DISCLAIMER:

Now, I title this blogpost re-views, but apart from the very clever pun, I didn't actually take any initial views in the first place. It is only there because I like the clever pun.

Moving on...

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500 Days of Summer

I finally say myself down to watch this movie in the rather empty hall of the AMK cinemas. I was extremely peeved that this only showed in very few locations; mainly scattered about the city, too. The only ones close to home was Causeway Point, and AMK, which was where I headed to.

Inviting Russell Lim proved futile. Bugger was too slow, and would rather torrent it. He also griped that he got 365 days of summer a year, where I was quick to correct him on the existence of the monsoon season. Of course, had he turned up, I would have to invest in a box of tissues for him to work through, and hand it to him throughout the course of the show. So I had the extremely ironic experience of watching a romantic comedy alone. Wasn't all that bad, actually. Should do it more often.

Let me say this first and foremost: I really liked the movie.

The movie itself is boosted by a strong script; everything is carefully nuanced and maximised; from the starting disclaimer (poor Jenny Bruckman) to the twist at the end, the movie had strong, memorable lines, of both the funny and emotional variety. I applaud the simple way the movie seeks to grapple the idea of true love, societal labels, and the way we humans express our feelings. A generous does of rather weird antics helped too. I like weird antics.

(Greeting card quote which is missing. Noes!)

If I were to be nit-picky, I perhaps would find the concept of showing the various different days in different orders, while interesting, a tad bit confusing, and gives the viewer some trouble keeping track of events. However, the film uses multiple other new concepts that do work in the movie's favor; the expectations/reality split-screen was rather new and refreshing, while having the romantic comedy end with a breakup saves viewers from the normal, almost cliche (apologies for lack of dash; no idea how to put that here) happy ending of most others (even if it leaves us feeling a little unsatisfied in some ways).

I found the introduction, and any subsequent narration, extremely amusing and helpful to the story. It gives us a starting insight to the characters, and sets the scene extremely well:

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie 'The Graduate'. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

Oh yes, the music. I enjoyed the two Regina songs (Regina is a singer I can only take in small doses; these were spaced out nicely). I liked the use of a bunch of the oldies, and man, can that JGL sing.



In conclusion, I really, really liked the movie, and how it tries, in a small way, to talk about the ideas we have of love and relationships. Not a show meant for winning an Oscar, but a show to warm people's hearts.

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What the Dog Saw

Anyone who has read any of Malcolm Gladwell's other books will immediately crave the sense of order the rest of them have when reading What the Dog Saw. These are, indeed a collection of his articles, but while they are loosely grouped together, to do not serve to deliver that power-packed punch of an overall message that any of the others have. That said, this is a brilliant book to read in intervals, such as on the train, etc.

This book, however, serves to show the skill of Gladwell at picking out and understanding the problems of society. Honestly. I cannot explain it for you; you'll have to read the books for yourself. Gladwell has such a skill at presenting information, and slowly explaining it while holding on to the attention of the reader, that one gets the lesson, but practically has no way of explaining it with the elegance of the way he does.

He covers various topics; ketchup and mustard, hair dye, kitchen implements, breast cancer mammograms, the talent myth, interviews and first impressions (which I spent an inordinate amount of time before the coach interview reading), and lots of others. With it all he brings us his take; his lesson derived from these various brilliant anecdotes of his, of alternate ways of thinking, of What the Dog Saw.

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That's it from me about reviews. If you look through my archives carefully, you'll see a third; remember that IBE one that wasn't done? Look again.

~Russell

Coaching was pretty fun; met a lot of new friends there, and met a few old ones.

So if you're reading this, thanks a lot to Kian, Xavier, Darren, Aaron, Ing Sind, YingYang, Vivek, Beanie, Celine, Jacqeline, Fran, Kareen, Tracy, Brian, Joanne, Qi En, Beverly, and of course, Rossana, Trina, and Bong.

And Guffy, because Guffy is hugging my face and wants to be thanked as I'm typing this, for staying at home quietly or something. So yeah, thanks Guffy.

I, for some undeterminable reason, could not for the life of me get to sleep before Day 1, which resulted in me operating at about 30% on Day 1. Of course, paranoia landed me there an hour early, in which I spent finishing up What The Dog Saw.

I was there solo, because while I 'hates getting abandoned', I was abandoned :) The others have their Os, and Joee had to get her report slip.

Entered, and finally got to meet Rossana (after bugging her lots about coaching over Facebook messages; not my fault, Joel got me to ask her!) Sat together with group of the guys, and did the clock thing where everyone was assigned to an hour.

We were taught stuff (going to be very generic about lessons), mainly about the very essentials of coaching; What is a coach, and What makes a good coach? At lunch, swung by Amara foodcourt to get Jap food, and returned to AKLTG to eat, as there was no seating whatsoever. Worried that the lighting fixing structure was for the Log XD. Thankfully, it was for fixing the lights. Who'd have guessed.

Trina took over after a while, where we did some other lessons, mainly SuperMemory, which was rather fun to pick up again, and success principles, where we had to put up a skit. Having gotten the scenario "Puppyluv: Boy stalks hawt (pronounced hut) girl". Aaron was the boy due to his awesome shirt (Which read: "At my age, I've seen it all, done it all, but just can't remember it all." How could we not pick him?), while me and Kian (who popped up during lunch) were 'coaching'. Handled that okay. Did some knife tricks, and disarmed her once to show how it was done. FNU. After the word linkage (Link mouse and pen. We ended with 'hairy pen', which has become a repeated motif) So we packed up, and headed back.

Day 2, which was two days later, was a lot more fun, because we pretty much knew each other already. With an exception of the few others who went on another day, most of us knew who was who. Me and Darren met at the station and was slightly late, but saved by Jacqueline, who was later :), even if the punishments weren't meted out.

Trina quickly covered content, and at the first break, we attacked 7-11, having a lot of fun with associated microwave machines and the pre-packed food they had there. Protip: the fried rice they sell, is the THAI SPICED VERSION. Don't recommend it to your friends; that could cost you a cup of maggie noodles. Oh, and everything tastes better with ketchup. Don't make me invoke Howard Moskovitz here.

Further content, and the quiz game, and we found ourselves at lunch. We spent it at BK, one or two of us eating, the rest of us 1. Looking through Kian's phone, which he foolishly left with us, seeing pics of who apparently was his cousin, and one disgusting one whom we insist is his girlfriend (who has facial hair; you can pretty much guess it really isn't, but we like to suan anyway.) 2. Engaging in extensive ice wars, where for once my ice shooting skills (and smart use of the cup cap) saw me through, even through the time it was 4 on 1. Thank you to Subway, for reloading our ice supply.

Return saw us covering more content, and playing the 'Do You Love Me' game. I am disturbed by the fact that I was propsed to three times. All by guys. Of course, I said no, and of course, it's a game. I apparently only love people who: Have black hair, something else I forgot, and came on Thursday. Of course, just a game.

Then there was the lipstick saga, which left Darren the words 'Hi' on the back of his neck, me a smiley on my left hand which had everyone at Grandma's guessing the substance, and a few stains on my jeans. One line diagonally down the front of my right thigh, and one spot at my butt. If asked, I said that someone kissed my butt. It got a lot more funny when Bong took over, and showed us the red mark left by a marker he had in his back pocket.

Bong took us through some soft skills (the module of which I really, really want to go to) and mindmapping. Then was DA TEST.

7-11, our source of meals, gave us a very quick bite, and we were mugging. Managed to locate the notes written during training; spent the last few moments mugging it.

Then was the test, where I was the second to go for the interview. After joking with Kien and Ing Sind not to cheat, we started, where I (smartly) listed all of the content out on scrap paper first, before drafting the thing and then working on the final, with Kenneth telling me I should get to it. Interview went pretty well; was asked what I would respond if a participant told me that he wanted to be a wrestler. Got back, and Kenneth was right; I didn't have time to do Success Principles, and Values, Beliefs, etc. I got a few bonus marks from remembering the swinging log observations though. I think I can clear the test; waiting for Aaron to finish marking.

So yah, coaching was FNU. Can't wait to start doing it proper.

~Russell
Will be reviewing things next-post, unless something interesting happens then.

So I'm going AKLTG Coaching.

Status : Approved.

Hi. Please be on time and have writing materials prepared :)

Awesome sauce. I have no idea what I am in for. This is going to be fun...
Another thing I will happen to owe you guys. Will be bleeping off the nets tomorrow, see you all :)

~Russell
Has no idea what to expect.

Oly oly oxen free...
I'm free! I'm free!

My brother: You're not a Spartan. You have no right to say that.
Me: Wipes hand over helmet in a Spartan smile gesture.
My brother: Points middle finger.

Non-Halo fans won't understand. Don't try to.

---

So yes, bottom line, I'm free, I'm free!

Remaining exams, where Guffy left off:

Chinese turned out alright. Can pass. Which is new. I got all of the ciyu too, so that was nice. The cloze was just weird, and the comphre questions seem to be repeating themselves.

Maths was like FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

Paper one was alright; I'm vaguely optimistic. But paper two?! It was !@#$. It was freaking killer. I had to drop 20 odd marks. Heck, extent of how bad it was; MARKEN DROPPED MARKS. So yeah. Damn that. Mr Kwok said he thought that Paper 2 doesn't need a retest, so I'm vaguely optimistic that I won't need to be mugging like crap during this holiday, except for stuff for JC.

Lit was FUUUUUN, especially if, say, you spotted the question from a mile away. Yep, I actually guessed question two, (effectiveness of sending out message of authors), would come out, though I initially linked it to purely settings, not in such an overall question. Proof can come from Marken, whom I told the day before the test, and Adi, whom I told just before the test. It was easy, but to quote Marken, "It was easy if you actually PREPARED for the damn thing. GRAWR."

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So, for the stuff that happened to me... Friday after-school.

Right after the test, I had to go and write out my Chinese zhuantizhuoye. Which was boring. Luckily, Ian Chua suggested I shift and write it in the Darwin exhibition, which means I got air-con and a nice documentary to watch. The place was actually very nicely done, with a possible exception of the Fellowship of the Ring playing on the speakers, which me and Ian proceeded to shamelessly rip from the computer. Cough. I heard Godfather Waltz too, which was nice. Then there was the diversion of me standing in the camoflauge exit and jumping out at passerbys. Which was very, very, fun. Ian, of course, was responsible for getting people for me to jump out at.

So, then, I sat down next to some cute bunny sculptures and got to writing. Ian headed off, and I hanged out with this Sec 2 I totally didn't know, occasionally speaking up and sprinkling on some facts about Darwin that the documentary had missed. Had the guy chuckling throughout the entire thing. I kept on writing my assignment while still at the same time completely daoing it and listening to the documentary. We swapped documentaries, and watched the other one on Galapagos (by BBC, narrated by Tilda Swinton, a name that seems familiar from somewhere. Ice Queen in Narnia? (A character I only know from Epic Movie, not the original)).

Finished, and dumped it in the pigeon hole and hightailed it out of there. Met family, traveled to settle passports. For a certain reason; guess. Faced with ridiculous waiting times, we went out to have some toast, which tasted like Marie biscuits, right down to the aftertaste. It was bizzare. Then dad stayed back to collect his, while the rest of us headed down to Ion first; our intended dinner destination. Apparently one gets a shorter queue to wait in if you screw up your application, like paying 70 cents via nets instead of 70 dollars. Also, they return the 70 cents.

We had dinner at a Japenese restaurant Mom has been meaning to bring us to, and the food there was awesome. It's the one near the underpass to Wheelock, forgot the name. The food was awesome. Mmmm. So I headed over to Borders (at Wheelock) to check out the few-months old gift card I got from the principal, by just going up on the stage (it's the 'Do you want money' trick from AKLTG, so I practically scammed :)) Turns out I had a non-expirable 15 bucks in it, and family hanged around Borders while I decided. I was torn between What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers is awesome), and Have a Little Faith, the new Mitch Albom book. I gave up What the Dog Saw, since I reasoned that my mom would by it anyway. So after putting down Death: A Time of Your Life, insisting to myself that buying it would be no use, I got Have a Little Faith. Flipping through it while my bro was in the toilet highlighted a horrifying fact; it was a religious book. You'd have guessed, from the title, wouldn't you? Sheesh. So there was another adventure where we returned it and swapped it for What the Dog Saw. Which turns out, like all Gladwell books, is well written, but for me a tad bit disorganized, and harder to follow than Outliers.

I had my head buried in the book on the way home; where upon reaching, me and my brother got to Halo 3. We cleared the most horrific of levels, Cortana, on Legendary. Which was tough nuggets. Really, really tough. Hellish. But we have proven; nothing can't be cleared in Halo with enough Plasma Swords. Though my brother killing me a few times just to get my swords wasn't very nice. Yes, I was Flappy, Arbie, or whatever you choose to call him.

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As for Sunday, I was dragged to the Red Cross International Bazaar? by my mom, to meet an ex-student of hers, who spent the day dressed as an Imperial Red Guard. We saw him at the door, but he was busy (guarding S.R. Nathan, who had arrived on the scene), so we went to get some chow first. The Beef Brisket burgers from Hard Rock, labeled 'Ambassadors of Rock', are great. So we went to meet the Red Guard, Dominic, took photos with the stormtroopers as well, and the R2-D2 that the Boba Fett (out of costume) was secretly controling in his bag. My mom liked the kid Boba Fett too, which she found cute. Before leaving, mom finally relented, letting me buy cotton candy. To my horror, it was $2, not the $1 coupon we had left. So I went looking around, and picked up some unused coupons. Problemo, solvedo! My mom was laughing at me doing that; reminiscent of the time spent picking up coins in London (in defence, I made a hundred pounds in a year that way). No, I did not see any Ivy person. Who is that, anyway? :)

We bumped around Wheelock (again), which has some pretty good, if rather unseen, shops, and ate at a ramen place in Ion. Then drove home and had crabs with neighbours. I have awesome neighbours.

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So yes, I'm just covering events that need to be covered before they get old. I have a lot more fun stuff on the way, which I can't exactly do now.

Expect:
-Treatise on eating Gummies
-Movie Review on 500 Days of Summer (which I watched today)
-Parts of my writing list and stories, like Crazy Chick Who Killed Herself (thanks Crystal) or Saying Goodbye-Facebook of Death (thanks Stace)
-Few poems I have from here and there
-Other really cool thoughts and such I have which are too awesome to be put into words, or I'm too lazy to find words. Just take my word for it, it'll be good.

~Russell
needs to get about to writing, and stop procrastinating more.

boss says that physics made him an utter wreck from worrying, but it turned out okay. the mcq was unnerving, but the open-ended were much more consoling. apart from dropping a few marks, boss was quite happy about it. he's wary about getting too optimistic, but he thinks it's going to go quite well.

expect some screams tonight. boss is studying chinese, which is 'against everything (he) has ever stood for'

~guffy
is fluffy.

hello?

this is guffy here. if you don't remember me, i'm russell's "personal equivalent of a teddy bear", the one in the facebook album. sorry about the lack of caps; it's hard to use the shift key when your paws are a finger apart from each other, and i'll be damned if i have to walk to and fro pressing caps lock.

i'm typing this out while boss is busy studying and losing his mind. he says the two activities are related.

he says that he's cleared three tests and there are five to go. he says english was kickass, ss was okay, and chem was kickass. he mentioned something about needing to pee really bad in the english test, and was forced to wait real long because of some stupid 15 minute rule thing, making his total waiting time an hour or something. he said he even had cramps due to holding on. he says ss was tough, and that he needs to learn how to write more. he also said chem was kickass, but spent 'so bloody long getting all the different words for unreactive'. he was apparently -impervious- to the answer. he's going for a gpa 4 for chem, boss says.

boss is studying. he says that the worse is coming on, it is physics then chinese than math, and he's not too sure how lit will turn out, either. so he's studying, fueled by lots and lots of coca-cola gummies. he says the proper way to eat them is to bite the top off first, than chew the rest of it. he's had a lot of them.

he's not happy that he finds it very hard to concentrate though. thermal physics was something that was giving him a lot of crap these few days, but he's worked it out. he is mostly studying, but sometimes stones off into space, staring at the ceiling 'making friends with shadows on the wall'. his room, being the attic, has become the 'ivory tower of acadamia' or 'prison for the crazy son in the attic' he says. he's also got plants vs zombies open, where he tends to his zen garden, where he sometimes stares at stinky the snail picking up coins that the plants spout. i know that last sentence sounded weird; no need to tell me dat.

oh yes, boss woke up really early today, apparently forgetting he doesn't go for his tuition class anymore. he misses the guys there at stalford, and the awesome teacher. he says mr. jay was very fun, even if his 'ang-moh' was a bit questionable at times.

boss gets very little recreational computer time a day, where he spends it pressing mousehunt, catching up on things, and occasionally posting a funny status update where he complains about studying, with all the students liking it, his foreign friends asking what 'mugging' is, and occasionally a certain someone finishing the lyrics.

i think all this studying isn't good for boss. he wants to invest in a straitjacket, though i know that's apparently always been on his list of wants, i think he might need it now. he can't afford to bounce off the walls of his room; the desk would hurt quite a bit, and not to mention one of the walls are glass. also, he spends a lot of nights ending up like the bunny:


but boss is tough, and he wants to see it through. his family are supporting him; his mummy is helping him all she can, and his bro is restraining himself from all out playing. also, i'm here, and he can cuddle me all he wants. it makes him feel better, and i study with him a lot. boss will pull through i think. wish him luck!

he's almost done with the cookie i administered him, i better end this now.

buhbai!

~guffy
russell will see you all next friday, when he's finally free.

Here's an official announcement; this blog is dead!

At least, for the time being. I have so many things I want to write about, but unfortunately, time does not permit.

So while I am doing my best to get to mugging; you'll have to wait for the big hash backlog post that comes after the EOYS.

Until, then, see you all!
~Russell




I told you I desperate.