January 6, 2003

I'm back in Melbourne. Only after being away for one and a half month do I realize that my life here is very dull and grey, especially compared to the cheerful, colorful life back home. There, not a single day was spent without me laughing my head off. The sheer joy of being with my family and friends, in the home I love, does that to me. Here, I feel like I'm stranded in some foreign land (well, it is), and somehow, life just doesn't have quite the same variety of bright, wonderful colors here.. if you know what I mean. Back to the boring daily routines -- school, work, cleaning the apartment, walking back and forth to school, providing my own food and making up my own bed, etc., none of which I had to do back home. I know I'm being extremely grumpy this morning, but it's been the worst morning I've ever had in the last one and a half month, so please excuse me. Not to mention that I spent the whole day yesterday on the plane. Ugh.

05:22 AM

January 10, 2003

*phew* I'm taking some time to sit down and relax for a while... Despite the fact that it's supposedly still school holiday period, I'm currently more exhausted that I've ever been during the last semester. For starters, the summer course I'm taking turns out to be quite a bit of work. I only have two days of school per week, but there are three lectures and one tutorial per day. Of the same subject. It does get pretty disgustingly boring. Plus, instead of a week or so, we only get three days for doing our assignments, and we have one of those every single week. Eeww.

I've also been looking for a part-time job. I just feel like having a part-time job. No, seriously, I feel the need to work. Real life work, not the kind of work that involves my sitting in front of my computer all day (the work which, by the way, I also need to finish... right now). I also feel the need to acquire extra allowances, but that's beside the case. I've been looking for vacancies everywhere in the city, and since it's summer and really hot, walking around isn't really that pleasant. I've handed in my resume to quite a number of employers though; I hope one of them gives me a job...

02:51 PM

January 13, 2003

I saw Spirited Away yesterday~! It's an awesome movie... one of the best I've seen in a while, actually~ When I watched it, all the while I thought that the movie was great. But once I left the theatre and got back home, it felt like I was in another world, somehow. The world of spirits was so... alive. I couldn't help thinking about the movie over and over again in my bed. Awesome movie, I tell you. Haku is cool =3

Also, I had a short interview at Subway this afternoon, and the manager (a very nice Australian) asked me to come for a training session on Wednesday, and she said she'd see how I go. If I do well in my training sessions, I'll get the job. It seems a nice environment to work in... plus it's very close to my apartment ^^ I'll be really thankful if I could work there. Forgot to ask the payrate though~ Oh well... it's Subway, so I'm not complaining, no matter how badly they're gonna pay me :P

04:27 PM

January 14, 2003

Just read someone's Suikoden III gameblog, and now I really feel like playing the game once again ><;; I shouldn't have left the PS2 back home >P I also miss Kingdom Hearts... I want to hear Riku's voice, hehehe. Oya... like I did with the other Suikodens, now I shall list my favourite characters of Suikoden III, simply because I have too many things to be done and don't know where to start. Thus the need to procrastinate (spoilers warning):

Geddoe owns me. He really does. He's just so... mature (well, you ought to be when you're over 100 years old, but still). I love his ignorance, his lack of interest in stupid things (the opera... hahah), the way he talks, everything =3 In fact, the entire SFDF unit owns me. Jacques is just soo lovable <3, I like the way he express his thoughts in very few words. He and Aila should be brother/sister, that's how it looks to me. Oya, I think Geddoe/Queen is cool, but I somehow rather prefer the idea of Geddoe not being with anybody :P <-- selfish me

Luc... I thought he was cute in the previous Suikodens. He was such a brat, but in a cute way =3 He sounds as if he's grown more mature in Suik3, but somehow he still is the brat I know him to be... in a different way. His end is sad, but fitting, IMO... the end of a tragic hero. Sasarai, BTW, is really cute, too. He looks so much better without his hat. Powerful magic, too X3

Hugo. I really, really like his character design. Characteristically, he's a bit plain, but since he's always got Sgt. Joe around, his episodes are fun to play through :D He's just SO cut out to be the FC. Hugo/Fubar is veery powerful~

Edge. Some say he's the lovechild of Flik.. and Viktor. Well... he certainly has the looks for it XD; He's got Vik's sword, and he occupies Flik's star. He's physically very powerful, too, and is good with lightning (!) magic. He's got lousy DEF though... but I still use him all the time.

Yuber and Albert... well, they're certainly pretty faces, but their personalities lack certain depths. Albert goes through all that trouble to get a position in Harmonia, which supposedly will be destroyed by Luc? WTF?? As for Yuber, he's supposed to be all-powerful, dangit. Not some lousy demon-wannabe that you get to beat multiple times throughout the game. He's a good-looking demon-wannabe, at least.

Whoah, Futch has grown up to be such a dude >D~~~ Who'd have thought he could become so mature~

Last but certainly not least, the hot Knights~! X3 Their episodes are so much fun to play through~ Especially Percival... damn he's cute XD I like everything about him: the fact that he cooks, that he comes from Iksay village, that he's got a loving (?) mother/family, and that he goes back to Iksay when the war ends, and, as stated in the ending, "When war breaks out, rejoins the Knights. Neither his sword nor his skills got rusty." He's irresistible <3 <3 Oya, it's also neat how Borus/Percival have the same stars as Alen/Grenseal and Camus/Miklotov... they're destined to be >D Pretty boys~~~

08:05 PM

January 15, 2003

Intrigued by this blog post, I shall write a lengthy blurb about real life vs. net life:

... honestly, I don't think I care enough to try and keep my real life (RL) and net life (NL) separate. I mean, okay, so I have RL friends, and I have NL friends... but I don't see why they can be different. They're... still friends. I'd love to be able to meet my NL friends if I had the chance. On the other hand, I know some of my RL friends made it online and found their way to my site. They comment on my newest artworks or read this journal to know how I'm going. There are a couple of NL friends that I met in RL, and we become RL friends as well afterwards. There are also RL friends that I don't see that often, so we communicate over the 'net; thus they become NL friends. In short, there's no such thing as real life vs. net life to me. What I do on the net is part of my real life, too, so there's no point thinking about it as something different. Also, when there are stuff I don't feel like sharing even with my family or close RL friends, I usually don't talk about it online, either. My family knows everything about me, so if they didn't know something, there's no reason why I would let any other people know -- especially since chances are I wouldn't know about it myself :P

03:21 PM

January 17, 2003

Yeah.. so.. I'm back from my second Subway training session, which was supposed to be two hours long. I made lots of subs today and learned so many new things~ There were only three other people today, since 6 to 8 PM usually isn't a particularly busy period. Still we (more like I -- I have the feeling they had the pleasure of ordering me around, in order to "teach me things") had to run around like crazy all the time. Cleaning tables, making subs, refilling salads and bottles of drinks, cleaning and collecting trays, etc... but whenever I seemed to be a bit confused or be in a bit of trouble, the others would immediately come to my aid. They were lovely people, really =3 I was nervous at first, trying to make subs as fast as I could without having enough knowledge, really, but I somehow fumbled my way through it and survived. By the end of the 2-hour training session, I find that it was a lot easier for me to cut open the $@*(&!)%( bread and I come up with subs a lot faster than before. There were a couple of minor problems, like the fridge being dangerously warmer than usual, and the sink leaking water and flooding the floor behind the counter --which resulted in my jeans and shoes being soaked--, but I got through it fine I think. I'm still having problems remembering what bread is which (there are 6 varieties of bread), and which one is chicken fillet or roast chicken or steak. Oh well... I suppose it'll get into my head sooner or later ^^; Oya... at 8 PM, I was told that I was finished for the day, but since I had to ask one of my coworkers some questions, I had to wait till he was free. But 8 PM means dinnertime for a lot of people, and yes, there was suddenly a huge bunch of people coming. What was I supposed to do? Without quite realizing what I was doing, I went and asked the next person in the queue if I could help him. And so I was stuck there, making a lot more subs than I had to. Only after half an hour did the flow of customers eased. My coworker was like thanking me for helping out, though I bet he was thinking how utterly mad I was for staying. Well, so I asked him the questions I wanted to ask, and promptly left. They were still busy worrying about the leaking sink pipe when I did :P Heh.. my last training session would be a 3-hour shift in a busy lunchtime period, I hope I'll survive :P

09:16 PM

January 19, 2003

I've just started replaying Suikoden I again, after this conversation concerning commission artworks on some of the game's characters happened. I just... felt like I had to. So I did.

Whoa, Futch. I remembered that he was a bit irritating at first, but last night I found out that not only was he irritating, he was also very immature :P He sure has grown up in Suikoden III...

Whoawhoawhoa, Luc. Arrogant little punk. Somehow I feel the need to have him in my party all the time, even though Suikoden I Luc = puny. Okay, he knows his magic, but his rune isn't even the True Wind Rune... just a regular Wind Rune. I'm like, hey, let's let him in while we still can~ ^^;

Just a thought: If all the Suikoden games revolve around one or more of the 27 True Runes, wouldn't it mean that there will be a finite number of games in the series? Suikoden III has five True Runes for the main characters alone...

10:43 AM

January 22, 2003

I spent almost the whole day yesterday browsing through Japanese fanart sites and googing at lots of Suikoden I-III pics. In particular, pics of Suikoden I & II's Luc always demanded my stare, amusement, and contemplation :P

I also downloaded the opening sequences of Suikogaiden I & II... @_@ "Beautiful" or "great" doesn't even come close to describing how they are. They're more like INCREDIBLE. TERRIFIC. AWESOME. NASH. NASHNASHNASHNASH @__@ Okay well, there's Sierra, and Futch, and Sheena, too, but Nash's... irresistible~ I loved the last bit of the Suikogaiden II OP, where Nash points his sword at Zaj X3 Too cool~ Boy do I wish they'd release the games outside Japan~ Well, I know roughly how the story goes in both games, but it'd be nice if I could play them, and understand whatever's going on (I do have the Japanese version of both games, FYI).

I just got back from my last Subway training session :P I'll write about it once I rest up a bit and get my thoughts sorted out, heheh.

03:19 PM

Mmh, okay, so er, I just got back from a Night Market. Apparently the local market holds the Night Market every Wednesday during the summer, and for some reason I'd never bothered to check it out :P Anyway, my cousins beckoned me (!) to come join them there, they said it was a lot of fun... so I did. And it was. It was like your average Night Market, combined with an international food fair. It was about dinner time, too, so I took the pleasure of checking out each and every food stall. I ended up with some plain okonomiyaki (Japanese vegetable pancakes) and yakitori (chicken kebabs with teriyaki sauce), despite the huge variety of unusual foods there -- they had Brazilian, Portuguese, Mexican, and Dutch pancake food stalls alongside the more common ones like Chinese and Malay. I also scored meself a nice pair of denim-ish pants at a good price =3 So did my two cousins.

Anyway, as for the Subway training today, well, it was more like a rehash of the last one. I got to be ordered around, but it was sorta exciting since I learned a whole bunch of new things and met new and not-so-new people. But boy, they had me clean the restaurant like once in every 5 minutes, I felt like I should be paid for my pure labour work instead :P But yah, that's it with the training sessions, next Friday will be my first paid shift~ It'll be another lunch time shift, but I think I'm getting used to it ^^;

On a completely unrelated note, I just finished reading up the translations of the two Suikogaiden games at Suikosource.com, and noticed something interesting. I've always thought that the scene in Suikoden III when Geddoe calls Joker by his real name a bit peculiar. It had no real meaning or connection to anything, yet Konami included the scene, why? Well, apparently Joker makes an appearance in Suikogaiden II; he even has a match with Nash. He is named "Wan" in Suikosource.com's translated version of the Suikogaiden II script~ The Suikoden III localization has him named "Wang" instead, and Konami decided to include the scene to let people who are in the know (i.e. the lucky Japanese who get to play the Suikogaiden games) realize that they are one and the same. Now that I know that, the scene makes a lot more sense to me =3 I don't remember seeing any interaction between Nash and Joker in Suikoden III though...

11:15 PM

January 24, 2003

Just got back from my very first paid Subway shift~ Turned out there were a lot of other Indonesian girls working there, which really isn't a big surprise since there are lots of Indonesians living in the apartments nearby... me included. They are fun =3 There wasn't a lot of new things to learn today, since I'd been taught about pretty much everything. So I just did what I had to do: making subs, cleaning, refilling, etc. I'm so glad I get to work there~ I love Subway, and this one's really close to my apartment. Plus, the people there are really nice, and I really couldn't have had a better manager ^^

07:53 PM

January 26, 2003

Finished replaying Suikoden I~ Now I'm replaying Suikoden II, and you know what? SHU KICKS BUTT.

"I'm worth more than 100,000 men and now I'm on your side."

"If you don't trust me, perhaps you should leave."

"If you want to win, don't question me again. If you can't do that, I'll consider you an obstacle that needs to be removed."

I love you, Shu ;_;

11:24 AM

January 27, 2003

I finally got to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers last night~ Dayam, there really is no other way to describe it other than COOLNESS OVERDOSE. If I were a bit less civilized, I'd probably have had a puddle of drool on the cinema floor right up to my ankle... but I didn't, so I guess I'm still alright :P Augh, what am I saying? Anyway, yeah, so the movie kicks major butt. I've been saying that far too many times lately, but it does, so bleh. It's even better than the first one, IMO. Aragorn and Legolas both look cooler, too =3 Peter Jackson killed Haldir! This is unforgivable >P The elven army was cool as heck. Their armor reminds me of Yuber :D Ian McKellen makes a really good Gandalf -- there really is a big difference between Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White, he portrays it very well. As for the scenes, any scene with both Aragorn and Legolas in it (especially the ones where they're interacting) had my "OOooooOOOOhhh"s and "AAahhh"s. They're just... too... cool...

My favourite part?

"Toss me."
"What?"
"Toss me! I can't make it over there by jumping." (or something like that)
"Ah. Okay."
"Don't tell the Elf."
"Not a word." *tosses*

XD XD XD

11:03 AM

January 28, 2003

Sooo... today I had my second Subway shift ever, and I did a couple of mistakes that still haunt me even now, hours later TT;;; First it was a customer, which sorta yelled at me because I wasn't putting tomatoes on her sub. Not like I wasn't going to, I was just asking her whether she wanted any other salad for her sub, since I was told to put the tomatoes last, on top of everything else. You know, aesthetic factor and all. But she was like, "TO-MA-TOES, PUH-LEASE!!!!!" I was like, oooooookay, let's just give her her tomatoes and get it over with. I feel so bad TT;;; I mean, I know that not all customers are nice; quite a number of people are just naturally rude. But still, I shouldn't have done anything that might make those naturally rude people act... rude. The other mistake was when I was about to finish, and this guy asked me to put a veggie burger on his salad. So I put one in the microwave and heated it. But when I took it out, I... accidentally broke it ><;;; The veggie burger, unlike the solid chicken fillet, easily breaks, since it is very soft and crumbly. When I took it out of the microwave using one hand, half of it just tore away from the other half and fell onto the floor and I was like "@_@ OMG!!!!!" I was so shocked... I immediately trashed the broken veggie burger and put another one into the microwave. I didn't know whether I should tell my manager or not, but I decided to let her know about it, because I felt so bad T_T; Luckily, my manager, being the nice lady she is, simply smiled and told me to use the microwave tray to bring the veggie burger outta the microwave, instead of just transferring it by hand. I was also very lucky that the customer was a nice guy; he let it go and patiently waited. I... feel so bad... T__T;; Ah well, what's past is past; I must make sure to learn from my mistakes and not to do that again *_*;

08:34 PM

January 31, 2003

Been extremely busy in the last couple of days. Work. More work. Commissions. More commissions. Assignments. More assignments. DARNIT, I NEED REST.

I got the Suikoden III OST I won off eBay BTW~ Along with the FFX Vocal Collection~ Reeeally loving it. It's been playing for two days straight now. I want to play the game again TT;

08:34 PM