Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know.
Grey’s Anatomy makes me want to write better. It makes me want to push myself and what I think I can do. It challenges me to be more creative, to demand more of my talent and to never stop reaching for the new and seemingly unattainable. May I constantly be reminded and inspired.
I got started on Season Five tonight. And I am just completely blown away by the writing.
As my colleagues will attest, I am totally anal when it comes to my table at work (and the table belonging to a former colleague – just once!). Everything is stacked in neat piles, unnecessary clutter is disposed of and anything that isn’t mine is returned to its rightful owner. Immediately.
I like knowing “my life is in order”, as I affectionately term it. I like the feeling that everything is organised and in its rightful place. And it is only natural that I would extend this personality quirk into one of my most oft-visited realms: Facebook.
Facebook has way too many applications. I have long since given up adding applications I will never use and currently only house a handful of word games, a movie thingy and some world map travel thingy. And a personality test thingy. (Sorry everyone who keeps asking me to play poker or get my own car or some such; it’s not going to happen.)
I only have three gift applications – the potted plants one, the hatching eggs one and the guardian angel one (because a cousin gave me the angel and I didn’t have the heart to ignore it). And unlike most people, I actually like the new Facebook because it lets me keep all my applications neatly in a separate tab and so my profile page does not overflow with the some 30 plants and 30 animals I have amassed. I am that anal.
Anyway, last week I decided it was time to take my spring cleaning one step further: my friends list. Like everyone else, I get people I don’t know asking to be my friend on Facebook. I used to add most of the requests, especially if we had mutual friends, because I didn’t want to offend anybody I might have met and forgotten; you know how it is with me and faces and names.
Then I decided enough is enough, so one afternoon I sat down, went through my entire friends list and removed over 20 of them. If we had only one or two mutual friends and I didn’t know those mutual friends very well, I removed them. If we had no mutual friends whatsoever and I had no idea who they were, I removed them.
It wasn’t easy, especially when it came to former high school mates – when you come from a (Chinese) school of 5000 people and three-quarters of them develop first names you never knew they had between graduation and now, it gets rather difficult to keep track. And finally, I declared myself satisfied. From now on, I’m ignoring friend requests that aren’t really friends. It’s a lot easier than filtering the list after.
Do you add everybody that sends you a friend request? How do you decide who to keep as friends and who to ignore without being rude?
Because we had to wait an hour for Y’s mobile phone to be repaired, Y, J, C and I made ourselves comfortable at a nearby bubble tea place and ended up playing games to pass the time. It’s been a long time since I played bridge and even longer since I played Snakes and Ladders, and it was nice.
With gloomy skies overhead – we didn’t mind because that meant cool weather, bubble tea by our sides and nothing to do but relax, we had fun. I won our only game of Snakes and Ladders thanks to an unbelievable streak of good luck. Then we moved on to bridge. I used to play lots of it during my first two years in Melbourne, but that feels like such a long time ago.
It was so good to see the boys relaxing on a Saturday afternoon without having to think about work. Y and J didn’t even talk about advertising once!
The first sign that all was not going to be well took place during the press conference for their new film Connected (保持通话), a Hong Kong remake of the Hollywood film Cellular.
Louis Koo (古天乐) seemed uninterested while Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) and director Benny Chan (陳木勝) fielded questions, and what responses he deigned to provide were pithy one-liners liberally sprinkled with sarcasm. When the emcee asked how he would respond if a stranger rang him on his cell phone begging for help, Louis simply said: “I suppose I would try my best.”
Pressed further if that would involve calling the police, he said: “Trying my best can mean a lot of things.”
That was it. No elaboration, nothing. I groaned inwardly. I had a one-on-one interview slot with Louis and Barbie and the last thing I needed was a grumpy, uncooperative actor on only my third attempt at a Mandarin interview.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the press conference ended early. I double checked my interview time slot with the person in charge and decided to head back to the office because I had two and a half hours waiting time. Barely had I warmed my seat when the phone call came. “Can you please come back? Your interview is going to start soon.”
I looked at the clock. It had only been an hour. As if I wasn’t stressed out enough about having to deal with an unresponsive Louis Koo, I now had to rush back to the venue while panicking because I could barely remember my questions because I don’t think in Mandarin and so everything takes twice as long to process – think in English, translate to Mandarin, speak.
I got there in time with R, who was playing photographer, and while waiting for Barbie to finish a TV interview, even managed to catch Louis for a photograph. He seemed a lot more cheerful then, which was a relief. Heck, the man was practically friendly!
Then we got down to the interview.
Louis took a women’s mag off one of his handlers, settled back into his chair and started reading. “I’m listening to you,” he told me. Fine. I got straight into it with Barbie Hsu, and – to my surprise, admittedly – everything just flowed! In Mandarin. There was no delayed process time, there was no frantic referring of my notes, there were no awkward silences while I tried to formulate sentences; it was freaking amazing!
Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Louis. While Barbie was an absolute delight – open, chatty, nice; he kept right on reading. I would go, “And what do you think, Louis?” And he would look at me blankly and say, “What?”, before giving me one line.
When he said his fourth “What?”, I told him only half jokingly, “You weren’t listening to my question!”
He said, “Oh I was just joking,” and gave me another one liner.
By the sixth time, I was going, “Excuse me, Louis, hellooooo? Sorry to interrupt you…”
The sarcasm was lost on him. When I asked him if playing a father onscreen had made him think about becoming a father himself (he is 37 after all), he replied, “I also play a lot of murderers; does that make me want to become a murderer too?”
Stuff the formalities, he was curled up in his chair with his shoes on the seat anyway. “Well, I don’t know,” I shot back. “Do you?”
“No, of course not,” he said.
“Then what about becoming a father?” I was beginning to get a little bratty myself, to be honest. And wonder of wonders, he gave me a full-on proper answer, complete with sentences that made sense.
As a sidebar to my interview, I asked Barbie and Louis for five things their fans didn’t know about them. Louis dropped his magazine in feigned shock, stood up and told his manager, “I have to say five things?” in mock exaggeration, and walked off!
I ignored him and continued talking to Barbie. He came back. I asked him for three things instead. He gave me two which weren’t even proper answers. I gave up. The guy’s a brat. And he’s not even as cool or good looking in person!
Later, R and I found out he has a reputation for being impossible to interview. I suppose I got off relatively lightly. I can only imagine what he does to male reporters. And by the way, this has totally boosted my confidence in conducting Mandarin assignments. It’s a new challenge (and adrenaline rush) I’m really enjoying.
R took this photo of her boyfriend’s cat checking out my Marley & Me. I loved the book but kitty doesn’t look too impressed. The novel has been adapted into a Hollywood movie starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. And a golden retriever, obviously. Check out the website for the book here.
I’ve always reserved a special level of sensitivity and anger at being accused of something I didn’t do, but these days, I’m learning to pick my battles. Especially when I’m not even being given the opportunity to go to war in the first place. Which is a good thing.
I used to feel this awful need to set the record straight (really it’s to justify myself) whenever I’m wrongly accused of something, and that resolve extends to those around me as well. Unfortunately, such indignant soliloquies are always much, much more impressive when played out in my head, so I’m learning not to go around picking fights.
I thought it would be a harder lesson to learn than this, but really, it’s not so bad at all. I’m learning that I do not have to care about everything, that I really do not have to care what people think when I know I’m not in the wrong, and that ignorance, even if it’s feigned, really is bliss. Is it a sign that I’m maturing or am I simply growing cold in my indifference?
If you only watch five minutes of this year’s Emmy Awards, this should probably be it:
Last night, I finally bought my first ever pair of running shoes – an adidas pair for RM219.90. Choosing between New Balance, adidas and Nike, I eliminated New Balance because I didn’t like any of the designs in the store and Nike because I think they’re way overpriced. I didn’t want to splurge on a too-expensive pair – who knows whether I’ll run again after the 10k in December.
So far, I’m really liking looking at my shoes. I should be running today, you know, just to try them out, but the weather’s cool and gloomy and Patrick Dempsey is on the E! Channel. Besides, I told myself, I already played tennis twice this week.
I think it’s really sweet when someone special calls just to say hello, but that habit never caught on for Y and myself. Back when we were in a long-distance relationship, talking once or twice a week was all we were getting in, so never mind calling once or twice a day just to hear his voice or mine.
Recently though, he’s been keeping awful hours at work again, and I am not kidding when I say I see him less than two hours a day – if I stay awake late enough to clock in the minutes. So when he went in to work today (it’s Saturday, by the way) right after a quick lunch, I decided to give him a ring around five o’clock to say hello. He didn’t pick up, but rang me back from the office line a minute later.
Me: Hey.
Y: Hi.
Me: Are you still in the office?
Y: Yep. Why?
Me: Nothing. I just called to see where you are. Are you playing basketball later?
Y: Yep.
Me: Okay. Bye.
Y: Bye.
Two minutes later, my phone rang again, this time from Y’s mobile.
Me: Hello.
Y: Hi, darling.
Me: Where are you?
Y: I’m on the way back. Why did you call me?
Me: Err… what do you mean?
Y: You called me, right?
Me: Err… yes, and you already called me back, right?
Y: So why did you call me?
Me: I… already told you. I just called to see where you were and to say hi. Because I’ve only seen you for like two seconds all day.
Y: Oh.
So apparently, this concept is still new to the hubby.
I can’t remember the last time I celebrated Lantern Festival. It must have been when I was still in primary school. I remember lighting candles along the length of our balcony with my sisters. I remember we got a little bored because it was just the three of us. I remember we never did it again. I don’t remember the last time I had a lantern – or what shape it was.
This year, I had a dragon lantern with a movable head. My colleagues/friends and I lit candles. We walked around the neighbourhood. We went to a nearby playground and pretended we were kids again. We went on the slides – many times. We went on the swings. We went on the see-saw. We played limbo rock. We were a group of adults in our 20s playing our hearts out. It was fantastic.
I’m so glad I have colleagues/friends who are not afraid to take off their shoes and wander around barefoot. Who are not afraid to get on the slides with me. Who are not afraid to push off the ground as hard as they can to see how high they can swing. Everybody should get to be a kid once in a while. Even if it means the other (real) neighbourhood kids stare at you.
This year, I celebrated Lantern Festival. I will always remember my dragon lantern. And the people who made the night special. We might even do it again next year. Let’s.
(Photos courtesy of Sherelyn.)
