No, this is not a post on relationships. Go somewhere else if you are expecting to read about enslavement. I am talking about professing commitment to something. For example, professing you are a reader, a runner, a doctor, an intellectual, pro-choice, anti-war, anti-government … something. Do you really know what you are committing to? Are you sure you want to commit yourself to that?
It’s not like I like to be undecided about things. As much as I want to profess and label myself, I always halt in face of expectations. I don’t like to be expected to have expertise. Today I was asked to fill in my hobbies on a form. I paused – what do I write? If I wrote I like music, will people expect me to play an instrument? If I wrote I like to run, will people expect me to do a 7-minute mile?
This is why I hate labels, apart from the usual discrimination categorizing pigeon-holing yadda. I simply hate not having expert knowledge because our society seems to favour that more, rather than the idea of a Renaissance individual with a finger in every pie. Or at least I perceive our society as favouring that more.
There are labels I will put on myself and wholeheartedly endorse. I know I am pro-choice. I know I am a reader (I believe sheer volumes make up for lack of depth). I know I am …
This autobiography lends a sneak peek into Winterson’s childhood and psyche. Through her lyrical prose she recollects the specific incidents in her past that befuddled her, killed her, and rebirthed her. Even though these incidents are piteous, she does not intentionally inspire pity. She narrates from a distance, rationalizing and yet at the same time, she does not shy away from exposing her sore spots. She is wise enough to know of her longing, her desire to belong, and how she may have spent her life and may still be in search of that. She is not overtly making a point in this autobiography – she doesn’t pretend to be a triumphant survivor or a pitiful orphan; she is just being who she is and telling her story to those who care to read about it. Brilliant read this.
Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, the tale is told through the perspective of 3 people- Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. Aibileen and Minny are black domestic helps to rich white women, while Skeeter is an unmarried white woman living with her mother. Skeeter witnesses the horrid racism and abuse that goes on in their town, and decides to write a book to expose that. How does a rich white woman in the deep South write a book about civil rights when she still uses a different bathroom as the help? With the assistance of Aibileen and Minny and eleven other helpers, Skeeter launches into a literary civil rights movement and thereby shaking up lives in peaceful Jackson.
This book is an absolute page-turner despite being more than 500 pages long. The reference to real events leading up to the civil rights movement lends a certain Forrest Gump charm to this tale.
In bidding 2011 goodbye today, we welcome a new year. 2011 has been an interesting and exciting year of changes for me. I finally left school and started working. I landed a job that makes me happy by allowing me to pursue what I love- books and reading. All in all, my life is pretty good by most measures.
Let me start off, as usual, by reviewing my New Year’s Resolutions:
1. Complete my MA thesis.
2. Get a job.
3. Photoshoot more – shoot something once a week.
No. 1 is technically fulfilled – I just need to get my thesis signed off and get over the administrative boo boos. No.2, fulfilled. As for No.3, my adult ADD has once again thwarted my efforts. When I started my project it was more along the lines of using my dSLR for photoshoots. But as they say, the best camera is the one you’re holding all the time. So I do indulge in some iPhone photography and wizardry with apps like Instagram. I won’t consider No. 3 fulfilled, but I haven’t been that all stagnant I suppose.
I gather it’s not too bad to complete 2 out of 3 of 2011′s NYR. Now, let me set some for 2012:
1. Read 100 books.
2. For every kilometer I run, I get to set aside $5 to buy whatever I want.
3. Be amazed.
For (1), it is an achievable aim. Even though I read 152 books this year, I think it’s still better to be conservative and keep it at an average of 2 per week. For (2), it’s more of an encouragement to for me exercise more; a reward system ought to work I guess! (3) is a plain ripping off the movie New Year’s Eve, from the NYR list of the character played by Michelle Pfeiffer. I aim to be truly amazed – by something, someone, someplace, some moment. I seem to think it’s not an entirely passive resolution; it demands I keep an open mind and be receptive to things lest I miss the moment. This, I assume, is good for my mental wellbeing. Perhaps it’s something everyone should practise (if they are not already).
So with that note, Happy New Year everyone and may 2012 bring you more joy than you can handle (in a good way).
After reading this book, I understand why it’s almost permanently on hold at the library. This novel is written in letters told from Charlie’s point of view of his one year in high school. It’s more than just a coming-of-age story; it is about friendship, kinship, and the self. Charlie watches relationship form and break down, people hurt themselves, people hurting other people. He has an incredible sense of self-awareness, but not the social maturity to go with it. As such he mucks about his freshmen year experimenting and attempting to participate but more often than not, he is still viewing all these events unfolding from the outside. Charlie’s experience and thoughts forced me to face a lot of the issues I have, which is unnerving. Books which make me dig deep into my own life in this manner deserves the full 5 stars.
Coming-of-age road-trip movies are always fun to watch, especially when it involves dork boys trying to become men (think American Pie) . In The Inbetweeners, the 4 main characters Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil spend two weeks in Malia, Crete after their A Levels. Their trip was not without hiccups – plane delays, paltry accommodation (the landlord fished a dead dog out of the well), being duped into a dead club where they were the only patrons, being ostracized by the hip crowd … and as with all coming of age movie they all learn and gain something at the end of the movie. In this case, each gained a girlfriend and learned something new.
The Inbetweeners is an award-winning British TV sitcom that got turned in to a movie this year. The motley crew of characters and gnarly non-RP British accent makes this an interesting movie different from the overdone American ones. The plot and issues remain the same – guys trying to get laid, guys acting stupid and guys being stupid. This movie is rated M18 for nudity and general crudeness. The narration is done by Will’s character (the nerdy one with glasses). The humour is just so right up my alley it cracked me up. But I guess this movie has humour that suits every palate – the wedgie-someone sort of humour as well as the pun sort of humour. It’s a great holiday laugh-out-loud movie.
By the way, Wikipedia gives a very detailed blow-by-blow description of the movie if you are interested in that sort of things.
Each year around this period I become particularly edgy and impatient. (See 2010) Yes, Christmas turns me into the Grinch. Everywhere I go, there are throngs of people, monkeys, slow lorises and gawking idiots. Usually, in other times of the years, these four creatures tend to be different individuals. But come Christmas season, they coexist in one singular entity. It’s like in a freakin’ zoo that goes on forever.
Consider trying to take a walk on Orchard Road trying to get from one building to another. Buskers line the street, and gawking idiots will all gather around the buskers but leave a five-foot-way between them and the performer’s tip box. So 5 precious feet of walking space is lost. Not only that, the slow lorises who amble by will slow down even more (I don’t know how they do it but apparently it is possible in our universe) and slow down the human traffic.
Then there are the monkeys. You know how monkeys in their free time love to pick lice off each other in a straight line?
Image taken from http://anabruno.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/ubud-bali-indonesia/
It’s the same with the monkeys in shopping malls who must walk hand-in-hand. Really ? A narrow walkway and you choose to do this to other users of the same walkway?
It’s the sheer crowd out there composed of such creatures that make me so mad. If I were given a dollar each time I roll my eyes during the holiday season, I would be a millionaire twenty times over. If you’re gonna say being caught in the crowd is part of this holiday experience, I’d personally buy you a dildo to screw yourself. Really.
