Love, Guaranteed starts off with all the right components for its genre: a meet-cute over coffee? Check. A grand romantic gesture? Check. A love interest who is rich but also volunteers? Check, check. But this high-concept rom-com struggles in elevating the genre to align with modern dating practises, while still holding onto old-school rom-com clichés.
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All Dressed Up with No Place to Go
At the height of lockdown, I was an unkempt mess. With hairdressers and clothing stores shut, and university transitioning to online learning, there hardly seemed any point in getting ready. I slumped around in tracksuit bottoms and with unwashed hair as my mood plummeted. I stroked my patterned dresses with a sigh, lamenting that I couldn’t wear them anymore. Then I saw something on Twitter.
Continue reading “All Dressed Up with No Place to Go”Final Instalment – Week Six COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project
Well, here we are, at the final week of the project. This week brought a lot of old favourites; some good, some not so good. Here’s what I watched for the final week of my COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Challenge:
Continue reading “Final Instalment – Week Six COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project”Week Five COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project
Welcome to week five of this project! This week’s films were quite varied; I watched some old comforts, dipped my toe into some new releases, and rekindled my love of Pixar films. Here’s what I watched this week for my COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Challenge:
Continue reading “Week Five COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project”Week Four COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project
Welcome to week four of this project. To be honest, this week has been a tough one. After the figures of new COVID-19 cases reached record-breaking heights, Melbourne has been put into Stage 4 restrictions. On top of Stage 3 restrictions, we’re now only allowed one person per household out per day, no travel outside a 5km radius of your home, and a curfew has been implemented from 8pm-5am. There’s no going for drives together (only one person per car), or staying out for more than an hour, or even heading to the supermarket with your housemate. We’ve been given one hour of exercise time outside per day. Things are pretty bleak. It’s lonely. And although the lockdown has been extended, this project will only continue for the original six weeks. I need to take as many things off my plate as possible, and unfortunately “eating” trumps “writing a blog post that 5 people read”.
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Week Three COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project
Welcome to week three of this project! This week brought highly varied films, with wildly different ratings. There are a couple of hidden gems, but not ‘uncut’ ones… Here’s what I watched this week for my COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Challenge:
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Week Two COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project
Welcome to week two of this project! This week I dipped into a couple of oldies and a couple of newies, finally finished off my Bong Joon-Ho deep-dive, and cemented my view that we should have more movies that are ninety minutes in duration. Here’s what I watched this week for my COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Challenge:
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COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0 Movie Project
Here’s the deal: COVID sucks. I’m currently in Melbourne where our numbers of new cases are the worst in the country. We’re experiencing the so-called second wave of the virus with a vengeance. As a result, our Premier, has rightly put Stage 3 lockdown restrictions back in place, starting Wednesday 8 July and continuing for six weeks. This means no leaving the house unless it’s for work, food, exercise, or for medical reasons. Here’s where I insert a disclaimer: Obviously I am aware that there are much more pressing consequences of COVID-19 than the fact that I can’t go out to the movies or eat at a restaurant, but for my immediate concerns, I wanted to find a way to not go insane for the next six weeks.
So, I’ve decided that for the next six weeks I’m going to watch a movie every night (yes, every night), and write up my thoughts of them. Sure, some will be re-watches, and I might even cheat and throw in a TV series or two, but it’s my challenge, so my rules.
Buying the Milk: Working with Mental Health Problems
Content Warning: Depression, anxiety, suicide, abuse.
I went to a job interview not too long ago, for a job I thought I wanted at the time, but I now view not getting it as a blessing. I was so anxious throughout the interview that my social anxiety of not wanting to drink the water they gave me for fear of being ‘too much trouble’ gave through to drinking the whole thing and asking for more. My throat closed up, my brain was foggy. I didn’t notice until I got back in the car that I had completely sweated through my dress. One question in particular threw me: “So these gaps on your resume, what happened there?”
There’s no easy way to answer this question. Saying, “Oh, I think that about covers two suicide attempts, three emotional breakdowns, and a general sense of futility about life” wouldn’t lead to them offering me the job. “That’s when I went back to study,” I replied, only partially lying (there was time spent studying, dispersed with depressive episodes).
If the panel knew that my mental health had caused me to abruptly leave a job, that my anxiety about answering the phone meant I wouldn’t be able to be very good at the job they were interviewing me for, that my depression could flare up at any moment and would put me at serious risk of abruptly leaving the position, they wouldn’t have hired me. Well, they didn’t end up hiring me anyway, most likely due to the excessive sweating.
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Senaai Chapple 