A few days ago, I rented The King's Speech from Video Ezy, because I heard that this movie was extremely well-received and I was eager to watch it as well. Now let me express my thoughts and feelings about this successful movie. :)
The King's Speech can be described as an historical drama, which depicts how King George VI overcomes his stammer with the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue, during the period around the 1920s to the 1930s, before World War II.
The movie begins with the Duke of York, who is the future King George VI (who is known to his family as Bertie) trying to make a speech to the public. However, he fails horribly, due to his terrible stutter. His wife Elizebeth tries to find various speech doctors in an attempt to cure his stutter. However, all of them fail until she persuades Bertie to seek the help of an Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue. After his father dies, Bertie's elder brother, David, who is the natural heir to the throne, takes to the throne. However, David wants to marry a (soon-to-be) twice divorced American socialite. As he cannot marry a divorced woman and retain the throne, David abdicates and Bertie very reluctantly takes to the throne. Meanwhile, Lionel has been helping Bertie improve his speaking, and although their friendship is tested and strained at some point, Bertie finally realises that he needs the help of Lionel to be able to speak eloquently. Finally, the movie ends when Bertie successfully makes a radio speech upon the declaration of war with Germany, with the help of Lionel coaching him throughout.
The King's Speech may appear to be a boring drama to some people, but in actual fact, it is an emotional and warm film. King George VI had a terrible stutter, and had a career that forced him to speak to the masses - only that Lionel Logue helped reconcile the two. On a side note, there is a certain sign of class tension, in which Lionel is a mere commoner and Bertie is a royal. The actors were marvellous throughout, and the emotional tension and conundrums that were present throughout the story were acted out and depicted extremely well. Colin Firth was brilliant in acting as Bertie; fear, hopelessness, self-irony, self loathing, courage, anger, he plays it all with supreme masterful skill. Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue was excellent as well, and his character was shown though tenacity and humour at times, resulting in a man who refused to be restricted by others of a higher social class.
The buildup to the final speech was nothing less than wonderful. The final scene was the most important one of them all, with King George VI walking up to the microphone slowly and silently, with all the staff and the household in tense silence, almost like he was walking up to the guillotine. Throughout his speech, there were different scenes of the whole of England listening to his broadcasted speech. This helped create a sense of great importance, and I cannot express how much of an emotional impact this had on me.
All in all, The King's Speech is an amazing historical drama, with values like resilience an important theme of the story. Ordinary people like you and I can also easily grasp the essence of the movie. I feel that it really reaches out to the viewer; it may be based on royalty, but in actual fact, the story itself is a simple one that is a resounding triumph.
Cheers,
Roystan
Friday, June 17, 2011
CIP: How it changed my mindset
Hi readers, I just came back from a tiring day of CIP with a few other friends of mine. So far, I had attended two full-day CIP sessions, each spanning 9 hours. To describe it briefly, it was something like Flag Day, in which volunteers had a tin with them and walked up to people and asked them for donations.
To be honest, in Secondary 1 I never really thought of CIP being an important part of school life. In my first year, most of my CIP were from compulsory CIP activities, the only exception being an Open House helper. At that time, I was practically going through the motions, and my only goal was just to meet the minimum requirement of 10 hours. Also, I didn't quite see the point of doing additional CIP as I felt that there wasn't much point in doing so. In retrospect, my thinking is really foolish and selfish, and I can't believe I was so different a year ago!
Anyway, my negative attitude carried on with me onto Secondary 2, and even then I didn't see the point in being a volunteer. However, the recent CIP sessions changed my mindset completely. As is for most people, walking up to random strangers on the street and asking for donations is quite awkward and most people would inevitably be a little too embarrassed the first few times. What's worse is that there was a high chance of rejection, which further adds on to the embarrassment.
For me, I was extremely shy to walk up to people to ask for donations at first, so I felt like a fish out of water, as I was seemingly just standing there rooted to the spot without any action whatsoever. After the while, it became better and I gradually became more confident. It was still pretty demoralising when people evidently tried to evade me or stare frostily at me when I ask them for donations. However, as the day went by, I got used to being rejected so I guess it didn't really matter. However, what I felt was the real challenge was standing out in the sun asking for donations for a straight 3 hours plus, and then another 3 hours after a 1 hr lunch break. It was extremely taxing, and factoring in the bulky weight of my tin, I felt pretty exhausted after a mere hour or so.
Evidently from what I had described above, doing this is definitely not a simple task, and is extremely taxing on the volunteers. This experience had made me appreciate the volunteers even more. They are doing all these tiring tasks for free, and I can really understand how difficult and tiring it can be to do volunteer work. Yet there are still many people who willingly help out! I'm really ashamed of how selfish I was last time, really. After this CIP session, I really learned to appreciate all the work that others do for us, and more importantly, I am aware of the positive effects of volunteering. In the future, I was surely volunteer for CIP again, not for the sake of doing it, but more importantly, for the sake of helping others.
Cheers,
Roystan
To be honest, in Secondary 1 I never really thought of CIP being an important part of school life. In my first year, most of my CIP were from compulsory CIP activities, the only exception being an Open House helper. At that time, I was practically going through the motions, and my only goal was just to meet the minimum requirement of 10 hours. Also, I didn't quite see the point of doing additional CIP as I felt that there wasn't much point in doing so. In retrospect, my thinking is really foolish and selfish, and I can't believe I was so different a year ago!
Anyway, my negative attitude carried on with me onto Secondary 2, and even then I didn't see the point in being a volunteer. However, the recent CIP sessions changed my mindset completely. As is for most people, walking up to random strangers on the street and asking for donations is quite awkward and most people would inevitably be a little too embarrassed the first few times. What's worse is that there was a high chance of rejection, which further adds on to the embarrassment.
For me, I was extremely shy to walk up to people to ask for donations at first, so I felt like a fish out of water, as I was seemingly just standing there rooted to the spot without any action whatsoever. After the while, it became better and I gradually became more confident. It was still pretty demoralising when people evidently tried to evade me or stare frostily at me when I ask them for donations. However, as the day went by, I got used to being rejected so I guess it didn't really matter. However, what I felt was the real challenge was standing out in the sun asking for donations for a straight 3 hours plus, and then another 3 hours after a 1 hr lunch break. It was extremely taxing, and factoring in the bulky weight of my tin, I felt pretty exhausted after a mere hour or so.
Evidently from what I had described above, doing this is definitely not a simple task, and is extremely taxing on the volunteers. This experience had made me appreciate the volunteers even more. They are doing all these tiring tasks for free, and I can really understand how difficult and tiring it can be to do volunteer work. Yet there are still many people who willingly help out! I'm really ashamed of how selfish I was last time, really. After this CIP session, I really learned to appreciate all the work that others do for us, and more importantly, I am aware of the positive effects of volunteering. In the future, I was surely volunteer for CIP again, not for the sake of doing it, but more importantly, for the sake of helping others.
Cheers,
Roystan
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Trip to Universal Studios :)
Hellooo everyone! This is the first post of Term 3; well actually, this is before Term 3, but never mind. :D Last Friday, my family and I went to Universal Studios Singapore, which recently had its official opening (I think?). I felt compelled to relate my experience, so here goes! :)
Last Friday, my family and I went to Universal Studios Singapore (USS), which recently had its official opening ( I think?). I felt compelled to describe my experience there, so here goes! :)
I was actually feeling pretty excited for this trip, as this is the first time that Singapore had such a big-scale and prolific theme park. I shan't describe too vividly how we went there (as in transportation), and I'll cut to the chase.
Needless to say, the tickets were really pricey, with the adult peak ticket costing $72 each, and the child peak ticker at $55. Since we had paid so much, I was expecting to use the best of our time there. From outside, the park didn't look particularly colossal, and actually looked pretty small, what's with the multitude of tourists streaming in. When we first stepped into the park, we were welcomed by a remake of the American streets of the past. There were many buildings designed to look like the older buildings of the past, and it really helped induce a nostalgic feeling of some sort.
The first attraction that we went to was 'Lights, Cameras, Action!'. It was essentially a display of a Category 5 hurricane, which is the deadliest type of hurricane, hitting an old boatshed. It served to show the audience how special effects, be it visual or audio, were utilised to create a realistic environment for the viewers. It was a stunning show, and I was in awe at the sheer power of the special effects. It really felt like the place was hit by a hurricane! Although this wasn't a 'ride', it was still thrilling and I really enjoyed it.
After that, we proceeded on to the Egyptian area, where there were cafes and attractions modelled and designed to recreate the atmosphere of Egypt and its pyramids. There was a ride there, named Revenge of the Mummy, and after placing our bags into a locker provided, we went to queue for the ride. And queue we did! The queue moved at a snail pace, and there seemed to be an endless line of people in front of us. I estimate we waited for around 45 minutes, give or take 10 minutes, before we got to sit the ride. It was basically about how we needed to obtain the Book of Life to defeat some evil pharaoh, Imhotep. The name Imhotep is vaguely familiar, but I just can't put my finger on it. Anyway, the whole ride resembled a ride through the tombs of the pharaohs, and it was extremely thrilling and tense, as there was a feeling of imminent doom, what's with the pharaoh trying to hunt you down. The roller coaster made unexpected and sudden movements, like suddenly moving backwards. This all added to the fun of the ride, and I must say it was quite worth the wait.
Afterwards, we headed to the Jurassic Park area, where as the name suggests, is an area revolving around the age of the dinosaurs. There was a really popular ride there, called the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure, which was a river raft ride in which we could sit in a circular raft and travel through the dinosaur habitats. There was a signboard indicating the estimated amount of time the people who just came in had to wait before sitting the ride. It said '75' and although this was pretty long as compared to the mummy ride, it was around one at that time and we figured that it was the ideal time for lunch after sitting the ride. However, as we found out the hard way, this was not the case, and we were stuck in the seemingly unmoving queue for close to TWO hours. The wait was horrible; there was virtually nothing to do over the course of two hours! To be frank, when we finally reached the end of the queue, I felt pretty accomplished ;) as we managed to wait for nearly two hours straight without doing anything! :D My family of four shared the raft with another American family. It turned out that there was a technical problem in the morning, which resulted in the water needing to be completely drained out, which explains the long wait. Actually, this family had previously queued for around an hour, when they were told that they could not sit the ride yet! This resulted in them having to wait foe another two hours or so, above the one hour previously! Our predicament didn't seem as bad as before after hearing their account. The ride was a fun one, as we travelled through the dinosaur habitat, which was brilliantly recreated. At the end of the ride, there was an unexpected plummet down, and needless to say, everyone was soaked! It was a pretty cool surprise, and although the short ride of around 4 minutes wasn't worth the tortuous wait, I still greatly enjoyed the ride. I'll recommend it to anyone, as the drop wasn't actually very scary, and is relatively easy to handle. Just be sure to prepare for your clothes to be soaked! :D
In a place like Universal Studios, extravagant prices were the norm, but for people like me who are too used to $3.50 chicken rice, the price of the food there was shocking. One set, consisting of a main dish, dessert and a drink, cost a whopping $10.50! Worse still, the food there weren't really of stellar quality, and tasted like the average hawker centre food. What a ripoff! In the end, lunch cost around $43, and if we had the same food at any hawker centre or food court, I daresay the price would probably be half the price, at the same quality!
After our not-so-affordable lunch, we went to the area named Far Far Away, which is an area dedicated to children fairytales like Shrek. Actually, in hindsight, I think most of the area was about Shrek. :O As we were sick and tired with long waiting times, coupled with the fact that it was already around 4, we were relieved to see that most of the attractions had short waiting times. The first attraction we went to was Shrek 4D, which was a short story involving the main characters of Shrek, all shown in stunning 4D. The show was your typical prince-save-princess tale, well actually ogre-save-ogress, but the 4D was simply amazing. It was a nice show, and I'm sure the audience were all impressed with the 4D as well. Well, I was!
Next up was a junior rollercoaster. If my memory doesn't fail me, I think it's called Enchanted Airways or something. It was a pretty typical rollercoaster, no biggie.
After the ride, we walked around the area, and decided to sit on some Madagascar-themed ride. It was a water ride, and I expected it to be similar to the Jurassic Park ride. However, I was mildly disappointed as it turned out that the ride was like a quick visual synopsis of the first Madagascar movie, only that we were travelling on water and not seated in a cinema, But all in all it was pretty okay since the wait was short.
When USS first opened to the public, there were numerous technical difficulties. It resulted in a certain ride breaking down and being rendered nonfunctional after merely a week or so. After rambling on for so long, let me present to you the Battlestar Galactica. It consisted of 2 types of rollercoasters, the Human and the Cylon. Apparently, Battlestar Galactica is a television series on its own, and featured the Human empire facing off with the Cylon empire. The Human was a traditional seated rollercoaster, whereas the Cylon was a suspended rollercoaster that at times became inverted. Here's a confessionL I have a phobia for rollercoasters. However hard my family tried to persuade me to take the ride, I stubbornly refused to. In hindsight, I don't really regret going against my parents at that time, as I may have been traumatised for a long time (okay, just kidding ^^). Anyway, I did not take both rollercoasters, and if I ever have the chance to go to USS again, I may want to try this, But for now, I'm staying put with Enchanted Airways. :D
The last ride was some teacup thing that had you spinning around in a teacup. It was supposed to make you dizzy and stuff, but it was still pretty manageable to me, so yeah it was okay. :)
At the end of the day, I was dead beat and reached home at around 10.30. It was really enjoyable, and I really like how we don't have to travel to other countries to visit a world-class theme park because we can do that right here in Singapore! However, in retrospect, I probably won't be going to USS again in the near future, since the prices there were so exorbitant, and that the theme park was actually pretty small, with considerably few attractions relative to other Universal Studios overseas. It was still a wonderful trip, and I recommend anyone who has not been to Universal Studios to spend a day at USS; you won't regret it. :)
Cheers,
Roystan
Last Friday, my family and I went to Universal Studios Singapore (USS), which recently had its official opening ( I think?). I felt compelled to describe my experience there, so here goes! :)
I was actually feeling pretty excited for this trip, as this is the first time that Singapore had such a big-scale and prolific theme park. I shan't describe too vividly how we went there (as in transportation), and I'll cut to the chase.
Needless to say, the tickets were really pricey, with the adult peak ticket costing $72 each, and the child peak ticker at $55. Since we had paid so much, I was expecting to use the best of our time there. From outside, the park didn't look particularly colossal, and actually looked pretty small, what's with the multitude of tourists streaming in. When we first stepped into the park, we were welcomed by a remake of the American streets of the past. There were many buildings designed to look like the older buildings of the past, and it really helped induce a nostalgic feeling of some sort.
The first attraction that we went to was 'Lights, Cameras, Action!'. It was essentially a display of a Category 5 hurricane, which is the deadliest type of hurricane, hitting an old boatshed. It served to show the audience how special effects, be it visual or audio, were utilised to create a realistic environment for the viewers. It was a stunning show, and I was in awe at the sheer power of the special effects. It really felt like the place was hit by a hurricane! Although this wasn't a 'ride', it was still thrilling and I really enjoyed it.
After that, we proceeded on to the Egyptian area, where there were cafes and attractions modelled and designed to recreate the atmosphere of Egypt and its pyramids. There was a ride there, named Revenge of the Mummy, and after placing our bags into a locker provided, we went to queue for the ride. And queue we did! The queue moved at a snail pace, and there seemed to be an endless line of people in front of us. I estimate we waited for around 45 minutes, give or take 10 minutes, before we got to sit the ride. It was basically about how we needed to obtain the Book of Life to defeat some evil pharaoh, Imhotep. The name Imhotep is vaguely familiar, but I just can't put my finger on it. Anyway, the whole ride resembled a ride through the tombs of the pharaohs, and it was extremely thrilling and tense, as there was a feeling of imminent doom, what's with the pharaoh trying to hunt you down. The roller coaster made unexpected and sudden movements, like suddenly moving backwards. This all added to the fun of the ride, and I must say it was quite worth the wait.
Afterwards, we headed to the Jurassic Park area, where as the name suggests, is an area revolving around the age of the dinosaurs. There was a really popular ride there, called the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure, which was a river raft ride in which we could sit in a circular raft and travel through the dinosaur habitats. There was a signboard indicating the estimated amount of time the people who just came in had to wait before sitting the ride. It said '75' and although this was pretty long as compared to the mummy ride, it was around one at that time and we figured that it was the ideal time for lunch after sitting the ride. However, as we found out the hard way, this was not the case, and we were stuck in the seemingly unmoving queue for close to TWO hours. The wait was horrible; there was virtually nothing to do over the course of two hours! To be frank, when we finally reached the end of the queue, I felt pretty accomplished ;) as we managed to wait for nearly two hours straight without doing anything! :D My family of four shared the raft with another American family. It turned out that there was a technical problem in the morning, which resulted in the water needing to be completely drained out, which explains the long wait. Actually, this family had previously queued for around an hour, when they were told that they could not sit the ride yet! This resulted in them having to wait foe another two hours or so, above the one hour previously! Our predicament didn't seem as bad as before after hearing their account. The ride was a fun one, as we travelled through the dinosaur habitat, which was brilliantly recreated. At the end of the ride, there was an unexpected plummet down, and needless to say, everyone was soaked! It was a pretty cool surprise, and although the short ride of around 4 minutes wasn't worth the tortuous wait, I still greatly enjoyed the ride. I'll recommend it to anyone, as the drop wasn't actually very scary, and is relatively easy to handle. Just be sure to prepare for your clothes to be soaked! :D
In a place like Universal Studios, extravagant prices were the norm, but for people like me who are too used to $3.50 chicken rice, the price of the food there was shocking. One set, consisting of a main dish, dessert and a drink, cost a whopping $10.50! Worse still, the food there weren't really of stellar quality, and tasted like the average hawker centre food. What a ripoff! In the end, lunch cost around $43, and if we had the same food at any hawker centre or food court, I daresay the price would probably be half the price, at the same quality!
After our not-so-affordable lunch, we went to the area named Far Far Away, which is an area dedicated to children fairytales like Shrek. Actually, in hindsight, I think most of the area was about Shrek. :O As we were sick and tired with long waiting times, coupled with the fact that it was already around 4, we were relieved to see that most of the attractions had short waiting times. The first attraction we went to was Shrek 4D, which was a short story involving the main characters of Shrek, all shown in stunning 4D. The show was your typical prince-save-princess tale, well actually ogre-save-ogress, but the 4D was simply amazing. It was a nice show, and I'm sure the audience were all impressed with the 4D as well. Well, I was!
Next up was a junior rollercoaster. If my memory doesn't fail me, I think it's called Enchanted Airways or something. It was a pretty typical rollercoaster, no biggie.
After the ride, we walked around the area, and decided to sit on some Madagascar-themed ride. It was a water ride, and I expected it to be similar to the Jurassic Park ride. However, I was mildly disappointed as it turned out that the ride was like a quick visual synopsis of the first Madagascar movie, only that we were travelling on water and not seated in a cinema, But all in all it was pretty okay since the wait was short.
When USS first opened to the public, there were numerous technical difficulties. It resulted in a certain ride breaking down and being rendered nonfunctional after merely a week or so. After rambling on for so long, let me present to you the Battlestar Galactica. It consisted of 2 types of rollercoasters, the Human and the Cylon. Apparently, Battlestar Galactica is a television series on its own, and featured the Human empire facing off with the Cylon empire. The Human was a traditional seated rollercoaster, whereas the Cylon was a suspended rollercoaster that at times became inverted. Here's a confessionL I have a phobia for rollercoasters. However hard my family tried to persuade me to take the ride, I stubbornly refused to. In hindsight, I don't really regret going against my parents at that time, as I may have been traumatised for a long time (okay, just kidding ^^). Anyway, I did not take both rollercoasters, and if I ever have the chance to go to USS again, I may want to try this, But for now, I'm staying put with Enchanted Airways. :D
The last ride was some teacup thing that had you spinning around in a teacup. It was supposed to make you dizzy and stuff, but it was still pretty manageable to me, so yeah it was okay. :)
At the end of the day, I was dead beat and reached home at around 10.30. It was really enjoyable, and I really like how we don't have to travel to other countries to visit a world-class theme park because we can do that right here in Singapore! However, in retrospect, I probably won't be going to USS again in the near future, since the prices there were so exorbitant, and that the theme park was actually pretty small, with considerably few attractions relative to other Universal Studios overseas. It was still a wonderful trip, and I recommend anyone who has not been to Universal Studios to spend a day at USS; you won't regret it. :)
Cheers,
Roystan
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