bonkahs

The movies I watched this year:



The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Watchmen, He's Just Not That Into You, The Uninvited, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the Knowing, Star Trek, Fast & Furious, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Angels and Demons, the Hangover, Bruno, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Public Enemies, the Ugly Truth, District 9, 500 Days of Summer, Up, Time Traveler's Wife, 2012, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Avatar

Nicole

I love how the mind works. It's amazing that "thoughts", untouchable entities flow through your brain. Think about it. *pauses and looks into space*

Throughout 2009 I've experienced my mind being so bothered that it interrupts my work. I've been angry, excited, sad. Having negative thoughts, as obvious as this sounds, really brings you down.

I learnt to be more positive. To fill my mind with positive thoughts, to not conjure bad scenarios, to not care about caring. I learnt that even if I felt negative inside, I shouldn't voice it, because usually it ebbs away and all those negative feelings were pointless and irrational anyway. (BUT, if your negative feelings do have a point and are rational, it's best to let it out then let it eat you up.)

Why waste life thinking negatively and pessimistically?

The sun shines brighter when you think positive, when you don't care about silly little things.

dctrdoom
ETA: favorite quote of the day: "not giving a fuck is a constant mental exercise." - our good friend jordan jett

To brighter and clearer thoughts in 2010,
Nicole

P.S - Does anyone else think Nine is worth watching? :D

Merry Christmas everyone. What did you get this year?



$99 DSE Gift card + $100 (which I'll both use to buy RAM), Fruits Basket anime on DVD, 2010 pocket diary which I got for Kris Kringle, singlets from my aunt, a top from Karel, Monopoly from Zerah! (a hit with my family), and (scent for 2010) Idole Armani perfume from F0x.



( More below )

Happy holidays,
-Nicole

Along with Watchmen and most recently, Avatar, I was wondering what other movies I watched this year that were awesome - District 9. Any disagreements? I hope not.



A couple of weeks ago, I had my annual get together with William and Kylie. For those who don't know, I knew these kids since the tender age of 6. We played handball with each other, we still do, but, a different sort of hand... ball... ... ... NOT WITH EACH OTHER! Okay, fail innuendo. It was great seeing them again. (Oh, I'm the asian girl to the right. Have I disappointed you? Changed your life forever?)

I also mentioned briefly a couple of posts ago that I was going to post some photos of the Christmas presents I bought for my loved ones. However, I wrapped them all up without even thinking twice about taking a photo for this blog, soooo, I'll take a photo of the wrapped presents and put that up.

You know what's a waste? Gift wrap. It's expensive paper which will be torn and thrown away. I was thinking about using gift bags this year, which are a bit more dearer, more environmentally friendly, but unfortunately doesn't have that Christmas image - "LET'S RUSH DOWNSTAIRS TO THE TREE ON CHRISTMAS DAY TO UNWRAP OPEN BAGS!" So expensive 99c paper it is.

Okay, off to the butcher with Nina, to get us some meat ;) ...
I'll stop,
Nicole

I had a quick hour catch up with Marc yesterday, and he told me about the Google Phone, which according to this article is coming out early 2010. However, if it is going to be made by LG (as the article says) I'm going to be quite hesitant in purchasing it... LG phones haven't lasted long with those in my social circle. See here for photos.


Found via Audrey's blog, from here.

Nicole

To those people who saw the Avatar movie and didn't like. I don't know why you didn't. It was an epic movie and the 2 and a half hours of amazing storyline and visual was completely worth paying extra to watch it in 3D.

x2 to the people who also didn't enjoy Watchmen. Similar in visual style, a more mature rating than Avatar, that was a great movie too.

Nicole

Followers of my blog will know that I'm trying to drop International Studies. I just found out that I won't know if I've successfully dropped International Studies until Tuesday 19 January, 2010 (source: Communication Student Centre guy & here).

Student Centre guy also told me that I should enrol for my current 2010 subjects to avoid the fine for late enrolments. So here I am, signing up for German 3 & 4, even though I'm hoping (not that I don't love German!) I won't be doing it anymore.

*headdesk*,
Nicole

I mentioned in my previous blog that I'm currently reading Daughters of Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera. I picked it up because of the following keywords in the blurb: honour-based violence, forced marriage, stories of young women (and also, from what I've read so far, there's a story of a man who was forced to marry), to marry a man she had never met, abusive marriage.

Wow Nicole, you've picked up a cheerful sounding book. For awhile now I've had an interest of how something like arranged marriages still exist. Values from a world far from the western one I (and most of you who are reading my blog) live in.

I can marry for love. I can choose who I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with. I can choose how to live my life.

It's so hard to understand, because I find myself asking Why? Why can't they just break away from it all? As Sanghera's book shows, it's not that easy.

My understanding of the importance of family honour and the consequences of being disowned compared to the characters of Sanghera's book is only a smidgeon. For example, if I get pregnant, I'll get disowned - kicked out of home, to fend for myself and my unborn child (dramatic, no?).

Sanghera's book isn't the only one I've read. I've read Monica Ali's Brick Lane (I still need to find this movie), and Jean Sasson's Daughters of Arabia.

Maybe the majority of us don't really care. We're too busy enjoying the western way of living, and it is indeed, a great life, haha.

I'm not saying the eastern nor western way of living is the "right" way of living. Obviously my book selection is biased, and I'm only reading about the terrors of arranged marriages. When it comes to both worlds, east or west, it all comes down to morals and being humane. Because even the western world has its issues.

Nicole

My journal username is bonkahs, depriving from bonkers. Just this morning I came across a cat on YouTube named Bonks! He's absolutely adorable and since we have similar names we MUST BE related. ...I should really get ready for work.



Christmas present post up next.
Currently reading Daughters of Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera,
Nicole

Dad and I headed to Eveleigh yesterday (right next to Redfern) to the Finders Keepers markets! It was an awesome get together of indie art and design. While I intentionally planned to blow $80, I only bought a pair of Pigeon Hole earrings for $25. Check out Pigeon Hole! They have great stuff and had people constantly crowded around their stall.

The fashion was amazing too. It was mostly $100+, but hey, if you want an original piece. A hair piece from one of the stores was $190! (Similar to the one I saw, here's a photo. It's the red, green, yellow, black hair piece in the top right. Photo taken by LittleBlackBook.TypePad.Com). No wonder the lady didn't seem interested in talking to me. But it was an amazing piece which she said took a very long time to make.

I also saw Victoria Mason there. *sighs at her jewellery*

Afterwards, on a contradictory move, I bought a $10 plastic pearl necklace from Equip. Haha.





( Upclose photos )



As well as jewellery and clothing, there was homeware, postcards, illustration prints, trinkets and toys. Nina bought some badges (above). Also, here's another blog entry about Finders Keepers for those who are interested.

Will I go next year? I would, just to see the new range of items and designers.

Have a great Sunday!
Dinner with William and Kylie tonight <3
Nicole

I'll be hitting Finders Keepers tomorrow with a mere $80! So, it'll be either buy a handful of small things, or a pinch of medium things, or purchase one big item.

I scoured the Finders Keepers floor map, googling the vendors. I'm going to link Victoria Mason, for their beautiful (out of my price range), simple jewellery. I love the Tea Cup Necklace. A Melbourne based jeweller. Check out her blog also.

I'll be going with my dad! Excitement.

Have a great weekend,
Nicole

I'll be going to Finders Keepers this Saturday! I'm quite pumped. However, I don't know what my budget will be. I'm planning to buy cute things with no use whatsoever besides "being decorative" for Christmas presents.

Also, shifts at work have been cut down. D: Low in funds for Christmas!

Nicole

Your Existing Situation "Is lazy when it comes to further herself or her career and lacks the ambition to change things. Does not like to put to much effort into things, except sexual activity. She would rather feel comfort and security, than success."

Your Restrained Characteristics Emotionally demanding and will involve herself in close relationships but won't get too involved or give too much of herself. Current situations force her into compromise and placing her own hopes and desires on hold for the time being.

Your Desired Objective Very active imagination and may be prone to fantasies and daydreaming. Always dreaming of interesting and exciting things to happen to her. Is a charmer and wants to be admired for that.

Your Actual Problem "Feeling held back and restricted from moving forward, looking for a solution that will give her more freedom and less obstacles."

Color Quiz.

It's funny how all of this came from selecting a handful of colours.
Nicole

Today, I bring you a handful of my dresses - some you may have seen before.

A - an under-dress/something I'd only wear to bed, bought from Penrith's Kookai store. The Kookai store in Penrith houses all the "last season" clothing. You'll find Kookai products, shirts, dresses, jewellery, all for a great price! So if you're like me, who's pressured into buying labelled clothing (yeah FoxA, you pressure me to buy labelled stuff :p) but would rather not spend $100s, go to Kookai Penrith for a great bargain and great style.

B + C + E - dresses bought from a store in Blacktown that sells everything for $10. Dresses, shirts, jackets, jeans, bags... you heard correctly, $10! The material quality of B is great as well, not so much with C. The only downside, because of its cheap price, is that a lot of people buy there. Someone else is bound to have the same outfit as you. But see, the good thing is, most people living in my area don't shop in Blacktown, haha! Win for me. I purposely only wear the outfits I buy from this store in any area besides the Blacktown area.

D - was a present from FoxA. A dress from Market City's Dotti. This was purchased in 2008, and I absolutely love this dress. Around $60-$70, I don't quite remember the price. The pattern, the design, the quality of the material = fabulous. I went into Penrith's Dotti last week and nothing they were selling caught my eye. I'll return to them; they often have great dresses for less than $100.

F - a skirt from Town Hall's (well, it's close to Town Hall station) Attik. They have a recently opened Attik store at Broadway, but go to Town Hall, the prices are much, much cheaper. I wish I could buy all my clothes from Attik. They're only a small clothing line so the chances of someone else having the same thing is minimal. It's affordable too. Great designs. This skirt is high waisted and absolutely pretty and sexy. I bought E because I needed something plain to pair it up with. Haven't tried the F + E outfit yet - we'll see how it goes.

G - a $60 dress from Penrith's Fox Foe. Absolutely gorgeous! I saw it and instantly knew it was the one that I wanted to wear on a summery Friday. It's a great summer dress, embracing the "floral" trend of this season. It's light, pretty, and the buttons at the front give it a summer girl-sex appeal ;). Or maybe I just think of hot summer lovin' when I wear this dress. It's going to be a definite repeat throughout the holidays.

Nicole

Buying another dress today from Foxx Foe made me realise that there are many dresses I have which I want to show off to you all.

*puts on to do list*
Nicole

P.S - HOORAY! for Facebook LiveJournal notifications. Is this a bad idea? Exposing my blog to offline acquaintances? Eh, I know you, yes YOU read my blog anyway. Don't deny it. Join the darkside.
Be sure to leave a comment so I know you visited ^_^ You can either comment anonymously (but why not leave a name behind?), with your OpenID, or sign up for a blog here on LiveJournal :)

Continuing the events from my previous blog, I exchanged the DDR2 DIMM RAM for DDR DIMM RAM.

On coming home today, I installed it, the gap in the "golden teeth" when into the... "filling" (wow, dental metaphors), but it didn't clip in. I didn't push it in hard because I simply thought that if it wasn't going to go in easy, it wasn't going to go in at all. So I gave up after that one try.

After scouring the Internet for what possibly could be different, and fearing that I'd have to guiltily ask for a $99 refund, I decided to give it another go, once again, with the father's help.

The reason why it didn't go in was because it wasn't pushed in hard enough (...*pause for effect*)

So! There we go. The family PC now runs on 1gb RAM (instead of 512mb), two times faster. I plan on purchasing additional RAM. :)

Nicole

I think I'm going to give them a go.
Pair them up with short skirts or shorts for extra leg.

Later on in the evening...

I decided to put on my IT pants (they don't suit with spartans) on today by attempting to upgrade my 512mb RAM (made up of 2 x 256mb RAM) to something more speedy. None of you will understand the following sentences unless you plan to upgrade your computer's RAM yourself.

My PC uses DIMM RAM. What I didn't take note of was that it uses DDR DIMM RAM, not just a DIMM RAM with "DDR2" at the front of its name. The "DIMM" in my situation wasn't the important factor, it was the difference between DDR2 and DDR.

It was quite exciting opening up my harddrive with my sister anxious at my shoulder. It was fun pretending to be doctors operating on a body. My hard drive is massive, so I was surprised that most of my PC's components only took up two-thirds of the metal box.

I had bought DDR2 DIMM RAM (2 gigabytes). It was not going in. It's the same size, width, thickness of the DDR DIMM RAM that came with the hard drive, but my dad discovered (as he shone a flash light into the box, which I thought was just aiding his blindness... but then it proved MY blindness) that the gap in the "golden teeth" is different. It's one "golden tooth" to the side. I was so ... ROAWROWJL@KJ#LK@J#@)E_)WE . --;

Hopefully tomorrow I can exchange it for a DDR. Sadly, the DDR DIMM RAM 1GB is the same price as a DDR2 DIMM RAM 2GB. I just want to be able to exchange it and get it running on my PC.

Until tomorrow,
Nicole

Just a little bit more...

While I don't need a new mobile phone, I would like one. So, I've decided that I'll buy myself one when I've saved up $6k, so that $1k can be spent on a phone and I'll sit on a nice $5k.

But... do I really need a new phone when I could just start saving up for my post-graduation travel holiday?

Plugging: Brendan

I've been on holidays for a week and four days so far. What have I done so far? I've baked, gone to a bonfire, celebrated 2 years of Strength and Wisdom, received a blender and have continuously made strawberry smoothies (use vanilla ice cream + strawberries, not strawberry ice cream), played DotA, ...

And I still have so much left on my list of to-do's. I want to finish off Scrubs (I'm up to Season 7);
I put "learn guitar" on this list - but no, unfortunately I'll be one of those Filipinos that cannot play an instrument nor sing on key - what was I thinking put that on the list?;
I have yet to go to the beach, have a picnic, go kayaking, and go go-karting;
but, next week the family's having a BBQ to celebrate my cousin's and my sister's birthday, and the following weekend I'll be watching Twilight with the sibling and taking her to Parra Borders (she hasn't been there, and I think it's one of the best bookstores in the greater west of Sydney).

Now for discussion:

If you're 18+ years old, do you still live with your parents? If so, do you plan on moving out? Why, or why not?

There was a segment on 7's Today Tonight (it was that or Channel 9's A Current Affair) that was reporting on how the generation of today are technologically savvy, are happy when they have these technologies, are working more, and like spending time with their family and are willing to live with their parents longer.

Obviously, my mum pointed out, it's because it's cheaper to live your parents. You have, someone to cook, to clean, to wash, to take care of you, the time to live life.

I said, that it's the parents' responsibility to kick their kids out. To teach them the skills to be able to survive by one's self.

My mum wants to keep me and my sister for as long as possible. However, I'm keen to live by myself. I can see it in my future. Being able to live by myself, for me, is freedom. I can sure as heck clean, wash clothes, wash dishes... my only weakness is cooking. I can cook the basics, rice (with a cooker, haha), eggs, cookies (though I don't think I can live on shortbread alone) etc. but give me a recipe book and I can follow it.

It'll be hard to study and work to pay rent at the same time. I've met students at Uni who have that pure independency, and kudos to them.

What's better for a teenager entering young adulthood? To have a degree under their belt with great marks, maybe an internship or two, while being sheltered by their parents? Or, to have simply earned a degree and having worked hard to have their own place?

My family (like many) values education. They also value family time.
My opinion, in today's economy, having a higher degree (TAFE or Uni) gives you better positions in the workforce.

Having the education, gets you a better job, which gives you the money to experience life. And even the individuals of this generation who aren't aiming to improve their education, they're still working and experiencing life. ...All while living under their parents' rooves.

I think we're spending it more on consuming technology, instead of using it to "grow up".

While I do see myself living in an apartment of my own in the future, it'll happen in this order:

Finish my Bachelor's degree while working casually (I'll finish 2010/2011)

Hopefully having saved enough money, I'll go travelling

Get that full-time job and get an apartment

That's my plan,
Nicole

Since I've gotten my Debit Mastercard I've been going through an online shopping spree. Well, no, not really, I've only shopped three times, but the total cost of my expediture is about $1000 already, haha. I've bought shirts and a mobile phone (hopefully I can take photos of that baby tonight). I have yet to tackle on eBay.



I have bought 9 t-shirts from Threadless. It is my ultimate LOVE! I want to buy the shirts. Take photos of me wearing the shirts. Design some shirts. ... ... Unfortunately, I don't have the illustrious skills, so I'll stick with shopping and posing.

My last order consisted of 8 of the 9 shirts (the other 1 of the 9 was my first ever online purchase). I gave two shirts to my sister. Another is for FoxA. Which leaves me with 5 shirts. Funnily enough, I think the season of giving is wafting itself through my open window. But I initially bought the shirts for myself, so they're all extra small (but still quite large, thank goodness they shrink). Am I hinting something? Am I hinting that I might give some away? Or, will I just be a Grinch? :D



The phone I bought (HTC Touch Pro 2) isn't for myself. I recommend these guys. If I were to buy another phone outright, I think I'll go to them again. The phone was delivered to my house by FedEx! FEDEX!! FEDEX!! Yeah, it was a highlight of my life. My mum signed it for me, because I was on my way home from work. As I drove into my street, I saw the iconic FedEx van roll out of my drive way. It was just like in American movies :O





TeeFury and AboutAGirl are some other places I've been eyeing. I doubt I'll ever shop at AboutAGirl because the prices are way above my head, but I love flicking through catalogues (digital or paper).

Til next time,
Nicole