Meet Ad

Taken from Ad's FB profile

I've a new friend! His name is Advertising. We call him Ad for short. Seriously, I have him in my Facebook.

A series of nightmares

I had a series of nightmare yesterday. Yeah, a SERIES. Well, in my dream, I was trying to track down spooky ghost; threw a peculiar-looking, green and blue-looking frog out of the car; kept a corpse wrapped in white hospital bed sheets; saw Valerie, a serious and cautious driver, hitting another car deliberately while parking(gasp, that's a nightmare!); and worst of all, my front tooth fell off!! That's a lifetime worth of nightmares! I woke up not terrified, but sleepy.

You know, they say dreams tell us something about our future. If it does, that's a whole lot of future to intepret there. I'll probably take the alternative view - that's me watching too much TV. I confess that i've been indulging myself with too much couch potato time this week - Juno, Ghost Whisperer, Fast Food Nation, Little Miss Sunshine, 8 simple rules, etc. I guess it doesn't take a rocket scientist to explain my series of nightmares by now.

To read or to watch?

Josh came to me the other day telling me that he had watched Kite Runner the movie and how awesome it is, but of course not as great as the book la. But according to him, it's still bearable as compared to P.S. I Love You.

Now i'm in a little dilenma. Should i watch it first or should i read the book first, or should i watch and not read, or should i just read and not watch? Such a dilenma, right? I just don't want to walk down the same emotional path i did after watching P.S. I Love You.

Not sure about you, but when I read, i begin to create vivid images in my mind. And i create a certain expectations on the characters, scenes, emotions and reactions. And of course the accuracy of screenplay is most important. By altering the story just so that it fits into a 2-hour plus movie is a crime. A good story relies not just on the characters in it, but its plots too. The plots build the story, hence making it a superb story. Simple as that. Perhaps movie makers should stick to making movies out of scripts and not books.

So, to watch or to read.... I think i'll do both for this. I trust Josh's review :)

Requirements of a teacher

My 8-year-old student made a remark the other day on requirements of a teacher.

Stephy asked me in the middle of class, "Teacher, are you married?"
I answered, No.

She went on querying, "Do you have kids?"

Duh, I'm not married and i'm not that sleasy, kid!! And i answered politely, No.

"So, you're not married and you don't have kids, then you're not a teacher, right?"

What!! Just because I'm hot, young, unmarried and have no brats of my own, I'm not a teacher??? I smiled and told her that not all teachers are married and have kids.

Stephy pondered for a while and made the most remarkable remark, "So, you cannot celebrate Teacher's Day la?" Her eyes glimmered when she stared at me.

Oh boy, she's only 8, what do i expect. She's forgiven for being discriminative. "Stephy, it's fine that I don't celebrate Teacher's Day."

And she gave me a hug at the end of class.

Men don't listen

Got this from a friend today:

Wanda's dishwasher quit working so she called in a repairman. Since she had to go to work the next day, she told the repairman, 'I'll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dishwasher, leave the bill on the counter, and I'll mail you a cheque. Oh, by the way don't worry about my dog Spike. He won't bother you. But, whatever you do, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, talk to my parrot!'

'I MUST STRESS TO YOU: DO NOT TALK TO MY PARROT!!!'

When the repairman arrived at Wanda's apartment the following day, he discovered the biggest, meanest looking dog he has ever seen. But, just as she had said, the dog just lay there on the carpet watching the repairman go about his work. The parrot, however, drove him nuts the whole time with his incessant yelling, cursing and name calling.

Finally the repairman couldn't contain himself any longer and yelled, 'Shut up, you stupid, ugly bird!

To which the parrot replied, 'Get him, Spike!'

See - Men just don't listen! Period.

Utterly cool read

After having had lashed out at a student, irked by oblivious and obnoxious and selfish individual, worked 7 hours, and bickered about the same issue over and over, I finally got to unwind with a kids lit - Utterly me, Clarise Bean.

Utterly what, you asked? Well, though you may think it's utterly unpopular, it is an utterly good book for the day. I desperately needed something to keep me occupied. Something light, something fun, something with big prints, and something that's utterly brainless. This read is utterly good for today. And I finished it within an evening.

I love the plot. Actually who am i kidding, there isn't any plot in this story. It's basically about Clarise who's crazy about the story of Ruby, who's a 11-year-old daughter of a socialite, who has a secret identity - jeng jeng jeng - she's a secret agent. Ruby receives messages via her bread toaster and messages are imprinted on her toasted bread. Oh, to destroy the message, she has to chow the bread down. Of course, she can choose to slap peanut butter and jam on it or just corned beef. Destroying a secret message has never been this tasty. And Clarise suddenly found herself in an investigative mood after realising that her best friend Betty was missing for a week without a trace (actually, Clarise's dog literally chewed the trace). And oh, there's this book project she had to do with one of the wrecked-up boys from her class because Betty was missing. At the same time, she tried inventing ways to get rid of her slimy brother. And also her grandfather who sneaks into shed in the middle of the night. Yeah, there's a lot going on in the story.

The story is written as such that no analyzing is required. You don't need to muse about why she hates her teacher who behaves like a 40-year-old spinster or why her best friend Betty Moody parents are way cooler than hers. As the story progresses, Clarise, who has recurring habit of drifting in thoughts, rambles about the happenings around her. It's like reading Gareth Owen's Horror Film but in more pages. Pure rambling but with a point (yeah, how oxymoron can this be, right?).

And i love the layouts. The sentence twirls into oval when Mrs Bean tells Clarise that they are running out of eggs. And sentence is arranged in stagger to tell that Clarise is walking down the stairs. And not to mention crazy caricatures and punches of large prints here and there.

It has cool phrases and expressions like:

Absolutely no way, hozay!

I bet he's using my hairbrush, the weasel.

Mrs Wilberton is a hippipotimis.

China is gersquillion kilometres and miles from here.

All in all, i had a good laugh. I'm envious of kids today; they've got utterly cool books like this as compared to my time, when Enid Bylton was like the only 'in' thing. Fairies and elves are cool, but hey, who would have figured that gersquillion is the distance of China from wherever we are.

I am upset

Enough said.