I think I’ll get a slap on my face if I tell my mom I wanna go for a strike because I can’t handle the exam stress for my SPM. Back then, we didn’t even have the slightest inkling that we can organize a strike against too much exam stress. I think some students even took as many exam subjects as they were allowed so that the exam certificate will look good enough for scholarship/university applications later.

And these students here call for a strike because they can’t handle too much exam stress? You must be kidding me or I’m living in a completely different dimension. If you can’t handle stress in school, forget about the working world then.

Picture source: Spiegel Online

Snatch thieves on motorcycles are so common nowadays that almost everyone I know, either personally or his/her immediate relatives was unfortunate enough to experience it before. Even my mom almost got knocked down by those jerks.

The latest feat, car thefts are getting more rampant and some of her colleagues have fallen prey to these lowly thieves. Those cars aren’t even imported nor expensive.

I dread the days I return home to a place I won’t recognize anymore.

One of those very good German movies is The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) which garnered an Oscar in 2007 as the Best Foreign Language Film. If you still remember your history class lessons well, you’ll recall that Germany has a battered past as a result of those world wars which left this country bitterly divided into East and West Germany.

The storyline is simple yet the portrayal and the meaning passed on is poignantly profound. The story takes place in East Germany back in 1984, where it was still ruled by the then socialist state GDR (German Democratic Republic), but the system operated more like a communist state. The suffering and desperation of its citizens living under the regime were deftly captured in the film.

Back in GDR, it was not a secret that the state often placed surveillance on individuals, usually businessmen, prominent writers and directors or anyone suspected to be pro-Western. The story unfolds from the viewpoint of this secret agent, who was assigned to spy on a playwright, suspected of dissidence.

Forget about dagger chase and fast-paced actions usually delivered by a conventional spy film. In fact, there aren’t any fast-paced action scenes at all. The most commendable feature of this film is the performance of its actors and the brilliant camerawork and setting which created a subdued, semi-black-and-white environment to emphasize the oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere behind the wall.

I love the ending of the film. Unexpected, bittersweet with a perfect touch of pensiveness. One of the best German film I’ve ever watched and notably a very outstanding one.

That guy (hiding behind the tree) in the picture above was so funny. He was shaking the tree like every 5 secs to induce some falling leaves effect to complement the autumn-y feel.

Autumn sounds nice eh .

We couldn’t move forward nor could we reverse our car as the jam started to build up slowly behind us, we were left with no choice but to wait for the accident scene before us to be cleared up.

I was silently cursing myself for not stepping out of the house a few minutes earlier and I couldn’t stop complaining out loud to which T just replied that I should be thankful that it wasn’t us who were being pulled out of that overturned, wrecked car in front of us.

How true. I should be thanking my lucky star that somehow, by a strange strike of fate that I didn’t wake up earlier than usual this morning. Who knows what will happen if we really arrived at the scene at the same time the accident occurred…

Sometimes when I am so caught up with so many things in my mind that I somehow fail to realize how lucky I actually am. It’s good to have someone pulling me back to the ground once in awhile.

from Reader’s Digest November issue. Superb answer .

Mostly for decorations, I suppose.