Twilight versus My Date With a vampire

Today I heard on the radio how similar the new Twilight Movie is in plotline to My Date with a Vampire– a Chinese series around 1998 to early 2000 about a vampire who drinks blood from blood banks and falls in love, Romeo and Juliet style to a slayer. The radio host said, hey it’s like complete deja vu. I’ve seen Twilight before, in Chinese form, as My Date with a Vampire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Date_with_a_Vampire)

Come to think about it, doesn’t that also sound like Buffy and Angel? Vampire falls for slayer?

These days, what is original anymore, seriously? Plotlines may be similar but think about it this way– characters are different, the way the books are written are different– the screenplay, the dialog all different. It’s the same when people tell me, hey your story is just like Hana Yori Dango, Kim Samsoon– so I have similar elements, but it’s not a straight copy. For one, Edward Cullen drinks animal blood where as the main character in My Date with a Vampire drinks bloodbank blood. Both have supernatural powers and both aren’t afraid of the sun… Look– there are just so many ideas that can float around in this world and become superglobal phenomenons– granted Twilight’s main story is quite simple. Girl moves to new town, girl meets boy, tension arises, boy is a vampire, wants to drink girl, but can’t, is a good vampire, and must save her from new evil vampire, boy girl save day together, but now girl wants to be a vampire too to love boy forever. Twilight is a great story– so what if there has been similar, less popular stories before (Nightworld, The Last Vampire, My Date with a Vampire). In our crazy world, we need a fantasy world to escape to, we need a new dreamland since Harry Potter’s popularity has waned… until the next best thing, face it, every other person you meet on the subway train, in the library, on the streets is reading a copy of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, or Breaking Dawn. And by December, every tween, teen, and adult female (and males, admit it) will have seen Twilight the movie.

Next top Model cycle 11 winner Mckey! beautiful, well-deserved!

Since the first episode when there were three Britneys on the show, however the heck you spell her name, I knew one of them would win. I rooted for Mckey– she was nice to Isis, she boxed, and she looked androgynous– like a baby mix of Courtney Cox (Monica on Friends) and Demi Moore. Congratulations to Mckey, I am very pleased with her win, because it’s well deserved– Mckey can be high fashion and commercial– she has an arrogant, confident look but is very down to earth.

What I am not happy with is how Top Model has become less and less fun, creative, and exciting to watch– what happened to exciting photo shoots with elephants, bulls, or beautiful underwater shoots? This cycle, we have boring landscape shoots and a shoot in the Top Model house… The show has really lost its touch and has become predictable. It tried to be dramatic with Marjorie drinking like an ass, and Isis the transgendered-model who lost her charm after a few episodes– I just wasn’t excited like I was when I started watching– during the Carie Dee times. I kept watching to root on Mckey– my girl crush. : ) congrats again mckey– and to tyra and ken mok and crew, if you’re making a top model 12, try to go back to its exciting roots… and please consider a nice asian-american model– the world’s not just black and white. thanx

How to tell if he likes you? Wrap boys around your fingers!

Seriously, does that guy who treats you very nicely like you are what? Aren’t you dying to know? Don’t you want to become a super-new fantabulous you to attract every cute boy you meet? What are you waiting for? Read “WRAP BOYS AROUND YOUR FINGERS LIKE STRANDS OF HELPLESS HAIR”– this is the “He’s Just Not That Into You” book for teen and tween girls. Learn the secrets of becoming confident, beautiful and attractive to boys and how to tell if he likes you or is just a jerk!

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Hospital Hell

When my first patient died, I cried enough tears to fill a small fish tank. After the first death, came death number two, then three, then four. Every time a patient I’ve developed a semi-deep relationship with dies, a part of me freezes on the inside. It’s like armor, or scales rather I’ve pieced over my skin, scale by scale with every death. My tears flow less, my heart pains less, but this does not mean I lose compassion. I don’t stop seeing myself in my patients, my loved ones in them. I don’t want the patient lying in her own filth, her fingernails covered in her own shit, to be my beloved grandmother. Or the man who wants to cry for the first time in his life because he feels so alone and that a hospital worker can’t give him five minutes to listen to how he just wants his teeth brushed and his face shaved– I don’t want that to be my father, ever.

A million stories, a story everyday as I walk down the halls, from one corner of the hospital to the next, from the fourth to the fifth floor. I see about 15 patients a day, I know their names, their histories, their fears. As a physical therapist, I have the leisure of conversing with my patients, of cracking a joke with them, and feeling for them, advocating for them. I’ve covered shivering patients with blankets, brought patients refreshing cold water, changed diapers, massaged dirty feet, scratched backs, sympathized, empathized and have done more than a PT should do for patients… why? Because I believe in Karma.

I no longer cry when I see my patients cry because it’s not professional. But I still feel for them, I really do. I don’t care if I have to leave a little later at night, I spend an extra minute or so with every patient, asking them before I leave, “How else can I help you? Any other questions?” I leave with a good bye, see you tomorrow, take care, god bless you for the religious. I feel a sense of accomplishment that I made someone smile, feel a little better, even for a few minutes. A patient in the hospital is like a prisoner, except worse– a patient has to hear a million stories from doctor who and who, leave her/his life in the hands of strangers, shit into a diaper and wait for sometimes hours as the shit festers, for a tech or nurse to come change him/her. I’ve had patients sitting in his/her pool of urine, patients with hands smeared in crap, patients shivering cold that they have to wrap themselves with the curtains in their rooms, patients who have never heard from their doctors after the first visit, patients who cry and scream because they’re in pain, patients who no one listens to or just give five minutes to treat them like a human being.

I don’t give a damn if you’re a doctor who makes half a million a year, and millions more for the hospital from surgeries, that you have a name and that everyone respects you in the hospital– if you can’t give a patient a minute of your time to introduce yourself, or have the courtesy to answer questions without looking bored or angry, then you should become a mortician– that way, you don’t have to interact with the patients. I’m sorry to say this but residents and doctors with a few years under their belts have lost all bed-side manners whatsoever. It’s a shame. I’ve worked in various hospitals this past year across NYC, and I already know which ones I would never ever bring my loved ones to… shame shame shameful disgusting shame.

Twilight and Teen Depression

Who doesn’t want to be Bella Swan, the object of blood-lusty hunk Edward Cullen’s affections? Who doesn’t want a perfectly dramatically lovely and sexy romance– hot young people with an eternity ahead of them of hot-pillow-tearing sex and a pledge of endless love?

Reading the Twilight Saga gives a natural high and lots of sighing– when will I have my own Edward Cullen? Unfortunately for daydreaming teens, vampires don’t exist (save for the wanna-be blood suckers with no natural powers and super-human strength whatsoever, or even remotely good looks). Edward Cullen will never exist outside of Miss Meyer’s beautiful books and the silver-screen adaptation.

Fantasizing, dreaming– will this lead to teen depression? And not just teens, these books have an adult following as well– I’m just wondering if grandma reads them too. Adults with their less than perfect marriages, their shameful affairs, their boring significant others– will they too be depressed that they can never have a romance like Bella and Edward?

Maybe. But authors should not be blamed for writing beautiful fantasies– like Jane Austen’s timeless Pride and Prejudice– my mom’s just like Eliza’s, fretting and getting her nerves all tangled because her working daughter is still single. So what if so and so likes her, they’re just not good enough for her beloved doctoral-graduate daughter unless he’s Asian, a surgeon, single, non-smoking, drinking, gambling!

Eliza may have found her Mr. Darcy… Jane Austen died at the young age of 40, never having married.

I admire Stephanie Meyer. I admire her success and am of course envious. I also feel slightly sorry for LJ Smith, who wrote about vampire soulmate stories with her wonderful series The Nightworld, which never gained the popularity Twilight has. I highly recommend the juicy Nightworld Series, LJ Smith has dreamed up an Edward Cullen a long time ago.

I myself am a writer who loves to fantasize. I have a million characters and a million stories, none of which are realistic in the sense that it’s happened to me– my real enough to embrace and for my readers to relate to– with ups and downs, hopes and dreams… If we say that fantasy stories are the source of depression for heartbroken teens, then what about romances with perfect Adonis-male-leads who are always billionaires and great in bed and yaddy ya? What about all the sci-fi novels out there, the Lord of the Ring, the horror genre? Etc, etc…

I don’t hop bandwagons, but I do admire the Twilight Saga, it’s given lots of readers great fantasies… as for the teens who suffer from depression knowing they will never have a romance like the one in the novels, too bad. Life is life and you realize true romance has always been the creation of creative individuals– poets, songwriters, authors, and yearning females, waiting, waiting for Prince Charming, with or without his fangs.