12.12.2008

les lignes

Dear Messieurs Straight Lines

I appreciate your helpfulness today but as of very recently, in this last panel, you have become nothing short of a nuisance to me. I would be in your debt should you choose to cooperate with me now. Elsewise I will have no other option than to terminate you permanently, and considering both our circumstances, this would be unfavourable for both you, and myself.

I have matters I would much rather attend to at this fine hour of the morning than putting you in your place, so once more I kindly ask for your cooperation in these issues.

Sincerely yours,
Edna

12.01.2008

Stereotypes are Fun(ny)

I was born this way. I have some of the unfunniest genes and attributes around.

I'm Asian. So few Asians are funny. You know it, I know it. I'm also a girl. Ditto, as sexist as it may be. I'm saying it, though, so like my racist jokes, they're okay for me to say, not okay for you, if you're white and especially if you're a white man.

Now, not only am I a girl, but I don't have any redeeming comedic qualities that can come with being a girl, which are lesbianism and... being fat. It's not an insult. Lesbians are funny. Fat women are also funny, and not because they're fat. (On the other hand, fat men tend to be somewhat less humourous than their counterparts of athletic variety.) I also don't do drugs, which a large number of funny people seem to do. (see: Mitch Hedberg)

So there you have it, in a nutshell. I truly have one of the most horrendous groupings of qualities, if I want to be funny. And I do sometimes. So you should start appreciating what little my humour is worth, because considering my circumstance, I am doing pretty damn well.

11.06.2008

Conversion

So I have a new Macbook Pro. I'm going to tell you some of the things I love about my Macbook Pro.

- It is a lot prettier than my old one. In every way possible.
- It is a laptop, and just so much nicer and more fun.
- Leopard? It's a little hard to get used to so far, but it is also ultra-bitchin'.
- 2.53 GHz, GeForce 8600 GT graphics card and 250 GB hard drive. It's a big step up. You have no idea.

Lastly:
- It comes installed with HELVETICA. This is only awesome if you're awesome and into fonts like I am.

10.29.2008

The Androgyny Dilemma

I want to find somebody who wants a boy for a girlfriend.

This wouldn't be a problem if I were a lesbian. But it turns out life works in mysterious ways, and I'm not. I think my best bets are bi- or pansexuals, or extremely confused gay men.

10.05.2008

The First Malkovichian

It's the new philosophy. Like Machiavellism. Except Malkovichism. Followers of John Malkovich. Living lives in fervent support of the death penalty and speaking in soft girly dulcet tones.

I get the weirdest dreams, but the great thing is that even though I don't understand them, they've been generated from my head and they're awesome. So naturally this means I'm awesome. Mm, the things I come up with when I'm just trying to fit in six hours or so.

9.20.2008

Artistry

Friday I was carrying a croissant in a clear plastic bag as I walked from school to my mom's office. I was thinking about eating it when I passed by a homeless person sitting in our school field, and thought instead, wouldn't a good person give their croissant to a homeless person? I kept walking.

Later I had a story concept about a little girl who has a cookie and when a homeless person asks her for it, she gives it up willingly. The next day on the news, a homeless man is found dead near the school with a plastic bag on his head and a cookie crushed into crumbs in his stiff, clenched fist.

Imagination replaces guilt. An artist, all right.

9.03.2008

From a Promise to a Threat

The future is scary. Oh yes I'm only fifteen and I have a whole lot of it before me, and it is damn scary. Looking at schools is scary. Thinking about trying to find a real job is scary.

It's scary because I'm a hedonist and the idea of a life that I have chosen but that don't like is the worst thing I can imagine. I want my life to be good enough for me, whatever 'good' means. (Starving artist/full-time waitress? Works for me.) I only know what 'good' doesn't mean: having a job I despise, and being tied down with bad commitments. I don't want to screw myself over by getting myself into something I hate. I think it might just be a run-from-responsibility thing.

Anyways, I'm looking at applications for a Master of Arts in Journalism at Columbia University and all this reality just came crashing down on me. It also looks like my French isn't good enough to land me a page position in the House of Commons in Ottawa so I can get a BA at Carleton, either.


Why is real life so expensive?

8.30.2008

Cats and Insomnia

I'm wide awake at almost two in the morning after two hours of trying to sleep at a friend's house. Luckily she has two very friendly cats to keep me company, as well as a TV but she's sleeping so I'm not going to pop in Little Miss Sunshine, much as I'd like to. One cat, Conan, is particularly fond of sitting or lying on me, though he seems to find my ribs quite a mystery and was clawing at them through my shirt until he got bored and took a nap.

Cats are such good company. I want a cat. They're selfish, quiet, and slink around the house doing not much at all. Like me at home. Of course they demand occasional attention, like me, and even sometimes like to be cuddly, like me. The only reason God didn't make me a cat is because I love chocolate and have mild caffeine addiction so if I were a cat I'd be dead. Some things were never meant to be.

8.16.2008

May I have your attention please?

Earlier this week, I had little else to do and so I was bitching out thinking refelctively about how nobody listens to me or cares what I have to say. Then I started listening to myself (including reading old hidden journal entries on my xanga) and I realized that maybe it's for the better. I mean, holy mackerel, I'm such a whiny teenager, making it seem like I have these insurmountable life problems when really I know and have always known that I've got it pretty damn good. Most days I'm pleased/content with myself and what I do but on the occasional off-days I make it seem like the world is imploding.

So to the people who listen to me, thanks, and I admire pity am impressed with you for continuing to do so. And to the people who don't, good idea.

7.27.2008

Be Prepared!

First day in Toronto. Bought: underwear, pyjamas, hair products. Accidentally dyed blue/weird gray in laundry: scarf, t-shirt, cardigan.

Oh shee-it. I would be the worst Boy Scout ever.

7.16.2008

Screw you, MS Word.

You know what? Mojito IS a word. I don't care what your goddamn dictionary says.

7.14.2008

Oscar-Worthy

I am entering my father's house, and my brother is there, ambling from the computer den to the kitchen. I meet him halfway, in the hallway, and he flashes me a smile as well as the cover of a DVD I don't recognize. "I saw your movie," he says matter-of-factly.

"What?" I don't remember what 'my movie' is.

Albert pushes the DVD out towards me. On the front cover I see that it is directed by Amnon Buchbinder, a Canadian writer/director who taught a workshop I attended back in February. The title is unfamiliar and not very appealing anyways. It doesn't really look like my kind of movie. Albert takes it, turns it over, and puts it back in my hand so I am reading the back cover. He points at the bottom, where it clearly reads, "Screenplay by: Edna Chan."

"Huh," I say, mostly to myself.

We descend into the basement, where a 52" projector screen awaits my undoubtedly Oscar-worthy movie. Popping the DVD in, it somehow makes sense that Amnon Buchbinder would use one of my screenplays. He did take about three pieces after the workshop and not tell me why. I can very dimly recall what the screenplays I wrote were about, but no details come to mind. I can't even think of a character name. All I remember was something to do with placenta.

As we watch the movie, I realize that I don't remember much of this so-called screenplay of mine whatsoever. My brother laughs a lot and gives me funny looks throughout the film. I understand why, as I see red-saturated images of peasants gathering wheat, and feeding a vegetarian clone of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. Then a group of little people dances around in a circle outside a 1800's storefront. Did I really write this? It's awful.

I awake to find that I am frowning. I look around my room from the safety of my bed, and it takes a long moment before I am able to shake the chills that have taken over my body.

7.05.2008

Hell on Earth

I was at the University train station today. I don't remember it ever being so eerie before. There were moths down there, for God's sake, in the middle of the afternoon. I wouldn't have been surprised if rats, snakes and bats started appearing from down the tunnel.

Has anybody else noticed how going down the six-or-so sets of stairs to the platform feels like you're going to hell? A hell reserved for yuppies, metrosexuals, and people fashionable to wear their big Dolce & Gabanna sunglasses underground. Walking down those creepy horror-movie stairs made me want to scream out my sinful confessions left and right.

6.30.2008

Newness

I have a new 80GB black iPod Classic. It is truly a thing of beauty. No matter how much my subconscious anarchist asshole inner self tells me I'm being a trendwhore teenager by getting one, I'm still admiring myself in the new, perfect mirror that is the silvery back of this wondrous music machine. Even the trendy yuppie-esque black leather case it's sitting in can't diminish its pure awesome.


What else is new? I read a good book: The Gum Thief, by Douglas Coupland. I'm back from camping. I really need a haircut. My brother's coming over sometime tonight. Mom's angry.

That one's not too new, and honestly I'm not sure what I did this time... but I had a revelation yesterday: This is like having Hugo Weaving's face as my mother. She always looks annoyed, and damn if I can tell whether she actually is or not. Usually she is. But on the off chance that she's actually not silently fuming at the world, and I assume that she is, she gets doubly pissed.

What is it with Asian mothers? They draw all these crazy lines everywhere and if you even cross one of them in your head, they know(!), and it's like Thor has found a suitable human host through whom to channel his supreme Norse wrath.

6.10.2008

Too Much Hugo Weaving

1. Quels adjectifs te décrivent?
- Je pense qu je suis égoïste, indépendante, et un peu créative. (Comme Agent Smith.)

5.29.2008

Clever Edna

Two Christmases ago, I received a book of Sudoku puzzles as a 'Secret Santa' gift (along with a V for Vendetta poster, but that's not important). I finished the 'Easy' and 'Mild' sections very quickly, but came to some struggles with most of the puzzles in the 'Difficult' section. I grew into the habit of doing as many numbers as I could, then giving up and moving onto the next one.

Recently I rediscovered the book of puzzles, and decided to give a go at finishing all the ones I couldn't do last year. To my surprise, I found myself able to complete all the 'half-done's easily. It felt nice to flip through the pages and see all the filled boxes. Knowing that I had become smarter, at least in this sense, I started to feel contentedly and smugly intelligent.


Then I realized I was measuring my intellect with Sudoku puzzles. The feeling went away.

5.28.2008

What a RUSH

Neil Peart is the master of my heart. Literally. I don't think my heartbeat will get out of 4/4 time for the rest of my life.

5.06.2008

I am the next Oprah.

Fact: cynicism is "in."

It's way cool to by a cynic. It's charming and for some reason that snideness gives people a certain air, though they remain "just like us" - cynics are just regular folks with an admirably cold realism in their mindset.

I thought it was pretty awesome to be a cynic at first. But I have now grown and learned that I am really not cynical. I don't face life with that bitter smile. I believe that people can alone be good for the sake of being good, without feeling morally obligated to pay back some debt they've convinced themselves they owe to the greater good/God/world/fate/karma/etc.

It's doubtlessly naive of me to have such faith in human beings, but I really do think that we're not all bad. Personally, I've stopped telling myself I'm worthless, puny, and undeserving in the grand scheme of things, or under the eye of God. It's because, to me, I am my own grand scheme of things, and I do believe that I am the one making my life worthwhile or not.

5.01.2008

Practicality

Have you ever wondered what Girlicious girl you would be?
I know I have. And apparently someone else knows I have.

It's good to see that society has advanced so much with the advent of facebook applications.

4.29.2008

Two Clocks

I have two very loud clocks. One is in the bathroom, and one is in my room above the computer. At night when all the machines are quiet and nobody is talking through voice or speaker, you can hear them both. It's odd. Clocks are supposed to be precise and accurate, but every night the intervals between their alternating ticks and tocks is different. Sometimes they are exactly in time with each other, sometimes there is a jagged beat, as though one echoes the other, and sometimes there is an even staccato.

Clocks are supposed to be precise and accurate. How many clocks do you look at in a day? They're all supposed to say the same thing but you know they can be set differently, and apparently they're not always too precise either. What about everything else that's supposed to be accurate then, that isn't even running by machine? People, for example.

How many clocks do you look at in a day?

4.24.2008

Compare and Contrast

So I got a pretty nice handful of compliments today on an English paper I wrote for our Antigone unit, about 'Creon as a tragic figure.' Things like, "great selection of quotes," and "a great deal of personality [in] your writing (which is no easy task in formal writing)." It was particularly flattering to read, "[this] shows a writing level far beyond your age."

But I started to wonder, does this mean my now-sweet and well-disposed student teacher (in ten years he may be a bitter, crooked bastard like many of his older colleagues) is a little ageist? That seemed silly, with the assumption that the comment was made in good will as a compliment. Nonetheless, who is to say what people my age should be writing? Is it even fair to compare my writing with that of others my age?

I've also been told that I'm "more mature than my age." Why does this matter? Why can't I just be as mature as me? Of course, I hear this mostly from parents of kids my age, so perhaps it is just that apparently irresistible parental urge to judge other kids.

I'm not trying to complain about being called mature or a good writer. I like those things. My ego likes them a lot. Also, I realize the school system is relative and it counts more to be 'better' than it does to be 'good.' I think it's just the wimp in me that hates competition, naturally loathing to be compared to anybody.

Cliché closing statement today:
Just love me for me!

4.23.2008

A New Home(?)

Well here I am at another blog site. I feel like a disloyal friend with benefits, jumping into the arms of the first other friend I get the chance to. Poor Xanga. We had some good times.

But not really. I've been itching to get away from those damn Google ads for a while. (But with my luck they'll start crowding space here, too.) I've also been mulling over the idea of a nice pictorial header, and I came up with that thing up there, waiting for somewhere to put it, and the opportunity practically hit me in the face. Also there's a lot of crap on my Xanga that I'd be glad to distance myself from; they're mostly old grade eight ramblings that make me laugh now, but I'm mostly cringing.

I think it's about time I started a new relationship. Things were interesting with Xanga at first, and I became familiarized and comfortable, but things were getting dull. It's time for a change, and I don't like livejournal. Hello, Blogspot/Blogger.