I've been lacking updates, I know. But I'll soon be writing as a Bellerbys graduate for the official Bellerbys college website (after graduation, of course, and when I'm in university), and I've decided to that that will be my blog after this one, unless I inform you otherwise.
I'll be updating on my trip to Prague and Budapest (I'm here now!) before leaving this blog for good. So if you're reading this, hang in for just a couple more posts!
That said, a big big THANK YOU to all you lovely people who've faithfully checked this inconsistent blog. Hopefully the next one will be more ... active XD
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Monday, 30 November 2009
The Nonsense of Literature
I've been accepted to University of Sussex! For those of you who don't know, Brighton is in the county of Sussex, so that basically means that I've got an offer (conditional, of course) to local university!
I once replied to Sarah's post, saying something like 'Oh it's okay if what you do now might not be what you do in the future, because what you do do now will lead you to your future'. An abstract concept, if you like, and a hell lot easier to say than to live through it (sorry Sarah). Lately, I look at something Shakespeare wrote and just think, 'Again?' Or I try to read some prose and all I want to do is chuck it out of my sight. Or I come across some seemingly thought-provoking modern literature like A Thousand Splendid Suns and I'd decide it's monotonous before getting through two pages.
And guess what? I've just signed up to do English Literature for another 3 years of my life.
Oh golly.
If there's any good that's come out of taking Eng Lit at college is that I've learnt to enjoy poetry a lot more. But what happens when I get sick of 'discovering' another 'great' poem that simply says, in a different way, what I already know? What happens when I get bored trying to learn life's lessons through a string of words and the hollowness of language?
Here's a conversation I recently had with a teacher -
Him: Unembellished love. What do you mean by unembellished love?
Me: Something like, pure love. You know, without being accessorized.
Him: Why don't you just say pure love? '... but for all the thought-provoking themes it relays ...' Hmph. Relays. Why not conveys?
Who cares about the difference between 'pure' or 'unembellished' or 'true' or 'pristine' or 'immaculate' or 'simple' or 'authentic'? Will I now be picking words out from modern fiction, trying to dissect every word? Am I going to be one of those critics who pick up modern fiction and trash those who ornament their work with words? Oh, let's all just pick up a Jodi Picoult and exclaim 'Ah there, you see, she's using words she picked up from a thesaurus'!
If Literature is supposed to mean something, it'd better show itself soon. Patience ain't this girl's virtue.
I once replied to Sarah's post, saying something like 'Oh it's okay if what you do now might not be what you do in the future, because what you do do now will lead you to your future'. An abstract concept, if you like, and a hell lot easier to say than to live through it (sorry Sarah). Lately, I look at something Shakespeare wrote and just think, 'Again?' Or I try to read some prose and all I want to do is chuck it out of my sight. Or I come across some seemingly thought-provoking modern literature like A Thousand Splendid Suns and I'd decide it's monotonous before getting through two pages.
And guess what? I've just signed up to do English Literature for another 3 years of my life.
Oh golly.
If there's any good that's come out of taking Eng Lit at college is that I've learnt to enjoy poetry a lot more. But what happens when I get sick of 'discovering' another 'great' poem that simply says, in a different way, what I already know? What happens when I get bored trying to learn life's lessons through a string of words and the hollowness of language?
Here's a conversation I recently had with a teacher -
Him: Unembellished love. What do you mean by unembellished love?
Me: Something like, pure love. You know, without being accessorized.
Him: Why don't you just say pure love? '... but for all the thought-provoking themes it relays ...' Hmph. Relays. Why not conveys?
Who cares about the difference between 'pure' or 'unembellished' or 'true' or 'pristine' or 'immaculate' or 'simple' or 'authentic'? Will I now be picking words out from modern fiction, trying to dissect every word? Am I going to be one of those critics who pick up modern fiction and trash those who ornament their work with words? Oh, let's all just pick up a Jodi Picoult and exclaim 'Ah there, you see, she's using words she picked up from a thesaurus'!
If Literature is supposed to mean something, it'd better show itself soon. Patience ain't this girl's virtue.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Oddly
It's been some time since I posted something worthwhile, since I wrote anything of substance, since I actually sat with myself and be okay to explore what's sufficient of me.
Here's the ugly truth: I never quite know what to post here. When I come across some really witty quote, I'd think 'Hah! Great for a post!' - then I actually start to live life, and the blogging just seems too distant a part, too other-worldly, too artificial and non-solid for me to engage in when I'm actually out there. Or how do you know if you've revealed too much of yourself? And words are such that once the impact is hit, the damage is done - you can never quite reconstruct or alter or erase it from someone else's memory, and that's when it dawns on you: You've said too bloody much. You're too exposed and too vulnerable, like a clown in front of a gaping audience as you try out your juggling and skipping, self-conscious both when you fall and when you don't.
A lot of people can tell me what to do - heck, you-can-he-can-she-can, yet you're still only voicing what's already in my head. I have all the intellectual answers, I am too old for my age, I've surpassed all this 'self-exploration' and 'self-discovery' - yet I'm still not there.
If life was really meant for us to just grow up, do the self-discovery crap, have kids, lug through fifty years of cooking-cleaning-careering, then I'm really not supposed to understand God.
Here's the ugly truth: I never quite know what to post here. When I come across some really witty quote, I'd think 'Hah! Great for a post!' - then I actually start to live life, and the blogging just seems too distant a part, too other-worldly, too artificial and non-solid for me to engage in when I'm actually out there. Or how do you know if you've revealed too much of yourself? And words are such that once the impact is hit, the damage is done - you can never quite reconstruct or alter or erase it from someone else's memory, and that's when it dawns on you: You've said too bloody much. You're too exposed and too vulnerable, like a clown in front of a gaping audience as you try out your juggling and skipping, self-conscious both when you fall and when you don't.
A lot of people can tell me what to do - heck, you-can-he-can-she-can, yet you're still only voicing what's already in my head. I have all the intellectual answers, I am too old for my age, I've surpassed all this 'self-exploration' and 'self-discovery' - yet I'm still not there.
If life was really meant for us to just grow up, do the self-discovery crap, have kids, lug through fifty years of cooking-cleaning-careering, then I'm really not supposed to understand God.
Friday, 21 August 2009
Important Book
Sorry for this quickie again, I'll get to replying your comments soon!
Here's an online plea: Whoever borrowed my 'Further Under the Duvet' book by Marian Keyes, please-please-please could you identify yourself and return it to me as soon as possible? I've been looking for it for ages, and I wanted to pack it up and take it with me when I get back to Brighton. I'd hate to spend another RM40 on one book twice.
Thanks.
Here's an online plea: Whoever borrowed my 'Further Under the Duvet' book by Marian Keyes, please-please-please could you identify yourself and return it to me as soon as possible? I've been looking for it for ages, and I wanted to pack it up and take it with me when I get back to Brighton. I'd hate to spend another RM40 on one book twice.
Thanks.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Caffeine
Caffeine does things to you, I swear. Like keep you up all night in zombie-mode. Or, if you're already nocturnal, it makes you acutely aware that you're still awake in the morning.
Sigh.
Sigh.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Happiness
Sarah - Nice to know. And thanks, sweetie. =)
Allan Chalmers: 'The grand essentials of happiness are - something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.'
Then I realized that the more screwed up you are, the more you think of some past tragedy as not that bad after all.
Brilliant, isn't it? You get this sudden insight of how much worse things can get and suddenly, whatever you've faced in the past seems like weeding in the garden when you're wrestling a beast now. Your perspective tips over like a glass that is finally knocked over the edge because, oh-dear-I'm-fighting-with-my-life, and nothing else quite matters except this time zone through which you're gritting your teeth and praying to God that this would be worth it.
My point is, happiness is a perspective. You can be in a right shithole, but that doesn't mean that all the other crap you've been through wasn't just as bad. To a fifty-year-old Madonna, growing old isn't something you just 'get over with' or to simply perm your hair and wear knitted overalls.
We all think that the keys to happiness involve learning, reading, watching TV, paying your bills, exercising, watching your portions, calling up a friend, ranting in a journal, blah blah - but these are all things that our current society urges us to do. When our ancestors bound their feet and corseted their waists, warred for riches and served animals for worship, you can bet it wasn't because they were in search for some epic sadness.
Here's some food for thought:
Dude #1: What if I don't want to be happy? What if I want to be miserable?
Dude #2: Be miserable, if that makes you happy!
Allan Chalmers: 'The grand essentials of happiness are - something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.'
Then I realized that the more screwed up you are, the more you think of some past tragedy as not that bad after all.
Brilliant, isn't it? You get this sudden insight of how much worse things can get and suddenly, whatever you've faced in the past seems like weeding in the garden when you're wrestling a beast now. Your perspective tips over like a glass that is finally knocked over the edge because, oh-dear-I'm-fighting-with-my-life, and nothing else quite matters except this time zone through which you're gritting your teeth and praying to God that this would be worth it.
My point is, happiness is a perspective. You can be in a right shithole, but that doesn't mean that all the other crap you've been through wasn't just as bad. To a fifty-year-old Madonna, growing old isn't something you just 'get over with' or to simply perm your hair and wear knitted overalls.
We all think that the keys to happiness involve learning, reading, watching TV, paying your bills, exercising, watching your portions, calling up a friend, ranting in a journal, blah blah - but these are all things that our current society urges us to do. When our ancestors bound their feet and corseted their waists, warred for riches and served animals for worship, you can bet it wasn't because they were in search for some epic sadness.
Here's some food for thought:
Dude #1: What if I don't want to be happy? What if I want to be miserable?
Dude #2: Be miserable, if that makes you happy!
Friday, 17 July 2009
'I' for Internet
The Internet is a world of its own. You Twitter each other, checking out FaceBook profiles and updating your status on Myspace. You blog your life like you would in a private journal, you change your MSN name to clue in on your life, you Instant-Message on practically every social network there exists.
Aren't we all just oh-so-chummy?
What the Internet does, though, is distort the real person that you might be (that is, considering you have a life out there, which might just be me imagining things or you wouldn't be reading this right now). Or rather, it tests the limits of your privacy. Like, if I whipped out pictures of a new DSLR and posted it all over FaceBook, you can bet that when we next meet, our conversation will be nothing like this:
Me: Guess-what-guess-what-guess-what?
You: What?
Me: I got a new DSLR!
You: Oh my goodness! (combined excited screech)
Instead, it'd be more like this:
Me: I got a new DSLR!
You: Oh yeah. I saw.
Me: You did?
You: Facebook.
Me: Ah. Okay. Right. (scrambles in head for next topic)
See? No feverish scream, no overwhelming excitement, no flurry of great ado, and whatever suspense you could have had was resolved the moment you breathed through the window of the Internet world.
Then again, we're stuck in this superficial net of websites and webpages so there may not be any point in trying to resist it. Unless, of course, I do it and you do it and a whole great army of people do it and suddenly we're this amazing fleet of new people renewing an old idea of socializing.
Who knows. We could be the next wave of non-computer people.
Aren't we all just oh-so-chummy?
What the Internet does, though, is distort the real person that you might be (that is, considering you have a life out there, which might just be me imagining things or you wouldn't be reading this right now). Or rather, it tests the limits of your privacy. Like, if I whipped out pictures of a new DSLR and posted it all over FaceBook, you can bet that when we next meet, our conversation will be nothing like this:
Me: Guess-what-guess-what-guess-what?
You: What?
Me: I got a new DSLR!
You: Oh my goodness! (combined excited screech)
Instead, it'd be more like this:
Me: I got a new DSLR!
You: Oh yeah. I saw.
Me: You did?
You: Facebook.
Me: Ah. Okay. Right. (scrambles in head for next topic)
See? No feverish scream, no overwhelming excitement, no flurry of great ado, and whatever suspense you could have had was resolved the moment you breathed through the window of the Internet world.
Then again, we're stuck in this superficial net of websites and webpages so there may not be any point in trying to resist it. Unless, of course, I do it and you do it and a whole great army of people do it and suddenly we're this amazing fleet of new people renewing an old idea of socializing.
Who knows. We could be the next wave of non-computer people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
