Introverts

Was reading this and felt like adding some commentary to it.

2. I love meeting new people, but only if you approach me first.  

If I have to make the first move, it’ll most likely never happen. I’m silently imagining every possible thing that could go wrong and by the time I work up enough courage to do it, I’ve thoroughly freaked you out by constantly glancing your way and you’ve already sprinted for the door.

It's a miracle that I have friends, really. Come to think of it, I can clearly remember making the first move only because there are a handful of them. It worked too! (well, the recent one that I could recall at least).

3. Small Talk for me is not Small Talk to a normal person. 

I get deep real fast. I genuinely want to know your life story, what makes you happy, and what makes you angry. Don't be surprised if I ask you how you really feel about your parents’ divorce within the first 5 minutes of meeting you. I’m not a gossip; I just genuinely want to connect with you.

Okay, this one is a wee bit exaggerated, but I get it. The fact that small talk is such a task for makes me mad when the other person doesn't even try. So you would rather just sit there quietly without talking? Okay, fine. (Note: said people are normally acquaintances, not random strangers).

4. We have a heightened sense for a fake or insincere personality. 

Our quiet and reserved nature allows us so much time to observe. I see your fake smile and can tell you just lied to that person. I hear you repeat the same exact joke to every single person you run into. I’m onto you, extrovert.

LOL. Okay, I try not to give myself too much credit and give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

9. Networking events = death. 

There is literally nothing I hate more than having to meet new people in an environment specifically created for that purpose. I realize that’s entirely the point of networking events, but I feel so much pressure to make myself sound and look like the most interesting person you’ve ever met. I can only be charming for so long! Pass me a glass of wine and let me mentally prepare myself for this first.

This is probably the reason why I think I'll never make it in the corporate world. Faking it till you make it is just so much work. I've probably had only a handful of socials though ... which isn't that bad sometimes.

-Kritz

Of arias and different milestones.

Went to watch Phantom of the Opera on Wednesday. Form 3 me (I'm guessing that was when we read the super abridged version of it) would be pretty satisfied.

It was great. Emotional and powerful and goosebump-inducing. I sat at the very front row, which was ... surprisingly pleasant. Not the best seats in the house, but I guess better than having to use a pair of binoculars. I even took pictures of the chandelier despite being yelled at by the staff repeatedly not to take pictures. To my defense, it was the intermission and I didn't interrupt anyone. Also, if I sat up straight, I could peer down into that ... pit where the orchestra is. (Looked it up, it's called orchestra pit! *pumps fist*)

Didn't like some parts where I couldn't hear what the singers were singing over the music from the orchestra. Wish I knew the lyrics to the songs. Also, I find it hard to pick out words from arias (the part where a female sings in a very high pitch in operas ... at least that's what I think they call them). That's probably just me though.

Hope I get to see Wicked or Les Miserables or anything interesting soon.

* * * 

This autobiography I'm reading seems to be giving me a lot of things to think about. Although being a successful actor is amazing, the journey towards it isn't easy at all. For actors (by that I mean male actors ... a little redundant maybe I just wanted to specify the gender), they normally peak at their late thirties or even later. All the serious roles require a mature actor, most of the time at the age of 40 to 55. That means that most of them are virtually unknown by the public for the entire period of time before that. Okay, maybe not unknown, but just minor roles and not enough to bump them to the A-list. To top it off, some actors may live their entire lives without getting a big break. I guess one should think of actors as people who act, not just the ones that are really famous ... It probably sucks to go to parties and have to answer the what-do-you-do-for-a-living question with "actor".

Everyone else on the other hand chooses the safest route. Work in a company, climb the corporate ladder, be rich or whatever. Oh you're working a bank? Good for you. The opportunities are vast. I don't know why is sickens me. I'm not condemning people who take that path ... I just wish I didn't.

I guess I took the road where the leaves have been trodden black. Not saying I would've gone off to be an actor ... but you get what I mean (there are many less travelled paths). Hopefully when I'm at 40 or 50, when I'm telling my story with a sigh, it would be a sigh of relief and not a sigh of despair arising from the desire of wanting to take the other path back when I was in the yellow wood. I kinda miss English literature classes now :(

It's so hard to fathom the fact that I'm not halfway to the age where people start looking back. There was this bit by Louis CK (I think) about how the media portrayed youth as being so coveted and desirable, when the truth is that maturity and experience that comes with age are the things that matter ultimately. Also, I can't just sit here and wait till I'm 40 to be able to tell my story, I have to actually work towards shaping the person I want to be for FORTY YEARS. Holy crap. How do actors toil through 20 years of just being an actor that wouldn't get noticed on the streets? Watching the musical gave me the same thought as well: how does it feel to be in the industry for decades without a leading role? Will immense passion or love for theatre make it all okay?

All this senseless ramblings aren't helping me at all. In fact, it kinda inhibits me from doing my best in the path that I've chosen/I'm stuck in. Also, I think a lot of my posts for the last year or so have been lingering around the same theme. Either my brain is crying for a change or I'm just way too whiny. Or both. Or just the latter.

-Kritz

Random anecdote

I've been reading an autobiography of some actor and found it amazing how he could describe incidents that happened when he was a kid so vividly. Sure, I guess the writing process wouldn't be easy, but it seems like a nice journey through time to be able to revive all the deep-seated memories. Maybe he really does have an ESTB?

Anyway, thought I might give it a go as well, trying to recall some childhood anecdote or something.

When Pokemon first came out, I was obsessed with the TV show. Really obsessed. If I'm not mistaken, it used to air on a local TV channel called NTV7 on weekends. Of course, this was back in the day of dial-ups, and not the era of torrent-everything-with-high-speed-Internet we live in now. Besides, I was way too young to be torrenting stuff anyway. Have you seen the ads on the side of torrent sites?

I remember the paroxysms of glee (my attempt of trying to incorporate new vocabulary into my 'writing', though it may seem more like blatant plagiarism ...) when Pokemon would come on the TV. It was a big deal back then, even though the episodes are short and the commercials between parts are obscenely long. I believe the feeling of how fast time passes is relative to a person's age. A year would feel longer for a 5-year-old child than for a 40-year-old adult (I went from man to man/woman and came to a conclusion of using the non-gender specific term 'adult' ... just thought you should know) since the time in consideration is only a smaller fraction of his or her entire life span up till the present.

That whole bit about time is a little overkill ... but I'll leave it there.

Anyway, I always had this lingering memory of me waiting to watch Pokemon when I went to my uncle's place for the weekend. I wouldn't be allowed to watch Pokemon downstairs since I'm a kid (how discriminatory?) and had to depend on the TV upstairs that functions archaically. Pretty sure we had Astro then, which I believe is what Americans call "cable". The one upstairs, however, still relies on ... the thing that's opposed to cable (can't be arsed to do more research, since this isn't really my autobiography now, is it?).

So I would try my best to be in front of the TV (as if kids have any say in where they could be at a specific time), ignoring the calls for dinner (oh god my vocabulary) which was deemed extremely rude just to watch Pokemon. I always resented how kids that do not attend to the requests of adults immediately were portrayed as kids with bad behaviour. I think we had moral education classes back in primary school where we had to choose the "morally correct" behaviour with questions like "Tim's mom called him to take out the trash when he was playing his Gameboy, what should he do?". Are you sending me to hell because I disobeyed my parents on such a minor issue? Doubt so. Then again, does hell really exist? Then again, moral education didn't mention hell at all, being not religious and all. Do I have ADHD?

Holy crap, look at the amount of digression.

There are days where I went though hell (rushing home, ignoring adults and risk being called disobedient) just to sit in front of the TV, only to realise that the TV channel decide to cancel Pokemon and replace it with something else that kids wouldn't give a damn about. It was utterly devastating. I could still feel how disappointed and angry and miserable I felt back then. It was devastating.

Actually, I think I still feel the same way when Modern Family decides to skip a week or two.

Holy crap, this thought journey made me realise I'm not exactly different from little me. Should I be alarmed?

ps. Frozen was not bad. The Railway Man was amazing.

-Kritz

The painful nightmare of being ordinary

It's Sunday night and I was just lying on the bed reading about one of my new 'obsessions'. Always wished I documented all my obsessions over the past. Would be interesting to look back at it.

I always find it interesting to read the "Early Life" section of the Wikipedia page of the people admire. Makes me wonder what life was like for them way before they "made it", or before they were worthy of having a comprehensive Wikipedia page written about them. Makes me wonder what life would be like for me when I reach the peak of it, what my Wikipedia page would be like (assuming everyone has one, not just the famous ones).

I wouldn't say earning big bucks is being successful in life -- although many would say the same, I doubt they actually think that way. Right now, I think I would be satisfied if I were to grow into a person I would admire; someone who is somewhat knowledgeable, interesting, articulate, presentable ...

I guess no one really grows up to be someone with a Wikipedia page, they just do whatever they think they should do and strive to be the best at it, and eventually become who they are now.

Then again, my opinions on this might be a little biased since only famous people have Wikipedia pages. Maybe I subconsciously want to be famous too? Where exactly am I going with this ... ?

-Kritz

Svíčková!

Wanted to talk about something negative, but something else came up which made my day! Better immortalise (okay, this isn't a novel or anything ... but you get my point) this moment instead!

As I have mentioned few posts ago, I visited Czech Republic during my December break. I then left a really heartfelt review on TripAdvisor for a restaurant in the city of Kutná Hora because the food there left a really strong impression on me. Also, seeing that the manager personally responses to each review, I just wanted to try my luck!

Svíčková!

I really, really, really missed the flavours of the dish in the picture. Not knowing the name (because our tour guide brought us there) of the restaurant nor the name of the dish, I had to do a little research. Lo and behold (do people still use this phrase?), it is listed as the top rated restaurant in Kutna Hora on TripAdvisor. The English menu listed the dish as beef baked in cream, which isn't really helpful if you're looking for recipes.

2 weeks after posting the review, the manager finally responded! Here's what he said:

Hello, I personally thank you for such a nice review. Meal you had is called "svíčková" in Czech and it is very popular all around. You can google its recipie and translated it. Of course every chef have own original ways, but find ours the best so far :). By the way it is not long way from UK, so if you have chance... you are always welcome. So till we meet again I wish you all best. Radek Cikler, manager of Dačický´s

Svíčková! Thank you, Mr. Radek Cikler! I wish I could go there again one day. In a movie, we would then proceed to become friends, keep in contact, then I would be spending my summer holidays working at Dačický´s, a restaurant with a name I can't even pronounce. Sadly, people don't live in movies. Well, some do. I don't.

Let's look at what Wikipedia has to say about this dish:

Beef (round or brisket) is marinated for up to three days before it is roasted and thickly sliced. A gravy is made from a part of this strained marinade, beef stock (optional) and sour cream. It is served with bread dumplings, rarely sauerkraut, and (as is currently done in the Czech Republic) sometimes cranberry sauce.

*jaw drops*
No wonder it's so amazing.
Time to book a ticket to Czech Republic ...

-Kritz

Of wishful thinking and limitations of capabilities

Woo, fancy title. Not really. People these days like to have titles for their Facebook photo albums or Whatsapp groups that start with "of". Is it a hipster thing? I don't know. Never mind that.

21 birthday was great! (Stopped myself from using the word awesome. Overusing it makes it lose its meaning). My friends sort of surprised me at 12am on 12 Jan of GMT +8 (Malaysian timing). Have to admit that it caught me off guard, haha. Was happily eating a bowl of instant noodles while watching YouTube videos.

Karaoke was amazing. Food there was good too! Best part of it was not having to worry about who-owes-what, because I'm often the one in charge of that. Got a lot of presents too! Probably the most I've ever had. Took pictures of them, but a little lazy to post them ...

Another surprise at 12am (GMT 0:00): cake. Then the neighbours came over with cookies. It's kinda like having 2 birthdays, haha. Made dinner that night (or the next? To be less ambiguous, it was still 12 Jan), some Guinness beef stew with mash. Would rather cook than wash up, heh.

Anyway, back to the point of today's post. If you scroll down a little, you will see a post dated May 16 of last year (holy crap that was quite some time ago), telling future me to not take a certain module. I'm currently doing that module, and deciding whether should I drop it or not.

You see (not exactly sure who "you" is, because this is gonna be even more uninteresting than the previous paragraphs have been), I signed up (or enrolled, whatever) for MMORSE, which is a 4-years course. I could switch to MORSE, which will be a 3-year course. For MMORSE, there are 4 streams, in which 3 of them have a core module that lists the dreadful module that I'm doing right now as a prerequisite.

I was pretty adamant on switching to a 3-year course, but I just read an alumni page where people who did MMORSE got really cool jobs or are doing other cool postgraduate courses. So much for being adamant. However, I should consider the fact that these people are geniuses that enjoyed their courses, to which I'm neither of that. But it just feels like I'm losing the chance of working in the Ministry of Justice (someone did that). What happened to the MORSE people that did more business modules instead? Alumni page seems a little biased ...

I guess one would say I could always study harder, but I just can't study harder for something I hate studying. At this point, I don't even know whether I like studying at all ...

Nah, I should save myself from plunging into severe depression in the future. 3 years of hell should be enough. I think I've made my decision.

p.s. Removed the chat box. So ... do leave comments on the post if you want to!

-Kritz

Guess this is what I'll be doing for 2014

Decided to just stick to this blog, despite the childish blog address ...

Week 1's over, just 9 more weeks till Easter break! Been spending way too much time in the kitchen ... one of the things you'd expect when you're staying with a bunch of friends.

I should probably just write on the day I have something to write. Now I can't remember anything ...

Anyway, since I was done with my assignment and exam on Tuesday, I've sort of been on a short break, kinda like extending my winter holidays by another week. Watched 5 episodes of Sherlock (the entire season 2 in one day and the first episode of season 3, then the second episode of season 3 the next day ... had to ration it out a little). I think I have withdrawals now. It's so good ...

My copy of Hyperbole and a Half arrived too. You've probably seen the "X all the Y" meme.

Few more hours till I'm 21. Let's hope things go upwards from here!

-Kritz