Not Fare

Today I went to Liverpool Westfields with my mum and sister and we had to catch public transport because our car is still out of action. The insurance company still hasn't made a decision as to whether they will compensate us or fix up our car. Anyway, turns out that we spent $20 on our bus and train fares!! That's freaking crazy. How does a continual rise in the cost of public transport encourage people to use the services provided? The government and environmentalists are always telling us to leave our cars at home and use public transport because it reduces our carbon footprint. Yes it does reduce our collective impact on the environment but that's not the only thing that is reduced... I'm not being a cheap Asian, I'm just trying to see reason. How can they expect us to want to use public transport when buses and trains are almost always late, sometimes even delayed for several hours? In addition to the government's obvious lack of timing, the peak hour congestion on a train is seemingly on par with peak hour traffic in a car. Except that in the comfort of your car, you have a respectable boundary between you and the next Sydney commuter. Whereas on a train, that is definitely not the case. I hate getting on a train that is already beyond packed and you have no choice but to rub up against a stinky laborer coming home from the job. It's too close and tight for my liking. Does this make me claustrophobic? Wow, off topic much?! I forgot what this was even about...

Ngaw

Little cousin: You would make a good teacher.
Me: Why?
Little cousin: Because you're mean.

The 'ink' in think

I drove past the school the other day and I noticed that our school notice board had graffiti on it. What's worse is that it wasn't the usual illegible graffiti. It read "Fuck You". Clear as day. What kind of person would have such little respect for themselves and their community? First, some uneducated pyromaniacs decided to torch the school hall and history block, which resulted in more than a year of agony of not having a school hall. Whoever burnt down the school hall is quite an idiot because it just brought disadvantages to themselves and their peers. If you're going to send a message, why don't you burn down the entire school? Oh that's right. That would require planning and the use of a brain, yours of which must have been misplaced or it's just super inferior to that of a "normal" person. But let's be clear here, I'm not encouraging it. I'm just saying, why burn down the school hall? And why the hell would you  graffiti on the school's notice board? What could you possibly achieve? There's a reason as to why the area is so stigmatised and the continual acts of disrespect and complete stupidity seem to justify the negativity of the name "Macquarie Fields". It pisses me off to see such inconsiderate morons defacing school property or any property for that matter. A kid was killed by a train upon some graffiti work in a tunnel, of course there will be ramifications for this. Ugh. I hate stupid people.

It's a big, big, world

I was getting my daily dose of The Morning Show (it's the holidays all right? Leave me alone!) and they showed the most amazing video. It's made by a person named Kien Lam (Vietnamese pride,  hella yayerrrrr) who dropped his job to travel the vast vicinity of the world, take over 6000 photographs and create a time lapse video. It's so breathtaking and inspiring and made me really appreciate the true beauty of our "home". It made me a little sad too, knowing that I won't be able to explore all the wonders of the world, get into the nooks and crannies untouched by mankind in a lifetime. Life is too short, there is too much to do ):

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!!

So Vietnamese/Chinese/Asian New Year is tomorrow and I've spent my weekend with my awesome family(s)! On Saturday, we had a small get together at our place for the small part on my mum's side but for some reason, some people from my dad's side came, which turned it into a photo bonanza. My dad's brothers love designing back drops and stuff for photos. They thrive on it. Anyways, so blah blah blah, eat, watch movies and get $$$$$! And then today, we went to my granny's for the Nguyen new year celebrations! When I arrived, I saw my uncle and cousin peeling stickers off letters and sticking them onto the most beautiful piece of blue material and I got excited! Every year we have this thing in the background with words and stuff! I like this year's the best because we didn't go with the typical red and yellow for a traditional Vietnamese New Year, what do you guys think?

 

Words of Wisdom

"Grow your hair long for university so that you can get a boyfriend that is studying to become a doctor. Then I can tell people that my son in law is a doctor."  - My mother.

What a wreck

So you may or may not have heard that I was in a car accident yesterday (and no, I was not driving). My mum, sister and I were coming back from Liverpool because I had an orthodontist appointment and it was around 10.30am when we got hit. We were approaching an intersection and the ute in front of us stopped suddenly, so my mum broke quickly and we came to a complete stop. I remember thinking "Oh thank goodness, we didn't have an accident" but what seemed like 30 seconds (when in actual fact it was only 2 or 3 seconds) later, a car from behind smashed into our car so hard that it projected our car into the ute. You know how dumb ass bitches in movies stand under a chandelier and wait for it to fall on them; paralysed by a state of "shock"? Well, I was a dumb ass bitch yesterday waiting for the chandelier to fall on me. In the moments after the crash, I didn't realise we had an accident. I just sat in the passenger seat, looking around, not processing what had just happened. All these people pulled over and got out and started making phone calls and then the man who smashed into our car came to my window and was like "Are you okay? Is everybody okay?" but I couldn't open my door and that's when I realised something bad had happened. The front of our car was so badly crumpled that our doors were jammed and we couldn't open them. So my mum and I just sat in there, while my sister got out of the car (because she was sitting in the back). The attention quickly shifted to the man in the ute in front of us. His ute was fine but the force was so strong that it had smashed his entire window. It was horrific. People were shouting "Are you okay?" but he wasn't responding and everybody started to worry. I climbed out of the car through the back and realised that there was something leaking from our engine (now I know it was just the cooling stuff, or whatever) but I was worried so I told my mum to get out. She was just sitting in the car and crying because she thought she killed the man in front of us. The old man started crying and started talking so we knew he was alive at least. By the time that I got out of the car, a lady had already called the police, ambulance and fire brigade. What an awesome lady. So blah blah blah, two ambulance vans arrived and it took them forever to get that man into a stretcher and off to hospital. Then they asked us if we had any injuries and I complained of a little neck pain (which was probably just whiplash) but they strapped a neck brace on me and put me on the bed and off to hospital I went. It was quite fun but I kept crying for some reason. The accident made me go into a state of deep thinking and it was weird. So I went to hospital and they got my pulse and blood pressure and x-ray and stuff, turns out it was only a neck sprain so after I had a chance to eat some hospital food, I was discharged.

After a such a horrible day, I decided to be positive and think of the things that I was grateful for. I was grateful for the fact that there were no fatalities. I am grateful that our car was sandwiched in the middle of the accident. Why? Because even with our car absorbing most of the force from the reckless speeder (yeah, he got a charge for speeding) the man in front was still severely injured. If our car hadn't been there, there is a great chance that he would have died. You could say that our car took the hit. Ha, why am I making punny jokes about this situation? I guess it hasn't hit me yet. HAHA. Anyway, I guess it was all "meant to be".

One Direction Infection

I thought that I had rid myself completely of the disease when they released their shocking video for 'Gotta Be You' which is just 'What Makes You Beautiful' but instead of shooting it in summer on the beach, they made it look like autumn in the woods, or forest, or fake set. But then, they had to release 'One Thing' which made me download their album Up All Night which made me realise that they don't just sing typical pop songs, which is kind of good because now I have a mechanism of defense against haters (which seems to be everyone) but it made me like them even more! This is funny because Laura just posted about how her sister is ridiculously obsessed with them and how she is disappointed with her sister's level of obsession. Well, in my case, my sister is Laura and I am Laura's sister. Ha!

If you are a judgmental hater, check out their songs 'Same Mistakes' and 'More Than This' before you accuse them of being beautiful human beings generated to milk money out of young girls (and maybe boys? and probably their mothers as well).

The Hunger (But Mainly Death) Games

Last night I finished the last of The Hunger Games trilogy (FINAFREAKINGLLY). It was amazing. I think I mentioned a long time ago that I like reading dystopian novels and watch movies with that ideology (thanks English teachers...). Throw in some amazing characters and bombs full of action (see what I did there? People that have the books?) and you've got yourself not one, but three best-sellers. I must admit that I wasn't too keen on them at first but as soon as the movie trailer came out, I had to read the books for two reasons a.) THE MOVIE LOOKED/S AMAZING and b.) Although I was blown away by the trailer, a part of me didn't really understand it. That's the thing with 2 minute trailers, sometimes they don't make sense! I strongly recommend anyone that has seen the trailer and is looking forward to the movie to read the books. It's an easy read, her word choices and sentence structure are at times so simple that I ask myself, "Why didn't I write this book?" but then again, I'm not the one that thought of the awesome idea of throwing 24 kids into an arena for them to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol.

Blogger's Block

I haven't been able to think of anything interesting to blog about (not that anything I blog about is ever interesting) but I have realised that although I am the ultimate disher of sarcasm (Queen of Sarcasm, Mable? ha), I find it very hard to pick it up on. This whole week when I've been talking to the other volunteers at the Apia International, I've had to ask them "Are you being sarcastic?" several times through out the conversation!! There was one time where I didn't pick up on it at all. This guy was like "Oh my gad, I'm so cold!" and it was BOILING hot right. I was just like "ARE YOU SERIOUS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" and he's like "YEAH, IT'S SO COLD" and I still didn't realise until he told me he was being sarcastic. But hey, Sheldon Cooper has an IQ of like 300 and can't pick up on sarcasm so maybe I'm just really, really, really intellectually inclined (I freaking wish!). So now I understand when people don't pick up on my sarcasm because a.) I use my normal tone of speaking and b.) I don't make it clear that I'm being sarcastic. Me? Sarcastic? NEVER!

A Ballin' Time

Watching Juan Martin del Potro and Marcos Baghdatis tomorrow yeowwwwwwwww!!!!

Apia International Sydney - Day One!!

As a volunteer of the tournament, I got two ground passes which gave me access to all areas except for Ken Rosewall Area. Before I went, I was just like "oh, I might get a glimpse of a famous player" because I didn't want to get my hopes up and be uber disappointed but BOY WAS I WRONG! It seems as though as soon as I got there, famous players were left and right (not literally)! When we went to the practise courts, the first player we saw training was World No. 1 in Women's Singles, Caroline Wozniacki! She is even prettier in real life and we just stayed there and waited for her to finish training but as soon as she got off the court, everybody was yelling "Caroline, Caroline, over here, over here" and she seemed really tired so I just didn't bother. She was literally 2cm from my face though!!!! I was completely awestruck! When I was watching her train, I couldn't grasp on to the idea that it was really her! The World No. 1 in the world was breathing the same air as me. We didn't get her autograph because Precy's permanent marker didn't even work!! Stupid lil feg (we had to buy a tiny one later with no brand for $3.50. zzz)!! After Wozniacki got off, Victoria Azarenka (World No. 3) came on to that court to train and Li Na was in the court adjacent to ours! And then we decided to check out the other courts and we went to one with not much of a crowd yet and we were like "who the hell is that?" and then Precy was like "He looks like a mini-Baghdatis" and he was really close to us so he heard and then he chuckled!! That is when we realised, IT WAS MARCOS BAGHDATIS!!!!!! And then I wondered who he was versing so I looked at his shoes and they were non other than LLEYTON HEWITT'S shoes!! At this point, I was hyper-ventilating. I COULD NOT BELIEVE I WAS ONLY A FEW METRES AWAY FROM THE LEGENDARY BAGGY AND AUSSIE ICON HEWITT! So we just watched them for a bit, went back to Li Na and Azarenka and got their autographs and then went back to Baghdatis & Hewitt's training session. They trained forevzzzzzzzzzz man! We kept leaving and coming back and they still were not finished! But once we came back, Hewitt was gone and it was just Baggy training with his coach. I'm so devo I didn't get a photo or autograph from Hewitt! He is just such an Aussie legend! But we waited around for Baggy and I got a photo with him and Precy got his autograph (WHICH HAS A SMILEY FACE, HOW CUTE) and these girls asked for his towel. Why didn't I think of that? It would have been hella stinky but still, it was his towel! Baghdatis is so good looking now! He cut off his long, girl hair and he looks so much younger now. I really hope that he wins the tournament because he is such a sweet guy, fully signing everything and taking photos GAHHH! Well, I want Isner to win as well. Today wasn't the best that it could have been because I missed the person that I came to see, JOHN ISNER from the USA! This kid that I met got his autograph so that means he was around somewhere!! Oh well, I do have the rest of this week to find him and crawl under his legs (because he is a giant). Omg, then we spotted Juan Martin Del Potro!!! DEL FREAKING POTRO!!! He is a giant as welllllll, like literally 2m+, he lifted up his shirt and then he looked around and realised people were looking and he had this shy look on his face but then he started flexing his ab muscles!! LOL *droooooooooooooooooooooooool* Why are South Americans so darn attractive? WHY BITCH WHY!

This post has a bajillion errors because I am still recovering from post celebrity mode (whatever the fuck it's called) and I am dying because I still have a whole week to go!! I will not say that I died and went to heaven yet because I still have my centre court tickets for Wednesday and I still have to hunt down John Isner. Once those two are complete, I can safely say that I have died and gone to heaven. After a week of feeling like shit, I couldn't ask for a better opportunity to release my inner fangirlism that I have for tennis players. From Lidcombe and on wards, all you could hear was people talking about tennis players and I just kept thinking "YES, I AM HOME". I have never been surrounded by so many tennis fanatics in my life and it felt so freaking good!!! All of my efforts put into watching every match over the past 6 years haven't been freakish at all!! I strongly recommend for anyone that is even remotely interested in tennis to purchase a ground pass for $12.90 because you get access to all areas except for centre court and all the players are always training and doing stuff for the media, and it's such a good vibe all around. ARGH! No time to proof read this because tomorrow is Kid's Day and I have to be there by 8am tomorrow! Thanks to track work, I have to leave my house at 6!!! AND I STILL HAVEN'T STUDIED OR FINISHED MY HOMEWORK FOR TRUONG.

OH, and Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Dokic were on centre court today so we didn't get a chance to see them and where the freaking hell was Richard Gasquet?!!!

Sydney Ready? Play.

Many of you may or may not already know that I'm going to be volunteering at the Apia International Sydney this coming week and today was the orientation/training day. I'm going to be volunteering in the Kids Interactive Zone where they have all these tennis activities set up for kids (when they say kids, they mean from babies to freaking adults). They have ball machines set up for people to try and hit targets with, they have the ray guns set up to measure how fast your serves are, you can rally against a 'brick wall' (which is actually foam or something) and there are mini courts set up. It's really fun!! If you have the chance, Monday the 9th of January is the 'Kids Day' where kids 16 and under get free entry into the venue (normal entry into the venue would be $12.90 anyway), you should head to Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre! It is really fun, free and the Aquatic Centre is only a few metres away! Volunteers full get free food and drinks and get to have lunch in this air-con place where as other people have to suffer in the heat!!! I cannot wait until my first shift which is on Monday but I have to be at Olympic Park at 8am and there is track work which means I have to wake up super duper early!! ): FREAKING SHITTY RAIL.

Yup, there's my pro shirt (we have a short sleeve and a long sleeve one), my hat and my accreditation pass. That's right bitches. I have a VIP pass. 

365 Grafeful Project

As I was munching away at my uberly bland cornflakes this morning, I was watching Sunrise and a segment came up about how to create your own happiness. Seeing as I've been feeling a little down a lot (contradictory? lulz) lately I think I am going to undergo this project and see how it turns out. Many people that I know hate taking up 365 projects because it turns into such a hassle which causes it to lose its meaning, but I derrrno, I feel inspired to do something about my unhappiness. This project is called The 365 Grateful Project  and is self-explanatory; take a photo every day of something that you are grateful for. I think this will allow for me to realise the little things that make up this supposedly beautiful thing called 'life'. I hope that everybody follows my progress because by posting it on my blog, it makes me liable for not completing it! I tend to give up on things too easily but I will not fail this. Even if it is just for the sake of not failing. So here's to the start, duration and completion of Yvonne's 365 Grateful Project! :) And yes, there is a separate blog for it because I don't want my blog to get messy and confusing.

I guess it's the thought that counts?

I remember when I was little, I would walk into the chocolates and confectionery section and look up at the beautiful, little, chocolate balls wrapped in super shiny gold foil (girls like shiny things, actually, every young child likes shiny things). They would be encased in a plastic box that almost looked like glass to an ignorant little girl. They were "expensive" back in the day and when people gave them to you as a gift, you would go ooooooh, ahhhhhhhh. But now you can buy two giant ass boxes of the stuff from coles for $20 (give or take a few dollars). Now, when you are dumbstruck as to what to get for someone as a little gift to say something like 'thank you', the Ferrero Rochers cannot be a last resort. They no longer have the elegant lustre about them. This is upsetting because I remember when relatives and friends would give me a box of the chocolatey goodness, I would be over the moon as a little kid. If something as simple as this as already lost its worth, what's next? The new generation are practically born with iPods and iPhones in hand (is it sad that I have neither of these?) and we'll be the 80 year old grandmas texting on our lame, last century phones whilst our grandchildren and possibly great grandchildren glare at us with scrutiny as to how non-technologically inclined we are.

2012!

It is officially safe to say that this year is going to be an awesome year. You know that thing that people say about how you spend the first day of the new year is how the rest of your year will be? Well. I always thought it was a load of crap because for us oriental Asians we have Chinese New Year, so which 'first day of the year' decides our year? I guess it just depends on which year you go by. However, this year (after talking to Laurence on a dead ass NYE night) I decided that I shall test out this theory that he, along with a million other people live by. For new years day, we went to my cousin's new place for a family bbq in Alfords Point. HOMG. It is such a nice area! A few people went on a bush walk near their house but I was wearing a dress so I didn't go along *CREYZ* It was such a good night (not only because my aunty made her famous potato salad that I haven't seen in a few months), all the cousins were hanging out (I think that sparklers bring everybody of all ages together), the whole family gathered in the living room to watch the videos that my dad had put together from the Hawaiian party and the masquerade party and it was so good to look back on those nights together! Then, I played cricket with one of my cousins (I was bowling and fielding because nobody else wanted to play cricket) and I got really tired so then we started balancing gardening rakes on the palm of our hands. Have you guys ever tried that? I remember that I saw it on Play School once or twice. It turns out I'm really crap at it but my cousin is uber pro ): Then everybody started talking about going to the beach tomorrow (which was today) and everyone was buzzing even though we were all super smashed from the get together already!!

So, today we got to the beach super early and almost everybody showed up and it was just usual beach stuff. We tried playing water polo but there were two problems; the waves and the wind [which are interconnected (i think?!) so I guess they are just one problem]. Yes. I just employed the maths parenthesis thing. DON'T JUDGE ME!!

(I wrote this when I came home from the beach and then ditched the post to watch tennis and now that I have woken up, my arms and 'abs' are super sore from the excessive boogie boarding GAHHHH)