All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them…

With the annoying 3D-glasses perched on the bridge of my nose, I sat back in my cushion seat some ten rows away from the big screen, while I waited for Disney Pixar’s Up to begin…

In a nutshell, Up tells us about a cranky old man (Carl) who decides to embark on an adventure to South America, using his house as a makeshift airship with the aid of 10,000 helium balloons. Shortly after taking off however, Carl finds an eccentric Wilderness Explorer, Russell, on his porch. Well, whatever ensued was nothing short of a breathtaking joyride with a telling conclusion.

Note: The following paragraph contains spoilers of various sorts. You’ve been warned! ;)
Personally, the scenes that captivated me most were the ones involving Ellie’s Adventure Book. Early on, the pages, as emphasized, were blank. Subsequently, the emphasis was placed on Carl, as he chose to withdraw, time and again with his memories of Ellie, rather than turning the page and endure the heartache of staring down a blank page, a page of unfulfilled dreams. In a somewhat poignant scene towards the end, Carl finally decides to risk the agony and to his astonishment, finds pages filled with mementos of them after they were married, and a note of genuine appreciation, love and encouragement that life goes on and that he, should set out for an adventure on his own. With a sudden dose of invigoration, Carl dives into an adventure almost immediately and well, everything else went downhill from then on.

As I fixed my eyes onto the screen, I couldn’t help but recall “The Last Lecture” – a book, and a lecture (duh) by the late Randy Pausch, a brilliant computer science professor diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer a few years back. Asked to give one final lecture, Randy did so, lecturing about “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. It might not be wholly relevant to what Disney Pixar has produced but I still believe that to a certain extent, it is important for us to muse over our dreams – be it a childhood dream, an adolescent one or whatever it is. Either way, here is the lecture – all 76 minutes of it…

In conclusion, here’s a heartrending story of a ten-year-old girl and her dying wish.

Goodnight y’all.

I stumbled on a random teaser of House M.D.’s sixth season which then led to this update. Well just for the record, I’m quite the House enthusiast – think every minute since 2004 (five seasons thus far, and counting). All the same, I can’t wait for the two-hour premiere of season six! Here is a sneak at what you can expect come September 21. And just for convenience, here is a half-minute long preview video which pretty much sums it all up… (Note and Spoiler: House began hallucinating towards the end of season five, the severity explained by him being in the fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.)

Nonetheless, watching House religiously has somewhat affected my worklife. I do, at times, get the impression that a good number of patients are attention-seekers and liars, which in turn, tends to influence my standards as well, though it isn’t much of an occupational hazard. Yet.