Villette

About a month ago, I finished reading Shirley. It took quite some time, but I guess I was making good progress for someone who reads only during train journeys. The novel ended the way it began - without grandeur; yet, it proved to be a deeply emotional read.

A couple of weeks ago, I started on another Charlotte Brontë novel, her last, Villette. Like Shirley, I had started and stalled on reading this book several times previously. This was, however, due to the extensive use of French phrases and whole sentences in the conversations in the text. (I could've ignored the parts I can't understand, but it would not do!) At first, I bought a mini English-French dictionary so that I could do the translations, but it was too tedious, and the French grammar proved to be beyond the dictionary alone. In university, I took a semester of beginner's French class and then, attempted to read Villette again. It was still too tedious. Argh!

After the many failed attempts, here I am again, and I am quite determined to finish reading Villette this time. J'espère que je réussirai. Souhaitez-moi la chance! (what?)

Vivo Per Lei

Listen...



I first heard this song, sung live by Andrea Bocelli and Hayley Westenra, on a video clip of a couple skating. The melody and the voices captivated me. I later got hold of the studio recording of the song, Vivo Per Lei / Je Vis Pour Elle (don't ask how) by Bocelli and a lady singer with a wondrous voice, Helene Segara. The song was sung in part Italian, part French. It is one of those songs you can listen to 20 times in a row and not get tired of - one of those that makes you want to stay in the office past going-home time, just to continue listening to it. The only other song which invoked the same feelings within me is the duet by Sarah Brightman and Josh Groban, There For Me, from a live performance.

Coincidentally, both songs were recorded and released close to a decade ago. I came across There For Me a couple years back, and had just only stumbled across Vivo Per Lei (Bocelli has 5 versions of this song in 5 different languages; 6 if counting the one performed in part English with Westenra). A decade! How deaf can one be? :D And I wonder how many such great songs there are out there, which we, in our common, ignorant lives have missed...

Pre-school Conversation

My daughter had a slight fever over the weekend. Even though her temperature was not high this morning, as a precaution we let her bring her fever syrup to school. We arrived at her pre-school at the same time as another child, a little boy, and my daughter and the little boy sat on a bench together to remove their shoes. My husband, who was nearby, then overheard the following:


My daughter: I got medicine! (waving the plastic bag with the fever syrup bottle in it in front of the boy's face)

Little boy: I got Ultraman bag! (holding the bag up in front of my daughter's face)

My daughter: I got handkerchief!

Little boy: Yes meh?!


(OK, enough). My husband left them and we went to work.

On Apology

Where I work, a lot of meetings and stuff are made compulsory, and if anyone were not able to make it, he/she will have to submit a written apology. One such meeting was held a couple of days ago, and it was a pretty important one since we held discussions with our counterparts from a university in UK through a speaker phone (and yes - long distance phone call). Still, naturally, there were some people who were not able to make it.

During the meeting, the kwai-lo on the line posed a question to a lecturer who weren't in the room, and instead of the simple, straight-forward "He is not available today" or "He's unable to come to this meeting", the chair on our side here said "Oh, he's on apology!" - being, I guess, too eager to indicate to the kwai-lo that the absent lecturer was absent with apology, not just absent. Anyhow, if the kwai-lo noticed it, he pretended rather well to have understood what the our guy here said. Probably he's already used to it.

Answer This!

My colleague, sen sen, asked this question - "Why is Superman's shirt so tight?" - and I said "To reduce friction when he's flying..." and sen sen labeled me a 'person without humour' because my answer was not creative at all.

So, here I present the question to all - please answer it as creatively as you can!

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(Back To) The Secret Garden

Way, way back in 1994, the Popular bookstore in town had this huge collection of 'complete and unabridged' classics in paperback, selling for RM2.90 - RM3.90 each. That was when my bestfriend and I hauled in a considerable number of the usual titles - Journey to the Center of the Earth, King Solomon's Mines, Little Women, Lorna Doone - and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Secret Garden is the story of Mary Lennox, her sickly cousin, Colin and Dickon, the boy who foxes and crows loved, the locked-up garden which they tended, and the Magic in it. I loved this story so much I read and re-read the book several times. I am not sure how many times my bestfriend read the book, but I knew the characters made quite an impression on her too. We'd have discussions on the story, the characters and such. And my bestfriend, the ever hopeless romantic, once pondered over who Mary will end up with - Colin or Dickon - when they grow up. She personally favoured Dickon, but a sequel to the book was never actually written.

Last weekend, surfing the TV channels for something to watch, I stumbled upon a movie called "Back to the Secret Garden" on Hallmark Channel, which was just going to start. I didn't give it much thought until I saw the words "Based on characters created by Frances Hodgson Burnett" displayed across the screen. I decided to watch it.

Truly, it was, in a way, a sequel to The Secret Garden. Mary was now the mistress of Misselthwaite Manor, the mansion in which she grew up, and had turned it into a home for orphaned children. Martha, her friend and Dickon's sister, the housemaid in the original story, is now the housekeeper. When I heard Mary addressed as "Lady Mary Craven", I knew that in this sequel, Mary had married Colin. Whatever happened to Dickon then? My bestfriend would be thoroughly heartbroken to know that in this (horrible) sequel, Dickon 'gave his life for his country' - died in war, I suppose. How sad. And the 'secret garden' was mysteriously 'dying' - but ultimately saved by a little orphan girl. It was a silly sequel. A wonderful, magical classic made silly by movie sequels. Sigh.

How sad!

Men!

I have stories of two men to tell. No, they're not related.


First man:
A professor from Australia gave a talk in our campus recently, and presented a book she authored to the school. In the next day, the man in subject previewed the book and was all praises for it! He told others that he finds the professor very intelligent and her book a superb one - and then, he announced that he was going to make a photocopy of the book. As if it was not enough, he also asked around "Who else want copies?" (probably thinking he can ask the photocopy shop for bulk discount) [roll your eyes now].

Second man:
This man is part of the organizing committee for a conference, which is currently facing a lack of paper presenters. At a recent meeting, I asked this man if he would present a paper of his own, and his response was "Yes, I do have a paper, but I don't want to present it in this conference. It's not good enough. I'd rather present it somewhere else with higher (academic) reputation." [roll your eyes somemore].


Well, what can we say? Men!