Finally back from my New Year's holiday, which included something of a technology blackout: no cellphone coverage, so no day-to-day Tweets of the day's happenings, so no receiving or sending of New Year's text messages, much to my chagrin because those on rival cellphone networks did get some modicum of reception and were still able to receive New Year's text message love :(
So, on to the blog post backlog I had in my mind. First-up on the list: my mum.
At a Christmas party a week before Christmas day of good ol' 2009, a certain someone - who I haven't yet mentioned in this blog before, and so doesn't have a witty nickname to which I can attach to them, to which I am surprised considering the contribution this person made to my 2009 which in turn made it so great - asked me a pretty tough question:
"What kind of person is your mum?"
How we got on to the topic of my mother, I can't remember - it might have something to do with a certain button badge I was given prior to this party - but when I was faced with that question my mind drew a blank. After what seemed like minutes of silence from me while my interrogator watched patiently at the cogs turning behind my eyes, all I could respond with was:
"I don't know how to answer that. Give me a day or 2 and I'll come-up with something."
"Good answer." she said, and walked away to leave me to contemplate the sorts of things I could say about my own mother.
So I gave the thought a day, which then became 2, which then stretched out from however many days there are between a week before Christmas and now...
When thinking about how I describe anybody, I usually look for that 1 trait that sets them apart from the rest; the thing that makes them unique to me. In the case of my mum, it would be that she is self-sacrificing for her children: everything she did, she did for my brother and I.
That trait encompasses many things: unconditional love, support, a level head whenever I asked her about the decisions I was facing (giving me the answer that would benefit me the most, even if the answer was not what I wanted to hear), and an almost embarrassing willingness to go out of her way to make sure my brother and I were as comfortable as we could be (eg: driving out from her work after school hours to take us home, giving us more than our share of food at the table, giving-up the window seat on a plane, etc).
That trait however is a bit of a double-edged sword; as well as being what makes my mum so great, it's also what has annoyed me the most: the unconditional love is often blind to what's going-on with others, the support would often make me think I was right when I was in the wrong, the honest answers might have carried me down the much safer path which could've given me valuable lessons or challenges to face, and the 'out-of-her-way'-ness often became too embarrassing, particularly when around my friends throughout those terrible teenage years.
Despite the good and bad nature of a child-centric focus, it's all the sorts of things I have grown to expect from a mother - and all the sorts of things that compose the yard stick by which I measure every mother I have known or will know.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
"A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."
- Tenneva Jordan
(queue obligatory Christmas blog post)
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!
I planned to write more, but the days have been packed with lots of Christmas and New Year's stuff that kept distracting me from my blog. I should have a bunch of new material, especially now that I've got a phone that takes decent pics that I can transfer to my computer without having to pay cellphone data usage to e-mail it to myself at a resolution so low that it doesn't get measured in megapixels...
I've had a very good year, and I hope the same can be said of y'all. I'll share more of my Christmas and my 2009 once the holiday season has calmed-down some.
Snow globe hunting
Either the approach of Christmas has been very subdued this year, or I've learned to relegate gigantic red and green decorations, ads, and posters, as part of the usual background noise that you're just meant to expect for this season. None of the retail stores I've been in recently are blasting Christmas tunes over their PA or speaker systems, so maybe without the auditory cues to aid the visual ones, the whole Christmas vibe just hasn't hit me yet, so maybe it is too early to think about it.
What it isn't too early for me to be doing though, is to start thinking about Christmas presents, and going about my yearly before-Christmas tradition: snow globe hunting.
Snow globe hunting is something I've done every year since I had some money to spend (ie: after I got my first job). It's pretty self-explanatory: I go out shopping for snow globes. I always start with Kirkcaldies - the city's most prestigious department store, which just happens to have a dedicated Christmas shop - and then work my way to other department stores, then smaller retail and souvenir/gift shops from there.
The success rate is mixed. Actually, I lie; the success rate is depressingly low. In all my years of snow globe hunting, I've only managed to find 1 snow globe that fit all of my criteria for what a snow globe should be... and it became a Christmas present for my mum. I have 2 other snow globes, but I didn't find them - they were presents from my friend the hug nazi.
When you're in a country which goes through Christmas during the summer months - where the typical Christmas scene is a barbecue outdoors wearing sunglasses and shorts, rather than making snowmen in thick jackets, gloves, scarves, and a beanie - snow globes aren't exactly a gift item you'll find on store shelves. The ones that I do manage to find are either really tiny novelty items, or epic large several-hundred-dollar pieces of art that deserve prime position on your mantlepiece. I don't have a mantlepiece, nor am I willing to spend that kind of money on a snow globe. It also doesn't help that my idea of what a snow globe should be has been shaped by the Christmases you often see in American TV and movies.
My definition of the perfect snow globe? The globe part itself should fit in your hands, it should depict a white northern-hemisphere-winter Christmas scene, the base shouldn't be larger than roughly a third the size of the globe itself, and extras such as a music box, electric lights, or a motor that pushes the snow around for you, are not required.
They're not hard to find on the internet. Heck, even the Wikipedia entry for snow globe shows a picture of the sort of thing I'm looking for:
But in this country, you're better-off searching for a cheap pair of socks! (socks for some reason are very expensive in New Zealand, but that's another blog topic altogether)
Given that I search for presents for friends on the internet, I should probably do the same and extend my snow globe hunt to the online realm. That, or if you're someone I know who just happens to be looking for a Christmas present for me, I've just given you an epic hint.
*wink wink* ;)
2008 has been a pretty good and eventful year for me. Amongst other things: I visited the extended family in the Philippines, I've moved into my own place, I attended the weddings of 3 dear friends (one of which required I fly to Australia to attend), and I've befriended a good bunch of (former-)workmates who invite me to a whole host of events, and of that group one of them is this wonderful girl who bakes the most amazing food. In light of everything good that has made my year, I decided to get some sort of Christmas present for the people who have made it so.
Very little of my shopping was actually done at physical retail stores; much of what I got for others had to be shipped from around the country or from overseas.
And you know what having things shipped means?
Lots of packaging material, especially bubble wrap.
Everybody loves bubble wrap.
I was out last night delivering Christmas presents to the flat of (former-)workmates, when amazing-baking-girl started watching WALL-E.
Wanting to avoid the chores that awaited me back at my place, I stayed and watched WALL-E.
WALL-E's story is told primarily through sounds and body language, and so lots of universally-understood devices or references are used so viewers know what's going on.
At one point, WALL-E is showing EVE some of the stuff he has, including this sheet of bubble wrap.
He demonstrates popping it, to which EVE follows by manically popping as much of the sheet as fast as she can.
Everybody loves popping bubble wrap.
This scene reminded me of all the bubble wrap I had accumulated from the presents I had shipped-in, and how when I first received an order which had one of those huge bubbles, I spent several minutes popping the thing before getting to the actual work of wrapping the present. And you know what I did after that? I popped more bubble wrap.
So right up there with the universal language of smiles and laughs, we have bubble wrap. I think I'll try to include a small patch of the stuff with my Christmas cards next year :P
Merry Christmas everybody.
As a belated Christmas present, my brother got me Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Game Of The Year Edition, which includes both the original game (The Longest Journey) and the more recent sequel Dreamfall, as well as the soundtrack to Dreamfall.
I've never owned a point-and-click adventure game before, so this was rather new for me. That's probably one of the reasons it's so fun; the original game may be technically outdated (1999, 640x480 screen res), but most of the themes and the story still hold-up pretty well: saving the world, meeting a magical race, killing the evil witch, all clichés that I've never had the time to completely appreciate, until now.
I'm now onto Dreamfall, and the more modern game is a welcome sequel and step-up from it's predecessor. However, I can't seem to get passed how stiff the character models are during some of the talking scenes. I mean, for an Xbox 360 and PC game released in 2006, I was kinda hoping for more natural movements. Didn't all those developers get that right after the Half-Life 2 / Doom 3 era?
Oh well, just a small blemish in an otherwise enjoyable adventure thus far.
