long john silver.

Long johns. I don't like them cause they're so tight and they make me sweaty and itchy when I'm indoors. But as soon as I step outside, I forget about all the cons and look up into the sky and thank God for long johns.

I remember as a kid, I hated them. But when my dad had to drive my brothers and I to school in the morning, he would pinch our thighs. If he couldn't feel a second layer of material under our pants, he'd send us back inside to get those long johns on. Oh kids...

Been spending a lot of time working on my own things lately and I've been walking out with a smile every time. I've made some sacrifices in order to get myself together, and as bad as I feel about those sacrifices, I feel great about myself. I gotta be selfish from time to time in order to get what I want, ya know? And what do I want? Peace of mind. And how else could you get peace of mind in this nasty freezing weather were it not for long johns?

Thank God for long johns.

what a feelin'

james d. sent me this link early this morning to a video and got flashdance's what a feeling stuck in my head all. day. long. but i couldn't stop watching the video... it was so addictive. so dramatic. so inspiring. so passionate. so amazing. the animation mainly. and the quality of the stop motion. anyway, feast your eyes on this video (link here if you can't see it).

Mandalorian Dance
by PatrickBoivin

i've wanted to do my own stop-motion since february now, but i don't have any toys nearly as articulate as the one they used for this boba fett flashdance animation. probably gonna drop by silver snail this week to look for one. pretty hyped up to get started with it!

in other news, i got me papa's digital slr while i was in montreal. i can finally start takin some quality pictures! oh, what a feeelin!! i can have it all! take your passion and make it happen!! oh god, where would i be without 80's music... oh and music came back into my life. it was gone for a good week. nothing a little mj couldn't fix. again, where would i be without the 80's.

oh one last thing! this really marks my age, but hey, you'll get old too. anyone remember bmx bandits with nicole kidman in it? the movie came out in 1983, but i never saw it in theatres in english. watched it in french on beta tape. that's right. beta. i youtubed it this morning and well... i gotta say. it brings back memories with the music and the tricks and all. i always wanted one of those masks and the whole costume. it was so rad back then. much like the powerglove.

en français s'il vous plaît!

it's been 16 years since i've moved to ontario now, and since then i've been slowly losing my french bit by bit. my quebecois accent started to fade, and that nasty anglophone accent started to spread its cancer into my words and sentences to the point now if i spoke french, no one would even know that i grew up in quebec.

language and the mind are crazy things. chinese was my first language and french was my second. so years ago, my mind thought in chinese and french. in fact, i still count in chinese instead of english since the number system in chinese is a lot simpler and faster than english. and because mind thought in chinese and french, my anglophone friends who made it into my dreams would speak in chinese and french. it was the weirdest thing when i woke up. but at the time of the dream it felt totally normal spoke my native tongue.

sadly, nowadays my mind thinks predominantly in english. my brain's language use is partitioned at this ratio: 80% english, 18% chinese, and 2% french. it's weird. there are certain words that i'm used to that i still say in french instead of english like dépanneur and valise.

i've realized that a language gets lost 10x faster than it gets learned. and as you get older, you get busier. i mean, who has time to learn another language when you got loans and taxes to pay off? and even if you had the time, with technology and media these days, you'd probably rather spend that time on youtube or blogger anyways right?

so with the realization that my french has gone downhill, it's made me want to relearn it, since i've got a pretty good base already. and since i spend so much time on the computer and i don't get much of a chance to speak french, it made me think of a great idea and exercise for myself.

once a week, one of my posts will be in french. i realize that only a couple of you will understand my french posts, but hey, maybe it'll motivate you to learn some french too. who wouldn't want to learn french anyway? c'est la langue d'amour, non? <3



transformers in quebec that i used to watch. i was so crazy about this show.




ninja turtles intro in french. woke up every saturday morning just to catch "les tortues ninjas" en français.