Surfergirl Republic

Tuesday, 6 May 2008

I CAN HARDLY WAIT!

It's got me laughing for days. And its just the TRAILER.

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Travelling Comes Closer Than You Think

Having worked in the travel industry, I observed that I am now more discerning when it comes to trips, especially vacation packages.
Those attractive brochures may seem overwhelming but somehow there's a way to know where to look , where to pay attention , and where not to get distracted.
As ZK and I were discussing the other week, being a travel agent will soon be a profession of the past. Once you know where to go and how to go, you don't really need someone else to persuade/entice you where to go. Nowadays, pretty much everything can be done online. Booking holidays and cruises can be done right inside your own home.
There are gazillions of travel sites out there, and a good one in particular is Travel Store.
and for those who like cruises, Cruise Locator would be helpful.
They steer away from travelling trends (such as frenzy for South America these days), rather they showcase 'up and coming' tourism sites (from Oz anyway), such as vacation packages Costa Rica.

Though we don't really have any plans to go to Central America soon, this site keeps me preoccupied planning our future trips.

Thursday, 10 April 2008

TULLY/PAULLINA SIMONS

Flamingo (Harper Collins Publishers). 611pages

Like all other books in the TOP 100 BOOKS list (of both Dymocks and Angus & Robertson), I’ve been seeing this book for a while now but haven’t even given it a thought. Picked it up a few times and the synopsis looked belugh (very typical).

And then I saw a former co-worker bringing this book everyday (despite the massive thickness). She told me I just HAVE to read it. It was her 5th time re-reading it so naturally, I was intrigued.

The story revolves around Natalie Anne “Tully” Makker, growing up in Topeka, Kansas in the 70’s with her two bestfriends–Julie Martinez and Jennifer Mandolini.

Dark dreaded family secrets and undertones of V.C Andrew elements surface when storyline shows that Tully comes home to an abusive and overbearing mother who, because she’s convinced her rebellious daughter is a SL*T, always beats her to a pulp.

A disastrous incident happens just before the girls graduate from high school and as all disasters do, it “changes their lives forever”.

Tully soon steps into adulthood–gaining independence, getting married and having a family. But one thing remains the same–she’s still a woman of few words, stoic, and selfish.

I can clearly see why so many people love this book. The story gets you hooked, it’s very captivating (especially at the beginning) –and it has such a perfect storyline for a soapie. As the lead person in the book, Tully’s character is strongly established that you will feel you know her head to toe, you feel you can complete her sentences which are always dripping with sarcasm.

I didn’t feel any ounce of compassion for Tully at all and the choices she make always destroyed the lives of people who care for her. I think that one important thing in making and developing a character, is to make him/her at least moderately likeable enough. Tully’s heartlessness is too unbelievable that I wanted her to suffer in the end.

I’m not going to make sense if you haven’t read the book, and I’m not about to give away any plot bombs, but I thought the story ended very pathetically. The author made a long path/development for Tully to engage herself in a situation that compromised her marriage and friendship. But it felt too rushed in the end, when she makes yet another lousy decision.

Like I said, in terms of dramatic entertainment, Tully is really good. It’s a story that will definitely make a big impact. But I just can’t stand how the other characters in the story could be so dumb.

Overall verdict: Highly entertaining but at the same time frustrating.

Paullina Simons, author of “Tully”

Labels: BOOKS

Monday, 7 April 2008

Harry Connick, Jr in Canberra

Zk's birthday gift for me this year. Loved it! And here he is singing "It Had to Be You"

Sunday, 30 March 2008

BOOKREVIEW: APRIL FOOL'S DAY/BRYCE COURTENAY

Penguin Books Australia Ltd. 639 pages

If you are a book lover in Australia, you’d definitely have read at least one or two of Bryce Courtenay’s books. Look into any Oz book shop, and most likely you will see that Courtenay’s books are dominating the best-sellers shelves.

Almost a year ago, a co-worker and I were talking about past jobs, and she used to be in the health department and she was telling me about her paper–she was working on hemophilliacs.

Up until that time, I honestly didn’t even know what hemophillia was ( shame shame shame) and I was astonished to hear that such a condition is in fact quite common.

A very basic description of the condition :

Hemophilia is a rare bleeding disorder that prevents the blood from clotting properly.

Small bruises or cuts that could otherwise be brushed off by normal people, can be very fatal to a a hemophilliac.

April Fool’s Day is a non-fictional account/ tribute of Bryce Courtenay’’s personal experience with a hemophilliac: his own son, Damon Courtenay was born a hemophilliac, and died at 23 years of age.

Courtenay describes this book as mainly being about love, and the major goal of him and his family (wife, son and son’s girlfriend) in writing this book is to change people’s perspective about the condition, and most especially that of HIV.

Back then , hemophilliacs had almost 90% chance of acquiring HIV because of the endless blood transfusions they needed.

To be critical of a book that has such important/noble content may seem unfair, but this book is quite heavy and depressing.

This is my first Bryce Courtenay book and if I were to judge his writing talent through this book, I wouldn’t pick up any of his other works. But perhaps this is an exception, after all it’s a personal account, and when you write something painful and close to your heart, the last thing you have in mind is how it would appeal to your reader.

The education and awareness that it gives the reader about HIV, AIDS, and Hemophilia are the pros to this work.

Tear factor: extremely high.