yesterday was kinda an interesting day.

firstly, prof philips wasn't around so he sent ryan bishops to come and screen "dawn of the dead". sumi, jas and su hui crashed to watch the movie. well, it was a good movie but very very very gory and gross. especially the parts where the zombies were eating the people. the way the flesh came off so easily. the blood and gore. gosh. it was supposed to be a horror film but for some reason, the 3 of them were laughing hysterically for a lot of parts. something about the short guy forcefully reminding them of howard.(btw, he seems to be popping up in random conversation quite a bit these days. why?! am i never to be free from him?) jean was asking me, "why your friends laughing so much?" ok, some parts were funny, but not all the parts what. anyway, to me, the movie was scary. me and jean scared ourselves when we had to climb that quiet, deserted stairway to go to the toilet. kinda thought that a zombie would jump us. guess that's the way you get too caught up in the movie. anyway, i only got real terrified at night, when i was alone in my room, trying to go to sleep. my mind started over-reacting. sigh. but i think the dreamcatcher worked cos there were no zombies invading my dreams. that ryan bishops also, at the end, telling us, "i think you've got a lot to chew on now." and saying that the moral of the story is "you need to be able to run fast."

to me, what was scary about the movie was not cos there were zombies popping up all over the place but that, the zombies were actually common people. for some reason, these people just couldn't stay dead. and it's scary cos they're out to eat human flesh. quite sad the part when we saw the 2 children that changed into zombies and the guy was forced to shoot them. it's like, (what's the word?) gothic? the one where things are not quite right about a familiar situation. the people don't have a choice whether to become zombies or not. they are just forced to come back and wreck havoc.

that movie kinda didn't have a definite resolution. in the end the 2 of them just flew off in the helicopter. don't know what happened to the zombies. the movie kinda reminded me of a lot of my lit stuff. especially rhinocerositism. the zombifications of people was like that. you could somehow predict which ones were going to become zombies. and at the end, when the black guy said that he's going to stay, and was going to shoot himself but later changed his mind and ran off with the woman. reminded me of berenger initially wanting to turn into a rhino too, but later changing his mind and deciding to fight it. and the part in the front where the woman insisted that the zombie was her husband and was insisting on going to him. reminds me of mrs boeuf and her rhino husband. and the thing about the zombies' memory and instinct, making them come to the shopping mall, reminds me of the theme of hiroshima mon amour, about the woman's memories. and i wonder, what was the function of the priest that appeared near the beginning. it's definitely a significant moment. but i had no idea why. wow! so much stuff can be drawn from a lit analysis of this movie. it's cool. but what's the cultural stuff in it, i don't know. haha!

moving on. the second big thing that happened to me. i lost my genes and society essay. not exactly lost lah. i accidently deleted it. what i think happened was, i was working on it on tuesday night. very tired liao. i was going to delete the essay outline cos it was totally useless anyway. the two files were side by side. i think, in my tired state, i clicked my essay instead of the outline, and i didn't notice my mistake when i emptied the recycle bin after my session. so the next day when i wanted to take a look at my essay, i realised that it was gone. sigh. tried to retrieve it. duan hui taught me this interesting thing about system restore. pity it didn't work though. i guess it doesn't work for deleted files. ian says that the only way of retrieving it now is to use some sort of special police technology. which i don't think i'm desperate enough to use. but i was so distracted that i couldn't pay attention to lit lecture. i was msning ian for help. lucky i recorded lit lecture. have to sit down this weekend and listen through to it. anyway, very very sad about that cos i was almost done with it when it was accidently deleted. but lucky i discovered it was gone. i have to hand it in on friday. imagine if i didn't realise it was gone and tonight i turn on my comp at 11pm to print it and couldn't find it. *shock shock horror horror*

anyway, i rewrote it last night. i think it was a record. me writing that essay in approx 3hrs. given that it was a short essay. think i'm not going to get a good grade for it. i wrote too generally. not enough space lah. i mean, how can i present the arguments for and against transgenic animals in 2 pages (2 sides of 1 piece of paper)? there's just so much information that is so interesting to talk about. anyway, it's done. now just left the final editting and print and hand in tomorrow.

i guess my preoccupation with the essay totally drove the zombies out of my mind during the day, so at least i was able to function normally. but at night is when my mind overreacts and starts thinking morbid thoughts about death and dying. kinda hard to explain exactly what goes through my mind at those times. i understand what that girl in "veronika decides to die" means when she's describing her panic attacks. yup. whenever i think about what it would feel like to die - i mean, it's got to be a real big thing that causes your soul to forcefully leave the body. gives me the heeby-jeebies thinking about it. thinking about it in the daytime is ok but when i'm trying to fall asleep... dear god, when i die, let me go blissfully unaware in my sleep, not forceful and dramatically like those zombie thingys.

other nicer stuff. i'm reading "the templar revelation". gosh! it's so cool!! haven't finished reading it yet but here's some stuff that struck me as interesting. apparently, (and i wanna check up on this) the shroud of turin is a fake made by da vinci. the image there is the first photograph prototype. apparently the head is an image of da vinci himself. but the body is a genuinely crucified guy. apparently, there is the image that the head is seperated from the body, suggesting a beheading (john the baptist). there is also this suggestion by another artist's work that jesus wasn't crucified. it was a surrogate that was on the cross. that one is the most earth-shaking claim i think. i have no idea whether or not these claims they make are true or not, but
it's really interesting just reading their arguments and evidence.