Enter the Imaginarium

From the moment I saw the dual-font used in the introduction – a cursive script reflected by an upside-down modern sans serif glued precisely at the bottom – I knew this was a movie I was going to enjoy to the brim.

This is no airy-fairy take on fantasy, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus is darkly magical. This is grimy London, creaking caravan, old-fashion robes and the age-old battle between good and evil. Only, the battle is actually within oneself: the battle of making the right choice between two options.

Although I thought this to be a brilliant story, I can’t quite figure out the ending when doll-faced Scrumpy chose to go through that mirror. I don’t understand the meaning of the choices in this scene. Unless, they represented Scrumpy’s interest versus someone else’s.

I also thought that changing the appearance of a character each time he enters the Imaginarium was a smart representation of his two-faced personality (it’s more than two, but well, an expression is an expression).

Another interesting point to note is the irony in that immortality fans the fragility of the human being. Don’t we usually associate fragility with mortality? Of course the fragility here in the movie is one of spiritual weakness rather than physical.

I’ll leave my sentiments at this junction, not cruel enough to burst anyone’s curiosity bubble with anymore pseudo-spoilers. What I can say is…if you’re looking forward to Alice in Wonderland, I believe this is a good one to ease the wait.

Johnny Depp’s performance was lovely, as always. Let’s not forget Heath Ledger too, whose brilliant acting will be missed.

Ahhh…a new year, a breath of fresh air…

Happy 2010!

Well, granted I’m a little over a week tardy but well, the new year spirit still rings inside me! Most probably because I’m still on holidays and don’t feel that pressure to return to any specific form of routine. Ah, that will come in a week.

Liberty never tires of invigoration. Well, if you know how to savour it, that is. Mind you, there have been times when I wanted to tear my hair out from mundane liberty a.k.a. idleness.

Ehhneewayss, this post is just to kick start the year with lots of love, hope and well wishes. I’m brimming with the feeling you get when you just bought a new pair of shoes or a new gadget…like you’re on top of the world and anything is possible. For those whose new year spirit has waned in the past week, let me hopefully inject another dose of enthusiasm in you!

I’ll type out what I texted my family and closest buddies on 010110, a wish that I now extend to the rest of the world (or, whoever reading this)!

~~
Let there be pink in your cheeks,

smiles in your eyes,

wit in your speech,

humour in your conversations,

passion in your work,

blue-greens in your wallet,

opportunities in your seeking,

peace in your dealings,

wisdom in your living and

love in everything all year round!

~~

I woke up on 010110 to a morning that felt like the Chinese New Year: The northern wind sweeping through the house, wind chimes in the distance, joss stick fragrance (sandalwood, most probs) from the neighbourhood and tranquility. Lovely, just lovely. Makes me look forward more to the actual CNY too!

Here’s to relishing the newness of 2010! *clink*

And here’s to an accomplished year ahead! *clink clink*

Oooh coooookiessss *monchmonchmonch*

Much to my glee, I found my mascot on Google! Wokay, let’s not get excited. I don’t actually have any mascot cos ordinary folks like me don’t. It’s just that Google is featuring Cookie Monster today!

Cookie Monster Day?

Well, me mum used to call me Cookie Monster.

How cute!

I’m not too sure but is it Cookie Monster Day or something? The day when Sesame Street created Cookie Monster?

Looks like it huh? But I ain’t got the time to look up that info. I’ve spent so much time fixing the images for this post already. Fun has a price to pay. And it’s a huge price when you have a tonne of work waiting to pounce on you.

Anyways, my housemate pointed out that I’m wearing Cookie Monster’s colour so I thought I’d be lame to come up with this post. Coincidence can be celebratory. Even more so when it’s with a favourite muppet. Yesh, we both lurve cookies.

Pics are for the sake of amusement. Ignore the bad hair (which I conveniently cropped out) as I was wearing a hairband half the afternoon.

Woot at these Footzies

Okay, I’ve been dying to blog about a few things but life has been busy and personal time elusive. So, I’ll just post this short post up to satiate that nagging voice inside my head.

I was checking out some Yahoo! news on the homepage as usual a few days ago when I stumbled upon this crazy coolness advertised on one of the beauty and care kind of articles.

Presenting…

The Footzyrolls! Rollable shoes that you can keep inside your handbag! They’re said to be so small that they fit into clutches too.

Let me show you some of the pictures of this necessary invention taken from the Footzyrolls website. They’ll make you salivate (ok, maybe just me).

The colour I’d buy.

This is how you keep it. Check out the soles. They’re water-proof and non-slip.

That’s a shoe and its shoebox!

When your fancy diamond studded heels hurt even before you walk down the aisle, fear not, there’s the white Footzyrolls! Genius!

My dream come true.

It’s not so much the fact that I’d burn my feet in gorgeous heels all the time, it’s the element of mobility in this innovation that plants desire in me. And to think that so very recently (that’s last week) I purposely chose a slimmest pair of flats to bring as extra during my travel to Singapore (only to end up buying a pair of meatier ballet flats in Batu Pahat, heh). Seriously, I’m all for mobility!

I weallie weallie wanna get one. Anybody wants to hop on my bandwagon?

Want more info about Footzyrolls? Check it out.

Under the sun

Sweat. Heat. Tan.

And a burning desire to earn some bucks.

This was me coaxing myself out of my hermit shell to fulfill one of my long semester holiday priority – work.

As some of you would know (because a few of you are involved as well), I’ve been out and about helping Dr Carmen distribute survey questionnaires for a research about Malaysian university students’ perception towards online news. She is doing it with Ms Sharon Wilson, Ms Pauline Leong and Dr Toh (who’s from FICT). I don’t know if there’re anymore lecturers in this research but these are the ones present at the briefing on the first day of work.

Until last Friday, I have been to places I might never have the reason or chance to go to.

Taylor’s in Subang, KDU, Sunway UC, Monash, Twintech, Unisel and UPM. Among which, I fell in love with the Monash campus. It’s…so zen. My type of architecture.

So this is how data collecting in an actual research works. It’s a team of very diverse peripherals working together as a body. There were the academicians with the content and plan and the “invited” working adults from “unacademic” areas assigned to ferry the still in academia hands-and-legs to campuses to give out questionnaires.

I was part of the hands-and-legs, doing the unglamourous but fun fieldwork. I actually enjoyed being among strangers and getting them to help out. It’s like having a little pat on the back whenever someone agrees to fill out the questionnaire.

I and a few thought that there were some ends to trim for the way the data-collection procedures were done but I guess we’re only human so there’ll always be room for improvement. I’m not sure but maybe it was these lecturers’ first time too?

Although none of this resembles a camp or workshop, I felt yesterday the familiar feeling one gets when a camp comes to an end and the people you had so much fun with are parting ways with you.

It’s always amazing how a few days of being with each other for hours can make people grow on you. When we part, I feel as though we’ve known each other more than just in the past week.

Maybe that’s why I have that leaving camp feeling.

This is going to sound a tad mushy but I miss my teammates. There was Yee Von (the ex-owner of the cutest rabbit ever!) who is a bunch of laughter, Alex whom I got to know better in the past weeks than in the last two years, Ng the new friend from Setapak and Mr Sim whom I’d like to refer to as The Sim (cos it sounds cooler).

The Sim is a guy who had almost zero interactivity until lunch on Wednesday when he went into story-telling mode and suddenly we can write half of his biography. Talk about irony. The Sim was assigned to drive the four of us and had appeared to like leaving conversations to ourselves. But after that one lunch seating, I think he’s an interesting character. The kind that fascinates me because he’s life is so much different from mine.

Child rebel, boarding polytechnic school, self-taught English, car racing ambitions. Everything out of my comfort zone.

Another highlight (or “lowlight”, rather) of my doing this job is losing appetite. Food is glorious bu this job really cost me my appetite. Talk about fatigue, man. The effects hasn’t quite worn off and my favourite dishes still taste wrong.

Our last day was at an public uni. It was tougher than the private colleges which were more compact hence easier to get student traffic. After five days of walking and asking, our experience ended with waffles from UPM.

Not too bad at all.

People who made distributing questionnaires fun!

These are some of the people whom I got to work with. From left: with Yee Von and her muka mengada in UPM, Alex in Sunway, with Sreemathi in Unisel, Ian on his last day of work at Unisel.

What do we call ourselves?

I dunno actually.

Distant cousins, I think.

Just about two hours ago, I was nosing around a classmate’s random photos on Facebook and notice a very, very familiar face in her album.

I messaged the familiar face on Facebook to verify and – WOWNESS – it is that Diane.

It was- I couldn’t believe my eyes- a distant cousin I met a looooong time ago in Setiawan, Perak.

Yes, countless (cos I forgot how long ago it was) Chinese New Years ago, my family took a trip down to Setiawan to reunite with some of my father’s cousins and other paternal distant relatives. That was the first time I met Diane.

We played some games I had never seen before and which names I have forgotten. It’s this circular thing that one runs along this rope and flings up to try to catch it with the rope again. The tricky part is in getting it to continue running on the rope again when it lands. Gosh, am I even explaining it right?

I remember the green laksa my dad’s aunt cooked. Yum!

Then, again, few years down the road when we were adolescents, Diane’s family came up to Penang to visit us.

I remember the four-wheel drive that took my brother and I to see the Kek Lok Si temple CNY lights at night.

I remember talking about Da Vinci Code, the novel, because it was the coolest story my brother and I came across at that point in time.

Fast forward to tonight, we’re living proof of the six-degrees of separation. Kinda. I think it’s less than six.

So I knew from dad that Diane took a Journalism diploma in KTAR. But it never occured to me that she and my classmate (who kinda took a turn and now pursues an English Language degree) would have been collegemates.

The world can be so small! What a reunion of sorts.

They come in threes

Three ingredients to make you say “And it gets better.”:

1. PJ downpour in the middle of the night.
2. The monster (as Jojo calls it).
3. Short circuit.

At 4.10am last night, I was woken up by the rain splitter and splattering against our window, working up baby puddles on the table that we’ve always conveniently scatter our stuff on. I got up to fix the situation and went to the loo.

Then I came out frightened by Jojo’s grey figure in the dimness of the room. She just switched the router off and was waiting for the loo.

Bed sweet bed. In my effort to preserve the sleep, I groggily climbed back to bed. So did Jo.

Until she smelled it. It was there.

Disappointed by the fluorescent which Jojo turned on immediately, I rose to inquire.

And then I saw it. The monster.

Crawling into the darkness under my bed. Shit.

We spent the next 20 minutes terminating it. Spraying my bed sheet and suffocating ourselves as we went along.

The tough guy finally gave in only after I decided to give it Shokubutsu treament. By then, I think we had used a good portion of the repellent.

I think Shieldtox water-base is not very effective. Or the monsters have a new and improved breed.

Then after cleaning up the fruition of our termination, I changed my bed sheet.

And the lights went out when I was in mid action. Short circuit.

Oh, why?!

Why this when I was trying to train myself to wake up early so that I could on the exam days. Early, but not at an ungodly hour!

Oh, we had a long commercial break from our sleep. As the other housemates came out, we gathered at the dining room to chat for a bit, waiting for the storm to pass so that we could turn the main switch back on.

Jo and I revisited slumber at 5.25am.

Guess it’s ok. After all, thank goodness the rain woke us up so that we could shut the router, smell the presence of the monster and fix the short circuit.

Imagine sleeping with the monster. Nevermind losing an hour’s sleep in the dead of the night. Anything to escape that horror.

Everything happened as if in some chronology. Premeditated.

As Jo summed it up in the dining room, “They say that bad luck comes in three. Nevermind, we’ve passed all three. We will be okay now.”

I was thinking along the same lines too.
🙂

Reasons to feel lucky

A friend said something last evening and made me realise that I have been quite oblivious to some of the blessings in the routine of my life.

So here I am, giving thanks for the little things that I noticed because I made the effort to.

In spite of being alone:

I’m grateful for the cabs I got yesterday which came without me waiting for more than two minutes.

She deserves my constant gratitude:

I’m ever grateful for Aunt Sally who thought of me when she received a packet of muesli from a visiting relative from Australia and proceeded to give me her own gift.

I’m ever grateful for the same aunt who thought of buying me one of my favourite hawker food- Penang Asam Laksa for dinner last evening.

Even more grateful when she still gave me some rose apples after I told her on the phone that my supply of fruits needs no replenishing.

Surprised that she also bought two packets of the vege that I’m currently craving for. I have no idea how she intuitively knew. I don’t even know what the vege is called.

I believe it’s my good karma to have my aunt in my life and I hope it is her good karma to have me in hers.

Having bridged a gap:

I’m happy we’re sharing jokes again.

I’m happy you consoled me.

On other matters in life:

I’m happy we’re on speaking terms again though I’m still struggling to let bygones be bygones.

I’m sincerely glad you said sorry.

Although I feel like a big loser now, I suppose life has been kind to me too. I think I will pull through.

After all, I have a loving aunt whom some have said they wish to have.

Have a grateful day yourself!

Despite

Despite the sloth in me, despite the indiscipline, despite the alarming pace I’m at, despite it being Thursday already,

despite not having found a job, despite not making the Singapore arrangements, despite not reading any journals yet,

despite missing an anticipated Japanese dinner,

despite the salted droplets, despite the vague closure, despite the difficulty in mustering courage, despite losing that miraculous motivation,

despite so many things that are giving me this familiar misery,

I have but a promise to myself to keep and it in turn keeps me going on.

My yesterday

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince appeased the months of waiting. Feels a little like high school again watching it with special company. Oh how much we’ve all grown, the ones on screen and the ones who sat beside me.

Meeting up with JM and her sis and bf was great! So many stories from Adelaide and San Francisco. Dearly missed company, a break from the usual PJ life.

The annual nationwide Mega Sale makes economy crises fiction. Jusco and pretty much all other shops were swarming with ants humans. A great temptation rose within my ribcage only to be crushed by the lonely RM50 note I had for the outing. The singular RM50 note that was for feeding the body, not dressing it.

Liz, groceries and groceries only.

That was what Willpower told me after Temptation made me try on apparels- an activity that took me an hour because, like I said, the place was swarming with ants humans.

No matter, Willpower was understanding too. Seems like I have the option of saving up to do the necessary shopping next month. So save up I will. I need to get some stuff anyways.

___

Funny sight when I came back: Domino’s Pizza delivery guy chatting away happily with Nando’s Peri-Medic guy at the parking space. Sharing tips on delivery strategies? They amused me a little.