well, yes.
written: 10:36 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2006

Adding a new entry 'cause I'm bored.

I pulled this from some random blog.

Basically what you do is put your music library on shuffle and answer the questions with songs in the order they come up. it doesn't really make sense at times, but some answers you come up with will freak you out.

1. What's my mood like right now?
Breaking Down - J. Englishman
A couple of months ago this perhaps would have been applicable. Now? Not so much. In fact? Not at all. Sigh, I'm so totally losing my edginess, boo hoo.

2. How's tomorrow going to be for me?
In Bloom - Nirvana
Going by the title alone, this would be rather comforting. But if you know how the lyrics go...well, let's just do a little bit of illustration: "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs and he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun, but he don't know what it means." Enough said.

3. What kind of person am I?
Jie Kou (Excuse) - Jay Chou
HAHAHAHAHA. God, how totally true.

4. Am I loved?
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Okay, this is just so damn funny that I can't bloody stop laughing. No further comment.

5. How can I achieve my highest potential?
Staring at the Sun - J. Englishman
Well, on the bright side, Julian Barnes has a novel with the same title and I loved that book and I read it in the middle of my A Levels/prelims and I achieved my highest potential during that period so I'm guessing this is a not-too-bad thing. The lyrics are on my side too, I think: "I want to be the one who is left here staring at the sun." Yes, indeed.

6. What should I do with my life?
Burger Queen - Placebo
NOOOOOOO! The song, however, is a slow, sad, emo song, though. Not that Placebo is ever emo because emo is, like, so totally overrated and lame, but my vocab sucks so sue me. And: "Things aren't what they seem." Sigh. I love Placebo. Was shocked when I heard Placebo on One Tree Hill. Brian Molko has a very distinct voice so I knew it was Placebo even though I've never heard the song before. Anyway.

7. Is everything really going to be alright in the end?
Breakout - Foo Fighters
This is getting nonsensical. And this song is about as tolerable as Learning to Fly which I hate with all my guts. Okay, Breakout is catchy, at times, but it's not one of the better songs on their There Is Nothing Left to Lose album - at all.

8. What is my best quality?
Just Another - Pete Yorn
OMG TOTALLY LOVE THIS SONG. Even though "you're just another girl" which makes me bland but hey, this quiz thingy is nonsensical so who cares. I love this song. Totally love this song. It's so pretty. It was used in Veronica Mars' pilot and I fell in love with what little I heard of it and I eBayed the CD immediately. Sigh.

9. How does my sex life look?
Xin Yu (Uh...Rain in the heart? Whatever) - Jay Chou
I hate this song.

10. What's the meaning of life?
The Gospel - The Dandy Warhols
Hahahaha. God, talk about ironic.

11. What do people think of me?
Dou Niu (Bullfight) - Jay Chou
Which means I'm fierce? Kinda true. It's a song about basketball, in any case. I like it. Old school Jay Chou. I've missed him.

12. Would I make a good catch?
An Jing (Silence/Silent/etc) - Jay Chou
Uh yeah I'm a pretty quiet person. So, yeah.

13. How crazy am I?
Jesus Online - Bush
This quiz is still nonsensical.

14. Will I have a good life in general?
Ban Shou Ren (Uh, direct translation: Half Demon Human) - Jay Chou
I'm guessing the answer is no.

15. Can (insert name here) ever really love me?
Bai Se Lie Hen (White Scar) - Nan Quan Mama
Oh, great. How comforting. Anyway, I love this song. NQMM before Lara and that other boring-ass, pretentious dude came along was so damn good.

16. Can me and (insert name here) ever be more than friends?
Disease of the Dancing Cats - Bush
Okay, this is seriously getting damn stupid. This is an animal rights song, though I think silverchair's Spawn Again is a better song, especially lyrically.

17. What's going to happen to me this week?
Lurgee - Radiohead
Great, a depressing song from depressive Thom Yorke with a title whose meaning I don't get.

18. Where will I be a year from now?
Ai Wo Bie Zou (direct translation: love me don't leave) - Zhang Zheng Yue
Sigh.

19. What is my biggest wish?
Broadway - Goo Goo Dolls
Eh, not really. I don't like theatre. Much prefer something along the same veins: Literature. Highest form of art? Poetry.

20. What is the love of my life doing at this very moment?
Jia (Home) - Nan Quan Mama
Eh. Okay.

21. How will I die?
Bulletproof - Goo Goo Dolls
I guess we now know how I will not die.

22. What will happen after I die?
I Can't - Radiohead
I can't die? That's good to know.

23. How do my friends feel about me?
Kun Shou Zhi Dou (Fight of a trapped beast? Whatev) - Jay Chou
Yeah okay. Whatever.

**

I checked my exam results and they're the same. A+ C+ C. Extreme? So totally. Such a defining tenet of my character and my life. I still wonder, every now and then, what the hell I'm doing in law when I know it isn't what I want. And the same time last year I was bitching about getting something that looked like B B- C. Well, I guess the upside is, I still can't get a decent grade for those dreary and shit-assed eight-credit modules, which means I'm still the same person. Cool, eh? Fuck this to hell.

I need to get better grades for the next semester. Sucks for me, then, that there's no more CLT-ish module, which probably means I'd be looking at three C's when it's time for results-checking again. Can you believe this? Most of the time I can scarcely believe this is actually me.

Anyway, I watched Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower with the boyfriend last night and I'm still really disturbed by how psychologically disturbing it was. Spoilers are gonna follow this paragraph so be warned, etc.

The most disturbing part was when the emperor, played perfectly by Chow Yun-Fat, took off his metal (gold?) belt and started whipping his son - to death. Like, what the fuck? That's probably the goriest thing I've seen in quite a while. And the incestuous angles to the story were also seriously disturbing.

Okay, so it was just disturbing, period. The story was simple, the cinematography majestic, Chow Yun-Fat was amazing, Gong Li was also amazing, and Jielun's acting improved. Most importantly? He wasn't the worst actor! The dude who played the eldest son was so much shittier than Jielun. I just wanted to die laughing at some of his facial expressions, ha ha.

So the film (props to Zhang Yimou, okay?) was watchable, not too bad, decent. I was kinda falling asleep at some points but I was really tired and it wasn't the film at all. In any case, I think Zhang Yimou's much better when he's doing simpler, human interest films, like Not One Less which I loved. You know, his pre-Hero stuff. His epic period dramas are mostly style over substance, and as much as I value style, I think it's rather meaningless if it's just style without any substance. House of Flying Daggers was style sans substance. Golden Flower wasn't quite; I enjoyed the story, but it was kinda shallow in that respect. I enjoyed the story. That's about it. There's no subtext, nothing, just a simple narration of a very twisted and disturbing story. And I'm not really one that watches a film or reads a novel for the plot.

On another but related note, I finally understand how poignant the song that Jielun wrote for the film is. Ju Hua Tai (uh, Chrysanthemum...Platform?). I didn't understand the lyrics, still don't understand 50% of the lyrics, but as the credits rolled with the lyrics of the song plastered on the screen along with its English translation (which was bad) I finally got the context and hell it's freaking sad. I've always loved the part that goes, "Pa ni shang bu liao an/Yi bei zi yao huang." I mean, Fang Wen Shan writes some seriously amazing lines, but those two are just breath-takingly beautiful - especially when put in context of the film and the mother-son relationship between Jielun's character and Gong Li's character. Granted, Jielun's character was super underdeveloped (I chalk some of this down to his limited acting ability and I'm being very kind to him by putting it in those terms) but at the most superficial level you more or less get that he loves his mother very much and is willing to die for her, yadayada. Hence, the richness of the emotion of those two lines is just...like, further compounded. And stuff. You know.

Still love Jay Chou's songs. I don't really like the theme song he wrote for the film; sounds way too much like Huo Yuan Jia. Still, he's really quite a talented, brilliant song-writer and you gotta give him that much. And I don't think I unreasonably obsessed over him for four years 'cause I'm not that stupid, so there you go.

**

I realise that I can't write from my experiences or about my experiences. You tend to think that your writing is informed by your experiences, but for some reason when I try to fictionalise something based on a personal experience it becomes really, really hard. I don't know where to draw the line, to separate fact from fiction, and I don't want to write about myself. It's when you feel something tremendous that you know has to be put down in writing and you do it the only way you know how - fictionalise it because the best art tells the most truth about life (Julian Barnes) - and you get stuck in the oddest of places and it's too difficult trying to wiggle your way out and so you abandon it. What do you have in the end? Another barely-written prose, along with so many others sitting around in your C Drive.

I. Need. To. Write.

Something complete.

And I also realised that law school and writing well are more or less mutually exclusive. Or rather, doing well in law school and writing well have little to do with each other. I should probably justify this but truth be told I can't really be arsed so I'll just leave it at that.

2006 ends on Sunday. Wow.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010