Live and Die on this Day

Okay, so lately I've been addicted to this game called Catching Fire: Panem Run.

It's pretty much identical to Temple Run except its got the Hunger Games theme, hence why I love it (I'm such a sucker). I'm not too sure about what Temple Run does but in this game you go through districts 4, 5 and 12 collecting items that Katniss left behind while being chased by Tracker Jackers. If you fall into a pit or trip or something, then the Tracker Jackers will kill you, but if you stumble on a breakable object (anything wooden), the Tracker Jackers just get closer to you. If you stumble a second time, then they kill you but if you go for a period of time without stumbling, they'll fall behind again. Oh and there are also archery sections where you have to hit targets and the Tracker Jackers conveniently don't follow you into them.

ANYWAY I really like this game, but just recently I updated it and now I can't do free runs by myself anymore, I have to go against someone in a match! Now I have SO MANY MATCHES awaiting other players' turns and I can't just play by myself it's so saddening! Especially because I need to collect items so I can upgrade my skills and stuff (yes, I'm one of those people)...


ALSO another thing that's been keeping me busy these holidays is watching movies!

My goal is to watch all the DVDs in my house that I haven't watched yet (except my mum's Chinese films), there's probably about 10-20 of them. Then on top of that I might revisit some of the good movies that I haven't seen in yonks!

I can't really remember everything I've watched, so I'll just talk about two films:

The Grey

This was quite an intense movie. It follows a group of employees who are stranded in the snow after their plane crashed and they have to find a way to survive. To make matters worse, they seem to have landed within preying radius of a wolf den.

It stars Liam Neeson, who is amazing as always, and is a bit slow to start, but the momentum starts to pick up a bit into it, once they get stranded. I quite liked this movie because it seemed quite real. There were many ways to die, there were many threats, there were psychological tactics when dealing with the wolves, there was the funny bantering about how they were all going to die (which was humorous but at the same time heartbreaking because you realised that these people had already partly given up on their survival), and you had some moments where people broke down (like when one guy starts maniacally laughing after he realises someone has died).

The best part, the part that makes the movie, is this four-lined poem:

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day.
I think that's a really powerful poem, and you might not understand why without watching the movie, so go watch it! =]


Batman Returns

Oh my goodness, this was actually so horrible to watch! It was really slow, really dark, really weird and just so boring. The story is okay, with the Penguin and Catwoman going up against Batman, but it was just directed really weirdly. It was, after all, Tim Burton, so a lot of the scenes were really dark. I don't mind this, but it's just that some scenes seemed too exaggerated, especially Catwoman's transformation (but Michelle Pfeiffer was amazing). Honestly, it was just Tim Burton being weird.

I usually don't have problems sleeping, but after watching this movie, I slept quite well. So don't watch it.


Speaking of sleeping, I wanted to tell you about this Deep Sleep Bath Milk I bought!

Since I work at The Body Shop (at Castle Towers, come visit me!!), I'm getting to know their products a lot. I found out they had this bath milk that supposedly, if you soak in it before sleeping, helps you relax and makes you sleep better.

I was really sceptical about this because it seems really... silly. I also heard about other brands that did the same thing though, so I knew it wasn't such a crazy notion but it still just seems really weird how that would help you sleep.

On the same line, they even have one spray thing where, if you spray it on your pillow, it helps you sleep better. That sounds really weird to me, but I guess that would make more sense than the bath milk (because the mist could maybe drug you or something I don't know).

But anyway, I tried it one time and it actually worked! I actually went to sleep pretty quickly (it usually takes me maybe 3 hours to fall asleep, but that night I think I slept in about 1 hour), and I had a pretty good sleep. The only thing was that when I woke up I still felt really tired and for a few hours I was so sleepy I could barely do anything.

Firstly, I just want to say that it may very well have been a sheer coincidence; I could have just been tired that day, I could just get super relaxed by baths alone, it could have been the placebo effect, the list goes on. I will try it again another time and see how it goes for me. BUT I just wanted to let you know about it because for someone like me, who has suffered from mild insomnia for the entirety of my life, this is a big deal for me.

I can not remember a time where I would lie down in bed and sleep quickly.

Ever since I remembered, I have always gone to bed and have been forced to just lie there for several hours before sleeping. I'm not sure if my insomnia has caused me to over-think things and have a very active mind, or if my active mind has caused the insomnia. Either way, 18 years into my life it seems like a really difficult thing to change without intervention, which is why, when a bath milk float comes along and seems to work, I will hold onto it with my dear life.

Anyway, the milk bath in that line has been discontinued already, so if after I try it a second, third, fourth time and it works, I might just buy the rest of it hehe.

It's worth about $37 and my manager said it was one of the most profitable products in the shop, so she has no idea why it got discontinued, and that she herself bought 6 bottles when she found out that production would stop.

The other things like the oil, moisturisers, etc. are still for sale, so if you feel like giving it a go then let me know!


Well I think I've written enough for now. I actually wanted to blog about some other stuff and I ended up talking about these movies and some bath milk...

But I'm too tired now so I shall leave the other stuff for later! It's time for me to head to bed where I will lay there for 3 hours talking to myself =[

Wet 'n' Wild

Today I visited Wet 'n' Wild for the preview day!

It was pretty fun, we rocked up at about 9:30am and just went straight in, there weren't many lines or anything especially because we had our season passes on so we just scanned them at the entrance.

If you're planning on visiting, first things first: you need a locker. You can buy them at the cafe for $10 for a small or $12 for a large. We had seven people and we needed two large lockers. The prices are for the entire day and you get to pick whatever locker is open and you just scan your myBand to lock/open it. It's pretty nifty and handy.

Another thing is that your myBand can have money loaded onto it so you don't need to carry around your wallet and money and stuff. None of us did that, but it seems like a really good idea because supposedly at the end of the day you can just take back whatever money you have on your band that you didn't use.


Next: the rides.

There are four lots of water rides (excluding the kids' ones).

This includes one section that can hold 3-5 people. On this section, off memory there was the Double Bowlseye (red and yellow), which was really fun and some other ones which I've forgotten the names of.

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It's hard to remember but these ones were pretty fun and the queue wasn't that long (but maybe just because we lined up for them in the morning).


Then there was one section that held 3-4 people. You can recognise this one because it's got a HUGE green funnel thing and it's also next to the single person section.

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That huge green funnel is called the T5 and according to the site, you drop at a 45 degree angle down that funnel. Unfortunately we weren't able to get on that one because it was already 2pm and they closed the entrances up (the morning session of the preview was from 9am-2pm, but you can see when the theme park opens up normally here).

We did end up going on the other two. The Bombora (red and orange) was a really long one (120m) with three smaller funnels that you can sort of see here.

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It seemed like it was going to be really amazing, but it was a bit of a disappointment. In the funnel sections, you don't really go all the way to the top and there are these sections where the water splashes you a lot but you slow down heaps. I don't know whether it's just because our combination was the lightest combination (Me, Diwan and Alice Chan) since the other boys (Justin Dai, Damien, Kenneth and Dulan) gathered up for the mass, but we almost came to a halt and we had to keep shimmying the raft to get it moving again.

I wouldn't really recommend that ride (unless your group has the mass) if there's a huge line, but definitely try out the Tantrum (blue).

In the Tantrum, there's a 15m drop before you have to ride up this thing:

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It's almost vertical and was quite a bit of fun, except make sure you hold on tight! I lifted up about 2-3 times in this ride because of the drops and if I wasn't holding on I seriously could have just fallen off (and it wasn't just me, Kenneth experienced the same)! This one was probably the most fun according to the majority of the group, but it, along with most of the other rides, was pretty short-lived though.


Then there were the sections for two people.

This section has about 7 rides, but the four middle ones (The Breakers) are more-or-less the same. The only difference is that the two middle red ones have a steeper slope at the finish.

The cool thing about these ones is that you can race your friends on them because they can let you all go at the same time.

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You start off on a pretty steep slope and then you get propelled up that netted area. It gets super wet and the propellers even made my bikini bottoms slip a bit!

Then in that section there's also a purple and blue ride called the Half Pipe. After a moment of complete darkness you get dropped off 16 m and you slide up this wall at the end:

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And the one next to that (red and yellow) was a pretty long ride that was just in complete darkness! It was so scary because I'm afraid of the dark and you have no idea where you are going to turn next and it's so terrible!

There were some other ones but the lines for that section were really long and so we didn't do them. There was a purple and yellow one that was done completely backwards that I will need to try next time!

And just a warning that these rides CANNOT take one person only, so if you have an odd-numbered group you would need one person to grab another lonely stranger and ride with them. We took turns on who was alone, but try to organise beforehand to get an even number. Eight is probably ideal but even 6 is good because on the 3-5 person rides you can split it 3-3.


THE LAST SECTION was the single person section.

This one had the classic H2GO Racers, with eight lanes for you to race each other in.

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It kind of twists and turns and right before the end sloping bit, you get this amazing light feature!

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Also just warning you that when you come down you should look up because they have the times at the top to show you who won. I'm pretty sure Kenneth won our one Diwan won that one and I would have come last because I'm so light and my reaction is terrible so I paused before jumping in. For some reason when we all stood up, picked up our mat and then started walking off, none other than Justin Dai rocked up, saying that he literally stopped in one section of the tube and he had to try to start again...

Anyway that was really fun and right next to it were the 360Rush rides. There are 4 of them, two on each side.

Basically what happens is you stand in this little capsule that looks like a space capsule and there's a trap door underneath you. They then drop you 12m ALMOST VERTICALLY and you go through a complete loop:

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Now, what happens if you get stuck?

Well, fear not! If you don't gain enough momentum to complete the loop there's a little opening at the bottom of the loop that you can stand up and leave from. They might not tell you this when you go in though. In fact, this is what happened to this woman last year at the Wet 'n' Wild at Gold Coast.

As I noted though, they left these escape hatches open so if this does happen to you, then it should be all fine.


LASTLY we have the random stuff that don't fit anywhere.

There was the artificial Surf Deck and the Sydney SkyCoaster.

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These two rides you need to pay extra for each time you go on it. The Surf Deck is some artificial surf simulator where you can even take lessons (I think), and the SkyCoaster is some massive 75m high giant swing!

Geez, no thanks.

But currently it's not completed yet and I'm not too sure how long it would take for it to be open.

There was also the artificial beach. Probably not the best thing to go to when you need to pay so much for a ticket into Wet 'n' Wild, but it was alright. Some parts were nice and shallow for you to sit in and near the deep end they have some small waves going on. The area looks small but when you consider the areas of a beach in between the red and yellow flags, this beach actually seems quite big.

I couldn't find any pictures of the beach but I mean it's just a beach so you probably don't need pictures of it...

Also, there are some little cabanas near the beach, which look like little houses that have beach chairs in them for you to sit and lounge around. There were also some VIP cabanas right next to the beach that even had a fridge and TV. They looked really fancy but it wasn't available to us. Looking at the website, the price for a VIP one is $199 per day, whilst the normal ones are $89 per day and the family ones are $149 per day.


This was during the day time, and so the night time experience will be really different. There are some light shows going on for the rides, but I think they are just on the OUTSIDE of the rides.


And another cool thing is that when you go no the rides, you can scan your myBand just before the ride, then they will take photos of you coming out of the ride, upload them to your myBand and you can check them out on the website. The site is a bit laggy at the moment and the photos haven't been uploaded yet, but when they are I'll definitely post the good ones up here!


Anyway, that's about it for Wet 'n' Wild!

Definitely grab some sunscreen and water, buy a locker, go and have funsies at Wet 'n' Wild!

Holiday Fun (sort of not really)

I finished reading The Help!

The book is set in 1960s Mississippi, when African American maids worked for white households. It's told through three perspectives: Aibileen, an African American woman who is raising her seventeenth white child while still coping with her own son's death; Minny, an African American maid who always manages to get on the wrong side of people; and Miss Skeeter, an American woman out of college who wants to be an author. As we go from perspective to perspective, chapter to chapter, their story unfolds in such a great way to reveal the effects of racial integration.

I think what's interesting about this book is that it's got the highs and the lows of black and white relationships. It goes through, expectantly, the negative consequences and emotions of racial prejudice, but it also goes through characters who treat African Americans so positively and nurturing. I think most disturbing of all are the characters who don't actually care about race, but nevertheless treat their maids unfairly for the sake of conforming to their friends and their society.

I really liked this book, and I highly recommend it. It's very enjoyable and very easy to empathise with the characters. The plot is done well and there are some moments of humour and some moments of great distress, so it doesn't get boring or tedious or anything like that. The ending is very powerful to me because it's really bittersweet; no one really loses but at the same time no one really wins. Definitely give it a read if you're looking for something these holidays =]


And on Wednesday last week my uncle (who was on holiday from Malaysia) took my family on a cruise around Sydney!

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It was pretty fancy with a three-course meal. I forgot to take pictures of the main meal (chicken with mashed potatos and veggies) because let's face it, I'm not hipster enough to remember to take pictures of food. Some of these pictures were taken by my mum while some were taken on my phone so I'll apologise in advance about the mix of quality.

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There was even a magician host who called himself 'Jack Black'... he was pretty lame but his tricks were quite impressive. But the main thing was the show that was on during the last hour. It consisted of all these showgirls and one showboy, as well as a singer (who was way too old and out of shape to be wearing the things she was wearing and dancing the things she was dancing) and their theme was 'All Around the World' so they had all these costumes, songs and dances that were inspired by cultures around the world. I really loved the dancing, and the costumers were simply amazing! We weren't allowed to take pictures or videos during the show so here's a pic of them dancing at the beginning of the cruise (sorry it's blurry):

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OH I also got my Hunger Games ID delivered in the mail!

I can't believe I actually got this haha but it was only like $2 so why not!

AND I got my Wet'n'Wild season passes!

So excited, honestly can't wait!


And I have a funny story to tell you about Kris Kringle.

Well I was out at lunch and we were organising our Kris Kringle, then out of the blue Joyce suggests an express Kris Kringle where we have 15 minutes to buy a $5 item for our person. We were near Haymarket so we decided to go to Market City since everything there is cheap.

Oh my goodness I was so stressed because I was like FIFTEEN MINUTES IS NOTHING! But in the end it actually worked out really well. Most of us finished about 9 or 10 minutes in while Alice finished right at 15 minutes. I ended up getting Joyce a lipliner for $3 and a sharpener for it for $2 while Alice ended up getting me retarded Spongebob magnets for $4 and pop-up Despicable Me stickers for $1.

They don't even look like spongebob!
All in all it was a pretty enjoyable experience and it wasn't too hard to find stuff because Haymarket has a huge variety of products in such a small area and it's all really cheap too. We thought that maybe we should cut down the time limit to 10 minutes because it didn't seem that stressful to us (except Alice).

Anyway we're still doing our normal Kris Kringle but it was a great fun, affordable, easy and different spin on Kris Kringle that maybe you could try out!


I also watched Happy Feet Two

Looking at the cast (Elijah Wood, P!nk, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Sofía Vergara, Magda Szubanski, Hugo Weaving, Hank Azaria) you'd think this would be a really great movie right? Well, it was absolutely horrid. I have no idea what happened in the film because there was absolutely no plot, the storyline was all over the place and everything was just so confusing! I kept thinking, "Brad Pitt is in this surely it gets better..." but closer to the end you start thinking, "WHY did he sign up to this, why did ANYONE sign up to this?!"

I was seriously so surprised that some people from the original movie actually signed up to this one seeing as it was a huge waste of time and effort on their part. The only things that were good were the visuals and P!nk's singing.

Literally, that's it.

Don't watch it and let's pray there's not a third.

This is no place for a girl on fire

I finally watched Catching Fire!!!

It was honestly so amazing, even better than the first! I love Francis Lawrence's directing in this and obviously the higher budget made it a lot better. The whole tone of the movie is really different to the first so I guess it's quite hard to compare the two, but seeing as I loved the second book I'm obviously more biased towards this film. I was so happy that they stayed pretty true to the books, especially because it meant a long 2.5 hours of watching Jennifer Lawrence! I loved her so much, the make up and costuming team were amazing and she looked so fantastic throughout the whole thing, as did the other actors. Everyone was so great; Sam Claflin didn't disappoint as Finnick Odair and I am absolutely in love with Jena Malone as Johanna Mason (my favourite character). The only thing I didn't really like was the way they directed the very last scene; it was quite anticlimactic especially since the second book ended on a really climactic note.

But other than that, this is definitely a must see! You get to look into the aftermath of the 74th Annual Hunger Games and the repercussions of Katniss' berry stunt, and see how everything is blown out of proportion as uprisings and riots occur throughout Panem. At the same time, you get to see this juxtaposed by the spoilt, well-off Capital, only to be thrown back into the arena in the most fast-paced and tense Hunger Games ever. It really is fantastic!


I also watched My Sister's Keeper (on DVD)

I really enjoyed the book but the movie wasn't that great when compared to it. The characters were a bit watered down, and a lot of the plot was removed. I suppose I didn't expect too much from it since every movie needs to change, add and remove certain things to avoid having a 50 hour film, but they changed the entire ending! I was really annoyed because I really thought that the ending was what made the book, and this ending made it such a mediocre film. But if you judge it separately from the book, I think it's still pretty good. The actors were really good and the plot itself is enough to make it a notable film.


Also, speaking of books, I updated my top ten book list that I did in this post to include authors, details (such as whether the book is a children's book, an easy read, etc.) and I also realised that I accidentally wrote The Little Bones instead of The Lovely Bones!


On a more disgusting note, the gum area from my wisdom tooth removal became infected! On Saturday I was pretty much drinking pus, and let me tell you, pus is not the most pleasant of things to swallow down! Lucky I was at home most of the time because I could just spit it out. My dad went to pick up a little pack that the dentist put together for me, including my antibiotics, so after taking that it's getting a bit better but I still get pus coming out of it every now and then. I have to rinse it with salt water all the time, which is quite hassling. They even gave me this syringe-like thing (without a needle) that lets you squirt the saltwater onto your gum area, and whenever I'm out I carry gauze around in case pus starts coming out and it's too inconvenient to spit out.

It's truly disgusting! To make matters worse, I still can't really eat much! I've advanced to soft foods and even started eating some meat, but I had to cut it up into extremely tiny pieces. I'm starting work tomorrow as well, so I hope it gets a lot better over night. The plus side is that I don't need to take Panadol any more since it doesn't hurt that much, it's just more of a constant discomfort.

Oh well, in due time. This just makes me extremely worried and hesitant about pulling out my other 3 wisdom teeth next year; I'm not sure if I want to do that any more!


Oh and I got my Hobbit postcards!

I got the Unexpected Journey ones instead of the Desolation of Smaug ones because I reckon they look better (even though there's no Legolas in Unexpected Journey =[). I'm soooooo excited, can't wait until the next Hobbit movie!


And that's all for today. I haven't really been doing much interesting stuff. I've only been catching up with friends, looking after my tooth and trying to tame this flood of relatives that have come over. I start work tomorrow as well, so there may not be a few interesting blogs for some time to come! Until then, enjoy your holidays =]

Numb start to the holidays

I watched Thor 2!!

It's set a bit after the events in The Avengers and it was pretty good, but personally I liked the first Thor better. I think the plot was a bit slow since the movie mainly focused on humour and action. It also seemed a bit cheap because there was a lot of stuff to do with dark matter, portals and black holes and at times these portals were just conveniently used for our heroes to escape or whatever. The actors are still great and the visual effects were simply amazing, so it was definitely a good film but I reckon they could have done a lot more with it.

And I saw it at this cool drive-in theatre in Blacktown. It's pretty cool because they make it all retro, with a diner and everything! And each car space has a hump at the end for you to hoist up your car on an angle so the screen looks better. It was pretty good quality (the sound comes from a radio station) except that it started raining halfway in and that was a bit bothersome. But yes, definitely worth a try, and it's only $20 per car!


Also, my brother bought me this card game called Top Trumps Disney Pixar. There are other themes for it, for example he also bought Top Trumps Simpsons and Plop Trumps, a version specifically on different animals'...fecal matters... (ew).

But yeah I really like the Disney Pixar version. The Top Trumps idea is basically they get a theme and they have all these stats on it. So for Disney Pixar they have stuff like Size and Strength, Hero Rating, etc. and the Simpsons one has IQ, Prone to Mayhem, etc. while the Plop Trumps has stuff like Smell and Yuck Factor. It's pretty cool because you get to compare stats between players and all that and I'm even thinking of getting the Disney Classics version so I can have all the princesses and heroes hehe.


And speaking of games, there's another card game called Oz Fluxx which is my favourite game so far!

It's similar to Top Trumps in that the original idea is Fluxx, and there are a lot of variants on it with different themes, like Pirate Fluxx, Star Fluxx, etc. The Oz Fluxx has a Wizard of Oz theme and since I love the Wizard of Oz, I really love this theme. And the artwork is really fantastic too!

But the reason it's my favourite game is because it's so chaotic and unique. The rules and goals of the game are always changing (hence the flux) so much so that at any one point in time there's probably a 0% chance that you can say for sure whether you are winning or losing. You absolutely can't keep tabs on what's going on and, to add to the chaos, new players can join at ANY TIME during the game. It's so chaotic that sometimes you put a card down and you don't even realise that you've won!


I also just got my wisdom tooth removed today!

I was quite nervous going in but it was all nice and dandy, no major issues except there wasn't much space so the dental specialist had to keep dividing the tooth up. I think normally they divide it in four pieces, but here they divided it into about 6 or 8.

Since it was only one tooth I just had local anaesthetic, not general so I didn't go crazy and high haha! But I did have problems drinking afterwards since stuff kept dribbling out of the right side of my mouth and I looked so silly since half my mouth was drooping!

And now the anaesthetic's wearing off so it's getting a bit sore but I suppose not that bad...


Anyway, more updates to come!

Until next time and happy holidays!

The onset of holidays

I just watched Thor at long last!

For some reason I've never seen it, but since I'm going to be watching Thor 2 (and since my mum bought the DVD) I decided to watch it today and I was pretty impressed! From The Avengers, I seriously thought Loki was the most incapable villain ever, but he seemed much better in this movie. The plot was quite good too, and the special effects were great as well. For the actors, Chris Hemsworth was great at making himself look like an idiot in the film haha I laughed so much at his ignorant smile! I love Natalie Portman as well, she's so amazing and was so great in this!

Anyway, after the end credits scene, I really needed to find some sort of Avengers Timeline so that I could place everything together, and with a quick google search, I found one!

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It's pretty cool and I suppose it helps with your understanding of what happens during all the films (plus, timelines are always cool).

What else is there...

I picked up my roster for The Body Shop and it's pretty jam packed from Wednesday the 27th of November until Tuesday the 24th of December. A lot of the shifts are like 3-4 hours long so I suppose it won't get too tiring, but they're at really inconvenient times so most of my days are being taken up, but as long as I'm getting money then 'sall good! =] Unfortunately I'm working on my birthday but it's only 3 hours so it's not too bad.


UHMMMMMMMMMM... Oh I finished my book!

As I said, it's a children's book but it's still quite deep. It's set during World War II and focuses on this young boy, William Beech after he is evacuated from London to a safer country town. Anyway, the story behind William is actually really sad, and you come to pity him a lot, but then when he comes to the country town it's all happy chappy fine and dandy.

I really liked it, as far as children's books go. I'd love to see a modern film adaptation of it, and I say modern because when I googled it, the guy that plays Mister Tom looks really creepy..


And my exams are all over now so I'm freer to do stuff yay! I started reading the book 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett but I've only started one chapter since I was studying so much! So far it's good; I heard a lot of good things about it and they even made a movie on it so I'm excited to finish reading it.


For a post-exams celebration, Diwan and I went to an icecream place at Darling Harbour (since I got a voucher for it at Groupon) and we had the most funky looking sundae!

It looks delicious but the wafer bowl thing was just like a normal cone and such a hassle because you couldn't just pick it up like a normal ice cream cone and we got three scoops that was impossible to finish! In the end I was left with an almost complete wafer bowl (minus two bites) plus a nasty soup of icecream in the middle. But it was still delicious!


And that's it!

I haven't really been doing much because of exams, and I've done some random stuff that isn't worth/I ceebs blogging about. Oh, but I recently decided to look at all the photos my mum and I took of our Singapore/Malaysia trip waaaaaaay back in January/February so maybe I'll do a blog on that.

Until next time and here's to enjoying our holidays!

I got a job and found out I was a genius

Wow I haven't blogged in over two weeks!

I got the flu two weeks ago and that killed me for an entire week because I just spent all my time sleeping and really couldn't do anything. But I had to go to NIB for a consultation on my wisdom tooth and I was so out of it, but long story short: I'm going to be getting a wisdom tooth removed after exams!

I'm so worried because I've heard all these stories of swollen cheeks and liquid meals and everything! And at that stage I was thinking of getting a job, so I really hoped that the wisdom tooth removal wouldn't interfere with that.

But yes, I did end up getting a job as a Christmas Casual at The Body Shop at Castle Towers! The Christmas Casual shift is really good because I don't have to work too much and it's mainly the last two weeks of Christmas. I get some shifts scattered before for training and maybe after until the end of January, but it's not that heavy or anything so the wisdom tooth removal shouldn't affect it too much.

Anyway, now I have to learn how to put on make-up! For the interview it took me like a few days to learn how to put on eye-liner but it was still quite a bit dodgy and now I have to learn how to put on even more make-up for when I actually start working! But it seems really fun putting on make-up and stuff and the job seems really fun too (not to mention I can get discounts for products) so I'm super excited!


Also I finished reading My Sister's Keeper!

I think somewhere in a previous post I explained what it was about but if I haven't, it's about a teenager, Anna, who was genetically chosen to be a donor for her sister, Kate, who suffered from leukaemia since she was 2 years old. The story deals with all the ethics behind these designer babies and stuff as we see Anna try to sue her parents to gain medical emancipation so she can make her own decisions about what she has to donate to her sister.

This is my first Jodi Picoult book and I really loved it. The plot is obviously the main feature here, because her language and stuff isn't amazing. There are a number of really good quotes and amazing parts, but some bits seemed like she was trying too hard or were just too cliche. I guess that's just because she had to write from the perspective of teenagers, but it was still a little off-putting.

Anyway, the ending was what made the book in my opinion (I was crying sooo much after I finished the book; I just couldn't believe what happened!). On some forums, a lot of people hated the ending and thought it was just so ridiculous and absurd, but I really liked it because I love interesting, different and unorthodox endings. Apparently they changed the ending in the movie though! I hate it when people do that, but then again I'm really picky when it comes to this stuff.

Oh well, hopefully the movie is good in it's own way (but, like with all book-turned-films, it probably won't be)...


And now I'm starting on a book that for some reason I never finished...

It's called Goodnight Mister Tom and we got it at pre-uni as one of our texts. I remember the first time we went through it I didn't get very far, then I picked it up again in maybe year 8 or 9 and I only got halfway through again. Well, now I've gotten past halfway point and hopefully I'll finish it within the next week or so!


It was also my brother's 23rd birthday on Wednesday and he bought a whole bunch of board games so I've been playing A LOT of them recently. I'll probably go through some of them in the next few blogs because I can't be bothered right now.

For his birthday I bought him this cool 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the world map (the up-to-date one which includes South Sudan) and the Simpsons edition of Cluedo:

The Cluedo I bought was actually the Hasbro one which included plastic figurines of the characters, but for some reason the person got mixed up and sent me the Parker Brothers version which didn't have the plastic figurines! I was so annoyed because that was the only reason I bought it from her - to get the plastic figurines. But now it should be okay because she's sending us the plastic figurines soon.



And he also bought these 3D Mensa puzzles:

If you have no idea what Mensa is, it's basically some elitist group of geniuses. So if you get into Mensa, you're amazing. Anyway, they have these 3D puzzles that you need to take apart and put back together again. I'm sure you've seen some of them!

So the ones here in the picture go from "hard" to "hardest" and there are metal and wooden ones of each difficulty level. For some reason... I could do both of the hardest ones, but I can't do the others... The "easiest" wooden one seems possible to take apart, but I have no idea how I would approach putting it back together again.

For the hardest metal one, that was entirely a fluke. I wasn't even looking at it when it came apart and then when I tried putting it back together I couldn't do it so I watched an episode of Modern Family and then it randomly put itself together again, purely by magic.

But yes, here is the barrel that I did:

It was actually quite logical but it took me about an hour to try to fit back together again cuz it was so hard to hold everything in place! But in the end I got it all together again, so I suppose I'm just a genius.

Finding it extremely difficult to fall asleep with a pounding headache and sandpaper throat.

I'm quite sick with the flu or a fever or something like that and I can't sleep, so blogging it is!


The other day, I watched this movie called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. My mum said it was really good.

It was horrible.

Firstly, the name itself sounds ridiculous. Secondly, the directing was really really weird and the film was just way too slow. Thirdly, I had no idea what was going on until I read the Wikipedia article on it.

If you look at the picture though, the cast is amazing. And don't get me wrong, Gary Oldman here is fantastic, there is Mr Weasley from Harry Potter, Mance Rayder from A Game of Thrones, Tom Hardy (Bane from The Dark Knight Rises and Eames from Inception), Colin Firth (from The King's Speech), Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and lots of other familiar faces. The acting was really amazing. Unfortunately, I just didn't understand what was going on.

I understood that it's a spy film (based off the novel with the same name) and basically there is a mole in the top circle of the spy firm and they need to find out who the mole is. That's all I got. Usually, with a spy film you would think it'd be fast-paced and really crazy, but it was SO SLOW and SO BORING. It was so not worth the headache I got after! I think it could have been carried out a lot better and I definitely do not recommend it.


Also, I've been having loads of problems with my internet (which is why I've been watching movies the past few days). We noticed that for some reason, our upload usage has been really high, higher than our download usage. It says we're uploading about 1GB per day, which is ridiculous because, well, we don't.

We called customer service and the guy said that there are 3 main reasons:
1. Someone is stealing our Wi-Fi (but it shouldn't be because we changed our password and everything and even if they are stealing our Wi-Fi it means they are only uploading...)
2. If we are seeding torrents, it could account for unusually high upload activities (but we don't torrent)
3. We may have a virus

It's likely to do with the last one, so we instealled so many anti-virus programs and stuff but even now, those threats are supposedly fixed and we still have this issue.

We tried isolating computers by only have one computer connected to the internet at a time, but it seems like the problem is occuring with all three computers.

I'm seriously confused. Is it a problem with our computers? Is it a problem with the modem? Can someone help me out pretty please?


Apart from that, I finished reading Son of a Witch:

The beginning and ending were pretty good, although the middle and middle-end dragged on quite a bit and the whole novel seemed unnecessarily long. There are key themes and motifs that are really interesting though, and they lead on from the first book so it does indeed make me really curious about the next two books in the series.

However, I started reading My Sister's Keeper because I don't want to move onto the other books in The Wicked Years just yet. I think I just need a break from the language that Gregory Maguire uses and I haven't read a dramatic novel in so long. I also have the DVD for My Sister's Keeper but I really don't want to watch it until I finish the book, so I think that should be my next step! SOOOOO excited, I've been waiting for so long to read this book!


Also, my family played another board game called Snow Tails:

It's a pretty interesting game, but very mathsy and it hurt my brain a lot =[

You can make up the board with different template pieces, and then you need to put numbered cards down on your sled and the different numbers you put will create a different speed or drifting power for the sled (for turning corners, etc.), and the first one to finish wins (of course).

Another game we played was Mord im Arosa.

This is a really fun game because it's got such a different and unique concept. The background story is that there's a murder that happened (by Jack the Ripper) and you need to make sure there are no clues pointing to you being the murderer.

You use these pieces to build a tower, like this one:

And then you drop cubes into the tower and you have to listen and guess which floor/level the cube landed in. If you guess correctly, you basically reduce your chances of being caught as the murderer.


Also, I finally made a cover for my nook!

Honestly, it looks better in the picture but anyway...

It's made of foam that I sewed together, and then I put some magnets in for it to close properly, and then I glued on the fabric.

Oh and if you realised, in the background you can see my keyboard has white keys? Well, my mum kept complaining that she couldn't use my keyboard because some of the letters were faded, so I resolved it by buying alphabet stickers. That's literally the story, I can't expand on it, I just felt like I needed to explain myself there...


And I got a manicure done! It was a $19 voucher off Groupon for a manicure that's usually worth $60. It was near uni so I went during my break, and it's pretty close to Central Station (it's along Quay St, which is off George St near Railway Square). I was eating an apple walking there, and when I got to the small shopping complex (called Prince Center or something like that), I was wandering around looking for a bin. Then I went to the top floor and like just randomly it was an entrance into UTS. Firstly, why is there an entrance into UTS in some random dodgy shopping area? Secondly, why did the place not have any bins?!

Anyway, onto my actual manicure. I've never had a manicure before so I was quite intrigued when they whipped out this machine thing that releases UV light onto the nail polish for it to dry. Apparently, if you don't use this machine thing, then the nail polish will never dry (but I doubt that because there are UV rays everywhere, so eventually they should dry right?). Also, it doesn't come off with alcohol. So it's pretty much just magic.

But I was so terrified of the UV rays. I get so paranoid with UV and radiation and whatnot that I started freaking out and mentally killing myself over not putting sunscreen on. Afterwards, I read that it's actually quite safe as long as you put sunscreen on your hands so I should do that next time.

Their pricing is really cheap, but their service is quite bad! They were just a bunch of young Asian ladies all talking to each other, and the woman doing my nails even stopped completely at one time to check her phone! But obviously that's what you get for such a cheap price.


I'll end by pointing out that I added a Facebook 'like' button and comments that connect to Facebook! Yay! Unfortunately I can't find a way for the like button to specifically relate to each blog post, so right now it's only for the entire blog itself (that's why there have already been likes and all the like counts are the same). Also, I got rid of the other comment thing because the font was really stupid and annoying, and I thought Facebook comments would be easy (sorry to anyone reading who doesn't have a Facebook account, can't help you there!).

Anyway, previously someone commented:

"Anonymous said:
remember when you used to be christian lul"

I think this was because I said I didn't agree with the Bible being in the Top 101 favourite books. Which is silly because I also said stuff like how I didn't agree with Twilight and Harry Potter and whatnot. But anyway, here's the comment I posted in reply:

"Chloeeeee said:
@Anonymous, I don't get it lol. I don't see what that has to do with anything. When I read the Bible, tons of bits were really dry and I just didn't understand why they were necessary. Some books in it were really good, but I would never ever have said that the Bible as a whole is one of my favourite books of all time, Christian or not. Also, quite a lot of atheists consider the Bible to be a really great book, even though they don't believe in it?
I mean, as I said, I consider Harry Potter as a must read series, but I would never consider it in my top ten list?"

A Facial, A Movie, A Game and Several Books

So I got my facial done! It was a $24 microdermabrasion and mask peel that I got off Groupon for a place called Euphoria Skin Clinic at Castle Hill. It's supposed to be $220 but honestly, I think it was barely worth the $24. I'm not sure if it's because my skin doesn't have that many problems in the first place, but it wasn't that amazing. Microdermabrasion is supposed to be some technique to remove the outer layers of the skin, which helps to stimulate new skin cell growth and remove blemishes and things like that. I wanted it for my oily forehead (because I get pimples there at times) and my uneven skin tone along my cheeks.

Anyway, the microdermabrasion was really short and I think the only really effective thing was the facial peel, which only lasted about 10 minutes. Then I was finished a mere 20 minutes after I first entered the room (but it supposedly is meant to last on average around 45 minutes). The facial peel was good though, because I could feel it stinging and working its way into my skin, I just don't understand why anyone would pay $220 for that. I've noticed that my face is actually starting to get a bit dryer and parts of the skin are peeling (which is supposed to happen) but I still don't know if the thing is really effective. And you're supposed to do it every month or so, so I would definitely not go back to that place again if they charge that much.

But I did take a very valuable thing out of it. The lady that did my facial told me that we need to always reapply our sunscreens even when inside our home because there are UVB rays coming from our phones and computers and even just UVA rays from natural lighting. It's obviously in really small amounts but over time it can accumulate and do some damage to your skin, which is why I have these freckles (or splotches, rather) on my cheeks. The microdermabrasion helped to lighten it up at first but I'm not sure if it's come back already. Supposedly it was supposed to help lighten it and if I continue to reapply my sunscreen I could prevent it from getting darker...

Also, the place was this really old house. You could tell by the uneven paint and the cracks in the walls and things like that. It was also not even relaxing or comfortable. Facials are meant to be relaxing. I once got a facial done at Lattouf and because they are a massage/spa place, it was simply amazing. Relaxing bed/table thing, relaxing warm towels, arm massages whilst waiting for my face mask...Instead all I got here was a face mask left on for 10 minutes while the lady left the room, door wide open so I could hear the phone ringing and the employees walking all over the place and talking to each other...

All in all, I'm not sure if I should do microdermabrasion regularly or something, but even if I do I would go somewhere like Lattouf, which charges $99 for 60 minutes and would definitely make you feel so much more relaxed.


So enough about that! I also watched Captain America last night on DVD. I picked it because I thought I didn't watch it before, but throughout the film I kept thinking, "Hey, this scene looks so familiar". Then I searched Blogger and realised that I wrote in a post in November last year:

"I watched Captain America last night but I think I was too tired so I didn't really pay attention to it. The one thing I got out of it was that the special effects were terrible."

Okay, the special effects were quite terrible but I guess paying attention to what is going on in the film helps with that. The cast was great, Tommy Lee Jones is just hilarious and Stanley Tucci was really good too. Hugo Weaving was great too with the accent but I guess I'm a bit sick of seeing him as a villain (because when I look at him playing a bad guy I can't help but say, "Mr. Anderson!").

Watching the ending made me so excited for the Avengers even though I had already watched it, so I guess that just goes to show how well they did that part.


Another thing is this cool game called Riff Raff:

It's super fun and super intense! Basically there is this ship that you assemble onto a pendulum and you need to balance all these items on it. For example, here is a picture of the middle of a game my family was playing:

It looks pretty easy but remember, the entire thing is on a pendulum so you need to make sure you place everything really carefully onto the ship. I thought I'd be amazing at this but my hands are actually really unsteady (they even twitch when I try to keep them still, thank goodness I don't want to be a doctor) and I sucked quite a lot at this game (and never won). But it was still a lot of fun!


I also picked up the Dymocks list of 101 Favourite Books voted by the members. I thought I would have read quite a few of them because I've read some amazing books out there but it turns out I've only read... 15 (3 of which are series).

Some of them I've read and loved (Hunger Games, A Song of Ice and Fire), some are obvious (Harry Potter), some I don't agree with (The Bible), some are classics (Nineteen-Eighty Four, Pride and Prejudice), some I've read just recently (The Great Gatsby), some I really want to read soon (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, My Sister's Keeper) and some I will never ever read (Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey). Like, ever.

Anyway, this got me thinking: Which books do I love?

Thus, a list was born!

Chloe's Top 10 Books/Book Series
*(Note: I haven't even read that many books so this is just going off the limited amount of books I have read and can remember)
**Updated 24/11/13

1. (Series) A Song of Ice and Fire – George RR Martin
2. (Trilogy) [Children’s] The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
3. The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
4. [Children’s] Holes – Louis Sachar
5. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
6. [Easy Read] Animal Farm – George Orwell
7. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Nineteen Eight-Four – George Orwell
9. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
10. [Children’s] The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne

Noteworthy books that weren't included in the list because they were quite difficult to get through (but the endings and concepts make them fantastic):

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Other Notable Books:

My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult

[Children’s] Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer

The Help – Kathryn Stockett

Before I get asked about why The Harry Potter series isn't included, I would like to say that I think the concept was really good, but I wasn't crazy about the series. I don't think it was an amazing read, I didn't really connect with it and it didn't really "change my life" like the others did (how cliched, but it's true). BUT, I will say that The Harry Potter series is a MUST read because of it's popularity and its uniqueness.

ALSO, I would like to add that I think Holes and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas are the best book-to-screen adaptations I have seen. Both the book and film for Holes are amazing, whilst I think the film for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is better than the book (and I was kind of sad that I had already read the book when I watched the film). Together with that, I think The Silver Linings Playbook was a great book-to-screen adaptation, but I may be biased towards Jennifer Lawrence and my memory may have failed me because I read the book at least 3 years ago (I think).