Blanche

La neige, c'est belle aujourd'hui.

Lacrymosa

Happy

I am blessed with:

1. Rogue, my kickass MFGST (morbid fairy granny sister... yes, don't ask) who recorded a video on my facebook wall that made my day and who laughs at Hana Yori Dango parodies with me.

2. An awesome friend, E, who spent more than an hour with me in the worship room jamming to Titanic and Disney songs on the piano and violin and scrambled to make a "Marry Me" poster when the boys started belting out Backstreet Boys.

3. Hilarious IV friends who are amazing in so many ways, four of whom provided a very entertaining ride back to campus during which one of the guys laid across the laps of both the driver and the passenger while singing Aladdin's "A Whole New World."

4. Dorm friends who apparently came to look for me while I was out to go out tonight, especially D who listened to me complain this morning and gave me a hug.

5. JW, who is like an older brother to me and has encouraged me and watched out for me this semester thus far. Today wouldn't have turned out this way if he hadn't pushed me to go.

6. Whether God or some deity is out there, for the amazing things that happened today. For repairing my friendship with Hachi; for bringing me to the IV retreat when I thought I'd have to spend the night by myself while my roommates were out at a black party; for my roommate who finally met (and hugged!) the basketball player she has been crushing on all year; for an awesome day.

Bleh

What can go wrong will go wrong.

My laptop now has no wireless internet. My poor crippled laptop suffered a fall from a stupid unstable desk this afternoon and is now ethernet-dependent and confined to the room. Fortunately, I bring an USB with me everywhere and was able to submit my Writing paper on time this evening on a library computer. Unfortunately, I have been hovering over my poor laptop for the whole evening like a worried mother hen. I even took my laptop apart twice (removed my hard drive, keyboard, everything) to make sure the WLAN card wasn't damaged.

To make things more complicated, I ended up ditching the IV Freshmen retreat I paid 20 dollars to attend this evening. My excuse is that I don't think I can survive without wireless internet (pathetic, I know) and that I cannot stay overnight because the tech center at Duke opens at noon on Saturday. But to be honest, I feel like I'm not going because it's one of those days where I just don't want to deal with Christianity and feel like an imposter.

On the plus side, I had a good phone call with Gov. J. Sigh. It's one of those days where I miss high school. I can't believe I just said that.

Loneliness.

Addiction

Great job, Gov. J. You've got me hooked on an impossibly gorgeous Korean rapper with a killer voice whom I will probably never meet in my lifetime, nevermind the fact that his English is iffy and all I know how to say in Korean is limited to menu listings, 사랑해 (I love you), and 죽을래 (the infamous, "Do you want to die?"). I can imagine our profound conversation already.

See? This is why I am probably going to die an old maid.

On another note, I was rather horrified/amused to find that if you search "frigid prude" on google, I am the second listing to appear. I also recently discovered that someone came across my site by searching "snow white perverted version."

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

On Being a Frigid Prude

I think there's something wrong with the fact that I am a happy loner. With all the rush events going on, I still have not attended a single one. So far, I've spent my evenings enjoying private time to write and occasionally chat with my roommates who have lately been disinclined to party (yes, even Marlowe who has changed drastically since her father passed away during the holidays).

Admittedly, my solitude isn't entirely by choice. I have always had trouble adjusting to social situations; I have many friends but no good friends whom I socialize with on a daily basis -- other than my roommates. I am disinclined to party, which is rare to see at Duke where parties are everywhere. (Though I have the sneaking suspicion that it's because I'll only party with close friends. I can easily picture myself going out on weekends with my high school friends, because I trust they won't let me do anything stupid and I can be my nutty self around them.) I am rather indifferent to drinking, and I am very resistant about subjecting myself to hook-up culture. I will admit that I met some friends at a club during orientation that I still talk to today -- so I will say it's a good way to socialize.

Ah, okay now I'm writing about four hours later. So the night wasn't totally bust -- hung out with my not-Marlowe roommate and some other kids in my dorm. And I was planning to write a long-ass post analyzing my repulsion towards going out, but I'm too sleepy. To tell you the truth, I don't think I don't go out because I think it's not fun or morally wrong or whatnot. I'm just afraid of... I don't know, doing something I'd regret, and thus I continue comfortably with being a prude.

My not-Marlowe roommate talks about meeting her future husband at Duke and getting married at the Chapel, whereas I can't even imagine myself in a relationship at all. I don't know -- I suppose it's one of those things: since it's never happened, you can't really imagine it. You know those "firsts" people always talk about? I don't have any first anything. Which is probably why I don't go out and subject myself to the hook-up culture -- because I, the traditionalist frigid prude, sure as hell does not want a first kiss or first dance or first whatever with an inebriated stranger whose face I can barely see in the darkness.

I think another contributing factor to this whole deal is the fact that I have been weaned off of fairy tales and teen romance stories and Asian dramas with impossibly gorgeous actors. I don't even need Twilight to serve me a picturesque Byronic hero a la Edward Cullen on a platter -- my ideals are already miles up into the clouds and reluctant to consort with mere mortals.

But anyways. I have remained untethered and unattached all my life, and like the lactose intolerant people who never know the taste of chocolate, I don't have the slightest clue of what I'm missing out on. Perhaps pathetically, I live through reading and writing in my own way.

So... I found this piece from deviantart on this blog that I found while browsing through Lookbook. I liked her fashion style and ended up reading a bunch of her blog posts. I'm reposting the deviantart piece here.

Good Thing We're Fools by Corina90

“I think I might love you.”

“I think that’s a stupid thing to say, why would you say something like that?”
“Because when you look at me my toes curl and my stomach flutters.”
“Is that a quote from a book?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. It all gets a little mixed up sometimes.”
“So you love me like they love in books.”
“Question or statement?”
“Your choice.”
“Question, then. And, yes. I love you like Scarlett loves Rhett, like Elizabeth loves Mr. Darcy, like-”
“Stop, just stop. Don’t love me like that. What happens after the last page?”
“We continue on loving like happily-ever-forever.”
“No, we’d drop off, we'd end. Love isn’t static, it doesn’t continue in a flat line. Who can carry the same tune for years? We rise, we fall, we bump arms and step on each other’s toes. I’ll annoy you because I can’t stand going to Christmas parties and you’ll piss me off because you take an hour to get ready to go grocery shopping. We aren’t a book.”
“So how would you like me to love you then?”
“I don’t. Didn’t I just say I’ll annoy you? You shouldn’t love me, it’s a poor life choice.”
“What if I said it was too late?
“I’d say that’s a shame. But I’d also say that if you have to love me, love me like the moon. Love me when I’m cursing at the GPS because it took me to the-middle-of-nowhere when I clearly said to take me to California. Love me when I’m sitting in wrinkled jeans and a stained shirt that I Febreezed and called clean. Love me when I forgot what you said, forgot your birthday and remembered the stats of the last game. Love me when I wax, love me when I wane. Love me then.”
“Alright. And what about me? How will you love me?”
“I’ll love you like the tides. I’ll love you when you’re sitting in the middle of a million shoes complaining that none will work. I’ll love you when you forget to check the oil, forgot to fill the gas tank, forgot to roll up the windows when you parked. I’ll love you when you burn dinner, when you won’t get off the phone, when you cry at a movie you’ve seen twenty times before. I’ll love you during the low tides, during the high. I’ll love you then.”
“And during which will you remember that love is a fool’s choice?”
“Oh, I’ll always remember. But I’m a fool. Remember?

Prière

Pray for Haiti -- her people and their loved ones across the world.

17 Again? No thanks.

As much as I'd rather not live high school all over again, I'd forgotten how much my sense of time gets screwed over when I'm in college. I've been at Duke since Saturday night, and when some friends asked me today what I'd done since Saturday, I blinked at them stupidly and realized that I have done nothing productive in the last two days. Okay sure, I responded to e-mails and facebook posts and set up an appointment with my adviser. I read half of a book my mom told me to read (titled "Making the Most of College"... ha-ha!) and did some more storyline revisions. But in terms of productive output? I should have been able to accomplish all that my first night back.

And to prove my point about how much I waste my time, I've decided to write another movie review. (Man, these things usually end up killing three hours at minimum...)

I technically could have watched this months ago, back in July when I was flying to Taiwan. I could have chosen to watch both this movie and that Hannah Montana movie with Miley and Lucas Till one after the other. Frankly, that would have been been tween-girl's-dream-movie-marathon overkill. But the main reason I didn't watch it was the same reason I was cringing with a blanket over my head when I watched it with my parents two days before my winter break ended.

Why? Probably the same reason my mom got up and left every time Bradley Cooper started canoodling with Scarlett Johansson in He's Just Not That Into You -- I can't watch movies that make me wince (and my mom cannot watch any adultery on TV without cringing). And watching an adult try to act like a teenager at the same high school as his daughter... ughhh. Awkward. But I did manage to sit through the whole thing, so at least give me kudos for that.

So... I had some issues with this movie. Granted, it wasn't mudstinking terrible -- it was actually fairly funny on certain occasions. But for a cynic like me who takes everything far too seriously than it's supposed to be, there were way too many unconvincing holes in this story. I would love to go through the whole story and butcher it organically like I did with Snow White, but this movie was way too long and I have to go pick up my textbooks in thirty minutes. Instead, I'll just pick a few points that anyone who has not watched the movie probably won't understand.

Note: This movie has been out long enough that I don't care if I'm spoiling anything. So read at your own risk.

1. Zac Efron + 18 years = Matthew Perry?

...eh, I guess when you look at these two pictures side-by-side, you can kind of see the resemblance. But when I was watching the movie, I could not connect these two at all. Logically, how in the world would the charismatic high school basketball star doing dance routines with the cheerleaders end up promotionless for sixteen years at a pharmaceutical company trying to market drugs for erectile dysfunction patients? You'd think he could charm some of those female superiors into getting a promotion or something. Instead, the lines of Matthew Perry's face seem to be slanted permanently downward. I don't know about you, but Zac Efron struck me as too extroverted to let himself end up in a dead-end job.

Oh, and I could have made a joke about the Zac Efron/Matthew Perry character working for a company selling ED drugs, but I decided not to.

2. With only a high school diploma, you can earn enough money to get a backyard like this...?

For a family with two parents with only high school diplomas, I'd say they lived pretty well off. They had enough money to own two fairly decent cars. The house seemed about the same size as mine, and my parents both have doctorate degrees (then again, I live in the part of the US with the highest living costs). But as impressive as Scarlet's backyard renovation was, how in the world did she find the money to have her little pet project?? Unless Ned was secretly paying for everything, we can only speculate what kind of jobs Scarlet was doing on the side to earn all that money.

3. Hmm... what's a good way to mentally torture Sophelia?

Meanwhile, Sophelia hollers "AGHHHHHHHHHH" in the background.

I took the script off of imsdb.com, since I don't remember the exact lines. The script isn't the same as the movie, but the general gist is the same.

Scene: Michelle Trachtenberg's attempt to seduce Zac Efron, aka her father
Movie cuts to a different scene, and we see Mike (Zac Efron)'s head on Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg)'s lap. He jumps off the bed and scrambles to the other side of the room. She leaps off the bed.

Maggie: You wanna play? Okay, let's play. I'm the hungry lioness and you're a baby gazelle.

To prove her point, she roars and chases him around the room, making all these horrendous animal sounds.

Mike: Wait! This is highly inappropriate and dysfunctional. Listen to me, Maggie. I'm your father.

Maggie: And I've been a bad, bad girl, Daddy.

Now you can picture me holding a blanket over my head while I'm watching this with both my parents, while I'm telepathically screaming at the TV to Maggie, "AGHHHH GET AWAY FROM YOUR FATHER YOU PSYCHO HORNY ANIMAL!!!"

Yes, I had some issues with Michelle Trachtenberg's character as well. Firstly, I never quite understood how she ended up dating Stan, his royal blondness and the captain of the basketball team. Maggie struck me more as the kind of smart (hey, she got into Georgetown) low-key sort of girl leaning towards indie and rock tastes rather than mainstream bubblegum pop music. And typically, I'd associate "girlfriend of basketball captain" to that sort of glossed up style instead. I suppose I'm resorting to stereotypes, but why Stan went after Maggie rather than one of those cheerleaders hitting on Zac Efon at the party is beyond me.

Secondly, why would the girl who was dumped because she wouldn't have sex with her boyfriend suddenly try to seduce another boy whom she even claims is "different from the others"? Where did all that animalistic yapping and growling come from? You'd think if a girl could act like that with a guy she barely knows (okay, technically not really... she's known him all her life), she'd have already given it up to Stan.

4. Worst Case of Timing... EVER

I'm convinced with Scarlet was in an altered state of mind when she decided to divulge her pregnancy to Mike. If she could have picked the worst moment to do so, that was it. I mean, I can understand she must have been scared out of her mind when she discovered that she was pregnant. But did she REALLY have to dump the news right before her boyfriend is about to play the most important basketball game of his life? And then, after he chases after her down the hall, she tells him she doesn't want him to give up his dreams for her? I mean, hello? You telling him you're pregnant at that particular moment basically ensures he can either give up his basketball dreams or end up looking like an asshole.

So those were essentially my biggest problems with this movie. I do have to say that Ned and his attempts to woo the school principal were funny. And now, I need to go enjoy the rest of my freedom before classes resume tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Crown

You made the tiniest crown out of rubies and silver with dewdrops of gold, handed it to me on black velvet with a modest shrug. The best I could do. You bent down so I could place my hands 'round your neck, in a gesture neither one of us would have done in a different where, a different when.

Someday, the sun will rise. I'll wake up before the rest of the world, collecting the drops of gold resting on the tips of Earth's fluttering viridian eyelashes. I'll pull wreaths of silver from the clouded sky, listen to them rustle like wind chimes. But that's all I can do for now. Someday, the rubies will come. They'll bloom inside the tulip's cup of petals like gemstone Thumbelinas dreaming of fairy princes riding on bumblebees. Someday I'll find the heart to fashion you a crown of the Earth, with all the gold and silver and rubies of the world, and hang it across the velvet night sky and declare it to the gods.

But that someday is not today.

Requiem

"Hanging by threads of palest silver
I could have stayed that way forever
Bad blood and ghosts wrapped tight around me
Nothing could ever seem to touch me"

I’ve never stopped watching you.

There's no way I can tell you this. I have neither arms nor voice to reach out to you. The consciousness is willfully floating above, and it may stand on any place above ground, but in the end, I’m just a spectator bound to the other side of the gate. There’s no way to express how unbearable it is. This forced passivity must be my punishment for having wasted my life.

I know the question you want to ask. The answer doesn't matter. Whatever the intent had been, I had lost the will to live. Tumbling down the rabbit hole, running away from everything, falling to the depths of loneliness -- what I found at the end was a sleepless white night where the sun never rises.

When she masqueraded as my ghost, she was able to draw you in. It meant that somewhere, there was still a hole within you. In my absence, my presence remained. A hole filled with darkness and despair... I thought it would never be filled. But that day at the cemetery, I felt something change in you. The emptiness that had consumed you was beginning to disappear. The heart I held in the palm of my hand grew heavier and heavier, until I began to recognize the burden of trying to keep you locked in my fist.

At first, when I saw what was happening, I panicked. I thought you had chosen someone else because you had forgotten who I was. It tore open the stitches that had kept me contained, exposed my old wounds to the open air. But I was wrong. The truth was, I had lost to the stronger power that kept you there alive and apart from me.

Your feelings, your torment, your regret, your pain -- I felt it in my chest. But you have a future ahead of you. She's already forced you to turn around and face Eurydice, my Orpheus. It's time for you to return to where you belong.

In this sleepless night, as the darkness advances, look up at the sky and remember that somewhere in this wide world, there are always people who love you and people who need you. You don't need to worry about me. There are new melodies crowded in my head, one after the other. Maybe one day, you'll hear me sing for you again. Like now. Even if my voice can't reach to where you are, I continue to sing... and to pray for your happiness.

"Here comes the cold again
I feel it closing in
You're falling down and
All around me falling

Falling... falling... falling"

-- "A Stroke of Luck" by Garbage