Michael Fassbender in SHAME

        It's a real world. If you are in the train and someone is looking at you. It very much depends on the look of the person who stares at you, for you to decide whether it is a treat or a threat.

        It applies to both men and women.

        Well I would love to see more of Brandon's (Michael Fassbender) story than only his connection, interaction or behavior only although it is intense looking and feeling his loneliness and distance from people around him. But I like his acting. He kept me wondering what's running in his head when he sat/lied there alone.

I like movie that takes in not only the emotion but also the real side of life. And a good film can have nudity and sex scene yet still make no porno feel.

       Carey Mulligan sings well. But I still like better how Michael actually shed that drop of tear when looking at his sister singing.

       Loneliness is like a big shadow.

       It consumes people.

And it is sad to know that more and more people succumb to this monster. Perhaps that is why this movie became the 2nd highest grossing (17 million) by the end of its theatrical run.

It's Penang World Dance Day, peeps

    It gave me a heartache when I heard from a friend that this year's Penang World Dance Day receives no monetary support from any of the YB (Yang Berhormat, people's representatives in Malaysian politic).

    While standing at the crossroad not knowing how to make thing happen without having the right supports, Aida finally decided to continue such wonderful event out of her own pocket.

    Unlike the United States (and probably many other countries that take arts seriously), Malaysian tend to look at arts differently. Like they are so impractical (unless they make you good money), and irrelevant to our daily lives (because they are just hobby).

    So when Aida made up that decision to carry on with her plan, she'd prepared to accept the worst - spending money to receive very very little respond. She contacted different instructors from various dance genre and received their kind support to provide workshop without charge. And thank goodness the results were total opposite.

    Instead of worrying not enough participants to join the classes, they have got overwhelming signup until they have to close registration one day prior to the event.

    The event was a big success and everybody went home that day with happy smile on their face.

    Now what if this event is being supported by our government? With more funding to conduct such event, more participation can be expected, and the media will be much much more interested in reporting.

    Don't you think it is something that helps society to build arts awareness, forms a platform for teenagers to get involve in healthy and positive self exploration, and most of all, we show other states in Malaysia - Penang, once again, sees higher and further than the rest?

    With my own eyes, I see joy and happiness through different languages spoken with movement happening without barriers and obstacles. And I don't know how much discount have penangpac given but that little box of donation was filled with heavy gratitude.

    Do you think arts is nothing? See So You Think You Can Dance in the United States. It has successfully bring together people throughout the country (and the whole world) to the awareness of how dance can be a good market.

    Care or care not the growth and future of youth and children via different path than being doctor or engineer and architect, it is all up to your own wisdom.

(photo courtesy of Allspire Photography)

It is time!

I paused for a while when my friend sent me a link to blogfest.

I hesitated.

I have always loved writing but things like becoming a part of blogfest has never crossed my mind. Perhaps that is why I am still way below the line from being known as a blogger. And I thought it's always very very common to be fairly unpopular as a blogger since my topic of writing is not so much of those HOT STUFF like travel, food, cultural or parenting.

But then I ask myself, "what for I write if I don't want to reach readers?" I can always write in my personal diary instead of blogging. I must have that intention of bringing forward the idea of my writings if I am a keen blogger.

So I quickly make up my mind and participate the upcoming event, which is going to be held in Penang next week.

I should make my work public, at least to a bigger group of potential reader. After all it is the passion in writing that has helped me through the times where I felt lost and realized lessons.

So if you are one of the readers here and blog at the same time as well as being one of the participants for the BlogFest 2010, please say hi when we meet on the event! It is always nice to know we are connected in the way we like - writing.

胸怀

用道教的眼睛认识佛教,用佛教的心情思考道教.

Give it All Out

After all, it is your dream.

And it matters.

What About Marriage?

 just watched Sex and the City 2. Although it may not seem as interesting as I first saw Sex and the City, the idea of looking at marriage is my kinda interest (much more being entertained by the incredible costumes, which although not always look best on them but definitely stunning to see).

Carrie (Parker) is married for 2 years and she's joined the girls to the trip to Abu Dhabi, which she then ran into her ex, Aidan (Corbett) and had herself feeling bad after he kissed her. She confessed to Big (Noth) and (fortunately) he forgiven her.

Each of the other girls (Charlotte, Sam, and Miranda) got their own life lesson and realization during the trip too but one thing that Carrie's said at the end is very much the thing that I believe and practice,

"You have to take the tradition and decorate it your way"

Feeling What's Feeling Inside

I've always have this struggle in me: whether to really surrender myself to my feelings or hold myself up with what I really have and can.

Thinking has always been reasoning. It's breaking things down to particles and sort them out accordingly, which I've taken quite some years to learn and practice. Some say it (for being sensible)somehow is in my blood that's why I can resonate with that pattern. But I must confess that I have been pulling myself back and forth between being sensual and sensible because I have had several feeling attacks over the years which I end up like the broken pieces my brain's handling and it felt as if I totally lose myself.

Being cool and detach in the dimension of thinking and reasoning and mapping things out is more of a training than being fragile and vulnerable towards the dimension of true heart feelings inside that comes naturally through the veins. I am not too sure if what I am having right now after watching this video is a mixed combination of thinking and feeling but I do know one thing for sure: feeling gives me the pleasure and fear at the same time.

It's too honest.

So from time to time I allow myself to feel what I can and what I am feeling and record it with the help of words through my head. This is perhaps the best method I can find so far to let my feelings and thinking find their balance.

What I See When I See What I Am Seeing

The past Sunday wrote me a note via my work.

It reads:

There is a place that our conscious mind and knowledge cannot reach. It contains the real and true side of us and it carries its own perception towards things around us. On top of that, it knows what we are yet to know and it will only unleash when it sees you ready.

I did not know what it was trying to tell me until I look at the photos that I captured. And I am totally convinced that it constantly repeating itself to me through various ways.

And then I spend the following few days trying to understand that message.


The feeling is so strong: Something is definitely coming my way.

What do you see by the way?

Sometimes Something Just Don't Standout Until You Really Pay Attention

We were waiting for our movie to start in the cinema and watching the commercials playing. This one came into picture almost a 9 months ago and I am still impressed every time I see it replays. But I don't know why nothing beats this time that hits real hard when I hear the sentence - DREAMS BECOME REALITY.

Yes, a dream is the goal that we seek to achieve being drafted and painted in our heart and mind. We have it guiding us through our lives breaking all obstacles and defeat every challenges just to making sure we do not stop trying until we get there.

All dreams are immature fruits and only through our continuous attempts it will ripe.

Don't stop believing. Dreams are reachable!

Fatherly Love - Despicable Me

I've never been read a bedtime story when I was young. In fact, I can hardly remember the sleeps I had around my parents. I slept with grandma when I was too afraid to sleep alone, and moved to a room of my own as I returned home from my relative's for weekends or school holiday when I grew older.

Parents of mine are not the type that will hug me in their arms and tell me they love me, nor sat beside my bed to read me story and kissed me good night putting me to sleep.

It's common in traditional Asian family.

So when I saw Gru who had never tasted but willing to show the kind of love and attention I wanted, my eyes got into tears being touched by the warmth. It is fairly rare for movies to talk about fatherly love, much more from one whose ambition is to become the biggest heist but end up being penetrated by 3 little girls - Margo, Edith and Agnes.

The movie was overall ok, with the existence of a bunch of minions and he's adopted daughters. I tell you Agnes and those minions just made my day.

What is it that your mind is trying to tell you?

It is said that we have only got a small portion of our mind explored by conscious, and the remaining is all in our subconscious and dreams. While we know from the study and research report saying that our left brain controls analytical ability whereas right brain focuses on creativity, we haven't really fully understand what this central controlling mechanism - why does it functioning such a way and what is it that the brain trying to tell.

I think the evolution has come to the point where our intellectual meets our spiritual awareness. And by acknowledging we are both rational and emotional, we are becoming more aware of our current state of mind. With that we know: we are indeed a very powerful living, just not yet fully realized and awaken.

But we are getting there if we believe and try.

At least Christopher Nolan is giving me this impression and feeling, from his The Prestige, Batman Begins, Batman: The Dark Knight and the latest production Inception.

This Sci-Fi movie emphasizes how we can dig in to our mind (whether to use it the right way or not is not an issue here as 'Inception' is not a Crime movie). Assuming the different actors in the movie plays the different roles our mind is capable of, what do you think your mind is trying to tell you?

A 2.28hour thriller that is definitely taking serious viewers' breath away. And don't say I never warn you in the first place: you will never stop wanting for more once you start asking.

Is it even an issue at all whether this life is a dream or reality? After all, it's a process of the game don't you think?

I highly rate this movie because I really enjoy how Christopher Nolan actually manipulate minds!

The Love We Share

Gap comes in when understanding/interest does not match.

Both me and Joie are 1 year in different. We have the same passion for stage performance, we love photography, we love seeing the world, we like to go movies and we enjoy spending time leaning on one another reading books.

Although I am more active, extrovert and outspoken while he is rather a listener and towards passive when it comes to expression we see these differences in us as complements to each other. We do quarrel of course, but our focus are set on bringing out the truth and not throwing temper for emotional purposes. Conflicts allow us to learn more about what we don't know and disagreements show us the importance of finding solutions together.

As much as we walk the path together holding hands wherever we go we appreciate the love and bond we share by talking our heart out and listen passionately.

taken in Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
while waiting for boarding to returning home

Nothing comes for free.

Gap only comes in if understanding/interest finds no way to match between the two.

Never Ever Give Up

I have always appreciate inspirations. I think it is the most amazing and incredible thing in the world because it not only allows one to contemplate but also to realizing the importance of exploring the potentials.

Although I am not a dancer myself and I haven't been trained in dance in my entire life, one of the many things that touches my heart is dance and I particularly in the connection with the genre of Contemporary Dance (and that perhaps explains why I am attracted to my husband). I couldn't explain what I see in Contemporary Dance as it isn't so much on the eye but rather towards that part right inside. To me it touches me deep down because it's filled with emotion and thinking that is always being carried out with well established techniques that expresses one truthfully.

In Season 7 of So You Think You Can Dance, Mia Michaels had to go to one of the potential top 10 finalist to deliver disappointment. This contestant did not make it this round although he'd worked very very hard to cope with the Las Vegas filtration round with his injured leg. After she's done with the announcement, she had this line delivered to him (Anthony Burrell).

"The stuff that we go through our lives, the negatives the knocks we can choose to take us down or we can choose to stand up rise up and make us even more brilliant and more beautiful."

It may seem ordinary and sound almost like every other line of inspirational quotes but to a contestant who wanted the opportunity so badly it could be the one line that keep the spirit high in order to continue fighting until victory arrives.

One of the 11 finalists (the judges have decided to make an additional room) Alexie Agdeppa was cut during the previous auditions for up to 4 seasons, and one of it was already at the doorstep to entering top20 in last season, but nothing beats her. She keep coming back until she finally got it through this round.

Nothing beats the heart that never give up.

And that is my favorite.

See It, Feel It, Live It

Sometimes we thought we know life so well until we forgot we ought to look at it carefully. We live everyday like it's endless although we know death is the only verdict. Because we don't know when is the end so we tend to use the overall average figure as a standard of consideration.

And that is where the problem is.

We presume we have at least 70 years of living. That's 25,550 days or 613,200 hours or 36,792,000 minutes or 2,207,520,000 seconds. Assuming we have spent (averagely) about 24 years on pursuing our education, we are still left with 46 years of time (assuming we live until 70), which is 16,790 days or 402,960 hours, that is quite a number of time we still have.

We take this as the basis to plan for lives, very unlikely taking in "WHAT IF IT DOESN'T WORK OUT THE WAY I EXPECT IT TO BE" as one of the conditions that might probably be the cause of unpredictable turmoil to put all things to the end.

"What if there is no tomorrow?"

Living in present does not mean taking care of today only. Instead it means taking the present moment as the stepping stone of reaching the next. That brings the same meaning of "Build a big house with a blueprint and start by little bricks". We decide how we want our lives to become by drawing the blueprint of our own, set a time frame for the completion, then work on every single effort to accomplish it.

The key to setting a right and effective way to making things happen determines how successful a person can be.

That is life.

The Feeling of Longing for Home

I've been staying in different places since young age. Not that my family moved a lot, rather it's however me who'd been migrating from one place to another before I finally reach home. What makes me going around the places?

My parents didn't abandon me, I must clarify in the first place. Instead it's because of the school that they've decided to send me had put me through the living away from home. My house was in Bukit Mertajam (mainland) while I was studying on the island. They wanted me to be educated in a good school and so they have no choice but to put me away from them.

I didn't understand their intention during then and my childhood was filled with disappointment and sadness whenever I thought of myself staying alone with other relatives while my 2 younger brothers get to run into my parents' arms everyday.

My first time living away from home was very young at the age of 7 and all first grades are in the afternoon. The time I got off from school and arrived at my relative's place, instead of my home where my parents were, was when the sun's setting. It is when I have this feeling of loneliness longing for going home since then. It is always at the particular time of the day when the sun is going down and birds are flying in group returning home that gives me this feeling.

It is as if my feeling has gone back to the time when I wanted so badly to go back my own home instead of returning to a house filled with many busy relatives who all have their own life to take care of.

Although I have moved back home since my teen age and recently got married my heart still feeling that longing. Perhaps it is because we haven't got our own place yet. Having a place where heart rests and feeling resides is very important. It gives not only the sense of security and belonging but also acts as the foundation of bond and the platform of getting the achievements in life.

What Had Been Going On since...

Like being claimed by my youngest brother we hardly sit together in front of the TV and watch HBO although we subscribe that channel. The trip to Bangkok has not only got us into a wonderful family trip since many years but we get to spend some time watching HBO together.

It's a miniseries called The Pacific, which has 2 brilliant person as the Executive Producer - Steven Spieldberg and Tom Hanks.

I am not a war movie fan and I didn't really follow this miniseries but someone got my attention and we thought the movie was interesting in its own way. Anyway this someone that caught my eye was a pretty decent looking young man. He played one of the roles from the real history and I thought he seem familiar. So I went on to imdb to confirm if he's the one I thought he is and you go, let's see if you can recognize him...


I bet many can recall by now he has his look hidden somewhere in our head by probably the name is still missing because we may not have paid enough attention on the actors' names during then.

The episode I watched was part 9 and 10 so although I didn't know what was going on earlier but I get to see how they come home after 4 years serving the war and deal with the post-war-trauma as well as picking up the family life they have become unfamiliar.

Anyway, anyone who want to learn more about the movie please go on and look for it. The point here is to talk about this face.

Any clue?

Here, let me show you another picture so that you have see more clearly...

His name is Joe Mazzello (just remind me about Mozzarella though), he was the kid on played in Jurrassic Park back in 1993. Here, this picture should clear everything...

TADA!!!

Sometimes we just never realize how life slipped us through by living everyday life fulfilling every obligations we have not remembering how we wanted our lives to be until some familiar faces appear reminding us the time we see ourselves in those long forgotten dreams.

He's all grown up. Borned in 1983 he's 27 now. Can picture how time flies?

So what had been going on in your life since then? Is there anything you need to put your feet back on the ground and start figuring out how to make your dreams happen again?

By the way, there is never a win in war. And, watch this miniseries.

The Wisdom of Cracking Jokes

Sometimes even having that sense of humor isn't working and I learn the lesson about cracking a joke - it takes, definitely, more than the joke itself and the intention of it (despite the sense of humor that I just mentioned).

Sometimes the air runs thin and people starts to feel a little uneasy about the topic of discussion so someone would usually break the situation with some little lame and cheap joke. It has no special intention but to shift that tension away.

Sometimes they work if people just laugh their way out from the seriousness. Other times, it frozen the air even more. Especially when that stupid joke was not being taken as a joke but an embarrassment, or it's inappropriateness to exist.

So I realize chain reaction is a good point of ponder. One leads to another and everything will be totally different should a break takes it's place right.

The problem is: we just never know what is going to be right, either the timing or the topic, for the joke. I took the initiative, and it ended up badly.

Well, what can I say? What's more important than the motive of easing the air? Wisdom, perhaps, which I need.

The One Person We Can Count On

There is a very popular video showing a special someone who we can really depend on.

I like this video a lot as it gives me goose bumps every time I see it. I like the idea of it. I like the motive behind it. And I like the presentation and also the effect it creates.

I am not kidding.

So who is this special someone that actually create such impact? Follow the steps and you will see and understand why I cheer for this effort. Picture this really become real. Feel the tingling inside your chest. Feel the passion burning inside your soul and start making that big ambition come true.

There are 2 copies for me, which each carries different impact.
(1) The Hero ver. 1
(2) The Hero ver. 2

THE HERO

(for the real link, click on the above)

Positivity

Sometimes to break life down to the simplest term is to see it from the very plain and pure perspective - to look at (only)one thing at a time.

That is how wisdom happen.

We read from the philosophers, we listened to people's experience and realization, we watched others got up and out from challenges, and we apply all that we have gathered in our action to make it ours.

How are these lessons be relevant to us if we have never stood in the situations?

Thus mistakes are merely an opportunity to make things right and downfalls are meant to make us rise and shine.

All through the different obstacles that I have had before got me one message straight in my face and to my heart & mind - you never know what you can do until you are challenged.

Pay close attention to these whispers, they are everywhere assisting.

What makes us stronger are the challenges we face,
the obstacles we overcome, and the achievements we make.
A positive attitude can create remarkable remarks.
Use your mind, your body and your soul to create, achieve and live your goals...

Back to the Root

Life is full of experience, whether it impacts people positively or negatively (well the positive and negative here is referring to the direct impact only, not attitude or perception wise).

For instance, we see something irritating (which it could mean nothing at all to others) and of course the immediate feeling is IRRITATED. So I assume this irritation is something we usually classified as negative. Now most of us see this irritation, without looking into the reason of it happening. Our awareness, yes it happened, until what we are impacted directly, and not down to the understanding of it taking place.

Yes, people might probably say, "how tiring it is if we'd to look into the depth of everything. (And some may say) By knowing what happen and how to react with grace is good enough."

Is it good enough?

It is, if you are looking at the immediately layer beneath that surface. It isn't, if you are realizing there's a whole lot more to be taken into consideration besides the scenario itself.

When we see trouble, the immediate responds we would have is either: avoid it; or delay it; or solve it; or study, understand and resolve it.

What is our common practice towards trouble? I bet we hardly stretch ourselves to reaching "study, understand and resolve". The best is usually until "solve it".

Let us imagine there is a tree right in front of us. Seeing from afar, we see the overall appearance - trunk, branches and leaves. Closer as we move towards it, we see the color of respective parts of the tree. By standing by it, we see the skin of the trunk, the way the branches and leaves grow and things that might be attaching to it. When we put our hands against it, we feel the texture, and as we climb the tree we understand how the branches and leaves grow. We know about the health condition of such tree without cutting it down to examine (by observing the symptoms we can collect from its leaves, branches and trunk) or even knowing the growth of its roots without digging it out from the soil (by digging only the soil by the tree to observe whether it is a single or fibrous root tree and how it get to the source of water and nutrients).

Besides all the things we can see with our eyes, what about "where, how, when, why" it comes?

There is a reason for everything.

Pause, and think about it.