Q

Month: March 2012

Why, Hunger Games, why.

Had dinner with the Ice-Cream Gang and it was lovely. We were basically a family unit headed by the sane parental figures and then the other slightly deranged baby-children who flounced around singing.

Anyway. The Hunger Games hype. Why. Why. Can I go through any website without being assaulted by Hunger Games fandom Thing is, I’ve read the books. I DON’T LIKE IT. AT ALL. It’s not that I have a problem with people not sharing my opinion, but – yes actually I do. PEOPLE, WHY. WHAT. I DON’T GET IT. THE HUNGER GAMES, REALLY? I was fine with people liking it, but the whole excitement over it just as the movie’s coming out and everyone’s posting photos of themselves with the book as if they’ve read it and it’s getting.. pretty.. annoying. I predict that a few years down it’s gonna be another Twilight (because it’s Twilight standards. It is.) where people get over it’s fancy-shmancy glitz action and start to see it for what it really is: another Twilight.

Why I Don’t Like The Hunger Games

#1: Expectations.

So maybe this isn’t much of the novel’s fault, but given it’s name and slight prior introduction, I was expecting something highly psychological. Not where people actually have to run around with arrows fighting for food, but something much more nuanced. Yes there can be bloodshed, action, and all. But The Hunger Games simplifies it down to gimmicks and hero-complexes, which makes up reasons #3 and 4.

#2: You can find books of this theme of WAY higher caliber. KINDLY REDIRECT HYPE.

a) Lord of the FLIES. Mind-blowing take on the psychological toll of CHILDREN fighting for survival. Completely realistic setting. AND THE ACTION? It COMES ALIVE. If you’ve read Hunger Games but not Lord of the Flies, PLEASE read Lord of the Flies and see if you can still stomach Hunger Games (haha. haha. stomach..)

b) Nothomb’s Sulfuric Acid. Another brilliant one. Slightly more surreal and less survival-fight-ish. It’s set in an unknown time period where people are likewise part of a TV reality program in a concentration camp where they were constantly tortured and essentially stripped of human rights. Their battle was largely cognitive, with lengthy asides of human nature, but it’s still a lot better than the artificial rubbish they tried to throw at me in the Hunger Games.

c) Battle Royale. Which the Hunger Games basically ripped off.

#3: Crap characterization.

I cannot emphasize this enough. This is Twilight, Maximum Ride, and all other teenage nonsense all over again. The characters all possess some sort of idealized hero-complex. Yes they all have flaws, but perfectly constructed flaws that are just there to facilitate the story. They aren’t human. Katniss: I LOVE MY SISTER SO MUCH. I NEED TO SACRIFICE FOR HER AND MY FAMILY. TAKE ME! I AM STRONG. I DON’T HAVE THE CHOICE TO DIE, ETC. Peeta: I LOVE KATNISS. THIS IS MY TRAIT. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS OR WHAT I SEEM TO BE DOING IT IS TO REAFFIRM MY LOVE FOR KATNISS. Hero-complex. And then there’s that elfish girl there to beef up Katniss’ hero even further. And the very painfully obvious group of antagonists.

After reading Natsuo Kirino, I don’t believe in heros anymore. He writes about the human nature and it’s inherent failings so beautifully, so truthfully, that anything that even tries to discount this truthfulness makes me want to hurl. The Hunger Games simplifies human so much, that if it were a dimension in Flatland, it wouldn’t even be that one-dimensional line. It would be the singular point that looks exactly the same from all angles.

#4: FANCY-SHMANCY GLITZY-GLAM NONSENSE.

Seriously. The sympathetic and fashionable stylists, the plastic-looking flamboyant hosts, her chariot is ON FIRE!!! SO IS HER COSTUME!!! CROWDS! CHEERS! HUGE PLASMA SCREEN AND PODS AND AN ARENA AND NATURE WHERE YOU GET TO MOVE AROUND LIKE AN ATHLETE (a la Twilight)! I don’t know. Over-usage of visual gimmicks is sometimes forgivable, but when it’s also CLICHED? No. The whole impressive scenery thing works only n Harry Potter where everything is TOO ORIGINAL TO DISLIKE. Points for creativity.

Everything on The Hunger Games though, are vaguely things we’ve picked up from the very basic fancy stage tricks we’ve seen all our lives. It just. Didn’t impress. I mean at all. I might have cringed while reading because it tried so hard to be fancy and grand but just came off common and base. It’s as if someone wrote it knowing it’ll make for a great movie (it probably does make an appropriate action blockbuster)(it kind of IS one now) and I hate it when people do that. We have an imagination. Stop writing for it to be filmed.

#5: Seriously, the romance?

Peeta. The fat baker. NO. Much as I didn’t like the novel, it had one redeeming quality. GALE. Who is basically the only tolerable character in the book. But no. There had to be a completely idealized, thoroughly maudlin, very TRAGIC and NOBLE love story which is ironically eagerly craved by the dumb Capitol which I find absolutely HILARIOUS given the whole PeeNiss fandom in reality. SATIRE, PEOPLE. DO YOU NOT SEE IT? Probably not, I doubt it’s even intended. It is like Coffeeshop Romance but ten times worst because Peeta is so ridiculously and inexplicably willing to sacrifice himself for Katniss. He is nothing as a character but a romantic hero. The bile rises…

#6: The faux-political theme.

WHY DO THEY EVEN TRY. It’s like they try to mash up all the possible popular themes to churn out a best-seller. Sometimes you just. don’t. attempt too many themes when you can’t even handle basic characterization properly. The faux-politics is laughable. The faceless Capitol, the brief introduction of how exactly Panem landed in that state (which I found unbelievable and thus un-frightening), the post-apocalyptic mess. The only thing I semi-liked about it is how every district had it’s own signature, and in varying degrees of wealthiness. But then again it’s a cheap, clever trick that any dystopian author with a brainwave could achieve.

Brave New World, 1984 and Iron Heel gave me a pervasively insidious feeling when I read it – speculative-political fiction should do that; make you somehow fear that it is possible no matter how absurd the setting. I don’t see Panem coming true any time. Logistically and logically, it doesn’t work. Once again, it doesn’t hit home.

#7: The plot itself…

Just gave me a million opportunities to go Please lah, you really want me to see this as plausible. It being a post-apocalyptic, fantasy type novel, of course you can’t expect it to be grounded in current day reality. What I mean is the way in which people respond to things, how characters carry out things, how things they do work out. It’s all just too… pretty. Yes the death and the bloodshed, but everything’s so calculated, predictable, meant to be, just so the story will the take the shape readers would like. Just the right amount of tears and adrenaline and happiness and everything.

I guess if you’re looking for feel-good and predictable, The Hunger Games would be an appropriate choice. If you’ve read too much ugly and truth to be drawn into another blockbuster novel, skip it.

March 31, 2012
gelato.

Yeap, I’m off Facebook. This time there aren’t much fancy reasons. Basically, Timeline’s lack of privacy controls kind of creeps me out. It’s not that I particularly mind having information from years ago so easily accessed, it’s more of how I don’t see why they don’t give better instructions on how to make it Not like that. Lack of choice, essentially, made me quit.

Anyway, I’ve pseudo-started work and I like it already. It’s hard not to be happy when you’re in a theme park and everyone’s (including the staff) main objective is to have fun. I’m glad I chose Resort’s World over a $1,500 office job I’d probably have been miserable in.

I’m also incredibly tired, constipated, and messing up French tips. This is a very pointless, update-y type post, because there’s nowhere else I can say things on the net besides this space. It feels kinda nice. Like I can finally streamline my thoughts.

March 29, 2012
Tradition is tradition.

This is the thing where I state the first thing that comes to mind. The one immediately after the word is my answer now, first word below is from 07, the next being from 06. Let’s dissect and check out how much I’ve changed.

1. Cigarettes: Stink.

07: Butts. 06: Tobacco.

I’m visibly less material/visual. You’ll see.

2. Friends: Awesome

07: French fries. 06: Lovely.

I was probably hungry back in 07. Awesome and Lovely are both really gross words, but I tried to stick to the immediate response thing. And my friends ARE kinda both those.

3. Relationships: Stink

07: Problems. 06: Lesbians.

Evidently I’ve never taken very well to relationships and still don’t. LESBIANS? What was I up to? I don’t remember.

4. Power Rangers: Rei-En

07: Gamma Rays. 06: Lousy

LOUSY? Don’t kill me Rei.

5. Marijuana: Chicken pie

07: Cocaine. 06: Nice name.

Marijuana IS a nice name. And I know why Chicken Pie. I was probably thinking pot and skipped a neuron to land smack into food.

6. Shit: Constipation

07: Chocalate. 06: My favourite word besides passion.

Shit is a disgusting word. Chocolate is a beautiful thing. What was wrong with me? And yes I am currently constipated.

7. Crack: ed.com

07: Head. 06: Crackhead.

where’s 8?

9. Love: Ice-cream

07: Boat. 06: Everyone.

I went from loving everyone to loving ice-cream. Something happened.

10. War: must occur for peace to have meaning

07: Ships/Chess. 06: Iraq.

I read that off somewhere.

11. Car: -wash

Chevy convertible. Rolls Royce

Less material, more hygienic.

12. Gas Prices: Kuwait

Soaring. Government

Still a political issue for me.

13. Halloween: Miley Cyrus

Pumpkins. Stupid Vampire in Japanese Vid.

14. Bon Jovi: Blonde

GAY. A woman with lots of sandy, curly hair.

15. Religion: Mine

Moss colored stones? A big bronzed cross.

SEE, LESS MATERIAL/VISUAL.

16. MySpace: Lame

Pretentious emos. Some website.

Always, always.

17. Worst fear: Lizards

Lizards. Stupid lizards.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS.

18. Marriage: Maybe

Sex. Commitment.

19. Fashion: Faux

Shows. The Devil wears Prada/Chao Ah Bengs.

20. Brunettes: Banana

Sex. Chao Tar Bananas.

I really don’t know brunettes remind me of bananas, I really don’t. And the sex is probably because I was a hormonal pubescent.

21. MISSING: Milk cartons

Milk Cartons. The Show.

22. Work: Load

Overtime & Schedules. Homework.

23. Past time: Forever

Bored. Bored.

I love this. Somehow I’ve grown out of being bored I treasure every damn second I have to do things I like.

24. Football: Mud

Grass. Football shaped cake with green coconut grass.

Probably that stint in soccer end ’10 made me realize it’s a lot more mud than grass. I have a permanent mud-ball stain on my shirt to prove it.

25. One night stand: Flunitrazepam

Sex. Cathleen Wong. (WTH!?)

26. Pet Peeve: Slow

Peeves in Harry Potter. Peeves the Poltergeist.

This means I need to re-watch/read HP more often.

27. Pixie Stix: Sour

Undersized penises. Condoms.

I’m glad I’ve gone down the conservative path.

28. Vanilla Ice Cream: ICE-CREAM.

Cum. White albino wheat grass.

Again, I’m glad my very disturbingly sexed up 07 self was tamed.

29. MISSING: (again? and 8.)

The Show. What the hell?

30. High School: Never Ends. I’ve been ruined by that damn song.

Never Ends. Ang Moh.

Damn song.

31. Pyjamas: McComfyPants

Cotton. Alibaba Alicia.

I LOVE PYJAMAS I WILL WEAR THEM ALL DAY IF I COULD.

32. Wood: chuckchuckifawoodchuckwouldchuckwood

Fairies. Kenny Sia.

33. Surfing: OH MAMA, I WANNA GO SURFIN’~

Hot/bleach blonde/amazing abs/tanned/drenched/surfer dude on surfboard. Hot dude in blue boxers.

I have also been listening to songs more extensively, you see. And less inclined towards hot dude on surfboards.

34. Pictures: ofyou, picturesofme

Cameras? Picasso.

And the bad music too.

35. First Love: Ice-Cream

Cupid. Infatuation.

And found an incredible love for food.

March 27, 2012
this.

Between completing my applications, stocking up on smart-casual (I have a pathetic range of work clothes) and paying bills on AXS machines, I started reading my archives. What the Lord of the Flies said about a brighter childhood becomes relevant. I don’t know how this hits everyone – or when, but it happened to me this morning when I was eating a Kit Kat chocolate egg my grandma got me (they discontinued Kinder Surprises, you can only get them in German markets now), somehow fully expecting to see some kind of gimmick in it, but it was empty. And just like that I realized that I’ve been watching myself and my friends grow out of childhood. I don’t mean grow up. I mean grow out of something. Yes we unanimously still hold on to those childlike activities because as a group we are afraid of becoming jaded and boring. We do dance dares, we refuse to act responsibly, we watch Hannah Montana and make loud obnoxious sounds to defy the calm, steady tones adults are expected to have. I am somewhat grateful we have all that, a reminder that we can still have fun. But it doesn’t change that we’ve grown out of things that are much more than kidult activities. I have a photo of G and C in my phone, dressed up all wacky in our St. Nicks pinafores for their little hosting gig in the Drama Studio. Every time I see that photo (and I’m usually strictly non-sentimental), I get a strange feeling of loss. I’ve watched G face things no one should face in her two years, and without having to tell each other, we know something inside her would have changed. We grow out and learn things, learn that things we’ve believed without question for nineteen straight years might not be true. Don’t allow it to break us, hold on to one another, can only get stronger, but it is true that life isn’t as pretty as we wished it’ll be. I’m not terribly upset, I can only say it’s a pity – so this is growing up (out). Growing up, I have that. I’ve formed solid world views I spent years developing, I fully understand now what it is to love a friend (to feel concern for them more than you can for yourself), I can sense the center of control extending so strongly in my mind it scares me sometimes. I’m not saying I’m brilliantly intelligent, which I kind of am, but. If there is one thing my mind does well, it’s that I can categorize, compartmentalize, merge, delete, drag-drop, basically computer-function anything that goes through it. (G says, don’t over-rationalize too much) But I can’t help it. Because I know at the end of the day my mind is the only thing I have full control over, so I can’t possibly allow it to go. Archives tells me this thread of thought begun in mid-09, that was where I started to hoard and build a command center in my brain that would be absolutely infallible. That was my first sign of growing up/out. The first fully formed thought that nothing that happens to me can ever get to me. I mean, because I’m not a Vulcan (unfortunately), I still feel of course. But it takes me maybe half a day to get over things. To think it through so thoroughly I realize there’s no point sinking into it anymore. My logic goes like this. Yes you’ve done something I cannot forgive you for, but if I let it upset me – I’m the one responsible for myself being upset. Besides, it is your brain that has incited this wrong, this fault. Yes I am disappointed in you, yes I can now see you weren’t the mature adult I’ve always seen you as, but so what. It’s such a removed thing. You’re the one doing the wrong. I have done nothing, my mind has done no wrong, tripped no wires, breached no trust. As long as my mind is intact and unblemished, I can not care. This is how scarily it works, this is growing out. She tried to appeal to me; you wouldn’t know until you’re in my situation. I told her firmly no. It hasn’t happened yet but I have complete confidence I’ll never do whatever you have done – and I’ve never believed so strongly in anything I’ve said before. That was when I knew I’m finally done forming the beliefs I’ll keep from now on. Growing out. While my Vulcan-ian brain system scares the shit out of me, I’ve decided – whatever I cannot feel for myself, I do it for my friends. In a way, this has already been true for a while though I’ve never consciously registered it. How do you worry for yourself when you know whatever happens you’ll be fine? That’s needless worry. But I have no control over my friends and how they take things. I have influence yes, but because I’m not them I’ll always be uncertain of how things can go wrong for them. ‘Just tell yourself to stop thinking about it,’ ‘Don’t let whatever he says affect you at all,’ ‘Try to see it from this vantage point’, and they say yes I know I know, but I can’t. And when I so desperately want them to be able to, so they can be alright, I know it’s not something I can do for them.

There’s a lake where all things lost go and you have to dive in so deep that you feel like you’re almost crushed before you find it, hand it over to the friends you love and watch them put it on and they smile like they did five years ago and you feel like there’s nothing in the world that can take you away from this happiness.

March 25, 2012
And it goes on and on

So recently I’ve been going on about either books or just straight off the tangent. Was planning to go into Franny and Zooey but I thought I’d save it for after Rei does one on Catcher.

In an attempt to fulfill the self-indulgence quota of online journaling, and to introduce some form of cosmos (Greek: order) (ah, words) into this space, let’s do one of those primary school favorites!

1. Are you in a job that you truly enjoy?

Starting next week at Resorts World and I’ll probably like it (a lot more than office jobs, I’m sure). I’ll much prefer unemployment though.

2. If you could do any job in the world what would it be?

Food reviewer and part-time mattress tester. Although I still stick by my dream of unemployment.

3. If you could be a character in a novel who would you be?

Charlie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For obvious reasons. Realistically though I’m much more of an Augustus Gloop (fat boy who can’t stop eating) or Veruca (SQUIRREL I WANT SQUIRREL!) Salt.

On a deeper level, because Charlie has almost no characterization besides being incredibly obedient. I can never imagine casting myself as someone else, so with someone character-less it’ll just be like possessing his body. And his chocolate paradise.

4. When it comes to spending time with those you love, do you think it should be about quality or quantity?

Quality. Always quality. I suck at the quantity part but I’m very fussy about quality.

5. Is there a job/career you wanted but realized you couldn’t possibly do for one reason or another?

Is this meme deliberately jabbing at my hopeless wishes to be unemployed forever? Because unemployed forever is what I wish for but can’t. Bastard meme.

6. If you could live anywhere in the world or out of this world where would you live?

Suspended in the middle of the universe, wherever that is. The point of singularity where everything else expands outwards from (although.. this may not actually be the case. Okay cosmo-geekery for later).

7. Which skill would you like to learn?

To play the saxophone. To master the dead languages.

8. What made you laugh today?

HAHA Theron: “IT FUCKING MEANS LITTLE MOON… I need to lie down.”

9. If there was one charity you could give a huge contribution to, which charity would it be and why?

SPCA. I don’t know I feel more for animals than anything else. Maybe because it’s so hard for them to articulate their suffering and they are so clueless.

10. What are your views on the smoking ban in public places?

AQ question [8m]
I don’t really care. Unless they smoke near my hair.

11. Why do you blog?

It just happened and I haven’t stopped since. Seven years.

12. Do you have a favorite author?

Amelié Nothomb, bitches.

13. Can you play any musical instruments?

The recorder, the tambourine and the uke. I’m planning to learn the Jew’s Harp next.

14. What would your ideal car be?

A Volkswagen with a really sick audio system.

15. Describe yourself in one short sentence.

Are you kidding me.

16. What do you look for in a spouse/other half?

Intelligence.

17. Worst meal you’ve had?

WASABI ICE CREAM FOREVER. Celine Ong.

18. What do you do to relax in the evening?

Some after-meal dessert.

19. Do you get along with your siblings?

Considering the years I’ve subjected her to psychological experiments and torture, we’re alright

25. Do you you have any regrets?

Yes like anyone else, but I actively make sure I don’t do anything I’ll regret, and I’m good at justifying my decisions/getting over things.

26. Put your iTunes on shuffle and list the first 6 songs.

– wannapunch!, Shuta Hasunuma
– Academia…, Sia
– what the world will never take, Hillsong
– If you were an Alien, The Brunettes
– Tahquamenon Falls, Sufjan Stevens
– Title and Registration, Deathcab

27. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Those I really want to are fictional, unfortunately, or dead. Maybe Stalin.

28. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

‘run after him, shouting, “Dear Little Beggar, Dear Little Beggar!”‘

29. What do you think about most?

Seriously? Food.

30. What does your latest text message from someone else say?

Nat: Just walked past some h&m adverts. Seem like they advertising boho eh

31. Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Used to without but now with. Just not.. everything.

32. What’s your strangest talent?

If I rely directly on instincts, I can predict time to the exact minute. And this is after a few hours without checking the clock.

I believe that everyone has this ability actually if they trust their instincts enough. It’s like how you’ll set the alarm to 7 and wake at 6.59pm. Despite relativity and different experiences of the same time period, our biological clocks have gone through time for so many years it’s impossible not to be incredibly attuned to it.

33. Women…. (finish the sentence); Men…. (finish the sentence)

Women are humans; men are too. Attempts at psychologically dividing them are illusory and arbitrary.

34. Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Yes. I was traumatized.

35. When is the last time you played the air guitar?

I’m guessing with the mugs when we reach that embarrassing point of non-alcoholic drunken chaos.

36. Do you have any strange phobias?

I’m equal parts fascinated and terrified by aliens.

37. Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Ew no, I don’t even stick my finger up there. It is truly horrific.

Celine on the other hand, stuck earphones up hers and amplified music through her mouth.

38. What’s your religion?

Christian.

39. If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

EATING. Why my life like that. Or doing social inappropriate things.

40. Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

In front of digital, behind film.

41. Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Starfucker, but many others come close.

42. What was the last lie you told?

Z: “You’re getting prettier and prettier!”
Me: “No la, no la.”

43. Do you believe in karma?

I have serious doubts about criminal justice, still can’t fully understand divine justice, and have even more trouble trusting karma.

44. What does your URL mean?

Rictusempra. The Perpetual Tickling Spell, as in the Harry Potter series.

45. What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

Pride; everything else.
swidt.

46. Who is your celebrity crush?

Matthew Gray Gubler I guess? I’m not a very celebrity crush type person.

47. Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

No because that’s sexual harassment. Why I think that would stop me I don’t know.

48. How do you vent your anger?

I’m really lame. I just get slightly quieter and not show anything. Then I’ll cry when no one is around. Seldom though.

OR. As Cleo likes to remind me, what I shared during CME in primary school:
“I was so angry I knocked over the fan!”
Teacher: “Then what did you do after that?”
“I picked it up.”

50. Do you have a collection of anything?

I used to collect Pokemon cards, batteries (before Arthur Weasley made it cool) and watches.

51. Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

If I’m wearing pants, video. I gesticulate and emote a lot even on the phone and without an audience that’s a phenomenal waste of energy.

52. In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Respect, trust and genuine concern. Oh and fun.

53. How did/could someone win your heart?

Impress me deep enough which is not very easy because I am deceivingly brilliant.

54. In your world, what brings on more creativity?

Integration. Of everything. Science, arts, ideas, people, nature. Creativity is how much your mind can merge varied or even divisive topics.

55. What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Taking Drama in St. Nicks.

56. Why did you break up with your last ex?

I’m not good at showing people how much I like them.

57. What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

“They are lucky to have her up there.”

58. What is your current desktop picture?

Minimalist Pokemon. Currently Cyndaquil.

59. If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

I wouldn’t touch the damn button. Also, is this what’s behind Spontaneous Combustion? Scientists have been on this for decades.

60. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by WEEPING ANGELS. The Weeping Angles aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What would you do?

The Time Lord has taught me to locate the one without another angel staring at it and stare back and NOT BLINK.

Although if you want to get Doctor Who technical, this situation is highly implausible.

61. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Change color of things. I don’t trust myself with serious extraterrestrial powers. I’ll either kill myself or everyone else.

62. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

I’m good at blocking out or getting over things that upset me, especially if they were a past event. So if you ask me now there’s really nothing (I can remember).

63. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. (let’s say that you are both single and available) Who might it be?

All the musicians I like are sexually unappealing.

Pete Quaife of the Kinks? He is also dead.

Damn I love talking about myself.

March 23, 2012
TO NAP.

1.

recently i read two book consecutively and by pure coincidence they echoed each other, at least in a skeletal manner.

Amélie Nothomb’s Book of Proper Names and Anais Nin’s Children of the Albatross. at this juncture i need to confess that i’m now and always biased towards Nothomb. besides her ridiculous endings which are surreal to the point of being sublime, i can hold nothing against her. she’s refined but wild, seldom predictable and never pretentious. i don’t think i knew how to read before i read Nothomb. but that’s just me.

both were of orphaned dancers centering their life around ballet. Nothomb’s pursuing perfection in dance and the body, Nin’s similarly exploring the beauty of dance.

the Book of Proper Names was a Mobius strip of un-orientable surrealism – you start out thinking okay, i’ve got this, but it unravels somewhere (you don’t know where) and you find that you’ve exited reality so quietly you’re standing in exactly the same place but everything’s been warped to be completely unrecognizable. Nin’s on the other hand, starts with a creeping sense of unknowing but settles into what i call Coffeehouse Romance.

i dread Coffeehouse Romance in every book/film/cartoon/show i encounter. basically it is anything romantic that is pretty. i don’t know why it scares me so much, but love should be ugly and confusing and completely flawed and wrong because that’s the only way i can believe it. this is not me being disillusioned. Coffeehouse Romance has this insidious way of making me highly conscious of myself holding a book and reading words that are putting images in my mind. it reminds me that i’m reading which is probably the worst case of book-cock-block there is to reading.

probably the best book you can read that balances absolute strangeness with sheer truthfulness in relationships is Shopgirl. it’s highly cognitive, and this analysis is at work even at the novella’s most compact mass of weepy. read if only for Ray Porter’s dissection of how to romance and Jeremy’s intellectual breakthrough which was frankly incredibly sexy and makes me very hopeful about life and men.

the Book of Proper Names, fortunately, had a very hideous streak of romance that was completely weird – and came up only towards the end with a brilliant little front piece about it. like i told Celine, Nothomb’s endings are a shitload of crap. deliberately and rightly so. endings are probably the least important part of the book, and it is probably the least important thing about ourselves too. look at it this way – when it ends, you’ll have to no way to cerebral-ize, celebrate, or mope about it. in a way: it doesn’t matter at all. by extension – book endings don’t matter.

also. i always feel uneasy with endings. because from there there a million billion permutations of how it will. even if it ends in the protagonist’s death, what happens to everyone else? an ending that very explicitly feels like it says: ‘yes. it ends here. it is happy/sad and how it will be forever’, i feel cheated. of course there’s no way around this catch-22 so i live with all the endings i read and get blown away by crazy ones like Nothomb. maybe i should try sci-fi with gimmicky time-travelling. also i suck at writing endings.

2.

i stopped caring much about University. or at least not as much as people want me to. it’s not that i’ve gone complacent or nonchalant about education, but these few months made me realize how minimally school affects what i know.

i get excited thinking about re-entering a place where i’d be given topics to study and where i’d get to learn, but then i thought that right before JC as well. in a way it’s my own fault. i constantly compartmentalize ‘learning’ from ‘school-studying’. the only real way of learning is to build them neuron links – where you actually become more intelligent and shit. somehow i’ve stubbornly offered only the most shallow information-storing, copy-pasting part of my mind to school. we like to think that the education system is flawed and all – which partly yes because it’s time constraint practically forces us to offer only that shallow brain bit (most efficient in the short-run), but it’s about how much i wanted to give as well i guess.

also i have a serious thing about competition (I AM MORTALLY AFRAID OF IT) and i almost never want proper help from people. in J1 a teacher had me aside because she noticed that i seemed averse to asking for help from teachers. and i’ve known this about myself all along – i study best alone and in fact, i learn best when i do everything myself. by everything i mean picking what i want to learn, researching for information on my own, and self-evaluating. (that is probably most of my friends too.) this also means i am academically anti-social. competition paralyses me into wanting to give up and i’d actually much prefer if lessons go like: ‘ok go home and learn about the Cold War by yourself good bye.’ and then also i am incredibly adhd and distracted during everything except lit lectures.

in a very strange, warped way – the better and more effective my teachers are, the less likely i might actually perform.

that’s basically the summary of my schooling life from p1 – j2.

the only reason why i’ve not failed immensely in school is because nearing major exams (and when you’re near death you get that whole gungho, take the plunge shit) a part of me goes – dammit i don’t care already just do anything i want to do. and i’d basically do everything i’m not supposed to do and throw away a worrying amount of notes i’ve been hoarding and sieve out the essential parts and sleep A LOT and watch A LOT of TV (which i maintain is the only way to regulate brain activity). and somehow these techniques always work out right for me. but i don’t want last-ditch successes all the time.

i really, really want to have a stretch of school life where i actually start out right – meaning no one’s telling me how to do it or giving me resources that distract me from my own strangeling learning patterns. so while i’m excited about entering Uni, i’ve pretty much stopped caring which course i’m taking or where i’m going. because i realized it doesn’t matter. wherever you go you’re just learning the same thing. TO THINK. i just want someone to bark at me to learn something and i’ll head off on my own to be some kind of self-built supergenius.

3.

have you watched The General?

you haven’t. go watch it.

March 19, 2012
linguin-ists.

the lack of gratification from my Magikarp-splashed (i.e “NOTHING HAPPENED”) haircut had me re-dye-ing, just to fill the dearth that is expectation of change.

the results.

i know right.

so yesterday i had five un-related people asking me: “YOU VERY FREE AH?”/”ARE YOU VERY BORED?”

yes. yes i am.

but it is also out of this boredom that genius is nurtured. let me show you.

it started when he was raisin hell
all throughout that one Sundae;
we’ve beancurd since then, and after awhile
we went on our seperate wheys.

“things will get butter from here”, they said
“you have to let the mango.”
still, i mustard-mit his absence bread
a sweet-and-sour sorrow.

i know, i know. bow down to me if you wish.

thing is, everyone assumes i’m bored. and in a way i am – because i have nothing i NEED to do (besides uni apps which, yknw, i pretend do not exist).

but there’s so much i WANT to do, it’s like i don’t have enough time every day to finish them all. there’s never a moment where i go: damn i wish i had something to do. there’s just always something to keep my occupied.

…like Hitler genealogy. which (frankly) is what i would much rather do than attend a party.

this is also why i think i’m destined to live as an unemployed friendless gypsy hobo.

AND AND AND!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBBIE! YOU ARE FINALLY NINE(TEEN)!

~

:-)

March 13, 2012
azn hair being azn & kuo pao kun

today, finally, after nightmares (serious) and consults and rumination, i decided to get a hair cut. this is the first time since a year ago. and hair cuts have a nasty way of not ending well for me unless i do it myself.

as you can tell, it is like when i get Magikarp to use splash.

nothing happened.

i’m not sure whether to feel relief, or annoyed that i spent dessert money to look absolutely no different. and no, this is not an excuse to post up boob shots. there’s nothing much to show.

Gloria is working at The Theatre Practice, and was a guide for TTP’s Kuo Pao Kun Festival. So the bunch of us went to watch last week.

we did KPK’s Silly Little Girl & the Funny Old Tree (fondly initialized to SLGFOT) for our O Level Drama piece, and hell that process makes up about half of our mugger’s mine of inside jokes. (i inexplicably typed indian jokes)

our group decided to do site-specific, at the outdoors playground/gym of the SN basketball courtyard, with a huge tree and all.

we spent most of our time sleeping on the grass/monkey bars like hobokids actually, because the group was basically the chillest (read: lazy) people of the class put together (Lorraine, Xin, Rei and Cat), and also because it being in the courtyard meant no Mr Wong supervision/pressure from other groups.

so it was month long drowsy afternoons under the sun feeding the mosquitoes and occasional bursts of energy which we invested in — puddling. i actually have photographic evidence:

YES. complete with bad haircuts and white sports shoes (besides those, we’re pretty much the same – t-shirts and shorts for rehearsals and being-hyper/not-doing-work). couldn’t find the one where we were actually on the site though. :-(

we finished about ten scenes in the last week, then retreated back to lethargy and dozed under the sun right before the filming, to the utter horror of the other groups as they spied on us from the MPR level. GOOD TIMES, M’FRIENDS. <3

so i was pretty excited when i got to watch a professional site-specific inspired by KPK.

it was at the Stamford Arts Center (or rather, TAMFORD Arts Center. it’s over a 100 years old and the S fell off). beautiful place, really. old, rustic, quaint structure, and it has a very occident-orient hybrid feel to it.

we were brought all over the area and i loved that (mostly because i hate sitting still) – the roof, corridors, rooms, backyards.

i liked the spatial-visual/audio usage: sometimes we got to watch a scene taking place in a balcony some floors down, with the cast’s voices echoing all over the building. sometimes we looked up and a someone’s just there teetering on the building’s beam. sometimes they mingled right among us.

it was inevitable that transitions (moving around) and the dispersed space took away some of the performance impact though. i could tell they were strong actors, but it’s impractical to expect that full-on energy and focus you get from the other contained-space theater spaces. given that constraint, it was otherwise great.

sublime moments used the element of surprise. a suitcase front-center, a scene going on behind. when the scene behind finishes, someone stretches out of the case. man dreaming of giving birth had his water bag burst. you get sent into a live demonstration of prostitution in a brothel with low-q music in the background. i liked the surreal.

but my favorites were the unplanned and spontaneous. one part had a character straddling a gate, yelling absurd questions out of the SAC compound a la KPK style: “YOU MEI YOU KAN JIAN DA NIAO?”. a random man on a bike actually yelled back an answer “DA NIAO MEI YOU, XIAO NIAO JIU YOU!”, it was just brilliant.

also the SAC cat roving around (it was very tame and had a strange majestic air about it, like it knew it was the actual boss of the area). it got caught right at the start of a scene: red lights on, incense, a door with steps leading down to the corridor where we were at, and there standing a woman about to begin her monologue – and the cat just there at the steps. it was so simple and meaningless and random, but it was the image that stuck with me after the play.

oh and YES, all in Chinese! the language may be slightly hard to follow, but my advice is to just stop trying to follow and go along with whatever you get – it’s enough. just listen to intonation, the pitch, the tone, they way they are said.

the site-specific work is over but there’s a whole series of other shows by TTP and they should be checked out, regardless of Chinese Language proficiency level.

March 11, 2012
reads

i confess i’ve been a slubberdegullion (yes, i just had to use an recently learnt archaic word because i am annoying) with fiction recently. after a month of heavy non-fic and a few carelessly chosen novels, there came an insane need for good fiction. therefore: prowling about dusty second-hand bookstores.

it’s quite a good haul.. but i was very select with what i got, after disappointing half-reads that are strewn all over the house at this very moment. i hate not finishing what i start out reading.. but i hate having to trudge through bad fiction more than, so.

ANYWAY.

three picks in the fiction haul.

i read a chunk of this in the book store and got a terrible neck ache. slick narrative (which i slipped in so easily i forgot to stop). there were none of those bright moments of word/idea lust YET, i can’t be too quick in my judgement. i suspect it will go into post-colonialism (dislike) and hit a dry patch near middle. then again, i have a penchant for African waif-child with special abilities after Life of Pi so maybe this won’t disappoint.

by God, HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY. guilt wants me to tell you i picked this one out purely because its title is so sublime. so on the cover we have the Hilton sisters decked out in the hot threads of Christmas ’99. despite that, instincts tell me it’ll be good. twins unnaturally codependent (i love weird twin stories), neighbor with OCD, gothic house and the cemetery (symmetry.. geddit?). i’m very excited about this. although i wish i got the plain cover instead of the Christmas Hilton ’99 one for selfish aesthetic reasons.

oh right, and yes. same author as The Time Traveler’s Wife which made me cry, but this one seems stranger and less ideal a la Nicholas Sparks (meh) – YAY. next on the to-get list: Three Incestuous Sisters by her, illustrated!

i’m not sure what this is yet, read the first page and immediately knew i had to have it. it’s in a multiple column format, each a tiny excerpt that seemed more like a poem-monologue hybrid. it’s strangely reminiscent of those monologues we did back in Sec 4, and they are really, really pretty. i felt, slightly, that it’s so good i need to stop for a while thing. flipped through a little and there’s something about Keanu Reeves, and it uses a lot of gimmicks a la Jonathan Safran Foer.. i’m betting it’s good but not consistently. we’ll see.

and also got The Lovely Bones which i’ve read half of in the school library once so thought i’d finish it.

okay that’s all. non-fiction includes Douglas Adam’s really old works, some Mao Ze Dong nonsense (this bookstore is dedicated to Mao, i swear. this woman came in complaining about being sold over-priced Mao propaganda paintings and wanted a refund [yes i was eavesdropping]. apparently she paid a thousand for three pieces. the hell, woman!?) history nonsense that i probably will never read, economics nonsense that looks interesting but i probably will never read because it reminds me of my ungotten A, a Stephen Fry collection of his nonsense, and one about crime.

although nothing will beat John E. Douglas’ works on profiling (HIS WORKS ARE SO ELUSIVE. only ever available in reference libraries and pop-up heartland book carts). the only one i’ve got from him is Obsession, which i’ve read twice over and also referenced for my..

(okay this is where it gets freaky)

…notes on rapist. yeah, okay. i’m trying to keep records of rapists under the four major rapist-types (as propounded by Douglas). so far i’ve categorized the types and their victimology, personality, modus operandi and motive, but haven’t been weird/determined/free enough to catalogue known offenders. also, if i did – my web history will likely lead to my arrest on grounds of potential sex crime.

…potential sex criminal AND possible attempts to overthrow the incumbent cabinet to establish a dictatorship, because of my one-evening madness where i charted out Hitler’s genealogy as far back as autobiographies/the net would allow. it’s nothing that we don’t already know, but Hitler is so full of incest. as was his best buddy Nicholas II of Russia, a fellow anti-Semite. and look where it landed them – art-school rejection angst and suicide for one, an always bleeding son and Rasputin for another (well at least they got to be a Disney movie trolol).

INCEST AND JEW-HATING AIN’T GOOD, PEOPLE.

OH AND ALSO – would you guys be interested in buying metal Pokemon gym badge (Indigo League [Kanto region]) pins if i got them produced? how much are you willing to pay (single/full set)? this is the rough draft – it will be way more symmetrical and with more accurate/vibrant colors. wqingtan@gmail.com.

March 10, 2012
there is no such thing as

– overpriced ice cream.

because that connotes it’s worth does not level or surpass it’s price.

worth is what you expect the commodity to give you – in this case pleasure (i mean – c’mon. ice cream, people.) ICE CREAM (except in the case of a foul tasting shitpile of Wasabi ice cream Celine forced me to buy [$3!]) HAS NEVER LET ME DOWN. the pleasure i derive from ice cream is roughly equivalent to $9.75/reasonably sized scoop sans topping/other wonderful edible accessories. and since ice cream in Singapore is mostly below that, i’ve always been eating cheap ice-cream. YES, hotdamn.

i just really want ice cream waffles now, so.

and yes i have been eating ice cream every day. without waffles.

there was Soft serve in plastic cups, mini-Magnums on stick, Venezia on cones, Baskin-Robbins in recyclables, Haagen-Dazs in tubs. BUT WAFFLES. WAFFLES. the ultimate combination.

yeah ok.

so if you’re one of those people, you’re here to check for mentions of my results. unfortunately i don’t and won’t post them up in full, but here are some tantalizing hints you nosy thing:

1. i’m grateful for them, because they make the cut for the few courses i’ve had in mind all along. all local.

2. they’re not fantastic though. not straight As if that’s what you’re thinking about.

3. they were better than i expected. although my expectations were warped after the nightmare i had of getting three Cs, one A, a B and a couple Us. it was very strange.

4. in fact i’m happy for everything except Econs. i really, really wanted that A. not for Lit, not for History, (and we can skip Math) but Econs. and after prelims i thought i could. i hate it when people get upset over a decent grade, but now i sort of-ish get why they feel that.

5. thank you God. no, really. not good enough to worry about the insane range of options, not bad enough to be limited in any way.

also i found that i don’t care much about grades as grades. it’s more of where i can go from here. so anyway, i’ll be going around to all University food places for taste tests.. i’ll have a good time with the one in town.

if i had no filial duties or expectations to fulfill, i will. WILL. drop school now, rent a caravan and travel everywhere doing just enough freelance to feed myself. this is a completely true story. but, you know. life.

oh! starting work at RWS in a few, with Rei and Celine. free entry to USS, wootz. kindly be torn up with jealousy.

March 3, 2012