Ella's Notebook

Tomorrow tons of cross year activities are coming. I am too excited to sleep. After lying abed, listening to swing Jazz for one hour, I found myself still awake. So I went blogging and found a very fancy website for Jazz dance. 'What's not shared is lost.' - that's what the website encourages.

http://www.offjazz.com/index1a.html

http://www.offjazz.com/vidjz-2-oct-2005/2141.htm
 
Time flees. Dance at midnight one day before the end of 2005. Remember this wonderful year!

Went to a Danish movie 'Brothers' with Ada tonight. It seems that the Chinese name '變奏曲'(Variations) fits the story more. This movie shows how lives could go wrong and out of control naturally when everybody is doing things all right. I wonder how the screenwriter could be so good at revealing this exquisite sensibility by telling a simple story. Cheers for so many wonderful talents on earth!

http://www.bbcworld.com/content/talkingmovies_archive_15_2005.asp?pageid=665&co_pageid=6
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386342/

Some quotes from the director Susanne Bier:

"What basically appealed to me was the dilemma. Somebody does something that he never thought was possible, something which is just totally against everything he believes in, and he's still a human being afterwards. I think that could happen to any of us, on a more or lesser scale.

In the movie it's a very distinct, very harsh question. But basically I believe it could happen to any of us, and that was my main interest."

"I had questions about human relationships, I had questions about love, I had questions about whether love is just about a man and a woman loving each other, or is it about more like a universal love? And where is somebody's breaking point? How are we able to reach out? How well-equipped are we to understand each other? They were some of the questions."

Apart from the movie itself, the younger brother Nikolaj Lie Kaas is so young and so handsome and charming, exactly the type I like - rebellious, melancholy, self-content and fun loving. Oh, Lord, now you finally know I need another cute guy to admire, good job! 

What a sensitive hunk!

It is funny. I just admitted that I was actually a loser in someone else's game. However I've been thinking that could there be some woman in the world well mixed with Audrey Hepburn and Seabiscuit? Maybe I should carry out some experiment to know the answer. 
Guys! Be always creative!   \(^.^)d

http://66.49.190.33/scans/a/audreyhepburn02.html

http://cine.publispain.com/PELICULAS/seabiscuit_fondo.jpg

Can't take off my party soul after Xmas!
Keep the party on at home - run the music, tingle and jiggle!
Bottoms up! Be the dancing queen!

'Good things come to those who celebrate' by Cameron Tuttle

Cant's get a date? - Celebrate your independence!
Can't find a job? - Celebrate your freedom!
Can't get a cab? - Celebrate your shoes and dance in the street!
Can't get any action? - Celebrate your vibrator!
Can't get anyone to take you seriously? - Celebrate your sense of humor!
Can't shake an old reputation? - Celebrate your rhythm section!
Can't fill your bra? - Celebrate and take it off!
Can't balance your checkbook? - Celebrate your creativity!
Can't lose weight? - Celebrate your big ole butt!          

Christopher Cheung's works are now hung in our gallery.

An art critic about Cheung's works by Day-hsi Chin in 1994 is quite refined and touching:

A TELLING TALE OF A MAN BORN INTO THE WRONG EXISTENCE

I have a recurring dream: I am aboard a train, but only as it starts to move do I realize that it is going in the opposite direction of my intended destination.

In that dream state, I did not have time to feel the tragedy of the situation nor to examine the reasons and experience remorse. All I felt was a sense of utter loss, and the fear of inevitably heading towards a boundless, indescribable terror which lurks in the vast darkness.

First and foremost, this terror is strange and eerie. If I was the one who decided on my destination, and I who decided on the train to board, if these two contradictory and self-defeating choices originated from me, then the latter choice would have betrayed the former. This would be tragic indeed, It would also be a source of terror, but confined to one level within human proportions which would make it at least tolerable.

It became very difficult for me to write daily, partially because my thoughts have been much more complicated, or say, sophisticated than earlier days. Even though I already have many friends who are truly warm and nice to me, I could still feel kind of isolated these days. Aki was the only person who did check me out everyday, and I really appreciate it.

In the morning Max, a very sweet gay friend, gave me some really useful information about where to buy the Xmas decorative stuff. Therefore we could go to buy a lot of dazzling little things like in the pictures for our Saturday party, including a sparkling Xmas tree. It has been a very interesting shopping route. I couldn't stop thinking if only I could have my own party on Xmas day, then I could invite many winged, fashionable friends like Max to rejoin again. Next year... I will. I wish.

I believe there are always some true values in our lives, so we can go through all the hardness and still smile. May all of my friends have peace, warmness and happiness in this cold season. 

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.  The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.  Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway.  You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It never was between you and them anyway. - Mother Teresa

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair,
but manifestations of strength and resolution. - Kahlil Gibran

Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth.  - Mark Twain 

‘Round Sky & Square Ground’ is a tableware collection designed by Chen Jun-Liang. He just won the ‘Design for Asia Award 2004 (DFA)’ from Hong Kong Design Center. I admire his innovative ideas that break the concept of bases for traditional pottery. He turned ‘round’ to ‘square’. A simple idea made a design outdrawing. Now even the president caters his honored guests with Chen’s tableware. Cool.