29 December 2004
3:41 PM
Someone once said that it's so much easier to run. Be numb.. But I think that complete numbness feels like someone took your heart away, and you don't know when you'll get it back. Why let yourself die on the problem. Unless the problem will never resolve?
We spin our own webs of misery, we lead ourselves by the hand into sadness, and yet, we blame the idiosyncrasies of people around us.
Someone else told me that there are only two ways to push people. You can push them around, or you can push them away. I wonder which is worse..
I borrowed the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. Her style is pretty bleak. Mum says I shouldn't read poems from people who lived exclusively in her own home, almost throughout her whole life, but somehow it's her very eccentricity that makes her so successful.
I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes--
I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an Easier size.
I wonder if They bore it long--
Or did it just begin--
I could not tell the Date of Mine--
It feels so old a pain--
I wonder if it hurts to live--
And if They have to try--
And whether--could They choose between--
It would not be--to die--
I note that Some--gone patient long--
At length, renew their smile--
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil--
I wonder if when Years have piled--
Some Thousands--on the Harm--
That hurt them early--such a lapse
Could give them any Balm--
Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve--
Enlightened to a larger Pain--
In Contrast with the Love--
The Grieved--are many--I am told--
There is the various Cause--
Death--is but one-- and comes but once--
And only nails the eyes--
There's Grief of Want--and grief of Cold--
A sort they call "Despair"--
There's Banishment from native Eyes--
In Sight of Native Air--
And though I may not guess the kind--
Correctly--yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary--
To note the fashions-- of the Cross--
And how they're mostly worn--
Still fascinated to presume
That Some-- are like My Own --
Emily Dickinson
28 December 2004
7:34 PM
La Vita E Bella
Life is Beautiful is a fantastic Italian academy award-winning film about WW1 and Jews in Italy. I've read a few reviews about how people have hated this film cos it seems to poke fun at the suffering and torment the Jews encountered, but this film isn't meant to be a realistic portrayal of the Holocaust anyway. It's simply a device to get the true meaning of love and sacrifice out..
There wasn't a need to describe what happened, the things the characters went through echoed what concentration camp prisoners went through in a terribly haunting way.
There are 2 parts of the movie, complete polar opposites in setting. Before the concentration camp, the main character Guido is this happy-go-lucky man in a world of brightly coloured flowers and laughter and singing and bizarrely wonderful occurences. And then inside the camp, everything is dark and damp and terrifying, and he has to fight to maintain his happy-go-lucky nature for his little bambino (child), knowing that if he falters, his son will be forever traumatized and most likely will die.
I think the best thing about the movie is the subtle way the Holocaust is portrayed. After all, if every book or movie made about the Holocaust just reflected Jews and others being beaten, starved and eventually killed, audiences would grow weary of the story - read one book or see one movie and you've seen them all.
One review was pretty accurate: "The Holocaust is a sacred thing for many people, and there are 2 classes of people. One class doesn't want anything said about the Holocaust because talking about it undermines it. You can't say or describe anything that will equal the horror of the Holocaust.
The other class wants to say things in new, unheard-of ways - like writing a story that takes place in America during the 1920s that represents the Holocaust in a new way."
It's not about showing the whole holocaust and all its suffering. It's actually about a Jewish man trying to protect his young son at all costs and to let his Italian wife know there is still some hope whenever he can.
Even till the very end, I was still hoping somehow for a miracle for him. But it didn't happen, and I didn't need to see it, hearing it was enough.
Great movie (:
__________________________________
Every day
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
Violence, terrorism,
War,
The end of the world.
It keeps my mind off things.
Roger McGough
23 December 2004
11:41 PM
God's Own Son
As Mary rocks her baby boy
She's filled with sadness, and filled with joy
She looks upon that tiny face
And sees the
hope of every race.
Her heart is filled with a mother's glow
And she never wants to let him go.
She'll see him run and laugh and play
And longs to keep him safe each day.
His life won't be an easy one,
His destiny hard, as God's own Son.
Mary sees the miracles he'll perform,
The lepers healed and free from scorn.
The lame will walk, the blind will see.
She sees his
love will set us free.
And then she sees him on a cross.
She feels his pain and feels our loss.
She knows his life must come to this.
She sheds a tear and gives a kiss.
His life won't be an easy one,
His destiny hard, as God's own Son.
So as Christmas time draws near
And we are all so "
busy" here,
With shopping, baking, trees of green
Let's ask,
what does this really mean?
Take a moment from the fuss,
And think of all their gifts to us:
A mother's love, a baby boy,
Peace and comfort, love and joy.
For he was born for everyone,
His destiny, God's only Son.
Kathleen Weber
20 December 2004
7:43 PM
I spent the whole yesterday out with my family (and relatives) celebrating my brother's birthday. It was fantastic, and very very filling, especially the lunch & dinner! My bro's presents are definitelyexpensive , and it got sis going "no fair" quite a few times lol.
Went to
Cherry Blossoms Chinese Restaurant at
Marina Mandarin Hotel. Ate a lot of dim sum, and peking duck! I was terribly bloated, and then came the mango cheesecake for bro's birthday cake. Mum bought these cute candles which won't go out no matter how many times you blow them, so my poor little bro was there blowing like crazy, and the candles just kept lighting up.. You should have seen the faces of the waiters. Incredulous.
Then we took off to uncle's place, and I went to catch
Ocean's Twelve. Went with Brandon, my sis and uncles jeff philip, aunts carol ruth. I was kind of force-fed chips, cos they kept passing me the bag of chips from brandon's side all the way to my uncle's, knowing quite well I was about to hurl the mango cheesecake all over the cinema floor. The movie, by the way, was bearable, but chock-full of dialogue with less action than Ocean's Eleven. And Brad Pitt looked
old not as young as before :x
The birthday dinner was at
Chef Chan's Restaurant, this very funky, urban diner with black walls, floors, ceilings.. Yes, all in a Chinese restaurant no less. But I have to admit, Chef Chan cooks a mean juicy chicken. (: And the green bean soup I got for dessert had 10 other different kinds of bean in it as well lol. But it rocked, along with my bursting belly.
My aunt had a fit when she read a section from the Handmaid's Tale. Said she was mortified by the inappropriate, crude terms used. But somehow, modern works have to cater to the "modern" audience, and if the "modern" world is such that people scream vulgarities on a daily basis with no sense of propriety or decorum, then what can I say. Vulgarities may be a way of life for some, and since this world is determine to fall further down the black hole to a very, very warm place, we live with it, or we live without it. It's a life of choice anyway.
I did another get-to-know-myself
survey again. Boredom does that to people. And my chinese homework? On its way to completion, but completion is very far away.
________________________________
15 December 2004
5:16 PM
I hope you dance >leeann womack
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder/
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger/
May you never take one single breath for granted/
god forbid love ever leave you empty handed.
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean \Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens \Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance \And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance..
_ I hope you
dance
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance/Never settle for the path of least resistance /Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin' /
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin'
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter/When you come close to sellin' out reconsider/
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance/ And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance..
.. I hope you dance
Happy Birthday Aster! (:
__________________________________
Time is a wheel in constant motion,
always rolling us along
who wants to look back on their years
and wonder where those years have gone. .
11 December 2004
1:25 PM
The Butterfly Effect
I watched this gripping movie (vcd) last night, and it explores the existential mystery of life, where the boundaries of randomness seem too large to ignore. The plot sort of circles around a man who wants to alter the past for a better future. Evan (Ashton Kutcher) blacked out several painful episodes from his sublimated childhood, but discovered he can use his childhood journals to trigger his return to the past where he can undo certain unhappy events. But every time he prevents one tragedy, it precipitates another..
The movie truly lives up to its more technical version of its name, the "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", which strengthens the plot where the butterfly effect is the essence of chaos. I was truly mind-blown by the storyline.. (: 'Chance favors the prepared mind.' -Louis Pasteur
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"There is no such thing as chance,
only patterns we do not understand."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
08 December 2004
2:58 PM
Today is a really beautiful day. Seems quite special in fact (:
I looked out, and saw sunlight dancing on the brickred rooftop from another estate, and it's like the roof is alive, the way it glimmers and
shimmers like an expansive display of sparkling gems in those jewelry shops.. And then the rays hide behind clouds, but only to return even more dazzling than before. Thinking about it, it's almost as if the roof was dancing to the tune of the breeze..
And then looking further out my room window, there's this part that's shrouded with hazy dark shadows, where all the gloomy clouds gathered.. but in my room, sunlight slices through the window pane and kind of melt into the air.. It kind of gives this sense of foreboding. Almost as if the storm is nearing, so better remember how the sunshine looks like before the bitter rain pelts on the panes. But like I said, it's definitely a beautiful day outside.
That's just the way it is. Life serves you surprise, agony, misery, and pleasure on a platter at a buffet, and you have to take whatever is served with a pinch of salt. And it really depends if you want to add sugar to sweeten that platter. To lighten the pain of feasting on something unpleasant. So in a way, I guess people cannot control what is given, but we can control what we make of it. I like my meals sweetened, spiced up and salted all together, like a bucket of popcorn. We take the good and the bad, and then we grow.
Read
All We Know Of Heaven by
Anna Tuttle Villega. It's this fictional story about how this woman accepted living with a HIV positive man, knowing that one day,
very soon, he will die, and he will leave her with the emptiness of her life, taking away her dreams and her hope. She went through this whole inner conflict, and finally decided that to dismiss him from her life totally was impossible, and she would
willingly receive the pain of death's separation, after the happiness of spending his last days with him.
If I remembered correctly, the author wrote something like "
I weigh the whole of my existence. I learn to doubt that paradise refused is protection against paradise lost. I would rather live with a transient bliss remembered than a sheltered, sealed contrition". That really made a huge impact on me, so much that I kind of memorised the statement she made. The whole story was so bittersweet and poignant, I doubt I'll forget it too soon.
The whole book wraps around Emily Dickinson poems. I know the book title is from one of her poems (she doesn't title them..)
My life closed twice before its close-
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven
,
And all we need of hell.
-Dickinson
___________________________
There are points in life, fractures in the channels of ordinary time, when what passes conspired with import so immense that years after years beyond, long into the untold future, remembrance of these points recur with the same vitality whether it is called on 6 times a day or 6 thousand. They hint of immortality, these fractures in time.
They are what keep a man alive.
04 December 2004
5:00 PM
Londonberry Air
My gentle harp, once more I waken,
the sweetness of thy slumb'ring strain,
In tears our last farewell was taken,
and now in tears we meet again.
Yet even then, while Peace was singing,
her halcyon song o'er land and sea,
though joy and hope to others bringing,
she only brought new tears to thee.
T. Moore
Poignant, satin-smooth. (:
___________________________