More Movies

I just finished watching 12 Years a Slave!

8.5/10 on IMDb
97% on Rotten Tomatoes
This movie is an adaptation of the memoir by Solomon Northup. It is based on the true events of Solomon's adulthood when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery even though he was born a free man. First set in 1841 in New York, it then shows what he and other African-Americans had to go through during those times and the difficulties of him trying to escape.

It's obviously a very deep story, and it was done quite well. The actor Chiwetel Ejiofor was amazing in this, as well as Michael Fassbender, and we even saw small roles by Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt. It just goes to show that, while racism was still very prevalent in southern USA, not all Americans were cold-blooded racists. Some Americans were decent and stuck up for the slaves, other Americans were decent but due to their circumstances had to still endorse slavery, while others were just cruel and terrible.

The movie isn't that long, its a bit over 2 hours, but it felt tremendously long. The directing dragged on for quite a bit and there are a lot of scenes where not much happens and it's just silence. Nonetheless I think it was a really great eye-opening movie.


Also, my family went back to renting movies so I've got some more reviews to do!

We used to rent from Civic ALL THE TIME, but for some reason we stopped after a while instead just kept buying DVDs and we were at Target looking at $20 DVDs and we were like HANG ON A SECOND! WHY ARE WE BUYING DVDS WHEN WE CAN JUST RENT THEM?!?!

So we went back to Civic and we rented Life of Pi, The Help and Zero Dark Thirty.

Life of Pi

8.1/10 on IMDb
87% on Rotten Tomatoes
This is based on the book by Yann Martel about an Indian boy, Pi, who ends up getting lost at sea. His family owns a zoo and they decide to move to Canada, but their ship sinks and Pi is the only human survivor on a lifeboat together with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger.

The book was extremely detailed (to the point where some parts were extremely boring), describing his life in India to his survival skills at sea. The film, however (and as most films do), cut out a lot of things in the book. I guess that's not surprising but I was quite surprised at how much of his life in India they put, because I thought they would focus more on the survival at sea. But the whole film is very metaphorical and alludes a lot to religion and spirituality, so his life in India when he is discovering different religions is necessary, it's just that I would have liked more of the stuff that happened at sea.

Overall, the beginning bit was a bit boring (since it's the section where he's growing up in India), but the film (and the main character's acting) gets significantly better once the ship sinks. The film was praised for it's visuals and it was definitely pretty amazing considering it was all green screen.


The Help

8.1/10 on IMDb
76% on Rotten Tomatoes
This is also based on the book by Kathryn Stockett about African-American maids during the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. The book was really great because of the storyline and they portrayal of how three completely different people with completely different personalities and emotions could become friends and work against the racism that was seen back in those days. I think the film was really great at portraying that too, and they left in all the necessary plot points and did a really good job at balancing the dramatic scenes with the humourous scenes. Emma stone was amazing, as well as Jessica Chastain. I think this has got to be one of the best book-to-film adaptations.


Zero Dark Thirty

7.5/10 on IMDb
93% on Rotten Tomatoes
This is yet another film based on a book (there seems to be a theme going here). It's about the CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden and while it apparently (I haven't read the book) doesn't include a lot of details from the book No Easy Day by Mark Owen, it's based off some of the firsthand accounts of CIA agents that the books includes.

The movie was pretty good and really intense, and the actors were amazing (especially Jessica Chastain, who is so different from her roles in Lawless and The Help). While I did get a bit bored in the middle of the film where it seemed like the operation was getting nowhere (even though I obviously knew it was still going somewhere), the last 30 minutes or so where they actually raid bin Laden's house was really intense.

I think it's also really important that they document this sort of story because at the end you see how empty the CIA agent feels after bin Laden is dead. She worked on this for her whole life, she saw her friends die, she finally was able to pinpoint bin Laden's location, he was killed, and then that was sort of it. She can't get credited for it publicly, no one knows the sacrifices she made (because a movie only portrays so much) and it's just such a thankless job.

It's also interesting to note that they were going to make the film about the long and neverending process of trying to catch bin Laden, but once the news came out that they actually did end up catching him, they had to change the entire script and storyline (obviously). I think they did a really good job and it's definitely a worthy watch.


Apart from that, there isn't really much to talk about since I haven't been doing that many amazing things that are worthy to blog about.

Oh, except that I did this NRMA Driving Course thing and it's pretty good. It costs about $140 for a 5 hour course that lets you reduce your total number of hours by 20 hours, and it still lets you get the 3-for-1 instructor hour scheme thing, so it means you only need 100 hours, and if you get 10 instructor lessons it's only like 80 hours of driving. I know most people just forge their logbooks but I can't and anyway I'm a really bad driver (like, really bad) and I absolutely hate driving so this is good because it means less hours for me!

The course is in two sections: module 1 is 3 hours of theory and module 2 is 2 hours in the car. Module 2 isn't really 2 hours in the car because you're with another student and every ten minutes of driving you stop on the side of the road, the instructor will go through a bit of theory, then you swap drivers. But the good thing is that he still logged 2 hours of driving in our log books.

Further, he even told us about this Keys2Drive program which is part of the NRMA Safer Driving School but it's funded by the Government. So it's one free lesson of driving with an instructor, but the only catch is that your regular supervisor (e.g. parent) has to sit in the car with you.

Anyway, I thought that'd be interesting to share with you guys if any of you are still on your L's and need more hours. Hopefully I can get my P's soon, but like I said I'm a terrible driver and I can't park properly...


Oh and ages ago I found this really cool article that shows you which countries have or don't have health care. You can click on the map on this page to get an enlarged version. I never realised that Iraq and Afghanistan get universal health coverage that's provided by U.S. war funding. Like why would they do that when USA doesn't even have health care?!?!


ALSO! Don't forget, watch My Kitchen Rules to see my friends Shannelle and Uel. They're the Asian couple from NSW and they'll be on TV next Wednesday (the 5th)!

Anyway, that's it for now, until next time!

Just Random Stuffs

I finally went to IKEA Restaurant!

I had heard a lot about it before, especially the IKEA Breakfast, but I never went because it's too out of the way for me and we never buy furniture from IKEA. Anyway, my mum wanted to go so she dragged my brother and I there.

It was pretty good! I didn't get to try the IKEA Breakfast because my brother slept in (and then found ants in his room and spent 30 minutes cleaning it up) and we didn't make the 11 o'clock breakfast curfew, so I just had the normal stuff.

I didn't really have too much because I wanted to eat relatively healthy so I had the organic kid's meal hehehe... That included like a kid's pasta, a fruit, a juice popper and some yoghurt and it was pretty good. I really like pasta so any pasta is good for me. My bro tried two of the kid's meals which included the nuggets and chips and the meatballs.

We've already had the meatballs before because one of my brother's friends always gives us a little container of IKEA meatballs when she comes over, and the're sooooo delicious! And the kid's meal they were in had this really nice sauce as well.

And the stuff there is soooo cheap. The organic kid's meal was like $4 and the normal kid's meals are like $3.50 each. The breakfast is $3 for an entire plate of eggs, sausage, hashbrown, bacon and tomato, which is such amazing value! I'm definitely heading back there for their breakfast.

So then after that, we walked through IKEA looking around at shelves and stuff because my brother needs to find one to fit all his board games. And then when we finished walking around we were like okay, let's head out! And we realised that the entrance we came through only had an up escalator, so we needed to exit by going down the stairs that led to IKEA's lower level.

And so we were in IKEA's lower level and we were like okay, let's head out! And then we discovered that the entire lower level is just another maze to get us to regrettably turn down amazing deals on unnecessary items. After walking a bit and checking the map, we realised there were two short-cuts we could go through to leave IKEA, so we went through them and we were like okay, let's head out!

But no. It was another open warehouse area, the storage area with all the furniture stored there as well as some outdoor furniture, similar to Bunnings. So we walked all through that and when we got to the end we were like okay, let's head out!

And then we walked out of IKEA and right into the IKEA Food Market. The Food Market has like a little takeaway shop that sells $1 hot dogs and it also has this mini grocery store of all this Swedish food. We ended up getting some stuff that were alright, nothing special, and then finally, we left.

So in summation, IKEA is a giant rat maze and it left me feeling very, VERY manipulated.


I also just finished reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have a feeling that the movie is so much better than the book.

The book has an epistolary structure, which means it's all written in letters (for those of you who have forgotten your English terms) and so while we do get a sense of a plot and a narrative, it's all in the past tense and the way it's written made me cringe quite a lot.

The main character is 16 years old but for some reason the author decided to make him sound like some incompetent 5 year old with the choice of simplistic language and really immature, inexperienced questions and thoughts this guy uses.

Don't get me wrong, the plot and the major themes and characters are interesting enough to keep you reading, but that's why I think the movie would be better. It's about this student in high school who is quite lonely and starts making friends with these unpopular kids and he's very very confused because he has mental issues and he has to try and deal with them while making new friends and learning the recipe of successful socialising. It has some pretty heavy themes like suicide, depression, mental illnesses, the negativity of homophobia, domestic abuse and even substance abuse.

I'll have to watch the film to decide whether or not the film is more worth it though but I definitely do not really recommend the book (especially if you're not in the targeted young adult audience).


Oh and this is ages ago but I hit up the Boxing Day Sales and they were cray cray. I spent about $100 on clothes but I feel like it wasn't even worth it just because it was so hectic. I really don't recommend it to anyone because you could just hit up the sales in normal shopping centres during the New Year's/Early January period and you could probably get the same stuff.

It was so jam packed it took me triple the amount of time to walk from QVB to Pitt St Mall through the underground QVB, and then when I had to go back to QVB to meet with everyone it took like quadruple the time because I was going against the crowd. The whole thing was crazy, like buying lunch at Pitt St Mall and seeing the huge line of like 50 people waiting for the toilets and then needing to walk to the outside of the church next to Town Hall to sit on the floor and eat our lunches like scum. Anyway, I highly do not recommend it and I say never again.


I've also been cross-stitching!

I remember I bought this in year 9 when I went to Malaysia and I did a bit of it, but for some reason I stopped and yonks later (like last month) I was cleaning out my drawers and I found it and decided to finish it. And I shouldn't be saying this because it will just emphasise my image as a grandma, but cross-stitching is pretty darn fun. There, I said it.


Anyway I'm super tired right now and I should really be going to sleep, so that's all for now. Sorry I haven't been blogging as regularly but I'll bring it back up to speed soon.

Multiple Manic Monday Movies

So recently we've been watching A LOT of movies in the Lim abode. We have so many DVD's and I'm watching some that I haven't seen yet, so this whole blog post will be on movies.

If you're wondering, the movies (in order) are:

American Hustle

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Intouchables

Lawless

The Taking of Pelham 123

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Independence Day

Eat Pray Love


American Hustle

7.9/10 on IMDb
93% on Rotten Tomatoes
I was so super excited to watch this in the cinemas because of my huge girl crush on Jennifer Lawrence as well as the rest of the amazing cast (Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner) AND the fact that it was directed by David O. Russell (who also directed The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook).

The film is set in 1978 and focuses on two con-artists who are forced to cooperate with an FBI agent in order to arrest some corrupt businessmen and politicians.

The film was pretty good. I watched it mainly because of Jennifer Lawrence but because she was only a supporting actress she didn't have that much on-time screen. The times she was on screen though, she was hilarious and the spotlight of that particular scene. Her character is so ignorant, stupid and contradictory that most of the comedy side of the movie comes from her. However, the times she wasn't on screen the movie was still amazing. The cast was so great and the movie went at a reasonable pace, switching from drama to comedy and back again flawlessly.

I really love the concept of the film, the thought that "everyone hustles to survive". Obviously the con-artists hustle to survive financially, but even just us regular people hustle in our lives by pretending to be people that we aren't. We put on masks and we hustle ourselves into and out of situations depending on what we need to do to survive, be it surviving life, surviving relationships or surviving our job.

While the story is fictional, the characters were inspired by past con-artists and FBI agents and politicians and stuff and I think it's very worthy of watching, especially for Christian Bale's amazing acting.


The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

8.2/10 on IMDb
75% on Rotten Tomatoes
This movie was amazing! It was so much better than the first one. I felt like the first one was spending too much time trying to make up the minutes until the three hour mark, and while this second movie still felt really long, it didn't feel like unnecessary filler scenes.

It follows Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarves as they continue on their quest to the Lonely Mountain to help the dwarves reclaim their inheritance and their home. They also included some stuff that weren't in the original book, like some extra action scenes and even the characters of Legolas and another female elf, Tauriel.

I was a bit worried about them adding extra stuff in the movie, because I wasn't sure how it would fit in with the plot, but I think they did a fairly good job of it. Some scenes I was very confused as to what was happening, since it was much more serious and intense than the book. However, it's not like I really expected much else. After all, the Hobbit was a children's book and it was divided into three movies AND it's Peter Jackson. And Peter Jackson needs to come to terms with the fact that sometimes, you shouldn't overdo it. But other than that, I really loved it!


The Intouchables (sometimes called Untouchable)

8.6/10 on IMDb
75% on Rotten Tomatoes
This is based on a true story about a millionaire Frenchman who is now a quadriplegic after having a paragliding accident. He ends up hiring some poor West-African man to be his 24-hour caretaker to look after him, including driving him around, washing him, feeding him and taking care of him when he gets sick.

I thought it would be a really sad and touchy movie because of the storyline, but it's actually quite hilarious and even in the comedy genre. I love how they were able to show that not all these stories need to be sad, and that we don't have to treat people with so much pity sometimes. The caretaker seriously has zero pity for this guy, he jokes around about him not being able to feel anything to the point where at one stage he even pours boiling water on the guy's skin in amazement, and the quadriplegic loves it. He loves being able to have a carer who just totally gets him and doesn't treat him with pity or anything like that.

I think it's a really great film, it's super funny and entertaining throughout, BUT it's spoken in French so you need to follow the subtitles. That's the only down side but it's not even that big a deal.


Lawless

7.3/10 on IMDb
67% on Rotten Tomatoes
This is another film that's based on a true story. It's about the Bondurant brothers and their bootlegging back in 1931. They run an illegal distillery that's got an established clientelle, including the local Sheriffs and law enforcers. However, a new deputy is put in charge and his aim is to enforce the illegality of the alcohol industry. Since the two older Bondurant brothers are too rebellious, too tough and too proud, they refuse to cave in to these demands and the movie portrays the political, physical and mental battle between them and the new deputy.

It gets so intense and you can see how the characters develop over time. It's really well directed and the cast is amazing (Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke). Guy Pearce was particularly extraordinary as the new deputy with his whiny voice, creepy eyebrowless face and terrible demeanour. I really loved this film and have no idea why it wasn't rated that well in Rotten Tomatoes.

It was quite violent though, especially the DVD version we got (I read that the American version that they released had a lot of things censored to keep it below an R rating), but it wasn't unnecessarily violent. I think the violence actually helps with the storyline, and who knows, maybe this sort of story will repeat in relation to the drug trade, since current law enforcers are very unyielding to legalising certain drugs.


The Taking of Pelham 123

6.4/10 on IMDb
50% on Rotten Tomatoes
This movies is about some hijackers who take control of a car on a New York City train and hold the hostages in return for $10 million. Their main means of communication is through the train radio, which goes to the train dispatcher in the central office.

This was an alright movie; nothing spectacular, but not horrible. Denzel Washington and John Travolta are great actors and the plot was alright, but what unnerved me the most was that they just portray humanity as a lost cause. The main important people here (the mayor, the hostage negotiator and the police) are just so stupid and hopeless! The plot was quite good I think, but John Travolta's character was so over-the-top and so unrealistic it made the movie seem much stupider than it could have been.

Favourite (but stupidest) quote:
*Teenage hostage on train has girlfriend on Skype on his laptop on the floor and she can see everything happening on the train but the hijackers don't know this*
Girlfriend: I really love you
Boyfriend: *silent because he's a hostage*
Girlfriend: Well... aren't you going to say it back to me?!
*After hijackers walk to the other side*
Boyfriend: I'm a f***ing hostage I can't really talk right now!
Girlfriend: All you need to say is yes... that's a lot easier than saying you can't talk.


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

8.8/10 on IMDb
96% on Rotten Tomatoes
Okay. I was under the impression that this was a really good movie, since it's been praised countless times and even the ratings are amazing for it. But... I just didn't get it. It was so weird and so chaotic.

It's about a man who gets admitted into a mental asylum on a trial basis for doctors to determine whether or not his crimes were caused due to insanity. The mental asylum has very colourful characters who are controlled by a very strict, inflexible and annoying nurse.

As I said, I didn't like the movie. At all. Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and Danny DeVito were good actors, it's just that the movie was so weirdly directed and boring. I have a feeling it's one of those movies that are amazing to analyse but just terrible to watch (à la Blade Runner). The concepts and the themes are really deep and thought-provoking (like how interesting it is to see the nurses and doctors control these patients mentally, and how this control falls apart once the main character is admitted), but I think the movie fails to entertain.


Independence Day

6.9/10 on IMDb
60% on Rotten Tomatoes
I think we all know what Independence Day is about. If not, it's an alien invasion that occurs coincidentally on Independence Day that aims to wipe out humans from Earth. And Will Smith saves the day.

I remember watching this ages ago when I was tiny, but I couldn't remember what happened so I watched it again. It was pretty good entertainment in terms of comedy and sci-fi and it wasn't too intense or suspensful, so it's a good action movie for when you're not ready to emotionally and mentally invest in a movie. It's obviously not the best film there is, but I think it did pretty good seeing as it was made in 1996 and (I think) is one of the first (good) alien invasion films.


Eat Pray Love

5.5/10 on IMDb
36% on Rotten Tomatoes
The movie is about a married woman who realises just how terrible her marriage and her life is, and so she travels the world for a year trying to discover herself.

The movie is distinctly divided into three sections: first, she goes to Italy to eat, then she goes to India to pray and lastly, she goes to Bali and finds love.

Julia Roberts is an amazing actress, and even James Franco appears in the film for a minor role, but as you can see from the ratings... the movie wasn't that great. The humour was very dry and it did seem very unrealistic (the movie seems to tell us you can only find yourself if you have enough money to travel for an entire year without working). The concepts from this film are completely understandable though, but the way the film was carried out (especially the ending) was quite cliched and very sub-par.

Filling in for the Holiday Hiatus

Whoooops I had this in my drafts and for some reason I never posted it so here goes...

I'll get back to blogging again real quick (I pinkie promise)!


---------------
Well, I haven't been doing much these holidays except working, so this blog will be a bit higgledy piggledy all over the place...


It was my birthday on Monday [23rd December] and I was so surprised that Google did this:

Click to enlarge!
Amazing!!

But yeah I didn't really do much for my birthday because I had to work so I just chilled with Diwan for a bit before work started. Oh and thanks for everyone who wished me happy birthday on Facebook. As much as I'm against birthday wishes on Facebook it was all very lovely to see those messages (even from some people who I didn't recognise... awkward...)

[Edit: Oh yeah you should sign up to San Churros because they give you free churros for two on your birthday or on the day before or after your birthday!]


Also my brother had to go in to the Supreme Court because he's starting a new job as a tipstaff to one of the judges there and so my mum and I went to the city to have lunch with him that day as a mini celebration for him getting the job.

Anyway, while we were walking around, I bought this amazing leather-bound journal with parchment paper and a little metal lock!

It was $45 for this one because the leather was a bit different so it was a bit more expensive than the others, but I love it so much, I can write heaps in it and it'll last so long because it's so thick!

I got it at some stall/kiosk called Last Minute Gifts at Pitt St Westfield on level 1 near one of the escalators. It's such a tiny stall but it also sells things like candles, leather bags, wallets, etc. and it's a really nice shop. They have other journals that are smaller/bigger, cheaper/pricier and with different patterns as well. So if you're interested, check it out!


What else is there, I had a Christmas Party with some friends from my family's church and we played the Kris Kringle game again! I'm not too sure if I've blogged about it but it's a really fun and hectic and tiring and LONG game where all the Kris Kringle presents are piled in the middle, then everyone draws from a hat. The hat will have pieces of paper with numbers from 1 to [n-1] (omgsh lol mathz) as well as a Joker on it.

So for example, a game with five people will mean there will be papers with 1,2,3,4 and Joker.

Person #1 starts first and whichever present in the pile they FIRST touch (either by clothing, hair, hand or whatever) is theirs (to prevent someone picking up a present and shaking it or feeling it to determine what it is). They open it in front of everyone, then Person #2 continues and so on.

Now, anyone (except Person #1) can choose to take a present from the pile, or they can choose to steal a present that's already been opened if it's a really good present or something they want. A present can only be stolen three times. The third time a present is stolen, it's locked in with the thief. Someone who has had the present stolen off them then needs to choose a present from the pile, or steal another present (but they cannot steal the present that was just stolen from them).

The Joker can come in after any round has finished (so if someone's present has been stolen, s/he needs to pick a present before the Joker can come in).

Anyway, as you can tell, it's pretty hectic. Last Christmas I think we had like 12 or so people and it was pretty crazy, but this time we had around 20 people and it went insane. Everyone was ganging up on everyone else, people formed alliances in groups of three with promises to swap presents after the game ended, couples formed a team of their own and sorted out tactics, best friends backstabbed and stole from each other, it was insane!!! But super fun!!

I ended up with a Mr. Happy bottle:

I'm fairly proud of it because at first I got 4 small Nerf water guns that I knew I would never use, and I didn't really want anything else, and it's practical! I've already used it like 5 times since I take it to work with me! =]


LOOK AT THIS HUGE ANT!

LOOK AT IT. JUST LOOK AT IT.

And lastly but not leastly, I went fishing!

We went to Gosford. Diwan found some deal on Groupon for a 4 hour hire of an 8 person boat and we went here for our anniversary date.

It was a rocky start, especially whenever some bigger boats and ferries came by close to us, but eventually I calmed down a bit. It was only two of us and the boat fits 8 people, but I seriously thought we would capsize.

This is the lovely view from in the water:

This is Diwan looking cool, calm and collected:

And me being a paranoid tourist with a life jacket:

Honestly I cannot see how this boat fits 8 people
And the fish we caught! He's so mad that we caught him, but we saved his life! There was a pelican that knew we caught a fish and just waited like a metre away from our boat, staring expectantly at us, but we threw the fish over the other side of the boat far away so the pelican couldn't get to it.

To Resolve or Not To Resolve

Happy New Year!

This will be a super duper quick blog just to welcome in the new year and things like that. I've been quite busy since the last time I blogged (with working and Christmas and New Year's and all that) and I'm still trying to settle in to 2014 and stuff so yeah...

Anyway, now that I've had my last shift at The Body Shop, I will have a bit more time to do things and to also not do things (because going out and working is tough for someone who likes to have down time like me).

Well, today I just wanted to blog about New Year's Resolutions. I think they are silly and frankly every time I made a New Year's Resolution I would never look at it again.

I think they're silly because you should never wait for the New Year to come around for you to start something. If you truly want to change yourself, you can aim to do it tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or whenever is convenient. For example, if it's October, you shouldn't wait for the 1st of January to go to the gym, you should go whenever you can (e.g. the weekend or once you get a day that's free).

I know it's easy to say, and obviously sometimes I fall into that bad behaviour, but I really believe in trying to make a change and make goals every week or every month to really push yourself. Otherwise you'll just end up making the same New Year's Resolution every year because you slacked off one month in every time.

In some circumstances it's really hard to not wait for the New Year's. For example, when it's the start of December and you want to get fit but you know exactly HOW lazy and how much food you're going to eat during the Christmas season. I think in that circumstance it's alright, but once you stop the holiday season, you really need to get back in to it and get back into the habit of exercising and dieting and not see it as a new year's resolution, but just a normal goal.

At The Body Shop (and I'm totally not getting paid to endorse this) we have this campaign starting tomorrow (Monday 6th) called Think Positive.

It's obviously a little silly but the message behind it is quite deep. The whole campaign is about making your life better, because if individual people try to make their lives better, this could cascade out into a butterfly effect that could make the entire world a little better.

The campaign says that apparently it takes 21 days for a habit to stick, so why not do something different for at least 21 days of each month to obtain better habits (or get rid of bad habits)? In every Body Shop in Australia there should be not only that life size cut out, but also some free calendars and stuff where each month has 21 days dedicated to making a habit stick. You can write out your goals for each month, and at the end of the month you get a sticker.

It sounds kind of cheesy, but like I said, they got a really deep message and kind of cheesed it up.

Anyway, I think the idea is good. I think we should keep a diary of things we want to change about ourselves. Simple things like learning how to cook... make a pact that you will, for the next 30 days, cook something different every day (as Joyce did). Wanting to read more... make sure you read a chapter (or two) of a book every day for the next 30 days. Wanting to get fit... aim to exercise for a certain amount of time each week for the next 4 weeks, then after that increase the time.

So what are my New Year Resolutions?

By the end of January: do a proper sit-up (and I mean proper! The whole she-bang! Arms crossed over chest, feet flat, go slow, don't go all the way down! I watched videos on youtube and realised I was doing so many things wrong)

In February: read a chapter of a book every single day (I will probably do this in March when uni starts anyway, but I want to do this when I'm on holidays to prevent myself from just staring at a screen all day [ironic because I'd be staring at the screen of an ereader])

By the end of July: run 6 km (we have a lot of hills no excuses! I'm just superbly unfit at the moment)

By the end of the year: look back and say 2014 was a good one

Most of my goals will probably overlap (like in January I can do sit ups and run and also read at the same time) but it's good to not overwhelm yourself with too many goals. It's like when you multi-task, you're not actually multi-tasking. You're just switching your attention to and from tasks, thus compromising the quality of both performances. So if you have too many goals in one period of time, you might compromise on all of them, not achieve any, give up, then be forced to write another meaningless New Year's Resolution again.

Anyway, I totally encourage you to make your own resolutions, just don't wait for the next year to roll around before you tackle them!


Also lastly, just wanted to do a shout out to my friends Shannelle and Uel Lim (not related to me)!

I've been forced to keep this quiet for some time, but now it's officially been advertised! They are going to be on this year's My Kitchen Rules! You can remember them because they're the nice married Asian couple from NSW.

(Dem Asian eyes)
(Also not my photo)
I'm so proud of you two <3 You guys are amazing and such great friends and you totally deserve this because you're amazing cooks!