Little Miss Sunshine

EDITED (April1): More pics and some minor corrections


During my 11 day break, I finally got to catch Little Miss Sunshine, a movie that I was itching to watch for a long time. It was so good I watched it twice. This dramedy has officially made it to my List of Favourite Movies, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes movies that are funny yet serious, if you know what I mean.


Plot summary:

Richard Hoover is a motivational speaker who's a tad too enthusiastic about his lifeskills programme.

His wife Sheryl is an overworked Mum who seeks respite in the occasional cigarette.

Sheryl's brother Frank has just recovered from an attempt to kill himself over a failed relationship.

Richard's Dad Edwin loves his granddaughter, heroin, vulgarities and porn magazines.

Dwayne, the Hoovers' son, is an emo, Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a vow of silence until he realizes his dream of becoming a pilot.

Olive, the Hoovers' daughter, is the livewire of the family and has made it to the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.
The Hoovers hit the road to California where the Little Miss Sunshine finals are held. Along the way, the Hoovers encounter setback after setback in the form of vehicle problems, family feuds and even death. But the Hoovers are too stubborn to give up and will do anything, however crazy or silly, to give Olive her chance to shine.


My comments:
What I like best about this movie is the characters. There's not a scrap of wooden dialogue and everyone has 3-D personalities. What's more, they're all likeable, even if some of them have rather questionable behaviours, to put it euphemistically (Edwin's advice to Dwayne: Don't just **** one woman. **** a lot of woman). Yeah, Edwin has got to be the craziest character, though my favourite is Dwayne. But it is Edwin who makes the wisest comment in the entire movie, the comment that basically sums up what the entire movie is all about: A real loser is one that is so afraid of not winning that he doesn't even try. The Hoovers, for all their dysfunctionalities, aren't the loosers they appear to be. Dwayne refuses to jettison his dream of becoming a pilot in spite of a major setback. Richard, in spite of having it worst of all the Hoovers, pushes hard for what he believes in. Perhaps adversity really does bring out the best in people.



The one scene that justifies spending 103 minutes of your time:
How the Hoovers reacted to the demise of a certain someone



The one scene that would eject you from your seat:
The hypersexualized participants of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant



Best quotes:
"A real looser is one that is so afraid of not winning he doesn't even try." ~ Edwin

"Do what you love to do and fuck the rest." ~ Dwayne




The Hoovers on the way to California



You've got competition, Dakota Fanning! Abigail Breslin is an up-and-coming Hollywood starlet!






Dwayne has a message for the world





Frank slides open the door a little too hard.




The movie poster






Images from:

• movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809257696/info
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Miss_Sunshine
  
• Google Images
  
  

3 cheers for Mariko!

Finally, oh finally! Mariko's over and done with:)

From this:

To this:

To this:

Click the pictures to get a better view.

In case you were wondering, the girl is Kurama Mariko from the anime Elfen Lied. This is my fourth completed fanart, and the most challenging yet. It took me a long while to get this done because I was so determined to produce a proffessional piece of work. So I raided Deviantart for all the Paint Shop Pro tutorials on manga drawing (there weren't many to begin with. Photoshop tutorials are more common) and tried them out. Sometimes, try as I might, I could not produce to results I wanted and had to settle with something second best. On other occasions, I had to figured out how to achieve a certain effect on my own due to the lack of information. Creating this particular fanart was an agonizingly slow and sometimes frustruating process. I did have a number of Eureka! moments though. The biggest breakthrough ever has got to be mastering the use of the bezier curves. Without the bezier curves one cannot achieve smooth, even outlines necessary for a good digital artwork (see the 2nd pic). You can imagine how ecstatic I was when, after trying and trying, and going from tutorial after tutorial, I finally saw the light:)

Ah, the sweet smell of success! Obviously, I'm not even half as good as pros such as Carnelian or Tony Taka. And I think Mariko turned out looking slightly older than she did in the anime. But I tried all that I could, am satisfied with the quantum leap I made when it comes to digital artwork, and quite like the results. Success is a journey and not a destination after all!

For a long while, I have wanted to join Deviantart. Deviantart is a very popular online Art community, the largest in the world! It's also one of my favourite hangouts cos it's an excellent source of inspiration, contains plenty of good advice regarding Art and EYECANDY. I really should set up a account so I can exchange info with fellow artists and make new friends. Just that I haven't got round doing it yet. Soon enough, though:)

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And since we're on the topic of Elfen Lied, here're some lovely screenshots obtained form Google images:

Mariko as she appears in the anime. In case you were wondering, no I still cannot bring myself to watch Elfen Lied, as brilliant as people say it is. Strong, graphic violence is not my cup of tea. For now I'm quite contented reading the spoilers.

Lucy-chan wa kawaii desu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I've finally decided. My favourite female anime character is NANA FROM ELFEN LIED!!! My fav male anime charcter is Hitsugaya from Bleach btw. I absolutely adore Nana cos as you can see, she's so very CUTE! Whenever I see the above pic I have this great urge to reach out, cup her face in my hands and ruffle her pink hair. Yeah, I am totally crazy about Nana. Nana's also a friendly and kind gal, but when it comes to it she can kick ass. Would it surprise you to learn that my next fanart is a Nana one?

Today isn't Zephy's birthday

While browsing through my archives, I realized a made a HUGE mistake: Zephy wasn't created on Good Friday. Zephy was actually created on 28 April, which happens to be my birthday:) All necesseray changes have been made to rectify this.

Liberated! (For now)

EDITED: 21 March


The frigging block tests are finally over! You know what? They didn't turn out as terrible as I expected (with the exception of one subject). Having said that, on the whole, the block tests were rather screwed:


General Paper: I really don't know how GP is going to turn out. My essay might be considered pretty one-sided and the inference questions in the comprehension component stumped me. Wah lau eh.

Economics: For the first time since I started Junior College last year, I think I have a chance of passing Econs! Case study turned out fine, and I had a lot to say for the National Income question. Microeconomics might pull me down down though; part 1a is so much of a goner that part 1b is unlikely to save me from failing that particular question.

Mathematics: I'm most confident of Maths, cos I have a good foundation for it and I had practised loads on Probability. Still, I doubt I performed well enough to get an 'A'.

Geography: To say that Geog was a disaster is a major understatement. My essays are DEAD. Period. As for the data-response questions, my answers were only slightly better. Let's just say that my Geography teachers are going to throw a fit upon reading the bullshit I wrote, only to have another one upon regaining consciousness. Luckily, I'm not the only one who messed up Geog big time. Almost every H2 Geog student swears he/she is going to fail. I think what went wrong for us was that there was simply too much content to cover, and too little time to do so. Unlike History and Economics, I couldn't take a gamble by concentrating only on certain topics. For this Geog block test, the exam format didn't make it possible. So I had to rush to cram a huge number of topics in a short span of time, even though doing that would surely cause the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns to kick in. It did and I inevitably screwed up Geog terribly.

History: Essays are okay; upon seeing the question on Japan I made a grab for it because I had prepared really well for that one. My second essay on Economic Challenges faced by Southeast Asian nations probably has some historical inacuracies but it should turn out fine. Source Based Questions was kind of screwed though. Due to time constraints, I only managed to analyze 2 out of the 5 sources for the International History component and 3 out of the 5 sources for the Southeast Asian History component. It's insane, giving students only a paltry 45 minutes or so to analyze a set of sources they have never seen before.


Yep, so that sums up how the block test went for me. I won't wallow in misery because of how I messed most of my subjects up cos there's no point crying over spilt milk. Besides, there's the 11 day break ahead to look forward to before normal lessons resume. I'm so going to watch anime. Anime withdrawal symptons have been bugging me for some time. Also on my to-do list are reading novels, working on digital art, drawing manga and attending SQUAD LUNCH this Sunday. I'll definitely enjoy my precious break, while it lasts.

The battle begins tomorrow

"Courage is our best defence."
~ Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

It's mine too.


Courage, wits, luck, and common sense. I hope I have lots of those to tackle the block tests.


Good luck all NYJCians!

I'm excited about tomorrow. And anxious about next week.

My family and I leave for Hong Kong tomorrow, and will be returning on Saturday. Now don't get me wrong, all you NYJCians out there. I'm not going on vacation. I'm perfectly aware that next week is block test week. We're going to Hong Kong simply because there's some legal stuff to settle: my bro and I are gonna be Hong Kong permanent residents! Finally! I'm really, really happy about this, and about going to Hong Kong too. But not as happy as I would like to be cos of the upcoming block tests.

Oh and speaking of tests, I got a D for my Chinese 'A' levels. On one hand, I'm glad I passed and that pass isn't an E. On the other, it wasn't the C I was hoping for. So I have mixed feelings about my Chinese result.

Anyway...

I dread the bloody tests. I have not had much time to prepare for them this term. The pace of teaching has increased two-fold this year and it doesn't help that I do the content-heavy GHEM. So far, I managed to cover all that need to be revised for Hydrology (Physical Geography), Economic challenges of South East Asian nations (SEA History), finished all the J2 Economics topics, some Maths, GP practices and am near completing Japan's economic boom and bust (International History) plus Urban Geography(Human Geography). Sounds like a lot right? Unfortunately, that's just about 60% of what's to be tested. To make things worse, there's too little time for the remaining 40%. What I intend to do is to take a gamble for some subjects. I've decided to concentrate on just two out of the four topics that will be tested for History, and will attempt only the essay questions concerning those two topics. I'm going to ditch studying some stuff too for Geography but have yet to decide which topics.

The irony of it. In spite of studying consistently (and pushing myself a little too hard according to my form teacher), I'm unprepared for the battle next week. Damn, why should I even go sit for the freaking tests? The results will most likely show I haven't been revising enough which I already know so I don't need a bunch of tests to tell me that.

If there's one consolation, it's that almost everyone I know are in the same boat. Many NYJCians are also not ready for next week. Oh, and I finish my exams early: on Thursday. But that also means I have less time to study than many of my peers.

I sincerely wish my family could go to Hong Kong AFTER the block tests. It may be just a short trip, but it's HONG KONG. The promise of seeing of grandparents, of great shopping, of whimsical sights and sounds.....Hong Kong is like a second home to me. More on that some other time, after the block tests.

"Is this the best speech he can deliver after ten days of preparation ?"

.....said Daniel, at netizen who tagged at The Online Citizen forum in response to the article PM Lee speaking for the first time after JI escape. See below for the Straits Times report:

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Let’s close ranks’ to deal with Mas Selamat’s escape: PM Lee
By Melissa Kok

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday called on Singaporeans to ‘close ranks’ to deal with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader Mas Selamat Kastari’s escape.

Speaking for the first time on the issue, PM Lee made these comments as he officiated the opening of Anchorvale Community Club on Sunday.

‘Let us close ranks to deal with this, and bounce back to move forward - stronger, chastened, more on our guard, more alert than before,’ he said.

Responding to questions from reporters on whether the incident has shed negative light on Singapore, PM Lee said: ‘It’s not done us good for our reputation, but I don’t think we are just like any other place where you can have television sets and handphones and other things in jail.’

‘I mean, we are different. This was a lapse, what to do, it’s happened.’

PM Lee said for now, we would have to wait for the Committee of Inquiry to release its findings as to what really happened that led to Mas Selamat’s escape.

‘The escape is undoubtedly a setback, and it should never have happened. As MM said, it’s the dangers of complacency, of thinking that everything is all right,’ he said.

He said:’ As Minister Mentor says, we are not infallible. If we are not careful we will make mistakes. And when we do, we better find out and put it right.’

PM Lee stressed that it was important to ensure that such a mistake will not repeat itself again, ‘because it is a continuing problem which we are dealing with’.

In the meantime, PM Lee said that the security agencies are working to take all the immediate remedial measures necessary to fix the problem.

‘I think the security agencies are taking it seriously, ISD certainly is, I think the police and the ghurka units and SAF forces which are now deployed on the operation to try and catch him, are taking their operation with a lot of resources and a lot of close cooperation.’

‘I’ve been talking to the ministers responsible and I think we have a pretty good chance of catching him provided he’s still in Singapore,’ he added.

Asked if he believed Mas Selamat is still in Singapore, he said:’We have no reason to think that he has left.’

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Yep, so after not saying a word about the Mas Selamat incident for about 11 days, the Prime Minister has finally commented. More like repeating a lot of what the Minister Mentor, the press and authorities have already said. Interestingly, the sentence in bold was omitted in today's Straits Times papers. It only appeared in the original article that was released at around 12am. Perhaps the editors felt like many netizens did: that 'what to do' reeks of nonchalance and complacency.

Sigh. I really can't help but feel disappointed. Very, very disappointed.

The Singapore media is a total farce

Enough is enough. I know this is a rather early post considering the last time I updated was 2 days ago but I want to get this off my chest: the Singapore mainstream media is a farce. And I have abandoned all dreams of working for the Singapore Press Holdings.

By now, everyone in Singapore and perhaps the world knows about last week's 'prison break'. Mas Selamat Kastari, leader of the Singapore JI, managed to limp his way out of a high-security detention center and is now on the run. So much for our top-notch security, but that's beside the point. I'm here to blog about how news coverage of the incident has caused me to loose faith in the Singapore media.

What has irked me most about the entire fiasco is how Singaporeans are being fed dribs and drabs of information regarding Mas Selamat. The day after the escape, a photo of the man's face was frontpaged in the national newspapers. However, little other details of Mas Selamat's appearance was given. A day or so later we were told he has a limp in his left leg. Then the authorities revealed that his limp is only noticeable when he runs but not when he walks. Sorry all concerned Singaporeans who called with tip-offs regarding men with a limp but you most probably got the wrong guy. Yesterday, the papers revealed the sort of clothes Mas Selamat was last seen wearing before he went AWOL.

What the fuck are those 'journalists' playing at, providing bits of information regarding the man on a daily basis? How the hell does anyone expect the public, the 4 million pairs of eyes, to search of the man if information is dispensed like that? So the authorities have been tight-lipped. Well, isn't it the job of the journalists to be resourceful and find out the information on their own. Couldn't they come up with a profile of the man by checking with foreign sources and publish that on Day 1? Mas Selamat is not some total newbie. He is a known menace who has been caught and jailed before, so there has got to be some info about him. Dig up past records. Search the entire photo archive. Interview his buddies. Is it really so hard? Or are you just pandering to some order from the people at the higher echelons of society?

Many bloggers have pointed out that the media has shattered its own credibility when it failed to quickly address the question on everyone's minds: how the hell did he escape? For a few days, the papers ran stroies mainly on the process of the manhunt but never once echoed the confusion of Singaporeans over the 'how' issue. Cherain George, a well-known blogger, puts forth the irony well:

"The question is so natural and so obvious that you’d think anyone barely paying attention would ask it. Unless, apparently, one worked for the national news media – in which case the question of how Mas Selamat Kastari escaped was immaterial."

I'll leave it to George who was an ex-journalist to explain how the SPH made a mockery of journalism by not raising a squeak:

"You already know this instinctively if you are a professional journalist. There’s a standard way of handling unavoidable gaps in your story, such as when newsmakers are not ready to answer questions by press time: you simply raise the question in your story, and state that answers are not yet forthcoming.

This is exactly what other media did in its initial reports. The Associated Press news agency quoted the brief Ministry of Home Affairs statement about in the third paragraph of its report, adding immediately after, “It did not say how he escaped.”

For a long while, I've heard much about how the Singapore media is restricted, that it is a lapdog of the government. The Mas Selamat incident has made me see, as clear as crystal, just how woefully inadequate the Singapore media is. I still want to be a journalist though; journalism is my calling. But I refuse to work for the SPH, because those assholes can't even uphold the very discipline they represent.

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Well, I've had my say on the saga. There's more to rant about, such as the Prime Minister's defeaning silence and the stupidity displayed by some of the authorities, but much have already been said about all that. Here are some excellent reads regarding the Mas Selamat incident:

Journalism.sg: The other casualty of the Great Escape: mainstream media credibility
Yawning Bread: The great stonewall of Singapore gahmen
Mr brown: Pointless Mas Selamat Letter/News of the Day
The Online Citizen: Escape has yet to dent govt’s hubris
Mr Wang says so: The Independence of the Inquiry Commission

The city through a geographer's SPECs

Geography came alive for the H2 Geog students a couple of days ago. As part of the Urban Geography topic, Mr Yeo took us to Singapore's Central Buisness District (CBD) for our very first fieldwork activity. Now, fieldwork isn't the same as fieldtrip, in that the former is more hands-on. Essentially, fieldwork requires the researcher to collect raw data on his own. Yep we were researchers all right. Our mission was to map the landuse functions of the CBD and to evaluate strategies used in the re-imaging of Singapore of a global city.


We gathered at Raffles MRT station that morning and from there the various groups set off to study their assigned roads. My group was to check out Upper Pickering Street and Church Street. Before really getting down to buisness though, I first put on my geographer's SPECs. SPEC stands for the social, political, economic and cultural implications Mr Yeo constantly reminds us to take note of when studying geography. Anyway, we began noting down the charcteristics of the CBD. An interesting thing we found about the Upper Pickering-Church stretch of road is a decrease in the height of buildings as one moves away from the CBD. Buildings at the CBD were about 30 storeys high, a little further down the average height was about 20 storeys and when we reached the end of the road somewhere near the Speaker's Corner buildings were as low as about 5 storeys high. A common characteristic of CBDs, but it's one thing to learn about it in class and another to find out and see for yourself. We were supposed to do more, such as calculating the floor area of each building in the city (by pacing or the use of a trundle wheel) and popping in to find out about each buildings fuctions but we didn't have time for all that, sheesh.



Next, we hit the road and travelled from Plaza Singapura to the Esplanade on foot. Along the way we were supposed to examine some landmarks, with SPECs on of course, and bearing in mind Mr Yeo's question about the re-imaging of Singapore. Personally, I feel that Singapore needs more originality when it comes to the packaging of places of interests. The Singapore Flyer, Orchard Road and DHL-balloon are too cookie-cutter. Even the Esplande is a little bit of a Sydney Opera House knock-off. Another place of interest I'm not too impressed with is CHIJMES, because I feel it has been too commercialized. The conversion of a Catholic Church into a plaza of restaurants, bars and shops does not do much justice to CHIJMES' historic and religious significance. On the positive side, I think the Singapore Tourism Board is doing a great job in making the CBD hip and happening. From all the upcoming flagship developments I've heard about so far, it looks like a whole lot of fun awaits both tourists and locals alike.

I really do hope Mr Yeo takes us Geog students out to do another fieldwork activity. I now know what theu mean when they say 'The world is your classroom'.

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Hmm, I'm blogging on school more often now and will continue to do so for the time being. I'll definitely have something to say about Friday cos that's when I'll be getting back my 'A' Level Chinese and Project Work results! One word: shucks.