Hostage

The synopsis first took me to a similar setting from Six Sense. A guy haunted by his failure to handle a situation he was supposed to be good at. After watching the movie, I saw a different ending. And when I browsed through the deleted scenes and extended scenes, I saw the internal conflict that they did not want to show in the theatrical version: He still cannot get over the event and is not coping with it as well as the theatrical version.

As a doctor, Death comes part and parcel of daily events. You can kill a patient. A doctor from Seremban onced tried to lecture us, that we have the licience to kill. You can issue the wrong medication, wrong dosage, or administer the wrong management. This is the licence that we own. Of making mistakes which may cause death.

But how do you cope with that knowledge? Just like Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis). He knows his job comes with a risk of losing lives, and in the first scene, he screwed up. Lives were lost. What pierced his heart, was the death of a small child. He could not let it pass him.

Honestly, even from my past post, I still don't know how to cope with Death when it comes.

But I think, knowing about this licence, is only the first step. Accepting it is the one that allows us to move on. For Talley, he could not accept it, and from the extended version, he was even toying with the notion of suicide. For one, how could you live by your mistake that took innocent lives? How could you carry on doing what you are doing? If you made a mistake, you can do it again. If you haven't, you could one day...

Then again, what is the principle of doing what you do?
It's about helping save lives. Taking risks to save lives.

The Island

This movie is about the whole issue of cloning. Rights, feelings, ethics.. The whole lot. It addresses most of the issues that are being debated today. But what strikes me the most, is the idea of letting them live in a staged, closely monitored environment. The story is that there was a great contamination, one that probably erases memory and behaviour... and as a result, survivors were found occasionally and reintroduced into this society. Here, they will live a mundane monotonous lifestyle. No knowledge of anything that happens in the real world, ie our world. No knowledge of sex, no knowledge of God.

sex,
It can't be helped. The need to reproduce is in us. Freud-ian philosophy. The instinct to survive and reproduce is built in us. If there is a defect and you don't have this, well, you will die off and will not have offspring which will think the same. You're a defect if you don't want to reproduce. So how do you train a few thousand clones to not have sex??? You can have rules, but you cannot stop them. Reminds me of George Orwell's 1984... not sure why...

God,
Lincoln 6 Echo: What is God?
McCord: When you want something and wish for it, He's the one who ignores you.
How do you explain God to a person who is doesn't know His existence? And the all time favourite question, will he still go to heaven? Basic idea is, a person can go on existing without that need. The society that was portrayed probably can go on living. But truth will be revealed to them. Irony: if you believe your world to be true, what if something this big reveals itself? What if you found out that what you believe in is false? I can't help but imagining Lincoln6 Echo (Ewan McGregor) as some sort of messiah. He thinks differently and has more questions than all the people there combined. He is envisioned of the truth and even ventured into it. And his goal in the end, was to liberate the people from their ignorance. Sounds familiar to me...

And of course another idea of God in this movie is the whole idea of cloning itself. And an idea given to me, is that humans are given the knowledge to interfere with fate, ie medical knowledge. We have found so many cures for the "bad omens of God". Diseases they are called now. And technology has led us to the finding of the cure for old age. We will never have to worry anymore, our insurance policy can give us what we need: a new liver, kidneys... Is this playing God?

The only thing that I can say is, I see stars of the LotR trilogy coming out in movies everywhere... Orlando Bloom in everywhere, Karl Urban in Bourne Supremacy, Miranda Otto in War of the Worlds, Sean Austin in 50 First dates, Elijah Wood in Sin city, Sean Bean in National Treasure and here. oh yeah, and from star wars movies, Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, and Ewan McGregor in everywhere and here.

Home

This my town... (click on the picture to take a closer look)

Shall We Dance

This movie is to dance, as Scrubs is for study medic. At least for me. Why scrubs? It's a source where I find some inspiration. The reason why I did Medic. The reason why I am still sticking to it. Though I get doubts about it, I still find the quotes and lessons from Dr Cox really inspiring. Watch it. Another drama full of quotes, House. Aptly named House-isms. And to spring back to real life, watch Grey's Anatomy.

Now back to Shall We Dance. What do I find interesting about this movie? It's about being happy. And finding out what makes you happy. And doing what makes you happy. Yep, a happy happy movie.

It's not much of the dancing. It's the happiness of doing something that had inspired you. Did you ever find a passion for something? Something that lifts your heart from all your worries and fears? Something that cradles you to sleep peacefully?

It all started with curiosity, something new, something that you may never had thought of. For John Clark, he was just curious about Paulina. This may start as a crush, or whatever you may call it. The reason he did it, he said becuase he wasn't truly happy. Makes you wonder whether in a alternate universe, he would have had an affair. But no, this little 'thing' grew into a passion for dancing.

He hid it from his wife, because he was ashamed of letting her know about how he was not happy with things now. Mundane job, same repeating words, same schedule everyday. He tried to go for a movie, but there wasn't any time. Saying you are not happy, would mean that the marriage was falling. But he didn't want to make the person he loved unhappy. Wouldn't we all do that? To live on, just for the person you love to be happy?

And what if the thing that makes us happy something shameful? Do we hide it from everyone, like Link? It's al because of social stigma. But what can you do? Do something that you really love and dream of, and in the end be the laughing stock of people around you. Which then will we choose? It's hard to choose.

All ended well anyway, the joy of dancing spreads among the characters and to the audience (at least for me)... I'm not saying I will get back to dancing, but the sense of finding an inspiration, something that will make me happy.

i leave you with a song from the movie:

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything
The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb
But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything
The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we're all too young to know
But I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
You ought to give me wedding rings

I've done it. I've done it... I finished it.

It's... well... definitely better than the 5th book... I predicted that she's pick on the small small stuff being mentioned, but this time, everything gets revealed and picks on the LARGER stuff... This was better than expected, had the twists and everything...

But I'm quite disappointed with her and her use of "snog". a little bit too much. It was definitely a built up from the 2nd book. I'm disappointed as the rate at it was going. like daisies...

Oh well, I can't spoil anything as it would probably breach the copyright and stuff...

the ending though... All I can say is I will definitely buy the last book myself. I want to know the continuation. I need to know. It's a must to know. It's information worth waiting for. though I am afriad of it's outcome.

... to Harry's coming of age

Fate is a funny thing. Call it whatever you want, but I feel that everything happens for a reason and it's somehow destined to happen.

Fate, it seems, have brought me back to Singapore... I am here, no longer in dreams, but physically here. The last time I was here was... well, a few months ago. The more I miss Singapore, it seems like I wanted to come back here. But when I'm finally here... I'm stuck in the house. And what could possibly deter me from venturing out into the streets of Singapore??

HARRY POTTER

Yup, I have the book, and I am reading it as fast as I can. I'm now at page 167 out of 607 pages. I told myself before this that I will try to refrain myself from buying the book until the cheaper (by less than HALF the price), but I couldn't. I have the book, and I didn't pay a single cent for it. Ain't it great?

Back to the book then...

Year 5
This isn't really about studying in Singapore, but I was still in Singapore at this time. I applied to be a house tutor, which basically puts me in higher than the block head. I don't have to study, but I have to tend to the welfare of the boarders. I had to do my share of administrative matters in exchange for a free stay in Boarding. And of course I needed to support myself to LIVE in Singapore, so I set out to find work.

I went to where my seniors used to work, as they had a fun time working there and earn close to a thousand dollars a month. So I decided to work there, but all didn't turn out well. The management had already got their business running and not keen on temporary workers. My seniors had a fun time because they helped the business from it's opening days. Everyone was learning with each other and enjoyed everything together. But now, they were quite established and had difficulty training us new people.

Most of my hours were concentrated on giving out flyers at the nearby escalator. Whenever they had a slow business day, our manager would come to me and observe and critique the way I did the promotion. He would "show me the way to do things" and when the business starts getting busy, he headed back and I continued the distribution. It irritated me at first, but I had to learn. I enjoyed giving out flyers. On the one hand, I didn't have to wait on tables, but I had to stand there without a chair for ages and ages, until they decided that the traffic is too slow or the business is roaring.

There were other restaurants in the area and their employees also had their share of distributing flyers. I made a few friends that way. We just stood there, giving out flyers talking to the potential customers, and occasionally chatted with each other. Some of them were like me, waiting for their A-level results and some were still studying.

Every morning, I was there at 11am to clean up the tables and laying out the utensils. When people came, I took down orders and served them drinks. Got ready the appetisers and served them. I distributed flyers. It was MONOTONOUS yet so many things that I could not adapt to. We all had some degree of scolding, and we adjusted from time and time. We learnt new things and were thought more difficult tasks. At the end of the day, we packed up the utensils and I had to throw away the rubbish. That was my day.

When my results came back, I decided to quit. To look for other jobs. And at that time, there was the SARS outbreak. The highest paying job at that time was the medical screening in schools as it was a high risk job. My friend and I took it. We made lots, just for that few weeks. And that was my last job. The money that I earned lasted until mid-May. After that, I was living off my parent's money. I failed.

Also, after the results, we had to apply for our university courses. I wanted to do medic, or at least dentistry. And given my history of interviews, I screwed everything up again. I got Engineering. I was offered the ASEAN scholarship. I could stay in Boarding for free and get free studies PLUS allowance. (my friend, Jonathan took my place instead and is enjoying what I could have...) But I chose to do Medicine instead.

So here I am, back in Malaysia. In IMU. Studying medicine.

Thus ends my career and life in Singapore... I still think back and really feel distant from all my friends that I have made then... I miss them all...

Cheerio.