j * m e

[Jamie-Diane Time]

-Diane-

Currently at Jamie's house right now *specifically in her room*. Huzzah! I think it's been months since we've actually hung out. Jamie and I decided yesterday that today was that day... Yes everyone, the awaited Jamie-Diane time. We went to the guildford rec first and worked out at the gym. 20 min treadmill, 20 min elliptical and after I did some sit-ups *while Jamie watched*. We went over to the mall as well and then bought some stuff at aeropostale. Jamie got a sweater and I got some swim shorts and capris (or rather jean shorts as Jamie calls them). We caught the C74 back to Fraser Heights and then went to visit Noog. Ahh teacher's are so fun. We talked with Mr. Derbyshire, Mrs. Bicknel and Noog (Mr. Pocock and Mr. D'Alfonso stopped by for a little as well). They're so cool, there's no sense of awkwardness when talking to them. You can just be open and chat as if you're talking to friends. Headed over to Jamie's house after to watch The Pianist. Je no likie the ending! >=( hmph. Other than that though twas a good day haha. I shall leave the rest of the blogging up to Jamie.

[Ecafe: 28.02.08]

Work was stupendous today. My supervisor is back so things are back to normal. She was on sick leave the past few days. Missed her!

I'm sure I've said this a thousand times but I love work lol. Makes me feel a lot more confident in myself.

Ashley was hired to be our "head chef", to teach us how to properly prepare food and how to serve it properly and stuff. We believe she's trying to take over. Supervisor says she has 'New Graduate Syndrome'. Tanner was explaining to a customer what ingredients were in one of the sandwiches I guess and realized there's a new menu up. And well. Ashley basically has her name all over it. Pretty funny. Tanner: "Is Ashley part of the menu now? I mean.. I want MY name in there.. Tanner Tuna Tuna TUNA!"

Tanner's in love with airplanes so he's turning the cafe into one. I'm gonna bring our blue cone to work next week coz he's gonna use it to yell out orders. =P

[Mongolian Grill]

I was invited to a birthday party and well... these are college people!!! And I'm not 19 yet! So I can't get into clubs!! Well, Eli's a guy I work with and he asked if I could go but yea.. pub and clubs, Jmerz can't get in. So he suggested we go have dinner downtown after class. We bussed it down to Davie Street and had Mongolian Grill all you can eat. =)

I'm not adventurous when it comes to food as many of you know. And nowadays, I'm slowly going off meat. Or at least, I think I am? I told Eli that I'm not a meat lover and he said that there's other things as well. I forget how nice it is to be down there with all the people and so many things going on. I guess it's not as lively as Singapore but in Singapore you wouldn't find as many hobos or musicians along the streets (who actually play the songs and not lip sync). I finally feel like this is what I should be doing at this point in my life. Going crazy working on videos. Hanging out. Working lots.

ANYWAY. Mongolian Grill! In my lifetime, I've had chinese, western, korean, indian, um....I guess burritos are mexican, vietnamese, ummm....japanese? little bit?

So Mongolian! lol. This place is along Davie and what happens is you grab a bowl, fill it up with meat, veggies, noodles, sauces.. etc.. and you bring it to this chef dude who takes your raw/frozen food and throws it on a huge flat grill and it's supposed to cook in 39 seconds. Lol That's silly but apparently the Mongols used to cook on their shields. Very cool. The chef has a pair of GIANT chop sticks and he just stirs it around.

Unfortunately, I still do not have my camera so I had to resort to using my phone as I have been the past month.

[Shoot Day: Ninja chase and fight]

Almost done my second quarter. Nooo I feel like it's all coming to an end already. >< Time goes by so quickly. Yesterday I started Film school. Tmr I'm graduating?!

I'm starting to feel the thrill of school and making movies. It's probably because we're getting better at it. I remember being all sad and frustrated at the beginning. Now still frustrated because I want everything to be perfect and its excruciating watching someone handle the camera unsteadily. And making uber newbie shots. I don't know. I doubt it's just me. I know I'm not pro. But yea. I just wanted to grab the camera and do my own shots. Maybe there is a director in me. It just needs to be pulled out.

Today I was the Location Audio dudette. I rocked the mixer and phones and the boom. Wootz! I have pictures and footage of -Behind the Scenes- but I'll have to upload them when I get home. D'oh I wish I could upload them now! Hmm.

Hogen has always wanted to be in the film industry. He asked if he could act in our assignments so I got him to come by today. Man. Last night Vince and I had to shoot our product shots for our infomercial. We took out a whole bunch of gear under MY name. We had the soundstage and equipment room booked for 3 hours and then a whole bunch of people came in after us. The equipment room dude didn't even ask me if the gear was going to be passed on. Well I left everything there. Vince and I were done last night at 9:30 and by the time I got home it was past 10.

We had an awesome location to shoot at. It's basically a parking lot underneath an apartment complex. It's old and creepy looking. All grey and made out of concrete. Pillars as well. Vince and I agreed that we had to shoot something there eventually when we first saw it. Not very long after we arrived there though, a lady came out of her house and stood at her balcony and yelled at us and said 2 old people live in the building and they had heart attacks and she gets complains. =S The guys thought of alternative shots along the other side which involved garbage can jumping. It would have been awesome. We left as the lady was taking pictures of us. Greaaat.

All in all, it was an awesome day. Got awesome footage. I'm quite proud of myself grabbing audio and such. Lol. I probably look like such a newb.

[Lavs]

We had a very touchy feely class today. In the past month, we've slowly begun to get a hold of the shot gun mics. Today we moved on to the lavaliere microphones. It was quite amusing watching our instructor joke and explain the proper way to confront the talent and let them know the mic-attaching-procedure. Lol It's quite the difficult thing to do if you're a male location audio dude and the talent you're setting up audio for is a female with huge boobies! Basically we had to run a wire down someone's jacket. Not quite shirt just yet. Or well.. we never got to do that in class. But our instructor did show us how people put mics in between a lady's boob lol to get good audio. He says it's sometimes quite difficult being an audio guy. But class was quite fun... even though my group screwed up our audio assignment. It's just people who don't give a crap about what they do.. yno??! Frustrates me.

[The Pohs Website]

I have this blog coz Jon set it up for me on thepohs.com. And he recently started a wordpress blog so any one of the -pohs- can write what they want. Kind of like a bulletin board. So far, no one has written anything. Well except Jon and I. So...... write something!

[Standy Uppy]

Last time I coloured my hair the typical orangey....reddy...tint like most chinese or taiwanese or koreans do. It's actually blonde since my hair's black. That's as light as it'd go.

This time I decided on something deeper... purple! Well.. blackcurrent to be precise. =D It makes the black in my hair look richer and in the light, it's purple!

I saw one of the telus ADs in the 24 that this guy was reading today. Unfortunately I didn't have a paper at hand. I wanted to grab the picture. Telus always has cute animals in their ADs. I couldn't find the picture online either so I had to settle for this cockatoo. Which is alright coz it's feathers are up high... like my hair!

[We sure are cute for two ugly people]

[Chop it all off]

I got up yesterday prepared to pay 30$ for a haircut at Champers. When I went downstairs to tell my mom I was just gonna walk out, she was gonna ask me the exact same thing. She has a friend from the multicultural social club who works at Champers so the both of us went to her place for a cut.

This happens with every hair stylist I go to: They ask what I want. I tell them short and spiky. They go at it. Snip snip snip. And I watch my hair fill the ground. But it's just not short enough. And once my hair grows just over that spiky point, it gets wavy. And strange. I stopped her this time. And told her. Shorter! So she cut off half more of what she had chopped. This is the shortest I've gone. And now I think it could go even shorter.

Brandon said he likes it. But who knows.. lol. Now I'm thinking of colouring it something funky. Like.. half and half. But Brandon said he likes it my natural colour, black?

We headed to White Spot for dinner. As a family we've only been there 2wice. Brandon really wanted the Pirate Pack. You get a kids meal that comes in a pirate ship shaped cardboard box. Lol The joy. It even comes with a chocolate coin!

[St Valentine]

2 weeks ago, Joey came up to me very very excitededed-ly and said: "Jie Jie!! For Valentine's Day, I want a new diary! Like the one you gave me last time! Like a book! And with big big lines! Coz I NEED one! OKAY?!" Lol. Okaay.

I got it on the way home a couple days ago while waiting for the bus. When I give it to her she says: "OMG Thank You!! I love these books! I don't know WHERE you get them." ...Wal-mart. Lol. Well at least she's happy. =P It's pink and has a puppy on it! =D

A.I had a dance last night: Cupid's Ball. I have yet to live the life of a college student. I feel like I'm supposed to be hanging out at school more and staying there like it's my home. And partying late and filming through the night and not coming home until the weekend and feeling that lack-of-sleep-ness that everyone else seems to be feeling. Well I AM pretty tired. And have been ever since school started. But at least I come home to my bed and sleep at least 5 hours. Those people don't sleep at all it seems. Hmm. Maybe next quarter.

The dance went on from 9pm to 12am...which was part of the reason I didn't go. The girl I work with now begged me to go coz she was being forced into it. Her plan was to get extremely drunk so she wouldn't have such a boring night. She came to work with lotsa stories lol.

I got to work this morning at 7:30. We had a sewage problem. Pipes were all backed up and leaking.. no.. flooding. We had the plumber come in with his big machine. It looked like..hmm what's it called. That clam like thing with the tongue that looks extremely gross. Or well maybe not. But he had his plumber gear; came in and took over the cafe with the loud noises and dirt and water all over the place. Yeesh. Kim, Sam and I couldn't even hear each other. We were like cave people, screaming and knocking things, making sounds.

I love work. I know I've said it before. But it's like, I go there to do the same things every time but it's always different. There's always gonna be something that will make my day there; whether it's a flood, or the interact machine dies, or we're frantically trying to serve a billion hungry students with only 2 of us working, it's fun. We stress out, we fight, we yell, we joke, we yell, we scream... we get yelled at.. lol.. Lotsa times. But yea. Always fun. I don't know how many cookies and grilled cheese sandwiches I made today. Lots.

[Silly Goose]

Brandon used to call me that. It's been so long. Today after work (I finished early today so it was still bright), I walked out to the main road and on top of one of the BCIT buildings was this goose. I don't know what it was thinking. He just stood up there... made his goose sounds.. looked around. Silly Goose

I accidentally chopped today into 2 different entries. O well. Easier on the eyes. Brandon had a midterm to write today so he told me to go home when I got off. But I figured I'd surprise him instead. Didn't hit me that 4 to 8:30 is a LONG TIME. I went to Superstore, walked around.. went to SFU.. sat there.. checked my mail... blogged.. lol. Mm and I was worried he'd walk by and leave without seeing me! So I sat by the stairs and waited. lol. He got out an hour earlier (thankfully!) and we had dinner at A&W =D. I think from now on I have to keep my money at home. Then I can't spend it on junk food. Sometimes I can sometimes I can't. It's weird. Water and yogurt only. O_O.

This is A&W. Weird eh!? The Chinese are taking over!

[Crack Book]

The first time I heard someone call Facebook, Crackbook, was in Editing. Rob hates it and gives us the stink eye whenever we're on it while he's teaching. He'll be like: "Crackbook's the devil!". I figured it was something at Ai. But nope. It's everywhere. I'm sitting in the SFU lab and there are two guys sitting next to me doing their daily-looking-through-of-crackbook.

[Film School]

I don't know if I'm allowed to post this. I'm sure the guys won't mind. Don't know about Rob though. Maybe I'll move it to photobucket.

I forgot to talk about my post last night coz I had no time but really really wanted to put it up. Well.. the quality's supposed to look way better than that youtube stuff first of all coz we were rocking the HD cameras. We went out and experimented with all the different frame rates which is why some clips are uber fast and some uber slow. I did no editing with the speeds.

[The Sandwich]

For editing, we had to do an assignment on Tension

[Jmerz SLR]

No one else would pose for me.

And Brandon would only pose for Joey

Today was a chicken pie and curry puff making day. Mmm so gooooood =)

[Cousin Da-Wei]

He laughs whenever I cough.

[Sale!?]

Why I don't like that the gap between buses is so large? Coz it gives me time to go into the mall to "wait" and look around and find crazy price drops...like this sweater I got.. from 45 down to 8! My mom didn't wanna listen to me when I told her. Ah.

[Winterfest]

I went to school yesterday thinking we had a full class. Teacher was uber sick. He gave us our midterm which we had to do in an hour and a half and told us to leave whenever. So.. in an hour, I was out.

Was supposed to bus to Coquitlam later on that day for CNY dinner at Aunty June's. But I ended up going home first which was good too coz my dad went out to get my camera for me coz Coquitlam was the ONLY place that had it still in stock. It was the last one too.

I played around with it for a couple hours and my dad talked about a bunch of things about it and showed me on the computer. I brought it upstairs to fiddle around with and found that there was a black speck in the viewfinder. Grrrrr! No, it doesn't affect the picture. But itty bitty things like this just bug me so much lol. My dad brought it back to Coquitlam today. =( Now we're waiting for new stock to come in and at a cheaper price. *Huge Sigh*

Anyway, Winterfest. While I was waiting at Surrey Central (Coz the transit system sucks so much that I have to wait 45 minutes for the next bus to arrive.), there was a fair going on in front of SFU. They had white tents set up, a stage in the court yard and a band playing. They had the Winter Olympics mascots running around. This is the only time I'll be glad that the transit system sucks. Either that or they should have more fairs by bus stops. Har....

Mascots. They are actually quite cute. I didn't think they suited the -Canadian- image but... o well. Vancouver's got lots of chinese, koreans and japanese.

Video games

Get this, this looks like ice skating. But Vancouver's not cold enough for the water to be freezing on the ground like that and have you able to skate anytime you want. It's actually a white plastic board which they sprayed little bit of water on.

My favourite picture. Man giving out orange. Fruiticana had an orange stand and they just gave out free oranges. It was awkward.

[Metrotown Bus Depot]

I've turned into a transit zombie. I've got the routes and schedules from Fraser Heights to Ai planted in my head. Well this is -Vancouver shutting down when it snows- continued...

I forgot I had taken a picture. Not a very good one. I was going to take it when coming down the escalator but I was too slow. But here's what it would have looked like; PEOPLE EVERYWHERE! And that line (which is actually a snake) goes around and around and back and forth and it's only for the 130 which passes by BCIT and Ai.

[Trip to Canadian Immigration Centre]

I had to take a day off work to go down to the immigration office on Thursday. I've missed so much work!! Well.. I've missed 2 days. One coz of the snow. And one coz of this. Phooie!

We drove around and around downtown in circles looking for parking. Found nothing in the actual building and public parking would have cost us 20 dollars. Yeesh. Crazy people.

Eventually we found a meter parking spot not too far away and someone had left 40 minutes in it. So, lucky us.

We sat in this office with all these ..... chinese people.. O_O.. All the officers were white and had no idea how to pronounce the names. You'd think they'd be trained or something. Oh well. We were done in about half an hour. So... yay we get to stay in Canada? My dad's already applied or citizenship. Him and I are gonna write the test sometime this year.

[Canon Powershot G9]

Since my dad will be leaving his Nikon D70 for me to fiddle around with, I have decided that the Canon Powershot G9 is what I will get. I think my dad's gonna get that one too. I want to wait until I get my next pay cheque before getting it...but gahh!! It sucks being camera-less!

[Old people + 21st Century]

I wrote my grandmother a text message wishing her a Happy Chinese New Year yesterday. And obviously I write in proper English, being careful not to let myself use any short forms. I'm actually quite good with that. Not as bad as Joey who spells "that" as "dat". *eye roll*. I do use smilies like this one =). And "Lol". And my "cause" is "coz", JUST coz I don't like the way cause looks. I have something against it.

Well here's the reply I received:

"Hi Jamie Did you all have a Whopping Meal Dep v late in early hrs of next am for Syd for 2 wks Love to hear from you Por"

I don't know. Maybe there really IS a short form way of writing things that I haven't learned. I do know there is short hand. But that's just a way of scribbling things down isn't it? I mean, I love it. It's just funny.

I just think it's funny how, a few years ago, there was this huge thing about teenagers cutting words down, and now I guess people have given up fighting change and are now doing what humans do best: adapt.

[On Snow]

On Snow

The other day when I was out shoveling snow, Joseph spotted us and decided to come out to play. He sat up on top of the huge mound of snow my dad and I made in the middle of the cul de sac. He picked up a bit of snow in his hand and put it in his mouth and said: Mmm my brother and I love eating the snow. I told him it was gross and dirty and that he'd get sick. And he says the snow is very clean. I tell him again that it's very very dirty because of the air. He stays with his answer: The snow is clean, because God cleans it for us.

On God

2 ladies showed up at our house other day. My mom held Pepper back and got me to answer the door. Ever since we moved here, I've heard of Jehovah's Witnesses going from door to door to preach. Most people complain. I'm sure they mean well. I've never really talked to one at my door step before. However Brandon and his family belong to that religion. In the past I've had horrible experiences with people trying to convert me to their religions, Christians usually. People make this to be a very touchy topic to talk about. (I've witnessed lots of arguments about race and religion on my everyday bus rides) Yes, I've been made to "believe in God" and made to sign my name on a bookmark with a verse from the bible stating that on -this date-, I, Jamie Poh, have given myself to God? I don't remember what that lady from that church wrote. But she was very scary. She was intimidating. And well, she didn't really give me a reason. Basically she said, Love God, it's good. ANYWAY. Not what I wanted to talk about. I just remember being very worked up whenever someone argues with me about it.

Well these ladies basically offered me whatever they had to offer and left. I'm still wondering if they'll come back cause I did let them give me one of their little booklets: Death, Is it really the end? (I pick up one of these booklets every now and then when Ifeel like it. There's usually a guy by the bus stop who hands them out) And they did say that they offer to "come by for half an hour to pick out verses from the bible and talk about them"

On Scientology

Recently there was a talk at school on Scientology. After that talk, people at the cafe had a whole big thing about it. Argument?

On Death

I was very sorry to hear that Brandon's grandfather had passed away last week. I attended the funeral service along with him and his family. Everything kinda feels a blur right now. It's so weird how one minute, someone can be there every single day and the next, they're gone. I felt that way when my uncle passed away. Even though I didn't really see him all that much, it's strange. It probably hasn't hit me yet as I haven't really lost anyone extremely close to me. But...one day...

[Jmerz and Diane]

Things have been busy. Assignments seem to creep up one after another. It sucks not having a camera. I spent an hour yesterday looking through flickr and dpreview and other camera sites looking for one. I ended up with the Canon G9 which my dad actually recommended me buying but I didn't catch the name of the model when he mentioned it. I'm still thinking about it right now. That's the camera he was thinking of getting himself. I had my mind set on an SLR and I figure I will get one eventually.

Well here's me and Diane on New Year's. Haven't seen her in a while. Kinda wish we were back in high school right now.

[Movable Type]

MT changed it's interface layout and stuff. It looks like blogger or wordpress now. =S Don't like!!!!

I love the snow. I love how everything becomes a lot brighter outside since the ground is white. Also how it eats up all the sound and everything seems peaceful and it's as if we're locked in a vacuum. But you can't love without (I won't say hating) being buggered by it as well. When we had that huge dump last Tuesday, getting out of Fraser Heights and basically getting anywhere was brutal. People just seem to fall out of routine and everything. Traffic is slow. People become more and more (what's the english word?) kiasu. It's like a jungle out there. Survival of the fittest, the strongest...whatever it is.

Well it decided to snow again today. I stood out at the gas station waiting for the bus. Snow in my face. Lotsa wind. The bus didn't come. I, along with regular bus-takers stood out there for about 30-40 minutes. Ok maybe 20-30. Felt that long though. It took another 30-40 minutes to get out of FH itself and to Surrey Central. From there the train takes me about 20 minutes. When I got to metro. O em jee. People everywhere. It was insane. Usually I get to metrotown at around 7:50. I'm lucky enough to miss the rush of people who come by around 8. Once the clock hits 8, getting on a bus takes about 10-15 minutes and the line up is enormous and runs all the way down the bus station. When I got there at 8:45, the line up was ridiculous. It went around to the end of the station and intertwined with other line ups and back around and back around again. I walked all over the place trying to find the end of the line. I didn't want to spend an hour waiting so I went into the mall realizing it's not even 9 yet and nothing's open. Superstore was open so I hopped in there for a bit. I wasted about half an hour before deciding to head back out. The line up was still long but I think I only waited about 5 minutes. For some reason traffic was held back as well. The bus wouldn't move for the longest time. *eye roll*. That bus ride usually takes 5 minutes. Today it took 20. I walked to school in the rain, 3 and a half hours later.

I love how the entire city just crumbles in the snow. It's actually quite funny. Cars crashing everywhere. Buses don't show up. (Oh I love watching the faces on people who have been standing out in the freezing snow for an hour only to watch as their bus slowly creeps by them, already full of people) People dying (Yes there were fire trucks. Yes there were ambulances).

[Grr!!]

Jme is going to smack the people working at PC! My bank card was compromised over Winter break as SOMEONE in Quebec somehow got in and stole my monies! It took me forever to get PC to figure out the problem. I had to phone in a BAZILLION times just to get them to do something about it. Weeks later they tell me that they'll mail me a declaration form. It took them an entire week to mail it. And i assumed it would take another week to mail it back. I've been waiting 2 weeks and still I can't get into my bank account. I phoned them up this morning and my "call is very important to them and there is currently a waiting time of 20 minutes". I phoned the other line which is the risk ....something line. And they couldn't even help me. They transferred me to the regular line. I've been waiting for 20 minutes listening to crappy on-hold music. And guess what.. they hang up on me. Grrrr! I'm gonna murder someone. They think I have absolutely nothing to do right now or something.

[...in the mood for baking]

There are so many things I want to do. I sit in class and on the skytrain and wish that I could be elsewhere. I wish I could be drawing or painting...getting somewhere at least. Sure the train takes me somewhere but really I'm not going anywhere unless I'm doing something.

Tomorrow I will bake a cake.