what am i doing up?

christmas was pretty great (: my cousin who i hadn't seen in year came back from melbourne and stayed over from christmas eve to the day! as usual, we managed to convince my parents to let us open our presents at midnight, and i got the best best best gift ever! i've had the same laptop since year 10 and have been dropping bombs hints for a new one in the past few months... mum and dad were awesome and bought me a macbook pro, 15" OSILSUJNXLSJKXSKJ it has an SD card reader and everything! SUPER AWESOME :D needless to say, i am terribly satisfied right now... wrists gliding smoothly over the aluminium body... yummm
sam got me a Penguin classics mug (Great Expectations), and shauna got me some makeup from laura mercier (::: all lovely, thoughtful presents~
i bought sam 3 threadless shirts, a vintage copy of alice in wonderland (black edges!) and a donna hay cookbook (simple and fast); bought shauna a super sexy black lingerie set; mum, a crime book and the donna hay Seasons cookbook; dad, two shirts from threadless~ dads are so difficult to shop for :( i can never match up to his gifts!!
shauna got sam and dad COD black ops for PC~
i've kinda been in love with tumblr... justyoungenough.tumblr, if you're interested. i mainly post pictures of food though *big surprise there*
i had a long talk with mum the other day... and after my pms-ing and many tears shed etc, we had a non-hormone fuelled discussion the next day in the car, on the way to the dentist to get my stitches out. i am so incredibly happy that she's decided to give me her full support if i do decide to move interstate. you don't know how much that means to me :) not that we're not close or anything, just that... having someone you love put faith and trust in you... and tell you that they're there for you... it's a really good reminder, and makes me so much more confident that i can make it. i was/am so scared about this. on one hand, it would be so simple to stay here. not have to worry about financial issues, but on the other hand... i'm still finding myself, and what i was put on earth to do... you know? i think i can find out more about who and what i am if i'm in that environment. on the third hand (mm?), i would be much more hesitant to go if i don't get into a uni. this rejection, as much as i'd hate to admit, has kicked my confidence in its metaphoric balls pretty damn hard. but, such is life~ everyone goes through rough patches, it's just about how you pick up from it... right? haha i'm so uncertain about stuff. all i know is, moving there is the best thing i can do in life right now. let's see if everything else falls into place.
on christmas night, i went clubbing with hun choi! shauna, zoya and sue went as well, but shauna and i left the house separately. i met hun at 10:30 outside king george square, and we t/walked around the city for an hour and a half, before cabbing it to the valley at midnight. the line was pretty long, and it cost $15 to get in (ugh asian clubs are so. expensive.) but it was completely packed inside! it's been awhile since i had that much fun dancing (if you could call my hopeless flailing of extremities that)~ hun and i had a coupla drinks... i am a complete lightweight, i've decided. well, it changes depending on the situation and mood. i had two tequila shots and a wet pussy (a shot, not lady) and jumped a lot in the span of the first 45 minutes... bad idea. not that it was even that much alcohol, just that the combination of jumping and drinking is NOT GOOD. i shall remember for next time, because when we left the club and after we drove hun home... i kinda spewed on the grass along the sidewalk... i sounded possessed. haha! he said he's used to it cuz his german friend does it almost every weekend. :LL
i got home and had some trouble sleeping. i felt like i was swimming in my blankets... literally! it was crazy D:: had to wake up at 8:30 for work the next morning... but i was fine
i talked to meila on the phone after for an hour, waiting for the rain to stop so i could catch my bus without getting drenched. i missed talking to/reminiscing with her :) such funny fun times we had at 13/14...
 speaking of rain and work, i left the house this arvo with clouds looming over my head. 2 minutes into my 5 minute walk to the bus stop, it starts flash flooding like i hadn't seen in weeks. WHAT THE HECK??? bad luck, much? i pulled out my pathetic umbrella, which looked frail and pointless in all that rain and wind, then stood in the middle of the street. stunned and confused. run home? would take too long, jeans already drenched. run to the closest house? check. man comes out without a shirt, but with a hairy chest (enough to be counted as a shirt) (ok i feel bad, he was a nice guy) and saw me, slightly shocked. asked if i wanted to sit inside and wait, didnt, waited, said 'fuck this', made it through the rain and to work ON TIME! amazing :)
my parents are in melbourne right now, on the first holiday they've had together since before my older sister was born 20 years ago. i feel so bad for them ): but happy they're taking this opportunity :)
ate instant noodles for dinner (started the habit of putting sweet peas in my noodles)... skipped two parties tonight ): moreso sad that i missed nicki's goodbye party as she's moving down to the gold coast for film and tv at Bond (gasp! yes! bond!) i'm so glad that my friends have made the choice to chase their dreams (: i told you bek and tom are moving to hobart, non? bek got into med (obviously :3) and tom is doing science there (plus they want to be together~ it's so sweet and lovely... but don't tell them i said that). so so so happy for them!
i'm going to bed now, for it is 2AM...

adios amigos,
rach

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

<3

only the first act

listening to: neutral milk hotel

got my wisdom teeth out on tuesday! it was no where near as painful as i anticipated :O everyone told me it was going to be this immense pain comparable to childbirth and whatnot, but all i felt was a bit sore on the first day, right after the numbing needles wore off... then nothing at all (because of all the fantastic codeine) for the rest of the night. i was really drowsy 2 days after the surgery though... so i slept a lot :) and watched a lot of films i'd been meaning to (Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, Star Wars IV... other stuff i rewatched: the Office- never gets old!!). i look really creepy right now D: kinda like that lady-girl from david lynch's german expressionism film, eraserhead. wisdom teeth removal = all kinds of crazy!!

i also watched the Oprah interview with Jane Fonda today. Ms. Feel-that-burn is 72 years old this year... and looks amazing. it's wonderful what plastic surgery can do for you nowadays! she looks great for her age (i hope i'm successful enough when i get that old so i pay for plastic too...)

she talked about being in her 'third act' in life... the first act being 0-30, second act from 30-50 or was it 60?, and the third and final act from then on. how interesting is that :) she said the toughest act is the second... i guess because there is less room for mistakes, and probably what feels like not enough time to build up to the grand finale :O

anyways-- lots of gibberish here.

zach and chloe came over for a swim and zoolander this arvo~ it was a little bit awkward cuz they were doing the coupley thing of touching a lot and i was kinda like... not in the touching circle so yea it was a bit awkward LOLOLOL anyways :) story of MY LIFE! everyone else bailed were caught up with other things so yarhhh

what else...
jeff and i met up on monday (i believe) and hit up the city for what was meant to be a fun-filled day at the Sciencentre! ahaha then we saw too many little buggers crawling around inside and decided to take his virgin trip to GoMA instead (the gallery of modern art). it was in the middle of renovating for a new show, so we didn't see much... but we DID spent a fair bit of time in the gallery shop :D i love that place. *sidetracking intermission* we went to PIE FACE!! and i finally had my stacker :DDD after like... 3 weeks. OMG I LOVE PIE.
after some epic pie eating devouring, we went to JB hifi where i possibly drooled on the 15" Macbook pros... wait for it... with BUILT IN SD CARD READER. huh? ok. may have jizzed in my pants a little when i saw it :)
am getting one from my parents, so that's pretty cool~ we went shopping and walked and talked until around 3 or 4 (squished in a game of pool, and saw benjie working), then we both headed home (: jeffrey left for south america on friday morning for a holiday with his fambam! how lucky is that!! hope he's having a swell time lol
oh yea, he also returned my copy of dorian gray :D WOOO! omg turn to any page and it's just overflowing with literary genius. he only read 2 pages out of like the whole thing, though -   -" hahaa can't say i didn't try :\

trying to think of exciting things that have happened lately...
here are some photos from my last shoot (:

Vedruss Designs for Two Trees

models: Cevski and Fabs

location: Belgrave, Melbourne

noobs

i realised that half my views now come from people who have typed 'misa campo' into google images, and not because i am a splitting image of her *heavy sarcasm*, but because i included a photo of her in my 'random influence' blog post lmao
yea

so i received a letter of rejection from my first choice course on thursday; which MAY be why i haven't blogged in awhile~ i guess it hurt a lot when i first saw the thin envelope after coming home from work, but i've been trying to skip the seven stages of grief to go straight to acceptance :O it sucks cuz this is the one thing i really wanted (and i'm sure everyone who applied for it felt the same) and it's also the first uni course i've been rejected from. last year was smooth sailing in terms of uni applications... or maybe i only tried for the things i was pretty confident in getting. this course only takes 45 people a year, and i have to submit to the fate of not being good enough  the right candidate for them (my friend tells me to look at it that way). i shan't go into a self-pitying rant, but there are other courses i applied for, and we shall see how those go :O i'm not going to pin my hopes too high, and falling hard now will prepare me for all the other failures life will inevitably throw at me~ i haven't cried (which is odd) and i don't plan to, because i honestly know i did everything in my power to try and achieve it (lol which makes it worse, because it's still not to their standard). o, the trials and tribulations of life~
i talked to noah (living in hobart) that night, cuz he'd just gotten accepted into another course at the same uni :) OH LORDY~ his life is some kind of epic. last year he travelled around south america, volunteering and teaching and such; and then helped out in the Haiti earthquake disaster.
and he's my age.
someone who is my age has already started making a difference in the world :O
so. impressed. so. want.
also, volunteering in third world countries is extremely expensive... imo

i'm reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina at the moment :) only started last night after going for ken rong's birthday dinner! all the kung fu people were there, and wing kee is back from China!! (he lived in guangzhou for 6 months, training kung fu and learning chinese). ate at Dong Bei restaurant in pinelands and dinner only cost us like... $10++ each! so much cheaper than korean bbq that we're always going to. $$$$$ this year, i've somehow managed to alienate all of my high school friends (even though i told myself not to). the only people i see regularly are my workmates and kungfu seniors. everyone else seems to be all loved up in a new relationship or whatnot :\ mlerrghhh
i love them so much. work and kungfu peeps~ it's fun hanging out with older people as well, i think. it's like... seeing where i could be in 5+ years time. my seniors are in engineering, IT, accounting, etc... but the other day, they were looking at the receipt from Sakuraya (we have bubble tea there after every group dinner) and cacked themselves cuz the guy who served them is named Willie. -   -" real mature... hurhurhurr

getting my wisdom teeth taken out on tuesday :'( 4 ov dem...
blonde moment from ivan at work today:
'why are you getting your wisdom teeth taken out??? then you won't be... wisdom anymore!!'
lmfao what??

yes, i'm trying to sound unfazed by the rejection D: am i succeeding??
no
haha
life is like that, hey~

note:
your life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react :D

Sage Francis: The Best of Times (inc lyrics)

beautifully poetic

thanks for the intro, dugong (:

LYRICS:

Its been a long and lonely trip but I'm glad I took it, Cause it was well worth it, got to read a couple of books and do some research before I reached my verdict, Never thought that I was perfect, always thought that I had a purpose, I used to wonder if I'd live to see my first kiss.

The most difficult thing that I did was to recite my own words at a service, realizing that the person I was addressing probably wasn't looking down from Heaven, or cooking up something in Hells kitchen, or trying to listen in or eves drop from some other dimension, which is self serving just like this is. 

Conveniently religious, on Easter Sunday and on Christmas, the television went from being our baby-sitter to a mistress, technology made it easy for us to stay in touch while keeping our distance. Til we just stayed distant and never touched, now all we do is text to much, I don't remember much from my youth, maybe my memory is repressed, or I just spent too much time wondering if I'd live to have sex. Fell in love for the first time in fourth grade, but I didn't have the courage to talk to her, in eight grade I wrote the note and slipped it in somebody else's locker, considered killing myself cause of that, it was a big deal, it was a blown cover, it was over for me, my goose was cooked, stick a fork in me, the jig is up.

Blew my chances the rest is history, our future was torn asunder, became abundantly clear I was only brought here to suffer. At least I didn't include my name, thankfully I wrote the whole note in code, and it had ten layers of scotch tape safely sealed making it impossible to open, plus it was set to self-destruct, whoever read it probably died laughing, I wonder if they lived long enough to realize what happened.

A year later, I came to understand that wasn't love that I was feeling for her, I had someone else to obsess over, I was older and I was very mature, I forged my times signature, by practicing my parents autograph cause I was failing math, disconnected the phone when I thought the teacher would call my home. Checked the mail-box twice a day at the end of the long dirt road, steamed open a couple of envelopes like I was in private detective mode, if you snoop around long enough for something in particular you're guaranteed to find it, for better or worse that's how I learned it's best to just keep some things private.

It was the best of times, it was the end of times.... (repeat)

I was always on deck, I was next in line, an only child with a pen and a pad writing a list of things I could never have, walls in my house were paper thin and every squabble seemed to get deafening, if my memory serves me correctly I made it a point to void and forget some things, probably to keep from being embarrassed, never meant to upset or give grief to my parents, kept my secrets, hid my talents, in my head, never under the mattress. 

Therapy couldn't break me, never learnt a word that would ensure safety, so I spoke softly, and I tip-toed off and the door to my room was like a big old coffin in the way that it creaked when I closed it shut, anxiety's peaked when I opened up, as everything that I was thinking would be exposed, I still sleep fully clothed. 

It was the best of times...

It was beautiful, it was brutal, it was cruel, it was business as usual, Heaven, it was Hell, I used to wonder if I'd live to see twelve. When I did I figured out I was immortal, loved to dance but couldn't make it to the formal, couldn't bare watching my imaginary girlfriend bust a move with any other dudes, Tone Loc was talking about a wild thing, I was still caught up in some child things, scared of a God who couldn't spare the rod, it was clearly a brim-stone and fire thing, pyromaniac, kleptomaniac, couldn't explain my desire to steal that fire, now I add it to my rider, like "please don't please don't throw me in that patch of brier!" 

It was the best of times, it was the end of times.

The school councilor was clueless, cause I never skipped classes, perfect attendance, imperfect accents, speech impediments they could never really fix, and I faked bad eyesight so I could wear glasses, considered doing something that could cripple me, wanted a wheel-chair, wanted the sympathy, wanted straight teeth so then came braces, four years of head gear helped me change faces.

It was the best of times, it was the end of times.

Now I wonder if I'll live to see marriage, wonder if I'll live long enough to have kids, wonder if I'll live to see my kids have kids, if I do I'm a tell em how it is. So go on and listen when they tell that these are your best years, don't let anyone protect your ears, it's best that you hear what they don't want you to hear, it's better to have pressure from peers then not have peers.

Beer won't give you chest hair, spicy food won't make it curl, when you think you got it all figured out and then everything collapses, trust me kid it's not the end of the world.

Back to blogging now... (honestly... please forgive my English in this post... it's REALLY late) I cried a little listening to this song. The honest, clean lyrics are a good shakeup from the supposed junk I've been listening to all week :) (referring to guilty pleasure tunes like Soulja Boy's Swag). Played Across the Universe on repeat, along with Radiohead's Creep when I was in a terrible self-pitying mood. I didn't mention this before, but remember how I told/mentioned to you that I made a new friend in Sydney? Well, we talked a lot over the past month and he flew down to Melbourne for a coupla days to see me (flattering and strangely embarrassing)... we hung out on the first night after I did the Two Trees photoshoot in Belgrave- it was past midnight and we milled around the CBD until around four in the morning. the weather was perfect- crisp air, light breeze; I have yet to experience mother nature's menopausal mood swings that hit Melb O: We went to Stalactites (24 hour greek restaurant) for supper! I had a baclava+vanilla ice cream and he had a kebab. Played a game of hide and seek in the empty streets then got home in the wee hours of the morning... 

The next day, I woke up in the afternoon and we met up under the clocks at the train station. We visited box hill (condensed asian community, like sunnybank) and ate at the New Age restaurant, cuz I went into a random store and asked a shopkeeper for recommendations in broken Cantonese. It was nice that we both share an immense passion for food/many other things, but that's not the point. We hung around the area and tried to look for more things to do before retiring to the city-- tried to look for a Casio watch! I really want a yellow or blue or red or green or ANY coloured one... they're so expensive though. So we walked around the city for the rest of the afternoon in search of macarons and pie face! it was fun just being around him. 

I failed at using my iPhone maps app and took us to random little streets-- I remember seeing my film idol, Tony Ayres (director of the Home Song Stories) just standing by a bus stop pushing an old lady in a wheelchair and talking on the phone. I fussed over that for awhile and took a photo of him without him knowing... hah P: After that, we had Pie Face for late lunch/dinner. Made a new friend-- Hongky girl who works at Pie Face and is named Joy! I had a chicken and mushroom stack up (which is a scoop of mashed potato and mashed peas) which was SO delicious. I think he had a steak pie and then something else later (: We went to play pool at some seedy underground hall and i lost hah. It was storming when we resurfaced, and rushed back to his hotel to get the tickets for Harry Potter 7 at the Imax theaters (we're both massive fans; he joked that the only reason he had to go to melb was because he didn't have anyone to watch HP7 with in syd lol). Caught a tram to the theaters and I thoroughly enjoyed the film. We were both extremely engrossed in it so, to kill the curious cat, no... no cliché moves were made in the cinemas.

It was pouring outside around midnight and we decided to take a chance and cut through the empty park... I thought it was very romantic. You know... rain, moon, trees, just seeing Harry Potter and still being sad over Dobby's death... well... we kissed in the lovely setting (with part of me worried sick that Charles' D700 was getting wet in the bag (but it didn't, thank Crumpler)). I got home later on and slept very well (:

The next day, I hung out with Freddy, who took me around his campus and Hogwarts-esque college (Uni of Melbourne). He bought me brunch and we chatted about life in the past coupla months :) it was real nice. I hung out with Deena for a bit after that, then met up with him again to leave for the airport together. We went back to Pie Face to see Joy/eat some pie-- I had a Steak and Pepper stack up!

It was so difficult to do- separating the emotional self and the logical self. Logically, two university students with average paying part time jobs cannot sustain a long-term long-distance relationship, and I struggled to find the words to explain it on the taxi to the airport. I had brought it up a few times before the trip, but face-to-face is a lot more difficult than over the phone. Hurting someone you care about is hurting yourself; but in the long run, I believe it was the right thing to do. 

Could go on about this, but it's currently 3:30AM and I am in desperate need of sleep.

Good night!

drifting through my open mind

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views inviting and inciting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns, it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.