Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sang Penari, Hugo, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The second half of this week are really filled with great movies. I just cannot resist not watching movies :| The other day, I talked to Ms. J about how regretful I am for not having watched a few movies because one thing or another. It made me realized that yeah, out of all the people in my world, perhaps Ms. J is the only one who keeps up with what movies are out and what movies are good. We have the same level of knowledge in this :POkay, let's start. Watched Sang Penari with Vivy and Denny this week. Perhaps it's because I suddenly feel that with my friends who are married, they are now like in a pair, buy one get one free, I felt the need to ask Vivy if she and Denny would be interested. I am thankful that they were. Sang Penari was shown in Alliance Française as part of an Indonesian cultural week focusing more on Javanese culture (I think). I got a free ticket, but I could only ask for one :( The sistic lady did kindly let me buy the tickets for Vivy and Denny with my students price. I actually also had a free ticket to watch Didik Nini Thowok dance yesterday, which I really really really wanted to watch. However in between me feeling tired and very self conscious, I decided to skip it. I do regret it but I just couldn't bring myself to it. The sistic lady was telling me, "you can watch it alone, it seemed nice!". I felt sad that I let her down. She was really friendly.
Anyways, Sang Penari. I love it! It was inspired by a novel which I haven't read, which I am so tempted to ask my best buddies at home to get for me as my birthday present. I read in someone's blog that the movie did not follow the novel exactly. I used the word "inspired" up there, not "based". I read that in the novel, the age of the main characters are very young. I suppose there will be a lot of complication if the movie makers stick to the actual age, what with the strong adult theme in it. The story, set between 1950 something to 1965ish, is actually a love story of a guy and a girl who's been friends since they were kids and whose lives and the situation around them caused their relationship to never really bloom. You see, the girl wanted to be a ronggeng dancer. I'm not a Javanese and I certainly do not have much knowledge about Javanese culture so there are many things in this movie which surprised me just like it will to any other non-Indonesians or Indonesians like me. There's a lot of mysticism infused to the culture and I kinda like that it's being shown that way. It showed Javanese culture the way it is before Islam dictated how their life should be. I'm pretty sure this doesn't gel with the Islamic extremist in Indonesia, but who cares about FPI (Front Pembela Islam) - okay this is another story, another time, I'm just glad Indonesians are starting to take a stand away from them. Back to the movie, apparently being a ronggeng dancer kinda means that you are also a glorified prostitute. I said glorified because instead of being shunned for sleeping and getting payment from it, the village ladies actually wanted their husbands to sleep with the ronggeng dancer because they believed that the dancer had a certain kind of spirit inside her which would help / bless / empower the guy during sex after the guy slept with her. Yeah, shocking! Oh I have to say that this girl also danced in an erotic way. I read somewhere that the oldest profession in the world is prostitution. I guess since long ago, people know that sex sells. So anyways, yeah, who can deal with having a girl who's pretty much a village property? So the guy decided to join the army. Then the year came when the government was eradicating communism and communist party in Indonesia and the guy was part of the army who sweeped through villages and rounded everyone suspected to be involved with the communist party. The girl like the other villagers were rounded up and when the guy found out about his village, he tried his darnest to find and save her. I love the guy playing the main character, Rasus. I've never seen this actor before. You can really see the growth in his character in the way he acted. He started as this simple minded uneducated villager and towards the end of the movie, he turned into a really manly soldier. The way he gazed and stood told a lot about him. I thought the movie was well made but I didn't like the ending. I guess at the core, I just prefer happy ending. In the movie, the girl started out high and go down low in her status and that's the opposite with the boy and I guess that's the reason why in the end, they couldn't be together. With all they've been through, they have just become such different persons, that the love they once had really just belong in the past. Maybe they'll never love anyone that way again but I guess they realized they can live without that kind of love. I am seriously curious how it goes in the book. The film was first released last November in Indonesia. I remembered seeing the trailer when I was home for Dewi's wedding. Perhaps there are better films than this in Indonesia currently but since this is the one I watched and I like it, I hope they will do well oversea. I hope they try to make it for movie festivals and they'll win something.
The second movie this week was Hugo which I decided to watch in 3D. I love it but I have to say that it's not really a kid movie. I think kids will find it boring. I, however, like it greatly. It felt like an adventure. I love the world of the movie. It's touching and most of this come from the young boy who played Hugo. He's just kinda the saddest loneliest thing ever. I did think that his whole world would lose meaning the moment he managed to fix the automaton. Thank God, the hand of fate brings more things into his life. It seriously made me wonder, that could it be so, that it's just fate that many different pieces will come to you like metal to a magnet and all would make sense? I like the movie for many different things. I thought the story was smart. As like the 2 children (by the way Chloë Moretz looked so young here) who kept on going to find meaning in everything, I was too in bated breath waited in anticipation about what's gonna happen next, what does this all mean. I thought the actors were great, even the every single person in the train station though little and insignificant their role maybe. They have a sentimental romantic feel about them, especially with the movie being set to an older time. I like the clock tower, machinery scenes. I love the parts where old black and white movies were shown. It's so cool and of course one can sense the sentimental feeling that Martin Scorsese must have had with these movies. If only tv would show more of them. I am lucky to be able to watch some Charlie Chaplin, Shirley Temple, Jerry Lewis movies on tv when I was young. I seriously wish that tv these days would give the same opportunity to this generations to watch movies like that. I'm digressing. My point is old movies are sentimental and the story seems to be less complicated back then. Hugo is a very meaningful movie and one of the line that kinda hurts for me was when Hugo the boy said, Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose ... it's like you're broken. While I do like the movie very much, I have to admit it's not really a mainstream movie. I can imagine people finding it to be very boring. Well I guess those people are not a helpless romantic like me :P
The last movie this week was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I cannot remember which movie made me cry the most but perhaps this is it. I cried from beginning to end. I knew the movie is related to 911 and even though I know noone who died from 911, it is a very sad incident. Whenever the newspaper or tv show 911 related things during the anniversary, I sometime get teary eyed reading what people wrote or said. So anyways, I cried a lot in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that my eyes kinda hurt after the movie was done. It was really really intense and I think it was a really really good movie though many critics disagree with me. A bit like Hugo, this movie deals with a boy who lost their fathers. Unlike Hugo, the main boy in this movie, Oskar, is a boy who undefinitively may have asperger syndrome, who's very smart, who analyses everything, and at the same time has many mental flaws. You should see the way his brain worked in trying to find a lock for the key he found, he's amazing. He's not sad looking like Hugo but he's really sad and though his anger may make him less pitiful and hence less likable that Hugo, I still think Oskar is a really cool boy and I love him for all his bravery and determination. He summed up the difficulty that he'd have in his reconnaissance in this line really well, "I didn't know what was waiting for me. Although my stomach hurt and my eyes were watering I'd made up my mind that nothing was gonna stop me. Not even me." Really often time, it's us ourselves who stop us from getting to where we want and this young boy realized that. I think the boy who acted in this role is awesome. He also narrated the movie and it's really touching hearing him speak. I wonder how good the rest of the guys in best actor category for this year Oscar that he wasn't nominated :( As for the rest, the cast were awesome. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock are always awesome. The man who played grandpa was pretty cool too and also Viola Davis (she's pretty much always in good movies). Overall I love the movie a lot a lot and with that let me put my ranking for the best picture award for this year's Oscar.
Unfortunately, I didn't watch all the movies which are nominated :( I missed The Artist and Moneyball. So with the other 7 that I watched, my ranking are as follow:
1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
2. Hugo
3. The Help
4. War Horse
5. The Descendants
6. The Tree of Life
7. Midnight in Paris
I based this ranking mostly based on how much I love them and also by how much effort I think went into making them and how meaningful the story is. So even though I actually like The Tree of Life the least, I think it's more meaningful and deep than Midnight in Paris. Also, though I like War Horse and The Descendants pretty much the same way, I place War Horse higher because obviously there are more effort required in making that movie and the cinematography was better than the The Descendants. So based on the list, it's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which I like the most because it touched me the most. However if I have to factor in the way the movie was made, I think Hugo should win the best picture award, it was well made, has a really good story, nice effects, and a good ensemble of cast. Well, that's what I think. As I said I didn't watch The Artist and Moneyball and I'm really not sure how they will go in the ranking.
I will stop now. Cried a lot today and with Up being shown on tv now, I found myself getting teary eyed again. Well, I hope you guys have a good week ahead and I hope God will guide me on my way. Ciao tutti!
:) eKa @ 8:15:00 PM
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Safe House
Hello guys, how are you doing? It's been awhile since I last wrote. Well it's because normally when I write something, I'm talking to you guys about movies and I haven't been watching anything recently until today. Last week I was sick. Bloody phlegm and all. Antibiotics made my throat better and the blood component of my phlegm is gone but the phlegm part is still here, even one week later. I guess I'm not fully well? The doctor also gave me some antibiotic medication for something else I'm having but that issue hasn't been cleared either :( Well, perhaps I should be thankful that it at least doesn't seem like it's getting worse? Point is, I'm seriously not in a very healthy condition right now.On mental news, last week a news was delivered to me that made me feel so much better. I suppose I pray for things to God which I think are going to make me feel better but God has other ways to fix things and right now this is what He's giving me. I seriously felt so much better and it's like for the first time I can breathe again. It's not gonna last but I think for the time being it's okay. If I think about it, I still hyperventilate and get all depressed. Again, perhaps it will never be the solution that I want, it'll be God's and the main thing is to keep the faith that He'll have it covered. So for this week, life is not necessarily bad. I'm not sure how next week will go, but I guess we'll take it day by day.
There are still things that pissed me off of course. This week I had someone telling me that he hoped the things he said doesn't offend me. Well, doesn't that make me sound like some overly sensitive bitch? The reason why this guy was putting this line was because I am furious and basically not in speaking term with some people after the awful thing they said to me, as mentioned in one of my posts sometime in November. I know there are people (one of them is Dewi) who would say, "Yeah, I'll get over it and not be like you who keep grudges". But these same people also say things like, "Just don't associate yourself much with these kinda people anymore". So whatever, you know. Some people have certain things that make them explode and I have mine and my reasoning is totally valid as confirmed by many people. It's just some people are more forgiving and I am not. Since I'm in a bitching mood right now, let me tell you the kind of moronic things that I deal with. So I emailed someone something like this, "the changes are done but it will not work now because of X and Y needs to be done so that it'll work". Less than 15 minutes later the person emailed me back and told me, "I've checked it but why doesn't it work?". If you're in my place, wouldn't you be like, geez, didn't you read the mail?!?!. So what I did was, I replied back with, "As mentioned, ..." and I copied and pasted the one line from my previous email. I turned the whole texts bold and red. The damned person came back to me telling me there's no need to turn it to red because she could read it, thank you. Oh my dear Jesus!!! Don't you just feel like wanting to slap this dumbass. If you can read it, why the fuck didn't you read it the first time around? Every single thing is always my fault without anyone checking and going through the situation first. I remember telling my dear cousin, Marlisa, about it and she's a real fiery person herself and she normally has very eloquent, interesting, snappy retorts and she did give me some lines to say. However, how can I say those when just putting a line of text red and in bold form already garnered me some blow. After that whole episode, I chose to just shut up. You know, if I had been in that girl's position, I would have replied back something along the line, "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot, I didn't read the line you wrote. So sorry and thank you for your patience with me". Yet here, I am the one being vilified.
*sigh* So there, I rant. I normally try not to speak much about negative personal stuff that bring me down but I guess shouting it to the world is necessary sometime. I promise that I have been trying to see some positivity in my life. The proof is, have you checked my nicest things? It's not easy to do that but I am trying. On other news about my life, well, I just want to talk about french class. I seriously don't speak french :( well I suppose I could have tried better but mustering that conscious effort is hard and today I feel like a failure :( We have a bigger class now. Our class was combined with another small lower level class (they jumped up). 2 smaller classes should make a rather bigger class, but there are still not many people in the class. 5 to 6 normally since some people often come and often not. It seems like we're a go for next term and I hope we'll survive. Next week is the last class for this term and we're starting a new one immediately in the week after. I am okay about having Mr. N again as our teacher simply because it's like a comfort zone with him. I can speak in english and he'll just be interested in what my head would spout in whatever language it comes out in. Still, I should really be speaking more french now with some actual processing in my brain to deliver structurally and grammartically sound sentences. I'm so lazy :(
I guess I have nothing much to say in my life that I talked about french class. Life has been trudging along. Due to my massive homesickness and not wanting to deal with life here, I've been listening to a lot of Indonesian songs. I have to embarrassingly admit that I enjoy Cherry Belle's songs a lot. The line, you are beautiful, beautiful, kamu cantik, cantik couldn't get out of my head and so I got their albums and I actually enjoy them. They are korean girl band wannabe and Indonesia is currently filled with these types of korean girl and boy band wannabe. So while the girls can sing, I believe they are not particularly strong singers or anything. I just feel that their song writers are not so bad. So been hearing those and been trying to watch Opera Van Java when I can. It feels comforting to know that mom and me are watching the same thing even though we are in separate places. It made me warm and fuzzy when I texted my mom saying things like, "Eko is in Opera Van Java, it's pretty funny" and mom replied back something like, "Yeah it's funny, I'm watching it too". It doesn't happen all the time though, since mom favors the sinetron (to the dismay of Oshie). I was actually thinking how wrong this whole thing is. It's like I am in one place and my mind is in another place, like I'm not living in the place I should be. I don't know if it's making any sense but the idea of home, of Indonesia is really my safe house. My home back home is really seriously my safe house.
So those 2 lines above tie us to the title of the post which is also the movie I watched today with YeeMaggio. A weak linkage, I know. Anyway, I had 3 movies in mind, J. Edgar, Moneyball, and Safe House. Among the 3, Safe House is something I had the least preference to but I let YeeMaggio choose and she chose that. I'm not sure why, perhaps Ryan Reynolds. Maybe it's me, maybe I'm in a place where I need more amusing things to interest me that I didn't find Safe House to be particularly nice. I felt rather bored and got sleepy. I wonder if I would have understood the story if I haven't read the synopsis. Denzel Washington was his usual awesome and fierce. Ryan was handsome but overall I think the movie is forgettable. Ryan Reynold's character has the same age as mine and that made me think that gone are the days when the people in the movies are older than me. They are now mostly younger than me or at least the same age. I am reaching that age when things are being marketed to people younger than me. It may sound overly dramatic because it's totally premature but I feel like being phased out. I guess I'm in a state of mind when everything just bring the saddest thought in my head. Well, I guess I'll stop now. You guys take care, aight. Buonanotte!
:) eKa @ 8:01:00 PM
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Things I Love When I Was In Indonesia
Hello guys, I'm back. Been back since Monday evening and my emotional state has plummeted so greatly that I shouldn't talk about it. Let's just talk about things which has a more positive vibe and things that I miss really dearly since I came back.1. Mom. I love mommy. While my mom has certain views and opinions which differ greatly from what I have (and can annoy me so), there are those certain things which make me feel touched a lot, comforted, and down right think that she's the best mommy for me. One of the things that she told me to do really comforts me and I love it simply because it's not really something that Singaporeans here may think. One may argue because mom is not living in Singapore, she's perhaps out of tune with life here. However, I get where she's coming from and it's all really comforting to know at the bottomline what really matters. I also love mom for the fact that she got things or food that I may like. I miss home so and mom is one reason for it.
2. My bed. I love my bed and I miss it so :(
3. My family. I love how my extended family do hang out with each others. I love hanging out with my aunts. I love how a certain aunt is really funny about wanting me to have someone soon. For the past 3 years, I've only seen her once a year, and everytime she's egging me to get someone. She's funny. She didn't have much time to hassle me this time around because there were many people at her open house. I also love how my other aunt is teaching my 2-year old nephew (cousin's son = nephew?) to sing Bengawan Solo. It's by no mean an easy song and yet that's what they chose as the song to teach him. It's impressive that my aunt remembers the lyric. More so than me. It's downright really amazing that's what they want to instill in him. Then I love the fact that I can pinpoint that my brother has been spending time in Starbucks. I mean, seriously, like I told mom, of all the places in Tomang, I could sense correctly that he's in Starbucks. Pretty cool. I also love the fact that my bro gave me money when I didn't have smaller change and he got me the food I wanted on his way back from Starbucks.
4. I love my best girl friends, Dewi, Marlisa, and Emilia. Love talking to them and getting insight on their lives. It was really mind opening and also love having them listening to my woes. In general, I think all of us are not having the smoothest of lives right now though I feel that perhaps Emilia and Marlisa are the ones with the least agony right now.
5. I love Indonesian TV that make me laugh. I really have to be detailed on this because in general Indonesian tv still sucks. However, I am pleasantly surprised that some of them do get me laughing my ass off. One of them is Opera Van Java which I love and still trying to watch since I came back. I was curious about this show because a facebook friend, AA, often put it in his FB status. The show has been around for sometime but I only really watched it on this trip. It really made me laugh a lot and overall I think I have laughed so much more in my short time at home than I had been in the past year because of the so many amusing things. Anyways, I have to say that Opera Van Java style of comedy is pretty distinctly Indonesian. I may say it's low class at some point but darn it's funny. Most of it are slapstick but since it's pretty much an improvised live shows for 2 hours plus, moments like when they broke into speaking in pantun (rhyme) show how witty and smart these people are. Try coming out with rhymes on the spot every few minutes, it's not easy. I particularly love the part when they broke into songs suddenly. It does impede the whole story but it's funny funny funny!
6. Still related to number 4, I love how there are so much talent in Indonesia. Indonesia is like a huge range of ugly despicable moronic things to the highest high of really talented creative bunch of things. As comparison with my life here, I don't see the poor quality on things the way I see it in Indonesia, but I also don't get amused and taken away by the creativity in it. Like in Indonesian music scenes for example, while there are those that made me switch the channel the moment I saw them, there are those also which made me totally in awe that such things are in Indonesia.
7. I love the Indonesian-ness of Indonesia. I got my first batik shirt on this trip (courtesy of mom). I chose a red one to fit the chinese new year theme. I love how Indonesians embraces Indonesian culture and I think it's awesome.
8. While traffic and the pollution in Jakarta is something that I really don't enjoy, I am impressed with the busway. For the first time, I finally tried it with mom. It's definitely far from perfect, however the fact that they manage to create so many routes (the routes are definitely more complicated that Singapore mrt system) with so many busway bus stop points is pretty commendable. If it could run smoothly, it's a pretty good alternative to things. I am actually looking forward to try it more and perhaps on my own the next time I am home.
9. I had the chance to watch The Iron Lady. It's always nice to watch something ahead of Singapore and it's very rare. Went to Taman Anggrek and felt pretty impressed with their cinema. It seemed new as compared to when I was there years years ago. It's a high quality cinema and it's so good to be watching in an almost empty cinema. As usual I chose the aisle seat but as it started, I moved to right smack at the center of the cinema and my row was a divider row between 2 sections, I don't really know how to explain this, but basically I had more legs space. Wonderful! The Iron Lady was insightful and Meryl Streep was of course always awesome. I thought it was amazing how she managed to look so different and how small size they managed to make her be, especially in comparison to when she played Julia Child. Overall I think it's a nice a movie.
Being in Indonesia was really really relaxing to me. I have people who was glad to see me. I ate well. There are always many fruits in the house. I had good conversations. I had lotsa love. I basically felt I was loved. I really really miss home and all that really made being here sucks so badly. I felt that I am a different person when I was home than when I am here :( and it's frustrating sometime that these people whom I love dearly at home cannot see how I am here :(
Life here has been really bad. Right now, I am having difficulty sleeping all the time. I don't have a good appetite. The only moment when I had a good laugh this week when I was watching Opera Van Java streaming live off the net. Overall Singapore hasn't made feel good about being here. Well, finding out that prices went down in McDonalds was good but it's not KFC Indonesia for example, which really is much much better than Singapore's. Oh my God, when I was eating it, I was thinking this is how KFC should taste like and what the hell have I been eating all this time? Another reason to miss home.
So I have practically lost all will to live. I thought when I come back, I'll start doing something which I had planned and would perhaps gave me hope for the days ahead, but I found myself not interested in it. I did do other things which I really need to do but no luck so far and I prayed and pray and since there's still nothing so far, I'm pretty much bummed out. Hence I think I made my mom so worried. My dear cousin was so nice to be encouraging me and all and I feel guilty for having them to have to do this and be worried. I'm just really mentally down now. I'm sorry. I wish I could even spark a little positivity and light to bring me up but right now I can't really. I am in the point of tears most of time :( Alright, I shouldn't talk about this anymore.
In an attempt to do something which I normally like, I went to watch The Descendants today. I have to say it felt like a chore to get me to go and watch it. You see how down I am. Even the prospect of watching something nice didn't manage to interest me much. I was late and I missed some of it - that sucks. However, the movie was really good. I have watched some really heavy, borderline boring, George Clooney's movies but this one was not boring. It's pretty sad and in a way perhaps it matches how my mood is. I think the cast were great and if you don't mind getting quite depressed, you could go watch it.
Alright, I'm not gonna say much more. I hope your days are much better than mine. Take care!
:) eKa @ 6:31:00 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Leaving
I wasn't sure if I was to write anything, simply because I have nothing good to say. I know one may say, here she goes again, down that hole of self pity and negativity and depression or what have you, the usual shit hole of Eka. Oh well. Since I last wrote, as foreseen, the days haven't gone fast enough. In fact today still feel like a torturous existence. Even though the past days have been filled with Modern Family, Glee, and some newly found songs, and telling my woes to people who would listen, it still wasn't enough to make me feel better. However the clock never stops ticking and today's arrived. In a few hours it's home to Jakarta and to my wonderful bed which I miss so. You know, I am not kidding about the shit hole I am in. I know a lot of things are just how we respond emotionally to things that happened to us, but like last night, I was so sleepy and for some reasons I let my mind wander and it wandered so far that I ended up feeling fully awake and I'm not sure what time I finally slept, perhaps 1 plus. Yes that is my fault, just like everything else is my fault in this world! So anyway, that made me miss my bed even more so.So home. I am sure the time spent there will pass too fast for my liking. Perhaps it's the zone I am in right now but I am not feeling much love about home. Somehow being home and of course chinese new year demand one to be super social but I am really really really not in a social mode. I am not looking forward to meeting many (happy) people. I just want to sleep, wake up late, relish that short time everyday when my house is empty except just for me. However I know that meeting and talking to these (happy) people will reel me in and see what really matters and bring me into perspective and hopefully make me more positive and optimistic about the future. I really need this since I kinda made a chinese new year resolution yesterday. Please let the stars be aligned, please the universe, please conspire to help me, PLEASE!!!
:) eKa @ 12:16:00 PM
Saturday, January 07, 2012
First Week 2012
Hello peeps, how's your first week been? All's been good? My first week of 2012 and my last week of 2011 were rather rough but today has been a good day so it's all as we always say, at the end of it is good.In the last week of 2011, one of my auntie passed away. Mom, dad, aunt, and uncle flew for the funeral which was done very very quickly. I think our culture and tradition are different from the Chinese here who do the 3-day wait. Anyways, my aunt and I lived in different islands and now in different countries so the geographical distance did make it rather impossible to develop such strong connection. I did however felt good that I managed to see her 2 years ago. That was my last time seeing her. I think it's been more years for my brother or other cousins. The death kinda brought a lot of questions to my brain. I was picturing how I'd answer my kids, if they were to ask where people go after they die? Well I have absolutely no idea. If we follow the story of they're becoming perfect and freed from their sickness and go to paradise, well my aunt had down syndrome. What does that mean for her to be perfect? She'll have down syndrome no more? But that wouldn't be the auntie that I know and that made me feel rather sad. Then I was thinking about the bright light that you suppose to walk into and I'd like to think my other aunts were there to welcome her. The thoughts really posed so many different questions into my head and let's just say that for a day, I had quite an existential crisis. I wasn't planning to blog about that, but since I did, maybe I shouldn't go on further.
Another sucky thing was that there's something wrong with my ipod. The earphone jack needed to be replaced. Apple as you know it (well I'm not sure if it's everywhere or just Singapore), doesn't do repair, it replaces. I need to pay a whole lot to get it replaced. With a bit more, I could get a new one and I don't want a new one, I want my one be repaired with all my things inside it! That kinda makes me feel icky about Apple. So anyways, google provided some answers which included me to almost operate the ipod myself but I refrained and in the end opted to trust a dude from the internet. It was distressing but at a certain point, I decided to just let go. If I was to be fooled then so be it. I wasn't, the guy did a good fast job, all for S$59 and it was rather painless for me. So that's one thing that make this week rather good.
In the last 2 weeks, I also managed to watch War Horse. I didn't write it earlier because as mentioned I've been in a funk. I just didn't feel like sharing much. I'm still trying to get out of it now. So anyway, at the beginning, I wasn't interested in watching War Horse. It's about a horse, how interesting can it be? However the reviews were glorious and so I decided to give it a go. Well I like it, though I can feel that some people may find it boring. There were a lot of handsome blonde actors and it's always good to see handsome guys :P The story was pretty nice though I cannot understand the undying love the boy had for the horse, but I am pretty much void of any kind emotion like that in my life, so not understanding is expected. Of course there were many horses being used to play the main horse and I found it amazing that these horses had so much characters in them. It seemed that they were also acting at some points with their looks. Steven Spielberg does really have good eyes. The ending scene felt like an old hollywood movie for me and it felt good. I am looking forward to watching more wonderful movies with the Oscar season coming. Right now, I am really interested in watching My Week with Marilyn, unfortunately the timing sucks :(
It's like less than 2 weeks before I go home. It feels rather too soon with the so many things that I have yet to do but I'm sure come Monday, I will feel it's not soon enough. French class started again today. I actually felt that the 2-week break was too short. I had a hard time waking up today but to class I went. We got Mr. N again. Apparently everyone was at a different point taught by Mr. N. I thought he's nice as a person but I wasn't sure if his class was nice and the class has shrunk so much that there were only 3 of us today and I don't know if we're gonna be having exciting times with him. Overall I thought the class today was so so. The good news was I got to speak english and that made me feel rather good. I know there are many of those who would be saying, I'm there to speak french not english, so having to speak english in class sucks! Yeah whatever. I just felt good to be speaking english and making sure my points get across without being reprimanded. On mornings when your brain is slow, this flexibility is most welcomed for me. Well I always believe what the students get out of the class is as much what the students do as what the teachers do. I am sure if we are proactive, the class can be awesome too. I am quite worried though about the survival of our class. There are only 5 of us in the class and it's evident that our attendance record is not so good. Today there were 3 and after next week, I'll be missing for 2 weeks. I really hope that this class can continue on until I finish advanced :( Let's keep our fingers crossed.
I'm pretty hungry now. There are many things to be thankful about this week. One of the thing to be thankful about today is my Max time. I haven't been talking much to him simply because his aunt has been around and so he's been spending time with her and also because he's started working part time. I caught him just before he was getting ready to leave for work today. He promised to give me free meal at the place he works (good boy!) but I rather not get him into some trouble. Then he insisted that I watched some youtube videos which he found hilarious. It was about this (I think) American guy who was criticizing and making fun of an 18-year old Singaporean boy who was kinda threatening another Singaporean boy, who's 14, who seemed to be "stealing" the 18-year old girlfriend. All in youtube. Do take note that the American put himself into the drama. Yeah, they are all crazy and stupid. I didn't find it amusing at all, so that shows how a 13-year difference between Max and me really does reflect the huge difference in how our brains work. That doesn't mean I think that people with such huge age difference will have nothing in common. I believe as the younger one grows more mature and the older one basically just grows older, it'll get easier to understand one another.
Alright, that's about it peeps. May your days are filled with sunshine and your nights are filled with cool air and the bright moon and stars illuminate your way :)
:) eKa @ 8:23:00 PM
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
We Bought a Zoo
Watched We Bought a Zoo yesterday. While I still thought it was good, I couldn't help that the "Hollywood treatment" ruined this movie. Before we get into that, let's talk about the actors first. I was never one who thought Matt Damon to be extremely cool or anything like that. Lucky for him, he did the Bourne Identity movies and I also watched him in Green Zone and he started to kinda appeal to me. Anyways, the Matt Damon in this movie looked kinda chubbier but he's still so likable playing a widower. So good job for him. During the beginning of the movie though, the actor that stole the show was the daughter Rosie, who was very very cute! Everytime she delivered the line, we bought a zoo!, you just want to squeeze this cutie. The guy who played his brother is not so bad looking as well but his character was rather moody in the movie so he did come across as a brat. Understandable though considering their situation. Then we met the other casts, like Scarlett Johansson and Elle Fanning.Elle Fanning's character was super cute. It felt so nice that she with her blond hair and dorkiness contrasted so well with the moody dark boy. If this movie needed any kind of love story element into it, then I thought hers and the boy was good enough. However Hollywood had to bring Scarlett Johansson. I'm not a fan of Scarlett Johansson and while I think she's not a bad actress, I thought her character's presence in this movie ruined what sweet, heart-warming, wonderful, inspiring potential this movie has :( You see, Matt Damon played a widower who's shown throughout to be still in love with his death wife and Scarlett Johansson played the head zoo keeper. There wasn't much attraction going on between them and yet Hollywood had to add the scene in the end when both of them kissed. Aarrrghhh!!! It's so Hollywood and that's why Hollywood movies can be so ... well so Hollywood (crappy) sometime, aarrrghhh!!! It's so formulaic that a couple had to kiss. I cannot help thinking that if they did have to add that in, why not just stick with the 2 young kids who obviously like each other a lot and way cuter together.
So that is how Hollywood ruined a movie and made me unable to like it wholeheartedly. Instead of a memorable movie that this movie could be, it went into some tv movie which will be nice to watch on a relaxing weekend. I did a bit of a reading this morning about how the true story actually went down and it's a pity too that Hollywood excluded the grandma in the story. Come on! If you add in the grandma, remove all the unnecessary Scarlett Johansson's part, the heart-warming factor will definitely increase. I do have to say it's not Scarlett Johansson's fault. Any girl playing that role will still ruin the movie *sigh* Other than those comments, I have to say that it's also nice to see the animals and a bear no matter how dangerous it can be, can still look so cute.
:) eKa @ 4:04:00 PM
Monday, December 26, 2011
Christmas Holidays
Merry Christmas! Well Christmas was yesterday but it's still a season of wishing good things :) How have been the christmas holidays for you guys? Mine was great. I've been having good things this holiday so I am what you call happy, or to underplay it a bit, rather happy :) One of the best thing about this holiday is being able to wake up late! It feels so glorious to be waking up after 9, mostly 10. Seriously the simple thing of waking up without the alarm is something that I really treasure. Well, let me tell you the other things that I did.Saturday I went to watch Wicked with YeeMaggio. Wicked was wickedly good and I love it! I have to say that I love my seat too, it's worth the money and the super early booking and the whole thing felt like a nice christmas present for myself. I do have to comment that it's rather surprising to see the quality of the actual seat in Marina Bay Sands Theatre. I'm pretty sure the seats in Esplanade are better than MBS. We were commenting that some cinemas here may even have better seats than MBS. Anyways, don't want to complain more. Wicked was really good that the seat thing was a realy tiny minor thing. I love the set! They're awesome. The costumes (there's a Lady Gaga-esque girl) and actors were great but I guess it's the whole overall thing that made it so awesome. It's a very good production! One thing that came to my mind. The original Broadway actress who played Glinda was Kristin Chenoweth and I can totally see her in that role, being super bubbly and funny and blonde :D Anywho, it's such a great show and I love it and I was really really happy that I got to see it :)
Sunday being Christmas is Museum Open House Day in Singapore. To be honest, I have never made used of this open house thing. It was my first time and I was actually inspired by Oshie who made used of it some holiday back. So me and YeeMaggio went to National Museum of Singapore to see the Dreams and Reality exhibition, which contains some paintings from Musée d'Orsay. I had wanted to visit Musée d'Orsay when I was in Paris, but the queue was crazy long that I really didn't have the time for it. All I had from getting to the museum was 2 photos of a horse and rhino sculptures in front of the museum. So that was quite a shame but now that there are some paintings from the museum here, I really really wanted to see them and it feels really cool to see works from Monet, Cézanne, Degas, and some others. It was extra special for me though to see works from Monet and Cézanne since I've been to Monet's wonderful house in Giverny and I've been to Cezanne's town of Aix-En-Provence. The highlight of the exhibition was of course Van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhone, which was really incredibly beautiful and dreamy. I didn't bring my camera because I felt rather lazy packing them and I didn't know if photography was allowed which actually was. In the end, I took some pictures from my Nokia. I'm not really the type of person who takes pictures from camera phone. I rarely do that but my phone is all I had and it turned out not so dreadfully bad. The exhibition is not necessarily big but I think it was still nice all the same and here are the few that captured my eyes :P I actually googled each of this to get the title and the name of some of the artists which I've forgotten.
Philip Wilson Steer's Jeune Femme Sur La Plage
This was the first picture that got me snapping away. I love how it's just a girl by the beach. She looked beautiful, a bit lonely, but I just felt something with the painting. I love the simplicity in it and perhaps the solitude of the girl :)
Monet's Woman With Parasol
Monet' Regatta
Monet's Branch Of The Seine Near Giverny
Monet's Meditation, Madame Monet Sitting On A Sofa
This is interesting for me because I'm pretty sure I saw the red flowery sofa in the sitting room of his house.
Monet's Camille Monet Sur Son Lit De Mort
This felt sad because Camille was his wife, which I believe was also the lady with the umbrella. It must be sad for him to paint her this way when she's dying.
Cézanne's The Card Players
I had a feeling that this painting was in my elementary french book.
Cézanne's Madame Cézanne
Renoir's Railway Bridge At Chatou
I love the flowery tree. I thought it was Monet's but thank God for google search image :P
Théo Van Rysselberghe's A Costal Scene
You gotta appreciate the effort in painting with all those dots. 
Fréderic Bazille's The Improvised Field Hospital
The man in the picture was actually Monet who was injured or sick or something.
Van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhone
This is the picture that captured everyone's attention. It was truly beautiful. I love the stars which were like little suns. The fact that all those brush strokes can form something so beautiful as this can only be described as brilliant and amazing :)
The day ended with dinner and shopping. I had quite a good deal because of the sale so it was a good day for me again. This week is the last week of the year. It hasn't hit me yet but I suppose it will. 2012 is me turning 30 in a few short months. It's depressing but I'm trying to push this fact away from my head. I had a good week last week and I think this week would be too. As I am writing that, I've decided that I'm gonna be having fun this week. I'm gonna do things that I want to do and with or without people I want to do it with. I wish you guys a great last week too. Eat well and be happy :)
:) eKa @ 2:16:00 PM
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Liberté
I am so tired and sleepy and I have so many things to write. Today's news have been filled with the fact that the metro system (mrt) in Singapore broke down again when the company just apologized yesterday for the Thursday evening breakdown. I was actually affected by it this morning. I am too tired to write what happened in details but I thought the staff didn't communicate well on what's going on to the passengers and what options were available for them. It was quite frustrating being on an almost empty, free bridging bus knowing that there were so many people waiting for a train whose time of arrival were ranging between 20 minutes. I sympathized with all the staff who had to work hard or who had to come to work on a Saturday because of this. However if they have to be there, they should be more useful. So obviously Facebook was buzzing with everyone giving their opinions on this. One facebook friend wrote that a metro breakdown is like a natural disaster for the people of Singapore. Another wrote it's like a freak event. Both kinda ring true. Someone I knew once said that one of the safe characteristic that Singaporea has is that its chance on getting a natural disaster is pretty low. I don't necessarily agree with that because I think if God wants to obliterate Singapore, He could easily do so. It does bring into discussion that the fact that Singapore doesn't really face things like natural disasters and the fact that everything is so effective in Singapore, things like a metro breakdown does feel like a disaster. Due to the fact that everything is pretty predictable in Singapore, I often feel that Singapore gets flustered pretty easily when a curve ball is thrown their way. I've been in this country for 11.5 years and I can only recall 2 incidents when there's a black out because there's something wrong with the electricity. 11.5 years in Indonesia, you'll be lucky if the number of black out is only 100 times more. However due to the fact that Singapore is highly efficient, it's also rather hard to accept that such thing happens in Singapore. If there's one place in this world where it shouldn't have happened, that place could well be in Singapore. The fact it did happen does make one wonder, what the hell is wrong with Singapore now? Why are you getting sucky? It does seem like a harsh judgement because shit does happen and things don't always go perfectly all the time but I guess because it's in Singapore where things run reliably 99.99% of the time, people are getting pretty critical about this. So well, that's my take on the whole thing.The title of the post is to signify that I feel free today. It's like it's time to play now. Today was the last french class for this year. We had a test and I am totally disappointed with how I did. Mr. F decided to split the tests into 2 rounds, the first being last week. It was a reading comprehension test and I did badly, scoring only 13.5 out of 20. It was demoralizing and disappointing. The other day Max thought he heard I said 13.5 out of 50 and he was ready to laugh at me. Upon knowing it's out of 20, he thought I did good. I really didn't think so. The same score range was reflected all throughout today's rounds. In total I think I score 73 something out of 100. It's the worst test result I've had since I started studying french. I think the highest part I scored was for writing a letter, in which I score 16 out of 20. Mr. F thought I did a good job on that, writing a complain letter to a mayor, and yet he only gave me 16 :( Overall I passed each of the parts, it's just I didn't score particularly high. I was rather surprised with the marks I got for listening and conversation. I thought I would score pretty low on them. It's really disheartening not understanding the listening part but then when I heard my teacher or the other teachers speak and I could understand it, I thought man! it's pretty cool and how far we've come. The other day Mr. F was revising the grammar in using the different past tenses; all the explanation was in french and I actually got it. It reminded me to the time back in my Italian class where my teachers could be speaking all in Italian and I got it. It felt good and yet when it's time to watch something or listen to an interview and not getting it, I just feel so down. Anyway, no more classes, no more studying for test, it really feels like it's time to play. So I'm gonna be in a more relaxed mood these 2 weeks. Just need to put the shield up so that annoying people will not be able to enter my dome of inner serenity :P
I managed to watch 2 movies this week. The first one was New Year's Eve. I'm not gonna tell you that the movie is great. However I feel it's better than Valentine's Day. It had a weak storyline but as a girl I do get dreamy with all the sweetness. I think my favorite story was the one with Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Effron. By the way Zac Effron and short hair, HOT! As for the rest, I don't feel like commenting much. All I can comment on is how different Abigail Breslin looks now that she's older. Hillary Swank looked pretty though she's really not your typical pretty girl. Ludacris was cool but his character in the movie was pretty useless. I really didn't love the storyline between Jon Bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl. Sofia Vergara was of course sexy but much much dumber in this movie and you can kinda miss the feisty Gloria in Modern Family. Lea Michele sang in the movie, surprise? She should try to walk away from Glee like connection. It was good seeing Ryan Seacrest. Watching the host of X-Factor really made me miss Ryan and oh Josh Duhamel was as always handsome but you kinda wondered if it mattered that he's in the movie. Same goes for Halle Berry. Since my comments are as weak as the movie, I'll stop commenting it now.
Today, I watched Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. I though it was good. It felt pretty long but I think it was very well executed. I am most impressed at the stunt that Tom Cruise did in Burj Khalifa, Dubai. It was scary and the fact he did the stunt, he deserved an applause. Josh Holloway was in this movie but he died within the first few seconds :( So why do I feel the need to write about him? Well just because you kinda wondered what Lost's Sawyer was doing next and also because his wife happened to be Indonesian (lucky her). Anyways, not loving his short clean haircut. He looked so much better with Sawyer's hairstyle. The opposite goes for Tom Cruise. His haircut in this movie is not so nice. He looked better with short clean cut hairstyle. Aside for those 2 guys, I thought Jeremy Renner was kinda stealing the scene too. It's shallow of me to say this but there was a scene when I thought that he had a nice butt :P Okay, back to the movie. The action was great and they really went all out and it's really like saying that if one wants to do an action movie, one should really do it this way with seriously a lot of amazing action scenes. It's rather amazing that the director was Brad Bird who directed the animated movie, The Incredibles.
I have to add, there's a scene in the movie in which using a screen, the good guys could trick what a security guard was seeing. It made me wonder if the same technology was being used in the Transformer 3D ride in Universal Studio Singapore. They were able to deceive the passengers by making us believe we are in the middle of a crowded city with tall skyscrappers when in fact we're indoor in a building of at most 3-storey high. There are really so many amazing technology out there. I do recommend you to watch Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. I think it's one of the promising movies this holiday season. It's highly entertaining.
On other news. Well a few things did happen since the last time I wrote. One of it was when someone basically told me to be less of a bitch for a better future for my social self. As much as I think there's some truth in the request but I know that I'm just not that malleable. I register a lot of things in my brain and I just cannot forget a lot of things. Not just things like the details of what happened but also things like how I felt when those things happened. Hence I cannot get pass many things because when I think of a bad situation, I'll still get angry or sad and I cannot be all sincere in the "let's move on" action. So what I want is basically, you do your own things, I'll do mine. Don't be a dumbass and bother me and I'll also not gonna trouble you. Sounds selfish? Well I stand by my opinion that some people would have fared much worse if they had been in my situation. I react the way I react and whether it's the right or wrong thing to do, I could only react the way my heart allows me to do and I don't like being judged or whatever on the way I should react. I don't care if people think I'm such a bitch or anything simply because I don't care much for people who may think that way. They are not the most important people in my life. In fact they're not even in the list of people whose opinion I value. You see, I still get pretty intense as I am writing this. That's proof that I couldn't get pass certain things.
I don't want to end this post on such a negative tone so let me say my thanks. I am thankful that though I got confused this morning because of the train breakdown, I managed to find my way and thank God it was a Saturday morning so traffic wasn't too heavy. I was half an hour late but there were times when I was that late as well simply because I was slow in the morning. So overall, the damage for me wasn't too great. The thing I am most thankful about is that a little thing happened today. It was such a small thing and yet it managed to make my heart smile. So thank you God. God, if you can make the tiny thing bigger, that would be great. However Thy will be done and in God we trust :) Alright, I'm really tired and sleepy now. Good night loves!
:) eKa @ 12:05:00 AM
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
The Week With My Brother and Cousins
My brother was here the whole of last week and we got to meet twice. The first time was for dinner exactly last week. My brother and I are not close, we don't really talk to each other so the idea of having to spend some time during dinner was slightly nerve wrecking for me. It turned out to be pretty awesome. We talked a whole freaking lot that I'm sure my mom would be in the state of disbelief if she had seen us. After my opening of asking what he's doing in Singapore, conversation just flowed to other things and we had some good conversation that I felt it was such a pity that we didn't have more time to talk. I wanted to write that it's like seeing my brother in a new light but I think it will be more correct to say that it's seeing what he really is as an adult and I think he's pretty okay. It was rather eye opening and encouraging and humbling to be listening to his thoughts about life now and the future. Something that made me feel that he's rather wise and perhaps more acceptant than me is how he embraces the path he's in. Unlike me, I'm not embracing the path I am in and I'm pretty sure I am leaving this path. I'm just waiting for that sign when I feel I have enough. For my brother, as much as perhaps he didn't fall in love with his path on first sight, since he's already in it, he's making the full use of it and strive to be the best that he could be in it. I knew that he works long hours, I just didn't know what the drive was behind it and upon listening to him, I'm pretty much in awe at what I heard and it caused me to question myself on why I don't have the same drive and don't have the same willingness in embracing my path. I guess that's what makes us different. As I said it's a humbling experience listening to my brother and maybe I'll see things in a new light bit by bit. I do hope we get to hang out again. I guess we two as adults are pretty cool adults. Though we are different in how we think but there's certain similarities that we have, like how we want to kick ass, and how we're kinda pretty good in what we do. So if there's anything that I would like to be thankful about, I am really really really thankful to God that I got to spend a real nice time with my brother last week, especially after my weeks which hadn't actually gone trigger happy. So thank you so much God!Other than my brother, 2 of my cousins and baby girl Mikaela were here. They arrived on Thursday and I got to meet them on Saturday as we were going to Universal Studio. My brother happened to be there also. He didn't plan to be there again since he has visited it on Wednesday but he was and he sent me an sms in the morning telling me about it. It seemed that he couldn't use his phone to send messages out anymore after that 1 message so I wasn't banking much on being able to meet him but lo and behold I spotted him as we were standing outside the entrance. My brother gave us S$30 food vouchers. So that's pretty good. His job seems pretty glamourous to me. So anyway me and the cousins entered Universal Studio pretty late in the afternoon. It didn't really matter for me because I only wanted to try the few which I missed on my visit last year, which were basically the monster house rock, the Madagascar ride, and of course the hyped up Transformer 3D ride. With my brother, Shrek 4D ride was the first we tried. Then my brother had to go. We wanted to watch the waterworld show but because of the rain, the show was cancelled for that hour. The rain was really stopping us from exploring everything. So anyway, then we went to the Madagascar boat ride. After that Mikaela was taking her nap.
Because of the rain and the long queue at Transformer, my cousins decided that they would just walk around and watch Mikaela and so I went to the queue alone. It didn't feel as weird as I thought it would be but perhaps I was too tired to think much about it. I think I queued for 50 minutes. It felt very long, snaking in and out. I got pretty nervous about the ride as I was getting closer to it. I think I started to feel it's not gonna be as mild as I thought it would be. My brother was right, it's a bit of a combination of the Mummy ride and Shrek 4D. So I was alone and I was seated at the end of the cart. I was a real chicken because I was really scared to the point that I really prayed that I'll be alright and not gonna die from a heart attack. As the ride started, I started to scream which took me by surprise because during exhilarating / scary rides like this, I don't scream. I don't know why I started to scream on this one. Maybe I was alone? It was a real awesome ride though. So awesome and I was blown away on how it looked like. I wonder how they made it. I wonder what's the track and surrounding actually look like. I was very very proud of myself that I managed to do this ride alone. After the ride, the girl sitting next to me was looking at me. I wondered if she's wondering if I was okay or she thought it was strange that I was alone. Overall I came out of it feeling utterly happy. It felt like a big accomplishment :)
After the ride, I met up with my cousins again. We watched the monsters house rock which I didn't think was awesome. Then we had dinner. After dinner was the fireworks show. Mikaela didn't think much of it, I think she didn't like the exploding sounds. My cousins thought it was pretty cool. I thought it was too darn short. It's the same thing as what I saw last year and to be waiting some time for it in a very bad weather with the rain, it just felt like a let down. However, they were delighted so I guess it's cool. I met with them again the next day (Sunday).
They weren't checking their phones so they didn't see my message telling them I'd arrived. By sheer luck, I spotted them, just like I spotted my brother the day before. I like how my cousin described it, it's like we're being pulled to each other :) I like those moments when words twined together in ways that I don't think of could light me up unexpectedly. So anyway, Sunday was spent accompaning the cousins to shop then we're off to Singapore Flyer. I think the improvement they did on Singapore Flyer was great. However the ride itself was boring for me. Maybe it's because I've been in it before and I was really tired, again the rain really brought down the spirit and energy level. One of my cousin was having problem with the height and Mikaela wasn't interested at all. You can never be sure with a 4-year old on what would interest them. She ended up playing and making lotsa noise with the other 4-year old Singaporean boy in the capsule. We ended up talking with the boy's grandpa. Anyway we ended up leaving the Singapore Flyer quite late and I was so tired that we decided to just take taxi. It was frustating because there was no taxi and I called every single number on the list and couldn't go through. I decided to stand by the street and there was a free taxi passing by but it didn't stop even though I was waving like crazy and almost stood in front of its way. I don't understand this and it often happens that an empty taxi just doesn't stop. I don't understand. Luckily behind it, there was a taxi which was willing to pick me up. I felt so happy because I haven't been standing long by the street but I did wait sometime at the taxi stand. My cousin thought I walked out to cry. So anyway, it's been a very tiring weekend for me. Maybe it's also because of the rain, I'm not feeling sickly these few days. Been having migraine a lot and feeling rather feverish. The brother and cousins had returned home and I kinda miss home a lot now. I miss my bed.
It still felt pretty nice to be spending time with the family. One thing I realize was that travelling with a kid can be quite a hassle. Do you know how fast one can walk pushing a stroller? It's weird considering that I've been pretty eager to see what kind of kids I'll have. After the 2 days with Mikaela, I felt pretty thankful that I am single and I have a lot of freedom to do things that I want to do. Not that Mikaela is a bad kid, her mom and auntie surely speak pretty highly of her and I know many people I know also speak highly of their kids. It's just having kids really does restrict you on the things that you can do and for that I am so thankful that I don't have all these responsibilities in life (yet). It makes me feel pretty good about being single and being able to explore the things that I want to do or just simply being able to walk fast without much care. Okay, it's been quite late. So I should stop now and lie down. Meanwhile, I leave you with a picture I took from inside the Singapore Flyer's capsule.
:) eKa @ 10:49:00 PM
photo.
archives.