I first saw these pictures in The Daily Telegraph with the cheesetacular headline of, "First picture on set of even hungrier Games". Yep. If I ever meet the person who makes up those headlines, I'm pretty sure we will best friends. Here are a few more that I dug up online, all showing the cast members doing essentially the same thing (that is, standing on podiums somewhere off the coast of Hawaii). I must admit though - those jumpsuits are badass; definitely a big improvement over the first movie's "camping gear". Plus, Finnick is le sexy.

That last one so utterly embodies the character of Peeta. LOL jokes. I love Peeta :)

Oh, and shoutout to Nanny Nincompoop for yesterday! Happy Birthday my crazy non-cousin/neighbour/third musketeer person!

Is there a male equivalent of menopause? Cause I swear my dad's going through a period of extreme, old man grumpiness. The most simple question sets him off - and for once, I'm not even trying to be a smart alec. Mostly I just remain silent and take the verbal abuse until he cools off. If the whole thing wasn't so frustrating, I would find it hilarious. He actually spent 2 hours ranting about no-one owning up to turning off his computer when it turned out he'd been the one to programme it to automatically do that.

So yesterday was Open Day. It was useful I guess. I've figured out what I want to do and which uni would be the best one for my course. As much as I love the grounds and gorgeousness of USYD, I don't think I would end up going there in the future. Their communications course pales in comparison to UTS' and it seems much more theory based, whereas UTS puts a lot of emphasis on practical skills and actually getting out there to do some internship/work experience. My family couldn't care less about what I do anyway, as long as I don't end up on the streets, so it's all good. When my sister found out that I preferred UTS over USYD though, she had a moment where she was like, "All my friends think USYD is fifty times better. They say UTS is a crap uni." I then had to kindly explain to her that her friends are from SGHS and that it's all in the name of their school. 'Nuff said.

I must admit though, that lecture on the course at UTS was so convincing, I'm worried that they might have somehow brainwashed me. At the beginning I was all like,

Huh. So they are making a movie.

I don't really remember much from The Mortal Instruments trilogy besides the fact that there was this hot guy called Jace who liked to walk around shirtless, showing off his epic tattoos - kind of like Jacob from Twilight I guess. (Nancy had a thing for this hot guy, if I remember correctly.) There was also a girl - Clary? She had powers (duh) and she and the hot guy I mentioned before had unresolved issues. Issues that had something to do with falling in love and then realizing that they may, or may not have inadvertently committed INCEST. Wait am I talking about the right book? This sounds awfully like Cersei and Jaime in Game of Thrones. Anyway, they're making a movie with:


Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace. And because I can't resist, I have to post this picture as well:


Isn't he beautiful, Nancy?


Lily Collins as Clary.


Jemima West as Isabella,

and it is rumoured that some guy called Shannon Kook may be cast as Magnus Bane.

I can barely remember anything from the books (read them about 6 years ago) so all this casting news isn't doing much for me. But hey, I always find book to movie adaptations quite interesting to follow. I guess I just like to see how they manage to transform words on a page into an actual film with real people and stuff. At this point, I'm not going to judge or offer an opinion on anything. I don't think they even have a trailer yet so there's not point saying stuff like, "THIS MOVIE'S GONNA SUCK SHIT," which I think a lot of people already started thinking when they cast JCB into the role of Jace in place of the much beloved Alex Pettyfer.

I forgot how funny "About a Boy" is. I laughed so many times last night, watching it on TV. I loved the part where the kid chucked the bread at the duck and acidentally killed it. I loved the part where he gets stuck in a room with that lady's creepy son who then starts having a meltdown. I loved the part where Hugh Grant goes to the SPAT meeting and tries to pick up single mums. And I loved the part where Hugh Grant goes on stage  to sing "Killing Me Softly" with the boy. He was literally "killing the audience with his song". LOL.

Man, I so want to live in London. Why couldn't my parents have fled to England instead?? WHY??

The whole grade went to watch "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" today as part of our unit of study, "The Journey". Of course, no one really treated it as an educational excursion cause like dude, ITS HARRY FREAKIN POTTER.


*SPOILER ALERT*

It was good. As my sister already said to me, some parts were exciting and some parts were boring. What I really missed though was the whole Hogwarts experience. I missed the awesome potions classes and Defence Against the Dark Arts classes (DADA). I missed the moving stairs and moving pictures. I missed seeing the Great Hall, the ghosts, the Room of Requirement, Hagrid's Hut and the Fat Lady. Also, Neville and Ginny only got like, 10 seconds screen time or something.

What I did like though was the cool animation sequence for the Deathly Hallows Story. They've never had anything like that before. I also liked.... the reappearance of Dobby (didn't see him since the 2nd movie), Fred's (or was it George's) lame "holey" joke, the reappearance of Fleur and Umbridge, and Ron getting carried away at the Ministry of Magic and kissing his "wife". That made me laugh XD

It seems like every Harry Potter movie that comes out takes on a darker tone than the last. I remember the first film, when everything was all so bright and cute and Malfoy had that adorable combover. He still has a combover but his face seems to have grown out of proportion. Hermione gets prettier every movie while Ron seems to get uglier. I guess that's why they make such a good pairing. Also, I feel sorry for the people who haven't watched a Harry Potter movie or read a Harry Potter book before because they must've been so lost. Actually, what am I talking about? NO I don't feel sorry for them. What have they been doing their whole lives - besides acting like an ignorant muggle?



Anyways, it was pretty awesome - if though I did get a running commentary from Tian during the whole film. She especially liked pointing out to me very significant details. Such as when Voldemort leaned over Dumbledore's grave to steal the elder wand, she would whisper in my ear "GAY!" Thank you Tian.

It's funny how I'm always looking forward to the holidays but once they're here, I don't really have anything to do. I guess I just really like the feeling of having so much time - even if that time is wasted on doing basically nothing.

Maybe a reason why I don't have anything to do is because my room is empty. Like literally the only things I have in here are my computer, my bed, my desk and some boxes. I'm getting new carpet on Friday so I've had to move EVERYTHING from my room to the garage. By the end of the holidays, I'm gonna be so fit :D

I just finished reading the book Othilia lent me. It's called Towelhead and its by Alicia Erian. It was seriously disturbing and graphic. The book's been adapted into a movie and I watched the trailer on IMDB. The trailer doesn't look too bad but that's probably because they couldn't show the the truly bad stuff on TV. Um, what else can I say about it? It was interesting I guess? One crtic has said:

"How can a book about such horrific things be so laugh-out-loud funny? How can a
book that seems so lightly done go so far into the dark? Towelhead is totally
engrossing, very witty and sharp"

I kind of agree with this guy. But what really pissed me off was that the protagonist struck me as deluded and naive to the point of extreme stupidity. Far out, how stupid can a person get? You would think that you would REALISE it if you were getting raped.

Oh well, onto lighter things. I watched The Karate Kid (2010 version) last night with my sister and I actually quite liked it :L Haha. Maybe I have a thing for shallow, Hollywood movies that are an insult to my intelligence. Or maybe I am just so movie starved that I could probably watch Twilight again.... and like it.

Haha, constipated much?

But seriously, I couldn't see what was so wrong about the movie. The whole thing was so pretty to look at :D Maybe the whole Chinese culture thing was a bit overdone LOL but it is a movie. The "We're in China, everyone knows Kung Fu here," quote made me laugh. btw, I think my sister has a crush on Jaden Smith :L

I. am. so. happy.

THE YEARLIES ARE OVER XD except for school certificate maths trial tomorrow... But meh, it's only maths. Psssh, not that important.

I can finally go back to youtubing Taemin. But uh, Taemin, I've just got a small question for you...

WHY IS YOUR HAIR SO FUGLY NOW??

Did you decide to change it because I said I wasn't going to youtube you for one week? You know, you didn't have to do that. You didn't have to go swap your nice curly dyed locks for some random black bowl cut. I only said that because I had exams... Oh well, I still love you - fugly hair and all.

BEFORE & AFTER





Like dude, seriously. The hair. It's killing me. Haha oh well. I'll get over it. I'm not like one of those uber crazy Korean fans who spaz over minor details... or am I? *insert suspicious looking emoticon here*

On to other news in my oh so interesting life. Today I played violin for the opening of the lecture theatre. I played in front of Nick Lalich :D HAHAHAHA. Isn't that awesome? He's like... 1/4 famous y'know. LOL, I swear, Miss M has got to stop using the violin people as her music slaves. It was fun at first but after having to play My Kind of Irish for EVERY SINGLE OCCASION, it's starting to get a bit tiring. And its not like we even sound good. We're just the only string people that the school has. Pretty sad, isn't it?

What was funny though was when they announced the string group and didn't say Bonnie's name. Ngaww, poor Bonnie.

I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha a few days ago. It was good. For those who don't know, it's about a Japanese girl called Chiyo (also known as Sayuri) who gets taken away from her family to become a Geisha. What's special about Chiyo is that she has blue-gray eyes, a feature that stands out to most people she meets. The book basically follows her whole life and the obstacles she has to face to become one of the most famous Geishas of Japan. It was really interesting but the thing that disturbed me was that most of the men in the book were either really old or really horny... or both. It was so weird...



Also, the main guy in the book (who she calls the Chairman), was made to seem like a nice, kind, compassionate person throughout the whole story. He's the one who gives her hope to achieve her dreams, etc, etc. But then on page 420 of the novel, near the end of the story when Sayuri has finally gotten together with the Chairman, I read this line, "The Chairman wanted me out of Gion to keep me out of sight of Nobu, but he certainly wasn't going to marry me; he was already married."

WHAT A BITCH.

Haha, just joking. Apparently, it was very common for men to take Geishas as mistresses back in those days. Who am I to criticize?

Anyway I think I'm going to watch the movie again on Friday. Just so I can compare the book and the movie.


I also have to say one last thing. For some reason, I really liked Hatsumomo in the book. I know her character was the evil bitch but for some reason, it was the character that stood out most to me in the story. I remember seeing Gong Li's portrayal of Hatsumomo in the movie and she totally killed it (in a good way).

Volumptuous... I like that word. Especially when you say it with an English accent.

I need something happy to watch now. Urrgh... Singin' in the Rain, anybody?

P.S. I am in love. His name is Andy and you can see him in Toy Story 3 (L)

Today I went to watch:

with Tian and my sister because my mum had free children tickets. Tian and I really wanted to watch it and my sister was only there so it would look like we were babysitting when in fact we weren't :) It was a really cute/awesome movie, not like those recent crap Disney ones I've seen. It was more like "Old school Disney" as Othilia put it.

(BTW: O my golly gosh, that Prince Naveen is HAWWWWWWWWWT)

Why do the holidays go so fast near the end? There's only two more weeks left... Speaking of which I really really really need to get a school bag.

My parents and I got into an argument recently about speaking chinese at home. They think I don't speak enough of it at home and that from now on, they're only going to reply if I ask them something in Chinese. And that is so unfair cuz my canto sucks shit. My dad was like, "You're never gonna get employed if you can't speak chinese."

That got me thinking though. Is that true? Like do people only employ asians if they can speak chinese? I know today's world doesn't discriminate as much but still... What if I wanted to work in like the newspaper industry? Or in publishing? Would they discriminate as well because of the stereotype that "asians are only good at medicine and maths"? Hehe, this is a very interesting subject. LOL.

I remember hearing on the news a long time ago, that there was a really successful Australian/Asian writer who'd won a prestigious book prize. I thought, "That's pretty cool" and turned up the volume on the TV. Well he won a prestigious book prize all right. And you know what the subject for his award-winning story was? It was "The Boat People" (aka refugees from Vietnam). Great topic - but not exactly what I was looking for.

Moving on... I went out to dinner with my relatives yesterday at the Cabravale Diggers Club. We ordered pizza and then later I full cracked up with my sister as we watched my grandma and aunt eat pizza with chopsticks. Totally should've taken a picture.

Yesterday night, Nancy, Tian, Amy, Yuan, Serena and I went to watch Avatar 3D at IMAX. Roxie's parents drove us there and paid for our tickets. That was our Xmas present :)




The movie started at 9:30pm and we got there at around 8:45. When we got to the city, Tian and I kept squealing over how pretty it was at night :L We kept pointing out different apartments that were going to be our future home. There was a really nice one near Chinatown but Tian didn't want to live near there. Why not?? We could grab chinese food in the middle of the night and Nancy could just walk to the nearest Korean store. Plus Chinatown is cheap. Isn't it?

Roxie's parents dropped us off near the Ferris Wheel place and told us to walk to IMAX ourselves. When the six of us got there, we sat on the benches near the harbour and tried not to stare at the couple that kept making out in front of us. I forgot how pretty Darling Harbour could be at night. The buildings are all lit up and there's people everywhere. We could hear music from the harbourside clubs and I suddenly had an image of myself spastic dancing at the Ice Lounge when I turn 18. Right Bonnie? ;)

We were stranded outside IMAX for like, 20 minutes because my aunt and uncle took forever to get there. They finally got here and then we went in. THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE. The movie was totally booked out and most of the people watching it were like 20-somethings so you can imagine how out of place six kids looked. Anyways, they opened the doors and we went in. Our seats were in row C which is like, near the front. God, my neck felt so cramped after 2 and a half hours of staring up at the screen.



It was an awesome movie though. If I had to describe it in one word, I would say "Epic", next up would be "blue". LOL. The visuals were STUNNING. I know the scenery and things were all computerized but still... I wouldn't mind living in Pandora. God, I wouldn't mind being blue if it meant that I could do all the cool things the characters did, such as flying, archery, etc. I think after a while, you kinda forget that being blue is abnormal and you start to see the characters as being normal people.

When the movie finished, Roxie's parents took us to a Chinese restaraunt in Chinatown and ate there. HAHHAHA. I was surprised that it was even open at 12:30am. I think some people were wondering why six, wet kids were even out at night in the city. We went home after that and I nearly fell asleep in the car. What a great start to the holidays :)

I don't know why but some people really seem to hate the holidays. What part of it don't you like? Is it the part where you don't get to do any school work? Is it because you just HATE sleeping in? Or do you just really really really want to go to school? I don't know man...

Anyways, I like 'em. Yesterday morning, before IMAX, I watched Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with Tian and CK. Call me geeky, but it's one of my favourite movies =3 Gollum... so sexy man. But we kinda ruined the movie by butting in with retarded quotes. Like when Sam was holding onto Frodo's hand as he nearly fell off the cliff, we would say, "Hold me Jack!". HAHAHA....ha... ha. Geddit? No? Pffff, fine >_>

After that I went on net and printed out music sheets for LOTR music. That's one of my goals these holidays: learn how to play more songs. I learnt some parts on the violin but it doesn't sound all that great without an ensemble.

Another goal would be to uh, clean my room. It's like a freakin' pigsty in here. Speaking of which, I should probably get started now...

Look at the 90210 screenshot above.

Notice anything?

No?

Well look at the background.

*GASP* What's that I see? O-M-G It's the Wicked Poster!

*Shrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek*

HAHAHAHA ignore me. I'm just so excited cuz I'm GOING TO SEE WICKED TONIGHT.

LOLs sorry people, I'll shut up now. I don't want to rub it in anymore :(

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Anyway, on to other stuff. Last night, Tian came over and we watched The Secret Garden. It used to be one of my favourite movies and now that I've rewatched it, I totally understand why I was so obsessed before :)

It is like THE CUTEST MOVIE ever about a girl named Mary who discovers a secret garden after moving to a manor house in the country. With the help of a friend called Dicken, she helps restore the garden. She also discovers that there's another boy who lives in the manor house as well. He's actually the Lord's son, Colin. Colin has never been outside before because people have told him that he's very sick and could die. However, when Mary moves in, she changes the way he sees the world and slowly he starts to get stronger.

The actors are just so adorable.

Mary: It's so dark in here. Can't we at least open
some windows?

Colin: NO! You can't open them! They've been nailed
shut.

Mary: What?! You mean you've never seen the sun
before in your whole life?

Colin: Yes. I'm deathly ill you see. If you open
the windows, the spores will get in. My lungs wouldn't be able to handle it
and I would die.

Mary: What are spores?

Colin: ... I don't know.

Hahahaha I also love the bit where Mary and Dicken are sitting on the swing. Colin sees them staring at each other and he gets jealous :)

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

The movie wasn't overly funny, like how the episodes usually are but there were lots of cute parts (aka the horse eating her wig).