Anyhows, today was a good day. After graduation, I went with my friends to Castle Towers, where shopping, browsing, general wandering, talking, eating, arguing and eventually watching a movie before going home was the activities of the day. I shan’t bother going into greater description of the day. I don’t look forward to the formal. Well, I do look forward to it, I’m sure it’ll be great. I just feel really nervous about it, I always feel nervous about social events like that.

Thanks to my friends for a great school year, btw!!

Probably the only thing that’s worth a real mention here in this post is the small outing some of us people of the ‘Back-stoop’ & others had on the 1st Tuesday of the hols. We met up in Parra for lunch (after Anthony and Michael Lee had a ‘study’ session, which included hardcore study of Tap Tap Revolution), before wandering towards the Cinemas to buy our tickets for our movie (Mao’s Last Dancer, very good movie, you should all go watch it if you haven’t already). As usual, the guys out-numbered the girls, but that didn’t stop us guys following the girls like a gaggle of geese around the shops, till we realised that they were shopping for formal dresses and such, and then strangely we felt like going off on our own.

Kapilan, strangely, felt like wandering around the shops on his own, till he decided he’d be lonely and immediately decided to drag me along with him. He said he was looking for aviators, I told him I’d have no idea where to find them. He dragged me to Myer, more accurately the cosmetics section, where he tried out various sample perfumes and colognes, apparently in an attempt to smell better, although I haddn’t realised he smelt bad to begin with…

Eventually, after a few phone calls from the others, we returned to the main group, who were waiting outside Woolworths while Jaz went and bought some snacks for the movie. Low and behold, of all of the people I saw and recognised at Parra that day (apart from the friends I was with, that means just about no one), I saw Jason Vorapatrakul. He was looking at me from the doorway of an optometrist’s shop. The moment he saw he looking at him, he immediately looked away and went inside, almost as if he was shy… (he’s not that shy normally!! Least, he doesn’t seem to be…). Anyways, after saying hi to him and talking with his sister for a few minutes (Areeya), we eventually continued our wanderings.

Some when along the way, the group stopped off at Easy Way, before continuing on with their shopping (or perhaps more accurately, window shopping). Kapilan had once again run off, but this time he had absconded with Martin, but at least this time he found some sun glasses (although they weren’t aviators).

Eventually we went back to the cinemas to watch the movie, and (after seemingly eating half the food during the ads) I must say, the movie was very well done. Remarkable acting and dancing, and the boy Li chose looks remarkably a lot like him. Must’ve been horrible to not be able to go back to China to check on his family though…

Sadly though, soon after we all had to go our own ways to get home. Personally, I find it surprising that it costed 40c more to get home than it did to get there on the same bus route…

And to finish up, I’d like to say this:

A wise person once said “Keep your enemies close. But keep your friends closer.”

If you don’t know already, I enjoy listening to movie soundtracks, especially the ones from movies I really enjoyed. They’re one half of the movie really. When thinking about how important they are, I remember that exhibit at Quest-a-con, with the video clip where it plays along with different soundtracks to show how important the music is. So far, I really think that Warner Brothers have done excellently with their choices of Directors and Soundtrack artists. John Williams certainly is one of the best, if not the best, out there, and he did a brilliant job with starting and creating Harry Potter with Hedwig’s Theme. After he composed the first three films (he didn’t compose the 4th film because he was really busy with Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Steven Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds).

Next came Patrick Doyle (who’s done films such as Bridget Jone’s Diary, Eragon and Nanny McPhee) and his rendition of the Harry Potter world, and you heard it, it was certainly magical. After him came Nicholas Hooper, the person who brought the electric guitar into Harry Potter with out the band (Javis Cocker brought the electric guitar for the Weird Sisters into Harry Potter) with his piece ‘Fireworks’. Brilliant stuff, really, and he continued it with his latest work in the latest film. You can hear reocurrances of his previous themes in the movie.

Having a quick glimpse at the Directors who have guided the movies, we see Chris Columbus starting off the series with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Next in line, bringing in an almost complete change to the environment in which the Harry Potter series had sat in so far, was Alfonso Cuarón, a man who, despite his wonderful vision for the scene, I did not completely agree with (then again, it is an art, and it’s hard to make everyone like it).

Taking on the role of Director for the 5th installment was Mike Newell, who did a brilliant job of portraying Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and I believe it is to him we owe the smokey effect of people apparating in the magical world (wonderful to watch and create, awefully hard to explain to people who haven’t read the books and ask about apparation). After his wonderful creation, we next see David Yates step up to the plate, and he did a brilliant job of continuing the series, adopting Mike’s smokey affect for magical flying by the wizards, going so far as to pitch Deatheaters in black, and the Order of the Pheonix in white druing the battle scene in the Department of Mysteries (DoM). Returning again in the 6th and latest instalment, he’s done a brilliant job is continuing on with a great feel. Sure, he removed a lot of the book from the movie, and change parts (e.g. Harry’s attraction to Ginny is noticed and picked up on by him and his friends earlier on, so as to make it easier for the film I guess). Edit: But untill I watch the movie, I cannot truly cast a verdict upon it. But from what others have said, and from the brilliant soundtrack, I believe it it going to be a great movie. If you haven’t read the books and only went to watch the movies, then the movie was brilliant, but if you have read the books they left out soooooo much. Oh well, it’s a film, you can’t fit a whole book in it.

And, lastly, the 7th and 8th films. And incase you thought I just got it wrong (“What 8th film?! There’s only 7 books…”), I didn’t. It is official (as of a long while ago) that the film is going to be split into two parts.

“Years ago, we briefly — and seriously — considered doing Goblet of Fire as two films. So this concept is not altogether new. As for Deathly Hallows, I intuited — almost from the first moments I began reading it and certainly once I’d finished — that to realize the story in a single film was going to be a tall order. Others in ‘the group’ felt similarly. So the idea of two films began to get kicked around as early as late summer of 2007. We didn’t take it lightly. But ultimately everyone felt that despite the challenges it would present, it was the most sound creative decision.
I’m sure some will think we’re crazy. My wife looked at me cross-eyed when I first mentioned it. But I’m really excited about it because it should allow us to stretch a bit with the characters and give them the proper send-off. The story is highly emotional and those moments deserve time to breathe. And, personally, I feel we owe it to Jo — in order to preserve the integrity of the work — and the fans — for their loyalty all these years — to give them the best and most complete experience possible.” — Steve Kloves on the decision to split the film.

Steve Kloves is the scriptwriter for the 7th and 8th films, and he also wrote the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th films. David Yates has been confirmed to be the Director for these two films, and filming started Feburary this year. Look forward to Harry Potter in November 2010 and July 2011 (then again, they may change it).

Happy Birthday to Luke Wilis and Kenneth Chi on Wednesday! Happy Birthday to Jenny Wang and Christopher Nguen on Thursday! Happy Birthday to Kevin Zhu (the tall one) on Friday!

There, that’s over with. Exams done, and I’m already not looking forward to seeing my marks. I know I did bad (ohk, maybe I did “ok”, but for me, it’s bad). I didn’t study hard enough, early enough, so that’s my own fault. Good luck to anyone that hasn’t had their half-yearlies yet.

Went to see a movie with my family today. Star Trek. J. J. Abrahms and the script writers really changed a lot of things in this movie, and I’m not talking about the Character’s backgrounds (alternative universe created in the begining afterall!). Sure, they updated the whole thing, such as technology and stuff, but they also noticeably changed things that Trekie fans have come to known. Sure, for perhaps 99% of you, you wouldn’t know the difference, but I’m a Trekie fan, and I noticed =] Anyways, doesn’t make much difference (some of the changes actually make more sense, and it makes me wonder why they haddn’t thought of them before with some of the new series such as Voyager and The Next Generation, like Point-Defence Lasers (or are they Phasers?).

Anyways, I’ve been blabing enough. Movie session started at 4, and my mum needed a lot of plot explanations afterwards to help her understand it (she seems to need that a lot, but I guess it comes from her mind mixing things in the story up as she creates connections between points while watching, probably why she prefers books). My brother certainly enjoyed the movie, and so did my dad (they’re both Trekie fans themselves, my dad more towards the Original Series made in the 60′s and 70′s, my brother and I more towards the newer series made in the 90′s). Must say it was rather good.

Sleep last night was weird. Felt like I’d been living through several days before waking up. I feel the dreams were rather weird, but I just can’t remember them well enough to know why. They say everyone has dreams at some point in their sleep (happens druing REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, an important stage of sleeping), and that they are the mind’s way of sorting through its thoughts, things it’s learnt, and happenings. The only reason people say they didn’t dream was because they couldn’t remember them when they woke. I wonder what my dreams say of my state of mind… Then again, I can only understand them if I remember them… this was weird. Anyways, after my weird dreams, I woke up, feeling as if it had been some days since I last remember well, and yet I knew in the back of my mind that it was actually Saturday. I feel like a strange person.

If you read through all that… wow. You must be bored. As soon as I get my new HDD installed (still looking for a cable that fits), I’m gonna try the Windows 7 RC. Cya l8tr peeps!

On Tuesday 14th April, 2009, I went to the orthadontist. Yeah yeah, nothing special, except that after one and a half hours I got my braces. That was what… 2 and a bit days ago? I wonder how long till I’m used to them… Yeah, so, if you see me now, I’ve got braces (the first Baulko people to see me were… I’ll talk about that later). That went along with an interesting afternoon. After a bit of shopping with my mum, went of to Blacktown to pick up a few things (fish anyone?) and some lunch before heading home. Needless to say, I was finding it odd with braces on, and the pain was really getting to me (pain annoying me for hours on end, with the knowledge that it’ll go for longer? The closest I’ve ever had to that is a bad headache).

The next day, Wednesday 15th April, 2009. I woke up early and lay in bed. Woot, what fun. Went out to see some old friends today. An old friend called Josh came down from Queensland (he used to live down here in NSW, but then his family moved up north). Every year he comes down once or twice, and some of us primary school friends meet up for a get-together with him. We met up at another friend’s place, Connor’s, and Caitlin and Justine also turned up. After a bit of talking, we left to catch the bus to Castle Towers. The bus ride was fun (and talkative), and it seems that Justine rarely catches a bus to go places.

We watched The Boat That Rocked, a great movie, it’s about a pirate radio station in the North Sea (England) in the period of time before the London government banned pirate radio (because they were playing pop music…). We made it just in time to watch the last trailer before the film. Afterwards we had lunch, where I saw, and had a quick talk to, Lenny and some of his friends (the faces I remember are: Lenny, Henry, Kevin Liang, Peter & Andrew Lee, Andrew Tsui, Michael (forget his last name, not Lee I think)), who were the first Baulko people to see me with braces (“WOAH, different!”). Forced Kevin to say hi to his old school friends (he seemed rather reluctant for some reason…), who at first didn’t recognise him:
Kevin: Hi
Justine: (shyly) Hi
…
Antony: Guys, this is Kevin, Liang
Justine: Kevin? OH, Hi
Caitlin: OH Kevin! Hi. Wow, you’ve changed
…
Kevin: Where’s the others?…

Yeah, so, later I introduced him to Josh and Connor, who both didn’t really recognise him for a moment, and all of them commented (several times) on how much he’s changed, and how he’s a lot taller now. I guess I’ve been seeing him since beginning of high after he left for OC, where as they last saw him when he left for OC.

After lunch we walked around a bit, more talking, before Caitlin had to leave for work, and then Justine had to leave. Josh got picked up soon after, while Connor and I went to wait for our busses. When I got home and finally checked my emails, I discovered that that Nicolas Bolton guy was in more trouble… and this time it DID concern me. One of his companies, Bottle Domains, has lost its .au domain registra accerditation because of a security breach in the past that it did not follow up properly, or so the auDA says. Cove, the group who’s hosting my site, got all their domain name registrations from Bottle Domains, so all its customers have to see what’s going on. Existing domians don’t have to worry too much (like me!), but people who want new ones or need to renew very soon will be having troubles…

Today, Thursday 16th April 2009, I went to Blacktown with my grandfather to get a hair cut (I know I needed one, but I still don’t like having one). Rather boring day really, well, so far. After a tinsy bit of shopping with my grandfather, we went to Norwest and had lunch at McDonalds (woot… not much fun for me at all), before heading home.

Still bored, and still don’t know much about what’s going on with the domain thing. At least the auDA transferred all of Bottle Domain’s customers to themselves, so now I’m registered to the auDA till some resolution is found.

Anyways, that was basically my day. Got home, did some more work, played with my brother, got bored and did nothing. Like normal. I’m lazy… Happy Birthday to Aaron!!

Anyhows, DoE Hike was great!!! Time for a recap! Now, for those of you who are EXTREMELY BORED, you can read this. For the rest, don’t bother.

If you’re reading this, you’re extremely bored, or willing to read my post. Thank you!

Thursday: I wake up at 5:40 am. Earlier than a normal Thursday for me (6:30 is a nice time to wake up). Have a shower. Yada yada. I frantically try to make sure I have all the stuff I need, pack the food into my bag, and off I go to school.

We eventually all turn-up at school before 8, and we get checked off and go to our buses. The 3rd bus took the longest to arrive, so some of us had to wait. Eventually, we were all on a bus, and off to Colo and Somerset. The bus trip was good, taking just as long as last time, and with everyone still being as noisy as ever.

Arrive, Unload, Meet up with Leader. Our leader this time was Tully!!  Yayz! Anywhos, we had a group talk, came up with a team name (Team Dandelions FTW!!) which was really random, and there’s a background story to it, but I won’t tell it. Ask Sandra. We packed our bags in ’10′ minutes (more like 20). And we planned our route. We deposited our bags in our bay, and OFF WE WENT…. 1 1/2 days of hiking.

Making our way along the track that runs parallel to the river, Deva and Anthony led us to the site called ‘Peach Tree’. From there, we made our way up the abseiling ‘hill’ and to the Gee’s Arm North Trail, with Stuart and Nicole leading the way. We decided to have lunch when we were just about at the top. Most of us had some sort of flat bread (Peta, Leb, you know) and tuna or ham or something. After that It was an easy walk along a trail till we got to a junction where the Gee’s Arm North Trail really started, and for that leg Jasmin and I ‘lead’ (following a trail, we didn’t have to do much). The next leg of the Gee’s Arm North Trail had us going along almost as fast as we could, with about 4 of us leading (I can’t remember who was SUPPOSED to be leading us for that). Drink breaks were nearly every half an hour.

Eventually we got to the next junction, where we moved onto the Ferrari Track. Going along here, we passed ‘Circumcision point’, down the mountain side again, and began the long trek along the road to the campsite ‘Reserve’ (a public camp site, with toilets….). Finally, by about 5:50, we got to our destination. Earlier, before we had left, Tully had got us to try and guess when we would arrive there, and many of us came up with times around 5:30 to 6 pm. In the end, it turned out that Jasmin was the closest (with 5:46:30). The next closest was 5:45 and 5:55, so she only just got it. The prize for the guess was a lollipop, and a flower Tully had found.

Setting up our tents, we got ready for dinner with group 10. They were extremely impatient with us, as they had left/arrived earlier than us, and were ‘starving’. All of us had our dinners, be it noodles, Continental packs, pasta, or something else.

Now is the point where I stop and give praise to Jasmin and her cooking skills (which neither Kapilan, Stuart or I could possibly ever match). She cooked the spagetti and the sausages in the tiny camping stove (renamed the ‘Trantular’ because none of us could remember it’s actual name), and then let Kappi, Sticky and I eat before her. How kind of her…. and she lived through everyone else bugging her for sausages, which we eventually gave them, cause we couldn’t be bothered eating them all.

Back to the camp… cleaning up was after that, and we feel that we did a pretty good job. Then we had some fun around the camp fire. Once again, Bryan and friends went crazy. Typical. Roasted marshmellows (normally called S’mores in the USA), Snakes and laughter filled the night, till we all had to go to bed. Our time to leave tomorrow morning was decided to be 7:45, so that by the time we actually left, it would be around 8.

Next day, we packed up, had breakfast, got ready, and made our way for Rikki’s gate. Along the road, looking for the certain gully to bush bash along, up the steep slope of the large hill, along the long long ridge with several 2 minute stops to find out where we were, and then, A TRACK!! Yay, slightly easier walking. We had found the fire trail. I have no idea who was, or was supposed to lead us for that leg, because I was at the back of the group with Mr Forsyth who had joined us.

For a while along the trail we went, untill we found the next trail we were looking for. Along this, for approx 20 minutes, and there it was, Rikki’s Gate!! We had made it, and intime for our 11 am pick-up. We talked as a group for a little while, a kind of Debrief, and then played a small game, before we loaded ourselves onto the mini-buses, and off to Somerset we went.

Back at somerset, some of us changed out of our sweaty clothes, and we unpacked our gear, aired out the tents, and cleaned out our rubbish. After that, we had lunch with the remains of our food. Finished at last, we packed our tents and then played games. Eventually our bus arrived, and we were the first group to get on, just as we were about to leave, the other 2 busses turned up. We went on our trip, with a loud game of Mafia going on up the back. Some of us were tired and rested, while others talked.

Stuart, through the trip, was filling up on ‘Cocaine’, which was actually Home Brand Icing Mixture. He thought he’d bring it, and it became a kinda joke in our group. He renamed the bag with ‘Cocaine’ and then added a price tag, ‘$5k / g’, meaning $5000 per gram. As the bag is about 500g, we owe him around…. 2.5 – 3 million for what we took?

Anyways, after that, our bus got to school at around 2:30, and all of us got out, and we had to wait for school to end (and the other buses to arrive). Mafia once again started, with the rest of the people talking or leaving.

Those of us in Concert Band had to stay to accompany Jess (in yr 12, the Tuba player) for one of her HSC pieces. It sounded good. I was tired. Just about all of us had left our school uniform and instrument at school, so we could change when we got back.

And after that, I finally went home.

Oh, and I finally finished the PD Assignment on Saturday! It is exactly 30 seconds long, and a copy of it can be downloaded from:
http://www.pressing-on.net/movies/PD_Drugs_large.avi – 42.8MB
or
http://www.pressing-on.net/movies/PD_Drugs_small.avi – 15.2MB

Hope the people in my group like it, cause that’s what it’s going to be on Monday unless they tell me otherwise.

I don’t think I really like my hair cut too much…. I’ll have to get used to it again. It feels so much lighter than what I used to carry around on my head. And it’s thinner at the back. At least now I have a reason to not get it cut for a while. My brother once again got his hair cut short, so now it’s easy to spike it up a bit. After our hair cuts, we went off to check the times for movies at Hoyts, then made a quick stop at EB Games. Aparently the Xbox 360 is only $400 – $500…. i hadn’t relised that the price had dropped that much… or maybe I just keep on thinking of the PS3… Anyways, my brother is still trying to convince my mum to get an Xbox 360, while I’ve just about given up.

We had lunch at some chinese resturant on the other side of the railway line, and my mum got me a new pair of joggers. My old ones, the soles are starting to come off. Afterwards we went back to Westpoint and visited a music store, where after buying a few new reeds for my brother, my mum decided to get me a new acoustic guitar. Later, we went to see The Chronicals of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I wasn’t sure what people meant when they said it was made it more dramactic in the fight scenes than in the book, but now I know.

In the food court for lunch. Just a can of coke zero for me, and a little bit of some bread of some kind… as we were leaving, we met my old scripture teacher from years back (I can’t remember her, I was only 4 then…) and then I ONCE AGAIN saw Jolene…. only this time she had ditched her mum and was with Sandra and Yeli. After quickly helping my mum with getting some fruit, I met up with Anthony (Liang), who was looking for the girls. So we went looking for them. Turns out they were at a sushi place in the piazza, aparently ‘fob hunting’ or somthing similar to that… when they found us waiting outside the cinemas, they called Anthony a fob… (as I’m not quite sure what defines a fob, I can’t say that he is or isn’t…). Anyways, we got tickets, went walking around, I got a drink, and we ran into Sean and his friends 3 times… oh, and Sandra, if you’re reading this, Sean said to tell you that he ‘broken-heart you (Jolene, Yeli and Sandra)’, what ever he means……

When we go back for the movie, Deva FINALLY turns up… and then after waiting for the girls Boost drinks, we went in for the movie. We watched National Treasure 2… the story line was a bit weird… but then again, it was still interesting. And the end was interesting. As I haven’t yet seen National Treasure (the first one) I didn’t quite understand all of it at first.. but who cares? So, after the movie, I go home… on a late bus… that I had to pay with a $20 note… and the ticket was only $1.60!…… anyways, I finally got home… and now I miss being with my friends again..

On the Third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and a partrige in a pear tree.