We watched “Autograph Book” last week and it kinda reminds me of my wonderful yesteryears and it feels kind of relaxing just looking back and laughing at yourself.

Growing up is kinda sad. Whatever happened to the rainbow-coloured PaddlePops we kids used to love so much. Back then, PaddlePops were such a luxury. Now when I buy ice-cream, I’d choose stuffs like Cornetto or Haagen Daaz or Ben & Jerry’s.  Sometimes I do crave for the multicoloured PaddlePop but then when I go to the Co-Op or the minimart, I can’t seem to find them.

Then just now Farhan, Ying Hao, Jue Yi and myself went to take photos at Chinatown and Arab Street and after the session, Farhan purchased a PaddlePop ice-cream! And this is his comment : It kinda tastes like shit now. How sad. Have we grown so accustomed to better tasting things that we look down on things that were such a gem when we were younger?

I guess that has nothing to do with last week’s lesson.

“The virus is killed if the chicken is boiled for 15 minutes at 75 degrees celcius. The chicken is safe to eat if it’s cooked.”

I got that from the news tonight. The Japanese are so fearful of chicken because of bird flu that the ministers had to eat a bowl of chicken soup on national tv to tell them that it’s okay.

And how is this related to last week’s lesson? Memory.

See, all these Japanese are filled up with bad memories of bird flu that they have a negative reaction when it comes to consuming chicken meat. But then again, this is a bad example because the avian flu epidemic is actually quite scary, even to me even though I don’t live in a kampung where all the chickens run around freely, and I am sure hardly anyone has a happy memory of it.

People watch has made me do one thing that I really hate doing: stereotyping. But then again, I had no choice, had i? Stereotyping is a bad bad thing, because I learnt on my own that many a times, what you see, isn’t what you will really get. Like the old saying,”Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”.

However, I do admit that they way we look or dress do reflect on the characteristics that we have and stuff. For example, you see a Muslim woman donning the tudung and you would naturally assume that she is rather religious, which is partly true because she has chosen to follow one of her religion’s obligation. But we do not know if she follows other obligations which are required of her religion. (Okay, like me!)

Then here comes the question: why are we the way we are? It’s almost like that argument everyone keeps on talking about: nature versus nurture. And I think that it doesn’t require an idiot to realise that it’s both. See, science has made it as such that we acknowledge the fact that there characteristics may be passed down from parent to child through genes (or DNA, whatever) so when the child is born, the child is already sort of “programmed” to react in a certain way due to this genetic factor. However, due to external upbringing and influences, some of these “packaged-in” characteristics may be altered so that he is what he is today. (Doesn’t this remind you of the interior component of a character in a film? Haha)

So sometimes I wonder if I am born with it, or if it is how I was brought up, and the things around me that influence me to be who I am. It’s all easy to blame both. And I think I don’t really know myself but then again, I think it takes a someone a lifetime to really know himself because he is ever changing. Thus, I shall conclude this thought with the title up there: that I am a Question Mark. I think we all are.

Election kinda reminds me that everyone has their own secrets and desires. Well, many people do many different things to get what they want; and what they want may be what other people want too; and in that way, somehow, everyone’s lives are connected.

I’ve known a few Tracy Flicks in my life- the overachievers who always get things their way. Sometimes I feel like Mr McCallister- I want them to fail, fail and nothing but fail. They are so perfect, but I never really wondered if they ever felt lonely. Maybe they do. Maybe they are so consumed with their meaningless goals, loneliness don’t really bug them.

Sometimes I feel like I am a Tracy Flick myself: too consumed with what I want that I do anything to get it. Now that I think about it, I realise that that’s pretty selfish. What I get in the end may be better off for someone else. I recall my P.E. teacher once saying “everyday, you live in another person’s dream”.

If my life is a movie, it’d begin at the time where I was about 5- a loner, lying (well, barely lying) on my bed, bruised and crying because I got the belt for not wanting to go to school. Then it shall be fast forwarded to the time when I was 10- still a loner, lying (well, barely lying again) on my bed again, bruised and crying because I got the belt for being suspended from class. Then age 17- messed up, lying on my bed, head burried on my pillow, because I didn’t know if I wanted to continue with junior college or drop out of it. And then comes the cliched part where I convince my parents to allow me to follow my dreams, the part where i Carpe Diem-ed (I think that’s how it’s spelt), the part where I made alot of friends and got a few close ones, realised that God hears me in His very own Divine way, life’s not so harsh after all and blablabla.

And now I wonder (apart from who’s going to play me in my movie), is that the resolution to my very own Aristortelian tragedy? Then the movie would totally suck, receive very bad critics and would barely hit the box offices.

Actually, I don’t really know how to reflect for the last tutorial. Hehe. ;p

I wonder how many more weeks will pass before I run out of crazy titles to replace the word “Reflections”.

Before I start on anything, I think I should admit that I do have a flaw: I am a true blue procrastinator and I cannot find any cure for that tiny weeny itch. Therefore, almost everything I do is a last minute thing UNLESS …. unless nothing.

So on last Friday morning, Vinod brought his Mac laptop, which didn’t serve him any purpose in the end because he couldn’t get any internet connection on that MacbookPro (haha Vinod, Powerbooks rock! next time get a Powerbook but there won’t be a next time since they don’t make Powerbooks anymore). So, Vinod and Dom (I wonder whatever happened to his laptop) had to work on paper while the rest of us used our laptops to write comments and stuff on other people’s 50 word stories (now, this reminds me that I have yet to post the comments on my fellow classmates’ blog pages).

Oh by the way, Ryan, it’s not that I cannot critique a story. It’s just that I don’t like critique-ing stories because I think everyone has their own preferred style and I liked almost all of the stories which were read out last Friday.

Then after the 50-word-stories discussion, we had a break (which was, in a way, fun because Vivian, Sonia, Colin and Siew Eng were acting out the different animals which were printed on the YanYan biscuits while I, on the other hand, cheated because I chose the animal but haha, it was all in the name of good fun and boredom and hunger) so as usual, I made a lot of noise while other people were busy touching up on their powerpoint slides.

AND THEN! HERE COMES THE BORING PART OF THE LESSON: PRESENTATIONS ON A DEAD (but I suppose, legendary) MAN CALLED ARISTOTLE AND HIS THEORIES ON PLOTS AND TRAGEDY AND BLABLABLA.

Actually, it was kind of interesting. But then, I’ll just post the notes later because my brother is fighting with his girlfriend on the phone and his stupid voice is very distracting, and The Temptress DVD that’s sitting right before my computer screen is calling out to me.. “Come Atiqah.. Come.. Pick me up, put me in the player, watch me, watch me!“

Which I obviously cannot because I have this module called Individual and the Community tomorrow morning and my group and I have yet to finish so many things (or what seems like so many things) and I think I am babbling too many irrelevant things here so sorry Ryan I am wasting like 50% of your time but rest assured, the post that is going to be above this post shall be on Aristotle.

CHEERS!

REMINDER FOR ATIQAH: you’re supposed to people-watch.

Well, for this lesson, we were paired up with another person and we were supposed to choose one of the openers that person had written and write a story out of it within 20 minutes. I was paired with Wendy and I chose her “Jolynn stares at her family photo and tears are flowing uncontrollably from her eyes.” sentence and this was what I wrote:

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Jolynn stares at her family photo and tears are flowing uncontrollably from her eyes. Sitting at the corner of her room, she pulls her legs to her chest and buries her head as she resurrects memories from her childhood. The frame falls out of her hand and lands on the floor, shattering the piece of glass that protects it. Behind those thin sheets of clear material, each and everyone of them smiles at Jolynn, but she wonders if such smiles are real. After what seems like eons, Jolynn emerges from behind her arms and picked up the broken frame. The pieces of glass fall onto the parquet and some on her tiny feet as she does. She stares at the photo one more time, and then puts it aside and picks up a petal of glass. She begins to giggle sadistically under her breath as she runs the glass lightly down her arm and across her wrist. She turns to look down at her family photo one more time before adding pressure to the glass and on her skin, breaking it and allowing the blood to flow out quickly and freely like prisoners on a loose. This time, she begins to giggle harder, and eventually she is laughing hysterically, so loud that at the other room, her sister hears her laughing and rushes into her room to see what the commotion is.

Janine stands there in front of her broken sister, in front of her bleeding and breaking sister. She looks on, not knowing what to do, afraid that if she touches Jolynn, then she might break down too. Jolynn stops laughing and looks into her sister’s eyes. While she slowly gets up on her feet, she wipes her wrist at the side of her bed, hoping to wipe off the blood but to no avail as the red liquid continues to flow. How can it stop flowing? Would a dolphin stop swimming if it has been freed out into the ocean? Janine continues to stand there, inanimate. She is still in shock. Running in her mind are thoughts of the people she has been helping at community centers but little does she know, or realize, that the very person who needs her help is at home. Jolynn reaches out and hugs Janine, her body shaking, her blood staining the back of Janine’s white shirt, her tears flowing down her cheeks and onto Janine’s shoulders.

And then, voice shaking not so violently as her body, she sings a line that hits both them hard in their hearts. “In our family portrait we looked pretty happy, let’s play pretend. Let’s go back to that.”

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Ryan made a few of us read out the stories they wrote. Some of them were good. Ben’s (I think, the one about the climate and working people) and Sonia’s were amusing. Somehow I think Sonia has a thing for ancient China because I recalled her writing something along that line during the first lesson but if it’s not her, then sorry Sonia. I don’t know why, I always get lost when someone tells me a story like that.

And then we were given groups to work with for our presentation on Aristotle (the SuperGreat Grandfather of Storytelling) and I was paired up with Dom and there isn’t much to say right now because none of the groups have presented yet so there are no lecture notes at the moment.

Yeah.

It’s really not my intent to reflect only after almost a week since we had our first Storytelling Techniques (Ryan hates the module name, but I forgot why) lesson, but I’ve been busy looking forward to Hari Raya (oh, finally I can eat and drink in class again!) and all of the green packets. Hehehe.

The first lesson is so fun, I don’t where to start. Really. Ryan, if you’re reading this, I’m not trying to suck up or anything because if you read EVERYONE’s wordpress, each and everyone of them seem to enjoy ST.

When I reached school last Friday, I really didn’t know what to expect. The night before I was talking to my boyfriend about the modules I am taking this semester and when I reached storytelling techniques, instantaneously, that crazy botak head love of mine went “Once upon a time..” and I shuddered. Was I going to be taught to be like one of those librarians you find at the children’s section, or the storyteller at Borders? Then as the night went on, I began to dread Friday because numero uno, I HATE telling stories out loud because I tend to digress and then I just give up telling the story entirely.

And then Friday came and I arrived school on time for my lesson. Ryan introduced himself and told us to address him as Ryan. Oh joy. I love addressing people by their first names. It’s not so scary to talk to them that way. Don’t you agree? I mean if you address your mother as “mom”, then there’s that tendency that there are some things that you won’t discuss with your mom, or there’s some sort of etiquette you follow while talking to your mom. But that’s not really our concern right now I suppose. So anyway, Ryan passed us these white cards and told us to write our names on one side and 5 things about me that I’ll bet money on that my friends don’t know. That was an interesting one. We learn things about other people. And it’s too bad that it is only now that I am reflecting because I cannot remember what is it that I learn about other people.

After that we had this name game thingy which I really dread because I used to play this a whole lot during camps back then when I was in secondary school and junior college and I keep on forgetting what adjective I used along with my name. So there’s Rapping Ryan, Virtuous Vinodh, Sexy Sonia, Vain Vani, Action-packed Atiqah, Dominating Dom… and I forgot the rest. Whatever. It was really for the benefit of Ryan.

So during the lesson, I found out that contrary to my belief, Storytelling Techniques is not about “Once upon a time, dear little kids, there was once a hobbit who lived in Hobbitsville with all of his cute little friends”. Storytelling Techniques is only SOMETHING like that. But here in this course, we are required to write stories and stuffs. Of course at that note I totally light up because numero uno, I love (reading and) writing and numero dos, I’ve written two novels before. The only difference is prolly 3 three things: Present Tense, Active Voice and Third Person Account. But I doubt neither of those elements is going to create any sort of difficulty.

Then we were given a sentence (Dominic puts on his hula girl outfit and steps into the temple) and were told to create a short story within 20 minutes. It was really cool listening to what others had written and comparing to what I have.

Oh here’s mine!

Dominic puts on his hula girl outfit and enters the temple. He steps onto the platform and offers a hula dance to the unmoving gods that sit before him. A monk sees Dominic dancing on the platform and calls his other monk friends in amusement. Totally oblivious to the group of monks who are observing him, Dominic continues to his rhythmic act, carefully lifting one leg after another and creating small, beautiful curves with his hands. As Dominic continues his ridiculous dance ritual, one of the monks steps up onto the platform, initially with the intention to stop him from making fun of their gods but in return, he joins Dominic in the dance. Another monk begins to hum a tune, the sort that you hear when you go to Hawaii, and three other monks join him and then two more and now we have some sort of an a cappella. Visitors in the temple just look on as another monk joins in the dance and in their amusement, one by one joins in the dance ritual. And despite all of this, Dominic is still oblivious to the people and the music that is taking over the peaceful nature of the temple. Then, suddenly, Dominic stops his cute little ritual, takes off his hula girl outfit, runs out of the temple and into his car and drives away.

Sometime during the lesson Ryan said something about experiencing the “writer’s block” and I think his solution to that problem can really help me whenever I’m having my own blogger’s block. Sometimes I really feel as if I have/want to write about something, but not quite sure what is it that I want to write about. So maybe, just maybe this might work for me.

Oh! And I’ve got something cool to share about Ryan! He can speak BAHASA INDONESIA! LIKE PHWOAR, LIKE WOW, LIKE AHMAGAH! The only other American I know who knows how to speak Bahasa Indonesia is John, but John practically grew up in Jakarta so no surprises there.

NOTE TO SELF: REFLECT EARLIER NEXT TIME ATIQAH!