You know, I always thought that it is not good for me to be anti-social. If you know me in real life, you know that I hate going out, I hate hanging out with people other than my closest friends and I especially hate wedding invitations.

Why Ren? Why?! Wedding is such a beautiful event! You are just bitter because you don’t even have a boyfriend!

Because I need to socialize with stupid adults a.k.a family friends. I always thought that it is bad for me to be a social recluse because it is important to meet people and network (it is also how you get boyfriends and being anti-social is the reason why I am still single).

However, I finally know the reason why I am a social recluse and it is a good reason: I wanted to avoid morons. Recently, I went to a wedding. Met an obese man who is also a family friend. Of course, I can’t avoid him because some people just don’t get the message that you do not want to talk to them. Conversation went like this:

Obese Man: You’re back! No class? I thought you are in that university currently ranked one of the best in the world?
Renetta: It is my winter break.
Obese Man: Oh really? Is it a winter break or did you get expelled because you can’t keep up? Tee hee.
Renetta: It is my winter break. And no, they won’t expel me because I am not a moron like you.
Obese Man: Hahaha! You know what I like to tell my nieces? Don’t study too hard; they won’t get anywhere because they are women. They can’t get far.
Renetta: I feel sorry for all your niece. They have a [insert extreme Malaysian Hokkien swearing word here] as an uncle.
Obese Man: What did you say?
Renetta: You heard me. Just stop talking.

These types of conversations happened quite often in a wedding ceremony. I decided to post this one because it is recent and it shows that this man is a sexist pig. But then again, he is not very well-educated; he never even got the chance to enter a local university because his grades are so bad that they rejected his application. You tend to expect such ignorant comments from dumbasses like him. Just to make myself feel better, I told myself that he is just jealous that I got a chance to study in a university of my choice.

There is also another type of adults that I hate: provokers. Provokers are dumb people with low-self esteem who loves to make annoying comments about you because it makes them feel good. Here is a conversation between my mom and one of her moronic colleagues:

Moron: (talking about a student who is currently studying in his alma mater; this student created an iPad application that can help track criminals) Which university your daughter is in? [Insert my university name here]? Hah! They don’t even have students like this guy over here.
Mom: My daughter’s university ranked higher than your alma mater. Get over it and stop trying to provoke me.
Moron: Ah whatever, but it is not even in the top 10.
Mom: Whatever it is, my daughter is better than you, you fucking moron!
Moron: *startled* *walks away quietly* (certainly did not expect the “fucking moron” part)

*sobs* Proud of mom; She got balls of steel!

I am very loyal when it comes to my university. Who doesn’t, right? I am sure that you are proud about which university you came from. Doesn’t matter which university it is. You would always be proud with it because it will always be very close to your heart; it is another important chapter in your life and it is where you meet your secondary family members. And listening that this guy is trying to talk shit about my university, it certainly pissed me off. And my mom? She is just a tiger mother who is protecting her baby cub from being taunt by this loser.

Oh well, it doesn’t matter which university I came from anyway. What matter is the individual themselves. You can be a graduate from one of the top universities but if you are not a motivated person who is not interested in challenging yourself to do awesome things, that piece of paper you achieved from your university will just be a normal piece of paper.

If you visited my blog before, I did disclosed which university I am currently studying in on my about page. I removed it since I don’t want to disclose my location.

My mom is similar to me; she doesn’t like to socialize as well. I guess her reason is the same as mine: we want to avoid morons.

But then again, the term “social recluse” or “anti-social” is not always valid when you are describing Renetta Renula. I turned into a social butterfly when I am in a conference; it excites me when I see people that shares the same interest as me and I just want to talk to them more and get to know them.

If you plan to get married in the next few weeks or few months, please don’t invite me. xoxo

Entertainment

1. Watch a musical in Singapore called Wicked. It is my first time ever watching a musical; I never watch one before. Surprise, surprise… I love it! I plan to watch more musical in the future: Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, etc.



2. I travelled to Portland, Oregon last November. I went there for the Grace Hopper Conference and it was fun. I met a lot of interesting people here; people who shared the same interest as you. I managed to see the city as well. Oregon is beautiful!





3. I went to the Universal Studios in Singapore and tried out all of the rides there. Apparently, they have a new ride but I haven’t try that one yet. I was planning to go last month but it was raining heavily in Singapore and Malaysia. It is not the best time to go. I might go again this summer.



4. Got myself a new MacBook Pro. I am now an Apple fangirl. I have been using windows since I was born. I LOVE MAC!

Games
I beat a few games last year. Despite being a gamer, I don’t play as much last year since I don’t really have the time to play. But, here are the lists of the games that I managed to play (and beat the last boss to a pulp).

1. Assassin’s Creed 2

   

   I never played the first one since I don’t really like this sorts of games. But I bought Assassin’s Creed 2 one day and decided to try it out. Initially, I disliked the gameplay since it was slow and boring. I even complained on Facebook that I don’t see why this game is famous since it extremely slow. However, some of my geeky friends urge me to give it a second chance and play the game until Chapter 5 or so. Surprisingly, the storyline gets pretty interesting and I started enjoying it once I started to assassinate some characters. Although I had a rough time understanding the storyline (since I didn’t play the first one), it doesn’t really affect my gameplay and I still enjoyed the game. If I have the time, I wanted to try out the first Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed brotherhood. I bought Assassin’s Creed revelation but haven’t tried it. I was hoping to beat Assassin’s Creed Revelation last month but I don’t have time since I was busy with Dead Space and Dead Space 2.

2. Dead Space and Dead Space 2

   

   Dead Space is pure awesome. I love Resident Evil and Silent Hill’s series. Unfortunately, Resident Evil 5 is not that scary anymore. It doesn’t retain its original horror genre. It feels more like a war game like Battlefield or Call of Duty. Dead space, however, is really awesome. It was a nail-biting experience. Enemies will jump at you unexpectedly; I get quite jumpy after playing the game for about an hour. It is quite addictive since it has a good storyline; you would want to play it till the end just to know the ending.

   There is one down side though; the final boss fight for Dead Space 2 is not as awesome as Dead Space. However, Dead Space 2 has more cinematic bost fights compared to Dead Space and Dead Space 2 is scarier as the main character keeps on hallucinating. Non-stop adrenaline rush when I played this one. It took 5 days for me to finish both of them.

3. Shadows of the Damned

   

   What is it like walking around in hell with just your “Johnson”? This game is a fun one and it has such a weird storyline. Garcia (main character) wants to save his girlfriend from Fleming, king of the underworld. It has a lot of profanity and sexual innuendos; It makes the game even more enjoyable. My favorite character is, of course, Johnson, Garcia’s sidekick (the gun that he is holding). I have a few of my favorite parts in the game. One of them is the Big Boner chapter where we get to shoot monsters with an upgraded version of Johnson. It is another chapter filled with sexual innuendos.

   I love the music; it is composed by Akira Yamaoka, a composer that composed the songs in Silent Hill. And I also love the graphic; very vibrant in color but it has a “moody” feeling to it at the same time. There are a few downsides; the game control is a little weird. Also, you don’t get to replay the game with all of your upgraded weapons. Therefore, it is useless to play the game multiple times since there is no point in playing the game more than once without those upgraded weapons. Upgraded weapons are important to me if I want to play the game more than once.

School Life
It is always important to network. Most importantly, be nice to your seniors. I managed to gain so many experience because some of them love my work and they either suggest me to the professors (who are looking for research assistants or web developers) or take me as an intern to work on their projects. Which reminds me, I need to send each of my seniors a thank you note for giving me a helping hand. Some of them gave me really good advice and I appreciate that. I do love my seniors. As for my juniors, that is another story. *coughtheyaresoannoyingcough*

1. A paid internship with one of my seniors (he is an alumni). He asked me to create a prototype for a web application that he plans to work on. I learn more about jQuery and Backbone.js. It was such a good experience!
2. Worked with the Computer Science department on their website. Again, I have to thank one of my seniors for giving me the opportunity to work with him.
3. I get to be a Teaching Assistant last semester. It was my first time since I never had any experience in working as a teaching assistant before. I was the Teaching Assistant for statistical reasoning and practice. Again, a good experience. Grading papers are both hard and annoying, believe me!
4. My GPA for both Spring and Fall semester last year: 3.75 and 4.0. I hope I can keep it up and maintain my performance.
5. Mom had to buy me both an iPad and a MacBook Pro because she is happy and proud!
6. Professors telling me straight up in the face that they are impressed with my work. It motivates me to work harder.

Life as a Bitch
Because life can’t be wonderful all the time. Why? Because not all people you interact with are nice; some are extremely stupid, dumb and can’t keep their mouth shut. For example:

1. Mr. Twat who told some of my classmates that I told another student to do my homework for me. Mr twat is just a below average student who majors in Business Administration. You can read the whole story here. Listen, I have nothing against BA students. In fact, some of my friends are majoring in Business Administration and they are brilliant. I can’t say the same thing about Mr Twat though. I guess he is just a jealous bitch who can’t accept the fact that I am better than him. Seriously, his allegations are not even logical to begin with. Seriously? Me? An Asian student who is raised by a tiger mother would ask someone to do my work for me? Mr Twat is not only dumb but he is also ignorant about the fact that most Asian students are just plain hardworking and they can ace almost everything effortlessly (you’ll know that I am talking about the common stereotype that Asians are just plain smart)



2. Lady Gremlin. Where do I begin with this bitch? Talked shit about my family on her blog and her father ignored it and said it is the “freedom of expression” but when I started to express my feelings about her openly on Facebook, he got pissed. Such double standards! Oh, the irony! He is not that smart for a doctor me thinks. Can’t even understand the concept of “free speech” and “freedom of expression”. After sending him back an extremely long private message explaining what exactly is the freedom of expression and why I have the rights to express myself as well and also telling him that he is a shitty parent because he had raised an ugly child (inside and out; I emphasized more on the “inside” though. Don’t care much about “outside”.), he finally told her to delete her blog and she did. We are not talking to each other but I guess it is better this way. It is better not to associate yourself with such a person. This is such an important event to me because I don’t have to act all hypocritical and be nice in front of them. Her blog opens the Pandora’s box but I think it happens for a reason. I can finally tell him how I feel about him, his daughter and their whole family. I don’t have to put up a fake smile anymore; it is so liberating.

Last but not least… Rogue-Dolls
I changed my blogging theme last year and you are looking at it now. It got popular and most of my visitors love it. I got featured many times in CSS galleries and design blogs. I just want to say thank you to all of you who had featured my blog on your website/galleries. It does give me a lot of exposure and it helps me gain many new readers. I even receive many job offers through my blog but I have to decline them since my top priority is to study and learn as much as I can for now. I know that most of my visitors are probably not interested when it comes to reading about my life update and my adventures. I also seldom post helpful articles that would help retain my visitors. But knowing that they love my design and my blogging theme and that I can inspire others to start designing – that really makes me happy. Thanks guys, it really means a lot to me. Thank you to all the sites mentioned below:

1. CSSMania
2. Vandelay Design
3. WeLoveWP
4. CssGirl
5. Blog Design Lab
6. Noupe
7. Entheosweb
8. Web Design Showcase

…and to all the sites/galleries that I may have forgotten to include here.

Even though the current blog theme receives a lot of praise, it does receive some criticism as well. This thought me a very important lesson; not everyone is going to enjoy your design. At the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some designers even gave me a list on what I should change about my current theme design (including the way I blog since this blog contains a lot of profanity Some even ask why my picture only shows my mouth). I was about to re-design my blog but I changed my mind. While I value their criticism, I have the rights to choose whether to accept it or not. Their criticism is their opinion and not all opinions are correct. I am happy with my current blogging theme and I designed based on my own input and whatever makes me happy. If people enjoy it, I’ll be extremely happy. If they don’t, I’ll still be happy as well. I don’t see the need of designing based on other people’s opinion or input since it is MY BLOG. It belongs to me. You can’t please everyone.

Jascha Heifetz, a violinist that I adore, is regarded as one of the greatest violinist. And believe me, he does put a lot of emotions in the songs that he played. Even with such a talent, he is still not immune to criticism. So, even if you are awesome, not everyone is going to like your work. So, just move on and don’t stop doing what you do best.

He is not the only one who thinks high heels are for air-headed girls. I was pointing out a girl who was wearing a 5 inch heels to another friend of mine:

Ren: Check out that high heels on that girl! That is pretty cute! Some of the girls here are pretty fashionable.

Friend: Yeah. The height of their heels are inversely proportional to their brain.

I don’t agree with him that high heels are only meant for girls who are not academically gifted. Geeky girls who are fashion conscious can wear them too. However, I can’t help but notice that there is a bit of truth in what he was saying. I noticed that most of the intelligent girls (who often get into dean’s list or are widely known for their talent in their own respective majors) tend to wear flat shoes, flip flops or plain sandals. Most of the girls who are not as academically gifted (some are very moronic) tend to wear high heels that are no less than 3 inches high. I know that this is very stereotypical since it is a just based on my daily observations but I hate to think that some of my friends believe high heels are only for dumb girls just because they seldom see geeky or smart girls in heels.

As one of the studious students, I have to say that I do not like wearing heels because it is just not practical. I love wearing flats; it is very convenient: slide in, slide out and just run whenever you are late for class. I won’t be able to run to my classes in a 5 inch heels right? I guess this is how most of the studious students feel. We value practicality and we don’t give a damn about our looks. At least I don’t and I don’t mind walking to class with my pyjamas.

Two days ago, I went to a premium outlet here and I can’t take my eyes off from this nice pair of high heels. I try it out and it fits me. I tried walking with it for a bit and it wasn’t so bad. The sole of the shoe attracted me the most since it is really unique and it seduced me. I just can’t resist and ended up buying them.

Hi assholes. Would you like me to print this sole on your face? If you do, please keep on talking. – Ren’s thoughts when she first saw the heels.

And yes, it is a 5 inch heels. And yes, I am going to put them on and walk, walk, walk. I have been told many times that I am tall for an Asian girl. I stand at 5’8″ and that is around 173cm according to Wolfram Alpha. So, wearing this heels would definitely boost up my height even more. Mom told me that I look at least 6 foot tall with those heels on.

Personally, I don’t think so high heels are only meant for dumb girls and I don’t think girls who loves wearing them are dumb. My aunt loves wearing heels and she is one of the smartest women that I know. I guess I should just put this heels on and show them that stereotyping girls based on their shoes are just stupid. Besides, there is no harm in looking sexy once in a while, don’t you think?

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

The CSS
So let me share the CSS code first. You can tweak it the way you want it. I’ll just share the current version of CSS that I have for this code snippet.

/* Main Style for the Tags */
span.user-tag {
	font-size:9.5px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	-webkit-border-radius:2px;
	-moz-border-radius:2px;
	border-radius:2px;
	padding:1px 2px;
}
/* Post Author Tag (That'll be you) */
span.user-tag.bypostauthor {
	background:#fe57a1;
	bottom:2px;
	color:#FFF;
	font-size:9.5px;
	margin-left:5px;
	position:relative;
	padding:3px 5px;
}
/* Best Buds Tag (That'll be your friends) */
span.user-tag.bestbuds {
	background:#204117;
	bottom:2px;
	color:#FFF;
	font-size:9.5px;
	margin-left:5px;
	position:relative;
	padding:3px 5px;
}

The functions.php
This is where the fun begins! You should put this code in your functions.php. Put each of your commenters’ email in an array. We will use their emails to determine who’s who on your blog, just like Gravatar. We will use a WordPress built-in function to get the commenter’s email: get_comment_author_email($comment).

Group them by their categories. In my case, I group them as “blogging buddy”, “best buds”, etc. Then, you can just display the HTML span line according to each group. You can achieve this by using conditional statement (if/else).

function bones_user_tag($comment) {
   // Blogging buddy array
   $blogging_buddy = array('someone@something.net', 'b@aa.net');
   // Best buds array
   $best_buds = array('someone@something.net', 'some@some.net');
   // Blogging buddy and best buds array
   $blogging_buddy_and_best_buds = array('b@aa.net');
   // Conditional Statement starts here
   // Comment Author/Blog Owner
   if (1 == $comment->user_id) {
    echo '<span class="user-tag bypostauthor">Author</span>';
   // Blogging Buddy
    } elseif (in_array(get_comment_author_email($comment), $blogging_buddy)) {
       echo '<span class="user-tag popularcommenter">Blogging Buddy</span>';
   // My Mom. Did not use any arrays here. I only have one mom   I just use the old '==' sign
   } elseif (get_comment_author_email($comment) == "something@gmail.com") {
       echo '<span class="user-tag mom">Hello Mommy!</span>';
   // My Best Buds
   } elseif (in_array(get_comment_author_email($comment), $best_buds)) {
       echo '<span class="user-tag bestbuds">Best Buddy</span>';
   // My best buds who happened to be my blogging buddy as well
   } elseif (in_array(get_comment_author_email($comment), $blogging_buddy_and_best_buds)) {
       echo '<span class="user-tag popularcommenter">Blogging Buddy</span>';
       echo '<span class="user-tag bestbuds">Best Buddy</span>';
   }
}

We will first check if the comment belongs to the blog owner. If it doesn’t, it will go through the elseif line. We use the in_array method to check whether the array contains the commenter’s email. in_array(get_comment_author_email($comment), $best_buds) code will check whether $best_buds array contains the commenter’s email. If it returns true, it will show the colored tags. Otherwise, it will return nothing.

Calling the Function
After you had created the function, you need to call it somewhere. You call it next to where you would output your commenter’s name. This is how my comments function look like. The newly added function is highlighted in grey.

<article id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>" class="clearfix">
  <header class="comment-author vcard">
      <?php echo get_avatar($comment,$size='50',$default='<path_to_url>' ); ?>
      <?php printf(__('<cite class="fn">%s</cite>'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
      <time datetime = "<?php echo get_comment_date('c'); ?>"><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars( get_comment_link( $comment->comment_ID ) ) ?>"><?php printf(__('%1$s'), get_comment_date(),  get_comment_time()) ?></a></time>
      <?php edit_comment_link(__('(Edit)'),'  ','') ?>
      // user tag function is added here:
      <?php bones_user_tag($comment); ?>
      </header>

My comment code may look different than yours but you get the idea: just call the function next to your commenters’ name. Call it like this: <?php bones_user_tag($comment); ?>

What if your one of your commenters have multiple role? For example, Flippy Doodle here is both my blogging buddy and one of my best buds (we know each other in real life).

In this case, I just create an array named $blogging_buddy_and_best_buds and just use the in_array function again to check whether the commenter’s email match any of the array values. I included this in the code snippet above. You can refer to it or download the file that is provided for you.

Anyway, try this out and see if it works. Post your questions here if you have one. In the mean time, I’ll try and make the code above more elegant. It was a quick hack anyway. Happy tagging! (I think it is about time that I change the style of my pre code tag. It makes the code look messy and hard to read. Sorry if you have trouble reading them. Just download the file above if you must. )

School Life
Well, I am not really looking forward to next semester (as always). I have this core course that I am a bit nervous about; it is a project based course and it involves group work. Group members are assign to you and you don’t get to choose them. Well, lets hope I get into a good group. It is not that I am difficult to work with. In fact, I am a team player but I am nervous about getting group members who are lazy and are not motivated at all. See, I don’t mind getting shitty colleagues or group member once I am out there in the work force; at least you are getting paid to work with assholes. But I am going to keep a very optimistic attitude next semester regardless of the types of group members that I have. I believe that I am capable to fend for myself (and for them). I need an idea for an awesome web application though. Give me some ideas, please?

Patience is Virtue
Despite trying hard to be “zen” this semester, I had failed miserably in trying to be patient. I noticed that I get increasingly temperamental and easily agitated towards the end of the semester. I yelled at two students because they unplugged my laptop without my permission when I was in the loo and make sarcastic or rude remarks at those who annoys me. I also ended up “lecturing” a group member for being incompetent since he cancelled an important meeting at the very last moment.

It is not that I am not trying my best. I do try to be patient and it seems to work during the beginning and the middle of the semester. Towards the end of the semester, everything started to get hectic and my tolerance level dropped down to 0. I’ll try harder next time.

Travel
I went to Portland, Oregon last month and it was a fun trip. I do believe that I tend to underestimate my own potential at times. I missed 4 days of classes and was freaking out that I won’t be able to do well in my next exam (I had an exam the next day after I arrived home. No time to see the professor for advise) and I had 2 programming assignments due. To my surprise, I managed to do well in my assignments and I did well for the exam despite preparing last minute at the airport.

The conference in Portland taught me a lot about the importance of having self confidence. It is not that I am not confident but I do have that occasional depressing moment where I will underestimate my own potential. According to the conference, this is pretty normal especially among young ladies. I will blame it on my period and my mood swings (PMS)

I plan to travel to Thailand next month. Hope I managed to get tickets!

Intense Craving for…
A hot guy in my bed ANIME! Gosh, I missed watching anime so much. For some weird reason, I missed watching Bleach. I thought I was over it since the story line is not consistent anymore and it is a bore but I guess I’ll try and watch a few recent episodes and check out some spoilers. Planning to watch other anime too. Give me suggestions on what anime to watch if you have one…

Love Life

Pretty much non-existent. I think I should get out more and be a bit more social. Recently, I saw a picture of my ex-boyfriend. He looked pretty ripped now. Why can’t he looked that way when we were dating?! And why did I dumped him again?! Looking good is always the best revenge.

1. Navigate to WordPress WP-Admin
I know that I won’t be able to log in but I was curious so I decided to check out how the WP-login page would look like when my blog just crashed. Weird timing to be curious, isn’t it?

WordPress is sweet enough to tell me to define the WP_Debug on my wp-config.php file so that they can help me find out my main problem. Being curious is good. After defining WP_Debug on my wp-config.php file, I found out that my WP_Options table needs to be repair.

So, when you are receiving a white screen that says: “Error Establishing a Database Connection”, define the WP-Debug in your config file. Your WP_options table may or may not be the source of the problem. For this entry, I’ll just focus on the WP_Options table.

2. Repair WP_Options through PHPMyAdmin or WordPress
If I am not mistaken, WordPress will prompt you and ask for your permission to allow them to repair your database automatically. I can’t remember whether they did prompt me or not. Maybe they did and I probably repaired my table twice. What I did remember was navigating to my CPanel and repair the table through PHPMyAdmin. I think it is easier to repair it through WordPress and do it through WordPress if they prompt you.

3. You may or may not receive the blank screen of death
After repairing my database, I refreshed my site. WordPress blank screen of death. Nothing showed up. Just white all over! My wp-admin page is blank too. Oops! So, I checked my wp-config.php file. I screwed it up a bit when I was defining the WP-Debug line; it was missing the PHP closing tag: ?>

If missing a PHP closing tag is not the case for you, head over to HighTechDad and read through it. Try all options: rename plugins file, check wp-config.php and wp-settings.php

4. Check the number of records in WP-Options table
I tried to figure what causes my WP_Options table to crash by making a wild guess: my WP_Options table might be bloated by unnecessary records. I might have too many records in my WP_options table.

I am using the WP-DBManager plugin by Lester Chan. It tells me the number of record that I have for each of my tables. You can also do this via phpMyAdmin.

So, do you have more than 500 records in WP_Options table? No? Then skip the next point and go straight to point number 6. Yes? Continue reading!

5. Install The “Clean Options” Plugin
You need this in order to clean your WP_Options table and delete all the records that you are not currently using anymore. Why do you need to do this?

I activated and deactivated lots of plugins before on my blog. See, when you deactivate a plugin, it just stops the plugin from working but it doesn’t really delete their database records. Some of these unused plugin records are left in the WP_Options table. I am well aware of this before but I couldn’t be bothered to actually clean the unused records in my database.

The clean options plugin will help you find all the “orphaned records” for you. If you had deactivated a plugin before, I suggest you to use this plugin and clean up your database records. But I strongly suggest that you back up your database first before you do this. You do not need to delete ALL of the orphaned records. Sometimes, other records are mistakenly identified as “orphaned” when it is not. So, make sure to Google each of the record names before you delete it.

I had over 900 records before I used this plugin. I only have 296 records in my table now.

6. Identify the Problem
See, I am not even sure if the high number of records in my WP_Options table is the main reason why my table crashed. After researching more, high number or records in your table is one of the problem that can cause your table to crash. I read that bad plugins or bad themes can crash your table as well.

I am still researching more about this but if you know something about this, don’t hesitate to comment and I’ll add your suggestions up here too.

Crying Babies
It is really annoying to have babies crying loudly in the plane especially when you are trying to sleep. It makes me want to smack the hell out of these babies! I travel a lot and most of time, I will always experience babies crying non-stop. Most of the time, I just give the parents a dirty look or glare at them angrily…like an owl.

The Friendly Stranger
People are so friendly sometimes especially when they are travelling alone. They would talk to you even if you are not interested in listening to them since you are too sleepy. So, I had this guy (who has Halitosis, btw) who sat next to me in a flight to Malaysia once. He was travelling alone and he would not stop talking when I was trying to just ignore him and sleep. He talks about how he named his daughter based on a Lord of The Rings character and about his work, etc. I put up with him (and his breath!) for 30 minutes until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I just told him to Ssshhhh cause I need to Zzzzz…

Dirty Lavatories
This is inevitable; we share the lavatories and some people are just so rude and disgusting. They won’t clean it up properly after they used it.

Smelly Feet
It is comfortable taking off your shoes in the airplane but some people have nasty smelling feet. They should soak it in vinegar! Sometimes, this is inevitable too. I always carry a surgical mask with me when I travel. There are two reasons for this:

1. I do not need to smell their nasty feet.
2. I save myself from the embarrassment of others watching me when I am sleeping with my mouth open! This happens when I am extremely exhausted. Sleeping with your mouth open is not sexy, Renetta!

Alright, I’ll be doing some last minute packing. I plan to blog about the conference but it depends on whether I have the time or not. I hope the 18+ hours flight would be as painless as possible. Wishful thinking.. wishful thinking…

I never watch short stories before and I never know that I might enjoy it. After watching these short stories, I noticed that I enjoy short stories more than the typical mainstream films. I got bored after 40 minutes of watching a mainstream film (unless if the movie is really good). Short stories are extremely short (duh!); each last for about 10 to 15 minutes. I ended up craving for more after one of the stories end; just can’t get enough because the film is too short! So which one did I enjoyed the most?

MISTER ROCOCO by Naoto Hidaka

This is a hilarious short story about a girl who loves cute things. She only owns things that are cute. She do activities that she thinks is cute, e.g shopping for a cute dress. Everything that she owns is PINK and cute. She met a boyfriend who dumps her later on and this force her to do something that is totally unexpected; something that a typical cute girly girl will not do.

I love how the story line is totally random but it is very entertaining and hilarious too! Spoilers are above if you really want to know what happen. I recommend you to watch it if you are a big fan of comedy and J-Drama.

Frog in the Well by Ken Ochiai

This is quite different from the first one. It is not a comedy and it is based on a true story about a man fulfilling his dead mother’s wish; she wants him to spread her ashes throughout the places that she adored in Japan. The film chronicles the man’s journey by combining photographs and motion pictures with Ochiai’s narration about his journey.

I love the method that Ochiai used in order to tell the audience about his emotional journey; he tells his stories mostly through photographs that he had taken. He explored himself and discovered things that he was not aware of by travelling. Towards the end, he discovers that his mother’s true motive was to get him to explore Japan by spreading her ashes throughout the country.

One downside of this film is that the flickering of the photographs makes me feel a bit dizzy. It is an overkill and he had use it too much. However, I understand why he had use this method to tell his story; it is a very stylistic way to chronicle one’s captured memories.

This short film almost made me cry since it is so sad! I love my mommy even more now.

SUSHI JAPAN by Kenji Tanaka

Another short story that is hilarious but has a totally random story line. It is about these 4 men who are eating sushi in a restaurant. I don’t know how to describe the story line since it doesn’t really have one. It is just about those 4 men eating sushi. Still entertaining though.

Smile Bus by Park Sang-joon

This short film is in Korean but it was set in Japan. This film is about a Korean girl who left Korea and went to Japan in order to become a tour guide for visiting Koreans to Japan. Her ex-boyfriend followed her to Japan since he wanted to win her back. Basically, it is about a lovesick ex-boyfriend trying to win his ex-girlfriend back.

I don’t really like this one since it is predictable and it doesn’t really bring anything new to the audience. The story line is not really that interesting either. I included this one because I feel that it is educational and I get to learn about a Japanese tradition that I’ve never heard of. In Enoshima, you can ring a bell called Ryuren-no-Kane with your other half so that your love will last forever.

Verdict
I love short films more than I love mainstream ones.

Check out Techority, a tutorial site run by Peach Pellen. She is a programmers specializing in iPhone application development. She is also a certified Corona developer and she provides free tutorials on how to use Corona and Lua to develop iPhone applications.

I have no background in developing an iPhone application. My main focus is just web application, for now. But I am planning to try something new and I will definitely come back to this website and learn a thing or two from Peach! I am always curious, which is quite a pain sometimes.

I saw a quote one day and it pissed me off. It says: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Logically it does not make any sense because if I like to walk naked around the house (because that is what I do if I am being myself), my mom would mind and she does matter!!!

I just realized that it is not a matter of “doing something”. The quote is saying that you can say whatever you want to say and it doesn’t matter if people judge you. BUT! If I say that lady gremlin is a smelly, ugly and a dumb bitch (because that is what I do if I am being myself), my grandma would mind and she does matter!

I mellowed down a lot on Facebook nowadays. Just don’t post as much weird and rude (well, not that rude) stuff as I used to. I’ve matured and I am now a very demure and kind young lady (HAHAHAHAAHAHAAA!!!)