From Official site Ingredients: Organic white tea, organic jasmine green tea (green tea, jasmine), organic orange peel, organic licorice, natural vanilla and apple flavors, organic cinnamon, organic chamomile, organic apples and organic lavender.
听Norah Jones的Butterfly，背景里有个老男人的声音问着“Who are you and what were you before?” Paranoic man!
a cold and wet november dawn, and there are no barking sparrows. just emptiness to dwell upon.
i fell into a winter slide, and ended up the kinda kid who goes down chutes too narrow. just eeking out my measly pipes
but i learned fast how to keep my head up cause i know there is this side of me that... wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just... fly the whole mess into the sea
another slow train to the coast some brand you glory-eyed from way on high i sink and then i swim all night.
i watch the ice melt on the glass, while the eloquent young pilgrims pass, and leave behind a trail... imploring us all not to fail
of course i was raised to gather courage from those... lofty tales so tried and true, but if you're able i'd suggest it cuz this... modern thought can get the best of you.
this rather simple epitaph can save your hide
fate isn't what we're up against there's no design, your flaws are fine there's no design, your flaws are fine
but i learned fast how to... keep my head up cuz i... know i've got this side of me that.. wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and... fly the whole mess into...the...sea
Sunshine was graciously abundant today. It was the kind of day that made you dreamy, delirious and almost convinced humans were once born in fire, delighted by its passionate warmth. So there I was, walking my usual 15min walk to lab 4pm on a 'silver dust lane'.
And it was also one of the strange days for no reason at all I attracted perverts and commoner-looking passers-by who attempted to flirt with me saying 'how ye doing', 'pretty warm eh?'. Usually I walked straight on keeping a stern face and wished they stopped trailing me but today I politely replied 'pretty good' and must have smiled wryly.
Someone's already in lab when I walked in the door. He's a new-comer who sadly doesn't win favors from the ladies. It all started the day our prof invited him over for an interview. Wanyi disliked him at first sight (talking about 'love at first sight', there you have 'disgust at first sight' just to complete the picture). She hated the way he walked with back slightly hunched, the way he talked mumbling under his breadth and slurring his speech, or the way he bothered her with questions he could've researched on his own. Nothing about him is right. There isn't strictly an 'anarchy' system officially established here, but Wanyi being the head of gossip and loud-speaker has a profound influence on the way things should go in the lab. She never stopped complaining about the guy and soon everybody held a distance from him. Even if there IS some inherent unlikable aspect in him, it gets amplified and exaggerated to a super unwelcomable extent which almost calls for basic sympathy, from me at least.
I side-tracked. The guy goes by surname 'Gong' but our prof pronounces it 'Gone'. One day prof said he was going downstairs to fetch a coke and asked Gong to wait for him. When prof came back, Gong wasn't there anymore. In dismay prof shouted across the room 'Where's Gong?!' (Where's Gone? the way he said it.) Evaylo, the taciturn, replied 'He's gone.' I never knew Evaylo had such a warped humor before. We got the pun and laughed hysterically.
So today when I was pipetting loading buffer into the tube, Gone extended a hand across the shelf and asked me 'Do you know what it is?'. I inched closer and saw what closely resembled mouse shit residing at the bottom of an Eppendorf tube. 'No...' (but it looks like mouse shit) Before I could voice my hesitation in bracket, he told me it was roach's egg which could give you a lovely cockroach, and asked me whether I'd like to take it home and see the whole developmental process. On top of that he advised me to poke a hole or flip open the cover now and then to give it enough oxygen. Taking it home was obviously way beyond my sensibility but I agreed to stick the tube on lab shelf and promised to watch its growth. What a weird day.
Am reading a book titled 'No Logo'. I remember we used an excerpt for general paper back in junior college. If you want to know more about globalization the underworld of corporate expansion, this would be a good read.
A funny excerpt on the title itself The title No Logo is not meant to be read as a literal slogan (as in No More Logos!), or a post-logo logo (there is already a No Logo clothing line, or so I'm told). Rather, it is an attempt to capture an anticorporate attitutde I see emerging among many young activists. This book is hinged on a simple hypothesis: that as more people discover the brand-name secrets of the global logo web, their outrage will fuel the next big political movement, a vast wave of opposition squarely targeting transnational corporations, pariticularly those with very high name-brand recognition.
From Wiki: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies is a book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein. First published by Knopf Canada in January 2000, shortly after the Seattle protests had generated media attention around such issues, it became one of the most influential books about the anti-globalization movement and an international bestseller.
Quotes of the day: Explorer Bill Stone: "The traditional approach to space exploration has been to carry all the fuel you need, and to carry everybody back in case of emergency. But to prime the pump that will take us beyond, boldness is required: the first expeditionary team must travel to the Moon without the fuel to come back, and produce it there. It can be done in 7 years, and I intend to lead that expedition. There was a time when people did bold things to open new frontiers. We have collectively forgotten that. Now we are at a time when boldness is required again."
Longest journal entry ever... should've split them into three. I scribbled whenever I was in the mood and it sprawled over 3 days...
Splitting cracking throbbing headache. Want to write short reviews on the two movies I've watched.
Wake up on Day 2. 12 hours of sleep, with one hour dinner and one hour reading half way in between. That was my Saturday.
In the book 'the stone diary' (or is it 'diaries?'), she described the tension in Mercy's chest as 'an accordian held sideways', fans out, heaving and held stagnant. I liked that description, making me a little hard to breathe. On the road a scene came in mind. She turned and saw a woman moving towards her, her dress dark like dried blood. Then she realized she was staring in a mirror. It was a vivid red satin she was wearing that night. I can't recall where it came from, maybe 'life is elsewhere'? Not quite.
The movies. Thanks to gang who's a real movie reservoir. I wanted to watch 'Perfume' in cinema. It might have been a great experience. The screenplay was based on a 1985 classic horror novel by German author Patrick Süskind. The story's set in 18th century France where the protagonist Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was borne to a fish monger mother who had 5 still births or semi-stillbirths before. The opening scene depicts a revoltingly filthy wet market filled with low-lifes and rich with stench (you could imagine) and meat slashing sound by butchers gutting pigs and wretching out their intestines. Grenouille's equally filthy mother felt a sudden pain in her stomach and the next second she laid down on dirty floor and virtually 'ejected' Grenouille, cut the cord with a fish knife and went back to business. I watched that with wide open eyes, what??! That's how you labor?? Okay...
Spoiler-free synopsis: Grenouille's a freaking prodigy who knows all the scents in the world. His nose is sharper than dogs but the only weird thing is he doesn't have a scent of his own. Driven by the desire to preserve all possible scents including that of humans (pheromones), Grenouile's apprenticed to a perfumer Baldini who fails to satisfy his quest sadly but suggests he go to Grasse where Grenouile learnt the techniques of maceration and enfleurage (ie. extracting plant oils by absorbing and distilling fats). That's where a series of murders begin...
Perfume reminds me of 'Girl with a pearl earring'. The antique colours and artistic settings are similar. The soundtrack is splendid. You can feel its brilliance throughout the movie. The ending is, well, unexpected and exaggeratingly black humor. It's sad to see the magic of his mastery in scents could 'conquer' the whole world but brings no satisfaction to himself eventually.
The director also directed 'Run lola run'. Now you make the connection. More connections: The song "Scentless Apprentice," by the American rock band Nirvana, was inspired by Perfume. It appears on their 1993 album In Utero. The band's singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain often described it as one of his favourite books.
Babel is a smart, montage-like film that pieces together different geographical stories which weave one whole story in jumpy temporal frames, like putting together jigsaw puzzles spelling out a warning to us 'You need to LISTEN' (that's the theme and tagline). The origin of the word 'Babel', from Wikipedia, is the name used in the Hebrew Bible for the city of Babylon (Akkadian Babilu), notable in Genesis as the supposed location of the Tower of Babel.According to Genesis 11:1-9, mankind, after the deluge, traveled from the mountain where the ark had rested, and settled in 'a plain in the land of Shinar' (or Senaar). Here, they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto Heaven, the Tower of Babel.The attempt to build the Tower of Babel had angered God who, in his anger, made each person involved speak a different language which ultimately halted the project and scattered and disconnected the people across the planet.So you get the idea. 'Babel' signifies failed communication and how disconnected people have become.
*Spoiler warnings* The story started out rather innocent (or maybe not). Two Morocco brothers played with a hunting gun and the younger one accidentally shot a woman on an American tour bus. You can imagine the huge uproar in the States where the name 'terrorism' is promptly coined to address the severity of issue. Being trapped in a remote village where both transportation and the freedom to verbally communicate with the locals are rather hopeless, the woman (Kate Blanchett, Brad Pitt's wife) was dying from blood loss. I forgot to mention the couple was on bad terms with each other, on the brink of a divorce it seems. Political interference delayed proper medical attention and help from American Embassy came rather late. Possibility of death and eternal separation however rescued their desperate love. So far so good for the Americans. But look at the Morocco family. The police was brutal either due to this 'terrorism' pressure or they were just like that (I doubt). I shall not elaborate...
The above was the central story which took place in Morocco. The other three took place in America, Mexico and Japan. The babysitter of the couple's kids is a Mexican. It was her son's wedding but she was told to stay and take care of the kids. A chain of events led to her being permanently expelled from America. The Japanese side of story shared the least link. The hunting gun was originally from a Japanese business man who gave it to the local guide as a gift. The story however is based on his mute & deaf daughter who desperately wanted love.
Overall the movie shouts a negative tone on the Americans. Arrogant and selfish. Or is it my own impression...
Pilobolus... Is the name of a dance company. Too many vowels that conjure up a funny sounding name, just like their innovative,gymnastic dance style that has some humourous elements in the movements.I got to know them from this TED video here. Recently Pilobolus performed at 79th Oscar.They imitated movies behind a big screen. The effect is stunning.
