近來的確有點失常, 做什麼也提不起勁, 睡也睡得不太好, 還是多得樓上的裝修師傅.

前幾天逛了HMV, 買了Julian Barnes的 Arthur and George paperback. 決定給這個作家多一個機會. 很久之前已讀過他的作品, 有些看得明, 有些則一頭霧水. 但心想他既是各大學Postmodernism的必教作者, 定必有些詭異之處. 就是這個不憤氣的理由, 便拿去九十元去買了這本五百多頁的小說. 不要問我幾時會看, 我的書在我家中是要排期的, 大慨這也十分香港吧! (但當中極有可能有書插隊, 這便是已鋪了塵的Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin). 我其實又有幾多時間看leisure reading? 我的論文己在遠處召喚我.

昨晚花了差不多四個多小時完成了林夕老師的功課. 因為我上週缺課, 要做些什么實在不知道. 但亦是出於不甘心的理由, 随手拿了些歌來把詞重填, 誓要入選最後三十人名單. 原本很想用Both Sides Now 填廣東詞, 但實在太難了. 填了四句已用了五十分鐘. 頭兩句是這樣的:

清早氣味似足你
而美得戴妃亦歎氣

後來是怎樣己不太記得了. 於是便再那另外一首歌來填. 我選了一首廣東歌, 希望用已有的歌詞去幫我把字的音調拿揑得準確些, 而arrangement方面又要夠moody, 夠戲劇性, 於是我便選了關淑怡的<進化論>. 效果不太差, 填得也比較爽, 雖然也有沙石, 但也頗接近我期望的後果.

孤寂 百年 問有幾多頁
春樹 化泥 挪威井裡堆
隨指尖去追朔 前生中幾次轟烈
無心不動 花瓣要摧
緊閉雙眼不再追

萬般苦寂 待拈花帶領
活色高潮 未及蓮花高超
你落泊嗎 未慶祝也罷
一生之差 在理解 豁去這個我

穹蒼虛幻 殞落於風沙
絕色花樣 眉毛濃黑一雙
你尚愛嗎 就要懂愛吧
呼吸一生 便叫好 死都不該有疤

春風尚不息 檢討我生
輕挑吹我的前塵
奇蹟未降臨 伊美交戰一世等
慧根不小心整理 出錯得很有可能
餘温欠過誰人 只怪身體不敏感


填完之後, 還是覺得有點對Both Sides Now不住的感覺, 於是便隨意地填上了國語詞. 是這樣的:

小時候說我不成器
只撒嬌愛吃巧古力
整天都呆着看電視
要學摺紙飛機

媽媽老了的長頭髮
雪白得閃爍會說話
永遠記得: 要快樂呀
照着自己步伐!

要不是她我不會走 我不會笑 也不會叫
長大的時候沒有說
說了不該說的 多錯

要不是她我不會走 我不會笑 也不會叫
長大的時候不懂愛
愛了不該愛的 很多

最後想說說對The Departed的感覺. 看後對馬田史高西斯的印象依然不變, 他永遠是和觀眾鬥長命, 鬥耐性. 我已經不恃着看過無間道的港人身份去看這齣電影, 但也是講得它很不濟. 除了cast大和多, 粗口也很多, 甚至比爛口的我和那些真的黑社會還多. 前半部故事很鬆很散, 完全沒有張力. 演員的表現也不是傳媒褒得那么一流, 最好的還是Leonardo, 其次是Mark Whalberg, 搶戲非常. Jack Nicholson只是一般, 有些刻意, 不夠自然, 我個人選擇還是Al Pacino. 至於Matt Damon,他可以收檔了, 那個角色換了是Edward Norton, 我想整套戲就會多了個可取之處. 最不知所謂的還是(冚家鏟)結局, 連Matt Damon也無謂地被殺. 誰是這種政治與道德正確的結尾? 這還是多此一舉. 美國影評人給了個A-, 以我的taste, The Departed最多也只可以贏過C+. 相比之下, 詭絲可好看一點, 沙石還是有, 導演不濟和成本不夠很容易給觀眾看出, 但勝在有新Idea. Scorcesse 和 Nicholson的提名, 我想可能是發夢吧！Leonardo 和Mark Whalberg 則比較有機會些, 前者男主角, 後者男配角. 人家Clint Eastwood 宝力未老, 越拍越好. Mystic River, A Million Dollar Baby 是上乘之作, 而你啦？ The Aviator and The Gangs of New York.........

人人都說期待Leonardo及Matt Damon合演的西版無間道, 我還是想聽他們合唱<無間道>多些.

Hair kills.
We also kill our hair, painlessly.
Every month I go to the salon and trim my hair. Is my hair part of my body or non-body? I assume for every single bit of my body, if removed, would cause me pain. Why would something totally incapable of causing me pain grow and attach to my head?
Cutting it even has a sense of 'coolness' inside. Listening to the sounds of the scissors and seeing how the blades tidy up the ends of my hair ease me with the feeling that I am organized, and at the same time, less disorganized.
Pulling one's hair is even more painful than cutting it. That's why I told my masseur. So, sometimes, it's better to get rid of things than holding it to prevent a potential pain from tormenting me.
Hair links. The tiny string of silk that links up the living and the dead (as in the film Silk) is a threat. It is a connection of revenge, hatred and love, always misunderstood and mistaken.
The hair is also the grotesque. It blocks the pipe and comes from a monstrous body with an ill-boned frame and a contourless face. It's deformed and damaged, yet it's exotic and erotic. It's foreign and familiar at the same time. It's not just hair. It carries more than ordinariness with it (see Nicole Kidman's coming film, Fur).
Hair and fingernails still grow after one dies. Hair outlives us. It last longer in this physical world than us. When our body stops functioning, the hair takes its victory and prolongs our sense of living in the world, though not noticed very much.

Current reading: Considering Alan Ball, (ed) Thomas Fahy. (MFC, 2006). I have turned to non-fiction and documentaries from fiction and dramas. It's hard to find a good fictional book and film now. When would I finish my chapter on the ear? It's the worst thing I have worked on. Fuck work.

Songs I wish to hear on 9 Oct, though I know the possibilities of some of them below are very low:

1. 戀愛盲 2. 三千年開花 3. 找我 4. 新聞女郎 5. 零比零
6. 九九九 7. 不愛就不愛 8. 重新做人 9. PG家長指引
10. 瀛寰搜奇 11. 性情中人 12. 錯先生
13. 流離夜雨...雨中花 14. 好朋友 15. 呼吸 16. 某月某夜
17. 零時十一分 18. 不願一個人 19. 501 20. 步步高

My gut feelings told me that he would sing....
One song of Danny Chan, or maybe a song of Ho CC... just my guess.

September is the dullest month - may God (not that I believe in his existence) take away this month from now on. I could detect the smell of autumn a few weeks ago. It was so pungent that I couldn't avoid breathing in the sad air. Nostrils are like ears, and unlike eyes, always open and exposed for invasion. Not that the air is sickening, but memorial, like the smell of your mother's pillowcase and the clothes one just gets back from laundry. It reminds people of events, in the past, with a certain sense of nostalgia in it. No wonder there are people covering their nose and mouth with their bare hands in streets.

I will be heading off to Korea in October. Probably, this would be the last academic trip in years. So going with someone I know would be a credit and it could put a supposedly wonderful end to my whole study plan these two years. I couldn't stop asking myself What's next? The future, my future, precisely speaking, becomes more elusive and yet daunting. Mid-age crisis, I would say. Doubts just accumulate, as debts. We all have detbs, don't we? It's just the matter of whether we have more doubts than doubts, or vice versa.

I started rethinking my academic goal these two days. I was stunned to discover (one can't lie to oneself) that I am bored with it, to the extent that I am rather fed up. Yes, I'm writing something interesting, yet how profound could it be? Or shall I ask Is it rightly written? Not yet, not soon. Would I be able to survive like this until the day I retire, let's say 60?

Going to class alone, and leaving the campus also alone. At home, sitting in front of the computer, either surfing on the meaningless websites, or writing my thesis. I finally submit myself to the whole theory on how machines alienate people in their everyday life. If lucky, there would be one movie night and two volleyball evenings per week (provided that the games are enjoyable and the film is not crap). Or I will be browsing websites of famous universities overseas to check out what departments and programmes they are offering, dreaming as if I would one day step my foot on their campus.

All these things happen in a cycle. Everything in life is just a cylce, very Buddhist. This is why my life becomes duller and duller. With all the things I need to write in my head, there's a chaos, a mess. My life is chaotically dull, and I become moodless, which I find is also a special mood at the same time. So now, I can establish moodless=moody. Whatever crap theory it might be.

Too lazy to go to a computer shop to buy a writing pad so that I can write my blog in Chinese. Yes, I am lazier to learn how to type my mother language. I bought a horrible aroma oil from Franc Franc, yet, I am too lazy to get a new one, which smells better. Laziness comes from moodlessness, which in turn comes from alienation. So many thoughts on my future, but so little things have happened to signal me.

Classics suck!!!

One mystery always on my mind: I really don't understand why people praise Hitchcock and Shakespeare like god. I've read and watched their works. I think they're tremendously tedious and the pace is far too slow. I grow up in a world where speed and efficiency count most. Such stuff, for me, is already not of my concern and interest. Same for other 'gods', including my forever hates, Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift and many others.

Vertigo sucks. This is what I find on http://www.imdb.com:

There is nothing more to say. For me this is the best Hitchcock. I loved Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest, but this one tops them all. The story is so great and I almost can't say anything about it without spoiling it a little (What's so great about the film? The story could be told in 50 mins, but the director spent 123 mins to tell it). A couple of things I can say are that John Ferguson (James Stewart) is afraid of heights due a thing happened a while ago. He is asked to spy on the wife of an old friend of him. John once was a detective so he knows how to do that. The wife, played by Kim Novak, is acting a little strange lately so it must be in her benefit. Of course he falls in love and this is only where the story starts. (Injured and impotent policemen has always been a theme, even now. So what's so special about it? Falling in love with the subject is definitely a cliche) You will never be bored. (Sorry, I've been bored since the beginning) The acting from Stewart is good as always and Novak is great. Hitchcock does a great job with his directing, but that is something we all knew before watching the film.(disagree) There are some nice camera-tricks which I liked very much. The score by Bernard Herrmann also does a great job supporting the whole atmosphere of the film. This is one of the best Hitchcock's and you just have to see it. 10/10. (I give 1/10)

If it's not because of the course work, I would not even waste my time on this. Now, you wanna know my taste. This is what I call wit and wisedom:

Haruki Murakami: "The first time I did a book signing was in Princetown. Fifteen people came. It was [the] most peaceful hour of my life. I spent the time trying to remember all the train stations in Tokyo".

The British can always handle a light-hearted but warm romance very well. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually, and this one, Imagine Me and You.

I first saw the trailer of this film back in February, in Alberquerque, New Mexico. I was the only person in the threatre waiting for Capote (or Good Night and Good Luck) to begin. The massive hollowness of the theatre and my personal hollowness (as usual) just made me feel much deeper for the film as it normally would.

I finally got a chance to see it tonight and I like it a lot. It's not just a film about love at the first sight. The beauty of the lesbian romance is the portrayal of how a person follows her heart to leave her husband and be with a woman. Nobody gets hurt in the end, and nobody wins. Just that someone falls in love and someone falls out of it.

It's sweet, funny and romantic. That's what I asked for. Everything in a British romance just appears too romantic in the film - the florist, the sky, the walls, the shops, the interior of a home and the exterior of the city. Yet, when you actually get there, it's not exactly how they appear on screen. Very strange.

I don't have a love life now, but I do have a 'like' life. I am still looking for my le flash.

The name of the film comes from The Turtle's Happy Together. Ironically, Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together is about a gay couple being unhappy together. Lesbian romance is always more romantic than gay ones. Sigh, gay men are just too melanholic because they always think about "imagine me and me".

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy together

I think I am going to be real busy up to the end of the month:

1. A Cock and Bull Story
2. Naked World (Documentary)
3. Sketches of Frank Gehry (Documentary)
4. Elizabeth I (HBO film)
5. Fabulous: the story of queer cinema (Documentary)
6. Kicking and Screaming
7. The Joy of Life (Documentary)

Shit, there is still no news from anything I am hoping for. 小產 again?

It's always fun to hang out with these ppl (including ah dam, ah ta, charles, andy, kevin, carol, maggie tb, ah ha). We always meet at different sorts of tables (drinking table, GM table and food table), we just say a lot of bullshit. But it's really fun. For many times, I have laughed into tears and could not stop. Those were the happy days. Even now when I am bored (usually in the bus), I will recall what we have talked and laughed about. We have our secret language and codes. Shit, I miss GM.

What's wrong with this little crazy cunt? Can't she just leave me alone? I think I should go to "DA SIU YAN". I'm gonna fight back this time. Too much tolerance for this piece of shit. She's really pushing her luck.

This is the latest email of her. She is just FUCKING INSANE!!!!!

Dear B, your new nickname/ do you like it? not mean you're low-B :) i think u have many things to do. e.g. write some poems / know more people / travel / movies to me, you seem forget something ....... 1. a clear target 2. a real dream to work for 3. try to do more to contribute yourself to the society 4. stop listening too many pop songs ~~ 5. never think too high of yourself. it's a common mistake. i can understand. but you should be mature & wise. appreciate others and learn from them. never think " i'm quite handsome / clever / attractive" etc. other people will think you're a naive / low-B one. so always keep in mind that " what can i do to express my real talent? " " do i speak something useful/ inspiring to others? " i just hope you will grow up and never be silly.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	3.6
Mind:	4.8
Body:	5.3
Spirit:	2
Friends/Family:	2.7
Love:	0
Finance:	1.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I guess the total score one can get in each category is 10.

Rate your own life at http://www.monkeyquiz.com/life/rate_my_life.html

The Lake House - Can time be really on time?

Adaptation is such a painful experience, and watching an adapted film is even more torturous. il mare is one of my all-time-favourites. The romance and the 'romantic' lies on the plot - how could two people falling in love with two years apart, without interacting with each other. It's a rather spiritual mode of yearning. It's all about romance in the modernity - all about alienation and most importantly - the possibility of allowing oneself to indulge into such an 'untouchable romance'. We all love the ones we could not get. Isn't this film saying exactly the same thing? Just that it talks about two people from two different temporalities.

The American adaptation sucks. It ruins the original mood and affect. The 'untouchability' is ruined and rewritten. Both films have a very nice 'lake house', of different achitectural and structural meanings. The Korean one is really built on the shore, serving as an end of a long walkway extension. The house has a name of its own - 'il mare', meaning 'the sea'. What is there is the sea is the horizon, which you can see, but never touch it. When you think you reach the horizon, it's not there, but you see another line ahead of you as another new horizon.

The American house is more pro-father. It has a tree planted in the middle. The father is the centre of the family, forever there, influencing the residents (his son). This is nothing special, but too obvious. "Are you crazy? That is a glass house. You have no privacy", one character says in the film. Yet, it's a glass house. You can see the view from within, but never touch it as well because you are separated by the glass. Also, who is there to watch you anyway? The privacy is laid out so clearly without any concealment. The only regret is that there's no spectators, very lonely.

The Korean one has more long shots. It is the setting and the art direction that shape the mood of the film. The American one just has too many close-ups (not to mention the sparkless acting and interaction between characters). Kate and Alex (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves) just talk too much to each other. They are visitors of instant chatroom who occasionally sending each other massive emails rather than people really living their lives with two years apart. The romance is technologized and globalized. The human touch is not more to be found.

The story is quite drastically rewritten upon adaptation. There are too many unnecessary and annoying characters. You see the film and you know who I am pinpointing. The most 'mysterious' is the ending, which according to the time theory, they would not have been able to meet. Kate is crying at the mailbox, hoping Alex can get her mail, thus escaping from her death. It is Feb 14 2006 in Alex's time and Feb 14 2008 in Kate's time. If t stands for Alex's temporal signifer, then Kate's is always t+2. So why could Kate, after crying, stand up, turn around and meet Alex? It does not make sense.

Kate knows Alex in 2006, so t+2 = 2006. In other words t = 2004. They would only meet when t = 2006 (t+2 = 2008). Temporally speaking the plot is flawless. Yet, Kate can appear in 2006 and 2008 at the same time because she is always two years ahead. The privilege of a person living in the present is the existence of him/herself in the past. However, one should question why Alex can trepass the preset t and t+2 notion to appear all of a sudden in 2008 in the end.......

United 93 -- A+

Oh, my god. When was the last time I felt there's a film that deserved an A+? May god know. The terrrorists who hijacked the plane sought help from God perhaps as many times as I do now. United 93 is a shocking, stunning and delicate film - all the merits should go to the scriptwriter and director, who happen to be the same person, Peter Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy).

Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre is also coming out in Hong Kong. When two films are done on the same materials, comparison seems inevitable. Yet, merely judging from the trailer of Stone's and United 93 (as a film - I know it's unfair yet I am pretty sure). United 93 would win many upper hands for a number of reasons.

The film is not about heroism and Americanism, which I believe are what Stone's film want to portray. United 93, as the name suggests, is a story about an airplane while World Trade Centre is not a story about the buildings (or twin towers), but about two policemen volunteering to rescue the people trapped in the building after the disaster happened. There is only one character in 93 - the plane and that's why all the passengers, crew members and even the pilots have no names. No one can remember what they are called (At least I don't).

(to be continued)

A relaxing Sunday morning - all about memories

What a rare thing to do on a Sunday morning. Having slept for just 2-3 hrs, I went to South beach with Adrian. There wasn't much sunshine (there wasn't much money in my wallet either), but just lying on the beach in the tolerable heat, reading "8 por" magazines is in fact quite a fun thing to do. He brought the latest issue of Men's Uno. I flipped it over. Gosh.

There was Mr. S. 3 whole pages on him. Youth and talent count most in our society. The article said he just got the blah blah blah award in the States for his composing flare. Wow. Brilliant. One day, I wanted the reporters to call me and have an interview of me. I dreamed on. Back to Mr. S, 這人已經升了上我的神檯, 我想我一世也會供奉他, 崇拜他. I am an athiest, but I'm always attracted. The seduction and lure of youth and talent is a very dangerous deception, one on the outside, the other inside. Song of the moment: Janice's 愛才. (last nite in M Bar, I thought about the question: should I be happy that a person 想識我, or 賞識我?)

Flipping a few more pages, I saw my ex-colleague in St Joe. God, what's wrong? I can't stand the way education as commercialized as such. It's ok to commercialize the school, but the teachers? Come on! Teachers are never good fashion models. Even if they wear Martin Margiela topdown, they only look like twats from the wanna-bes in American Next Top Model (male version). Everybody has their own goal. So long as they don't get into my way, I am fine with it (though I'll grumble on). There's an ad of Joseph Li, with the narcisstic photos of himself, about how his courses are scheduled in the coming school term. There are words: "Joseph Li and his PhD team". Fuck all those PhD. I would not want to work for such a shallow guy if I have a PhD. Knowledge is noble, but selling it by 'claiming' that you have it is cheap, very cheap.

It's Alfred's birthday today. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Alfred (from Ah B), Happy Birthday to you.

This should be the new course I will be tutoring:

CLIT 2014
Feminist Cultural Studies
Lecturer: Dr. Gina Marchetti
Year 2/3 Level / 6 Credits / 1st Semester / 100% Continuous Assessment After World War II, so-called “Second Wave” feminism ushered in a new era of cultural critique. In the United States and Europe, feminists looked closely at the established institutions of beauty, women’s work, motherhood, romance, marriage, and heterosexuality. Building on related radical traditions, socialist feminism, third world feminism, lesbian feminism, among other voices critical of the patriarchal order, began to be heard globally. This course looks at the feminist critique of culture from film theory and psychoanalytic studies to the feminist intervention in cultural studies, postmodernism, and queer studies. Topics covered include: the social construction of femininity/masculinity, gender and performance, the beauty myth, the myth of romantic love, gender outlaws, women warriors, melodrama/the “woman’s film,” and female emancipation in the socialist imagination. Examples include clips from Hollywood films (e.g., All that Heaven Allows, The World of Suzie Wong, Mulan), European cinema (e.g., Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), Hong Kong cinema (e.g., He's a Woman, She's a Man, The Mistress), novels (e.g., Shanghai Baby, The Woman Warrior, Hong Kong Rose, Foreign Bodies), new queer cinema (e.g., Boys Don’t Cry, Far from Heaven), socialist/post-socialist cinema (e.g., Salt of the Earth, Portrait of Teresa, and Woman/Demon/Human), feminist experimental film (e.g., Daughter Rite), television (e.g., Dallas, MTV), popular music (e.g., Madonna), and the theatre (e.g., The Vagina Monologues).
Selections of Chapters or Exerpts from the Following (subject to change):Ien Ang, Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Jackie Byars, All That Hollywood Allows: Re-Reading Gender in 1950s Melodrama
Michelle Citron, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions
Dai Jinhua, Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua
Eve Ensler, ed. The Vagina Monologues
Molly Haskell, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation
Sheng-mei Ma, The Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity
Gina Marchetti, Romance and the Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction
Tania Modleski, Loving With a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women
Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures
Linda Nicholson, ed. The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature
Adrienne Cecile Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
Sue Thornham, Feminist Theory and Cultural Studies: Stories of Unsettled Relations
Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women
Mayfair Mei-wei Yang, Spaces of Their Own: Women's Public Sphere in Transnational China

End of August, another attack of the menustral syndrome. I already missed my period last month, so I am less prepared today than usual. Perhaps driven by loneliness, I added back several people and deleted them all over again on my msn. There's one still remaining on the list - Mr. S. I guess I am tied to him as Boku is magneted to the ears of a girl he knows in Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase. He is always the one who could give me advice and talked about my academic path with me. He's really talented. Maybe subconsciously, I just want to be him. I don't, however, rule out any possibilities of jealousy hidden in the attraction.

He said something right. I just don't need to explain what I'm doing to the laymen. Sadly enough, I counted the people in my lives - 95% of them are laymen, so what can I do? I still have 1 year to go for my studies, after which I still have no idea what to do. To continue or to work? Mr. S said we have chosen the path of knowledge, which is very noble. Yes, it sounds grand, but it's also very lonely as well. One thing I am different from him is that he is really connected to the people working in the academia, media and the cultural hub. I basically know nobody. His talent is just at least 10 times more than mine. Maybe, his fate is better predetermined than mine as well. Looking back, being a 27 man, I still can't guarantee a better living for my parents. They have both done a lot to raise me as who I am. I just feel bad that I can't do anything much to return at the moment. If I am to go further academically, they may be dead already when I am able to secure their standard of living. By that time, only words of regret will remain forever in my heart.

It's a noble yet lonely path. How long should I keep walking? Frustrated.

Course to be tutored: Feminist Cultural Studies

Waiting for some news from Korea conference, Scope, Senses of Cinema and Xu Xi. Could the editors of scope and senses work faster? I am going to withdraw my submission anyway if I don't hear news from them within the first 2 weeks.

Ok Ok Ok. That's the end of my teaching life. I hate spending my time with kids that have no hearts to learn. I hate those Band 3 Kids. Just trash. Sorry for being too mean. But they are nothing but trash. You may say I am not a good teacher, yes. I can only teach smart kids, and make them smarter. For those trashy ones, sorry, no one can help you. Your life is so fucking over. Form 1 kids who don't know how to spell: shoes, black, white, neck, front (do not know the meaning of 'in front of' and girl).... what have you done in the previous 6 years? Don't cry when you get your HKCEE results because you simply deserve it.

Original dictation passage:

She is a slim, middle aged woman of about 50. She has long, wavy hair. She is wearing a necklace and she has her hands clasped in front of her. She is neatly-dressed in a black and white spotted blouse and a smart skirt. She is wearing black high-heeled shoes.

She is average height. She is a teenage girl. She has fair, curly hair with a bow in it. She has her hands by her sides. She is untidily-dressed. She is wearing a dirty, plain tee-shirt, old, baggy trousers and a pair of sandals.

Look at the following dictation passage of a F. 1 Band 3 kid:

She is a sleep, middle-eged rm for
She has long hair, She is wearing a necklace and she has her hand caps in front of her. She is neatly-dressed in a back and wited sbteed. hang and a smant girl. She is wearing back Ih heeled shoes.

She is averes hates. She is avteivn girl. She has cveon awe hair, with blow and eat. She has her hands by her sides. She is unthird dress. She is wearing a dirty, play T-shirt, old, blgay chites and pandy of studos.

My comments: What language were you writing in? Terrible.
32 mistakes --> 32x3. The dictation received 4 points out of 100. Fucking TWAT!

Besides this fucking twat, there is another cuntishly stupid girl. She is such a quiet girl, so shy that she only speaks one word when you ask her 10 questions. Maybe she is deaf. This is her work. I will praise her for being creative in making a new era of education more challenging to teachers:

She is slime, middle-aged womam, about 50. She has long wavy hair, She is _____ a _____ and _____ her hans ____ in form fo her. She is ______ dresser, She ____ in a bark and wither ____. is a ______. She is _____ shoes.

She is ____. She is a ____ girl. Sha har ______, Clavy hair, with u with _____. She has her _____, She is undirty deresser. she is a _____, _____ Isiter. old, ____ and a hair of c_____.

After reading the following news, I can't help posting a new entry for two of my most hated artists in Hong Kong:

【東方日報專訊】關心妍(新聞 - 網站 - 圖片)（Jade）前晚和鄧麗欣(新聞 - 網站 - 圖片)（Stephy）為葉文輝（啤梨）的演唱會作綵排，Jade收到啤梨送的Melody卡通公仔睡衣，但她嫌款式太老土 (What a tasteless gift! But does that mean Jade doesn't think she's 老土????? She definitely is!!!!)，Jade不諱言偏愛性感的透視喱士睡衣 (No, thanks. You can give it to yourself!!!!)，更不介 意和啤梨十指緊扣唱情歌 (YUCK)。

中国女排 is over?
周苏红 has torn her lingament! Sigh... I guess the team could not make it to the top 3 anymore in this year's 大奖赛.

The following is my 名单 of the official players:
Setters: 冯 坤 宋妮娜
Spikers: 杨 昊, 李 娟, 楚金玲, 王一梅, 张越红
Libero: 张 娜
Middleblockers: 刘亚男, 薛 明, 徐云丽
Back 2: 李 珊

Just let 李 娟 and 楚金玲 substitute 李 珊.

李 珊 is lucky this time. Cherish the chance and stop being lousy!

Also, as I predict, the top 3 team of this year's 大奖赛 would be as follows:

Champion: Brazil
First runner-up: Russia
Second runner-up: Italy
Fourth place: China
Fifth place: Cuba

話事人 and Everyday Life

Johnnie To's Election 1 and 2 are stories about electing the 話事人 within a triad group in Hong Kong named Woo Shing Society. It seems that 話事人 is only concerned in the circle of criminal activities and underground gangsters; yet, it's not entirely true. In our everyday life, we can't escape from the notion of 話事人 as well. Anson Chan and Donald Tsang are both competiting to be the next 話事人of Hong Kong in 2007. Whoever wins or loses can't certainly be predicted; or does it really matter when most of us believe neither could possibly make a big change in HK. Not speaking about politics, we all want to, or need to be a 話事人 in some occasions as well, not that we need to be the 'person-in-charge', but it's all about us being the one and the only one.

When Big D (Leung Kar-fai-) proposed to co-chair the Wo Shing Society with Lok (Simon Yam) at the end of Election 1, he was hit numerously by a huge piece of rock. The same crisis also appears in Election 2, when Kun (Lam Ka-tung) proposes to sit for the election against Lok by the side of the lake. Both men exchanged glances and let the silence tell the audience to reveal the hidden tension. The message is obvious - no man would allow anyone to compete with them. We all want to be the one and the only one. Isn't love also about this as well? Who would allow a third person, or even more, in their relationship? I am talking about love, as the pure passion, a sort of committment, by excluding sex as the simply seduction driven by lust. Lust allows multiple participants - the more, the better (simultaneously, or not). Love, however, heads for the oppposite direction. We don't allow any competitors in our romantic relationships. We won't (and can't) literally remove them by making use of a piece of huge bare rock. Sadly, we have to admit that there's nothing we could do. Electing a 話事人 in any organization is always wrapped up with a result, an ending, by which one is elected to be the winner while the others will be doomed to be losers, who could not do anything anymore, but admit that it's in their fate.

One of my close friends has resumed his relationship with his lover after a temporary breakup, all because of the over-understanding and misunderstanding of a third person. Though they are now officially 'together' again, the hatred directed against the third person, the competitor of being the one and the only one has never gone. I am just tired of doing all the counselling since my patience has recently run dry in almost everything. I'd better save some time and energy on my own rather than lecturing others about their points of view, not to mention mine is not always justified. All we can do is: ask ourselves if we could possibly handle another 話事人 in our relationship. If such a person really turns up, could we dare to eliminate him/her like Lok in Election? If we can't, perhaps the only solution is not being a 話事人 ourselves as well. At this moment, a line from a song appears in my mind: "據講戀愛　都只不過是氣氛". We are engulfed in the romance for the sake of romance. The first person and third person are merely titles with empty meanings. 話事人 is also one of such titles. When you could extract romance (and power within a group or an organization), why bothers having a title? All titles are stigmata, for which a mad person would go for.

"Every lover is mad, we are told. But can we imagine a madman in love? Never." (Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse)

29/7 at PP
An unusual day. I woke up at 5 something in the afternoon, and started writing. I put off my plans of seeing a film with Sam, well for two purposes - slowing things down and to focus on my work. I wrote very smoothly and everything has started coming into shapes. I finished my work at around 1 something (AM!), then I headed for PP, with a mind still filled with the ideas and thoughts I was writing about in front of my laptop. Drinking and smoking - and eating dim sum. It's already nearly 6am. When I was on my way to go to 7-11 to buy a pack of Kent M3, I suddenly recalled what Shirley Kwan said in her concert video footage - "What about now?"
I thought of the meaning of what she said for a while. And I sighed.