Oh my darling Miyazaki sensei a.k.a. How to destroy a daydream#1

I hope by now everybody who follows this blog knows who Miyazaki sensei is and how much I love him and his jobs.

But if you’re new and/or you don’t know these things, here he is:

And you can find some information about him here and about his work here.

A few weeks ago he decided to retire. Miyazaki Hayao retires at the age of 72.

Only after the choc wore off and the news sank in, I realized that my daydream will never come true.

If you remember here I told you how I’d love he could transform one of my stories into an animation movie.

Franny is very sad right now because he has retired.

The only thing I can hope is that he’ll get so bored at home doing nothing that he’ll decide to go back…yes, and wait for me! Oh dear…

You may say that he’s not the only one in Ghibli Studio and that it’s not fair I react like this because every honest and great worker deserve rest at the end of his or her own career.

You’re right on both sides. Some of my favourite films are directed by other people who still work there!

But Miyazaki was the symbol, like a human Totoro, if you know what I mean! And that’s why above all I decided to write to Miyazaki sensei my first Oh my darling letter.

 

Dear Miyazaki sensei,

I’m writing this letter just to let you know how much I love your work and I respect your art.

In a world where everything runs and rushes to gain money regardless the quality of the product they’re offering, your Ghibli Studio slowly but surely delivered pearls.

I love your pieces of arts. I will never finish to bless that day you decided to become an artist and then to open the Studio and then keep going without following the mainstream, although that meant just releasing less films and with a big gap among them.

We, fans of Ghibli Studio, know your effort and we’re ready to wait till the next masterpiece, sure that you won’t disappoint us.

Of course I have my favourites and I can gladly see that Maya is developing the same taste!

I love Totoro because is so cute and genuine. It’s something children can dream of! Also grownups not so grown up can dream of!

I love Howl moving castle because it encourages me all the time to keep going on and dream and also it gives me hope that sooner or later I’ll manage to make my dream become true.

I love Spirited away for the same reason. And also because it makes you hope in a better and more respectful world.

I love Whisper of the heart because it touches me deeply as I want to be a writer, and makes me think that sooner or later it will be possible.

But this is just a few, I love all of them. I love all the works of your Studio. I love even The grave of fireflies, but I can’t watch it anymore because it makes me cry all the times.

The great magic your animation movies perform is moving deep feelings inside me, allowing them coming out in a nicer and more positive way. Every time I watch a new film or I watch an old one for the umpth time, I feel full of energy and ready to work and create myself.

I can only hope that all the people who will follow your footsteps will stay on your same page and never change the way you worked. Also I hope that they’ll keep going on with the same passion and love for the art and respect for their fans and their intelligence and feelings.

Thanks sensei,

Francesca.

 

Franny’s news #4

 

Maya is now 21 months old and she’s more and more active as the days go by. Now she says a few words, for some reason the majority of them only in English. But at least she’s polite, she always says “Tattiu” when you give her something!

***

My partner and I felt sick lately. We got a nasty bug that put us on our knees together. It’s always annoying when you feel sick but when it happens at the same time and you don’t have any grandparent around to help it can be very tricky.

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I’ve finished the seventh season of Supernatural. And I must say that at the very end it becomes interesting. I mean this one was the most boring and I’m sorry to say that as I love the show. Now  I have high hopes for the 8^th. I know I’m a bit behind!

***

I loved so much The Hunger Games trilogy that I’m trying to do my best to avoid starting again from the first book. I must finish before the books I’m reading at present and then once I’ll manage to finish them I have to read something else! But you can be sure I’m going to read them again first thing next year.

***

I found out that reading before sleeping helps to relax and to wake up happier. Now it’s even easier than ever falling asleep considering that I resumed The Lord of the Rings – The two towers. I hope to finish it by the end of this year. It’s one if the books left from last year.

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In work the flow of tourists is a tiny bit quieter and the nice calm and pleasant customers start to appear again. Why do you want to go on holiday and be stressed all the times?

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My blog posts about my night out and dentist are almost done. I know that it doesn’t make much sense publish them now but still it took me time and effort to write them. What I mean is that it took me long to write them down because it is a nasty period and I want to publish them anyway.

***

I had a tour last week with a Japanese group and I felt very happy to be able to follow and to listen to the Irish guide speaking perfectly. On one hand I have to be happy because I followed the explanation fairly well but on the other hand I felt sad because I’m forgetting a lot of this lovely language. I felt a bit down knowing that I’ll never be able to reach such a standard.

***

The past few weeks have been a bit of roller coaster. Many downsides, more than I wished, to be honest. We felt sick, I forgot things I was supposed to do, and I messed up with work. And last but not least I feel very, very tired.

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New update about my NaNo project: as I mentioned in the post before it will involve using my alter ago Rainbow D. Fran and I’ll set it in my fantasy world, Sonrisa. I hope to enjoy just the fun.

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I found out some notes on writing by Neil Gaiman, while wasting my time on facebook. So here is the link for you. My favourite is: “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” Although number 8 is one of my secret wish.

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As you might have noticed I didn’t put any picture in this news issue! The reason is that I want to attract your attention on this video. I cried the first time I watched it and the second and so on… Please, take the few minutes that it requires because it’s very nice.

I wish these small acts of kindness were more common in our present times. 

The hunger games heritage

 

Here I am again blabbering about the trilogy I’ve just finished! I promise I won’t be too morbid about that! The thing is that I thought a lot during the past two weeks and I think it would be nice to share with you what these books left me with.

Enthusiasm first of all.

I feel my hands itching again with the eagerness! I want to write and to create.

The only inconvenience to all this is that my fear and my lack of self-confidence seem doubled. I fear I will never be able to create such a nice book (whatever language I’d use). And even if I could make it, I fear I could be the one book writer.

Said that, believe it or not, it’s helped to see my life as well in a different way! Maybe it’s just too easy to impress me as my partner always says!

But, you see, all that talking about the hunger and post war difficulties ringed a dormant bell in my brain. When I was in elementary school I was asked all the time to do research about the post Second World War period or to interview all the old people living in the area about their habits and how did they play and eat and live. Now, although this might seem a harsh task for 8 years old pupils – considering that a part from that we didn’t do any math or Italian or whatever subject – and I don’t remember much of all that, I must say that at least I remember the sensation of despair and sadness coming from their words although many years had passed.

So once I read the book I started to question myself about having so much or about the way we’re eating. We waste loads of food, we cook in abundance and we don’t have much sense of the way we should do it properly. I speak in general for the people I know and me. To this consideration you have to add that my dietician –once again we stuff ourselves and then we need dietician – gave me a food diary to keep and what shocked me was realizing that the majority of the times I eat without being hungry.

This is wrong but now after the reflection I’ve been doing lately I’d say it’s alarming! So now I try to eat only when I need to and in a more reasonable way and I feel better.

Said that, and you may agree on it or not, the other things I’m left with are wishes.

I wish I could be able to create such a powerful setting even not going so deep in details. I wish I could create such powerful characters. I wish I could create such a consistent story full of twists and able to keep the interest of the readers always vigilant.

Then immediately after that I started to think.

Why do other books don’t grab you in the same way? (I know there is the bit about the right time to read a book or just the simple matter of taste). Is maybe the great quantity of character that distracts you? And this might be a problem because in the books I’m planning to write the number of character increases a lot with the time and the story passing by. The last part of the story will have to deal with at least 14 characters who for the role they have are kind of all main characters…I might think about that…

I mean, if you think about Game of Thrones: it is good and filled my head with images created from the reading and sometimes I dreamed about that, but it’s also true that it didn’t take me like The Huger Games did. The demonstration to this is that I gladly put it aside in order to read the trilogy. And just don’t forget that I love Game of Thrones, in particular a few characters who, as far as I know, aren’t dead yet! Martin could have been a serial killer and then decided to be a writer!

Concluding the post I have to say that first of all I’m going to read the three books again soon, because they give me positive energy. Also I have to thank them because they gave me the bust of energy I needed to start writing again in healthy way!

Finally I think that for this year NaNoWriMo I want to try first person narrator and present tense. Once I was told that the best form of admiration is emulating someone. I agree on that but also I see it as experimenting different kind of narration.

As I decided to use my alter ego Rainbow D. Fran (you remember her right?) in her accounts of travel and adventures I suppose that first person was the right choice anyway. I’ll just try to use the present tense rather than the past and see where it leads.

I think that’s that for the moment.

Thanks Suzanne Collins!

 

The Hunger Games

I think that since I disappeared in order to read it, at least one post is in order!

Oh boy! Where should I start?!

There is so much I want to say and maybe so much I won’t be able to say, mostly because while I was reading I forgot to jot down my impressions.

As you can imagine, since I put my blog on hold, these three books hooked me completely. It’s a good sensation as it has been ages since I was so taken and so attracted and so in love and so fast in reading.

I still feel confused, mainly because I’m still in book hangover or so I think. But it might be slightly different, maybe there is more.

I feel like I’m still in Panem and I don’t want to leave. I’m still with the characters and in the now familiar places. Personally I have books that I can barely finish, and when I do is usually a relief, books that I like, books that I just want to reread and books that I absolutely love.

As you know you won’t find a review below, it’s just really my impression on the trilogy!

What I know is that I must give an order to all these words, any kind of it, because I realize that I’m so excited and so into it that I’m just confusing everybody!

So I’d say I’ll follow the order of the books and again I might leave outside things. I reserve the right to update my impression the next time I’ll read the trilogy. Because I will!

First book. The hunger game.

The reason why I bought the books is because they were in special offer. I remember that I thought I wanted to read them anyway sooner or later.

Then I watched the first film. Not so great! I mean once you’ve watched already Battle Royale and Contenders you just think this one is the same story put in a different contest!

Just out of curiosity and because the black cover was standing out the coloured sea of the spines of the other books in my shelf I decided to open the first page.

First person narrator. Present tense.

I thought that it might be interesting and most of all that maybe they messed up with the film! I’m watching it again now while I’m writing the post just to make sure!

 Although the content had to adapt to the cinema timing, and I was sure that it was less disastrous than it usually is because Suzanne Collins herself revised the script, there was something wrong, but I didn’t know what it was until I read the second book.

As it usually happens the book was much, much better than the film. It was exactly what I was looking for, more details, more characters, going much deeper into the world she created.

But, most of all, reading the books, made me realize that there are still written things out there that can shake me entirely.

Ninety per cent of the time my heart was drumming so fast to give me pain. I’m not kidding. Maybe the fact that it was written in first person centred perfectly its aim.

After I’ve finished the trilogy though, I can say that maybe the first one was the worst of the three books. Still it is perfect if you want to know better the characters and the world of Panem, so over all I liked it.

Book two. Catching fire.

I think it’s the best of the three; it was the one I read in less days. And it was the one that make me fall in love with Peeta! Now, hold the horses here, you heard me right!

Sometimes in my life I fall in love with a fictional character. So what? I’m sure that any bookworm can understand me! For me it was the third time!

And this is the funny part. The other two were Genji (from The tale of Genji. A book from the Japanese medieval literature by Murasaki Shikibu) and the count of Monte Cristo (I guess you know who he is now!). Different periods, different genre, different kind of characters and different writers; I’m still trying to figure out while I love all of them!

Peeta is the last one of the list. So you would excuse me if I don’t understand why the production picked this guy:

Now, nothing personal! I mean he can be the best actor ever, but that’s not the point. The books stress on his blond hair and blue eyes, those blue eyes where after a while you lose yourself into! And his arms where you can be lost in endless embrace!

Josh Hutcherson isn’t Peeta. They had to change his hair colour, and his eyes are the darkest I’ve ever seen. And a part form that, he’s clearly smaller and shorter that Katniss! I don’t see the point! I have at least two or three of my youngest colleague who could fit the role instead!

But let’s see what the second film will give us. I mean they might have chosen him for his sweet smile, but I’m not convinced.

You see, while reading the first book, the faces of Peeta and Josh Hutcherson matched in a way, then the real character came out completely in Catching Fire.

A part from that Catching Fire was more heart-breaking than the first one, more romantic without slipping into not real-like too sugary emotions. I must say that I would have killed Katniss a couple of times but that just shows how the writer was good in her building the characters and their behaviour.

They were real and consistent thought the trilogy! And I loved it.

 

Book three. The mokingjay.

This is where the heart drums and tachycardia and relationship I had with the fictional characters reached the climax.

The funny bit was that I read the synopsis before starting the book and I had peeks through the entire book and also to the last pages, more than once.

And still, while I was reading I couldn’t believe something like that was happening. All the events unveiled page after page weren’t obvious or taken for granted.

And it’s the book where I suffered most and I cried most! The treatment Peeta received in the Capitol and also the way he was transformed by it. It wasn’t him anymore and as I grew to love him, it was unbearable!

I remember that I cried like a stupid while reading, maybe for the tenth time, the finale and when I closed the cover I just asked “What am I going to read now!?” completely forgotten that I have at least other 6 book to finish.

 

Ok, I’ll wrap it up!

These books are the kind that you want to reread and linger into. And play in your head again and again and again. And I think I’ll do although now I have to finish the ones I put on hold!

I’m going to read them again for sure. I’m going to wait for the films as well, but I suspect that a part of me will be so hypercritical that my partner will decide to watch them by himself!

I loved the books, I didn’t think it could happen, I didn’t aspect it to happen, but you’ll deal with it!

The only question is: have you ever felt this way reading something? Am I normal in reacting this way? Or do you think that for some reason my brain cells are completely lost and gone!?

Closed for reading!

Despite my promise to come back and telling you something that happened during last month I’m not very present still! The reason is that I’m working hard, the flu hit me, but most of all I decided to start to read a book…yes, another one, on the top of the list of the unfinished ones!

The bad news is that it hooked me so much that I have to leave until I’ll complete the trilogy –  and for my standards I’ll be pretty quick – but the good news, at least for me, is that I have the three books already because I found a nice offer at the book store.

I have a few post already jotted down, so I definitely come back once this madness will leave me! Period of time in which the number of unread mail will rise again and all the other things will be left behind!!!

What am I reading? The answer could make some of you smile and could make some of you stop following my blog, but to be honest I haven’t been so hooked for ages.

The trilogy I’m talking about is the “Hunger Games”. I’m almost over with the first volume. I’ll write down my impression, and not a review, as you can imagine, as soon as I’ll finish the entire story!

Maybe they’re not the best books in the world, but I have to read them, something has glued me to the pages and to the main characters!

I’ll see you at the end of the third book!

Thanks for understanding!

 

Blog on the go! – Oblivion

As I previously mentioned, I don’t really like to write down reviews, but when something strikes me in a good or in a bad or in a weird way I have to put it down my thoughts to avoid keeping thinking about it!

That’s what I’m doing now, with Oblivion starring Tom Cruise! So just to be clear once again, the following one isn’t a review, it’s just what I think about that! You won’t even find the summary of it, because it would be a waste of time!

Did I like it? Well let’s say this: to remain in fictional terms I’d say I would have preferred to be obliviate, if you know what I’m talking about! (If you don’t know and don’t want to read Harry Potter, at least watch the last film, you’ll get an idea!)

I mean it’s not like I didn’t like it at all, but it didn’t make much sense to me.

First of all I shouldn’t watch such a film with my partner. After, I think, the 5^th minute he already told me the finale! This is something very disturbing, firstly because you don’t understand how he did it (of course when the film ends!), and secondly because everything was spoiled, because what he said was of course more interesting that the scenes I was watching. The consequence of it was that I tried to follow the images I was seeing and, at the same time, my brain was working and twisting the possible ending he was talking about!

Anyway, a part from a few details, it was like he said, and this left a bitter taste into my head. Also the forced happy fairy tale/ I_don’t_want_to_be_too_mean ending left me with some sadness I couldn’t really explain!

In the evening, when we were deciding what to watch, he was staring at the TV screen and said “After Oblivion, we might as well watch Humpf!”

This is Humf!

Now don’t misunderstand, I like Tom Cruise and I don’t remember if I mentioned to you he came over my workplace a couple of months ago, after he visited Ireland for Oblivion premiere. He’s also better-looking live than in films and pictures! But, to be honest, if I watched the film already I would have thrown a pint at him!!!! Of course after admiring his beautiful smile!

Excuse me, it’s a brief post, but I had to say it before going on, otherwise the critique and polemic neurons would nudge my brain for ever and ever and ever and ever!

My conclusion is, watch it if you want, but only if you really don’t have anything else to do!

And speaking of, now I have over 500 emails to read or pass or delete! I was left behind but I’ll try to do my best to catch up!

 

 

Dreaming of gardens and toilets #3 – Double bill!

I might have been away from this pages but I kept dreaming. It’s a pity I couldn’t remember all of them, mostly because I didn’t write them down in time.

Luckily, I nailed the last few day’s ones, more vivid in my head, and I was able to record at least a couple of scenes.

So here we go, for your personal entertainment.

 

31/08/13

I was in a DVD shop and I was having a look around. Immediately after I was attending a dinner; there was a long table full of people and at some stage I needed the toilet. I went to the bathroom and there was only one of them vacant. The toilet was full of water up to the rim, but I needed badly so I started to put toilet paper on the seat. As I was doing that the toilet was becoming taller and taller and I wondered how I could do my business by the time I finished. Once there I realized that in the next cubicle there was L., a friend of mine, very drunk and sighing. She was elegantly dressed in black and she didn’t want to go back to the restaurant room. So I decided to bring her in there and leave her at my table, as her partner was nowhere to be found. Then I went away with my partner and some friends. Maya was left with relatives and from the door I saw that a blond little fellow gave her a kiss. She was giggling.

 

Something never happened before, I dreamed the following night about toilet again! I think I was nervous because I knew I was going to be in a new section in work!

 

01/09/13

I was in the new tasting room in work; we prepared food as well on the concourse. It was a nice display of bread and crackers and hams and so on.

When we entered in the room itself, it wasn’t the real room but it was a restaurant with a very high ceiling.

I ended up in a part of the restaurant where a dais was, and on the top of that there was a red potty shaped like a train. As I was bursting I had no other option than using the train potty! I was weeing when all the wee squirted all over in front catching my colleague C. who for some reason was sitting in front of me….

I know this was a bit disgusting, so that’s maybe why I didn’t remember the next part or I even woke up!

And finally last night I had this weird dream I’m trying to understand what is influenced from.

 

 

02/09/13

I went with someone to visit a house and it was a weird house indeed. All covered in carpet, even the walls and the ceiling. All dark colours and there was this chair, that wasn’t really a chair, high up to the ceiling, almost like it wanted to support it. So we were trying to go away but the owner, a Chinese lady, took my friend’s shirt lifted her from the ground and asked “Don’t you want to see the garden?”

We thought it was better not to refuse her and we followed her through a small wooden door leading on a weird garden. Loads of coloured big flowers and big plants were scattered around a steep stone stairs going down without you being able to see the end.

We appreciated the view though and we told her and she took my friend for her collar again and she said “So do you like gardening?!”

Then I woke up!

 

Here we go, if you like my weird dreams this was a good post full of them!

What do you think!?