Laid•bac•tus

 (lādbaktəs)

 noun

1. An short-term illness that causes a behavior change due to the thoughts of the coming vacation or near end of a work load. Symptoms include inattentiveness to work, excessive lethargic attitude, excessive binging (on snacks) and increased disorganization.
2. Mostly occurs on students and young adults. Related to Boredomitis if diagnosed for a long span of 7 days. Also known as the Christmas Holiday Disorder (CHD) 

I have a case of laidbactus and probably developed boredomitus too. I guess I could use that as a reason for my temporary absence from the blog-sphere. (SO MUCH TERMINOLOGY.) I do apologize for that - yet again, it's not like anyone reads this. *forever-alone-sniffles* The whole school is having a mixed atmosphere right now - with one half buzzing with excitement for Christmas and it's delights (Christmas dinner, placenames and -of course- the holiday itself) while the others -like me- are gradually melting into a pool of mehs and blehs. Laidbactus has become such a pandemic that during the assemblies, the Headmistress keeps reminding us to push on for the last week of term!

I think Laidbactus - though only occurs at certain times - is quite common like the common flu so most of us can share our mutual symptoms of the sickness and hopes for time to fly. I myself have been more immersed in making my placename than doing any of my homework. (Before you ask, 'Placenames' are part of this school's christmas tradition of making personalized containers filled with candy to a classmate we're enlisted to give to.) I haven't finished it yet but here's its current state:

...not really much for now... just newspaper roses and paper flowers. I hope I can make it prettier in a span of three days :S

WTF, christmas?

It's Advent Sunday and during morning prayers - which is unfortunately compulsory for all the students - I cam across this.. 

...this...this THING. 

It's apparently a 'christingle' which is basically an orange with candies and a candle sticking out of it. Through absurd symbolism, it supposedly represents the world under the 'light of God' and the four treasures and the red ribbon, the blood of Jesus. I'm sorry if I offend any Christians but being part of a cynical society, I want to point out it looks ridiculous. Not only was it a waste of dolly mixtures and oranges (the wax made it inedible after the session.), it just proves to me christianity can sometimes be just as radical as any other religion I know. 

And what would these customs be? I give you the 3 weirdest ways to celebrate christmas:

1. Tió de Nadal or Caga Tió

Caga Tió literally means 'Shit Log' - what a way to name a custom! - and is most known as a character in Catalan cultures. It is usually presented as a hollow log with stout legs, a painted face and given a red hat and blanket to 'keep it from getting cold'. From the start of their christmas festival - on the 8th of December - it is fed little treats until Christmas day, in which the children would gather up 'round the Tió de Nadal and proceed to beat it while ordering it to shit out its treats inside. First of all, this is a custom where children are encouraged to hurl both physical and verbal abuse on a poor log that was probably wasn't looking for any trouble. (I mean, look at it's cute smiley face and it's adorable red hat?! Why beat the living daylights out of that poor thing?)

2. Kissing Under King Kong's Mistletoe

LA is famous for it's buzzing atmosphere of Hollywood and Universal Studios so it wouldn't be surprising if they one day decided to make up a tradition in tribute to their movie success: kissing under King Kong's mistletoe. Kissing under a plant is already considered weird, in some sense, but to add another element of weirdness by making the King of Skull Island hold it for you. Definitely something you won't see everyday. 

3.Japan's Christmas Turkey Fried Chicken

Like how 'Mericans may see chinese food as generally chow mien and noodles, the Japanese see Christmas food as KCF chicken. Not only is it bizarre because it's not something everyone else in the world would see as christmas food, it has to be a specific brand: Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now, the Japanese are well known for having one of the healthiest populations out there but with this tradition, I'm starting to wonder how on earth they can keep their skinny physiques after eating a whole bowl of chicken that's evidently larger than their own heads. (I mean, LOOK how big it is in the photo?)

So... now that I've gone and offended a general share of people across the world I'm going to leave you with this: What ever quirky customs you or your country may practice, keep it up. Because you can smile on the fact that everyone has their own weird side and nobody's just a generic boring sod. :P Peace!

(EDIT:Yes, I know I've posted this a day late (or perhaps 2... whoops.) so I'll try to keep up and post a day early so the whole GMT mumble-jumble thing won't get too confuzzling.)

Social Awkwardness...

So I've been thinking about a conversation I had with my guardian/aunt - whom i live with during the exeat and half-term breaks - about building confidence to speak and socialize, be it for the sake of personal or work issues. I guess as a primary teacher and a mother of two, she found the need to speak up about my problem of shyness. (Which I guess was pretty evident especially after all the exeats I've spent at her home.) She told me how she and her two daughters managed their own problems of social awkwardness as an example that everyone feels scared when forced into an event with people they don't know. It's just that some have different ways of hiding the fear like clinging to their friends or just being brash and loud. We discussed how confidence is the basis of almost every job you can think of, let alone going up a step from college to Uni. So, in the end - I kinda forced myself to do this - we agreed I would send an email [to her] every week to report my attempts to strive as a socially AWESOME penguin rather than an awkward one.

So... why share now? Because I'm scared. I'm still scared to make a move. Though I was quite moved by the inspiration speech imbedded within the conversation - yes, I was in the verge of crying again. - I'm still doubting my decision to say "Okay, I'll do it." I'm not sure if it's my guardian whole aura of steel that made me say so but throughout the trip back to school, my thoughts were screaming "OMMAFUGGINGGAWD. OMMAFUGGINGGAWD. WHUDDAMIGONNADO?! WHUDDAMIGONNADO?! OMMAFASDFSJADFHAK..." (if you can actually read that, props to you. you have the skills of understanding panic-induced blabbers.) Either way, I'm now in a position in which I'm forced to socialize. Luckily my aunt is quite easy on what is considered appropriate such as "Today I sat next to someone new and asked them about their day." (Though I must admit even THAT would be frightfully grueling to me. ugh.) Welp, no moving back, now that I've said yes. I don't want to make the hardest/strongest woman I know disappointed...

Relief but...

Yes! No more mocks! the two weeks of endless revision and the series of exams are finally over!

... but then that means I have to go back to the routine of going through 8 lessons a day and having to actually wake up at 6:45. am. in the morning. of winter. I could be just whining about a perfectly normal day that everyone else would be glad to have but if you just had two weeks of free time (save the exams the actual time used for revision and cramming) and was expected to leave it all behind, that's hard. Admit it, it's hard to do so. In some ways I could be thinking "hey, you know you'll be given study leave AGAIN during the summer term?" or  "lazy git... MAN UP." *cue in tearing shirt to reveal gigantic abs and moobs boobs (you're a girl, Monette)* but... I can't be asked to let my 'heroic' side of things to rule my head and block off all thoughts of 'BLEH~' and 'MEH~' - the evil 'EH~' twins.

okay, I'm feeling weird. I should stop now... and read the AWESOME LOTR BOOKS AND SHERLOCK FANFICTION! Go deuxexmycroft! Go ivyblossom! Go J.R.R. Tolkien!

okay, i should really stop. I think i've made enough of an impression to the world how stupid I sound.
I blame reading Headspace. Jesus, I got a massive mindfuck and scarring from that fanfiction...

Friendly Fires and Fudge

So... mocks are coming in with fearfully quick rate and everyone's putting their heads into textbooks and notes in thorough panic. (Or at least I am...) I know I shouldn't be procrastinating right now - I've been doing so for half an hour now - but sometimes, you have to thank the time you put to surfing on the internet. Because I was bored and randomly Googling actors I know, I have found an awesome band called 'Friendly Fires'. Yes, somehow through Benedict Cumberbatch I have found the most awesome (need another word than 'awesome'... rad?) band and I have been playing their music on repeat for four days - I'm actually listening to 'Show Me Lights' right now. They're that fudging good. 

^another reason why I love them :D

Oh, speaking fudge (heh, pat on the back for that smooth transition there.), recently I've been given a packet of fudge to cheer me up from a few family problems that kept me feeling down. Though I can't fully say I've recovered from the shock of the news, I'm happy to report that my frailty to cry has dimmed down. On the other hand, at least Friendly Fires and the fudge is there to make me happy again - of course along with my friends and family. 

Goal: Getting Geeky

Though it's coming near to the mock exams and every teacher is giving time for revision -being the idiot I am- I decided to read The Hobbit to finally get that poor book back to its place in the library and get more space for later revision guidebooks my teachers may plan to give me. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best decision ever. Almost immediately, I fell in love with Tolkien's story-telling and I'm now halfway through The Fellowship of The Ring. I now plan to read the flippin' saga of LOTR. Furthermore, this set of mind has me hoping to even finish reading all of The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (which I stopped due to tons of homework) and even start on The Game of Thrones. 

(I even drew in honor of The Hobbit)

Yes, I'm a bit late on catching up with the Nerd clan but you have to consider: I was only 7 when LOTR was popular. I probably would've been more interested on Barbie (sadly) and origami (not so much). But I guess I have to blame Tamagotchis from barricading me from all the awesomeness. Back then, it was all the rage at school... until they were banned. (I know a friend who has all the generations up to vers. 4. We were sad.) 

But yeah, I probably will have this goal of reading these books throughout the year. Luckily, the school provides us a study leave longer than needed. By then I can happily read my books of gold.

Families (RIP, gran.)

I've never mentioned this before but being an Asian, I come from quite an extensive family - which I am quite proud of being. I enjoyed the busyness when the family reunites on special events. I enjoyed the smiling faces and the laughing children. I enjoyed the buzz of commotion and various different conversations all shared on one round table. Unfortunately, due to people moving to foreign places (one went to Beijing, another moved to New York and I, as well, started boarding in the UK) and my grandmother's gradual but failing health, the reunions grew rarer over the course of the years.

Yesterday, I just learnt she finally took her last breath and died peacefully from old age. Though many hearts were and will be broken (my uncles are are waiting for the right time to tell my grandfather...), I believed her death brought us closer as a family. Dotted across the world, she somehow was able to burst our bubble and remind us (as cheesy as it sounds) that we're family. I could go on all sentimental but I don't think its worth your time or mine. When there is life, there is death. Though we may never be the same, life still goes on.

At an age of 98, we shouldn't mourn her death, we should celebrate her strength for living at such an old age. Rest in peace, gran.

Mass Snacking Time (MST)

On a rare Saturday afternoon, I could persuade myslef to make use of the good weather (which was always good on the weekends, for some reason.) and walk downtown withmy friends. As per usual, we never come back without a trip to Co-op/ Saisnbury's before retreating back to house. This is when a certain time kicks in: 'Mass Snacking Time' or 'MST'.

There is a reason why I usually keep my food storage to the smallest. It's because I don't have any discipline over my cravings. If there's food, I'll eat it until there 's nothing left. First the chocolates, then the fruits and finally the cereal. (Yes, I can snack on breakfast cereals.) By this time, I'm still snacking, but i try to snack as slowly as possible in order to stop myself from eating everything. As weird as it sounds, I have a soft spot for gooey and mushy foods. (So pureed pumkin and thick vegetable soup would be foods from the heavens.) So in order to slow down the snacking, I would mix the cereal with water (because I'm too lazy to go down two floors and get milk) until its consistency is like wet Weetabix and eat away. You're probably thinking 'Eeew.' or 'Meh.' because you have another absurd eating habit to match up. Either way, I end up regretting ever going to town in the first place with a full tummy at 17:00.

Fortunately my laziness overweighs my gluttony so I can force myself to only eat apples - 2 a day - and nothing else if I leave my food storage as bare as possible. This plan works until i go to town again. Huzzah.

Playing with Post-its

Dear Internet, I have something to confess:

I'm obsessed with post-its.

okay, nothing biggie there - I can tell I'm not the only one as seen here, here and here. But if you put it this way, you could say I have a fascination for pads of paper printed in a wide range of colours and don't actually stick on walls properly but looks great and awesome. Never mind, they're cool in any phrase of explanation. Praise the post-its! 

Why? Well last year, I found an awesome video that inspired me on how to decorate my plain walls since I didn't have enough posters or photos to stick for the world to see. So... post-its it was! Mixing in with my love for games (though I must say my knowledge of them are too limited to be considered a geek. Being called one would be shame to the geek community.) I made a pac man ghost on the wall! 

Later that term, I made a habit of leaving post-its with a character named Mr Scribbles - a pedophile who flirts with girls - around my boarding house. Slowly, I even made him say cheesy lines and have a 'suave' personality. (Though I personally found it weird, many loved him and so encouraged me to post more.) Now, I'm still continuing this tradition of Mr Scribbles and on the process of decorating my room with more post-its. *hint hint* Invaders! *hint hint* Whatever happens, I hope to keep up with this obsession of coloured pads of sticky paper!

Abyss of Abandoned Accounts...

So... It's been a while. The summer's over and... it's four weeks over the start of term. hello world. I'm back from leaving blogs behind into the abyss of forgotten and static sites. I hope not to do so again for some time... (hopefully.)

I swear I do this almost every time i commit myself to something online. Three years ago, I promised myself i would take care of my avatar in Playfish's Pet Society and a year later it's probably now dead. (As much as depletion is represented in a kid-safe game.) Next, I promised myself to play Fantasy University (really cool game though, now that i look back.) but i left it after i got stuck on Lvl 20. Unfortunately I can't go back and play it now because they closed it earlier this spring - probably because of masses of people like me left the game at an early stage.

I really miss being an Emomancer :(

This situation happens to my Deviantart account, my Meebo, my Marapets most likely died (I didn't want people to see me play Neopets, which would be easier to recognize.), my Bebo account... the list is endless. Basically, don't ask me to take care of your virtual pet and you'll be fine.

 how my pet should like now....

Crimey-wimey stuff or just plain stupidity

Within my circle of friends, I'm always, always marked as the dumb one. The foolish one. The girl who is impossibly clumsy. The friend who lacks common sense. Although I try not to wear that mark around me, something recently made the imprint even bolder:

I lost £40 within two weeks.

As a girl who is given £300 for 5 months as well as the already-provided accommodation, food and water what I've done is completely unnecessary. Especially when one simple action and thought could be avoided to prevent this mess - putting my money in a my debit card instead of thinking it'll be fine sitting in an unprotected drawer. Of course right now I'm implying someone has stolen my money but even I've just misplaced my money, I'm going to look very very stupid. And now I'm moping to the virtual world. For fudge sake, Monette.

Rant Over English Food

When is comes to food, England is literally hell. As I quote from a song in APH (Axis Powers: Hetalia, fyi):
          "In hell, the English are chefs, the Germans are police officers, the French are engineers, the Swiss are lovers, and the Italiaaaaans are bankers!"
Basically, English food is generally bleh. They practically live on the spud. Jack potatoes,  mash, wedges, new potatoes... You name it, they have it. I didn't know how many ways one can cook potatoes until i came to the UK.

Onto their famous tea, which can get pretty ridiculous. Their flavours range from the classic Earl Grey tea - my only favourite English tea - to elaborate tea blends that seem exquisite at first glance but actually taste like cough syrup. How's that for your cuppa? I can't fully hate English tea though since I've only tasted a small range of teabags provided by the school canteen- which is what, 3 to 4 sorts of tea?

So, why am I giving cough-syrup-like tea a second chance? a week ago, I found some tea blends online that i thought of trying. Not only were they based on 'Sherlock' by BBC- one of the rare things I'd like to thank UK for- to my delight, the tea blends were given a lot of good reviews by other fellow fans of the show. I'm particularly intrigued my a tea blend inspired by John Watson. Since I'm more into fluffy jumpers than smoke and musky like Sherlock, (though suspicious due to my horrible experience with the blueberry and apple tea blend. Uck.) I'm excited to how it tastes.

Summer Snacking

In the boarding school i go to, they don't let us go until early July. Since that's coming round the corner, everyone's getting sluggish and yearning to escape  UK's miserable rain for some exotic golden sunshine. (Unfortunately for me, I'm a HK boarder. So I'm basically just going back to more rain and fog. Huzzah.) To me, 'being sluggish' means tuning down the resistance and letting cravings take over. For the whole week, I've been munching down more biscuits and sugar than i have for the last two months. Look who needs to burn some flubber over the holidays. Either way, I'm really excited for the summer break and meeting my family again. Can't wait for the summer!

Rolling The Pilot...

Unlike every other tween, i never mustered up the courage to make a proper blog -as in, a blog about myself. Seriously, the only blogging experience was doing those crap 'reading blogs' for English in primary school with every post starting with: "This week i read ______. It was interesting." A few years later, i made a group blog with a friend about cookies -though i must confess, it was my friend who had the obsession in those sugary cookies.

As far as I'm concerned, from now on whatever i write here goes public. So... hi world! Nice to meet you. (obviously, the only one providing the page views for this site is myself so yeah...) I'm not quite sure how this blog will evolve to - my doodles, my love for sugar or my current obsession with Arthor Conan Doyle's best known masterpiece - Sherlock Holmes. we'll have to see if i can even keep up with the blogging for years to come.

until then, here goes my first journal in The 'Adventures' of a Plebian.