HOCUS POCUS

If there is a questionnaire asking “if 1 is cynic and 10 is romantic, what is your number?” My answer is 5 coz I think that I am more on cynical type of person. But, doesn’t mean that I have no romantic side at all, coz my answer is 5 not 1  I do like to watch romantic kind of movie or drama, and it is not rare that after watching that kind of movie, I am full of love or the tear drop down. However,  cynical side of me still has it part, like arguing that some part of the movie is illogical and will never happen in the real life, etc.

When we are discussing about romantic movie in the place that I live now, the first type of movie that will come out is definitely Japanese or Korean drama or movies. Most of my friends are the J-drama and K-drama freak. I am definitely not a dorama freak, not even a fan of this type of genre, but I did watch some dorama or the K&J movie. In my opinion, the strongest part of dorama is in the story. The story is very strong so that it can make you flying with love or even drowning in tear. On top of that, as Asian, we can identify ourselves more on Asian movies coz we, more or less, have the same way of doing something, especially in term of building love relationship. In simple, we easily identify “shy-shy” love rather than straight-forward love in western movie.

Last night I watch a very interesting Japanese movie. It released in 2004, so I suppose that many of you have watched it before. The title is “Ima, ai ni yukimasu” or the English title is “Be with You”. I think most of you will say that it is a good movie, but not the greatest, not even in the list of the best Japanese movie you ever watch. I can understand why you think so, coz in term of the story, this movie doesn’t have the strongest story, compare with another Japanese movie. But for me, this movie is on the list of the best movie I ever watch, not only in romantic genre or Japanese movie genre, but it is one of the best movies from all movies I ever watch.

Why is it so? Let me share with you why I think this movie is one of the best. First is from the story. The story is maybe not very strong but it is very well written. It felt like a very good storyteller told you a story which is ok, but because of the way he read the story, the story sound very good. Kudos for the script writer, for making a very good story line. The end of the movie was surprising, even though quite long. It filled all holes plots and made the story complete.

Another great thing from this movie is the casting. I think they did a very good job in finding the actor and actress which not only act very well, but also well-matched with the character. There are 3 main characters in this movie, Mio the mother, Takumi the father, and Yuji the son. Play as Mio is Yuko Takeuchi, not a very pretty actress compare with another Japanese actress, but indeed radiant and surely talented. As the father Takumi, is Shido Nakamura which also not the perfect actor in Japanese-actor-stereotype, but definitely did a good job. And the most outstanding one is as the son Yuji, is Akashi Takei, with his original and believable acting. They really match with the character is not only because they play it very well, but also because the chemistry between them which is so real. It really makes you believe that they are a real family. ( I just know that they got married after the movie)

Finally, the third great thing from this movie is the setting. I don’t know from which part of Japan this movie took place, but it surely can capture the beauty of Japan nature, with its forest, lake and hill. I can compare it with another great movie I ever watch “Malena” (I think I will review it another time), an Italian movie with Sicilian island as the setting. The best scene for me is the morning scene when Takumi goes to the office by the bicycle. Other than that, every rain scene is just perfect.

With great script and story line, great casting, and great cinematography I think it is not wrong for me to put it on the list of the best movies I ever watch. But still, it is not the best movie I ever watch, not even the best in Romance genre. So far, the best movie of romance genre I ever watch is Before Sunset and Before Sunrise, even though I have some subjective reason to put it on the top, but that’s the movie about, we are getting pleasure by identify our self with the movie. The main factor to put the film as the best in our list is the movie where we can do self identification the most. I’ll review that movie later, but for now, Ima, ai ni yukimasu, Right now, I’m going to meet you…

Guten Tag!

Today is one month after I came back to Singapore, 1 week after the examination result, and one day after my German exam. Time flies and procrastinate me wasting those flying times with doing nothing, regardless that I have so little time with so much to do. Well, the deadline of my FYP report submission is less than 4 months, and only 8 weeks left for the holiday.

Surely, I have to rush with my FYP, and I need not to tell you the current progress of my FYP as it will just make it worse. But actually, I find it interesting. After reading -scanning actually- some papers, hoping to find an idea which barely find till now, the way researchers around the world communicate is quite interesting or even amazing for me. They maybe never said a single word to each other, not even know each other, but they are, for sure, communicate thru their papers.

It makes me realize the importance of putting the reference list on the paper. We have already know that it is an ethic to give credit for everyone else works that you use in your project. But actually, the importance is more than that. It is remind me to the concept of collective intelligence that I’ve learned from one of the modules I’ve taken last semester. Because actually, that is the way on how researcher communicate and collaborate with each other. That’s the factor that determines on how the technologies keep progressing to create something useful for human life. When all brain, in this case smart brain I believe, working together to create something, that thing must be an extraordinary one.

Hopefully, I will keep find it interesting so that I will have a “push factor” to keep me doing my FYP. Deep inside my heart, I am still hoping that someday I’ll have a chance to do a research work. But most likely, it will not happen in the near future. For now, I really need to focus on finishing this project first. So guys, wish me luck.

This semester is done. The exam result was announced yesterday. Honestly, the result was disappointing. This semester exam result is the worst exam result I have ever got for the last 6 semester (Please keep in your mind that even for another semester my result was never really good). Well, some of you maybe will think that I am bluffing, or saying that what I think is bad, maybe good for different standard or whatever. Honestly, I hate when people talk to me those thing, coz so far I think I am a very straight forward person and I always try to say the truth. But then again, that is inevitable, because they are right that we have different standard, which actually can be solved by showing them my transcript so they can judge whether it is good or bad. But as that option also not possible, so nothing I can do about it.

Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised with the result, or even, this result was expected considering how slacking I was this semester. The fact that I got no fail subject (but got a lot of almost fail subjects ) is actually the thing that I should feel glad of. Again, I am just a human which will never feel satisfied. I regret that I didn’t try harder, but it was already passed and no way to be changed.

So what can I do now? First, with this result, I have a very low chance to get what I have targeted to achieve before, so I need to make my expectation lower than before. Second, do some re-evaluation, re-planning, re-targeting or even make new strategy on how will I live my life after this. Third, not repeat the same mistakes next semester and hopefully, there are some pieces of my broken hope that I can pick up and rebuilt. I wish that I will not lose my hope coz I maybe able to survive the diet of food (will be though, thou ) but I definitely will not survive the diet of hope.

Well, should resume my life rite now, I cannot pause it too long coz I got German paper next Wed, and must be doing my FYP this holiday. I need to find the new spirit to start it again and do better. Still not sure about it as people said: lot easier said than done… hahaha…

ps : Thanks a lot for Dei, bang Rennie and especially bang Aussie to help me cope with this syndrome…. Really miss those RKB moments…

Just now, I read an interesting entry in Arief blog. It is very interesting for me because more or less I know him and what he had been thru for the last 9 years, since we are in junior high school. But on top of that, his writing makes me questioning about myself, about what decisions that I have made, and about how I live my life rite now. Do I really love what I am doing rite know?

Steve Job in his speech in the graduation ceremony of Stanford University 2005 said that the only way to do the great work is to love what you do. He said that we have to find what we love and if we haven’t find it yet, Don’t Settle, Keep Looking.

I couldn’t agree more with him. I do believe when he said that we need to find the job that we love as it is for our lovers. There are actually only two places where we spent most our times as we become an adult, home and work place. To have a happy life means that we have to find happiness in those two places. We will be happy in home when we have peoples that we love around us, and we will be happy in our work place when we love what we do.

Steve Job is a very lucky person. Not because he is very smart nor very rich, coz I believe there are lot of people smarter or richer than him. He is very lucky because he can find what he loves and he does what he loves. But not every people as lucky as him to find what they love. The next question is how if we will never find it? Shall we keep looking? Until when?

For me, until now, I haven’t really found what I love to do. So shall I keep looking? And my answer is No, I shouldn’t. I might be tired of looking. Am I giving up? No, I am not. Because maybe I am not that lucky to find what I love but maybe what I should do is to try to love what I do now. Maybe someday, eventually, I can learn how to love it and finally really love what I do.

So, if you ask me whether I love what I do now, my answer is I don’t but I try to. Will I love it someday? I don’t know, but one thing that I know for sure is, I am tired of looking, so let me trying….