A movie review that i just wrote

Ratatouille

When I walked out of the movie, the movie has endowed with me with a deep, transporting pleasure and allowed me to fall in love with an unlikely hero, Remy, an adorable little rodent. The story revolves around this lovable rat who desires to be a great chef like his hero, Auguste Gusteau. With an exquisite sense of smell and taste, he was not contented in eating trash like normal rats, but rather he wants to savor good food and appreciate the art of cooking. Along the way, he faces obstacles and challenges, but he eventually he fulfilled his dream to become a good cook at Gusteau's, the former home to the famous chef that Remy had idolized.


A classic lesson to learn from the movie is that no dream is impossible, if you work hard enough and never stop believing you can achieve anything. It is an old axiom that everyone knows, but sometimes we need assurance and reminder that the impossible can become possible in life. The message is clear from the movie that as long as you continue to believe in and hold on to your great dreams, we can surprise everyone with your splendid accomplishments like Remy. The most captivating and catchy words are from the most feared food critic in Paris Anton Ego ,“Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” Its ensures that not everyone is great but greatness can come from anywhere.

The story uncovers the basic moral lesson for us that there will be obstacles when pursing our dreams. The most engaging conflict occurs when Remy is reunited with his family and he has to choose between family obligation and individual ambition. We sometimes must decide whether to go our own way or do what our family tells us. We must also decide whether it's better to be respected doing things that make us miserable or to be disrespected doing things that make us feel happy. But Remy’s family’s acceptance of him being a cook in the end gives us green light that we can be true to ourselves and yet accept our family’s love in order to fulfill our dreams. We often face with difficult situations but the most important lesson learnt is do we give up pursing our dreams? The cruz is how determined are we?

Ikeda Sensei shared that determination to win is the better way of winning. The best time for its construction of our victory is in the midst of the struggle to achieve the goal we yield for. The determination to deal with challenges and overcome our self-overcoming beliefs will allow us to be undefeated in spirit in life. Our effort will ultimately become nutrients for the growth of our dreams.


In our practice, our desires, dreams are our catalysts for internal change, which will change our external environment and achieve the goals we set for. The determination we have will allow victory to build patiently, step by step that will eventually open a new road in our lives. Sensei shared that as long as we keep making efforts without allowing ourrselves to be defeated, the tree of dreams will continue to grow in our hearts.

Thus go catch the good movie and start by making a great determination, one that we will try hard to fulfill. And like Remy, let’s never give up on any of our dreams.

My Dream

Its has been 5 mths since I started work. Therefore its time to reflect what actually is my goals and dreams in life. I want to become a teacher, a rock solid teacher like Frank McCourt. I am thinking of doing specialization of customer service relationship since i am doing this line. I love to talk , I love to interact. Thus first i must polish that ability, the special element to be able to connect the student. I must take pride in in my current work and knock down walls and walls of obstacles in life and fulfill the dreams and goals in life.


My dream is to be the best that
I can be, inside and out.
Let my dreams come up and fly
My dream is to connect
My dream is to influence
My dream will come true
I can knock walls, obstacles
I need one thing
A polished me

Anyway i bought two rock solid books
-Gaudioso and Martin (The Buddha next door)
-Ben Orki ( Stardust)

The Death of the Moth

The Death of The Moth by Virginia Woolf

Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy–blossom which the commonest yellow–underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us. They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species. Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay–coloured wings, fringed with a tassel of the same colour, seemed to be content with life. It was a pleasant morning, mid–September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months. The plough was already scoring the field opposite the window, and where the share had been, the earth was pressed flat and gleamed with moisture. Such vigour came rolling in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book. The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamour and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.

The same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean bare–backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his square of the window–pane. One could not help watching him. One was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic. He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far–off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.

Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvellous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig–zagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any other shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity.
After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window–pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the window sill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.

The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against which he struggled. I looked out of doors. What had happened there? Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brooks. The horses stood still. Yet the power was there all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to anything in particular. Somehow it was opposed to the little hay–coloured moth. It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself. One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life. Also, when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely. Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.

The Gift of Magi

The Gift of the Magi
BY O. HENRY

ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. THAT WAS ALL. AND SIXTY CENTS of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard.

To-morrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 Bat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly.

Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she cluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street.Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One Eight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie.""Will you buy my hair?" asked Della."I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."Down rippled the brown cascade."Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand."Give it to me quick" said Della.Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch.

As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 78 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task dear friends--a mammoth task.Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically."If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please, God, make him think I am still pretty."The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was with out gloves.Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.Della wriggled off the table and went for him."Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way.

I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you.""You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labour."Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"Jim looked about the room curiously."You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy."You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. I his dark assertion will be illuminated later on.Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table."Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to {lash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit."Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled."Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy Your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men-who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

New Poem

Its been a long time since I blog. Have been busy with my new job and Soka Activites. Have been fulfilling this few months though as i have just finished organzing the FD 14th Anniversary. More work to be done towards the end of 2008.
Anyway i stumble upon an excellant poem that i like it very much.

An old man going a lone highway
Came at evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and wide and steep,
With waters rolling cold and deep.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream held no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting your strength with building here."
"Your journey will end with the ending day,
"You never again will pass this way.
"You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide.
Why build you this bridge at eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A Youth whose feet must pass this way."
"The chasm that was as nought to me
To that fair-haired youth might a pitfall be;
"He, too, must cross in twilight dim –
"Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

Will Allen Dromgoole

The Donkey

The Donkey
One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then,to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. As every shovel of dirt hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed, as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.
The Moral: Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.

2. Free your mind from worries.

3. Live simply.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less.

Story: Carrot , Egg and Ooloong tea

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and places each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots , in the second she eggs, and in the last she placed Ooloong tea. She let them sit and boil , without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes , she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and places them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the Ooloong out and placed them in a bowl. turning to her daughter , she asked , "Tell me what you see." " carrots , eggs and ooloong tea, she replied/

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the Ooloong tea. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter asked , " what does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each od these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. the egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior , but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside become hardened.

The ooloong tea was unique. After the boiling water, they had changed the water colour and taste. " which are you?" she asked her daughter. " when adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or Ooloong tea?

Think of this: Which am i . Am i the carrot that seems storng but with pain and adversity do i wilt and become soft and lose my strength?Am i teh egg that starts with a malleable heart , but changes with the heat? Did i have a fuild spirit, but after a death , a breakup , a financial hardship , have i become hardened and stiff?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am i bitter ad tough with a stiff spirit and the hardened heart?

Or am i like hte Ooloong tea? The tea actually changes the hot water, the very circumstances that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you like the tea, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation arounf you.

When the hour is at the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make your strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don necessarily have the best of everything: they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgetten past, you can't go forward in life until you let go your past failures.