Saturday, March 29, 2014
Hello guys. A few days left in March 2014. Since I last wrote, it's been a scary week. My mother was feeling sick and wasn't getting better that she finally relented to be hospitalized last Saturday. That was really scary and sudden. Even more worrying was because I didn't have my passport at that time and going home immediately wasn't an option. It turned out my father wasn't feeling well also, but he didn't want to go to the hospital to get checked up as well. He did agree to go see a doctor in the evening. I think my brother was pretty busy and annoyed at the stubbornness of my parents. My mother was discharged the day after, so she only spent a night. As much as I would like to think it's good news, I think it's more because she was stubborn. She was feeling better and she decided to just quickly go home. Both of my parents seemed to be showing signs of getting better this week, which I think is good news compared to showing signs of deteriorating, but I'm not really sure if they're really okay, if whatever problems were handled, and if the drugs really work. Gonna call them later. My passport is also back, so I guess it makes it easier now if I need to go home immediately. I'll save the story of why my passport wasn't with me for another day. Anyways, still keeping my parents in prayer because seriously I was really really scared about the whole thing. People at home seemed to be not doing too good. Mom just told me today that my uncle is also sick now. I just hope everyone would be well soon and get stronger.As for me, I thought I was doing okay, but today I found out the thing that stressed me out seems to be happening again. Damn it! I hate it when people lie to me or people are withholding information and not telling me anything. What the fuck?!? I hope and hope if a bad thing should fall my way, it would happen only when I am ready. I'd like to say I'll never be ready, but maybe when I am angry enough, it will be the right time because that would be the time when I would just take myself out of the situation willingly.
The other day, I saw a beautiful flowering tree nearby where I live. I was in shock, I was like what is that?!? It feels silly that there's something beautiful near you and you never realize it. The tree had been there for a long time and I'm pretty sure it's been flowering for some days or weeks and yet my eyes only managed to see it a few days ago. I thought it was glorious. It has pink flowers everywhere. I guess again because it's been so hot, the tree decided to just shed leaves and turn everything into flowers. I went up to it today and since I was in a hurry, I didn't really explore much of the area. I don't know what tree it is. Definitely not sakura.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman - Chose this because Ty Burrell voiced the main character, the dog, Mr. Peabody. Ty Burrell played my favorite tv husband and dad currently, Phil Dunphy in Modern Family. Some people may argue, how about Marshall from How I Met Your Mother? Well, it's just Phil Dunphy has been married for quite a long time and I guess that kinda relationship and husband is the one I want to have :P So Mr. Peabody & Sherman being a cartoon, obviously there were many kids there. Luckily while they hadn't been the quietest kids around, I wasn't annoyed. I think the little blondie girl sitting in my row cried when it seemed Mr. Peabody died. It was so cute of her and kinda interesting to see how kids perceive the story. It's not a bad cartoon, I like the jokes that play around on words, and I love how the cartoon touched lightly on history, it made me realize how when I was young I learned some things also from watching things like this. If watching this made a kid remember that Marie Antoinette said, "let them eat cake", I think that's quite a good achievement, although it's not entirely true. Marie Antoinette didn't say that. I have googled this, but hopefully the kids would know this phrase or be interested to learn more about Marie Antoinette. Me myself, got most of my french revolution knowledge from The Rose of Versailles.
The Grand Budapest Hotel - A Wes Anderson's movie is just too scintillating to ignore and how I loved this movie. So many things to love about this movie. Love Ralph Fiennes and the boy who played Zero, Tony Revolori. Love love the cinematography. I think if you press pause on the movie, every single scene is just so beautiful, postcard like images. It's not all warm and fuzzy and in the end you do feel a tinge of sadness, but I still love the story :)
Divergent - Glad to see Theo James again. I've known him since his brief but very influential appearance in Downton Abbey. If you think about it, it was only with the Turk that Lady Mary let go. She didn't think about consequences, she just let go and obviously it was stupid of her to do that, but still the only guy who managed to get Lady Mary on pretty much the first try :P Anyway, watched Divergent with La Gioia and she was totally smitten with him which is kinda out of character for her :P I know there are some type of guys she likes but to hear her gushing about a guy, I think this is my first time :P Me too, I am still in love with Theo James :P Anyway, Divergent was pretty good. I like it and looking forward for the sequel. Can't help thinking which faction I would end up in. I conclude that I may end up factionless. Not a hippie. May not be smart enough to be the smart ones. Not that brave. Too selfish to be selfless and all is left is the lawyer looking faction and while some people may say that I speak with no filter, I'd like to think that they're all wrong, there are so many things that I keep to myself :P So in the end I'll be factionless, but hopefully not a useless factionless. I mean why are all those people without a faction look like a hobo? How can they just lose all will to live and think or even try?
Last piece of information. Today I posted my vote for this year's Indonesian parliament election. Dropped the envelope in with a little prayer to let God make it good and alright in our country. I'm going to waive my right for secrecy and just say openly that I voted for PDIP. Totally didn't expect to do this especially since I thought it wasn't right of them to be putting Joko Widodo as a presidential candidate (read my previous post). In the end I voted for them because above concerns of economy and corruption, my biggest concern in Indonesia right now is Muslim extremists and hardliner Muslims being more and more intolerant and force their ways into rules and regulations that affect the whole country, which is populated not only by Muslims, and so when I googled the candidates, I found that at least in Jakarta, PDIP has the most diverse candidates. So I thought, it would be just a fact that the majority of the people in the government are Muslims, but if in some way we can put some more non-Muslims then there will be hope that there will be more diverse voices, voices which would hopefully really voice out the concerns of non-Muslims who are getting really pushed with these hardliners. It's quite a hard election for me this time. It's hard to choose. It's all because parties need to be able to get more than 20% of the vote before they can put a presidential candidate in the presidential election. So right now what the parties have been doing is saying this is the person we want to run as president, but they never mention the vice president. Only one party states their presidential and vice presidential candidate in this election and already people are calling them presumptuous since they don't even know if they'll get 20% of the vote. The parties are hoping people will vote for them because they want to support their presidential candidate. What is worrying for me is if we vote for a party because we want to support their presidential candidate and then this party doesn't get 20%, they'll end up forming a coalition with other parties. Parties we may not like. Parties which they may have attacked during campaigns but then they form an alliance with, all for the sake of power. I would feel so betrayed with that. However such is the fact of Indonesian politics :( Indonesian political landscape is interesting though. It seems to change every election. People cannot be sure that they will be in majority. For example, the current president's party, the Democratic Party was the only party that managed to get 20% in the last election, but I think in this election they will not be doing so good. They have been dodged by scandals and when I saw that one of their candidate for Jakarta is FuckedUp Abbas, whatever respect I have for this party is just gone. Seriously?!?!? Do you seriously think we can take you seriously when you ask us to vote for FuckedUp Abbas? I wonder if they're even trying to win votes. It's kinda sad because there are many intellectuals from the Democratic Party wanting to be presidents, people I think more suitable than Joko Widodo. If I have to predict, PDIP will win the 20% and then Joko Widodo will win the presidential election unless the parties start campaigning and educating people to choose more based on potential and facts rather than sentimental feeling. It's been a subdued campaigning season in Indonesia because of more rules being enforced, which is kinda a good thing, but more coverage and debates are important so that people can be more informed. I live and vote for Jakarta, so it seems there are more information about the candidates and all, but it's not the same for other areas of Indonesia. The election committee should put all the candidates profiles in the net so that people can easily search information on them. 1.5 weeks left and I am looking forward to see how everything unfold. May all be okay and be good in Indonesia. Amen!
:) eKa @ 8:15:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, March 14, 2014
Before we get to the title. I just found out that the governor of Jakarta has decided to run for president this year. WHAT?!?!? The Jakarta composite straight away rose on the news but I cannot in my conscience vote for him though I would have voted for him for governor that time (I couldn't because I don't live in Jakarta). I was actually really happy that he managed to become governor with his running mate Basuki. The reason why I think it's a big mistake that he's running for president is because he's only been a governor for 1 year plus. What the hell? Yes he's clean (seemingly so far), yes he seems practical in his effort to make a better Jakarta, and yes there are visible good changes in Jakarta, but I feel he's still running under the image of being clean and not based on achievement. I feel you need to prove yourself first before you decide to run as a leader of our country. Also if he stays as governor and really does good work until his terms ends, surely all that experience will be even more valuable as the basis to run for president next time. Not now, next time!!! Even my mother agrees that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to run for president now when we're discussing about the rumors last February when I was at home. I feel so disappointed. SO DISAPPOINTED!!!. I feel the party endorsing him is just doing this to lift the party up. This is not good, totally not good. Even making things worse, there are already the darn people who reject the vice governor, Basuki, replacing Joko Widodo as governor if he really becomes president, just because Basuki is not a muslim!!! This is so stupid!!! What would be ideal would be these 2 people just stay in their posts and run again as president and vice president in the next next election. This really doesn't make my day good.Okay breathe, let's talk about the title. If you haven't guessed. I turned 32 today. Crap! Couldn't really sleep last night when I started thinking that in some minutes I would be 32, darn it! I also woke up earlier than usual today and even managed to get ready earlier than usual which made me feel stupid that I was up so early on my birthday that I decided to sit down first and played some games on my vaio. Overall I could just think of today as another day and ignore the getting older part. If I have to think about it, it's just depressing, so let's not. So today I managed to get out pretty early but the train was still full even after 9 am, darn people why are you all late for work? I had to do something today so that's why I was rather early. What is that thing I had to do, well I want to describe it, but it will reveal certain things, so I cannot give full detail. Let's just say I have to go into this place and when I got in, the security guard said I had to switch off my phone for the whole process and he had to check my bag and "wand" me (I think wand in this case can be used as a verb, hope you understand what I mean). I thought the security check was unnecessarily high. As I passed the security check and sat down to wait, my first instinct was to to check my phone and then I realized I had it off and had to keep it that way. Luckily I didn't have to wait long and the whole process was fast and smooth. Hope all will be okay and I'll find out soon.
After that I went to pray for good luck and for my birthday and then I went to Gardens by the Bay for the War of The Roses Floral Display. Seriously, this place is the most visited place by me in Singapore and most photographed too. Passed by Lao Pa Sat and realized that the place is closed for renovation, it seemed. I didn't know that. Anyway, the War of The Roses Floral Display wasn't as good as I expected it to be. You can see the pictures here. There was this mannequin kind of decoration which I thought was tacky. The horses sculptures seemed to be left over from the Chinese New Year display.
The medieval knights on horses were cool though.
Then of course there are pretty roses.
:) eKa @ 7:53:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, March 08, 2014
Everything is awesome. No, not really. Not that anything bad has happened, but the always pessimistic me can't just go around and say or sing, everything is awesome ♫ It's just I just watched The Lego Movie today and the song earwormed its way into my head so I was like the boy who broke into that tune after we got out the cinema, me in my head, him pretty loudly. Talking about a boy, I just can't help complaining about kids in a cinema, aarrrghhhh!!! I happened to sit next to a young girl, perhaps 9 years old and in my row there's a toddler girl who's perhaps between 3 to 5. Both are Asians. The toddler couldn't shut up and she's not even sitting, she's standing around. I would have been so pissed if I had sit in front of her and her parents did nothing! The girl next to me did make some noise at the beginning, then she got bored and she put her legs up to the seat in front of her, then she played with her chair that I think a few times she's blocking the person behind her and her mom said nothing! I hate all these parents. By the way, I think people who put their legs up into the seats in front of them are so disrespectful! Regardless of if there's a person in front of them. Hello are your shoes and sandals clean? Seriously, when I see adults doing this, my blood boils :@ So basically the watching of the movie experience wasn't great. I also felt the volume was a bit low, I wonder if they purposely did that so that the young kids don't get too shocked. With all these kids losing their interest and attention in watching a cartoon, I wonder at what age kids can really be trusted to behave in watching a movie. Also if there's any formula in movie making to make sure kids will really be interested until the end. Unless it's expected that kids should be rowdy when watching cartoons. I'd like to think my kids would be different, that I will teach them to respect the cinema as I do :P but I don't know, maybe my kids will be worse. Please not God.So anyways, I thought the movie was great. I kinda figured out certain things before it happened and these things always made me feel good. I just checked, Liam Neeson also voiced the good cop. That's rather unbelievable. By the way, Liam Neeson has gotten so cool that just listening to his voice made you feel comforted :P Allison Brie whom I know from Community voiced the pony like character and that character is kinda the same as her Community character. In my mind that's what Allison Brie is, so it's kinda hard when I see her in Mad Men :P Anyways, the story was interesting, the lego is interesting, and to be able to have massive creativity to be master builders must be so cool. They set it really nicely for a possible sequel. So I think it's been quite a smart movie.
Onward with life. I have to say that my mental state hasn't been bad since I came back from Jakarta. In fact, this week I got a bit of ... let's say I got my first lego piece which is needed to build something. However then I got freaked out which is totally unexpected. I thought I would be all fine, but it's reaching a point that I question everything and if I should back out. I thought about it and in my head the answer is obvious, but somehow my heart or mentally in my mind, it's all pretty hazy. I wonder if I should be doing this, but yeah logically the other option is just too dumb to be considered. I mean the only way I would consider the other option would be because I chicken out and that would be silly. For you who are fluent in Harry Potter lingo, there's this potion called Felix Felicis. It's like a good luck potion. Harry Potter pretended to give it to Ron Weasley before his first quidditch game and since he thought it was real, Ron developed a confidence, basically blind faith that all would be well, and so he did well in the game. It is said that the dog people, which is me, will have a very good year in this year of the horse. So I guess in a way, that false confidence is kinda comforting me right now. I mean like I said, my mental state hasn't been bad and if I compared it to how I was months ago, that's a huge difference. I don't hate my life so much right now and things don't seem to be so bad now, like they get lighter. So perhaps if I just keep this blind faith, I should just rise above whatever fear I have now and think that everything will be awesome as it's destined to be for me now.
:) eKa @ 7:24:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Watched 2 Tom Hanks' movie today. Started this morning with Saving Mr. Banks which I loved very much. I thought it was really well made. Tom Hanks' role was actually quite small compared to Emma Thompson's role in which the movie is actually centered about. I have to shamefully admit that I have never watched Mary Poppins. Maybe one day I get around to it. The cast was great, I was surprised to see Paul Giamatti played a simpleton driver. There is no small role, I suppose. Go and watch it peeps, it doesn't get many showings here in Singapore, but it's really good. Then this evening, I decided to watch Captain Phillips. Didn't watch it when it was out because I did read that the movie wasn't as accurate as what went down exactly. Dramatic license can be such a turn off for me. After watching the movie, I have to say it's actually a really good movie. Gripping and the pace was great. It's interesting finding out that a big ship is not very fast, that a raggedy boat can catch up to them. Also interesting to see the defense mechanism that container ships like MAERSK Alabama has in dealing with pirates. It doesn't seem very helpful. It's also pretty crazy to see how "nekat" the pirates are. The Indonesian word describes it really well, the word daring in English is not sufficient for me. Another thing that I note was that the SEAL team was really cool, when have they not been? :D Anyway that got me thinking that maybe these ships need some security people in their ships, like an air marshal?Well I got to think that because this week, I also managed to watch Non-Stop. I am quite taken by Liam Neeson with his Taken movie series :D but I wasn't that interested in watching this movie. However the majority won and since it's free, there I was. I actually liked Non-Stop a lot as the movie progressed, but then the conclusion ruined it all for me. It was such a lame conclusion. I don't buy the terrorists' reasoning and how I wished it could be smarter. It's like what I wrote in the last post, how a promising story can all just be awful by the ending and this in the end made me more critical. Like in the end how I found Julianne Moore's character to be rather useless. They have very interesting cast and one of them was the guy who played Peter Russo in House of Cards which I just started watching. I don't know the actor's name, but when I saw him, I was like oh Peter Russo is in this movie :P and then there's also Michelle Dockery and I was thinking how rather weird it was to see Lady Mary in a modern world :P Liam Neeson was of course cool and awesome. Seriously he's like getting cooler and more awesome as he gets older. I'm sure like me, there are many other who's having more love for Liam Neeson :D
Another movie that I managed to watch this week was Philomena. Yes, I am trying to watch all the movies nominated for best picture in this year's Oscar. I don't think I'll get to watch Nebraska before the award show so 8 out of 9, not bad. I love Philomena though I have to say that the ending (again with the ending!) was quite harsh to God believers. I'm not a Catholic, but I thought all the scolding from Steve Coogan's character to the nuns was unnecessary, too rude, too harsh. I still love him in this movie though and I think Judi Dench was amazing. It's quite a tragic story but I love it and Philomena is so lovable.
So this post is pretty much about movies that I watched this week. Man! I watched a lot of things and this doesn't even include all the tv shows that I managed to watch as well (yay to April and Jackson in Grey's Anatomy, so happy for them). 2 Tom Hanks' movies today and I like both of them :) As for best picture Oscar, I don't have any strong like to any of the ones that I watched, so it's rather hard to choose. Perhaps the one I love the most is Philomena but if I have to choose between the strong contender of Gravity and 12 Years a Slave, I'll choose Gravity. This has been an uninteresting post as usual? Well I hope you guys have better story than me :D Stay hydrated people!
:) eKa @ 11:35:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Yes indeed. The grass are brown or perhaps they're not brown, they're just dead. I came from no-sunlight Jakarta into unrelentingly hot Singapore. I did feel like the rainy season came early last year and it seems the dry hot season is coming early too. Way way early. Another sign of the hot weather is when you see the bougainvillea blooming gloriously. A little trivia for you: what you may think as the flowers are actually still their leaves. Really, check it out yourself. Their shapes are really similar like their leaves, but they just happen to have colors. Their actual flowers are actually really small surrounded by these colourful leaves. Since it's been really hot, I was thinking if it's their survival skill to bust out these colourful leaves, since I assume these colourful leaves don't really have chlorophyll in them and chlorophyll are needed for photosynthesis. More leaves with chlorophyll means the plants need to get a lot of water and in this hot weather, it's not sustainable. So perhaps this is the bougainvillea first mode of self-preservation before they do what many trees have done, which is to shed their leaves. Well that's my theory, maybe it's all wrong. Other plant observation in this hot weather is how the ground which are normally covered in grass all went brown. We're so early in the year and we're already facing such hot weather. It feels rather scary to imagine how the next months gonna go. During Chinese New Year holiday, the Chinese fortune tellers invited to share their insight on TV in Indonesia did say we should expect for hot dry weather. Not sure if it's the same in Singapore, but we already had another volcano burst out in Indonesia so yeah, kinda scary to imagine more heat coming our way. Anyway, isn't it crazy that there's only a week left in February? We have gone through 2 months in 2014! Time really flies!Managed to watch a few films in the past 2 weeks. I watched Dallas Buyers Club and I have to applaud Matthew McConaughey. He was so frail and skinny in this film, it's sad and really shows how committed he is into the role. Jared Leto was also awesome, truly truly awesome. It's like there's not a trace of masculinity in the character he played. Overall I thought it was a good film. Then I watched The Wolf of Wall Street in a cinema. Matthew McConaughey also had a small part in it and he was still skinny in the movie. I really really hope he's going to go back to his normal weight soon. It's really disturbing seeing him skinny. A good thing that they're planning Magic Mike 2, so I guess he'll have to go back to his healthy weight for that movie :) The Wolf of Wall Street in Singapore was censored in some parts. I felt 2 parts were cut and I checked and I was correct. The first scene was the sex party that the gay butler had in the condo and the other one was the honeymoon scene in the plane. I'm not sure if there were other scenes which were cut. While I agree that these scenes were obscene as are many other scenes in the movie, I still do not like the fact that a movie get cut. It should be presented in its entirety and if a person feel uncomfortable watching it, they can just walk out. By the way, a part of Delivery Man that I suspected was cut was indeed cut. It was the scene when one of the biological son kissed other guys. I felt more annoyed that these scenes get cut than the scenes in The Wolf of Wall Street because I think the scenes in Delivery Man were pretty harmless, but since Singapore is obviously trying to suppress homosexuality, all these must be thrown away. I wonder how the censorship on these movies goes in Indonesia. Anyway, perhaps because The Wolf of Wall Street is so outrageous, I don't love it much, but I do think it's pretty well made. I also managed to watch The Monuments Men. It wasn't as good or as funny as I expected it to be. They have many good actors in it, but the movie wasn't satisfying for me so it's quite a shame :( It's still a good story though and a good thing that George Clooney brought this story into our attention. The landscape of European culture would have been so different now, if these people hadn't worked hard and risked their lives in preserving all those works of art. Lastly, I watched August: Osage County. Meryl Streep as expected was awesome in it, but I also thought Julia Roberts was great. Wow, August: Osage County is draining to watch with all the family drama :P You will be thankful about how tame your family feel like after watching this, unless your family is worse :P
Another accomplishment I had was that I finished my first book this year. I finished Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. It was interesting as it began with all the mystery, but I thought the conclusion wasn't satisfying. I guess I was expecting more, just like perhaps many of the characters in the book. It kinda made me think of Sherlock series 3. You have so much expectation on how the story would go but at the end, in this case episode 3 of Sherlock series 3, it was so disappointing that you look at series 3 or the book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, as a whole as so-so and even perhaps quite a let down. Anyway, the book I am on now was given by the peeps back home. It's kinda a motivational book which is not my type of book since I detest self-help book. However since I have been feeling all depressed last year, it's perhaps a good thing that my friends got me something to motivate me, especially since I wouldn't choose this myself. It's a book from Ajahn Brahm which in Indonesian is called Si Cacing dan Kotoran Kesayangannya. In English, I think it's called either Opening the Door of Your Heart: And Other Buddhist Tales of Happiness or Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties. I first heard of this book from my brother but I have never read it myself until now. It's a collection of short short stories and though I haven't read much, I already felt like being slapped because one of the stories relates to how I often look at my situation, which is a tormenting way of doing it since I obviously feel shitty all the time.
I guess that's about it guys. I wish you great wonderful things in your side of the world :)
:) eKa @ 6:34:00 PM • 0 comments
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Wow only 1 post in January and I disappeared. Laziness for sure and then I went home for Chinese New Year break. Was thinking of writing something before I go, but I was pretty much rushing it out before I left. So anyway, what have I been doing since I last wrote? Well I managed to watch Delivery Man which I suspect had a bit of censorship going on. There was this one part which felt a bit weird, like it was being cut strangely. I also managed to watch HER which I didn't enjoy much. The story actually moved rather slowly. A lot of people think it's touching and stuff and while I think it's nice to have someone who by default you can talk to even though it's a computer, I think having a relationship with an actual human is more worthy of your time. There was a scene which was rather distressing, when Joaquin Phoenix's character realized that the people all around him in the subway station were most probably speaking with their computers. If right now we feel that people are already so dependent on their gadgets, imagine when their gadgets could provide a real sense of companion, people may not feel the need to build a relationship with people and so that's why I felt it was rather distressing. Anyway, here are some things that I managed to write here and there when I was at home. I typed these thoughts using an iPad. It wasn't a fun experience, especially when I had to form HTML tags.For the 2 weeks I was at home, there wasn't a real blue sky. The sky was always grey and dark. It felt like the 1 hour before sunset and not the romantic kind, the kind where the light was disappearing slowly and this sky was like that from morning to the actual sunset and so it's weird and the sun, no matter how hot it gets here in the tropics, is really something you're going to miss. The mood was just so not encouraging with this kinda of sun and Jakarta was also having a hard time this month with the flood and everything. Thankfully despite the weird crazy rain, the area where my house is was pretty safe. So in the word of the Indonesians which is often uttered by non-Muslims alike, alhamdulillah.
Indonesian Idol is on right now and apparently it's been 10 years. Pretty insane! Didn't enjoy it much, though did see one contestant whom I thought was amazing but stupidly the judges were on the fence to let her through saying she's too young and needs to learn more. Crazy, some of the people they let through weren't even as good as this girl. Anyway, I actually tried to keep up with the latest season of American Idol before I left because Harry Connick Jr was in it and along with JLo and Keith Urban, they were really fun judges. I have to say though that I am always mesmerized by the beautiful eyes of Keith Urban and Harry Connick Jr :p
They're still blurring cleavage in Indonesian TV. Last year I wrote about how stupid it was. We're really moving backwards. When I was young, Baywatch and Wonder Woman were actually shown in tv without any censoring. Fast forward around 20 years later to now, so many things will be blurred if they're shown on today's tv. Seriously stupid and seriously we're moving backwards. I hate all the religious pressure into this and all coming from one religion only, which is not representative of the whole of Indonesia.
I was thinking coming back, it gives me a chance to learn more about Indonesian politics so that I'll have a good idea on whom to vote for this coming election. So far though I have learnt nothing. It's gonna be a hard election for me since I don't feel like voting any of the people. Sometime the person is okay, but the party is not really so and sometime the party looks okay but the person has big flaws :( I may end up choosing someone people think really bad. I guess what matters for me these days in Indonesia perhaps more than a cleaner government is to suppress extremism which has its hold in pretty much everything. Perhaps the government loves them because they're a tool to direct the conversation from bigger things, like how shitty our government is.
Anyway who to choose in the upcoming election is like choosing someone to avoid the worse candidate or party to win. A bit like the latest in Indonesian infotainment where the most annoying person there is currently in Indonesia, whom I styled as FuckedUp Abbas, is being sued by another annoying person Ahmad Dhani. I don't like both persons but I have to say that I think it's a good thing that Dhani made a police report for the stupid comments that this guy made towards him and his family when Dhani's 13-year old boy illegally (obviously) drove a car and killed some people in an accident. Yes these are the moronic things Indonesian so called celebrities impose on the Indonesian people and yes Indonesian police apparently deal with I this kinda shit instead of more important things. Also the wife of FuckedUp Abbas has finally got enlightenment that she decided to get a divorce. I do wonder all the time what kind of family stand behind this kind of narcissistic idiot.
I actually got pretty bored at home. Maybe it's the first time feeling so. I actually spent a lot of time playing games on the iPad. Managed to install 3 games and I think I even completed one of them. It's like a mission now to complete all in these 2 weeks time. The games were easy when I started but now it's getting tough. Since they're getting tougher, they've become rather addictive, enough to make me consider the benefit of having an iPad. However then I thought it would be a rather pointless use of my time, I mean I already fill my time with useless things. Filling it more with playing games on the iPad seems even worse. I have to say I can see how this gadget can be so addictive. However when my time came to part with it, I didn't find it hard to let go. Mom got to try it awhile because she was curious about the games I was playing and my cousin on order of my aunt took note of the games I installed so that she can find it for her mom :D
I also experienced a black out, in typical Indonesian fashion. It caused me to go arrrgghh!!! Although I have to say that I wasn't doing anything important. I was basically flipping the channels to watch the different infotainment shows which are still peppering Indonesian TV. Will they ever get old in Indonesia?
I wonder if a child has the right to choose his or her religion. One of the cousin and her kids came by to my house for our traditional prayer before Chinese New Year prayer. She didn't go to her parents' house when her parents were doing the prayer the day before because of the flood situation so when the sky cleared up the day before Chinese New Year, she decided to bring the kids and pray in our house. The kids were young, kindergarten age. The eldest daughter didn't really want to pray but of course the kids were forced to do so. I think the eldest daughter felt it's wrong and against what she believes in / taught in her catholic school. That made me wonder how kids don't really have a choice in what their religion should be, we'll perhaps in countries like Indonesia at least when the belief system is pretty visible in the family. Anyway I had had my own conflict growing up in a traditional praying Chinese family and a Christian school. In the end like now, the two things cease to become a conflict and I just feel comfortable doing 2 prayers equally the same, well perhaps not equally the same. I still run away from overly zealous Christians.
Update: So I asked my cousin about it. She said no, the kids didn't have any moral conflict, so most probably she was just having a temper tantrum. I also want to add that it was refreshing seeing my cousin who's actively serving in his church not trying to draw our family into Christianity and instead he and his wife were pretty okay about my mom and his mom wanting to do the traditional Chinese prayer.
On the topics of kids, I wonder if current Indonesian parents deprive their kids of candies. The little children who came to my house, all seemed to go straight to the candies bowl like they have never seen such treasures in one place before and then the adults with them will always be like no No NO, or only one, only ONE!!! It's kinda sad seeing these kids being denied one of the things that define what being a kid is all about. I wonder if Halloween for kids will ever catch on in Indonesia. Perhaps all the parents will be like it's an abomination.
Blue bajaj. It sounds like a name for a drug or something. Anyway if you're familiar with the transport options in Indonesia, I just want to say that I love the blue bajaj and how I wish all bajaj in Jakarta can change to this blue one who seems to be more environmentally friendly. It runs smoother and with a quieter sound so the trip with it is much more comfortable. Especially since most of them are new, they just look nicer and cleaner. Traffic though was a real nightmare and I am talking about my area. There are just so many people and vehicles. When my mom asked me to walk somewhere, I felt like anytime I could get killed after getting hit by something :( Hate it so much.
The weirdest thing, in one of the tv show, I think the one with the highest rating in the evening, a Muslim mom dared her Muslim son who's the host of the show to pet a dog. That mom looks pious with the Islamic clothing and it's so weird that everyone were just laughing at it and no one sounded a protest. I wonder if the show will get complain or is it just another plot to increase rating?
I was looking for the third and fourth books from the Buru Quartet from Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Last year I found the second book in Gramedia, but this year Gramedia couldn't help me. A shame that they don't stock classic Indonesian literatures. I suppose I have access to the English version of the book, but I would really prefer to read it in the original Indonesian.
My brother was asked if he experiences racism where he works being the place where he works are not known to have many Chinese in it. He said it's actually alright and he said that perhaps it's because he works in the main headquarter in Jakarta. Being Chinese in Indonesia, you do perhaps get one sided seeing how discrimination is, however sadly this time around I witnessed unnecessary rudeness and open intention to discriminate from the Chinese themselves. I feel like I sound self-righteous here, but all this attitude of having to school people or feeling that it's better to be with our own kind are pretty much what fuel the distrust. It's not right. It's totally not right and to see the unwillingness happening in my generation, that's just sad and upsetting :(
Overall I seriously didn't do much, but stay at home despite of me spending longer time in Indonesia this time around. My mom even told me that I didn't go to the cinema this time around. Well yes, I even only went out the mall twice, though I did go to Starbucks twice as well because of the wifi and that truly kinda broke my heart. For some reason spending good money on Starbucks is like a no no for me. A good thing I don't drink coffee. So anyway most of my time was spent sitting down at home. I was telling my cousin that I felt fine with it which is weird because doing that in Singapore normally sends me to the depression hole. My cousin said it's because I am at home. Like even though I am alone at home, I know that my parents will come back from work and I wouldn't be alone and yes that pretty much makes a whole lotta difference. One of the first thing I did at home was laughing wholeheartedly because of what my parents did or said and I know it was a wholehearted laughter because I tried to speak but I couldn't because I couldn't stop laughing. That is really something because I don't think I laugh often in Singapore and even for sure none of those rare moments was with all my heart, more like a polite kind of laughter :(
Before I end this post, here are some pictures I took on this trip. We begin at Changi airport. Being that it's the horse year this year, there's a big Trojan horse like green installation art(?).
:) eKa @ 10:06:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Hello guys, how's the new year has been for you? I spent the last day of 2013 with 2 movies and a lunch. Watched American Hustle in the morning. I thought the cast were really strong. Interesting story and outrageous outfits :P Then I met up with la Gioia at Wild Honey at Mandarin Gallery which I thought was so so. The place was annoying for me and I'm not interested to come back. They invested on what I saw to be only 2 ipads for the whole customers to browse the menu. Other option is for people to look at the board which doesn't have pictures. I'm pretty sure printing your traditional menu is cheaper and will be more appreciated for your customers. I believe the menu in the ipad is incomplete, there's no drink option there and there's no price and none of the service staff made sure we had all the information. Then customers need to queue up and tell the counter the order and pay up, another turn off for me. I also think that's bad, what if we want to order more? No, I'm not interested to queue up again to place another order. So yeah, totally don't like the place and the food was kinda not enough to make me go to the branch in Scotts which according to la Gioia didn't have such a weird service. Anyway we then had our desserts at Antoinette which brought back memory that the place is strangely super cold and that their servings are pretty big. We couldn't finish our desserts. Then we decided to head back home and got away from the crowd. We did make a detour to the Abercrombie & Fitch store. Since I'm not a shopping kinda girl, it was my first experience in that store and it was ... interesting. Quite a sensory experience. Felt like a maze which at first was an annoyance but it became pretty interesting for me. Love how good it smelled inside. Overall though, the conservative me just felt weird inside the store and now I am dying to know if all Abercrombie & Fitch stores are like that.Reaching my room, I decided to take a nap and then in the evening I decided to keep up with last week strange choice of watching a heavy movie. Found Schindler's List and decided to watch that. I was preparing myself mentally for its 3-hour length. Glad that I could pause and go to the toilet. Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley were awesome in it. It was seriously moving and I cried quite a lot at the end which is weird because though I was stumped during The Act of Killing, I didn't actually cry watching it. I found out that Schindler's List was released 20 years ago which I thought to be quite an interesting luck for me to finally watch it now. It is seriously quite a big contrast to The Act of Killing. These people were put in situation of power, in the The Act of Killing one chose to ignore goodness and be committed in being bad while in Schindler's List one chose to be good and do the right thing. That makes me think that there's always a choice, you can choose to be good, to be a hero, though perhaps Schindler might disagree that he's a hero since he felt he should have done more. So guys, I do totally recommend you guys to watch this classic.
Last weekend, I managed to spend sometime with one of my cousin, Helen, who was in town. Well Saturday morning was spent by myself first. I decided to go to the 2Degree Ice Art exhibition. It was expensive for the tiny size that it is. 32 bucks for admission and 5 bucks for coat rental. The coat was recycled and not cleaned after being used by other people, but I think the dry cleaning bill for your own coat would be more than the 5 bucks, so just bear with it. I spent around 1 hour plus. It was cold as expected but was manageable for me. I wasn't chattering or feeling like I was going to die. Let's just say it wasn't the coldest I've ever felt. Perhaps it did help that as I went in, I was actually feeling pretty hot from walking to get there in the hot sun. The display weren't all that amazing or big for that matter. There were these frozen branches which I'm not sure if the inside were real branches or wires.
Then there's buildings.
Dinosaurs. I seem to be seeing a lot of dinosaurs in Singapore in 2013.
Me and the cousin went to Gardens by the Bay. Since I'm not a member anymore, I decided to only go to the flower dome and my cousin followed suit. It's not your typical Christmas decoration in the flower dome this time around. There are a lot of vegetables, like this cabbage and bell peppers below. By the way you can see a bit of me in the cabbage picture. Never say I never take a picture of myself.
Then there's also these cute things, the pineapple boy, Ananas, and the strawberry girl, Berry. Ananas is actually looking cuter.
Then there's also the moss covered little car.
To end the day, we watched the OCBC Garden Rhapsody at the supertrees.
For more pictures, you can go here.
:) eKa @ 1:49:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
So yesterday evening, I decided to watch The Act of Killing which I accidentally stumbled into some weeks ago. I forget what I was googling at the time that caused me to end up to this. It's a documentary about the people who committed countless, hundreds of murder of people suspected to be communist during the communism purge in Indonesia in 1965. Before the bloody reformation period in Indonesia in 1998, Indonesian tv actually had to show a propaganda film every year about how the communists were evil and how the military at the time led by Soeharto managed to eradicate them all. That basically gave credence for him to assume power as President. I personally have never watched the film because it's scary and I could never (still cannot) watch any scary movies. I would end up not being able to sleep and had to go sleep with my parents in the middle of the night. I remember a school trip to Lubang Buaya, where the bodies of important military generals allegedly killed by the communist were dumped, gave me nightmares for 2-3 days. So anyway, after 1998 and President Soeharto resigned, all things started to surface in Indonesia, including about a different version how 1965 went down. There's some conspiracy theory like how the CIA basically supported the coup by President Soeharto at that time. So instead of a coup by the communist, it was a coup by Soeharto with American backing. I guess America didn't want to see more countries becoming communists, especially with Vietnam war already in their hands. Was our President Soekarno at that time intent on making us a communist country? My history knowledge is not that deep to answer that. Perhaps he just felt the west was pretty arrogant and so he wasn't friendly to them. Anyway back to the documentary, The Act of Killing, the maker was curious when he met these killers that they were proud and not remorseful about what they did. So he asked if they would like to do a reenactment of what they did for a movie in whatever style and genre they would like. Their ideas were pretty funky. At 2.5 hours, it's pretty long. It seems that if you're in Indonesia, you can download this movie for free from their website. I watched the International version though with English subtitle which I thought wasn't precise at some parts. I think they should have just kept the word "preman" instead of translating them to "gangster", that would make the connection to "free man" more easily understood. That was the first time I heard of that actually. Anyway, this documentary is critically acclaimed and has won many awards. It's pretty draining mentally. As an Indonesian watching it, what I felt was anger and sadness and more anger, basically a lot of anger. Not to what happened in the past (why I was even slightly sympathetic to one of the killers when he felt tormented towards the end of the documentary), but more into how corrupts and morally rotten the people in power are. I was boiling mad seeing the Chinese vendors in the market being harassed for money and this is their reality, that's what happens to them and many others in Indonesia on a daily basis. It's sad seeing that these are the people who are in charge of our country. I think of people like me and my peers who have all these idealistic. There will be times when my generation will be taking over and some of them are already do and I do really hope that we can do better for our country, but I do wonder if being in the system will change who you are. One corruption case in Indonesia that got me really asking this is the case with former beauty queen Angelina Sondakh. I asked this to Oshie once if being inside the corrupt system will just change who you are. I wonder. We need cleaner, more sincere people. This documentary is seriously honest in its approach. The people being interviewed, who openly expressed their rotten ideals knew they're talking to the camera and it'll be in the film and they were pretty comfortable with it all. There's some undeniable truth in this movie. One of the killer said he didn't feel guilty because he's carrying out order and I am the type of person who thinks that if you are in war, you do have to carry out order for the sake of your side. It's just unfortunate that the side he was in is a very bad one. When confronted that he committed war crimes, he explained and cited correct examples (like the war in Iraq commissioned by President Bush) that the definition of war crimes is being made by the winner. Since he's on the winning side, he could say that what he did was justifiable. It's totally correct. It's the way of the world. So while people can be enraged watching this documentary and think how messed up Indonesia is, this kinda thing happens all over the world, not just in Indonesia. That makes you really sad, no? Another thing that was rather troubling was the many anonymous in the crew list. These are the Indonesians whose identity had to be hidden for the sake of their protection. Hope they'll feel alright and satisfied they had bring up a story that needed to be heard.
Casryn said I watched such a heavy movie for Christmas eve. I guess I did. Today I watched something nice though, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Love it so much. It's not really comedic if that's what you expect from a Ben Stiller's movie. It's more drama and for me I did choose to watch it to be inspired. Feeling rather sad having to do things alone but since it's the reality of my life, I really need to go out there and not just hide in my hole just because I don't feel like doing things alone. Ben Stiller is looking pretty handsome here. Well I have always felt he's quite good looking since Meet the Parents. Just checked Wikipedia, darn that movie was in 2000, it's been more than a decade! Altogether now, aaarrghhhh!!! Anyway The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is pretty good and the scenes were all so pretty. I correctly guessed what the final picture would be, but it was more beautiful than I thought it would be. The clue, ghost cat Walter Mitty was pretty spot on. Love Ben Stiller in this and love how first and foremost it was about his character exploring the world and not the love story. Yes his crush to the girl was a source of comfort, but above all it's mostly about him. I find it rather interesting, funny perhaps, that just one small thing can be the trigger to spur you to do extraordinary things and I think more often that not it is the case, the small thing, the so called straw that break the camel's back and speaking of that I was reminded of the version of that phrase in french that Mr. N kindly told us, c'est la goutte d'eau qui fait déborder le vase, the one drop of water that overflow the vase. I do recommend you guys to watch this movie and I personally really feel the lines below that the movie is telling us over and over. Have a good one last few days (in 2013) guys :)
"To see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to ... to draw closer ... to see and be amazed. That is the purpose of LIFE."
:) eKa @ 10:23:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Hello guys, writing this using my new vaio which I got yesterday. My old vaio has served me for the past 7 years. I haven't discarded it yet. It's still working albeit slowly at most times, but you know I have a fondness towards it and it did take me some time especially in these last few days to decide if I really want to let it go. I'm not the type of person who change IT gadgets ever so easily, example: I've been using my ipod for the past 6 years. I just think it's a waste when people easily change their IT gadgets, which make me wonder what people do with their not that old things when they get new things. While people may look at me in a bit of a ridicule with things that I own, like my phone (so many people have asked me why I am still using my nokia), I actually take quite a pride that I don't submit easily to following what the mainstream mass is into (for the record, my phone is smart enough, I can make call, send text, browse the net, take picture, and that's enough for me). If any ridicule to be made, it's me looking down at how the "smart" gadget that people have does not necessarily help them to be smarter. No amount of technology can change your inherent nature of wanting to get knowledge. Anyways, I seem to have gone defensive there, so let's talk about this new vaio. Decided to get a cheaper one than the one that I set my eyes first, but I feel happy with this decision. It has bigger screen, the same as my old one so that's one big plus, though this one is smaller in size compared to the old one. The processing power seem to be slightly higher than the one that I initially wanted. The keyboard which I am using to type now is very soft and nice, but I need more time to get used to it. It's black, so yay! Been wanting to have a black one since my first vaio but there wasn't any at that time, though I have to say the silver one for this model was quite good looking too. It's in Windows 8 so that is a HUGE change and I really need to get used to how things are. My previous vaio is in XP which causes my IE to be stuck, not being able to be upgraded to view HTML 5 content and yes before you scream at me for even mentioning IE, I did end up using firefox or chrome to do my browsing, mostly firefox. The chrome seemed to get my internet connection to disconnect all the time in the previous vaio. Again with all my unexplainable fondness, I do have a fondness with IE, so I am typing this post now in IE. It gives me some error though while going to blogger :( I still need to install things, maybe I should make a list now that I think about it. Right now, I just get rather overwhelmed thinking I need this and that. Yesterday, I almost collapsed trying to figure out how to connect the Bluetooth mouse I was given. I had a bad flu yesterday or a bad allergic reaction (I'm not sure), anyway I was sneezing like crazy and the head was getting painful and I tried so many things and yet it couldn't work. The OCD me just couldn't let it go and lie down (side note: yesterday evening as well, I was driven crazy on finding the one sock that I was so certain that I saw with its pair an hour before. With the mouse not working and me getting sicker, it was really hard, but I did find it). I also did manage to make the mouse work *yay!* Thank God, I almost wanted to give up and planned to get a normal mouse with cable today. Would I though? As I said my OCD just couldn't let me just lie down and watch Agatha Christie's Poirot on TV. Thank God all is okay and I didn't faint. So what else to say about this vaio. The screen is a touch screen, I suppose because it enhances the use of Windows 8. I'm not one who like changes, so as much as I think Windows 8 is more user friendly for people who are using the computer for the first time, I am just missing the previous windows experience that I have grown up with. I just found out that my computer only has C drive, which again I think make sense for people who are using computer for the first time. I mean all those partition can be confusing right, but now for me it troubles me somewhat without it. So much things to get used to. Suddenly I am thinking about Sheldon Cooper and Abed having to deal with changes :D With that TV reference, can I just say that Hawaii Five-0 is so promoting Windows 8. Like every time I managed to catch it on TV, there will be deliberate shots where the guys are using Windows 8. Product placement which is too obvious like that just turns me off and Indonesian TV and films these days (imagine films!!!) are so guilty of that. Anyway so I guess that's about it. I'm not one who gives myself Christmas present though I do seem to be always getting myself something near Christmas time. I just want to say that this year, the Christmas present is quite expensive. I do hope it'll last as long as the previous one.Moving on, I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I love it. Didn't expect the story to be as warm as it is since in the back cover it's written, "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit' em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird". A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this enchanting classic - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. So I was expecting something more intense, but it was actually quite a warm story as seen from the eyes of the young daughter of the lawyer. The rape case was perhaps the highlight of that period for the kids and the town, but there are actually other things being explored. The rape case story itself only started almost halfway into the book. I love the book and I'm glad I got to experience it. It has a really meaningful message in it so I get why it's a classic. I do have difficulty imagining the period. I kept thinking it's like in Gone with the Wind period where the ladies are wearing those long gowns, but it's actually more modern since they have cars. Maybe it's before Mad Men era? So anyway that's book number 4, I am short of my 5 books a year goal, so I need to try harder next year. I did get a new book today. I ended up choosing Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. I was already kinda intrigued by it when I was choosing the 4th book this year. Today I finally settled on it because in the book cover, there's a line written by Erin Morgenstern about how she likes the book. Erin Morgenstern wrote a book that I really love, The Night Circus. So I guess if she likes it, it should be good :)
Other thing that I managed to do today is to wake up rather early and go watch 12 Years a Slave. It's a good sad movie. I think there's no word sufficient enough to describe how awful and unfair slavery is. I was thinking how lucky we are to not experience it but I know slavery is not totally gone in this world. You just need to go to CNN to read about modern slavery. 12 Years a Slave tells the story of a free black man who was conned and ended up being sold as slave. Imagine that, how horrible that must have felt. Horrible is perhaps not a good enough word to explain how it's like. In the end he got his happy ending, but it was truly heart-breaking for me seeing how he had to leave the other slaves who were still have to suffer the injustice :( There's one person free, but for the many others it's an awful existence without hope of an end. It's definitely a strong movie. The cast were great, they would definitely move you, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor who played the main character, Solomon Northup, and Lupita Nyong'o who played one of the slaves. One thing that I found interesting are the dialogues which I would describe as a bit Shakespearean though perhaps it's not the right word to describe it. I love hearing the English being used and it makes me feel how we're so not poetic in the way we speak in this modern world :P
I'm gonna stop now. A few more days to Christmas. Tomorrow is Mother's day in Indonesia which is also tangyuan day for the Chinese. Then it's a few more days to the new year which I know I will dread as the days are passing by. I wanted to do something at this end of the year, but I don't think I'll get to do it, so it's business as usual. The malls have been annoyingly crowded. "How I hate people!", lament I. I haven't been feeling much Christmas spirit, haven't been listening to many Christmas songs, but I am going to leave you with this picture. It's the Christmas decoration in Wheelock Place, one of the malls here in Singapore. For those of you who have started to enjoy the Christmas holidays and end of the year, hope you have great one :) Peace out!
:) eKa @ 10:52:00 PM • 0 comments
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
The (Useless?) Things in My Brain
I was thinking of writing a post fitting of the title during the weekend, but Saturday was spent finishing season 1 of Les Revenants and on Sunday, I had a massive headache caused by a strain in the neck and so I didn't manage to write anything. Now more than 12 hours later since I watched Season 3 Finale of Homeland, I still couldn't shake off the sadness that Brody died :'( and so this post will be about tv and all the things I watched which most probably be too many and will make you think that I seriously have no social life and to that I say you are spot on :) I have no social life but the love for stories are just innate in me. I loved reading when I was young and too bad the many distraction in my adulthood have steered me away from reading more, though I do try. I always love tv, I am the one who sneaked out of the room during nap time to watch tv and how weird that when I was a kid, I detested having to nap and now I am longing for it. I love movies and watched a lot of stuff and yet I still feel I haven't watched many good movies out there. Bottom line, all those love points to one basic and simple truth, I love stories :) I just do. With that, let's do this.Let's begin with Homeland. Hiks :'( Season 3 hasn't been so Homeland-ney if I can say so. I think I wrote before that I thought season 2 was better than season 1. Going to 3, I was like ... err. It so happened, when I got round to watch it, it's on the same evening as The Walking Dead season 4 and I always did it as such that I would watch Homeland first then The Walking Dead and it was a good way to do it because this season of Homeland was rather slow at times (I really do not want to use the word "dull") to the point that if something happened, I was rather excited when in retrospect the thing that happened wasn't that amazing to begin with but when you set it against what's been going on, you just got kinda pleased. It was so in contrast to how The Walking Dead been presenting itself this season; they were bang bang, fast speed on the get go, from the first episode. Either way though, I was still watching Homeland because I remember how much I loved it. This weekend as I was thinking that the season finale is coming soon, I was thinking about how people in the internet have been saying that Brody should die and I was thinking I will not be ready for it to happen. Had I written this post on the weekend, I was already planning to write something like, I hope they didn't kill Brody. They did do and it was so surreal I guess. As the scene was developing, I was thinking something's gonna happen, like Quinn would suddenly already swoop down to Iran to go all badass and save Brody. It would perhaps speak a lot to Quinn's character as someone who really just follows order as he was the one who was assigned to assassinate Brody in season 2. That didn't happen and I thought Javadi would use a body double during the hanging, but that didn't happen. As it really did happen, I was in an okay mood. There was no tear shed, no "Oh my God!!!". Weird. I guess I was in denial, thinking that perhaps he's not truly dead, that it is another conspiracy thingy. It did sink in and I did feel truly truly sad as evident by my tweet after watching the episode. I got even more sadder this morning as I read recaps and interviews with the creator and it added more finality to the whole thing that Brody is truly dead :'( Now going back to the last episode, I feel it was more tragic because Brody and Carrie didn't have their last resolution to how they feel about each other. Yes Brody now knew that Carrie is pregnant with his child, but there was not a last kiss or even a hug. It was all so sad and I personally feel worse because I've taken a lot of liking for this character. You see, in season 1 you have Brody as this bad guy and you really just want to root for Carrie to take him down and just hate him, but then the unpredictable Carrie factor really just changed what should be a straight forward thing, and she managed to turn Brody and you really just start to want a happy ending for him and you began to think it could happen in season 2 until his confession video was released out framing him, arrrgghh :'( From then on, it seems he just didn't have a chance all the way to the end. So sad. I know Brody wants everything to be over but it still is hard to accept his death :'( If he has to be gone, I would rather he's just be alive in exile somewhere. Love Damian Lewis in Band of Brothers and love him again in Homeland. His death really makes me not so excited about season 4 anymore :( Perhaps it could be something that I watch when I have nothing else to watch rather than something I eagerly keep up with each week *sigh* Even the presence of Quinn whom I love in season 2 cannot soothe this sadness :'( and by the way, didn't Quinn say he's gonna quit CIA once all this is over? So why is he still there 4 months later?
So that's that. It's rather weird that I'm feeling this big loss over a character dying. When Hank died in Breaking Bad, I was sad even though I knew there's no way out of it, but in the end I was okay. Maybe if Jesse had died, it would have been a different story, but overall I was okay with how Breaking Bad ends even with Walt dead. Perhaps because it's a series finale, hmmm. Then we have the The Walking Dead mid-season finale, where we also had one of the main character died. The governor died which was good riddance for me since I really dislike him. Then Hershel died, I was feeling sad as it was going to happen, but overall I was okay. The weird thing was that I was okay as Brody was dying, but then after the hour was done, I was feeling really really sad :'( Hiks ... Anyway, looking forward for The Walking Dead to come back soon. By the way, as the boy who plays Card grows, I begin to think there's so much Daryl in him. They kinda look alike too. In this universe of zombie apocalypse, I just see that when Carl is an adult, he's gonna be all badass like Daryl :P
Speaking of the undead, last week I finished season 1 of Les Revenants or The Returned as it's called in English and I do recommend all of you to check it out, asap! I found out about this because I read an article that the Americans are planning to make the american version of it. It's french so I thought I should check it out, hopefully at the same time I could get same french knowledge into the brain. I was ready to watch it without the subtitles but then I found versions with english subtitle and I have to say that my french is super bad and the subtitle is much much appreciated. I guess it's also because they speak in a more casual manner, like for anyone learning Indonesian, they may have difficulty understanding how Jakartans speak because we unconsciously structure our sentences differently. Anyway Les Revenants took a different view of the undead. I guess with zombie, we're just accustomed to see them as something monstrous, but what if dead people can come back and be seemingly normal and not in pursue of eating other humans. This is the theme presented by Les Revenants. The human drama and reaction of the family finding out their loved ones come back were interesting for me. There was the mother who was undoubtedly happy, a twin sister who cannot deal with what's happening (after all if you have tried to cope with a death that ruins your family, being pulled back to like nothing ever happened is a lot to digest), then there's also the guy who cannot accept that his love has moved on with life (it was kinda selfish of him not being able to see what 10 years of having to accept death can do to someone). Of all, I was most taken by the grandpa who's so freaked out that he decided to just burn his dead wife along with his house and then commit a suicide. However the undead will just be undead and so the wife returned back. Also an interesting question, how do you feel if the person you killed comes back, how do you react? While it may seem like it's all human drama, Les Revenants is much more than that. There's a sinister undertone and it's intense and suspenseful without actually shoving blood and scary deformed zombies into our face. One of the character that I'm so curious about is the little boy, Victor. This boy is so cute (when he speaks) and creepy (when he doesn't) that you don't know if you want to feel good about seeing him on the scene. Love seeing him, but I start to feel worried because the thing about child actor is that they grow and if he has to be written out because he's grown so much, it's kinda sad. Anyway, I feel it has a Lost-esque feeling about it with all the mystery, like who gets to come back, and why now, why this village, and where's Victor had been all this time since his first sighting 4 years ago when he caused the bus crash. There are only 8 episodes in season 1. At episode 7, for some reason I felt it was getting weird and going to be silly, but by episode 8, it was so gripping and intense and all without actual violence happening. At the end of episode 8, I feel like, what's going on?!??!!? It's too bad that season 2 is not even in production yet. I hope they're going to be really clever in explaining the mystery.
As I do hope the people in Sherlock will be when they have to explain how Sherlock survived the fall. Yes, that is another thing that I watched. Starting in January, along with Community which I'm quite excited about since Les Revenants made me feel like I need to watch something funny. Before all that, we still have Downton Abbey Christmas special we have to go through. Now that I wrote that, perhaps I'll survive Brody Homeland death just as I have survived the death of Matthew and Sybil. Those 2 were quite hard to take as well. Oh yeah, it's rather amusing for me that Les Revenants in France has a warning that it's not recommendeded for kids below 12. One episode even had a 10 years old and below warning. Yes, there's not much violence, there's nudity which is expected for something french, but still I thought the vibe can be too frightening for teens. After I watched the last 3 episodes back to back, I was wondering if I can sleep alright :P
On other news. Last Italian class last Saturday. Not gonna sign up for the new class. Not sure what I'm gonna do next year. I feel like I should start planning things. Really feel like I should learn another language, but like everything else I don't know what I should be doing :( Anyway, in class, there was an exercise where Sara asked us to watch a muted short clip and try to think about the dialogue happening in that clip. There's a clip when Marilyn Monroe was about to sing Happy Birthday to President Kennedy. Before the clip was shown, there's the black and white image of Marilyn and Sara asked us if we knew who that was and what's happening. I answered it's Marilyn and I guessed it's the Happy Birthday clip. In retrospect, I wonder if my classmates knew who she was, like I wonder if I should have answered with her full name, but seriously who's the most famous Marilyn out there. She can go on a first name basis. Then as we watched the clip, one of the classmate asked which president she's singing it to. I was seriously stunned and I had to tell her it's Kennedy. They were also laughing at my other classmate version of the dialogue which involved her singing happy birthday in a breathy tone. I think they didn't know it was really like that. This got me thinking some things. One, I have so many useless things in my head? I know things like this. However you see, I feel proud and good that I know all this and the evil me do look at these people like they're just not my kind of people. I am an elitist as I think people have tried to allude. I'm not that smart smart though, so I guess I cannot be part of the elitist because they will look at me the way I look at these people. Two, I begin to think, I seriously SERIOUSLY need to be with someone who can match this knowledge of mine. Maybe it is too much to ask, hence I am still alone, but I cannot imagine being with people who don't know stuff. Lastly, I begin to think that perhaps I see myself as too young. I mean perhaps and there's a big possibility that all these girls, my classmates with their ignorant questions are way younger than me. Maybe I look old and I'm denial about it. I wonder if people see me and they straight away think I am 30 something? I guess if these people are like younger, perhaps I can pardon them a bit, but I do wish if they're in their late 20s that they would have more general knowledge. So with that very snobbish and arrogant note, I should end this post before I sounds more like an ass.
:) eKa @ 7:23:00 PM • 0 comments
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