that car trip to las vegas was unnecessarily long but at least i got a new sweater and white tights from the nearby outlets. i haven't been too keen on the food today because we had too much asian (i'm so sick of asian) but i did get a bit of sushi. i had a nice steak for breakfast though, even though it was in a hongki cafe. we went to see the david copperfield show and, since i don't want to give it away to those who haven't been, it's absolutely amazing. honestly, the guy is a wizard and probably harry potter in disguise. he's also a really good entertainer, full of jokes and laughs, really natural on stage. he looks old enough to be my dad (he's only 55 so i guess he's a decade off being my father) but i think i have a new 'too old for you' crush! wish i could afford to see his shows all the time.

as for the rest of the night, we took a shower and then me, mum and dad went for a midnight walk around the strip. we got about half way but it's bloody 3am here now and i'm exhausted. tomorrow we'll be going to the excalibur to look for something the kids can do as well as shop at caesar's palace. i'm hoping we'll be having dinner at bellagio the night after next (sister and brother in law are going to see phantom so we won't be having dinner together tomorrow). it's so beautiful at night, but it was pretty late and it's not exactly tourist season so i guess it was a little lack lustre.
i'll let the photos speak though.

first, second: eeyore doll, disney store

third: cinderella animator's collectors doll, disney store

fourth: the hunger games official mockingjay necklace, hot topic

we went to the burial site of my grandparents today and i'm actually quite thankfully that the graveyard uses plaques instead of tombstones. aside from looking quite nice, it actually makes the place look a little less sad and daunting, where it feels more like a place of quite mourning and longing than something out of a bad horror movie. it was drizzling so we quickly placed the flowers and left for the temple to leave incense sticks.

on the way, my sister had to explain to my nieces the idea of idea and a graveyard. although they awkwardly said that they wanted to know what heaven was like (obviously what happens when death is sugar coated... not that there is any other way of doing it), my sister accidentally mentioned that to go to heaven you have to have been a good person. my older niece was fine, probably realizing that it was a topic my sister was trying very hard to approach (kind of like the 'birds and the bees'), my little niece burst into tears. she said that she cried, sulked and got into trouble sometimes and was afraid that she wouldn't be able to go to heaven and see her parents when the time came. i didn't really expect that kind of reaction, but it did make me want to cuddle her. my sister reassured her that it was okay to cry if she was upset as long as she didn't do something really bad. i was tempted to say 'yeah like murder someone', but i don't think that would have improved the situation. my little niece just kept insisting that crying was bad because you could get in trouble for it, and didn't calm down until my sister found a way to flick the conversation to 'the princess and the frog'.

aside from that, we had a great breakfast as a hong kong style cafe with the best lemon tea ever. it was legit lemon tea, not some kind of lipton concentrate, and they had the best club sandwich and garlic chicken wings. we got there a bit late so ended up having our lunch there instead of breakfast, which was the original plan. i hope we get up earlier tomorrow because we're going to las vegas.

after that and the graveyard visit, we got prepaid sim cards for national calls (in case we got lost) and bought groceries at the 99 asian market. i found this massive bottle of gatorade there. i swear, it's nearly than entire litre! i also found a billion bottles of ramune in different colours and flavours that i've never seen in australia before. it's so cheap too! i took photos of it and bought a few because i thought lisa might want to see and i wanted to drink it all. hehe.

we headed to an outlet shops afterwards because my niece's flats had completely ripped in the sole. we only had about two hours until our dinner that was planned with my uncle so it was a very short trip. the girls got converse shoes (my sister was originally looking at reebok and nike, so i told her she was silly and dragged her to a store with decent shoes). i found a nice pair but i thought they were much too similar to what i already had, so i held off. i found a cute pair of pink sequinned ones but they're the most impractical things i've ever seen, especially with the way i abuse them in the city. i ended up with a cute white sweater and oversized pink cardigan from GAP and this really sweet pink sweater from H&M. i'm really hoping to buy a nice blazer, a bunch of dresses, a new pair of combat boots (since the plane ride, my boots are officially gone) and some vans.

we'll be going to vegas tomorrow morning and will be trying to get in a trip to the outlets again beforehand. my nieces and sister don't have a thick enough jacket and it's taken a turn for the frozen over here. plenty of beautiful photos to come tomorrow and my perspective on the david copperfield show!

here's a photo of the eeyore and the necklace i got yesterday too, as well as the adorable cinderella animator's doll my baby niece got (i wanted one too but they don't have tinkerbell and she's kind of 'my thing'. i'm hoping to find more at the store outside disneyland, especially peter pan collectibles.

"Holy Water" from the Temple.

Cutest princess bracelets from the Disney store.

Car we rented. The doors are automatic and it's a seven seater awesomeness.

MAGIC SCHOOL BUS!

Really cool fire from dinner, it was like lighting a gel ball.

Since I'm not a fan of Viet cuisine, most of my dinner consisted of this strawberry smoothie. Legit strawberry and yummy, I might add, although too cold in this weather.

so how is everybody?
i feel like i've been time travelling, but the fact is that it's some time near midnight on the 26th of february in lax right now, which is where i am. i'm sitting in my aunt's lounge, glad to finally be able to get some sleep instead of that terrible plane ride. afterwards, we had some yum cha with the extended family over here and then got started on some shopping. i found this gorgeous hollister jacket that i wanted but couldn't get since washing it would be a pain (it was fur trimmed and dry cleaning is too expensive in australia). i ended up cheering myself up with the hunger games necklace from hot topic (unfortunately the chain is too short, but i'll swap it up) and a medium sized eeyore plushy from the disney shop.
tomorrow we're visiting my grandmother's grave and doing some outlet shopping.
yay!
i'll upload photos tomorrow, i can't locate my card reader!

Oh yes I did. Eat that, 9GAG.

i don't know if people have realized (i'm kidding, i actually think it's really obvious) that i can be a little bit superstitious when it comes to death and bad luck. i think it stems more from my paranoia that bad things will happen but it's stupid because once i convince myself that talking about it will make it less likely to happen (kind of like fate not wanting me to know their plan), i then convince myself that it's not enough and i just jinxed it. point is that it doesn't matter because on sunday i will be getting on a plane and going to los angeles, shopping, visiting my aunties, cousins and the grave of my deceased grandmother.
see? i'm even wording my phrases carefully.
as a change of topic, have a photo of tim pocock. he was on tv tonight playing scott summers in x men origins, but i came across him on dance academy. i wonder if i'm th eonly one who thinks he looks like a younger adam pascal?

australian actor tim pocock (above) and american actor adam pascal (bottom, from rent)

YOU SHOULD IGNORE THIS POST.

i honestly believe i may have one of the most boring lives in the world right now. two or three years back, i was told by a friend of mine (who lives in washington) that if he produced and directed a soap opera of my life, there was a huge chance he's with an oscar for best drama or something. not too sure how the oscars work. the point is that since chilling out my personality (i was a pretty in-your-face kind of person back then) and maturing a little, i've lost some of the fire in me. i don't think it's a bad thing as i can still be pretty fiery and passionate when i want too, but it just means that i've learnt to be less hateful towards the world and appreciate the pretty things in life.
okay, so i still hate the world sometimes, but at least its not permanent.

and that's about how exciting my life gets now. a few plastic bowls out to try, an empty preshafruit bottle and some salt in the background. i'm barely even kidding, but i guess since we're going to be going overseas in a day we're not really stocking up the kitchen full of food or something like that.

however, i found a little old doll today i thought i'd introduce you guys to. this is september (which is my birth month) and i may have gotten her as a present from my parents back when our shop was still fairly new. she used to hang over my curtains with my 'best girlfriend' doll (i got her when i was in the sixth grade and i took her to our canberra camp. i was really depressed for most of my sixth grade because of my friends so i once made up a fake boyfriend of mine named sean and pretended that he gave me the doll. sean was from degrassi next generation by the way). when he cleaned my curtains we took them off and i found september under the counter today.

you know, i'm going to really miss my boyfriend while i'm in the states. usually, whenever i'm sad or want someone to talk to, he's only a (free) phone call or text message away, and at max i have to wait a few days to get the comforting hug i need, but this time i'll have to go three weeks without him. funny how the last time i went, it didn't bother me too much being away from my then boyfriend for a month. really means something, huh?

and now i can't stop worrying that if something were to happen to the plane or the car or anything going to or in the states that today might be the last time i see him or feel his arms around my shoulders. ever.

now i'm worried i jinxed it.

goddamn why do i keep seeing the number 13 lately? and tomorrow i'm going to hit post 13 too.

i hate it when people are too high and mighty to acknowledge commercial music and movies. it's commercial for a reason, it means that it is accessible to the masses and just like i won't tell you that your obscure indie music is "trash that should be burned and the whole band should be sent to hell and condemned", you have no right to tell me that miley cyrus, demi lovato or one direction should have that. if you think they're a 'bad example' to children, then lovely, don't expose your children to them. frankly you shouldn't be blaming a celebrity for leading your child astray, maybe you're just a bad parent. and if you think their music is garbage and doesn't mean anything, then lovely, but it means something to me. you can't condemn an entire industry just because you're jealous and angry that these big shots have more attention and money than your idols.

it's called marketing and its intelligent. their music is a certain genre and while you may not like it, it doesn't make it any less valid.

and on a similar note, i want you to look at these boys. five boys who were complete strangers all had the same dream: to be singers. they did everything they could and couldn't make it as solo artists, but then they were given the chance to give it a shot as a group. they both lost and won. they're famous, girls scream when they see them, people watch their 3 second youtube videos obsessively, their single hit a million views in one night and they are internationally famous. 13 year old girls 'want their gravy'.

but ignore all of that, really look at them. you have harry, who is the youngest one there and, upon achieving his dreams, was suddenly thrust into the limelight. he stuffed up one performance and a thousand people tweet him about how he's 'shit', he falls for a woman who is too old for him and then his 'fans' send her death treats. and then there's liam who failed x factor the first time and then, upon really practicing and dedicating himself, finally made it, only to be called 'ugly' because he changed his hairstyle. flip to louis, who had all of his old private photos dug up, probably embarrassing him, and now people are calling his girlfriend a 'bully' and a 'bitch'. then zayn, who gets hate because he takes care of his appearance and because he's muslim. racism is not okay in society, why is it okay because he's famous? then you have poor niall, who doesn't get any attention from a majority of their fans (i'm talking the people we call directionators) because he is apparently 'ugly'.

how would it affect you guys if, at sixteen or seventeen, the entire world (literally) started judging you and hating on you because you didn't sing perfectly 100% of the time, because you wanted a new hairstyle, because you used to have bebo and acted funny, because of your race or because they didn't think you were 'hot'?

i'm not saying this because i'm a fan, i'm saying this because i'm genuinely surprised the boys haven't cracked yet. people can't judge them based on something like that, just like you wouldn't say and do this kind of stuff to someone you saw on the street. they are human, not a photo in sugar magazine or a dolly poster, or even an icarly episode. it's the same thing with their music, they may use auto tune and over produce some songs but it doesn't they can't sing or it's 'shit'. it means that's how the song was produced, so get over it. i don't care if they're not on key 100% just like i don't care if there are half naked photos of miley cyrus and demi lovato everything. this is their style of music and it doesn't make them any less musicians.

and just to rub it in your face:

HOW MANY OF YOU HATERS HAVE A BRIT AWARD?

i don't know what happened but since when have i become surrounded by so many painful judgemental and discriminative people? i don't care if kurt looks feminine, i don't care if he's gay or if santana is a lesbian and brittany is bisexual. i don't care if i have a friend who is a cross dresser. i know people think our generation is screwed because of the lack of communication and how more of us are depressed, suicide rates are high and more of us are drug users and teen parents, but at least we don't look at a homosexual/cross dresser and scream about how they're sinful, disgusting and unnatural.

screw this because this is one of the reasons i want out of this inner west sydney. 90% of the people who live here make me want to punch them in the nuts.

i went out with taylor tonight and he bought his psvita and i got the rest of the vampire academy series. my original plan was just to buy one more for the plane trip, but i couldn't help it. once i've finished this series, i think i'll start to re-read and collect the 'cherub' series.

right now, i'm just watching glee (episode 11, season 3) and i can't get over how much mike chang looks like he belongs in a kpop video. it's attractive but so different to how he usually looks. it's also a bit frustrating that, after mike, artie is probably the best dancer they have on the show and yet he only gets to dance in random dream sequences. but on another note:

what i love about glee is that even though it's partially a commercial tv musical and mostly a comedy, it finds a way to tackle some intense topics. finn has proposed to rachel right now and i know that a lot of people get married early. i'm twenty but i have a handful of friends who are married. personally, i don't think i could do it. i was thinking about it last night (when i was supposed to be asleep) and, as much as i love my boyfriend and one day would like to get married to him, if he proposed right now the first words out of my mouth would probably be "...shit".

it doesn't mean i don't love him, it just means that i couldn't do it right now. i guess i'm a bit like quinn in that way. i want to get out of my suburb and do something influential. i want to have a career and do an incredible amount with my life, travel, see things, help others, be in a movie and release music. i want to jump into the back of a tour bus and just drive all over the country playing gigs, spending days with my guitar and eating day old pizza. maybe it's just me, but that's who i am.

i don't like to think too far into the future. in part it's because i've been disappointed too many times in the past and don't like to get my hopes up. the other reason is because i acknowledge that the future can change and, as much as there are many aspects i'm not keen on at the moment, i will always have the power to change it. back in the tenth grade, i met a guy i told myself i would leave home for and there isn't a day i don't thank the heavens that i didn't do it. i don't know if he's still running around playing the game, selling illicit party drugs and doing absolutely nothing with his life. the point here is that even though at one point in time i wanted that for myself, i don't anymore.

i don't know if this post makes it sound like i don't love my boyfriend, but i hope it doesn't. in fact, it's completely opposite. i'd rather live in today and know that we're happy together right now. one day maybe i'll want to move out to another country and do something, maybe taylor will end up on tour with a band, or maybe we'll both be completely content teaching secondary school like the original plan. of course, i know that what ever happens i want to end up back in his arms but i can't deny either of us that journey.

granted, i don't think taylor is going to propose right now since we haven't been together even a year yet, haha. this is completely hypothetical.

on another note: what kind of character would you play on Glee?

i thought about this before and while in high school i was most like a mix of rachel and tina (musical theatre, dramatic freak but dark), but if i were to go on the show i would like to be someone a bit darker than that. style wise, i would want to look dramatic - sometimes like a grungy taylor momsen look a like, but sometimes like a nerdy hipster. it would be great if i came into the school looking like a rebellious bad ass because i was expelled from my last school, only for the glee club to find out i was at a dramatic arts school and had an early acceptance to nyada or something.

then it can get really dark and they find out that i was expelled for robbing a convenience store, drug possession/use or something equally as bad. and then they can find out i was in rehab for a year for drug addiction or going into recovery for an eating/mental disorder. and all through this, there's samuel larsen trying to help and save me.

and i would name my character bambi. chung or something.

interviewer: "who's getting the head?"

niall: "i want the head"

liam: "well i guess you get the head"

louis: "harry's getting head"

harry: "...HAHAAAAA! he said something rude. that's naughty."

i swear, i have never heard anybody use the words 'rude' and 'naughty' and make it sound so adorable! new catch phrases for me? and i'm not getting over harry's 'hahaaaaa'. what was that? he sounded like someone stuck a stick in his bum! haha!

i'm a bookworm and i always have been. there's no denying it at all really. i think it get it from my mum because she's always been like that and used to tell me stories about how she would pretend to be sick when they had to play sports in school and then hide behind a tree and read a book. i've always been a little like that. as a kid, i used to nag her to take me to the library and i'd borrow a bunch of books. if it was chinese, she'd read me it, if it wasn't i would curl up with it.

i don't think it's a bad habit at all. in fact, i think reading is one of the best things a kid could do. whilst i must say that i should have spent a little more time outside being active, there's no denying that reading really formed me. as i grew up i became someone who knew more (not intellectually, but i meant i matured faster mentally) than a lot of my other peers. i might have acted like a child sometimes but i always knew the reality of the world. i had my own morals and i knew enough about society to analyze everything. i wasn't a brilliant writer until about the tenth grade when i really started writing. i carried around a notepad to write poems in, i started writing on blogs again (my first blog was in the sixth grade but i got suspended for it; freedom of speech my buttocks), and i wrote short stories.

going into my senior years, i think i got into quite a bit of trouble sometimes and gained a few raised eyebrows from people because i was writing about pretty controversial things for a sixteen year old. while other people were still writing about, typical romeo and juliet situations, i wrote about homosexuality, suicide, depression, homeless situations and run aways. a really great english teacher i had at school actually made me change my original hsc short story about a christian girl discovering her sexuality in a latin american woman, saying that people might find it offensive. ironically she 'okayed' my story about a small town girl forming a lesbian bond with a city girl. i guess the second version was less graphic and didn't play on religion.

on another hand, my extension english teacher was thrown with my short story about necrophilia, murder and insanity. while other people wrote four pages, i ended up getting carried away and giving him seventeen. i remember nights when i was genuinely scared of one of the characters i had created; josefin.
my extension two teacher got forty-two pages worth of a peter pan revisionist story about evil, beauty and social stigma against lesbians. yes, i do like to write about religion and sexuality a lot. oops?

this is generally what my study looks like. well, the bookshelf anyway. the littlest pets couch is my neices but all the story books and novels are mine and my sister's. as for the encyclopedias and fairytales. the chinese books are mum's. i actually have another one upstairs and a few stacks next to my bed, but this gives you a general gist of what a hoarder i am.

obviously, this is the book series that i can't stop raving about. so excited about the movie coming out and, since i'll be in LA, i can pick up some merchandise from hot topic too. while i was taking this photo, i also found my cardcaptor sakura figurine. unrelated and random, but it was too perfect not to sit her on it. i also tried it with my other favourite book, unbearable lightness.

aren't they freaking adorable? i love those figurines so much. and that book. warning though because it's extremely triggering. it's very descriptive and brutally honest so i only recommend it to people really open to the subject of eating disorders and people who won't be triggered by it. it's extremely real. there's not a second when you doubt its honesty.

and... this is the book i'll be reading tonight!

i can't wait to get the rest of this series. it's not the best written but content wise it's so 'asdfghjkl'.