the wacky wombat weblog

I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had time to just sit down, and sort through my own thoughts.

Time just flew past after my shoot, I hardly had time to think: “hey, my darling’s finally flying back this Saturday!” It’s there in my thoughts all the time, but unlike previous trips, I hadn’t gone and done stuff like countdowns everyday, and planning out all the activities for the days when he arrives.

I guess I’ve just been swamped. Freelance work, tape logging, plus running erands and chasing after my MacMac. Guess that really didn’t leave me much time to even rest properly, now I feel even more tired that I had felt right after the shoot had ended. So that leaves even less time for me to float in my own thoughts I suppose.

But yes, I am so glad. It’s been over 4 months since we last met during my trip over to Japan in the summer. Now I’m just sitting here, waiting for my hair to dry, blogging to kill the time (and rest my feet) before I go over to the airport later.

It was our 2-year anniversary several weeks ago. Just the words “2-year” makes it sounds so loooong! I mean, it really wasn’t that long ago when we first got together. But I guess, yeah, 2 years. I’m nearing the end of my formal education, and I guess that’s something I hadn’t even imagine 2 years ago, that I’d be here done with a film shoot, that I’d be here with a serious relationship.

I’m never a planning sort of person. Just take whatever comes my way. So I guess to get where I am today is really a pleasant surprise. It’s good to have something so settled in my life right now. I suppose you can say it’s reassuring and comforting.

Sometimes I get a bit tired of this whole long distance thing. But after 2 years, I guess you can call us veterans now, haha. 2 years is heck of a long time, but it finally helped me to really get settled into the physical distance issue. I don’t get bogged down by the distance as much and as frequently anymore. And I suppose we’ve also really gotten a rhythm going, weaving each other’s very separate lives into one another and accommodate for each other.

All I can really say is that, despite some of the not-so-great moments, I’m glad we stuck to it and with time, I think we finally got the hang of the game.

And I suppose knowing that the long distance phase will eventually be over soon does help. Gives it a goal to work forward to. So that I can say to myself: ‘this time next year, we can start to make moving-back plans.’

I guess Christmas is a good time to reflect and be thankful for the many things in your life. Well, I don’t celebrate it religiously, but I like its symbolism.

I’d say I’m thankful for this relationship. What I have now is something that I’d never have expected at the beginning.

I guess I should also say that I’m thankful for all the things that have gone well in my life. My family, my schooling, everything. It’s been a good year.

So here’s a little Merry Christmas shout-out to everyone out there who’s reading this. Hope you have a meaningful Christmas this year.

After almost 3 weeks of waiting, my MacBook is finally here!!! Wheeee!

So happy. This slick white shiny lil’ laptop not only looks good, but it feels great too.

I’ve named it MacMac (even before I bought it).

I’m also considering buying the Undercover protection for MacMac, in case of theft and all. It’ll track down the evil lair of the thief, and MacMac will occationally use the built-in iSight camera to take photo of the thief and send it back so can get the police to find that person and recover the laptop! How smart is that!

I guess this means I’ll be saying byebye to my good old polarbear, the Dell Inspiron 700m. I’ll miss it. I hope he’s not angry at me for getting a new one to replace him. He’ll be going to a new home, and work on creative design work.

One thing though, MacMac is heavier than polarbear (and bigger). Hopefully I won’t have a tough time lugging it to school next year.

It’s end of the year, time to relax a bit, and so, time to watch some trailers on Apple trailers and see which movies catches my attention.

Especially since I’ll be heading back to KL and cinemas in KL are cheap cheap cheap heeheehee. Of course, only if they happen to show any of the stuff I like. Cinema listing in KL really sucks sometimes. All you get is the big blockbuster, no brainer shows, plus the occasional stuff like Pontianak Menjerit or something. :S

So here goes. Movies that I’m looking forward to:

Babel - because the trailer was good — Brad Pitt does one heck of a voice-over narration. Plus, I like that it’s 3 separate stories about failed communications and attempts at reconnecting. The kind of stories that I like. And, there is a part set in Japan. hehe. Don’t ask me why I find that appealing. It just does.

The Good German – because it’s in black and white, and because there’s George Cloony, and Cate Blanchett. And it sounds like an interesting take on the other side of the war story.

Fur – because images of Nicole Kidman are always good to look at. She can look haunting, beautiful, sad, all at the same time.

Borat — because it’s funny!

Notes On A Scandal — because it looks like it could be a very gripping story, with a very intriguing character played by Judi Dench. And there’s also Cate Blanchett (hmm, she’s appeared 3 times on my list already (+ Babel), though I never had special preference for her performance. Busy year for her, must be).

Letters from Iwo Jima — because the music on its official site sounds beautiful. Serene, yet a sadness underlying it. (haha yes, lame reason, but music matters). Also, intriguing to watch Clint Eastwood direct something acted mostly by Japanese. And this time, unlike other American movies, foreign language remains as foreign language. Japanese seems to be the main language in this film, or at least judging so from the trailer. I absolutely don’t like movies about Asia made by Americans where everyone in the story speaks English, albeit in a funny accent (first example that comes to mind, Memoirs of A Geisha. How annoying can it get?) I don’t normally go for war stories, but maybe I’ll make an exception for this one.

300 — because it looks like a moving graphic novel!! (mainly because it is inspired from one). The visuals are stunning (as far as I can tell from the trailer of course). Must watch! Hm, though I must say the rain of arrows shot reminds me a lot of a similar one in Hero (英雄).

Confession of Pain (伤城) — well, I first decided that I wanna watch this when I saw the production stills in a magazine. Looked too beautiful to give it a miss. Plus, got Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro. No need further explanation. *side note: I saw their behind-the-scenes featurettes, and eee, so nice, all the stuff they could do with all the equipment and all! I want i want!*

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer — Ok, it looks like a freaky twisted murder story — not my usual kind of thing. But somehow the trailer worked for me. Maybe it’s the topic. I’ve always liked how a scent and a smell can evoke a lot of feelings or memories. Like how when you catch a whiff of something, and it suddenly brings you back to something from long ago. So the opening images from the trailer really caught that. Ok, although the story isn’t really about that (it’s about a guy with a talent for scents who kills women) but yeah, intriguing all the same.

And just so I can relax and do nothing, here are a couple of fun stuff that I think I might watch: A Night At The Museum (cos got Ben Stiller, and he’s usually funny). And Charlotte’s Web (cos sometimes you need some fun kiddie show to watch).

Ok, so I’m writing all these down so that I won’t forget what it is that I wanna catch. Now just pray some of these stuff actually gets shown here soon.

In the week before christmas, my fyp short-film shoot has finally ended. The weather held out for us on Saturday, even though angry gray clouds were looming ahead, threatening us with rain any second, yet the harsh sun came out to tease (and roast) us every so often. But it’s done. For now. Phew. yippie aye aye yippie yippie aye…

I can finally sleep more than 5 hours, and my feet finally does not hurt after resting for 2 days. I can ditch my sneakers and wear heels again. Dreams of the 1001 things that can go wrong on set have left me alone in my sleep, at least until we start editing, hehe. The shoot took about 8 days, but it felt wayyyy longer than that.

It’s the week before christmas, and I have officially NOT bought any Christmas gifts yet. So I am doomed, to squeeze myself through the turtle-ish* crowd of Orchard Road, to find gifts to which I have no idea yet. Doom.

It’s tough to find a good gift, and I am really against the idea of getting gift vouchers. But i’m not partial to receiving them though. hehe. I welcome all vouchers for spa treatments, massages, and books. hehehe. I just don’t like giving them. Receiving is plenty fine with me. :p

The week before christmas, I’m eagerly counting down the days, waiting for his return. I still have 6 days left till Au Yong finally comes back from Japan. And 8 days left till we head back to KL together. I can finally take a break from work, if only for a while until the madness returns when school begins in January.

The best place to relax is home. It always works. Even though I really don’t do much at home. I just hang out with my family, friends, eat, watch tv, but it feels good. And most importantly, I’ll finally get to see Au Yong again after over 4 months! yay!

I hope the Christmas tree at home is up. I miss decorating it.

The week before Christmas, that’s when all the TV shows come up with their Christmas episodes! I’m happy that Las Vegas has finally put up a good ep this season! I’ve been disappointed with Las Vegas when the new fall season started. It went off to a wrong start with too many loose ends to fix up from the previous season and that left it a bit directionless, all action but no character development. I guess this Christmas ep has a little more meaning to it, a more personal ep of the characters I suppose. And that made things up a bit for me.

Another nice Christmas episode I like is Studio 60’s The Christmas Show. Or rather, I just really liked the whole trumpets story and O Holy Night at the show finale. Very simple, yet it moves you.

And the whole Danny + Jordan story is great! So excited to find out what more’s gonna happen. Too bad American viewers are dumb, cos the ratings are going down (just when the story is getting good!). I just hope it doesn’t get canned by NBC. It’s like Arrested Development all over again. Great script, but some people just don’t get it! Dumb I tell you. Don’t you guys speak English!? What don’t you get in the show?!?

Maybe I’m just biased cos Studio 60 is about the behind-the-scenes story of a studio show and I love doing studio! haha.

It’s the week before Christmas, so I guess I should make my wishlist. Let’s see, first at the top, my stupid MacBook!!!! Yes, it’s still not here yet. Let me say it again: Stupid 8Flags (the computer shop in NTU)!! There better be compensation. hmmph.

The rest of the list would read like this: free massages, free spa treatment, accessories for my (not-here-yet) MacBook, new sneakers, nice black pumps with gold heels (saw one in Nine West! haha), big bag that can fit everything (file, books, water bottle). Yup, that’s it.

The week before Christmas, it can’t stop raining. How am I suppose to go gift shopping? I think the island might flood if this goes on any longer.

* turtle-ish: because there seem to be a lot of people who walk excruciatingly slow on Orchard Road. Not only slow, but they are ignorant of the fact that there are other people more pressed for time right behind them. You ’siam’ one turtle, only to encounter another turtle. >.<

There are so many things I wanna rant about.

1. Where the heck is my Macbook!?!?!

8flags, you suck. You said it’ll arrive within 14 days! It’s already been 15 days. You have such a crappy vendor to supply your Macbooks in such small quantities. Ugh. I hope it gets here by next week before I go back to PJ. Grrr…

2. Why must it rain?

Or rather, why must FYP period be during December, the great monsoon season!?!?! Pray the rain stays away so that we can wrap up our shoot already.

3. Uncle, why must you play your stupid tetno handphone music so loud in the bus?!?!

I don’t understand people who play music on their mp3 phones loudly on public commute. Like, do I care about your ah-beng music? There’s such an invention as earphones you know. And almost always, it is bad tetno. But this is the first tetno-listening uncle I encountered. There should be a rule, like in Japan, where phones must be switched to silent on the train and buses and no one is allowed to yak loudly into their phones and disturb old ladies sitting next to them.

4. Why doesn’t it feel like Christmas?!

I think I’ve been stuck in my FYP shoot for too long. That I haven’t visited town area for ages, and have not seen a Christmas tree for over a week. Gotta drag myself downtown to see some blinking trees, dancing lights, frenzied shoppers, and possibly get attacked by yet another credit card promoter in Orchard Road. Meanwhile, just have to rely on my limited collection of Christmas carols, and that tiny Christmas deco I have on my room door. By the by, I was at Marina Square a couple of weeks back, and I think their deco is real classy. Simple, yes. But the purple and gold cascade of ribbon, lights and baubles is definitely classy. Not tacky like Tangs and their weird plastic gems.

Okay. Enouigh rants. On the bright side…

1. my darling is coming back next weekend!! woohoo! finally!

2. We’re going back home to PJ for Christmas week! Woohoo again! I miss home. ( I heard there’s now a watermelon patch in my house’s garden. Gotta go and see what that’s about. And hopefully really got watermelons to eat. haha.)

3. Good food. Been eating a lot lately, despite it being my FYP shoot. In fact, it is precisely because we allocated meal times that I now eat more. >.< My tummy had a nice treat of bbq chicken wings and stingray at Bedok 85. W00t. Yummy! And I think there's gonna be more good food waiting for me at home! Christmas parties, new year parties. omg. 0_o hahaha. This reminds me of one stupid Christmas carol: “Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat…” I think now it should be changed to “Christmas is coming, and I am getting fat…”

I realise nothing can be better than a hot hot shower and a nice scrub after a long hard day of shooting. Plus a good bed later of course! It’ll be even better if I had a foot scrub and massage. ahhh. But it’s ok.

Today was the first day of my short-film shoot for my group’s final year project. So stressful, because it was a shoot at the MRT station in land of ulu-ness Buangkok, and we only had 6 hours to finish everything.

As usual with every few of our shoots, some technical issue will crop up, and no one will be able to fix it, even if we called the school, which we did. So, we went ahead anyway despite the picture not being exactly what we wanted, because we only had this one chance today at the MRT.

So basically it was just us 4 girls running around with our camera equipment, hoping on and off trains, pointing camera everywhere, drawing stares from everyone, and attracted some kids to come inspect further. >.<

Sigh, we barely managed to finish everything. But thank god we did, albeit having to do with just 1 takes for many shots. Although the very pretty opening sequence will probably have to be dumped cos it only looked pretty in my mind but not in real life when it didn’t work out on camera. Argh! Heartache. But ok, I’ll leave that to worry in post-production.

I think the most heartaching thing, is to know of all the creative possibilities that you can have with your mind, but you’re just restricted by money by equipment by skills. OK, correction, basically it’s just by money. Money means we can rent better and lighter cameras (not bulky ancient non-industry-practice D9s, tho’ it does look good). Money means we can hire people to work for us and get tons of extras and PAs and professional crew (not just 4 of us scramble here and there).

I was just watching Studio 60, and I’m like, if only we have money! We could have proper set design, wardrobe, proper lighting, great cameras, use tracks, steadycams and omg cranes! And everyone will fall over themselves to agree to let us use their place to shoot and what not. haha ok maybe not that. But yeah, they’re Hollywood and I’m a pathetic zero-budget student production on 20-year-old technology and only 4 pair of hands.

Nonetheless, stress aside, it was kinda exciting. And damn scary at the same time. Ugh. That’s why I like and hate production. Why didn’t I just go and be a journalist? But I guess I’m not that type of intellectual.

Anyways, shoot continues again on Saturday, and it’s gonna be a marathon all the way till next Thurs. Hopefully it’ll be a wrap by then (stretching it any longer means saying sayonara to more of our precious moolah). Pray everything goes well, and pray someone decides to sponsor us 3k! haha. Anyone out there know anyone with money to spare for a group of budding filmmakers? hehe.

Tomorrow we’ll be dressing our next set (and also, I suspect, the crew’s ‘home’ for the next few days). Meanwhile, I’m just gonna go clear out my brain a bit before populating it with a new list of to-dos and shot list and etc tomorrow.  Wish me luck for the week!