Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club

I love Molly Ringwald and her teen 80's flicks. The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and I thought she and Robert Downey Jr. were the perfect couple in The Pick-Up Artist. My cousin who lives in Sydney is the one who introduced me to all her movies and she used to teased me about it. After commenting a few times that Molly always reminded her of me, especially in Pretty in Pink, as we both love making clothes, her curly short bob were like mine when I was small. That aside, I found out that we are pretty moody characters, she in her movies, me in real life. Again, That aside, I thought I'll introduce you to some of the greatest teen flicks of all time. Let's start with The Breakfast Club, a group of five students who had to spend detention together in small classroom and guess what, the whole film is mostly set in the detention room.

John, Andrew, Allison, Clair and Brian, all wondering and thinking what in the alien world do I deserve to be in detention...stuck with all these people! and yet...each has something that they can relate to each other.

What's so ironically fun to watch is that all of them each represent a different stereotype of teens, from the spoilt Claire played by Molly Ringwald, to the geeky Brian played by Anthony Michael Hall who teamed up again with her in Sixteen Candles (and reportedly dated when they filmed together!) Then there's the strange Allison, grungy and slightly mentally disturbed who has a therapist. John, the naughty kid who endears his father's physical abuse and of course it would not be complete without the popular sporty Andrew. Unlikely to be friends outside of detention, they all somehow bond and tells their story, with often hilarious upbeat scenes. The classic teen film of 1985 that made all of them the brat-pack nickname.

The princess of the group, she started off being a very spoilt and arrogant character, who later humbled herself and won the audience.

Aside from the classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I think Molly did a pretty awesome job cementing herself as the teen actress in her time with Matthew Broderick as the all time teen actor sensation. Don't you think so?

This is Molly in Pretty in Pink, she is not as wealthy as most of her peers in school and makes her own clothes. She falls for the most popular guy in school, a rich boy who is pressured to be in the same 'rich' group as everyone else. He falls for Andie played by Molly but in doing so he failed to withstand the peer pressure and at one turning point left her. She took it hard and...well you just have to watch the film to find out what happens, don't worry, it's a happy ending...bo-ha!

Anyway if you have not watched any of the films mentioned above, you are missing a huge chunk of your teen years, so to make it all up, do rent them and make sure you are watching them with a bucket full of popcorn! caramel flavor..yum.

Movable Feast...an interpretation

Oscar Wilde, the great poet. http://hubpages.com/hub/Oscar-Wilde--Brilliant-AND-Funniest-Playwright

I can't thank God enough for going to church this morning. The topic was 'Movable Feast'! as some of you might know, I've discussed this topic in my blog when I first arrived in Paris and was reading Ernest Hemingway's classic Paris memoir, titled of course...Movable Feast.

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast" ERNEST HEMINGWAY to a friend, 1950 (as quoted on the 1st page of his book)

However little did I know, that the words Movable Feast is actually biblical, it is the day when believers celebrate the feast of Easter prior or after celebrating the holy communion. The feast is this context covers the joyful spirit of the day, whether gathering with each other to reflect each individual's spirituality, listening to God's words or simply attending service. Reverend Scott Herr mentioned that for believers, we can have our own movable feast according to our spiritual closeness to God. For Hemingway, his Movable Feast is Paris, he brings that (this is where I think the French pronom en as a replacement to a subject is more useful than English!) to wherever he goes after Paris. More often than not, a feast is associated to a gathering of food, or enjoying a meal together. Mark 6 :30 is one of the chapter that Rev. Herr discussed when Jesus fed a crowd of 5000 starting with a few pieces of bread and fish and after blessing them, there were more than enough for everyone that they had leftovers. Whatever your interpretation of a movable feast, each of us can have our own spiritual feast.

I feel sad that Hemingway never got to listen to Rev. Scott Herr message of the true meaning of a movable feast for he might not have killed himself when he was consumed by alcoholism in his old age. Maybe he did listen but forgot, or he had forgotten about Paris by then...

Rev. Scott Herr also incerpted a meant-for-a-joke quote on this topic earlier in the sermon that goes something like this...

"If you have lived good enough, you might go to Heaven, but if you've been very good, then perhaps you would go to Paris" Oscar Wilde


On another tangent,

George Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1886.

Le Dimanche...

Sunday is one of the only day in Paris where there are very little happenings...

Middle-aged French men play boules* in parks, pigeons swath themselves in Paris amazingly clean drainage water washing their feathers (on other days they swarm around everywhere in the streets, hitting people off their tracks) but no, on Sunday everything is calm. It is also the day when I feel that Paris is truly mine.

Every Sunday morning, I would pass a crowd of middle-aged men playing boules in a park just opposite l'Hôtel des Invalides, 7eme arrodissement. Boules is a classic French game between French men and their counterparts otherwise known as pétanque. They throw small metal-looking balls into the air and I think they have to reach a certain point...Hardly interesting for a lady like moi.

Watching pigeons clean themselves seemed more amusing this morning. Every day, twice a day, most of Paris streets would be awash with clean pure water from the sewer/drainage. They spur up at first making spurly sounds and then the edges of the streets are flushed. It's true, Paris pride themselves of their flush system.


Mr. Blue at Rue Jean Nicot, just on the corner near quai d'Orsay, where Church is.

Bon Dimanche everyone and Happy Sunday for the peeps in Jakarta and Melbourne!

Le Dimanche

Sundays...I'm still reminiscing what I did today...it was nice...

The reverend preached about Patience in Church this morning, from Colossians 3: 12-17.

¹²Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

¹⁵Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

It was a personally touching and I hope to contemplate on that this week :)

It's PALM SUNDAY :)))))

Today, it's Palm Sunday, which means everyone who attends a church service today, will receive a small palm leaf in remembrance of Christ when He rode that little donkey when He entered Jerusalem! Palm Sunday marks the Sunday before Easter and for a lot of believers, it signals the welcoming of Christ and for me, personally, a reflection of the things I've done over these months and what I've gained since my short time in Paris.

The grand interior of the American Church, with the beautiful tinted stained glass windows that depicts many saints and disciples below.

In the far right corner, the lady pastor is delivering the sermon about Christ coming to Jerusalem. The church is very full today and almost every other Sunday. Today there are new visitors from The Baltics (near Finland they said), Washington DC, Wichita, Houston Texas and even Seattle!

As it turned out today, the bell in Saint-Dominique Church rang for many hours, signaling Palm Sunday and there were a mass gathering outside. French men and women coming out of their Sunday cave to attend church service!

Look, the little kid even carries her own palm leaf! This is outside Saint-Dominique Church, I can't believe how many French people I saw today holding their palm leaf even while walking around the city. I don't know whether all of them attend a service earlier in the day, but now I belief there are still many French believers in Paris. Contrary to the notion that French are mostly atheists. I disagree! today is proof!


I had a such a great morning. Mostly it's because the spirit of Palm Sunday is everywhere felt around town. For those of you who've missed a service today, don't forget to attend a service near you on Easter Sunday next week! Bonne Dimanche as the bakery lady said to me today and so it goes to you.