19 - books of the classic variety

viii. midnight's children - salman rushdie
pretty epic! the fact that the entire premise of perfume is distilled (pun certainly intended) down into a couple of this book's 600 pages and is but a mere feature of a person with a dictionary length list of characteristics indicates why this is the booker of bookers and the other was made into a crappy non-smellavision movie.

ix. for whom the bell tolls - ernest hemingway
um, hello. sad. who knew words could rip holes in you like that. i returned it to the library straight after finishing it because i want the next time i read it to be just as good.

19(vii) - the almost moon, alice sebold

i am counting this book because even though i have read it before i recently bought it and read it again. still depressing and totally crazy, i wish there was a proper ending. but i guess she might be compensating for the many complete endings of 'the lovely bones', the movie of which i am anticipating but not hoping for too much.

20(xi) - the private lives of pippa lee

yeah, i watch a lot of movies. this one i was particularly excited about because it marked the return of winona ryder. she played a mess of a woman, but the main character was a little like neither here nor there, i guess the film was a study of fragments of her life. it was possibly made better by keanu reeves being a robot, gave it a bit of an edge around a wafty not-muchness. probably won't watch it again.

20(x) - up

pretty sweet, not as amazing as previous pixar efforts (hello wall-e) but pretty decent movie! the fat kid looks like my neighbour used to look. my new laptop is fancy-schmancy!

48 - other cds i have purchased

cannot beat a good deal therefore:
(iii) led zep - s/t otherwise known as led zep 1
(iv) death cab - narrow stairs
(v) sigur ros - takk

other music i have been listening to recently includes but is not limited to:
- kid sister - ultraviolet
- the xx - s/t
- the distillers

20(ix) - where the wild things are

this was disappointing for me, i don't know what i expected? i didn't really want to think about it too deeply but apart from childish crazy there wasn't a middle ground of possible appreciation, really. therefore i was just like, you know, i want more real people, not just splinters of imagination and reality spliced together by an 8 yr old.

20(viii) - jennifer's body

this was actually pretty good, i guess i am the target audience after all. i like that diablo cody has toned down the hip-speak without losing the funny. from this movie i get the impression that megan fox is probably not as stupid as her persona seems, which is not really logical but whatever.

19 - other books i have recently read

(vii) dubliners, james joyce. it reminded me of angela's ashes, like all the normal background life that happens to everyone in ireland. a lot of drinking and consequences therein.

(viii) best australian essays 2007, ed drusilla modjeska. some were good, some i skipped, too many were interrelated and there were too many book reviews written by other esteemed authors.

20(vii) the brothers bloom

funniest movie i've seen all year!! so many gags within a plot convoluted enough not to be cliche, not extreme enough to be unbelievable although it pretty much is a cartoon, good acting all round! not enough exclamation marks! not a serious movie but super fun!

20(vi) mary and max

i love real claymation, it is less shiny and smooth than other types of animation. when combined with a great story and characters and australian in-jokes (who doesn't love secret signs and languages, i mean that's what i love about watching hong kong comedies) it leads to a great movie! it was a little funnier in the first half and the 2nd half felt a bit rushed as they tried to get through time. still good. but i just watched an awesome movie so now i will write about that, sorry mary and max

49 - on in at, tegan and sara

so i got these a while ago as a pre-order package, ooo packages in the mail! my sister and i are small smudges in one of the audience photos.

19(vi) the jungle books, rudyard kipling

i remember 'reading' these when i was much younger, having read one story in some sort of anthology, but now i don't remember which one. i also don't remember having really read these properly before, i recall being disappointed that they weren't more like that 1st story which drew me in in the first place. i think it makes a big difference to read the introduction - i always have to read the whole book in order including the intro and have found i consequently understand a lot more without having to do in-depth analysis that requires work and is not really enjoyable. blogging should not be a chore so i am stopping now, the use of old english didn't bother me, nor when used by joanna newsom but that is neither here nor there.

21(i) (i am too ocd for my own good) - dragonette

so, last night i went to see dragonette play a free short set at phoenix on oxford st. it was short and sweet, they played their hits and that was it. the singer has good intonation which i always appreciate, and it is nice to listen to dancey electronic pop beatz played really loud. probably loud enough for pant vibration, which i also appreciate, but since the advent of the skinny jean i guess it doesn't actually happen much anymore.

61 - primary exams

as may be self-evident, i completed the RACDS primary exams 2 days ago, with a good 5 months worth of relief. so much work, if i had been working more than 4 days a week (also in which day = "day") i don't think i could have done it to my satisfaction. tough stuff, i do not intend to retain much information. anatomy was the most work and physiology was the dark horse of trickery. the oral exams were not worth the time that i studied for them following the written exams. basically the moral of the story is don't do it unless you want to specialise or if you want to know more head and neck anatomy than anyone short of an anatomy lecturer. results come out in two weeks but i'm not too worried, but i do fantasise about having done really well and then what that will mean for my life going forward - not much probably.

19 - netter's head and neck anatomy for dentistry, norton

i think i am justified in saying that i read this book in its entirety because even though i didn't exactly read every single word about the olfactory/optic/vestibulocochlear nerves i damn well read everything else and memorised it too. why yes, marc tennant, i do now possess a 3D understanding of the head and neck and have imagined myself standing in the pterygopalatine fossa describing structures in all directions. without this book anatomy would have been much worse than it was already, and that is why ebay is amazing because that is where i got it.

20 (i give up counting, formatting uniformity be damned) - changeling

watched 'changeling' tonight, after long-awaited cessation of exams. overall it felt a little long but quite an interesting story, quite scary w/r/t lack of rights! it could've been much more melodramatic but clint and angelina pulled it back, kept it dark, made it work.

19(iv) perfume: the story of a murderer, patrick süskind

i can't be bothered to find a picture of the cover because it is freaky and also because the book was not that great. i don't know if it was because it was translated from the original german but it was not that well-written, it could actually have been a short story in my opinion. almost like a horror story. i actually didn't know that it was published in 1985 until just now, i guess because of the recent movie i thought it was also a recent book. i don't know how they are able to convey everything in a movie because we don't have smellavision? in my opinion it would be impossible otherwise. in any case, i wasn't that impressed.

45 - puffy feet

these are mine. they are much puffier in real life.

19(iii) the shock doctrine, naomi klein

this book took me a good 6 months to finish. basically anyone interested in capitalism, and the world history and associated economics of the last 3 decades needs to read this. i learned so much. my whole understanding of capitalism and globalisation has changed. this book was written before the global financial crisis but it points to the mentality which caused it to happen, i.e. sub-sub-sub-subcontracting with profits taken at every level, without checks and balances. basically any time that a country has had a violent political change or has needed economic aid, capitalist policies allowing multinational and private takeover have been forced on them, with tragic effects on the country's people, as always especially on the poor. this has extended to the position now that not only can these disaster situations be created, but that public works are now contracted out to private, meaning profits are taken again and again before anything is done or done at all. the companies which profit hugely from continued disaster are now also moving back into civilised situations to take advantage of fear and protectionism. luckily/inevitably things always go in cycles, i'm glad the book ended on a high note otherwise i would've had no hope for the future, that's how much it has changed my entire worldview.

48(i-ii) the thermals, the dead weather

i'm procrastinating because anatomy is a bitch, but i bought these today, the first at full price, breaking my only less than $15 rule but given i can't find their old albums to save my life that's ok. lalala in other news i have been listening to a lot of la roux and dragonette, dance dance!! in my mind mostly.

20(iv) not worthy of grammar

just watched love actually, some funny moments but overall, bleh

22(i) avenue q

saw this tonight at the theatre royal, it was hilarious, moreso in the 1st half perhaps. i wondered why they had real people characters and then 'human' muppets and then monster muppets? that was never really explained, but in any case i wonder if looking at a muppet while hearing someone speak or sing makes it sound more like a muppet voice. the acting and muppeting and singing were all really really good. i mean now i can totally understand why several people i know have seen it multiple times.

oh i also wanted to say that when we were finding our seats, i asked the guy in the seat next to me just to check his seat number and he didn't even respond, he didn't even look up, just waited for his girlfriend on the other side to clarify, what? why so awkward and rude? then he put his elbow on the shared armrest, but not just on it, over it, into my column of air over my seat. ugh.

20(iii) whip it

i was kinda excited about this until i read some mixed reviews, but it was quite enjoyable. maybe not as great as it could have been, but i think the low-key tone works especially when it is possible to try too hard to cater to a hipster audience (this is terrible as i haven't seen it yet but that approximates my preconception of '(500) days of summer', to say nothing of extraneous parentheses). basically i like that the characters are interesting and individual but that it's not shoved down your throat, nor are they annoyingly hyperaware of themselves. it's more a cute movie than anything great and epic but you could watch 'inglourious basterds' for that.

19(ii) the best american science writing 2007, ed gina kolata

so, i greatly enjoy many of the annual 'best american' anthologies, including but not limited to comics and non-required reading. being a nerd who reads books like 'a short history of nearly everything' and 'the fabric of the cosmos', i thought the best science writing would be really great. and it was!! so many interesting stories, from the preserved tissue of dinosaurs to the sequelae of research fraud and politics in mathematics. also now i want to eat an egg cooked at 65 degrees.

20(i-ii) movies on tv

in the past few days i watched a couple of movies on tv:
- the sound of music - haha probably along with mary poppins the movies of my childhood. still good. my favourite part used to be the puppet show, now my favourite few seconds is the very last note of 'do a deer' where they drop the tomato and traipse around the fountain etc etc, specifically where julie andrews hits the high Bb (i think) and puts her hand on her head due to the sheer intensity of it no doubt.
- transformers - the only thing i have to say is that it was pretty much a slightly inappropriate kids' movie. oh and that megan fox actually was better than i thought she would be, that's how high my expectations were.

19(i) the boat, nam le

short stories, the purest form of prose. i was impressed by the multicultural range, but they all had a similar structural style - looking into someone's life, whereupon they are looking towards a certain event, and yet we never get there. i guess for nam le it's all about the protagonist's thoughts and feelings about their thoughts and feelings, plus like, the rest of their life, but sometimes i want to know how it turns out and the aftermath. that's interesting too, right? maybe that'll be the theme for his next book.

42, 43

i haven't been swimming in at least 8 years

touch was never my favourite sport, probably because basketball season was always at the same time. or maybe because i didn't have awesome shoes.

day zero ends in t minus 1hr 18mins