Of Ads and Building Blocks

Lately, an ad has caught my eye repeatedly and every time I read it, I snigger, or laugh, or smile. Different responses, but inside is the same admiration for the people behind the ad - especially its writers.

The only other ad to attract my attention this way was the Nike one featuring Josiah Ng, two years ago. I loved the tone of absolution in its lines; the chalky explosion of graphics behind my then-most-admired-sportsman, and the ending realisation of "I am... Courage." giving me that prod in the chest to wake up and see:
I needed to be brave enough to say No to my weaknesses. To want to break away from them. The distractions, the procrastination, the whatever that was keeping me from focusing on my SPM. That ad taught me that determination works the same way for a scholar as it does for a world-class athlete.



Now I'm starting to see where a major in Literature can take you. Not that I'm planning to do that. I'm pretty much set on Finance, Business or Economics. Just gotta sift through the finer details to know which I want. Or, I may discover something altogether different in the process. Like a returned interest in Fashion Marketing or some other. Accounting is something I could live with, but not choose to live for.

Back to the ad. Initially, I was merely drawn to the visual concept laid down - clean and uncluttered. I decided I liked it so much that I'd spend some time deciphering the tiny words the man figure seemed to be made up of. And boy, did it tickle me.



This ad has been critisized as feminist; misogynous, even.
But I snicker at the deadpan take on metrosexuality and, as quoted, "our genderless society" where there are now three options on official forms in some parts of the world:
Male or Female or Neither

I love the quaint reference to those "little old ladies" who "remain on one side of the street" as boys turn into self-centred, pruning creatures more concerned with turning heads than turning theirs to offer help.

And the remark on non-fat lattes and the salad bar?
Amusing, at the very least. Makes you think of the state the world has come to.



But I'm glad to affirm that there are still gentlemen bred into this generation. In one week alone, three different guys have held the door open as I traversed between carpark and college. Note: All three were strangers. And one of them even waited as I was quite some distance away.
That was a little while back, but I'll remember it fondly to know that we ladies still have a chance of getting our gallant knight.






Necessity is the mother of invention. Necessity has found me a new approach to studying;
I call it block mugging.
Thought I could never do schedules, couldn't stick to one.
But with my self-invented method, I should be able to redeem myself in the one month left to AS.
Okay, so it may have been used by others before me, but at least I thought of it myself; not by reference to them, teehee.



I feel like I can go go go.
Oooooyeah.