must see

great movie: the lives of others
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/

another great movie: the devil's backbone
guillermo del toro has a fascination for child protagonists, their vivid imaginations and wild fantasies, and the spanish civil war.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/devils_backbone/

disneyworld- where dreams come true! and fat people get fatter

back home

my throat is hoarse from all the durian i've been stuffing my face with.
the first thing i did once i set foot at home was open the fridge and exclaim "i smell durian!". i proceeeded to wipe it all out very quickly.
the first thing my grandma did when she saw me was to ask "got boyfriend?"
my whole family has been asking the same thing, pretending they don't already know.

glover the brown dog has heartworms. poor boy has been reduced to a scary skeletal state. my parents wish him dead because no one can control him when my sister is away. i urge my sister to take him to the vet but she says my parents will refuse to do followups after she's gone and he gets no love from anyone else at home but her. putting him down would be kinder because he will eventually die a slow death, eaten from the inside by worms, but she cannot do it because it is too painful for her.
i have always thought it would be easy to decide for someone when their lives should end if they were suffering and incapable of thought. but this is proving to be much more difficult than i had ever imagined.

for all the csr/sustainable development i have thought about and talked about, i feel helpless and unresolute as to whether to pursue or not. whether my skills and talents (yes, i do have some!) would be better put to use trying to make people understand that capitalism is good and if the world's poor can be given a hand at it, might be able to extricate themselves...or would i be better off with my entrepreneurial dreams, decorating houses and travelling the world at my leisure.

after watching blood diamond yesterday, i realized how media, specifically hollywood, if it chooses, can be so effective at relaying a message. the diamond monopoly and its evils are not something new or unheard of, but nothing is as impactful as a visual deluge of a beautiful continent and its people torn apart by the greed of the rich world. millions of dollars into the film's budget and a few months of toiling have achieved what agencies and its workers strive to accomplish in a lifetime.

once again i am launched into my thoughts about my role in this world, what can i do as an individual who cares (what philip labels bleedingheartliberals) and will it make any difference in any case?

hard-to-kick habits

when i was younger i thought my snacking habit would go away when i got older because older folks seemed to have their eating habits more in control (less out of impulse, more out of need). but after about 10 years of hoping that age would kick my bad snacking habit out of me, i realize i was naive.one of my hard-to-kick habits but also one of my favourite things to do at a supermarket is to buy a nice, crisp-on-the-outside, moist-and -tender-on-the-inside loaf of baguette and snap off the end and chew it as i stroll the aisles for my other needs. once in a while i think that maybe i am too old now to be eating something without first paying, but then i contend with myself that as long as i don't have kids of my own, i'm not old enough yet to stop. and if i were old enough, then i guess my desire/habit for instant gratification would cease to exist in the first placeanother supermarket favourite is ripe red cherries. starts off as testing a batch, then once i have made my choice of the best bag in the pile, i tear off an extra vegetable bag to use as my pit receptacle. i munch through about a quarter of the bag by the time i'm done and i have to circle back to grab a new one