Darkschunt

Welcome to the place where shopping never stops...a new pair of shoes or a new pair of tombstones...a cigarette under a half-moon or a rainy day in a bottle...so many things, so little time, so what would you like?
Shop Music: Cam'ron "Hey Ma"
What's burning: Dusk Frangipani Candle
Tonight: The moon is still in its first quarter


Fashion of the World
Went for a MASSIVE shopping spree with c today, spent loads, bought loads, stocking up for the winter ahead.

My Shopping List
1) One beige fitted jacket from Cotton On (a winter essential and because I'm sick of wearing all my other jackets all the time)
2) One black spaghetti-strap top from Valley Girl (an end of summer sale and one of the fashion basic essentials every girl should have)
3) One pink long-sleeved top from Just Jeans (yet another winter essential. It was the pink or green one but c and I agreed I looked better in the pink one. I seem to have a lot of pink in my wardrobe this year. Hmmm. Must be my passion for red's turning girly)
4)One pair of black tracksuit pants (comfort wear and a bargain buy)

Went crazy over a pair of red high heels but restrained myself.

One thing I've noticed about Aus girls is that they like pastels and bright colors like pink, lime green, pale green, pale blue, yellow, etc. There's just this clean bright look about them...I don't know how else to put it. And what is it about that white band on the waistline of your pants that i see on girls everywhere? Is that like an Aus trend? Does it come with the pants or can be attached to every pair of pants you have? Where on earth do these girls get those bands? It looks nice, though, but I don't think I'd want to get one of those because a lot of people have that.

The Art of Fighting
Kendo today was way cool. We actually got to pair off against one another. The first guy i was up against, you could see him grinning manically behind his mask at the thought of finally getting to do some real bashing, it was a little scary but in a cool sort of way. And I got in a few hits myself too and that was cool. ;)

A Cure for Sickness
Feeling the early signs of fever or flu coming...I hope I'm not going to fall sick! Especially not now, what with a million and one things to do and the hols coming up too...aaargh...am drinking hot instant chicken soup (the closest thing to home-made chicken soup in the life of an independent student) and some hot raspberry tea. Ate three Vitamin Cs earlier but I doubt if they did any good. The only good Vitamin C has is its great taste. I refuse to take aspirin. I hate aspirin. And all medicine except whiskey and vodka.

N.E.R.D.'s soul energy

At the mo', I'm really into N.E.R.D., the offspring of the Neptunes. I really like their songs and I think what Pharrell Williams says about N.E.R.D. (Nobody Ever Really Dies) is cool. It goes:
"What is a N.E.R.D? N.E.R.D stands for No One Ever Really Dies. The Neptunes are who we are and N.E.R.D is what we do. It's our life. N.E.R.D is just a basic belief, man. People's energies are made of their souls. When you die, that energy may disperse but it isn't destroyed. Energy cannot be destroyed. It can manifest in a different way but even then it's like their souls are going somewhere. If it's going to heaven or hell or even if it's going into a fog or somewhere in the atmosphere to lurk unbeknownst to itself, it's going somewhere." - Pharrell Williams
Picture and quote taken from Yahoo Launch.

The Latest News in The World of Darkschunt
Updated a little in my website - see Darkschunt on the sidebar. I've finally gotten around to putting my paper on Tibet on my site, plus I've started creating what I call a little pocket of Tibet, just to inform people about Tibet and also, of course, create awareness about the current situation in Tibet. FYI, Tibet is fighting for its independence from China and there are a lot of arguments about whether Tibet is a part of China or its own independent country. At the moment, there are a lot of human rights atrocities being committed in Tibet, not least of all the fact that people who want their independence and freedom aren't allowed any of it, let alone the freedom of their own rich and colorful Tibetan culture. So, hop over to my page and check it out. There isn't much at the moment but there are a few pictures, some links to other sites, and there's my paper, which gives a pretty decent basic outline of Tibet's history, its people and their culture. Just click Enter Darkschunt on the sidebar, and step into my world...


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Last night the moon reached its first quarter, i.e. it is half full.
Finally figured out how to put pictures on my blog without something happening to them (at least i hope so). Thanks to joy (you sweetheart!) and Photobucket! I tried to sign up for the photoblogging thing but it was no use at all, I couldn't figure it out and the help page was completely useless to me. Oh well, someday I'll figure it out...when I'm in the mood to use my brains...which most of you know that day will never come...
You know what? I think I'm beginning to enjoy being human...

Pictures taken from Z Reviews.

Ode to Oren-Ishii by RZA

Aiyo, I wanna dedicate this song right here to O-Ren Ishii
Half Chinese/Half Japane-see, Half American and yo
Oh what a specie, a feminine perfection
She got the sinister cat eyes and little freckles on her complexion
Cheaper than Yakuza, but she's wicked like Medusa
And she got Crazy 88 killers that'll slice right through ya
Quick to chop a head off then wipe the blood off
A long range sniper shot she bust, never let a dud off
You got a minute to pray and a second to die
You can see the image of the devil reflectin' inside her eye
But since she was a little girl, yo, she never would cry
She seen so much tragedy, let me explain to you why
She grew up on the military base, where she had to face
The brutality of her mother and her father being erased
The blood drops from her tear drops, on her face you see the smear spots
She silently watched, as the shogun sliced through her dear pops
Through his thick skull, now she's vicious like a pitbull
And when it comes to hatred, and revenge she got a shit full

Yo... revenge is that fire that burns inside your soul

Aiyo, she been bustin' off kneecaps, son, since the age of eleven
But fuckin' the enemy to death, uggh, that was her favorite weapon
And the death you paid in hell, boy, it can't be paid in heaven
You better got down on your knees, son, and start prayin' to the reverend
Bon appetit, boy, revenge is so sweet
Especially when it's served on a cold dish, but she has no wish
But to cut your day short like the winter soulstice
And a chance to receive a slight bit of mercy from her was hopeless
Oren Ishii, half Chinese/half Japane-see
Half American, muaww, yeah, oh what a species
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Pictures taken from Z Reviews.

Does Anyone Notice...

Does anyone notice that Daryl Hannah/Elle Driver's eyepatch is placed differently in the movie poster advertising Kill Bill Vol. I? Note the pics courtesey of Z Reviews UK above. In the screenshot on the right, her eyepatch covers her right eye while in the movie poster on the left, it covers her left eye. A slip-up? Or maybe they figured since they were putting her on the right side of the poster, they'd cover up her left eye so that we can make eye contact with her other eye...
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Listening to: About her by Malcolm McLaren, Kill Bill Vol. 2 Soundtrack.

Movie Poster taken from Z Reviews.


The moon is a thin silver crescent in the night sky. Waxing crescent phase.
Today we had a different lecturer for MCI 111 - a woman with long blonde hair and very high cheekbones that made her look as if she had purple bruises on both cheeks.
There is a girl with choppy short dark hair and thick-framed glasses who sits on my side of the lecture hall. She is always sketching in her notepad during the lecture. I can't tell if her sketches are any good because I don't get a very good view of them.

The Empress Sadako of Japan's Heian period once wrote this poem to one of her ladies-in-waiting, Sei Shonagon, during the Iris Festival on the 5th day of the 5th month in the year of 1000:
Even on this festive day
When all are seeking butterflies and flowers
You and you alone can see
What feelings hide within my heart

When I blew out my rose candle last night, smoke continued to waft upwards. In an attempt to prevent any smoke from reaching the smoke alarm above, I took a vodka bottle and turned it upside down over the candle, intending to catch the smoke in the bottle, and forgot that there was still vodka in the bottle.

Questions about Kill Bill unexplained:
Are Michael Madsen/Budd and David Carradine/Bill brothers in the movie? They call each other brother but are they blood brothers? Brothers-in-training? Or just a fond calling? And why did the Deadly Viper Assasin Squad break up after killing off The Bride? Was it because Uma Thurman left Bill? Why is Budd in such bad shape after the break-up of the squad? And what was Daryl Hannah/Elle Driver doing after the break-up that made her rich enough to afford a Hanzo sword? These questions and more...which we can only weave ourselves...

About Her by Malcolm McLaren.

(Woman)
My man’s
Got a heart
Like a rock
Cast in the sea

(Malcolm McLaren)
Well no one told me about her
The way she lies
Well no one told me about her
How many people cried

(Woman)
My man’s
Got a heart
Like a rock
Cast in the sea

(Malcom Mclaren)
Well no one told me about her
The way she lies
Well no one told me about her
How many people cried

But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know?
Why should I care?
Please don’t bother trying to find her
She’s not there

(Woman)
My man’s
Got a heart
Like a rock
Cast in the sea
Cast in the sea

(Malcolm McLaren)
Well no one told me about her
Well no one told me about her
How many people cried

But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know?
Why should I care?
Please don’t bother trying to find her
She’s not there
She’s not there



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Spirit Journey On The Bus
Was invited to some informal dinner for the artists at PICA yesterday...was a bit freaked out about going alone, but it was pretty cool. I have learnt the fine art of mingling. Only it needs a bit more practice.
What is it with Perth people who shut up their houses and don't turn on their lights at night? It was so bloody cold and raining and dark as I was walking back to the bus port in the city (the city! you'd think the bloody city would have people in it at night!) and the bus port was so bloody freezing and empty and I was just sitting there and waiting for the bus and hoping that I hadn't missed the last bus and smoking cigarettes to keep myself warm...anyway the bus finally came and the ride home was just like being on a spirit journey that wasn't of this world because it was so dark outside, when we came to the suburbs you really couldn't see a thing outside and it just seemed as if we were going on and on and on to nowhere, like the bus to hell or something, and the bus was pretty much empty except for the driver and some guy and myself and this couple behind me talking in some foreign language. It was a good thing I lived near Cole's, which is all lit up, otherwise I would never figure out where to get off. But it was cool, like creepy bus ride. And then I came home where everything was lit up and my flatmate was playing Bob Dylan and everything just seemed so quiet and peaceful.
After all the beer and wine and cigarettes, I was really lazy to drag myself out of bed for kendo this morning. Plus, it was raining!
But now here we are all safe and sound and sitting pretty in our little room. (oh, did I say we? oh, those are just my multiple personalities, heheheh)

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Late entry, this was supposed to be posted on Thursday night...
Today was warm and brisk at the same time. Is that possible? Well, it is.
Went to PICA today to attend the opening of the Hatched art exhibition, which I will be writing about in my next and last article for this semester. At last, I really hate doing interviews. It’s not so bad once you’re there and you do it and you get it done, but I hate having to go about setting up an interview and figuring out how to get to that place and all that. Interviews are not my thing, I don’t like hunting people down for interviews. If they’re willing to be interviewed, then that’s fine, but if they don’t, I’d rather not push the issue. I’m not into being pushy, which is why I’m not particularly cut out for this journalism job. I never regarded this as a great job, but it’s a fine one.
The art exhibition was cool. It features art graduates from all over Australia and their work, contemporary visual arts mixed with traditional elements. Even the people were cool, with all these artsy-fartsy types drinking wine and chit-chatting.
Also went to watch Kill Bill Vol. 2 today. At last! I thought I would never get to watch that show. It was so cool, and the love scene between The Bride and Bill at the end really was moving. Although I think I kind of preferred the first one. Gordon Liu was so exactly like a character out of those Chinese serial dramas with the beard flipping and the exaggerated “ha,ha,ha” laugh. And that particular scene with Uma being buried alive really gave me the creeps, I could just feel her pain. I hate claustrophobia.
They’ve upped security around the neighborhood. I see police patrolling the place now when I come back at night. It must be because of the latest series of crimes happening around the area.

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Tai-taidom

Me and my friends are the privileged.
We get to have a complete education and go to high school and college and university and even go aboard to study - the perfect finesse touch to cap off a distinguished lifestyle of scholarly diligence.
Most of my friends who read this - if those lazy asses ever get around to even looking at this blog - are surely going, "what scholarly diligence???? oh, you mean the degree we all earned in high school for perfecting the art form of cutting class? or perhaps the masters in bachelor of passing without doing any assignments? or the high art of copying???"
I am so bloody lazy to go study - I just can't be bothered to sit at my desk for fifteen minutes to study, let alone the five hours that my mom always boasts she spents every day of her teen life studying. In high school, most of my energy is spent dodging the truant patrol and friends' parents and hiding in smoky video arcades where me and my friends...smoke and play video games. It's only during the more recent years that I actually forced myself to get up and go study.
And then i pick up magazines like the Reader's Digest with articles where little girls write to city girls saying, "you are so lucky! you actually get to go to such a beautiful school and study!" and man, do i feel guilty.
Here we are, with all these oppurtunities that other people can only dream of and we waste most of it wishing that we could be...tai-tais.
Or in other words, a trophy wife.
As Christina Ricci says, you just sit around and wear diamonds and drink champagne.
I especially like this girl's thoughts on tai-taidom, which so rings true. You can read it in my website or the website Hashzinei got the essay off, but it's really funny and really worth reading. Even some guys wish they could be tai-tais.
It's really too bad I could never be a tai-tai. Because it would mean being dependent on someone else and, well, i could never do that. I do things to please myself and not someone else. But it would be just so nice and easy to be one. Unless you end up like this girl in this super melodramatic Taiwanese drama I once saw who married some rich cute perfect guy who really loves her and it turned out to be a complete nightmare for her. Even I gave up watching after a while because it was just way too melodramatic. But then, like the drama, you might end up having to put up with bitchy murderous ex-wives, your husband being too absorbed in his work, fears of your husband having an affair with your psychologist whom you were driven to visit because of your husband's bitchy murderous ex-wife... anyway, i've heard and seen enough real-life nightmare households where the husband is a complete bitch and the wife is either lucky that she's got a stable job and a life outside the household or completely miserable because she's just a tai-tai and has to depend on aforementioned husband grouch for a living. I'm not gonna take my chances, thanks.
Of course, I still want my diamonds. So how to get diamonds if you're not married to a fabulously rich and stressful husband or a fabulously rich and stressful job? And when I say stress, I mean stress. I get stressed just watching those people on the apprentice running around fighting with one another to get a job with donald trump. And then the girls on the first episode get to meet his girlfriend and isn't she taking life easy? But then, she has to put up with donald trump, hahaha.
I used to want to be a geisha. You get to dress up in a kimono and go to parties where you mingle with famous, rich and powerful men, and all you have to do is pour sake, chat, and sometimes dance or play the shamisen. and it's all very proper and you aren't expected to sleep with them. and in the day all you have to do is practice your dancing and shamisen playing. Party all night and spend your day practicing fine arts? Sounds like my kind of lifestyle! That's what i'd like, to be a socialite. Call me Paris Hilton. And I'll be careful to watch out for boyfriends with cameras.
But, really, when you think about it, here I am living the high life. I'm an ocean away from any nagging parents, I've got complete freedom and a good-sized bank account (provided I don't overspend...ahahaha), I'm in a whole new place with a different culture and stuff, I'm studying something I actually like studying, all i have to do is study something i actually enjoy studying while my leisure time is spent practicing kendo, drawing, writing, and going out with friends, at the moment I've got everything I've ever wanted (touch wood that this is going to last). I am like the luckiest bitch in the world.
Na, this is much better than being a tai-tai. I'll get my diamonds later.
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The doorway behind you could lead to a place of utopia or a place of distopia - it depends on which one of these states your heart resembles
Coincidentally today we discussed communism and the idea of utopia in class and I just wanted to add something to my communism blabberings earlier. George Orwell's 1984 just confirmed what i was saying about communism and how it just turns people into machine-like beings in completely drab and boring surroundings. Except of course that George Orwell's book took it to the further extremes.
Also, as in Orwell's book, Big Brother, the dictator of the communist Oceania, was so obviously a bad leader, as most communist country leaders usually are. But, as I was saying before, even though you had a good leader in charge of communism, I doubt it would work. There are just too many loopholes in communism.
That brings us to another point. Does anyone realize just how hypocritical communism is because it claims to be a perfect vision/utopia? Usually we'd see communism ideology as something as a lesser evil if it is compared with capitalism and if it was carried out without corruption. However, at least capitalism does not profess to be perfect. It knows it has loopholes and faces the world unashamedly with all its flaws. And i think in that one way communism is so much more horrifying than capitalism with all its unbalanced power structures and demeaning Third World labor could be.
By the way, utopia means perfect place or no place. A perfect place that is no place? That, in a way, is sad. Does that mean I'll never have my perfect land? Or maybe that's heaven. ;)
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Let’s talk about…Communism and Utopia.
So communism evolved from that whole socialist idea of Karl Max that everyone should have equal stuff and live equally so that nobody could be better off and the powers that be couldn’t rule unfairly. So we’d have justice and all the good stuff of the world.
Only thing wrong with communism is that the powers that be that took it on themselves to implement communism…namely, that Russian dude (was it Stalin? Or Lenin? I get mixed up) and Chairman Mao….did not follow communism. They did not distribute the stuff fairly. And therefore, communism did not work because what they were practicing was not communism at all!
I had a friend who once said she was a communist. Right. And she had all those big Goth rings and necklaces all over herself. Wasn’t the idea of a communist to reject capitalism and unnecessary adornment and live a good frugal life without the excesses that we don’t need? I don’t call big pseudo-skull rings a necessity.
The problem with all the good ideas in the world is that there is no good person to implement them. Look at Einstein who came up with the way to harness nuclear power. Look what the armies of the world did with that idea. Look at Karl Max and his socialist ideas and then look at what the Russians and Chinese did with his idea. Look at what all those good ideas that religions try to teach us and see what today’s world has done with it. Face it – the idea of utopia remains solely an idea until the day comes when we finally have someone who is perfectly good and unselfish who wouldn’t ever be corrupted with the power they hold in their hands. A lot of people would say that would never ever happen because everyone eventually gets corrupted with power…but I like to dream.
They say in communism that the bourgeois class will eventually be overthrown by the working class. Even if the working class overthrows the bourgeois class, we can already see what has happened – even the working class gets corrupted.
One of the reasons why I don’t think communism would work is because people wouldn’t want to have to give up things in order to have fair distribution. I mean, of course they would in the name of goodness and stuff, but a lot of people would hate to give up their little luxuries. Humans like having a little luxury and color in their life – it's human nature. And the lazy bums of society would still get their equal share whether they earned it or not because everything is supposed to be distributed fairly. Some might question the fact that no matter how hard they work they won’t get rewarded or recognized for this work, because it’s all for society. People get discouraged with that kind of treatment. What’s more, if everyone gets the same share of stuff no matter how hard they work, well, they might get lazy because it doesn’t matter how hard they work.
I like communism but I like culture more. I like the rich and colorful fabric of different cultures in human life and I don’t really like the idea of giving that up for the gray drabness of communism, no matter how fair and justified the idea of communism is. I think that capitalism is not a good idea, of course, but communism just wouldn’t work because it cuts out a lot of things that makes us human – things like our culture, our religions, our passions, loves, hates, insanities, joys, and so on. I’m not saying those are necessarily good things, like the barriers and power struggles that culture and religion and all has given us. But that doesn’t mean communism is the answer. One of the problems I think communism has is that it generally does not think of humans in a society as humans at all, but as mechanical parts of a working machine. And that is not us, essentially, that's not humans, and that's the whole point. Commuism is a sweet idea, but it doesn't bother to take in the fact that humans are, well, humans. There's this general idea in communism that everything should be efficient, practical, and, effective for the community. And that's not really a good idea, it's capitalism in that sense of thinking. And in that way, communism does not think of its human beings as human beings with different ideas, likes, hates, and happiness-ess who want different things. And in that way, communism imposes its ideas and values on its community in much the same way capitalism or tyrannical governments do. And that is not a good thing.
I think the answer, like the answer I’ve been giving for every problem in life, is that we have to find a balance. Damn. I hate it when I repeat myself this way.
In this case, however, I doubt anyone would want balance. There’s communism and there’s capitalism and neither are going to give way because they’d be losing too much. Anyhow, communism has become a sort of capitalism because it doesn’t matter who you put in charge in a communist society, they’ll eventually get corrupted with their power and live in luxury while the rest of the society lives rather badly off. Sort of like feudalism, really, which was the other object besides capitalism that Karl Max was trying to escape. Poor old Karl Max. He must be turning in his grave.
Communism really is a nice idea. We just have to work on the flaws a little. Sort of like those striving for utopia.
By the way, some people just don't like it when you try to enforce your ideas of utopia on them. Some people just don't want democracy, socialism, capitalism, republicans or anything like that. And some people just prefer to be free and wild. Everyone has a different idea of utopia.
We'll talk more about this but right now it's getting late and I have an appointment to meet in the land of dreams...


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What's new? Cold winds, the last quarter of the moon, rainfall, prehistoric cities, assasination of a president, and wild gypsies and vampires...
The moon is waning and will reach its last quarter (half-moon) phase Tuesday night.
The weather’s taken a turn for the colder, with strong winds. I sit by my window and look out at the trees shaking in the wind. It’s now freezing cold and rain has finally come!
According to scientists, the world is getting warmer and wetter. As a result, trees and shrubs are increasing in growth while grasslands are thinning out. The world also seems to be getting cloudier.
An Italian archeologist claims to have found a pre-classic Mayan city by the name of Cival which is supposed to be one of the largest cities in pre-classic Mayan times, around 2000BC to 250AD.
Federal Labor government in Australia plans to ban dog and cat fur products. Guess that means Australians won’t be importing any dogs for meals from Korea any time soon.
Chechnya's president Akhmad Kadyrov has been murdered in a bomb explosion in the capital, Grozny. There goes one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s allies in Chechen. Oh, well. Heard he hadn’t been doing too good a job of turning Chechens’ lifestyles around for the better.
Saw Van Helsing this weekend. It was pretty good. Does anyone else think that the scene at the end of the movie when Hugh Jackman shrinks back into human form while clutching Kate Beckinsale kind of looks like a scene out of a Fabio romance novel? And Kate Beckinsale’s gypsy character’s brother in Van Helsing was hot, hot, hot. Carve me out a piece of that. I knew I liked ‘em wild gypsies.

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The shopkeeper's back in town...and she's got a whole new range of stock made specially from the full moon - lavender silk, white satin, white roses, black embroiderery, long swords, red carpeting, complicated yet simple love, whisper of the wind, friendship, simple solace, and so much more...
It's been a full moon for the past couple of nights...
And i've been super, super, super busy...
went down to happy buddha for dinner twice...it's a restaurant that sells chinese vegetarian food...yum yum...it's down the road by the river and whenever we drive back, you can see one of those highway bridges all lit up and the city too so it's really cool...
also went down to caversham wildlife park...saw koalas and wombats and albino peacocks and kangaroos and tasmanian devils...it was feeding time for the tas devils when we went so we got to see them fighting over hunks of bloody meat...yay...
kate beckinsale is back with another vampire movie in which she wears leather corsets that emphasizes her boobs...
love is in the air...it must be because of the full moon in early autumn...or spring, depending where you are...


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