The Pensieve

Gosh, what to say? I’m already so old… how many years is that? A third of my life? Or maybe with luck, a quarter of my life gone? No, not gone. A quarter of life’s experience garnered, a quarter of the journey travelled, with 3/4’s left. So what am I facing? I hope that what lays before me is a field grass and yellow flowers, swaying slightly in a warm breeze, under the expanse of a clear blue sky.

I don’t want to travel the well-trodden path of all those before me. I don’t want to fly down the highway. I want to make my own path. I want to face challenges ahead of me, while also having the time to enjoy the flowers during the journey…

Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino para andar.

Hehe and of course I have to thank all those for their wonderful gifts!!!
My parents for the camera,
my aunt for the mp3 player… it was a delightful surprise,
my scgs sec 2 gang (val, zlave, shing, nala and midnight for the BBQ-that-was-not-to-be and their shower stuffs,
lina for the perfume and for always being there for me, even at the wee hours of the morning,
agnes for the deep blue pendant (that I will try to get matching earrings for!),
sundry cards from those abroad like Mich and Nico,
the baubly, shiny, sky blue earrings and kino vouchers from my cg and ex-cg (Reema, evil woman, prof yeo, errol and his chicken ;), rames, wenky, josh, hypoC and especially ahleong for his impeccable taste and absolute secrecy over the gift!),
the dilbert comic from sanz, who claims that it’s for anger management (it came in quite useful, and i managed to use it to diffuse my anger by reading it rather than hitting the person who angered me on the head with it! lolz),
the borders cash card from my bro,
the cutey frame that makes me 5 years younger and retainers (lolz…) from kok,
the wonderful and very refreshing dinner at indochine from my cousin and a history of western philosophy by betrand russel from my other cousin, and for introducing me to the special someone that night.

And last of not least, all these special, fantastic bunch of people who sent in their greetings at and around midnight that day! And a special mention to my mum and her wonderful vocals at 12 that night. lolz! To AG, sanz, paul, patrick, eugene, yvonne, michael and lina, muakz! heheh…
NB: I said around, cuz the kiasu sanz sent it in 2 min early, haha… sanz, yiling says u play cheat lah, so she wins! lolz…

Just want to say thanks to all of you for making my birthday an unforgettable one!

I’ve been busy on rounds to collect my presents… I think there’s still some more coming in next week. heh. heh. heh.

Genre: Thriller, forensics
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Comment: an utter letdown, worst book so far in the Kay Scarpetta series…

But wait, I do suspect a more subtle change, or an attempt to write a different sort of thriller over here!

In this installment, Cornwell attempts to use ‘remote horror’ as the theme… Actually ‘remote horror’ is a self-coined phrase, cuz I can’t think of the appropriate word to use to describe this form of horror. Too often have we read about serial killers, rapists, hate crimes, psychotic murderers and such… There has always been direct physical contact between the aggressor and the victim, the predator and the prey. However, in this novel, Cornwell succeeds in bringing out the sense of impending doom felt by the reader as they are preyed upon by an unknown stalker. Even when the identity of the stalker was revealed, there was NEVER any direct or physical contact between the stalker-cum-murderer and his newest victims.

In a way, her latest novel attempts to draw upon the horrors of psychological murder… where… a simple drawing of an eye etched into the paint of a car, a crude pencil drawing of the same eye on a piece of paper slotted under one’s window pane… and a mailbox bomb traps one into a psychological jail, made by the stalker…

Another specialty of this novel was the introduction of ‘trace evidence’, for which the novel has been named. The same trace evidence of chalky bits of cremated bones, covered with traces of aluminium spray painted with red, white and blue were found at the sites of two seemingly murders, one that of the slow mechanical asphyxiation of a teenage girl by her aggressor sitting on her back with her face down, and the other, where a construction site worker was run over by a tractor.

There was also a rather intriguing piece of evidence… three strands of black human hair, dyed black, and cut on both ends… okie people, try to guess where such hairs could come from?

As for character development in this book…. haiz… forget any development. Everyone, from Scarpetta, Lucy, Marino to Benton are stuck in a rut of their own! I hope the next book will be better!

Rating: 3 out of 5

The movie is only but a ghost of the stunning, intricately woven novel by Arthur Golden. First it attempted to portray the entire life of a woman within 2hours plus, then it attempted to capture the fates of THREE different women. I doubt any movie would be able to do something as phenomenal as that… (Even if ‘The Hours’ managed to capture three women, it was but a day in the life of each one of them…) Nevertheless, the scenery, the costumes were superb! The scenes have an ethereal quality about them… giving us the feeling that this film did not only portray the bittersweet story of a young girl trained to be a geisha, but all these women with the same fates.

I suppose most women who had been geishas would find this film a tribute to them.

Another unfortunate aspect of the film was that it ruined what it tried so hard to build up… the majesty, dignity and pride of these special women trained in the fine arts, was simply degraded by this scenario… 3 bitchy geishas!

It made me wonder, maybe the film would be more appropriately called: Memoirs of a bitchy geisha. heh heh heh.

This is the scene I loved most in the movie… :) the dance did by Sayuri… quite interesting… it shows a woman (on damn super ugly blocks of wood, which I suppose was considered beautiful to them) with an umbrella striving to move forwards in a blizzard, finally losing her umbrella, getting buffeted by the strong winds and falling to the ground… dead? or not. Anyway, it feels like a portrayal of the life of sooo many women in society of the past… all trying their best to live, and to progress, but constantly repelled by the winds of tradition, and then ultimately, facing defeat. :(

Just wondering, did zhang ziyi really do that dance? Or was it her stand-in? Hia hia hia…

This was the most FAKE scene of ziyi’s… actually, she’s probably the worst female actor in the movie! her dead eyes, though blue-grey, actually look quite freaky against her pale face… Her attempts to look dignified made her look very leaden. And worse, her attempt to look child-like… by smiling, prancing and flirtaciously twirling a string of cheery blossom under the tree while she was with the Chairman (Ken Watanabe… charming man ah!) made me feel like -> -_- + goosebumps on my skin… and whenever they flashed back to the little girl by the bridge who got the iced cone from the Chairman… i thought - paedophile… Ewwww…

I’ve got to commend little Chiyo for a rather good performance! Round of applause for Suzuka Ohgo!!!

Michelle Yeoh was ok I suppose… But Gong Li was la crème de la crème with her superb acting, eyes that contained deep pools of emotion… It was just weird who asked her to act like she was constantly drunk? Or on drugs? Or worse, to look like a common prostitute. I sure hope that wasn’t her interpretation of the character! In the book, I remember Hatsumomo as being especially spiteful and jealous, but then… all women can be like that from time to time… So i don’t see why her character was made to be so one-dimensioned in this film! After reading the book, I remembered feeling not only pity but a sense of understanding at her predicament, but after watching this movie, I’m only filled with a sense of disgust at her actions. In fact, she was almost an unreal, almost too-perfect baddie.

This is the Hatsumomo that I’ve come to imagine from my readings…

This was the common prostitute, destitute woman the film portrayed her to be.

Another aspect of contention, more of my frd’s contention than mine was that the ending wasn’t too good. I recalled feeling extremely happy and relieved when the two lovers were finally reunited years later according to the book. But in this film, perhaps it would have been better to end it at the scene which shows Sayuri’s back as she walks alone down one of those covered bridge walkways… A bittersweet ending is probably more appropriate for this movie, giving the viewer a 荡气回肠 kind of feeling…

All in all, it was a good movie, and it’s worth it to watch!

Cool clock! The beauty of simplicity…

Source: Luxist.com

It’s got multiple uses too! Such as:
1. paper weight
2. part of yr bedroom design
3. to hurl or bite on when angry
4. to use to brain yr other half in bed hahaha…