Back after 5 long years

Hello folks! It's so good to be back again after so many years, gosh I feel so old right now. So how did this all start? Oh yes, Taylors, of course. Blogging was never my "thang" until I had no choice but to create a blog for Hardip's class. Dips, dips, dips, Hardips, I can never forger this chap because in four years of my degree life I've never met a lecturer like him. He challenges you by giving all these difficult tasks that will literally fry your brains out - in short, he throws you at the sea, and you have swim back without life jackets. He would always ask us to impress him, tell him things that he does not know. Hardips was just different.. more like special because he taught us to think differently. He taught us to think out of the box. He taught us to stand out. Most lecturers will just come in, pick out a topic and hog over the slides that they would've probably prepared for the previous batches. So, Hardips, thank you for all the stuff that you have taught us🙏 

Anyways, coming back to this whole blogging thing that I sort of decided couple of minutes ago LOL. I have still not decided on the contents of my future postings, but I can assure you that I am not going to MIA again! So till then, adios. 

Rain of Fire..

It was a calm and quiet January morning in 1966, a bizarre rain of fire showered down the village of Tinh Duan in northern Vietnam. The buzz of two fighter jets echoed through the plains as they soar along the clear skies. Smoke rolled across the air as people tried to open their eyes to the burning ceilings.

“Viet Cong! Viet Cong!” a lady ran out of her home and began screaming down the unpaved clay road. “My house is on fire!” she wailed.

“Somebody save us!”  another cried out as she stumbled out of her house. Her skin has peeled off from her arms it was a tainted pink almost resembling freshly peeled tomatoes. 

In less than five minutes, the silent village of hardly two hundred people roared into a crazy scenario of horror and chaos. The Viet Cong had suspected that the village was a makeshift base used by the Americans to conduct secret missions. Indeed, a number of soldiers and army jeeps would circle the area during routine surveillances but this time, the attacking of village was entirely inhabited by civilians.

The men of the village ran and shouted. They carried whatever and whoever they could manage. 

The hardwood and straw houses hardly gave a challenge to the unstoppable napalm. Minutes were all it took to decimate an entire structure. 

Le Vu Duan, a reserve soldier for the South Vietnamese was running from house to house, checking for survivors. He stopped by each door and screamed, “Ben trong nguoi. Keu la!” If you’re still trapped inside. Shout!

A woman shouts out loud as she ran out of her house and towards Le: “Save my son! He’s still inside!”

Cries for help could be heard out of the burning house she was pointing. Less than a hundred meters down the lane. Le pointed east and told the lady to run towards there, the nearest base for the South. 

He could see the figure of a boy crouched under a table through the window of the burning house. Pace-by-pace he got meters closer to the home, now almost entirely engulfed. Right when he was just less than twenty meters away, he heard the sound of the cracking under the heat. A chill went down his spine. 

“Cha! Cha!” he screamed to the boy, calling him to get out.

As the loudest crack echoed out of the house, its burning roof and walls folded inwards like a house of cards, in a just a blink of an eye the building was flat on the ground. The crying eerily ceased.

Le felt his knees give way as the devastation enveloped his body.

Turning around, the woman halted her steps. “Con trai!” My son! She screamed as she looked back to the speechless and weeping Le. 

“Thien Chua!” she fell on all fours as she wailed for God. Her arms around her chest as she sat helplessly in the middle of the path, dozens of people ran frantically towards the Allied base. There was no time to help the dead or dying.

It has only been ten minutes since the two planes had released their deadly rain of napalm. Most of the houses had crumbled to a pile of burning cinders. The ones that are still standing would collapse soon.

Le got up on his legs once more and walked towards the end of the path. The screaming softened as people disappear through the wheat field, heading towards east. As most of the people were out of earshot, the village dissonantly came to a silence, the only sounds remained were the crackling of the fires and collapsing buildings.

Tv..yo

Buying a television set is no longer an easy task as I've experienced it before. Television sets now come in a variety of sizes and have a more features than most people would have thought a decade ago. Recently, I went to a shop to purchase a television set as our old set just went off like "poof" due to the thunder. The moment I stepped into the shop I was like "wow". I was pretty much amazed with the variety of television sets.

Everyone wants a clear picture. For instance, even I want a clear picture when I'm watching movies or my favourite programs. Now, some programs are also broadcasted using a digital format called high definition television (HDTV), which provides a clearer picture. And guys, do you know that only some new televisions sets have HDTV tuners and are able to receive HDTV signals whereas older television sets are not able to receive these signals. Thanks to new technologies LCD and plasma, claim to provide the clearest picture possible. In addition to the great picture that LCD and plasma televisions provide, many people like the style of these flat screens televisions.

Televisions come in any size from extremely small and portable to huge and bulky. Large screens, which are awesome for watching action movies, appeal to a lot of people. With a bigger screen, picture quality is very important because if the quality is low, it’s going to be so obvious as the screen is big. Big screen, flat panel LCD or plasma televisions with HDTV are a great way to achieve a large, perfect picture that is the next best thing to going to the theater. People who are busy with work and stuff usually don't have the time to go to the theater to catch the latest movies, so what they do, they get big screen television sets which is the closest thing to do to get the feel of watching the movies in the cinema.

It has to start off somewhere...

"All successful men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work everyday towards their distant vision, that goal or purpose."

-Brian Tracy-

Do you have a dream that you are aiming to achieve? 

Every individual in this world has a dream(s) that they want to achieve. When you start dreaming, that is when you'll start striving for it. I have a dream too. My dream is to build a foundation for the disabled children. 

My late uncle (this pic was taken a month before he died) 

I always had this thing inside me to help people, especially the disabled because I pretty much grew up with my late uncle, who happen to be a disabled person. To be more precise, he wasn't really disabled but he was mentally challenged. He is my father's younger brother and he is the sixth among twelve children my grandparents gave birth to. YEAH, I know that's a lot. He was actually a pre-mature baby. He only started walking in the age of ten. He can do almost everything by himself but he is just not like us; he doesn't speak like us, think like us, and he doesn't understand anything about the world we live in. He has his little own realm where he was happy to the core till the day he passed away. My grandma and I were the only people who could understand his language. I think I've spent more time with him than I spent with my parents. He may be disabled but he has a very good memory power. He can remember the colour of my shirt which I would have worn a week ago. Sometimes, even my relatives would get shocked with his incredible memory power. He is the best uncle I've ever had and I wish I could just see him again, just once. 

From left, me, my brother, my cousin and uncle raja

His death made me realise a lots of things in life. This whole idea of building a foundation for the disabled was because of him. Do you know that feeling you have when your loved one passes away and you have done nothing for him/her? I had that feeling for months, in fact I still do have it. Its more like a guilty feeling that doesn't fade away fast. As far as I know, my dream of building this foundation is not going to be easy and it is going to be a very long process. In order to achieve this dream of mine, I started off with doing my little research on various charities. I signed up online to be a member in this charity home called "Kaakum Karangal", which is located in West Mambalam Chennai, South India. I discussed with my parents about this whole idea of mine and they said they were ready to help at any cost. So during Deepavali, with the help of my parents and brother I sent them an amount of money via post and since there was no celebration for us this year due to the death of my uncle, at least let them celebrate with joy.

Uncle Raja with his brother

This is where I started and I will keep working hard towards achieving my goal. I would do anything to help those who are in need. There are 650 million people who are disabled, including children and I want to make a difference in their lives. As what Mother Teresa said, "if you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one." 

Escaping from reality..!

Have you guys ever wondered why people read romance novels? Is it because of the sex that is described? Nope, it's not. As a reader, if you are reading the novel just for the "sex part", you might as well get a porn book to satisfy yourself, why romance novels?

I hate the face people give me when I say I read romance novels. I don't understand what is so wrong in reading a romance novel? You see guys, I don't know about others, but I read romance novels to escape myself from reality. Basically, I'm an escapist reader. I know that life is tough with full of ups ad downs in reality, and I'm ready to deal with it. It's nice to read books with survivors who go through many struggles and obstacles, but in the end they manage to overcome all of those problems because of they have love in their lives. It's also nice to read about people who make it through tough situations because they didn't give up on each other. It somehow gives you the hope when you go through situations like that. For example, some people read the horoscope column in the newspaper everyday without fail, why? It's because they believe in it. They are aware of the fact that it's not hundred percent true, but they just read it to satisfy themselves. The same thing applies to me when I read my romance novels. Another thing that I would like to share with you guys is that in a way, romance novels can teach how to become a better person. I sometimes relate myself to my romance novels. Unfortunately I was never the thin, slim, attractive whose size is zero and never puts on weight at all. I used to be very self-conscious and I get depressed over my weight a lot and I used to starve believing that I could lose weight. But obviously it didn't work out. That was when I started reading romance novels. So when I read novels and if the character of the heroine is similar to mine, I tend to put myself in her shoes. We all know that romance novels always have happy endings, so in a way by reading these novels it made me feel better. I was more confident with myself and my self-consciousness slowly started fading away. I began living a life for myself and I was least bothered about what people thought about me. 

So guys, what I would like to convey to you is that if you are a hardcore romance novel reader, keep reading. Do not stop. And to people who often get stressed up and needs a platform to escape yourself from reality sometimes, try reading romance novels. 

My obsession 

Now, if you can excuse me guys, I've got a novel to read :) Cheers! 

Why is it always about sex?

Hello there my dear readers..!

Today I would like to share with you guys about women magazines in my opinion..

In general, I dislike reading magazines, especially women magazines, like Cosmopolitan, Flare, Cleo and Curve. Magazines like these just pisses me off. I'm not saying that they are completely ridiculous, but it seems to work out that way more often than not. First of all, I find it a waste to buy such magazines, and just so you know, they are not cheap. I personally think that the Cosmopolitan magazine should be banned. They produce articles with titles like "How to Wow a Man in the Bedroom". I really don't know what this world has become. Instead of coming up with titles like "How to Lose 40 Pounds in a Month" they come up with articles like "Sex position of the day", "Sex tips from guys", and "Sex advice". It's basically a magazine that does nothing but survey men about what they want sexually and the rest is telling woman what women should be doing. Besides that, these magazines also stereotypes gender. Most of the content and images of the Cosmopolitan magazines usually involve sex and sexuality and its target is usually towards captivating younger women. This magazine basically portrays both men and women in specific ways, focusing both on their gender roles. Most women in Cosmopolitan are shown beautiful, skinny and sexually attractive while men are shown muscular, physically strong and extremely gorgeous. But usually they focus on women more than men. Why is it that women have to be always portrayed so skinny and slim?  Why women are always sexually objectified? Women are always objectified because of gender discrimination. This is where gender inequalities pops in. Gender inequalities takes place because in this present world today, males dominate the female. It has been always like that. It's time to make a change. Coming back to the magazine, I would like to say that these things should be amended. Cosmopolitan should start portraying plus-size women. They should come up with more productive and effective articles.

Our Video..

Video project! Done like a boss! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..!!

So we had to do a video project, its more like a short film. It's my very first video project. We were told to form a group of five and my members were Shalini, Darrveena, Lilian and Ming. It sounded easy at first, but then Oh NO, it was NOT easy at all..! We were asked to a few camera shots and angles we learned during one of our tutorial classes.

These are a few basic angles : -

               Birds eye view

               High angle shot

               Low angle shot

Getting back on track, we had to come up with a good storyline so we had a discussion with our members and we pretty much poured out our ideas. It was not easy to come up with a storyline that would satisfy all of us since each of us have our own ways of coming up with things, but we managed to come up with a good storyline in the end. All of us thought it was a great idea until the day came where a representative from each group has to talk about the gist of the storyline in the class. Unfortunately the feedback given by our classmates where not what we actually expected. It was pretty bad. They said that the climax was "predictable". But honestly, I appreciate their honesty if not we would have just continued with what we came up which would have eventually turned out bad. Because our main objective in this short film is to capture the attention of the audience. If the climax is predictable, then that element of suspense would be missing in the aura. 

So what we did, my group members and I immediately came up with a whole new storyline(not gonna say it), coz its gonna be a surprise. We were really excited to start shooting but unfortunately just a few days before our shooting, one of our group member's father passed away. We were really shocked to hear this news. It was very devastating to receive a news like this. Our excitement for the video was all gone coz we understood how if feels to lose a dad. Plus this video is suppose to full of comedy and we were wondering how is this friend of ours going to act it out in a situation like this. So we decided to postpone the shooting. 

Now, we are done with everything. (Sigh!!) So relieved! We did it like a boss. We experienced a lot of things during this video shooting. A lots of ups and downs, but in the end we managed to finish it. Now we know what team work is like (not easy at all). We even had to stay at campus till 12.30 a.m to edit our video coz editing is sinfully a very very very long process. My god! 

We did our best and I really hope everyone would find it entertaining..!