The Amateur Writer

About an hour ago, I just returned from the NZ premiere of Eclipse. I have to say, I was disappointed yet again but what the heck, it's Twilight. I used to be a Twihard (and it wasn't that much long ago) but the movies pretty much killed me. And now that I've started majoring in English, I can't help but become highly critical over things and that's good. That means I'm actually learning stuff but it does change my tastes. I admit, I'm shallow; I love pop culture as much as the next teen-bopper but just now, being in the cinema, I couldn't muster the enthusiasm I used to feel back in my Twihard days. Jie Ning said that we're not 14 year olds anymore (I was giggly with Jie En[14] but of course, I couldn't really sighed at everything Edward or Jacob utter). I did go, "Come on, that's just bull. A guy will never do that." and yes, I was being rational. And a part me felt like I wasn't being fair to the genre of the book. It is fantasy(pretty much) but I was starting to worry about the kind of message that it is sending to young girls. Yes, it upholds abstinence and marriage but it does not mean that you have to give up one's entire life for just a man. That is a bit worrying.

Okay about me being rational and older and stuff, somebody explains to me why the old ladies behind me are giggly and having fun when I'm being such a sour puss? :( Why don't I find it oh-super-hot and oh-super-romantic like those old ladies? And during the premiere, I was surprised that Eclipse is rated M and we had to sneak Jie En in coz she's underage. Haha. But it was really surprising to see a lot of families and I dunno, I felt a bit embarrassed. I don't think Twilight movies are meant to be watched with parents. It's just not...parents-appropriate. Kekekeke.

I had a few problems with a couple of the scenes. First off: It's rated M for a reason and I totally second my aunt's decision to prevent my 8-year old Edward loving cousin, Natasya from watching Eclipse. So not appropriate! Maybe if she's 16 ok la. Second, there's a particular scene where Bella, oh-so-naturally says "Edward is my life" to her dad.

FREEZE!

a) That is just wrong. You DONT say that to parents.
b) Lame! Super corny ok! Who says that? No matter how hot the man is. Okay, I would probably say that in my head but come on, save your parents la. Don't do that to them!
c) JUST.PLAIN.WRONG!

Spoiler(!)

Did anyone get the new Steph Meyer book? The short life of Bree Tanner? Almost got it but figured it's not worth my $20. It seemed that they managed to incorporate the whole Bree thing in Eclipse. It was...meh. I read the ending of the book and it seemed pretty worthless to me. So yeah, save your RM45. Save that and buy Mockingjay or something. That's way better. :)

Aside from my Eclipse rant, I had a lovely dinner (before the movie) with Jie Ning's family, including her mum. SUCH A NICE LADY!!! Thanks for the dinner Aunty! I will totally visit you (with Tim in tow) to Cheras at the end of the year!

Last night I had my good friends over for some nasi minyak and ayam masak merah. Well, basically the whole point of the gathering is to try out my mom's recipe for Nasi Minyak as Tim, Jie Ning, me and our other two friends are a part of the International Food Festival this coming July.

I had a bit of a scare when my halal chicken order arrived an hour before the guests arrived. After receiving the chicken, right away I started with ayam masak merah. But I guess I'm so used to cooking it that it doesn't faze me anymore. In fact, it was the best dish of the night! The nasi minyak tasted burnt because we decided to cook it in the pot as our rice cooker is too small to fit all of the ingredients. The bottom part of the rice was seriously burnt that it took me the whole day to kikis the remainders of it. So that's why it affected the taste of the rice. It was still edible though and from a foreigner's pov, Anna thought it tasted great. (=__=)

Sam told me it's not just enough to satisfy the locals, it's the Malaysian community we have to worry about. F-k small community drama. I hate all of this getting on your case drama. It's always not enough. Hello, we're in freaking New Zealand ok! If you want authentic Malaysian taste, go BACK TO MALAYSIA DIMWITS! There, I said it. :(

Sorry, I have zero tolerance to communal thinking. They're just stupid.

Boy, I need to vent huh? LOL

Anyways, I left Jie Ning with the camera that night so here are the pictures(!):

Yeah, I wore one of my baju raya for this year because Anna wanted to see what baju kurung looks like. She's a big fan of Sepet. (^__^)


















PS: Today, some old lady just farted in front of me while walking. O_O

My further thoughts on Harry Potter will be in my next post. For this one, I just want to share the plain awesomeness of the upcoming movie.

Celebration of the winter solstice in Dunedin:




Watch the second clip of the festival here:





Here are the pictures I managed to take, but it's so dark so you have to bear with me:











The celebration of the winter solstice goes back to the pagan times, during the Old English where they celebrate the arrival of winter. I guess it's similar to how we have certain tribes that pray for rain; for them they carry big lanterns to signify this.

And that night I found out something very interesting. Did you know that New Zealand is still colonized by the British? They don't have an independence day and they still have a Government General. Instead of celebrating independence, they have an event that is called Waitangi Day which means to celebrate the day they signed the treaty with the brits. Hey, you might already know this but I still find it interesting!

PS: That night, I have never seen so many children in Dunedin!

The couple is really old and yet you can totally feel the love between them. The husband never lets go of his wife's hand and as they walked down the street, the husband lovingly caressed his wife's cheek. Made you believe in love again don't you? :)

The day is finally here when I decided to pay a visit to Anna's place. The whole point of the visit is to watch a Bollywood film together.

Ever since I came here, I watched a LOT of Bollywood films and believe it or not, it is one of the ways I used to overcome homesickness. So far, I've watched Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham and Kar Ho Naa Ho. Anna never watched an actual classic bollywood film before so I decided to let her watch the all time classic:

We were both all snuggled up on the couch, with blankets, with my laptop on and we sang, cried, laughed,etc while watching the movie. It was great fun really. :)

One of the reasons why we hung out was to introduce our own local food to each other and I made Nasi Pattaya for her and Ben. And I felt really motherly by packing these food into Tupperwares and wrapped it nicely. Sort of.


After cooking and saving the movie onto my laptop, I got ready and tried on my new leopard print scarf I got from Supre. Anna and her bf, Ben were really nice to offer to pick up from my house and brought me over to their place. (Okay, the syntax of that sentence is crazy but I'm tired and I dont care =_=) I was a bit nervous of meeting Ben because I was afraid that he would judge me or something (paranoia, sorry) but Anna revealed that he was a bit nervous to meet me too. But it turned to be awesome so it's all good now. I managed to be my bubbly self so that's a good sign. He was nice enough to leave us girls to watch bollywood while he went out right after dinner to work on his research paper. Besides, I doubt a guy would want to watch a Bollywood film anyway.

One of the reasons why I hit it off with Anna (and Ben too) so well is because we are both culture and language buffs. Like I'm so happy that I get to meet people who are crazy about the worlds' languages just like me. We talked about accents and culture and I learned a few things about NZ English.

I call it cotton candy but people here call it candy floss.

You can really see the difference between my pronunciation with ben's name. For example, I'll say /ben/ while Anna will say /bin/. Or I'll say /pen/ while she'll say /pin/.

You know how we always say, "Hey you've got a quite a flashy car." but to people here, there's no such thing as "flashy" but it's "flash" here. i.e: "You've got quite a flash car." Personally I find it really weird but that's the best bit I guess.

Being linguistics buffs that we are, Anna's been analyzing my English accent and she said I've started to change some of my pronunciations to NZ English now. (THE HORROR! LOL) You guys prolly won't hear me say it if we skype or talk to each other but I guess it comes out if I talk to the locals. For example, the word /here/ and sometimes, I do actually pronounce /pen/ as /pin/. (o_O)

Anyways, back to the main story; after finishing the nasi pattaya, Anna whipped out the pavlova she "made". It is a NZ dessert that is basically made of meringue and whipped cream. And in a traditional NZ manner, they'll put kiwi fruits as the toppings. Basically la right, you're eating frosted sugar. It tasted like sugar. In an addictive kind of way but seriously, it's like eating sugar.

Anna said that pavlovas sometime substitute your average birthday cake in New Zealand. But it's a major pain to make though.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>V PAVLOVA



Enjoying desserts. :)


*Seriously that's all sugar, honey! I needed like two glasses of water to drain out the sweetness in my mouth. So good though.

I was very touched that Anna sent me a message of FB saying that she's been frantically cleaning her flat just because I'm coming over. (Awww!) I do admit, it's clean and I can totally see the reason why she fell in love with it. AMAZING FLAT! I was a bit surprised when she said, feel free to snoop around and open any cupboards. But my Mama told me to always mind my manners so I didn't lah. Anna was having none of it though because she basically dragged me off to tour the whole flat. An awesome flat really.

Next stop, Asian Night with my other favorite couple, Jie Ning and Tim! This time, to cook nasi minyak and watch Sepet. There's a plan in the works where Anna is going to come over to my place pulak and we're going to do a Bollywood Night pt. 2 so we'll see how it goes!

PS: I know what you're thinking.

Reader: Gee Yang, why do you always hang out with couples?

Me: No answer. It's sad, I know. :( And no, I'm not a third wheeler! Dorang ajak I hang out ok!