How To Train Your Dragon, Your Bridezilla, Your Photographer, Your Inner Novelist/Academic etc

All kinds of awesome is…”How to Train Your Dragon”. It’s a real shame that it has not been making the waves it deserves. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming and it’s action-packed. The storyline may be a tiny bit cliched and repeated (but there are no new stories – case in point, the tedious Avatar) but I loved the pacing, the humour and the storytelling.

The only sad part about the entire affair is that I spent the entire movie trying to figure out which one was David Tennant. Drove me nuts that I could not figure it out

Oh DT. You won’t be on this Saturday. I’m going to miss you. But yayy for Doctor Who season 5!

I think I’ll be buying the novel by Cressida Cowell after the movie. It seems like mucho fun. Well, I hope it’s half as witty as the movie.

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So…I’ve finally picked up two out of the four wedding dresses that I’m going to have. It cracks me up a little that I will have four dresses at the end of this shenanigans events. I’m the last person to have such a princess-y outlook in life and to end up with four dresses, I have to say it is rather ironic.

Eizwan and I did a quick calculation on how much my dresses, all four of them, cost. And I have to say, I am rather pleased, accessories and shoes included is way below my budget. I am only paying for two of them – so it’s all good *smug*

Still though, sometimes I wonder if all this fanfare with the dresses, the expensive photographers – if they’re all worth it. Technically, with the budget that we spend on the wedding, you can get yourself an impressive diamond ring. So…cut down on the party size, up on the ring size my pretties!

Come 4th June, we’ll see if this is all worth it. I’m tired of dreaming of errant photographers, disastrous wedding dresses and the sort. I’d rather be dreaming about dragons.

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I’ve come across a few good articles this past two weeks that I’ve been meaning to talk about. “How not to title a novel“ cracked me up, especially I’m not the best at titling my work (it tends to come off as rather cheesy) or unnecessarily provocative. Like my last play (gosh, was it so long ago?) Coming Out of the C*loset was attacked for being gay-friendly (by conservatives) and not gay enough (by liberals). It was a very bizarre spot to be put in.

I thought, personally, it was a clever title, playing on the plots and themes of the play.

Secondly, an article by the NYT on the economics of happiness: “The Sandra Bullock Trade”. The article questions if you would rather have tremendous professional success over a successful marriage – and discusses the very difficult relationship between income and happiness.

The article reminds me of my uni professor, Andrew Oswald, a professor who I remember having very  shiny shoes and warned men that women would give up their husbands for 60,000 pounds per annum (on the other hand, men would give up their wives at 100,000 pounds per annum). I read this article with a pang of regret, a part of me wishes I had focused on the study of the economics of happiness, because it IS a field that I’m still very much interested in. I’ve been seeing a trend in the news lately (Guardian, NYT) that we need to focus on what makes society happy as opposed to an increase in income and to governments trying to feel their way on what would make us happiest. So stupid to think that investment banking, finance was the way to go. Ah to be young and naive.

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Schumacher and Rosberg will be whizzing by KLCC this evening. I’m feeling utterly exhausted – heart palpitations and wheezyness, so I don’t feel like braving the crowds. But I promised my brother I would go. So dilemma, dilemma. Here’s to hoping he would not wake up anytime soon and we’d just have to go next year

False Gods

Did you really think that I would go a week without writing a commentary on Doctor Who? Really, then – if that were the case, I would not be me. The me being the girl who received birthday presents that created a mini David Tennant (actually more Doctor-like) shrine on her table. So much so that my sister asked me if I had done my morning puja for DT each time she came  into my room.

But I digress. So…The Waters on Mars anyone?

*Spoilers beyond this point and too much thought put into a kid’s tv show*

The Man Next to Me

The Password

Oooh, am I getting all secretive? Well, if it has to do with work, yes. So anytime you see the work category and you’d like to read about it, just type in the password:

Clue: “Is there life on Mars?”

As you can tell, it’s a little more difficult. Just FB me or drop me a note if you’d like the password. But if you’re keen to figure it out, it’s two words (remove the space) and it’s related to the phrase above. Oh and second clue. It’s an actor.

But anyway.

There is one thing I do dread about work that is not work related. And that would be the journey to work. I take the LRT to work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad. On good days, it’s relatively comfortable with decent amount of space. It’s efficient and occassionally breaks down, but no more so than the Underground for instance.

The one thing I do dislike  about the journey there is how mind-numbingly boring it can be. It’s tedious and KL generally lacks the interesting people that you sometimes see (and then run and avoid) on the train in other parts of the world. Most commuters are just like me, bored and frustrated with what they do.

I started wondering what would make my morning commute more interesting, that’s when I thought wouldn’t it be lovely if…..

Scenario 1: The Man Standing Next To Me

It’s a sunny Wednesday morning. Which makes it all the more a waste. Wednesdays are meant to be dark and gloomy, a reminder that you have THREE more days to go in this long forsaken week. I’m shifting about in the queue, left foot to right, right foot to left as the long short train arrives at the station. My fellow commuters are impatient to enter, they try to stay in the queue but some of us break out of the queue and shuffle and shove our way in. Politely of course, it’s only Wednesday, there’s no need for us to be too aggressive.

I enter the cabin, I am not fast enough to shove a kindly old lady aside for a seat. First tragedy of the day have struck. I have no choice but to stand.

But wait…

Today is no ordinary day, no. Firstly, the man next to me does not seem like a drained KL worker with bleary eyes. He is tall, very thin and hair that seemed to have a life of its own. Thick and practically uncontrollable, it looked soft and for a second I lost myself, so tempted was I to run my fingers through his hair. He is dressed in a t-shirt and a pin-striped jacket, uncomfortable in Malaysia’s warm weather but he looks perfectly suited with the jacket, as though something would be missing without it.

He has lovely brown eyes, a cheeky smile and he had his hand hanging of the safety grip. He even smells good, his cologne cutting through the smell of plastic and metal of your average LRT cabin. I am staring at him , I know I shouldn’t. He winks at me and I immediately turn my head to the front.  I feel my heart pounding and I try to keep my eyes at the window, sneaking glances occasionally and paying silent attention to his reflection on the window. I feel my palms becoming sweaty, holding onto the metal pole to keep steady was becoming more difficult as my knees grew weak. It is becoming insidiously difficult to keep the giggles deep inside my chest from escaping and then me collapsing on the ground.

Because who would have thought that David Tennant would get on the same train as I would.

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Okay, more scenarios later. It’s almost time to go home! Gyahahahah.