Last Friday, I was so excited to watch “Memoirs of a Geisha,” the movie adaptation of my favorite book, starring Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Watanabe and Gong Li.

Suzuka Ohgo, who played the younger version of Zhang Zi Yi was at her best, am sure she’ll be famous soon enough, while Gong Li portrayed Hatsumomo (the antagonist) quite well. With just a glance or a sneer, she screams b*tch and made you hate her! 🙂

Zhang Ziyi’s acting was so-so, although she was as always, a sight to behold. Another disappointment was how two other main characters were portrayed. Given Mameha’s and the Chairman’s presence in the book, Michelle Yeo and Ken Watanabe respectively, gave lackluster performances — a disappointment since both are pretty good actors and have made their presences felt in previous movies.

Overall, I like it, although one doesn’t really need to watch this in the big screen. My friends however hated the ending (they thought it was too unrealistic) and were confused by the use of various languages within the movie (the characters were using a mixture of English and Japanese). They were also disturbed by the “pedophilic” tendencies of the Chairman hitting on a 9-year old girl.

Haha, they do have a sense of humor!

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As for Saturday, we prepared ourselves for a battle of paintball at Neihu, which we spectacularly lost!

There were two games — the first was a 10-minute, last-man-standing game, which was a tie. While the second was a mission type of game where we would have to capture the enemy’s flag.

We outnumbered our enemy from 35 to 26, and yet, we still lost! I guess, it’s because their team composed of large, burly Canadians, while our team were predominantly Asian and female. But I don’t really mind since it was all in good fun!

Honestly, I don’t really mind losing as long as we went down with a fight!

And of course, there are some casualties of war.

I, for that matter, got myself two humongous bruises on my left thigh and managed to get shot in the ear, the head, the back (that’s another bruise) and of course the butt!

What made it worse that it was my own dear teammates that managed to shoot me not only once, but twice on my rear end! I guess, that’s the problem when you’re busy defending the frontlines, and your teammates are just shooting blindly behind the trenches.

But as I’ve said, I’ve had a lot of fun, and afterwards, we enjoyed our winnings over some delicious BBQ food!

However, the day didn’t end there, as I went on to party with some friends at Plush till 2:30AM! Another story coming up about clubbing, but I’ll just save that for another time. 😉

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It scares me sometimes to get close to people.

Every time you first meet someone, you only touch the surface of their being. Every one is of course nice. You like them and they like you. It’s quite rare that you find someone who didn’t like you at first glance.

But nobody’s perfect and everyone has their flaws.

When you spend time and talk to people, you open yourself up to them. You give them the opportunity to see you who you really are and maybe even judge you for what you do or do not do.

Now, that’s scary.

Sometimes, I wonder if making new friends is worth it. I mean, I know I already have friends who have seen me at my best and my worst, and still love me anyway. So why let yourself out there, only to be judged and hurt?

Hmmm… it’s because we have to grow, I guess. We cannot just stay at home and protect our hearts, and be doomed to a life of loneliness.

Life is a risk.

Sometimes, it’s better to take that leap and hope we get some rewards out from it, than to keep your heart close to you, and stay lonely.

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I’ve learned that I value loyalty among my friends.

Over the past weeks, I’ve become my girl-friend’s sounding board and therapist since she’s recently been encountering some love problems of her own. She had said “Thank you,” a gazillion times and calls me whenever she needs to cry, complain or just b*tch about her ex.

She even called me last Saturday to tell her that she’s slowly getting her self-respect back and thanking me for it, saying that I was her good friend.

So imagine my surprise when she held a brunch at her house and didn’t invite me. Sounds highschool, but that really bothered me.

If I was really the good friend she said I was, she would’ve invited me ahead of time, instead of only asking me to come over after I called her to invite her out for wallclimbing and she answered the phone tipsy.

But I guess, that’s how you’re aware on where you stand with some people…

Of course, I will still be her friend, but at least, I know there are limitations on the friendship she’ll give me in the future.

I don’t know, but I’ve come to realize that I have high expectations with my very close friends. For example, if a common friend is late, it’ll not be a big deal. I’ll be pissed but I’d forget.

But when a very close friend of mine stand me up for an appointment or is extremely late, I get really mad and it’ll bother me for hours to end.

Sigh. Oh well, at least I know where I stand now with her.

Anyway, I’m a bit tired, and my hands are sore so I’ll leave you guys for now. 🙂

Oh well, hope this week will be better than the last!