Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Dear diary,

It's finally nearing the end of the term. I have a breather today and an advertisement on CLEO got me curious about the other dramas/movies starring Korean star Gianna Jun. Soon, I finished watching a movie she was co-starring in, titled "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan".

Based on a book by Lisa See with a completely oriental plot (practice of feet binding and the erotic fascination with lotus feet, women dependent entirely on men with no privilege of their own, and the intimacy of sisterhood), this is a familiar genre to me. The genre with stories of oriental women with a strong will but delicate beauty fascinates me. It's my favourite genre I'll say... and the love for books featuring strong women started when I read "The little princess", "Pride and Prejudice", "The last empress" and so on. Books about women is attractive, but books about Asian women is a big plus as I am drawn to the familiarity and depth of my culture. The only thing I will say is that the male characters in these books (often marketed internationally to Europe/USA) are often Caucasian. I don't quite agree with that but I suppose it is due to the backgrounds of these authors... they are often Asian women with Caucasian partners, or half Asians. 

Asian made movies offers a whole new perspective to that imbalance as it features entirely Asian characters. Some of the movies I had watched are "Memoirs of a Geisha", "Dangerous Liaisons", "The Grandmaster", "House of Flying Daggers", "Chungking Express" and "In the mood for love". Movies featuring Zhang Zi yi or made by Wong Kar Wai are often quite good.

A divergence but I also enjoy Woody Allen films even though it is not an Asian movie. "Midnight in Paris" has a fascinating storyline and romance, while 'Amelie Poulain' is a beautiful french movie about a girl who is quite different. 

Rambling off..

xoxo

Power of writing

I just read from an article about how people who like to write are more able to cope with stress, and how it benefits the person by elevating the mood.

Yes, then I guess I should write again. Something which I had not done for a long time (I know I keep saying this).

Life as a student is doubly stressful. :( These past few weeks had been stressful times as I had to grapple with a few major things in my life - decisions, studies, moves, choices. Day after day we have meetings for group work, day after day I think of how to complete the next individual assignment.

Motivated by extrinsic (fear of failure) and intrinsic reasons (desire to do well and benefit people), I feel that I am giving too much pressure to myself. Coupled with a lack of sleep and fluctuating schedules everyday, physically my body is probably confused.

We all need balance and rest in our lives. Where is my leisure time? Eroded away by the stress of assignments, readings, preparations. Where are my weekends? Sweet weekends of doing nothing too serious hasn't been a possibility of late. Emotionally, I do miss my old w place to some extent. The comfort of not needing to change too much, knowing that you have the same group of people and environment and hours around you even if the challenges change everyday. Knowing that you had done well, has overcome and will be able to cope.

Yet now, with everything so new it is the opposite. Ah. :-/

Xoxo

Spending too much this month

Dear Diary,

It is not a budget-wise month. :-( I am weak when it comes to skincare products and overspent this month. It does not help that I have to spend on a reliable watch this month since the previous few brands that I have tried (S Titus, Swatch) did not live up to expectations and spoilt on me! Seriously frustrating considering that these watches cost around S$300 and it is so flimsy. The S.T. watch lasted me for around 3-4 years and had changed batteries and straps countless times, I supposed this is acceptable if I break it down to about S$100/year.

However, the so called reliable brand of SW automatic watch only lasted for 4 months. I thought swiss made products are durable but apparently not. This automatic watch is a beauty with it's transparent mechanism, but it runs faster than it should by about a minute everyday and the back face had an insidious crack since the first week. I was so upset that I bought myself a B watch that is inspired by the Arctic, with highly resistant scratch proof ceramic links and gold plated straps. It has worked well so far and my expectation for this watch is to last for YEARS.

In addition, I spent too much on facial sessions by taking on a new package. It is clearly not my intention to purchase more when I have about 8 sessions left (can last for close to 1 year) but it was hard not to when the salesperson gave a deal that is irresistible to walk away from.

To be frank, aside from these 2 rare big ticket purchases of facial package & watch, other spending were at similar or lower levels as before... I topped up on some skincare essentials during a sale today and though this is saving future money, it is exacerbating my budget situation this month. Sighs. :-(

I have to be more disciplined next month!

xoxo,
principessa

Writing therapy - Our 2014 World

Writing is really therapeutic from what I remember. A decade ago, I would have been updating my blog a few times a week and friends tune in every few days to read the latest post. And it's not just me, but me and many other people. We take turns to read each other's blog and comment, get updated by each other's thoughts. As one of the earlier adopters (or am I a mass adopter?), if I count back this trend of blogging would have gone back to at least 10 years! Tres amazing!

But the world now is so different. Although blogging still remains, it is less popular as people get into social media sites and 'update' their friends via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. We are into short messages and shorthand writing, pictures and videos. What happened to lengthly sharing of thoughts such as blogs? No wonder the young people of today spell so poorly, have short attention spans, and are glued to their mobile games and screens. In this year 2014, 'Selfies' and 'Wrecking Ball' Miley type of attitude, female quiffs and male makeup/dressing that cross the boundary of being darkly feminine are so popular. There just seem to be so much hurt, anger and naked self expression that's trending in popular culture. Sighs. How will the world be like in 2024? I don't know.

Currently, what I had predicted a few years back when animated movies like Wallee was out, had come true. People have became almost robotic in their own bubble world. They're hooked on their mobile screens, enclosed in their own world via the ear phones, and not looking at people and 'truly' interacting with the world that passes by. It is like how busy-ness (this is addiction to living in virtual bubbles) robs us of our appreciation of the beautiful world that God had created. You know what? Perhaps that's it. It is what I think it is. Satan is luring us away from really connecting with each other and luring us away from appreciating or even thinking about creation around us, this is the secular world. With that, we are so buried in our work and own sense of play that time for deep reflection about our lives/our spirituality/our soul business (as I call it) eludes us. We simply have no time to think about deep issues, the real things that matters!

There's always something to chase, sadly these things we chase are mostly temporal. Like how to do better than others in terms of pay, position, promotion. How to live in a yet more luxurious house, getting more branded bags and shoes, how to get a nicer car that will win the envy of others, how to look better, and so on and so forth. Oh well. :-(

How will the rest of 2014 pan out? I don't know, but God holds our yesterday, our today and our tomorrow that I know. And I know something for sure. That global warming is only going to speed up and temperatures are rising, more extreme weather events are happening year after year and month after month (it appears in our papers on a weekly basis or more frequently), I know for sure that the world is going to be different and we will be facing the brunt of it. But as a child of God, I know He will look after me and be through this with me.

Thank you God.

xoxo,
principessa