Unveiling

I stumbled upon the rack one morning in the library. I was supposed to be looking for books about the middle-aged man for my group work but there wasn't any (not many people write about this age group. Don't they realise that many suffer from mid-life crisis?)

I bought Princess way back in 1997. I've only read in once, then I lent it to someone I can't remember who, and the book's lost forever. It's really annoying, I can't remember how many books had been borrowed and never returned. And they are my favourite books! Among them was my Jeffrey Archer's The Fourth Estate which I bought in England. (Yeah, I'm sentimental)

Back to my library rack - Both Princess and Daughters of Arabia by Jean Sasson were there! Now that I have ample time and not much things to do during my minor, reading books seem like the best pasttime. I've always wanted to read Daughters of Arabia but felt it's too pricey to buy. Now that I found it in the library, I borrowed it. (Duh!)

This book, a continuation of Princess, detailed much of the lives of Princess Sultana's teenage children and her uphill task fighting for women's liberation in Saudi Arabia. I take my hat off for her, really. Her courageous move to reveal the details of her life behind the veil and palace walls could land her without a head, yet she is not deterred.

One can only be appalled by the monstrosities committed to women as described in the book. I am truly thankful to be borned in this part of the world in this era. Still, the fact remains that my liberty was won with the sufferings endured by women of the past.

Reading a very old and boring book

Cashelmara. It's an estate in Ireland, owned by the English de Salis family. After the potato famine, the landlord Edward poured in $ to develop the land and waived rents to allow the tenants to have enough food for themselves. He remarried at 60, to an American girl called Marguerite who was 17 at that time. They had 2 sons together but his heir was his son Patrick from his first marriage.

Patrick married Marguerite's niece Sarah (complicated huh?) and squandered his inheritance gambling in the clubs of London. When he was broke, he had to sell of the country estate, close the London house and live in Cashelmara to save $. Patrick found the Marriage Act (you know what I mean) repulsing and only did it to get an heir (now you know what I really mean). Patrick and Sarah had a son named Ned (there were 3 other younger children as well). Later in life, Patrick had an affair with their land agent Hugh, Sarah separated from him and ran off to America with another man, Maxwell (he's a tenant, and yes it is very complicated).

At the end of it all, Patrick turned an alcoholic, Maxwell murdered Hugh, Sarah murdered Patrick and Ned murdered Maxwell. Sarah was sent to an institution (mental).

I bought this book at a secondhand book stall in Giant. It was brown and the paper was brittle. I paid RM7 for it. What a waste of $ and time. It is really old. This book was a gift for someone named Ean back in 1976. Where was I?

Shopaholic effect - to my dad's pleasure

After reading 2 Shopaholic books - Confessions of a Shopaholic and Shopaholic Ties the Knot - by Sophie Kinsella, I was horrified by the effect it had on me. I went out shopping twice after reading the books, and both times I came back home with nothing more than a Guardian bag. Okay, I forgot the time I went out with my sister and we bought a few items because they were on 70% discount.

Reading the book which was entertaining but there were many times I felt like strangling the protagonist coz she was a complete klutz and behaved like an ostrich everytime she faces a problem. The effect was scary. Everytime I visit a mall nowadays, I don't even have the urge to buy something. That of course pleases my dad very much.

I can't really say how long this unspending state will last since the Hong Kong trip is in 3 weeks and I am already thinking of the things I'm going to get there....

...and remember what peace there might be in silence.

I had no access to the internet for a whole week.

Yes, it was peaceful.

It was also dreadful.

All was well until my last post a week ago. After a night-long rainstorm (a minute Katrina I suppose), to my horror, I could not establish an internet connection anymore. The phone was working fine but still, all my attempts were fruitless.

I still could not connect from home.

Campus is now an Elysian field. I never realised how dependent I was on the internet. I mean, everything works from here! I spent my week being bored out of my wits. Switching channels for hours and hardly anything worth watching.

More movies

I watched A Lot Like Love starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet. Yeah, another cute guy and I'm a fan of good looking males. It was an ok movie but nothing spectacular. The movie is about two people who like each other but were never together beause they of their differences and timing. Of course, most stories end well, this included so they both ended up together.

The Forgotten is a crap show so don't even think of watching it. I thought it was cool about how she (Julienne Moore) remembers a son while everyone else could not but it turns out to be some alien experiment and abduction.... I mean, X-Files are so over... Taken as well.... so the alien concept absolutely ruins a rather brilliant start to the movie. Don't watch this one.

The Wedding Date

This show is very enjoyable. Mainly because of Dermot Mulroney. I love that guy! He is gorgeous, and oozes sex appeal. Apparently, he's best friends with Brad Pitt (my definition of a sexy and gourgeous). Coming back to the movie, it's mainly about Kat(Debra Messing) who hired a male escort(Mulroney) to attend her sister's wedding in London because her ex-fiance is the best man. It was fun to see Mulroney and his very nice body(hehe!). The plot is light so if you're looking for a weekend movie, this sweet romance is just the thing.

Monty Python - kill me!

Sometime ago, someone told me to watch Monty Python because it's hilarious and British (I'm pro-British). Until then, I've never heard of Monty Python (maybe because it's so old...I wasn't even born then!) but I found a dvd in my aunt's house recently, so I decided to watch it and see if it's really funny.
I watched Monty Python and The Holy Grail. This was made in 1975!
I really don't know what to say about it. It is both funny and lame, dry and witty, brilliant and stupid. It is so very British. But I like it very much! There are parts where you just feel like killing the actors but most of the time, I couldn't stop laughing. These guys are really cool.
Actually Monty Python are these 6 dudes (5 British, 1 American) who did a series with the BBC called Monty Python and the Flying Circus which ended before I was born.
Ancient as they are, I take my hat off to them.
Watch it!

Wear It Pink Walk For Life

I followed my dad to a walk yesterday. The company he works for was involved in supporting the Wear It Pink campaign (it's for breast cancer awareness) and the Walk for Life event was the last to mark the end of a reportedly successful campaign. It was an 8km walk from Pantai Hospital all the way round Bangsar to end back at the hospital (duh!). Anyway, dad's company printed their own T-shirts for their staff participating in the walk and it was quite cool. I wore a pink sweatpants to match it (can't see in the pic though). That's dad, me and my dad's colleague from Japan, Yumeda-san.

The event was amazing. They had student nurses training in Pantai to hold poster boards, funky music, aerobics warm-up session with a pretty cool (albeit a little feminine) fitness instructor, the Minister of Health Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek all dressed up for a little sweat, and about 1000 participants (Dad's company had about 200 staff and family members). It was like a rally. Only thing missing was the chanting part. My sister suggested we should all chant "We love breast!" but perhaps that's a little over.

Dad wasn't thinking of walking all the 8km, he planned to either walk a kilometer or take a shortcut route about halfway (after living in Bangsar for more than 20 years, shortcuts can be found everywhere). So we broke off from the group after maybe 3 km and went for breakfast. So much for an early morning walk.

Midnight Thrill - ??

Thursday was an eventful day. We had our university elections and I woke up in the morning specifically to cast my vote (don't ask me who I vote for). Afternoon was spent travelling to Seremban for a megarobik (it's senaman + aerobik = senamrobik, but lots of people = megarobik). Couldn't really say I enjoyed the experience; we had to wait for hours to perform in the rain. Back in KL, my friends and I decided to give go melepak somewhere, just to relax after a long day (some were involved in the elections).

We went to Leisure Mall for dinner - nice.

We bought tickets for Flightplan at 11.40 pm - nuts!

Yeah, we watched a midnight movie. I would have prefered Skeleton Key but some didn't want to watch horror, hence Flightplan it was.

I thought the show wasn't too bad. The plot (not much plot, really...but nevertheless...) was quite well-developed despite having 90% of in stuck in the plane. It had some suspense, and overall it wasn't a limp show.

I wonder why some of them fell asleep...

Fairy Tales are back in fashion!

I watched the Cinderella Man starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zelwegger yesterday. Over the past 4 months, I’ve watched a series of lousy movies from trashy War of The Worlds to The Island (what was it about again?) to stupid Ring 2 (absolute waste of $) and loads of others including The Myth. I was starting to lose faith in the blockbuster industry when I decided to give it another try with the Cinderella Man (choice was this or Flightplan). I have no regrets watching it. Would have watched it again. It is brilliant.
For some boxing idiot like myself, the movie featured enough in-the-ring scenes to keep the suspense going and play up the emotions with the slow-motioned punches, but it wasn’t like a documentary of butchering (blunt style). Braddock’s struggle to keep food on the table and his young family together seemed very real.
The movie captured the essence of a family, how love and sacrifice are always a package; it was heartbreaking to see the children go hungry and fall sick, heartwarming to see their joy and gratefulness in staying together as a family. James Braddock’s story is indeed very inspiring. His endurance in the boxing ring despite his injuries and then proceeding to win the matches only reinforces the fact that with perseverance, we can achieve what we strive for.
Of course, as a medical student when I saw him take those blows at his chest, flanks, head, I was thinking to myself ‘Wow, splenic rupture, liver trauma, rib fracture, haemothorax, kidney trauma, concussion, contusion, extradural haemorrhage, etc…yada-yada-yada.’ I’m sure he suffered a great deal of injuries, but still lived until his seventies. Amazing!
Anyway, this movie is a must-watch, I recommend it to everyone planning on a movie in the near future.

The Myth – basic anatomy

During the debates training camp held over the weekend, our coordinator cum trainer cum coolie aka Swee Kheng suggested we go out for a movie. Getting to Midvalley itself was a feat – 18 of us cramped into a Myvi, Kenari and Kancil (Thank God we’re slim! Well, not quite…) and braved the PJ-KL traffic on the Federal Highway to get to Midvalley. Deciding on which movie to watch wasn’t so difficult. Daddy Sweeks took the majority’s vote and we bought 18 tickets for The Myth. Jackie Chan was too difficult to resist, apparently.
Personally, I had high expectations of the show, since it has had lots of publicity, the trailer seemed very good (Terra-Cotta Warrior and picturesque scenes and sexy Mallika Sherawat dancing in very revealing tops), and well, I am a sucker for Jackie Chan stunts.

Sadly, the show was a disappointment. The acting was bad. Almost every actor put up a performance fit for the fireplace (wooden). Jackie Chan’s performance wasn’t too bad but it was rather irritating to hear him call Tony Leung ‘William’ before starting every sentence, and likewise, loads of ‘Jack’s were sprinkled like pepper throughout the show. The Korean actress (can’t remember her name)…well, gotta give her credit for the Mandarin but what a dull character. None of her parts actually brought life to the movie. Mallika Sherawat’s role, on the other hand, was very colourful. (We saw her change clothes ala Bollywood, from an orange saree by the riverside to a skimpy white tube for yoga, then a turquoise saree at the market to a firy red lenga/saree at the blink of an eye for dancing, later to be stripped off item by item at the rat glue factory where eventually, her top comes off as well, and finally, a yellow saree for her goodbye with Jackie) Give credit to the fashion designer for her display of spectacular sarees, but Mallika’s excessive fleshion show was definitely a turn-off.

Throughout the movie, I had no idea what his dreams were getting at. Bad enough I had to read the subtitles to follow the movie, I didn’t even know if he was Chinese, Korean or Japanese! Of course, my answers were answered later in the show when he brought the Concubine to the Great Wall of Chine and I thought to myself ‘Oh rite, he’s a Chinese general!’ The development of the story was rather slow, the way it skipped from past to present was confusing and pointless. I had no idea the dreams were leading to the burial place of Shih Huang Ti!

I felt that this show is an insult to the burial place of the emperor. After all these years, the fact that the emperor’s final resting place remains undiscovered only makes it more appealing and mystifying. To find the burial place in a huge cave where meteorite makes it suspended in thin air… (the scriptwriter has fantastic imagination) simply destroys the magnetism of Xi’an. Worst thing was that at the end of it all, the mausoleum crumbles into pieces, reducing glory into a heap of ruins.

And what happens to Jack? He writes a book about his adventure, and closes the chapter in his life. Huh?

All in all, it’s like what my senior/friend Ai Huey said,
‘The myth remains a myth.’

Youthful Flavours

Older women with younger men, and I’m not talking about The Man From Elysian Fields. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher got married recently. I think it’s a great match. He is gorgeous, and so is she. Surely they have great potential in making beautiful babies. So what if he is 27 and she is 42? We have seen numerous old men with young brides, and that has never been a problem.

On a personal note, majority of the cute guys I see are younger, and they are simply more interesting. I just realized that one of my younger friend looks like my old secondary school crush (now I know why I’m always looking at him). Another guy whom I know is so quiet I simply can’t stop teasing him. No, I’m not a pedophile. It so happens that these guys are interesting and fun to be with and of course, younger than me.

Just a note to all my younger friends, don’t run away from me the next time you see me. I’m not into virgins.

Freedom Fighter

I watched the Iron Jawed Angels yesterday afternoon. This movie featured the plight of Alice Paul and the suffragette movement of America in early 20th century. It made me realize just how much these courageous women had sacrificed to be regarded as equals in a society dominated by men. Some died of exhaustion while campaigning for their cause, others arrested with false charges because the authority just wanted to pack them up in jail. Hunger strike in jail followed by gruesome force-feeding. It is very inspiring how these women’s perseverance earned them their liberty.

In debates, we talk about freedom and rights but we should all ask ourselves just how much we understand it. I think it’s very important that we understand such concepts because with understanding comes belief, and when we believe, we can be convincing.

So, going back to freedom and rights, most of us take our liberty for granted. We live in a democratic country (almost) and thus, have no problems in voting rights and a chance to education. Many of us are complacent because the fight was already fought, and won. Supposed if we still had to fight for democracy and equal rights, would we have been so passionate as our predecessors?

camping at PD

About 2 months ago, I tagged along Aspirasi (uni's students' association) to Port Dickson for a camp. I expected lots of outdoor activities, kinda like those team-building exercises at Outward Bound School. We stayed at the Marina World Resort, a complex of apartments overlooking a bay. The view was fantastic from where I was staying (15th floor).
The weekend was spent doing nothing, quite frankly. We had a simulation session of a university elections and I quite lost with the process of registration, nomination, campaigning, etc. The great part about the camp was that I escaped the horrendous KL haze. We spent some time climbing a hill to a very old lighthouse, seeing monkeys on the way. Did some kayaking, got some tan, ate a lot of food, slept the rest of the time. Quite fun.
Marina World is a really nice place to stay. The apartment I was in had 2 rooms, a kitchen and a living area. I had a room to myself, the privacy was great and I loved the air-conditioning.

I thought I preferred the mountains, but I love the sea-breeze and the sight of iridescent water.

This place really isn't a bad place for a weekend vacation.