I confront a conflict of interest.
a) I value art, opinions, and universal understanding. This is idealistic. I must have a staple diet of news, movies, books and music. Because it is impossible to discover all perspectives on your own.
b) I want to do right more than anything. I am a Christian and my values are very important to me. I want to apply my faith in everything I do, without becoming an exclusive bitch.
So where do the sneaky fellas come in? American Beauty is one of the sneakiest movies I have ever seen. It hits you with powerful, convincing cinematics and a great script, is pro-drugs and pro-adultery (if it helps you get your fix, why not?), and hell, what is with this line: "and that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever"? I swear it's a contradiction in terms. It just is. A clumsy attempt to combine my a) and b), and I go, "Here's a solution... wait a minute!" Why should I gain a life lesson from a director? Would I bar my child from watching it? And here I am, preaching against censorship.
By here it is. I am perfectly okay if you want to show, in a wide, flat way, things that happen, because they happen. Drugs and adultery exist. It would be stupid to pretend otherwise. What I'm not okay with is when they are portrayed as all so good. I'm not expecting characters to wind up in a burning pit of hell or repent for life. A lot of people don't, and I refuse to take any part in condemnation. But Lester appeared so... happy. Like lusting after his teenage daughter's friend was... a solution.
It was just kind of freaky. The worst part is that it is such a good movie. Beautifully filmed. And how the director so cleverly kept you guessing, from beginning to end, how Lester was going to die, and you kept suspecting every single person along the way? Dead-on sneaky.
______________

Two people I know from entirely different places recently met and, unbeknownst to them, have blogs that are separated by a mere few links. It's fun reading what they think about each other. Blogger is, simply, a phenomenon.
I shall set the clock backwards. I attended my last day at work at Serene Centre. I decided that I love searching for books for customers, it's great to see their faces light up with joy when I present them with their purchases. I also smile widely when they choose expensive books. I grinned sharkishly at a guy who bought what seemed like the entire Where's Wally? series - altogether fifty-something dollars. A Chinese-Canadian man walked in all enthusiastic and asked what was the theme of the shop - "New Age?" It had me thinking for a while.
Met 1C for the first time after prom - it occurred to me that before this the class was never separated for more than a month at a time over the course of two years - and enjoyed the sight of all the army boys shouting at each other, exchanging buddy-buddy handshakes. I am also happy to note that none of the girls coloured their hair - which a lot of people seem to think is a necessary symbol of no-longer-schooling. I miss them, I am proud of them.
For the past week I've been attending the Asia-Pacific biotech conference to sell books for World Scientific, the publishing company I'm interning at. Academics like to ask difficult questions like Which books will be helpful to me if I'm switching from a Computer Science to a Bioengineering major or Hm this book isn't entirely relevant to the conference is it? I also had to sit in close proximity to some seriously boring books. Let's see if I can remember any titles. Ah. The Mathematical Nature of the Living World, Topographicsomething, the most interesting being Fuzzy Logic for Beginners, because it had Illustrations. But I did get to meet people from a bewildering range of places - Austria, Korea, Portugal, India, Canada. There was this guy from the University of Minnesota who actually gave me his card and said to feel free to contact if I had questions about US universities when I mentioned a possibility of going there to study. It's nice to see pieces of the world in one small NUS hall.
Mel left on Tuesday. I miss her. Yes, I will remember everything as a closing of this chapter - the way we all squeeze into a camera frame for a self-portrait, to keep it there, exactly the way we want it, for now.

"I'm a terrible dancer. I need to be really drunk and see a beautiful girl over there. It was a way of getting close to a girl without having to speak because always, whenever I opened my mouth, they would leave. So, dancing was a chance to keep them close."
- Diego Luna

Whoa! Cross-reference above quote with entry dated 7th Jan.
It's a bit dangerous to watch Dirty Dancing 2 because afterwards, every girl in the universe will want to a) go to Cuba b) hit a dance floor where everybody is singing allow me to introduce myself... represent Koo-ba! c) dance the night away with a guy who isn't holding your school satchel because he wants to mug you, no, he's just being gentlemanly. Hah. Only Diego could get away with a stunt like that. According to Mel, he didn't.

"My theory is that if you're an unfortunate fat, ugly or misshapen child up till you're 10, you will always feel like that on some level as an adult... I've got friends who were gorgeous as children but are hideous adults, and they have more confidence then you can imagine."
- Kate Beckinsale

My, my, the mixed messages. Thanks for the tact and compassion, Kate. Let's see if they're still your friends after they read that. Hideous is an extreme word. In fact, I don't know a single person who fits the term "hideous adult". And need she be shocked that they are confident even if they are, under her terms, hideous adults?
After we saw Alfie I was humming exactly one line of the Joss Stone remake over and over - "What's it all abouuut..." and to my extreme shock my dad chimed in, "...ALFIEEEE." "You know that song?" I gasp, incredulous. "Of course I do!" He talked about how people used to sing it for Talentime - the original Talentime, I assume, and I excitedly thought he had seen the original movie. Unfortunately, he had not. He remembers the young Michael Caine, though. I love hearing about the movies in my parents' time. Apparently my mum fell asleep while watching Star Wars: Episode IV.

"If he had not heard a story for Monday, he made one up, and said that he had heard it, so that one thing led to another and by Friday he was either in trouble or the hero, nothing in between. By Sunday he was resting, and the story seemed like a fine reminiscence, wine-like in its flavour. "
- Alberto Alvaro Rios, from the short story Spiced Plums

I seem to be quoting excessively over the past couple of blog entries because there is beauty in the breakdown (Frou Frou, Let Go) everywhere else. See, there I go again.
It is a bit difficult to find my own words. I'll restart.
I started my second job today. I knew it was going to be somewhat trying when I worked on saving and deleting reviews on books like The History of the Lambda Tree and A Concise Review of Calculus. I have, happily, also been assigned articles to write, although this mainly consists of researching biotechnological developments, which is definitely one of the subjects about which I know the least in the world. But the pantry is painted orange and the toliets are marked MARS (male) and VENUS (female). Who wouldn't love that sense of humour?
It was depressing having to quit my job at the Serene Centre bookshop, where I did botch up a sizeable number of receipts but had customers I could talk to with genuine interest - I succeeded in conning a little boy into buying A Little Prince, which he may or may not like, and did nothing to discourage a couple from buying Archie comics for their very small son based on the flimsy reason that there were "lots of pictures". I could grow to love that place. But that'll have to wait.
I'll meet Alfie tomorrow.
On Monday I was hanging around Ghim Moh and Holland V with Mel and Han, areas conspicuously void of RJ students, and I was unexpectedly outraged when I saw the alien NUS High sign. "An abomination!" I shouted, shaking a fist, while Mel's dad, mum and sister gave me hairy-eyeballed looks. Why exactly is it? I have no idea. But it's painfully obvious that I'll never be able to go back now.

I'd rather dance with you
than talk with you,
so why don't we just move into the other room.
There's space for us to shake,
and 'hey, I like this tune'.
Even if I could hear what you said,
I doubt my reply would be interesting
for you to hear.
Because I haven't read a single book all year,
and the only film I saw,
I didn't like it at all.
I'd rather dance than talk with you.
The music's too loud
and the noise from the crowd
increases the chance of misinterpretation.
So let your hips do the talking.
I'll make you laugh by acting like the guy who sings,
and you'll make me smile by really getting into the swing.
I'd rather dance than talk with you.
- Kings of Convenience, I'd Rather Dance With You

Samisms
*Possible spoiler*

"This is your one opportunity to do something that no one has ever done before and that no one will copy throughout human existence. And if nothing else, you will be remembered as the one guy who ever did this. This one thing."

"I'm like working something out in my head, she's like, 'you're in it right now' and I'm looking at you telling this story, and you're definitely in it."

A first day
A little number count covering the past few days/plans would be as follows:

Excursions
- 2 trips to town (read one for towning, two for Alfie)
- 1 trip to Holland V/Ghim Moh (old-school)
- 1 trip to Ang Mo Kio for St. Nicks'/Thomson Plaza (older older-school)
- 1 trip to the airport
Purchases
- 1 James Dean calendar
- 1 David Grey CD
- 1 Garden State DVD (unofficial import) (hooray!)
Food
- 3 Brandy snaps
- 1 Yoshinoya beef set
- 1 scoop of butterscotch ice-cream
- 18 pieces of calamari
- 1 plate of chilli prawn pasta
- 3 Carrefour sweets, 1 Fish and Co 10%-service-charge chocolate
How to get it back
- 2.5 part-time jobs that enjoy overlapping each other
- i trips to gym
Sightings
- The modern woman: Guy opens taxi door for girl. The girl smiles evilly, walks away and enters the cab through the opposite door. The guy looks embarrassed and pretends he had opened the door for himself. I have a heated discussion with Han and Mel about when exactly doors should be opened. Conclusion is, no one gives a damn.
- 3 OGs wandering around P.S.. I couldn't help but be sentimental. I spy on them and try to guess which JC they hail from by the uniform count. I will not forget the wildness and joy/fear of a new experience as vast as that one. I felt like giving them a hug, saying, "Hold it in your hand, tightly," but what would I do? In my mind the balance rests somewhere in between.