Tuesday 11 December 2012

LIVING IN A WORLD OF ART


For this blog post, we are supposed to not only open our minds, but to open our eyes and see how God actually helps us by setting an inspiring environment so we can think creatively. Before we proceed to the environment that I CHOOSE to live in, I'll first tell who I am, to see whether I'm really that interesting to be analyzed after all.


This is actually our VRC assignment, a mind map to represent ourselves. The trick is to look at it from far away  (works better for those with poor eyesights) and you can just see a colourful butterfly. But as you move closer, you'l find out that the butterfly is actually filled with my personality.

1. the non-smoking sign means that i don’t smoke
2. the chinese word means “Dragon”..I loveee dragon, it makes me feel strong
3. Crescent and star means I’m of course a Muslim.
4. Cloud means that i love to watch clouds……when the traffic is congested
5. Starbucks means i love Starbucks
6. Oasis means i love the band.
7. Dumbbell means that i love working out
8. Eye with thick eyebrows, i guess that resembles my physical
9. Tiger because i support for Harimau Malaya.
10. Guitar because i love music
11. CD because i don’t download movies!
12. Money sign because yea, we all need it.
13. Dat lonely guy means that I’m an introvert, I love being on my own.
14. Film reel means I wanna be a filmmaker
15. Chelsea logo means I love Chelsea
16. Fedora hat above it means I loveee fedora
17. 17 September means my birthday (whoaaaa it’s unintentional that the part about 17 september is at number 17)
18. Blackberry logo means I’m a Blackberry user
19. 110 speed limit sign means dat I’m not actually someone who drives above dat unlike other teenagers as long as i’m not rushing.
20. Batman because i love the movies. I don’t really like batman, but i need sumtin simple and i guess batman logo is the simplest.
21. Cats because i love cats.
22. Honda logo because…datz my car.
23. Same goes to WXL 9770, my car’s plat number
24. MMU logo for MMU student
25. No Drug sign of course i dun take drugs
26. Ball, I lovee football
27. Nikon, a Nikon user
28. Fly Fm, the radio I listen to everyday.
29. Swords, so sometimes I can eel strong
30. Piano means, apart from I love to TRY to play it, I just want it as a texture
31. The man on top is me as I’m always thinking
32. Love sign means I’m pretty comfortable in a world where there’s love
33. Infinite sign represents someone.. :)
34. The butterfly symbolizes 2 thing. 1st, I wanna be one, evolving from cocoon, slowly crawl to become something beautiful. 2nd, the butterfly is each one of us. we have lots of attributes, we like this and hate that, but those are what draw patterns in our lives, those are what make us beautiful….

What kind of environment am I living in so I can become a creative person?


well, the scope is kinda big to discuss about environment. however, I can show you the condition of my workplace when I was doing the photography assignment.

I HOLD A PHILOSOPHY REGARDING UNTIDY ROOM LIKE THIS

"IF YOUR ROOM IS TIDY, THEN YOU ARE EITHER NOT DOING IT RIGHT, OR YOU ARE NOT DOING IT AT ALL"

Notice that in that room, my employees are torch light, a mirror and a cellophane tape and not even a soul is present. Yeap, if we are talking bout the environment that makes me creative, this is the kind of environment (not the messy part), I love to be on my own when I'm doing creative works. Maybe this is also related to the fact that I'm an introvert, thus being on my own is my comfort zone. I must admit that I'm not that much of a team player. I'm fine with following orders and doing things together, the only thing that I'm uncomfortable is that the feeling that I might burden my teammates because whatever a member of the team is doing, the whole team will pay the price. Therefore, doing things my way is a preferable method to me because I'm afraid I will let people down. 


NOW, LET'S TALK ABOUT MUSIC AS MUSIC ALSO PLAYS A PART IN THE WAY I THINK

If we are talking about music, I'm not saying that I only listen to songs that have meaning. As for me, if the song is good, then it's good. However, for me to judge music according to the instrumental part only, I rather listen to rock songs with crazy riffs. I think songs like these, besides providing a buffet to the ears, also prove the capability of rock bands to come up with something creative rather than just some mainstream music that are only limited to certain chords to charm listeners.. To cite some of the bands that provide these kind of music, Oasis, Radiohead, Muse, Metallica and Placebo are among my favourites. 


Britpop's finest : Oasis. I even make an essay on Noel Gallagher for my English SPM paper regarding the person I admire the most

Another British superband, Muse. I regard this band as the definition of creative for rock bands as they often experiment with new sounds parallel to the enhancement of technology.

JUST TO SHARE, THIS IS BY FAR MY FAVOURITE SONG EVER


AND TALKING ABOUT THE SIMPLE CHORDS I MENTIONED EARLIER. THIS IS BY FAR THE SONG THAT I HATE THE MOST



NOW, WE TALK ABOUT ANOTHER FACTOR THAT INJECTS CREATIVITY IN ME

LANGUAGE/LITERATURE/WORDS/QUOTES

I'm a type of person that takes words seriously. Quoting Bee Gees' song, "It's only words, but words are all I have to take your heart away"  I really believe in the power of words, how words are so strong that it can determine whether a hope is sparked, or a hope is lost. When I listen to songs, I listen to the lyrics and they all suddenly make sense. There's this quote or tweet on twitter that I found. It says

WHEN YOU ARE HAPPY, YOU LISTEN TO THE MUSIC
BUT WHEN YOU ARE SAD, YOU UNDERSTAND THE LYRICS

I want to quote probably my favourite quote ever regarding religious belief.

“I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.” - Albert Camus

-SIMPLE WORDS, BUT DEEP AS THE GRAVE-

Same goes to movie quotes. I'm someone who easily remembers movie quotes, and often use them in my everyday speech to make everything a lot more dramatic. I remembered once cut-and-pasting movie quotes that I think may change the way people think. Let's see if I still have them.

"Life's simple, you make choices and you don't look back"

WHAT ABOUT SONG LYRICS? THERE MUST BE SOME LYRICS THAT REALLY AFFECT MY LIFE, RIGHT?

(Hahah I actually think that the thing that I love to do, which is writing has helped me a lot in creating this blog because everything that I wanna say pretty much I've written about it earlier. I made a blog post once about this matter.)

SONGS THAT REALLY AFFECTS ME IS

FRANK SINATRA - MY WAY

And now, the end is here 
And so I face the final curtain 
My friend, I'll say it clear 
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain 
I've lived a life that's full 
I traveled each and ev'ry highway 
And more, much more than this, I did it my way 

Regrets, I've had a few 
But then again, too few to mention 
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption 
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway 
And more, much more than this, I did it my way 
[ Ly
Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew 
When I bit off more than I could chew 
But through it all, when there was doubt 
I ate it up and spit it out 
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way 

I've loved, I've laughed and cried 
I've had my fill, my share of losing 
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing 
To think I did all that 
And may I say, not in a shy way, 
"Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way" 

For what is a man, what has he got? 
If not himself, then he has naught 
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels 
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way! 

Yes, it was my way

The lyrics ask us to do things according to our own rendition. To win or to lose always gets the silver medal, what golden is that we do things that define us. Let us be laughed at as we fall because when we are up there, nobody deserves to take even a small credit as everything is our own effort. This song also teaches us to remove regret as a way of life as no matter what happens, what past is past and we are human, we can't possibly get all the goods in this world, but we can try to be a better person ourselves.

FOR OTHER CONTENDERS REGARDING MOST INSPIRING SONG LYRICS, FEEL FREE TO VISIT THIS BLOG POST I MADE LONG AGO (BUT IT'S IN BAHASA MELAYU)

MOST INSPIRING SONG LYRICS

and of course I love poetry as well. :D

like this street poetry that I watched during Creative English class

and I straight away fell in love with the words of Sarah Kay



and this one is good as well!




next up is my most favourite thing in the world
One of my idols once said,



"If you just love movies enough, you can make a good one. You don't have to go to school, you don't have to know a lens from a bag of sand"

- Quentin Tarantino -

I really love movies. It's like if i watch one movie until the day I die, it will still be a life well spent. I watch movies not because I have free time, I watch them because I need to be told a story, a story worth sitting 2 hours in front of the laptop or in the cinema. I don't buy pirated dvd as well, as I think that in case one day I become someone that I want, a filmmaker, I won't want people to do the same over my works. Don't do onto others what you don't want to be done onto you.

Some of my DVD collections. I still have more though, just to brag :)

Movies are stories told in fashion. My sister used to tell me this story about this fairy and this guy, in which the fairy was often asked by the guy to grant him his wishes. It was such a fascinating story based on how she told it, when the fairy cried, she cried and I felt sorry for the fairy, I don't mind listening to it over and over again. Until one day she became bored of telling the story thus she told me "once upon a time, there lived a fairy,and then she was dead. THE END"

It seemed to me like my sister was fooling around, but as of today, I'm 18 years old, I realize how important it is to tell a story...not just for the sake of telling the story but to feel the story, and that's what movies provide. Besides telling the story, movies actually lure us into a world where we are guided in a road trip where everything is rendered via sheer imagination and I'm still fascinated by that. I even made a page on Facebook named MovieGuppies so that movie lovers can share what they have in common.

My favourite genre will be crime/thriller I guess as it usually feeds us with suspense and unexpected twists at the end. I don't discriminate on the nationality of the movie. All I can say is if the movie is good, it's good regardless of where it comes from. However, I do have a candidate for each genre. For the sake of knowing the environment that makes me creative, I'll show the candidates. :) 

CRIME THRILLER

INFERNAL AFFAIRS....definitely the cream of the crop for me. This brilliant movie lures me into falling in love with Hong Kong crime thriller. Besides wuxia and Kung Fu movies, Hong Kong is also an expert in making crime thriller movies as they are often subjected to Triad society.

DRAMA

A FEW GOOD MEN...For drama secton, I think this movie ties with The Shawshank Redemption as a personal favourite to me. This movie is brilliant with deep script. Courtroom drama at its best

ROMANCE

DEFINITELY, MAYBE...How cliche it is to put Titanic in this section although yeap, Titanic is also a personal favourite. However, I think this movie deserves better from the audience as the father-daughter relationship has anchored the movie well in a journey towards finding true love. Another movie that I fancy in this section is definitely (500) Days of Summer.

HORROR

NANG NAK...this Thai masterpiece came out when I was...4?5?6? No wonder I remembered being so scared watching this. However, even 4 or 5 year old boy would feel the sadness of a wife missing her husband until she swore to come back from the dead only to remain the soulmate of her husband. A beautiful movie...and a scary one as well. Thai is really good at horror, apart from Korean and Japanese

WAR DRAMA

TAE GUK GI...South Korean at its best. A depiction of brotherhood in time of war. I haven't watched Saving Private Ryan yet, but this one is definitely one of the great contenders in war drama.

EPIC

TROY...among my favourite movies ever. The type of movie that really makes me think "how did they do it?" With a decent script and spectacular cinematography, it really hurts that Troy doesn't win much in award ceromonies. It surely deserves it.

WELL, I CAN'T POSSIBLY LIST ANYTHING RIGHT..HAHA SO THESE ARE SOME OF THEM


ALRITE THEN, I GUESS IT'S A BYE NOW. IT'S TOO LONG ALREADY


HOWEVER, IT'S GOOD TO KNOW THAT THE LONGEST POST IN THIS BLOG IS ABOUT MYSELF. WE SHOULD ALL KNOW EACH OTHER WELL ENOUGH :)





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