JOURNAL: Amizadai (Lee Amizadai )

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  • "Welcome to my world of nightmares and delirium" 2002-06-25 11:40:33 The above phrase was uttered by myself two years ago while drifting off to sleep. Wally was massaging my feet, and to his credit he kept from laughing out loud - probably to see if I could come up with anymore weird dream phrases. Luckily I had the presence of mind to wake up and say "Huh?!"


    Talking about dreams, I just had a really strange one.

    I dreamt a poster fell off my wall and got slightly damaged. Even though it was only a corner that had gotten crumpled, I was pretty pissed - it was my favourite poster (it's a black and white photograph of the Grand Central Station in New York).

    So I was taking a poster out of its plastic wrapper while kneeling on my bed. On unwrapping it, I discovered to my pleasure that there were actually more posters in there, and all from the same photographic set. Then I felt a soggy plop at my knees. I looked down to see that there was a burst bag of guppies on my bed, and the fish were all gasping and struggling for breath. I didn't even have time to think where the fish came from, or how they had survived without being fed so long before running for a bowl of water, where I plopped all the fish.

    There were quite a lot and the water wasn't enough, so I grabbed my yellow bucket and ran for the toilet where I started to fill it up with water. While I was doing that, I heard sobbing coming from the toilet cubicle. I turned the water down to hear better and realised it was my dormmate. Standing there, I was torn between asking her what was wrong and getting the water as fast as I could to the dying fish. I deliberated for what seemed ages while waiting for the bucket to fill, jiggling with impatience, until I finally decided that her anguish could wait, but I couldn't revive asphyxiated fish.

    Later I returned to the toilet where I caught her coming out the toilet. She didn't want to tell me why she had been crying, so to fill the awkward silence, I asked her if she wanted fish. She didn't. But she asked where they had come from, and I told her they had fallen out the wrapping of my poster. She said in jest that maybe all my posters contained fish, and at that point I realised I was going to have to open all my posters to check, and have buckets of water ready just in case.

    I didn't have enough yellow buckets.


    Just for fun, I input my dream into a dream translator (http://www.freakydreams.com/freaky.htm), and this is what I got:

    Words like Fish: To dream about fish or fishing denotes energy and economy. A fish in clear water express freedom of movement related with your feelings.

    Words like Knees: Flexibility. Humility. To dream of knees denotes sickness and humiliation. It also means dissatisfaction and complaints of those in the home, and separation of lovers.

    Words like Yellow: This color is a sign of confidence in yourself and your abilities but will encounter opposition.

    Words like Bed: Retreat from activity. Rest.

    Words like Crying: Emotional release. Grief. Domestic trials are on the way. Emotions need to be release.

    Words like Running: No restraint. Freedom. Distance. There is something that you want to escape from.

    Words like Time: Irreversible. Continuity. Arrival or departure of feelings. Organizing your inner self.

    Words like Waiting: Anticipation. Ready to take action.

    Words like Water: Cleansing. Life. Emotions. Ask yourself about your current feelings.


    Hm. What about the buckets? And the posters? And the toilet?

    But seriously, I never saw how people could generalise the meanings of dreams. Symbols mean so many different things to different people, and things start to get really sticky when you start thinking about different logical structures between people of different cultures, different languages (and I'm not just talking about the verbal kind). And quite sincerely, I don't think my dream symbols are that sophisticated. I don't see how dreaming about feeder fish could denote energy and economy.

    I do try to understand my dreams though, but I usually try to translate the emotions that were running through it. It's so much more believable that way, and very often my dreams are a direct reflection of what I am going through, or an indication of some strong subconcious emotion/thought that hasn't yet come to the fore.

    Then there are those that are absolutely weird and probably meaningless. Like the one about Tarzan and his choosing a snakeskin wallet over wrestling an anaconda.

    I don't always try to analyse my dreams, because I don't think all of them mean something. Some of them are just your brain trying to make sense of stuff, so unless there was a strong emotional element to the dream, I leave it alone.

    So, what did this particular dream mean? After sitting in a lotus position for 5 minutes with an appropriate look of constipation on my face, I have come to the following conclusions:

    It was about:

    + Striving for perfection: I like my posters with crisp corners, thank you very much.

    + Having things fail, fall apart unexpectedly: hm, I've had too much of that happen in my life last week. I am still dealing with the consequences now.

    + Unexpected boons: Ooh, I hope so. I hope the extra posters symbolise OTHER good things, because really, I don't need more posters.

    + Being caught unawares, being unprepared: who could I have foreseen LIVE FISH falling out a poster?

    + Murphy's Law: Of course, if I get free posters, I have to also accept having a bag burst 20 little, wet, wriggling creatures on my bed. Eeps, that sounds like birth, doesn't it? (You'll understand later)

    + A sense of (misplaced?) responsibility: I didn't try to flush them guppies down the toilet, did I? No matter how worthless they were, and how much they weren't really my business, I tried to find them a new owner. And when I knew there were more fish in my other posters, I HAD to save them all. Oh wait, that might fall under Saviour Complex.

    + Impatience: um... because I was 'jiggling with impatience'?

    + Setting of priorities: saving many tiny aquatic lives takes precedence over one girl's emotional health. I can always listen to her blubber later.

    + The sense of being a socially/emotionally inadequate. Seriously, I think that's an issue with me. I don't know how to deal with awkward situations. I'd rather offer emotionally distraught people a bucket of guppies.

    + A sense of being overwhelmed: saving fishies and trying to console someone else - ooh, my delicate self cannot take this abuse!

    + Not having enough resources to deal with the situation: something I'm really familiar with. Biting off too much to chew on too many occasions has made me quite adept at identifying the feeling, if not able to foresee and avoid it. From now on I will call that situation: NOT ENOUGH YELLOW BUCKETS.


    I'm not one to have precognitive dreams, though my mother and sister occasionally have them. Spookier still, they sometimes have dreams in tandem. It's not something that happens often, and they can only identify it in hindsight. So it isn't as if they can predict earthquakes and identify murderers through psychic means, but when people close to the family have died, my mom and sister have sometimes dreamt about it beforehand.

    Me? I'm as psychically inclined as a walnut.

    Just two days ago my mom called me up to tell me about this dream she and my sister had, about me getting pregnant. I'm hoping that translates to being pregnant with promise, or busting with potential and not the biological, I'm-going-to-be-a-mother kind of pregnant. The dream translater says dreams of pregnancy can be taken to mean new life, creativity, inventiveness and preparation to produce something.

    Hopefully that 'something' will be lots of money. So I can buy many yellow buckets.
     
  • Crack'aRat! 2002-06-24 11:14:10 Sounds like a marketable game, doesn't it?

    It popped into my mind yesterday when I grabbed my rat, who was slipping out my hand. I snatched her from a 4 foot fall, but heard a pretty loud crack when I grabbed her. I seriously thought I'd broken one of her bones, but she seemed alright when I put her down. I think I just cracked one of her joints. 
  • RUN! She's gone insane with Neverending Story lust! 2002-06-23 09:08:35 The Auryn from the Neverending Story is up for sale on eBay!
    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1544949335

    And it isn't just some cheap reproduction either... it's made of sterling silver and gold-plated. Aaargh!!! MUST. HAVE. AURYN!

    When I was younger, I was SO obsessed with the movie. Like really out of my mind. Then, I had no way of acting out my obsession other than to look for the soundtrack CD (before I even had a CD player) and order the book the movie was based on. Beyond that, there was nothing left to do except keep a sharp eye out for anything else that had anything to do with the movie. Which really, was nothing much, because it was made ages ago, and it didn't have grand explosions or grizzly protagonists or glamorous female stars. And maybe the fact that it was such an impossible thing to be a fan over made it all the more attractive to me. My fan-ness was born and tempered in the cold fires of LACK! MUAHAHAH!

    Because there was such a lack of fannish things to do, I would go over the things I could. Like singing the song. Over and over and over again. And watching the VHS tape at my friend's house. Over and over and over again. And reading the book. And staring at the cover. And swearing that I cwould get an Auryn made for myself when I grew up.

    I would go absolutely insane if I heard the song on the radio, or the orchestral version on TV in the days before Singapore had 24 hour programming. My breath would literally catch in my throat and I'd just sit there and listen to it with my ENTIRE BEING until it was over. And then I'd bounce off the walls in frustration because there was nobody to tell. But then maybe that was good. At age 12 I don't think I could have articulated the tight achy feeling that got in my chest everytime I came across something to do with the movie. I would probably have just gibbered on the phone and gotten spit all over the reciever.

    If a re-run was scheduled on TV during the week, I would cut out the Tv guide, highlight the time and paste it at my desk and count the days to watching it again. I didn't have a VCR because my dad never bought one, so I couldn't record off the air. There was a copy of the movie in the LD rental shop which was just a couple of minutes away from my place. I used to go every few days to just look at the LD cover, but not too often so that the shop lady wouldn't think I was a freak. I don't think I tried hard enough.

    Nobody undertsood why I loved the movie so much. Occasionally I'd come across somebody who'd admit a liking for it. I'd go berzerk, thinking I'd found another fan, and my voice would go all quavery and my eyes would get all watery and I'd eventually scare the person away, who really, had only watched the movie once and only liked it because of the "flying dog".

    And then I got internet access. Blessed, blessed internet access. I almost wept to find people who were just as passionate/obsessive as I was, albeit online. I spent WEEKS downloading images, and sound clips and surfing up information on the cast. A friend of mine helped me burn it all into a CD. I still have that CD somewhere, I think... that CD that screams AMI IS AN OBSESSIVE FAN FREAK.

    That same friend had a laser disc player and had also just purchsed an MPEG encoder card, so I rented the LD (for the first time!!) and had my friend encode my favourite scenes for me. I think he got a bit scared of me when the clock ticked past 1 am and I still refused to quit encoding to go home because I hadn't managed to hit the record button EXACTLY at the part I wanted the clip to start. I left at about 2 am. I knew he was tired, and he needed to sleep, and really it wasn't proper for a girl to be alone in a room with a guy at 2am, but all courtesy had flown out the window to be replaced by a raging hunger for all things NES that had to be appeased. The words insane and rabid come to mind.

    Now there are so many fan sites, a game is in production (called Auryn Quest) and there are so MANY versions of the Neverending Story theme to download from Kazaa... AND THE MOVIE WAS RELEASED ON DVD! *Gasp wheeze* (But the fact that it doesn't have any decent extras SUCKS TOE-NAILS. Maybe they will release a special edition on its 20th anniversary, in 2004.)

    So now the Auryn is for sale. It's wonderful... almost exactly like how it was in the movie, just the colours are a little wrong. It should be less shiny, more burnished and the back shouldn't be flat and it shouldn't be GREEN, but STILL, it's the Auryn! *heavenly choir sings a chord*

    It's currently at US$150, and there are still 4 days to go, so it's defintely going to be finally sold way more expensive than it is now. Even if I bought it, my practical side (yes, I do have one of those) will beat me about the head and ask me why I didn't spend the money on something more worth it... like a Lomo.

    Sigh... so I guess I have to break my promise to my childhood self and content myself with saving the images from eBay. Maybe one day when I have killed off my pragmatic side, I will find and buy another Auryn. Or a replica of the leather-bound book which was used in the movie... it had an Auryn too, and it was the same size as the pendant, and really, if I could get the book, I could detach the embelm and use it as a pendant, and that would be so cool, because it would be a two-in-one Auryn! And the book with the story! And - *gibber gibber gibber*




    By the way, the sequels SUCKED. 
  • Aaaugh! Evil people! 2002-06-22 09:40:06 Steph: I bet Sleeping Beauty couldn't get out of bed after her sleep.
    Ami: Yeah, atrophied muscles.
    Steph: And bad breath. Can you imagine what it must have been like after a century?


    Hey Milo, congrats on the completion of your 10th video! I'll download it as soon as I get my new bandwidth allowance for next month. That should be time enough for you to get it uploaded, right? 
  • I believe that's the dance of a brave little toaster. ~ Xander, BtVS 2002-06-21 10:26:38 Ami: Owww... I think I sprained my thumb...
    Steph: What, from hitting me too hard?


    Hey Kyburg, I've learnt that I am not invincible, and that my body needs rest and fuel. (Yes, I know, I'm a bit slow that way.) After two days of eating proper meals and sleeping enough, and stepping out for sunlight, I actually feel human again.

    And I went and bought pink-striped socks, which cheer me up immensely. Isn't it wonderful to be so easily amused?

    As for sanity, I find hitting people helps alot.

    I am so so sleepy. I slept last night, and pretty much all of today, but I am still tired. But for once I am not going to force myself to stay awake, even if it means I miss a full day of work. Hopefully the rest will translate to improved productivity and I will be able to bang out an essay in double time tomorrow.


    Hey Bowler, true, I don't say things with spite, but I think there's a need to be sensitive too. And what bothers me is that sometimes it's hard to tell where the lines are, because some of the people who feel lousy about the things I say simply pretend it isn't an issue. (For those who have no idea what I am talking about, the topic here is racism. Read my previous entry.)

    While I don't condone being insensitive, I really dislike being overly PC. Like, "Ooh, we should boycott chocolate, because chocolate is brown and when we eat chocolate, it's as if we're asserting our dominion over people of colour, and consuming/assimilating them and their culture, and that's like, wrong!"

    Truth be told, I don't think I really understand racism... I re-read my previous entry and it's all crap, because I was talking about so many different things. I should read up these things before getting overly excited and blab nonsense.

    By the way, Bowler, I love your entries. They are always so informative about animation. (Those who want an insider's peek at the industry should check out his journal: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/journal_show.php?mid=15507)

    I agree that Cool World sucked. Eeergh. It was disturbing and wrong, and it didn't serve any purpose than to come across as disturbing and wrong. I remember cringing and actually scrunching up my face in abject suffering while watching it. And that sex scene... gaaah... hentai!


    Thanks for the hug EK. Would have preferred a sundae though. Mmm, with LOST of sprinkles. Nyaha.  
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