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Parade

Friday, May 30, 2008

Parade

Don't try to figure me out
Don't try you'll only fail
I'm not a reed in the sand
You're already starting to pale

Everyone's gone for the summer again
Something is building , I don't understand
A hummingbird larks in my hand

But I'm too busy chasing parades
To ever love you the same
Just breathe
He's going away

Pack up your jacket and shoes
Kiss all my friends one more time
Don't take a minute on paintings you see
There's a curtain on the blinds

Peeking is stealing the life you don't share
There's a map of a memory, of us over there
Dangerous questions are near

I'm too busy chasing parades
To love you the same
Just breathe
I'm going away

And I.
I...
I...

Sonics III

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Sonics III

Miles of Styles by Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra

Shawn Lee's Miles of Styles is definitely one of those great finds on my part, completely based on chance. I think I checked out the band simply because it has a funny name, who'd name their band after a sport like ping pong anyway? The marriage of a very eastern sport with a western electronic artiste is an album that fuses a dozen cultures into one. The title of the album is really self-explanatory, and Shawn Lee has drawn musical inspirations from a dozen different countries around the world to make this album. We have everything from a punjabi music, to a very european styled lounge music, to something slightly Scandinavian in nature, to a club mix with Chinese roots. It is a very interesting album to listen to indeed, something you'd want to chill out to if you are desperate for an around the world trip, but can't make it due to whatever reasons you've got. This album incapsulates the essence of music in every culture and layered it with the kind of music you'd expect to find in a lounge bar or a club. This is the type of album that breaks music boundaries, a very fascinating piece of music making here. I still remember the look on my sister's face when I fired up the first song "Punjabi Lullaby". Some people just don't understand. 

Albums by the band: 
1. Music and Rhythm (2004)
2. Moods and Grooves (2005)
3. Strings and Things (2006)
4. A Very Ping Pong Christmas (2007)
5. Hits The Hits! (2007)
6. Miles of Styles (2008)

Days To Come by Bonobo

Bonobo is really the stage name for the British music composer and DJ, Simon Green. No, it is not the name for a type of monkey, I have checked. Bonobo is yet another chanced find while I was doing my routine surf through the iTunes music store. The type of music is rather similar to Shawn's Lee's music, but the difference is that Simon Green tends to focus a lot more on the vocals. Especially in this album, Simon Green frequently used the voice of Bajka, a German female singer in tracks like "Days to Come" and "Between the Lines". Bonobo is somewhat like Zero 7, only with more style and more funk than you'd expect. While Zero 7 is meant for a lazy Saturday afternoon at home, Bonobo belongs more to the Friday night clubs somehow. His music is said to be soothing, sensual, and even sexy on the first listen. It inevitably evokes a sense of high in the listeners, and anything you do while listening to this album is going to seem as if you are doing it under the influence of alcohol. This album does not require your attention at all, it just forcefully grabs you by the collar and demands it. It is a vibrant album that is fitting for any occasion, choked with the kind of music nobody can resist to. Anybody is going to find something that they like in this album, and Bonobo has two other studio albums to boot at that. This is a brilliant album beyond words, and there is a little bit for everybody out there, surely. 

Albums by the artiste:
1. Animal Magic (2000)
2. Dial "M" for Monkey (2003)
3. Days To Come (2006)

Rounds by Four Tet 

Four Tet is yet another one-man band like Bonobo, whose real name is Keiran Hebden, a British posk-rock and electronic DJ. It is said that anything he touches becomes gold, and that is evident in his extensive discography. If Bonobo is the adult hanging around in bars, then Four Tet is probably the playful kid in the neighborhood who likes to pull pranks on other fellow neighbors. Four Tet has a rather playful take on lounge music, and it is obvious in tracks like "No More Mosquitoes", which really doesn't make any sense at all. However, you can't help but bob you head to the heavy bass and the beats because, well, it is just that contagious and controlling. It is interesting how he actually blends a little bit of jazz elements with post-rock elements, something which I have never ever heard before. It is a very engrossing choice of genres to experiment with, and I must say that the end result is pretty eclectic, if I do say so myself. Some may complain how he may sound like an underground DJ in one song and a posk-rock band from Iceland in the next. The styles may not be the cup of tea for everyone out there, but I personally find that this permutation of genres is definitely something worth listening to, and all the credits and the praises. After all, this man has worked with the likes of Thom Yorke, Battles, Beth Orton, and Radiohead for a reason - he is just that good. By the way, I really do think that "No More Mosquitoes" should be used as the theme song for the anti-dengue campaign in Singapore. 

Albums by the artiste:
1. Dialogue (1999)
2. Pause (2001)
3. Rounds (2003)
4. Everything Ecstatic (2005)
5. Remixes (2006)
6. Ringer (2008)

Discovery by Daft Punk

Alright, I admit. It has taken me a while to catch up with the Daft Punk bandwagon. This band has been around for nearly two decades, and here I am being new to this French electronic band. But let's just say, I like what I am hearing, and I definitely want more. Daft Punk has been said to be the most famous and successful electronic band, and a lesser claim would be an insult to them. I think this band has been made even more famous by Kanye West using one of their songs in his latest album, but that doesn't mean people should look upon this band as being in the "supportive" role in the music business. Daft Punk is the ruler in the dance arena, and it is clear to see why. This band electronic duel is out of this world, with their strange stage outfits and their weird antics while doing interviews with reporters. They seldom reveal how they look like, and they'd even put bags over their heads during interviews just to make sure. I haven't seen this band live, but their concert videos are certainly quite a visual blast, and it certainly compliments the music very well. This whole album is a high frequency, high intensity, high power album that attacks all your senses at once. A very fitting album for a party, or a big crowd that just wants to go crazy all night long. 

Albums by the band: 
1. Homework (1997)
2. Discovery (2001)
3. Human After All (2005)

The Mating Game by Bitter:Sweet

Bitter:Sweet is my latest find, and I guess I just wanted a little change from the genres before this one came along. Bitter:Sweet is a very captivating band indeed. They are a cross between Thievery Corporation, Psapp, and perhaps Elysian Fields for me. The Los Angeles based electronic/trip-hop band is quirky and fun in a very sexy and mysterious way somehow. Shana Halligan's vocals reminds me somewhat of the lead vocalist from Elysian Field, with the same kind of laziness and style which I admire so much. However, the difference is that you can get a little tired listening to Elysian Fields, but the same cannot be said about Bitter:Sweet at all. They are just upbeat and buoyant, it's the kind of music you'd want to dance to. Dance, not like Daft Punk kinda dance, but just the grooving type of dance. I'm not great at dancing, in fact I resemble a stick in the ground most of the time. But I imagine this sort of music to be the kind that'd make people move on their own two feet on the dance floor. The Mating Game is their awesome debut album, and their latest album Drama does seem as promising, if not better. I particularly love the playful tracks like The Mating Game and Dirty Laundry, the kind of music I'd like to hang my head to. 

Albums by the band:
1. The Mating Game (2006)
2. The Remix Game (2007)
3. Drama (2008)

A Weather Forecast

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Weather Forecast

And the weather forecast for the coming weeks - thunderstorms are going to be frequent and headstrong for the next three weeks or so, with expected showers all throughout the island and the possible lightning strikes. The cold front coming in from the oceans that carries the moisture from the waters are going to meet and transform into a minor hurricane of sorts. Dark clouds should be expected in the skies these days, towering over the beautiful sunrises that our island has been so blessed with until now. Temperatures are going to drop drastically to below ten degrees celsius, with wind speeds at eighty miles per hour and possibly even higher depending on your geographical location. Remember to bring an umbrella when you head on out of your house, and pick the kind of wardrobes that is going to keep you warm for the next couple of weeks. This weather forecast has been brought to you by yours truly, who has zero experience in weather forecasting or any memories of ever watching any weather forecast for more than ten seconds on television. The above forecast was completely based on my old geography classes, and should only be taken as an analogy to what I have to say regarding the days to come. 

This week, the next week, and the one after the next, and hopefully everything is going to settle down at last. You know, by settle down I mean go back to how it was before all these shinanigans started flooding into the picture and destroying its balance. School has been fine, however uneventful it may be. Nobody ever said schooling is supposed to be a summer beach party, and I am certainly not complaining the fact that it has been about going through the actions as of late. But that has been alright, until all the army stuff came back to haunt me all over again. You know, the whole deal with the physical fitness test and the deferment of the in-camp training, and everything in between that is going to be affected severely. Just thinking about the assignments, the chapters that I am going to miss, the quizzes, the exams happening right after that week makes my head spin. After all, missing eight full chapters in an university context is sort of like missing one's childhood and teenage years together, or maybe buying a packet of Oreo cookies without the cream. It is going to cause me a lot of troubles just to catch up with the rest of the gang, and it just sucks that the deferment has been slapped back into my face all over again. 

Many friends that I have talked to, the ones having holidays now anyway, were surprised that my deferment did not get through. After all, it should make sense to allow you to defer when you actually do have a full-time course, even if it is a private institution, right? On top of that, this is not just any private institution we are talking about, I happen to be taking one of the most expensive courses in Singapore, and it's not like the school is kind enough to give me refunds and free credits for the classes that I am going to miss either. They completely ignored the fact that I am attending a school that has a five day week, a compressed semester with all the examinations and assignments crushed together into a matter of six weeks, and that is not to mention the fact that I had a clean track record while I was in the army. No major disciplinary issues, no medical leave, no nothing of that sort that'd cause them to blacklist me in any way. It just depresses me at times, when they completely ignore the life that you've been leading after you have already finished your term in the army. I have completed my obligations, but it's not like the master lets you run very far away with that leash around your neck. They always find a way to pull you back, and it really is saddening on my part. It is just a kind understanding from them that I ask for, and it just seems to be the most difficult thing in the world for them. 

Due to an incident that happened between Deuel and myself, I ended up heading to Maju Camp for my IPPT alone today. That is not to mention the hours spent alone in the school trying desperately to study - but can't. The only thing on my mind at that point in time was the grueling hours ahead of me, all the sweat and all the muscle pains that'd ensue surely by the end of the evening. It surely wasn't helped by the fact that everybody went home then, the school was pretty much vacated, and the skies were relentless in the showers all afternoon. The walk towards the camp came me a few thoughts as the droplets of water fell from the branches and the leaves above, a thought that involved me packing up my belongings at home and then sending them all over to Taiwan and then making a dash for it one fine day. In that way, I'd have all my things in Taiwan and be able to run away from it all - what a cowardly way of looking at things, but consider the fact that I was walking towards a place that I have been avoiding for the past year or so - give me a break. 

The smell of a camp, the sight of a camp, the way people sounded, everything was excruciating to my ears and eyes. It brought back memories of those days when we were locked down in the camps and were not allowed to go home, or those even harder times when cellphones were completely barred from the vicinity of the camps. Those were the days, and I was revisiting it all by myself. I changed into my gear, and the whole nightmare happened without much recollection. One thing led to the next, I was in a mental mode that involved a switch in my brain turned off. That's a talent that I have taken away from the army, the ability to switch your brain off and just do the job. Still, certain things inevitably crept into my head as I realized that I wasn't able to run away from my weaknesses at all. I dread fitness tests, not because of the events themselves but what they remind me of - my weaknesses. It's depressing to know that I am the way that I am, as if self-esteem isn't already a problem in my personality DNA. 

It's just this "Asian Mentality" isn't it, and I hate to blame it all on society norms but I have to. It's just the way people require you to be this smart, this fit, and this successful in your pitiful little life with a trivial thing called career. It isn't enough that you are satisfied and contented with what you have, and what you like about yourself. People want you to be the way they want you to be, act the way they want you to act, and do the things they want you to do. They don't use the word "punishment", because that word has a rather morbid connotation to it. So they use other underhanded ways to make you pay for your mistakes, it's kind of like how they've been always making polytechnic and private institutions feel like a subpar educational route, like some ugly cousin in the family or something. They've drilled into the heads of so many students out there that going to a Junior College is the right way to go, then going to a recognized local university and get a proper degree. Failure cannot be tolerated, and certainly it should be punished in our society! 

I don't know, I like being the guy that loves music and books, and movies in between the hours of work in school and other minor obligations. I like the fact that I am this way, the introverted self with the ability to survive with prolonged hours of solitude. I don't need to be the kind of person to pull a dozen chin ups, to run at gold timings, to finish the race first. Some people are just not meant to be made into the kind of person others would like them to be, and I am not the kind of person that they'd like me to be either. I seek their kind understanding that I am the way that I am, not because of laziness or lethargy, or just a general disinterest and irresponsibility in things. This is just not how I work, this is not how I operate, I don't work like that. I am the kind of soldier who'd throw down his weapons and run on home because I'd much rather die with my family than to die for my country - what is a country, anyway? Who is she, this motherland people always speak of when giving patriotic speeches? It is so elusive, so intangible. It's like a big fat lie people are fighting for, it doesn't make any sense to me anymore. As far as I am concerned, I am only willing to fight for people that I love, and not some thing that people tell me to love. I have given up two years of my life to you, is it really so hard to leave the rest of my life to me? 

I guess, what I am trying to say is that, this period of time has been rather depressing to me. School has been fine, I guess I am handling well enough to keep my chin up. It's just everything else, everything else. I just need these few weeks to be over, and perhaps that'd be the best birthday present by the time my birthday comes around at the end of the month. It'd be nice to know that I am in one piece, that I have yet to succumb to the pressure of it all. Of course I am not going to die, of course I am not going to suffer from some kind of life-threatening injury in the course of this entire ordeal. Still, I just hate to be apart of a system that wants you to be anything but yourself, a system that proclaims democracy with an iron fist. It may seem to some that this is me, wallowing in my own pool of self-pity. How pathetic is that, you ask? It is, rather, I do admit. But it's not like keeping my chin up is going to change the system, it isn't going to make these three weeks' weather forecast to be any better. And so I sulk, I sulk, and I sulk some more. It makes me feel better in a bitter sort of way, like the after taste of some god-awful medicine from the clinic. Simpler times, whatever happened to those. 

A Wooden House

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A Wooden House

I wanna live life and never be cruel
I wanna live life and be good to you
I wanna fly and never come down
And live my life and have friends around

Last Friday night at the beach was a blast, although it could have created a bigger crater. In the words of Naz the Great, it was better than expected, though still somewhat of a letdown. The moment we set eyes on the notice on the portal, none of us actually gave too much attention to it. Past events organized by the school haven't had a very good track record. All of those events were either canceled or turned out to be epic failures, events you wouldn't be very proud to be a part of. It is true that the majority of the student body does not have a lot of faith in school organized events, but at the same time it's not like we have much of a choice most of the time. If this is as good as it gets, it'd be better if we can make the best out of it all. So a few friends were asked to go to the barbeque last Friday after school, and the turn out at the beach turned out to be pretty good - or, better than expected. There was a similar outing at the Siloso Beach sometime last year, but I heard that the weather was very generous with its precipitation that afternoon that everything came to a grinding halt. Everybody remembers how the Halloween party turned out, and I am just glad that I was never there to give a first-hand account in the things that came to pass. 

The idea of a barbeque irks me, and I am sure the same can be said for a lot of people out there. All the preparations, all the fire and all the dirt from the charcoal - it's perhaps the most uncomfortable way of cooking your food out there. As if cutting and slicing your own food isn't already a chore by itself in the Western culture, you have to make your own fire if you want to have a barbeque! Some people enjoy the whole rustic lifestyle I suppose, very soon people are going to start fires at barbeque pits with twigs and branches instead of lighters and fire-starters. Oh, that is not to mention a barbeque pit made out of the bones of slaughtered moose and other small animals, if possible. Anyway, I am not a fan of barbeque, and certain not a great fan of the beach either. I am a creature of comfort, and the beach just isn't a place where you'd find people like me. It is nice at times, but not when you are going to have little particles of sand in your shoes and pockets for the next three months or so. It's true, because I just found a handful of sand from Krabi in one of my shorts a few weeks ago, imagine that. So barbeque and beaches, though they usually come together in a package, isn't very welcoming. But here's why I decided to go last Friday anyway. 

We never change, do we?
We never learn, do we?

So I wanna live in a wooden house

For one, it was a barbeque organized for the Japanese and American exchange students, and it is always nice to show the hospitality that is so 'uniquely Singapore', as the tourism board would proudly proclaim. Secondly, the advertisement on the portal boasted a six dollar buffet, with the free flow of everything - including alcohol. Nobody is going to turn that offer down for sure, which was why the turn out was much better than expected in my opinion. Lastly, I guess I needed a place to hang my head on a Friday evening, and a lot of my friends were enthusiastic about going to the event anyway. So I mustered a couple of friends, bought the tickets, gathered after school and made our way to the beach for the first time in a long time. Come to think about it, it was our first time at the beach with each other, and it was pretty exciting just for the thought of that. On the way there, Kerri entertained us with her chocolates from Russia and her amazing MacGuyver-like trick at the club that other night when she stuffed ice cubes down a girl's dress just to get her out of the club because she was dead drunk - very, very, very clever. No sarcasm intended. It's amazing what a film with Amanda Bynes can teach you. Now I am wondering if a gold ring can really make me disappear. 

There is always that initial inertia for any two cultures when they meet. That invisible distance between the two groups of people that needs to be crossed before anything happens. That was pretty much the demography of things, with the Japanese students hanging out in one corner together while the Americans in the other. The volleyball game acted as a great reason to bond for certain members of each group, but people were still pretty much staying away from each other for the most part. The student council members busied themselves at the barbeque pit when we arrived, and the inertia drove us to the jetty where we met Travers, Jonno and Lionel - whose hair was being blown into his face by the sea breeze. The three of them arrived much earlier than anybody else, and they have found the furtherest point away from the group of foreign students as possible at the jetty. Or, maybe it was just a nice place to hang out with the indian man teasing the passerby with his kite flying tricks right by the edge of the shore. We waited for more people to arrive from school, and for the inertia to quietly settle itself down. 

I wanna live life and always be true
I wanna live life and be good to you
I wanna fly and never come down
And live my life and have friends around

We found a frisbee buried in the sands then, and what's a better way to bond than team sports? It has been a while since I played ultimate frisbee, but I have a thing for flying discs in the sky. So the private game between Lionel, Jonno and I soon became a game between the people in white and the people in colored t-shirts, with some of the foreign students amidst the crowd. I guess the wind was to my team's favor back then, or maybe our team was just better than the other. In the words of Nick, an American student on the other time, we were crushing their team almost literally. I never knew my hidden talent in catching flying plastic discs, but I guess I realized that last Friday - and it made me feel good about myself, however trivial it is as a talent. My teammates were awesome, I cannot say enough good things about them. I guess the game turned out to be the greatest success of the evening. 

I bet Shaun, or Sean, or Shawn (Don't you just hate the fact that that name has a million different spellings with the same pronunciation?), the American student from Buffalo. He looked like the kind of guy to be fascinated with online games and perhaps some extreme sports like rollerblading down steep slopes or something. He was flying everywhere with his frisbee, and I was just secretly thanking the fact that he was on my team rather than the other. There was this Chinese girl from the States as well, I think her name is Deyi or something like that. She reminded me somewhat of Hannah from school, with the same hairstyle and the same tone of speaking. She was great, and really ferocious with the frisbee as she went into a collision course with Jonno halfway through the game - not a lot of people in the right frame of mind would challenge him. There was Lauren, whose goal line did not match with the one I drew from the other side of the beach. So we improvised, but drew a rather curvy one with our feet dug deep into the sand. She was tall, and it's always nice to have a tall girl on your side when you know that you can't tackle the female opponents, as a guy. 

We never change, do we?
We never learn, do we? 

So I wanna live in a wooden house
And making more friends would be easy

People were at the barbeque for different reasons, and some more obvious than the others. Naz, Kerri and I were really there because we were curious about how the event was going to turn out. After all, we didn't actually have an expectation for the party at all, thinking that it'd probably tank pretty badly. The question was how badly it'd tank and to what degree, which was why the barbeque started off at the rock bottom at the back of our minds. Lionel was there for the food and the food only. It wasn't particular tasty or anything, with everything being the standard sort of food you'd expect at a barbeque. However, Lionel always has the ability to make any food taste absolutely amazing for some reason, especially the delicate ways he has with his salmon from school. Travers was there for the ladies, as usual, and that wasn't really a surprise for the most part. After all, most of the videos he watches at home feature naked Japanese ladies, and what better place to find them than a school event at the beach? Well, you don't actually get to see naked Japanese girls at the beach, but we just have to make do most of the time. He was probably there for the soccer too, but that didn't turn out too well because everybody wasn't being cooperative. 

Joyce was there for the socializing, and she went into a frenzy when the night was closing in and she still hadn't gotten herself a name yet, much less a phone number. So she went around talking to random students from overseas, while the rest of us like Kerri and I went around attempting to climb the palm trees. Like an orientation at the beginning of every semester, there were games being organized through the night which the students participated in. The limbo dancing was great only until I failed to clear a certain height, a height in which Kerri and Jonno cleared with so much ease that I half expected them to have no spine at all. I guess all the clubbing Kerri did paid off in the end, and Jonno is the bionic man - he can do pretty much everything. Still, in the end, he lost to this American girl who was crowned the limbo queen, though I thought he should have won anyway. The tug of war was a no brainer, it's not difficult to guess who won and who didn't. You should have seen those American boys, they were bigger than cars. They made Travers and Kevin look like kindergarten children, and they were complete crushed. Even their women team were strong like vikings, and it must be the kind of food that they eat, I reckon. Still, it was all good fun, and I spent the rest of the night getting to know more UB people than foreign students, which was strange. 

Oh, and I don't have a soul to save
Yes, and I sin every single day

It's always nice to stroll along the beach at night, to see the constellations in the skies. Kerri strolled along the beach with her hair down, and the fact that she was wearing a white dress must have freaked out a few random couples that were making out in the dark. While the crowd back at the beach started to bond, most of us went our separate ways along East Coast Park. It's strange how people like me do so badly in strange crowds sometimes, I guess it is the inability to put myself in a position to blend in. I talked about it with Naz in the car that night, and I realized that I wasn't alone in this. I guess for some people, we just have to have a natural thing like socializing to become somewhat of an obligation, much like why most of us would dislike the idea of ice breaking games during orientations. They work, they really do. But it is the idea of being thrown together in the same room and forced to make a friendship out of it that we do not particularly fancy. I don't even do well with a room full of relatives, I don't think I would do well with a beach full of foreign exchange students. 

It was still very nice talking to some of them, knowing how Buffalo is like since I am going over next year - hopefully. From the talks I had with some of them, however, you start to realize just how small and meaningless your life can seem in relative to theirs, at times. They are the ones going for parties, having fun, working day jobs and still scoring well in schools. We are the ones studying our heads off to manage a B+, and it is stifling how all our lives revolve around some random alphabets and numbers that aren't supposed to dictate who you are and what you are. You can always argue that the standards are different, and that it is much easier to score a better grade than over here. Still, sometimes it becomes a little depressing to learn that your society has placed such a great emphasis on career, on money, or anything aside from the things that truly matter. I'm not saying partying or whatever is, it's just that I am sure those foreign students are more capable of telling you what life is all about than any of us bookworms here. 

We never change, do we?
We never learn, do we?

It's not nice to know that people out there are leading much more meaningful lives than what you have here. You comfort yourself by saying that the local university students are having it much worse - which is true. That is how our society has been shaped for so long, the way people always say that Asians live to work, not work to live. It's all about education from the moment you are born, and you live through years and years after that only to be forced into the workforce with no breaks, no breather, and no chance for you to really enjoy life. Yeah, you get a few holidays and vacations in the middle, but it's all back to work right afterwards. Society is never going to loosen its grip of the leash around your neck, unless you make a break for it somehow. You cannot deny that the grass is indeed greener on the other side, even in a white country like Buffalo that is covered in snow for the better part of the year. You can't help but wonder how it'd be like if you can just not live your life for a month, or a year, or maybe for the rest of your life. 

I guess there are things that are not going to change very soon. It's not like our education system is going to allow us to party our heads off and, at the same time, score good grades. Things don't work like that here in Singapore, people care too much about their grades here. So we work hard, and we work harder, and we make sure that we are better than the others in everything we do - for what? Blinded by those goals, we usually forget that it is the simplest things in life that we really should care about, more than just a career or a marriage, or a steady income. I remember reading about Evangeline Lily's house being burned down in Hawaii due to a short circuit, and everything that she owned other than the clothes she was wearing and the car she was driving, was gone. But she said that she never felt more free than the moment when she saw her house in a smoking wreckage, and we have all heard similar stories from all around the world. I guess what we can console ourselves is this: we still have our families to lean on to, our friends to be with, and the knowledge that there are simple things in life that we still care about. We should always keep those in mind, that is the only way we are not going to lose ourselves in the midst of things. 

I do hope that someday, I am going to live a life without regrets, a life in which I know that I have lived to the fullest. It is worrisome sometimes, when you think about it, the kind of life you are going to have in five, or maybe ten years' time. What if you are hungry all the time, what if your job pays peanuts? It is all so complicated here, and sometimes you just wonder how it'd be like to ride a bicycle all day long, to work in the fields and to live in a wooden house. Maybe, going back to nature is really where the answer lies. If I get rich, I am going to buy a house in the middle of nowhere, buy a few horses and build a stable, then live there until the day that I die. It is a dream, and if we are going to dream then I'd rather dream big. At least it's better than working for materialistic goals like, cars and credit cards, and all those other Cs the government so actively encourage. But, you know how it is. Simplicity isn't so simple, and even friends aren't that easy to come by. That I have learned, that I have realized. 

So I wanna live in a wooden house
Making more friends would be easy
I wanna live where the sun comes out

How To Ruin A Song

Sunday, May 25, 2008

How To Ruin A Song

This is how you ruin a song.

1) When I am willing to pay you just to have you stop singing.
2) When you cannot pronounce the words properly.
3) When you cannot remember the lyrics, but mumble your way through anyway.
4) When you look like you have a cactus up your ass while singing the high notes.
5) When you sound like the Korean guy in black in the following video.

If you can't surpass or at least match the original, don't do it. The ladies in the this video did a fine a job, only to have the guy come in and ruin everything. It's amazing how some people can completely ruin one of the best songs I have ever heard so thoroughly. You might think that he did a decent job, but let's just say that I have a thing about people bastardizing some of my favorite songs on national television. So much for the five star ratings on YouTube, those people really should take some time off to listen to the original version. It blows this one out of the water, or at least that clown in black. 



This is how the song goes. Go back and learn those words, idiot. 

Bullshit!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Bullshit!

I love controversies, especially controversies that reveal the dirt of our ludicrous society. I also like magics and magicians, which make the show called Bullshit! even more fascinating to me. Bullshit is a show hosted by Penn & Teller, the famous magicians/comedians we have seen in various variety shows and movies. In this show, they attack anybody from P.E.T.A. to believers of the end of the world, from extra-terrestrial enthusiasts to believers of witchcraft and Ouija boards. For some reason, reason and logic don't apply to these people, and it is just fun to point our fingers at them and laugh at just how stupid they can be sometimes. It is true that if we should be ashamed of something in this world, it should be the species as a whole. Think about it, our corrupted governments and our money-making religious groups are all the results of human beings, like ourselves. 

That is not to say that our species is doomed to extinct in a few thousand million years. All I am saying is that minorities in this world are making our species look bad to others - if they are watching - by being incredibly baseless and stupid. It is incredible just how gullible ordinary human beings can be, the way that they swallow everything up like hungry dogs and how they do not question what they hear or what they see. That is not to mention how people can speak of the most ridiculous things with a straight face, and you're going to get all of that in Penn & Teller's show, Bullshit! It's a brilliant show, and I have a soft spot for anybody that dares to question with simple everyday logic. Making people look stupid is just a cheap thrill and a guilty pleasure of mine, and this show definitely has a lot of those moments. Always remember boys and girls, it's all bullshit and it's bad for you. 

Ouija Boards Part 1


Ouija Boards Part 2

Loss Of Innocence

Friday, May 23, 2008

Loss Of Innocence

It was a rather last minute change to the original plan that we had, but I guess I had to attend the barbeque organized by the school to welcome the exchange students from the States as well as Japan. The plan on Friday was then postponed to Thursday evening, which also meant that Benjamin's presence was not expected at our little reunion by the Singapore River. Still, it did not prevent the rest of the usual suspects to have a little fun by the river and under the influence of alcohol. Krishna came back to Singapore, and we needed to meet up just to make up for that other time when we missed him altogether. Before we get into that part, April was nice enough to give me a lift to town since she was going there to meet her classmates from the Japanese class she has been taking anyway - I have to say, that April should really hang out with my sister more, just because of her exquisite taste in Japanese music that opened up my ears to an entire world of possibilities. 

Anyway, I made my way to The Central afterwards via the bus, missing the thunderstorm that came down hard on the streets by literally a minute. I took shelter in an unexpected place, a place that you'd not usually find me - Starbucks. I had three hours to burn, and there weren't any other cafes in the vicinity that made sense for me to sit down with my Macbook and my schoolwork for that amount of time. So I bought myself a white chocolate ice-blend at the counter, found myself a nice comfortable sofa in the corner and basically spent the rest of the time making notes on the Macbook, highlighting line after line of text in the psychology textbook, with the music of Thomas Newman playing in my ears the whole time. If there is one thing that I love about Starbucks, it is probably the fact that you can add whatever you want to your drinks, and it certainly has a nicer logo than Coffee Bean - if you know what I mean. Time passed rather quickly, and Samuel was nice enough to drop by an hour earlier just to keep time with me. We caught up, since it has been sometime, and the conversation inevitably drifted to Hannah, which he expectedly avoided. For some reason, he doesn't like to talk about her very much, something which the rest of the night trying to figure out.

We met the main character of this gathering downstairs at the MRT station. Krishna appeared around the corner looking seemingly taller than usual. It was probably the hair, being a lot thicker than before certainly helped with the height. It was nice to see him all over again, it has been a little more than a year since we last met. So much has happened, and there was just a moment then when the words crowded around the edge of my mouth and refused to come out. It does seem like his stay in the States has changed him a lot, but then he was still the same old Krishna in the heart, it was not difficult to see that. There we were, the three of us, sitting in the middle of the Japanese restaurant after so many years of knowing each other. It was nice to see how much we have changed while we remained the same somehow, and these are the feelings that only old friends like them can bring along. Seriously, I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to have a reunion on a Thursday night. 

We started catching up on the old days when we thought we already had a hang of the mechanisms of the world. I remember those days spent suntanning during recess when we used to expose ourselves out in the sun until our visions turned purple literally. A particular conversation back then while we squinted our eyes at each other while being half naked in the sun was the topic of girlfriends, and I'm sure none of us back then thought that Samuel would be the man staying together with a woman for as long as he has. Hannah and Samuel has been together for a little more than three years now, a feat for someone our age in this age and time I suppose. They've always been a sort of golden couple in school back then, and I guess Krishna and I have been the ones on the peripheral of things. There is no doubt that people have come our way in between now and those days of innocence, but I guess nothing ever lasted long enough. We started a game at the dinner table last night, and we tried to remember who was sitting where in our classroom back then. We managed to nail about 90% of the people and their seats. I'd say we did a pretty good job considering how little we have thought about the sitting arrangements in the past four or five years.

Krishna still felt like the same guy back in those days when we used to stay back in an empty classroom to do Chinese composition because his efficiency in that language was equivalent to my knowledge on astrology. He went as far as his name back then, and the rest of the composition was basically the transcript of what told him to write on those long and dreadful afternoons after school. Still, I miss those days in Secondary School when everything was just so simply, wasn't it? I know Samuel and Krishna do not share the same sentiments as myself, but I guess high school really was the best time of my life, academically speaking. There was just such a simple and even blend of studies and fun back then, and the relationships in between people were much simpler back then. People hung out with each other without agendas, but because they genuinely enjoyed each other's companies. The innocence that we had back then has been lost through the sands of time somehow, and we have changed into three people that have been roughened up by life in every way possible. 

Underneath it all, however, we were still those high school kids in short school uniforms and carrying those ridiculously heavy school bags. Samuel is still the same person who'd allow that hidden rage to peep through every once in a while, the way he exploded in class back then when Darren used to tease him on a minute to minute basis. Samuel's maturity after the army as well as relationship with Hannah has not prevented his child-like aspects to come through at times, and it is delightful that we get a glimpse of that old Samuel when he told us about his family issues as well as his girlfriend. Krishna is still the same person who laughed to the same jokes and would enjoy talking about old times with a bunch of good friends. His accent has changed, and so has his facial hair. He's the guy who'd get excited with the sight of a reversed bungee jump by the river, but he's still the same person at heart - and I could tell from how we talked. He is still idealistic, still focused, and very much the person that lived for the moment - never the past or the future. 

We met Alvin afterwards, and there we were hanging out at a random bar along the Singapore River when we talked the rest of the night away over glasses of cocktail. It's funny how, in contrary to Samuel and Krishna, Alvin has changed so very little over the years. In fact, he changed so little that it became a little disturbing somehow, and I started to wonder to myself just how it is possible for a person to spin around in circles for so very long. I guess it may be because of the fact that he has deferred his army for his studies in medicine, or maybe just how his life has been revolving around his church and school work. Anyway, he still spoke the same way and acted the same way around us, the way he remained so stubbornly Christian even while Krishna and I were on the topic of sex. I thought it was natural for a group of guys to talk about it at the bar, but he was a little held back like he was back then in school when he joined our suntanning club during recess. It was a little awkward, and I wonder if he felt the same way as we did. I wondered to myself, if he realized that we have all moved on in our lives somehow, except for him. He's still back there in high school, still in that white shorts, still the same guy carrying the same red Deuter backpack to school. 

We have all lost our innocence to something, life has taught us well in leaving those aspects of us behind. It feels as if life has baptized us with what we need to know about it to survive, although some people have remained in situ. The loss of innocence, to me, isn't something to grieve over of course, but something that I truly appreciate. The trade-off is that we have also lost the simplicity of life in the process, but then I guess it just feels so good to be able to handle things the way we do now, to be able to have an opinion on subjects and to have different perspectives than before. Some people are still stubbornly holding on to their innocence, as if there isn't anything more important in life than that. There is a time for everything, like how there is a time to let go of that innocence and set it free. Sooner or later, you are going to find that everybody has moved on except yourself, and your mouth would be full of the dust that has been thrown into the air by our shoes. I appreciate the innocence I had, but I don't miss it at all. Maturity is merely a path in life that we all must take. What I miss, however, is the innocence of life that we used to have, a right that we all possessed. It just seems to me, that we lost more than just our innocence, but that seemingly innocent life that used to be so linear and straightforward in the most direct and beautiful way. 

Still, we have our friends. I have my friends. They are always going to be the ones to remind you of the good times, the simpler times, the better times. Even if it is just for one night over a few glasses of cocktails at a random bar, it is worth all the trouble. Things will be OK, things will be A-OK. They will be there for you, no matter what. 

News Flash

Thursday, May 22, 2008

News Flash

So much for a boring neighborhood. 

You would think that when your neighborhood is dominated by old people and young children, it'd leave very little room for any form of excitement or thrills. That has been the case for the most part of my stay in this neighbor, although there was a minor episode a couple of years ago when a maid decided to jump down from the 16th floor of my condominium because she was pregnant with her employer's baby, or something like that. She fell to her death, there was a police investigation done to the residences of this block, and that was the end of it as far as I was concerned. My mother only told me about the incident about five years after it happened because she thought that I was too young to handle the mental image of a maid lying in a pool of her own blood and other bodily fluids downstairs in the parking lot. She was there when the police closed off the area and she said that it wasn't exactly a pretty sight to behold. Let's be honest here, throw anything off the edge of a 16th story window and it is not going to be a pretty sight. 

Anyway, it has been a boring neighborhood for the most part, but I guess one shouldn't ask for more when it comes to such things. It is a safe and comfortable place, and I guess no one is really complaining about the uneventful way of things. We do have the occasional festive celebrations downstairs by the swimming pool, but the horrendous music that they play are usually not to my liking very much. There was one year when they played uncensored Eminem lyrics to little children as well, something which the parents failed to notice for one reason or another. Anyway, I think things have changed over the past few years, with the new Thai restaurant's opening. That drew in hordes of residences every evening, and that little area between the restaurant and the swimming pool has been suddenly turned into some sort of bar - it's pretty interesting I must say. 

Reading that little newspaper article above gave me the chills somehow, because I think I know who that Australian man is. There aren't a lot of short and plump Caucasian men around with curly hair to boot, and I have seen him around with his daughter and wife every once in a while. His wife owns the restaurant downstairs with his sisters or something, and he can be seen hanging around the restaurant with his daughter or just with some friends over a few cups of cold beer. He's always been a really nice person to me, be it in the restaurant itself or just inside the claustrophobic elevator in our block. I've seen him around children, he does seem to be the kind of fun uncle you'd like your children to have, and the thought of him doing such a thing never actually crossed my mind before. It's a little disconcerting at times if you think about it, the way the most ordinary people that you know are also capable or horrible things like that. Who could have thought that that same man we've seen around the neighborhood was the same guy that pushed his wife out of the window? It was unthinkable, and it's still a little hard to stomach even after my sister told me the story.

I was having breakfast this morning when she told me, and the food just somehow got stuck midway between the plate and my mouth. I thought to myself at that very moment, just how many times I have personally conversed with that man and thought him to be a nice person. I guess, when it comes down to it, nobody is going to remain the same. People change, under different circumstances, and he must have had his reasons to push her out of the window - as much as we condemn the act of doing so. It just makes you wonder about the people around you at times, the possibilities of them being pushed over the edge. It's just so easy to snap these days, anything could be the catalyst of a string of events that could possible spin out of control. I am sure that man never meant for things to turn out the way it did, it was probably a momentary mistake. Still, I've always liked the Thai ladies at the restaurant, they've always been so nice to me. I guess for that, I have to be biased about things and be on the side of the ladies. 

People change, and it is scary to think that they can do so with so little conditions involved. You don't need a lot of reasons to snap, just a cumulation of bad news and a very hot day, perhaps. I blame it on the weather partially, but mostly just what went through his mind when he decided that pushing his wife out of the window was the best way to solve the problem. In a way, I guess when you have a family conflict of sorts, the victim is always going to be the children even if they are not directly a part of things. His daughter is cute, a little plump around the waist and always trotting around the estate in her swimming suit. I guess the sight of him carrying her on his shoulders is not going to be very common around here any longer, which is just a pity because nobody likes a broken family, not even when the family isn't your own. 

Lists

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Lists

Humans love a lot of things. Humans love chocolates, the depression of a baby's knuckles, the sound of high heels, the apple pie your grandmother bakes, the smell of your blanket in the sun, fresh laundry, the smell of green grass, Audrey Hepburn, great sex, a truckload of money, diamonds, brand new electronic gadgets, the sound of forests, squirrels, ice-creams, Friday nights, Saturday mornings, the smell of old books, your mother's voice, a kiss, to watch a balloon burst in slow motion, to watch something perfect being smashed into pieces, beautiful people, power, freedom, the taste of stamps, the feeling of a warm towel to your face, silk slippers, the feeling of the pillowcase in between your fingers, the smell of rain, a happy ending, a perfect body, the sound of wind chimes, the sound of rain on your umbrella, muffins, cupcakes, more great sex, and whatnot. On top of that list, however, is lists. Humans love lists, they cannot live without lists. It just seems as if our whole life is governed by different lists out there, lists about things, lists about people, lists about the world. Everything can be formed into a list, and humans love lists so much that they even created the word "listless", which means to be lacking in energy or enthusiasm. 

In the big picture, we have the list of the biggest planets to the smallest planets. Then we have the biggest continents to the smallest continents, the biggest country to the smallest country, the biggest cities to the smallest cities, the biggest towns to the smallest towns, the longest roads to the shortest roads, the longest road names to the shortest road names, the tallest man to the shortest man, the tallest woman to the shortest woman, the oldest man to the youngest man, so one and so forth, you get the idea. Everything can be turned into a list, and everything can be narrowed down by that list. You usually begin with two extremes of measurements, and then from there you start to fill in the gaps in between. Everybody loves to read lists, because lists give you a big picture of things, and they make you feel as if your life is in an imaginary order - when it really isn't. It must be some kind of government conspiracy to put all these lists into our lives, publishing them in newspapers and magazines and whatnot. They are here to tell us that everything is OK when everything is not. It is OK if our country is experiencing a recession with record breaking gas prices, or if our living standards are dropping to an all time low with an all time high in infant mortality rates. Just make a list, compare ourselves to all those countries below us in that list. Yes, we feel better about ourselves now, life goes on. 

Lists are also the secret weapon to any magazine or newspaper editor out there. They are constantly reporting about the world events. This earthquake, that cyclone. This treaty, that agreement. This battle, that war. This country, that country. This entertainer, that human. Something needs to reach the front page every day of every week of every year, and they have to guarantee that all of those newspapers and magazines sells. Every loss made in a day is a biblical number normal human beings won't want to imagine, which is why they have devised a great strategy just to get the customers to come back on a regular basis. It is OK if there is a boring day in the year, or maybe two days, perhaps three. When you are an editor for a magazine and you have ran out of ideas for a headline, just make sure you have a handy list at hand. Dump that into the front page and you've got yourself a headline. Everybody is going to buy that magazine with the list, because everybody loves lists. It doesn't matter what the list is about, people just want to see things ranked and in order.

I bet there is a folder in some building along some road with all our names, all our identification number, all our birth dates and stuff recorded. Everybody who was ever born and ever died in this country probably has a record somewhere, and even that folder is made up of lists. You go into the army and they use a different name for lists: they call them nominal rolls. But they are still lists with our names lined up in alphabetical order anyway, and even our phone numbers and birth dates can be put into ranks and orders if we wanted to. Our results in schools are placed in orders, from the best students to the worst students, from the brightest to the dumbest. Our academic lives are being put into perspective through lists after lists after lists, and it is all about getting yourself into the top ten list of all lists, no matter what the top ten list really is all about. You are listed  according to your grades, put together according to your I.Q., and they even assign fancy names to those different lists with lists of smart people. Cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude, and all those fancy latin names you can think of off the top of your head. Lists don't stop there though, they continue from there.

A list of numbers in your bank account, a list of debts, a list of to-dos on your calendar, a list of people who still owe you money, a list of things you have yet to do after you have completed your previous to-dos. You are frustrated, you are pissed off. You want to rip something into shreds, but you know that you are going to be dumped into a mental institution with your name on a nominal roll, or a list. So you go out of your house, you mentally go through a list of things to do after you get home from your short drive out to the mall, and on the radio in your car you heard the Billboard's Top 100 songs of the week - another list. You drive to the nearest mall and you hop off your car. From your wallet you fish out a list of things you'd like to buy from the mall that you wrote on a post-it, and you walk down the rolls and rolls of aisles carefully labeled with even more lists of things to buy. You are at the counter now, you are paying for your purchase. The receipt is being spat out of the cash register with a list of numbers on it, and your eyes peer to the side of the counter to check out the latest magazine releases. Top 100 Hottest Hollywood Celebrities under 30! You grab that magazine, added it to that list, a new list created.

Here are more lists to screw with your already screwed up head. Top 100 Movies of All-Time. Top 500 Albums of All-Time. Top 100 Sexiest Women Alive. Top 100 Strangest Hairdos in Hollywood. Top 100 One-Hit Wonders. Top 100 80s Hits. Top 100 90s Hit. Top 100 Worst Wardrobe. The list of lists goes on, it never ends there. People are always going to come up with more lists, and more lists, and even more lists. All you need to do is to change the positioning, and you get a brand new list. The AFI, IMDB.com, Rottentomatoes, they all have lists of their all-time greatest movies. Which list is the correct one, and which list is the incorrect one? Which is more accurate, which is less biased? Which is more interesting, which is closer to my taste? It is all very confusing, and you wouldn't want to be caught up in the middle of it. We all love lists because we have been conditioned to love lists, because we have been told that lists are just fun to read, and even more fun to be seen lying around the house. You wander around your house like a zombie and - behold, a list! Our governments are not the people running the country. Our government is the invisible force behind everything - the lists of lists.

What is it with whole numbers anyway? You have the top 5, the top 10, the top 100, the top 500. You hear less about lists like "The Top 47 Things You Can Do With Your Underwear", or some strange prime numbers like that. It is always going to be divisible by five or ten, simply because ten just looks more formal and important. Sure, ten governs the decimal system, it even governs the time by grouping it into decades. Moses had a list of ten commandants, the American has a list called the Constitution. The Americans have a Bill of Rights, and even the British has a Bill of Rights. The French has a list of rights as well, so do every other country out there. When you list things down, they just seem a little more important than before. Important is based upon how one can group things into a comprehensive list, and the list is really the basis of everything nowadays. I say, forget about a grandiose speech that begins with "I have a dream". Let's just begin every speech with a list, a list of lists you intend to implement. Let's have a list within a list, within a list of lists that is within a list of even more list, which is a part of a list that is within a list which is also a part of a list that is at the end of the list of the list which is on top of the other list and a part of this list that I am talking about right now. I know, you are confused. That is how many lists we have, that is how many lists we are going to have. 

We need to have less lists, we need to live in a world without lists. We don't need lists to tell us how to have better sex, eat better food, wear better clothes or live better lives. We can do it in our own accord, we don't need rankings or numbers to tell us what to do. It is the same as those little alphabets and numbers in our schools, why let them dictate who you are and who you want to be? What is wrong with being the second on a list anyway, or the third, or the fourth? Someone is going to be better than you, someone is going to be on top of you in another list somewhere anyway. It doesn't matter where you are on the list, someone is always going to be better than you. The only list we need to have is the list of things that we need to do in order to make others happier one way or another. That is really the list that we need, because a list of all-giving love is the list of all lists. We don't need anymore lists if we have that list, because you begin to love yourself by loving other people. I say screw lists, let's just have one single list in our lives. Let's begin by shortening lists, let's begin by shortening the oldest list of lists. How? George Carlin has the answer - check it out. 

George Carlin's Commandments 

Summer Semester 2008

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Summer Semester 2008

It seems like it has become a tradition of mine to bookend the semester with blog entries dedicated to it. The last semester began somewhat on a low note, with the results of the second semester being just a little better than average, and the sight of that particular lecturer seated in the lecture theater wasn't the most welcoming sight on the first day of school. Nonetheless, I suppose that little incident we had with her last semester in regards to the online petition must have scared her all the way back to sunny Hawaii, her retirement home. I'm not sure if she is ever going to teach us again, or if she is going to teach in the future - period. I cannot deny that I have gotten used to her twisted and cunning ways, so another semester with her as my lecturer is not going be too big a problem. Last semester was definitely a trauma on her part though, and I am not expecting her to come back to this school anytime soon, at least not when this batch of students is still going to be around. 

Anyway, this semester is a little different from the others. Not only because this is a summer semester, the modules have also been split into half for one reason or another. I know that most people I know are enjoying their holidays, my American friends are having their summer breaks, and I am the only person I know having classes in the summertime. At least the subjects this time don't seem to heavy on the brain, and it certain is going to be a lighter load since we are only going to take two modules for the first half of the semester, then another two for the next. That also translates to a faster-paced semester though, with the mid-terms being in week three instead of week six - the horror! I guess we just have to adapt to things, summer semester isn't supposed to be a killer semester in the first place anyway. Fingers crossed, and I do hope that the summer heat is not going to get to the better part of my brain. Summer is an understatement in Singapore, it's more like a giant sauna for the most part. Taking a bus to school used to be an enjoyable thing, but it has transformed into a life and death struggle with the sun somehow. It's like walking with a burning torch tied to the back of your head, it's not a laughing matter.

Things still look pretty much the same at school, although the school seems a little more crowded than before somehow. I suppose the school should really start to regulate the amount of new students coming into the school, because the amount of seats available around the school compound is decreasing at an alarming rate. Little has changed in that respect, and I still miss those times last year when the school used to be an empty concrete box, when the school was almost taken up entirely by my batch of students. Anyway, the friends from my course still look pretty much the same, save for a few adventurous individuals who decided to adapt themselves to the whole summertime vibes. Travers dyed his hair back to the blond head we've got to know him with last year, and Dominic has shaved off those long hair of his back into a neat army-type hairstyle. Then again, I think he came back to school from camp or something, and that was probably the reason behind it. Jonno's hair was chaotic in a tidy way, a strange way to describe it but that's the only expression I can think of other than it being really good on his head. Kevin has decided to dye his own hair into a dashing shade of red, and that color somehow reminded April of a gangster somehow - I can see why.

We have Jan back onboard again, something which I am very thankful of. Sure, I missed my A by five points last semester, but at least she did whatever she could to help us I suppose. Besides, I do love her written assignments, since writing is really my forte with MCQs being my ultimate nemesis. We've pretty much gotten used to her style of teaching, though I must say that I hate to be in a class that has too many students chattering away whenever she is talking. I really prefer the last class that we had, with a smaller group and a more controlled environment. I'm pretty sure that it is going to take more than a bell on Jan's part to keep the class quiet halfway through the semester. Perhaps a baseball bat, or a flamethrower, whatever she can carry to school from her apartment downtown. Anyway, I am just glad that we don't have quizzes this time around to punish my morales like the last semesters did. Seriously, I don't do too well with multiple choice questions, I have a strange ability to make sense out of every option - that is not good at all when you are not very smart, like me.

Now, I have heard news of the horrors of PSY 250 even before this semester even started. Shen was telling us about the horror stories he went through when he took the same module in his polytechnic days, and things sure weren't looking out to be very good back then. I didn't have my hopes up for this module at all, in fact I actually contemplated on dropping this module altogether for the first time in my academic life. But the military part of me took over and convinced me to just bash my way through despite of everything, which was why I decided to give it a shot today and see how things are going to turn out. I'm not sure how the module is going to be like in terms of the subject, but the lecturer sure looks to be a very nice person indeed. Dr. Julie Bowker is indeed a step up from all the other lecturers that I have ever had, and is incredibly young to be in her current position as well. She reminds me of Pam Beesley from The Office somehow, but I guess it is the voice and maybe the distance between the eyes - a strange way to make the connection, I realized. Anyway, I came home and did some research over the internet regarding her, and it turns out that she has a very high rating over at www.ratemyprofessors.com, with a bunch of positive reviews from her old students - very encouraging indeed! I am definitely looking forward to her classes, and the promise of an "A" in her course outline is sure very assuring. Apparently her surname is Wojslawowicz, however you pronounce that. I better learn the spelling of it, it may come out for one of the reading quizzes.

Anyway, this semester is shaping up to look pretty hopeful somehow, although I am only taking two of the four semesters for the first half. We'll see how things work out down the line, but for now I am pretty excited and enthusiastic about things. I know we don't have fun modules like MUS116 anymore, but who cares - we have a lecturer who looks like Pam Beesley. Bonus marks for that! 




Under-rated Movies

Monday, May 19, 2008

Under-rated Movies

More often than not, you are going to hear a few reviews from your friends or read about them in the papers before watching a film yourself. It is almost impossible to run away from the fact that people are just eager to share their opinions with you in regards to the fantastic/horrible film that they just saw. We look to the critics at times, or the experts, to tell us which film to watch and which film to avoid this Friday evening while being out with your friends. While some people may proudly proclaim their sovereignty away from the influence of the critics, it is inevitable that the words that they say or the ratings that they give may hold sway to our final decisions, whether we like it or not. The truth is, they have watched more films and review more films than either you or I, and they are in way better position to judge if a film is bad or not. The choice, however, is always going to be up to us as to whether or not we want to pay for the tickets or if we just want to download it from the internet, illegally. 

I am the sort of person that is rather particular about what the reviewers say, especially when it comes to films. Of course, I do not follow just any other reviewer out there who has a thing or two to say about a certain film. After all, there are also reviewers out there with extremely bad taste, and there are also the ones who'd go against the views of the reviewer community just to be different from the rest. I have a few film reviewers that I follow religiously, and their views are also the ones that I use as a yardstick of sorts when it comes to movies. They are usually right about the films, and it has been the case for as long as I can remember. Still, even critics can be wrong about certain films at times and give them ratings that they certainly do not deserve. After all, everybody has different tastes in movies, and we'd naturally have conflicts every once in a while. The following is a couple of under-rated films which I think the critics completely overlooked for one reason or another. 

The Terminal 
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%
People always say that Steven Spielberg cannot go wrong with his movies. You hardly need a trailer for any of his movies at times, you just need a stamp with his name on it after the MPAA notice at the beginning of every trailer to draw the crowds in. For a long time, his name has been synonymous with cinematic excellence, with the quality of his films being undoubted for a very long time. Along came The Terminal, a quirky film about an unlucky tourist from a fictional country in Eastern Europe being trapped in the New York airport because while he was flying in the plane through the air, the government of his country experienced a military coup. That also meant that his citizenship was not recognized and thus, was not allowed to check out from the airport once he arrived. 

The complaints revolving around the film has a lot to do with the ending of the film. We are presented with this lovable character who falls in love with a flight attendant, only to lose her at the very end of everything. It was the perfect anti-climatic story line to some, but that was the more realistic ending in my opinion. People argued that the film felt like a headless fly that headed nowhere for the most part of the film, which may be true to some degree. Still, this is the story of a man trapped in the airport, the whole beauty of the story is in how disorientated he is. I felt that Tom Hanks gave some of his best comedic performance in this film, something which we haven't seen a lot of since his earlier days as an actor. We saw a glimpse of it in Forrest Gump, but the role of Vicktor Navorski came a decade after. I thought he perfectly nailed the part as this friendly and lovable man from Eastern Europe, and the scene when he realized that his country was no long recognized was probably some of the most emotional stuff I have seen onscreen in a long time. This film may be way too unbelievable at times, but if you want reality, we can always turn to our evening news. 

The Science of Sleep
Rotten Tomatoes: 69%
First and foremost, 69% is by no means "rotten" in the standards of rottentomatoes.com. Still, that kind of score is not a score somebody should be excited about. If you want to use that website as a sure gauge to the kind of movie you'd enjoy, you'd want your movie to be somewhere in between 75 and 100 percent, not anything below that. While The Science of Sleep has gained quite a popular cult following, the critics were surely not very excited about it when it was released. 

The Science of Sleep is the first film by Michel Gondry after his fame as a film director skyrocketed after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Being the man behind numerous famous television advertisements and music videos, this man's experimental styles have attracted a battalion of fans behind him even before the film was released. Without the watchful eyes of Charlie Kaufman over this production this time however, this film spun wildly out of control according to most of the critics out there, and it became the beakers and the test tubes for the director to play around with. A lot of people out there complained that the film did not have a very central theme, if it had a theme at all. The film is really about how the protagonist is constantly confused about his real life and his life in the dreams at night, and he has to deal with that while falling in love with his beautiful neighbor from next door. 

Naturally, if you are watching a film about dreams, you shouldn't expect it to be, in any way, coherent. The film provided an interesting blend of reality and dreams, and the low-budget style of film making made it even more alluring. People have complained that Michel Gondry can be too self-indulgent at times, putting too much attention into experimenting rather than what the story really is all about. However, I feel that that is the beauty of his style, the way he dares to experiment - something which is lacking in a lot of films these days. This film is sweet and innocent in its own rights, no matter how you want to see it. It is intimate and personal, and it is something which not a lot of films out there can accomplish. 

Meet Joe Black
Rotten Tomatoes: 49%
Amongst the list of favorite films that I have, none of them is more critically disputed than Meet Joe Black. The only reason why anybody bothered to watch this film back in 1998 was because the first teaser trailer of Star Wars Episode I was attached to the film's release. Most of the audience actually left the theater after the trailer despite paying full price for the tickets, and the rest of the audience supposedly sat through the entire three hours of the film, only to go home and pan the film from every possible angle on the internet. 

I personally never watched it in the theaters, but I had the privilege of watching this film on HBO a couple of years ago, and I must say that this is one of the most under-rated films of all time. Some people call this film a chick-flick, or a film meant for girls. Seriously, there are so many aspects of this film that is flawless that all the other films that got a higher rating should be completely ashamed of. This film is exquisite, this film is elegant. This film is everything a love story should be and more, and most of the people out there were turned off by the film simply because of its running length. The truth is, if you are going to make your film three hours long, people would like it to have epic battles, epic amount of bloodshed, or epic amount of nudity. Not a lot of people can appreciate a three hour long film with just two person falling in love, that's too long and too boring for them to endure. Scroll through the reviews online for this film, and most of them are going to say that they couldn't sit through the entire movie. Still, I must defend this film by saying that I don't think any of the three hours was wasted in this film. Everything, to me, was perfectly paced and carefully written. Every detail was taken care of, even in the scenes without any dialogues whatsoever. This film allowed the characters to breathe, allowed the story to stretch, and drew the audiences into the story without even trying very hard. 

There are some complaints about the fact that Brad Pitt's acting was wooden in this film. He played Death, what were you expecting? I thought the amount of emotions that he put forth was carefully calibrated to the right amount, and the love scenes in between him and Claire Forlani was tastefully done to say the least. We've already seen scenes that involve two lovers walking in different directions on a busy street, only to turn back to look at the other person at the wrong times. It's cliche, every film does it. But this film does it with such class that I couldn't help but smile at myself like a silly schoolboy. The writing in this film was beautifully done too, and it reminded me somewhat of the part of Martin Brest's career when he also filmed the brilliant film called Scent of a Woman. This film is totally under-rated, and it was such a blasphemous move to edit the film down to two hours just to satisfy those impatient moviegoers who cannot appreciate a slow-moving movie with heart. It's a shame, it really is.

Closer
Rotten Tomatoes: 69%
Like I mentioned, 69% is definitely not a score that one should be ashamed of. Yet, Closer definitely deserves a score much higher than 69% over at rottentomatoes.com. This film is not my top three romantic film of all time for no reasons at all, and one shouldn't assume that it is because this film is the kind of lovey-dovey film you'd want to watch on Valentine's Day. This film is perhaps one of the best acted, best directed, and best written films I have ever watched in my entire life. A 69% rating is obviously an insult to a great film like that, and I think I may have a reason why.

When I saw this film myself, I was rather disappointed by the fact that it wasn't the kind of love story that I expected. Truth to be told, I wasn't expecting the kind of love story that involved four adults cheating on each other, a film with so much honesty and one that placed so much emphasis on sex. I remember watching it in the living room when I brought the DVD home, and I certainly didn't want my parents to be around while Julia Roberts and Clive Owen argued over the amount of orgasms she had with Jude Law in the infamous break-up scene. I was really turned off, but I knew that I needed to give that film a second shot. So I gave the film a few years to sit on my shelves, and took it off some time last year and threw it into my DVD player. Boy, have things changed.

I enjoyed this film because of how real it all felt. The truth is, relationships are not all sugar-coated, love isn't nice. Love punches you in the guts, rips you to shreds and dumps you in the nearest drain at times. This film does not censor what happens in a break up, it does not try to cover up what couples go through while they are in that state of love dilemma. It is raw, it is crude, and not a lot of people are used to that kind of love story being unfolded on the screen. People still like to watch films that puts them in an alternate universe, an universe with ex-boyfriends doing anything they can to win you back. Stuff like that don't happen in real life, and that's what Closer tells you. While doing that, it slaps you in the first a couple of times and maybe knees you in the balls too. At the end of the day, people didn't like this film because it was just, well, not their cup of tea. It does not deserve a 69% rating, and even a 96% rating is too low in my own books. 

The Fountain
Rotten Tomatoes: 51%
The Fountain suffered from the hype that surrounded it before it was released. After all, it is by the same director that made Requiem for a Dream, and all the fans were eager to see what he had installed when he announced that he was going to helm the project that was shelved by the studio for the longest of times. The film was initially thought to be impossible to film, and the production cost actually skyrocketed to a point when the director had to fork out his own money just to make it all happen, with the agreement from Huge Jackman and Rachel Weisz that their pay would be decreased. The end result is a film universally panned by the critics simply because of how ambitious it was - in the wrong direction, they said. Everybody's expectations for the film was way too high to meet, and the end result must have disappointed a lot of critics, especially the fans.

I gave this film a shot at the end of last year because I needed one more film at the rental to get the discount. So I randomly picked a film off the shelves and decided that I'd spend the weekend doing a movie marathon. I started with this film that night, and it blew me away completely because of how deep the film went. I think this film broke the third wall of movies in the sense that, it provided the opportunity for the viewers to come up with a dozen different interpretations in regards to the film itself. Movies have been known to be one of the least dynamic of mediums out there, simply because the film doesn't change no matter how many times you watch it. The performances are the same, the cinematography is the same, everything remains unchanged. However, with the layers being laid on top of one another in this film, it is not difficult to see this film in a different light in the second, or third time you decide to watch it. 

This is one of those movies out there that I'd understand if you tell me that you hate it with a passion. This film is clearly not for everybody out there simply because of how twisted it is. It is not straight forward, it is not linear. It does not treat the audience as a passive group of viewers, and it does so in a way that is not pretentious at all. The Fountain is a brilliant film only if you are willing to look deeper than the surface and to suspend yourself to a different level of realism. 51% is a little harsh in my opinion, I think this film is really under-rated in every way possible. I am sure that if the unedited version of the film is released now, it may garner a higher approval rating from all around. Still, this film is special in my heart, and no ratings or reviews out there are going to change that fact. 


2000 N.T.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

2000 N.T.

Every once in a while back in those days, you'd see the television commercials being punctuated by local celebrities calling out for your generous donations via telephone hotlines flashing at the bottom of your television screen. The celebrities would usually be see hanging out and playing with a group of mentally challenged children, sitting next to a kidney dialysis patient, or seen rehearsing for their life-threatening stunts in the background. Over the years, the televised charity shows in Singapore has outgrown itself to become somewhat of a franchise somehow, an event on television that used to happened four or five times a year with different charity foundations. It was a media culture that I found to be rather interesting at the beginning of things, because there aren't a lot of countries you can name that have the same form of tradition every single year, four or five times a year at that. Most countries usually gather their celebrities only when there's a major disaster somewhere in their country or around the world, but Singapore does it on a such a regular basis that it just seems like they have a bigger heart more than the other countries.

That tradition was suddenly halted sometime last year when the rat in the grain decided to spoil the pot of rice for the rest of us. The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) decided that it'd be stupid to use all the proceedings on their own patients, which was why they used part of their money to build an obscenely huge headquarters and paid their employees with obscene amount of pay every month. That incident not only caused the higher level officers to be under investigations, the number of televised charity shows also decreased drastically in the past year. So the life-risking celebrities decided that they should stick to their daytime jobs, the monks stopped throwing themselves in boxes of ice or walk across precarious cables hung in between two skyscrapers. You don't get celebrities urging you to call a bunch of numbers on the television screen any longer, and that has been the case for a very long time now. I guess such a trick can only work for so long in any societies, and these charity groups have become more like pests than actual charities to some people - people like myself. 

Donations reached out to the schools in Singapore back then, and I remember how the teacher used to stumble into the classrooms with a box full of fanciful donation cards. They were neat little donation cards with a column to write the name of the donors, the address as well as the signatures just to authenticate the donations. There'd be a little bag attached to the card for you to slot the money into, and it was a card distributed to all the students in hopes that they'd go around their neighborhood to collect donations from door to door. That was what some students did, but I certainly wasn't very enthusiastic about such a thing. Somehow, the idea that charity should be voluntary rather than an obligation was naturally instilled in me somehow, and I'd usually chuck the card into a random drawer in my bedroom until one day before the deadline. It just felt really uncomfortable on my part to have this donation card stuffed down our throat, and how the students were "encouraged" to have a minimum donation of ten dollars when the ones that didn't hit the ten dollars mark were forced to take the card home to collect more donations. I didn't feel comfortable with the system, which was why I have little trust in most of the charity foundations until this day. 

There was this indian lady from NKF that harassed me with my donation card back then, and she used to call my cell phone three or four times a week just to ask about the damn card. The strange thing was, the card arrived at my doorstep without me asking for the card at all, they just assumed that since we donated generously as students, we'd have similar enthusiasm after we have left that same school. She used to call me all the time regardless of the hour of the day, and it just got to a really frustrating point when I just hung up on her call and subsequently tore the donation card into half. I didn't like the way they were forcing us to donate every single month of the year, the way they disguised what they were doing with false and insincere sympathies. It turned monetary donations into this multi-million dollar industry somehow, and we were all workers of this giant company to pump in the much needed money. The truth was, none of us knew where the money went to and to what purposes, but that didn't stop the general public to pour in even more money whenever the celebrities get themselves battered and bruised on national television. Here's the irony - those celebrities were paid to do these shows. What is the point in a charity show if that's the case?

There's another charity show on television tonight, but this time it is somewhat different. It is a show organized by a television network in Taiwan, and they are doing it for the people in China that suffered from the tragic earthquake that occurred at the beginning of this week. A bunch of celebrities are present in the studio right now, but they are not doing any lame magic tricks or singing upside down like how the Singaporean celebrities would. They are just sitting there at their booths, picking up the phones and talking to the willing donors while recording down their donation sums and personal particulars. There aren't any gimmicks on television tonight, no monks performing death defying stunts for the world to see. It's just a simple show about people coming together and trying to help a bunch of people they hardly even know. There isn't that feeling of falsity in the air, they don't feel forceful at all, and some person even donated fifty cents over the phone. There isn't a minimum amount of money you should donate in this show, you can choose to donate whichever amount that you deem fit, and the turn out has been pretty overwhelming so far. Just three hours into the show and they have already collected over two hundred million Taiwanese dollars, and we still have a little more than an hour to go.

My sister is currently in her bedroom with the receiver to her ears, and she has been calling nonstop for the past two hours or so just to get through. I'm not sure if she really wants to donate money, or does she just want to talk to those celebrities over the telephone. Whatever the case may be, I guess every dollar and every cent is going to count in the efforts to relief those people from their pain. I suppose it is in the genes of my family to do such things when other people are in need, and my parents dutifully donated a hefty sum of money through a Buddhist charity organization in Taiwan and sent food supplies to the epicenter in China. They have been doing such things quietly over the years, something which I am very proud of. I mean, they are not the kind of people to go up onto television to boast about the amount of money they donate, they are not in it for the fame at all. They just want to do their part quietly in the greater scheme of things, and a part of that must be ingrained inside the blood of my sister and I.

I donated 2000 Taiwanese dollars, or about a hundred Singaporean dollars after the conversion. It is not a lot, but I guess it is enough to buy somebody a few meals for the next week or so, which is exactly what they need right now I suppose. There is a strange feeling whenever such a thing happen, a feeling that one cannot wholly explain. The death tolls provide you with numbers that you cannot fathom at times. What is 12000 people to you? How many stadiums of people is that? How many buses, or trains, or cars? The numbers are just numbers, and the sheer size of those numbers is simply too great for us to count with our bare fingers. So we ignore those numbers, we do what we can to make their lives just a tad bit better from what it is right now. I'd physically help out if I could, but then money just seems to be a lot more practical at this point, especially when the hope of finding new survivors is dwindling and it's not like you have any medical experiences to help out with the injured anyway. Which is why I have donated, and my sister is still trying desperately over the phone. She has a singular goal to talk to the president of Taiwan for reasons unknown, but at least she has pledged to donate the same amount that I have, I guess that is the least we can ask for.

It is nice to know that you can help from all the way on the side of the world, it is nice to know that somebody is going to live because of your money, somewhere. More than that, however, it is even nicer to know that there are people out there who are willing to come together for a common cause. I know that I have come across to my friends and readers as more of a cynic at times, the kind of person to point out the flaws and mistake of our species whenever I get the chance to do so. Some may think that I must have been the victim of some genocide or holocaust in the past life, which is why I seem to have this raging anger towards the general atrocities of mankind. Even so, I guess I cannot help but feel moved by the kind of things the people in this world are also doing for the ones that need help, the people whom they hardly know the names of. A hundred dollars is going to be used up really fast over there I imagine, it really isn't that big a sum of money. Still, I am glad that the bowl of rice on that side of the world that is going to bring a smile to a child's face, is going to be the same bowl of rice that I paid for with my own money. It makes me smile too, and that's really all we need in horrific times like these.