Don't play with it

I had an awesome weekend.

I didn't go to the Jhandi but I still got my seven curry. What is seven curry you ask? (Don't worry, I know you're thinking it... I didn't know myself) How my mom explains it, it's simply different dishes in portions. Each dish you call it a curry. For example, stew eggplant, curried katahar, etc... each is a "curry." So if someone comes to visit and asks you, "what curry you cooking?" - simply means - what dish are you making today?

I love Jhandis. I can't understand a single word in the prayer, nor am I Hindu so I don't need to understand it... But I love the whole cultural experience. I get to wear my shalwar... Hopefully someday I'll have my own sari.

And most importantly, with all Indian celebrations, there's always a LOT of food involved. That naturally is my most favourite part. The dishes don't have meat - but it tastes so good you don't need meat. My favourite dishes are anything with katahar in it. Why? Because katahar tastes like chicken. I remember the first time I ate it I asked my mom how come she said they don't cook with meat yet I'm eating chicken. *frown* She thought it was funny...

Anyways... After the prayer they give you this little brown paper bag that has all sorts of yummy goodies in it - generally sweet treats. There's a little bag of fruits such as a slice of apple, a banana, dates, prunes and grapes. Then there's a bit of prasad, rote(I'm not sure how to spell this one), pera, mithai/kumar, etc... And then there's the wide range of Indian dishes such as dhal puri (roti), various curries, stews, etc. as well as desserts. Yum.


What awesomeness did I do instead? I chilled with snooks and watched a couple movies. As usual, the ones I pick turn out extra sucky and much to my annoyance, in contrast, despite my reluctance to watch a pile of action movies, he always picks out the ones that are really good. All I could do at the end was mumble and mutter and grumble to myself.


I picked out  'Burning Bright.' Honestly, it wasn't awful but it wasn't that great either. It was like a 10 minute plot that got dragged out into a full length feature film. In a nutshell it's about this young woman and her autistic brother who get trapped in a house with a tiger during a hurricane. Sounds absurd? Not quite. How the movie explains itself is plausible enough... but it's not involving enough. Straight-to-dvd? Yes. Would I watch it again? Umm.... sadly to say, yes, just because of the suspenseful gasp moments with the tiger (and I cut through half of the movie and apparently we missed some exciting parts according to reviews on IMDB). The tiger was absolutely gorgeous and they used a real one(or three). But... the plot just didn't have enough to carry the whole film.



He picked "Salt" and "Knight and Day." I loved 'Salt.' It was very entertaining... nice plot line and development. A little love story, a little action, and lots of woman power - what's not to like? Tagline question is 'Who is Salt?' In a nutshell she works for the CIA and is accused of being a Russian spy. After reading through some reviews on IMDB some people seem to have gone too indepth with their analysis - going on and on about the Cold War, the impossibility of the movie, blah blah blah. It's just a movie, chill, an entertaining one at that.




 'Knight and Day' was alright. I think I almost fell asleep at some points, but that could be because I was tired as well. It had a similar action/romance trend to 'Salt' but (to me) less involving. However, it was more comedy and had a much lighter atmosphere and considering all the hype from the two action/suspense/thriller movies we watched prior, so that could be the cause of my prejudice. Maybe if I watched it in isolation of the other films and wasn't a tad sleepy then perhaps I would've loved it. I generally love all of Cameron Diaz's movies. Some people are after some powerful battery Tom Cruise's character in the movie helped create. They try to kill him, Cameron gets fenced in all the excitement inadvertently.

*perks eyebrow*

So I just finished watching "Forget me not" the teen horror/thriller. *yawn* Ok so it had a couple well jumps...... but I don't get it. Like seriously. How can someone who's not even dead, kill people... and erase their existence from reality completely? Like.... *sigh*

So... about that painting? I shall get started.

Shelli out.

Recently, I've found myself watching a bunch of movies (considering there's not much else to do) and found myself getting into animations.




The first that made me fall in love with animations was "How to train your dragon." I saw mixed reviews on it, some people thought it was slow, others confusing, etc etc the typical movie complaints. I thought it was brilliant. The colours, the storyline, the scenery. It was about a young boy in a city of Vikings who wanted to be a Viking dragon slayer like his dad......However his size was quite petite and his whole being just seemed opposed to it. As the film continues, he encounters a dragon and starts to learn various life lessons... leaves you with that warm fuzzy feeling inside... And... oh my gosh.... the graphics is delicious!!




The next was "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs." This one was about another boy seeking approval from his dad and wants to be an inventor. His inventions were previously all failed attempts except for one. But that one proved to be just as much a calamity as the rest. It was a cute movie. Cute ending, tied up nicely.




Then last night I watched "Fantastic Mr. Fox." This is the only one that falls into the kid category yet seems more appealing for adults. It's about a fox who once was a chicken stealer, but changed his life around upon his wife's request to become a newspaper columnist after a near-death experience. He decides much later that he wants to pull off one last steal and ends up endangering everyone's lives. Why do I say it's more appealing for adults? While it is fast paced enough to keep children interested, it carries a lot more adult themes and the dry humor/ironies would appeal more to the 20-30 something age bracket. The fox is having a mid-life crisis, his son feels neglected, there's a murder. There's a great deal of selfishness and arrogance throughout with very little remorse. Also, there is a lovely play with words throughout - there's no cursing instead of saying the f-bomb they use "cuss" like.... are you cussing with me??? Who the cuss am I? Don't cuss with me! Who the cuss is this? Overall, there's laughs throughout though.



I just finished watching "Where the wild things are." Another movie about a young boy who feels neglected, runs away from home and creates his own kingdom with monsters.

I'm not sure if it's purely coincidence or perhaps I just never focused that in depth on movies before.... but a theme of neglect seems to carry all the way through. I also realized that none of these movies were meant to be grasped and understood in one sitting. 'How to train your dragon' came the closest, in my opinion, to feeling complete the first viewing. Ok, so I'm speaking as if I watched any of them more than once, which I haven't, and have the intent to watch it over again, which I don't. But... I feel as if I did watch it over again I'd pick up a lot of stuff that I missed. "Fantastic Mr. Fox" had soooo much going on at the same time, it felt like you had to pick one thing to work with and carry you through the movie in the midst of awareness of the other stuff. That wasn't a bad thing per se, but it was like a Margaret Atwood novel were every word is laced with innuendo and if you don't take your time to re-read every line then you miss something epic. Funnily enough, the animations were all kid books translated into film. The only one that left me feeling kinda sad was "Where the wild things are." I mean... bad, sad things happened in all of the films... but that one was just all round depressing. The ending was quiet yet poignant and yet....confusing at the same time. The movie ends unresolved as far as I'm concerned. He fails at making the monsters happy, rather he just highlights his own insecurities whilst playing with their own - BUT he's just a child himself. His mother still fails at being a parent in some ways... No one really recognizes their character flaws, not even the boy. The viewer understands the rationale behind the selfishness behind each character, but there's no resolution presented. Perhaps, that is the point - in the real world, answers are not always present and acknowledgment of error is as good as it is going to get. A very real ... realistic movie. HA! Sher, if you're reading this.... It's like 'Waiting for Godot' where everything is somewhat as it was, and you're left seeing pieces of yourself in the film yet slightly depressed and amused at the same time.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... which shall I watch next?

Shelli out.

So I've found myself in this same position sitting before the laptop several times for the year thus far. My fingers hovering indecisively over the keyboards, my thoughts swirling so fast it's almost as if they are reduced to nothingness and cease to be. The difference between then and now; the difference that ends this hiatus, is my decision to end it.

If we wait for inspiration, it may never come, thus making it an indefinite period of waiting. We must therefore start, and let inspiration come to you. I've made a point to start painting and writing again. A slow start... I've abandoned my first painting effort but I've found inspiration in my second effort... I need to get a frame to stretch my canvas though... but I'm making it work. I shall call this piece "Sunset in my veins" ... mm hmm... perfect.

And I'm going to try and get this running again... before my writing abilities depart from me...




So all of a sudden recently I've been feeling this reluctant spiritual calling. Not because I need saving... I'm not even sure why, but my spirit is unsettled and it doesn't seem to stay settled long enough to keep me content. I guess I have too many questions and too little answers for it to be settled...... anyways.....

....Today, after (admittedly) playing dodge ball with campus "group Bible studies", my friend E. and I found ourselves sitting at the table (since all the other tables were occupied and we were just too lazy to make the rounds again) with the study group.

Low and behold I felt like myself again.... for all the wrong reasons.

When it comes to religion, I've always been on a curious course of 'seeking the truth' but never fully succeeding in following through with all this seeking. In the end, I end up just living my life, and trying to live within the rules of what I think is right and wrong.

The irony is, the discussion I found myself in just reminded me of all the reasons I find myself hesitant about these kind of dealings. I found myself following along with the reading of a pre-selected scripture. The second I settled and thought to myself '...hey this is just what I was looking for, oooo a sign from 'God'..." the leader makes a comment. And that's how it ended, or began. Somehow I always seem to stumble across poor examples of religious people when I have these moments of serious pondering... Religion needs to pick better ambassadors.

So the scripture was selected. I vaguely remember where it was from... I'm not going to lie and say I read the Bible because I don't. Atleast, not often enough for it to qualify as reading. Nuntheless, I know enough because of the amount of people I have around me who are always quoting scripture readings and finding parallels to draw between it and their own lives. Anyways.. enough digression.

So back on course. The scripture selected was about having 'the word' as your rock and being like a builder, building your foundation on something solid as opposed to sand. The purpose of this scripture, however, in my interpretation based on the consequent events was merely to open the doors to criticize other people. This kind of Bible-using behaviour annoys me. This just reminds me of the slave masters who just kept finding scriptures to justify their inhumane enslavement of other people a couple hundred years back. (if I'm to pick just one example)

Soooooo.... My Bible-study-session-cum-gossip-table-with-Bible-citations was actually to open the doors to criticize a congregation sprinkled with adulterers. Apparently, the guy wants to leave or left the church because of that and felt a compulsion to share this knowledge with us and impart judgment on the situation.... Perhaps, he wanted a cookie for this? As things progressed I realized he saw the situation in black and white. The person is wrong, they need to repent or go to hell. And.... to make matters worse, he said that the few people engaged in such activities are "like yeast in bread - they will blow up into the whole church and corrupt it."

These kind of situations annoy me. I'm not saying what the people are doing is right. But,

a) who gives him the right to judge them?

b) As a Christian, he is supposed to do what Jesus would do or something of the sort right? (WWJD?) Therefore, if I recall correctly, Jesus did say he isn't here for the righteous... Since he knows better, and no one else is doing anything about the situation, and he feels so strongly about it.... why doesn't he find a tactful way to address the matter without calling names or being insultive? Try to understand the root of the problem and help the persons in question understand the error of their ways?

c) This whole yeast in bread analogy... now really? Your faith is supposed to be on a solid foundation... doesn't that say that your faith is weak, if someone else cheating on their spouse makes you feel like cheating? Because I associate with someone who does something doesn't necessarily mean I will do it too. The likelihood of my engaging in whatever activity increases... but that depends on how strong minded and confident I am within and of myself.. How strong my faith... my resolve...

d) Lastly... I've learned that there are generally layers to most problems. Granted, crazy people walk amongst us all the time. But I don't believe the majority of people are crazy, and even the crazy people have a method to their madness... How can you judge someone when you're not living their lives? You don't know what they're going through and what has led them to take the paths that they have taken right or wrong... and if you don't know the root of the problem, can you truly help?

This reminds me of a movie I'm sure I already wrote about called "Boy A". Its a paradigm example to illustrate what I'm really trying to get at...

In it, the long short, 2 boys kill a little girl at a very very young age - very gruesome murder. They're sentenced to life (I think) then the courts decide to reduce the sentence. One boy gets murdered (implied) by the parents of the girl. The other boy is released back into society under a new name and identity in his late teens.

As the movie rolls on, you see the gruesome murder BUT you also see the traumatic lives of the boys. What they did wasn't right, but.... they reacted the only way they knew how to considering the abuse they were suffering in their lives at the hands of the people that's supposed to be taking care of them. They reacted to the girl's goading which was quite condescending... The boys were of a lower class and a bit eccentric and she was insulting them.

The boy that returned back to society did feel remorse, really was making an effort to be a good person... However, the jealousy of his friend's (parole officer?) wayward son, over how much care and concern he had for the boy, led to the deliberate revelation of the boy's identity. During the course of the film, the boy also rescues a little girl in an accident... he's really trying to make amends. However, people are judgmental despite their less-than-perfect lives. They judge him based on face value of what he has done and actually don't care about rehabilitating him. He ends up killing himself in the end. It's easy to pass judgment on an isolated situation, it takes more humane compassion to care enough to figure out why and help fix the problem - before it really does permeate through the society......

....but the question is, who decides our fate? Do you have the right to judge someone because of what they've done? Is sin not sin, simply? Or... are there different levels by which sin, that is supposed to be universally unacceptable, becomes acceptable? And... where do we draw the line of the double standard?


***

I'm sleepy...


Shelli reinvented.
Shelli out.
*curtsy bow*