Asian supermarkets and restaurants are dull.

Yesterday watched 3 movies in the morning/noon on comcast's IFC channel and On Demand. The Cars That Ate Paris, Wall-E and "I forgot the title". I didn't concentrate on the first two movies. My mom was watching The Cars That Ate Paris so I joined in after breakfast at 10+ for the later parts of the movie. I was also reading Sula for class, so I didn't pay much attention. The plot was interesting. Cars accidents delibrately caused for business but there's always someone to ruin the party eh.. the hero. The next movie was about the protagonist and his wife trying to survive dirty bombs in LA. I didn't concentrate on that either because Milan vs Fiorentina was on. Milan won 1-0 courtesy of Pato's goal. The movie wasn't that good anyway. After that I watched Wall-E and fell asleep. Almost finished reading Sula, a dark story with poetic writing.

So today's agenda: Read finish Sula, think of a thesis for my Sula analysis paper, write more pages for script, study for f/tv 10, and watch harold and maude (again), million dollar baby, let the right one in, hitman and any other films on cable. Grocery shopping too.

Trader Joe's makes grocery shopping fun. It's smaller, more cosy, and offers free coffee for shoppers!

The Week

It's Saturday. This week, had a farewell dinner for Ryo on Wednesday night. He left for Los Angeles/Northridge area on Thursday. I plan to visit there, since I have loads of friends there, it'd be even better if Mao comes back from japan when I visit. So my road trip would be stopping by at santa barbra to visit yuichiro, then to northridge area, and la/hollywood for screenplay library and job research. We ate at Yume Sushi on El Camino then went to Break Time at cupertino village for dessert. Went to Break Time again on Friday to talk with Cam and Andrew. They are doing 4 projects together for directing class. I recalled the time I took it, there were Alison, Ryo, Massimo, Rita, Gustav, Bill, Mark, Sree, and another Indian guy I forgot his name. Time flies quickly. I could recall the time Bill and I talked for the first time. And watching Rabbits In Your Headlights music video during the first lesson. I think, of all the films I made in that class, The Deal was to most fun to film and Love Train is people's favorite, especially Asians (cos it feels like a japanese/taiwanese drama). The Procedure is the most presentable, and my favorite, because the production value looks better, and less technical mistake in it.

This week just hanging at cafes and only meeting friends for lunch.

I forgot to register for the seminar by a writer. It's a 6 hours seminar, next saturday, don't really want to attend.

Last Name

Argh!!! Guys, Guys, Girls, my last name (surname) is not Maung. Officially, it is Maung in my Identification registrations but Maung is not even my name.

First of all, Burmese do not have a surname. We don't use father's name strictly either, like the Malays, Indians and some Scandinavians. The mother and father will give offsprings similar names and often takes from the father. An example would be:

Father: Soe Myo Min

Mother: Su Nandar Win

Son: Aung Kyaw Min

Son: Aung Naing Min

Daughter: Moe Moe Win

Okay, these names don't make sense, but they are examples.

Although the word Maung could be part of a real name in Burmese culture, Maung also means young Mister. Older adults will be called U (pron. as Oo). For females, young miss is Ma and elder miss is Daw. So if your name is Joe Vladimir and you are 14 years old, you'd be called Maung Joe Vladimir. If you are 40 yrs old, U Joe Vladimir. It works like San in Japanese, not totally, but that's the idea. So if your name is Min Htun, you'd be called Maung Min Htun or U Min Htun.

You do not have to include Maung or U in IDs, although it's normal (thought optional) in Myanmar. My Dad put it in my name. So my name became Maung Hein Htet Soe. There's also a @ with my original name Hein Htet Soe. In Singapore, teachers go by the latter, and from primary 2 to pri 6, they call me Htet Soe, because they thought Hein is my surname as chinese culture has the surname infront. Htet Soe doesn't sound right.

My name is easy to pronounce, at least to my friends in US, surprisingly. What makes it hard to pronounce is that it's hard to know the right way to say it from the way it's spelled. If I tell you how exactly, verbally, you'd find it rather easy. But when I was young, I was shy, I dun like to correct all my teachers and schoolmates who got it wrong. So I let it be... but I was frustrated with that, so in primary 6 I introduced the name Sean. But I remember one of my closest friends since pri 2, Wilson, pronounced Hein Htet Soe correctly, very well.

When filling in immigration papers, for some reasons, Maung became my last name, Soe became my middle name, initial.

So I don't have a surname. I'm happy to make either Soe or Hein as my last name. I have to convince one of my friends in US so hard, you know who you are, that Maung is not my last name. And it's not because I don't like it, or because it got arranged wrongly. It's not part of my name in the first place. It's mister. Not my name. Soe would be my sensible surname because it's part of my father's name. But for now, I'm trying out Hein as my last name.

I do have a chinese name, with the surname Song. Actually the name is formed to sound like my burmese name. Song Hai (Sea) Te (Special), Soe Hein Htet. My tuition teacher formed it for me in primary school. So in chinese class I go by Hai Te.

Football and the Globes

Man Utd 3-0 Chelsea. Rubbed my eyes. Didn't watch the game. Man U not only gained 3 points, they also took points away from Chelsea, a team above them in the league standings. That's a kind of win which I'll call The Win in sports. I watched milan vs roma, becks debut with milan. It was 2-2. Roma scored first, Milan equalized then took the lead before Roma equalized to tie the match. Milan dominated possession but their defending was bad and their attack wasn't as sharp as they used to be 3 years ago. Seems like Roma's attacks were sharper even though they didn't have much possession especially in the first half. It was good to see Becks in milan jersey, my other favorite team.

Slumdog Millionaire swept Golden Globes. Won Best Motion Picture (Drama) the biggest prize, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Score. Good good. Do the same for Oscars.

It's 5:29am, going back to sleep.

Lunacy?

What's wrong with female students in campus these days. While my friend and I were exiting the school's parking lot, we saw a female student showing the finger at another driver. I didn't see what happened before that. On one other day, as I walked to my car, I saw a female student shouting at another driver, it goes something like "Can't you see I'm backing out, don't you know I'm backing out? I'm backing out. Can you reverse, make space for me?" I've also noticed other female students going berserk. Must be this lunacy kind of aura going on. I didn't notice the moon though.

Is playing cards the only game?

Two weeks ago I went to a friend's 22nd birthday party. His cousins and nephews were at that party and we played games, the ultimate winner of each game got a prize. So we played Apple To Apples (a board/card game for a play group), Uno, Twister, and some video games, had pizza, corn bread etc. His cousins were middle schoolers, for s'poreans, it means secondary 1-2, and it was good to hang with this age group because I've never had a first hand experience of the american teenage lifestyle. It's the same as what we did in singapore, love the same things, same games, same cartoons, same shows, same expressions, same jokes, same laughter. The only thing different is that they tell the jokes and express themselves in american accent and slangs while singaporean 13 yrs olds would use singlish, the accent and all the slangs like wah kao! Or they would use mandarin, with all the hokkien words, if they are mandarin oriented. That's the only difference.

I felt real good playing with them. I like board games, or in other words, a game that is not played with a computer/tv but with a group of friends, sit around, play/think/talk/drink (any drink). I like that feeling. Wait wait...I'm not talking about gambling. Besides Danny (20s) (who likes monopoly and scrabble) and my chess loving friends in singapore, majority of my 18-42 yrs old friends in usa and especially the 20-27 yrs olds i hang out with on regular basis, do not play board games. So the only game of such, that requires the group to sit around a table, talking, enjoying each other's company as we play a game, is....the one, the only...poker. Okay, I'll call it cards. So it's poker, Thirteen (DaiDee) and such and such. Cards. Wait, is it maturity? Is it age? No way. More than half of these so called matured 20s, play all sorts of "childisher" games online, all sorts of pc games, and all sorts of video games, or any game that has cute little creatures jumping over a cliff. Oh, and they love all sorts of anime. Mature, I'd say. I wanna play monopoly, I wanna play scrabble, I wanna play Risk? I wanna play Apples to Apples (by the way, this game is better for adults or late teens), I wanna play chess, I wanna play Dungeons & Dragons, but I can't find anyone who could enjoy them like me. They prefer video/pc games. They prefer technology, I prefer humans.

I love the feeling of sitting around with friends, drinking something, playing a game, especially one that requires discussion and thinking, and talk, laugh. In America, this is also known as gaming. But in a funny way, it is more popular among older adults, 30s and above. They have gaming sessions on weekends, with their family and friends. So it's not about age, I just don't know why my friends are not into them. They are too practical I guess, or they don't like company. To them, shooting someone on the head in a video game is more fun than chatting and drinking with friends.

So we played Apples To Apples. This game needs general knowledge, experience in life, and sense of humor. For once, it's not poker.

Tired

Tired to blog.