considering how difficult it usually is for the neutral me to really like something, it must be somewhat telling if i start and continue raving about Howl's Moving Castle in the next 2 min or so? =P the movie reminded me why i love Studio Ghibli so much more than Disney or Pixar; what a brilliant art/animation genius Miyazaki is, how you definitely don't have to understand certain things to really love them, how a lovely music score really makes the movie so enjoyable... i definitely liked it better than Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, The Cat Returns and possibly even Laputa Castle in the Sky, which i quite liked... dunno if it's my favorite, but definitely one of my favorites! the creativity and talent of these animation folks just puts me to shame. aiyah of course it would be hypocritical to not admit that i was from time to time blown away by the male protagonist, Howl... no harm indulging in fantasies when watching something as magical as this right? =)

Of John Stuart Mill and nude women in Renaissance paintings

Mill's one of the favorite thinkers i have read thus far, just cos some of his arguments in "On Liberty' are just so well put... shall share some snippets i like.. =)
On following customs..
"He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used"
then, "he who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation"
On individuality...
"even despotism does not produce its worse effects, so long as Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism...."
And lastly, one of my favorite parts in this piece,
"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates.... a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment.....he who pursues animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect- must expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share of their favorable sentiments, but of this he has no right to complain...."
so dead right, but not something i can claim to dare to live by...

hmm ok this has been a really long post, but i really want to add something on a video i saw in my Art class today... the art expert was saying how in Renaissance paintings, nude women were painted in such a way to appeal to their male spectators... and so according to him, these women were often looking out of the pictures, even if they were engaged in some scandalous poses with the men in the paintings ; that they were in languid poses, lying around...i guess in a way to boost the male ego subconsciously... and of the thousands of painters who painted nude women, perhaps only a handful depicted women and their bodies as they were... others manipulated their images in some way... i never really thought of these paintings in this manner and i wonder how true it is? but then i guess cos i am not particularly enthusiastic about Renaissance paintings... it's something to ponder over... if i go Italy and visit musuems again... =P

My chio, silver, look-in-Sim-Lim-for-one-whole-afternoon optical mouse has malfunctioned and i'm very upset cos i dun think i can find anything like it again... =( but i guess it's my fault cos i dropped it once recently...
sigh but i've also come to realize that things may be irreplaceable but we can often work our way round things...i guess for the time being i'll just end up using my touchpad all the time instead of anyhow getting some ugly mouse... haha i'm so picky =P and i guess when a lot of things fail or disappear we get upset for some time but we wun die without them...moaning all day over your loss perhaps isn't the most constructive thing to do...

and so plans for my parents to visit have been shelved and i guess i'll go back to sg after summer sch... wonder if i'll have the time to visit my DC roommate in LA and go to (a) Disneyland for the FIRST time?? haha. Japan travel plans have been put away too and now i'm planning to just go to China... i really do look forward to going there, to experience it for myself, and after reading so much and hearing so much about it... i really want to see it again for myself... my most vivid childhood memories of China were of the stinky no-door toilets, esp the one on the way to the Great Wall, when my mum had to put 'feng1you2' on a piece of tissue to cover up my nose in order to make me go in... hmm not something i want to remb China by... and of course, it would be cool to visit Jing in Beijing and DC friend in Shanghai... and my Prof once told me to tell her when i go visit, such that she can give me contacts and let me see some of the migrant schs/ schs for the poor..... though i doubt that's going to happen lah. i wonder what i'll get out of a short touristy visit? anyway, i'm excited! but in the meantime, it's sch and more sch... and figuring out how to make tank tops for new Art project =P