Let me give you an example:

Say there’s a car accident, and…

… everything is alright, just a minimal scratch: At least nobody got any damage.

… the car is broken and the person is alright: At least the person is unharmed.

… the person is injured: At least the person was not severely injured, and there are people who helped him/her.

… the person is severely injured: At least he/she is still alive.

… the person died: At least he/she didn’t have to suffer long.

I used to think: What’s the point then? Why be grateful when even in worst case scenario you’d find something to say “at least….”

But most times now, I learned that having this kind of grateful attitude is a good exercise. It helps to realize I’m not the most miserable person in this world because I still have [insert something good here], or at least I didn’t have [insert something really bad here]. It does bring the light into things, and I’m grateful that I could always find something good in my life (I have a good set of working legs, I can smell things, I have people who loves and cares about me, I have internet connection, and hey, I’m still alive and breathing!). And I know that there could always be worse circumstances.

So, yes, I am grateful that my parents taught me this. And yes, sometimes (or often times) I completely forgot about it, especially when I’m in my dramatic moments. But I loved to get reminded of it again, and that’s also why I wrote this post. To remind myself to be grateful .

It is quite scary for me when I realized that I haven’t been reading that much last year!

Lucky for me, a couple of weeks back, Amle came up with an idea to read a book every week. I’m thinking, this was probably the kind of motivation I have been looking for!!! So I joined her, along with some friends from my Plurk circle, and now I can proudly say: I’m right back on track with my reading *happydance*.

It’s not that hard to do, given that I could actually read the thickest Harry Potter book in a day. It’s just lately I have been hesitating to get immersed in a book. Now I have another reason to do it. A permission, that it was something I had to do, with a deadline set in my head.

Along the way, I also became more motivated to write and edit (even more reason to do a happydance ). I used to find it funny when someone had to give themselves permission to do ‘fun’ things. But, you know what, sometimes that’s exactly what we need. Not a kick in a back to force me to move forward, but a gentle helping hand to motivate me .

Here goes…

1. Who did you spend at least two hours with today? Hubs
2. How tall are you? 163 cm
3. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks? Flying home to see my family
4. What’s the last movie you saw? How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?
5. Who was the last person you called? My Mom
6. Who was the last person to call you? A reporter from Bildzeitung
7. Who was the last person to leave you a voicemail? It’s been a long time since anybody do that, so I can’t remember.
8. Do you prefer to call or text? Text. Somehow didn’t like talking over the phone.
9. What were you doing at 12am last night? Out from the theater where I saw Norman Foster
10. What time did you wake up today? 8
    
11. What are you wearing right now? Just some warm tracksuit. It’s a relaxing day today!
12. What is your favorite christmas song? Don’t have any, actually… but I love everything from Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas album .
13. Where is your favorite place to be? With the people I love.
14. Where is your least favorite place to be? Waiting room at the dentist. Or immigration office *shivers*.
15. Where would you go if you could go anywhere? I love where I am now… but I want to see New York! Or right now, some beach, sun and warmth!
16. Where do you think you’ll be in 10 years? A best selling author.
17. Do you tan or burn? Tan. Excessively.
18. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? Some giant lizard.
19. What was the last thing that really made you laugh? Some fart jokes I made with hubs o_O.
20. Do you have a laptop or desktop computer? Laptop.
21. What color are your sheets? Dark blue.
22. How many pillows do you sleep with? One.
23. What is your favorite season? Spring.
24. What do you like about Autumn? Hmm… the warm color of the leaves.
25. What do you like about winter? Snow.. Although I kind of changing my mind right now.

Edit: translation (roughly): Astrid Mochtarram (30) from Charlottenburg stood in line from 10am. Two hours later she got tickets for “My Name is Khan”.

Okay okay, it’s not that big in the newspaper. But at least the picture didn’t look too bad . I wanted to see it first before putting it up in my blog. Just in case I looked like a crazy movie lady :LOL:. Here is how it look from the whole newspaper page:

But at least it’s not everyday I get to share a page with Robbie Williams and Til Schweiger .

Not that long, I know, but there were 4 lines of this length . Although, to be honest, I was still quite sure about getting the tickets based on my experience last year. Unless the movie and the time slot picked was extremely popular. By extremely popular I mean every single person in front of me would want to see it.

Two hours later, I got the tickets I want for the day Just two movies for now because we could only get tickets 3 days in advance. I also managed to stick to my list and not be tempted with movies with almost sold out tickets. Go me!

I also managed to create a list of movies I’m interested in. You can find it here.

This year I wanted to see uplifting movies, something that would inspire me or take me to a world of imagination. So it wasn’t very surprising that most of the movies I end up putting on my list were from the Generation section, which was more geared towards younger movie goers.

Here is my list, in no particular order:

• Knerten (Twigson). From the synopsis: “Strong? Yes. Brave? Yes. A twig? Yes. Ordinary? No! Because twigs like Twigson don’t grow on trees.Twigs like Twigson exists in fantasies and play with you in the woods when you find it hard to be with everyone else.” I’m sold.
• How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?. I’m somehow always fascinated towards architecture. I love looking at buildings, imagining what was in the mind of the architect when they came up with the idea. Norman Foster designed the dome of Reichstag in Berlin. I would love to know him and his work better.
• En ganske snill mann (A Somewhat Gentle Man). It’s hard to say exactly why I’d love to see this one. But I guess I like the black comedy, and the contrast of an ex con trying to be a good person.
• My Name Is Khan. This one has quite a buzz already. I know Shah Rukh Khan (the leading actor) from his Bollywood movies, so I guess I’m interested to see him on the screen playing someone with an Asperger syndrome.

I also wanted to see the short films section since it would be quite hard to see them in cinemas otherwise. Will update this section soon!

The Gift by Cecilia Ahern (2009)

When I picked up this book, I was actually hoping for a light chicklit read. I think it does look like it thanks to the book cover, and the author’s previous books I’ve read (P.S. I Love You, Where Rainbows End, Thanks for the Memories) kind of falls into that genre.

I like Cecilia Ahern’s previous books and I wish I could say I was pleasantly surprised to what I found reading it. I couldn’t.  The good part is the story was easy to follow and it does flow nicely. The problem is I couldn’t get pass the cliché in the story and most of the characters. To me, it felt too much like I was in a classroom, being taught a lesson of what I should and should not do in life by a teacher who likes to point fingers.

I do like inspirational books and I read quite a few of them. This one just doesn’t deliver it. It’s simply not inspiring to me. I found myself finished the book and thinking… what’s the point? Even if a lesson of finding out what is important in life is what you’re looking for, there are better ones out there. Ones that truly inspires you and touched your soul.

No, I couldn’t get myself to recommend this book. But if you want to read it, by all means read it. And if you like it, please let me know, maybe there was something I missed.

One problem I had with my laptop is that it’s fairly small that I would have to hunch when it’s on the table. Pain pain pain. Then I decided to get me a notebook riser. However, I would also need an external keyboard and I am very picky on keyboard. The only external keyboard I like is the apple keyboard, which ate all my budget so I end up with this:

Seemed like a good temporary solution, even though the ‘temporary’ had turned into more than a year. And now I kind of want to read the screenwriter book. Fortunately for me, I found a nice notebook riser on sale on Amazon and it arrived yesterday! So here’s how my workspace looked like now… TADA!

Bliss .

What is it, you asked? It an annual film festival in Berlin, which happens to be the largest in the world in terms of audience and ticket sold. There will be a selection of around 400 films, running in many movie theaters in Berlin, from 11 – 21 February 2010. Overwhelming? Yes. And such a money drainer too … but it’s worth it.

The program for this year is up at Berlinale Programme, where you could also buy the ticket online later on if you want to avoid the queue. There is also a synopsis of each movie and workshop.

Now the crazy task for me is to choose which movie we’d like to see. I was hoping there will be some Indonesian movies since last year there were a couple of them. But unfortunately this year there’s none . I would also like to watch some movies in the Competition section, some short films, and hopefully some movies from France and Japan. But above all, I will try to choose uplifting movies. No depressing stuff for me please!

I’ll post my list of movies before the end of the week. If you have any suggestions of movies (movies from your country, your favorite director, actors, or something you’ve already seen, anything) please do let me know in the comments section . In the mean time, a red carpet picture from last year .

I also realized I can’t be a proficient blogger in a course of one month, but it was more impossible to do when I blog only once a month for the past two years. At least now I’m learning faster .

I used to want to only wrote a blog post that was spectacular, one that everyone would find useful or interesting. Well… it’s hard to hit a target with a bow and arrow if you never practiced archery before. So here I am, practicing everyday, learning my way to write something that you would find interesting.

Would I do it again in February? I’m still pondering on that… What do you think? Would you keep up with my ramblings for another month ?