Reflections 7: love – random thoughts.

some people think love is blind.

some people think that statement alone is so cliche, let alone it being true.

others just think it defers from case to case.

what do YOU think?

or more importantly, what do I think?

the power of love
often i think love can “make” people do things they would never normally do. like for example, you would miss something you’ve never missed, just to have time to see this special person. and its not like you’re gonna complain about it. you’re not exactly elated about for example, missing the last episode to your favourite show that has no repeats, but then again, its not like you’re complaining. you just willingingly do it for the person. okay maybe im not making much sense here. so lets move on if you don’t get me.

does love last?
i’ve got this random question running through my head right now: does love last? i think the almost immediate answer that would pop up in any sane person’s head would be no. but then again, just think about it, when does your mum stop loving you? or your sibling? (unless its some major dispute over property or inheritence when you’re all grown up of course – but then again, it isn’t some melodrama) ahh but the real question lies in whether love with opposite sex, (you know which kinda love) lasts.. so does it? or does it not? i think it’d have to be a no still. i mean family love is different from love love. and even after marriage, love doesnt last either, despite the newly developed ‘kinship’ between the two. family love doesnt quite exist between the husband and wife either. somehow, the “spark” just comes to an end and the love just erodes away with time.

when love is over
people always say there isnt a point in crying over spilt milk, or in this case, the broken relationship, simply because it doesn’t help. i’d have to disagree to that (maybe thats cos im a HUGE crybaby – and im sure mister ryan has no objections to that. after all, even he has seen me in “action”). yea i mean hell yea, crying isnt going to fix anything and neither is it gonna help ease things up or turn back time but hey, what fixes things or turns back time? nothing. nothing in fact. this is, but the physical aspects to things. crying, in my opinion, helps give temporary relief to the ‘victim’. its kind of like “letting it all out” as opposed to keeping the hurt inside and pretending to be happy. so it sorta like gives emotional ‘release’ and the person feels slightly better after “letting it all out” a.k.a crying. since it has its benefits, i dont quite understand why people always try to stop others from crying when they do. i mean if its gonna help her feel better, just let her let herself go for awhile instead of bottling everything inside her, which might just increase her burden and trauma (esp by having to act strong and holding back the tears). i sorta came to a conclusion about these people (the ones witnessing the crying). i think they’re just afraid to see the ‘victim’ cry and they feel like they don’t know what to do or how to handle the situation so they only offer such “cliche” forms of consolation like “hey.. don’t cry” and something along the lines of “what happen to the strong XXX i used to know?”.

so with that, my random thoughts on love comes to an end.

i’ve said my piece.

how about you? what do YOU think?

Reflections 6: IJ Girls

we caught “autograph book” in class last week and boy did it bring back tons of memories.
i mean afterall, the film itself revolved around my primary/secondary school life – the girls who acted in the film, the uniforms they wore, and even the location where they shot the film!
i remember the school proudly showing this video to us during the many after school assembly periods, time and again.
it was hell of a bore.

but somehow… watching it in ryan’s class last friday, it triggered off this whole nostalgic “i miss IJ” feeling in me.

Being a pure-bred IJ girl (and very much proud of being so), i’ve never quite had any encounter with boys till i got to JC when i was 17. you could have imagined how overwhemled i felt that i wanted to just quit college cos it was too much for me to take. okay but then again, this is another story for another day.

going back to IJ girls, we’ve always been rumoured to be bitches, sluts, snotty know-it-all rich brats who think we’re oh-so-smart….. oh the list goes on and on i’m sure…
i’d have to admit that even i myself felt that way about my fellow school mates at times.
well, it is a fact that IJ girls in general are well…. slightly more bimbotic and attention seeking (and not to forget, LOUD) than girls from other schools (excluding those who come from all-girl schools of course!)
but then again, there are the minority of us who simply couldn’t wait to get out of IJ when the bitchiness got to a whole new level.
i’ve got mixed feelings about being an IJ girl though.
sometimes im proud to be one.. i mean after all, the school IS one of the oldest and most prestigious schools in Singapore and it is a fact that we excel in well, the arts.
(forgive my biasedness for i’m very much inclined towards the arts as opposed to the science streams)
well.. there were also the times i hated IJ like hell..
i hated the girls.
i hated how everyone was backstabbing everyone.
and how they thought that bitching about others was considered a great bonding activity.
i hated the bitchiness and the degree of “fake”ness.
and not forgetting the posers of course.
all in all, you can say i hated the people.
you know.. i’ve been told time and again that your best friends in life are the ones who came from your secondary school but i’d beg to differ seriously.
in IJ, i learnt what reality is.
how its a dog-eat-dog world out there and i started to distance myself from everyone.
from the young cheery talkative primary school kid that everyone was snatching to have recess with (yes, i’m afraid i’d have to reveal, i was a popular chubby lil kid whom everyone loved to hang out such that i had to create and give out timetables for whom i’d sit with for recess on which days… GOSH! the nerve i had!), i slowly evolved into someone who kept her problems to herself and only portrayed her happy side, becoming as fake as the people i hated.
i got hurt friendship after friendship.
it was often about how some girl (who was supposedly my best friend then) bitched about me and revealed all my secrets to a group of other girls and it spread like wild-fire.
though the girls were terrible, there were the plus-sides to being an IJ girl.
the primary school hymns we sang after recess and during mass… how we had dance movements and actions while we sang each hymn and how the older primary school kids would look after us as though we were their real siblings.
i remember the little hymn book we had.
it was one helluva colourful thingy which had LOADS and LOADS of children’s hymns in it!
cool huh??? (:

well anyway, people have recently (okay or not so recently) slammed IJ girls in the newpaper, labelling them as “easy [with the opposite sex]” but obviously, retracting their nasty comments (and very personal opinions – which is darn hell unprofessional of the writer i’d have to say) and making a public apology to the school (:

IJ girls always win. (i’d like to think so.)
oh yayy.

Reflections 5: losing the inspiration for this (and for everything else).

today, lets start off with a: 

maybe if this wasn’t considered as homework…

• i wouldn’t feel so stressed about what to write and what not to write.
• i wouldn’t have writer’s block and have ZERO inspiration.
• i wouldn’t be at a loss each and everytime i face this blank white box.
• things would just flow naturally and smoothly outta me.
• it wouldn’t be such a bore.

Okay lets just admit it, i’m no good at this. Thinking about having to reflect makes me groan and come up with all sorts of excuses to avoid doing this. but no.. i know that somehow, one way or another, i’ll still have to get it done. i don’t know what’s gotten into me. i used to have such a flair for writing and it used to brighten my day up being able to get things and issues outta my system, which in a way is a healthy kinda thing. But now for me, i’ve gotten lazy. I’m losing the interest to write maybe cos i have nothing to talk about; or rather, what i CAN talk about, people may not necessarily want to read. i’ve always been more comfortable writing to myself than to an audience; like keeping a diary whereby i’m just plainly talking to myself and i don’t have to fret about what blahblahblah will think of me if i write and voice my opinions about issue XXX. here’s an inside scoop to see how my brain works:

“hmm.. i feel so much like writing about this… but should i?”

“aww cmon.. dont be a wuss! you think anyone will care what you think about that?! no one’ll give 2 hoots!”

“well.. no harm right? i mean if not, i dont have the drive to go write about something that doesn’t interest me but having to pretend it does”

“bullshit. your job here is just to get it done and not worry too much.”

 There. This same conversation (well close to it) goes through my head everytime i’m about to write a piece. like for example, the discussion board for intro to film, this and even things like contemporary issues work we’re given. how much impact can a small being like me have on bigger things out there?

 im sorry if im starting to sound so negative or if this is becoming depressing to read. its just that things have been so down for me lately that everything’s starting to look bleak and i’m starting to have doubts that i’ll ever bounce back to where i used to be. first, my laptop got stolen/lost. then i’m starting to rub off my bad luck to the people closest to me. on top of that, the laptop that i borrowed basically just spoilt (i dont know if its on its own or if im the cause) and this weird thing popped out of the laptop before the hard drive died on me. moreover, my photography assignment was still in the laptop and i had yet to burn it for submission. my ez link card got confiscated by this unreasonable bus driver and im stuck without a card for 5 business days or even more. that means having to bring about a bag of coins and having to pay adult fare from now onwards. ): this is so depressing. talk about an Aristotle tragedy man. -sighs- whats lacking in this tragedy is that there is no turn for the better (yet, i hope) and the protagonist doesn’t have a goal in life to achieve (unless you consider wanting to get out of this whole chain of bad luck). so if this really is similar to an Aristotle tragedy, whats the knowledge that im lacking to get myself out of this dump? is there something that i should be doing or should have done that i have not already? is there something that i’ve offended that i’ve not known about? I need answers man. I need directions or A DIRECTION. I’m feeling so lost and listless now that nothing cheers me up much really. I just want to know how to make it better and what i’ve done wrong so i can do something about it. this is bothering me quite a bit for some time, i’ve noticed but before yesterday, i just couldn’t pinpoint what it was that was bothering me. now that i know, ive got a thirst for more information and knowledge.

well anyhow, we’re supposed to write a letter to someone in our past.

the first kinda thought that came to my mind was that it was going to be emotional; sad and angry at the same time. and that writing it would stir these emotions up in me – i would cry while writing and get all pissed off all over again at the person i’m writing to. my life hasn’t been all merry and happy all along. there were points in time (in fact, many!) whereby i just felt so much. so basically, i think writing this piece wouldn’t be of much difficulty for me. Instead, i would think that sharing it, would be very much harder for me cos everything’s kinda personal and i’m definitely not the type of person to open up very easily to the people around me. i sure hope i don’t get all emotional tomorrow when i read my letter to the past out.

till then, peace out (and hopefully more luck for me, PLEASE!)

Reflections 4: the one thats been long due.

Okay, so I’ve been a naughty girl.

I haven’t been doing my reflections on time.

But hey! I’ve got a perfectly ‘valid’ (in my opinion, that is) reason okay!

The workload is starting to get to me.

“why then are the others able to get their work done on time?”, one may inquire.

You see, different people operate in different ways.

Like say for example if you compare Vivian and myself.

She’s REALLY efficient in getting her work done (no really, I mean it) whereas I, miss yeo, can take eons to get ONE piece of work done!

My speed of working or making progress when doing work is sometimes close to zero even after an hour of working at it.

So you can pretty much imagine how late I stay up till on certain nights to get all my work done while my dear friend Vivian is happily in dreamland.

-sighs in envy-

I cannot help but just envy the lucky her.

So shoot me for being a slow worker.

 

 

Anyway, back to business.

Throughout this past week, I’ve been pondering on what to put in my reflections, be it while poo-ing, brushing my teeth, or bathing even! (Okay, so my brain seems to function at its peak in the toilet… note to self: deal with it you moron!)

So we caught this movie (which I enjoyed) in class – ‘Election’ starring Reese Witherspoon (ahh.. her husband’s so HAWT! –fawns-) and Matthew Broderick about this high school girl who has this immense desire to win the student council election though there is hardly any need for it since initially, she was the sole candidate running for president. –shrugs and rolls eyes the Mr Emilio way- (we also see later in the film that there is only ONE person running for vice-president! – ahh there! See?! There wasn’t even a need for an election in the first place! Gee man.. Was the election for show or something?)

 

 

While doing my very ahem, serious business in the toilet one night, it suddenly hit me that I could talk about my experience in being a school prefect (waaaaaay back in primary school) as well as my thoughts about the student council in the college I went to for a year.

 

 

Well you see… I was one of those stuck-up, snobbish school prefects in primary school (whom all the other kids was certain they would murder, one fine day) who thought we were elites in the school being the “chosen ones” and having the privilege to go through a year of training (prefects-in-training we were before we went through the whole “prefects’ investiture” process and were “promoted” prefects. Oh yayy!)

 

 

I remember being able to get away with absolutely everything just because I was a prefect. Not to forget, the many concessions of being a prefect which comprised of being able to go for recess twenty minutes before the supposed release time (missing close to one period of lessons every day before recess), being able to basically do everything that the ‘commoners’ couldn’t do and get away with… And who could ever forget, getting back at those who did no justice to you (eg: those who disliked us or refused to lend us their pretty pencils and what-not) by finding fault with them and giving them a booking slip thus being about DETENTION. Muahahahahahaha!! –throws back head in evil laughter-

 

 

The most ironic thing was that we were to book those who were running along the corridors and to do so, we ourselves had to run after them to get their details. I recall the times whereby I was running along the corridor (for my own reasons) and was stopped by teachers. I ended up cooking up stories and lies about trying to catch the other girls in front of me who were running; to get their names down for detention. To add to that, since prefects didn’t have to go for assembly in the mornings because we were patrolling the different classroom levels, I hark back to the memories where I would ever so hardworking-ly copy my friends’ homework, scribbling untidily and making sure I got myself covered all the time and kept myself out of trouble.

 

 

It keeps me in awe till today, how my mind at a tender age of 9, worked so miraculously evilly.

 

 

Rest assured though, that the mechanics in my mind have long since slowed down as I age as every day passes, my mind becoming all haggard and wrinkly, that I no longer think and work the way I did as a child.

 

 

 

 

Reckon why?

 

 

Well that’s cause I’ve evolved in a far much worse villain – SEXY SONIA!!

 

HURHURHUR!!!

Reflections 3: reflect i shall.

What was your reaction trying to get the stories out? Was it limited? Difficult? How’d it go?

THIS (ryan’s question to the class of course), basically marked the start of week 3’s tutorial session.

Almost half the class found it easy, whilst the rest found it hard keeping to the word limit.
As for myself, I think it was a mixture of both (but I secretly [okay, maybe now it's no longer a secret. ohh bummer.] think i’m more inclined towards the ‘hard keeping to the word limit’ group)
Why?
The reason’s simple.
I’m a helluva nag.
The super long-winded me couldnt get myself to stop at 50.
I just kept going on and on till it struck me that it was only supposed to be 50-words long.
Another barrier was that I found it hard to start.
I tried using the method Ryan taught us on day one.
It didn’t help.
The only source of inspiration seemed (it appeared at that critical point of time) was the toilet, very unfortunately.

Anyhow, a few of us were picked to read out one of our very creative piece of works.
Oh boy was i one of the “lucky” few chosen ones, especially since i was the first to be picked. (i know i know, darn.)
So i read out my ingenius creation – the stalker (which apparently wasn’t so original after all).
the rest of the class was to work on our comments in the following format:

Author:
Title:
What it’s about:
What works:
What doesn’t:

Summary
Dom: Rejection taken wrongly
Colin: Loser trying to get girl, doesn’t get her and kills her.

What works
Vinod: people get the story easily and don’t think of anything else. Situation is imaginable.
Ben: Knife part was interesting (Ben didn’t expect the knife to appear, coming from a nerd)
Dip: the thought of a sixth-grade stalker killing someone; demented, unconventional.
Atiqah: -liked the story-

What doesn’t
Vivian: ending is unexpected/weird (didn’t expect the nerd to kill her)
Ben: its just what the nerd said; you just don’t expect that coming out from nerds.
Ryan: overly cliché – opening. A lil absurd, but its more like a black comedy to him, no issues with age.

With that, I shall try to work on new stuff with their comments and hopefully, it’ll help me write better (:

Out of the other few stories which were read aloud in class, i thought Vani’s flow in her story was really good, and that Colin’s story was really cleverly written (very innovative and fresh, in a way.) Amongst all of our stories, i found myself liking Dip’s the most. His use of language was really good; description – such that he didn’t have to state that it was boxing he was writing about. superb job!

Then we went through the whole Aristotle presentation thing.
Oh boy, there’s just so much ancient-ish stuff going through that guy’s mind man!
I’m finding it hard to grasp all his weird (but good, since it’s recognised by many people) theories and longlonglong (and complicated) names!!

Gee man.. Writing has always been a simple task for me.
However, its starting to become no easy feat.
I’ve lost all my creative juices.
-sigh-

Reflections 2: yet again, i reflect.

Ryan paired us up for the in-class exercise to work on our openers.
I got Ben and he got me (yea, like duh!) so here’s MY work (using his opener of course!):

In despair, he watches the clock tick his life away. It is the dawn of a new day and having little time to spare, Jang-Woon sets off feebly to Mount Jeong-Seum where the secrets of the supreme Loong-Teh lie, hidden deep beneath the rocks. As the enemy nears the treasure, Jang-Woon grows weaker with each passing day, unable to ward off their almighty powers and indomitable strength. Without unraveling the mystery his forebearers died to protect, he will have to vanish from the face of the earth along with his ancestors. The evil troops of Seong-Hee must not be the ones who recover the ancient secret of Loong-Teh for should they do so, no other warrior, no matter his strength and power, will be able to conquer Jeong-Seum and the people will suffer a much worser fate than they are suffering now.

After time for the exercise was up, Ryan raised a question and asked if it was easier doing this week’s exercise (having a variety of openers to pick from) or last week’s (having just one opener); The general opinion was that it was easier this week. For me though, i feel both have got their pros and cons. For example, it is easier if we are given a range of openers to choose from. However, this can also work against us as we may not be able to come to a decision in time and may lack focus on the opener we picked, thinking of the ‘what-if’s. (okay, i hope i’m making some sense here)

Anyway, Ryan asked us to read out our stories from this week’s exercise. I got picked (again! gee man..). My mistakes apparently, was that I lacked the active voice and that I was confusing everyone with all my characters’ korean names (whoops!).

After going through Colin’s as well as Ben’s work, Ryan posted another question to us: Since one of us wrote the opening line and the other filled up the contents of the story, who then, is the author of the story?

Vinod voiced out his opinion that the author is dependent on the type of the opener whereas Atiqah mentioned that the story is still very much ours (the person who wrote the rest of the story) although there was provision of the first line from someone else because despite all that, the content (and meat of the story) is at the end of the day, belongs to us. I would have to agree with the latter on that.

Ryan then proceeded to ask us to evaluate the originality of the story this way, since it is after all, written by two people (the one who wrote the opener and the one who continued the story).

As the lesson progressed, Ryan posted an intriguing question to the class: Who do you think was the first person to tell stories? (he even hinted that it can be traced back to the era of cavemen). Well, after much silence (if i don’t recall wrongly), he finally gave us the answer – Aristotle – a greek philosopher who wrote a 40-page memo that explained how stories are told (and thus being the first person who explained how stories are organised).

We were then left with an assignment – 50-word stories which should have:
♥ distinctive character
♥ complete sentences not necessary
♥ can work with dialogue
♥ the title helps stories

and thus, my reflections come to an end.

till next time, adios folks!

Reflections 1: the virgin experience of reflecting over storytelling.

Behold all unsexy commoners! For yee’ is sexy and sexy is me!
All hail sonia, your sexyness! (it looks nicer spelt this way, says your sexYness.)
-imaginary people kowtowing-

sidenote: oookay, maybe this whole ’sexy’ saga has gotten into my head quite a bit.

Instead of starting straight with my reflections of the lesson itself, i shall go ahead with the usual “date all the way back to….” series:

The Pre-Rigmarole
Storytelling.
Just the name itself gave me the heebie-jeebies.
My friends mocked at the module, thinking i’d be taught how to read out aloud and articulate stories to children or the elderly at the community libraries (one of those “storytelling time” programmes for kids or golden agers).
It didn’t take long before i started to ooze of contempt for the module.
Walking in to the classroom that day, i expected little of the lesson or worse still, nothing.

The Rigmarole
I was slightly late that ‘fateful’ (to add some melodrama, if you will) friday and walking down the chilly (another addition to the melodrama ‘family’! yeeehah!) corridor, mr C (no prizes for guessing who!) and i were discussing chirpily whether or not the lecturer would be cute ahem, VERY serious matters when we finally got to the entrance of the classroom. By the time we got into the classroom, almost everyone was in their seats filling up a white card, which by the way is a interesting and great idea as a lesson ’side track’ just so that we learn new things about one another (lecturers all think we already know one another but no..); hence, a good way to start things off. We also played the ‘name ‘ game hence the name i got myself – sexy sonia!

I soon came to realise that Mr Ryan isn’t boring like other lecturers. Why so? I found that he had a super innovative way of introducing himself. In my opinion, he used a 2-pronged approach: we learn about him and the way he does it helps in storytelling (in a way..). During the lesson, I understood something I never once realised: stories are actually being conveyed through many mediums. A few examples would be films, books, video games, comics, music and news. In addition to that, I learnt that when having ‘writers’ block’, we should just start writing something (even if its in no relation one way or another to the topic itself) just so it gets us started. Very useful advice I’d think. (:

Oh and we did an exercise with an extremely weird ‘opener’ – here’s my very own version:

Dominic puts on his hula girl outfit and enters the temple. Thinking his costume will serve as a good distraction, he elbows his way through the large crowd and starts to hula dance. Without the need of much effort, he succeeds in drawing the crowd’s attention away from the million-dollar tablet. Meanwhile, his partner-in-crime, Alvin, weaves his way across the people who now are very much amused by Dominic’s antics. Upon reaching the altar, he spots the much-acclaimed tablet of Chi-Won. In his attempt to discreetly steal the tablet, Yan, the caretaker of the temple yelps out in alarm.

To sum things up: In short, Mr Ryan gave a totally different approach to storytelling. Storytelling is more like scriptwriting but isn’t so much so because there are many other avenues of telling stories and not just via films. Storytelling – I love!

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.”
-Confucius-