How 'Sense and Sensibility' is

I got the book of Sense and Sensibility together with Peter Pan book. It interested me with the words written on the back cover "find your own happiness" and an illustration of two women on the front cover. I thought maybe there was something to do with this story about ways to be happy in life for women. I am a woman and I want to be happy, why not reading it? I read it as soon as I had finished reading Peter Pan. Just like what I did to Peter Pan, I watched its movie after reading. I did not notice well in which year the book was actually written. Or, I might have noticed it but then I forgot. Surprisingly, once I found its movie on the internet, it was released in 1995. What an old movie! It made me think "Am I too late to get to know this?"

Sense and Sensibility is a classic story with classic English for sure. For me, it was not that easy to follow the flow of the story, but I kept going through it. At first, I always tried to look up every single word that I did not know in the dictionary, but then I got tired of it and decided to just guess the meaning of the words that I did not know by drawing its context from the surrounding words. It is just like what an English teacher always tells the students to do in practicing English through reading, isn't it? However, sometimes I felt somehow incomplete to not knowing the whole meaning of words in the story. To make me feel less incomplete and better, I read it twice or trice to ensure myself that I did get the ideas wholly. Eventually, I finished reading it and surely could not wait for watching its movie.

The movie was incredible! All the things in the movie looked exactly the same as what I had in my imagination and visualization during reading. At some points, it depicted even so much better.
The characters with their looks and actions.
The plot with its descriptions and problematic situations.
The setting with its buildings and surrounding environment.
For these, I salute its producer!

The movie has successfully made me understand better to see the distinctions of what happen with the characters.
Edward, whom Elinor loves, chooses his commitment and affection with losing his inheritance from his mother to get married with Lucy even though in the end he is cheated and gets back to Elinor.
Willoughby, whom Marianne loves, picks a woman with a huge wealth to be his wife over his love to Marianne.
Talking about happiness, which one is happier here? Is it to live on behalf of love or of wealth? In this case, I think it is not something to be compared between one to another since they both are clearly in different circumstances. Whatever it is, everyone, including you and me, has his/her own way in pursuing happiness. 

Here is an excerpt from Sonnet (116) by Willian Shakespeare that I can take note:

“Love is not love which alters it when alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

Coco and What I believe as a Muslim

I watched Coco a few weeks ago. It was an amazing movie. At first, I thought it was for kids, but no way, it is good for adults too. A lot of lessons I can learn and reflect to myself. Especially it has so many relations to my belief as a Muslim. Well, before I am sharing to how it is related to my belief, I captured some interesting points.

Most kids think that they know the best for them. In fact, sometimes family, especially their parent, knows better.

Family is where people who always love us in any conditions.

No one is perfect without any mistakes in life, either intentionally or unintentionally. And sometimes there might be a person or even people got hurt by what we did. Thus, to ask forgiveness as soon as there is a chance would be a righteous decision. 

To make dreams come true, every one does need to sacrifice in many ways. But remember, never ever leave or forget family. 

One's feeling to another's feeling is highly possible to be connected. It is just like how Coco and her dad, Hector, always miss each other. The stronger Coco's feeling to her dad, the more Hector feels urged to go home and see her.

A hardly broken hearted experience has two choices to the person, to raise up and be stronger or to frustrate and be weaker. And Mama Imelda chose to take the first choice.

Believe it or not, everybody's disgrace in life will be revealed either before or after death.
 Especially that is related to other's virtue. And it just takes some time to happen. That's why don't worry if there was the time you were betrayed by someone for his or her popularity or wellness. 

And what I believe as a Muslim is that:

When someone passes away, s/he might be not in this world anymore, but still alive in another dimension of life. 

Once, soon after my grand father from my mother died, my mother asked my dad if my grand father would see my grand father who had already passed away long time before. And he said yes. 


In Islam, we send prayers for those people who have already passed away, especially family member. The prayer that we send is usually followed by Surah Al-Fatihah. Hopefully those prayers sent to them would make them in peace. Just like in Coco, Miguel's family and the people put their dead family members at home to show their love.

In one Hadits (if I'm not mistaken), it is mentioned that the soul of dead people visit their family regularly, especially at Thursday night. They are going to be sad and cry if their living beloved people don't remember them or pray for them. It's just like The Day of the Death in Coco. 

Anyway, at first, I though Coco would be the name of a boy in the movie. But I was wrong, Coco is the boy's great grand mother. The end of the movie was so touching that I cried a lot. It was when Miguel played the guitar and sang Remember Me song to make Coco remember her dad.

It might be late, but not too late, to recommend that you all see this movie. I'm sure you won't regret.