The clashing forces of Jesus and Ninja

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:45:35 GMT

So, Bathurst this weekend! What are my plans?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:38:53 GMT

*loves this week's How I Met Your Mother like you wouldn't believe*

I had cool dreams last night. Some friends and I went into an English lecture, but we turned into the Yugioh characters and were sitting down to watch a duel. Of course, I'd seen the entire Yugioh series, so I knew everything that was supposed to happen. But I was Yugi and my friend sitting next to me was Joey, and apparently it was our duel from the Duelist Kingdom arc. So I kind of froze and said to Joey, "Holy shit. I have to win this one! Can you, like, let me win?" It was really dark in the room, so when I was choosing my cards, I couldn't read what most of them did. Thankfully, though, it was Duelist Kingdom, which meant none of the rules actually mattered anyway. Damnit, Yugioh's fun.

I went onto fanfiction.net last night. I don't do it often, but I really have to remember that I won't miraculously find something good. The only thing I ever find is story after terrible story so horrible that I instantly get the urge to write my own, just because I know it would be better. Really, all I wanted last night was one story about Joey and Kaiba that started with them actually hating each other and not each secretly thinking the other one's hot.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:02:59 GMT

I went shopping with Lucy-from-next-door yesterday. She bought a new belly button ring, which made me cringe when she put it in. Piercings, shudder. They scare me.

I bought Ninja Gaiden 2 for Billy, and re-bought Spore for him as well after his family's copy mysteriously vanished. And somehow Lucy and a very flattering shop assistant convinced me to buy a $200 dress. It's amazing. It's like nothing else I've ever owned. It's silver, it's classy, it's sleeveless - and I don't wear sleeveless things at all because it means I can't wear a bra, but the dress is so tight I don't even need to wear one. I can barely sit down in it, and I can't do it up at the back by myself. It's a real dress! Real formalwear that can be worn outside of a school formal! I tried on the size 10 in the shop, but when it was on it was apparently way too big for me, so I got the size 8. I own something that's size 8!

I can't wait till the next somewhat-formal party!

Damn Lucy. She's the first person ever to really successfully take me shopping. She's so lovely.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:55:34 GMT

So I spent a good deal of today watching Yugioh Abridged. I therefore spent a good deal of today looking at Bakura and Malik. It made me want to look at fanfiction and stuff again. Fanfiction.net is one of the windows I have open right now. It's astonishing how bad people are at life on this site. Somehow I keep forgetting.

So on a whim, I opened another window and went to another site: Atemu Uprise.

It's... such a happy place. I never realised the extent to which I missed it.

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:11:08 GMT

Birthday = Awesome.

Can't wait to see pictures, Lan :D

That is all.

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:08:30 GMT

I will potentially be in Bathurst in six weeks' time - any Bathurst people feel like doing something?

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:01:27 GMT

Oh, also - the final destination on Amazing Race was a place in Maui called the Kamehakameha golf course. Who gets it? Billy and I found it hilarious.

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:02:49 GMT

It's my birthday in... fifteen days. I totally didn't realise it was so soon. I don't want to be nineteen! You really know you're heading for a mid-life crisis of epic proportions when you freak out about nineteen.

I think my October is completely booked up by other people's birthdays, which kind of sucks. I didn't have an eighteenth, and even though I don't like huge house parties or bars or clubbing, doing something would be nice. Can someone just organise me a surprise party for, like, the end of November?

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:50:57 GMT

TAMMY AND VICTOR WON AMAZING RACE! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!

So happy about that. They've been my favourites since the beginning, and it's so nice to back the winners for once! Usually I end up going for the people who come third or so.

And in other news, I really like Glee. When the ads first started showing up, I was intrigued, but turned off by the idea of it having music. I suddenly expected High School Musical with more swearing. But it's really funny! Even my parents laughed at some of the jokes. Poor, poor Will.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:32:44 GMT

If Tammy and Victor don't win Amazing Race, I'm going to be so crushed. Usually 'the Asian team' gets eliminated really early on, but these two are freaking awesome. Margie and Luke aren't bad either, but I've loved Tammy and Victor since the beginning. Plus Victor looks like Mashimo, my awesome Jap tutor. If Jaime and Cara or Kisha and Jen win, I'll have to kill something. Kisha and Jen will probably be eliminated next week because they completely failed the last challenge, because it involved swimming. Living in Australia, in Sydney, no less, the idea of not being able to swim is absolutely insane. But all of them except Victor - and Margie, a little bit - were absolutely atrocious. They couldn't do freestyle, and they were out of breath after a quarter of a lap. They only had to swim 200m each, and it killed them. Jen had to wear floaties, for god's sake. And she was holding onto the plastic lane markers, and she had a nervous breakdown and cried for about twenty minutes.

Tammy was awesome this week, because they were in China, and she and Victor spoke Mandarin. So while Kisha, Jen, Jaime and Cara were screaming, "Why doesn't anyone speak English?!", Tammy was making friends with the airport staff and asking them very nicely to give all the other teams seats right up the back of the plane, so that they would take ages to get off.

I love this show so much.

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:33:31 GMT

Billy and I are thinking of suspending our degrees next year. Concentrating on martial arts teaching, writing/woodworking, whatever other interests we have. And for some reason, thinking all this has made having my job tolerable, because it means that after about eight weeks, I won't have to worry about anything as much as I do now.

And Tess - did you see that Field of Dreams was on TV last night? XD

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:17:15 GMT

Does anyone else think that Ginny looks exactly like Sally from Coupling?

Kingdom Hearts rant.

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:44:16 GMT

Okay, I really have to say this. Out of curiosity, I just looked up reviews for Kingdom Hearts 2, to see how the general public compared it to the first one. Because all I'd heard previously was praise, praise and more praise: how wonderful the sequel is, how it's improved all the flaws of the original - but I didn't like it. I thought it was an embarrassment compared to the first one.

However, even the reviewers disagree with me. Apparently I'm just wrong, and KH2 is the best thing since sliced bread.

Since it's midnight, I'm sure I won't be able to manage a full rant about this, but I'll mention as many points about why I didn't enjoy KH2 as much as KH1 as I can.

1. It was too freaking easy. I love video games, but I wouldn't say I'm one of those crazy experts at everything. But there were only two points in the entire game where I died repeatedly - fighting Demyx for the final time, and fighting Xemnas, during the brief period that you control Riku instead of Sora. In the first game, I died so many times that I just wanted to hurl the controller at my plasma screen. It was infuriating, but that's what gaming is! That's the only way you can feel a sense of achievement properly! Defeating Cerberus? Defeating Ursula? Defeating AnsemRiku? Finishing the Olympus tournaments? I was so freaking proud of myself. I had none of that in KH2.

2. How linear it was. The structure of the game was so rigid that you couldn't even go into other parts of a level if the storyline didn't take you there. Getting lost was not an option.

3. This meant that there were never any hidden treasure chests or anything along the way, like in the first one. They were always in plain view, and you never had to scour the scenery for anything. But that was okay: there were no trinity marks or dalmation puppies for you to look for anyway.

4. Atlantica. I never thought I could hate that place more than I did in the first one, but wow, was I wrong. Getting repeatedly lost and fighting ridiculously hard enemies is luxurious compared to X-button Guitar Hero of Little Mermaid songs.

5. The camera. The fact that it went from being controlled by L2 and R2 to by the right analogue stick. All the reviewers are raving about how this is such a drastic improvement, but I hated it. I need my right thumb to, you know, press buttons so that I don't die. Not worry about the camera angles with it!

6. The irrelevant characters they included just because it looked cool to have them there. Why the fuck did they bring Maleficent back? You don't ever fight her! She appears, she fails at some vague plan to take over Disney Castle, she gets eaten by Nobodies, she comes back. Then... apparently it doesn't matter what happens to her next, because the game's over. And Sephiroth! Why did you bother introducing him? He had no relevance to anything, anything at all. Also, I believe Cloud described him as 'having spiky hair', and from that, Sora recognised him. Every single character in this and ANY game has spiky hair - you couldn't have, you know, mentioned his freaking demented wings or something? Not that it mattered. He appeared once, then never again. And those little FF-girl fairy things - I could go on forever.

7. Organisation XIII. Perhaps it would have been better had it been Organisation V or something. Apart from Axel and Xehanort, I don't remember ever hearing any of the others' names, and only knew them from pressing pause and seeing as my objective, "Defeat so-and-so." I never had any idea who I was fighting, nor why. And the battles themselves! Why did I turn into a die while fighting a guy who could turn into a playing card?

8. Reaction commands. They were a neat little idea, but in the end, all you had to do to win any battle was press X a lot, then press Triangle when it told you to.

9. The Gummi Ship. I know, the original's Gummi Ship was terrible in terms of its aim. I know, the second game drastically improved this, along with the graphics. But in return, it made the Gummi levels much longer, and much harder. Forget what I said about only having died in two places - I died in every single Gummi level. And I gave the controller to Billy's little brother every single time so that he could do it for me. Because you know what? I'm not playing Kingdom Hearts to get stuck on the Gummi levels. They're intermissions, nothing more. They should not kill you.

10. The fact that they bothered to put in the PotC quote, "You'd best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!" but they changed it so unnecessarily to, "because for tonight, you're in one!" Why bother saying the quote at all if you think you can improve it so much by adding those three extra words? I was insulted.

11. The fact that the Hollow Bastion defense system attacked you as well as the bad guys.

12. The fact that, when either swimming or controlling the Magic Carpet, going up or down was controlled by the right analogue stick.

13. The Underworld tournaments. They didn't give you any experience, and the longest one has the rule where not only can you not die, but you have 500 golden orbs, and each time you get hit you lose a bunch of them, and you lose if they reach zero. And you can't recover them. It's ridiculous to have to pay attention to both health and orbs.

14. The complete lack of strategy in boss fights. In the first one, you would have to be so patient, and only attack minimally within a tiny gap between their ridiculously constant attacks. You really had to pay attention to what the enemy was doing or saying, in order to judge what move they were going to do next and how you should avoid it. In this one, all you had to do was attack, at all times.

15. They changed Thunder from hitting multiple targets to only hitting one.

I'm sure there were more. But of course, there were good things about the game too: they gave you the option of skipping cutscenes. That was a blessing. In the original, I watched Sora yell, "There's no way I'm gonna let you take Kairi's heart!" so many times I could have cried. I think I did. In the second one, there was no such pain. It's such a shame I never died, so there was no opportunity to use the 'skip cutscene' option.

Other than that... well, I guess I liked the actual pirates in Port Royal. It was good that you could only hurt them when they were in the moonlight, even if it didn't make sense.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:19:43 GMT

Changed my timetable to fix up my linguistics tutorial, and this has made it so that I don't have to be in till 12 on Wednesdays, but I have to be there until 7 on Thursdays. Ugh. Well, it's still worth it. It's a great timetable.

I met someone today who has 300 bottles of nail polish. Take that, Lan.

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:38:17 GMT

Dad asked if our doorbell still worked, and I told him I turned it off months ago because it just kept ringing for no reason. Now he's decided he has to test it. The noise is going to make me cry.

At the uni enrolment, I had to show a woman some photo ID when I handed in my Prohibited Persons form (saying that I plan to work with children, so I'm not a paedophile). I gave her my licence, with my photo from when I was 16. She looked at it for a long time, then looked up at me, then back at the photo. She said, "Well, I guess it could be you."

I smiled and said, "I've lost a lot of weight since then."

She said, "Ah... well, not wanting to make any personal comments, but... yeah."

So it's official. I was so much fatter then, that my ID doesn't look like me. It's a good thing I'll be getting my Ps soon.

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:21:53 GMT

Eclipse quote of the week:

"What way? Like love at first sight?" I snickered.

Stephenie Meyer, you astound me. You have your main character snicker at the idea of love at first sight. That is even more hypocritical than the fact that she scorns the idea of marriage while desperately seeking some way of showing her eternal commitment to Edward.

I wish I could sue you for malpractice.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:09:28 GMT

Made a new LJ user today - reniera - exclusively for anything story/fanfic related. I don't know where the name came from.

I also re-read my extension 2, and am really, really proud of it now that I can read it almost objectively. I did, however, find one typo - in the reflection statement, and not really noticeable, thankfully: I said 'emphasise' instead of 'empathise'. A stupid mistake, but one that can possibly go unnoticed. I'm just a little bit crushed that I went through the whole thing so many times looking for mistakes and I missed one.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:42:35 GMT

I spent so much of today crying with happiness. Obama is a brilliant, brilliant man. 'President Obama'. *screams*

I liked McCain's concession speech. It was good, and extremely graceful. And he made the supporters who booed Obama be quiet. I liked McCain, he seemed like a nice guy; it was just a shame he picked the bad guys. Seriously, the Republican Party defines pure evil.

I said repeatedly this morning I would cry more than I ever have in my life if McCain won - I didn't entirely expect to cry when Obama did, nor when he won Ohio, or Pennsylvania (or however you spell that place), or California. Hell, I cried when he won New York, and that was a solidly Democratic state.

Billy pointed out tonight that Sensei Michael looks a bit like McCain. That totally scared me, but made me laugh a lot too. Sensei Michael's American, so who knows? XD Ah well, he did say tonight he was happy, because thinking of Sarah Palin in charge terrified him.

Wow, America has a good president! A brilliant one! America, I've never been proud of you before, but there's a first time for everything. On my Simpsons DVD commentary, the producers say, "This is the one joke that will never stop being relevant: that America has a bad leader. Whatever year you're listening to this, America's leader is bad!" Well, THAT IS NO LONGER RELEVANT! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:44:31 GMT

One more quick post:

JUST GOT YOUR GIFT, BREE! I LOVE YOU! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Not a real entry; more like a very formalised rant.

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:00:05 GMT

I'm not actually nearly as angry about this as it sounds. I'm not angry at all, just a little bit bitter. I did manage to get a lot out of that bit of bitterness, though. I'm not annoyed at Billy in the slightest. It's just a really interesting issue.

How much is emasculation an issue in relationships nowadays?

Is it still the case that a good many men are turned off a dominant female because they feel it's their natural position to be the more aggressive? And if so, how much are women expected to take that?

It can be taken in two directions. The first can be simplified down to, "Don't mess with nature". There's nothing wrong with being a successful woman; just make sure you're not a successful man in a woman's body. There's enough competition between one male and the next, and the only reason they're okay with that is because they're on the same side in the end. That only screws up if they're after the same woman. If the competition expands to encompass a man against a woman, however, it's an embarrassment if the man doesn't win.

Because biologically, women are weaker. That's not sexist, that's just biology. And human society has put males in the dominant position for thousands of years, so of course they develop thinking that's still the case.

The other direction is that a man being turned off a woman due to her dominance equates to the woman being punished for her success. If she is confident and strong, she doesn't fit the concept of femininity, therefore makes her less attractive to heterosexual males. If these women are considered less attractive, they will get weeded out of the gene pool until the petite, passive ones are all that are left.

Some men like a dominant woman. And some TV shows parody that idea as a masochistic man. Undoubtedly these relationships exist in abundance, but are they fully accepted? Which is more preferable: a successful woman with a slightly less successful husband, or a successful woman with an equally or more successful husband?

There are successful women, and many of them, and a good many have partners. But their partners still prefer to be more successful.

The world of 'success' is entirely a human construct, free from biology, and yet biological trends factor so enormously in how success is viewed. If a woman is physically stronger than a man, she is particularly 'freakishly' strong, or the man is particularly weak. Crude, but based on biology. Yet the idea of a 'freakish' woman still applies to an extremely hard-working one despite lack of biological strength required for tasks, but only if the man is less successful than her.

A classic example of this system in motion is Miranda and Steve from Sex and the City. She is a lawyer, he is a bartender, so the difference in income hardly needs stating. When Steve can't afford an $1800 suit and Miranda pays for it, he feels emasculated enough to return the suit and break up with her. It could have been a simple case of not wanting another to take pity on him, which would be reasonable enough, but it wasn't. Much of Steve's characterisation revolves around emasculation - emphasised particularly by his need to get a testicle removed in a later season.

A slightly more lighthearted example is Monica from Friends. When Ross is attempting to move his couch and Rachel brings "not Joey, but the second best person" to help, Ross is frustrated to find out that she has brought Chandler. "Chandler? You brought Chandler? The second best person would have been Monica!" To which Chandler simply states, "You know, I should be offended, but Monica is freakishly strong."

Monica can be seen as a balanced character, with decidedly feminine habits of cooking, cleaning and decorating, but with a rare streak of physicality. The only problem is that her physical strength is often attributed to her childhood as a fat kid. Strength in such an attractively feminine character comes from the negativity of her past.

In fact, it's rather a common theme in comedies for a woman to be stronger than a man, to the point where the man feels he must 'do something about it'. In the words of George Costanza, "She has the upper hand. I don't have any hand at all. I have no hand!"

The positions are never reversed for comic effect because, simply, it's expected. Nobody laughs at a woman for being in an inferior position to her husband.

Being a disliker of most things feminine and one who associates far more comfortably with males, I strongly object to being placed on the weaker end of the divide between the sexes. It's a rare occasion that I am segregated from my male friends on the basis that I am female, and it angers me to no end every time. Most females are very different to their male friends, but I personally am not, so I get frustrated with being categorised as the same as so many females I dislike.

I am confident, forward, more comfortable in the company of males, very partial towards video games, and physically capable. When my relationship began, my positive qualities that inspired my being asked out were 'very nice, funny, and pretty good-looking'. Confidence and capability were apparently not qualities that made me worthy of attraction, even for someone who'd known me for a year. In the many months following, of course the issue of emasculation has been brought up, though each time jokingly. I know I'm far from feminine, and so does he. Obviously it doesn't bother him too much or we wouldn't be together, but apparently for him the fear of emasculation is a very serious issue.

He admitted to feeling the need to stay physically better than me, both in pure strength and martial arts ability, in order to keep the position of the masculine one in the relationship. "Well, guys worry about it because biologically we're meant to be stronger and we don't like losing to someone who's not meant to be stronger than us. I'm not really like that, though - I just don't like being beaten at all. And, no one likes being weaker than their girlfriend."

How much of this attitude is competitiveness and how much is feeling that their masculinity is on the line? If it's all competitiveness, then why is he unbothered by the physical prowess of any of his male friends? He has on more than one occasion complimented males' good physiques - because they're on the same 'side'?

To say the least, I was surprised that this attitude extended to my boyfriend. I assumed that being with someone as outward and male, if you like, as I am guaranteed that you weren't bothered by the stereotype of the emasculated man. Although it is an empowering feeling to know that my confidence is enough to inspire insecurity in a male, it does create a seed of worry that my attractiveness will go down as my success goes up. It also made me wonder briefly if, when I admitted to my boyfriend that I felt he was superior to me in all tangible ways, he was really committed to making me believe otherwise.

He's still undecided as to whether he's going to university in 2010 or not. If he doesn't, there isn't a shadow of a doubt that I'd be making more money than he would. That would make things even more interesting.

What is my course of action from here? I normally dislike the 'girl power, who needs men, female empowerment' ideal because more often than not it has questionable basis (including but not limited to hating men due to a bad relationship), but in this case, would any female in their right mind tone down their confidence and strength to stop the male feeling emasculated? The thought is appalling. For me, hearing that I am strong enough to inspire feelings of emasculation fuels my competitiveness as much as it does his, and I think things are going to be far more aggressive for at least a while. I wonder which one of us will feel emasculated first.

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:09:38 GMT

EIGHTEEN, BITCHES.

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:10:56 GMT

If anybody feels like getting a group of people to buy me a present, I have the perfect thing.

A giant, 4.5 kg, $150 Toblerone bar.

They had them at Warriewood Square in K-mart, and it was so big I could barely lift it.

I want it so much.

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:28:01 GMT

I think I'm reaching the end of my tether with accepting blame where I don't believe it was all my fault.

In other news, I'm typing up my Lear essay from trials, and instead of 'Gonerill', I typed 'Gonerilly'. Apparently I'm too used to typing Billy's name to type in anything else with '-ill' in it.

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:49:23 GMT

Also, WHY DID I JUST GET A FACEBOOK? WOULD IT REALLY HAVE BEEN SO HARD TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE HSC?

*explodes in a pile of photos stolen from everyone's pages*

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:56:50 GMT

Lee, Ruth and the kids were just over, so I was playing with Daniel for a long time. Eventually he started playing with my phone, so I pointed to the picture that was my phone's wallpaper. "Who's that?" I asked.

Daniel exclaimed, "Uncle Billy!"

Oh my God, it was so cute I wanted to cry.