Funeral (2)

The real deal today. Can't believe I got nervous (from being asked to shoot video) and couldn't sleep. Ended up sleeping for less than 3 hours. Bad... (T_T)

It was raining from early on. I really didn't think I should drive. Luckily brother came to drive me and mom. I started shoot when the car entered the parking lot and didn't check what time we arrived... but we seemed to be in the middle. Bypassing the lineup in front of the room, we went straight to the front. (That was for greeting anyway.) I quickly set up A's camera (thanks A!) and shot a 360 degree pan or two.

Soon the ceremony began. It was mostly the pastor speaking. He was going on and on about how aunt Y was extremely religious and God helped her to the very end... and of course, same as last time when uncle L passed away, the pastor's objective was to advertise for the church. L A M E !!!!

It was all POV. As far as I know, aunt Y had offended tons of people at church and made even more enemy. Of course the pastor didn't mention anything like that. I wonder if he knew.

Cousin D gave a speech which was modified from my mom's writeup. (BTW he never came to pick the piece of paper up physically. It was the picture I e-mailed him.) Of course he didn't mention he got any help, and made it sound like he did all the job. He was still painting himself as a "good boy". L A M E !!! When he read out the sequence of events from the ER to the very last day, he made it sound like he was there all the time, but he wasn't!!!! No mention that it was mom and I who sent her to the ER. (And had to cleanup all the crap she crapped.) No mention it was mom who saw aunt Y's last breath either!!! Geeze... L A M E !!!

Cousin O was half crying when she gave her speech. Of course at funerals, only good things are mentioned. (Don't take me wrong, I'm not against that. It's just that it felt very surreal. There are discrepancies between the description and what I know.)

I'm just glad that I had to shoot video and didn't have to sing. Don't know why, but I really hate singing hymns since I was in grade school. Didn't know A's camera had a limit on clip length and it stopped quite a few times. Just before the pastor finished, the card ran out of memory! That was a 16GB card! Yikes! Luckily I brought mine too. Switching is easy but I missed a few moments.

On our way out, I had to ask for those lucky red envelopes. Cousin D had no intention to hand me one in person by pointing me to the basket. So I took 2, 1 for me, 1 for mom. Geeze... It felt like he was trying to avoid us or something! L A M E !!!

Then we were treated to lunch at a nearby restaurant. This time, amazingly, cousin D (and his wife) sat at our table. What the...? That was so unusual! I suspect he was keeping an eye on us for bad-mouthing him.... I mean, telling the truth. Do I care? Ha! L A M E !!!! (OK maybe I do care because I fell mad.)

Tons of people I didn't know. They might have been church friends of mom at some point, but I didn't know them. When they came to greet mom, they A L L asked me if I go to church. That is none of nobody's business! One lady even brought out bible stories right away trying to pretch to me like I'm a criminal if I don't go to church! I really hated the way she said it. It was not about me, but her showing off her biblical "knowledge". The heck with that. This kind of "infection urge" makes the church look like an occult. The brain-washing is so complete, they're worse than insurance brokers. Do they think I own them my soul or something? It is exactly seeing such people that turns me so off about churches! Super annoying! Super L A M E !!!

Went home and it was 2. I tried to download the videos onto my computers... but the new one was moving painfully slow! AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!! It was so slow, it was unfeasible! I couldn't get it working before leaving to meet A. Before that, I also realized the folder structure was different when using more than one camera. Although I'd like to do it as quickly as I could, it still took 2 hours to send cousin O an illustrated e-mail asking her to confirm she's got everything. (And it was well worth it. She did miss a folder. My fault, though, because I didn't watch the transfer.) At the same time, I was cleaning up the photo-shoot setup mess because cousin B will be here tomorrow. Also, I couldn't help but overhearing mom talking to aunt CH, and I had to correct her many times when she gave the wrong facts.

Of course a little late meeting A. Thanks for not getting mad. (Sorry I was the mad one, getting all worked up by cousin D's speech + alpha.) Took him to pick up some packages, ate dinner at Fat Burger, stopped at his place for a bit, and then went home.

The new computer's speakers worked again! Thank God! Otherwise I really would loose heart on updating. At the end, it was a mystery why it stopped working. I suspect the fix was as simple as rebooting.

Thought I could cleanup physically some more, but ended up dealing with the videos and e-mail. Why am I so slow in writing? (... negative thoughts... bad...) Yes, I'm cranky again. It's the weather again.