Secrets

  By zarine | April 22, 2009 - 12:20 am | quotes
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“I wonder which is preferable — to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you’re depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin — everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone — and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you?”

— from The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Signals and Alarms

  By zarine | April 22, 2009 - 12:02 am | Products
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So I’m quite the nervous wreck.  Every night, when I’m alone at the apartment I share with my sister, I choose to stay up pretty late, usually until the wee hours of the morning, because I feel safer that way.  Sometimes when I hear sounds outside that I can’t identify or is too loud to be a small animal,  like a cat, rustling about, I go near the window to listen but I usually cannot summon enough strength to part the curtains to see for myself what’s going on outside.  Paranoid much? Well, I make no excuse. That’s why when I read about GE Alarm online, I made a mental note to look for something like that the next time I go to the hardware store. [I normally go there to buy butane gas for cooking.]

Well, the GE security system is quite more sophisticated than your normal home security system. I’ve talked to a friend who have installed a simple sensor and alarm on his front door recently, and since then I’ve been thinking that I need one, too. I almost always forget, until I saw the Web site for GE home security. They do have the high-tech stuff like security cameras and video surveillance. But, of course, I don’t need that. A simple sensor and alarm on the windows and the front door will do.

My actual worries about sleeping at night also stems from the fact that I’m not a light sleeper. I always fear that something may be going on outside my room and I will not know about it because I’m deep into the unconscious territory. Maybe that’s something I need to work on, but if it means I couldn’t have a good rest, then forget about it. An alarm system may yet be my best bet.

Lessons

  By zarine | April 21, 2009 - 7:09 am | Personal
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I’ve always known, and heard from personal stories of people I know, that it never does good to force a kid to pursue a line of study he or she has no interest in. When my brother passed the entrance examination in my alma mater, everyone in the family were so happy that we sort of all became half deaf to his pleas that he’d rather study somewhere else – in a school that caters to courses that he’d really want to take. I loved that place, and he did, too, for the entire year he stayed there. Now that another academic year is about to start, he told us again that maybe it’s time for him to transfer. He’s been looking at sample sites of IT job search and he realized that IT is where his heart is and where he is now wouldn’t  give him that.  Well,  I agreed with him. Besides, he told me he’d compose music for one of my old poems so how can I not be supportive?

Closure

  By zarine | April 20, 2009 - 1:08 am | -The Z Diaries-
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I have my dead and I have let them go,
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so at home in being dead, so cheerful, so unlike their reputation.
Only you return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock
against something, so that the sound reveals your presence.
Oh don’t take from me what I am slowly learning.
I’m sure you have gone astray if you are moved to homesickness for anything in this dimension.
We transform these Things; they aren’t real, they are only the reflections upon the polished surface of our being.

-from Requiem for a Friend by Rainer Maria Rilke

The poem talks about a literal, incorporeal ghost. I’m thinking about a metaphorical ghost – something the life of which have been long extinguished but is making its presence known, further proof that you can never get away from where you’ve been.  As you go through life, you go through phases and chapters, some of which are more significant than others. The significant ones can either be good or bad.  Whatever experiences that left marks, that affected how you view the world or how you deal with yourself and others, those are the memories that will forever haunt you (if it’s bad; if it’s good you’ll probably never want to let them go). Until you get your closure. Then they will just be memories;  ink on pages you’ll return to at will.

I wonder how many people never get closure. With every beating heart in the world, I am tempted to suppose that more than half of them are broken at any given time. Not romantically broken. Well, I mean not only.  Just think about how many sad songs have been written. Or why people love soap opera.  Moving on is one thing.  But closure is something you can never find on sale.  It will come on its own, in its time.  I was recently given this gift. I realized that there are some things in this world that you cannot explain. That there are some things that are meant to pan out exactly the way they did. If I’m wrong, then I’ll consider myself lucky. If I’ll tell you this story, none of you will agree with me. That’s why I’m not going to. Besides, I’ve made my peace. That’s all that matters.

There’s No Such Thing As Never Looking Back

  By zarine | April 15, 2009 - 5:26 pm | quotes
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When you’re young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away. You’re your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too – leave them behind. You don’t yet know about the habit they have, of coming back.

Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you’ve been.

-from The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

So How Was Your Weekend?

  By zarine | April 13, 2009 - 12:35 am | Angel, Latest News, Literature, TV, Whedon Shows
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Now that the longish (mine started on Friday) weekend is over, I’m not at all excited about the coming work days (who’s gonna be, really?). I can’t say that I had a productive, nor what should have been reflective, weekend. Like most of my nonworking days, I spent the entire holidays inside my apartment, with the exception of Saturday night when I went out to play badminton.

Here are a few notes on what kept me busy and some news that caught my attention:

 

sarah-chronicle-postersI started watching season 1 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: so far, so good. I’ve read that season 2, which had its finale last Friday, is even better. I’m not really drawn into action TV shows, or movies for that matter; guns ablazing and explosive action sequences do not interest me much, but I’m a sucker for dramatic voiceovers, so when TSCC started with that, with Sarah Connor talking about the love of a mother to her child, it got to me. I hope to finish the series before the Christian Bale Terminator movie comes out (although I don’t think the movie’s plot is tied to the show).

 

 

 

angel_tv_showNext, Angel. The Buffy spin-off is the only remaining Whedon show I haven’t finished watching (I’m currently on season 3, out of five). It’s a good show. Not Buffy, but good; funny and witty as well, although with less of the emotional punch. I’m trying not to like the characters so much because I know for a fact that they are all doomed, one way or the other.

 

 

 
spy-DH9The current Whedon show, Dollhouse, is getting better and better. Episode 9,  A Spy in the House of Love, is filled with plot twists and more revelations that kept me at the edge of my seat (make that my bed) for the entire 40 or so minutes. With this shot of Echo, though,I can’t help but think of Faith (the rogue-turned-good Slayer). Make that glass shard she’s holding wooden and she’s all ready to do some vampire staking.

 

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In celebrity couples news, Freddie Prinze, Jr., and Sarah Michelle Gellar are soon to become parents. Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec, also expecting their first child soon, tied the knot.

My book reading project – three books a week – didn’t go as well as planned, but I’m slowly going through the volumes I currently have while trying not to buy more books, at least until after I’m down to two or three remaining unread ones. Here are a couple of titles I’ve been reading for weeks now (hopefully, I’ll have the time and the inclination to write decent reviews later):

 

BlindAssassinThe Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood: One of the best books I’ve read. Ever. The prose is exquisite; the language is masterful and eloquent, which is not really a surprise because Margaret Atwood is a poet. The plot, not so much if you’re looking for a thrilling page-turner, but major kudos to originality: It has a story within a story within a story. As the narrator for almost half of the book, Iris Chase-Griffen, is laying down the events of her life and that of her troubled sister, Laura, we simultaneously read the novel that made Laura famous, The Blind Assassin, which tells the tale of mysterious lovers in hiding. Within Laura’s novel, the male half of the clandestine couple is spinning a science fiction yarn to keep his love interested.

 

birthday-leguinThe Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula Le Guin. Now this is one book I wouldn’t recommend to everyone. Le Guin’s science fiction is easy enough to access, as she writes about ordinary actions and transactions of day-to-day living albeit set in a futuristic and intergalactic setting (utopian societies, as they are called), but her themes may be a bit of a head scratcher, especially for conservative point of views. In this volume of short stories, of which I’ve read only the first two for now, the recurring themes of exploration of sexual identity in an androgynous society and its political and cultural implications are rife. Forgive my ignorance because I’m rather new to science fiction, but if this genre is meant to be otherworldly, then this book definitely represents it. It presents an entire new world of thought, with its own terminologies (say, wombsib for “brother” or “sister”). I feel incompetent to say much about Le Guin’s works so to quote a Guardian reviewer: “If you can manage the sentence ‘None of my hearthsibs had been sent off to the Fastness before their kemmerday’ without either laughing or falling into a rage, you will get on with this book. If not, there may be some issues.”

Cute Matchup

  By zarine | April 3, 2009 - 2:28 am | Badminton, Sports
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I haven’t talked about badminton for quite some time now because I’ve been relatively lazy to play since the start of this year. These past few weeks, though, I was able to join several queuing sessions (where you’ll show up at the court and have your name listed so you can play with random partners and random opponents). I’m starting to get addicted to the game again, and I do hope it will go on for some time. What better way to stay fit sans Slimquick Cleanse.

As if I haven’t said it enough, the thing I appreciate most about badminton is that I regularly see, and play with, people of all ages (10 up to 60 up). Last Wednesday, I was so amused, and a bit embarassed, with this particular matchup that sort of revealed how out of shape I am. I was partnered with a  lady who is about 50 years old; on the other  side of the net is a girl who is barely 15, partnered with another lady who is pushing 65. By the end of the game, I noticed that I was the one who is soaked in sweat and is having ragged breaths. All three looked mighty fine and ready to play the next set. More embarassing because I am an intermediate player, at the prime of life, who’s been playing for years. But I was very happy to see the older ones having the kind of stamina they have. My partner told me that she started training for badminton when her doctor recommended physical activity to counter body aches and hypertension.  I say she did very well.

Slayer Comma The: Look It Up

  By zarine | April 2, 2009 - 9:22 am | BtVS, TV, Whedon Shows
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Note: This is another crossover post, with a few changes to accommodate two previously separate ones.

My introduction to Buffy the Vampire Slayer came about when I was searching for a new TV series to watch. Ok, that didn’t sound right because the show ended in 2003, so it wouldn’t fall to the category of “new.” Anyway, I realized I’ve been watching too much X-Files so I decided to shift my attention some place else. Now, I’ve never really considered myself to be a SciFi/fantasy nut; ironically, my favorite movies (Contact, Meet Joe Black) and TV shows (X-Files, Taken, and now BtVS) all go beyond the realistic. I wouldn’t overanalyze the “whys” mainly because I don’t think I can point it out exactly. But the unique thing is, although I enjoy the visual effects and story progression of this kind of presentation, I tend to focus more on the human aspects – the emotions, relationships, struggles, and parallels to real life. I guess maybe, for me, the “fantastic” provides a whole new layer of intensity in sending the message across compared with in-your-face representations like in reality TV or soap operas.

Buffy1

In retrospect, after having seen all seven seasons through DVDs and after having spent a lot of time in fan forums, nitpicking episode by episode, I realized that the main thing that this show had done for me is that it sort of expanded my world and inspired me to pursue the art of creative expression, in whatever way or form it comes my way. It introduced me to names of brilliant people who did, and continue to, show how a little concept can go a long way and also how talent is important but hard work cannot be taken out of the equation.

It wasn’t a perfect show. Beyond that, it is rife with heartbreak, pain, and those things that make you want to look away because they aren’t pretty. I’m not even talking about the vampires, demons, or those rubber-faced ghouls, but about the life of this sad little hero and her sad little friends (who are, ironically, effectively funny). Here’s a girl who didn’t choose to take responsibility; it was shoved into her throat when she wasn’t ready but she eventually learned to embrace her destiny. She’s not a superhero. She’s not without flaws – she makes mistakes, she hurts her friends, she hurts herself, she makes wrong decisions, and at times she’s even incredibly selfish. But she saved the world … a lot.

… a magical dramedy, a ripping thriller and the smartest work of girls-kick-ass feminism ever crafted by a pudgy guy who’s into comic books. Sarah Michelle Gellar nimbly handled the show’s undead allegories for coming-of-age conflicts (her stunt double nimbly handled the rest). And the show unspooled a rich mythology, realistic family and relationship stories and the best Sondheimian musical episode ever written for hour long television. The demons and ghouls were comically rubber-faced, but Buffy’s spirit was achingly real. – The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME.

What made the show famous are the snappy dialogues, tons of witticisms, double entendres, and metaphoric storytelling. What made it lasting is that it can drive a stake through your heart if you’ll let it. It even has powerful witches, loyal human friends, a supercool evil-turned-lovelorn vampire, and a hilarious bunny-phobic ex-demon trying to be a regular girl who all helped make The Slayer’s world all the more beguiling. You won’t find more compelling characters in women’s shoes than here.

P.S. If you’ve always been curious about this show but can’t get past the ridiculous title (like I was for years), I suggest you start with the last half of season 2 because that’s where it really took off. You can always go back to the introductions later.