Truly A Classic!

I've never been much of a true believer for lists which titles begin with "10 Greatest.." or "100 Best..", especially after Vogue's '10 best dressed on Oscar red carpet' includes Nicole Kidman and the horrifyingly red dress with its horrifyingly red gigantic neck ribbon. i mean, what the heck?? Anyway...i stumbled upon the list of '100 best film of all time' in one of my brother's film literature. To some of the entries I absolutely agree, but there are many entries to which i literally beg to differ. The thing about such lists is that they just piss you off in a certain level and makes you really want to make your own list.

Due to ADHD, i cannot collect myself enough to put down a 100 items list. Behold the power of laziness i.e. here's my 5 items list:

1. Singin in the Rain (1952)
I just love love lurveeee this musical! I think it beats the crap out of 'the Sound of Music' in this imaginary battle for the title 'best musical in hollywood history'. Singin in the Rain has all the everyone-is-so-unexplainably-happy quality that a musical should have, minus the creepy slash annoying pug-faced Von Trapp kids (I still can't get over that they try to pass the eldest daughter as a 16 YEARS OLD..nay, an INNOCENT NAIVE 16 YEARS OLD THAT NEEDS SOMEONE TO DEPEND ON. Haksss...she looks old enough to be the mother!). Anyhooo..Singin in the Rain! the title itself represents the true merit of this film: being happy despite whatever crap happens in life! I love all the tracks, and the dances (v.v.precise to an almost mechanical-extent yet graceful), and the wardrobe (those wonderful dresses in the 'Beautiful Girl scene!), and the set...and of course the story. Everything is so vibrant, lucid and Technicolor. This movie has the ultimate feel-good atmosphere that it's so hard to believe that the cast didn't get along together behind the scene. Gene Kelly turned out to be angelic-heartthrob on screen and bossy-tyrant in real life. But I think he made it up with that monumental title scene: he was having an almost-40-Celcius-degrees FEVER during the take and still able to nail the scene.

2. The Hustler (1961)
Upon completion of this movie, I have to admit that I haven't completely grasp the concept/philosophy of hustling. It's one of those make-you-ponder film, but the most memorable thing about this film is of course the pool room scene: the marathon between Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats in the poolroom, condensed with smoke and tension. AND how can Paul Newman still convey his whimsical blue-eyes charm in this black and white movie?? I think his character is very interesting; he's got the look and also the edge. Definitely not the typical pretty boy out to save the world, Eddie Felson's like a pendulum swinging from the 'faithful lover wanting to repent from gambling habit' to 'cocky pool shark just wanting to show the world that he's da thing and just screw everything else'. His battle within between the good and the bad is very subtle and keeps viewer guessing who will win (in addition to the actual feud between Eddie and Fats). In the end, nobody really wins.

3. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
While Singin in the Rain is a very sunny (ehh..pun not intended) take of the transition from silent movies to talkies happening in Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard is sitting on the other extreme. It's a v.v.v.noir story about the aftermath: has-been silent-movie starlet who's lives in the past and anxious for her comeback (or 'return' as she said), which apparent to everyone but her, is not going to happen. Her disillusionment is almost painful to watch, poignantly tragic yet it's not her body that ended up floating on the swimming fool. Every corner in Norma Desmond's mansion is drenched with this somewhat putrid Hollywood glory. Among the cast, even though it's William Holden who after all made it to the '10 Greatest Actor of all Time' (here we go again with the lists..), it's Gloria Swanson who successfully ruled every scene. Despite her neurotic over-dramatizing persona and kooky facial expression (her glaring to the camera that ending scene is almost haunting!), she makes us 'feel' the pain of being forgotten but not yet gone.

4. Cool Hand Luke (1968)
Another Paul Newman piece :)) A rather beatnik spirited story about finding purpose of your life and finally getting this 'epiphany' that maybe there is no purpose. It really is depressing when you think of it and I really gasped when Luke got shot by The Boss, after all the painful struggle and those happy moments with following prisoners....but the epilogue by Dragline really somehow made it all worth-while...I suppose! Actually I'm still questioning "WHYYY? whyy wouldn’t the wardens give him a break??(sob sob) he's not a serial killer, he just cut off a parking meter during a drunken night...he's really a good person, he (sob sob) loves his Ma and he gives hope (sob sob) to his friend". But I guess that's what the Beat generation is all about, beats me (although this film is actually from a different era with, say, Kerouac's 'On the Road'). Anyway...I really admire Paul Newman for his always-earnest depiction of cool-as-ice character who is actually having a battle within. The most interesting part is the egg eating contest and continued to the scene when Luke found out that his mother has passed away. Normally, I would definitely crack up giggling and let out a 'blattt!' every time someone in a film, out of sorrow and misery, start strumming his guitar (or banjo!) and start singing. I usually find it very artificial and 'sinetron bgt!', but this scene serves as an exception.

5. Annie Hall (1977)
Probably the most accomplished Woody Allen's work, this film got me at the first scene:
Alvy Singer: [addressing the camera] There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly. The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.
Enough said! :D I never knew that one can develop such deep empathy to a little, sweaty, obsessive, neurotic, skittish man.

Un-finished list of Classics that everyone cant stop talking and praising about but surprisingly I found them to be very annoying:
1. Citizen Kane: yeahh even if everybody boo me and call me the most uncultured hillbilly, it won’t change my mind: I'm profoundly annoyed by this movie! I can't even endure further than the iconic 'Rosebud' OPENING scene. It's all too neurotically intense.
2. Bringing up Baby: I just don't get it. What's so funny about an annoying stubborn histreonic woman and a supposedly-smart-but-actually-seems-a-bit-annoyingly-dim-witted man making a big fuss about an annoying leopard?

Another un-finished list about classics that I haven’t finished watching but definitely will try to:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Sophie’s Choice - Buster Keaton's works - Fellini's works…

Whoa! I really need a movie fix!

To long for..

after receiving an email and a series of offline messages from 2 friends (after here being more of a causal conjunction, rather than a chronological one), suddenly this song popped up in my mind, and most probably will be lingering there for the rest of the day

Homesick

I lose some sales
and my boss won't be happy
but I can't stop listening to the sound
of two soft voices blended in perfection
from the reels of this record that I found

every day there's a boy in the mirror
asking me
what are you doing here
finding all my previous motives
growing increasingly unclear

I traveled far and I burned all the bridges
I believed as soon as I hit land
all the other
options held before me
will wither in the light of my plan

so I lose some sales
and my boss won't be happy
but there's only one thing on my mind
searching boxes underneath the counter
on a chance that on a tape I'd find

a song for
someone who needs somewhere
to long for

homesick
cause I no longer know
where home is

:'(

Silver lining on the cloudy Jakarta sky

List of 5 annoying events during flood in Jakarta would be expected and unchallenging. In the spirit of seeing the glass half full (and seeing the water level in Pintu Air Manggarai as half emptyJ), I roamed about every corner of my soon-to-be-repressed memory (you know, the Freudian defense mechanism against unpleasant/traumatic memory) of the 5-days-flood and proudly wrote down these mementos. Yes people, I, the self-acclaimed cynic has managed to find five good things during the 5 days flood (from this point forward will be dubbed the Flood, note the capital F). This list stood as an evident that self-concept is a very liquid matter.

1. Swim Boxer, Swim!!
   Sorry, cannot resist using the outdated, overused and uncalled for Forrest Gump quote there. Anyway…it has been on my “things that I should know and make a conscious effort to find out about” list for years: Can Boxer Swim? This burning question was finally answered. On the 1st day of Flood, the electricity was cut out and the prospect of TV-less days led us- me sis and me self- to run to Boxer as our main (and sole!) source of entertainment. (Well, we didn’t literally run to him, as sudden movement towards Boxer may lead to a broad range of result, from mild scratch on skin to multiple lacerations; depending on how sudden the movement is and how cranky Boxer is at the moment. You get the idea.). As night creeps and darkness fall, boredom grows increasingly high. Accustomed to prime time sinetrons and nighttime infortainment, we crave for something to make fun of during the night, as television was out. Boxer, the unsuspecting victim, underwent some with-force-but-affectionate poking, ear-pulling and nudge on the behind, courtesy of yours truly. It’s interesting to see how much annoyingness can he put up with, before Boxer snaps and starts being vicious and tooth-y. But the poking has grown old by the 2nd day, so we need to find new ways of keeping ourselves entertained (and sane!). I took the bold decision of conducting the experiment (i.e. tossing Boxer to the water), bearing in mind that dogs naturally can swim (so no harm done here, animal-rights activists can rest assured!). The experiment was conducted twice (adhering to design of experiment principal of replications and repeatability) and both yielded a pleasant result. To say “Boxer can swim” would be an understatement, he is a natural! When we first brought him into the water in the front porch where he can still put his feet on the ground under the water, Boxer is a bit skittish and reluctant. But when we released him to open water, he bravely paddled (with his short, chunky and slightly-bent legs) his way through the almost-waist-deep water and swam towards the other side of road. Albeit his eyes ware “melotot”, the deer-in-head-light expression was constantly in his face (you know, that raised-eyebrow people have after getting Botox shot. Well since dogs have no eyebrow, Boxer has the dog equivalent of that expression), Boxer still made it through the flood! One brave mutt, he is J
2. OshKosh Re-Surfacing
   When I was still in SD, we kept this mysterious black turtle on this fishpond in our back yard. For those of you who couldn’t tell from the look, turtle is not the most playful pet. All OshKosh (as we later called him, for no logical reason) did was ate and stayed in the shade, so I never had any chance for some pet-master bonding/quality time. Which is why I didn’t exactly panic my head off when being told that OshKosh has ran away from the pond (bit of an adventurer/suicidal he is) years ago. Years went by and the memory of OshKosh fluttered away from my mind. Until the 2nd day of Flood, where OshKosh suddenly resurfaced on our backyard (which has turn into some sort of pond itself)!! He poked his little black, yellow-striped, snake-like head out of the water and I can imagine him whispers “Me is still alive!!” in a dragging, low-pitched voice that turtles normally have in cartoons (you know, such as the classic The Hare and The Turtle). All these years, we thought that he no longer exist, all the sorrow and the hole he left in my heart were undone by the sight of his head poking out of the water. No, actually he poked his head to find oxygen to inhale. And I couldn’t care less whether that reptilian creature is still alive. Geez, not even the greatest wordsmith can inject any drama to this mundane non-event.
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray
   Work and tiredness caused by work left no time for me to read. And I really love to read. The dreadfullll, boringggg, droninggg days of Flood gave me puh-lenty of time to be in touch with my literature side (if there is any). The first 100 pages of this Oscar Wilde’s take on Victorian politeness and people’s obsession of youth and superficiality has been read and pondered upon. The interesting (but sometime can be overly scrutinizing) discourses from Lord Henry occupied my mind on those sleepy afternoons, successfully putting a halt (a temporary one, at least) to the obsession about the Flood and the power outage. Normally I would prefer American contemporary literature with its brevity, forthrightness and colloquialism (latest piece read: The Burned Children of America, a collection of short stories by young American authors; compiled by Zadie Smith. Some of the stories are v.v.interesting FYI), but sometimes British somewhat-classic literature is good for the mind, apparently. At parts it can be dragging and overly elaborated and v.v.v.wordy but to put in perspective, Wilde is like a short and snappy conversationalist compared to Shakespeare. And Shakespeare is like the greatest poet/playwright of all time. So I guess wordy equals great. (hahaha what sort of weak syllogism is this??). Another entry on my “things that I should know and make a conscious effort to find out about” list is How to pronounce Wilde? (does one pronounce it with a weak ‘e’ or not? Like when one pronounces Ryan Phillipe as Ryan Phil-e-phee. Mind the cheesy, lame, teeny-bopper-ish choice of example) Resulting from this question is a sub-item on this list: Flood has given me time to look up Encyclopedia Americana and find out that it’s pronounced just like the adjective Wild. Heehehe boring dorkish stuff.
4. Un-appetizer
   The sight of brown water flowing about on your driveway (and let alone the things floating on the water!) isn’t the most appetizing sight of all. Which is why I didn’t eat much (and hopefully lose some weight) during the Flood. That, and because we didn’t have anything to eat anyway. No snacks, no proper breakfast, no fast food deliveries, strictly rice and veggies and whatever’s on the fridge and must be cooked immediately otherwise would rot. EWWW….
5. Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
   Those vacant days, nights, mornings, evenings during the Flood left my mind idle and free to wander. I think events like this, disasters, as the media has declared it, make one re-think about things in life. Family, worldly possession (*halah!*), neighborhood, social classes, environment, nature, and eventually about Life itself. How trivial and profound every matter can seem to be, when put opposite to Life. I find myself stuttered trying to put this thought into words.

FUN as in dysFUNctional

Favorite “smudged family portraits” of all time

1. Little Miss Sunshine
Issues: denial, lack of empathy, extremes in conflict, emotional intolerance, homosexuality, suicide, substance abuse, role reversal, stifled speech...haha you name it!
It's marvellous how the creators of this film are still able to find something to laugh about, in the midst of all those issues. And i also love how the yellow VW van can serves as the "shrink couch" for each and every member for the Hoovers (and it also serves as grandpa's coffin, yikes!). The trip to LA itself is so loaded with all kinds of stressors (Richard's being frantic over his business, grandpa's inappropriate rants and advices, car horn malfunction, Olive's toilet break) that in the end it's cathartic, nay...therapeutic! .
The character that i love the most is of course Dwayne, with his v.v.impressive speech ending the vow of silence. I also loveee what Frank said to Dwayne ( soon to be known as the "life is a beauty contest" speech, etc), though do not solely agree and let alone apply it (y'know, effing everything else) me-self, i still think it's very insightful of Frank to say such things.

2. The Royal Tenenbaums
Tagline: Family Isn't A Word... It's A Sentence. (hear hear!)
Issues: disrespect, incest, sibling rivalry, inconsistency, "ailment", divorce, abandonment, mental breakdown, adoption, substance abuse, disillusionment
Simply a Wes Anderson classic: offbeat and funny-but-actually-poignant-when-you-think-about-it, quirky cinematography (cinematowhattt??), it has his signature all over, esp. visually. It's v.v.v.typical and stylistic but in a v.v.v.good way though. Of course Bill Murray made an appearance as he is the quintessential epitome of Wes Anderson's spirit (or the exact opposite of 'spirit'..?). All the characters are anti-heroes on which I find so hard to develop any empathy whatsoever, which is exactly why The Royal Tenenbaums made the list.
Accordingly, I don't have any favorite character. But i kinda like Richie Tenenbaum with his kick-ass Bjorn Borg 'do and style.

3. Six Feet Under
Issues: death, neurosis, emotional intolerance, prodigal children, infidelity, homosexuality, abandonment, rebellion, lack of boundaries, juvenile delinquent, abandonment
This TV series has an unblinking focus on death and every episode is opened with a v.v.v.morbid and disturbing death scene. Unquestionably, living in a house where wakes are held in your living room (such irony!) and having a cadaver embalmment metal slab table instead of a ping-pong table in your basement do funny things to your mind. In Fisher's resident, sanity is relative. Every family member is popping right out of family members typology in "dysfunctional family and therapy" textbook. The mother is a seemingly traditional woman who subconsciously torments herself by conforming to social standards and is practically seconds away from having a mental meltdown/crack out. Nate is the standard oldest child who ran away from the family to "have his own life" and forced by the death of his father to take responsibility and the overwhelming-and-very-unfamiliar-to-him role as the head of family. The deceased father himself appears every now and then in Nate's imaginary conversation. Michael is, like most middle child, continuously striving to be perceived as better and distinguished from "the rest". Claire is the artist of the family, unpredictable but actually often misunderstood.
My favorite character is of course Claire. Psychology theories on projection and internalization definitely apply here. Enough said :)

4. What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Tagline: "Life is a terrible thing to sleep through"
Issues: suicide, mental retardation, social dysfunction or isolation, obesity, caretaker child, role reversal, little-town burnout, coping with change
Starring:
Johnny Depp, before his i'm-so-not-mainstream (-unlike-that-stupid-sell-out-brad-pitt-guy-)can’t-you-see-my-funny-fedora-hats-and-tacky-shades-and-annoying-facial-hair-but-check-this-out-i-make-great-dough-by-doing-out-keith-richards-in-a-blockbuster-disney's-summer-flick-sequel (attention Mr.Depp: summer, disney, sequel..spell: SELL OUT) days
Leonardo DiCaprio before he's deluded by Scorsese (evil bushy-brows man..hehe kidding) to believe that he's the 2nd DeNiro.
It's v.v.v.refreshing to see two mere cutesy pin-up boys busting their butts to prove that they are otherwise *and they succeeded, at least to me :)* The whole plot itself is a bit cliche and i find the little hillbilly town background to be more dreamy rather than depressing. Nevertheless, i love the resolution at the end and it's a feel-good movie, a rare quality seldom found in dysfunctional family films.
My fave character is of course Arnie ("where not going anywhere Gilbert!!" :)

5. The Sound and The Fury
Issues: closed family system, ailment, mental retardation, racialism, incest, out-of-marriage pregnancy, suicide, sibling rivalry, pride, suicide, isolation
The most interesting 'feature' of this Faulkner's most well known piece is the various point-of-views. The 1st part is written from Benji's point of view. It contains childhood memory, cut-edited and definitely not told in logical nor chronological order. The next part is from Quentin’s, equally scattered but definitely more complex. A collection of horrid memories strung together in a suicidal mind, v.v.v.depressing. Just when you think nothing can upset you more, the 3rd part is coming from Jason. I hate him personally, with all his sexist remarks and domestic violent and all. All in all, the Compsons are dysfunctional in a way that cannot be compared to other families in this list. They truly depress me.
My fave character? Hmm probably Quentin (Caddie’s daughter). A good idea for daughter name (hahaha that is sooo remote)

ooh.ooh..I’ve just remembered about another one..a v.v.v. good one, so good that it's able to sneak its way into a five-item list:

6. Franny and Zooey
Issues: prodigal children, religion, finding God, sibling rivalry, suicide, role reversal
“Franny and Zooey” speaks about the same things as its successor to whose shadow it finally subsided to, Catcher in the Rye: angst and intellectual insecurity. While Holden’s angst is one from adolescence’s toll (“blindfolded”, taking aim at everyone in this whole universe, except Phoebe that is), Franny’s more of an intellectual one. She asked the big questions in life while Holden has already figured out a satisfying “answer”, which is not bothering to ask the question in the first place. As always, Salinger’s piece is quote-worthy. My favorite is the one about how family members communicate to each other: “ a semantic geometry in which the closest distance of two points is a nearly-full circle” (or something like that, excuse me for not having verbatim memory). It really resonates within me, that line. I also think that it’s interesting, how Salinger chose to depict the “wise children” as frail, intellectually ‘challenged’ beings rather than that stereotypical rocket science kind of whiz kid.
My favorite character: definitely, most definitely: Zooey a.k.a. Zachary Glass. Who can resist a smart (no, genius!) AND good looking actor, who is not full of himself AND cares about his family?

Five Things I'd be Better Off Doing

..rather that writing useless entries, rummaging up my friend's i-tunes collection, and poring over a cheesy tabloid

1. Working on my Final Project!
2. ...
...
well that' s it, actually
Yes people, my super-ego triumphed (theoritically, at least) over my id and ego in the battle of inner Freudian self!!

now back to work

Five Have-You-Been-Readin-My-Diary-slash-Read-'Em-And-Weep?? Songs

well IF i hypothetically have one (diary), that is

some times others speak my mind more eloquently, aptly, and (sigh!) honestly than me myself.

1. Vienna- Billy Joel
2. Homesick - KoC
3. Move along - All American Rejects
4. There is - Box Car Racer
5. Maybe tomorrow - Stereophonics

"fun" (not really) fact:
while pasting hyperlinks for this entry, i stumbled into a section in the web page:

Visitors interested in Dashboard Confessional Lyrics may also interested in:
Atreyu Lyrics / Gorillaz Lyrics / Incubus Lyrics /Marilyn Manson Lyrics /Weezer Lyrics
Weird Al Yankovic Lyrics /Robbie Williams Lyrics / Tim McGraw Lyrics / Guns N' Roses Lyrics
Lindsay Lohan Lyrics /Jeff Buckley Lyrics / Keane Lyrics / Jojo Lyrics / Muse Lyrics / Relient K Lyrics
Sum 41 Lyrics / A Perfect Circle Lyrics / Dave Matthews Band and Dave Matthews Lyrics /Blue Lyrics
Shakira Lyrics / Offspring Lyrics / Oasis Lyrics / H.I.M. (His Infernal Majesty) Lyrics / Hanson Lyrics
Madonna Lyrics / The Beatles Lyrics / Celine Dion Lyrics / Martina McBride Lyrics /Toby Keith Lyrics
Whitney Houston Lyrics

well, they got 9 right out of 30..not bad
bytheway, the thought of someone listening to both Lindsay Lohan and Marilyn Manson..hmm interesting...

Lost in the Beauty of It All

Jane: What was amazing about it?
Ricky: When you see something like that, it's like God is looking right at you, just for a second. And if you're careful, you can look right back.
Jane: And what do you see?
Ricky: Beauty.
--- taken from the american beauty

i watched this documentary show about tigers in africa.. the expedition team took two tigers to the beach, hoping that there would be enough water for the tigers to live there. they were also accompanied by a bushman native as their 'navigator'.

when they arrived at the beach, the tigers was rathered err..sheepish being so near to the water and having their fur soaked.
while the bushman guy, who has never before seen the ocean in his life, stood still in awe for a few minutes.

later he said that he "can not understand how there can be so many water, how the water (waves) can be so noisy, how the water can be so alive, one wave reach your knee and the other one is already coming your way"
and he also said " i can not understand how God Almighty can make it so beautiful and big"

for a reason unknown but not unfamiliar to me, i started to get goosebump and starry-eyes the moment i watched that scene. it was so honest and yet so profound.

well enuff said, here are some images in which i was lost for a moment.

images courtesy of flickr

Random thought #1 (collect all Five!)

I’m not even remotely capable of making music. But I think that it would’ve been super-cool* if I can pour this unworthy turmoil (which by the way has been around for quite a while that I start to think that it has successfully transformed into a permanent state of mind instead of a temporary commotion that it’s supposed to be) into a song.

Maybe it will sound less stupid if I disguised all the obvious meaning by use of poetic and rhyming words. Maybe people will even think that it’s a beautiful song, although they may not understand what it actually means. Like Jewel’s songs, prior to that one with the video where she started to dance and dress cheap and pose and take beauty shots and practically lose her mind. While that formula is quintessential for a manufactured pop star like Jessica Simpson, it was a career suicide for Jewel.

Where was I? Oh yeah, writing a song. Here’s a title that keeps popping up into my mind like an annoying err..pop-up window **.

“I should’ve keyed your car”

It has a nice ring into it, does it? I imagined that the sound of this song would be somewhat a mixture of Liz Phair meets Fall Out Boys meets Radiohead circa ok computer, with a touch of Ben Folds’ smart-mouthed-ness. Hearing the song for the 1st time, people would think that it’s about quasi-vandalism as an outlet for teenage angst. But then when they listen to it, they would realize actually that the song has nothing to do with teenage angst. Maybe it’s about something more profound but equally impulsive.

This song will be the title track of my first EP. The other tracks in the EP would be my own rendition of the Carpenter’s Desperado and Sum 41’s Fat Lip. It would top the chart of Rolling Stones for about 3 weeks before being knocked over by Tori Amos’ new album (consider it as a dignified defeat). And then Jason Mraz would start to make references about me on his site. Hehehe...


* do you know what’s NOT super-cool? The phrase super-cool itself. (and in fact it’s actually down-right lame)
** please excuse the uncreative choice of analogy

Make a smoothie

Here’s how you can make a sure-fire-turmoil-inflicting smoothie to start your day with:

Ingredients:
½ cup semi-solid attraction
1 handful fresh curiosity
½ frozen-superficiality
4 cubes constant-questioning
1 pinch animosity

Instruction
Mix all ingredients in a blender at full speed. Blend until you get such consistent mix that you cannot tell apart one ingredient from the others (because they all have become one!). Best served chilled.
Serves for one.





For those of you who love smoothie (and must be both experimental and reckless enough to try out a recipe from a non-recipe blog), you can actually make a DELICIOUS strawberry-banana-morning smoothie by replacing the ingredients above with, respectively: plain yoghurt, strawberry, Cavendish banana - cut into half, ice cube, low-calories sweetener (in case you have a sweet tooth. Personally I like mine unsweetened).
Follow the instruction instinctively and kindly inform me on what you think about the smoothie.
Smoothie recipe courtesy of my sis.

The Importance of Being Idle

I started to gain the title “Idle Girl” among friends and fellow 4th level dwellers (not that I’m proud of it). There’s quite a towering pile of things to do, but as slacker-ism triumphs over common sense, I managed to dodge and do nothing instead.

Actually I don’t believe the concept of ‘doing nothing’ because even when you’re not doing anything significantly of use, you’re still doing something. Whether it’s just daydreaming or just simply being absent-minded, it is still a thing you’re doing, isn’t it?

Here are 5 idle favorite activities (paradoxical eh?) of the moment.
1. Being in good company of classmates 2002
Is it just me or this week IS the best week ever? It’s the last week of class of 2002’s ‘final’ semester. Yes, it has been 4 years now. Unbelievable. And soon it’s coming to an end.
Suddenly every conversation is 10 times more interesting.
Every joke is 10 times funnier.
Every friendship is 10 times more cherished.
Every moment is 10 times more treasured.
And every minute is passing 10 times faster.
Maybe I’m just over-dramatizing time. Maybe it truly is the end of an era. OH! I’m SO going to miss these days.

2. Contemplating
Borrowing a term so abundantly used by two of my friends Viar and Igun.(How they can contemplate with all those monoxide, tar and toxins in their lungs, brains and blood is just beyond me:). Actually it’s just a fancy word that has the same meaning as ‘overanalyzing’:
Trying to find/bring/conjure meaning from every little (and big) thing that happened in one’s life.
Trying to figure out the mechanics in which all these intertwining components and events are interacting with one another.
Trying to make the most use from one’s linear and confined mind to comprehend life whilst it is not meant to be comprehensible.
Does believing in ‘nothing in life is a coincidence’ means that one has to know the reason why the non-coincidence has to happen in the 1st place?
Overanalyzing can bring revelation and agony at the same time. I take the chances and always succumb to the temptation of doing it over and over again. And lately everything that happened in my life is becoming more and more inexplicable.

3. Browsing illustration blogs/websites
I am obsessed of illustrations, especially those on children book. Growing up attached to pictorial books, I still carry around the vivid images from those books in the back of my mind somewhere. Those are among the most beautiful pictures I’ve seen in my life. Of course, there are also Wyeths, Degas’, Hoppers, et cetera et cetera..but somehow those picture retain a special place in my mind and also my heart. That’s why I’m also obsessed of being a children book illustrator. It’s almost overwhelming to think that my illustration can linger forever in a child’s mind for years and years after the printed pages became yellowish and decayed.

4. Reading Jason Mraz’s On Line Journal
I heart Jason Mraz. I truly do. Bearing the risk of sounding like a cheesy teeny bopper who subscribes to Teen People and Tigerbeat, I hereby declare that in a public space.

5. Bickering
I know, I know..such a bad habit, it is. My only excuse would be: Turmoil needs an outlet, sooner or later. But I feel sorry for my v.v.v.v.patient friends who have endured my endless bickering. Apologize for that, guys! I will try my best to be less whiny in the future.

Footnote:
The super-ego version of this list would be (i.e. the things I would be better off doing):
Working on final year project
Working on simulation assignment
Working on business plan assignment
Working on after-graduate plan
Working on self actualization and inner peace
GULP!! They all begin with “working on”!!