It's Not Like The Movies

Finding someone who genuinely cares for  you is really hard. On top of that, they have to accept all your flaws and still find a way to bring out the best in you. I am blessed I know and I am grateful for that. Even though most of the time the reality is not meeting the expectations, it is good enough. For me at least. I don't expect life to happen just like the movies, because clearly it is not.

Livin' in the Moment

Summer has been kicking my ass! So much works to juggle between three classes and a part time job. But I'm loving every moment of it. I doubt I would say that a month ago, but hey that's life - you just never know what is going to happen next. Couple headlines for the past few days had been very cloudy but I hope things are going to get better from there. To conclude them all, life does matter and I am grateful for that.  For now just let me share what have I been up to for the past few weeks.

Protesting for Trayvon Martin. LIFE DOES MATTER!

4th of July Potluck! Failed group photo with only 5 people out of 15 :)

Ending Naancie's birthday at a karaoke

Drunk with Uliana. Again

Tried my first creme. Yum!

Acme toast with mimosa for brunch. Fucking 30 dollars gone. YOLO

Redo an old assignment for the sake of painting. Love the outcome

Went hiking at Bernal Hill. Love mother nature!

Took my first caltrain (aka bullet train of Cali) ride to San Jose

Jogged an hour to Palace of Fine Art #WORTHIT

made Trey ate cow's stomach at Sunny's hotpot dinner 

chocolate soufflé! Must save up for Paris! 

Time to go to bed! This week is gonna be even more hectic with plans of going around more due to work and whats not. Wednesday can't come sooner! Looking forward to Sixflags/ Pacific Rim 2.0/ Live Porn/ Roadtrip/ Driving Test/ Local License... SEPTEMBER
(P/S: Level of awesomeness is hitting all time high. No drugs involved.)

Nightmare

Once again I found myself waking up 3 in the morning because of terrifying nightmare. I woke up feeling choked and haunted. Cold sweats. Got nowhere else to express my fear therefore here am I. Dear internet, you have become my new best friend.

Goodbye 2011

Seriously I still don't understand how time works - it just went by so quickly! 2011 has been really a great year for me; so many ups and downs and shit happened, but hey life goes on! When you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. Hopefully this is what will happen in 2012. Looking back 2011 it has to be a year for my studies. I had a big comeback (woot woot!) on my grades since it went downhill after PMR. LOL. Not to mention I effing nailed all my classes to a point people nicknamed me as the Maya (3D program) God. HAHAHA. Here's hoping I will maintain the drive for studies and keep improving and have better artworks to share with everyone. I wish everyone stays healthy for the upcoming year nevertheless. Goodbye 2011 and hello 2012!! Partayyy and work hard bitches! When life gives you lemon, just sell it and buy yourself a drink!

This is my last artwork of 2011: guess the portrait? 

I tried to approach the same drawing style back in March. Clearly a failure

Self Discovery

You know when they say, who you're mixing with reflects who you are in person. Well now I realized this is so true. I've been hanging with a lot of random people these days and I kinda have a better understanding of myself, in terms of what I want and what I need.

Let's begin from the surface - I know I love movies - to an almost obsessed level. I like to voice my opinions over every effing movie I watched. It wasn't that obvious (maybe it is to some people) back home because we don't get good movie coming out every week. Here, I'm having a blast just attending all these random screenings of my choice. I love interpreting stories and what's not. Having my girl, Chelsea, moviebuddy/roommate/(fill in the blank) now is all I could asked for.

From movies, I realized I'm a person who preferred to have conflicts. Well get this straight, conflict doesn't equal to argument. I just don't see myself in a place like Utopia where everyone is just peace and calm and nice to everyone else. Anyway like that will ever happened.

You might think I am a person who's really good in talking but that's just the few things people assumed about me. I find it really hard to express myself, like my true feelings, even to my closest friends. Sometimes, I don't think people get what I was about to tell, so I would just shut down how I really feel and just go with what people think I am feeling. I don't think its really a bad thing because sometimes the truth hurts.

Owh and, as most people would think I am a street smart guy, I kinda begin to realize I'm more towards a nerd. Haha. I can spend my entire day in the house facing the computer reading facts that no one gives a shit but felt so content about it. I did try outdoor activities, skateboard? WTF. HAHA. But that clearly is not my thang. It was fun to try out new stuffs every now and then but I guess I'll just stick to the TV and theatre. You can take a boy out of the cinema but you can't take a cinema out of the boy. LOL

Well about stories that I've been getting drunk and fucked up a lot lately, well, that's partially, or should I say half true. I do drink but not like I'm getting fucked up every night. I think its good to loosen up once in awhile but I don't think I am able to do it everyday. It kinda loses the idea of drinking isn't it? Kudos to my friend who can think of a million way to get wasted and partying hard though. I envy his freewill of not worrying about the future but i guess that's just not how it works for me. I'm not ready for mankind evolution I guess. Haha

So to conclude my little self discovery - I am a shy, not outgoing, chilled geek who people nicknamed the walking fandango. Period.

Capt. America 2.0 & More

Challenge of the week:

Complete this by Tuesday

Update V2: Don't think will be able to get it done by Tues.  Really taking time on this one

2. finish reading 'One Day' by tomorrow
3. clean up my place + 1 threadless submission (Tuesday)
4. Final Destination 5 + 1 threadless submission (Wednesday)
5. Warrior (Thursday) + grocery shopping

That's the plan for this week so far.

Little Update

I'm blogging this because I'm a mama's boy and my mum hasn't call me for a couple few days since last week. Here's a list of what I did last week:
1- moved into new apartment
2- housing equipments shopping
3- groceries shopping
4- setting up internet
5- doodling
6- pitching/ brainstorming ideas with friends for upcoming tshirt designs
7- Harry Potter 7 (So glad I paid to watch the movie because my sweater is featured on the entire movie!!)
8- learned to bake a cheesecake
9- set up my own router!
10-cyberslacking

Here's what I planned to do so far for this week:
1- Captain America screening
2- Job hunting at Haight
3- try to put up 3 threadless designs for this week
4- Cowboys Vs. Aliens screening (might not be attending afterall)
5- Put up my resume for a greeting card site
6- Setting up for 9Degree
7- visit the Vietnam restaurant (if Haight mission fail)
8- 50/50 screening (2 months in advance $%^&*%*!!)
9- buy a broom + vacuum
10-Hopefully get my invitation to Crazy Stupid Love screening before the movie opens next week

(P/S: I'm obsessed with attending advance screenings!!)

Rainbow After The Storm

I swear to You-Know-Who I was this close to give up my dreams last week as everything doesn't go well or as hell. Literally EVERYTHING. I wanna go home so badly. Depressed gao gao. *I am stealing a quote from Pau Pau:*

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas A. Edison

ThankGod I hang in here for awhile longer. I got my exam result paper today. Guess what? Its 100%! WTF! I don't remember the last time I got a 100%! And most of my midterms grades are out today too! 3 out of 4 subjects are A-/A/A+, with only 1 exceptional C+, stupid Analysis of Form class, which by the way, according to the teacher, is the average score he gave to the students in class. If I work my way harder, I would get a B eventually. Or so I hope.

100% !! 

And then comes to me moving out soon. Its so happy and exciting sad that I am leaving my family friends here. I wish them nothing but all well in the future, sincerely. I think my next post is either gonna be my muppet making process or the moving out day. Till then, PACCA.

(p/s: I'm getting used to my new name - Mint.)

Growing Up

This is something funny because just today itself, a lab tech couldn't find my ID/IC when I checked out from the lab today because he had a hard time finding an ID photo that is identical to me. WTF! I thought I just grew some mustache and beard compared to the clean shaved me in the IC photo! And then YewCheong showed me a pic of mine taken years back then. Holy smoke! I don't remember looking so young!

Maybe a year or two ago? or three? 

Yesterday.

Time is flying fucking fast I don't even realize it. Sigh.

My Usual Weekend

So most of you would have ask: what are you doing during the weekend? Well, my answer is always the same: I don't know. Probably sleeping and do some house chores. Yes. That has been my routine since I got here.

I usually starts with tidying my room and have waffle and milo hot chocolate for breakfast.

As for today, right after I went to quench my thirst with my beloved Java Chip, I headed straight to the grocery stores to get some junk food and toiletries. It has always been a challenge an exercise walk for me to go to the streets because of the hills I have to climb.

Fresh flowers for Larry, Aunt's late husband.

Much needed shopping therapy. I felt so released.

So after I unpacked all the groceries, I started to clean up the balcony. I'm not a big fan of gardening but I sure not hope the plantings die right away when my landlady aunt come back from her vacation. So I did a little clean up. I'm pretty sure those spiders are going to come and bite me in my dreams because I swept a hell off the spider webs today.

Spider webs: Gross!

Beautiful roses at the balcony.

I started sweeping soon after cleaning up the balcony mess. A little something about me: I did help cleaning up at my own home, just that not as frequent, you know, cause I have a maid homework, social, helping mum in the shop and etc.

The photos above look so 'kerja amal'. I know. haha

By the time I finished cleaning up, I went to bath right away. The dust was killing me. I chilled for an hour before I started preparing for my dinner. Check out what I had for dinner peeps, it's yum!

Rosemary grilled chicken breast. Yum!

Mum: Just so you know, I'm eating vege.

After dinner, I had dessert as reward for myself for getting dumped cleaning up the house. I was watching 'The Graduate'. It's my homework for Cinematic Storytelling class. Dustin Hoffwan was so handsome back then but he is really an old hag now. Haha. Love the movie.

Almost melt the ice cream on the couch. Lucky me.

So that wraps up my usual weekend in Oakland. Does it look fun to you?

A Reunion With (Venti) Java Chip

It has been such a while since I was spotted a public affair with Java Chip. I kicked myself out to get some fresh air today and meet up with my long lost Java Chip.

All my tears just swallowed in the second I had my Java Chip. Cheers.

A Month Later...

Time flies. I know. I can't believe I actually spent a month in San Francisco already. Woohoo~ There are tons of stories that I can't wait to share with everyone but I just don't know which one to start off with. As most of you who concerned already knew my classes started two weeks ago. And everything seems to be great thus far. I met a few cool friends who are, umm, really cool and helpful while in the class, and some not so cool people too. Haha. But that's fine because not everybody can get along with anybody, hence there is war, right?

More updates on the next one because I'm drop dead exhausted due to some overtime assignments. BTW, I'm loving my new layout. Ha. It's like a brand new me. Time for a change I guess. When I look back to the old me (or the previous pic) all I thought was, why so stressed? Haha.. Maybe its time to be really optimistic and leave that old shell far away from me!


(P/s: Black doesn't mean its dark, it might be the moment waiting for the first light to shine. Hope. Faith. Peace.)

Good Morning San Francisco

Most of you already knew I landed in San Franc safe and sound via facebook not too long ago. Well, life has been a bless thus far. I can't really ask for more. I have this very nice and friendly auntie taking care of me while I'm here.

There are some interesting stuffs I would love to share: in the State, they have this carpool system whereby people can carpool with strangers to get to the city. Why would drivers want to fetch people they don't really know? Haha. Answer is they get to skip the traffic lanes and avoid the toll once they have more than 3 passangers in the car. Brilliant idea right?

Another place I visited today was the farmer's market. They are extremely cheap. And if you are just broke that day, you certainly can visit the market to get free samples and eat all you want. That's what I did today. Settled my lunch with food samples. Haha. And then they have a store, like a local mart, that solely sells their own brand's products. The red wine they produced, priced for 1.99USD only. Hard to imagine right? And they have free coffee for everyone. So the good plan is, go to grab something to eat in the market, get a coffee from the store, your lunch is settled. Haha. Pretty amazing.

No pictures taken yet because I forgot to bring my camera out for the past two days. Maybe tomorrow. Till then, bye and sweet dreams.

Teenage Dream

Well its just days left before I head to the State and begin my new journey of life. To be frank, I'm not as excited as I thought myself would be. Perhaps, this is what differentiate reality and dream - we tend to worry about everything in real life. Then, I start to wonder again, am I doing the right thing?

It takes a lot of courage, and money of course, to leave a place I've known since I ever open my eyes for the first time. So its devastating when you have people telling you, if I were you, I won't be going la.. so far away and expensive.. this and that. Well, you ain't no me. How do you know what was the reason I'm leaving?

Then I start to recall this little ambition of mine since, I can't really tell when. I wanted to do something that make my mum proud. Given the history of my family, I actually wasn't given any chances to fail in this one. I am not allowed to fail. Furthermore, I am the key person that determine where we stand in the future. Even though I know its gonna be a tough one to go out there and stand by myself alone, I have to. Don't I know its a big risk and not to mention, financially burdening too? I doubt I can watch movies as heavy as I did here because Im going to hell workalot there to earn every penny i spend!Of course I did all the maths. People asked my mum, how a widow like her was abled to raise all 5 kids so well? That's exactly the point I wanna prove to the world.

I had doubt in myself before this too. But my mum kept telling me, if we were given the opportunity to do something, we should grab it while it lasts. Now its the right time to go. God knows how long more the business can go well on. If I let it slip through, I might not make it in the near future. I don't wanna look back at my life and ask, what if.

Sometimes, people think they know what they want to know. But they never go underneath what's on the surface. They only take what they saw and jump into the conclusion. Well, take what you can. I can't tell you what to do. Its your thinking. And so is mine. I just hope that if you wanted to put yourself into my shoes, make sure you got into the right foot.

For the past few days I've been hanging around, having fun - a lot. Well, guess that's it. I should come back to reality. Because one day, these people won't be there for me as they have their dreams to chase after too, just like how I can't be there for them. I can't be blocking everyone and making them to compromise with me just because I'm leaving soon. I know they have their own schedules too. I am not the only friend. And thanks for enlightening my days. Appreciate that. Even a thought without action was sweet. You all make me feel like a teenager again.

But too bad, I'm already 21.

Confession of a Shopaholic

Yes.. if you know me close enough, you will know that I'm a shopaholic. It's not that I'm addicted to shopping, but there are few things that I can't resist when I"m supposedly window shopping:

1) Discount
Believe it or not, this works most of the time. It doesn't matter if its a 10% or 70% sales, because it gives me one good reason to buy something I don't need, simply because its cheaper and I'm saving by spending less. HAHA. When I get home only to realize, I can save more by not spending at all.

2) Buy one get another one for free/ 50% on 2nd piece
Just another way to attract my attention when shopping. Are you kidding me? We knew this trick since forever - like 3? One lollipop for 20 cent and 3 for 50 cent. Still we fall again and again because we thought its worthy. In my case, I will keep telling myself I'm buying the 2nd piece to have myself more choices of colors for the same pattern. (autohypnosis)

3) Brands
Don't judge me - yet. I'm not Gucci or Prada when its about shopping. I mean, they are still out of my league. It's embarrassed to admit but I have sharp eyes when it comes to quality of the material (given the history of me in clothing).

4) Fitting
With the height of mine, its hard to find clothes that can fit me well. (Unless they have XS for men.) Therefore, when I can find something that fits me well, I might not think twice purchasing. (failed again)

5) Limited Edition
That means only a few people owned the same thing. It becomes special, precious, unusual, not common, cool.. etc etc.. So that explained the latest purchase:

I was supposed to "have a look" at the Adidas limited edition Star Wars collection shoes

I tried it on, it fits me well, but I told myself I can't afford it. Yes, I did. Then they have something else for me.

6) Membership Card
WTF! Its like the promoter can read my mind! That is one fucking killing factor that affects all my judgements when it comes to shopping. So she offered me a membership card with the purchase of RMXX and above. Damn! How can I say no!? I tried again and again on the shoes, I ended up dropping it off and walked away from the store bought another pair of shoes that looks better on me. Epically failed! So this are the pair of shoes I fell for. Sigh. With the membership of course.



Overspent again. Sigh.

Taking Off

Little do you all know, I just got my acceptance letter from the Academy of Art University San Francisco. Surprise surprise! Even myself didn't expect this is actually happening.. My mum used to tell me I'm not gonna leave because I would never come back if I could. I thought the same too. But, things changed I guessed.

As time flies, its only two months away from leaving here. I'm already begun to miss the people here. People that I get to see all the day. They said with today's technology, its not hard to keep in touch with each other. I doubt so. Sigh.

Am I gonna survived out there without my family?

Its Mid-May Already

I should have started to prepare for my future... and I'm still sitting here..

My 100th Post

Sorry to take me months to update my blog. Little do you know that something was going on in the house and I had to put this blogging thing on hiatus.

This is something I did in the hospital later today. Guess the sketch.

I hope I can find more time in the future to share my works with all my readers. Till then, ciao.


(p/s: COT opens tonight and I'm not watching it yet)

So Happy I Could Die

Holiday is coming to an end.. I didn't have any particular plan, so, nothing much happened within the past month.
I just wanted to say, this soon-going-to-end holiday was one of the greatest I had because I truly enjoy it and get to spend a lot of times with my family. And now its time to reschedule myself and switch on my study mode. *Turn 'On' button*
Oh, and today marked one of my finest day too..

(P.S: Welcome to my blog!)

Movie Marathon Day

I'm back! Finally! The last few weeks were chaotic - assignments final, video shooting and etc. For four weeks in a row, I wasn't able to visit the cinemas. (Maybe its normal for you but I usually go to the cinema once a week- at least.) Since all my assignments were submitted this week, I've decided to go to the cinema and watch all the movies that I wanted to.

The first movie that comes to my mind was The Inglorious Basterds. I'm sure all of you have had heard of it. Too bad the time slot wasn't suitable for our plan today, most probably due to the hours long of the movie and causes less showtimes, we changed our mind. There were only two more movies we were interested in - Jennifer's Body and The Time Traveler's Wife. (I'm not a big fan of Fox and Vamps and blood and... so we chose the latter one.)

I actually read the book before (to my very own surprise) so I somehow have an idea what the show was about. It's kinda disappointing when I actually watched the movie itself because most of the important details were not found on the show. A few changes were made to the storyline so that it can fit into a two hours long film. Perhaps this is the problem with adaption, not all the screenplay were written accordingly due to the time limit. Sigh. (That's why they came up with best adapted screenplay for the Academy Awards, those people should be awarded.)


I wouldn't say the show was bad because it's not - its just that the thing I love in the book wasn't seen anywhere in the movie. Sigh. But Rachel McAdams was as attractive as she is. Eric Bana was boring, quite hard to identify his age actually (we are supposed to be aware of that in the book.) Sigh.

The movie ran too fast - before I can put myself into the picture, they already getting married. Then fast forward to pregnancy and all.. everything happened too fast!! Slow down!! I wanna see more of Claire!!! Anyway, I do like the cinematography. Most shots were nice and brilliant..

If u have time, should read the book.. the movie, hmm, dvd maybe.. LOL

p.s: let's hope the next movie don't suck! (*fingercrossed "Inglorious Basterds"!*)