Movie : Dreamgirls

I watched it last Wednesday night at the (not so new) Cathay Cineplex with Sharon Lee and her sister, Serene.

So here's the low down on the movie.

With the groovy soundtrack, soulful renditions of heartfelt ballads, glitzy costumes in all its Technicolor glory, it was one movie I enjoyed immensely.

On the superficial level, the movie appears to be just a story of how a bunch of girls fight to keep their singing dreams alive.

Chick flick? Not on your life babeh.

Let's dissect the strata and try to look deeper.

The movie unravels (albeit sloooooowly) to reveal several serious undercurrents.

Firstly, it is the story of how the music industry has grown. From how the evolution of IP regulations and highlights the dark, real driving forces behind these sectors.

Secondly, it also portrays the level of discrimination faced (and continues to) by people from the minority(ies).

Thirdly, it showcases the human aspect of chasing dreams (and its consequences), friendship, kinship and of how strange love can be.

I sat there, in the dark, watching the characters evolve right before my eyes. Of how Eddie Murphy's character morphed from a gropping sleazebag to that of a broken man. The love triangle that estranged the central characters, and how it affected the people around them. I gasped at their strength to live their lives exactly how they want it, the bravery to move on and let go of the stifling and familiar for freedom to be who they really can be.

I won't say more. You'll have to watch it yourself. And perhaps, you will be able to walk out of the theatre with a little more then when you walked in, just like i have.

Rating : 4/5
Only because it took too much time. Also due to the glaring absence of Jennifer Hudson's name not being prominent in the movie posters even though she sang soooooooooo much in the movie.

the reel drama that unfolds echos the drama that is real

Gimme a P to the I to the A to the H.

What do you get?!

P-I-A-H....!!!!

Yes, we have done it again.

We, the students (whom of which institute I am not at liberty to name) have once again shit through 2 projects in a week. And given our fundamental procrastinating nature, it is only expected that these projects would only be churned out days before the actual presentation.

My team made good progress, staying back late to cram in info, working together to come up with mascots, program listings, gathering quotes and what-have-yous. Just look at the all the stuff we did. And cheers to our acting skills (more like lying through our teeth) through each presentation. Well done guys!

Not to mention our littlest Fara, whom is sadly still locked away in CDC for treatment of some sexually transmitted disease.

Ok, I'm slandering her here.

For the record, that good woman, she's at home, kindly allowing the dreaded chickenpox to run its course. And yes, she's on mandatory quarantine. Sad little thing. Get well soon ok!

CNY hols begin today =)

Upcoming Events :
Socio(work) presentation due in 2 weeks
Exams just around the corner
(Someone please corrupt the cpu that holds all info for the papers?)

And PS –
Andy Ong looks BLARDY HOT!
And Moonie nearly killed me by way of drooling-slippery floor combo.
I’ll try to sneak a pic in one day. I MUST! I MUST!

WAXING LYRICAL

It's late in the night, and yes, once again, I'm wide awake when I'm supposed to be in dreamland. With such a flurry of thought swarming me, it's difficult to find a starting point.

I feel like a ball of entangled string.

My brother must be merrily gallivanting in Paris as his sister remains all alone at home. That bastard. He'd better bring me back something fabulous. Sharon Lee's due to return on the 16th. She'd better bring me nice stuff too. We've planned to go Bangkok later in the month (mainly due to her insistence), but it looks like the travel system in Singapore is once again up to no good. We may not have return flights (this made me cancel my trip to the US in dec). So all KIV plans.

Heh.

It's time to analyze the situation and reflect upon what these 2 weeks have brought about.

Firstly, I've finally finished my 2 week stint at a mental health institution. On one hand, I couldn't wait to burst through the locked, double doors, screaming freedom with aplomb and wildly swinging both hands up in the air. Yet, on the other, there's a tinge of sadness, knowing that this may be the last time I would walk through those doors.

I was made to sit through the compulsory briefing that the institute deemed necessary. I came out, without any increased knowledge and a bitter taste in my mouth. You see, the Director of Nursing, whom had so kindly graced us with her presence, chose to address us personally. In the beginning, she gushed with passion, highlighting all the positive changes she'd help direct through the years in the organization. I thought she did a pretty decent job advertising.

Then, she swerved and did a dramatic kamikaze.

Her misguided mind went on to rant, implying that most nurses in other healthcare institutions did not care enough to look into the psychological component of patients under their care. She cited a heavy load of paperwork and a general inapt of handling such situations.

My, my. If only she'd care enough to open her eyes and look right under her nose.

After she left, we were forced to sit through a slide show, introducing the history and growth of the mental institution. There weren't much things of use or interest to me.

These were what I really wanted to know :

1. Did any patient develop seizures, heart attacks and/or died from electroconvulsive therapy?
2. How many staff had a history of mental disorders?
3. How much are the staff paid?
4. How much bonus did they give?
5. Why are hallucinations/delusions deemed as abnormal in patients with mental deficits when it is perfectly acceptable for a child to have imaginary friends?
6. Are patients abused?
7. Why do mental patients eat so much and yet stay so skinny?
8. Why the patients in the C class deemed as 'crazy' and the paying classes brought in under the guise of booking into a 'wellness center'?

For the record, most nurses that I've come into contact with, truly take an effort to bond with those under their care. Most of the time, there's an unmistakable kinship that develops based on daily close contact. To stereotype and undermine such efforts, especially by someone from the same line, is bitterly disappointing.

As for the posting, it went quite satisfactorily. We decorated the ward to usher in the Chinese New Year. A patient made us a Thank You card. A few hugged us and told us they would be sad to see us go. We even had a small ward party on the last day.

Being sent to an acute setting allowed me to witness the changes in behavior brought about mainly by medication. I had the opportunity to really sit and talk to some patients.

Some shared with me their life stories. Most have a long history of repeated admissions. One in particular left a huge impact.

Her name is YY. In the beginning, she irritated with no end in sight. Her sickening, insincere laughter echoed throughout the ward. Her incessant gravelling for attention kept my blood boiling. Her robotic speech repeated like a broken record.

And as the drug levels in her blood rose, the days past and her negative attention seeking behavior slowly subsided. We had a conversation on my last day, where she practically begged us to visit her at home after her discharge.

I wonder what blows these individuals in their prime endured to end up this way.

The facade of a vex, eroded into that of an individual plagued with loneliness. With no family of her own and her parents deceased, stood a woman before me with unmet needs. She had nothing much else that brought the same familiarity then a ward filled with screaming, restrained women, and nurses pacing about in uniforms, forcing her to swallow her medicine. Wouldn't you default on your medication to return to the only familiar setting you have grown so accustomed to?

Perhaps her sanity lies between those locked doors and grilled windows.

Schizophrenia, or any alterations in mental state that is classified as normal, is an unkind disease. It's hold escapes gender, age and has a tendency to hide in genes, ready to manifest without instigation. You may be able to lower your risk of lung cancer by choosing not to smoke, or remove your reproductive organs if you have a strong genetic link to cervical cancer. But how does one minimize the risk if you have had a parent or grandparent that developed a mental disorder because fate dealt too great a blow of him/her to handle?

How can you stop a person from snapping after physical, emotional, sexual abuse?

How can one shut out those voices or visions if they illicit joy?

And look at all the shit modern medicine puts them through. Placing them behind locked doors, restraints for both their own safety and that of others, pumping medicine into them, shocking them with electrical current to induce mild seizures.

Then releasing them back into society like freed animals. Only to haul them back the moment their symptoms reappear. All in hope of what? Sometimes I wonder, if faced with such options, what route would I take? Perhaps it would be better to reject medication to escape reality. Then I would not be aware of my own behavior, forget the past that brought me thus far and the bias that I would face on the outside.

Sigh.

In a matter of mere hours, I'll be trotting back to school. Only another theory exam and a final 6 week PRCP separate me from graduation. Hopefully, I'll be able to scrap a merit and hackle my way into uni. Else, its down to plan B (read : slogging in the wards until I save up enough to pay for my own degree).

I'm taking things one at a time.

MEMORIES

Fara and I had another impromptu outing today. We decided to stop by Toa Payoh for an artery clogging meal at Burger King while she waited to leech off a free ride home with her mum after work. While she pondered over which burger had a heftier portion of vegetables, the devil in me egged her to forgo the green stuff and indulge in juicy, additive laden, processed meat and pure carbs.

As you might have guessed, that woman broke down and ordered her burger weeping.

On the long bus ride to Toa Payoh, I passed by someone that I never would have thought of seeing alive ever again on the face of the earth. I was expecting something more along the lines of being startled while browsing through the obituaries.

There on the pavement, walked someone, whose face is deeply etched into a buried past.

Someone that I shared many first experiences with.
Someone that hadn't really changed as much as I had always pictured.
Someone that, once upon a time, I had thought would be with me till I was old and probably dying.

HAHA. Such bullshit.

What folly youth brings. Clouded by raging hormones and inexperience, that person, once meant so much. And it was strange how willingly I was able to give him up.

He's since stayed loyal to Beng-dom.

Although this time, with a strange twist that made it appear kind of awkward. My brain chose to burn this into memory : He was wearing a polo tee with thick horizontal stripes which reminded me of an imitation Ernie more then anything else.

I could recognize his persistent haughty swagger.
He still exhibited that smirk with such a 'heck the world' attitude.
His, all too familiar bunny teeth that greeted the world as he spoke on the handset.

Apart from the lighter hair colour, a little added weight, and a total revamp of wardrobe, he was still easily recognizable.

It was like someone turned back time.

We never stayed friends after we parted. We did try, but failed miserably. Hohoho. It's easy to hate me lah.

Seeing him today brought back a lot of memories. Though not the best looking, drool worthy man alive, not even the most intelligent. But he was the one that could force a smile out of me and someone I could vent out my frustrations on, once upon a time.

He suffered a lot with me. I made him cry buckets. It's something that still ignites a tinge of remorse in me.

He looked different today. He looked happy. Like the period where we shared happier, lamer times. We hung around like roaches all over the island, staying out till the wee hours of the morning and creating havoc that only thick skinned teenagers could. Chalking up fair share of drama and stroking our egos. Desperately searching for a special spot where our, then close knit group could call our own.

We partied as though we would not see the next sunrise. We watched 2 movies a week just because we could. Which cost bombs whilst still attending secondary school. We talked about an empty future, imagining all the people we knew then, would most definitely continue into tomorrow.

Such innocence, or lack of.

Sometimes I'd wonder if fate would allow us to cross paths again. This man on the street threw light on how much change there has been in my life. Through the years and relationships, life has thrown me a curve ball, and gave me an opportunity to be where I am now. Once, where life carried no responsibilities, nor sufficient grey matter to analyze the consequences of my actions, now has bloomed into one with priorities and goals.

Dreams that have helped evolve me into a person I am today, of course with much guidance from the people I love and continue to love me.

It was good to see him again. It was even better that only I could see him, and not the other way around. I wonder if he would recognize me. Most people can. Hahaha.

And like the bus that continued to roll on down the street, so does my life.

Again, he reverts into a figure in the distance, highlighting the fact that someone new is beside me. Someone mini. Someone whose life has been entwined with mine for close to 7 years. And perhaps this time, we'd care enough to go all the way, and continue till we're grey, and wrinkly like rotting raisins.