As a Stanford grad student and semi-professional teacher, I've gotten pretty used to having something that vaguely resembles an "adult" lifestyle. Independent living has taught me that it's the smaller details of everyday life that are most satisfying. SUCH AS...
- Doing the dishes after cooking yourself a satisfying meal. In a way, it's like taking the time to say, "Dude. You did a good job!"
- Grocery shopping during the late hours. When the lights are dim and the aisles are nearly empty. It's almost therapeutic.
- Having dance parties in your car by yourself. This is crucial when you're going home late and it's really cold outside and your car is taking too long to warm up.
- Playing guitar as loud as you want because you have your own room. Unless it is too late (because then you have to play in the closet...).
- Working out at home while watching your favorite shows. It's so fucking time efficient. Plus you feel like a total bad-ass doing push-ups as Jack Bauer is blowing up an entire warehouse filled with terrorists.
- Adding the perfect song to your iPod for the morning commute. P-p-p-poker face p-p-poker face.
- Becoming one of those assholes who is always yelling into their bluetooth headsets. Those things are amazing for commutes. Plus they amp up the comedic factor in any conversation when you have to constantly shout everything you're saying -- regardless of context or need for subtlety.
The day-to-day grind isn't too far away, so it's good to extend this list as much as possible before I get there...
Listening to the "Love" soundtrack again in my car, I recalled the height of my delayed Beatlemania during the final 2 years of college. I was completely insane back then. At the time, I listened to the Beatles more than I listened to my own parents. Mom and dad told me to be a pharmacist while Lennon-McCartney told me "Love is all you need!" It was an easy choice.
Playing that cd in my car reminded me of how I used to always make sure one album in my 6 disc-changer was the Beatles. It was a constant icebreaker and a litmus test for the potential loves of my life. At this risk of sounding crazier, it was almost something like a... soulmate detector? Ha! But it really led to many surprising connections and Beatletastic conversations. I felt like an idea that stupid had to belong somewhere in this blog. I realize that, for myself, this blog has always served the purpose of revisiting past, ridiculous feelings and mindsets. You know... Chronicles of Buffoonery. Ages of Moron.
It's weird how you can feel nostalgic for something so recent. Today I'm 23, but it doesn't really feel that old.
Well hellooo livejournal. Long time no see! I'm back after a brief sojourn at blogger. And even if you include that ill-advised jump, I still haven't blogged in close to a year, which is unbelievable. Part of the reason I wanted a new blog was because I wanted to distance myself from the deep, deep backlogs of this journal. I mean, come on, that shit is embarrassing. When I look back on the recent years though, I feel a bit sentimental and start to reaffirm my belief in the importance of relics. So let's bring back the relicking goddammit.
Over the last year, I had a whole bunch of adventures. I didn't blog about them though, so they pretty much never happened.
A 4-way arm-wrestling match? Pretty sweet. Too bad it didn't happen.
I also go to Stanford now. I'm in a one-year MA and credentialing Teacher Education Program and it's all some very serious stuff.
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The new car is pretty great but I find myself missing the old one. The Civic was my car, you know? I grew up in that thing. It was a background player and occasional active participant during many defining moments in my adolescence. I drove that thing on all of my important dates. It once had an ironic license plate frame that said "Caution: AZN Behind the Wheel" that I had to take off when I went to UCLA because it suddenly suggested less sarcasm and more douchebaggery.
Sir Huggington the hand puppet used to chill out on the stick shift until my LCC friends said it was absurdly unappealing to women.
The car had a cd player that held 6 discs. For some reason, I can only imagine Rilo Kiley's "With Arms Outstretched" playing on it.
... Yeah, the Prius definitely has a tall order to live up to.
"SO... what're you going to do after you graduate?"
Damn you, loaded question. Why must you be so difficult to answer? And with the amount of times I change my mind within a year, you only lead people to ask even more annoying questions.
"Aren't you doing JET?" / "No, I was too scared!"
"Didn't you want to live in Vietnam?" / "See above!"
I've decided to go with another option -- telling people true things that I actually won't back out of, such as the following:
I will sign up for NetFlix. Seriously, always wanted to do that.
I will get a gym membership and actually use it. Because the 300 Workout awaits.
I will turn 22. Really, there's no way I can't.
I will find my own damn way to keep writing. In some form.
I think these are promises I can keep. It's at least a better answer than "I don't know, my life is over."
This quarter's show is particularly important to me because I wrote two out of the four scripts! (With help)
Silver Bullet beganas a personal writing challenge. I wanted to challenge myself by breaking into other genres, so I decided to start with crime fiction. Somewhere along the way came the idea of making it stylized and setting it in 1930s Depression-era Chicago. With the help of a great cast and director, the piece has turned into something that I'm really proud to call my own. It's the most different thing I've ever done and I hope that the audience can experience just at least some of the excitement I have for the scene.
Spartan Culture Night's title is pretty much all you need to know. It's my first scene with a large cast -- to suit the needs of a ridiculously large 12th generation of LCC -- and it was so big that I had to bring in Conroy to help contain all the ideas. So it's also my first collaboration too. I think this scene would appeal to anyone who has seen too many culture nights, can't wait another week to see 300, or begins every day by roasting an eagle's egg on a scorching rock in the morning.
Come see the show on the next two nights only at Northwest Auditorium. You totally have to be there!
We have roughly two and a half days until we stop accepting volunteer applications, so for my last ditch recruitment effort I've decided to talk about my own camp experiences a little.
UniCamp apps are due this Friday (2/23) by 5 PM. You can turn in your application to our table on Bruinwalk. If you don't have one yet, you can get it at www.unicamp.org.
I'm in class right now and my professor is carrying her baby around in a baby bjorn as she is lecturing. The baby keeps making noises and playing with markers. It is delightfully distracting!
PLEASE VOTE FOR OUR MOVIE. VOTING ENDS ON DECEMBER 5TH (TUESDAY). HURRY BECAUSE THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!! (I know you have to make an Apple ID and that sucks, but please do it for me!)
Some time ago, some LCC buds and I registered for the Insomnia Film Festival -- an apple.com-sponsored film competition in which student filmmakers would have 24 hours to produce a 3-minute short film. At 2 PM on November 10, 2006, they released a list of requirements and we had to write, cast, shoot, edit, score, and submit the whole thing by 2 PM the next day.
We only had to use 3 of the 11 requirements apple.com posted, so we went with these ones: Required Character Name - Alex Kona Required Prop - Ice Require Shot - clock with 4:11 on its face
Cast & Crew: Aki Murai, Conroy Gibson (story), Hoai Vuong (story), Kelvin Kao, Michael Lowe (direction/editing), Richard Ngo (original score), Winston Kwong ("Alex Kona")
Producing this thing has been one of my favorite college memories so far. I loved it! We decided on the story within an hour through an individual pitching process and it was the first time I felt like I was in a roundtable writing team. Everything had to be rushed to maintain a "real time" feeling in the film, and we used lots of indoor/outdoor editing tricks to make it all coherent. Also, there's something always charming about pathetic cheap-ass techniques used to imitate real filmmaking (e.g., filming on skateboards and SUVs because we can't freaking afford cranes or dollies).
I'm just glad this thing turned out to be such a team effort. My biggest concern was about producing an original score, but Richard really pulled through on that. Everything else just came together. We really were like some sort of Justice League of Amateur Filmmaking! Hopefully there's more to come.
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
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I think I haven't been writing in this thing lately because I've had to write about my feelings enough for my intro to Sociology class this quarter. That's too bad, because it's my last year of college and so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm definitely enjoying it more than I thought I would, at least.
Charming Beatles Research A lot of times I'll spend days on end researching the Beatles. Who knows why I do this -- it's probably because I don't have more important things to do, but while I'm doing it it feels very important. One of the last times I was doing this, I found one throwaway line in a Wikipedia article about how John and Paul, in their young Quarrymen days, once traveled across Liverpool by bus because they heard there was a musician who could teach them the B7 guitar chord.
... Seriously. They went through all that work just for this. One thing this story says is how the internet has basically stopped us from ever having another cool story like this again, because information has become so common and easily accessible that you can't get such stories of ridiculous dedication anymore.
The story's other message, which I find more important, is that you can totally suck at something you really love, but if you love it enough you'll work hard enough at it to become a fucking legend. And you'd be hard-pressed to find any legends who worked harder than the Beatles -- I mean, come on! John only knew banjo chords before he met Paul! None of the Beatles ever learned how to read music!
That's another great thing you can learn from the Beatles -- you don't always need someone to tell you the "right" way to do things, you can figure it out your own way. And the Beatles figured that reading music was for dorks anyway.
Note: I tried to find this story's location again but it looks like it's since been removed. Damn you Wikipedia! I guess the story is most likely unverified then. Does that affect my response to it? Nahh.
I freaking love doing "script research." I can barely call myself a writer, but that won't stop me from doing the research. Most of the time I'll just do research for things I'll never even finish, but it won't feel like a waste of time. Why?
Because "script research" is just a nicer way of saying "I spent my whole day on wikipedia."
It's been almost absurdly entertaining figuring out which time period to set my script. And when I say time period, I don't mean something cool like "Meiji Era" or "Viking Age," I'm talking about 1994 or 1997. You would think that the differences between these two years would be irrelevant. Yeah, and you would be wrong!
NOTES on 1994:
FILM: The Lion King, Clerks, Pulp Fiction
MUSIC: Ace of Base - "The Sign", Boys II Men - II, Weezer - Self-Titled (Blue Album), Lisa Loeb - "Stay"
GAMING: Warcraft, Donkey Kong Country
TV: Friends
NOTES on 1997:
FILM: Titanic, The Fifth Element, Star Wars Special Editions
MUSIC: Radiohead - OK Computer, Third Eye Blind - Self-Titled, Elliott Smith - Either/Or, The Verve - "Bittersweet Symphony", Foo Fighters - "Everlong", Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – "Crossroads", Puff Daddy – "I’ll Be Missing You"
GAMING: Goldeneye 007, Final Fantasy VII
TV: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, South Park
Conclusion? 1994 was cool, but it was also when the whole OJ Simpson madness began. So there you have it... 1997 = Best Year Ever! Probably a good time to be 17 then.
Before Sunset (2004) At this time in my life, Before Sunset is my FAVORITE movie.
What can I say? Tastes change. It doesn't mean I stopped enjoying watching cult actors slay medieval deadites with their chainsaw-arms, but I love discovering "exploding heart" films. If you can't figure from the description, I mean films that are so emotional and real that your heart figuratively (or literally, if the film is good enough) explodes. I'm not saying I enjoy sappy films. The difference between sappy films and exploding heart films is that the former are... stupid, and I don't like stupid movies (e.g., Pay it Forward).
It's ridiculous how many emotions I feel while watching Before Sunset. Frustrated, angry, sentimental, hopeful, envious... and okay, a little bored during the first 30 minutes, but the payoff is huge. I once described this movie to my co-workers and one of them had to ask, "Hoai, are you PMSing?" I was too embarrassed to respond, but the answer was YES.
I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan of romantic films. I can still enjoy them, but most are so fluffy that there's nothing more I could really feel. Sunset doesn't pull any punches though. It goes through great lengths to show the lost idealism and general hopelessness that comes with growing older. And then it gets even worse by going through the pain of missed opportunities and second chances. Along the way, the characters also drop some very romantic lines, like this one:
"You think you're the only one dying inside? My life is 24/7 bad." I'm kidding.
The fact that the film takes place in real-time with a ticking clock factored into the story makes the whole experience even more of a heart attack the first time you see it. If you're watching this movie with hope then that's all you're going to leave with, and that's incredible.
Before Sunset is the only truly romantic and believable movie I've ever seen. And yes, I am still PMSing.
There are a lot of ways to deal with frustration. Most often, you can get sad, angry, depressed. This time I'm trying something different -- getting creative! Everything else is just bleak and destructive, so why not do the opposite? Actually, it can still be bleak, but it beats the alternative.
"Being Seventeen" is a story idea that revolves around the idea of going back to the best time in your life and trying to relive it. In this case, age 17. How do you learn to cope, and can you be "17" again? Can you stay "17" for the rest of your life? It's only two pages in, but what I notice so far is that it's not funny. It's not funny at all! I don't think it's supposed to be.
"Rocket to the Moon" was an idea I had for a song a while ago. What do you do when you have too many feelings and you don't know where to put them? You tie them to a rocket and send them to the moon!
No wonder real artists seem so miserable. Otherwise, how else could they keep their work steady?
I'm going to start writing about 3 of my favorite categories: music, comics, and film. Take them as informal short reviews or recommendations or whatever. Why? Well sometimes there are just things that particularly stand out to me and I need a release for them, and they have to be done quickly or else those immediate feelings will fade away! Today it's music.
(Sabrina Kay?!)
"Let's Get Out of This Country", Camera Obscura Camera Obscura used to be pretty fairly described as "Belle & Sebastian with better female vocals." It was accurate to a degree, but it was no way to write them off because they were still very very good. Somewhere along the line, something changed. Now, Belle & Sebastian doesn't sound like Belle & Sebastian anymore... and Camera Obscura sounds amazing! Both bands tried to go for a deeper, richer sound with their most recent albums, but only one did it in a way that still appealed to me.
The band had a nice thing going with the whole small "quirky-cute" niche for a few years. I don't know where they pulled out this sound that's just a bit more... I don't know, epic?! Vocals, while always charming, have cranked up the sweetness with added bits of naivete and unexpected moments of emotion. On one of my favorites: "I won’t be seeing you for a long while / I hope it’s not as long as a country mile / I feel lost." Who knew they had it in them?
Hell, I'll just say it --"Let's Get Out of This Country" is the best indie pop album I've heard in years.
I was at 3rd Street with my brother and cousins today when a street performance caught my eye -- a band with an Asian cellist backed by a guitarist. I liked the sound, and then I saw a sign reading "Ken Oak Band."
"What the--?! Didn't Robbie say Yumi Sakugawa got rejected by Ken Oak!"
I never understood what Robbie meant by that, but I did remember that Yumi once contributed cd art for them. The cd was also on sale for $10, and so I thought, "Hey! I can just get the songs from Yumi." But then I caught myself,
"... that is SO dick!!!!!!!"
So I plopped down the $10. It wasn't solely due to the uncomfortable feeling of knowingly screwing over some hardworking people, but also because, man, I love supporting my Asian American artists!
To prove this point even further, at night I went out to watch The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Two-word summary:
One goal I've been making good on this summer is taking the time to watch classic movies I've never seen before. I try to watch one every week nowadays, even if I have to do it by myself. I am not sure how I would define "classic", but um... I guess I mean "important non-stupid" films. Here's how I've started:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) Rashomon Before Sunrise Before Sunset American Graffiti The Graduate Strangers on a Train Annie Hall Dawn of the Dead (1978) Dog Day Afternoon Harold & Maude Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Bottle Rocket All the President's Men Se7en Manhattan Goodfellas Raging Bull Apocalypse Now
This to-watch list is more for future reference than anything:
The Apartment Casablanca The Conversation Mr. Deeds Goes to Town One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Rebel Without a Cause The Seven Samurai Tape Taxi Driver Vertigo Wait Until Dark Waking Life
Do you have any suggestions or preferences for any of these? Let me know! I was starting to build this reputation with the video guy as "that dude who rents good movies", but then Richard made me throw it all away when he had me rent Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo for him. Please help me earn it back...
EDIT: I'm going to update this throughout the summer as I watch more movies and add more to my to-watch list. What, you got problem?!
I usually hate going back to read old entries. More often than not they read like ADD-driven attempts at humor and I just end up thinking of myself as a douche. Well, it's crazy to think that I've been keeping this thing up for over four years now.
Lately I've been very occupied with old photographs. AJ asked me to show her how facebook tagging works so I dug up an old Disneyland photo and that's where it started. Naturally it all led to skipping around the blog archives.
Honestly, I've been pretty disappointed with this blog for a long time. Somewhere down the line it changed. I don't know if I was trying to balance a line between truth and entertainment but I haven't been enjoying it. At some point I decided that blogging about your emotions was embarassing, so I tried to keep those out of here as much as possible. But what the hell?! Where's the honesty in that? I love to just go back and read something and think, "Yeah... THAT'S how I felt right then."
I found this hidden post from nearly three years back. If anything, at least my internet grammar has improved.
Then i start thinking that even though i'm not necessarily unhappy with my life at the moment, things probably won't be that good again for a long time. But when i'm back to my usual self, i think, "fuck that. i'm hoai vuong -- nothing can stop me. of course things can be like that again."
Alright, so it's been a really long time, you cocky bastard.
Tonight I saw Superman Returns in IMAX 3D. I'm not going to review it or anything, because well, I guess I don't really do that. But I DO want to talk about my favorite part of the experience.
The 3D wasn't as cool as I expected it to be, but it was still neat to see a big-budget film in such a way. Only four or five sequences in the film were in 3D but I'd still say it's worth seeing in this format. One of the sequences involved a group of characters trapped in a sinking ship, and it was really hard to follow on that gigantic screen because there was so much splashing around with quick camera cuts. Although the scene was fairly intense, at that point I thought it was the least interesting use of 3D in the movie thus far -- just lots of water drops flying around that I could barely see anyway!
But THEN it happened.
(Alright I'll warn you: this is kind of stupid).
A few drops of water splattered onto the camera lens and stuck to it like an invisible wall between the audience and the screen... and it just struck me right then, "HOLY SHIT THERE'S A CAMERA RIGHT THERE." It was a surprising though probably unintended effect, but it still gave me a rather genuine "jump." Actually it was more like a recoil, but a good kind of recoil!
So there you have it. My favorite thing about Superman Returns was that water spilled on a camera... well, that and the music. The music made that film.
(It was also Fish Taco Tuesday at Rubio's. All in all, a good night!)
My cousin Amanda is flying in from Texas next month to hang out with the family. She's now 18 years old (--WHAT?!) and is still the coolest because she's the only girl in our generation with the Vuong family name.
I told her that she could come up to LA with me to hang out. I made this offer knowing that it could very well conflict with the fact that I am a VERY BORING PERSON. I say this because the things I enjoy doing are occasionally deemed boring by other people, and vice versa. As an example, here is a template of how I spent a typical day during my recent one-week gap between finals/camp orientation and summer school.
11:30 AMWake up. Roll around in bed. Complain about having to walk to work soon. 12:00 PMShowered and ready. After sitting around on computer, prepare lunch (poorly). Watch an episode of Entourage. 12:30 PM That was pretty good! Hm, might as well watch another one... 1:30 PMCrap. I finished the season! And I wanted to go in at 1... 5:30 PMLeave work, which was not worth describing! NOW PM Oh man, I got so bored I couldn't even finish this thing!
Do you see what needs to be fixed around here?! Look at that, I spent more time talking about how many episodes of Entourage I watched instead of who I had dinner with or how many burglars I punched out that day. Wait a minute, this schedule wasn't even proving my point AT ALL. What the hell...
Anyway, I just need to figure out some stuff for us to do. Any tips? Otherwise, we're just going to sit in my apartment and play Time Crisis 3 and complain about my life. (Business as usual)
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hoai's journal
