Random Ruminations of My Mind

an email forward… i’m too lazy to forward it, so here it is… a few math solutions you may have used in your math courses at utm, york or ryerson…

so everyone pretty much knows that its important to have goals. we all have dreams of doing this or that, going here and there, becoming such and such. some of us realize our dreams and goals. other’s go through life without seeing any of their goals come to fruition. but here’s the real question and point of my post: do you think its more important to HAVE goals, then it is to realize them?

a little background on this topic. its something that came up while i was reading this book called ‘the Alchemist’ and one of the topics of discussion was this very question. the book itself is basically about a boy who sets off to pursue his dream of finding treasure in Egypt. along the way he meets different people, and realizes that each person he meets is helping him along the way in finding his treasure, or his Personal Legend, as the alchemists would say.

so back to the question: is it more important to have goals or dreams, then it is for them to come true? of course, the latter requires the former to be true in the first place. but what if you lived all your life, dreaming for one thing, hoping for it every waking moment. and then finally it comes true. what then? the boy in the book meets a muslim man who dreams of going to mecca for pilgrimage. finally when he is able to do so, he claims “I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living” and that its “the thought of Mecca that keeps [him] alive”. the man decides that its better to have this dream than for it to come true. the boy, on the other hand, is of a different philosophy. he wishes to complete his dream of finding his treasure and focusses on the realization of the dream, rather than the dream itself.

personally, i’d agree with the boy. i think if it came down to it, and i realized each of my dreams, i’d probably think of new ones. i’d establish newer goals in life and strive to achieve them. well, at least on paper (or the internet) i would. i had a goal of creating a photoblog on my own, using mysql and php (programming tools) and i did so. i have a few other goals which haven’t been realized yet and are work in progress, but they are there, and hopefully, god willing, i will realize those goals.

btw, i just finished the alchemist, and its truly a great and easy read. short and sweet, i think i finished it in 1 week, which is probably a record for me, hehe.

so my vacation has come to an end… an abrupt ending at that. from waking up at 12pm in the day, to now waking up at 7am, its been a very rough transition, of course brought on only by myself. even though i feel like i’ve wasted the last week or so sleeping and watching movies, i know that time spent doing what you want to do, isn’t time wasted at all. and that’s what this vacation was supposed to be, a relaxing, do nothing, stay at home, chill vacation… you don’t get many of those too often.

among the movies i watched this past week:

gangster: the first indian flick i watched by my own volition in the past 5 or 6 years maybe. i have to say i wasn’t as dissapointed as i thought i would be. there were such rave reviews about this movie which had a “unique story”, basically the reason why i went ahead and watched it (downloaded it of course, i’d never pay to sit in a theatre for 3 hours… i start getting naseous). i will give it that much - the story was indeed unique. even the cinematography i found was a bit off of what you would expect out of bollywood, the bluish-tint for example, giving it a sort of film-noir visual style. hashmi’s acting was beyond what i had expected, and much better that what his fellow cast members had to offer. what i didn’t like about the movie was of course, it was just too damn long. that whole story could have been told in less than 2 hours. sound track is great btw. score: 7/10.

miami vice: another flick which could have been told in less than 2 hours. for the first hour or so, i was confused as hell. i never watched the original series, so i went in expecting a lot of action, guns, violence, maybe even a little humour? nothing of the sort. no character development, shitty dialogue, pathetic acting by colin farrel and jamie fox, even worse directing by michael mann, this movie was a waste of my hard earned $10. and to top it all off, only one gun fight scene, which was so dark, you couldn’t even tell who was on which side. i was waiting for this movie to end at the 1 hour mark and the movie was an expectedly daunting 2.5 hours. score: 2/10

talledega nights: this movie was pretty good. its that kind of stupid funnyness you long for every now and then. Will Ferrell does a pretty good job in this one. score: 7/10

brick: no, not a movie about a furniture store. this one is about a high school kid solving a mystery concerning his former girlfriend. its the kind of movie you can either get really bored of really fast, or stayed glued to in its entirety. for me it was the latter. primarily because of the language that was used. apparently it is the kind of language used by southern californians or something. as you watch the film, at first it difficult to understand, but the more you listen carefully you get a somewhat clear understanding of what is being said, because some of the lingo is used repetitively. check this quote out: “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.”… who the heck talks like that?!?! anyways, check it this low-budget, limited release film, and expect something different from your usual hollywood blockbuster movie. score: 8/10.

mystic river: an older movie, but one that i hadn’t watched. this one was good too. not sure if i really understood the underlying point to the story, maybe there was no point. maybe i thought there was no point because i felt there wasn’t much closure. maybe i felt there was no closure because i expected an message or moral of the story like ’say no to strangers’ or ‘what goes around, comes around’ or something similar. so yeah, maybe in the end, it was just a story without a point. a story about three childhood friends, how they drift apart, and the situation behind what brings them together - i still don’t see the point. in any case, i thought the acting was impeccable. Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins do an outstanding job in each of their roles. score: 8/10

and finally,

proof: story about a 27-year old woman who just lost her mentally ill father, who at one point or another, was a genius in the field of mathematics. didn’t like it too much. i thought it dragged a bit in the middle. the main character Catherine, played by Gwenyth Paltrow, is confused about herself and confuses the audience in the process. is she crazy? is she sane? noone knows. you want to believe she isn’t, so she can make her father proud. at the same time, you think she is because of all the emotions she is going through with her recent loss. half way through the film, you ask yourself, why is Hal, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, in this movie again? what purpse does he serve?!?!? anyways… don’t bother paying to watch this movie. just catch it on tv whenever it comes on, if it does. score: 5/10

after seeing this interview, i was left in awe. this guy has the cahunas to tell off the person who is conducting the interview as well as to the person who owns the very station that has asked him to come on. it is a total must-see emotionally charged interview.

Today is my first day of vacation for the next 9 days. It would have the ideal vacation had I gone somewhere, but even still, staying at home isn’t all that bad. I could catch up on some reading maybe. I’m almost done Angels & Demons (after 4 months :S) so I’m pretty much ready to start something else, fictional that is. ‘The Alchemist’ seems like its been on the bookseller list for quite a long while, so I might just end up starting that one, plus its not that long at all. I seldom get bored reading books more than 500 pages. I might also go out and take pictures somewhere, tidy my bedroom, fix up my computer, make enhancements to my photoblog, do some gardening, learn to cook, go skydiving, have a big a$$ party and invite 10,000 people, learn to speak mandarin, sail around the world in 8 days, etc, etc… Hmmm, ok, maybe not the last few, but at least the thought of doing all that stuff is there

I went to a specialist today for my back, which was injured a while go, getting much better now. I got the appointment about 5 months ago. So finally, after all that time, I got a chance to see him… for 15 whole minutes. That’s right, 5 long months for 15 short minutes. Hmmm, talk about long wait times.

In other news, I just learned today that Israel bombed the last remaining bridge into/out of Lebanon. This bridge was located in a predominantly Christian neighbourhood who were non-partisan so far in the war. After the bombing however, there were reports, by CNN, that people were taking a different stance now in that area. Now, I’m no political pundit or analyst of any sort nor am I a “geo-political strategist”, but what I take from all this is that Israel is losing friends at an alarming rate the further this whole mess goes on. Maybe even its allies at one point might not be as friendly as they are now, Jordan and Egypt for example. And these are countries that border Israel. Many are expecting an imminent cease-fire soon, so let’s hope, god willing, that happens with the least amount of civilian casualties on both sides. As it stands, about 900 Lebanese killed, mostly civilians, and about 70 Israelis killed, mostly soldiers. Hmmm… disproportionate, n’est-ce pas?

this past weekend had its ups and downs. i was supposed to get on a flight friday evening back to toronto in order to attend a friend’s wedding. unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

my flight from Providence, RI got cancelled due to bad weather (wind gusts of up 70mph apparently). the plane i was supposed to board had no chance in those kind of conditions because it was a really small 20-seater plane. to make things worse the guy at the counter, who told me my flight got cancelled, was being a prick and pretty much gave me an ‘800′ number for air canada and told me to book my own ticket out of there. i was first in line, and so i had 20 people behind me who were ready to tell him a piece of their mind. luckily the manager arrived and basically took care of things for us.
he booked us the next direct flight out which was the next morning at 11am, but that meant that i was gonna miss my friend’s wedding . everything happens for a reason i guess…

anyways, i took my camera with me and took some pics. to the right is a picture of the mosque out in Woonsocket… quite literally, in the middle of nowhere, they have this really nice mosque.

and below is a picture of the airplane that i had to take. it’s called a ‘beachcraft’ or something like that. seats only 20 passengers. its

funny because when i was checking in i noticed that i got an aisle seat. of course i wanted the window seat and i tried really hard to get one but couldn’t seem to change it. but when i got on to the airplane, i realized why. the aisle seats were ALSO the window seats. the airplane is extremely light and therefore very susceptible to turbulence. at times you felt like you were on a roller coaster.