Call me dumb

But I don't get this:

"...moments of glory have brief roborant effects on the psyche..."

Maybe it's actually quite insignificant.  ;D

 

Gem

Weasley lets the Chasers score.
Look! He’s just let in one more.
And on top of that, he’s poor.
Weasley is our King.

- The Morning Starr in Draco Malfoy's Diary

Friday the 13th – where will you be?

... Watching horror movies with me.

How does this sound:

On Friday, August 13 at 8 pm, show up at Downtown East, D'Marqee. For the next 24 hours, watch horror movies attentively, without falling asleep, taking only eight 15-minute breaks at regular intervals. At the end of it all, answer five questions about the movies correctly, just to prove you weren’t spacing out, and you get $300.

If you did fall asleep, you still get a 'mystery gift' of some sort. No registration fees or anything.

Details are here.

Cool, what! I say we do a practice session this coming Friday. ;)

My Excuse

I know, I know. But here's what I've done in the past week when I haven't been updating this blog:

1. Reading
- The First Wives' Club by Olivia Goldsmith - decent 
- The City of Joy by Dominic Lapierre - more later 
- The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman - excellent 
- The Commodore by Patrick O Brien (still at it) - so far, so interesting  
- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (still at it) - awesome

2. Watching
- Sex and the City, Season 1 and 3 - decent 
- The Adventures of Sindbad - better than expected 
- Fight Club - insane 
- Fahrenheit 9/11 - does Michael Moore think we're that dumb?

3. Cooking 
- part of dinner at Kavitha and Suba's on Saturday - decent 
- lunch at Divya's on Sunday - edible

4. Not Showing Up For Work One Day And Nearly Getting Fired

5. Writing
- Harry Potter fanfic involving my fav characters - WIP, but kewl, even if I say so myself
- Limericks - none worth putting up here
- Autobiography - about time I started, what?

6. Starting Conflagrations And Making Attempts To Put Them Out
- Announced to parents that am off to USA (am I a closet pyromaniac or what?)

7. Staying Up Nights In Changi To Pick Random People Up From Airport
- Especially people ungrateful enough to make me and Kav wait *three hours* after their flight landed because they were foolish enough to pack bags which the airport would manage to lose.

8. Shifting Rooms

9. Attempting To Orient Utterly Boring Juniors In  A Thoroughly Uninspired Fashion

This, surely, is excuse enough to quit blogging for a bit?

But on to what I promised I'd do: review City of Joy. Because I'm in a sucky mood, I've picked the worst (well, second only to nearly getting fired and starting fires) experience of the week.

City of Joy is a piece of trash that should have been kept safely guarded in Dominic Lapierre's snooty old head. Unfortunately, it's broken out, and is now running amok in the world of literature and writers of reviews, posing as good writing but secretly rubbishing up readers' heads. Everything about it screams white supremacy. Lapierre claims to have "researched this book for two years", but this shoddy work is replete with silly, irritating mistakes - 'Bhagvan' is apparently 'the most powerful God in Hinduism'; a charpoy is something you drink from. But that is the least of it.

I can overlook the inaccurate research (or lack thereof), I can forgive the racism and the advertisement for imperialism that the book is. After all, one of my favourite books - Gone With The Wind - succumbs to similar failures. What I cannot condone are the writing and the message of this book.

It's a novel 'based on true stories', it claims. Why, then, is there no plot, no flow of events, no climax, no ending, no discernible anything to differentiate it from a painstaking chronicle of everyday events in a not-so-everyday place that starts and ends for no reason? The characters are discussed and revealed very well, true, but there is absolutely no development. The people in City of Joy are static: no one, not even the two foreigners, undergo any process of meaningful change. Superficially, they're disgusted by the way the people in the slum live, they admire the slum dwellers' capacity for love and joy - these are things they learn and find out as they live in Anand Nagar... but that's prosaic to the point where you want to start ripping pages from the book for sheer want of some fresh happening.

And then there's the message. The book claims to be about love and joy thriving in the worst possible conditions, but whereas it explores these 'worst possible conditions' in loving variety and detail (lepers' colonies, children drowning in open drains, starvation, filth, maggot-infested internal organs of the slum-dwelling sick, typhoid and tuberculosis, the privations suffered by rickshaw pullers, the 'human horses'...), all that Lapierre says about the survival of life and joy in these conditions is... that it has survived. On and on he goes about men keeling over and dying as they pull rickshaws, only to be kicked aside and eagerly replaced by other men desperate for work, and at the end of a 10-page chapter, there's a line that goes - he was happy to be alive. Well, one sentence repeated over and over at the end of different incidents does not a message make.

And of course, I hate the way the book grosses you out for the sake of effect. I'm all for having my heart wrung and made to shed tears of blood, but at least don't do it this blatantly, without even a pretence of plot to cover it up! Even Passion of the Christ was better in this respect, and that's saying something.

So. I'm giving the book away. First commented, first served.

But don't say I didn't warn you.

 

Happy 21st Birthday

 
... to gal pal, hot shot Motorola employee and all round fab woman Divya. Here's to you kid!
 
 

Movie Review: House of Sand and Fog

 
It's very tempting to say this movie was much better than I expected it to be, and leave it at that. It's something you ought to discover on your own, without preconceptions or, if possible, expectations.
 
But then I couldn't call this a review and indulge myself by recording my thoughts on it.
 
The movie is a study in fate, struggle and misfortune. Sounds gloomy, I know. It is a gloomy movie, but it's so well crafted you hardly see it.
 
The plot, I suppose, is a little thin. Due to a clerical error, Kathy (the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly) gets evicted from her ancestral home by the beach, and the house is then auctioned off dirt cheap to an Iranian immigrant, Colonel Behrani (Ben Kingsley). Kathy wants her house back, and Behrani's trying to sell the property at a profit, to put his life back together in an America that does not give him the respect he is used to.
 
Kathy enlists the help of her new boyfriend, a weird cop Lester (Ron Eldard), who starts threatening Behrani and his family with deportation. Funnily enough, he never gets into trouble for doing this, even though we're shown Behrani calling his bluff and being told by the police that these threats were out of line. Lester, meanwhile, has his own problems to deal with - he's leaving his wife and two small kids for no apparent reason and they wants explanations, precious.
 
Things spin out of control. Lester ends up taking the Behrani family hostage in their own home, and later causing the death of the colonel's son Elsmail, in an unlikely series of events.
 
The characters act quite stupidly. Why does Kathy even leave the house when it's so obvious she's being evicted unfairly? Why does she refuse to sue the county for its error and go after the blameless Behrani instead? "Suing the county takes months" is the only answer provided.
 
But the triumph of this movie is in its characters and they way they're portrayed by the actors. I love the way the antagonist is so... masked. It's clear, to me at least, that Behrani is the guy who's 'right' (I don't know what the fuss about grey areas is about, the movie makes the distinction between right and wrong quite clearly), but the story is so deeply rooted in real people and whole characters that the villian's villianousness sneaks up on you. I love a movie that can make you forget it's a movie with a story that needs a hero and a villian.
 
Kingsley is quite magnificient. The scenes of his son's death are superbly executed. Connelly is quite decent as well, she looks her part. Eldard is a bit of a cardboard cutout, though that is as much the fault of a lack of character development as his acting skills. It grates when he speaks, especially because Connelly and Kingsley and the rest do cast a convincing spell. Some of the other secondary characters leave the same impression, though Behrani's wife and son are the notable exceptions. Superb portrayals, both of them.
 
I'm just picking on minor things that don't really matter. What matters is that this is a movie infinitely worth watching. It's different, it's subtle in all sorts of ways, it's got layers to keep the most analytical of us happy. I liked it.
 
 

Off

No work today. Am on a nearly fake medical cert. Does sickness caused by medicine given by crazy doctors count as 'real' sickness? Stupid gits. They gave me antibiotics for something which, by their own admission, is NOT a bacterial infection (I've had a cough these past few days from the rain in Sydney). Can someone explain the logic of this to me? Is it any surprise I now have a fever to go with the cough?
 
So yesterday I went and asked why I was feeling a lot sicker and weaker, and the woman tries to send me back with more, costlier antibiotics, because "the old ones are obviously not working".  They were going to stiff me $6 per tablet, 12 of them, probably so they can get me all woozy by the next time I pop in there and make me buy up the $12 stock. 
  
I told them I wasn't paying for rubbish. Just took my MC and left the medication and the bare-minimum $12 consultaion fee on the counter and left.
 
I guess they won't let me back in there again. But who cares?
 
 

Make that a double

Know this other chap in the NTU debating squad? Expresses every thought in debating mode, opposes every opinion that comes his way, knows random facts about Mao's sex life and is a complete nutter who is dedicated to our noble occupation (you have to call it that) in a way that's at once horrifying and inspiring.

This man scored just as many points as Anirudh Baliga in the preliminary rounds at the Australs. He wasn't named Best ESL Speaker purely for alphabetical reasons.

But for his awe-inspiring commitment and work, we think mere technicalities should never stand in the way of celebrating his achievement.

Another toast, please, this time even louder, to applaud four long years of manic debating energy: To NMK, Best ESL Speaker at UTS Australs 2004, and along with Ani, 14th best speaker overall at this tournament.

A Toast

There is a young man in the NTU debating squad, who is one of the most affable of them all, if debaters can be called that. He's quiet, and rarely speaks unless he has something to say, also a rare thing in a debater. He went into this tournament with his world (literally, for in that respect he is no different from normal debaters) turned upside down: in a major team rehaul, he went from being first speaker to third, just one day before the tournament.

And yet this young man has come a long way this Australs. An almost-rookie, with just a year's debating experience and one Asians tournament under his belt, he has outperformed some of the best speakers we know - including NMK, Jes Lopez and the MMU bunch.

I toast to Anirudh Baliga, Best ESL speaker at the UTS Australs 2004.

Wrapping up

UPDATE: Madhav's in the finals!!! Hooray for NTU adjudicators!

SECOND UPDATE: Champions of this year's Australs are Monash 1, who beat MMU 1 in a 5-2 split.




Semi finals were this morning. In the Monash 1 vs Sydney 1 debate, Monash won, much to our surprise, in a unanimous decision. In the MMU 1 vs ANU 1 debate, MMU is through to the finals - it was a 5-2 split.

Madhav adjudicated in the semis. We don't know yet if he's through to the finals but he will probably be, because he's been a good boy and hasn't dissented at all, unless the chair (who happened to be the chief adjudicator, in that round) also dissented.

It's been a less than satisfactory run at this Australs for NTU. But in response to Amit's dry summary in the previous post's comments section, I should explain why we truly deserved to do better.

NTU 2 (Ani, NMK, Ankit Bahri) had the worst run of bad luck ever. They were on 4-1 at the end of the second day, and then they came up against MMU 1, the eventual finalist of this tournament. The sixth round was silent, and so they didn't know whether or not they'd won it, but when the draws for the seventh round came up and we saw they were up against Monash 1, we thought they HAD to be on 5-1 (and therefore, already through). Turns out they were actually at the top of the 4-2 pool, and were bumped up to meet the top of the 5-1 pool - and how unfair is that! But the worst of it is that they weren't given any good adjudicators, as near-breaking teams deserve. The thinking of the chief adjudicator and her minions seems to have stopped at - "Monash 1 is at 5-1, therefore this is not a crucial round for them. We don't need to put good people in that room." Pathetic.

The octo finals were a real pity. I suppose the entire team was suffering from a real case of nerves. They had fabuluos matter and argumentation, but they were very strategically flawed, going for an out-and-out matter-dump instead of being consciously persuasive. It cost them the debate against ANU 1 (broke first), who are certainly highly takeable (esp by NMK and co) and who, in that debate, definitely didn't have an unbreakable case. What they did have on their side, though, was clarity, coherence and a firm, simple line that came across impressively. When our team started responding to that in like, notably when Ani came up, they were brilliant (kudos to Ani, honest) but it was a little too late. I would have given the debate against them by a point or so. Still, it was a 2-1 split decision. It was that close.

Look at it this way. The debates that NTU 2 lost, barring a freak adjudication on the very first day, were to both the finalists and one other semi-finalist (ANU 1).

NTU 1 (Aditi, Ankit Agarwala and me) put up an average performance overall. No significant screw ups, a few moments of brilliance, but nothing really special. We were certainly short changed by adjudicators, though, even adhering to Amit's rule of winning against Aussie teams by 6 points in order to win. The last debate rankes especially... It was an Iraq case against Otago 1, we really did thrash them. Their first opp speaker was *absolute* crap, disdn't say anything at all! The debate was in the bag right from the start, and our team did marvellously... and yet, Fitch (whom Ani has great regard for, God knows why) went right ahead and misrepresented Ankit, concluded we had a team slide in our case even though nothing of that sort was ever alleged by the opp team, and gave it against us - by a point. Otago 1 broke 14th.

Aaaanyway. Sydney's still great. Ani's freezing, I'm celebrating my last couple of days of crisp cool weather, NMK's doing his letting-go-and-getting-drunk thing (all senti, what, since he's graduating etc etc). Fun.

Waking up and Cursing

Of NMK, Ankit and Ani
NMK is going quite ballistic
Because their rebuttals aren't very whollistic
They've won four out of five
And are still quite alive
Ani thinks they should be more optimistic.

- By Nandini and Ani

Of Ankit, Aditi and Nandini
So here we are debating
And I've started contemplating
Why we're stuck on three-two
Which shouldn't be true
But is, because of sad adjudicating.

- By Ani

Of Thin Skins
The cold, blue wind yesterday
Almost turned Ani pink.
The average Madrasi guy
Isn't as resilient as you'd think.

- By Ani and Nandini

Of This City
The buildings are pretty and old,
And none of them from the same mold.
But the trouble with Sydney
Is it shakes up your kidney
And rattles your insides with cold.

- By Nandini, and Ani, who wants to dissociate himself from it. PS: He came up with the word 'kidney' to rhyme with Sydney.

Waking Up and Cursing
Waking up at five is insanity
It inspires creative profanity.
The breakfast is good
But to hell with food
And we can't find a line to rhyme and we have three minutes left before we have to pay and extra buck, so off we go, and have a good day!

- Nandini and Ani

SYDNEY

It's marvellous here! The wearther's perfect - hovering around 17C - 18C, just a bit of a nippy wind that makes everything seem to crisp and fresh. :P to all you naysayers who were regaling me with stories of how miserable I'd be in the cold.

We haven't done much. We got here yesterday at 8 a.m. and went around the harbour for a while before checking in at two. The harbour's amazing. The opera house isn't that impressive (not yet at least) but the bridge is WOW. We caught a fire-juggling busker's show too - really funny jokes. And the streets and buildings and wharves in the harbour... This is like the perfect place on earth to live, if only the prices were better. The perfect mix of the modern essentials and beauty and culture to go along. And ahhh the romance.. what can I say?

After that I just came back and slept 15 or 16 hours straight. Didn't go for the pub night, which Ani assures me was decent. He, BTW, had his first beer and wasn't impressed by a long shot. I don't blame him.

Acco isn't very great. Quad sharing in a room meant for two, and this has meant Ani, NMK, me and a guy from NUS (don't know him, some dude called Farhan) are going to be fighting for the bathroom every morning. :S

More updates later. Might spar with Ateneo today, if those guys are recovered from their flight.

100

Yea, baby. Milestone. Centenary post.

Which is very neat and tidy because there's something else to celebrate... I'm off to Sydney (and you're not, nyah nyah nyah)!

But since I have like, 2.5 hours left to pack up my ENTIRE room, drag Ani and NMK up 6 flights of stairs and make them carry my stuff to my new room, and THEN leave for the airport to catch my flight, I think I'll stop blogging and start living my real life for a change.

Wish me luck at the Australs... My last debating tourney. *sob* But damned if I don't make it my most successful one. Yea baby!

I Party

So much of what I know of parties comes from TV and books - where, unless the plot requires it to be interminably dull, all parties are rollicking fun - that I feel guilty admitting that most of them bore me. The guilt actually adds itself to the boredom and worsens my plight. I have this vague sense that I'm not as sociable as I like to think I am, after all; I end up telling the world to screw it all, and damned if I put on a fake smile just because.

Last Friday was one of the rare exceptions. Amit invited me to Brix, which is on Scoots road at the basement of the Hyatt, and I went with very few qualms because Amit's presence at a party takes boredom out of the menu (bless him).

To quote Saurabh (who quotes from Seinfeld), I should go down on my knees and thank god that I have access to my dementia and Amit's salesmanship, to drag myself from JP back to NTU for a change of clothes, then to his place and on to Brix when my eyes were crying out for sleep. Because Brix is simply splendid.

The company was great, of course, though quite apart from deafening music making Amit's funnies out of the question, there was also the fact that I was there mostly with couples (or, in Nari's case, wannabe couples) who kept going happily off on their own, which left Amit and myself to get drinks, dance a bit and mostly sit around in the beginning.

And then the band came on. Don't ask me the name of the band - even Googling doesn't work - but without a doubt, they are the best live band I have heard. Not only do the three singers have enormous talent and heavenly, heavenly voices, they're quite good looking. Have a bit of a crush myself on the tallest of those black dudes. He gave me a gorgeous smile when I was dancing enthusiastically to their "It's My Life", later in the evening. *Swoon*

It says a lot about the quality of the band that I name them the highlight of the evening despite hearing some of the best gossip from Nari later on. Nari was letting himself go nicely that night - beers and cigarettes in quick succession. Tipsily, he gave me and NMK and Divya the low down on anyone in NTU you care to name, and I do mean the down and dirty- what I'll restrainedly term the 'blush factor' was quite high.

I suppose, sadly enough (or happily, depending on how you look at things), that it's all mostly conjecture on Nari's part, though to his credit, he tells it very convincingly. Hearing him talk you'd think everyone confided their deepest secrets in him, or that he had cameras hidden everywhere... or, if you're really naive and choose to fully believe him, both. But it was highly entertaining nevertheless. The fun thing is, with people, you're never sure whether it's because they're drunk that they're talking that way, or whether they're using their inebriated state as an excuse to indulge themselves.


We rounded off the evening (morning?) with roti prata on River Valley road at 5 am (one of the true blessings of life, all night food courts). Brilliant party. I want more like it.