Mo-mantaizing

Digimon reference. It basically means to relax or to take things easy. Hakuna matata, if you will. That's what my last few days have been since my rant. Now I've finally had some days to relax. Though there are some things that I will never have a chance to relax from. My mother for one. As I've mentioned before and I will say it again, I do love my mother...there are just times I can't stand her. Times I even hate her.

Now before anyone out there critisizes me in saying hate's a pretty strong word, believe me when I say hate is second nature to me. I remember a quote off my calendar that said that it took effort to hate. I wonder how much of an exception I am to that rule. Hate just goes with me, off like a shot and continues until I forgive it or until the end of time if necessary. But it doesn't take any effort. Earlier when I was taking the stronger anti-depressants, what worried me was my lack of hating during that time period. I'm not one of those people who hates everything or my life is oh so bad (please mind the sarcasm) but for the things I do hate, I keep at them. It's a small list, if that explains my hating nature at all.

Anyway, with my mother, ever since we've arrived, every little thing that she's done will slowly grate on my nerves. I'm baby-sitting her. That's what it feels like and I hate it. Call me selfish, call me a brat, but remember I'm human. She's more than three times my age and I get to look after her. My relatives have teased that I've turned into the mother here but I'm highly unamused. She is a responsible adult; she's supposed to look after herself. Not to be baby-sat and cooed into doing things like a toddler. I abdor stupidity. This is classified under it. And no she has no mental disability that can even excuse her behaviour. So very much feeding the flames of my frustration.

But besides my mother, I finally got to go exploring Hong Kong. The photos I've taken of the landscape will come in handy. I also got to visit a number of temples, which was interesting. Mind you, I had a wonderful time finding Kwan Yin's temple without directions. It was worth though. Something about standing in an old temple makes me feel...relieved and calm. I'm in the grey area when it comes to deities. I don't necessarily worship as in daily devotion but I do acknowledge and respect their existence be they from anywhere in the world and from any religion. Same with myths. There are just some things out there that science isn't meant to explain.

The month of April

HATES me. Not a mild hate, but a "I will follow you forever till I smite you" type of hate. Case in point, this month has been hell. Every single day, something awful happened. Now before someone tells me to look for the silver lining, trust me, these days have none. If there is, please lend me your electron microscope so that I can see it.

Currently in Hong Kong now. Lee, if you're reading this, no I'm not enjoying my time. Why? Read above paragraph. Now considering I've been here for less than 24 hours, what could have possibly gone wrong? Well one, my mother forgot her purse on the plane, which had her passport in it. And the travellers' checks, and the jewellry, and the China visa, and the plane tickets. All of this while in our first half hour in Hong Kong. So then we spent four hours waiting till customs gave her a temporary residency ID. Now technically, it shouldn't have taken four hours since Mom had her old expired Hong Kong passports with her but since in the last 10 years or so, everything has switched to computers so now they can't find her on their system. No record. Needless to say I wasn't happy about waiting six hours in total for everything to be reported/documented after a 13 hour flight.

Anything good out of that situation? One. I had insisted on carrying my own passport, so thank the gods on this one.

Now back to the bad news. Elda isn't working. My laptop refuses to start up saying new software or hardware must have been uploaded and thus it needs to be booted. I sincerely hope it's not a virus since I've been so careful with her for a couple of years now. She was working perfectly fine before I left Canada. I put her in her case and had shut her down properly. The suitcase had been locked plus the laptop case had been cushioned both ways by clothes. Past plugging her battery outlet over here, she has touched nothing foreign. Yes she has a personality to me but I tend to do that for inanimate electronic devices. Case in point the problems with Freya, my desktop.

Good news is that one of my cousins is a computer expert so hopefully she'll be able to fix her. If not, heh, my online life is over. All my websites are stored on there. Now if anyone from Silver Light is reading this, yes this includes my Genbu Kaiden fanworks archive. And my journal, fanfiction, photo manipulations, music, and oh dear gods my entire online life.

Needless to point out again the point of this entry being the month of April hates me.

So if you're a playwright, you're a actor/actress...

then if you're a singer, you must be a songwriter? This is one of the most narrow-minded judgements I have ever had the displeasure to hear. Just because a singer sings a song that has already been done by another group, he or she is automatically labelled copy-cat or worse, branding them for even using a "cover" song.

This is either scary or pathetic

It isn't as if I've ever denied being a nerd but the fact that I scored higher than two other nerds from whom I found the link to this quiz from is scary. Reading their blogs, you can tell they are nerds; they even admit to those too polite to comment. I feel as if I should have scored a something in the slightly nerdy category as I've not completed one part of the criteria to being a nerd: I, Tanarra, do solemnly swear that I've never watched the original Star Wars trilogy. Ever. And that one movie day in grade 6 does not count on the basis that it was background noise since I found Bruce Coville's Into the Land of Unicorns more interesting. In fact, most of the classics of nerdom, I can probably attest to not ever seeing them. Like Monty Python or the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Okay, so I know half the periodic table but having look up the damn thing a hundred times in high school and university chemistry class, it's not surprising that I would know what Mn is (that's manganese for those of you who want to know). And the fact that there's a periodic table hanging in the corner next to the clock in my old astronomy class doesn't hurt either.

As for the graphing calculator, I so blame the high school system. I wouldn't have bought one if the math courses didn't require it. Out of the sciences, I like forensics sciences and astronomy best, so duh, of course I would have a microscope and a telescope. And I'm a CSI fanatic. I've timed my schedule around all three versions (and a number of anime and cartoons). But still, no surprise here since a lot of people watch them.

There is a part of my mind right now that's sniggering in her little corner at me while I write this, and she tauntingly waves a flag that reads (quoted from Shakespeare):

Doth lady protests too much.

Oh bite me.

Please don't shoot me

I'm still a loyal Zutara fan (from Avatar: The Last Airbender), but after finally seeing Bato of the Water Tribe I have to admit that the one scene where it looks like Zuko is touching Katara's butt is overanalyzing. If my eyes hadn't been open for those two seconds, I would probably not have seen it. The Waterbending Scroll is one thing but this is well...desperate. I mean that Xierxu was jumping around and around like a rodeo buck, so not surprising that Katara was about to fall off or that Zuko just pulled on the first thing at hand in that situation from the motion. Plus he isn't even touching her butt. If you notice, his hand is above her belt so therefore if he was touching anything, he would be touching her back not her butt.

My one light of hope for my OTP is probably more based on the advice to never underestimate a writer. They are tricksy things who love to surprise you and when you see said surprise, sometimes you're left to wonder how in the blue hell did they do that right underneath your nose. I believe the two pairings that pretty much nailed that into my head were Bulma and Vegeta of Dragon Ball Z and Buffy and Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Okay the Spike and Buffy was a more obvious especially as seasons passed by but the Bulma and Vegeta never clicked till after the episode where Future Trunks comes in and confirms it.

Ever since InuYasha, I've given more of an open mind to other pairings. In Avatar, the only coupling that I would actually have a problem with is Jet/Katara. Don't ask me why but every other coupling (yaoi, yuri, and incest included) is fine except that one. That would probably be the only one that I would willingly join a ship war over. Aang/Katara, I have to admit they're adorable; the only thing that diminishes this couple are the overzealous shippers (S.P.A.R. for example though I haven't encountered one for months now).

Although I ship for Zutara, Katang (the very close second) is mostly done through feeling for Aang in his many failing attempts to win Katara's love. The one that got me the most was the beginning of The Fortuneteller where Katara's line couldn't have kicked Aang any lower than a physical blow with

Aang's just a good friend. A sweet little guy, just like Momo.

Talk about a kick to the nuts. It might not have meant to be mean but still, based on my experience with guys, that caused me to flinch followed by ow, ow, ouch, that has got to hurt, Aang. He tries so hard and that's probably what appeals to me just as Zutara relationship is going quite rough around the edges and insides at times. Now if the writers had Katara easily falling for Aang without much of a try, then forget it but with the present situation, if we ever end up with Katang at the end of episode 20 of Book Four: Air, I would still be happy because of all of Aang's efforts. Especially if he had to endure more lines like that.

Goings of an iPod Groupie

In which I know I definitely need a life: I'm searching for Song of the Gondola which is sung in Genbu Kaiden Volume 2. So far, I've had as much luck as everyone else in the fandom due to the fact that the song had been created in 1914-1915ish. Pretty safe to say that my local library won't have it. Which is why I either have luck online to find said song or I can wait till I get to Japan to do so. Right now, my best clue would be the license number of the song. But what I'm wondering is if I really want this song because I want to hear it or for fandom's face? I hate not knowing what I want. I hate not knowing where I am. I hate feeling helpless.

On the bright side, Kotoko (my green 2nd gen iPod mini) is still working though yesterday I had to reset her but still, I fixed her on my own. Okay with the help of the Apple Support Forums. It was either that or pay shipping to Apple for them to fix her. So the day the five steps that should solve almost everything doesn't work then you know something is wrong. But by then, my warranty will have probably expired since I received an email yesterday that said I only had 26 more days left in my warranty and would I like to extend my warranty. Um no? I mean, if the most of what I'm going to do with the warranty is a battery change (might I remind you that Kotoko is capable of holding 80% of her charge after 400 full charge cycles?) then that's quite a bit of a waste of money. In fact, I probably won't need to that for couple of years. I fully charge Kotoko every week and there's roughly 52 weeks in a year. Now give myself liway room and make it two or so charges a week, that's still under 400. I don't know about other people but I don't use the equalizer nor the backlight. Heck, I don't even use the skip buttons. I just pick a song that I want to hear and put it on repeat. Or I put an album or playlist on repeat.

I do however use the extra features from Calendar to Notes. Calendar to keep track of the really important things I don't want to miss (like specific episodes of my favourite shows, medical appointments, holidays/birthdays). Games when I'm really, really, REALLY bored. Notes...is it a bad thing if I use that function almost as religiously as I listen to the music on Kotoko? Mostly I upload my favourite drabbles or short stories (ala online converter since you can only read 4KB-sized files) but I recently uploaded a Pod version of a CSS guide/tutorial so that hopefully the language of CSS will finally sink in. I feel like such a geek for doing this but meh.

The fast is over

Just not for food, but for shoes. Yes I did end up not buying shoes for a month, mainly because I discovered that there might be more to my mother's superstition than meets the eye, so rather than be some ignorant fool, I went to do some research. I work in a mall so it isn't out of my way to go to shoe stores or the department stores and observe. Either it was location, timing, or truth, I saw no one of Asian descent shopping in them, so I definitely owe my mother somewhat of an apology.

But on the topic of shoes, what do you do for companies who decide not to give you half-sizes? If there's anything in this world that drives me insane, it's sizing for clothing. What is 8 for one is 10 for another. Though as a friend pointed out this is slightly beneficial because then there are more chances for people to find clothes that fit correctly. Flipside, it's annoying because you have to go through trial and error for every company. But getting back to the lack of shoe sizes, depending on the company, I'm anywhere from a size 7 to a size 9.

My question is would it be better to buy the size larger or the size smaller for when half-sizes are out of the picture? I suppose that as long as you can wear them comfortably without cutting off circulation or skin, a smaller size could work though there might be the feeling of being a Cinderella stepsister. On the other hand, the larger would work for in the mornings (feet are bigger in the mornings than in the evenings but the best time of day to buy shoes is in the evening after your feet have been sufficiently "broken" into throughout the day), roomy enough, and as long as you can wear them without your feet falling out or tripping over everything. It's more of a personal choice: to look like someone has shackled your legs together as you walk or to look like a little kid playing dress-up/look like you're applying for the humour department of the circus.