Real or Not Real?

MY EREADER CAME!!

On Thursday, the doorbell rang and I was so excited to see my NOOK come, but it was just my hard drive and I was so disappointed =[ But then when I got home from uni, my mum said my eReader came! I'm so happy with this eReader, I love it! I had a few problems trying to get it started and navigating my way around but for a technologically incapable person, it's quite alright. It has this really cool screensaver of pics of famous authors done in this cool line drawing style but I can't find or take any pictures to justify it =[


Anyway, when I got home from uni, I immediately got Mockingjay on it and started reading it and I finished it just today!

This was so intense, especially the second half! It's the last book in the series so it's full of action near the end. The title of this blog is actually a recurring quote "Real or Not Real" that's really powerful throughout the whole book but I can't give anything away so yeah I'll just leave it at that.

Out of the whole series, I think the second book was the best, but I'm not too sure where to place book 1 and book 3. They are totally different things: the first book is the hunger games and the third book is about politics and strategies and things like that. I think the third book may be better than the first book in terms of intensity and plot twists, but the first book's plot was still really good and set everything in motion.

I like this book, and the series, because the concept is really clever. It gives you heroes who aren't really heroes, they're just ordinary people (teenagers actually) who can't ever be heroes unless they all work together as a team; no one deserves the sole credit of being the hero at the end, it's just what everyone does together that makes it happen. The ending, which is beautiful, shows how damaging it could be to go through these sorts of things, the terrible aftermath of actually attempting to be a hero when you're not ready for it and the terrible things you might have to leave behind and let go of for the better (which is kind of why I liked Iron Man 3).

It's also a political statement, forcing us to question our own lives and whether or not we are just pawns in a bigger game played by powerful people, and who exactly those powerful people are and whether what we believe is real or not real. So yeah, it's really deep and even though the language is overly simplistic in the first book, it gets better throughout and the intensity and cleverness of the series more than makes up for it.


SO enough of that, do you know what I realised?!

From this week onwards, I have an assessment every single week of the term except weeks 10 and 11! =[ It's gonna be intense. And next week I have a multiple choice quiz where there are either 1, 2 or 3 correct answers and you have to get exactly all the correct answers to get the mark. We've been doing practice questions and I can't remember if I've gotten one right at all... I'm defs getting zero =[


Also, I saw Now You See Me

I was so excited when I saw the trailer because it has such an amazing cast and I love the concept of magic and stuff so I was so happy walking into the theatre. BUT, walking out of the theatre... I was severely disappointed. The whole movie was amazing with the plot and the magic tricks and the amazing cast, but the ending was TERRIBLE! It was the cheapest cop out ever. It was as if the film makers were telling us, "Dear Audience, we would never make a profit if we just had a movie with really cool magic tricks so we had to put some sort of plot twist and we couldn't really think of one so this is all you're going to get." It literally doesn't make ANY sense, they don't follow through on what they did throughout the movie.

Anyway, I think if you watch this, you should watch it as a cool magic show and not a suspenseful intense film because that's all it is.


And on Friday I volunteered at Parra for Daffodil Day for the Cancer Council!

It was so surprising to see Aharani there haha and Pamela joined us later after uni.

It went pretty good, it was quite a lot of fun but later my legs started hurting because I haven't been standing for hours at a time since January 2012 when I quit work. It's annoying to see some people come up to you and ask, "IS IT FREE" and you're just like, "NO WE ARE RAISING MONEY FOR CANCER YOU IDIOT!"

But I mainly enjoyed it because I kept rearranging the table of merchandise throughout the day.

"My OCD is tingling!"
And here are some of my lovely OCD results:

See how lovely everything is when neatened up!


And lastly,

I've played two games recently:

Hanabi

It's another cooperative game, except no one is allowed to see their own cards. You have 5 or 6 colours and you need teamwork to be able to effectively communicate to people what cards they have (using certain clues) so that everyone can place down cards in order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for each colour. It's a really simple game, but tiring to try and memorise the properties of your cards, where they are and figure out how to tell others what cards they have. I don't really like this game because it's kind of weird and too repetitive and tedious for my liking.


Shadows Over Camelot

I really like this game. It's another cooperative but the thing is, there MAY or may not be a traitor in the group (depending on what you draw). It's set in the Medieval and we are the Knights of the Round Table and have to do these quests. The entire game is very suspicious, like whenever you play a card you have to put it face down and even discarding a card makes you put it face down so you don't actually know if you can trust what the person is doing. Some cards you can choose to play it face down or up. If you play it face down you get to pick up another card which entices you into playing it face down, but then others are suspicious of you being the traitor. It's really fun. At first it was a bit complex but it's one of those games where you have to play it to learn the rules and get used to it so it got better over time. Very enjoyable and a great fun for groups.


And for your enjoyment, here are two cool videos:

Here's a decapitated snake biting its body as part of its reflexes even after death

And here's Celia Pavey's (from The Voice) audition prior to getting to the BLind Auditions
I love this so much, it's such a cool quirky way of singing it. I heard the original and decided this was way better so don't bother.

Random Raving Ramblings

I think I need to think of a theme or something that all my titles can follow because I'm having problems thinking of appropriate titles for my blogs, seeing as most of them are just random...

Anyway, I BOUGHT AN EREADER!

It's a Barnes & Noble NOOK that I got off eBay for $75! It hasn't come yet but I'm pretty excited! I hope it's alright, I got all my information from Luke and honestly didn't even bother to check reviews and do my own research... but I'll post it up once it arrives in the mail, which hopefully won't be too long!

"How did this come about?", you may ask...

WELL this was after I finished The Hunger Games book 1 and I was waiting to be able to borrow Catching Fire from the library because all copies were already borrowed. I was sitting on the bus when the chick who sat next to me whipped out her Kindle and I was staring at it thinking I SHOULD BUY AN EREADER because it would solve all my problems of waiting for a book to be available!

And I'm currently in that terrible phase because I finished Catching Fire already... in two days. On Monday night I got a notification that the book was available at the library so I went there before it closed to pick it up. Even before I started reading it I was like, "Okay Chloe, pace yourself. Read it slowly, just a few chapters a day on the bus to and from Uni so that when you are finished, the Nook will come and you can read Mockingjay."

And then Wednesday night... I finished it... Like how does that even happen? I don't even remember when I read so much...

Anyway the Nook should come between Tuesday to Thursday so hopefully it comes soon...


And I may as well do a little review on Catching Fire!

This book was so good! It was actually so intense and the plot was much better than the first book, since things start to get pretty serious in the Districts and even in the Capitol. Katniss' actions from the first book have caused President Snow to hate her and he really wants her dead before anything serious like a rebellion happens. To do this, he makes the next Hunger Games one where the tributes are reaped from the existing pool of victors to show that even victors can't escpae from the Capitol's power. It's really interesting to read about how the previous victors won and what their games were like, especially the way Haymitch won! The games are also super intense because the games have to be much harder, since all the victors are so good and experienced in this.

I'm so super excited for the movie! Have you guys seen the trailer yet??!


UGH LOOKS SO INTENSE!

Oh, and because of my newfound obsession with The Hunger Games, I watched the Special Features of the film, which included the casting and production and special effects ugh I loved it! The way they did everything was amazing, the CGI was so cool, even in the districts simple things like decorations on the houses and stuff were added. And they also showed how they trained the actors of the tributes, and it was amazing seeing Jennifer Lawrence train for it, she actually did most of the stunts herself, including climbing legit trees and running from a legit wall of fire! So respectable! And I was also so surprised to find out that the book only came out in 2008! How come I never heard about it until now! I was 13/14 years old then, I should have heard about it! =[


Also I got a new bag for Uni since my other one's strap broke. Isn't it pretty?!

After I bought it, I realised I may have been unconsciously influenced by The Hunger Games to buy it but anyway...


I also bought the Pixar Shorts Collections: Volume 2!

This collection of shorts wasn't as good as the first one, mainly because the majority of them were actually related to their movies (i.e. some characters from the Pixar movie were in the shorts they made) and I prefer just original shorts. Of the 12 shorts, only 4 were unrelated and they included Presto, Partly Cloudy, Day & Night and La Luna. I loved all of them but I would have to say La Luna is by far the best.


So touching and clever *sigh*

Anyway, after that I would have to say Partly Cloudy and Day & Night are tied, then Presto would come up after them. Day & Night is really clever and quite deep too, but Partly Cloudy is super funny and adorable so I couldn't decide!


Also, I had to get an x-ray for my teeth because a few weeks back my jaw was hurting and I suspected it was my wisdom tooth. Anyway here's the x-ray:

You can see that the bottom wisdom teeth look like some big trouble, especially my right one (left in the picture) which is practically 90 degrees sideways...

So I need to go back to my dentist and possibly go to a specialist for surgery D= I've never undergone any type of surgery so I'm rather scared, hopefully it turns out alright and even more importantantly, hopefully I can eat!


What else is there? I suppose I can show you some of my drawings from this 642 Things to Draw book... I've been drawing almost every day (except I think two days only) which is a pretty good record.

My personal favourites (because some times I was too tired or didn't want to spend too much time on the drawing so they didn't turn out too well) (click to enlarge in a new tab):

'Bubbles':

I didn't use an eraser for this one!

'A Mime':

'Bacon' purely for the guy's face and obviously not for the worst bacon ever drawn:

'A Fan':

Haha geddit? I'm hilarious.

'Chips and Dip' once again revealing my prowess at humour:

'The Moon' obviously inspired by, well.. La Luna..:

'A Thumbtack':

'Freckles' because she is creepy:

'An Owl' that I took as an inquisitorial owl:

Books and Games

I finished reading the Great Gatsby!

It was so small and short I finished it in a few days even though most of it was reading it on the bus to and from Uni and during Uni breaks. I don't think I've ever read a full novel that short, maybe except Animal Farm, but I'm still surprised by how good an impression you could create in such a thin book.

It's so well written! The plot isn't that great, as I noticed from the movie, but I realised that that's not what is important. Probably back then people didn't care about complex plots but really wanted a well written book. This story focuses so much on language and imagery that it compromises on the realisticness of the plot. This is just like in the movie, which which was all about how they portrayed it (through the amazing directing, costuming, acting, etc.).

Without any spoilers, here are a few differences between the film and the novel:

Firstly, it opens with Nick being in the future reflecting on the events of the Great Gatsby. I think this was good because the novel focused so much on language, it wouldn't have been a great movie without Nick's narration of awesome quotes.

Dr. T. J. Eckleburg wasn't shown (or at least it didn't make a lasting impression on me if it was shown). I really wanted to see this great doctor with his glasses on the billboard, it was such a powerful and recurring image that I can't believe they didn't show it in the film

I also think they didn't really focus on Nick and Jordan as much. The film sort of made it seem like Nick was too preoccupied with Gatsby that they didn't fit it in. I was a bit annoyed at this because then I think the ending and Nick's attitudes would have been more powerful.

The last thing is that they changed the ending so that they didn't show Gatsby's father. I don't know why they did that but I felt that Gatsby's father was really important, even if he only comes in at the very very ending of the novel.

Some of my favourite quotes from the novel are:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticising anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.


Oh and I was looking for an image of the book cover and I saw this (SPOILER) Great Gatsby Character Map. It's really cool, but as I said, it has spoilers so yeah..


And because I read Gatsby so fast, I also moved on to The Hunger Games!

This was also an easy read. I finished the first book in less than a week. Coming from the complex and intricate A Song of Ice and Fire and the extremely lavished language of the Great Gatsby, this book came as a shock to me. Firstly, when I borrowed it, it was in the Young Adult section. I don't know what else I expected, but I was a bit surprised. And then, I flicked through the book and the font looked so big! And there was like double or 1.5 line spacing! A Song of Ice and Fire has like teeny tiny font and nonexistent spacing, so I was very confused.

Having seen the movie, I am extremely biased to The Hunger Games, so I loved the book and still had my moments of intensities even though I knew what was going to happen from the movie. The plot is still good, there are a lot of little things that the movie didn't portray, such as Katniss' thoughts on everyone and everything (which is obviously hard to portray in the film). The language is extremely simple, since it's from the mind of Katniss who is just 16 years old. But still, 16 years old is still a bit too old for some of the cheesy cringe-worthy lines in the novel. Nonetheless, I still loved it and can't wait to borrow Catching Fire, the second book!

OOOOH and the second movie comes out at the end of the year! I can't wait, I love Jennifer Lawrence!


And since we're on the topic of books and stories, the other day I was going through my hard drive (because my computer went full retard and just deleted something and I couldn't retrieve it at all even after restoring my computer but anyway) and I was trying to make some space so I was looking through folders clearing stuff I didn't need. Since this is a fairly old hard drive, I found some of my stories I wrote in year 9 and 10!! I was so happy, because all through year 11 and 12 I kept wondering what happened to those stories, thinking why I would ever delete them (since I loved them so much). I also found my year 9 creative story so maybe I'll go through them, edit them and post them all up here! Yay!


Just briefly, I'll talk about a few games my brother bought.

Dixit (lol what a funny name)

I don't know why it's called that, but it's an audiovisual game, so kind of like Pictionary but not really at all like Pictionary. Everyone gets I think 5 cards which have drawings/pictures/paintings on them (the paintings are actually pretty cool and very unrealistically awesome). When it's a player's turn, the player will put a card face down and say something related to that card, e.g. "Alice in Wonderland". The other players then put two of their cards each related to the topic "Alice in Wonderland". The player shuffles the cards and place them face up on the table and the others have to guess which card was his. That player wins points if at least one person guesses the right card, but wins no points if it's too obvious and all players guess the right card. The other players get points if they trick another person to guessing the card they put down.

It's an alright game, it goes pretty fast but I found it extremely difficult to think of the topics, and I was usually too vague or too obvious.


Love Letter

This is apparently a "filler" game, something you can play if you're on the go or have nothing to do because the entire deck is only 16 cards. It's got some weird system, and there's a story line like you're trying to get a love letter to this princess in a castle and there's all these different characters and stuff. If you get caught with the love letter then you lose the round. You need to win like a certain number of rounds or something I dunno. As you can tell I don't really like this game.


Lost Cities

I really like this game. You're archaeologists and you need to complete expeditions and at the end you need to have the most number of points (money) to win. It's only a two-player game though but I think there's a four player version or modification of it. It's really fast paced, the rules are really clear cut and the game goes by pretty quick, so it's actually quite fun.


Forbidden Desert

Yes, my bro bought a lot of games...

This is a cooperative game so all players team up to try and find the missing parts of your plane that just crashed in the desert. I really like this game and the concept of it. The board is always changing throughout the game which is really cool. The main issue is that it's only a really recent game, like about a month or something old, so the instructions and rules aren't as clear cut and it was pretty confusing.


Stumbling Time!

Famous Celebrities with Big Hearts

15 Astonishing General Facts

A History Lesson (but I question the legitimacy of it)

The Most Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

Coming up next:

More stories (now that I've finally dug them up)

A Song of Ice and Fire/A Game of Thrones themed blog (I'm waiting for something special to arrive in the mail before I get into this)

Some of my drawings (but most of the will be little doodles)

Mayhaps a song or two

Some more random reviews of books and things

Crème Perfection

Because it's trials time (already! Geez that was fast), I think it is due time I posted my HSC creative up here. I actually thought I already did, but it turns out I didn't. It's really cliched in a non-cliched way and I don't like it as much as my Barren story but hey, this is what English teachers want. Oh and as you could probably guess, it was heavily inspired by Ratatouille.

I promise I will do a proper blog post soon, I know I haven't been doing that many recently but I've been quite busy and tired just doing random things!

But anyway, good luck for all you Year Twelves out there =] And without further ado, here is my creative =]

---***---

Can you smell it?

The empowering fragrance of sweet vanilla, flirting with your nostrils; the vapours of the burnt caramel, tickling your taste buds; the scents of creamy custard, enticing your inner glutton.

Can you taste it?

A hard layer of caramel cracks beautifully under your spoon; the soft velvety custard, a melting gold that embraces your tongue. And together, a sublime combination that words alone cannot suffice.


Crème brûlée: heavenly perfection.

----------

As a dedicated food journalist and a devout follower of Raoul’s, it is with great humility that I gain the wonderful experience of listening to Raoul’s reminiscence a mere three weeks after his much publicised debacle. He is not simply recalling any memory; he is inviting me to share with him his most personal and precious moments, the moments that birthed the acclaimed chef as we know him today, boasting his very own three-Michelin-starred restaurant, ‘Mama’s Delights’.

“My first memory was of watching mama pull the oven door wide open to bring out the bain-marie. She gently placed it on the stovetop and used her blowtorch on it, before getting distracted by the phone. Being a curious kid, I went over and pushed my finger into one of the little pots sitting in the bain-marie. A split second later, a searing heat hammered through my finger, so I quickly licked it to rid the pain. I then suffered from a burnt finger and tongue! …But it was definitely worth it.

“That crème brûlée mama made, that very first crème brûlée I had… it tasted like… like fireworks! At that moment, I knew all I wanted was to share that experience. That remained my calling; I didn’t want to do anything else.”

His eyes brighten, darting to and fro as if his mother and kitchen are right there with him, his subtle gestures make clear he is reliving his past and his smile exudes pure rapture. This confident chef before me proves a surprising contradiction to the destroyed image engraved in my memory of last Thursday.

It was then that, with great solemnity, I witnessed Chef Raoul breathing his entire life into the notoriously decadent meals that hundreds of customers gleefully order every night. Yet behind the perfect façades of these restaurant doors lie the souls of martyrs whose vain efforts leave them victimised by demeaning critics.

The gravity of it was immense; I could hear Raoul’s heart pounding erratically, as if summoning trepidation and manifesting half-buried insecurities he forgot existed. This ill feeling amplified within the empty atmosphere of the restaurant offices. Newspaper and magazine clippings were accumulated in various bundles, sporadically embellishing the otherwise bare wood-grained floorboards. A single man’s loneliness reflected in the walls, donned with an uninspiring coat of dull beige paint, devoid of any taste of his personal identity.

Chef Raoul quickly left the office, it held no relevance to his interests. As I followed him, he reread the newspaper article which his hands fiercely claimed. His eyes scoured the words for the umpteenth time, as if confirming such a harsh combination of letters could ever exist. Under my gaze, he appeared to shrink, his shoulders slumping in a state of confused despair. Then, addressing nothing but the restaurant air, he spat the words of renowned food critic Nolan Mendoza:

“Least expected was the waitress of ‘Mama’s Delights’ abandoning me after relegating me to the bowels of Chef Raoul’s restaurant, dismissed to navigate the sea of tables as a lone sailor. Surely, I foolishly thought, the decadent meals would compensate for the incompetent service.

“Yet the final insult, a dish of epic disappointment, laboured towards me; a crème brûlée sans crème, it appeared Raoul was carried away with the brûlée half of it: my dish was burnt and the cream a mythical treasure I convinced myself impossible to find no matter how hard I searched.

“If this was a signature dish, Raoul had forgotten his name.”

He faced me disappointed, “What good is a chef who can’t even make custard?”

----------

After some time, it appeared the ongoing clamour of clanging metal and busy workstations was his remedy, allowing equilibrium to return to his dwindled state. To him, the kitchen was a place of solace; spiritual replenishment. He began to straighten, to stand, almost another mechanical component to his kitchen.

Yet warily, I continued to observe him. Soon enough, disorientation overcame Raoul’s comfort. Blame, guilt, humiliation, inferiority and deep shame claimed him.

----------

I blink away my memory and say to this confident Raoul, “And what about Nolan Mendoza’s review of your signature dish, this very crème brûlée that has set the foundations of your career as a chef? Mendoza explicitly stated that the next time he has the option of dining at your restaurant or being burnt alive, much like the “crèmeless brûlée” he ate, he’d gladly be involved in the latter. How do you feel about that?”

I note the flicker of his eyes, the defeat in his hands, the twitch in his smile, but almost instantly he regains his composure. His eyes light up, his hands breathe life, his smile sustains. Did he hear me?

He says to me, “Stop the interview for a moment and look around you. Look at my restaurant. How many empty tables do you see?”

I confessed I couldn’t spot a single one.

“Now look around again and tell me: how many people are smiling, have a conversation so engaging and exhilarating that they laugh with their entire bodies, how many people break etiquettes, trying what lies on their companions’ plates?”

I confessed his guests possessed these qualities.

“You see, my restaurant is the essence of me, my soul is reflected through the dishes I prepare. People come without knowledge and leave enlightened. Relationships are strengthened into an experience where people share with me the tastes of my childhood. Through a three-course meal or a delicious dessert, many have learnt to smile again, to share happiness …because of me! Shared food is a shared bit of my memory. This is more than I ever thought of achieving. This is the meaning of success, and no critic’s savage words can destroy it.”

With that, he leant back in his chair, and slyly asked, “Any further questions?”