it all on me. It's never just one person's fault. I tried so hard to be there, to be helpful, to be loyal, but I continually felt short-changed. I see that in a lot of my relationships - with co-workers, with classmates. I guess either I'm setting the bar too high or I just have crummy luck. At any rate, I'm having a hard time connecting with my fellow Ph.D candidates. I don't know if it's just me, but they're a bit...cliquey. Three weeks into the term and none of them have spoken more than ten words to me. I've tried sending friendly smiles their way, but it's getting kind of Arctic. Here's one particular episode that comes to mind. Second week of class, one of the guys forgets his handout at home. I have an extra copy, so I say, "Oh, you can have mine" and start handing it over to him. Out of nowhere, another hand shoots out with a copy of the handouts and he grabs it, leaving me with my hand extended like a dolt. And do you think he said anything along the lines of, "Thanks, but no thanks"? No sir! He just accepts the other classmate's handout (his friend, by the way) and completely ignores my proffered one. Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but if you weren't raised in a swamp, wouldn't saying something be the appropriate response? So shoot me, but I've decided that I'm better off just working on my own. I've been screening friends for a long time and it's a system that's more or less worked for me, so I'm going to keep it that way.
Final thought: Still hate homework.
Final thought: Still hate homework.