Thoughts #1

The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, October 7, 1963

Weekend Readings April

Right: my favorite book series at the moment, left: a day at sea.

Dear reader,

April has been a whirlwind of a month. It has gone by so quickly but I had a blast. I had some good days with work and some family members had their birthdays and we celebrated in style and had some good family time. Personally, I am excited about the future and what it will bring. I feel strong within myself and feel in touch with what I want. I am a little apprehensive to look further into the future because I have so much stuff to do and I'm trying to control what will happen, something one can never achieve. However, after watching some good TEDtalks and taking a few moments to breathe and meditate, I feel like I am reading to see whatever happens. I have read good books, seen nice things and spend time with people that I love. The sun has been shining more, the flowers have blossomed and I am able to walk outside without freezing, which has been such a nice change from March.

Right: high tea with my good friend, left: flowers in our garden

Some things I have been loving this month:

• To read: two articles I have been loving this month are a New York Times article and a Vanity Fair article. The New York Times article is all about how important friendships are, and how our brainwaves even synchronize when you have a good friendship. So nice to read and so interesting. I saw a TEDtalk about how important relationships are the key to a long life. Now I've read this article, I am sure that this is one of the most important factors in life: having good meaningful relationships with others. The Vanity Fair article is something completely different, but it is a nice article written about the British Aristocracy and how has been changing. Emma Thynn is such an interesting person, and it was a nice read for someone who is an utter and complete Anglophile.

• To view: there are two links I have especially been enjoying this month. I have always been an admirer of people to create cute graphics or online creations. These two fill my nerd-heart with joy: little cute comics about the new Avengers film and architecture creations of some of my favorite films and series. I want more!

•  To watch: two videos I have been enjoying are little silly videos. They don't require more concentration or are even educational ones, but sometimes you just need to be entertained. The first video is about people guessing stranger's zodiac signs. Yes, it sounds as silly as it is. This man, Ray, has been an astrologer for a long time and over the course of the video, something amazing happens and people are in interesting, real and even serious conversations. So nice to watch and I want to meet Ray now. The second video is from one of my favorite YouTube channels, named WongFu Productions. They do sketches and comedy and if you don't know them yet, please check them out immediately. They have recently uploaded a new animation video named 'Skinny Dipping Lessons!' and the video is so, so cute and very funny.

• Recommendation: my recommendation for this month is the new book series that I have been loving. The series is called: The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley. You guys, it's so, so good. It's like a good mix between 'who do you think you are', detective novels, and traveling to another time and country all in one. It's about these adopted sisters who, after their adoptive father dies, go and find their true heritage. Each sister has its own book and four books have been written so far. I am absolutely 100% loving every single page of this series so far. I am very excited for the next installment this fall!

Dear Diary, on March

Dear you,

March has been a whirlwind of a month, hence why I haven't written much (or anything). I've been very busy with work, where I feel more and more at ease and had, dare I say, a life-changing holiday. My family and I went to Lapland, Finland, where I experienced the most wonderful landscape, nature, cold and excursions. I've always said that the cold is my favorite experience, but having been there, I am sure of it. The calm, the silence and the iciness is just my vibe, you know. I can't wait to go back to the north and experience more. More dream holiday and discoveries have been planned in my head and I cannot wait to execute them!

Some skies that I have seen in Lapland. The Nothern Lights were such an experience!

Personally, this month has been a challenge. As the spring opens up and welcomes us into our new surroundings, I'm finding more and more people wanting to experience that little thing called love. I feel strange because I am not. I kept wondering this month how my heroines like Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson experienced those new features in their life as a mirror of mine: standing alone as others move forward. As I'm growing older, I am falling behind every person that I know by now, experience wise, and I don't know how to deal with that. I am trying to be kind to myself, feel good about the person that I am becoming, as on the other hand I feel excluded and alone. I need to be more assertive when people tell me about their experiences and let them be as they are. I am never judging any person because their experience is their own and I am genuinely happy when another friend has that little smile and say 'Lau, I have to tell you something'. How wonderful that is! I need to take the compliment 'I thought of you and when I knew it was okay', as a compliment because I am involved in someone life without even being present. On the other hand, it is difficult for me to explain to them how I feel and how I view things in that area because I am different and do experience these things oppositely as they do. However, this month taught me how nice it is to be by myself and be okay with that. I have listened to my feelings and been proud of the person I have become this month. Spending 10 days with family is exhausting enough and I have come out of it people closer to the person I am happy to be with. I have laughed this month, I have cried, I have fallen down but have gotten up. As I move forward into April, I want to continue being this person I am becoming. I am getting more responsibility at work, people actually listen to me when I give input (even though I still feel like an imposter most of the time), I have spent some lovely times with friends and by myself. April, here I come!

Things that have put a smile on my face this month:

• These six fairy tales for the modern woman made me smile, especially number I.

• I snorted through these horrible medieval cat paintings, what a treat and what a laugh.

• This thought-provoking New Yorker article on how the current economy is basically wanting you to work yourself to death and how this is stimulated and encouraged by people in charge. I made me think about my own career path and how to make sure I am never put in that position. 

• These videos especially made me laugh, squeal and have nice feelings: Wes Anderson Honest Trailer, Kumail Najiani Tells a Story, Lucas the Spider, and People eating Korean BBQ.

• Three songs have made my month: Dreams by Fleetwood Mac (this tune!), About this Life by LEAF (the lyrics!) and Cinderella by Voctave (Acapella! Disney! Medley!).

• As a friend of mine and I were talking about possibly taking a trip to Ireland, I found a really nice article in Happinez magazine about a person who went on a fairy hunting trip to Ireland! Now I am even more inspired to go and meet the fairy folk. Maybe they allow me to stay and I can live happily ever after.

• I'm enamored and obsessed with Lucinda Riley's Seven Sisters book series. It is like 'Who do you think you are' wrapped up in mystery, discovery and traveling about the world. Oh my! I want to read them all NOW. Books, how I love thee.

• And finally, there is a super cool podcast on linguistics (yes you read that right) and it's called Lingthusiasm (such a great word) and their new episode on 'untranslatable words' is a fun one and you should listen to it, even if you haven't studied linguistics. Language is cool people!

Book to Movie Report 2018: Part 1

Generally, I am not a fan of making new years resolutions. Mainly because you usually never stick to them, or making you feel worse for not keeping them the longer the year goes on. I am tired of making resolutions like 'getting fitter' or 'losing weight'. They never work, or they only work for a short while and then you eat again and the weight comes back quicker than before. Therefore, I've decided to set a little challenge for myself. I wanted to read more and watch more films, generally, do things that I'm interested in. Hence I tried to challenge myself to read one book a month that has been adopted into a film and watch the film as well. I'm trying to do one a month and I've made a neat little schedule of books and films that I can watch each month. As I was beginning the year, I decided to start with a good, old, Jane Austen. Austen can never do me wrong and I've enjoyed reading her books so far, but the one I choose was always one I couldn't get through. I am talking about Sense & Sensibility. 

I've read Pride & Prejudice when I was about 14/15 and fell in love with the story and its character. It wasn't long after since the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film came out and I fell deeply in love with that particular adaptation and its story. However, when I wanted to read Sense & Sensibility after, I found it a "rip off" and couldn't connect with the characters. Since then I've read other stories by Jane Austen, but never quite wanted to start Sense & Sensibility again. That is until I saw the 1996 adaptation with Emma Thompson and thought to myself "If Emma likes it, I surely must". Thus, for the first month of 2018, I immersed myself in Austen's debut novel Sense & Sensibility (1811). 

I didn't quite realize how funny the story was. Characters made me chuckle and I felt like I was watching a spectacle from afar. As someone who has read some Jane Austen before, I could guess it had a "happy ending" but I was still curious to see how ended up where and with whom. Mind you, the film has taken out huge chunks of the novel, playing with its character in a bold matter and actually only six or seven lines from the whole novel made it into the film. Nonetheless, the novel and its accompanying film are hugely alike. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and creates a story that keeps its force as a study of class and money and character, but aims mostly for sheer pleasure and keeps it funny. You almost forget that essentially, this novel is all about the cash. 

It was a joy to read the book and a laugh to see the film. Even though not many lines from the book were kept for the film, the essential storyline came through beautifully and the actors were wonderful. Everyone is still so young and full of shine and it was wonderful to venture into this story and its characters. It also reminded me of how much of a badass Emma Thompson is. She also kept a diary during the film, from which I've read parts and she is just amazing. I keep remembering these two quotes that, in my opinion, sums up Emma Thompson's genius:

"Very nice lady served us drinks at the hotel and was followed in by a cat. We al crooned at it. Alan  (Rickman) to the cat (very low and meaning it): "Fuck off." The nice lady didn't turn a hair. The cat looked slightly embarrassed but stayed."

"Kate (Winslet) came down stone stairs very carefully to protect her leg, slipped and hurt her wrist. She's at the hospital now, having an X-ray. Frankly, I'm not expecting her to survive the night."

I mean... come on! If only we all could have been there during the filming of this film. Frankly, I think she and Jane Austen would have been fast friends. We also shouldn't forget her masterful speech at the Golden Globes for winning best film (and the Oscar later that award season). Also, check out this wonderful Guardian film review by Paul Laity. 

Next on my list: the Color Purple for February (and Black History Month). 

Life at 26

Dear me,

It's been a long time coming but here I am. This is my life at 26. I wanted to do a little 'Beginners' clip of how my life looks like, just as the start of the film (watch the clip here).

So, this is what the sky looked like on my birthday. It was cold, crisp and very bright, just how I like it. There was a quote from my friend's fridge that really resonated with me. It says: 'Lost: how can I have lost something if I can still see it with my eyes closed?'. It is true and something I hadn't thought about before but found very beautiful. Even when you don't see some things or people or even feelings how can they truly be gone if you still see them in the land of darkness? When I lost my grandmother, I didn't really know how to process it because the feeling of losing someone is so strange. Everything is normal but something key is missing and you cannot get it back. Now I realize that I haven't really lost her because I still feel her when I close my eyes. Not literally, but she's definitely still there.
The picture on the far left is me. Hello! It is very unusual for me to take a full body picture because of my shape. Bigger women in society have such a stigma and normally I like to stay away from it as far as possible. I know how I got here and it's a mental progress to keep up. But I am healthy, I am fine and this outfit looked hella cute so I had to commemorate the occasion. The picture in the left corner is the last film I watched at the cinema. Oh my, I still cannot explain my feelings well when I talk about this film because it touched my heart in such a way that I am still baffled how it did it. Honestly, go see it, you will not regret it. As a person who finds it hard to like people and be comfortable with them, the characters in this film told me all the things I needed to hear to move forward. Last weekend I had some great life conversations with women who I aspire and love, and together with this film, I am ready to move forward and leave the negative stuff behind. Mostly the negative mental stuff. It is strange to hear people talk about age because now that I'm 26 I feel like there's even more pressure on people. You're supposed to, like, know things at 26, have a life plan, or at least have tried to have a relationship with another person. I have none of these things but I do feel like I am a proper grown up. I cannot hide anymore. This is the year where I make myself happy and stop labeling things as normal. I am fine on my own.
The last picture is my to-read list. I always have books on my list but after hanging out with all my book friends, the list always grows and grows. I cannot wait to dive in, gain new knowledge, laugh at jokes and be in worlds unbeknownst until now. Reading is my life's greatest pleasure and that will never change. The books on this list are:

• Alice Walker - The Color Purple
• David Crystal - a Little Book of Language
• Brené Brown - Braving the Wilderness: the quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone
• Lang Leav - the Universe of Us
• Lucinda Riley - the Seven Sisters
• Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Films I've seen and can't get out of my mind 2017

Hello!
It's pretty weird to be writing a blog again in 2018. I have tried and failed many ones before but one of my resolutions this year is to keep a blog. And to keep a blog that I'm excited about, talking about topics that interest me, and consequently, hopefully, you. In this post, I want to be talking about the films I've seen in 2017 and still think about today. I've seen many films in 2017, some of them great and some... not so great. Let me just start by officially stating for the record: I love films. I adore going to the cinema, I love to re-watch favourites and being inspired by the moving pictures in front of me. This is why this blog will probably focus on films, books, and things around me. Some of these films were not made in 2017 but are films that I came across, wanted to see and absolutely adored. So here we go:

The Wailing (dir. Na Hong-jin, 2016) 
The first film I want to talk about is The Wailing. It is a South-Korean horror movie that I saw on Halloween Fright Night at my local library. Last October I wanted to explore more on horror, a genre that I'm terribly afraid of and at the same time very intrigued. I don't know what it is about horror that intrigues me so much, as I scare quite easily and also don't get a thrill of being scared as well. However, this is something that we can't explain when we watch or read horror, you feel something is there but you don't know what it is. I think it's my curious, rational-like, nature that comes up when I watch thrillers, detectives, and horror, wanting to find out what exactly is going on. I think this is why I'm still thinking about The Wailing, as this film doesn't give you all the answers. For those that don't know, The Wailing is about a village in South-Korea and a gruesome murder has been committed and the local (little silly) male police-officer must find out what happened. However, when diving deep into the story, there seems to be more going on than just murder, but supernatural elements also play a big role. I love supernatural elements because I can't explain them. This film is also beautifully shot, has a slow pace that sucks you in, and leaves you with lots of questions. It also brings a very interesting view of Korean Shaman culture, which I highly enjoyed. Even if you don't like horror, this film has something special and I can't recommend it enough.

Mother! (dir. Darron Aronofsky, 2017)
This is one of those films where you can't explain the plot without ruining it. You have to see the movie in order to know what people mean when they talk about the film. However, the only thing I can say is; watch this movie. I think when I need just one word to explain my feeling about this movie it would be intrusive. This film frightened me and sometimes I felt like I couldn't breathe. It felt so up-close and personal on one hand and so far reached on the other. I went to this film with my uncle and afterward, we just sat silently next to each other for, like, 10 minutes when the credits rolled just thinking about what we just saw. You stay very close to the main character, Jennifer Lawrence, and see everything from her perspective and I really felt everything she experienced. People have said a lot of things about this film (one interesting video you should see is by Hazel Hayes, who explains the film beautifully), but for me, the movie felt like deep, personal, abuse. It is absolutely beautiful, with so many layers that I have to recommend it today. It also reminded me a lot of Rosemary's Baby. my personal favourite horror film.

Paterson (dir. Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
This is a bit of a weird one to be talking about probably because nothing particularly happens in this film. No explosions, no supernatural stuff, no big twist on the end. You just see a snippet of a couple's life and Paterson's love for writing poetry. I saw this film last year in a very hectic time period, where everything seemed to go so fast and I felt like I could barely keep up with all the work. This film just felt like a nice break. Just because I saw other people living their mediocre lives, I felt like I could breathe again. I loved the poetry written on the screen, loved Adam Driver and the whole vibe of this film was just so nice and relaxing and would make the perfect Sunday afternoon film. There's also a line in the film that has stuck with me since I saw it. At the end of the film, Paterson sits on a bench with a Japanese man and they begin to talk. It turns out the Japanese man also writes poetry, but only in Japanese. Paterson replies that he feels sad that he can't read his poetry because he doesn't read Japanese. The man turns around and says: "You don't need to read the translation. Poetry is made from the heart. It gives you feeling. If you read my poetry translated into English, it would feel like a shower with a raincoat on." I'm paraphrasing here, but the whole film has such nice little quotes to think about. If you ever feel like you need a bit of a break, if you feel everyone around you is living more special lives, then this is the film for you.

The Big Sick (dir. Michael Showalter, 2017)
I feel like everyone around me loves this film, and I can't disagree. This film has heart. It is the only way to explain. This film is so funny, it'll have to laugh out loud and so emotional, that it'll have you cry as well. There's something about this story that is so real and so close to human nature and emotions and relationships that I can't stop thinking about it. It also made me have a huge crush on the writer and main character Kumail Najiani. It is crazy to think about this story is real, but it actually happened to the real Emily, Kumail Najiani's wife. I think this is why I was so invested in this story, I already knew the outcome but was still enthralled by the story and the characters. Also, this movie is just so, so funny. Kumail's family and Emily's family are so nice and hilarious that I wish I knew them in real life. If you ever feel the need for a solid, good, rom-com: this is the film for you.

Swiss Army Man (dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2016)
This is probably the weirdest movies you will ever, ever see in your life. Even when I was watching it, my mind just kept going "what am I watching right now?!". It has a bizarre storyline, has the weirdest characters, and the fact that it all plays in a forest makes the film even more outlandish. This film is not for everyone, but man is it good. Even if you just see this film for its amazing soundtrack, you'll never unsee what you saw. I know you'll think I'm probably overreacting, but I'm really not. The film is about guy who finds a dead body on the beach and has adventures with it. Yeah. Let that sink in. It is with Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe and the two have so much good chemistry and energy and I found the humour absolutely hilarious. I feel like this film is made for a niche audience and I 100% fall into that weird corner of the population. It's like this film gets me in a way. It has heart, it has so many messages, and you're just along for the ride. You won't regret going to see it, I promise. But do put your weird hat on first. Just go along with it, and experience this brilliance.

20th Century Women (dir. Mike Mills, 2016)
This is a film that is very, very beautifully made. I adore the style of Mike Mills's directing. He also directed the movie 'Beginners' (2010) and I adored that too. I think the reason why I loved this film so much is that it resonated with me. I also saw it with my mother, who at one point turned to me and said: "what Annet Benning's character is feeling is how I feel every day". This just stuck with me because it is so true. The film is about a woman and her son who live in this communal home with two younger girls and an older man. The two girls are very strong characters, true feminists and have a lot of opinions. Annet Benning just feel like she cannot compete with the time, she feels lost and doesn't really understand what is going on anymore. Not in a dementia kind of way, but she just feels alienated from the society around her, because it is so fast-changing. She feels like she is losing the contact with her son, who admires the people living in the house and she doesn't know how to compete with that. I think everyone can relate to this at a certain point. Especially in the 20th Century, so many fast changes came along and the youth was going with it so fast. In the end, it is the human connection that we all crave that will help us. The youth can turn to the older generations for help, guidance, and reassurance, and the older generations look to the youth to help them keep up. It is a beautiful exchange. Put that again beautifully shot scenes, a wonderful soundtrack and you'll have this gem of a film. Definitely, recommend.

Other films that were wonderful: The Lobster, Get Out, After the Storm and Louise en Hiver.
You can find my full list of films I've watched in 2017 here.


What were you favourites in 2017?