Author Archives: Valerie Leung

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About Valerie Leung

I ♥ Sydney Swans. Square-eyed from too much television. I don't read enough. You can find me blogging at LibraGirlRules.com, writing about TV, films and books at ArmchairParadise.wordpress.com and occasionally traveloguing at ThursdayHasAView.wordpress.com. I have been known to write fanfic at fanfiction.net (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2660477/) and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @valshopaholic.

Happy Twitterversary

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It was exactly two years ago, on March 18, 2009, that I joined the Twitterverse. I know exactly why I joined and what I was doing when I signed up. I was watching the Ellen DeGeneres Show. She had been talking about Twitter a few times and I finally got curious about it. Other people had mentioned it before as well. I already had a Facebook account but at the time was barely using it. But I decided to try Twitter anyway. I signed up but I had no followers (sounds a little cult-ish, doesn’t it?) and I didn’t know what to do. I assume everyone started out searching for celebrities to follow. I know I did. Then somehow I learnt a few other things like using hashtags (#), how to send public messages to people (@) and private/direct messages (D). In the beginning, I didn’t tweet much. I hardly even logged in.

My Tweet Stats

So what changed in February 2010 to cause me to start tweeting madly (well, to me, at that time it seemed like I was tweeting madly at 154 tweets for the month!)?  The answer is quite simple: I discovered White Collar.  To my now-dedicated and loyal group of friends/followers, you will understand exactly what this means.  To those who aren’t, I won’t judge you but you are missing out! 😀  Now, you may say “but the show started in October 2009! What were you doing all this time?”  Well, it didn’t air in Australia till a couple of months after the US so I did catch on a little later but once I caught the bug, I caught it BIG…viral proportions!  As they say, better late than never! Continue reading →

Giving Is As Important As Giving Up

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For those of us who are Catholics, today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of the Catholic Lenten season that ends with Easter.  Most people associate Lent with the idea of giving up something, or making some sacrifice.  Typical “sacrifices” include giving up chocolates, ice-cream, new shoes, or some other self-indulgent thing.  But few of us remember that there are two sides to this coin, and that is to GIVE.  As part of the Lenten Program, Caritas (a Catholic charitable organisation active around the world) asks us to give through its Project Compassion program.  The season lasts six weeks and each week we are told a story of someone from a different part of the world: Nepal, Democratic Replublic of Congo, Bolivia, Samoa, Vietnam (a beautiful country which I visited only last November), and closer to home, Western Sydney.

I must admit, every year, as I have got older, I blindly put my money into either the Project Compassion collection box or in the weekly envelopes without giving too much thought to what I was doing.  But today, the homily our priest gave was all about giving and sharing.  He told a story of a little boy he met recently in South Africa who was looking through the garbage for food.  So he bought the boy some bread and the boy immediately looked for his friend to share his food with.  What would you have done if you had been that hungry little boy?  What would I have done?  Probably devoured it all in one mouthful?  Would you have shared?  What would you have done if you had been the passer-by seeing the little boy digging through trash for food?

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Kind Words Are The Mightiest Sword

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In a society currently bringing the subject of bullying front and centre of our consciousness, it seems to me a timely reminder that it is easier to be kind than to be cruel.  The old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is certainly not true, especially in cyber-age when unkind words are all that may be required to push a person over the edge and cause irreparable damage.  As of the time of writing, there is a “train wreck” fascination with the ranting and raving of actor Charlie Sheen, who apparently never learnt the adage about not biting the hand that feeds you.  Amongst the recipients of his wordy attacks is the creator of the TV show, of which he is paid millions per episode to star in.  Thankfully, creator Chuck Lorre, is taking the high road and opted to use his vanity cards to let his thoughts be heard.  You can read Mr Lorre’s replies on his site, Chuck Lorre Productions – the Official Vanity Card Archives (and in case you missed my earlier post to explain the name of my blog, yes, I named it after his) – of note are Card#329 and most recently, Card #334.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy following these as they unfold as much as I do.

But I don’t want to dwell on the negativity of using words.

I woke up a little grumpy this morning, after only getting about 4 or 5 hours sleep.  Yes, it was self-inflicted pain as I stayed up later than I should talking to friends on Twitter – what am I supposed to do when we live in different timezones?  Chatting with my gal Lena Lamoray about her photography work and interviewing the latest crop of hot actors in the US (and darl, if you ever send me with a press pass to Comic Con on Matt Bomer/Tim DeKay stalking duties I would go at the drop of a hat and be forever in your debt!), reading the latest blog post by Claire, my fellow White Collar fangirl from Perth and who also has been editor/proof-reader of my stories, and generally trying to work on my next blog are all time-consuming and result in sleep deprivation. Sleep be damned when their long-distance friendship and encouraging words have inspired me to do things that may ultimately, hopefully, be a positive change to my future.

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Why Do We Care?

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My regular readers and Twitter followers know that sometimes when I get obsessed with something, I can get too carried away, regardless of what that something might be.  There is no denying that my obsession for the last 12 months has been a TV show called White Collar, its stars and writers.  I tweet about them, blog about them, and of course, talk about them.  Incessantly. My opinions on all things WC-related are often so strong that when someone says something negative about them, I feel the need to publicly defend them.  At the same time, if there was something I did not like, such as one of the episodes that aired a couple of weeks ago, I did not shy away from going into lengthy discussions with my fellow Collars, detailing every plot hole we could identify (quite frankly, because we know the show so well that we were able to spot the plot holes from a mile away) and offering possible explanations for what went wrong.

So, this particular obsessive (and possibly very shallow) behaviour aside, it brought to mind the question of why we care so much about some things and so little about others?  As I write, the major news items around the world involve the Christchurch earthquake (as discussed in my blog “When Tragedy Strikes We Pull Together“) and the continuing turmoil in Libya.

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Myth-Busting for Practical People

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I have always made it a point in this blog to try and turn the negative into positive.  But there is always an exception.  So let this be the one (if I have more in the future I will create a new blog – Ha!).

The first myth I need to bust is that self-cleaning ovens do not clean themselves.  There! I’ve said it!  It is the biggest lie in the world.  Right after “no, honey, that dress does not make your butt look big”.  Oh wait…if you live in Sydney, you would probably agree that the Cityrail timetable is also a myth – the greatest piece of fiction ever written, as it is sometimes known.  The mere existence of a timetable does not mean that it is real.  So back to my first point:  Whoever came up with the term “self-cleaning” needs to be shot…unless he is already dead…in which case, R.I.P.

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