I cannot believe Agora is not in Australia yet!

I mean, come on! Agora was nominated for 13 Goya Award, and won 7 of them. It was screened out of competition for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and it talked about the 4th CE Egypt without the usual swords and gladiator-style debacles. Well, okay, it eventually ended up with a riot that killed my new fave heroine mathematician-astronomer-librarian Hypatia (played by Rachel Weisz, excellently I believe), but still, it is favoured by many and it's not screened in Australia yet?!?!

Okay, okay, it was screened in several cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra) during the Spanish Film Festival last May, but not yet in Townsville, the city of Powerpuff Girls! And not in big chain cinemas like Event Cinemas and Reading Cinemas. What an insult.

Lovely Very Valentine

Adriana Trigiani is officially my favourite authoress now, on par with Sophie Kinsella on my book (or book shelf?). I admit that I had been eyeing ‘Very Valentine’ since before Christmas last year, but was put off by its expensive price. I was also reluctant to start reading a story from an author I haven’t read before. Then I spotted the smaller TPB version of VV last May at the airport (most of my fave books I encountered in airports!), really browsed the first few pages, and… well, I can’t resist a novel that talks about shoes (particularly bespoke wedding shoes), can’t I?

But Adriana delivers much more than a quench for my thirst for good shoes and a good story about how bespoke shoes are made. She delivers Life itself that speaks through the heroine Valentine Roncalli, an Italian American living in Greenwich Village New York (I swear, if I ever go to NYC, I shall visit Greenwich Village. As Colin Firth’s Darcy said: “I shall!”). In many ways, I can relate to Valentine. Single woman of mid 30s, has big family that more often than not are noisy about her personal life, has to prove to herself that she can save and live her dream life… and has a good taste of well-made and comfortable shoes. Okay, I don’t have a nice tomato garden at the rooftop, but I am contemplating about it now.

Tips for international shoe size conversion

I’ve recently made some purchases from US, so I thought I’d just pour myself some more tips on converting your shoe size when you do online purchase. For reference, I usually wear size EU 38 or 39 for heels; I’m happy with insole length 9.5-9.75” (24.5-25cm) and width of ball of foot 3” (7.5cm), but for heels, if it gets larger than that, it won’t do me good. I go up to EU 40 for boots. My right foot is half a number smaller than my left foot, but that’s common for many people, so I’m not an alien here. I might have to say that these sizing tips apply only for women shoes. Sorry, guys…


Is AU size = US size?The thing is, whenever I go to Novo, one of my favourite shoe stores in Australia, I usually go with “8 = 39” and it fits me well. So naturally, I thought that my size is AU 8 or EU 39 (which is the size I use in Indonesia). Several time I shopped in Ebay UK and I always asked for UK 6, and they fit me well.

Then came the time when I found Modcloth and got confused because they said AU 8 = US 9.5, or EU 41. Which is impossible! So, what is my US size? Is it possible that I actually had been shopping with US 8, and thought that it was AU 8?

I carry your heart with me

I carry your heart with me
by E.E. Cumming

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Pic: personal collection

Selenite

Selenite by Rurutia

~Translated by Amy Hikari

Ah, a light flickers in the ruined city
And an invisible tune, full of wishes, echoes around

Now, the burned-down sky sinks to the bottom of the water
And is filled with moonlight

Dyed in the blue burning night
Your shoulders are so slender they’re almost not there
I hang on tight to them but still you fade away

Ah, at the end of the universe I found countless little stars
When we met, I learned what dizziness felt like

Now, swallowed up in endless waves of gold and silver
We move towards the sacred river
My heart begins to tremble as you pull me close so sweetly
Forever, always and forever, I want to hold you
So that you won't disappear

Now, swallowed up in endless waves of gold and silver
We move towards the sacred river

Dyed in the blue burning night
Your shoulders are so slender they’re almost not there
I hang on tight to them but still you fade away

My heart begins to tremble as you pull me close so sweetly
Forever, always and forever, I want to hold you
So that you won't disappear

Original lyrics by Rurutia

Aa, yurameku tomoshibi, gareki no machi ni
Narihibiku toumei na shirabe wa negai wo tatae

Ima, yake ochita sora wa mizu no soko e to shizunde yuku
Michite yuku tsuki akari

Aoku moeru yoru ga kimi wo someru, hakanai hodo
Hosoi kata wo kitsuku daite itemo
Kimi wa kiete shimaisou de

Aa, musuu no hoshitsubu, uchuu no hate de
Mitsuketa yo, hajimete no deai wa memai sae oboe

Ima, furisosogu kin to gin no hikari no nami ni nomare
Futari seinaru kawa e

Amaku oshiyosete wa boku no mune wo furuwaseru yo
Zutto kono mama zutto daite itai
Kimi ga kiete shimawanai you ni

Ima, furisosogu kin to gin no hikari no nami ni nomare
Futari seinaru kawa e

Aoku moeru yoru ga kimi wo someru, hakanai hodo
Hosoi kata wo kitsuku daite itemo
Kimi wa kiete shimaisou de

Amaku oshiyosete wa boku no mune wo furuwaseru yo
Zutto kono mama zutto daite itai
Kimi ga kiete shimawanai you ni

Pic: One-winged embrace by Saimain DeviantArt

Thank you Obama for meeting His Holiness!

Okay, the meeting was done in a very private, low profile setting yesterday (Thursday, 18 Feb 2010), but it's still a good sign that Tibetan voice is being heard.

Complete story can be found in Dalai Lama's official page. I can only say... thank you Obama for meeting His Holiness Dalai Lama, and also the Universe for making this happen!

Picture from Dalai Lama.com

Red Bird Explains Herself

Red Bird Explains Herself

By Mary Oliver

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed
and thus the wilderness bloomed, with all its
followers; gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body.
Do you understand?
For truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.

Pic: Heart Bird by Ann Whim Tseng
Special thanks to Hafiz for sending me this poem...

Research is a detective work, Batman!

Two images I bastardised to boost up my thesis writing. Batman the Greatest Detective, and Lois Lane, the Kick Ass Reporter! Might be useful for some comic-geek students out there who struggles with assignments/thesis...

Okay, I need to get back to work. Where are those evidential files...er, papers...

PS, if you want to see how awesome Lois Lane is, click here.

Pic 1: Batman, from Detective Comics #405. Original file stolen from here
Pic 2: Lois Lane, from this site

Metanoia

I owe my dearest friend 'Cabe' for introducing me a new term today. Something that I've been experiencing and I am very aware of, but never knew the term until now. Metanoia.


From Wikipedia:

Metanoia (from the Greek μετάνοια, metanoia, changing one's mind) in the psychological theory of Carl Jung denotes a process of reforming the psyche as a form of self healing, a proposed explanation for the phenomenon of psychotic breakdown. Here, metanoia is viewed as a potentially productive process, and therefore patients' psychotic episodes are not necessarily always to be thwarted, which may restabilize the patients but without resolving the underlying issues causing their psychopathology.

Valentine poem

So today is Valentine's Day, and also the New Year of the Tiger. Love and Courage. Just all that I need now... particularly because I'm a Tiger, and this tigress doth need to shower herself with Love more often. But somehow, as many days before today, I opened Tagore's poem book this morning, and came up with a lovely poem befits of my reincarnated loves in the past. So here's for Love. Courage I shall post later after I find something suitable.

I think I shall stop startled if ever we meet after our next birth,
walking in the light of a far-away world.
I shall know those dark eyes then as morning stars,
and yet feel that they have belonged to some unremembered evening sky
of a former life.

I shall know that the magic of your face is not all its own,
but has stolen the passionate light that was in my eyes at some immemorial meeting,
and then gathered from my love a mystery
that has now forgotten its origin

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Pic: Cropped painting of the beautiful "Milkmaid' by the famous Ravi Varma of Kerala, India