Senior Students

It doesn't sound right, does it? This happens every year I go up a grade, I don't feel a difference. From Year 6 to Year 7, that was a big thing, but I still thought I was in Year 6. Like right now, I still think I'm in Year 10. I FEEL as though I'm in Year 10. I even wrote in one of my textbooks that it's still 2009. I soon corrected myself, to my dismay but the hilarity of others.

First day as senior students was good. Peer support was good. Actually, remarkably fun. Like Stuart said, "it seems like year sevens are universally annoying, except when they're yours for peer support". I believe this statement to be quite true. We all thought Year 7s were really annoying, but now that we were given the task of looking after them and got to know them, I don't think that they're that annoying. They're just a bunch of kids who don't know what to do and you just lead them. You don't try to be all oppressive or motherly but you just chat to them normally. I think that's the big thing; getting to know them. We only saw them in shorts and hats and running to the buses but we never actually got to talk to them. Basically, peer support is great. It's quite fun. You other leaders feeling the same thing?

The rest of the day was quite good. Now that we get to do the subjects that we WANT to do, school does seem more interesting. No more useless History or Geography. I am finally devoid of those subjects that I do not care about. But yeah, electives are fun. I can tell Engineering Studies is going to be awesome. Now, people say Maricic is a horrible teacher because he's strict but he's been teaching for 19 years and a HSC marker since 1995 so I think that's a little proof that he's a good teacher, even if he IS a strict teacher. If you don't do anything stupid, then you should be fine. Especially if it's your first day. But I do like the orientation talks that the teachers have been giving. Maricic's talk was awesome. We're gonna take apart his car. Purely for educational purposes. *nodnod* Also hip replacements. We get to watch one of that. Not particularly psyched about that.

Short post this time. I need to sleep. But it's time for...
QUOTE OF THE PERIOD-OF-TIME-BETWEEN-BLOG-POSTS

Today it goes to Mr Maricic who was talking about hip replacements where they dislocate the hip to cut off the ball of the joint and to insert the titanium replacement...

"they have this lovely big drill and go RRRRRR into your hip... it's like a jackhammer"

Maybe it's an Engineering thing to find that funny. It was funny at the time.

Australia Day (yesterday)

What does it mean to you? Now, I'm not trying to be a little Anti-Australia Day here, but to me, it doesn't mean too much. I treat it as every other day. Wake up and see what the day throws at you. It also means Asian Gathering Day. From where I come from (the Hills, yo), Australia Day is an excuse for Asian families in the area to congregrate at some other Asian family's house and have an Asian barbeque and the Asian kids play Asian games whilst the Asian parents have an Asian chat. I'll explain what all that means later, but this, phenomenon, seems to happen every year in the Hills. It's like a given event that is MEANT to happen. It's our very own Asian Australian. You can just give an Asian family a call (someone that you know, PLEASE, no calls to strangers) and ask:
"Wei. Gum marn deem ar?" [Translation: Hey. What are we doing tonight?](That was my SPECIAL Romanisation of Cantonese, which I believe is far more accurate and effective than Romanised Cantonese in HK)

And they'll reply:
"Gor ley orr yee bin lor. Sek gor BAR BEE QUE lor." [Translation: Come over to my place. Have a Barbeque.] (Asian parents tend to say 'Barbeque' as three separate words)

"Hou. Orr maai song. Ley dai yum bun." [Okay. I'll buy the food. You bring the drinks.]

"Hou. Butt yu gill mutt mutt mutt gor ley lor." [Okay. Why not get what's his face to come.]

--Start sidetracked conversations for 20 minutes--

And there you have it. An Asian gathering has been organised. And as promised, i'm going to explain the various features of an Asian gathering.

ASIAN BARBEQUE (n.) : A normal barbeque but not with the normal foodstuffs of a Bogan Barbeque. Instead of lamb cutlets, you have chicken wings. Instead of bangers and mash, you have frankfurters. Instead of steak, you have minced meat. Instead of tomato sauce, you have rice or spaghetti. All meat is still cooked on a barbeque.

ASIAN GAMES (n.) : Not really games made specifically made for Asians. It usually refers to Wii and PS3 and the like, which are Asian. But games such as Mahjong may also be played. That's so Asian, it's ridiculous. If you're Asian and you can't play Mahjong, you should be ashamed of yourself.

ASIAN CHAT (n.) : To chat like an Asian with other Asians. That is, to be ridiculously loud and chat for at least 5 hours.

So yeah, Asian gatherings. That's where the parties are at. And they ALWAYS go past 11pm. That's when the real parties are happenin', yo.

And also, I'm introducing a new segment for my blog. It's called...

QUOTE OF THE PERIOD-OF-TIME-BETWEEN-BLOG-POSTS
(insert catchy show tune music)
If you still don't know what this is about, read the title. Idiot.

So this period-of-time-between-blog-posts (POTBBP), the quote belongs to Tonia. She was comment on a (ABSOLUTELY HORRID) photo on Facebook and I said, in the previous comment, that you could press the END button on your keyboard when you opened the page to avoid looking at the (MORBID) photo. And she replied:

"omg, I didn't even know that there was an end button"

And that's, QUOTE OF THE PERIOD-OF-TIME-BETWEEN-BLOG-POSTS!

NBA Mascots

Now, just because the word "Mascots" is next to the word "NBA", doesn't mean it's not awesome. Trust me. It is the funniest video ever. Funnier than then the cyclist smashes his head into the highway sign. Funnier than the sousaphone player tripping over the little kid. EVEN FUNNIER than the Mortal Kombat video of a New York breakdancer kicking a little baby (that was a little off). It really is that funny.



NOTE: The big bear in red is Clutch, the Houston Rocket's mascot. Awesome, ay, especially the last one.

NOTE #2: I also have a post from the same day under this post. I just thought this was post-worthy.

EDIT: I decided to add another one. It's only Clutch the Bear, but watch till the very end, it's so funny. "ARGH! TAKE THIS BITCH! ... Oh shit... it's just a mascot."

Oh. That's awkward.

You know what's awkward? Japanese people. And their...customs... Now, I'm not trying to be racist here, but when you know a little too much about something that you really shouldn't know about, it sheds a new light on them. It all started today when I was reading an SMH article. Don't ask. In fact, I'll just tell you about it. It's called "Japan's sexy move to cut debt" (that's some HOT money flowin', right there! Yeah, I'm funny. I don't even know what hot money is. I just know its a term). It's about Japan's declining population and birthrate so basically, private companies and even the government is trying to encourage sex/increase the birthrate (a more P C description) by cutting the working hours of employees/government officials. It also briefly mention's Japan's overwhelming debt which is roughly double the size of their US$4.9 trillion economy. Yeah, and WE thought US had a big enough debt, check out Japan! This one's as big as Shirley's (debt)!

And back on task. The passage that started all this was:
"Kan's Democratic Party of Japan is working to tweak tax policies to encourage families to have more kids. Government inaction in general, though, has put the onus on private industry. In November 2008, for example, Keidanren, Japan's biggest business organization, urged member companies to encourage employees to have more sex.

Japan, after all, routinely scores low on annual sexual-frequency surveys by condom maker Durex. In the latest, 34 percent of Japanese respondents said they have sex once a week, compared with 87 percent in Greece and 53 percent in the US. That may go a long way to explaining why Japan's population, now 126 million, is shrinking."

I Twittered that comment, and I got a link to an article, courtesy of Yeli. It's about, as you can see, sex and flirting in Japan. Now, I suggest you read it. All of it. Don't back out. It is quite interesting/amusing/odd/depressing. The article is here. It's a good read.

What do you think? Awkward, ay. Now when people say, "JAP CHICKS/DUDES ARE HOT" and somebody asks "What are they like in the sack?", you know the answer.

Uhh........ ">_>

EDIT **Thanks Max to pointing out the link problem.**

My chest hairs are tingling!

Or maybe not. But Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was and is a very good movie. The childish puns were so Barnsley style (a meatier shower) , I laughed a little too much. I felt ashamed. But I enjoyed the references to other films, like when they're flying through the giant hybrid of a machine and a meatball just like Star Wars and also when the dam bursts and the food is rolling towards them like a tsunami. The tsunami bit was from a movie, I think, I just don't know which movie. Anybody know? As you can see, I'm not a great film reviewer and I don't intend to be, but I do suggest anybody and everybody to watch this movie. It's rather funny.

Why to watch this movie: When you're bored / When you want to be amused / Feeling silly.
Post movie feelings: Thoroughly amused / Silly

And on that same flight back from HK, I watched Up as well. And joining the massive chorus of people, I say it is a very very VERY excellent movie. It has everything you want in a movie: humour (it's my most important factor), a good plotline, animations, a squeaky voice, an old man who looks a little like my old trombone tutor, talking dogs and of course, sadness. It wasn't entirely a sad movie, it did have its moments. And now that I have said that it is an excellent movie, I'm not afraid to admit this: I cried 1.5 times during that movie. I forget where I cried that half time. It's half because my tear only welled up ( I have weird classifications for things, don't worry). It was between when Ellie died and when Carl flips through the adventure book and find all the photos that Ellie stuck there. That is when I cried, with the tears pouring. It was so sad. "Thanks for the adventure. Now go make a new one. -- Ellie" (something along those lines) was beautiful, twas so sad. Lucky it was dark, because my mum would've laughed at me for crying at a children's movie but I wouldn't have been ashamed because it is an EXCELLENT movie.
SQUIRREL!

Why to watch this movie: BECAUSE IT IS FRICKIN' EXCELLENT!!!
Post movie feelings: Satisfied in every possible way due to above reason.

Also watched Zombieland. It was (obviously) not as good as the above two, but I guess it could've been a whole lot worse. It's labelled as a horror-comedy, but even I did not find anything scary about it. And I don't like watching horror movies. At all. Ever. I won't even touch Paranormal Activity even when people have said it's not scary. I'm too paranoid. However, Zombieland did have its comedic purposes (Zombie Kill of the Week was rather impressive) and I also liked how the rules popped up whenever they were seen in use. I found it a little funny (instead of gross as some people thought) when they found the Hummer truck and they thought a dude was in there but it was just his forearms gripping the wheel. Actually, I found it quite funny. Also, notice how the most of the people that survived were gamers or at least exposed to some sort of zombie killing game. Coincidentally, Wichita/Christa (?)/Emma Stone is rather hot. Not sure about 406 though, with the whole zombie thing going on. Maybe it's a thing, I dunno. LOL @ Tallahassee when he says "Thank god for rednecks!" Oh America, you and your absurd laws that allow people to have guns for their own 'protection'. I'm going to stop before I get flamed for pretending to know about America and its gun laws, which I don't, but I will say letting people have guns is stupid.

Why to watch this movie: To kill time / To laugh / To watch zombies getting killed
Post movie feelings: A little amused / "It could've been worse" / The need to improve your cardio

Basically, I recommend watching UP instantly, Cloudy if you want to laugh quite a bit and don't watch Zombieland unless you're intrigued or have nothing else better to do because it isn't overly terrific and can be saved for later. Still watch it though.

Asian Fail. But in a good way.

So apparently, there's this new 'LOLLIPOP' phone out on the markets. I think it's from LG. I know this because I saw Yeli talking to Sandra about it on Facebook. But when I got to Hong Kong, I saw all these ads for a new LOLLIPOP phone and I was thinking, okay, there's a new phone out. It didn't occur to me that this new phone was that LOLLIPOP phone. But I didn't give it much thought because it is just a phone and also because I was distracted by their interactive feature. It was a bunch of balloons and streamers projected onto the station floor and you could kick the objects around like you would with the EyeToy. What it had to do with the phone, I didn't know.

So a few days passed and I was in Taiwan. I saw this ad on the TV for the LOLLIPOP phone and these Asians were singing and dancing and I thought, this is just a phone. Does there need to be such an outrageous ad for it? It didn't occur to me that this was the phone advertised in the MTR stations. But it did occur to me that the song they were singing was a song entitled 'Lollipop' and I for some reason recognised it although never having listened to the song. Confused, I wondered aloud whether there was some kind of connection and a friend in the room told me that 2NE1 and BigBang made a song together called 'Lollipop' and they got it changed to advertise this phone. Unimpressed and cringing because the song was horrible, I continued watching the TV.

A few days later, I was walking in Sham Shui Po (Ap Liu Street) in HK and I saw some store displaying the LOLLIPOP phone and I walked up to it to examine the phone. I concluded that it was remarkably thin but the button layout was crap. However, it STILL didn't occur to me that this phone was the LOLLIPOP phone, advertised by 2NE1 and BigBang, advertised in MTR stations and also advertised by Yeli and Sandra.

I finally made the connection today on a MTR train. The train had stopped and I looked out to see a LOLLIPOP ad. And then I saw one of the dudes and I thought, why does this man have his hair in a bun? It looks ridiculous! And then for some unknown reason, I assumed he was in some Asian boyband. And then my brain joined the pieces like some epic puzzle solver (HK makes your English all Asian and non-sensical) and so, I finally realised that the LOLLIPOP phone that Yeli mentioned to Sandra was the LOLLIPOP phone advertised by 2NE1 and BigBang and in MTR statoins. However, in hindsight, this was not really Asian Fail. It was more me just failing. Horribly.

Day 20 (?)

I've lost track of which day it is. But I guess the holidays do that to you a lot. I'm lucky I can still remember the date. I just don't know whether it's Monday or Friday. And I don't think I'm the only one with this problem. When it's the holidays, you just seem to lose track of the date. Not that it matters. You just need to remember which day you have to go back to school. Which is the 27th (I fairly sure of this) for those who have seem to forgotten.

Anyways, I just got back from Taiwan. Went there on the 9th, came back on the 12th. The tour was apparently pretty cheap, because we stayed in the Grand Hyatt, which was next to Taipei 101 and is, according to Sandra, "the fanciest hotel in Taipei". So go my parents for choosing the right tour. And it was better than I expected. I mean, they did take us to a few scenic sites but they WERE alright. There was this mountainside village that, if it weren't for the rainy weather that occurs almost everyday, I think the view would be very beautiful. Same thing goes for visiting Taipei 101, which I thought was a must if I was to go to Taipei. The city was smothered by fog and/or pollution so I couldn't see very far. But I found reading about the construction and mechanics of the tower and lift were very interesting. Taipei 101 has the fastest lifts in the world, which goes up the Tower at 1010 metres per minute, which equates to 60km/hr. It even has spoilers attached to the top and bottom of the lift. And I got to see the massive damper ball inside the tower. "Interesting story", the damper ball is made out of 42 plates of metal 12.5cm thick all welded together and it's got 8 hydraulic pistons attached to a bumper ring to prevent it from becoming a wrecking ball and destroying the tower from the inside. Call me an engineering nerd but I reckon this stuff is interesting.

We also went to the National Palace Museum, which holds stuff from China because China decided to store it's national goods in Taiwan because of various wars and the collection has stayed there. The Museum was alright overall but there were a few carvings that were really epic. There was this ivory carving that symbolised a person's life from birth to becoming and adult and death but that wasn't important. What was important was the carving itself because it looked nigh impossible to make. That's what American rocket scientists said when they saw this carving, stating that it could not have been done. The carving in mention is below.
If you'd turn your attention to the ball in the middle, note that it appears to have layers. These are the layers of 17 concentric ivory balls within the Outer ball, making it a set of 18 concentric ivory balls. The American scientists this was impossible to make because after X-Ray-ing the ball, they found no joint lines around the ball where the larger balls would be joined around the smaller balls. This was because the carver formed this magnificent carving from a single block of ivory. He drilled 12 holes into a sphere of ivory and delicately carved away at the inside of the sphere to form a shell. Eighteen times. If you don't know what I mean, then think about it like this. Get a block of wood, drill into it a bit and then from the bottom of the hole, chip at the sides of the hole so that the top layer of wood from which you drill into detaches from the main block of wood. Now do that 18 times so you get 18 layers of wood. If you don't think that's impressive lets see you do it. These guys get locked in a dark room with no light with only a little part of the ivory lighted up so that their eyes focus intently on that singular point. They have to do that for 30 years. If they make a mistake, they die.

On a lighter note, we went to a sulfur spa. Yup. It stank. We were right next to a volcano, and it stank. Real bad. Sulfur is a horrible element. However, the spa was fun. Sort of. Heating up in a 40°C bath and then dunking in a cold water bath. Real fun. Actually, it was rather fun. There was a lot of screaming and yelling and "TANK IT BITCH". It made the 19 degree weather seem warm. Which it is, in Hong Kong. I don't get why all these Hong Kongers are rugging up in down jackets while I walk outside in a hoodie and have to take it off indoors because I'm nearly sweating. At least it's not 40 degree weather like you chaps have to endure in Australia. Too bad. It was better in late December, wasn't it? Like 25 degree weather. Lucky I'm in HK, not stuck inside because it's frickin boiling outside, not stuck inside watching crap like the Hopman Cup. Oops. Did I say that? What I meant was that one of the best highlights of tennis was some guys get hit in the balls trying to return the serve. Lawrence, tell me who it was. This was the same guy who nearly hit a lineswoman in the head but hit her hat off instead. It may not have been the Hopman Cup, I don't know. I wonder who will actually read all that drivel. If you guys reach this sentence, say something in my cbox!

Day 13

Man. I've tried to blog so many times during this HK Trip (twice) but I never got to finish. Basically all that time I wanted to say HK is the Land of Awesome. Also the Land of Cheap Things. Which makes it the Land of Awesome because cheap things are awesome. Whilst cheap things can be found all over Asia, particularly mainland China, you can place a sense of trust in these cheap products because HK is somewhat reliable. I can't be certain about the South East Asia Islands/Archipelagos, but mainland China is somewhat dodgy.

As I was saying, HK products are ridiculously cheap. Take the foodstuffs for example. I can get a lunch meal here for 50HKD, which is around 7 AUD, and thats rather pricey. Yumcha for four people: 300HKD. Go do that maths, thats around 10 AUD pp. Clothing can be very cheap, if you know where to look. Shoes can easily go for over 100 AUD in Australia, but you can find cheap shoes in HK, mostly in Fa Yuen Street [Sport Shoe St] in Mong Kok. I bought a pair of Basketball Shoes for 599 HKD, which is under 100 AUD, which cannot be found in Australia, not taking into account the lack of basketball attire in Australian stores. Also bought a 599 pair of K-Swiss shoes, which, similarly, cannot be found in Australia.

And now I just realised that I mention clothing but ended up talking about shoes. So clothing. Very cheap. I saw shirts for 69 HKD (no immaturity please) albeit they were very plain shirts. Still, good shirts can be found for YEAH BABY! when I saw it.

Also, Asians are incredibly cunning when it comes to promotional campaigns, for example sales. I went to a Quiksilver store which had a promo, where if you bought (a) items for 500 HKD, you got 250 HKD off. But this only applied per 500 HKD of net value. As in, if you bought exactly 500 HKD worth of goods, then you got 250 off. But if you bought 999 HKD worth of goods, then you only got 250 off. So naturally, we wanted to get that extra dollar to reach 1000 HKD to get 500 off. But whenever we (me and two friends of mine) reached a 'cash rebate' level, we were close to the NEXT rebate level, so we kept on buying. We ended up buy 4000 HKD worth of clothes (I bought a jacket, jeans, belt and wallet) but because of this epic cash rebate, we only payed around 2000 HKD. Which, in perspective, is remarkably cheap.

Basically, kudos to the store managers for coming up with such a brilliant promo tactic. Those sneaky Asians. Asians are best at being cheap, but other Asians are also skilled in the Art of Anti-Asian, if you guys know what I mean. Photos of my shoes and other stuff will be up soon. Hopefully. When I get my new notebook. That's right. A new notebook. I'm gonna make my parents pov.