True friends stab you in the front.
—
remembering MJ
4/07/2009It still seem like a news that’s not so real. Because his voice is still very much audible when I tune in to the radio stations, his dance moves is still very much played out on MTV the last few couple of days. Probably a few more days or weeks before this piece of news becomes part of the ‘Memories’ and ‘History’ section. I didn’t expect his passing to have a bigger than expected effect on me but it did. For a life no greater than any other lives lost in Iran at the moment, so why does my tears flow when i listen to his songs on youtube? I guess it’s the one that has moved you personally that leaves you feeling really sad about his passing and there’s no grander reason than this.
It saddens me. But I’m glad that his music lives on. Music don’t usually save lives, but it has the ability to change lives if you allow it to. Whatever names that people prefer to call him, I’d rather remember him for the many songs he gave us, the most fitting way in which MJ should be remembered as.
the passing of king of pop
26/06/2009The news that shocked me in the morning. Yesterday, I was just listening to Billie Jean on youtube. For all the courtsuits and scandals that suddenly seemed so insignificant, the world mourns the passing of the one and only King of Pop.
I’m not a fan of MJ but it’s impossible not to know his songs. It’s everywhere and i hear it all the time. On radio, on tv. It’s so common that it’s almost a given, that this man and his music is always there, whether is it during a dancing saturday night, a geography class or a dance competition. And to realise that his music has revolutionalized pop music. And all these people who are always imitating his moves, his dances, either in awe, in respect or in mockery.
For a star that has soared so high, higher than anyone has ever reached in this generation, his last moments were probably an extremely lonely one. RIP Michael Jackson. The legacy you’ve left behind, the music that changed the world. The world is still broken, but there are now people who are inspired and living the words from Heal The World.
The end, such a scary place to start
31/05/2009
Yesterday, came back from the appreciation dinner. The theme was geek look, and it was fun.
But the real stars of the night are really the 14th comm, it’s their graduation party. Amidst the crazy antics and stuff, i kept thinking about just what was on each of their minds. Maybe not during the party itself, since it’s surely one hellavu logistics as well, but when the party ends and the music stops, what’s playing on their mind as each of them make their silent way home.
I wasn’t very close to any of them, so I wasn’t in the best position to know and understand the going-ons behind the scene. But one thing I’m pretty damn sure, is that this is one hellavu cca, even if it’s not visibly obvious to anyone outside the circle. Why else would the seniors and grand seniors make a beeline for just about every HI involved events everytime? Why else would we still identify strongly with the entity when we are no longer officially on the roster roll? So the amount of sacrifices, the amount of dedications, the late nights clocked in, the memories forged, for the comm really isn’t too difficult to imagine.
Sometimes, we try to quantify an experience using the amount of memorable memories inked on our little brains or the lessons that we picked up along the way. I would prefer to base it on the intensity of the aftermath at the end of every journey. The greater the impact of it, the harder it is for you to start all over again.
The end, such a scary place to start.
Every ending, is a new beginning.
I know a thing or two about endings. It’s still seemingly fresh that I still dream of it sometimes. 13 August 2008 to 17 January 2009, the greatest experience of my quarter-century long life. Drawing to a close then, it felt terribly terrible. I was officially an exchange student at LiTH, but in truth, I went to the school of life. My memories are filled with countless laughter and fun, but memories do fade and gets superceded. It’s the little lessons we picked up along the way, from one another, that remains significant, and its significance can only grow with age. Like the building stones of the first foundation of the person that we could be in the future.
When the parties end, and the music stops, that’s when we reflect and realised what a great deal we’ve been through. It’s like putting the full-stop after the last sentence of an amazing chapter in the diary. What awaits? I don’t really want to find out, till I’m totally done immersing myself in what have just happened.
Chungking Express
21/05/2009
Time’s gone by, sometimes you look for the closest evidence that you’ve grown up indeed. Most of the time, after a couple of vindications, followed by a couple of false dawns, you wonder if those are mere illusions accidentally happening at the same time.
Chungking Express aka 重庆森林 is a 1994 film. I was 9 years old during 1994. Couldn’t have watched this movie then. I probably watched this during one of the movie’s rerun on tv somewhere between the mid to late nineties. I was very young then, and I thought this film is boring. Just a couple of whirl-ish camera angles. Besides, I never really understood what’s going on exactly. So my memory of this movie is pretty vague. Almost dreamlike – I think it really took place, but i can never be too sure.
Fast-forward 15 years on, I’m 24 years old this year, the age of Takeshi Kaneshiro’s character in the movie (with no intention to attempt to draw any possible comparison. I swear I’ll never try. Just unbeautifully imperfect coincidence that’s all.) I think I’ve probably watched parts of this movie during one of those reruns on local tv over the past 15 years, but again, I’m not too sure.
Just on this fine evening, I suddenly thought of Mijung, who had gone missing, and I decided to watch this movie properly once more in its whole entirety. 1 hour 37 minutes, I enjoyed it. Like how I enjoyed 2046 though a lot of people still hates me for dragging them to the theatre for that movie. That’s the surest sign of growing up. That the kinetic motion on your clock is no illusion. It feels like over the years, all you’re doing is accumulating experiences, your imaginations and your thoughts. When you reach a certain amount of quota, you gain access to different understandings. You began to understand things that you never used to understand.
Like the retirement speech I heard this morning, if life is divided into 3 stages, I’m probably at the brink of the 1st stage, sauntering awkwardly into the 2nd. Gaining the number of candles on my birthday cake seems exciting. Surely more heartbreaks ahead along the way, but all of these are slowly easing me into the better understanding of the next great movie.
- – -
internship…about 30 working days left. I’m not a great fan of countdowns. I didn’t even really do it for my ORD. But this time, I truly felt that I’ve overstayed my welcome.
la vie en rose
14/05/2009
La Vie En Rose (2007)
I’m not really a fan of biographies, more so for eulogy. How is it fair to summarise one’s life, if they’ve lived for so many years of happiness and pain, to have it summarised into a book of five hundred odd pages or a movie of two and a half hours? How fair is it to be judged on one addiction, one climax, one eye-catching moment of your life, only to have the rest of it overlooked with casual opinions passed on from one medium to another? Or is it, in truth, we’re only living for that one moment?
Thanks to this movie, I got to know about the life story about Edith Piaf, probably one of the greatest popular french singer ever.