Tread the line.

internship starts tomorrow.

and of all kinds of disaster to have now, i have a fashion one: none of my pure white shirts fit. i omitted to procure new ones 'coz i was under the impression that i had those. but after trying them on, i might as well drape a white table cloth around me 'coz there's no difference. i'm fucking swimming in them.

so i'm going to borrow one from jojo 2mr morning. which means i need to wake up even earlier. which means i'm fucked for still being awake.

 one is pleased that 3queensome is joining one at work at PS Cafe @ Dempsey. 

which is turning out (after a mere 2 days of work) to be rather enjoyable. albeit tiring, which is nothing new.

the best part i like is meeting new colleagues. there're m'sians, pinoys, burmese, indons and the inevitable chinese busboys and dishwashers (who i pity very much and am at the same time inspired at how determined they are to learn english. translating into han yu pin yin phoenetically so they can eventually be promoted to my job, i.e. a server)

the worst: heavy and hot dishes. tis embarrassing when the lid of the soup bowl rattles 'coz i'm trying not to spill anything. which i have not yet done. 

P.S. hair's back to black in preparation for tomorrow's shoot and also, next week's internships.

P.S.S. gotta start editing previous shoot's pics soon. thumbnails look good!

 

i hate it that i like it so much

 so in the spirit of building conversation, i decided to appraise mother of my immediate plans: work @ PS Cafe and internships. and also in the hopes that they'll realize i'm capable of handling my own affairs w/o their input and/or aid.

but she raised concerns about my hair colour.

and then father found out from her and also gave me grief about my hair. in response to my retort that of course i'll dye it back, he was like "then why do you even have to dye it to such a strange colour in the first place? you must understand that you're going to a very traditional place..."

ok firstly, it is NOT a strange colour. it's a very nice shade.  

and secondly, i'm halfway through law school. i think i'd know far better the workings of the legal fraternity than they do, or ever will. 

so i'm just not going to bother anymore. 

 

so after griping about my non-existent social life, i decided to go watch Priest (not in 3D 'coz i can't stand those glasses).

it's very blah. it started off pretty promising. the whole humans vs vampires war and the humans eventually won 'coz they had the Priests (specially trained vampire-killers and VERY badass). so vampires were locked up in reserves and humans went to live in cities, under the protection of the Church. 

the city was named Catholic City. and 顾名思义, it was a catholic city. but ultra modern and very grunge. confessions were automated, with a pre-recorded video of the Father playing depending on what the computer senses your confession is about. 

so the premise is that the lead, a retired Priest, was lured out of the City (thereby defying the Clergy's top priority of maintaining order) because a vampire attack kidnapped his "niece" (who was actually his daughter but he gave her, and his lover, to his brother to care for 'coz he had to take a vow of celibacy) and went on a hunt for her, together with her lover, some sheriff of the outlands. 

so much for the first half hour. then it goes downhill:

first, the vampires are more like zombies. they are not humanoid, have no eyes, and cannot even speak. vampires are cool. messing with that standard is just not cool.

secondly, the Priests are only physically badass. they can whirl around, fling shurikens in slow-mo and all that jazz, but have no mystical powers, which would have made the fight scenes much cooler. it wouldn't have been so much a let down if they hadn't start their fight scenes in a pseudo-prayerlike or meditative stance, like they're charging up for some ultimate attack. 

thirdly, 4 other Priests were sent after the lead because he broke his vows and what not. 3 of them ended up facing the antagonist in a town the vampire army was having for dindins. there was this asian Priest out of the 3. after doing the standard asian kung fu whirl your weapons (and he got the exotic weapon - 2 circular rings blades thingy like zena) around like crazy fuck, he charged the Bad Guy, only to be killed by a single blow. i mean, srsly. enough with the stereotypes. short asian, kung fu fanfare but first to die. and yup, the other 2 was one black guy and one token white guy. all 3 got killed. but at least their bodies were hung in a mock crucified position, which was very goosebump-ish.
having said that, the only redeeming point about the movie is: 



maggie Q. if you're asian, the only way to survive is if you look like maggie Q. 

and also check out that whip like weapon she's wielding. my fave scene was when she kicked some bad minion on a motorbike into the air, flung the whip around his body and then severed it into a few pieces. w/o a hair out of place.

i jizzed in my pants.

in summary, the only reason to watch this is maggie Q. and even then, so not worth the 3D.

 if this hermit-ish, minuscule-sized social circle will bite me in the ass someday

 

 it was like the world cup. a bunch of friends huddled around the tv, with palpable tension in the air. 

watching election results with law friends is a bit strange. for one, people were trying to memorize what Yam Ah Mee (whom grey_undertones kept referring to as "the Man") was saying: pursuant to blah blah blah. and also, when the PAP's seat count hit 66, everyone went woah, can change the Constitution at will already. 

anyway before i go on, i chanced upon 2 very interesting articles, one from siew kum hong and the other from ex-President devan nair. i was quite pleased with my GRC's (nee soon) results. the PAP team led by Shanmugam won by 58%. i voted for opp precisely because i did not want PAP to win by too big a margin. i think siew is right when he says that the middle ground wants PAP as the govt but is also unhappy at how it conduct its affairs. 

and what i'm specifically unhappy about is that wong kan seng, mah bow tan and vivian balakrishnan have been returned to power (and of course george yeo isn't). WKS and MBT have described their wins as strong mandates/support. their %? <60%. even VB had >60%. honestly with this kinda bullcrap it isn't surprising one let mas selamat escape while the other let HDB prices soar.

i'm most disappointed that VB won. a bigoted and homophobic minister who blew the budget by 2x w/o giving a satisfactory explanation won. i suspect his jibe at wijeysingha's "gay agenda", while drawing online flak, probably turned the conservative christians (and once again, i'd imagine that a lot of them are the upper class and hence living in holland-bkt) against him. cunning. and what's even more disappointing is that i know of gay people living there who actually voted for him. i really don't quite know what to say to that. 

oh well, but the drama's over. i hoped the Opps had won more seats but i guess idealism has to give way to realism. the fact that they managed to capture over 40% of the popular vote is already an achievement to be proud of. i'm just impatient i guess, since every GE takes 5 years. but well, rome wasn't built in a day so i'll just have to sit tight in the meantime.

what i'm most interested to see is what, if any, changes they'll make to the GRC system. and the inevitable conspiracy theories to being.

 so after recovering from BKK induced malaise, i now behold 3 months of summer. 

and it has begun on a dreary note. for one, one of my kiddies inexplicably quit. (it's not just me, he quit the entire centre). and another one who said he wanted to continue tuition after my exams were over changed his mind. so i'm bummed out 'coz income has taken a beating.

which means i am now looking for a job.

but internship is in 2 weeks. that's at least one good thing that's happened. one week @ supreme courts and another @ sub courts. unfortch due to the sombre setting i must desist from poking ilove_sparkles nehnehpox-es. but it ought to be fun so i'm looking forward to it.

but that doesn't solve my income woes once i'm done with that. 

the livin' ain't so easy

 so i'm in phuket and was on this songkhaew thingamajig. which is basically like a van mixed with a tuk tuk: 

\

so halfway along, a thai mother and 2 of her kids got on. the elder kid refused to sit near his mom in mortal fear of something. so she proceeded to do do what any normal asian mother would do and grabbed him by the hair and dragged him to a seat in front of her. i was merely mildly intrigued at this point until she babbled something in thai and proceeded to smack him across the left cheek. at which point i was extremely amused, not by the nature of the act (i.e. getting physical with your kids) but the degree.

what further amused me were the reactions of the white people on the bus. one white man instinctively clasped his own cheek with a pained expression on his face. one white woman and another white man immediately put out their hand to stop her from taking the second blow. and then the latter white man said something in English-accented thai that i reckon translated to "what the fuck you doin', crazy bitch" and then this thai woman responded in thai and now it was her turn to look extremely amused at the white reactions.

i don't think the west-east dichotomy has been eroded. 

p.s. phuket is a fucking swindling tourist trap. the taxis wanted charge 200baht a person for the same trip, while a ride in this lovely ol' contraption with the charming locals only cost 25baht a person. so fuck them very much.