This week’s Sweet Sunday is brought to you by ballet and scheduling difficulties. This beautiful Anime Music Video is made by Tidirium Studios using clips from Princess Tutu. I love the timing and the pacing of this music video quite a lot – the way Miss Panaccio works the timing of the ballet moves to the music works very well.

Princess Tutu is actually a most excellent piece of Japanese animation, a series that is neither too long, nor too short. It tells the story about a prince who breaks his heart when fighting a monster crow, the story of the Magical Princess who loves the prince and wishes to help him regain his heart and the story of an Evil Princess who corrupts the Prince’s heart superimposed over a backdrop of ballet students learning to dance at a prestegious ballet academy. The above video does a fairly good job of summarising the series, but it’s still worth the watch because of its excellent execution.

Princess Tutu has fairly good pacing and the references to classical ballet performances such as Swan Lake and Giselle are very informative. I learned a lot about ballet terms when watching this show and enjoyed looking out for ballet shout-outs whenever they happened. Most of the music in the show is derived from famous ballet works as well, making it wonderful to listen to as well as to watch. I’ll probably do a more in-depth review of this show at some point, so do look out for it.

The music for this video is provided by one Nanne Grönvall, a Swedish singer who is slightly less weird than Bjork, but only slightly¹. The song used in the video, Håll om mig, is one of her most famous songs and has sold more than 10,000 copies in Sweden after topping the single charts for 2 weeks. She’s recently released a new album, En rastlös själ, though I’m unsure as to its availability in foreign markets.

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¹I believe she once wore Spock ears and a purple wig to the Melodifestivalen for her performance of Avundsjuk. But then again, it being the Melodifestivalen, that may as well have been the uniform.

That Wacky Freud 2000-2007 © Ian McConville & Matt Boyd

The Machall comic here¹ pretty much sums up my attitude towards my University course and its impending final examinations. No, I sincerely doubt that it means that I have an Oedipus Complex, that allegation is just plain disturbing².

I’d be lying if I said that I don’t often get nightmares about exams. Long after I left University and started working as a publicist, I would get the occasional nightmare about taking programming exams in Chinese. Since I’ve gone back to University to pursue accounting, I’ve been more stressed than I’ve ever been about examinations despite only doing courses part-time. Just last night, I had a dream in which the Cost of Goods Sold on a spreadsheet had to be determined before five minutes were up or my best friends would be dumped into a laser shark pit by a cackling gentleman who bore more than a passing resemblance to my accounting lecturer³.

I’ve always hated sitting for tests. My mind has an awful tendency to draw blanks at crucial points in the exam, only to pick them up about two seconds after I step out the door. Even after the exam is over, there’s always that harrowing waiting time for the results, where your brain keeps manually checking and rechecking your responses to see if you’ve made mistakes, and an ever-present niggling worry about failure.

The last examination I had was an exercise in how poorly I could function under the worst possible exam conditions as well as how many stupid mistakes I could make in the course of one and a half hours. The examination room was a large one, but furnished entirely with uncomfortable flipchairs with those tiny flipside tables.

Anyone familiar with flipside tables would probably notice that such tables are perfectly sized for writing notes in lectures, for they are the size of a small notebook or lecture pad. These tables were much smaller, so that the examination papers, when opened, flopped over the sides of the tables. They also had a tendency to fall down with the gentlest of nudges. Half an hour after the exam started, the unfortunate soul in front of me had his table collapse from underneath the pressure of his pen, sending his calculator, examination paper and assorted stationery skittering to the four corners of the room. He was given no extra time for the exam and spent the next hour weeping pitifully as he continued to answer questions, knowing full well that he couldn’t finish the exam on time.

As for myself, I had managed to slice my hand open on the first page of the exam, so that my paper was sprinkled liberally with my own blood, alongside my answers. Never let it be said that I didn’t bleed for my diploma. I didn’t finish the paper either.

This means, of course, that there’s extra pressure for me to actually get extremely good marks in the finals.

Which means more dreams about exams.

Boo hoo hoo.

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¹Although Machall was completed in 2007, I believe that the creators of the comic, are currently drawing a periodic sequel called Three Panel Soul, which is accessible at http://threepanelsoul.com/.
²Spiky hair guy in the comic has a point, though, Freud did have an unhealthy obsession with sex.
³I knew I should have borrowed Q’s automatic COGS calculator device before attempting this mission!

Ah Mah and Ah Kong

My cousins recently asked me for my memories of my maternal grandparents, Ah Kong and Ah Ma. My memories of them are a little vague – they passed away when I was very young, just after I started kindergarten.

I remember that both Ah Kong and Ah Mah used to stay at our house, back when I was still living in a big home. As a child, I had difficulty communicating with Ah Kong and Ah Mah. They didn’t speak much English and tended to be fairly silent people.

My strongest memory of Ah Mah took place when I was extremely young. I saw her walking up the steps of our home. She was clutching the handrail of the stairs and putting both feet on each step before commencing the climb to the next step, moving up them at a glacial pace. I probably didn’t have a concept of frailness all that much because my immediate thought was that Ah Mah did not know how to climb stairs. It was clear to my 4-year-old brain that Ah Mah would save lots of valuable time climbing stairs if she simply put one foot on each step and kept going. I remember doing laps up and down the stairs beside her as a means of demonstrating this to her. Ah Mah was greatly amused by this and kept chuckling as she proceeded on her way. That’s really how I remember Ah Mah. She always seemed pretty smiley, even when she wasn’t smiling.

Ah Kong had a very quiet, calm manner about him, which commanded respect. He was a gentle giant, thin and tall – always looking down at me from a great height even after he started using a wheelchair to get around. Mum would cook him Mee Sua very often, which I think he really loved. I remember defending a very precious bowl of mee sua from my sister because it was meant for Ah Kong. Even as an adult, I have a vague affection for Ah Kong. My memories of him are pretty fragmented, but I know that I prattled endlessly to him every once in a while in a vague attempt to understand what he was saying. I also remember thinking that his wheelchair was the greatest thing in the world.

Mummy and my sister have told me a lot of stories about Ah Kong and Ah Mah. I wish they had lived longer so that I could have really gotten to know them better, but I’m glad that they were who they were because they sound like really good people.

Scene: A kitchen inside a studio apartment. A pot of brown sugar in water is boiling on the stove. Cooler Becky rapidly stirs the boiling sugar with a Le Creuset spatula¹. The Swedish Chef’s theme song is playing in the background.

Cooler Becky: I wonder if this sugar has caramelised yet…

Cooler Becky starts to stick her index finger into the pot.

Cooler Becky’s Brain: CARAMEL FORMS AT 200 DEGREES! THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA! ABORT! ABORT!

It is too late. Cooler Becky’s finger makes contact with aforementioned hot boiling sugar goo ².

Cooler Becky: AAAAAAAAAAUGH! YAROO! OW!

Cooler Becky sticks burned finger into mouth, burning her tongue in the process.

Cooler Becky: ARRGHARGGHGGHGLE!

Somedays, I wonder if I ever had a brain to begin with.

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¹Good for up to 350 degrees, apparently. Got two of these for Christmas. BEST. GIFT. EVER.
²SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Sugar at the caramel stage has properties similar to that of molten glass. DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME, AT WORK OR AT ALL.

This morning, I woke up to find some sort of unknown goo in my nostrils and that I’m cold.

I hate the flu season. If someone within New South Wales so much as even coughs in my general direction, I inevitably get completely sick.

What annoys me the most is that I’ve already HAD my flu shot and it never works!

*Depression*

I’m going to curl up here with a hot drink.

With two subjects at University and a part-time job to handle, this song is what’s been playing on my radio of late.

Today’s Sweet Sunday is brought to you by America!

In June of 2006, Comedy Central‘s most famous US Republican political journalist and host of the Colbert Report¹, Stephen Colbert, was named one of TIME’s top 100 most influential people in the world. Since then, Stephen has been working very hard to claw his way to the top of the list, but has been repeatedly deposed by Korean pop-star sensation and star of the famous K-dorama, Full House, Rain.

In May 2007, Stephen decided to bring the fight over to Korea with his ground breaking record, He’s Singin’ in Korean.  The song has since gone on to become one of the most famous songs in the world, with Stepmania choreography and top record hits.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
He’s Singing in Korean
www.colbertnation.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:182950
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Vote Stephen Colbert in the TIME 100 and show AMERICA your support!

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¹Pronounced Col-BEAR Re-PORE.

I’ll admit that ever since Project Runway went to air, I’ve started to pay a little more attention to fashion. This isn’t to say that I love fashion – far from it. I simply have a little more appreciation for the designs that go into the clothes I wear.  One of my favourite contestants on Project Runway is the world’s campiest designer, Austin Scarlett.

I love Austin.  He’s gayer than a basketful of kittens over a rainbow.  Even his name is absolutely fabulous. Every time Austin graces the screen, his hair is immaculate and his makeup even more so.

His designs are great too.  There’s something about the frilly froufrouness of his dresses that makes the little girl inside me squeal with joy¹.  Unfortunately, Austin never did make it to the finals of the series, the judges having tired of his design aesthetic in the episode just preceding the selection of the top three finalists.

I recently discovered that since the show, Austin designed some wedding gowns for Kenneth Pool’s 2007 collection – Kenneth Pool being one of those highly expensive haute coutoure dress companies of the same ilk as Vera Wang and Vivienne Westwood.  So, crazed fan of the show that I am, I decided to check them out.

After looking at gown after gown in the Kenneth Pool collection, I started to think about the kind of wedding dress I’d be wearing at my own wedding.

Will I even have a wedding?  How on earth would the logistics for such a wedding work?  Would I have it in Singapore or Australia?  What if my husband-to-be were from the USA?  That would increase the number of possible wedding venues by a factor of 1.5!  Would my friends fly over to Singapore for a wedding?  Would my family fly to Australia for a wedding?

By the time I started thinking about bridesmaids, I realised that my wedding will still be a long way off.  I suppose all girls dream of walking down the aisle. Pursuing a career is all well and good, but there will always be that unspoken pressure on girls to get married someday. Even I want to marry someone I love someday, raise a family and settle down. It’s nice to dream.

Incidentally, the wedding dress trend of tight fishtail butt bodices that explode into a pile of lace and feathers (pictured right) needs to stop.  It does the model no favours and it won’t do any favours for a normally proportioned woman either².

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¹Though I have to admit that I was not in love with that bizzare wedding gown that he designed in Episode 5.  What on Earth was he smoking when he made that?
²Seriously, it looks like as if someone took some cords and tied her knees and thighs together, then stuck her in some white sacking.

One of the great things about having a Flying, Cooking and Gardening Mama in your house is that you don’t really have to cook when she’s visiting and you’ll still be able to enjoy every meal. This is especially true for my mother, who is an excellent cook. She could probably turn out a three-course meal from a handful of gravel under a rock.

This is not to say that I am a bad cook. It’s just that I happen to specialise in desserts. Ask me to bake a cake, make a pie or whip up an ice cream, and I will gladly oblige. Ask me to cook anything more complicated than the most basic of stews and I will have to respectfully decline on the basis that I lack the skills¹. Anyway, my oddly clumsy cooking style has led my mother to request that I indulge in kitchen activities only when she is not present so that she need not constantly fear for my life/fingers every time I start cooking.

Who am I to argue with logic like that?

The absolute best thing about this whole situation is that Mum has fully stocked my fridge with her brand of home cooked meals so that I won’t starve while she’s away visiting the Floriade² in Canberra³ with my Aunt and Uncle. It’s really nice to know that she cares for me so much that she’d do something like that.

It’s really quiet in the house while she’s gone, but I can still feel her presence through her tasty food.

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¹Besides, I don’t really like the way oil sputters in a pan as if it were plotting to spray all over you and cover you with burns. It’s up to something, I’m sure of it.
²Gardening Mama was pretty angry that I killed all her plants, so she’s going to stock up on more plants for me to kill.
³People used to say that Canberra was the most boring state in Australia. I didn’t believe them. Until I actually went to Canberra.

Today’s Sweet Sunday is inspired by Gaijin Chronicles, a blog about the trials and tribulations of Azrael, an African-Californian in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme.

Even though the song is annoyingly repetitive and comes from a fairly mediocre anime, I love this video. To me, it’s a work of art.

The main reason why I like this video so much is because (like any good music video should¹) it tells a great story. There’s just something about the idea that tough, yakuza-like highschool boys would duke it out over a piece of yakisoba bread that keeps me amused. The singer, Tokito Ami, isn’t exactly one of Japan’s A-list celebrities, she’s really only made five singles, most of which were for anime, but she really shines in this video. There’s just something about the innocent way she manages to bounce down those hallways behind the psychotic boy who’s busy beating up the entire student body that makes me keep watching this video over and over again.

The fake kung-fu choreography is great too! Even their expressions are hilarious. Check the freeze frame that they have at 1:18 to 1:25. If you look closely, you’ll notice that those guys aren’t actually paused – they’re literally standing in a hallway, holding as still as they can while the camera pans around them twice and keeping the dumbest expressions on their faces for the entire time.

I hate to admit it, but Tokito Ami’s pre-packaged cuteness is probably also a deciding factor. I’m intensely jealous of the woman. I wish I was capable of pulling off that sweet and cheerful meganekko look.

Then again, maybe I don’t. I kinda like me the way I am.

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¹…but don’t for some reason. Hip-hoppers and R&B singers, I’m glaring at you in particular. You’ve ruined the music video scene with your annoying gyrating women and lack of storyline.