Weekend Wrap-up

dsc

as expected, it's really a loss of innocence seeing some of the cases. the woman who got syphilis from her husband, but who says he refuses to seek treatment. the young lady who requests for frequent sti checks just so she "knows". and the guy of my age just diagnosed with a chlamydia infection who worries that his children will be deformed by this infection. indeed, we were there to learn not to judge, but i can't help but think there's a common denominator running through these people. what can i say? when asked by the doctor if they would like to undergo screening for hiv and hepatitis, more than one are surprised at the offer. given their sexual history ("friend of friend...and oh two weeks ago it was a karaoke girl") i wonder what the surprise is about. almost all turn it down, waving their hands in the air to dismiss the possibility of getting such diseases. as doctors we can counsel a patient about his dietary, exercise and living habits because they help decrease his risk of cancer and fatal heart disease, but we can't tell a man not to seek a prostitute outside of marriage, or a girl to stay faithful to one partner so that they can never, ever get aids. i recall the hiv patients i met during my infectious diseases posting, and they were obviously shadows of their former selves, living on borrowed time. aids is totally preventable, but it cannot be stopped. isn't it a shame? sometimes i wished we could do more.

of course we saw funny things that i can't blog about, so i'll just end this entry by saying that it is scary how many people have genital herpes which 1) can be transmitted even if the person doesn't have an active lesion and 2) has no cure. the best part is, you can never guess who has it.

mamma mia!

was dragged along to see it with my parents, for "old times' sake". after watching the trailer i thought i couldn't bare to listen to pierce brosnan massacre all the wonderful abba songs, but turns out the movie was much better than i imagined it to be.

for those not acquainted, the movie is based on the successful broadway musical of the same name (which came to singapore a few years back) and is about a girl about to get married but who hasn't got a father to give her away. she finds her mum's diary and learns that there were -three- men in her mother's life when she got pregnant, and so proceeds to invite all three for the wedding. she thinks she will know who the father is (don't ask me why but paternity testing does not feature in this story!) but of course, she does not. in the end, she realises that it does not matter who her father was, and she decides not to get married after all, but to go with her boyfriend to see the world.

my verdict? pierce brosnan absolutely should not be allowed to sing. ever again. when he started singing i didn't know to laugh or to cry. it was just too painful! fortunately there was stellan skarsgard as bill anderson, and the ever reliable dry and wry colin firth as harry "head banger" bright (our last summer was pretty well done i must say) to save the men from being written off.

what a revelation were the actresses. julie walters and christine baranski starred as meryl streep's sidekicks, and what a load of fun they were, fussing and fretting and gyrating as a pair of ex-wild girls should. i was pretty impressed by their rendition of chiquitita - totally loved the harmony! amanda seyfried deserves special mention for bringing spunk and the right amount of girlishness to the character of sophie. plus she's got a fairly good voice too.

but the true star of the show was meryl streep. from start to finish she carried the show with energy and exhuberence that belies a woman of her age (note the air split in dancing queen). and her voice is incredible - i particularly liked her version of winner takes it all which was recorded in just one take. it is little wonder that she's one of the most respected actresses in modern times.

if you have the time, kind reader, here is a 25 minute video of the making of the movie, with snippets of nearly all the songs and cast interviews:



enjoy! i know i did, and it brought back memories of chorale days when we rehearsed again and again for the abba medley. heh.