The Next Post, and life.

I can't say things have been entirely smooth.
But it certainly has been interesting.

I have recently recieved an e-mail about an art/creative writing project about writing a letter to my "past self", and it comes at a time when there are things left unsaid, and things I've never even dared mention to others because of fear, or not being able to get others to listen. I watch and I can hear the silent 'whys' around me, and the burning, gaining anger when there are questions others never ask. Through either my fault or from the other side, it has caused seperation, confusion, even at times, losing close friends. It has also caused a lot of anxiety, because I can sometimes be desperate, and clingy. I don't want to lose people because of faults I cannot control. But I have to learn that I must accept this, and those who can accept me and my habits are true and healthy for me, and I can be true and healthy to them too. A while ago, I told someone who I loved dearly about my illness, and as it turned out, everything was fine, although I was convinced my illness would inevitably cause people to turn away. After that event, it later turned others away, but although it hurt, I am going to try not to be afraid anymore. I am going to write this letter, and I'm going to post this on my blog and see what happens. All I can hope for is to achieve some kind of understanding.

Also, this post sounds incredibly cheesy and I really do apologise. I'm round my 'Uncle's house, with two other really good mates, listening to metal covers with cans of strongbow, plenty of vodka and a monsterous pizza sandwich with doner kebab meat inbetween. So yeah.

Sowwie.

-Clicks publish-

Waking II

I'm feeling more motivated today. The past days I have been writing - and while that deadly project for my religious classes still hasn't really kicked off, the creative side has been going along steadily. 

I've currently got a character called "Hariton James Zinchenko" or "Mr Zinchenko" who is pretty cool (yet a little dark), and I'm thinking of future ideas for posts for this blog, such as the numerous Taxi Driver stories I have collected over my travels, information about my monastery visit, reviews on some places to eat in both Bath and Bristol (e.g, how good Hoi Faan and Chinese dumplings are!) and a few general things I've found out in my religion classes and general research. 

I realise that I tend to go up and down on the whole 'motivated'/'inspired' axis, which frankly, is exhausting in itself. I recently told a close friend of mine that he should 'listen' and 'anaylse' if he wanted a clearer direction to go towards. I think I'll try to do that. This recklessness is not me anymore. Spontanious plans, random ideas maybe. But, recklessness just makes me go round circles. I will walk forward for now on, jaja.

Waking

I woke up late today. And while I sit on my bed and think "I will do lots of things to make this day it worth it", I find my concentration dwindling too quickly for any progress to become. On the laptop, I have the start of an essay I was meant to try and conquer a week ago. I also have a story that I've had several false starts and have struggled writing, despite liking the idea I had for it. And then comes the lectures and seminars, which I haven't really been attending. I think I'm so used to be tired, that even when I am awake, it feels like I am still half asleep.

Among many things, I've been listening to Brian Crain and his gentle piano music. He is a very good composer, if only perhaps a little too simple in some of his earlier work. It's nice to listen to in this kind of mood.

I've applied to volunteer at Action On Hearing Lost (RNID) yesterday, and funnily enough, they need a volunteer in Bath to work on Monday - the day I have off every week. If I think about it, it's quite a coincidence and luck that I know a little bit of Sign Language, and there have been occasional opportunities to learn at a church I sometimes attend. Things tend to work out better if I take advantage of these things, especially when they're right in front of me. I'll try to work harder from now on.

Bhutan

I wasn't too happy with my previous country profile post, so I will try and make this one look much more interesting.

Bhutan!

Bhutan is a landlocked South Asian country below Tibet, and has quite a few interesting points to talk about. For example, in Bhutan, the offical language is Dzongkha, which has roughly 170,000 speakers, and they write it the Tibetan script which looks like this འབྲུག་ཡུལ  (Translates as: Bhutan) Their anthem, Druk Tsendhen, means "The Thunder Dragon Kingdom." Which to be honest, kinda blows me away in coolness.

They have various festivals, the one that seem to be the most important and interesting is called Tsechu. This is held annually, and is associated with Drukpa Buddhism, or འབྲུག་པ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད. Drukpa Buddhism is considered a new 'school' of Tibetten Buddhism. I think* Drukpa Buddhism (all these names!) is one of paths in Vajrayana Buddhism, but I am not really sure. It's supposedly Bhutan's main religion. I'll edit the blog if I can find out the differnece between Drukpa and Vajrayana, but the difference between Vajrayana Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism (which shares a very large proportion of Buddhism with Therevada and Tibetten) is that Vajrayana has "empowerments" while the latter doesn't, which are apparently for Tantric rituals which is apparently is also what Vajrayana Buddhism can also be called as, as well as Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism, the Diamond Way, or the Thunderbolt Way. (Alright, I name spammed on purpose, but the info is genuine! {ish})

Tsechu

Back to the Tscehu, it seems to involve a lot of dancing, including the Cham Dance, which involves colourful costumes and masks in two-time.

Check it out.

Other Information

Bhutan recently became a constitutional monarchy.

And I think that's it for this post. I'll try to update this one if I can find anymore information later. Expect another country profile soon!

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

I started with a quick google search on this one, and according to the Telegraph, Venezula is the most violent country in South America, with a record of 21, 692 murders last year, along with a surge of kidnappings, prison riots and random shootings.

And just below that, I found various links for tourism. It just so happens, that despite the political situations and violence, Venezula is home to some beautiful world landmarks. While home to a few national parks, it also owns the stunning Angel Falls natural wonder, the longest waterfall on Earth.

Typical things to note

• Venezula is a Spanish speaking country, due to the Spanish colonising the country in the 16th century.
• It also has very, very big oil reserve, which is incredibly important to the economy, and also very much involved in the history of the country. "Petroleum and nothing else is the theme of Venezuela's contemporary history." - Arturo Uslar Pietri.
• Venezula is home to the Cuatro guitar.

And if you've seen Venezula in the news recently, it's probably about their president. Just after their elections, the prime minister had surgery in Cuba, and has not been able to return. Tension is building on his return, and the opposition are calling for a re-election.

More Information

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/venezuela/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/01/20/world/americas/ap-lt-venezuela-chavez.html?_r=0
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-venezuela-chavez-chatter-20130119,0,4396671.story
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/venezuela
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ve.html 

Books
- http://books.google.hu/books?id=Cq-5QRDNVDEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=venezuela&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ToL8UI-yNOmg0QWjhoGYDQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=venezuela&f=false
-  Venezuela: A Century of Change By Judith Ewell

War of the Arrows (Film)

After a nice three days, I decided to end tonight watching a film. Out of the choice of the Sherlock film, and a Korean archy-warchy lots of fighting-y film, I decided to watch the one that was least likely to be watched by any friends coming over.

So I put the Korean DVD in the laptop.

War of the Arrows
Choi Jong byeong gi Hwal

This is a film about heroes. The main hero, Nam Yi, goes through a very traumatic childhood, (as every main hero tends to) and trains to be an archer/hunter kinda dude. It all goes well, and he gets pretty badass, until he decides to take to the bottle, starts camping out in the forest and visiting brothels. Then he's all pretty lame, until he finds a reason to live and fight. His sister and her partner is taken away by Chinese forces and sent back to China as slaves. Time to become an archer/hunter again, and fight the Chinese army despite being completely outnumbered.

What I like about the film is how the characters develop. Each main character have a turning point of absolute bravery, and would rather die standing.

Against a sword, even Nam Yi's sister isn't lame in this pretty macho film.

The enemy is pretty cool too, with their studded leather and similar, menacing haircuts. They have stronger bows, and swords. You really feel the effort Nam Yi has to go through, and his ordeals.

There were many small things I liked about the film for example, Nam Yi's consistent inventiveness, the focus on the bow as a weapon rather than the sword, the major, major references to Korean culture as it was back then, and the sign language dude in the enemies' army. He is pretty dang funky, has a lot of lines to sign and really impressed me. It was quite unexpected in this film.

What did get to me however was at the end of the film, I was getting too much of a House of Flying Daggers feel, though I won't spoil the ending!

The Plot: +7 Points
The Quality of Drama: +10 Points
Music/Settings/Charisma of the film: +9 Points
The Characters: +10 Points
Cheese: 0 Points
Bonus Points: +2 for fighting lady,
- 2 for cliché, - 2 for ending.

This film scores 34, equivalent to 3 and a half stars!

Ting shuo / Hear Me - Taiwanese Deaf Film

It is a rare opportunity to be able to watch an entire Taiwanese film perfectly dubbed. Now imagine the luck when I found a Taiwanese deaf film called "Ting shuo", or "Hear Me", completely subbed in English, available on Youtube. Of course, being interested in the Deaf Community, I had to watch it.

The film focuses on two sisters who communicate using sign language, and a boy, also fluent in sign, who fancies the younger girl. It is a tale of romance, while addressing top issues within the deaf community and the outside world. Only parts of the film are spoken, so the emotions and signing the characters display and show are the main medium for storyline. 

As with many Taiwanese films, there is a heck of a lot of drama, and this is incredibly well done in Ting Shuo. The story is very touching, and beautiful. It manages on the whole to avoid cheese, though the extent of the guy's infatuation may seem a little creepy to other viewers. 

I would defiantly recommend this film to others.

The Plot: +10 Points

The Quality of Drama: +10 Points

Music/Settings/Charisma of the film: +10 Points

The Characters: +10 points

Cheese: - 2 Points

Bonus Points: +3 for humour, +5 for topic

This film scores 46 points! Equal to 5 stars!