it befuddles me how anyone can give one star or even one and a half stars in his/her review for a movie, because it seems to be the trend for many movie reviews these days. it seems to me that they are trying to prove something, that they are intellectuals and mass, commercialized movies dont appeal to them. which really shouldnt be the way since they are writing the reviews for a mass audience, to help the readers decide if a movie is worth watching. while the number of stars given is obviously based on the writer's opinion, there really is something wrong when the newspapers hire reviewers who have difficulty connecting with the readers. so yes, the clone wars werent particularly spectacular or impressive, but i thought it was good enough and didnt warrant the one star given by many critics. and i am not even a star wars fan. well it helped that i watched it for free, but there was really some storyline going on there, and it was coherent enough to follow. the animation could have been more, well, animated, as the characters seemed a little limited in their expressions and thus the movie wasnt as interesting as it could have been. other than that it was okay, and apparently that is the sentiment of most who watched the show as well.

forgetting sarah marshall was well, forgettable. a romantic comedy injected with sexual content and male nudity. had expected it to be funnier in the dialogue, but in the end they had to depend on slapstick humour and the acting of the actors to pull through. an ok show, but nothing memorable overall.

so the table tennis saga, as the media calls it, has come to a close. and it's good and even brave of lee bee wah to step forward and apologise. wasnt surprising though, very typical of the current government to take swift action before the opposition steps in to capitalise on the entire action. i can just imagine the exchanges between the parties involved.
lhl: "bw, what the hell were you thinking!"
bw: "i... i..."
lhl: "i dont want to talk to you. you have talked too much already. go talk to bala, and get instructions from him"
haha ok. it all stems down to one thing, talking too much, to the wrong person, at the wrong time, so they use the cause - talk - to resolve the entire issue. but trust netizens to attack a person on a personal level when such a fiasco breaks out. it happened to wee siew khim, and it happened to lee bee wah too. like i wrote previously, it boils down to inexperience, and one can only hope she grew out of it stronger. it seems to me the past week was tougher on her than it was for her when she fought in the previous GE. haha.

due to some circumstances and a certain person, i was forced to read some previous entries from years ago and it surprised me how much i have changed in my writing style. it used to be so ... kiddish, unsure, messy and sometimes absolutely boring; and while it isnt perfect or very mature and interesting now, i am glad that my writing has improved over the years. there's maturation and a difference, and that could be due to a change of lifestyle that widens the scope of what can be written. regardless, there's an increase in standard, in my eyes, and that makes me happy.

junyi! posted at 11:38 pm.

i am a little sore from the fact that i will not be getting an extra off day for the run - but that's the way life is - if you dont meet the mark, you wont be given the stated incentive. it's like the monetary reward for an olympics medal really. no medal, no money. even if you have entered the semi finals. haha so be it, i had thought it was a sure-get incentive, but perhaps this is a little reminder to always factor in the worse and not be overconfident. well it is over, that's good, and it should be my last long distance run in a while. kinda disappointed by the organisation of the whole thing - muddy grounds, lack of proper bag deposit or 'bag-leaving' area, and the horrible horrible engineers avenue where most people started to die. it was quite bad really and the 'quality project by singapore combat engineers' tag was misleading and embarrassing, given the engineers singlet i was wearing. but maybe its just me and i am looking for an excuse to explain my poor running form. indulge me. it wasnt that bad a run at the start, actually i was enjoying myself in the first half of the run, but my legs just cramped up after that. another reminder to stretch well before running. still there's that lil tinge of sense of achievement for having completed my 2nd half marathon. never mind it was a worse timing. haha. yes low fitness standards i know.

so lee bee wah is in the news again, she seems so eager to make the news every day, with her powers, her actions, her words. and she has recently sacked that anthony manager which is ridiculous really, at this time. never mind she hasnt credited the coaches or the manager or the behind the scenes people, she shouldnt be making light of their contributions and sacking them as the table tennis fraternity is celebrating! i mean in the first place, she is new to her job, she should spend more time learning about them and the culture before doing things like that. 2ndly it seems a little unilateral if you ask me. didnt know a table tennis president has such huge powers. 3rdly, why is she doing this in the middle of the olympics! they have just finished their competition, give them a break and stop showing your bosses you are uber on the ball, going to beijing to work and not to enjoy and hence they have spent well on the ticket they have bought for you. and lastly her reason of "wanting to let her new team choose a new management" is utter bullocks. by the same extension, if a new principal is appointed by the board, he should come in to a school with all the staff fired so he gets to choose the new people he is working with. oh those staff fired can reapply if they are keen.

yet i am not in the sporting fraternity, so what do i know and who am i to say anything.

have to book in at 6 later. which absolutely absolutely sucks. and i am very sore from all the running.

junyi! posted at 4:14 pm.

i am inclined to complain and whine a lot at this point of time. just 18 hours of camp for this entire week! in and out, in and out, and without the luxury of sleeping on my own bed, in my own room. my life sucks. on the bright side, there's just 79 more days to go, which translates to just 40 working days thereabout, so that at least is something to look forward to. yay.

so the world doesnt stop for you even though you are closeted in the confines of s a f camp. the table tennis team lost to china last sunday, which has become old news now that lijiawei lost to guo yue - a conspiracy they say, to make wangnan win just so that guo yue will face jiawei in the bronze play off and have a higher chance of winning that match, ensuring a clean sweep of the table tennis singles medals -, pm delivered his national day rally and now everyone is talking about having about having babies.

i think singaporeans do not give their fellow singaporeans enough credit. to them those carrying the singapore flag are always never good enough, and always subject them to some rather harsh criticism. it was the case when hady won asian idol - he won it by pure luck (not that i thought hady was ever very good), and while the local press hasnt harped on this, many are saying how singapore got its silver medal through luck too, through unforced errors by the koreans, more than real tenacity and skills on the part of singaporeans. the thing is, it takes a certain level of skills to get to where they really are, and rather then harp on what they did not do, why not focus on what they did. to win. and even if they lost, should we still not appreciate their hard work? isnt that the case when we compete and want people to appreciate our hard work. there's really more of "they are just not good enough" more than "we tried our best".

and then there's this whole idea about foreign talent and that the silver doesnt really belong to us. which i dont agree with really, because this is what singapore has always been about, an island with different ethnic groups because of the immigrants she attracted on her founding and has continued to do so until today. so as long as such atheletes made a choice to don the singapore colours because they were attracted by something in this country and as long as they believe in what they can do for this country, then i think it is time we stop treating them as second class citizens. of course they could just be mercenaries, wanting money and leaving once the money is made, or they just wanted a world stage to showcase their skills and singapore being this desperate country willing to pay for what they are asking is a convenient ground for them. but i think we need to learn to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe in them.

still on the olympics, i think lee bee wah as stta president is crass and has embarrassed herself and this country with her "rage" as she puts it herself. either she is new to the job or just trying to show off. i mean couldnt she have waited until everything was over to "blow her top", couldnt she have been more calm rather than consistently affect the morale of the coaches. and couldnt she do this internally and discuss it with the rest of her management rather then come across as being as a tyrant who talks about what she wants. gosh.

ok i am making a lot of assertions and all but whatever.

there wasnt really any shocking revelation in pm's speech. except for the whole protests being legalised at speakers' corner! wow. haha. that was a surprising move, but it would be interesting to see if the masses actually take to that idea. then of course there were the new incentives for more babies to be born. those who just had kids are probably pulling their hair out now. i think in the future for anyone who wants kids, have them after the ndp rally to be extra sure no new incentives come up within months or even weeks after your child is born and after you had one, have the next after 3-4 years because that's when the govt decides the babies STILL arent enough and there's a huge need to increase the incentives. see that way you ensure your maximise the amount of incentives received as you have kids.

o well, there's ahm tomorrow, and running just becomes so boring after some time.

junyi! posted at 11:34 am.

i have been feeling rather patriotic of late, possibly due to the nation's birthday having just past and the ndp organisers did a great job of injecting the singapore spirit into me; or maybe cos the table tennis team won singapore the 1st medal in eons, and somehow your hope and belief in the country is restored - which is a little bullshit really, my belief in this country has never been gone! hrm, ok, haha.

so congratulations to the singapore team for doing a fantastic job today against korea. watched bits and pieces of it (and quite chunky bits at that), and it was pretty exciting - notwithstanding the fact that i play a terrible game of table tennis and dont know much about it. but it was really quite entertaining, thrilling, and adrenaline-filled - the skoreans were great opponents, and i thought any side could have won, but i guess ultimately it was the singapore side that prevailed. i can imagine the headlines already and what they're to say - all that stuff about almost losing, but singapore never gave up, were persistent in their goals, focused and then ultimately prevailed, epitomising the much talked about singapore spirit that's apparently what this year's ndp is all about. in fact i think pm lee is going to talk about this in his ndp rally. except no one's going to listen since the table tennis finals will be held over the same timeslot, on another channel. ah i feel for him. see what a wrong choice of dates can do to you.

hrm first medal in 48 years. exciting. although i feel sad for that wang yuegu who lost all 3 sets in her singles and hence that singles wasnt quite talked about in the news or featured in the highlights. for all the matter, be featured in the interviews. ah the reality of life. like how you are ugly or "not cute enough" you cant be featured in the opening ceremony of the olympics. still i wonder if critisms would be as rampant if say london did it.

do you btw watch the highlights of olympics everyday on 5? gosh, jade seah is really quite bad at this. makes the whole thing look like an amateur school production.

in line with this whole singapore thing (ignore the fact that the ttb semis were held today), watched money no enough 2 (finally) yesterday, which honestly wasnt as bad as the critics had dumbed it out to be. i mean its true the characters could have been better fleshed out, and certain issues were thrown in for the sake of being mentioned (think f1, written in with no actual value to the show) and there were exaggerations or crass jokes that werent funny at all, but i thought neo still did a great job in putting across the views of the man in the street in a light hearted manner, which is obviously what he has been known to be doing for the past ten years. to begin with, he had never set out to direct and script an arthouse film and had intended to create a movie that would strike a chord with the masses and he did just that. i liked the drama in the show actually, although some i know didnt like it. i mean, the stars of the show were surprisingly the eldest son and his mother - i liked the part he had to send his mum to the old folks home and how she died and the flashbacks. quite touching.

as for the jokes, some jokes were funny - the whole erp thing, parking lady incident, coupon with 85 holes etc; some werent and too dependent on the not very natural cgi while some seemed to be better off as emcee jokes. haha. oh and i hated, absolutely hated the product placements. they didnt even fit into the movie well.

all in all it wasnt all that bad. not too dry, it was entertaining at the very least, and i didnt think it is worse than the first movie. yet again i was only ten then so i doubt i can remember all THAT much. but even then, it is not deserving of the one and a half star.

and then 2mr it's back to camp, to serve the mother of all patriotic acts. national service. except the difference this time round is for this you dont have much of a choice. haha

i can sense jonk telling me now biasness towards local acts is not an act of patriotism.

junyi! posted at 11:20 pm.

i was tempted to blog a couple of times since the last entry, but somehow they didnt materialise, obviously. have been spending the weekend sick, which totally sucks, and i guess the only highlight in this somewhat long break is the alumni gathering at the hml - i know the LIBRARY?! but since we havent been there in ages, it is somewhat cool to have it there and see how things have changed - for starters hullett's desk AND picture are gone, but other than that things havent changed much. physically. cant say the same for other things though, i think that things in school are changing way too fast. and that's the way education policies are, to keep pace with the ever changing challenges in society. ri and rj are merging next year, which should be interesting, but it's funny how things are going back how they were in the 1980s - well, just an observation.

all in all, it was great fun, seeing people you dont really know but kinda share some kind of bond together; or perhaps being able to meet up with people you know alright, but always needed an excuse to catch up with. it's a case of i have always wanted to know how soandso is doing, but we havent been close, so it would be weird for me to just call him and talk to him.

have been treated to some visual spectacles lately - the bj olympics & spore's ndp, and as usual, the fireworks were great treats. although there's nothing like watching them live, which gives one a huge sense of liberation and fascination.

have just finished jodi picoult's the pact, which was a decent read, although i did find it a little boring - the usual picoult fare that has somekind of big hullaballu happening at the beginning to shatter people's perfect lives and lead people finding out more about themselves and their relationships with their loved ones. then it would snowball into a trial, where we will see a twist! nevertheless, like i said, it was a decent read, as it reminds us of how we can never know a person "so well", as we often say of or to a good friend, even if that person is someone you love deeply or grew up with; aside from ideas of marriage, legal system and change.

watched journey to the centre of the earth on tues thanks to sj, and i must say it was a short movie, which meant they could tighten the plot to make it fast-paced. it was also very predictable, and a tad fake, so it didnt appeal to the intellectual side of me. haha but it was great entertainment nevertheless. and i liked how they tied in jules verne's book into the modern context. so yea, a 3-star movie i guess. haha.

and hurray i have just started watching season 4 of grey's - a pity addison left cos i really liked her. and of course burke. but generally i though it has been great thus far, esp how they open and close the shows.

Forgive & forget. That's what they say. It's good advice, but it's not very practical. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. When someone wrongs us, we want to be right. Without forgiveness, old scores are never settled and old wounds never heal. And the most we can hope for is that one day we'll be lucky enough to forget.

it's from ep 4 i think i cant remember. and i like it, reminds me of the moor hse play in sec 4. the whole if you cannot forgive, forget.

i think i am beyond caring now, at least i hope that i dont care at all, it is the best way to move forward.

junyi! posted at 12:32 am.