Mon nom est Amélie Part II

Mon nom est Amelie.

And I've got to admit that the last thing I want is a reality check. I live in a little world of my own - where simple things like dipping my hand into sacks of grain, cracking crème brûlée with a teaspoon and skipping stones across St. Martin's Canal really make my day. And not forgetting beautiful people and their smiles. Someone might remember my answer to a question posed to me by a teacher in class. She asked me, "What makes you happy?" After a quick thought and a smile, I said out loud for everyone to hear, "Seeing the smiles on my classmates faces makes me happy. Knowing that they're happy makes me happy."

I sort of became a secret matchmaker and guardian angel and Ive realized that I subtly leave an impact the lives of those around me with subtle manipulation. I escorted a blind man to the Metro station, giving him a rich description of the street scenes he passes. I managed to persuade my father to follow his dream of touring the world by stealing his garden gnome and having an air-hostess friend send pictures of it from all over the world. I managed to convince the unhappy concierge of my building that the husband who abandoned her had in fact sent her a final love letter just before his death.

Helping people makes me happy. But I've been thinking too much about the happiness of others that I forgot to be happy myself. So if I were to be on my way to school one day and cross path with a nice looking girl with a nice beautiful smile, never will I risk doing something/anything that might take my simple pleasure away.

However in the movie, I ended up stepping out of my comfort zone and had a pretty good ending. This is something I'll never understand. Things do not just work that way in real life. I need to have a word with the director of the film because now, someone I know have been reminded time and time again to do something about it - coz that's what Amelie did in the movie.

Mon nom est Amelie.

Perhaps in the movie, I went against the things that I will normally do. However in reality, I'll never do it for I'm afraid of losing one of life's simple pleasure. Perhaps too, I'm a coward. But perhaps too, I'm simply waiting for a sign... or two... or three...

I don't know.

Mon nom est Amélie

Mon nom est Amélie. For the uninitiated, my name is Amélie.

Some say I'm a coward. Some say I'm not sociable. Raymond Dufayel told me that it's time for me to take some real risks. In simpler terms, to get a move on. But I see the world in a magical light, discovering minor miracles every day. I like to look for things no one else catches. I hate the way drivers never look at the road in old American movies. In such a dead world, I prefer to dream until I'm old enough to leave home.

But is it true? Is it true that the last thing I want is a reality check? Watch this space.

Salam Lebaran

Salam Lebaran, Eid Mubarak, Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri....

I'm already missing Ramadhan. School has taken up a SIGNIFICANT portion of my time of late and Ramadhan had made me realize that I can still do more on top of school work - if i put my mind and heart to it.

I was challenged to memorize a new surah from the Quran this past Ramadhan. Seeing how I barely went for the nightly Taraweeh prayers, let alone read the Quran, I was tempted to tell him "Not this Ramadhan. I'm busy." And with barely two weeks left to Eid (and countless quizzes), it was impossible. However, putting school ahead of the things I should be engaging in in the holy month of Ramadhan would not be the right (and wise) thing for me to do. Deep down, I had a feeling there's a reason behind this self-thought of mine. I was in a crossroad and had two paths to take. I had to choose and despite me not being a spontaneous person, I said yes.

And I chose surah Ar-Rahman - a couple of pages, confusing verses but very poetic. I fell in love with this surah when I was younger - when going to the mosque would never affect my grades or projects or assignments. I remember being forced to wake up at 330am to perform the Tahajjud prayers when some would fall asleep while praying - me being one of those embarassed few. It was during this time when kids several years older than me would take turns to be the imam and this surah simply caught my attention. Nine years later, with barely two weeks to Eid, not afraid of "overloading" my schedules, why not?

And alhamdulillah, I managed to accomplish (give and take small confusions) what I thought was impossible. Ramadhan has taught me that one should never use religion as an excuse for one's lack of time in worldly issues. For every 5 minutes of prayers, I would have spent 15 or more minutes writing entries. And for every entry that I write, I would have spent twice the amount of time thinking and typing and backspacing. Let's not forget the time spent on Facebook, Soccernet and highlights after highlights of the match between Manchester United and Manchester City.

I guess all Im trying to say is that there's a million and one thing to blame for one's lack of time - Let it not be religion. And that if you really put your heart and mind to something, you can do it.

There's a lingering question though - Why can I never memorize simple formulas for modules like Soil Mechanics and Fluid Mechanics?? grrr...

Literary Metamorphosis

The theme of a story is the idea that holds the story together. In essence, a theme is the main idea or some type of lesson or message that the author wants to convey to the reader. For example, the great novel, Little Women, is about four sisters, but that is the subject of the book. One of the themes is the struggles of young girls maturing into women. A story can have more than one theme. Though themes might be difficult to find, there are some ways to identify them.

.....[www.howtodothings.com/.../how-to-identify-literary-themes.html]

Below are the three suggested steps on "How to identify literary themes?"- and my attempt at answering my own doubts.

1. Identify the central topics or "big ideas."

Love is in the air in Of Love and Other Demons. So are demons - or things that seem demonic in nature. However, Marquez's love do not have the happily ever after ending. Instead, Marquez's love brings out the ugliness ("the Demon") in his characters. The one and only Demon that was supposed to be in the story is really nothing but a doubt - readers cannot really put a finger as to whether or not Sierva Maria was really possessed.

Too many blurred lines. I'm confused. But if someone were to point a gun at me and ask me to identify one theme of the book, I will still insist that I really do not know how to "describe a theme".

But I know that somehow, the words "lovely demon" and "evil religion" are floating in my engineering mind right now and I need help to put them into words fit for the literary world. I have this recurring thought that Marquez seem to make the Devil himself a lesser demon as compared to the demon that exist in all of us. Even the "Holy" Bishop - a man of religion - seem more evil that the "possesed" protagonist, Sierva Maria. In wanting to exorcise the demon in Sierva Maria, the Bishop (in my mind) was the bigger and more evil demon than the demon to be exorcised (this is where the idea of "evil religion" comes from).

Or are these blurred boundaries - like the hybrid between a lovely religion and an evil demon, for example - be the central theme I'm looking for?

2. Identify how the characters relate to the central topic.

The characters are bounded by the "lovely Demon" as well the "evil religion". Forbidden love between Ygnacio and the slave girl and the one between the Father Cayetano and Sierva Maria. Could this be related to the forbidden books (What is Marquez's reason behind a book that is only mentioned twice or so)?

3. Organize your thoughts.

Funny how the final step is called "Organize your thoughts". Clearly my mind is a little messed up. Attempts at organizing them into categories and orders will only make everything more messed up, blurred and muddled. For some weird reason, I feel as though Marquez is doing to me what I'm doing to others.

The great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote in 1942 an essay titled ‘El idioma analítico de John Wilkins’ in which he laid out the challenges of human attempts to classify the world. Mary Douglas  suggested that "societies are likely to see things as 'taboo' when they are anomalous, when they don't fit neatly into a society's classification of the world".

I believe I'm feeling slightly chaotic because of my inability to classify - despite my engineering mind. Despite my love of predicting, anticipating and reading between the lines, I feel "insulted" not being able to read or guess why Marquez does what he does. Frankly, I do not even know what's on his mind besides the fact that it's a weird love story that I happen to like. Is it time to finally allow myself to be influenced by the perspectives and opinions of critics? Perhaps.

Tell me Mr Marquez, what's behind the magical realism?