Friday, February 25
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The Music in my Head
[journal]
 I ended up buying the lusty Rio Carbon I wrote about. I use it all the time when I have to walk anywhere, and I've paired it up with a pair of Shure earbuds. The neat thing about the Shure earbuds is they act as ear plugs and block out all outside noise and let you enjoy only your music. Now this is a great thing for a music lover however I truly cannot hear a thing when I'm walking along the streets of Toronto. A person would walk past me and scare the bejesus out of me because I never heard them coming. When I cross the roads I look three to four times back and fourth like a compulsive because I can't hear cars. To make matters worse, because it's cold, I wear this huge black parka with a gigantic fur hood which pretty much tunnels my vision to about a 30 degree angle. Finally, I have this reoccuring fear for some reason that a piano will fall out of a window and crush me. Stupid cartoons. I'm surprised I don't think an anvil will fall on me. |
Wednesday, February 16
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Pr0n
[link] Just when I thought I'd seen everything. I came across THIS.
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Tuesday, February 15
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Poll Up
[site] A while back I had a poll on the site. Unfortunately, I have many pop up blockers and did not realize that the poll was causing pop ups for people. When I did find that out, I took down the poll, which was about H-O-T women (just to let you know my Natalie Portman -- yes mine, I own her -- won, completely unrigged by me). I had promised that I would eventually put one up for guys. Now that I've found a good plain poll service, I made one of H-O-T guys (you have to spell out the letters when you say HOT, because it's cooler that way). The poll is located on the right side bar below the archive pages.
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Monday, February 14
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Good, It's Raining Today
[journal]
It's Valentine's day and it's raining. Good. I hope all those romantic honeymooners get soaking wet and catch colds. I'll let you in on a little secret. I think Valentine's day is the worst holiday in the world. For those in a relationship, if they need a day to make the other person feel special, you may as well break up already; you don't have an infinitesimal chance of it working out. If you're single, like me right now, it's just a reminder of either 1. That you're pathetically single or 2. Of your exes. Woopee! Wow, I'm a fucking grinch now. |
Saturday, February 12
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1. straight iron 2. ceramic brush
[journal]
 It's the second piece of equipment that I have for my future "kit." You see, everyone at the salon has their own little kit, and along with the other girls and boys, I want a complete kit of my own. Soon, this will consist of various combs, a paddle brush, maybe another smaller brush, an extremely expensive pair of scissors, clips, and perhaps a hair dryer and trimmers. As for the pink and white stickers on the brush, it's to diffrentiate each person's set. Some will put their names on their things, others use nail polish or stickers. A few days ago, I was talking to another apprentice about hair dryers. We were admiring two stylists' hair dryers. The sleekness of the shape, the weightlessness, the power, the texture of the piece. I felt like such a werido talking about something so silly as hairdryers with such detail. I think we laughed about it, but only to mask the truth- just that secretly, I want one exactly the same for myself, and maybe she had wanted a different one than the one she eventually settled on. It felt as though had Joe overheard the conversation, he would have teased me in the way I tease him about his love for the latest in geek technology. It's in admiration, I suppose, of what's out there. |
Thursday, February 10
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Another New Crazy Year
[journal]
It's a new year as my sister pointed out and last night our parents gave us money. But that money did not come at no cost. Every year our family has a painful discussion that usually lasts for hours. Before we can get our greedy little paws on the bulging red envelope of cash we have to sell our souls. We have to promise a thousand little and big promises, often to our parent's tune of "Say it in Vietnamese! You get more money if you say it in Vietnamese!" Here are some examples over the past year of some of the things I've said: In this new year... I will go for my masters. I will help my mom out more with the chores. I will play more piano. I will take more showers. Looking back, at least I got my masters! And then there are the things that we wish for them, our parents: In this new year... I hope you guys have a lot of sex like how you did on the cruise. I hope you have a lot of energy so you can go out and party every night like how you always go and party every night. I hope all the fatty chinese food you eat doesn't make you fat. I hope you win the lottery. Okay so the stuff we say about ourselves and to them doesn't seem so bad and sometimes it's jokes, but you would never believe how tense the session is without actually being there. I can't remember the last time we've had a session without tears. These sessions are some sort of cathartic release. It's also an opportunity for our parents to make us do things we normally wouldn't, like how they asked my brothers to shake hands because they haven't spoke with each other all year. Brian moved his hand out in an exaggerated slow motion and I recorded it on tape, then we all gaily appluaded. |
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Funeral Celebrant
[link]
If you liked the television series Six Feet Under, you might like this blog. |
Wednesday, February 9
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year of the ROOSTER!
[journal]
HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!! Kung Hey Fat Choi!!
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up my bumm
[journal]
One thing I don't get is when you're going up the escalator and the person right behind you jumps on right behind you. Like they don't even leave one escalator stair between (I do), they just jump right on. Getting on right after I do isn't gonna get you where you want to go any faster than if you just leave a space. Today while I was going home, this dude gets on right after I do, and he's like shoved up behind me. I hate that. Along with those people who don't know the rule about walking and standing. Call me anal, I guess it's just the way I am. I just can't stand it, leave my safety-zone alone. |
Monday, February 7
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Availability Heuristic
[journal]
Sometimes when you're primed -- talked, seen, heard, have, prepared -- about something, then that something suddenly pops up everywhere. Take for example when you buy a new car. Now when you go and drive it around you notice, more than you ever did before, that other people, other damn people, have the nerve to copy you and drive that car too. Or when I started practice teaching in elementary schools, now I notice so many kids. I never noticed that there were so many rugrats in this world. So the other day I was talking with my school friend about a tall vapid blonde we had in our class. She would, and this stuff really happened, file her nails and read people magazine while other people were doing their presentation. Now that isn't even the best part, the best part is the teacher was sitting one row diagonally behind her. We reminisced on how the blonde always used meaty words in her questions/answers to the teacher. There was one word in particular she used all the time, insular. Every time she said insular she would find new ways to butcher the meaning. Insular is a rare word. I hardly ever hear or see it. But now that I've been primed by the conversation I had with my school friend, of course it showed up the very next day. HERE is a front page headline by the Toronto Star quoting Canadians on why they dislike Torontonians: Insular! |
Sunday, February 6
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it's not so bad being crazy
[journal]
I think it's pretty fair to say that most people hate small talk. But when you're an apprentice at VS, it's what you have to do. My three months isn't finished yet, so I haven't started my training to become a stylist. The apprentices are the backbone to the salon, and we do all the little things, like wash hair. Now there are so many different types of people who come in and out of our salon. There are those normal people who aren't so chatty, because they seem to know that all it is, is just a shampoo, and maybe they'd feel a little abrupt if they were to start a real conversation within the span of seven minutes. (Although really, I have had a few "good" conversations with a few people within that span of time.) Then we get those people who feel obliged to say something to you, anything to you, whether this means talking about themselves, the weather, etc. Although really, they're just being polite, I think I prefer the former. Sometimes, they'll just continually ask you questions to keep you talking, as if any silence was too much for them to bear. (BLAH BLAH BLAH) And of course, there are my favorite types. From my experience, these are the older slightly eccentric types who are just plain crazy. But in a good way of course. This one time, I had this older lady (mid to late 60s?) who was obviously a fashionista back in her day. She was scanning all the fashion magazines, and she just had that look about her. She was this little grandma with this huge hump on her back. Her hair was messy, matted to her head from days of unwashing, dyed ash blond with one-inch grey roots peeking out. She'd painted her face with the most awful black eye liner (which she probably should have used a mirror to do, although from what I could see, had not), with bright orange lipstick. The other apprentice didn't want to wash her hair, so I did. She turned out to be way more interesting than any of the other people I'd spent my seven minutes with. She didn't ask me anything she'd probably forget in two minutes later, and we just had a talk about random things. I don't know why I remembered her over so many other people, even the nice ones. I guess it just goes to show you that it's the crazies you remember, not the nice polite ones. Isn't it always the case? |
Thursday, February 3
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Endurance
[journal]
Sometimes I take a mid-day nap, have a glass of orange juice, surf the net then listen to music. Okay -- you got me -- I pretty much do this everyday. But the sad part is, even with this easy recreational life, I feel lethargic and sleepy. My brother Brian, the one who owns the Vietnamese restaurant, wakes up at 6 every weekday to work out for an hour and then work a 12 hour shift. My sister, who's been sick, has worked 9 days straight and has to grunt off a few more to go before she has a day off. They have endurance, they have that moxie, that perseverance. What will become of me when I start working at a school?
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