The Secretary's Shoutout

21 Chick Flicks in 10 Days

2010-06-20T23:08:00.001+07:00

What do you do when you have long vacation but not much budget to spend?

Well for me, if I have 10 days for holiday but not enough budget to go anywhere else, staying at home and enjoying the togetherness with my family is a good option, remembering that in any other time I will be so busy with my secretarial duties and other social activity.

And I'm doing it now. After I quit my job until today, there is 10 days ahead to start working on the new office. Since I was work out of town for almost a year and when I got back to Jakarta I've been so busy with socializing (read: gathering), so I'd like to spend 10 days ahead with activities such as: learning more about the new company's nature of business, reading all books that I haven't finished for some time, enjoying music, starting my own blog (yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah) and satisfying myself with the lots and lots of movies!

Making a blog isn't so easy especially when you are not a productive writer and you don't have to goal you reach. So I start digging within myself what's exactly my goal in writing this blog! And then this idea of start blogging a chick flick lover became strong because I am a chick flick lover.

Okay, before we continue, maybe there's some of you out there wondering what is a chick flick?

What's a chick flick? According to Wikipedia, chick flick is slang for a film designed to appeal to a female target audience. Although many types of films may be directed toward the female gender, "chick flick" is typically used only in reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain themes that are relationship-based (though not necessarily romantic).

According to Urban Dictionary, chick flick is a film that indulges in the hopes and dreams of women and/or girls. A film that has a happy, fuzzy, ridiculously unrealistic ending.

According to Filmsite: Chick flicks' have often been put down as trite, sappy, emotional, soap-opera-ish, cliched, melodramatic, weepy, and trivial. Often considered an all-encompassing sub-genre, they mostly include dialogue-laden, formulated romantic comedies (with mis-matched lovers or female relationships), tearjerkers and gal-pal films, movies about family crises and emotional catharsis, some traditional 'weepies' and fantasy-action adventures, sometimes with foul-mouthed and empowered females, and female bonding situations involving families, mothers, daughters and children.

But, instead of making a blog about chick flick lover, I decided to blog my job. Why? Maybe because I bet that most secretary will also love chick flick -especially women (there are male secretary out there you know!). So, chick flick will be part of The Lounge; our get away.

Anyway, when doing a research about the chick flick thing, I found an interesting blog for it; 30 Chick Flicks In 30 Days. The idea of the blog is to finish watching 30 chick flicks in 30 days in a row, and the doer is actually a men!!!

And when I read his Official 30 Chick Flicks selection, I've been only watched 9 of them, and the rest I haven't got the chance; so this is my chance!! I will watch and finish the list in only 10 days ahead, with the total 21 movies LOL :D

Will I succeed? Since once again this is not chick flick blog I won't place any review of the film one by one -I'm not very good on writing review anyway, most of my intention of watching movie is the plot, the lesson learnt and well.. I'm gonna admit it; the actors in it :p

In case you are wondering the 21 movies I'm gonna watch in the next 10 days, here they are:
1. My Life In Ruins
2. Whip It
3. Georgia Rule
4. Leap Year
5. Mamma Mia!
6. Bright Star
7. The Secret Life of Bees
8. The Women
9. Cairo Time
10. I Could Never Be Your Woman
11. Waitress
12. Couples Retreat
13. Labor Pains
14. The Other End Of The Line
15. The Time Traveler’s Wife
16. Dear John (I hope I gave the right link)
17. Nights In Rodanthe
18. Australia
19. Evening
20. Valentine’s Day
21. The Ramen Girl

The schedule to watch each movies is in no particular order. After 10 days I will get back to you, maybe with the top 5 chick flicks I recommended -but let me state again that I'm not a film critic so my choices are personal :)

Secretary - The Movie (2002)

2010-06-20T18:17:00.002+07:00

Have you ever watched a movie called actually the same like our profession "Secretary"?

This movie is a mix between a comedy-romance-drama in a rare dominant/submissive themed. One of the user review in IMDb said that "This movie is not for everyone. Stay away if you're conventionally wrapped, conservative, or lacking in a certain joy of exploration." And I totally agreed with that! The movie is worth to watch for those of you whom like wicked black comedy.

The movie itself makes me think, if you have a boss like James Spader's character and you find that his handsome look and mysterious behavior are just another strength of his charm -despite his isolate-dominant-perfectionist personality, would you fight your love like Maggie Gyllenhaal?

The ratings up to June 20, 2010:
IMDb: 7.1/10 from 28,923 votes
Rottentomatoes: 74% tomatometer from 138 reviews
For professional review check it out at Ain't It Cool, and if you end up liking the movie too, you can download a fun stuff from the movie that is the "Secretary CV" LOL ^.~

Secret - The Movie (2007)

2010-06-19T14:03:00.004+07:00

I found about this film accidentally when browsing for video music clip in Youtube awhile ago. I remembered the title from the video is "Piano Battle". Since I love piano music and has always been fascinated on the idea of men playing piano (ha ha ha) so I streamed it. And turned out that I liked it!

The detail of the video say that the clip is one of the soundtrack from Jay Chou movie called SECRET. In fact the movie was Jay's directorial debut and he won several award from it such as Best Original Film Song, Best Visual Effects, and Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year 2007. I can tell you for sure that the original soundtrack album from this movie is awesome.

And the movie itself is surprisingly good. According to Wikipedia, the film tells a "simple but very beautiful" love story, which Chou denies was adapted from his personal experiences^.When the film debuted, Chou admitted that he drew from childhood experience for the plot, although his personal story was not as romanticized. Even in IMDb the user rating is 7,6 out of 10!

I am not really a fan of Jay Chou. I wish Jay can sing (he's a singer too) some of his song in English so I can understand what he said, but he surely can play the piano and compose his music so well. And for his act, I did found him eye-catching when he played as Prince Jai in Curse Of The Golden Flower (this movie is breathtaking too!), but since I saw him in SECRET I started to reconsider having his music and movies as my get-away moment after a hectic working days -in the midst of hoping to find my own prince charming LOL :D

If you like the movie and love its soundtrack like me, you can download the SECRET original soundtrack, or if you'd like to have SECRET piano score simply download here ^.^

Being a secretary, is it your dream job?

2010-06-18T00:30:00.001+07:00

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a stewardess, then I wanted to become a ballerina, and then I wanted to become a singer. But being a secretary never accrossed in my mind.

I started to realize that this profession really exist when I was on my last year in high school. One of my closest friend wants to be a secretary! And suddenly it appeared that anyone in my family would want me to be a secretary too.

I did passed the qualification into Japanese literature, but I finally went into one of the best secretarial academy in town. And graduated as a secretary.

So, let's share our dreams before or after being a secretary. Please be concise, as...

We're quite happy to cut it into many small useful pieces

Unsuitable Term of Benefit

2010-06-17T19:20:00.001+07:00

I quit my job!

Why? Let's just say "unsuitable term of benefit". Sounds cocky? Believe me, I wasn't.

The previous boss in the previous company had offered me an interesting package to continue my education to a bachelor degree, so I took the offer even though the salary was lower than my previous one.

But, the dream had never come to reality. Despite some of achievements I made for the company, and I did asked about it to the HRD Manager; it just never happened.

So, I decided to move out, move on and move fast to find a better one.

Have you ever had any similar experience like me?

Secretary Opens Many Doors

2010-06-17T16:58:00.002+07:00

I still remember when I was in college I had this seminar titled just like the above subject; SECRETARY Opens Many Doors. The main point of this seminar was to show us -the young eager wanna be secretary- that our next position is a key to another career.

So, now if you meet a secretary that has the experience of jumping from one place to another, don't be surprised. We are taught to find the most suitable door in order to find that one suitable-rocking-passionate career.

And for you whom are a Secretary or Personal Assistant or any job title who are related to secretarial, this is the place where you can be free to shout out your mind, heart and soul.

The topics? It's up to you, but please remember one thing; be sassy, concise and elegant! And oh by the way, I myself is a secretary ^.~