Unforgettable Oblivion

I love Oblivion. First of all, the word "oblivion" is awesome and it puts the movie straight into the right mood. The story-line is great and it is original because it is not an adaptation from a book or a sequel to anything. Well you can say it is technically from a book, an unpublished graphic novel. But it is written by the director himself, so it is still counted as an original work.

It is neat and elegant, something I appreciate a lot. It has good framing and almost gave me a feeling of "Prometheus" way of shooting the background. It has a good twist, although some might argue that the trailer showed too much about the movie. It is still a good story after all.

Let's not forget the soundtrack. The soundtrack is amazing. Amazing perhaps because it is different. Nowadays we get Hans Zimmer too much already. Hans Zimmer is good but we need new composers sometimes. The director had the right vision for the soundtrack. He chose the right composer and made the movie up to another level. 

About the director Joseph Kosinki, it is surprising that this is just his second movie. The first one is Tron Legacy. No wonder when I watched Oblivion, it kept reminding me of something, something so familiar but I couldn't point out what was it. Now I have pretty high hope for this director, and super excited for his next project. 

Originally Disney was supposed to produce the film, but I am glad that Disney released the rights. Because otherwise, it won't be the original story from the director himself as it should be. So far most of the blockbusters and sequels of this year are failure to me. Only some independent, some movies that stand alone as a movie are good movies, like Oblivion and Pacific Rim. For Oblivion, I am pretty sure that we won't get a sequel out of it, which is something positive. I am just fed up of all the sequels and remakes and adaptations from books. After all the over-hyped movies, Oblivion brought some fresh air to the audiences. 

Here is a video from a youtuber, comicbookgirl19. Choose the one on the left and listen to her complaining about Hollywood blockbusters nowadays. I totally agree with her. Sooner or later, there will be some big crisis in filming industry.  

Round shades, teashades

Another cool character wearing teashades in Oblivion! After Wong Fei Hong (黃飞鸿), Zhang Ma Zhi (张麻子 from Let The Bullets Fly), Les Claypool, Morpheus, Seraph, Léon, Django, and now Morgan Freeman as the leader of the remaining humans. Hmm... Morgan Freeman trying to free humans? Coincidence? Anyway, it is technically not a teashades he wears but a welding protective glasses. It is still round shades though.

Les Claypool

Zhang Ma Zhi (张麻子)

Morpheus

Seraph

Léon

Django

Malcolm Beech

It seems to me that many of the wise, cool characters always wear round shades. May be it just reflects my preference. I always favor these wise guys in movies or stories. Those who wear teashades are not always the main characters. Sometimes, they are also the mentors of the protagonists, helping the main characters to grow. 

On the other hand, aviator shades usually wore by the main character himself. So basically, to sum up my impression on different types of shades : aviator shades are meant for the heroes, the big shots; and teashades are for the mentors, the wise guys. 

Aviator shades

I did some research on the design of teashades and found out that, teashades are somehow made famous by John Lennon. That is why teashades are also called John Lennon shades. That is a bit surprising because now teashades are related to hippies in my mind now. I love teashades but I don't know if I like hippies and I have no idea what hippies are. 

John Lennon

Me with my teashades on, smoking a pipe :p

A mild, unexpected cultural shock

I still remember vividly the day I went to juniors' house to pick up a delivery while they were having dinner. It was a bit awkward for me, I felt like I was interrupting them. But I was invited anyway to have dinner together with them. To my surprise, they had their dinner in potluck form of course, and all the food was put together in a large plate and everybody ate from the plate, in traditional style of course, with hands.

What a great way to connect with each other, among friends and roommates! Plus they are doing these every evening for dinner. It is not the same feeling as a normal potluck, where everybody eats on their own plate. It is not the same feeling as having a steamboat where everybody takes food from the same place but still personal plates. Most of my juniors are Malays, so I would assume that this is a normal practice for Malays. But that is really an eye-opening for me.

Yet again, it shows how little I know about Malays, while together we come from the same country. It shows also how much we can learn from each other. It is probably an obsolete idea to call myself a Chinese and them Malays or calling whoever in Malaysia by their ethnicity, as we should call ourselves Malaysian as a whole. But I am going to use those terms anyway, to facilitate my description in the following passage. 

To avoid any further misunderstanding, I feel like we all need to start talking about some taboos. Not pouring all out at once, but bit by bit, slowly and considerably. As a Chinese myself, and surrounded by majority Chinese for almost all my childhood and adolescence, my relatives, my primary and secondary school friends and me used to talk some not-so-serious shit about Malays. Like, we used to criticize Malays, saying that they are so 'cheap' as it was always Malays who would go picnic in the park on weekend. Sometimes, not in the park but also near rest and service areas beside highways, wherever there was a piece of meadow. There was this joke among my friends, which basically saying, grow a meadow and the Malays will come and picnic. Well the joke is now on me, because living in France now and the french likes exactly just that, going for a picnic in a park whenever the weather is warm. 

The other shit I always heard is that the government was trying to 'invade' Chinese-majority areas, by building Sekolah Kebangsaan, building mosques, building new cheap flats, etc., to encourage more Malays to move in. Well if it is true, the main advantage of all this for me, is that I can easily get Malay cuisine from gerai-gerai (hawker stalls). I really enjoy savory food, especially spicy food, and Malay cuisine can normally provide me just that. If there is one complaint about Malay food is that it is lacked of vegetables, and I might get constipation if I constantly eat them. I notice this when I went for some training camps and drilling competitions, and also National Service, where Malay cuisine was served exclusively. And I assure you that constipation was my major concern every time I went for these occasions. I got to say, as well as they can cook meat, Malays are not very good at cooking vegetables, at least from what I see so far.

In my younger years, my father always told me that, a nation with one and one only ethnic (or one majority ethnic, like almost 90% majority) is not a good thing either. He always gave me example like Taiwan, saying that their parliament always fighting (I mean hand fight with fists and chairs). He used to watch Taiwanese news report very frequently. I guess that's why he got this bad impression about the politics of the country. Meanwhile he also gave me other examples like Singapore or China. He always said that we Chinese were a bit selfish. We were like always money first and we were hard to control. Only a totalitarian government or a derivative like Singapore and China can rule a country with almost exclusively Chinese. Well, this is an interesting point of view and worth ponder upon sometimes. Brought up under this influence of thinking from my father, it is good for me in the sense that it allowed me to think differently.  

Regardless its accuracy, what my father said means at least one thing - those countries he mentioned are not better than my own, our own Malaysia. Every ethnic has its own unique historical background and thus defining our special situation. The thing is, it all depends on whether are we able to identify the good traits of each of us and make good use of them. Easy to say but hard enough to execute. What makes it harder is that, there are still people who don't understand the truth and they just don't want to change. 

Contact - book and movie

As the title suggested, it is about the first contact with extra terrestrial lifeforms. Watching the movie for the first time when I was a kid, I was totally mesmerized. And a few months ago, I just finished the book, and it didn't disappoint me. As many other film adaptations from books, many scenes in the book have to be cut short or totally taken out in movie, because movie is just too short to convey the whole book. There are actually many things in the book that make more sense than in movie. But I think the movie is still good even aftter cutting short of a few things. The pacing of the movie is fast and compact, which is good in a way. Many scenes are so mind-blowing that I don't think many audiences would be able to grasp the illogicality behind it.

The book is named "Contact", written by Carl Sagan. The movie was out just after his death, that's why there is line "for Carl" at the end of the movie, just before the credit. A rather interesting fact is that, the story was supposed to be screenplay at first. But then the film project was dropped and Carl decided to make it into a novel. And then the film project was picked up again in the early 90's. 

As the book, it is rather a medium-length book, in my personal scale. But it just doesn't feel that long after all. It is a page turner for sure. Carl's style of writing is very simple and straight forward, but it doesn't stop him to convey some big ideas. In fact, his style is good in the sense to be able to reach out to the public, to make science more accessible for the public, something which he had been doing through out his life.  

It is about the first contact with extra terrestrial lifeforms. The main idea of the story is no new to many of us, but Carl presented the story in such an intelligent way. Through the book, he was asking one of the big questions that human beings have been asking since a long time ago, almost as ancient as our existence : Are we alone? The book deals also with the vicious gap between science and religion, and Carl suggested that the gap is rather self generated and insignificant, perhaps inexistent. I don't think Carl wanted to suggest atheism, or any theism or any other categories that people can make up. Throughout his book, I can feel that he wanted to reunite both science, and religion and faith. Science and religion, they actually both are the tools we use to search for the truth. 

There are many things I prefer in the book than the movie. Such as, in the book, it was a world wide event, unlike the movie in which the Americans are always the heroes and saviors of humanity, something we often see in many Hollywood blockbusters. In the book, 5 people were sent for the mission and 5 of them are from different races, representing the proportion of world population. But too bad they sent only scientists. After what happened during the mission, like what Ellie, the main character, suggested, they should have sent a poet. I totally agree with that. I can understand why scientists were chosen for the mission. But to pick 5 people to represent humanity is difficult. Basically it is asking what can represent humanity the best, and you can only choose 5. Personally, I would have sent two scientist, a poet, a musician, an athlete.

I like the way the book is presented also. Each chapter will start off by a prologue, an extraction or a quote from other book or other people. Each one of them gives me a "WOW" and my jaw drops because of these prologues. For example, chapter 8 starts off like this,

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable misture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

- Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", XV

And chapter 9,

Wonder is the basis of worship. 

- Thomas Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus"(1833-34)

Well, in both the book and the movie, I like the way Carl presented to us the aliens contacted. They are not the little green men like the aliens we always think of, but they showed up in a subtle way. In fact, the "little green man" is such a stereotype, a stereotype of human about other extra terrestrial lifeforms. I like the ending very much too. At the end, despite being religiously skeptical,  Ellie somehow became a "prophet", asking people to take a leap of faith and believe in what she had experienced.     

One of my friend asked me once, about my top 5 favorite movies of all time. That time I totally forgot about this movie. I mean how could I forget about it?! It is certainly on my top 5. If not top 5, at least must be top 10. Every time I watch the climax of movie, the conversation between Ellie and the alien always moves me, always makes my eyes swelling up. Both the book and the movie are awesome. This is a story that will stay in your mind, long after you finish reading it or watching it. 

My first triathlon experience - Triathlon d'Annecy 2013

I kept telling myself : I can do it, I am physically able to do it, I just have to calm down and remember the rhythm within myself, I am ready! But I still couldn't shake off the anxiety, no matter how hard I tried. One week before the big event, I had to cut off and cut short many training sessions, just to do some stretching and breathing exercise I learnt from yoga. I can't describe more how nervous I was, the feeling was unprecedented, almost like falling in love, but more. Butterfly in the stomach, I felt like vomiting. The pressure  was too much, may be I pushed myself too much, I guess.

The thing is I had never swam in open water before, I had never swam in a wetsuit before, I wasn't familiar with the cycling route, my running sucks, etc.. As a first-timer, a noob, I had so much to worry about. The day before departure to the town Annecy, I had this paranoia that I must have forgot something to bring. So I packed and repacked my bag, again and again. Plus I am practically a self-taught triathlon amateur. It was just crazy to look back everything I did. No one to accompany me before the departure to Annecy was just unsettling. I guess, being nervous was almost inevitable.

Luckily, I had somebody to meet up in Annecy, a friend of mine, Mas. He was doing his internship there, so he offered his place for me to stay for the night before the event. I really want to thank him a lot. Without him, I just can't imagine going for the event alone, arrive alone for the event and leave alone after finishing. It was certain that I had no chance on the podium, but it was something big in my life. Without someone there on spot to listen to me bullshiting about the race I had just finished, is just sad. So again, thanks Mas, it might mean nothing much to him, but I assure you, that he just did me a big favour. To follow his blog, http://ruddin2003.blogspot.fr/

                                                            

Setup and pre-race briefing
Finally, this was the moment. When I arrived, there were already tonnes of people there. After retrieving my number and all, it was time to move all the equipment into the transition area. At the entrance, there were referees checking your equipment and marking your number on your arm and leg with a marker.

lining up for entry (photo credit to Mas)

Referees doing their job (photo credit to Mas)

The transition area (photo credit to Mas)

The number I got is 366. The transition area was arranged according to the number. I found my place and set up everything. After that while warming up, I called my mom, I had an urge to talk to her before the big event. And there in the transition area, many participants taking photos of each other, so did I. Then the pre-race briefing, a short speech from the mayor of the town, some basic rules explained by the head referee and here we go!


Swim 1.5km

(image from http://www.annecy-triathlon.com/)

The starting point wasn't quite near the transition area, so all participants had to walk a little to there. Everybody walking through the park with wetsuit put up until waist, with every spectators on spot watching us, it was just a very awesome feeling. But I just kept walking, I didn't even dare to look ahead, I was so worried. Before stepping into water, everybody started to put their wetsuit fully on. It isn't an easy task to do alone, so everybody helped each other to put it on properly.

The lake water is always crystal clear, but not this time. With a thousand people stepping into the lake, the mud and sand were stirred with the water. I'd never thought that I would ever swim in this lake. I chose to do my first triathlon here, basically because of the beautiful scenery and the Annecy lake, one of the clearest lake in Europe. I rinsed my goggles, multiple times, hopefully it won't get fogged up. I was jumping here and around a little, being a little playful, trying to relieve my anxiety. I still couldn't believe I was really going to do this.

The girls started first, exact 5 mins before the men. Then everyone was getting ready. When the referee counting down, everyone roared, shouted, some were splashing the water, some with both arms in the air, clapping hands hard, as if it was a battle cry, as if we were really going into a battle. The ambiance was overwhelming, and I also shouted together, counting down together.

3..2..1.. GO!

The swim start was a total chaos, or may be it was totally normal and I was just not used to it. People were kicking each other, get kicked by each other, fighting for free space to swim properly. From my point of view, it was like chaos for one moment and total silence another, interlacing and synchronized with my breathing cycle. Head up to breath and you hear all the water splashing, head down under the water and total silence. It was pretty difficult to me at first. Even at one moment, I thought I was going to drown. Plus it was the first time I swam in a wetsuit. Wetsuit helps you float alright, perhaps too good, so I needed some time to adapt to it. So I back up a little, and it was just fine afterwards, picking up my pace and swam and swam. Another awesome moment was when swimming through one of the canal of Annecy, passing under the Pont d'Amour with tonnes of spectators up on that bridge. Spectators crowded alongside the canal too and I could hear the cheering and all.

Transition 1

At the entrance to the transition area, just after the canal, there were people helping swimmers to get out from the water, because after staying in horizontal position for awhile during the swim, sometimes it is hard to stand up right again, not to mention running. Then I had to take off the swimming cap, and run to my bike while taking off the wetsuit. Then the helmet, grabbed my bike and ran out of the transition area before climbing up my bike and pedaled.

Bike 40km

(image from http://www.annecy-triathlon.com/)

It was a fun ride. I had never ride in a big pack before. In fact, I can feel that cycling is my strongest among all three. It was a great feeling to chase after other competitors. After 5km of flat, there was the 15km slow climb up to Col de Leschaux, with average 3-4% of gradient. This part was fine with me because I was used to train on a steeper, longer slope. It was this time that, I stuck with around 10 bikers, we cycled quite close together, cutting each other, everyone of us taking the lead of the group by turns. We didn't speak to each other, but there was the feeling like we kept motivating each other, to climb faster and we were passing the girls one after another. At the highest point of the cycling route, at 900m of altitude, the view was breathtaking, I could see the entire lake of Annecy from there. The exact profile of the road can be found here in this link : http://www.strava.com/activities/57086114

The descent was even more fun, everyone went down hill in an aerodynamic position. The rush of adrenalin was at the peak at this point. There was another two small uphill climbs afterwards, and this is what I always hate the most, uphill downhill and uphill again. I would really prefer uphill all the way and downhill all the way. The descent was fun, fast, and also dangerous. Along the way, I saw two crashes. I didn't see them happened though, but the crashes did cause some traffic jam.

Talking about traffic jam, when almost arriving back to the transition point, there was a serious traffic jam. It was a summer sunday, tourists flooded the city. I can totally understand how hard for the organizer to clear the road long enough for the cyclists to cycle fast through safely. So at one point, we were like zig-zaging among the cars, and I was just following two cyclists in front of me and not paying attention at all on which was the right way to go. Unlucky for us, there were 5 of us, and we were lost at one point and had to find our way back to the right path through the tourists-packed lake side.

Transition 2

Transition 2 is rather easy, but I had some problem taking off my right shoe from the clipless pedal. In the end I just took off the shoe and left it attached to the pedal, and ran with one leg with shoe and another without, back into the transition area. Then I just had to park the bike nicely, changed into running shoes, took off the helmet and ran.

Run 10km

(image from http://www.annecy-triathlon.com/)

I had heard people saying, transition from bike to run is the hardest. Now I know. I always did my training with a decent rest time in between bike and run. This time, I had to run straight away after the bike, and I couldn't feel my legs at first. I had to picked up the pace slowly, I mean very very slowly. I know my run sucks, and I did fear a little about not being able to finish. During the first few kilometers, I had to stop quite frequently.

Whenever I get my rhythm right, it is an awesome feeling. As the run went on, I did manage to pick up my normal pace. Yet again, the spectators were really enthusiastic. Not just cheering but they kept giving motivational shoutout. Some kids even lined up along the course, waiting for high-five from the participants as they passed by. There were two spots along the course, set up by the organizer, where participants could fuel up. There were also kids at these two spots, with water pipe ready to splash water on the participants, to cool us down.

I think it was at the last 3 kilometers, I felt I was really really exhausted already. I stopped and walked. But then there was this guy from behind me, clapped my shoulder and told me : "Keep up, we almost finish!" Somehow, this really got me. I was back to running again. He and me, we were like running side by side, left right left right. At the last kilometer, I felt I wanted a strong finish, so I decided to sprint. I asked him to join but he told me to go ahead alone. So I squeezed my last ounce of energy and sprinted. Passing the finish line, I finally did it!

                                                            

Yes! Finally I did it. It was an awesome experience. The happiness wasn't only about finishing, but also about making acquaintances with people, sharing the same passion in triathlon. The fact that many of us didn't know each other before the race and ended up being friends is amazing. It seems like everybody already making a rendez-vous, for the triathlon next year.

Now, I am no longer a noob. I already start to search for other triathlon races around my region. I am really looking forward for the next race.