CLIFF.
SHAG.
MARRY.

Now play. :D

So, I read the 'other' Kim Harrison series yesterday, "Avery".
It's a 'young adult series'... meaning what, 16, 17 year olds?
Not like I care, but okay.
I read it mainly to determine whether I should send her a formal letter requesting her to quit writing books other than her most fantabulous Rachel Morgan books.
...but it was okay.
Once Dead, Twice Shy revolves around a 16/17 year old who dies, but wasn't supposed to, and then figures out a way to stay not-fully-dead-but-still-able-to-walk/talk/appear alive.
However, and here comes the YAY! part for me, it also involves quite a few reapers, black and white.

Now, I don't know about all of you, but reapers = love.
Before Pushing Daisies (omg, who used to watch that? Why the hell did they ever cancel that show!), Bryan Fuller used to produce or direct or... something Dead Like Me... a series revolving around reapers.
SQUEEL!!!
And not just reapers, SARCASTIC REAPERS!!!!
I mean, seriously, yah-ahhhh!!!

Then

Then, of course, they canceled the show after two seasons and decided to dump the Dead Like Me movie straight to DVD (which I downloaded last night, so HAH!) and there weren't that many good sarcastic reaper shows on the air anymore (never watched 6 Foot Under, though).

I was once inclined to write a reaper story longer than 2 pages, but I never really got there.
Did write two short stories about it, which should be... somewhere within this LJ...
Oh well.

Either way, I still wish Kim Harrison would go back to just writing Rachel Morgan, 'cause one book a year is SO not good enough, but on the other hand, I'll allow the Avery series, as long as she doesn't pay TOO much attention to it.

Having said that;

I need book suggestions!!!

Cheers.

So, I was (am) bored at work and started reading a 'random' Questionable Content, where they happened to mention a "RealDoll".
Considering that I had no idea what that meant, I decided to Google it.
Seeing as my Google Safesearch options are on off, I now understand what this "RealDoll" is.
Shoulda known better than to Google something in QC, though...

P.s. Apparently even 'dsaf' means something dirty... o.O

[Talking about girlfriends with Ben]

At work. T.L.F. says:
Waste of time either way
Benjamin says:
how so?
At work. T.L.F. says:
Too much input, too little output
At work. T.L.F. says:
See, puppies are way better
At work. T.L.F. says:
First of all, they don't talk
At work. T.L.F. says:
They whine a little when they're young, and they chew on things and such
At work. T.L.F. says:
But once they grow up;
1. you'll always have someone to come home to,
2. they'll protect your home (you don't see a girl doing that...),
3. you can have multiple of them without it becoming a problem
At work. T.L.F. says:
4. There's no need for foreplay

The otherwise clear, spring evening sky was covered with thick, black clouds, occasionally letting moonlight slip past its mass. The full moon that had started out like a pale, glowing orb now looked like a menacing eye, spying on the creatures below her, capturing them with her deceiving light. Somewhere, a wolf would howl out to worship his Goddess, and she would have enjoyed that sound. Now, however, she couldn’t hear it. But it didn't matter.
Lightning traced a path through and between clouds as a thunderbolt cracked, ripping apart the world in a split second, and putting it back together again. Rain poured down, creating puddles and small streams, desperately trying to cleanse the ever polluted earth. But it didn’t matter.
Some creatures ran away from the storm to hide in dry places while others ripped through the earth to feel the cold rain splashing down on them, cleansing them as it was cleansing the soil. Life was returned to the land as plants gratefully sucked in the water and hung out their leaves so the rain could wash away the dirt. But it didn’t matter.
Her face was briefly illuminated as another lightning strike lit up the sky, making her temporarily visible in an otherwise completely undetectable hideout place. It wasn’t that she was hiding; it had become a natural impulse for her to go someplace where she’d remain unseen. However, that wasn’t how she had planned to spent the night.
Her yellow sundress, completely drenched by the rain, clung to her body as she stared in the distance, a blank expression on her wet face. Whether her face was wet because of tears or rain was unknown, as she couldn’t remember which had poured down first. But it didn’t matter.
Absently, she tried to wipe away the hair stuck to her face and neck, succeeding only in messing it up further. A dry sob escaped her throat and caused her entire body to break out in goose bumps. She sighed, closed her eyes and let her head fall forward so the rain would pour down on her neck as she rubbed her bare arms, ineffectively trying to get some feeling back into them. Again, the sky lit up as a thunderbolt drove itself into a tree somewhere to her right, ripping it in two. The smell of burning wood and rain swirled in her head so she could almost taste it, but the metallic taste in her mouth overpowered everything else. But none of those things mattered.

Her day had started out perfect; her parents had woken her up with presents and breakfast in bed, friends had called to wish her a happy birthday and to reassure her that everything would go fine. Family had come by and had been pleasantly surprised by the cake she had made the day before. Somewhere around noon, her best friend had come over to help her with her makeup, clothes and hair. And she had looked beautiful.
The evening, also, had started out great; only a couple of people had been late and there had only been a few minor complications due to the mixture of creatures as some Weres and some of the Northern folk just couldn’t stop staring at each other. At that time, the sky had been a color darker than black, broken only by the light of the stars; the moon would take a couple more hours to come out. Outside, it was cool but not cold and a light breeze swayed the treetops south-east. But none of that mattered, as nothing could undo what would happen.

She tried to stop grinning as her friends were, neither in tone nor in harmony, singing two different birthday songs through each other, because neither group of singers wanted to adapt to the other. She giggled as a couple of the Weres howled when she blew out the candles on the cake, and squealed as someone twirled her around and kissed her on the cheek when they were out. Then, everything turned in a major hug-fest as everyone tried to hug the birthday girl at the same time. Cake was handed out, people were laughing or discussing in mixed groups, and a female Were even asked a so-called bloodsucker to dance. Her friends had been trying to get her on the dance floor for an entire song, but something didn’t seem right. She gracefully declined, pointing out that she was technically the host and should therefore wait at least a couple more songs before ditching her guests for the music. They vowed to get her to dance, even if they had to drag her there, and she laughed but didn’t comment.

Walking towards a quieter part of the garden, she closed her eyes and faced the sky. The breeze blew some strands of her dark hair into her face, but she let it. Breathing in deeply, she tried to sense what it was that seemed wrong and from where it was coming. She threw her head into her neck and let out a silent scream, a scream only one of her kind would be able to hear. But her biological mother wasn’t here, and she was too far away to be able to hear it and be alarmed. She screamed again, but still there was no echo. She didn’t know what to think of it, but stood there for a couple of minutes, waiting for that required echo. Nothing came.
She opened her eyes and stared right into a full moon. What seemed like a million screams instantly filled her head, bringing her to her knees when she inefficiently tried to block them out by pressing her hands to her ears while still staring at the moon, something not allowing her to look away. She tried to scream back, respond to them to make them stop, but it went on and on, growing in force and volume, threatening to rip through her soul. She had nowhere to guide their warnings, no indicated place for them to be stored as they were so many and she couldn’t decipher everything they said. Violently shaking her head as adrenaline tried to dull the pain, she tried to make it stop, make them stop crashing their warnings into her in waves of little darts, aimed at her brain.
Somehow breaking eye contact with the moon, she slammed her hands into the ground, conscious of the power she would pump into the lightly protected but unholy soil. The screaming stopped instantly.
She laid her head on the ground, shivering violently as she tried to understand what had just passed through her body and what exactly the consequence would be of her inability to hold on to that power. Slowly, she sat up and looked around, tears she hadn’t known she’d shed blurring her vision. Furiously, she wiped the tears out of her eyes and looked ahead. And then around her.
She was sitting in the middle of a great, burned patch of grass. When she looked more closely, it didn’t look like a circle at all, as she had first thought, but more like… wings, rippled expansions of where she had slammed her hands into the ground.
She jumped up and ran away, hoping the power had stayed in the ground as it should, not to interfere with whatever was still going on at the party.
As she got closer, she noticed something crucial missing. The music was gone, and no one was talking. She slowed down as she noticed everyone staring at her, not in surprise as she anticipated to be their worst reaction, for only a couple of them had every experienced an outlet of power, let alone one as big as she’d just created. They were looking at her with an expression of terror on their faces. Even her best friend, who knew exactly what she was and what she could do, looked afraid. But that wasn’t the worst.
They were huddled in groups, each creature’s survival instincts unconsciously making them seek out their own kind. Humans stood with humans, the couple of vamps were together and the Weres… the Weres had taken on their animal form, but for once didn’t look more powerful because of it. They looked like a pack of Were puppies, somehow adding to the growing sense of wrongness that was filling up the void the warnings had made inside her.
As she walked closer to the Weres, some of the females started whining softly. Horrified, she turned around to walk away, only to slam into her best friend. She had tears in her eyes as she spoke to her.
“We heard them.”
Tipping her head sideways, she looked at her friend in an unspoken question.
“We heard the warnings,” she continued. “They slammed into us when you forced them into the ground. It was-”
Tears were streaming down her face now as her sobs enabled her to finish her sentence.
Go.
Involuntarily, she took a step away from her friend and looked around again, searching for the voice that had come out of nowhere.
“But… you’re not my kind. You can’t hear them.” she whispered. “You’re not supposed to.”
Somewhere, not too far away, a thunderbolt was upsetting the spotless sky. Now, not only the female Weres, but also the male ones started whining softly, their tails in between their legs as they nervously eyed everyone around them. For some reason, they didn’t leave, just as no one else had left, even though it was a wish written on everyone’s face.
“We… we heard them.”
She had found her voice again, if only shaky. Her glamour had fallen off, showing her for what she really was. Even though they were practically on the same level of power, her friend seemed drained of hers as her dull eyes didn’t reflect the stars in the sky as they usually did. A dark cloud passed in front of the moon, blocking off its light.
“You could go.” she suggested.
Go.
“We can’t leave.”
Go.
“Of course you can! Just… walk away!” she said, smiling sadly at her friend.
Go.
“We can’t. We’re bound. You… bound us.”
She closed her eyes as she felt her friend’s hand on her forehead, dulling the throbbing headache building behind her eyes. She had bound them. She had no idea how, but she had bound them. And there were only limited ways to unbind creatures to unprotected land.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
She looked into her friend’s eyes and saw only a somehow familiar darkness. They hugged in silence. As she let go, the Elf that had once tried to beat her in basketball, cried with her when she’d broken up with her first love, yelled at her when she’d made the most stupid mistake of her life, told her the truth when she hadn’t wanted to hear it and hugged her when her grandfather had died, slowly turned into a stone statue of a simple girl with a faint smile on her face.
Goodbye.
Hell broke loose.
Weres ran around, vamps tried to morph and get away and the humans fled, not being creatures of the night and therefore not being able to be bound. Still, some weren’t fast enough, and the Weres in their frenzy ripped open several bodies as they lost their human side and gave in to their instincts.
But she didn’t notice.
She was silently screaming, cursing all those who had screamed at her before, finally understanding the voice inside of her. It had taken all of her friend’s power to transmit messages into her head, trying to overpower the growing sense of wrongness, no, darkness that was filling the void. The screams had burned her clean and left her to become prey to those that were more powerful than her, or her kind.
A high-pitched scream tore her away from her thoughts and back to present matters. In the middle of all the uproar two middle-aged women unknown to her had appeared, each visibly holding a book out to her; one black and one white.

No one seemed to notice the two women who had appeared out of nowhere and were standing calmly in the middle of what the zoo in Hell would look like. They appeared not to care, either, that Weres were tearing into Humans and young vampires alike, or that an Elf had slaughtered one of her own kind out of sheer kindness for the agony the other Elf was enduring as she became half Vamp.
Both were a vision of extreme holiness, dressed in long, white dresses that seemed to date back to the old Greeks. No blood stained them, no one touched them, no wind made their hair move, but they were most definitely there.
As if on commando, both women started moving forward, gliding towards her with a cold mist trailing behind them. The mist spread out and everything they passed stayed frozen in time, the looks on her guests faces a painful thing to see as fear was now more visible than ever.
It took her brain a while to realize that this bizarre turn of events could also not be a good thing, and she finally got her body to turn around and run towards the garden. She could only reach the burned patch of grass before everything around her turned to ice. Panicking, she sank to her knees and put her hands on the grass in the same position as she had been when she’d pumped the overflowing power into the earth. Now, she tried to retrieve that power, thinking the warnings might tell her something about what was going on.
But as it was unholy soil, none of the power was kept preserved in this side of the earth, and the warnings that had shattered her soul for a split second were gone until she’d fine a way to retrieve them.
But right now was not that time.

I wiped my finger across the moist spot that appeared on my leg, dangerously close to the thick, leather-bound book.
Another two spots magically appeared as I blinked, parallel to the first.
I ignored these as I gazed at the page.
More spots appeared, and they slowly slid down my leg, pulling the first three along with them.
Then it was as if someone turned on the light and then turned it off really quickly as a loud cracking sound ripped apart the world around me.
More spots appeared.
Still, I gazed.
I was gazing.
As if hypnotized, I caressed the page softly and slowly before turning it.
As it had done after every page I turned, my heart leaped into my throat.
My throat, in its turn, got too crowded and wouldn’t let air get in or go out.
My head, therefore, felt as if it would pop, implode or melt, or all three in no particular order.
The only solution, I knew, was to look away from the page for a few seconds and force air in and out.
But I couldn’t.
Not this page.
Any other page but this one.
And the one before it.
And before that.
And that.
And…
The spots had doubled, tripled in amount.
My leg had started to resemble a tiny highway, with spots appearing everywhere and going everywhere.
And nowhere.
As was I.
Again, a crack tore off a piece of my fragile bubble.
I knew I should be yelling or something, but I couldn’t.
I was still hypnotized, feeling the need to caress these pages with passion unknown to me.
As if they would dissolve in thin air if I stopped.
It would disappear, never to be found again.
It would leave me.
Me.
No…
No, I was still caressing.
Still stroking, slowly and carefully, while gazing at the pages.
That light again, on and off, it couldn’t decide which it liked best.
I turned the page.
My head started reeling as, without warning, my throat stopped working.
I couldn’t take it.
I turned another page.
And another.
And another!
No!
No, don’t leave.
No, don’t!
Don't make me...!
I turned and turned.
I got to the last and flipped it around and turned, turned!
My head fell forward but I snapped it back up and turned, as spots hit me in the face.
Turned, turned.
No more gazing.
Couldn’t take it, just couldn’t!
The sound ripped my bubble in half and a scream tore through my world.
My throat burned as I realized that the one screaming was me, but I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t take it.
I turned, looking but not seeing.
I knew what they were.
I knew what it said.
I knew it all, as this was not the first time.
I forced the screaming to stop, but I couldn’t stop the turning.
Furiously, I ripped out a page and screamed as if in pain, eyeing the piece of paper till my vision clouded over.
More spots appeared around me, on me.
I could see pieces of my bubble around me as the light flickered again, onoff.
I threw the piece of paper away from me, from my bubble.
As in slow motion, it fluttered to the ground and lay upside down.
I knew which page that was.
All of the sudden, the page had disappeared.
I closed the book with a bang and opened it again at the first page.
There it was.
I took a deep breath and sighed happily.
I slowly caressed the page, vowing to never, ever rip out a page again.
I turned to the next page.
As I looked at their smiling faces, I could feel my bubble reforming itself around me.
Spots were still appearing, but not on me.
They were just… there.
They were always there.
Just like… them.
As I gazed at the page, the light flickered on.
And off.
A soft cracking noise was to be heard somewhere in the background.
I smiled as I slowly felt my body shutdown.
Darkness took over as my bubble reformed, and my head hit the ground, but I couldn’t feel it.
The book fell, open, next to me.
Had I been able to open my eyes, I would see them smiling up at me, like angels.
The light flickered, once more.
No noise this time.
Just light, and then the lack of it.

A gush of wind made a piece of paper flutter away, simultaneously turning the pages of the magazine as rain poured down on her body.
The picture she was holding in her hand was visible for a split second as lightning lit up the dark clouds, before thunder resonated through her house.
The five young men and women in the picture would forever be smiling, though one was lost to the darkness of her mind

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly.
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game, do it! :)

Stolen from someone whose thingy turned into a note-spamming concerning John Mayer's SEXFACE! ;)


1. So little to say, but so much time
2. Look into my eyes, can't you see they're open wide Charles & Eddie - Would I lie to you (yes...)
3. Another head hangs lowly, child is slowly taken
4. I've been a bad, bad girl, I've been careless with a delicate man Fiona Apple - Criminal
5. [---], you don't have to put on that red light The Police/Moulin Rouge soundtrack - Roxanne
6. You could have bowed out gracefully, but you didn't
7. How about getting off of these antibiotics
8. Let me sail, let me sail
9. De Alto Cedro voy para Marcané, llego a Cueto voy para Mayarí
10. I was blown away, what could I say
11. Now I will tell you what I've done for you, 50.000 tears I've cried
12. I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naive Five for Fighting - Superman
13. Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry Coldplay - The Scientist
14. In a church, by the face, he talks about the people going under
15. Check it out, going out on the late night Pink - U and Ur hand
16. She leads a lonely life, she leads a lonely life Ace of Base - All that she wants
17. Esa jefita esta enterita y tiene tremendo culo
18. She call me Mr. [---], say me fantastic, touch me in me back Shaggy - Mr. Boombastic
19. Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you Oasis - Wonderwall
20. Sitting in my class, just drifting away, staring into the windows of the world
21. I took my baby on a Saturday bang, boy, is that girl with you, yes, we're one and the same
22. Sitting here at home, thinking about you all alone
23. I've got another confession to make, I'm your fool Foo Fighters - Best of you
24. Hola, que tal, soy el chico de las poesias
25. Sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree Annie Lennox - Sweet dreams
26. Girl, I'm in love with you, this ain't the honeymoon
27. My girl's like candy, a candy treat
28. There are no guarantees in life, not for the present nor for the future
29. Take all of your wasted honor, every little past frusteration SEXFACE - Say ;)
30. When the routine bites hard, and ambitions are low

:)

Hi!
I should stop having the urge to start entries (those I come up with once every trimester) with "Hi, I'm alive and kicking!", even though that's about the only thing I am.

So.
Ehm.
I've pretty much lost contact with... all of you, except for Dany, MayawhomImolestoccasionally, Hathehehe and... the occasional mistreating of other MSNers.
To the rest of y'all, HIIII!!
Hope everyone's well and all.
For whatever reason, LJ's a bitch and won't show me more than 60 entries back.
Hmph.

Well, developments of whatever time zone I'm in are:

1. I have no love life... whatsoever.
However, I marvel in everyone else's love lives, and if anyone wants to share, I want details. ;)

2. I’m currently in my third year of “Law school”, or uni with a law degree.
This year’s going fairly crap, ‘cause I work too much and have yet to do any actual studying this *entire* semester (with exams in Dec/Jan).
This is mostly my own fault, because I hate it when I don’t finish the work I should have done, and have to leave it for the next day.
And I’ve just become too lazy with studying and don’t really feel like it.

3. I’m still addicted.
To… Heroes, and books (last one I read was The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Pretty good. *nods*), and sugar, and black clothes (not in the gothic way, but black is just *so* much easier to combine with the rest of your… black/dark wardrobe lol), and dancing.
I’ve missed so many (2) GA episodes that I’ve put it on hold till I get a new laptop that DOESN’T refuse to download/torrent.
Oh, and Facebook.
I *am* addicted to FB.
Sorry LJ.

4. I dance salsa now/still.
AND!
I recently (last week) bought (unofficial) salsa-shoes; open shoes with a not-too-high heel.
Till now I’ve always been dancing on flats, so this is like learning to skip (not walk, I can dance okay on the heels, just not my usual amount of turns or speed).
But I love it :D
It’s about the only thing I still kinda do for fun.

5. Andehm… my brother lives on the island now, till… March, or February.
Don’t remember lol
He doesn’t live in the house, thank goodness, ‘cause we’d all bash each other’s heads in and then hug and make up.
But he also needs his privacy and… girls and stuff.
His (and my parents’) love life is the only one I *don’t* want anything to do with/know any details of.

6. Fucking hell.
10 ways you know your life is sad.
1. Your lists of “things I’ve been doing this past LIFE” doesn’t come any further than number 5.
Or 6.
The fact that you’re making this list is sad enough.
[Suppose this would be a great title for a book, though.]

7. I can’t believe that all I can think of is the fact that I need 3 (three) alarm-clocks to wake me up in the morning, and add to that parents, so 5.
Bought a new clock recently though.
Snort.
Was excited about it, too.

8. OH!
It’s my mom’s birthday today!
HAH!
(Plus 1!)

9. I gave my mom a nutcracker for her birthday.

10. She asked for it.
‘t wasn’t my idea :P

11. I’m going to be really sad if I can’t get more than 2 pages of random shit on paper.
I can’t have my reputation crashing to pieces when there’s not much else known about me.

13. I absolutely DETEST/HATE/LOATHE Alisha Keys’ “No one”-song.
I’ve yet to hear the entire thing.
But it’s on EVERY radio-station, EVERY day, EVERY FUCKING TIME I turn that thing on.

14. On the other hand, I *LOVE* Leaf’s “Wonderwoman”.
It’s a very head-banging-scream-along-song for in the car.
*nances*

15. I’m 20.
That’s so weird.
Every time I see those 16/17 year olds, I have to order myself to think of them as way younger than me, especially when there are cute surferboys involved.
*sighs*

16. Right.
Jesus.
Apart from the court case I was present at today, I don’t have shit to say.
I’m sad.

Love, though.
~Nicky

How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
I need Zack
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
So I can semi-beat him up
Benjamin says:
i bet you do
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
Jason is too skinny
Benjamin says:
you want to beat him in the naughty area
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
No
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
That's no fun
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
He'll be permanently paralyzed
Benjamin says:
sure it is
Benjamin says:
you're not that good
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
I like it when they fight back
Benjamin says:
i bet you do
Benjamin says:
hooker
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
Mhmm
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
Wish I was
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
*sigh*
Benjamin says:
wha?
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
What?
Benjamin says:
you better not become a hooker
Benjamin says:
and if you do, how much?
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging... says:
Hahaha

Hello peeps.
 
Just wanted to let you all know that I'm alive and kicking in a city that... sleeps, from time to time, but is excruciatingly hot EVERY fucking day.
...yay.
Then again, who cares.
 
School's good, my Mandarin *is* getting better, especially my writing, even though I'm writing traditional now.
I *am* spending way too much money, but that's always been a huge problem, so that's nothing new.
 
Saw HP5.
Crap, as usual.
Read HP7.
That's all I'm saying.
 
Ehm.
Other than thaaat.
Was way drunk two weeks ago, and was throwing up the same night.
I couldn't figure out why, up until Tom told me I (randomly) grabbed his cigarette and smoked it.
Whaa?
I blocked that out, apparently, 'cause that's the only part of the night I don't remember.
Sooo, basically, I'm not mixing tequila and smoking again.
 
I've been hanging around waaaay too many British people, though, but it's really funny.
Stephanie and I have the same level of sarcasm and understanding of body-language and subtle nudges.
Apart from the two female recipients of this email, I had yet to find someone who understands me in that way ;)
Then you've got the "Cambridge Boys", Will, George and Chris.
Will; traditional Cambridge boy - tall, broad, dark hair and rows (as in, roeiboot, get it?).
George - nerdy, terribly sweet, fluffy hair, WOW-blue eyes.
Chris - 18 (yes, that's relevant in this case), doesn't get the hang of sarcasm, terribly innocent for whatever reason in the world.
There are also Cambridge girls, but obviously, these aren't exactly interesting to me.
The three of them live with about 5 more Cambridge people in a hostel; I think they pretty much rented half the hostel for the occasion - this does mean, however, that they live in the same huge room, they didn't rent out individual rooms.
Steph and I were contemplating whether or not this way of living would cause sexual frustrations amongst the males.
 
Last week, I went karaoke-ing with them (Cambridge people) and Steph and some random French guy from the hostel and a couple of Chinese/Taiwanese girls.
't was fuuun, these Camb people are all Chinese/Mandarin studies-majors and stuff, so they know their... stuff, meaning they can sing a shitload of Chinese songs I don't even know.
Then again, some have lived in China (mainland) for a semester or longer.
I could only sing English song *sob*
 
Then, THIS weekend, I..., well, this friday, I (and the rest of our class) got invited by the Korean guy to eat dinner in Taoyuan (45 min train from Taipei) with him, 'cause it was his birthday (shengri kuaile!).
So, I did, and we had Korean BBQ, which is pretty good, and loads of alcohol (I still don't like whiskey), and another girl named Nicole (well, her English name's Nicole, I forgot her Chinese one) who lived in Belize (central America) for 6 years and had just come back a week ago, and who was a cousin of the Korean guy's fiancee... who's also terribly nice, and who speaks Korean.
At some point, there was a major translation thing going on in our table (Korean guy, fiancee, Nicole, me and Ming (Korean girl)).
Ming would say something to the fiancee in Korean, the fiancee would translate it into Taiwanese to Nicole and Nicole would translate it into English for me.
So handy, speaking more than one language...
Anyway, after the dinner (which had by then turned into a semi drinking-game thing on our table and lots of (2nd WW) war-talk on the Russian-German-Korean-Taiwanese table) we went to the Korean guy's & fiancee's apartment, which was in the same building as the Russian guys's.
That thing was TINY, but terribly cute, 'cause the ceiling on the (tiny) second floor was SO low that I could touch it with my head.
Rusky and Deutcher had bought a... well, not a case, but a carton... thing with 24 cans of beer and stocked it into the Korean guy's fridge.
(After we had left to go back to Taipei, the three of them drank aaaall 24 (well, what was left of it) cans... and then went to go to the sauna. I don't understand guys...)
So yeah, then we went home, 'cause we still had that 45 min. trainride, and then we had to go to Subway back home.
Except I messaged Steph on the train and she was going to Taipei 101 (tallest building in the world) to a bar close to it, so I tagged along.
There's when I found out from Tom (Steph's flatmate) that I had apparently smoked and blocked it out afterwards.
Steph and I left around 3ish, got McD's and headed for home.
 
Next day (21/7) was HP (YAY!), so Izzy (Isobel, also British) and I went to Ikea (hehe) to the Fnac bookstore inside it to get our copy.
There wasn't even a queue.
We then headed off to McD and later to Starbucks, afterwards got Sushi (and chocolate) and then headed home.
(I must say, I have the most violent, spastic reactions when reading and they're extremely difficult to surpress in public. Izzy almost jumped when I got around chapter... 3, I think, and had this major *GASP!* NO!-moment going on.)
Thursday had been Zhong Yin/Tiny Dancer/Indonesian Roommate's birthday, so that night we (Anna and I) went to Karaoke  with her and her friends that we had already met on previous occasions.
We sneaked in about 2 bottle of vodka, 1 rum, 5 beer... and she kept "Gambei!"-ing (sorta like cheers), and since we're talking about all Asians here, it got pretty funny after an hour.
Anna was constantly singing, going all "OHIWANNESINGTHIS!" and grabbing mics, but she lightly tone-deaf and it's extremely funny to see her get up for yet another song.
At the end of the night, most of our voices were either gone or hoarse, and all the boys had already left due to an inability to hold their liquor.
So, the "I will survive" and BSB-songs started popping up, and it was us 6 girls screaming/singing to the TV, out of tone, out of rhythm, out of voice.
We got home around 4.30.
 
Last night, Steph and I had dinner and sat around till the restaurant closed, bitching (and talking in general) about "our" guys.
 
Yesterday, I brought together Steph, Izz, Will, George and Chris to discuss HP7.
[That's all I'm saying...]
Afterwards we ended up in a random baotzi/dumpling/noodle place, and after THAT in McDonalds, where George had yet another meal and Chris had no idea whyyy we were laughing so hard about something he did (I don't even remember *what* exactly, but it was funny).
I'm still utterly flabbergausted about his level of innocence- isn't that illegal for Brits?
 
So yeah.
:)
I'm good.
 
Oh, and apparently we had an earthquake in Taiwan, from 2 to 6 on the scale of Righter.
Didn't feel a thing.

Aight peeps!
I'm alive and kicking!
I'm sure quite a lot of you are disappointed right now, but that's okay, there are plenty of opportunities in Taiwan for that. ;)

I've got a room.
I've got two "basement-mates", both girls.
I've been registered at school and kicked ass in my first placement test (4/100!)
And that's about it!

<333

Alright people.
I'm off to Taiwan today.
I'll be going to Hong Kong with the train at 2 pm, and then flying to Taipei at 8.
Then, next day, I'll be frantically searching rooms and shit, 'cause I need some place to stay, man!
Other than that... I'm aliiiive!
I have way too much stuff with me now and I'm tired as hell, AND I got my hair washed and dried (straightened) for 38 yuan... which is ike... under US$5,- (BEAT THAT, BITCH!) last night, so HAH!

*headdesks and sleeps*
<333

Pictures ooooooooof... Doom and I, and then Japanese food and I.

I hope everyone got their right pinky bandaged. *eg*

Alright, so I didn't do this last year, but I'll LJ for THIS part of my China/Taiwan trip.

Aaaaaas some of you know, I'm in Guangzhou right now.
I left Curacao May 28th, went to Holland, got my China-visa there and flew to Hong Kong 2 days later.
I spent one day in HK, didn't really get to see anything as I was technically just there for transit, visited the HK-office and client of my dad (which was kinda why I was there) and went to eat at an Indian woman's house (who works at the office of the client of my father's lol).

I went to and am in Guangzhou as a semi-business/introduction trip.
The company is Mulitex Limited (very kinky website, according to my father).
It's a trading company, mostly dealing in garment and home textile.
I know that it has almost nothing to do with my Law studies, and that's what everyone tells me, and I'm also not entiiiirely interested in getting into trade, but it's cool to see how things work in "business".
And I love China.
And this trip is deductible from taxes. :P

After Guangzhou, I'll be going to Taiwan on June 18th to do a(nother) Mandarin language course, this time at the National Taiwan Normal University.
I'm totally excited about that. :D

Bad thing about Guangzhou is that they speak Cantonese here, not Mandarin.
For those who don't know the difference, it's an entirely different language.
They use the same characters for writing, but when speaking it's a compleeeetely different thing and I don't understand shit.

This is what I wrote to a couple of friends back home.
Might be a little different from my usual writing style.

Start cueing the "Page Down"-key, people. ;)

----------------

Sooo, we went KTVing Friday night.
Means ka-la-oh-kay.
I came home at 2.
Yep, first night in Guangzhou.
 
Okay, from the top.
I've got 6 workdays; mon-fri; 9-6, sat; 9-1.
I'll be here for two weeks.
I pretty much started Saturday with an introduction in one of the three departments they have here.

It's a pretty relaxed atmosphere at the office, big amount of female staff, however, 2 out of 3 heads of department are male and then some.
It's currently 9.45 and up until 15 minutes ago, I was virtually the only one here other than the cleaning lady.
They said they started at 9!

Soyeah.
Ktv.
We went with... about 9 people from the office, including Daniel, head of the Guangzhou office, and Carol, head of a department.
Afterwards, also an ex-employee joined.
Ktv is pretty much bad to okay singing and lotsa beer.
And drinking games.
So, the dice-game they were playing was called 7-8-9.
Goes like this:
- You have 1 empty glass, and everybody has their own
- If you throw a 7 (4/3 - 5/2, it's with two dice, obviously), you pour beer in the glass (about 1/4th of it)
[If you keep throwing 7s, you keep pouring]
- If you throw an 8, you pour half of the beer in the glass into your glass
- If you throw a 9, you pour everything in the beer glass in your own and drink it
- If you throw double 1s, you get to choose who gets the beer in the beerglass
- If you throw a 6 and the game was going clockwise, it'd then go counter-clockwise
 
I wasn't drinking beer.
...yeah, I just didn't want to.
And I don't like beer that much.
I'll do it next time.
Instead, I was drinking coke, which was about the same to me, because at some point I threw about 5 8's right after another, meaning I drank about a can and a half of coke in one time.
 
Now, I'm playing with Asians here.
Means, they get flushed.
The typical Asian flush.
Extremely adorable.

So, I made a friend(ish).
Her name is Elle.
She got flushed, partly my fault (I had a double 1, and the glass was full and I gave it to her and afterwards she kept throwing 8s)
She's really nice (they're all really nice, *I* am even really nice, as hard as that is to believe), and her English is pretty good, good enough to be able to talk to her without resorting to major translation difficulties.

This one girl (or well, she looks like a girl, but she's 31) got pretty trashed, seeing as it had to be her luck to keep throwing 9s and for Daniel, who kept throwing double 1s, to give all the beer to her.
At some point she grabbed a phone and started talking to it, and then she put it down and grabbed a pack of tissues and went by two people, shoving it to their ears.
Seeing as mostly everyone there was buzzed if not drunk, that was really funny to watch.
Other than that, she kept calling me beautiful.
That's who I know she was drunk.
(:P)

So, next morning, Saturday, Daniel (head of the Home Textile department) told me to be in the lobby of my building (remind me to take pictures, I have hardly taken any) at 9.30 so that we could have breakfast together with Carol (who also lives in that building complex).
So, I woke up around 8ish (jetlag got me actually awake) and after watching Chinese MTV for an hour, I got downstairs, met up with Daniel and Carol and had breakfast (Chinese breakfast, mind you, so... I had rice with something, I forgot) and then to the office.
Carol paraded me around, introduced me to everyone again and taught me a bit about what she does.

Anyway, we went out to lunch, I went home, slept all day, got woken up twice by Daniel and Winnie, both wanting to know if I was alive and kicking, and yes, I was, and yes, you woke me up, goddamnit.

Now, this is China.
So, you'd THINK that they'd have a 24/7 thing going about, right?
Wrong.
I got up on Sunday around... 7ish, figuring I'd get breakfast somewhere, and then go wander around in the malls or something.
So, around 8.45 I was out the door to the subway to go to one of the malls, and at 9 I was wandering around, trying to find the goddamn mall (of cooourse I had gotten off at the wrong exit, what else would you want me to do?).
So, when I found the damn thing at 9, I saw all these people walking in, but something seemed off.
Of course, once I got to the entrance, the guardguy standing there shook his head and made a cross with his index fingers, Chinese for "10".
I'm in fucking China, and the malls don't open till 10.
Now, I'd already eaten and I wasn't about to stuff myself with more fat food, so I decided to wander around, maybe it was just this mall that opened at 10.
It wasn't just that mall.
The huge bookstore, open at 10.
Other malls, 10.
Me, extremely annoyed at China.
Mind you, outside temperature is about 33 degrees celcius, no wind, all pollution, stickyyyyness.
Walking around in that for an hour was no fun, but I didn't want to go back home, so I did it anyway.

After that, I went to a mall one station away from my stop, got food (pineapple and chips) and went back home and had that for dinner (mhmm, great cook right here).

-Hahaha, Elle just fell off her chair.
She came in and sat on the chair behind me, saw me writing this email and was all "Oooh" and moved away with the chair, and something went wrong and she fell with chair and all.
And then Cindy and Doris came out and teased her.
And she says it's my fault.

Alright, so Monday, everyone kept asking me whether or not I had been able to survive and if I needed anything and if I were okay and if -GAH.
Honestly people, yes, I'm great and yes, I can take care of myself, now bugger off!
Of course, all I said was "Yes, thank you. Uh-huh. Great. Yes, good. Mhmm. *smile*"
It's not like I didn't live in Beijing for a month.
Then again, I was with a bunch of rich, spoiled American kids back then, but still.

So, I had been scheduled to work at Ravi's department.
Ravi Dadlani does panties, bras, jeans, shoes, kids/ladies/men clothing and fans.
As in, they do trading in Mulitex.
They're in the middle of the client and the factory.
They have samples of articles, the client chooses something or sends them a pattern or inquires about the new things they design, and once they have a contract stipulating the details of the product the client wants, they go and find a factory (which they of course already know, seeing as they've done this before and at some point you specialize into certain products, so you know which factory can give you what quality and which prices etc.) who can manufacture the product.
And then, depending on the contract (FOB: Freight on Board -or- CIF: Cost, Insurance and Freight) either they also take care of the shipping of containers (CIF), or they hand it over to the shipping vessel of the client's choice and are done (FOB).

So.
Carol had pretty much showed me the cycle of work in Home Textile; bedsheets & towels mainly.
But Ravi started off with telling me how to be a good person.
Gotcha.
He's Hindu ('Dadlani', what'd you expect?), and he's about the most straight-edged person in the world.
He doesn't eat meat, doesn't drink, smoke, gamble.
He literally doesn't do anything other than work... and eat and sleep.
Well, and watching movies.
But that's it.
And sometimes shop for his wife when he's extremely bored.

Anyway, he started out asking me if I believed in (a) God, which I don't, so then he said that what he would explain to me might then be a bit difficult to understand, but that he'd try anyway.
Okay.
Now, don't get me wrong, all the things he said (which were a lot) are logical even to a non-religious mind, and I respect his view on things and if everyone in the world would be like him, the world'd probably be a paradise (except no one would enjoy it, but whatever).
But... I dunno.
This tiny voice inside of me keeps flipping him off.

Anyway.
He's right about a lot of things.
And not-wrong about most of the rest.
And then some things I'm not entirely sure of, so I leave those to rest.
And he's a very nice guy, once you get past the "everyone else hates me, because I'm better and I'm different and I'm extremely anti-social except with the girls that work with me, whom, btw, I've turned into complete work-a-holics like me, so yay!- and I don't do anything for fun and just workworkwork!"-part.
That, and him keeping you at the office till 8 pm. *glare*
Oh, and the part where you're not allowed to tell anyone else in the office what he told/taught you and that you're most DEFINITELY not allowed to tell them that, underneath it all, he's a decent guy.
*sigh*
MEN!

Anyway, Ravi has his things.
Other than that, he knows what he's doing and what he wanted to teach me, which included knowing whether or not you'd employ a person with a boy/girlfriend, seeing as then they'd be looking at the clock because, well, they're going to meet the guy at 8, so gotta get out of the office at 7 and this and that, blabla, these girls do NOT get out of the office before 7.30 or until there is no work left whatsoever, which is never.
He doesn't KEEP them in, but they stay in.
Everyone stays in in China.
9-6 is an illusion.
And I don't think that working overtime means getting paid overtime.
I don't think they know the concept of overtime...

Anyway, after explaining all the theories of life to me on the first day and then letting me join the girls (his employees; 4 girls) to get to know the tiny practical things, I got through to the second day.
He got me two catalogues of bras and panties and told me to pick some I liked.
That tiny voice inside of me started screaming.

Oh, I should have mentioned something else.
So, that first day, we were done at 8 pm, and we went to dinner with everyone.
After dinner, the other girls left and Ravi walked me first to HIS apartment.
I was extremely quiet on the way over there (what do you want me to say? Honestly!), I was quiet in there and I kept hoping he'd let me go already!
I think he thinks that, because I'm an extremely good listener (no, seriously, I am), I either agree, understand or feel along with most of the things he had told me that day.
Which... well, I don't NOT agree and stuff, but I just consider it his opinion and his way of living HIS life, and that I acknowledge its existence, but I'm not going to go along with it just because you gave me your reasons to do so.
And I realize he hasn't spoken about all that stuff to anyone in ages and that he wants to pass on his knowledge to me, probably considering me somewhere in between a daughter/cousin and a friend, but that doesn't mean *I* am entirely happy with being treated like that.
That, and inviting to walk me to YOUR house at 10.30 when my last subway goes at 11 and I don't know where your apartment is, isn't the way to win my heart when you're my father's age and have a wife and 7-year-old daughter in Hong Kong.
Creeps me out, dude.
So, tiny voice was bashing around in my head, wanting to get out, but I just stay quiet and smile and nod and agree with everything.
After going to his apartment (he wanted to show me a book about... food and somethings, but we both forgot at the time), we got a cab and he dropped me off at my apartment complex, where he offered to bring me all the way inside, buuuut I said that I could manage that.
He also kept bashing the other department for not taking "better care" of me over the weekend, seeing as I'd gone out ALONE to go to the mall and stuff.
Dude, I -wanted- to be alone, does nobody get that?!
Anyway, I got home around 11ish with 6 new DVDs (oh yeah, he loved DVDs and he stopped at one of those nightvendorthingies and bought like, 10, and gave me 6).
I was liiightly dreading the next day.

So, next day.
Catalogue, underwear, pick some you like.
Major screaming in the head, me trying to control my face as to not accidentally glare or raise eyebrows.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Turns out (had he told me this BEFORE giving me the damn catalogue, I would have felt a LOT better) he wanted me to call the factory of the catalogue and ask for prices and such.
Now, first call I had noooo idea what to ask, but by the 5th, I got my Beijing bargaining skills back and I bargained the price for a basic 5 pocket jeans (ladies) down from 60-70 RMB per piece to 35.
Now, I had asked Ancheel (read: Angel) what would be a good price, and she said 22ish, so I didn't think I had accomplished anything.
Except then Ravi came back, and he told me it was very good indeed, so I was all happy. :D
So, then I had to call and ask what price he could get me for a basic 5 pocket Men jeans, which was 40 RMB (RMB = Chinese Yuan --> US$ 1 = 7.6 RMB), which was also pretty good.
So :D

Anyway, so it was Tuesday.
And on Tuesday, Daniel's team (people/staff) go badmintonning/play badminton.
They asked me, so of course I said yes (I practically don't say no to these people, it'd be rude).
Now, I didn't have any sports clothing with me, and I hadn't thought that Ravi would keep me till 8 on Monday, AND then go out to dinner, so I didn't have the time to go to a mall and shop for clothes.
SO, I didn't have any.
Now, at dinner, the girls had told me that Ravi was an excellent shopper.
And Tuesday morning they had told him that I needed sports clothing, so we were planning to go shopping maybe during lunch.
Except then he thought of giving me one of the bazillion jeans factory samples he had.
So, I got fitted and we found a jeans that fit me, but it had long pants.
So, then he randomly picked out a 3/4-legged one from the rack and gave it to me, and that one fitted perfectly, so I got that one.

So, I got off at 7.30 (YAY) and walked with Carol, Daniel and Teresa to the badminton court inside a big gym on the military base almost next to the office building.
It was SO freaking hot in there.
I was standing still and I could feel the sweat drops forming on my skin.
Other than that, it was great.
I love badminton. :D
I'm so buying NORMAL (and very short) sports clothes somewhere this week so I can go again Tuesday.
And I'm gonna see if there is a court close to NTNU in Taiwan.
So, we played from 8 - 10 pm, and afterwards had a "quick dinner".
Now, I've honestly not learned from my mistakes/observations.
Dinner, whatever they call it, lasts about an hour (and a half) in China.
Calling it "quick" doesn't change that.
So, after a quick 10-dish-dinner-that-lasted-an-hour-and-a-half, we got back to the apartment and I was sleepy like hell and wanted to sleep in the elevator.
(Also, I HATEHATEHATE eating shrimp or any kind of shelled-seafood with chopsticks! You can't touch the damn thing with anything other than sticks, you know how difficult it is to eat when they keep it in the shell? It's like eating without hands... but then the damn shrimp still has a shell around his body. Meeeh! But I managed... ish.)

Wednesday:
I was transferred from Ravi to Carol's department.
I did sample cutting and packing and sticking labels and such with Cindy (not as fun as bargaining on the phone, but good enough).
For lunch, we had DIMSUM!!!
And I was sitting next to Carol, and Carol keeeept shoving everything on my plate.
"Try this, oh, this is good, mm, you need to try this one, and this."
Actually, she's not the first.
Ivy (one of Ravi's girls) did the same Monday night at dinner.
My plate was the only one still half-full because they kept shoving food on me and at some point I was too full to finish it all.
But the dimsum were goooooooooooood.
Especially that first, cream-filled one.
*sighs*
So, then we got back to the office, and I had inquired where Beijing Road was, and so Olivia, Elle, Cindy and I went there and had the Japanese food. *nods*

Oh, and just before lunch, I went to talk to Ravi, because he's from Taiwan, except I didn't know.
I asked him whether he knew any places I should visit or any salsa-clubs, and he flat out didn't know shit.
He has SUCH a boring life, honestly.
What he DID know was this speech on how I should probably avoid clubs and parties, because I was there for studying, and that all the bad things in life could happen to me there.
And he mentioned that nowadays, guys'd inject some drugs into a girl's drink that would utterly arouse them and that I should always buy my own drinks (duh) and never go home with strange boys (...duh).
He was being such a daddy, I wanted to kick him.
That seriously annoyed me.
You really think MY daddy hasn't told me all this shit about 29236 times before, sweetie?
Hmph.
Don't underestimate me like that.
Like I don't live on fucking drugs paradise.
Oh, and that guys walk around with guns in the clubs.
I inserted the appropriate "eyebrow-raise with big eyes"-look here, because if only he knew that at home we used to have a minimum of 2 assassinations per weekend, which is a LOT if the local population doesn't exceed 120.000.
So, I got absolutely nothing out of him, other than that I should buy only glass bottles or cans, because you can inject things into plastic bottles and it'd still be closed.
Oh- hehehe, and he said that I'd probably be a good judge of character, but that I should stay away from the girls with xxx-magazines in their drawers.
I really had to bite my tongue there.
Stay away from them?
Dude, I'm putting up an ad for them.
Who do you think I'm going to go dancing with?
Not the goody-two-shoes girls with glasses and long skirts.
Oh, and apparently, belly dancing is very "hot" there now, and he told me not to do that, because it was originally a way for prostitutes to attract their costumers.
Well, I didn't know the exact background of belly dancing, but  I could have guessed that.
I still think it's incredibly annoying when people tell me NOT to do stuff.
Honestly, I pity the man's daughter.
If she rebels properly, she'll ruin his life.
I hope she does.
Not because he's a bad person or something, because he's not, but because then at LEAST she'd have SOME fun in her life.

AND THEY GAVE ME A BAG OF THOSE DIMSUM TODAY!!!!!!
Seriously!!
Well, not a *bag* per se.
More like... 12 pieces.
But they're goooood.
And they're fried and oh-so-greasy.
But ohmyfuckinggod, I need this on record, when I marry, I want those things served.
I'm getting a fucking Guangzhou dimsum chef and he's making them and they'll be good and if not, I'm kicking my husband till he gets me what I want!
(I'm not a brat, I'm not I'm not I'm NOT!)

And yeah, that was all till now.
I'm going to this fabulous seafood restaurant tonight, more on that tomorrow.
Other than that... wo ai zhongguo! (I love China!)
Except like, omg, my Mandarin SUCKS.
My pronunciation is really good once I know what to say, but I mess up virtually ALL the accents, meaning that... what I'm saying isn't what I mean, cause if you say word A with accent 1 and what I mean is actually in accent 2, I said a whole different word.
So, I need to work on that. *sigh*

So yeah.
I'm alive and kicking. :)
If only these Chinese people would leave me alone.

---------

Aight.
So, last night (Thursday) we went to this fabulous seafood restaurant.
Downstairs, you had tanks and tanks and tanks full of fish, crabs, lobster, snails, oyster, they even had a crocodile, sea-urchins, moray eels, pretty much every single edible animal in the ocean was put in tanks there.
Alive (obviously, so, you could tell them which one you'd want, and that exact fish/etc. would get prepared for you and you'd have the freshest fish you could possibly get).
I was walking by the tank with snakes (dunno what kind, but they were pwerty) and I honestly wanted to buy one so I could "set it free", except then of course it'd get caught again and someone else would eat it.
So, instead I walked by the tanks and muttered sweet little nothings to all of them.
They also had a scorpion-fish in there, totally forgot you could eat that.

Now, we didn't just get fish.
We got duck-tongue and stomach (pretty good), duck kidney (very good), some... oyster-thing with what I *think* might have been garlic, which was... sublime, vegetables (including "helan"-beansomething) and big shrimp (something like this).

Girls, make a mental note; do NOT go to a Chinese seafood restaurant on your first date.
You will most definitely eat shrimp and you will most definitely make a complete fool out of yourself if the guy DOES know how to eat them.

Because; the shrimp still has its entire shell on him - they cook it (in *something*) and then you get it on your plate.
In Beijing, Hongmey (roommate) and I had shrimp with her dad, but those were smaller and they had their heads taken off already.
The difficulty *there* was trying to eat those stupid things with chopsticks.
THESE were big and with the head still on it.
So, 1. you gotta take off the head. No knife or anything, just RIP it off and try not to squirt all the blood and brains (well, maybe just organs) onto yourself OR the other person. (They got me a knife after I messed up my first.)
2. You've got to get the shell off.
SOME Chinese just suck the entire thing out, and since I refused to do that, I had to rip off the shell and the tiny feet dangling underneath the dead animal (hehehe).
Which you'd *think* you'd get the hang off after eating half a dozen of those things, but no, you don't, not really.
Instead, you get shrimp underneath your nails and you accidentally rip the thing in half and stuff.
3. Dump the thing in soy sauce and eat it. (Right, that part's not so difficult.)

They also had a chopped up alligator, and I would totally have wanted to see its organs and such, but they were already gone :(  </end biologist-in-me>

Also, they keep dumping food on my plate.
It's like:
Winnie: "Do you want this?" *grabs plate, starts filling it*
Me: "Ehm, well... n- well, it's-" *gets full plate back* "Thaaanks!"
At some point I made them stop (triiiiied to make them stop), and they did... for 2 minutes, and then they started it again.
's not the first time, but I have to keep eating everything, and then they do this towards when I'm extremely full, I can really not take any more.
I have yet to be half-full with these people.

So, then I got back home with my current "apartment-mate" (her name is Eunice, she's a skinny, Hong kong-Chinese woman, I'm guessing she's somewhere in her 30s.)

Today!
I went to a jeans-factory.
It's not what you'd think a factory would look like; a big, dark building in the middle of nowhere, filled with big, steaming metal machines, operated by sweating Chinese kids, who are simultaneously hand-sowing a pair of dark blue Levis jeans.
Right, not really.
It's more of a U-shaped building of some... 6/7 floors.
The first floor (which is the only place I've been) was a big, open room with 3 rows of 5 to 6 tables.
In the first row, they were shooting/pressing buttons and little whatsnots into the jeans, in the second they were checking the quality and clipping off extra threads and impurities, and in the third they were putting the jeans in polybags and adding labels and barcodes.
In the back, they had 6 people steam-iron the jeans into shape.
Pretty cool to see.

Now, Kally (head QC (Q-something Control) department) and I had left the office at 9.30, got on the subway, switched lines (there was this guy looking at me with O.O-eyes. For once, I decided to glare back.) and then got to a bus station, on the bus and 40 minutes later we got out, walked to a hotel and met someone there.
Then we got picked up by a guy from the factory, met up with another person and went to lunch (it was noon already, and Chinese love to eat).
Now, I've tried to explain where I lived once or twice, and then I just stopped, since no one seems to know Holland and they will most definitely not know Curacao, so when they ask me how America (or England, for that matter (well, I speak mostly English, so... England...) is, I always say it's great.

So, in the car, they asked me if European food would be good for me.
Eh, no, I want Chinese food.
Oooooh, goodgoodgoodgood!!
(They love it when foreigners love Chinese food.)

So, we get to *a* restaurant, sit down, get tea.
They ask me what I like, I say everything.
"Chicken?"
"Yes."
"Eh... pork?"
"Yes, everything."
"You like seafood?"
"Yes."

So, we end up getting seafood.
And guess what's on the menu.
Eeeexactly.
Shrimp.
Inside, a little part of me died.

So, once again, I was struggling with those tiny sons of a bitches to release their shells so I could eat them.
I got the heads off clean this time, great improvement, but they were also a bit bigger than the shrimp from last night, so it was a tad easier.
However, their shell was way thicker, so that part sucked.
And Kally, who was sitting next to me, only liked the head, so she kept ripping off the head and giving me the rest of the body.
...with shell.
Goddamnit!
I think all these Chinese just had a meeting and decided to slowly torture me with shrimp.
It seems to be working!
At least now I know why they have a bowl of tea on the table (to wash your hands! Yay!).
Why tea, you might ask.
Tea = hot water = good for washing hands.

However, they made up for the shrimp by ordering 6 more "can bao" (tiny bread things with a filling of peanuts and honey and squashed red beans which is omg-so-good) to go. :D
Instant love.

So, anyway, after lunch we get to the factory and it starts POURING like hell.
I'm all big-eyed looking around, trying not to go "woooow" on people and try to touch them (j/k).
I get pulled into a smaller room to the left of the big room (with AC!) when two girls come in with boxes and start opening them.

Okay, so, we're there for inspection of the product.
This load is Buffalo Jeans, black and dark-blue, men style.
You've got to check everything, from the printing on the boxes to the numbers on the barcode to the color-wash to the sizes to the zipper and buttons.
The person we picked up from the hotel was Menky; Kally's Hong Kong counterpart (so, also a QC).
He's this short man with lightly swollen eyes and brown/grey hair.
Since he's from HK, he was the one asking me what I wanted for lunch, seeing as his English is the best of the Chinese people present.

He was telling me how to look at the color-wash and what to look for on the inside of the jeans and all the other things, and the second person we picked up (a girl, dunno her name) was measuring the jeans.
They opened a total of four boxes and inspected every jean inside (about 36 per box), and in the end decided that all was good.

However, I didn't really see much of the actual inspection.
Kally had pulled me along to the "office" side of the factory with jeans in her hand and told me to try them on.
Both were too big, so she got me a smaller size that fit well.
Me: "This one's good, it's a size 42."
Kally: *being slightly mysterious* "Two?"
Me: "Forty-two."
Kally: *shakes her head* "Do you want..." *bends closer to me, whispers* "...two pieces?" *smirks*
Me: *smirks back, nodnodnods*
Kally: *nods along*

Hehehe.
SO!
Basically.
I'm two jeans FOF (Fresh Off Factory) richer.
(Actually, four jeans, seeing as Ravi gave me 2 pairs, too.)

In the cab back to the office (major thunderstorm), Kally told me that Menky had told the factory that I was a customer.
Whiiiich would explain the three girls coming up to me and asking me if I needed anything and if I wanted more water and whatsnot.
Aaand why they gave me the jeans in the first place.
Aaaaaand why the factory paid for the cab all the way from there back to the office, which was about 160 RMB, which isn't a lot (US$20), but which surprised me, seeing as they had no reason to be THAT nice to the QC-people.
She also told me not to tell Daniel about the jeans. *snort*
Ah, and she also got a pair of jeans for herself.
Honestly, I love these Chinese people.

Now, I'm back at the office and Daniel's leaving tomorrow for a 2-weekish business trip to Brazil/Panama/some other place in South America, so everyone's running around, making samples of everything, so I've decided to stay out of their way and just type emails.
That, and my Taiwan-visa isn't going the way I want it, and if I can't get a financial statement that I have about US$2500 available by tomorrow, I'm utterly fucked. :D
That, and the 12 hour difference with Curacao is NOT helping my case, seeing as it's no use if they send me anything when they're awake and the bank there is open, 'cause then the visa-thing here is closed.
*dies*

Other than that, I'm great.
I got 6 can bao, 2 pairs of jeans that aren't even on the market yet and 4 bottles of water.
And I'll probably go out to dinner with *someone* and if not, even better, I'll get some random food myself and not be forced to eat anymore shrimp for today.

God bless China.

(Oh, and fucking Costa Rica cut ties with Taiwan, 'cause they wanne do business with China, and they're also urging other countries to do the same. Nah-ah! Gerroff Taiwan! I don't want no fucking things happening to Taiwan before/during my stay there! MEH!)

(P.s. to all those Naruto-people: OMG! I was in the bus today and like, this some came up and IT WAS A NARUTO INTRO SONG! It's the one that starts with "I believe your promise is too hard to give me courage, all -somethingsomething- the precious time seeing you (something like that) And I'm all going OMGOMGOMG! NARUTOSONGOMG! ...ehmyeah. So, point of this was that I heard a Naruto song in RL. *bg*)

Soft light slipped past the black curtained windows as the sun set in a red haze against the horizon. Voices and laughter could be heard, and as someone slammed on their brakes, I unconsciously waited for the crash to follow. Across the street, a trio was playing music from the old days, just like they did every Thursday around dusk.

Outside, the world just kept on moving and breathing, but inside this old, empty cafe, it held its breath. The air had an anxious feel to it as we looked at each other from the opposite sides of the room. It was too dark and we stood too far apart to see anything other than dark outlines of a human body and I squinted as I tried to make out any emotion on his face, overshadowed by a black sombrero. Knowing it wasn’t very ladylike to take the first step, I waited impatiently, trying to hide my impatience by keeping my shoulders relaxed. The rhythmic sound of the ceiling fans lulled my mind into swaying motion as the trio’s bolero turned into a heart-breaking tango. I stiffened as the voices of two young women joined the music, molding and shattering the music with their high-pitched tones. I averted my eyes to the floor and took a deep breath, breathing in the pain and sorrow coming from the women as they sang of unrequited love. Slowly, I opened my eyes, not having realized I had closed them in the first place, and brought my head up to look at him again. I stifled a gasp as I realized he had taken several steps forward and was now standing in the only beam of light slipping past the curtains. His black suit made him look sleek, yet classy, and the scarf added a touch of sophistication to the, presumably, very carefully selected outfit, as it complemented his lean physique in a way only expensive tailor-made suits could.

The sombrero was the only thing bothering me and I had the urge to rip it off and toss it, as it was the only thing preventing me from looking into his eyes.

The thought must have been projected on my face, as a sly grin passed over his lips and was gone again. Outside, the voices mingled with the music to give my body the irresistible urge to sway and, in the worst case scenario, dance until I couldn’t breathe anymore. I could feel the strain from keeping my shoulders down in my back and I concentrated on my breath instead, not wanting him to see how anxious he was making me by just standing there, looking all smooth and dangerous and- oh god, not this again.

Before I could look away, he took a step forward and paused, then took another step. I lifted my chin up defiantly and carefully shifted my body weight to my left foot, preparing to take a step backward or forward, whichever would be necessary.
As he took another step forward, I unconsciously drew myself up to my full height and bit the inside of my lip, knowing that if I had taken a step forward too, I would have been able to touch his face, run my left hand over his suit, feel his breath on my neck as he grabbed my right hand and-

Mentally I shook myself, knowing where this train of thought would end, but not where this particular situation would lead to.

He slowly brought his head up and I stared at his face, for whatever reason in the world still being overshadowed by that increasingly annoying sombrero.
I could no longer suppressed the urge to see what he looked like and stepped forward, simultaneously bringing my right hand up to remove the sombrero, but he took hold of my hand before I could reach his face.

Before I consciously realized what was happening, he had his right hand firmly on the small of my back, still holding mine with his left.

He stood there, very still, waiting for me to gather my wits and place my left hand on his upper arm before he shifted to the right, moving me with him. Subtly, he guided me into moving backwards and sideways, maneuvering my eager body to do as he pleased. Twisting my upper body to the left and back to the right, I slid my right foot to the left in half a circle and brought it back to the front, before he set me into a delicate pattern of backwards walking and ochos, my crimson colored satin dress flowing with every move I- no, we made.

While dancing, our bodies got closer than the formal dance position we began with and started to feel more like an embrace between lovers than two complete strangers touching for the first time.

And as the song outside got to a climax, he guided me into moves, quick, slow, seductive moves with skill and passion unheard of, making me ache for more, more dancing but also more of him.

I could feel him end the dance as one voice died down while the other trailed on softly, and I clung onto him, wishing he wouldn’t let go of my hand and would just stand here, our bodies close but not touching anymore, betraying an instinctive repellence to the dangerous and unknown.

We stood like that for one fulfilling heartbeat before he let go of my right hand and leaned back. As I turned my head to walk away, he slid his right hand into my left and gently pulled my hand up, not pulling me back entirely, but not letting me walk away, either. He turned my hand palm side up and placed something, taken out of his breast pocket, into it before folding my fingers into a fist and kissing me on my wrist. Letting go of my hand, he took a step back and touched his index finger to the rim of his sombrero, smiling as he brought his head up for the last of the sunrays to be reflected in his stunning blue eyes.

Wanting to preserve this image forever, I did nothing but stare at him, taking in those blue eyes in a handsome, young face, before the shadows consumed his features once more as he turned around and walked towards the door.
I know this was where I should have ran after him, asked him his name or where he came from, but I was too astonished to do anything more than stand there, with my left hand in a fist and a fluttering heart pounding in my throat.
As he opened the door, he turned around once more and nodded, before disappearing into the night while soft violin music poured into the room, chanting a love story to my foolish heart.

Feeling lost, I turned away from the door to be confronted with what he had placed in my now open hand.

*glares at expiring LJ*
*sighs*

Byebye lovely usericons.

WHAT!
I can't fucking believe that was the season finale!

I’ve listened to Kelly Clarkson’s “Beautiful Disaster” for 39 times.
The song is 4.35 minutes long.
That’s… almost 3 hours.
I’m impressed.

So, three lines tore through my temporary writer’s block.
Well, only for a page long, but that’s usually what I give.
I don’t like it to go on for forever, never getting to an end.
They usually don’t have en ending, let alone a beginning.
Just a certain feeling in the middle somewhere.
I never know if it really worked or not.
It works for me.
Or, well, it works during the writing.
You want to be vulnerable?
I’m the one crying.
Locking the door and crying for a full hour while trying to find to right words to get that feeling on paper (so to speak).

I’ve got to honestly start learning how to write about happy stuff.
Then again, there hasn’t been much of anything happening to me, so it’s not like I have a lot to write about.
Writing about how boring something is, is not something I can do.
Can’t master the enthusiasm for that.
I usually need tears.
Puffy eyes and memories and images of what I would be like in a certain position that requires either death, extreme pain, fear or the combination of the three.
Not usually my death.
I can’t cry about my death.
I’ll be dead by then.
It’s the death of those close to me that I fear.

But he’s so beautiful, he’s such a beautiful disaster.
And if I could hold on, through the tears and the laughter.
Would it be beautiful, or just a beautiful disaster…

For some reason, this song is prolonging my usually very quickly evaporating depressed mood.
Which is a good thing.
Haven’t felt like anything in days, months.
It feels good to feel something while writing about something again.
I like having a productive mood.
This is my productive mood; depression.
God, I wish I were a permanently depressed person.
I’d probably be a lot happier with myself.
And my eyes’d be permanently puffy.
Hmm, maybe I could make a ‘look’ from that.
Heh, well, nowadays that’s called emo, if I recall correctly.
I’ve never been much for that word.
I don’t get it.
We don’t have emo here.

I honestly want to make someone cry, once.
Cry the way I cry when writing something.
Maybe because something isn’t just a page in my head, but an entire book, maybe that’s why I can cry for so long about something like that.
I think that’s why I repeat things in stories.
It’s been repeating in my head so many times, adding things, changing them, trying to hurt myself more with it so that I feel more because of it.

You know how writing seems no fun if you can’t publish it, have other people read it?
It’s true.

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR."

~Mark Twain

I'd like to give a shout-out to the one person who got me to wear a dress: Lizzie Chow.







Yeaaaaah.

Actually, this icon works perfectly. *bg*


[17:35] *** DracoMalfoy is now known as TomFelton
[17:35] [Joe] [ How do you like it in England? :) ]
[17:35] [TomFelton] I don't like TRL.
[17:35] [Joe] [ What's the weather like there? ]
[17:36] [EmmaW] England is great
[17:36] [TomFelton] Cloudy.
[17:36] [TomFelton] A little cold
[17:36] [EmmaW] Really Cloudy
[17:36] [TomFelton] Extremely.
[17:36] [EmmaW] Ha hi Tom
[17:36] [TomFelton] Hey Emma
[17:36] [Lera] @ Emma did you siriously Almost quit Harry potter Movies? @
[17:36] [Sephy] you can't.
[17:36] [TomFelton] I had to convince her to come back.
[17:36] [EmmaW] Yeah i was thinking about it
[17:37] [EmmaW] personal problems
[17:37] [TomFelton] PMS.
[17:37] [MarFon] Hehe
[17:37] [Sephy] oh
[17:37] [EmmaW] Yeah Tom PMS
[17:37] [Sephy] he didn't
[17:37] [Sephy] hi Tom o/
[17:37] [Lera] @ Emma Dont Quit @
[17:37] [TomFelton] Hello Sephy
[17:37] [Lera] @ I <333 your cherecter @
[17:37] [EmmaW] Im not going to im going to finish acting in all of them
[17:37] [Sephy] Are you gonna catch another Carp soon?
[17:38] [Sephy] (Tom)
[17:38] [Tamaki] nono I SWEAR Tom Felton goes to NY to see flying monkeys
[17:38] [Tamaki] I'm sure I'm not wrong :o
[17:38] [Joe] [ NO! ]
[17:38] [Joe] [ Flying Pigs. ]
[17:38] [TomFelton] I *LOVE* flying monkeys!
[17:38] [TomFelton] Pigs aren't that good, though.
[17:38] [EmmaW] So Tom you ready to film the new Hp soon?
[17:38] [TomFelton] And well, I've kinda started to buy my Carps.
[17:38] [Syusuke] O.o
[17:38] [TomFelton] You didn't know?
[17:39] [TomFelton] I quit, Emma-darling.
[17:39] [Joe] [ Are you guys in the same city? ]
[17:39] [TomFelton] No
[17:39] [Joe] [ Aw. :/ ]
[17:39] [Sephy] XD
[17:39] [Lera] @ TomFelton your in Harry potter too? @
[17:39] [MarFon] ok, since we are all being honest here, I have to reveal to you all that I am Alan Rickman in disguise.
[17:39] [Joe] [ Tom Felton = Draco Malfoy. ]
[17:39] [Syusuke] ...
[17:39] [MarFon] Im in Texas because... um... I like it here. Yes, thats it.
[17:39] [Joe] [ I've fooled you all long enough. ]
[17:39] [TomFelton] Alan, how've you been!
[17:39] [Joe] [ I am Dame Maggie Smith. ]
[17:39] [EmmaW] Oh no Tom i havent found out the director wasnt calling me for another week
[17:39] [Syusuke] ROFL
[17:40] [MarFon] Hello Tom :D
[17:40] [MarFon] Nice to see you again :D
[17:40] [Lera] @ Oh My god @
[17:40] [TomFelton] Ditto
[17:40] [Lera] @ I'm hanging out with at least 2 most famouse selebirtys @
[17:40] *** Joe is now known as McGonagall
[17:40] [MarFon] Maggie! :D
[17:40] [McGonagall] [ Alan! :D ]
[17:40] * MarFon bows
[17:40] * McGonagall bows as well.
[17:40] [Syusuke] haha, Sev's an old lady :P
[17:40] [Jard] »» Dame Maggie Smith! :o I'm such a huge fan! XD ««
[17:40] [McGonagall] [ It is such a pleasure meeting you. :D ]
[17:41] [McGonagall] [ So. How are you Emma? Enjoying New York? ]
[17:41] [MarFon] Im learning to ride bulls for my next film.
[17:41] [McGonagall] [ I'll be flying out there soon for my new photos for OotP. ]
[17:41] [EmmaW] Yes very much
[17:41] [EmmaW] its amazing
[17:41] [McGonagall] [ Have you done yours? :) ]
[17:42] [MarFon] Emma, you should come over to my mansion in Texas.
[17:42] [McGonagall] [ Oh, yes, hun, it is beautiful. :) ]
[17:42] [MarFon] and Maggie and Tom, you are invited as well.
[17:42] [McGonagall] [ Oh thank you, dearie. ^_^ ]
[17:42] [TomFelton] Well, thank you!
[17:42] [MarFon] ^^
[17:42] [EmmaW] Sounds fun
[17:42] [TomFelton] Do you have Carps there?
[17:42] [EmmaW] Haha oh Tom
[17:43] [McGonagall] [ I used ot go fly fishing in the Hudson. ]
[17:43] [McGonagall] [ Until my robes got all soggy. ]
[17:43] [MarFon] you must be joking. Texas is the Carp capital of the world.
[17:43] [TomFelton] Really?
[17:43] [MarFon] Indeed.
[17:43] [McGonagall] [ Oh well. ]
[17:43] [EmmaW] Oh and yesterday i put on my yule ball dress again
[17:44] [Tamaki] that horrible pink ball dress >.<
[17:44] [TomFelton] Yeah, I didn't like that color much.
[17:44] [Tamaki] It's MEANT to be blue , I mean...honestly
[17:44] [TomFelton] Periwinkle blue would have been better.
[17:45] [McGonagall] [ I LOVED my gown in that movie. ]
[17:45] [Sephy] and they could have pulled it off with Emma
[17:45] [MarFon] sorry, I cant reveal too much about the next HP film. But a small hint wont hurt anyone. It is based on HP5, Order of the Phoenix. I bet you all didnt know that :D
[17:45] [EmmaW] I hated the color too
[17:45] [TomFelton] Oh Alan, stop teasing them.
[17:45] [McGonagall] [ Please. :) ]
[17:45] [MarFon] sorry, I couldnt help but to give all the fans a small sneek peek.
[17:46] [Tamaki] I'll sit through the whole film picking apart all the things that are wrong by the book no doubt, again
[17:46] [TomFelton] Naughty, naughty.


-----


[17:49] [EmmaW] but i was going to tell you that Rupert asked me on a date!
[17:49] [Lera] @ Is Daniel Radcliffe on here too? @
[17:49] [TomFelton] Rupert is mine!
[17:49] [TomFelton] Ehm.
[17:49] [TomFelton] I mean
[17:49] [TomFelton] That's great.
[17:49] [Raichu] I needed to shout at her!
[17:49] [Raichu] >:(
[17:50] [EmmaW] oh tom
[17:50] [EmmaW] Im not sure what to say
[17:50] [TomFelton] Say thank you?
[17:50] [Tamaki] Tom ....what about..US? :o
[17:51] [TomFelton] The US?
[17:51] [TomFelton] I like Canada better.
[17:51] * Tamaki sobs
[17:51] [TomFelton] Don't cry!
[17:51] * TomFelton pets Tamaki


-----


[17:54] [Tarma] hi folks :)
[17:55] [Tarma] O.o we have some celebrities in here?
[17:55] [Tarma] *giggles* hey folks
[17:55] [Tarma] why not change to something different, okay?
[17:55] [Tamaki] yes yes.....so many have come out of the closet tonight Tarma :P
[17:56] [TomFelton] Sssh!
[17:56] [Tarma] pretty crowded closet! :o
[17:56] [McGonagall] [ Tarma...this may come as a shock to you, Tarma...but...I am Dame Maggie Smith...a woman... ]
[17:56] [Tarma] *ROTFL*
[17:56] [Tarma] oh okay hmm nooo
[17:56] [MarFon] and Ive come forward as Alan Rickman.
[17:56] [Tarma] *sighs*
[17:56] [McGonagall] [ I know...such a shocker...such...DISMAY...*runs off crying* ]
[17:56] [Tarma] okay! Emma W and Tom Felton, please remove your masks!
[17:57] [MarFon] what about DANIel Radcliffe?
[17:57] [EmmaW] Mask?
[17:57] [MarFon] remove your mask!
[17:57] [Sephy] you too.
[17:57] [TomFelton] I kinda like make-up.
[17:57] [EmmaW] me too it makes us pretty
[17:57] [Tarma] *nods* but you will be gently escorted out if you stay here as someone who you are not
[17:57] [Sephy] we don't allow the use of character names or actor names here...for safety's sake.
[17:57] [Lera] @ Tarma Emma is Real @
[17:57] [McGonagall] [ >.> ]
[17:58] [Tarma] well, IF she is real, we still don't wish for folks to use real names in here
[17:58] [MarFon] I am not real. I am a simple illusion that manages to be able to control IRC from the netherworld.
[17:58] [Tarma] so, Emma and Tom, please do change your nicks :)
[17:58] [EmmaW] To what
[17:58] [Tarma] you are very strange, MarFon, nice but strange
[17:58] *** TomFelton is now known as Tommay
[17:58] [MarFon] lets just leave it at strange.
[17:59] [MarFon] But thanks for your compliments.
[17:59] [Syusuke] *snorts*
[17:59] [Tarma] change your names to someone who is not an actress or a Harry Potter character or anyone else of fiction etc etc -- ie adhere to the rules of HOL hogwarts
[17:59] *** EmmaW is now known as BabyEmma
[17:59] [Tarma] thank you Emma
[17:59] [McGonagall] [ ... ]
[17:59] [BabyEmma] there better
[17:59] [Tarma] thank you Tom
[17:59] [Tarma] Tommay rather :)


-----


[18:06] [BabyEmma] Okay ill break the rumor Tommay Said
[18:06] [Tommay] Ooh
[18:06] * Tamaki sits on teh Moosey
[18:06] [Tommay] We're not supposed to discuss that here, Emma.
[18:07] [Tarma] *nods*
[18:07] [BabyEmma] well sorry i dont want a rumor
[18:07] [Tarma] if you are quiet, there IS no rumour
[18:07] [Tarma] so please do refrain
[18:08] [BabyEmma] Okay Tarma
[18:08] [Tarma] thank you
[18:08] [Tommay] Is Tarma the mother hen here?


-----

Miette

[18:19] [Moosey] °– but i pwn you all in beauty –°
[18:19] [MarFon] I know :/ where nature stores gas
[18:19] [ComradeFernsky] for real?
[18:19] [Moosey] °– so just like –°
[18:19] [ComradeFernsky] what possessed you to do that?
[18:19] [Moosey] °– go sit in the corner and cry –°
[18:19] [ComradeFernsky] i spend all my life trying to NOT be in tx
[18:19] [Tommay] But you've got curly hair!
[18:19] [Moosey] °– because........ –°
[18:19] [Tommay] You can't beat ME with curly hair!
[18:19] [Tommay] I'm Tom Felton!
[18:19] [Moosey] °– my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard –°
[18:19] [MarFon] I became absolutely insane, the obvious place to go was Texas.
[18:20] [Tommay] ...I got coco puffs?
[18:20] [ComradeFernsky] texas isn't conducive to anything, even insantiy
[18:20] [BabyEmma] Nobody can beat Tommay with his blonde hair
[18:20] [Tarma] Tom -- tsk tsk
[18:20] [Moosey] °– coco puffs are so like second grade –°
[18:20] [Tarma] Emma you too
[18:20] [ComradeFernsky] unless it's the "running husbands over in cars several times" vaiety of insanity
[18:20] [MarFon] I do that on the weekends.
[18:21] [Tommay] What, people like blonde hair.
[18:21] * Metalteddy escapes Aya's stomach
[18:21] [BabyEmma] I love blonde hair
[18:21] [Tarma] that is not the issue, and you know it -- both of you, be aware that you have manners and use them
[18:21] [Tommay] ...I *am* using them.
[18:21] [BabyEmma] Yes mama
[18:22] [Tommay] It was a reference to a song, Tarma
[18:22] [Tommay] By the BEP?
[18:24] * Raichu sits on Amy
[18:24] * Tommay ehm... sits on Amy, too
[18:24] [Tommay] Is Amy a chair?
[18:25] [BabyEmma] hehe Tom
[18:25] * Tamaki bites Raichi and pats Tommay
[18:25] * Tommay purrs
[18:25] [BabyEmma] *sits on Tom
[18:26] [Tommay] Well, *I*'m not a chair.

[17:41] [EmmaW] Tom
[17:41] [TomFelton] Emma
[17:41] [EmmaW] You really Quit
[17:41] [TomFelton] I'm afraid so.
[17:41] [TomFelton] I didn't want to play such a wussy Draco in the sixth movie.
[17:41] [EmmaW] Haha
[17:42] [EmmaW] awww my poor Tom
[17:42] [EmmaW] I will miss you!
[17:42] [TomFelton] I will miss you, too
[17:42] [EmmaW] Promise to Visit
[17:42] [TomFelton] I will
[17:43] [EmmaW] Good
[17:43] [EmmaW] I have to start shooting the new movie soon and im so warn out
[17:44] [TomFelton] Take a day-spa?
[17:44] [EmmaW] I already have in NY
[17:45] [TomFelton] Then... go shopping?
[17:46] [EmmaW] No no i think you should shop with me
[17:46] [TomFelton] But I'm in LA at the moment...
[17:46] [EmmaW] When we see each other again
[17:47] [TomFelton] Will do
[17:48] [EmmaW] Good
[17:48] [EmmaW] Good
[17:49] [EmmaW] People dont need to know our whole live dear
[17:50] [TomFelton] Was just teasing
[17:50] [EmmaW] i know
[17:52] [EmmaW] Draco? do you remember when you said are you pregnant?
[17:52] [TomFelton] Yes?
[17:52] [TomFelton] And why're you calling me Draco?
[17:53] [EmmaW] Im calling you draco just for the last time sence you wont be back
[17:53] [EmmaW] but i lied
[17:55] [EmmaW] i..lied before
[17:55] [TomFelton] Before... what?
[17:56] [EmmaW] when i said i wasnt pregnant
[17:56] [TomFelton] Right
[17:56] [TomFelton] Because you are?
[17:56] [EmmaW] Yeah
[18:03] [BabyEmma] i dont know by who
[18:03] [Tommay] Hahaha
[18:03] [Tommay] I mean
[18:03] [Tommay] Oh.
[18:05] [BabyEmma] Yeah and its either Rupert or...
[18:05] [Tommay] Your baby is Rupert?
[18:05] [Tommay] Isn't he a little big to fit inthere?
[18:06] [BabyEmma] Its either Rupert or
[18:06] [BabyEmma] you
[18:06] [BabyEmma] the father
[18:06] [Tommay] Well, it's certainly not me.
[18:06] [Tommay] I wouldn't fit inthere for the love of God.
[18:07] [BabyEmma] *starts to cry*
[18:07] [Tommay] *patpats*
[18:07] [Tommay] It's okay.
[18:07] [Tommay] It's probably Rupert.
[18:07] [Tommay] Might be why he asked you out.
[18:07] [BabyEmma] I dont know but i look bad
[18:08] [Tommay] More make-up, maybe?
[18:08] [BabyEmma] yeah and im gaining weight tom
[18:08] [BabyEmma] i look fat
[18:09] [Tommay] Well, abortion is always an option.
[18:09] [Tommay] They suck it all out.
[18:09] [Tommay] You might be able to get liposuction at the same time, too.
[18:09] [BabyEmma] Tom your not helping
[18:09] [Tommay] My apologies.
[18:10] [BabyEmma] *sits down in the corner*
[18:10] [Tommay] *pats some more*
[18:11] [BabyEmma] im sorry Tom
[18:12] [BabyEmma] i got a test to see who the father was
[18:12] [Tommay] Ehm, are you sure there's a test for that?
[18:13] [BabyEmma] yeah
[18:13] [Tommay] And are you sure that test works when you're still pregnant with the baby and can't draw blood from it?
[18:14] [BabyEmma] yeah they have a new test where they can do it before its born now
[18:14] [BabyEmma] and the results are coming today
[18:14] [Tommay] Right.
[18:14] [Tommay] Emma-darling, that's not scientifically possible.
[18:15] [BabyEmma] it is Tom
[18:15] [BabyEmma] I swear
[18:15] [Tommay] Yes, so do I.
[18:15] [Tommay] But if you wish to believe that test, go right ahead.
[18:15] [BabyEmma] *looks at you tears in my eyes*
[18:15] [Tommay] *patpats some more*
[18:16] [BabyEmma] I just got a call from Rupert
[18:16] [Tommay] How very convenient.
[18:18] [BabyEmma] He wants to visit me and he doesnt know
[18:19] [Tommay] Doesn't know whether or not to visit you?
[18:19] [Tommay] Or that he's stuck in your womb for the next 9 months?
[18:19] [BabyEmma] He doesnt know im pregnant
[18:19] [Tommay] Ooh, that.
[18:19] [Tommay] Right.
[18:20] [BabyEmma] yeah
[18:20] [Tommay] You could make it one happy surprise
[18:20] [Tommay] Kind of a like a... welcome back party!
[18:20] [BabyEmma] or turn it into a yule ball fight
[18:21] [Tommay] There was a Yule Ball fight and I missed it?
[18:21] [Tommay] Must have been the time I was making out with Molly in the bathroom...
[18:22] [BabyEmma] yeah between Daniel and Rupert over me
[18:22] [Tommay] Exaaaactly, that time.
[18:22] [Tommay] That was fun.
[18:24] [BabyEmma] Yeah Tom
[18:24] [Tommay] Yeah Emma
[18:24] [BabyEmma] Ive wanted to tell you something but i cant
[18:24] [Tommay] You're on drugs, too?
[18:25] [Tommay] You're gay?
[18:25] [Tommay] The baby's gay?
[18:40] [BabyEmma] Tommay?
[18:40] [Tommay] Byee!

11-year-old boy #1 playing with toy gun: You fucked my mom in the ass! [Makes shooting noises, then ducks.]
11-year-old boy #2, nervous, to perplexed passerby: Uhhh, he wasn't talking to you...

Black guy #1: You know that statue, right? You know, the British... The British gaved the Statue of Liberty to New York. The British gaved the statue to America. To commemorate the Civil War. But they don't tell you that. They don't talk about that.
Black guy #2: Yep.
Black guy #1: And you know it was black, when the statue got here. It was black. And it had chains 'round it.
Black guy #2: Yep.

Dude on cell: Well... Well, there's groups of bitches. There's, like, a group of bitches here... and a group of bitches there.

Hobo sitting on ground cleaning a trumpet, to hot lady passerby: Hey, don't fucking look at me -- I'm too old for you!

Chick #1 reading can: 'Pineapple chunks in its own juices.' Ewww.
Chick #2: Hey, at least it doesn't say 'Pineapple chunks in his own juices.'
Chick #1: Why would it say that?!

20-ish guy: Your glasses can't be bad, you just got them!
20-ish girl: Yeah, but I cheated on the eye exam, so it's really my own fault...
20-ish guy: ... That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
20-ish girl: I can't help it, I'm very competitive!

Six-year-old girl pointing to painting of naked man: I like that one!
Mom: You would.

Thug #1: Yo, fuck them 'Free Yayo' t-shirt whack shits.
Thug #2: Them shits should say 'Free Us from Yayo' and on the back some 'Whackness is a Crime' shit. Cooold blooded! What ya'll think?
Thug #3: Some of you niggas need to get t-shirts that say 'Free Us from Illiteracy and Ignorance.'

Very gay man: I have to go buy some Crisco -- I have a date tonight.
Straight guy: I don't understand how you can not be interested in a nice set of tits and a wet vagina.
Very gay man: I don't understand how you can not be interested in a big throbbing cock!
Straight guy: Because I already have one.
Very gay man: Let me see!
Straight guy: No!

Picture book

I wiped my finger across the moist spot that appeared on my leg, dangerously close to the thick, leather-bound book.
Another two spots magically appeared as I blinked, parallel to the first.
I ignored these as I gazed at the page.
More spots appeared, and they slowly slid down my leg, pulling the first three along with them.
Then it was as if someone turned on the light and then turned it off really quickly as a loud cracking sound ripped apart the world around me.
More spots appeared.
Still, I gazed.
I was gazing.
As if hypnotized, I caressed the page softly and slowly before turning it.
As it had done after every page I turned, my heart leaped into my throat.
My throat, in its turn, got too crowded and wouldn’t let air get in or go out.
My head, therefore, felt as if it would pop, implode or melt, or all three in no particular order.
The only solution, I knew, was to look away from the page for a few seconds and force air in and out.
But I couldn’t.
Not this page.
Any other page but this one.
And the one before it.
And before that.
And that.
And…
The spots had doubled, tripled in amount.
My leg had started to resemble a tiny highway, with spots appearing everywhere and going everywhere.
And nowhere.
As was I.
Again, a crack tore off a piece of my fragile bubble.
I knew I should be yelling or something, but I couldn’t.
I was still hypnotized, feeling the need to caress these pages with passion unknown to me.
As if they would dissolve in thin air if I stopped.
It would disappear, never to be found again.
It would leave me.
Me.
No…
No, I was still caressing.
Still stroking, slowly and carefully, while gazing at the pages.
That light again, on and off, it couldn’t decide which it liked best.
I turned the page.
My head started reeling as, without warning, my throat stopped working.
I couldn’t take it.
I turned another page.
And another.
And another!
No!
No, don’t leave.
No, don’t!
Don't make me...!
I turned and turned.
I got to the last and flipped it around and turned, turned!
My head fell forward but I snapped it back up and turned, as spots hit me in the face.
Turned, turned.
No more gazing.
Couldn’t take it, just couldn’t!
The sound ripped my bubble in half and a scream tore through my world.
My throat burned as I realized that the one screaming was me, but I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t take it.
I turned, looking but not seeing.
I knew what they were.
I knew what it said.
I knew it all, as this was not the first time.
I forced the screaming to stop, but I couldn’t stop the turning.
Furiously, I ripped out a page and screamed as if in pain, eyeing the piece of paper till my vision clouded over.
More spots appeared around me, on me.
I could see pieces of my bubble around me as the light flickered again, onoff.
I threw the piece of paper away from me, from my bubble.
As in slow motion, it fluttered to the ground and lay upside down.
I knew which page that was.
All of the sudden, the page had disappeared.
I closed the book with a bang and opened it again at the first page.
There it was.
I took a deep breath and sighed happily.
I slowly caressed the page, vowing to never, ever rip out a page again.
I turned to the next page.
As I looked at their smiling faces, I could feel my bubble reforming itself around me.
Spots were still appearing, but not on me.
They were just… there.
They were always there.
Just like… them.
As I gazed at the page, the light flickered on.
And off.
A soft cracking noise was to be heard somewhere in the background.
I smiled as I slowly felt my body shutdown.
Darkness took over as my bubble reformed, and my head hit the ground, but I couldn’t feel it.
The book fell, open, next to me.
Had I been able to open my eyes, I would see them smiling up at me, like angels.
The light flickered, once more.
No noise this time.
Just light, and then the lack of it.

A gush of wind made a piece of paper flutter away, simultaneously turning the pages of the magazine as rain poured down on her body.
The picture she was holding in her hand was visible for a split second as lightning lit up the dark clouds, before thunder resonated through her house.
The five young men and women in the picture would forever be smiling, though one was lost in the darkness of her mind.

*snort*
So, there was a dead mouse in my goat's waterbucket.
And I looked at it and thought "...wtf! A jellyfish?! How did *that* get here?!"
I kept looking at it, kinda sideways... then the other side, and it still looked like a jellyfish to me.
And then I came a bit closer and I saw that the white I had thought were the tentacles, were connected to a black body, which I hadn't noticed because the bucket is also black.
So, then I saw the mouse.

"Mooooom, there's a dead mouse in Mek's water!"
"...what do you want me to do with it?"
"Throw it away."
"You throw it away, I ain't touching that."

I love mothers.

"I do not see women in the bathtub. I wish I saw w-"

Never again will I see his toothless mouth.
Never again will he wake me up at 6 in the morning with his most annoying whining outside of my parents' bathroom window.
Never again will I see him swallow his food without chewing, a skill truly his.
And never again will I get to pet his black furred body while it's still breathing.
Just wake up, honey.
All you have to do is wake up.
Wake up.

But if you don't.
Say hi to your beloved brother upthere.
He has been missing you.
I'll be missing you here, both of you.

Just breathe.
Just wake up.
Why won't you wake up.

Slaap lekker, schatje.
Maar wordt wakker.
Wordt alsjeblieft wakker.