I talk too much my mouth hurts

Going out to get my much needed hugs right now :)

"Tu es heureuse ?"

Someone from my French class asked me this week. It took me so much in surprise. Even as I answered,

"But of course, I am happy,"

I was really thinking,

'Can I be so unhappy that even this person can see it? feel it?'

I don't even know why I have been feeling down. It may be from the lack of exercises, the stress, the sadness from Mum's short stay, missing seeing my friends... Probably all of the above, even as I have been experiencing other little joys here and there.

I felt like a coffee today, like I needed medicine, which is unusual.

But caffeine on an empty stomach did more harm than it did good, and using that as an excuse I went home early. I wanted to go for a run; it was a lovely day after all. However, there were things to be done at home first. Dishwashing the few days' worth of bowls, plates, and cutlery, by which time Flatmate had arrived. Throwing the rubbish out that was the cause of the smelly flat.

Then I went for a walk.

In order to get over my confused and distressed state of mind I needed a bout of fresh air, to clear my head. Alone. It wasn't running, but just as good. Auckland is not a very pretty city to go walking about in. I missed my hometown, Christchurch. But in the setting sun the golden red leaves of Autumn shined beautifully, pleasing to the sight. I passed the French lady I have been longing to strike a conversation with; I will catch up with her some other day. There was an arts supply shop near uni where I had not the chance to visit this year yet, so there I stopped by. Then around the loop towards home, when I took a detour to spend some time in the Church.

This is one of THE moments when I feel like a real Christian, because I do feel safer and forgiven and calmer when I enter a church. I like visiting them, even if it's not on a Sunday. Then it'll probably be for reasons like today, to be more at peace with myself. So that's what I did today, again, to think things over, to argue, and to accept how and why I was feeling like I was. In this busy lifestyle that we lead, being inside a church for me allows, forces, me to put a halt on it, so I can really get the chance to think over things. To plan the best moves to go about. Coming out of the Cathedral I felt better, more so when I stopped by the fountains and read the words,

All will be well

So unto my real destination in this loop trip, the supermarket that is just across from home. I wanted to buy some flowers for our flat, and other supplies that we were needing, such as to solve the annoying drainage problem with the kitchen sink which I was going to end for once and for all. Sunflower and tulips look pretty, sitting nicely trimmed in their cup vases at home; Sunflowers in the living area, and tulips by the window sill in my room. They bring colour to the place, which is much needed, both in mine and the apartments cold and gloomy interiors.

Now that I have almost finished restoring and fixing my computer now, hopefully for the long while, I will have some more me time before going to sleep. Like manicures. Then I will be ready for some us time.

This weekend will be a busy one, filled with studies, work, and friends. Friends, whom I have missed so much!

Mum got on th bus back to Christchurch this afternoon. It was sad; both Sis and I were becoming red-eyed with tears, though I was trying hard not to show it. Sis grabbed onto me and wiped her eyes on my shoulder, coming off it with snot, too ;;; The three days that Mum has spent with us, sleeping over in my room, seemed more holiday-like than the two weeks we have been given not long ago. Thank you Parents for all you do for us, for all you sacrifice for us. This little break has encouraged the boost to enjoy studying for a recent while :)

Je t'aime Maman- S2

So much for getting a good night's sleep for a day of hard out studying.
Got home after a long day of test and lectures, went on the Internet as you do, checking emails and such, and suddenly I find myself being warned by a spyware that my laptop has been attacked by so many viruses... But then I find that something fishy is going on, because this spyware is not the one I have got searched on my laptop! The 'spyware' becomes the problem that won't go away.. Argh!! It's only been not even a week since I got my laptop reformatted, and spent the next few days downloading all the hundreds of updates!!! So annoying!!
So spent all night last night doing just that, again... Caught a bit of a snooze here and there, I am so tired but I cannot get back to sleep when it's light, and waiting for the still slow machine to upload all the updates, again.. At least the laptop is virus free, for now...

I am looking so much forward to my mum coming up this weekend, I feel that I might burst out in tears when I see her, I miss her so much right now!
This week has been so tiring, I suffer from the blues, the mood swings. I want to immerse myself in the cool blue waters, even though I am always feeling cold these days; I want to run and run and run until I am drenched in hot sweat, and my legs are so heavy and leaden that I feel like I might topple over and collapse... So maybe I just want to be wet all over ?! lol
It's probably stress, but this time I don't think I should prescribe myself with sleep because I seem to be getting a fair amount of that these days. I wake up later than usual, and I feel slow and lazy... It's probably more the lack of food, our fridge is almost empty now, and I don't have any to spend until the Student allowance next week; I am so HUNGRY!! Had baked beans on toast for dinner tonight, was so yummy :)
Considering a haircut this winter, maybe in June, short short short, like Audrey Tautou/Agyness Deyn short ?!! Thinking, thinking...

• Body moisturiser
• Warm sweater
• Big Big hugs
• Time
• Feet treatment
• Paris..France..Europe..
• French vocab book
• Food

I've been sleeping dreamless these days, must be because I am so tired, even though I'm sleeping enough hours.. One of the reasons is that I am going to bed late, been trying to finish this book, I know this much is true, by Wally Lamb.

I have first tried to read it in my first year, but it's such a big book, I never got beyond the first few pages before I had to return it to the library at the halls I was staying that year. It was the last book I started to read in the holidays, and now I have finished! Yay! Now finally I should be able to start studying for that French aural test tomorrow!

It's a sad story, and I wished it so much to end on a good note, so even as I was getting into the story, I would back out, not wanting to get to the bad stuff..
Every family has secrets locked up in the closet, and this one is no exception. Identical twins, one of whom is schizophrenic, a hare-lipped mother, an abusive stepfather. The sane twin is the narrator, and how he deals with his family when growing up, looking after his mother, and his weaker half, from the world. It is hard hating and loving at the same time the mother that loves his sweeter brother more, and the brother who is going madder with age. He hates his stepfather, how he treats the three of them, but who picks on his weaker brother more than himself, like everyone else at school. The story takes us on his journey of learning to understand, to accept, to discover, things he hadn't perhaps fully understood as a child, but can recognise when looking back into the past. Which also is really frustratingly hard and draining, especially when these are things you have been trying to forget. In the end he learns to forgive, and move forward.

I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's, and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.
This much, at least, I've figured out. I know this much is true.

My laptop is entering its 4th year, having bought it when I came up to uni...
It's a big, heavy thing, not at all for carrying around, which is what laptops are supposed to be for. I so want a netbook, those tiny things that I could fit into my bag!
The laptop was getting pretty loaded up with junk and so SLOW, that I decided it was time to reboot everything of its clutter. Which was fine, it still took AGES, and then it's still quite slow, but at least there are no useless files or programmes...
There are NO programmes to speak of, really, because I've been busy just updating the stupid machine first. All three years' worth of updates, and it's taking FOREVER!!!!!! Argh!!

Voted the best poem of 2006 by the UN, by an African kid.

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray

And you calling me colored?

I would like to spend all day today just reading a book in my armchair; the weather is gloomy enough for it. Gotta get ready for church though. I already wear socks over tights, because my feet are so cold. Argh. Spent yesterday watching movies and reading. Watched Blind side, again, so good, love it, and also Sabrina, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Audrey Hepburn. Was a relaxing day, after all the exercises and workouts of the previous day, and night. ;p

before uni restarts! Went to the gym today, stayed extra long to make up for yesterday's missed session ;)
Actually, also because today I followed my programme for the first time, and since I couldn't remember all the exercises the instructor had planned for me, it took a while to get through them. Felt so nice afterwards though, after having sweat all the bad things inside me.

Had a late lunch at 3, baguette with honey ham, spinach, etorki cheese, and Philadelphia spread. Miam !

It's a black and white silent movie about sailors on the ship Potemkin who revolt against bad treatment under Tsarist regime, such as being fed maggot infested meat, which results in a chain reaction of the citizens revolting. This consequently brings about a massacre by the police. The film is based on a true event which took place in 1905.

There are so many people in this film! and so many steps! The steps scene is especially important as it has the montage technique of Eisenstein that has been paid homage to by many directors thereafter. Apparently this is the first film where a silent film acting was as if the camera was a third eye, not the actors acting at the camera. It's amazing how the weak can suddenly change around to become the dominant in a revolution.

I went to the gym again today, that's two days in a row, and hopefully this week I will actually get my bum in to the gym more than twice in a week!

I'm more motivated now, though, because today I went in to get my fitness level tested and am now put on a programme to follow!

It was pleasant to know that I am not actually in the 'not fit at all' category, as previously thought, but in the lower rang of 'athletic'! Ha! Hang on, is that saying something about the ranges of the athletes? I hope not.

Anyway, had to get measured up, height, weight, skin fold, waitt-hip ratio, blood pressure, things I have already done in the GP sessions and/or biomed labs. Then came the cycle exercise to measure my heartbeats, the sit ups, the push ups, and the stretchings.

However it was weird that I was actually needing more attention in the area that I was the most confident on, which is flexibility. I need to work on my him flexors.

Then my instructor put up a programme for me to follow, though after he went through all of them with me I forgot everything... Lol. He will be there tomorrow to remind me, though.

It's a gloomy day today, and I feel like watching a movie. I've been watching one every night almost these holidays, but this time I'm off to the cinemas. Yay for cheap Tuesday! Hopefully we'll get to see Boy, on which I had done an assignment just before the Easter break.

Violin audition for orchestra. Because I haven't played it for so long, I'm really bad, and since it's at the last minute, there is no time for practise. People are bitchy about it but so am I, really stressed and sensitive. I have no pieces to play! In the end I decide on a Mendelssohn piece from the yellow book I got from Korea which I could play at age 8. :(
Y and I fight. There's Sis and cousin N as well, who don't care at all and are just annoying, only cousin H really nice to me.
At home there is a huge banquet with lots of people, the main guest is an old blond man who I despise, and him me likewise. I give him the finger; He sits next to my European patron?! As I do a round of the room, late since I've been trying to practise and missed the Grace before the meal, there are three men at the end with no meals. They say they are not hungry, but one asks me for a glass of pepsi. I go to the grocery store part of my residence, I can just go in as I am wearing the red uniform T-shirt for employees, because I am the daughter of the owner. I go round the back wanting to get to the storage area. The place is huge with brick walls and concrete floors and dim lighting above, so it seems like a big alleyway, with stairs on both sides sometimes, leading to i don't know where. The path curves to the left as if a round tower. This place is a maze! I finally get through a double door to the left up the ramp. There are another double doors up ahead and also to my right. It's the banquet room. What?! I'm confused and downright exhausted. I've been dragging my feet for the last few metres and am at the verge of collapsing.
As I open the door to return to the foods, the hateful man greets me and provokes me. The meal-less men come to my rescue , punches the blond short of killing him. The police come. The two men who helped me leave in pale pink suits, with flowers in the left breast pocket, lying on their stomaches at the back of a motorbike, throwing handfuls of pink flower petals to trail behind them. Everything is in drug happy atmosphere like as it a Beatles MV.
Come to think of it, the other people at the banquet also looked British and the fashion was of the 60s, with bowled Beatles haircuts, and low warm British accented voices..

I am procrastinating badly at the moment. It seems like I should be doing something, but I don't know what, and I don't want to anyways..

This morning I read some French proses by Baudelaire, and here's my French word of the day:

s'épancher - to open one's heart

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!
As soon as I found the meaning to this word, I thought to myself, whose heart have I opened so far in my life? I have lived around 1/4th of my life already, have I made an impact on someone else's life yet? If so, to whom? I am too shy to think so much about myself, though there are faces that float in my mind on who I want those persons to be.

It's an incentive to be more outgoing, more lively, more, more, more everything. To myself, to the others. I keep thinking to myself that I am becoming too comfortable in my current situation. I am getting restless.. I need to go out, push myself further, try my limits, just get out!

Starting tomorrow. No, tonight. I'm going to watch another movie. Or movies. :)

LA: Irvine, Hollywood, Pretty Woman (Julia Roberts' scuzzy hotel: Las Palmas Hotel, 1738 Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles; Julia Roberts gets a taste of the high-life: Regent Beverly Wilshire, 9500 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles; “big mistake... huge”: Julia Roberts is snubbed by the boutique staff: Boulmiche Boutique, 9501 Santa Monica Boulevard. Beverly Hills, Los Angeles; “Slippery little suckers...”: Julia Roberts struggles with snails at Cicada, 617 South Olive Street, downtown Los Angeles)

NY: Statue of Liberty, Time Square, MoMA, Central Park, Ground Zero, Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall St, Rockefeller Centre, Tiffany's, Greenwich Village, When Harry Met Sally's fake orgasm place (Katz's Deli, 205 E. Houston Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA), Friends' apartment (Corner of Bedford and Grove, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA), Night at the Museum (American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street and Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA)
Too many places to see!!! Possible sleep places - Liberty hostel or L hostel.

Boston: $35 from NY with Greyhound, or chinatown-bus.com. MIT, Havard


London: London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Tower of London, Notting Hill, Love Actually (Mark declares his love silently: 27 St Luke’s Mews, Notting Hill, London

Paris: Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Amelie (rue St Vincent, grocery store - Au Marche de la Butte, Passage des Abbesses, Montmartre, Paris; helping blind man - rue Lamarck and metro Lamarck-Caulaincourt; returning souvenir box - Le Verre a Pied, 118 bis rue Mouffetard; Nino's video store - Palace Video, 37 boulevard de Clichy, Pigalle, Paris; Amelie's cafe - Café des Deux Moulins, 15 rue Lepic at rue Cauchois, Montmartre, south of rue des Abbesses), Lovers in Paris (First meeting - Pont Alexandre III; La maison rose, Monmartre)
La Rochelle, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Rennes, Loudres, Nice, Provence, Lyon, Strasbourg, Monaco, etc etc

Hamburg: J,

Rome, Madrid, Pompeii, Prague, Amsterdam, Bruges

I've been ballroom dancing all night in my dream, teaching and correcting the moves of my partners. I'm still really tired and so cannot be bothered to go to the gym this morning...

English title: The Edge of Heaven

Flatmate and I are each on our laptops watching movies. She's laughing at her sitcom, while I am watching this sad film about families, love, Germany, Turkey, and death.

The film was introduced at a lecture in the European Studies course I am taking at uni this semester, on migration in Europe. I have long realised that I am biased to only foreign movies in French, so this seemed like a good way to immerse myself into other cultural cinemas. This is my first German-Turkish film that I have seen. Also, since I missed out on the lecture, this seemed like a good way to 'revise'.

There are several parts to the movie, which keeps coming back and intertwining. Here are bits of the story. If you don't want to know, then don't read on!

There are three parts to the film. A Turkish mother who works as a prostitute in Germany, who gets involved with a Turkish man in Germany, who has a son teaching German in a German university. She dies, so the son goes searching for her daughter in Turkey; he ends up in a German bookstore in Turkey in the mean time. The daughter is hard to find because she is involved in a political movement wanting rights of the poor to education and better standards of living. She goes to Germany to look for her mother, can't, but befriends a German girl. She gets caught and is refused political asylum so is taken back to Turkey. The German girl goes to Turkey to help the daughter. She meets the bookshop owner and rents room from him. While trying to help her friend, she dies. The German girl's mum comes over from Germany to fulfill her dead daughter's wish to help the Turkish girl, starting with contacting the bookshop owner. The bookshop owner has lost hope of finding the daughter of the Turkish mother.

The lives of all these characters are tied to each other with invisible strings, thin yet still there, all tangled up together without any of them realising. Towards the end I get scared that the bookshop owner will never find the Turkish daughter, even though they are very very close together. It is frustrating to be the viewer of the wider picture. Perhaps this is how God would feel looking down at us humans here?

Some of the scenes I remember the most are when the female revolutionaries are taken by the police, and each of them shout their names to the people outside before being pushed into the police van. As the van drives off, the Turkish public applauds them, like heroes. We thus know which side the citizens are on. Another political reference is made when the German mother suggests that everything in Turkey may go well when it is accepted into the EU. But the Turkish girl does not believe in the EU, since it is still the colonial (?!) system she and her revolutionaries are fighting against. The sequences of the German mother in a Turkish hotel room was especially moving for me. She at first seemed mad to be there, then she lets her emotion go, crying out loudly over the loss of her daughter, to whom her last words were quite harsh. Her movements as she cries are a mourning dance, like a small child who's lost. It had me in (almost) tears (it's quite hard to be in the mood when someone is laughing uncontrollably across the room at something else).

There are quite a few points to consider after watching this film. Argh, better go and think some more so I can hand something in after the holidays.

Our family of four, on the way back from something, stop by this tiny boutique of a hairdresser's.
We dye our hair streaks of electric blue, sharply contrasting with the pretty floral and procelain surroundings of the shop... except that there are also two enormous tigers inside with us, one on the couch and the other on the floor next to the door. When they stand up the heads reach up to my shoulders. My uncle comes to join us. Outside the shop, it's very quiet, surburban, maybe even countryside like. On the other side it's city like, with tall buildings with many signs plastered on them like in Asia. On one building where a whole floor is of glass, I can see another huge lion lounging on the ground. I go back inside. The tigers seem to like my uncle, and I tell him so, but Mum hushes me and says something like he doesn't want to hear that, even though he was born on the year of the tigers... I don't know if that's true though.

K, M and I went to a beach that is special to me, but they weren't as enthused about it as I was, and instead wanted to go to the museum nearby, so I was a bit annoyed. Finally we got to the beach, but it was already too dark to really take pictures. Light again, I'm swimming. I can see J in the distance to the far left. The current comes from the left to right, and with it a baby creature which I point out to M. It's a baby crocodile. The adult croc comes toward me. At first I have a backpack with which to distract her, but not for long. She swims towards me. We all start swimming frantically towards the end of the lane pool with all our strength, I don't care it I look stupid, hoisting myself out of the pool with my almost too weak arms and swinging othe my legs along, also. I want to live. I am safe. I am awake.

The school is at the edge of the city, biked through many tree lined avenues and surburban enclosed areas, alley ways, and round abouts. Held hostage in a room, at a school with many others. Church people? Parents for PTA meeting? One by one we try to escape. The kidnapper lets us go because we are going to die anyway. Dad and I decide to give it a go, when fashion designer KL goes mad and pulls a string from the ceiling, and it slashes the girls at the back into pieces. They are screaming, dying.
Strangely, did not feel too scared...

I hope I get this job.
Then I can go volunteering.
Little sister, stop being blue.
Everything will pass on by soon enough.
When you feel lonely, go outside, for a walk in the park.

Looking young, still like a 1st year.

Finding lunch friends, found a random, so why complaining?

Philosophy course requires me to ask questions about things, but most are frustratingly unanswerable questions. Who do I turn to for these answers? God? Myself?
Questions on morality. Origin. Love. Questions I do not understand. I do not even understand myself fully.

One scene.
Dad, Sis and I get into the car, a black four wheel drive, maybe a Jeep. He drops us off at.. school? and presents us with a hug and a big soft toy, each.
I miss my daddy.

Having lunch with Sis today, looking forward to it, since I haven't really had the chance to talk to her properly since we came up to Auckland.

Have a nice day y'all.

All I remember is being chased round and round by I don't know what.
The attic room of film students and their resources.
Was going to have a dance competition with R and another lady because of K. Was getting so stressed because couldn't find the inspiration for good dance moves.

Greeks before Romans, did you know? Not sure if it's correct, but in my dream at least it was.
B and gf, Flatmate washing dishes, church, Easter?
Blog liked by a Korean film director, so a few Korean people start to trickle in to comment. I wish.
Garance Doré and her assistant.
Church boys with shrilly voices eating strawberries.