HSC Results Countdown

13 years of schooling as led up to this. How exciting. 

I've been asked several times whether or not I'm nervous and honestly, I'm not. I've worked this year the hardest I have ever worked in my life and I'm not desperately hoping for a 99.95 ATAR or for all my subjects to be Band 6. Instead, I'm anxious in anticipation. One of my great flaws is my impatience. I can't stand waiting, so I've been occupying my days with:

Work:

I've been working a lot recently, saving up for my future exchange overseas which costs a whopping 26k. While I'm not fond of work, it has kept me sane and has stopped me from going crazy in waiting for my results.

Movies & Television Shows:

Perks was amazing. I loved the book and I was pleasantly surprised to how it translated into film. I did think Emma Watson's performance was weak, but Ezra Miller and Logan Lerman were amazing. The movie fleshed out Patrick's character more and I'm so glad it did because there was a lot of potential within it. I would have liked more background on Charlie (ie. more on his late best friend) but how they portrayed his relationship with Aunt Helen was subtle and chilling.

With Pitch Perfect, Rebel Wilson stole the show. Overall, it was a fun, cute and hilarious movie.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was so lovely and evocative. It made me wonder so much about fate and love and I have so much respect for Jim Carrey (who was in The Truman Show and I Love You Phillip Morris which I both adore) and Kate Winslet.

Skyfall was the first James Bond movie I ever watched and it was exciting. I don't really have much to say about it except that Q is a qt.

Misfits seasons 4 has been a let down so far this season (I'm only up to episode 6) but Rudy is forever wonderful.

I like this season of American Horror Story more than the last one. It's more gritty, shocking and less focused on tenuous relationships I don't care about. Spoiler: highlight to see (holy crap Zachary Quinto is such an amazing actor. The huge twist at the end of I am Anne Frank part 2 was so frightening, god DAMN. I loved how the apartment scene portrayed, that is one freaky lamp.)

Books:
I bought 1Q84 during late 2011 and it was only after the HSC that I have gotten the chance to read it. I might make a separate post for it but I'll just say that it was a really interesting and thought provoking novel. Like a lot of Murakami novels, much is left up to the reader to decipher, but if you want something action packed, more so than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84 is for you.

I re-read The Door Into Summer and while I'm usually not a fan of sci-fi novels, this has got to be one of my favourite books. It's hilarious and well paced and is a prime example of where one should not judge a book by its cover.

That's about it from me. I hope all my fellow school leavers receive the marks that they're hoping for and good luck to the current year 12s.

6 days of freedom in Kiama.

Between the 22nd and 28th of November, 6 friends and I stayed for almost a week down south in Kiama and let me tell you, it was one of the most liberating, relaxing experiences of my life.

The house contained 3 bedrooms (2 double beds and 2 bunk beds) and was four minutes from the beach.

The sunset was well worth waking up at 5am for. I don't think I have ever properly watched the sun rise in my life, certainly not during my time in Sydney, so it was quite a surreal experience. A perfect time to be inundated with existential questions and dilemmas of what is life and how different the world can be a few hours from a major city.


Whenever asked about what I did in Kiama, the truth of 'going to the beach' and 'cooking' never sounds interesting. However, the fact that I was there with the people that I loved made the whole trip exciting enough for me.

We made a blanket and pillow fort and played cards, watched V for Vendetta and ate ice cream inside it.

We also took plenty of walks, one time which we came across a group of elderly ladies with several dogs. They were so cute and the large white one was so friendly, it wouldn't leave us ;~;. Additionally, we climbed over a lot of rocks to get near the edge of a cliff. Frightening stuff, especially when it began to rain.

The move list: (underlined are the ones I slept through partially or wholly)

The Descent 2 (horrible, terrible, etc.)

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Rosemary's Baby (i really wish i didn't fall asleep, it seemed like my kind of movie)

Treasure Planet

Finding Nemo

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Zombieland

Kill Bill 1, Kill Bill 2

The Fountain

V for Vendetta

Snatch.

Get Him To The Greek

Overall, it was the most fun that I have had in awhile, making the whole ordeal of the HSC beforehand so minuscule. But never mind that, HSC results come out in a week. The relaxation within my life will soon be gone. Oh well, there's always Kiama.

MUSIC - Coldplay Concert (i.e. the greatest night ever)

My friends Jenny and Cecilia and I bought the tickets early in the year and after several months of waiting, the night was finally here. We arrived at Allianz Stadium about 2pm and there was already 200+ people waiting. We joined the queue and spent the next three and a half hours in the scorching sun. After several attempts of entertainment, from charades to eating, our patience was rewarded with an amazing spot near the stage:

and xylobands!

First up were The Pierces who were really good live. They played We Are Stars, Secret, You'll Be Mine and some other songs but not 3 Wishes which is my favourite song from them. Jenny hated them though ("WHY ARE THEY EVEN CALLED THE PIERCES?") but I thought they were pretty good. Except one of the guitar players was :| for the whole time. That was really distracting.

Next were the Temper Trap and they were great as well. I love love love love love Rabbit Hole and I'm so glad I got to hear it live, I can never get tired of that song.

Finally Coldplay came on and god damn they were amazing.

this being their first song last night, you can imagine how the rest of the show was like

I felt like a spoilt child at Christmas, so much happened during their performances.

In the first couple of songs, these crepe paper butterflies started shooting out and filled the whole stadium. For a few magical moments, the only thing you could see was this:

It was so beautiful, you cannot fathom how surprised I was when they first came out. The moshpit is seriously the best place to be.

Later on, these colourful giant balloon balls were released and bounced on top of the crowds. I managed to whack one towards the stage hehe.

The security guards had to pop them later though :(

There were so many lasers and fireworks and flashing lights. Honestly, I felt disappointed afterwards, not because of the concert itself, but because I had to get back my less vibrant reality. My favourite performances of the night would have to be Charlie Brown, Viva La Vida, Paradise, Fix You and Hurts Like Heaven.

This is definitely not my last Coldplay show. In the future, if you ever get the chance to go, don't hesitate. And get there early.

MUSIC - My HSC Playlist

Frank Ocean: (quite a lot of him actually)
Missing You So

Lost


Novacane


Swim Good


Calvin Harris ft. Example:
We’ll Be Coming Back


Psy:
Right Now


Florence and the Machine:
Howl

and now to actually get studying.

MOVIE - Les Amours Imaginaires (2010)

Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats) is a French movie that I had been wanting to watch for the past year and finally had the pleasure of doing so after my exams. Directed, written, edited by Xavier Dolan, he plays the protagonist Francais, a young man that falls for the new guy in town, Nick, at the same time that his good friend Mary does.

That's pretty much it, plot-wise. However, the movie does not depict the conventional love triangle and some scenes were uncomfortable to watch. No, not because of the acting (I quite enjoyed the performances of Dolan and Monia Chokri who plays Mary), but how much the movie reminds you the embarrassment that almost comes hand in hand with infatuation.

The competition between Mary and Francis is never explicitly said, but the undercurrent sensations of jealousy and lust are prevalent and the fact that the protagonists are unaware of all this, of how all their emotions are blanketed across their faces for the world to see allows us to reflect on our past infatuations. The movie illustrates how such lust can consume us, influencing how we act, how we perceive the world and the relationships present in our lives.

Les Amours Imaginaires is gorgeous, of which can easily be mistaken as the stylized preteniousness of any conventional French film and I must admit that thought did cross my mind. However, Dolan in this interview, raises an interesting point:

"The film is about the way we magnify people when we’re in love -- walking down the street feeling like we’re floating, hence the slow motion, the music, the costumes, the colors. A lot of people said it was a case of style over substance, but being in love is often a case of style over substance."

I feel that this movie and its stylistic devices felt less awkward than it did for Dolan's first film J'ai tué ma mère and Les Amours Imaginaires was more fluid in general, however I found more depth within J'ai tué ma mère and thus was able to connect to it more. Nevertheless, both films are fantastic and I look forward to eventually watching Laurence Anyways.

(x)

MOVIE - Scene Stealing Speeches

When I like a movie, there's usually one exceptional scene or speech that stands out, as if the whole movie was just built up to that particular moment. Here are some examples:


"Say a bomb goes off in a marketplace, you know, detonated by some suicidal zealot who hates I dont know - you know, fruit or vegetables or local handicrafts - viscera and gobbets of flesh and wet hanks of hair and teeth and splinters of bone are just shooting through airborne sprays of blood like on those soft drink commercials where the lemon splices splash through the arc of soda in some slow-motion orgasm of what it means to be refreshing. And every time it happens, it gets less tragic, not more.... 

I mean, we're just.. we're just fucked beyond all measure."

• The New Tenants (2009)

“If you really want to do this with your life you have to believe that you’re necessary. And you are. People want to live like this in their cars and their big fucking houses that they can’t even pay for? Then you’re necessary. The only reason they all get to continue living like kings is because we’ve got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and the whole world gets really fucking fair really fucking quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don’t. They want what we have to give them, but they also want to play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came from. That’s more hypocrisy than I’m willing to swallow. Fuck them. Fuck normal people.”

• Margin Call (2011) [here]

"It wasn't just the baby that died that day. Something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned. It seemed that he had no theory with which to explain a moment like this... nor did I. Our only response was to keep on going and 'fuck everything'. pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile, then squirt it into a stinking, puerile vein and do it all over again. Keep on going, getting up, going out, robbing, stealing, fucking people over. Propelling ourselves with longing towards the day that it would all go wrong, because no matter how much you stash, or how much you steal you never have enough. No matter how often you go out and rob and fuck people over, you always need to get up and do it all over again. "

• Trainspotting (1996)

"I ask this... If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out - - If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door... And that's all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power... it's about the "us's" out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's. Without hope, the us's give up - I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you... You gotta give em' hope... you gotta give em' hope."

• Milk (2008)

Reading these makes me want to re-watch the movies again, but I don't have enough time to :(
I think what makes these excerpts so great is that they depict the real essence of the movie and by reading these, you're transported back into the movie without actually watching it. Movies can go by so quickly and so much within it can go unappreciated, so I suppose this blog post is a way for me to remember them.

Cannes Film Festival 2012

is happening at the moment! Oh how I wish to be watching a film now, but the HSC awaits me. Nevertheless, I've been watching some of the film trailers and I'm looking to forward to watching these one day:

Un certain regard

Laurence Anyways (no surprise there lol) - trailer

• I skimmed through this review, it's pretty mixed but I loved J'ai tué ma mère so I'm still going to check this out.

Antiviral - trailer

Mystery - trailer

I haven't had a chance to see the trailers of the ones in the competition yet, but hopefully I will soon. Also, Ewan McGregor is part of the jury this year! I'm looking forward to reading the results later on.