have spent much time watching movies the past few days. fight club, the virgin suicides, rainbow brite, donnie darko. all good films in their own right. and also am reading the phantom tollbooth, which is so very clever and such good fun to read! i have the phantom of the opera and breakfast club waiting to be watched and in good company is in the process of downloading. now if i had to write papers on all these things it would prove useful but as i am not, it is really 'a waste of my time'.

ah well. good movies are such wonderful things. the virgin suicides had a nice feel to it, it was nice watching it visually portrayed after having read the book but unfortunately the book is really much better. kirsten dunst was a good lux and josh hartnett wasn't half bad as trip fontaine. fight club is deeply disturbing and unsettling - but for that purpose it is a good movie. my jaw really dropped when i realized it was about split personality. everything seemed to fit, and then it was just so clever. there were many moments where there were little nuggets of clarity - about his addiction to support groups, it was said, 'because that's the only time people actually listen instead of just waiting for their turn to talk'. really worth watching and i hear the book is even more intense so i really must read it. donnie darko. gosh that movie left me with a very bewildered and confused aftertaste because i know there's so much more to it i didn't see. someone has got to explain that movie to me. i only half understood it - maybe even less than half. i liked the references to The Last Unicorn and The Destructors though, and the whole theory about how sometimes the ones we put in asylums are the only people sane enough to be so acutely aware of their surroundings. mmm must finish reading Alice in Wonderland and maybe start on Wizard of Oz, is all very interesting stuff.

and, jake gyllenhal! i've always liked him even though i hadn't watched him before because i think he has this intense soulful feel to him hardly any other hollywood actors have and watching his performance in donnie darko has made me a fan. he's a must-watch. as you can tell, i am quite an art flick junkie. i think i could spend vast amounts of time just watching and watching all these movies and then thinking about them and raving about them.

on to other equally enlightening things. this past week i've felt so very happy to be a lit student because of various happenings. did an essay for whitby on sunday and in doing so was made to study an extract of theatre more closely and it just made me think how much i love theatre and how many plays i do so want to watch! started off the week with a lesson by whitby where we covered a passage from cider with rosie by laurie lee. the amount of truth and meaning he found in all those simple words just amazed me. and it reminded me of how beautiful literature is - that one puts all these words together to convey the very depths of their soul and there's so so so very much to be found in them! i don't know how to describe it. it's just awesome. i'm running out of superlatives. and then doing caretaker by harold pinter. at first i didn't like it, but now i'm really beginning to enjoy it. it's pure mastery, pinter is. and studying it really makes me see human nature more clearly and how even the simple seemingly harmless things we do reflect how we always want to be control, always playing these power games with each other - it's very ugly, i must say, but it just really opens up my eyes to everything. sometimes i think we're so very scary because after being exposed to such knowledge while other people aren't - we know so much more about them than they wish we'd know. since doing lit seriously in sec three i've developed a habit of analysing the people around me quite incessantly and i'm sure many other people do that but sometimes i feel like i've pried into their deep dark secrets by seeing all these hidden meanings in their words and actions they wish no one else knew. and silence is scary - and we all just keep silent even though there are things we know and so people don't think we know, but actually, i know. the way i act as though i'm following what you say and giving in, doesn't always reflect what i think about the person - that's why people tend to think i'm a pushover ... but i simply prefer to keep quiet about what i know. but then, i'm not always right about people and i know that. the spectrum of human emotion is infinite.

mmm do i sound messed up? talking to nat last night, i really told her about how jc life is pretty much screwed up and everything feels like a construct but we just all go through with it anyway. in a way it's quite sad because i know what appears to be is not actually reality and it doesn't mean anything but sometimes that's life and you've just got to deal with it. people are dysfunctional, but at the same time there's so much other beauty to be found - i just haven't found much of it in jc life but that doesn't mean i have lost hope that i will find it somewhere someday.

and i wish, i wish i could hone my analytical skills so much so that i could see all this richness in what i'm reading because when we read with whitby, i realize that when i read, i see less than half of what the writer really means to say and i'd appreciate it so much better if i could REALLY READ. gosh. there are some lit lessons i really remember, and i suppose to the teachers they'd just be another lesson helping us with our work, but to me they've made an impression on me forever. a lot of ms ma's lessons - the whole time we did Julius Caesar, when we started on The Destructors and The Machine Stops, when we covered Daddy by Sylvia Plath, when we did a lesson on Ted Hughes' Thought Fox on the UK trip. and last year, Ms Champagne's lesson about existentialism and philosophies. This year, Whitby's lesson on Cider with Rosie. these are lessons i will never forget and it is these bright sparks in my career as a lit student that sometimes makes me want to be a teacher and help other students feel this way about lit and have something they'll always hold on to about truth and beauty and human expression. but i know that at this stage, my ideas about teaching aren't serious because i just can't imagine willingly becoming part of the MOE's enslaved society.

ah, these teachers, i suppose on teacher's day i will write notes to them and tell them about this because it would be so nice if we all told each other that, yes, you seemingly ordinary person, yes, you have innate powers in you that enable you to touch the lives of others so very deeply.

+ posted by M @ 5:31 PM

...	Tuesday, April 19, 2005

after watching william shakespeare's romeo and juliet and moulin rouge again because i craved it [i know not why], i have decided that BAZ LUHRMANN IS A GENIUS.

his films are really works of art. pure cinematic euphoria. i get high on his artistic genius. and it's watching such films that inspires me to think about studying media and film in university. i know there's a course that combines literature and film studies and that really sounds like something i'd love to do.

moulin rouge everyone has watched [I HOPE! if you haven't please do!], but not everyone has watched romeo and juliet. i strongly urge you to. i watched it when it first came out in '96 and didn't get it much because i was too young and ignorant to appreciate it, but watching it again today - it was just breathtakingly ... i can't even describe it. the man's vision and direction is amazing. there are some parts of the text he leaves out, but he uses shakespeare's verse and the fact that he manages to fuse the old day language with his modern day 'mtv generation' film is just spectacular. and yes, the movie's title is 'william shakespeare's romeo and juliet' because luhrmann recognizes that it cannot be done any other way [as opposed to pathetic singaporean versions i've watched. 'chicken rice war' and some play which infused singlish and hardly any of the text] and the story's beauty can only be more enhanced and carried out with SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE.

the one scene though, which is really brimming with luhrmann's artistic talent and sense for film [and really, practically the whole movie oozes dramatic richness, but this ONE scene stands out the most] is the death scene. morbid as it sounds, that scene just conveyed shakespeare's idea of 'star-crossed lovers' so perfectly i couldn't believe it. it's very different from the original text, and you know that i am a traditionalist when it comes to altering shakespeare - but he did it so beautifully i could hardly fault him for it. in the shakespearan play, juliet realizes romeo is dead only after waking up and talking to the friar and then seeing him dead. in luhrmann's film, juliet stirs from her sleep and opens her eyes in such a poetic timing to see romeo downing the vial of poison. yes, she watches him die and he watches her watch him die, knowing that if the timing had not been so wretched, they could have lived and loved. that scene is just rife with tragedy in every sense of the word.

the casting is just gorgeous. i'm not a dicaprio fan - simply because i just don't like him - but after watching him act in quite a few movies, i do concede he is quite a brilliant actor and in this movie his portrayal of romeo is just divine. yes i'm praising him to the skies. the role fits him like a glove, at the start i found myself wondering why they could not have cast someone else, but after watching further, i really found that he quite outdid himself as romeo. the brooding, the passion, the lovesickness of an adolescent romeo was completely illuminated by his fluid acting. claire danes as juliet is another superb choice. claire danes made it believable that juliet was a young girl of fourteen [okay, maybe fifteen, but that's as close as it gets. tell me when in any other instance has an actress managed to portray the youth and purity of juliet so succinctly? NEVER!], she really shone as a juliet of fragility, strength and love all at once. of course, to be superficial, they really looked the part. leo's sunkissed longish blonde hair and girlish features lent him visual credibility as romeo, as did claire's simple earthly beauty to juliet. but more than that, they really acted their hearts out. they BECAME romeo and juliet. the two actors managed to capture the very essence of the love story - the youthful tenderness and impulsiveness (and just that bit of earnest almost foolish romantic notion) of romeo and juliet's love.

of course the supporting cast were wonderful as well, and i do them wrong not to talk about them. there's so much to talk about. the catholic imagery, the water images which i can't quite figure out properly, yes, THE SET!

but when it comes down to it, this story is really about juliet and her romeo.

+ posted by M @ 4:58 PM

...	Monday, April 18, 2005

first off, congratulations michelle, on your engagement.

that sounded funny but cool. anyway what i meant wasn't a woman giving up a job because her fiance presses her to, but as a choice she makes on her own.

cartoons are such wonderful things. winnie the pooh, disney movies, carebears, my little pony and RAINBOW BRITE! yes rainbow brite in all it's technicolor 80s goodness. i'm going mad about anything rainbow brite-y. such a wonderful concept it is, for a childhood show and i do feel very sorry that children these days are missing out on such cartoons for the likes of spongebobsquarepants and other weird cartoons. oh well.

monday went by quite well. onward to the rest of the week, walking with God!

+ posted by M @ 6:44 PM

...	Wednesday, April 13, 2005

mmmm. a rare sight. drama teacher in charge actually helping out with props. HAHA AM PLEASED!

anyways. am rather annoyed because my oc 18 just WONT DOWNLOAD AFTER X DAYS IT'S ONLY 13% completed! aiyiyiyiyi. and apparently bittorrent doesn't work so well on me cos i've got firewall, but i don't! i checked it already. weird weird weird AHH DL NOWWWWWW. and my movie files are magically disappearing all the timeeeee im annoyed the minute i dl stuff now i'm gonna SHIFT IT OUT so they won't get lost. maybe people are hacking into my com or something.

don't sweat the small stuff don't sweat the small stuff ... AHH am going quite mad!

sigh. it's just a tv show mel. your life doesn't depend on it.

oh wells. today had a talk with yifang about marriage. she told me she'd give up her career, her dreams, and everything else just to get married [to the right man, of course] and said it was a lifelong goal of hers. i guess in a way we used to wonder how mrs quek [of sc history fame] could actually say she knew it was the only thing she wanted to do - but now i sort of understand. thinking it through while talking to yif today, i agreed that, yes, i probably would give up my career and whatnot just to get married. i know, shocking remark for me to make. feminists don't throw your balls of fire at me just yet. but i feel that really, marriage is a once in a lifetime experience and having children [if you do it right] is something that will make an impression on you forever, and teach you how to truly LOVE. because it is in creation and in loving a child despite all his/her flaws and faults, the ready forgiveness that comes with parenting that really helps us grow deeper in God's love and be a real complete human being [read: the prodigal son! i particularly love the painting, if one looks closely you will see one hand is a woman's and one hand is a man's]. and all that experience is worth far more than even a dream job - be it mediating world relations or even inventing a cure for a disease. because those things ARE great and glorious and beneficial, but learning how to love each other wholeheartedly IS the greatest thing we can ever do. anyway this is just my view, it may speak against feminist values but seriously i speak purely for LOVE.

also talked to yifang about the fears and insecurity that comes with marriage and how one pins everything down on that one marriage [i don't believe in divorce] and then what if it falls apart? what if it collapses? and in a tragically beautiful way, you die if that marriage dies. it's scary. human beings are scary things.

+ posted by M @ 6:28 PM

...	Tuesday, April 12, 2005

the sick girl is blogging.

yes, sick again. it has occurred to me that i've probably fallen sick about ten times already this year which is highly abnormal. am wondering if i should go for check up of some sort. or maybe just attribute it to general unhappiness, poor health and bad state of mind.

i am also aware that blog has turned into one huge rant/whine/'i'm so depressed' fest of teenage angst pap. i can't even call it angst. i'm not even angsting properly. i am also aware that this makes me even less lovable than i already am. but ai, whatever. sometimes the days just feel black, you know? and of course everyone wants to be loved, but i've sort of come to the terms that i hardly ever will be and so it doesn't really matter how much i deteriorate into this .. thing.

it scares me that the a levels are sooner than i think and that uni applications are breathing down my neck and everyday i'm told where i want to go, what i want to do, who i want to be. but the thing is, it may sound immature and frivolous - i don't know what i want. I DON'T KNOW! and you can malign me for it and ask me why i can't i be as motivated as that boy/girl in the papers with four As and what not but the very fact is i just don't know so please stop asking because to me there are so many more important things than getting a university education and a solid job maybe you say that's because i've lived such a comfortable life that i don't understand but we all lead different lives and we all need different things and i know i don't need what other people need and maybe you say i'm too bohemian for my own good but so be it but still i will conform to convention because i need my parents to go on loving me and i don't want a big blowup and i don't want to be pointed at the whole of my life and yes i'm scared of society and so i bend and twist to their expectations best as i can but i know i just can't and i know i'm going to fall and i want so badly to be free but i know there's no such thing as ever being free and our ideas of freedom and running unhassled in corn fields are fakes and that nothing is ever really what we think it is and i just want love what love you ask just any love just love because love is life and i don't have any love now.

i really don't know what it is. i think something will make me happy, and then when i have it, when it happens, i know in my heart that i'm just deceiving myself and nothing will make me happier than the one thing i can't seem to have - which honestly, i don't know what it is either but i just know i can't have it and i won't be able to. i don't really believe in myself all that much at all.

these entries are starting to resound of Sarah's diary in The End of The Affair.

can we ever have it all? i don't want to 'have it all', and yet i know the one thing i need and desire most is ALL there will ever be worth living for. God please help me, God please help me. this is desperation. i am desperate for Your love and help. i don't know what it is that we need to glow, but i just want to glow.

+ posted by M @ 9:19 PM

...	Sunday, April 10, 2005

it disturbs me how there are so many things i want to say, so many things i wish you'd ask and say to me that i can dream up whole conversations in my head and never end up having them. i long to talk to you, to ask you about everything and anything. and most of all i long to hear from you.

it disturbs me that every moment i spend not saying these things, not hearing you say them are more moments of my life wasted that i can never get back. this is what i cannot stand, the painful regret of moments that will never come and silent words i wish we'd have.

lonely, oh yes, we are all so lonely.

+ posted by M @ 10:13 PM

...

my fingers are ice cold. as i have said, whatever germs are going around at the moment, i ALWAYS get. after going to class with amanda choo for the past week, i have caught her flu. hahaha. WOW. i'm waiting for my godparents to bring me to church because again my parents are away. when is my mommmyyy coming back.

life is droll. HAPPIES HAPPIES whatever HAPPIES i can find. am going quite mad.

you really don't know how you make me feel.

+ posted by M @ 4:58 PM

...

i'm in a daze.

just woke up from my long sleep which started at five pm yesterday. so you can imagine. didn't answer many smses and online 'hi's so i'm sorry about that, guys.

celebrated jen's birthday early for her yesterday. and then walked to kinokuniya with jen for a while. got approached by an old japanese writer. he first asked us if we were looking for books that would make us think deeply and told us that all the stuff on the shelves we were standing at was junk [i don't think umberto eco or e.m. forster qualify as junk writers, and as a writer himself he should recognize their good works]. he just continued to talk and talk about good writers - which included hemingway and some writer whose name i cannot spell and have not heard of. now, i have read some of hemingway and i agree he is brilliant. anyway he just had this whole talk about hemingway being his mentor after discovering i read some of his books and then just continued talking about writing and how everything comes from bible knowledge in the end. finally he showed us copies of his novel and poetry collections he published by himself and asked us if we'd like to get a copy, because he is unable to get a publisher. it did look worth a read but unfortunately we really were broke after paying for the meal we just had. he was selling it at $25 for his novel which i found rather 0_0 because most published classics on kino's shelves will probably cost you $17.

though if you search his name on amazon, Hideo Asano, you will find the novel he was peddling - An American Breakfast - and one lone good review given to it, claiming he will be the next hemingway. but the cynic in me says he was out to cheat me, after having this whole long talk about writing and hemingway, i thought he was just one of those literature aficionados genuinely wanting to steer the youth of singapore onto the more enriching path of reading [as opposed to the many who read DAN BROWN nowadays], until he whipped out copies of his book. in the end his motive was to make money, wasn't it? if he really just wanted people to read his stuff [which should be every true writer's wish, rather than the money] he would have sold it at a much cheaper rate. and who knows, maybe he just copies off hemingway wholesale [though not easy to copy the style, but still] - i don't know. but sure, i'd give his novel a chance, and maybe buy it off amazon one of these days.

well, talking to this writer and jen made me realize how little i've been reading. really, how little i have been reading. and so when i got home i started reading Greene's The End Of The Affair which i bought two years back but never got down to reading. and it is enthralling. every word, right from the start is perfectly chosen and crafted into sentences and full of vitality. his writing is alive, each sentence packs a punch, it is amazing! the long period away from classics has really made me forget what a genius Greene is and why he was just one of my favourite authors. and i've also realized that books aren't written to be read once only. you can't read something like The Old Man And The Sea just once and know what it's about. one has to keep reading it over and over again because each time you read it you discover something new. the ingenuity of writers - to produce books which only get richer the next time you read them.

on a more frivolous and happy note, i got a high B for my prac crit paper [and according to whitby, the highest mark he gave]. the paper i thought i would fail miserably - yes, the Tyger Tyger one. finally, i'm actually passing something. kai really was right when she told me lit was unpredictable. one of the ironies of life; i really thought this was my worst paper. and finally, my first ever grade above a D for literature, though it only be one paper. i've regained a little bit of the great confidence i lost, and i feel encouraged to press on and do better. thank you God, i know you did this and not me.

+ posted by M @ 10:55 AM

...	Tuesday, April 05, 2005

today was a bad day.

everyday we all die a little bit inside.

oh God. i just want to be happy. purely, truly, refreshingly, sincerely happy. just for one day, just for a little while, just to experience that refined emotion and feeling. just one time, oh Lord and then i can keep it with me forever. everything'll be worth it just to feel a burst of happiness for that short while.

+ posted by M @ 7:59 PM

...	Monday, April 04, 2005

okay many issues going on right now which make me annoyed and emotional. and normally i'd just not talk about all of them so as to not launch into some tireless tirade but tonight i'm just going to rant rant rant and throw it out there.

drama. i'm seriously seriously annoyed by the whole situation. i feel like i'm all the committees rolled into one. i mean, honestly, what's the point of having an ex-co right? we delegate stuff to the various committees that should handle their side of the work so that things can run smoothly - it's been a whole three weeks and the publicity com does NOTHING? they can't even come up with a simple pub stunt. and i seem to be the only one who cares enough to bother to lose sleep over trying to come up with a script. which in the end, may not go through, because hey, maybe they can't even get actors/costumes/props. GALVANIZE YOURSELVES MATEYS! i'm not exactly like model leader of the year but at least i know a bit more responsibility and care more about this cca than you do. and i'm willing to make it my priority. drama is going to fall to pieces. honestly. and i hate how people just come up to me and ask why we're not doing anything and make remarks like 'nj drama..' then snigger and shake their heads, even friends have done that IN FRONT OF ME, and you know what, i'm trying, and i really want to so badly, but if no one helps me what can i do? WHAT CAN I DO? i'd really appreciate if no one ever asks me how drama is doing because that's one topic i just hate discussing with my friends. i go get the quotes for the drama centres in other schools, but in the end we may not use them because they're so damn indecisive and if we don't book fast enough it'll be gone. i wish they would just bloody hell wake up.

friends. friends come and go. and on saturday night, certain events occurred which led me to conclude that there are some friendships i'm just going to let go of. don't get me wrong - no hard feelings. i forgive her and i don't judge her for what she's doing because hey, there are times in our lives when we're really mixed up, but till she sorts out her priorities, i'm just not going to bother anymore. i have trusted many times, i have put up with awkward situations enough to know that i'm not doing it anymore. sure, i really do think back sometimes. i miss the time we ate a whole big tub of lido sweet popcorn together because we agreed it was best, i miss the time we ran in the rain from lido to delfi, i miss the time we decided to try waxing, i miss all that stuff. but all relationships are transitory, so get used to it and quit crying over the glorious past.

on to less angry things. here are some random ideas and thoughts.

it just struck me as rather odd suddenly, that we attach degrees to names. like, Phil Austin, M.D or something. i mean what does that stuff really mean anyway. and it's kind of like attaching this extra thing to your name - does it become your name? so people start referring to you in their articles and stuff as X Y, M.D. hmmm. do people actually like that in their names? maybe they figure they slogged so hard for the degree it's worth it to let the whole world know by attaching it to their names at the end.

the woman on life support got taken off it and as a result, died. i still wonder if it really was her wish, but even then - she doesn't know what's happening around her, so it doesn't really make a difference does it. i'm not clear on the issue here. if i'm not wrong, christians believe that as long as the person is in vegetative state, it's okay to pull the plug. but somehow, i find it hard to think that no matter how braindead, we'd pull the plug on this person who still has a heartbeat. i mean honestly anything could happen right? miracles defy science. and it disgusts me that many americans would rather she die if they were the ones who had to pay the medical bills. i suppose in a way there's an issue there - it's all about the money and maybe i can't fully understand because i'm still a student and haven't experienced all the financial stuff. but it just seems so inhuman to view it in such a way.

then i started to think about organ donor issues. they've been saying that certain people on the receiving end of heart donations have taken on some characteristics of the heart donor and scientists are trying to find if there are some memory cells left in the heart that cause this. in a way it's really quite beautiful. though i suppose it may be quite painful for a family to finally let go and declare that their relative is an able donor, in a way it really does create chances for people to continue living their lives and fulfilling their purposes.

i did watch million dollar baby in the end, quite some time ago with my parents and younger brother. it was a very heart-wrenching movie. not much hope in it at all, maybe a tiny sliver. the boxing was exciting, but what made for the best part was the emotional attachment the coach formed while training his fighter, and coming to love her as much as his own daughter. a cold broken man taking a white trash waiter into his gym and making her a fighter. what happened in the movie was that at one of her big matches, the coach gave her a present, a boxer's hood with the words 'mo cuishle' emblazoned at the back of it. no one really had any idea what it meant except the coach, because it was in gaelic. and he told her that if she won her biggest match, he'd tell her what it meant. well, as the story would go, she lost her biggest match, got knocked to the ground by a cheating boxer and ended up paralyzed neckdown. her body just started to go because she couldn't move at all, and finally she asked of the coach to give her euthanasia. he brought the thought with him to his priest and was told it was a grave sin, but in the end he came one night with the adrenaline shots, and before he put her to sleep, he told her, 'mo cuishle means my darling'. that scene was the most powerful and painful scene i've watched in a film. the movie ended with him walking away from God and losing the one person who he loved very much, as well as himself. i just felt so moved by the intensity of emotion - to do that to someone that means that much to you, it must really kill you. i just cannot describe the complexity of issues brought to light when i watched that movie. it's a bleak movie, but i found a small spark of hope in the fact that at least for a little while, he remembered what it was like to have a daughter again and she remembered what it was like to have a father again. is it worth it to go through so much pain for that one experience of warmth and love?

yes, i think so.

and finally, a big issue. the pope's dead. although i've not really been into all these rites of catholicism such as revering the pope greatly and all that, i did feel sad for a bit. he was a great man, a good pope and one who really dedicated his whole life to doing God's work. there are a lot of protestants that condemn the catholics for revering the pope but at the end of it all i don't see how they can hate someone who has made it his life purpose to serve God. isn't it rather ironic? but at the same time, i do wonder why it's a rule set by roman pontiff that we have to pray a decade of the rosary every night for the pope's soul - i mean, honestly, he's a man of God. why do we have to act so worried about his soul? he's back home in heaven. and sometimes, i feel like i really am unsure about my faith - in that i'm divided when it comes to certain moral issues. generally i'm a conservative and pro-life but recently, when it comes to issues of homosexuality i find myself unsure. i don't understand what it is about homosexuality that makes it so utterly wrong - but i'm not saying it's right either. and even if given, it is a sin, we all sin. Christians aren't better than other people. we're ALL sinners. being a Christian doesn't make you any holier or pure than other people - it just means that you're forgiven. so saying homosexuality is a sin, then why don't we have protests against liars too? and against thiefs? heck, it seems more acceptable to be a shoplifter than a homosexual in society doesn't it? my point is, all of our sins are equally bad, so why do we pinpoint homosexuals and put them through so much persecution. i don't believe in that whole exorcism, the devil makes you gay thing. it's just a sin like any other and not some sort of demon possession. and you know what? i think Christians who continuously persecute homosexuals and stage all these anti-gay protests are just taking advantage of the fact that homosexuals are a minority and thus can be bullied. they use all this to make themselves feel better, and i think that is disgusting. at the end of it all, we're all sinners, so who are we to judge? let God decide.

there are some things i am starting to believe in very strongly now. and recently i've started thinking about the yellow-ribbon project. i feel that we really should remove the stigmas attached to ex-convicts - though actually, that really is impossible. but i think everyone deserves a second chance no matter what they've done and no human being deserves to be put on death parole. i know it's hard. when i think about it and put myself in the shoes of a person who has had herself/a family member harmed by this other person - the first reaction would be anger and to seek for justice and a want for him to be put to death for his grievous sins. some sort of revenge and justice. but what's the point? what's been done is done, and killing off that person won't set things right. does it really please a person to know that he's won a case in sentencing another human being to death? i don't know. maybe if put in the situation myself i'd feel differently - though definitely it's something i would not want to experience. reading about the crimes committed i really do feel very angry and sad sometimes and it amazes me all the time that God loves these people too. God's love amazes me.

okay, i've said my piece for tonight. and angela, thanks for the card, i'll write you one back. i owe a lot of people mail.

+ posted by M @ 8:42 PM

...	Friday, April 01, 2005

yings blowing out the candles. april's fool! okay just joking.  

+ posted by M @ 11:53 PM

...

so happy together. we've got a thing for small cakes from the taka foodcourt.  

+ posted by M @ 11:53 PM

...

first sip of legal alcohol. the italian margharita was on us.  

+ posted by M @ 11:51 PM

...

the gang, without kai. this one's for you kai. 'finally, almost full attendance' - jenn 

+ posted by M @ 11:47 PM