Sunshine

Sunshine.
Written by M.Krishna Veni

Sunshine..
That warm ray that pours generously through the windows when the drapes were pulled and tied aside.How I love that feeling-warmth, comfort, security. The kind of  thing you always wished was with you forever, just like the sunshine you love most. God's abundant gift that no human on earth could replace, neither the man whom you'd trade your soul with nor your dearest parents who brought you into this world.I always wanted my very own sunshine, be with me, stay with me, caress me and please don't ever let me go. But life has taught me God is great in everything, not just blessing me with the best sun rays but the greatest surprises of all. He is just amazing, my Creator, the Creator of all, even my beloved sunshine.

I grew up believing God was everything, He made my parents, He made my parents to make me, He made all my food that was made by Maa. He made the rain I loved so much and He gives them to me every time I wished for them. I always thought God brings rain whenever I just wished for them like I did all the time, but then one day Daddy came up to me and said I have been a very bad girl recently. I squinted at him and boldly asked what did I do wrong, as far as I know of myself, I am the best girl alive in my neighbourhood. Daddy smiled as he looked up at the skies, the dark, dreary skies said a thousand things to him, yet my little beady eyes danced gleefully as my ears savoured the roaring thunders. Daddy said there's going to be a big storm. I smiled mischievously.

He said I made God angry today. He surprised me, not in the way God did with His tricky showers, but in a sad way. I asked him what I've done wrong, God couldn't be angry with His favourite girl. Daddy said God was crying cause I disappointed Him. I dropped to my knees and strectched out my arms to touch the falling rain. It felt cold and fresh. Daddy said God is the greatest of all, and He ruled all the Heavens, and now he said the Heavens is tearing, because I did something so wrong and made my Creator sad.

My Confession

Love.

My life sprang into life when this particular word came into my life.

It's like pouring water to a weak cactus after awhile.

Water makes the weak cactus plump, green and rejuvenated.

My life was like that.

It started on the night of 10th July 2003, at about 4.30 in the morning.

My eyes flew open in the darkness, my heart was racing as fast as the midnight train and palpitations hammered my face.

My baby ! NO, NO, NO! He cant die! NO, I didn't even have the chance to talk to him, please dear God don't ever tell me it's too late, cause I don't take that kind of excuses even from God.

Books That Are "Different"

Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Such an extraordinary book, a rare story. I couldn't possibly imagine reading another book as good and

facinating as this one. When I first heard of the book ( I am always looking out for The Booker Prize Winners' work), this particularly caught my attention. What I need in my daily reading is something out of the norm, something that gives my brain a little workout, not just read and weep kinda thing.

I picked it out, stared at the cover and flipped to the back. I read through the blurb. A tiny bell in my mind chimed... ting ... sounds nice, should I get it? Priced at MYR39.90, it is definitely not something cheap for a student like me. Well, do I need it? The question a shopaholic would ask herself many times before allowing herself to reduce the contents of her purse. Well, since the reviews were amazing, I guess it is just a fine investment.

Yann Martel, never heard of him before... paid for the book and walked out of MPH Mid Valley, KL. Walked around the mall aimlessly, another day of lonely outing to unwind my distraught and haywired sense of being. My body was cruelly abused by the hectic life of a varsity student, limbs and muscles tensed under all sort of pollutions (when I was out of the mall, of course).

I sat at Secret Recipe with a slice of cake, Cheese Raspberry, a warm bowl of carrot soup and a cup of Earl Grey, and that's lunch. Myself and my new book ! I unwrapped it and touched the smooth cover of my new paperback, flipped through the pages fast and enjoyed the heavenly fragrance of pages. Hmm.. that was surely an appetizer hahaha, not that I have any intention of tasting the pages.

The sweet lunch was nothing compared to the writing.

I brought the book back home and started my reading, I mean, like seriously. Usually when I get a good novel, I read the first few chapters, then, my eyes shift to another, and another and another ... and at the end of the day, I never really finish reading ONE novel. So, this time, I know for sure, this book id THE one, I am seriously finishing this.

Hmmm, reading the first few pages was ... well, very intriguing. I was actually reading on zoology, I felt like wow, being an English Language major and English Literature major, reading about the science of zoos is rather out of my world kinda thing. I actually learnt about the two-toed sloth, one of the slowest and laziest creature living in our forests. And how the two-toed sloth soothe the main character's soul-surprisingly positive.

My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour- calm, quiet and introspective- did something to soothe my shattered self.

ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END

Officially I guess this would be my final entry for this course. But obviously it's not going to be the last one in my life or something. Writing in blogs had been a great experience as I could actually put in words what I feel and share with others. It also gave me more knowledge as I research more on my subjects of interests in class, for instance, Van Gogh. I am very intrigued with him, not sure why, and will continue to read more on his life and the paintings he had produced while living.

THE END

Diaries and Letters

The diaries and letters that we studied this semester was rather intriguing. It's really facinating to read people's letters actually, whether they are for illegal reasons or just academically, reading the letters of Keats made me see who he was, and well, how romantic he was. Though at first I was taken aback knowing that we could actually read and study the personal letters of the deceased writer. People even publish it worldwide, I wonder if I was the writer, I would let people to read my letters! Hello! It's mine and it is personal.Keats's letters dont exactly sound like a real letter but rather like one of his poems! His language is poetical that even in his letters, he cannot sound 'normal'.

Another letter that interest me was Vincent Van Gogh's letter to his brother. http://www.serve.com/Lucius/VanGogh.index.html In this website I learnt more on Van Gogh whom I believed, a genius. There are also letters by his nephew, Vincent Willem van Gogh, who wrote about his life.

Vincent was also an attentive reader. From the website, I found that The French philosophical historian Jules Michelet's L'Amour contained a mingling of ideas and images which appealed to him strongly. He quoted from it in his letter of October 11, 1873, to Carolien and Willem Stockum:
"From here I see a lady, I see her walk pensively in a not very large garden, bereft of its flowers early in the season, but sheltered, as you see them behind our cliffs in France or the dunes of Holland. The exotic shrubs have already been put back into the conservatory. The fallen leaves reveal a number of statues. An artistic luxury which contrasts a little with the lady's very simple, modest, dignified dress, of which the black (or grey) silk is almost imperceptibly brightened by a lilac ribbon.
"But haven't I seen her already in the museums of Amsterdam or The Hague? She reminds me of a lady by Philippe de Champaigne [Woman in Mourning] who took my heart, so candid, so honest, sufficiently intelligent, yet simple, without the cunning to extricate herself from the ruses of the world. This woman has remained in my mind for thirty years, persistently coming back to me, making me say: 'But what was she called? What happened to her? Did she know some happiness? And how did she cope with life?'" [Letter #11a, quoted in Hammacher, p. 18]

Artistic, genuine and intelligent; and he has this facination towards sensitive women. I realized after viewing his paintings that it showed emptiness and sorrow, it sort of reflects off the colours, characters and now and then there is hope. I let the readers to decide.

Faded Belles and Damsels in Distress

Faded Belles and Damsels in Distress

Talking about the plays written by Tennessee Williams, I realized that there are many Faded Belles and Damsels in Distress in his plays, it’s like there should be at least one with the traits in the play. The Streetcar Named Desire had Blanche DuBois, the faded Southern belle and in The Glass Menagerie, there was Amanda Wingfield and her daughter Laura.

Williams’ portrayal of the women in his plays are usually characterised as such; weak, lost and delusional. Blanche Dubois in The Streetcar Named Desire at first seemed to be chased out of the property, Belle Reve, then she lost hope and wanted to reunite with her sister, who already settled with Stanley Kowalski. When she arrived there, things got worse as the stronger male in the household sort of brought out her suppressed anxiety. Williams making a contrast here by using the character of a strong male in crushing the weak female character.

In The Glass Menagerie, two female characters were portrayed alongside with three strong male character, firstly, the mother, Amanda and her crippled daughter, Laura, who are dependant on Tom Wingfield, the sole breadwinner of the family. Though being a good son and brother, Tom was never contented with what his mother wants him to do. Laura who was getting more and more delusional day after day got her mother so worried that she asked her son to bring home agentkeman caller. When Laura finally fallen in love with Jim O'Connor, he told her that he is already engaged. This crushed the fragile girl, then Tom fled because he was too depressed.

In the end, two girls was left alone in the dark after Laura blew her candle. In two of his major plays, Williams portrayed how much women were anguished and left in depression by men; the son, father, husband and also brother-in-law. Has this got something to do with his life growing up with a prominent and strong figure of a man who was his father?

Movies on Educators

Movies on Educators

After watching Freedom Writers, I feel that this is one of the best ‘teacher’ movie that I have watched. Besides this another movie that moved me would be ‘The Emperor’s Club’ starring Kevin Kline as the History teacher. That movie was really great; because one of the reasons is I always felt that Kevin Kline performs best as an educator. In ‘Orange County’ he played the role of a writing professor at Stanford University who encouraged his student and also a fan of his book, The Straightjacket, Shaun Brumder, to believe that you don’t need to go to a renowned university to be a writer, everything about being a writer is who you are and your significant others. In ‘The Emporer’s Club’ it is clearly shown whether a teacher had succeeded in educating their students or the students turn out to be losers in the future. It is a story about an elderly professor returning to his old high school to teach again and he had reminiscent recollections of the classroom he used to teach. Recently I also watched The Dead Poets Society, the teacher’s role played by Robbie William. It is about a poetry teacher who had to get the notion of poetry into the students’ minds. Another movie yet to be watched is Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pieffer.