Thursday

Letters from Iwo Jima just came out today... and there's no one to watch with me... =(
yz, my war buddy, says he'll catch it with me tmr... hmm.. gotta ask him tmr again
nuan is busy with her essay. oh philo, OMG. philo is one subject that only certain people can appreciate, and i am not one of them. she's now flipping through the webcasts and praying for a miracle from socrates. HA.

Anyway, Letters (the film) is about the ill-fated defence of Iwo Jima, told using the Jap perspective. After going through GEK2022 (Samurai, Geisha and Yongqiang), it is certainly interesting to try to avoid stereotyping these banzai soldiers as bloodthirsty orcs or trolls holding on to this rock in the East China Sea (?), as what is seen in US propaganda war films and computer games such as Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. Japs (Japanese soldiers) seem to always be depicted as gutteral beings firing lousy one-shot-reload rifles and are remembered for their banzai charge with bayonets glinting in the air and a horrifying war-cry. And during occupation, they are in charge of cutting limbs, heads, and bayonetting innocent civilians, as shown in the local production, The Price of Peace, and many others.

While all of this may be true in history, Letters seem to give the humane story of a loser, battling in vain. Many of a time, we have been victors, such that we do not know the sting of losing; some cannot take it, some are at a certain loss of what to do.

I believe, other than the killing that takes place in the film, the show will nevertheless focus on themes like brotherhood, loyalty vs humanity. and i believe it will be worth its 4 stars. haha

***

slacked the whole afternoon away.. read through ONCE the glucose notes.

basically, our body is like a car, and glucose units are like petrol cans. it is even better than a car, cos it can consume glucose and turn it into CASH (NADH, FADH2, NADPH) which can be redeemed at the ETC "bank" into ATP, which can be used to fuel other energy requirements. it can store its own glucose by condensing it into a highly branched form known as glycogen, and "re-cycle" its glucose through gluconeogenesis, as well as convert to other forms of "kerosene, motor oil" through the hexose monophosphate shunt.

amazing! i shall draw the mind map later.

at every pathway there are "switches" (enzymes) which can be turned on and off, like something u play in 2-d video games. turn on, the pathway moves to the right, turned off, the pathway moves to the left, etc.

actually. the whole thing is much like a video game. lolz.
just don't make me answer the questions in detail. ha.

(lets see if i can still say this in april-may)