The Home Song Stories (2007)

By Tony Ayres starring Joan Chen, Qi Yuwu.

Based on a true story, this 90-minute epic is about a classy Shanghai club singer and her struggle in Australia with her two children after moving from Hong Kong. This movie is packed with big waves of emotions letting us understand the members of this Chinese diaspora and their obstacles.

Rose (played by Joan Chen) is a needy, emotionally unstable mother who wants the best for her family but always looks at the wrong places. In addition, financial stability and her emotional needs sends her on a arduous journey to really settle down in Melbourne. Her children try hard to stay optimistic but deep inside, they are struggling as well.

I'm not surprised with the number of awards they bagged.

The Official Website

I downloaded it not really knowing much about what the movie is about but it turned out to be an epic. It's really touching. Joan Chen got me sobbing a couple of times. It was brilliant.

Qi Yuwu is hitting film festivals mann! This is definitely one of the best Qi Yuwu flicks. Wonder why didn't he look as good when he was on TV!

Sad thing is, about a quarter of this movie is in Cantonese. So it drives me nuts when I can't find subtitles on Kloofy.

What can I say? I'm not a linguist XD...

Numb3rs

It's been 15 days since I touched a bowling ball.



Lima-belas.
十五 (Shi-wu)
chap-goh
sap-mm
Ship-oh
FIFTEENN...



I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms. T_______T

Boston. No, not as far as that. Melbourne.

I've checked the validity of what Jason has said. Russell Peters isn't the only one with a gig in Melbourne. Jeff Dunham (Achmed The Dead Terrorist) will also be there this coming April.

I know it's pretty late for me to apply for a transfer but really...

Why am I still here?


" I think I'll go to Boston...
I think I'll start a new life,
I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name,
I'll get out of California, I'm tired of the weather,
I think I'll get a lover and fly em out to Spain...
I think I'll go to Boston,
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind...
I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset,
I hear it's nice in the Summer, some snow would be nice"

That's all I think about.

I rant.

For the first time in my entire life, this is when I feel I'm totally LAZY. I sleep at 2. Wake up at 12. Eat lunch. Hit the gym. Get lazy mid-way and end up soaking in water. Get wrinkly. Come back. Eat dinner. Surf the internet. Go back to sleep. Eesh! I never felt so lazy before.

It's the holidays, a time I'm away from my lectures, my tutorials, my work, my laundry and all the drama that comes along with it. I'm too lazy to clean up my room. I'm too lazy to care. I'm too lazy to think. I'm too lazy to bother. I'm too lazy to clean up my thoughts. I'm too lazy to fight with my brother for the TV during the EPL.

I AM SO FRIKKIN LAZY. >_< WTFLMAOBBQORLLY.

For as long as I keep on waking up at noon, my time table will remain skewed.

At this point, after rotting for exactly 3 months, the mould, the pain, the anguish, the issues, the babysitting, the total lack of language capability (my canto sucks), the melancholy, the heart breaking wait for the Semester to start... I am totally lazy.

I'm not going to end this post because i'm totally lazy to. Whatever that's going to come out from my head is gonna be running along the lines of the 5th paragraph. Not so hard to get the idea ain't it?

Har har har.

[teeth clenches]*angsty*

Russell Peters is going to Melbourne. T_________________T

CNY

The past week has been eventful. :)

*

There's an hour left until my relatives come by for the reunion dinner and I'm tired. Been helping my mother in the kitchen for a while and I'm not exactly the best chef in the world la. *downsyndrome* lol. I can't cut. Knifes annoy me.

Anyhow, everything's all set so... YAY! I wanna eat.

HAPPY CNY everybody! :)

It's Time.

I had my highschool buddies sleep over at my place last weekend. Had fun chatting and catching up with each other after not seeing each other for a while.

It sucks to grow up coz we don't get to sleepover very often anymore.

Sonia, you've changed alot for the better. I'm glad to see you taking each day at stride getting stronger as you go. Looking back into our rather 'dark' past makes me wanna laugh and cry. He really wasn't worth it. :) All the foolishness and buttercorn jokes exchanged. ROFL. Cheers to you, hope you have an awesome time for second year next sem!

Sharveen, you keep those negative thoughts from your head and focus on your health. Despite the calamities, remember there are people around you who love and care for you who are in this battle you are fighting. I really enjoyed your company since I met you in Secondary 1. We weren't from the same class but still got along well. May you gain love, luck, confidence and only the best for the future. You worked hard for it, do well for Uni.

Kari, It's been great having you around after some dong-key long years i bet you must be getting sick of me. I know the look of my face gives you cancer so much until you plan to run to the arms of a kangaroo but all I can say is, bear with it... I like your company too much to get the hell out of your life. Muahahahaah~! For the last time, Daniel Henney is Mine.

Love ya'll. :)


February will be the month will be the month when everybody leaves me in this rainy/hot part of the world to rot while writing out an epitaph for my tombstone for Year 2. *ok. maybe that's too drama*

To my college pals who are leaving for Aussie this week, I will miss you all dearly.

Alvin, you introduced me to Dope wars. XD I will never forget you for that. LOL. Glad you found everything you need in Aussie. It seemed like it was just yesterday I met you at Sunway. Hope you have a great start to your course in RMIT and succeed as a hot pilot dude in the near future. You take good care of yourself. Go out there and FLYYY~!

Jason, You. Are. A. Theif. I. Loathe. You. So. Bad. I. Wanna. Hit. You. So. Bad. Until. Your. Skull. Breaks. And. Your. Skin. Tears. And. Your. Hair. Fall. Off. But I can't do that because you're all packed up to head over to Australia leaving me to bury this vengence inside me until the next time I see you in a year. So... too bad for me lah. MARK MY WORDS. When you come back, my fury will be unleashed. On a happier note, do well over there and remember to take care of yourself.

It's been a while. Time passes really fast.

Kukup.

It was a public holiday, so my family and I went out for a little outing to Kukup, pontian. Kukup is a fishing village located at the lowest point of Malaysia approximately 45km's from where I live.

The six of us squeezed into the car we set off! The journey was painfully slow coz the only way there is through an old two-way road (that most used before the PLUS highway was constructed). Plus, from the flashing vehicles on the opposite side, we knew there was going to be a road block somewhere in front.

We reached about an hour and a half later. We had seafood for lunch there and we bought back all the goodies for CNY (ie: junkfood). Kukup has always been famous for it's seafood. THE BLACK PEPPER CRAB IS AWESOME.

I saw a man riding a motorbike on the narrow wooden planks suspended above the sea. Wonder how he did that?!

Awesome seabreeze. Awesome sea food. I live pretty far from town so this place is REALLY jauh but it's one place you gotta go when you head over to Johor.

*

To do list

Repair Dent Done!

Cloverfield

I do not like the cameraman very much.

All the hype caused by the crew not revealing the monster... ==

Good sound effects though.

Rating: I'm not a fan of shaky cameras. So... 4.5 stars.

미니홈피

This might be the new facebook.

http://us.cyworld.com/

J Co taken to another level.

Donut phone.





Source: Soompi

LMAO.

Jackie Chan.

By now, Sonia's back in Aussie, enjoying the flies of the summer. *saddist*

Had a sleepover at Sonia's place last wed to hangout. Anu joined us. Had this really evil looking bag of twisties staring back at me. XD

Chatted and ended up sleeping only at 6 in the morning. Woke up feeling incredibly woozy (like always). I had fun though.


On MSN, i told her she looked like her monalisa-rowanatkinson icon.

Then, Sonia said this to me.

"You look like Jackie Chan."

==|||

I hope you swallow a fly.

2008

I just reached home from a mini new year outing.

It's not starting right.

We didn't have nuts.

We all decided 2008 would be a healthy one so we skipped the nuts.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!!!! *pops party poppers*

What i achieved in 2007 - I lived it in one piece.

I'm a lot more alert. I have to respond more positively to stress or in times of crisis. I didn't pick up Martial Arts. I don't like the internet as much as i did before. I still lose things. Sometimes I don't find them. I haven't gotten my 4 strikes in a row in bowling. But I lived through 2007 in one piece.

For things that I did and I didn't, 2007 is a year where I had guts, stress, yoghurt, oreos, Roti Goreng, summons, dents, first-hand-account-with-a-leech-of-the-nation, lots of pain and a bunch of other experiences I don't know how else to describe. Sure there were fun things too.

Monash - Wooot. I'm in a campus baybehh.
Malls I dun quite get why KL has so many super big malls but it was rather fun hanging out there sometimes.
Spice Girl Reunion - Ok. I just saw a nuffnang ad so lol.
Cheesy quotes - Now place the ring on his hand. A ring is like a circle, it goes on forever. It's not like a triangle, triangle have corners. It's like a circle. *Sandler-Schneider lovin'* When you meet the~ okay. It's copyrighted. I won't go on.
SEAKORAT07-JOSIAH! OMG!
BWFSS-Did i mention Koo is extremely-super-sonic-megatron-insane-hothothottt dorky dorky dorky *mute*.

In the name of all things holy, I need a shrink. lol.

2007 has been a whore. *profanityprofanityprofanity* STILL, I'm thankful to have come this far. 2007 has taught me many things about friendship, life and love.

The New Crib

Living away from my family kinda made me realize how I've been taking them for granted when I lived with them. I wasn't overall a bad kid but I see them everyday, sometimes I forget their presence. Old friends too. I have a feeling I'm going to get a second wave of Homesickness when I get back in February.

I don't loathe Freedom. But sometimes, i wished I had someone to yell at me abit or just tell me whether what I'm doing is right or wrong.

Independence doesn't come free. Suddenly things like judgement, budgeting, responsibility all get thrown at you. It becomes overwhelming. But when you get a hang of it it, it just comes naturally.

Nothing comes easy. And I know there's more out there. 2008 is a new year, a new beginning. Hope it'll be a good one.

*

NY RESOLUTIONS 2008.

Make them. Break them.

+I still want to learn something new. But this time, it may not be martial arts.
+I WILL NOT KEEP THINGS TO THE LAST MINUTE. (omg. I soOoo need to kick the habit)
+Be early for classes.
+Be more organized. My room in KL is like something with a built-in Tornado.
+Make better choices in food, decisions etc.
+Budget.
+Do no incurr extra costs (Ie: no more dents, no more parking under trees. WTHECK.)
+Walk more.
+Be more optimistic.
+Number of Traffic Police Summons for 2008= ZERO.
+To be more responsible.
+Strive to get 4 strikes in a row for bowling. (Haha wth. by 2009)
+Do well for Second Year!
+Spend more time with my family when I'm around.

Fine, if they don't wanna party, I'm buying peanuts to eat on NY eve with them.

*

I so can't believe I'm going to hit the big 2 in the next 10 months.

The hospital is a depressing place.

In 2007, I had a very very close friend who got sick. We attended the same Moral classes for Sec 2 and 3, (very kecoh) and took I.T. for Sec 4 and 5. (Damn kamcheng). If I was an indian dude, she would be equivalent to my Macha.

We visited her today because she recently just got admitted again. We were early. The three of us hung outside the building chatting while waiting for the visiting hours to start. While we walked in, I saw nurses pulling the curtains around the bed and a beeping sound like those you hear on Grey's anatomy when someone kicks the bucket. We walked on. Shuffling towards the end of the hallway.

We saw her sleeping. We chatted with her mum softly. she got up. We kept her company for a while. I was just being my random self. Everyone was chirping (nagging, more literally) over nutrition and Sonia's brother-in-law's fever-waving method.

We left her to rest after a while.

I left the hospital feeling rather broken.

"I know you kick-ass so get well soon. Looking forward to hang out with ya!"

She's in again.

I only hope it's not serious.

Of teeth and Christmas-es.

It's christmas eve. And so everyone has heard of the song that goes, "What i want for Christmas is my two front teeth"?

I haven't really thought about Christmas/NY Resolutions. But I know damn well what I don't want for Christmas -- A tooth extraction.

My wisdom tooth has been really bugging me since I was in Thailand. So yesterday, I gathered up whatever balls courage I had and decided to head to the dentist for a check up.

I never really had a fear of dentists but this is the first time I felt really uncomfortable at the clinic.

When I got there, there was no one apart from a pretty pissed-off dude who claims that there are remanants of a tooth this dentist extracted. (Of course there was no one else. It's Christmas! Everyone wants a piece of that turkey!) HE walked out of the office less than a minute getting in and den den den... It's my turn.

I meekly got in. Mum followed suit. I sat on the chair.

He asked what the problem was.

"I think I've got an inflamed gum near my wisdom tooth. My cheek hurts too."

"Is this the first time."

*Nods*

He checked and yeap, bingo. The infection had spread to my right cheek. Damn gum. Damn wisdom tooth that takes forever to grow. Damn everything that goes "Bzzzzzz".

He cleaned the area by jabbing the scaler under the flap of inflamed gum (It hurted bad) then gave me antibiotics and painkillers.

"No extraction?"

"Since it's the first day. If it comes back again and again, you might want to consider minor surgery."

O.O

I self-censored a curse.

Tooth.

I don't like my wisdom tooth. =(

12 days is a long time.

[Ignore my previous post. It was typed in a record-speed with absolutely screwed grammar and 2 pesky friends at my side. *snicker* Not to mention 1 hour and 10 minutes of connection that costs approx. 10 ringgit. What a rip off.]

I aM baCCKKKK!!!

And it's gonna be very very difficult to blog about 12 days so i'll just talk about the highlights.

I've seen how sports can get incredibly political when you pit two countries against each other. Yes. It's worse if bias judging takes place.

Because of this 12 days, I can safely say wasn't idling for the hols.

Thailand
Nakhon Ratchasima Province นครราชสีมา
(8th Dec-15th Dec)

"Jetted off at night on a Lufthansa Boeing 747. Delayed. Reached the Suvarnabhumi airport midnight-ish. Reached hotel at Korat at 4.30 thai time aka, 5.30 Malaysian time. Barely 3 hours of sleep, we head off to start our first day cheering for Malaysia.

Our schedule nearly killed me."

The SZE SEA GAMES 2007

It's really spectacular how we exceeded our targets. Azalina said 64. We bagged 68!

So you see, there's only about 40 of us who had to move from stadium to stadium, uni to uni, mall to mall. Thailand sent off their own army off cheer leaders for every event! Blimey, talk about National pride!

For the Women's Basket Ball Finals against Thailand, we took like a small corner at the basketball court, somewhere under the score board. The rest of the stadium was local people. It's just us against the whole stadium. Imagine that.

We waved the flag like a bunch of crazy people (I had the biggg humongous flag for full 7 days), the others bashed their kompangs like mad. Thai was leading with a small difference but we picked off half way through. Till the final second, we beat the Thais by 1 point.

The most memorable has to be Women's Basket Ball and Ping Pong. :)

Even though Ng Sock Khim got a silver, nobody expected her to beat the thai player who ranked Top 10. She did it though and even asked us to stay for the finals against Singapore but we couldn't. She played hard though. I really like our local atheletes. Those that we met were really nice and humble. It's sad some go unnoticed by the public.

I dunno what's with chasing for gold. When you watch it live, Silver, bronze... is just as good. It's how sporting you are that counts.

Sidenote:
+Btw. Josiah Ng, (Malaysian cyclist) is really tall in real life. Check out the legs ^^,
+Daniel Bego is not human is a fish! I swear! Haha. Okay, maybe not this lifetime.
+The hot Ping Pong dude. What is his name?! >_< (oh. i found out) Muhd Shakirin IBRAHIM.
+Beach Volley ball - It was 5-ish. Armed with suntan, we cheered under the setting sun ignoring the heat. We lost to thai in the finals but it's ok. They pwned!
+Dancesport is still not recognized by the OCM. It's about time they did. There are people out there fighting to get it recognized.

No pictures for now (maybe later) coz my camera died on Day 2 in the gymnastics stadium. Will post some when I get it.

The people

Thailand has been incredibly kind to my noobness in Thai. (River = Menam. Help me remember that.) Despite the language barrier, the Thais overall were really really hospitable. Always smiling and friendly. The local cheer team also helped cheer Malaysia on at some matches. The locals we meet were also really jovial. The tour guide (Lek) was also really friendly to show us what was along the way. (Poor thing, she got kacau-ed by old poke chauvinists males on the bus.)

To top it all off, one staff from a random hotel helped when the three of us got lost searching for a street market in Korat. :P

I should've brought along a language-guide.

The food

I am someone who can never hold spicy food. I cannot tahan. If you let me down a bit of wasabi, you can see instant colour change on my face and I will be downing truckloads of water after that.

Sooo... yaa. You get the gist of it.

The choices for breakfast was the same everyday. So it's the usual koko crunch, milk, pan cakes, thai honey (slurp), sausages and eggs. We usually grab nonsense for lunch but it's okay. Had fillet-o-fish for 2 consequtive lunches. 0.0! Dinner was something I always look forward to.

Tom Yum - OMG. *drools* It is DA bomb!
Thai Curry - OOOOOHHH~!
Meat and Veggie skewers - ok. the green thing right at the bottom is probably jalepeno pepper (or some crazy mutated spicies). DO NOT consume.

*breathes smoke*.

BTW The weather doesn't help.

The Internet Connection

It's. A. Rip. Off.

In a Nut Shell

To sum it up, it was overall a really good experience. I'm glad i went for it. Still, it ended a lil abruptly. I was just getting to know everybody then poof! I'm at the airport again walking aimlessly to find the gate for my flight back home. To look at it, at least it was long enough for me to get enemies. LOL.

Can't believe i sang on the bus. T__T

I came back to KL on the 15th and remained there until today.

KUALA LUMPUR
(15th - 20th)

I remember complaining about the jam at the fly-over in Bandar Sunway and the LDP. I change my mind.

THE JAMS IN TOWN ARE FAR MUCH WORSE. *swallow thick lump down throat*

That aside, the deco in KL is really pretty and Chrismassy now. LOL. I spent most of my time at Bukit Bintang since I was staying around there. Did some shopping with gran and mum!


There's this gigantic christmas tree thinggy in Pavillion and I got to see a choir carolling on the tree. It was actually a spiral platform. Go check it out. I'm sure they'll have it again.

The Bulgogi in Food Republic in Pavilion level 1 IS DA BOMB! *slurp slurp* Try it. :D

I still haven't gotten my J. Co. donuts though. :(

Got a flu on the second day. Wahlaoo.

I saw PPG, Dexter and Deedee in Pyramid.

>_<

I can't believe I was grinning watching them.


Well. It's fine because I find it hard to believe alot of things that I do.

Sleep Deprived.

Sleep.

I need sleep.

I also need a Thai For Dummies book/Travel Guide.

Karina is annoying.

6+148
^she did that.

Alex is also annoying because h45614e can't stop laughing.

Yah. He did ^ that. Internet damn expensive.

Bego damn hot. Josiah damn hot.

Till next time.