#488 - Goodbye 2013

2013 has been a pretty wonderful year - I'm growing little by little in many ways and there's been new people entering my life, some people exiting my life, some people still there for me through the thick and thin, first year of tertiary education is over, I've finally doing something to earn my keep, I've learnt new skills, am experiencing so many things and I'm slowly but steadily emerging from my little shell. I like and accept myself a little bit more than I did when I was growing up but hey, I feel like I had a very awkward, fairly emo-ish and cocooned adolescence and wow can't believe people were able to put up with me and stick around back then and even now - you guys know you're awesome and are very much loved and appreciated by me. Anyway I digress, I'm just feeling rather grateful and blessed for everything that has affected me and has made me me even if not all the occurrences were necessarily good because every daily action and happening is something that I can say is featured in the story of my life and it's unique and one-of-a-kind and only applicable to me and no one else. (: And it feels absolutely incredible to be alive - goodbye 2013, hello 2014. I'm already looking forward to getting a start on writing in my new diary - every year I say I promise myself I will write every day and finally fulfill my wish of finishing a diary but yet again this year I am miserably far off in achieving my goal as I've only written up to October before stopping, I can only keep hoping that I'll eventually get there - hope keeps me going, it's there whenever I wish that it's this job application that will finally be successful, it's there when I wish that today will be a good day, it's there whenever I have a dream of achieving something and aren't we ever so lucky that it's there, where would we be without it?

So I visited the Sydney Aquarium last week with Steph after many, many years and the day was sweltering hot but we had such a good day out - funnily enough we just don't travel and go out and do fun things with each other; these kinds of activities are normally restricted to being done with friends. Just made me realise how much I appreciate her and how lucky I am to have her - she's so wonderful and I always feel that I am in no way capable of being a good older sister without her support because I just suck at that role whereas she is absolutely perfect for it. Anyway, we were both super excited to see the dugongs and well, gotta say that they are officially my favourite sea animal, so cute and fat and their facial expressions are just so affable and happy, the kind of expression a kindly old person would give you (: Worked up a sweat eating lunch at Pepper Lunch on such a hot day, cooled off with froyo and milk tea, bought some basic tees and then just went home extremely tired with aching feet.

 And then later on Boxing Day, I saw the second Hobbit: film at Liverpool with M, L and X and it was an absolute pleasure to watch - I liked the first but the second was definitely better minus the ending which could have been a tad better and more exciting; the story flowed on well and the fight scenes were excellent and coupled with clever humour here and there and who could forget Cumberbatch as Smaug (his voice!) and Freeman as the loveable Bilbo! (Sherlock season 3, soon!)  Kinda in the mood to rewatch and relive LOTR - and well well, I'm currently downloading a better quality version of the first film and I'm so crazily into this series and the Hobbit I'm seriously contemplating buying all the books, now that is a big deal! Also lovely mum has bought something wonderful from Costco - a huge jar of jellybeans that come in a whopping forty-five different and interesting flavours (blueberry muffin and fruit salad being prime examples) and they greatly remind me of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans from Harry Potter although they are infinitely less gross (: Also lovely to see Bitter at work today despite the chaos, she's the first person to officially drop by and say hi haha.

And before I forget, DW Christmas Special - usually I adore Moffat and his ingenious stories but this episode just fell into the category of 'wtf'; it was confusing and very random, although it was lovely to see Amy even for a brief second and Smith went out with a bang though - I'll miss him because he's grown on me over time but then, I'm looking forward to the new Doctor and season eight. Have been watching and re-watching a fair bit of movies in the last few days: Batman trilogy (good but overhyped), Princess Diaries 1 & 2 (I likey, they are feel-good chick flicks), When Harry Met Sally (oldie but a goldie), It's Complicated (not a stereotypical chick flick, Sweet-approved) and Anastasia (good). And gosh I've just got so damn much to write (this will be the last topic I will talk about!) but Steph and I made a swear jar around 24 hours ago and it's a pretty interesting experiment I'd say. Okay, over and out now, can't believe I just wrote a huge wall of text. (Early) Happy New Year!
 

Let us all adore and fawn over this adorable animal.

#487- Almost at the close

Sorry for being a bit aloof as of late, for some reason I was meant to blog a lot earlier but I never really found the time, I won't it was procrastination but rather life calls and other things required my attention. Belated Merry Christmas guys, still have yet to finish my 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that I started beginning this year. I had a sudden urge to tackle it again after Dandelion's Christmas party but I only managed to do a few pieces so that kind of deflated my enthusiasm. On the bright side, I got a draft template of my 'professional signature' and have made a strong start in terms of learning mandarin although I am a failure at parking or any form. If anyone has some pointers they would like to share with me then I'm all ears.

Drama talk:
Return of Condor Heroes 2006 is not as good as what my friend said, though nonetheless I'm soldering on because I've started it and well I decided to watch the Condor Trilogy so that's what I shall do. From a fan's perspectives, I don't find the main love story between Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nu plausible in the least bit, and quite frankly Xiao Long Nu has like no character but Liu Yi Fei is so pretty (on aside). Additionally they totally ruined Guo Jing and Huang Rong, loved them to pieces in Legend of Condor Heroes in 2008 so this version of the sequel was just chipping away at my beautiful image of them. Today I was reading blog commentary to see what others felt and omg it was so awkward reading 'Kibes Corporation' and my god the woman swears like every sentence. I honestly don't know how her readers can put up with that, yes it's okay to feel passionate about some and go voice it by all means but was it necessary to convey that using dishonourable language although I do agree with her opinion that they chose the worst looking, most annoying kid for Yang Guo, are they trying to make us hate the main character from the get go.

Onto my dilemma, when I finish ROCH06 which should be tomorrow, should I watch Chinese Paladin first or Lan Ling Wang?

#486 - The Six

Feeling much more chirpier now because the past six days have been pretty wonderful in a variety of ways. 

So I finally landed a job in my relevant field starting next year, and even though it's unpaid I'm so grateful to be given the opportunity to gain some real-life experience (big thanks to my girl Jules). And I also ended up working so much this week and thankfully it was so much better than the week before, did not have to deal with too many unpleasant people, worked with my fave colleagues and I've discovered that although I used to dread the morning shift because I was unfamiliar with it, I like it so much more than the afternoon one. Love how I fund myself for almost everything I do and all my activities. And I also went to a Christmas party at Rena's little quaint house with the uni kids and it was a pretty fanfuckingtastic day and night. Her pets were pretty awesome, especially Oscar her dog, and I feel like I'm no longer going to be a cat lady in the future because I'll be a dog lady (if I ever decide to own one in the far future); dogs are just better, more loyal and fun and I can definitely see why they are a man's (and woman's) best friend. Went food shopping, helped with food prep, did a bit of baking and decorating with cupcakes, a chocolate cake, made fairybread which brought back childhood memories of parties in primary school and helped to make an uber tasty punch drink. And her parents and family were really lovely people, I love how close they are and what good rapport they had. We ended up having a really good time just chilling and exchanging KK presents, and I adored my present :)

Yesterday I went out with Viv and Bitter for dinner at Bondi Pizza and Bitter is the only true lady out of all three of us - Viv and I just drop our dining utensils all the time and we prefer to eat with fingers. Pretty pricey despite the fact that the food was good and filling, luckily Bitter had a decent discount; the Chocolate Room was our next destination and we indulged in some tiramisu icecream before calling it a night. Going to watch the first Hobbit film tonight and to the Aquarium tomorrow with Steph, holidays are seriously the best.

#485- Legend of Condor Heroes

Hello world, this may be one of my few platforms for interaction with civilisation this holiday. Why? Well, you know how I love my dramas (the word 'love' doesn't even express how deep my fond attachment is ), well recently I've immersed myself in everything and anything Chinese because one of my goals this Summer is to improve Chinese so if I can watch dramas at the same time then I'm killing two birds with the same stone. So whilst, my friends are gushing on about the Hunger games series and other movies hitting the big screen, hermit me, if glued to her laptop watching episode after episode. Let me tell you that if a drama is really good then food and sleep is secondary to drama, not even kidding, my appetite will only crave dramas and nothing else which is why for the past few days I've been going to sleep at 1a.m. so I can finish Legend of Condor Heroes 2008, mind you it's a 50 episode drama which would have been finished at least a day earlier had it not been for going out.

I must confess that I have become a massive wuxi a girl, always have been but now I'm thoroughly converted and my most frequented site for the past week was wuxiaedge.com. Oh and correction Better, my mental arithmetic is terrible for the Condor Trilogy I'll be going through 131 episodes, doing so gladly. If you think I'm insane, then you might have to extend that to the majority of Asia because, there have been so many movie and drama adaptations of Jin Yong's epic trilogy, so fact is it's pretty damn loved. Hu Ge, you have sky rocketed up my favourites list (especially since you're in like half of my watch list) and I'm so glad that you dubbed your own voice though I do understand why so many wuxia dramas are dubbed, it was sad not hearing Ariel Lin's voice for Huang Rong because she has as Taiwanese accent. Also if anyone is curious wuxia dramas have an element of martial arts and the best thing of all is that they have kick-ass strong women in them that are so loveable or at least if Tangren produces it, it is so.

Watch the clip below, Ariel Lin is so adorable and I love her portrayal of Huang Rong, while Zhou Xun is a highly revered actress, Aussie equivalent of Nicole Kidman/Naomi Watts/Cate Blancett etc, I feel that the 2003 version didn't really put much emphasis on the women especially Huang Rong who is so important to the protagonist's development so yeah thank you Tangren for appreciating how awesome women can be.

Watch List this holiday:

1. Bu Bu Jing Xin- 35 episodes watched 3 times
2. Legend of Condor Heroes 2008- 50 episodes
3. Return of Condor Heroes 2006- 41 episodes
4. Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre 2003- 40 episodes
5. Rewatch so I can recap Huan Zhu Ge Ge 2- 48 episodes
6. Chinese Paladin- 34 episodes
7. Chinese Paladin 3- 38 episodes
8. Treasure Venture- 20 episodes
9. Seven of the Sky- 39 episodes
10. Xuan Sword 3 Legend-Rift of the Sky- 31 episode
11. Mulan- Chinese Movie
12. Sweet Assassins- Taiwanese Movie

Ongoing: Empress Ki (Korean 50 episodes)
2014 Release: Bu Bu Jing Qing, Xin Yue Chuan Qi, Yun Zhong Ge, China's Got Talent

#484 - Brown gold eyes

Playing this on repeat.

1/ Bought my first digital album on iTunes: Clazziquai's Blessed. No surprise there, I'm fairly obsessed with their songs and musical style at the moment.

2/ I just made a fairly dumb move. Sleepily saying stupid honest affairs to the manager - only I can do that. Because I can't lie when my brain just isn't functionally at its optimum when I'm groggy and tired. Looks like I feel so obliged to follow instructions I'll even pick up the phone even though it's so early in the morning.

3/ I feel that writing this entire point out slightly alleviates the frustration that I sometimes feel.
 In fast food, you always get good and bad customers. Lately, I've been getting the latter a lot so I'm going to say that customers piss me off so much sometimes. Honestly.  The six types of customers I do not like encountering:
a) Indecisive adults and especially, indecisive children 
b) The people who order something and then change their minds and want a refund.    
c) The people who ask to pay half cash and card. Thanks so much for giving me a timer of three hundred seconds...most horrible customer ever.
d) People who get angry at you when the menu cannot accommodate for their tastes. Blame the corporation not me.
e) People who make you remake "flat" drinks at least 3 times.
f) Rude brats who ask for water without buying something and when I refuse, citing company protocol, haughtily demand me to call the manager.
 
It's no wonder that more often than not, I feel immensely relieved when I'm done for the day.
And thus I admire anyone who frequently deals with these situations and always exudes a happy bubbly persona for the entire duration of work because I certainly can't.

4/ Moving on. Holidays are the only time where I get to read a lot. And I've missed doing that so much. Read five books in as many days - finally finished the 'Hunger Games' trilogy, re-read 'Falling Leaves' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' which made me tear up when Laila opened the letter Jalil wrote to Mariam. Such a wonderful book.

5/ Catch up session with Bitter! Reuben Hills lunch, frequenting T2, Pitt St, free Sharetea thanks to her awesome coupons :) and a pledge to myself.

Lychee, Lime & Coconut $8.50

"The not Reuben" $18. A lot more appetizing than it looks.

Pretty rad T2 set up.

My mum is such an amazing woman with endless patience for her clumsy daughter.  Realising more and more that I'm truly so lucky to have her. Love her so much.

Love these two lines.

#483- A new page

Is it weird if I say that I'm still suffering from post-drama depression because I still am TT although I have immersed myself in Dao Mo Yao novel translation (thank you Miss Koala) and am eagerly awaiting the drama adaptation airing next year (question is WHEN!!!!). 2014 is going to be a good year for Chinese television Bu Bu Jing Qing is coming out, ship the two leads so even if it's a sequel I'm going to watch it all no matter how bad it turns out to be but I'm guessing that without the dynasty element then it's just going to end up like all those sappy melodramas because the conflict cannot be as intense without coming off as completely unrealistic. And following on from the previous post, China's Got Talent is out, I hope I can find it on Tudou or 56.com or another site because I doubt anyone will sub it so I got to rely on my mando skills. All in all, I'm still a big, proud d-addict.  

#482 - Once upon a December

Not going to give up. It's difficult but I'm determined to forge something out of pretty much nothing.

So I haven't been doing too much, but then...my holidays are never very productive anyway (: Watched 'Catching Fire' which made me want to get back into reading the books again (V, I wholeheartedly agree with you on Peter), went to karaoke at Mizuya and sang my heart out with the uni bunch, had a last farewell lunch with J for B who I won't be seeing for almost 2 months but then she gets to go to one of my favourite places, signed up for 2014 Colour Run which I am so excited about but have not gathered the willpower to get back into running, watched so many dramas in such a short period of time that I am taking a hiatus with the exception of 'Heirs' even though it's a bit disappointing. And wow it's December already.

#481- Fandom mode

I thought I'd let you all know that Bitter has unfortunately returned to modern civilisation after spending the last few days weeping away whilst watching Bu Bu Jing Xin. To those that haven't tried it do so, it's so good I only hope that the writers have put a lot of thought into the sequel and that it will air soon because I am terrible with my patience. Currently shipping the two leads big time, I don't why but I never realised Nicky Wu's charm, sure I knew of him because of my bias Su You Peng from their Little Tiger days but something about his appearance seemed odd to me. That was still the case when I first saw the drama with his queue and again for some reason he still looked odd but with each episode I shelved that thought finding something charming about him that I cannot even describe. He's not a bias nor am I a fan but I'm definitely not indifferent towards him now.

You know every time I really get into a drama I guess I have this routine that I follow without fail first its watching the drama like my life depends on it, if it is good food is secondary to drama (not even kidding I can go a whole day with just watching dramas). Waterworks are a usual symptom, what follows next after I've finished the drama is endless reading of recaps and scouring youtube for fan made vids (fmv) and a bit of background search on the leads and if it's a historical drama then research on history.  With this drama in particular, since it is based on a novel, I'm looking for english translations of the novel however for one there's only 8 chapters out of 20 translated (TT) and two, the Chinese language is so complex that translations lose a lot of nuances. I can only hope that one day I will become literate enough to be able to read.

For BBJX fans only:

^ whoever did this is genius

FINAL NEWS on my fav OTP (on-screen because Zhao Wei is married with a kid), they're going to appear on television again. Waited 12 years to see this, since their last appearance which was Romance in the Rain where they only played friends and not romantic interests (curse Leo and his horrible acting and stealing the spotlight). Airing next year is the fifth season of China's got Talent and Zhao Wei and Su You Peng are both judges on the show. Do you know how excited I am to see them together finally because though they're good friends they haven't made any public appearances for a long time.

#480 - Content

So I recently found out what my reaction would be if I saw an Internet celebrity in real life.
In typical Sweet fashion, I will squeal their full name loudly, talk even faster than usual (I really and desperately need to correct this unfortunate habit) whilst hyperventilating to the person next to me, jump up and down and ...proceed to stalk them down the road without telling them I'm a fan or I know who they are. A la Chloe Morello. Saw her coming out from Town Hall Station last Wednesday. So yep, don't mind me, I'm totally not creepy at all! :'D But it was pretty awesome.
Also, I'm becoming more fob. Or embracing my roots. Even YouTube has recognised my changing ways...and boy, have I changed dramatically in many ways. Who knows if this is for the better or the worse.  Oh change. It's so inevitable.
Caught up with high school friends after far too long and every moment was absolutely wonderful. And you know, in high school, a whole bunch of people around the same age are dumped together and just forced to be in each other's presence until the very end. Not everyone's personality suited another person's. And so I didn't 'click' with the predominant majority. But I was still fortunate enough to click with a few. And it's these few people who I will always care about and who I can truly call 'friends'. Because honestly, the rest are acquaintances - we will never be anything more than that. And that's completely fine by me. Just as long as I've got those few. Luckily uni has helped me to emerge from my outer shell and just be a little bit more... unafraid to be the real me. No facades. No need to care deeply about what everyone thinks and perceives. :)
Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special 'Day of the Doctor'. The trailer was misleading but this was just another masterpiece from the one and only Moffat. I won't spoil it for other Whovians....but wow. It was funny as well. And you know a series is so special because everyone clapped at the end. And I've never seen any other movie where the audience applauded. I've so much adoration and love for this show - it trumps all other shows and that includes all my beloved drama. And yes I've been on a roll lately with drama - finished five in five days. I'm crazy.
But

心里很服帖 :)

Fave shot of Joseon Four from Sungkyunkwan Scandal. Yep, Song Joong Ki on the left!

This is divine and my ultimate favourite T2 flavour. But I'm far too reluctant to fork out $30 for this. 

Keeping the bag forever.

Giant QVB Christmas tree

Extreme zoom stalker shot

I think it's quite obvious green is my favourite colour. 

Finally headed off to My Sweet Memory! And felt right at home. 'Signature Bingsu

'

"YouTube Recommended Videos". I don't even subscribe or watch that many of the above ...honestly.

 hubby #1

He's just wonderful. From any angle.

Best!

Max Brenner 'Hot Chocolate with Crunchy Waffle Balls', highly recommended by A. Yeah, I laughed too at 'crunchy waffle balls'. And yes, I don't like MB because it's far too sweet and pricey for my liking but it served as a pretty good backdrop for some catch up after the movie.

After ages! hubby #2

I caved and gave into the hype. So far so good.

Typical us. That's one thing that will never change.

Yayyy

So glad to see her after a veryyyyyy long time!

#479- Cityfail at it again

You guys have probably heard of what went down last night to cap one horrible working week for many commuters. In a nutshell, lightning struck one of the control centres in Strathfield taking down the back up as well (ironic that the back up in in the same spot). What does that mean for everyone trying to get anywhere- trains at a stand still and apparently being held captive on the train for 2 hours   is not uncommon. I liken it to traffic lights dying out but that happens often and you can get police officers to guide traffic except when you leave control to the very capable hands of CityRail (cough cough still going to call them that) then you have a big BIG problem especially when we have mediocre infrastructure. It really is worthy of being called second-world because instead of our fares going to fixing up and upgrading existing problems, all the increases are just for pay rises and the reason I presume we have so many track work days this year is to patch up problems for the moment so it's like a bandaid that just covers it up without doing anything. All in all, if you were expecting to catch  train yesterday afternoon, then I can totally relate to you. Fortunately, I escaped the drama by hopping onto a bus to Castle Hill and get off mid-way so I could get picked up. The downside was that I had to pay for my ticket which I would not complain had it not been for the fact that I could supposedly use my train ticket to cover my bare fare. Stupid Cityrail workers told me that that was perfectly acceptable- BIG FAT LIARS. I mean if you're going to announce to everyone that that's alright then do have the courtesy to extend that notice to the bus companies so that I wouldn't snap off at a driver for the shortcomings in your lack of communication.

After having experienced Monday's dilemma on the trains (that was bad) where I had a 45min delay getting home, I made the call yesterday to jump ship and resort to the equally as bad bus system. I'm so glad that I did because the only downside was the city traffic and that's expected so I can't really complain. Finally, to anyone who had to catch the train on Thursday night, my condolences I'd like to think that the fatality at Waverton was not because of the actions of someone with regard for their own safety like those people who decide to climb up on a train carriage for funsies.

#478 - Paperman

There's your daily dose of disturbing. Thanks tumblr.

1/ Finished exams last Tuesday (: Best feeling. Cannot believe first year is over, just like that
2/ Drama, drama, drama. Drama mania
3/ Work
4/ Booked tickets to Doctor Who 50th Anniversary
5/ The smell of rain is ... wonderful

6/ My newly discovered favourite short.

#477- Misgivings

First time blogging on my phone 

Computer issue has been fixed never felt so good giving money away. Onto the next problem at hand which is ripping into the first Acer employee I come across. Turns out my hard drive was faulty to begin with so they 'fixed' something only to leave another problem that will worsen with time. Meaning, after exams I'm off to harass either Officeworks or Acer to force them into giving me back a full refund. Ahh time to get back what I rightfully deserve as a customer- should arm myself with knowledge about the ACCC and the relevant legislation.

Fuarrr bus late 26 minutes is that even possible, goes to show that Sydney has 2nd world public transport system

#476 - Heart of Courage

/I've the most horrid week this week.
/Far too many things due consecutively for my liking
/Anticipating impending freedom.
/Can't believe that this is the official last week of being a first year!
/In the last tute, hugged Z as a big thank you because she is the best tutor - she is absolutely wonderful, funny, genuinely willing to help, and listen to any problems. I've just been absurdly fortunate and lucky to have her for both semesters. And she's my referee now :) I will forever have a favourable opinion towards her because she's just been like a big sister / "mentor" to me. Gonna miss not having her so much!
/ Yesterday: the day of losing things. Left my second pair of cheap sunnies and my USB cap in the computing labs. Then S lost her USB in the library.
/ Ja'mie: Cringed and died of embarrassment for Ja'mie at the end of episode 2. I would probably hate someone like her in real life, but it's just satire , and her bitchiness is actually kinda loveable.
/ Speaking of embarrassing, I always find myself extremely mortified by the things I used to blog about when I flick back through the archives....and my blogging style. Unfortunately, I've had a very awkward adolescence full of angst (as evidenced by my top choice in music for high school being angsty metal bands; can you believe I used to be into metal once upon a time...) and bad break outs - well thank god that stage of my life is over. And please don't scroll back through the archives. Wish the ground would swallow me up.kie.

  

Snapchat noob much :')

Oh Google Translate. Oral presentations are the best.

B went a little overboard with the editing...

=D

S's birthday pressie 

Yummmm.

Song for motivation:

                                                                        And don't forget