Showing posts with label society. Show all posts

The Fault in Our Stars



I finished the Fault in Our Stars a few weeks back but I haven't had the time to really blog about it until this week due to the mass amount of assessments we have before we officially finish year twelve (eek!)

I cannot exactly explain how I felt about finishing the novel. I mean, I think Tumblr kind of spoiled it for me and I borrowed the book to my friend who assumed that I had already read it; so she sort of ruined it for me as well. So, the ending wasn't really much of a surprise. However - it was.



It's a book about cancer, love, family, friends, growing up in a non wish-granting world. I cried, I have to admit (I think it was the second novel I've cried whilst reading). It was horribly sad and I felt really sad. I think perhaps because Augustus Waters was just an overall well-liked person and  John Green made all the characters come true. Something which I still yet to achieve in my narrative writing.

The funny thing is, a few weeks before I had finished TFiOS, my step-grandmother passed away from cancer. I can't really say I was upset because I didn't know her that well to be honest and it's just so ironic how I can cry over this fictional character's fictional death and not even shed a single tear for a human being who I'm related to. I guess I can sort of relate to the whole cancer thing now, yes? It sort of helped me to understand because I guess I'm really afraid my immediate family will get cancer but I know God will protect us and even when the worst happens, we'll fight it through together as a family and support each other. Like Hazel and Augustus, I'll give them the best moments and memories in their life to remember.

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”
—John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

The Great Gatsby

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”
—Nick Caraway, The Great Gatsby
Remember when I posted that I had bought 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald? Well, I finished it last time (actually I finished it at 2 in the morning).


The 2012 The Great Gatsby is coming out in Summer 2013 and Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby with Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan. I actually, whilst reading it, didn't picture Leonardo or Carey as Jay and Daisy. Especially with Nick Carraway - did not picture Tobey Maguire at all! But when I saw the AMAZING trailer, I thought that they suited the characters well. I'm sure they can pull it off and everything - I absolutely adore the setting, the props and the clothes they have. Just beautiful!

 

I honestly thought, before I finished the novella, that 'The Great Gatsby' would be about this guy named Gatsby who was this wonderful business man who did some sort of illegal business to get to this high position. Mind you, but I actually saw the trailer first, and I'm not American - so the Curriculum council didn't tell us to read this as it doesn't apply to our country, which is really a shame as I would have loved to read 'The Great Gatsby' instead of 'Of Mice and Men' as we did last year. They're both great books by the way, I just love The Great Gatsby more because it has romance in it!



Anyways, I thought the novel would just be about Nick Carraway meeting Jay Gatsby and it's set in the Roaring Twenties and it tells us all about how life was back then. I thought that it would be about this mysterious businessman named Gatsby and how the government and police uncover his illegal drug/alcohol business underground and he gets arrested and stuff for it and he's damn rich and holds parties while selling his drugs to people at the party. It would also be about a Jay Gatsby affair with Daisy Buchanan and how they would end up together (sort of like the Titanic). I thought Jay Gatsby would be this rich fellow who was wise, charismatic and just everything a rich person would be like.  That's what I thought it was all about.


Oh - how I was completely wrong and totally off the page (mind the pun)!! This novel made me cry at 2 in the morning! It made me so frustrated, sad, disgusted all at the same time. I couldn't even sleep after finishing it because I was so annoyed. I was so mad at all the characters and empathised for Jay Gatsby and everything was horrible. The novel was brilliant though - it just made you feel so many emotions after. I think I'll read it again tonight or tomorrow or whenever I have the time because I believe the first time you read a book - you receive some sort of magical special-ness and then the more you read it - the more you understand it.

I think I understand what the novel is trying to portray and I think I understand why it didn't get so famous internationally until after the Great Depression and after F. Scott Fitzgerald's death. During the 1920's - the American dream was the main thing. It was the thing to achieve; it was the dream of the Americans and everyone was trying to achieve it - even during the Great Depression. The dream took over their lives, it literally consumed the Americans and Fitzgerald understood the corruption of the dream but others didn't at the time until much later on. I honestly believe this is such a wonderful book and everyone should read it too! I find it fascinating after I read 'Of Mice and Men' and then 'The Great Gatsby' as it completely shows how quickly Americans went from having luxury to absolutely nothing. Completely two different centuries - the 1920's and the 1930's.



I found this link to a Great Gatsby game by the way haha:
The Great Gatsby Game

Controversial Conversation - Christianity

The past, one or two years, I have found myself to be in the middle of the whirlpool of the strength of my faith and the relationship I have with God. I am a Christian; I am confidently a Christian and a believer of the Holy Spirit. I will stay with this belief unless it can somehow be shaken. I have been flung into this world of atheism, skepticism, moral and critical thinking and I have been questioning my faith and whatnot. I don't have all the answers but here is my point of view and although it may not be a strong argument but through experience and more time, I'm sure I will be able to build it up like I would with my portfolio or resume in the realm of existence.

Took Bae Kee 2, Vivid City + Sims 3

I went to the city today with my friend, Faith as we haven't been together in such a long time. In my case, I haven't been to the city for months as I have stopped working at Hungry Jacks!

We met up at the train station, and I was running really late and felt bad because I had already pushed the meeting time to 10:30 instead of 10. All was well though.

 When we stepped onto the train, all the seats were filled up or only single seats were available so we decided to sit in the Prority seats. Then we reached a couple more stations and there were two old ladies who entered and so I quickly moved out of the way and sat elsewhere. Elsewhere meaning a single seat next to some foreigner who was speaking in a different language.

 Then we set off to our friend Emily's store because Faith has never been there and apparently there is a new store in the back of Emily's family's store. So we went to visit Vivid City which is the name of the store and is similar to Morning Glory. They sell a lot of Korean Pop merchandise like albums, posters, cups and keyrings. They also sell cosmetics, stationary, accessories, phone cases and bags. Me and Faith bought matching hair clips. Mine was pink and hers was a mint blue colour. 


Inside Vivid City after buying hairclips
Then we went to Took Bae Kee 2 which is a Korean lunch BBQ restaurant where we had lunch, actually my first meal, and we ordered three dishes. We actually managed to finish them all - all three of us! 



~~Our Meal~~

Taking pictures of Emily's disgusting/messy eating area

We ordered two plates of meat - one with bones and the other without bones. They were really good! We also ordered this hot and spicy soup with egg, tofu and beef. It was OK, it tasted really bland but I couldn't really taste it until it cooled down since it was really hot and spicy. It was really bland compared to my beloved kimchi chigae. We also had Aloe Vera as our drink.

It was really funny because we saw the drinks menu and all of us ordered for an aloe vera drink but then the waitress told us that it was actually just a really large bottle. Imagine that! All three of us having three 1L of Aloe Vera! We couldn't even finish that one large bottle between the three of us. It was really nice though! 

Emily had to leave after lunch to help her mum with their shop. So it was just me and Faith wandering around the shops. We went to various of different places to look at the clothes but everything was so expensive. That's when we wandered into EB GAMES!!!!! This was the best part of our whole day! Me and Faith are like the best of Sims 3 fans. So when we saw that Sims 3 EPs and Stuff packs were on sale - we immediately bought them. The EPs were all only $19!!!!!  The stuff packs (excluding Katy Perry's Sweet Treats) were only $9. That's a really low price compared to what they usually are priced at!

The things I bought today



The next stop was at Utopia where Faith bought us 'Winter Love Milk Tea with Chocolate Sago' which she has never tried before but I have so I recommended it to her. She doesn't like it though :( 

 We did take lots of photos though! We tested out the functions on my camera! 

Faith on her iPhone, the guy behind her tried to photobomb

SIMS 3 #YOLO

Trying out the sparkle feature on my camera

Trying out the vignette feature on my camera
And then we went to other shops to browse around but didn't find anything worthy of buying or interesting enough. We decided to have sushi after but Faith's mum, who was taking us home, told us that she would be coming to Greenwood station to pick us up. So we quickly caught the train without even finishing our sushi. I feel really bad now, Faith paid for the majority of my lunches today. :(

Back at home, I tried to install Sims 3 Showtime but then my computer stuffed up the original Sims 3 game and now everything is LOOOSSTTTT?!?!!?!! Yeah, so I decided to blog about my day. I don't know whether today has been a bad day or a good day but I can't play Sims 3 :<

The Perks of Being a Wallflower


One of those rare blogger moments where you post two posts in one day for your favourite book. (One of my favourite books)

So after half a year of waiting for the movie to come out - the trailer is finally getting released tomorrow at the MTV pre show!!!!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a wallflower named Charlie and his friends, family and school experiences as a teenager. I won't spoil too much in case you want to read it but I will leave you with few of my favourite quotes from the book. Which is lying right beside me on my bed! I am re-reading it before I watch the trailer and plan to re-read it before I watch the movie!

Charlie, Patrick and Sam
 It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book We accept the love we think we deserve.I feel infinite.'He's a wallflower.'...And in that moment, I swear we were infinite. I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other. I really think that everyone should have watercolors, magnetic poetry, and a harmonica. Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend. Everyone else is either asleep or having sex. I've been watching cable television and eating jello.


I wasn't sure of the cast at first but then I saw the trailer and was all excited about it and though they suited the characters perfectly. Stephen Chbosky, who is the author of the book, is directing and wrote the screenplay for it so if he interpreted his book this way then I'll accept it! 

I love the book because I can relate to Charlie. I am a wallflower. I also love the characters, the mystery behind it, the humour that I laugh out loud to and just the plot in general. I also love how it makes me feel like I'm actually receiving letters and being brought along with the ride. I just love it and I can't wait to watch the movie. Hopefully it comes to Australia and even if it doesn't, I hope to watch it one way or another. 

The novel is definitely not for everyone, it's a little dark and shows a lot of teenager's lives. People will either love it or hate it - I'm just one of those who love it. 

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

School and Sleepovers

So, now it's currently term 2 holidays and that means we would have already received our semester 1 reports already! I thought I would have done so much better, I was so disappointed in myself. I guess I'm just so used to getting A's or B's for my report and only like 1 C...

But this year, I received only 2 A's!!!! My parents were extremely disappointed in me and I was so embarrassed with myself. I knew that I wasn't working to the best of my ability, since I was procrastinating so much and compared my my friends in my classes - I wasn't working properly and putting the best effort I could of. I'm going to try to at least push my C's to a B, and my B's to an A and try to improve my A's even more. I need all of these scores to add up together so I can go to university.



I've always dreamed of going into university (Sims 2 had a big influence XD ), but many people say that university is very fun and everything. And since, I've been at the same school since I was 5 years old, I've never really made new friends (well I have, but not at a new school), and been the new girl? at a new school. It's just going to be super fun, and I don't want to miss out on all the fun just because I couldn't graduate and go to university just because I wasn't working well enough in school.

UWA

Also, even though when my parents ask me what I want to be when I grow up - I have no idea. I know that I want to study social psychology in university, but honestly, I have no idea what to be when I grow up. I'm thinking of business, with like a full on desk and writing reports and everything but that seems like a really boring job and I'm more of an art person...but at the same time psychology is just so interesting and intriguing... I just hope, somehow, God can guide me to the right directions and lead me to whatever path he has planned out for me. I'm sure he has a future for me and somehow in my future, he would want me to help spread the word about Him but at the same time, survive through this sinful world. (Sorry if I seem like a pessimist)

Anyways, end of rant.

Danae's 16th Birthday Party

So, on saturday [18/06/11] It was Danae's 16th birthday party and it was semi-formal styled and it was a progressive dinner so we didn't know what was going to happen. Danae didn't really give out many clues or anything so we all guessed :)

I didn't bring my camera with me since it didn't fit into my bag, so there aren't many photos of the FOOD <3 and most of it are self shots. OH WELLS!

When we arrived there, Danae was still getting dressed and her church friends and Mel had already arrived. So we sat down to watch TV, and introduced ourselves. It was a wee bit awkward but it was alright when Danae came out! She unwrapped the presents and cards and we waited for the rest of the people to turn up. Jenna arrived, then Kendra, then Natalie then Chelsea.

We walked outside and we found a hot pink HUMMER!!! For anyone who doesn't have an idea as to what a hummer is, it looks like this:

Pink Hummer! (Similar to the one we had)
So yeah, we were all like super duper excited as we didn't expect it and the inside was amazing! It was like all bright and had heaps of speakers and the coolest hot pink seats.

Similar to our one except not as pink inside

We all had dresses on, so it was bit difficulty to get it since we had to bend over and cover up our bottoms!

Inside the hummer

Inside the hummer, checking out the videos

Japan


I'm pretty sure everyone knows about the Japan tsunami by now...
So...wow, if you've watched the news - you'd know about how LARGE the disaster was.
It was honestly...horrible and heartbreaking.
Even though I'm glad that the japanese exchange students we had last year are completely safe -
but it's still really saddening that thousands and thousands of people are confirmed dead or missing.
And a lot of the japanese exchange students had friends and family in Tokyo so I hope they won't be worried and that their friends and family will all be safe.


I hope everyone can help support Japan and hopefully they can rebuild again,
hopefully the people who have lost family and friends will regain their strength,
hopefully everyone can help contribute and continue to pray for Japan.

I know this is really late but it's just been really sad,
and here I am just looking around and nothing ever happens here
and I'm just so glad - it's good the way it is.

Thank you to everyone who donated~~!!!!

In Ecstasy by Kate McCaffrey


So this book 'in ecstasy' caught my eye while I was borrowing books from the library since I really have no social life and reading is better than wasting your time sitting in front of the monitor refreshing the facebook/tumblr page :/

So the blurb says:

Ecstasy. I'd always thought I might try it one day. I'd heard kids at school talking about getting wasted on the weekends. They made it sound awesome. I pictured the roughly made tablets with their tiny butterflies. An amazing experience inside a tiny pill. 
My body ached and my face was sore - I guess from smiling so much. I don't remember ever laughing more. A new world had opened up fro me, a place where I was confident and beautiful and a hot guy like Lewis wanted to be with me. That morning I figured life couldn't get any better. How could something that made you feel like that be bad for you?
So we studied Anna's Story in school and they actually mentioned it in here.

'Go easy, Mia. Drinking too much water can be as bad as dehydration.' 
 'What?' How could pure water be bad for you?
'A girl died. She drank heaps of water, way too much, and it diluted her blood. Her brain was swollen.' 
They also mentioned how society has that whole propaganda thing telling you everything about why drugs are so bad for you and everything. It's very realistic. It covers a whole lot of issue and the author is honest and doesn't side with either side. It's not biased. So this is a book, I would recommend to teenagers and parents and people who want to know the truth about the drug culture. This was definitely a good read and I couldn't put the book down. It's from these two girls point of views - Mia and Sophie.
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