My New Home

Finally!
I have shifted to my new site. for months now i have been harbouring intentions of moving but have never gotten down to it. either i was too lazy, html and javascript too complicated a language for me to understand, or i just couldn't find the right design i wanted. But anyway, here it is! Don't you love it?

I know... it looks very different from my old site. I'm already beginning to miss that one, but somehow i like this one much better. I believe in change of environments! Anyway, if you're reading this on my old site, my address has now officially moved to http://heavensknow.blogspot.com . i tried getting heavenknows, for consistency, but it wasn't available, apparently someone else has it. but when i type the address in to check it out, that blog doesn't even exist. so oh well... anyway for those who's wondering whats up with heavenknows, it's nothing it's just my msn name.

Have overlapped some of my previous posts on this new site... but otherwise all the old posts are still around on the old site ready for access anytime (so long as they don't close down that server). I'm well excited and so proud of myself for constructing a site from scratch all by myself despite my limited html knowledge! but to be honest, i didn't have to do much. things just fell into place...

I'd better stop here before I ramble more. have just got back from a night out at Deli at Sugar (Leamington) so pardon if there are seemingly inexplicable phrases in this post. it is the result of intoxication. Oh, and if you want to say something, click on 'say something'. say anything. any suggestions/feedback will be good.
On another note, i have yet again missed another episode of ally tonight because i went ice-skating at the skydome. sigh......

Moments

Tonight on Paramount TV (Channel 127 on Sky tv), i relived one of my favourite-test episodes of Ally McBeal.

Ally and Billy grew up in the same neighbourhood. they fell in love and went out until billy moved away to michigan to study law while ally stayed in boston to study the same degree. twenty years later she joins a law firm and meets billy again, only this time, it's billy and his wife. It takes a couple of seasons, but mostly the sight of ally kissing another man, (a good looking black man doctor named greg) for that matter, to kick billy's selfish, possessive, misogynist instincts into overdrive, and he tells ally:

i have tried denying it, but am now finally unable to withhold it.... that i have never loved anyone and still love anyone the way that...i love... you.

and that's not the best part. a day later he works late and goes to her office, asking her, what happened? she says you tell me. and he replies,

I never thought that I would meet the person of my dreams... at age eight.

and that is the one single phrase i have remembered for the past five years since i first heard it uttered the last i saw that episode. how simple and how sweet. and how sadly true, that we seldom have the courage to believe something that is almost impossibly true when it is staring at us in the face.

Eternal Sunshine...

(I'm going to talk about the film so if you haven't watched it, hate knowing stuff before watching a film, don't read on.)
If you want to know why the lengthy title, watch the film. it is a true poignant moment that it is revealed. i've watched so many films this year... recent ones including Gus van Sant's Elephant, Dogville, Zatoichi... the list is longer but i can't be bothered to remember it and i've been fairly lazy blogging bout the films. but this has got to be the first that has exceeded my expectations.

Right from the opening shot of Jim Carrey's face, to the cut across to his hanging wind-chime (is it?) on his blue melancholic windows, mirrored even in the solitary yet romantic piano solo in the soundtrack, just made me instantly knew that i was going to enjoy this film. and i certainly did. (in spite of one helluva headache) i'm one to dislike romantic comedies, but ever so occasionally, some romantic comedies just strike the right note. and i wouldn't degrade this film to even say it belonged to the romantic comedy genre. but it is, ultimately, a romantic film. not by mainstream definitions, definitely. the central reason for my intense cynicism for romantic comedies is the fairy-tale fall-in-love trials and tribulations which sometimes, fair enough, film-makers try to integrate some honesty. but mostly, you don't see the after-story. what happens after cinderella's prince marries her? He trots off into the forest and discovers sleeping beauty, has an affair in another faraway kingdom, comes back to his wife, starts getting grumpy. issues rise, and in our ever-so-modern context, would likely lead to divorce... and just 20% of a population leading such lives would indicate the social stratification we are subjected to everyday. and divorce rates are not just 20% trust me.

that's why i hate it when they try to present an all-sweet, goose-bump raising, pretentious romantic comedy. because that's just not what happens in real life. what happens in reel life serves to fulfill that desire in us to see the fairy story come true. to find that true love. to overcome all obstacles. and i dont have anything against feeding that hopeless romantic in us sometimes, of course. but that is never the solution.

what Eternal Sunshine offers, on the other hand, is honest romance, based on the nitty grittiness of life. of relationships. having a long term relationship with someone is not something all pretty and sweet. that usually lasts the first 6 months, if you're lucky. three months or less, if you're unlucky. Eternal's portrait of Joel and Clementine (yes, i know, what a name isn't it. but it's orange and because it's orange, it has to be lovely) is a startingly accurate depiction of the level of intimacy a real relationship possesses. such that when you try to erase the memories associated with it, you'd feel that a part of your life is lost. can you imagine permanently erasing it, then? the thought is inconceivable. the memories of a soul is what defines a soul. extinguishing it is extinguishing yourself. even if they are bad, bittersweet memories, they are your memories. it wouldn't make you, you, if you didn't have them.

the couple and all their idiosyncracies are unabashedly revealed to us. just as in a true relationship you reveal all that's both ugly and pretty inside you. when the film closes in a cyclical fashion, it brilliantly links you back to the opening sequences which you don't expect. it seamlessly weaves in and out of the deceivingly disorganized (but actually really ingenious) editing of shots as the film progress. the best part is there is no happy ending. well, not outright. not with popping champagne, bells ringing, people clapping, lips locking, does it end. it ends with the simple ordinariness that strikes right to the core, makes you sit up, and go, yes! that's it! that's how it is in life! why romanticise it needlessly?
they make to leave, but wait and realise, the memories are not something they can erase with a simple procedure. neither the place they occupy in each other's lives. they talk about their problems. well, okay, i think i can live with that. i can try to live with you. in your entirety.
and that is exactly what i'm talking about when i'm talking about the flaw in most romantic comedies. they don't talk about the things that couples have to live with for the rest of their lives. the moment the film ends, their fantasy, no make it our fantasy, is evaporated.

Joel and Clementine run along in the snow in the ending shots of the film... they run, they are happy. but most of all, the film impresses on us, just like how the snow envelopes and encompasses them, that no relationship is without problem or pain. they are like you and me. a realistic couple on earth. it doesn't offer an immediate solution. but it teaches us the beauty of memory. it reminds us of the beautiful times that come hand in hand.

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

The film ironically challenges the very mantra it establishes in its diegesis. It's not a perfect film, of course, if the concept of one even exists. But it has certainly rejuvanted the definitions of the romantic comedy genre. wait, it's not romantic comedy, really. it's offbeat romance. and rightly so.

Zoom

Things are happening too fast for me to keep a record of. Don't you ever get that feeling sometimes that too many things that you want to remember are just passing you by at a rate too fast, faster than you can consciously etch them in your memory?

I had an eventful weekend, starting with fantastic shopping at Birmy's BullRing, where i blew more than a 100 pounds, including paying an exorbitant 8 pounds (?!!!?!) for parking. thinking about it, i could have bought at least one decent top with the money i spent on parking and petrol. sigh.
but anyway, shopping was amazing. i bought three skirts including an absolutely amazing lovely skirt from mango. shoes, tops, more summer skirts, and a set of pyjamas! okay, shant go into too much frivolous details. point was i got really dehydrated while shopping, had to drive home, hardly had any rest, forced myself to go out for Soul Nation at the union...had promised many people i'd be there. drank the usual drinks.which wasn't very many. and when i woke up the next morning, i really felt like i was going to die, and i'm not kidding. i went to the bathroom after what seemed like eternity, gathering up all the energy left in my over-driven, unhealthy and pathetic state of a body, and almost vommitted all my guts out. yes, not a pretty picture i know. but that's the extent of how horrible it was. made some porridge after that. the first in two years of living in england that i've made that. mince pork porridge...wow, that brings back memories of young teenage days when my ex-maid, Imelda,(okay, i should say domestic helper, not maid, that's the term we use in my country though and yes i know it's offensive i try not to use it here anymore) would make watery mince pork porridge for me and bring it to my room with light soy sauce (because i like salty food) and a hot mug of water. one always thinks more about home when we're ill...

anyway, tried to make food. and then gathered the very very last remnants of my energy to go for the Ibiza party which i was podium dancing at. wanted to cancel, felt bad. three others had pulled out. but i'm glad i went, kind of. music was fantastic, amazing, really. with laser beams and spotlights on us podium dancers it was unbelievable. there were many creepy men about who kept asking me if they could get on stage with me to dance and i was like oh just get lost. i didn't want to be rude but with drunk english blokes you have to be rude sometimes to get the point across. but it's fair though, it's a union rule that unless you have a backstage dance pass, you can't get on the podiums. so even if a guy i fancy comes along, i wouldn't be able to allow him on even if i wanted to.

anyway, the amazing music was pretty much what kept me going despite my running temperature and a very sore throat. and in the last 10 minutes, we were all grooving mightly on the podiums/stages when suddenly, at 5 minutes before 2, there was a fire alarm. we couldn't even hear it. for a moment i thought i had been temporarily totally deafened. the music stopped, it was such an anti-climax. but then again, we already had a blast so it didn't matter.

went home, collapsed, couldn't sleep because i felt so horribly ill. got up, went for mass, went to rehearsals... was beginning to feel like a total zombie. and then the highlight of my day came when i watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . (see next post)

Yayy

It is done.
It is finished.
FINALLY! This day (actually, yesterday. but i was too exhausted to blog considering i only had 1 hour-ish worth of sleep in the past 48 hours) marks the last of essay horrors... of the second year of my degree, that is. i can't believe i've actually lasted through all that intellectual discipline and made it this far. was having a pint with the film girls yesterday when becca remarked, it's so funny how our lives seem to come to a standstill whenever we have essays.
how true.
and how sad... do we really have to suffer this much? is this what they call the 'rigours of academia'?
sometimes i think we make too big a deal out of it. they're only ideas and words after all. but then again... it's these ideas and words that make the world, isnt it?
meanwhile, loads of dancing to look forward to this weekend. soul on friday, ibiza on sat (we're podium dancing for this!), fashion show rehearsal on sunday and the fashion show on monday! you know sometimes i think what i like most about essays and exams, is the aftermath of essays and exams. nothing feels better than after a tough week... actually, wait, make that three tough weeks... you wake up in the morning and have that 'i have nothing to do!' feeling.

one of my friends remarked that if i didn't wait till last minute to do all-nighter essays and kill myself from the pressure then it wouldn't be a bad experience at all... which is true. and he said that if i began work earlier my ideas would ferment into ripe, brilliant ideas. i'm not so sure if that's true, considering that i've always left all my brilliant ideas to formulate at the very last minute. maybe i would do better if i started earlier... who knows... i actually might be crazy enough to start early the next one. i know i can even envision you guys raising your eyebrows in skepticism. but i really just might try.

anyway, another friend suggested that maybe why i always leave my work to the last minute and just depend on luck that the first ideas that hit me are the best, is because of my journalism training. when i was expressing relief yesterday, she said ooh, deadlines. can you imagine when you work full time as a jounrnlist, you'll be facing that kind of pressure and deadline to write a story within a day and off-stone press times? well, i can imagine. considering i've been through all that before. i distinctly remember the very first week that launched my journalism career... i was but a greenhorn... opportunity threw itself at my feet, though. i had a page-one story about a diseased woman whose whole family got slowly wiped out with the same genetic disease. and how her boss, even after she became an invalid, continued giving her salary. i had to stay in the office till past midnight, thank goodness the paper's off-stone was at 4am so the latest we could submit our stories to the sub-editors was 1am-ish. if you were working in straits times, it'd hav to be in by 8ish-10 as their off-stone is around slightly past midnight. but anyway, the point is maybe all that pressure during my very long vacation job working as a journalist has been so drummed into me that it's become impossible for me to write without the pressues of deadlines?
well, that will be quite scary. considering that at some point i'll be wanting to publish a book and the deadline will be my death and considering i wont know beforehand, then there's no fixed deadline for me. and i wont be able to write. did that just make sense? i'm not sure if it's a good thing being able to write under pressure of immediate deadlines, or whether it's a result of conditioning myself to write in such circumstances, that i now write in such situations.

okay, enough rambling. Chelsea's gonna play in an hour... i really wonder if they'll make it to the finals. my bet is they.... do. they get 2-0 and get in. or, monaco rises up and beats them 3-1 again. We shall see...

Amusement



That, is so far, my only amusement for the day. I saw it this morning and laughed a good laugh. oh wait, there was something else. i found out today, that one of my ex-tutors whom i had the hots for for the longest time, whom everyone speculated that he had to be gay, is going out with the most unlikely female tutor (who happens to be a lousy lecturer) ever in the english department. how is that fair??? sigh.
This is the third weekend in a row that i have been forced to sit in front of my computer with tons of library books, texts and films to sift through and analyze. Whoever set the deadlines of these essays must be utter fools and have never been a student before.

I am in the midst of labouring for my last and final essay of this second year before the examinations. Sometimes i look at my room window and have a sudden urge to jump out of it (it's not suicidal don't worry, i live on the upstairs level of a house so even if i jump i'd only break a leg, at most). The cold refreshing air outside beckons and i get increasingly restless as work continues to bore me. The only thing that's keeping me going is that the subject matter of my essay is actually quite interesting. it would have been so much more stimulating if it didn't have to be in a form of an academic essay.

oh well... only one more day to ultimate freedom!!! okay, maybe not ultimate freedom since i still have summer exams. but still, i can't wait! SV is (ie. i am)gonna be dancing at the opening of the charity fashion show in leamington next monday night so that's something to look forward to.
okay, enough procastination. back to the narratives of the 19th century written by black authors in the United States............

Day of Disillusionment

i don't mean to be bitter but sometimes in the senseless pursuit of a piece of paper that says bachelor of arts first class degree we have no choice but to force ourselves to subscribe to a system we dont necessarily believe in in the first place.

the whole concept of the university sometimes just seem so ludicrous and it totally falls apart, utterly deconstructed in its inherent paradox and contradictions.

i feel the injustice akin to the tragic fate of Jude in Hardy's Jude the Obscure when he stood outside the Ox/bridge colleges and stared in despair at the walls seemingly ressurected to deny him every chance of a road of knowledge. how they proclaim the love of knowledge for all humanity, equal in all respects but paradoxically slams the door in Jude's face, leaving him to contemplate his sad fate and the cruel mechanics of the world.

okay, sorry to those who don't know the text. this must be pretty obscure to you. but in many ways, what i'm saying is some things exists which some just choose to ignore. we go to universities, we learn, we are trained to write academically, perform the roles of the sophisticated population of the world. the fundamental concept of it all being education being the key to truth and truth leading to enlightenment will lead to the liberation of humanity. but the question is: who defines what education is. who defines who is more intelligent than who. who decides the systems that are made to test the intelligence of mankind. how valid are they. do they even attest to the truth?

let me give you an example. A student gets a set of essay question, he/she has several choices. student could do a question that is 1. safe, straightforward, requires textbook answers. 2. unsafe, risky, but more contemplating the philosophies of the subject, sometimes even extending to the philosophies of life itself. 3. fuck it and not do it at all.

seeing option 3 is not that good a suggestion considering in some cases (ie. mine) a few hundred thousand miles and dollars is too involved to be 'fucking' anything out of the window, there's only 1 and 2 left. choice 1 is what many would do, considering it is the yellow brick road to attaining that afore-mentioned qualified piece of paper. but there's just something cowardly about option 1. so a free-spirited, independent-minded individual would go for question 2. now, the question is. does the student write 1. what he thinks? 2. what he thinks the tutor thinks? 3. what the tutor thinks? tutor being whoever or anyone who grades the academic piece.

what if student thinks A is the outlook to the problem of question B. and tutor thinks C is the correct outlook that has to be adopted to B? who wins, then?

obviously the old-school fuck.

professors, lecturers, academics who proclaim the open-mindedness inherent in the nature of an educated individual. and yet in so many ways are stuck in the rigidity of the ways social circumstance has conditioned them to be. ways of thinking that cannot merge or be reconciled with emerging contemporary thoughts. do we, the so-called building blocks of the foundation of the future society, threaten them? what could they possibly think would happen after they've passed on to the next world? that the universities would preserve their old school ways of thinking and adhere to traditions? traditions make men cowardly. they make the whole of humanity cowardly. i don't deny the beautiful quality of something rooted in the rituals of age, but for it to prevent or stump the growth be it in a mind, in ways, or in education is simply.......... disappointing.

my state of disillusionment arises centrally from the paradox that is inherent in the institutions of higher learning. on one hand we are encouraged to be bold and experiment, yet a set of conduct has been dictated for us in the annals of education in order for us to achieve that first class paper. how can we be free to pursue our interests, when at the end of the day, we have to worry about the grades that come out of pursuing these passions? is it justifiable that at the expanse of our experimentation we get relegated to a less intelligent classification?

the answer is no.
and yet, that is the way of the world. limitations of education. it's definitions, boundaries, categories, mechanics...all rolled into one central mockery of the universe.
but if we didn't have it, would we be better off?

well, the answer is no. again.

How's that disillusionment for you.

State of Mind Part II



Pic of table courtesy of Jen who has just made me feel infinitely better about my own table. :)
i think there's something about arts students and messy tables. not saying we're messy, just that in the midst of our artistic confusions, it gets translated on the physical surroundings around us.
i think her table beats mine hands down, whaddya think?

my table looks slightly better than the last pic i posted. but only ever so slightly.
there's something about england's sunshine that, on the rare occasion that it makes its appearances, just has an undescribable effect on me. take today for instance, i trooped down to city centre to buy my copy of Godard's Breathless which i'm dong for my film essay (due this monday what am i still doing here!) and while in town, i thought to myself i've never seen this place so alive before. the sun was shining, the birds were chirping (okay, maybe no birds, really) and throngs of people were happily basking in the heat while eating/having an ice-cream/playing with their kids... everything you looked was a blur of activity. even my next door neighbour seemed to have some kind of barberque party going on, tempting me beyond limits with its smell coming through my window. i tried to beat them by having my own fun. i turned up my sky tv on the mtv channels and started blasting music while skipping outside to dance a little and have a break. break from what i don't really know considering i wasn't even doing anything in my room anyway save looking out of my window longingly at the beautiful sun. my neighbour looked into our yard and grunted 'hi' to me. i reckon he doesn't like me very much - they were the ones who constantly came round to complain about my music in my room last term. oh well. tough.
my housemates came back and spoilt my fun though, they turned down the music and went outside to smoke. i didn't feel like i could dance anymore. but the sun, like the pied pier for britian, drew out more people today than i think i've ever seen in one time in my neighbourhood.

i love the sun, i love summer. and i hate having essays and exams to do at this glorious time of the year. you know we may have the sunshine back home all year round... but there has never been a single day at home which i can remember that is more beautiful than a day of sunshine in england. i wish i could carve out a day like this from my memory and physically plant it wherever and whenever i want. i'm not sure if it's the cool wind juxtaposed with the clear sunshine, the birds and bees buzzing around, the lovely flowers in bloom, the surge of activity that pervades the air...and maybe it's a bit of everything... but i'd certainly like to capture this feeling and bring it wherever i go. it's impossible to feel anything but life and loveliness. suddenly, my essay feels so unimportant. i mean, life is surely more than just about meeting deadlines.
sadly though, i still have to do it. it's a cause-and-effect existentialist world we cannot escape. what we have to do, we have to do. what we do is our essence. our essence precedes our existence. our existence is what we are. so i take my leave in this state of mind... until the day comes when i've finished what i have to do.
then i will be the first to run out into the sunny fields, put on my sunglasses, some music and do a little groove just like this.

State of Mind..



and you wonder how i ever get anything done. it came up to a point when everytime i moved, my elbow or hand would hit something on the table and it'll fall to the floor, spill over, or end up in my dustbin which is located stupidly just underneath my table at the edge (my comb dropped in once and i took ages to detox it).
i guess it is no wonder why i can't seem to get work done, or feel really motivated these days. i did feel it two days ago, before things started piling up again. how can anyone ever consistently maintain a clean table? (unless you're this friend i know called vic who keeps his table spotless and even wipes off the rings left from cups the second they appear.)
and it's not like i don't make an effort. i seriously try to clear my table and attempt to keep at least a decent spot of the original surface visible at all times...

did you know the state of your table is a reflection of your mental state of mind? (!) i want to say i'm perfectly clear-headed now but it evidently isn't so.
dont judge me, i can't help it. look at your own table, can you?

Pussy Wussy

i had a 9am seminar this morning but i didn't make it. having like an hourish worth of sleep the night before to rush my Hollywood essay didn't help, and neither is my tutor who annoyingly makes us, mature university students feel like we're in pre-school. i have an incredible revulsion for academic tutors who think marking attendence during lectures and sending emails to students to request reason for absences is fun. the fact that they even bother proves they don't really have a life.

so anyway, i didn't make it for class. my alarm somehow didn't ring and i woke up at 2pm, feeling a slight dread at knowing i have another essay to write due again this monday (God help me) but resigned to the fact that i'm probably not gonna be doing anything constructive today anyway. so i went online, surfed for abit, and came across The Gratuitous Pussy... Go see it, it won't take a minute. it's lovely, funny and entertaining. It made me look at my set of pencils, purchased in a moment of artistic inspiration but never really used after that... perhaps it's time i picked it up.

there's just so many things we could do... so much artistic aspirtations we could pursue. but somehow paradoxically in our lazy student schedules, there just isn't enough time. sure, there's loads of work. we're always busy. and yet, isn't time what we make of it. if we really wanted to do something, we would make the time. i love being a student, and yet it's so easy for it to be an excuse as to why we aren't doing what we want to try. time becomes a hazy concept of 'messing around', defined by essay deadlines and meal times.
sigh.
and now i feel like owning a cat.....