olives, dogs, chocolate, babies, foxes, ice-cream, wolves, unicorns, bones, collarbones, wrist bones, hipbones, anklebones, fresh laundry, bruises, smell of paint, scabs, blisters, acne, gap between the front teeth, ramen, threes, yogurt, slim paperbacks, paper bags, stuffed toy animals, brown paper envelopes, symmetry, calluses, pretty girls, adorkable boys, wood furnishing, pink, awkward moments, lists, end of constipation, tin boxes, neatly organized colors.
tbc.
I’ve been itching to write, for various reasons. The primary one being that when i write – things fall into perspective, they start to make sense… which is what i need now; have been feeling eerily spacey recently.
At first i was hoping it would be catalyst for some prose/poetry but nup – creative constipation still insisting it’s stay (save me, CAP/CAP friends). So right now i’m taking the easy way out – and also cleverly avoiding having to explicitly explain my wonked-out mental state by mashing this together with a pseud0 book review.
Banana Yoshimoto’s Asleep.
Three micro stories into one mini novel. They aren’t even about anything much. Take moments out of someone’s life, as far away from anything momentous as possible. Allude to deaths at only it’s most casual and stunning. Magnify every present thought and movement to it’s very barest and most truthful. That’s basically what Yoshimoto does. It feels like i’m reading sentences off a blank wall.. there’s little chronology or sense. Which scares me slightly because that’s how i’ve been feeling recently.
It’s not that i’m not happy, or that i’m dreading anything. If anything, i’m excited. I’ll be in Uni! And with close friends i’ve already had for six/thirteen years. There’s almost nothing i can fear. But i’m naturally pretty resistant to change. Kundera says, in Unbearable Lightness, that happiness is the longing for repetition. Maybe this is why, after three years, i’m still stuck on the need to return to St. Nicks, where i felt the most alive and vivid and real.
Because now i don’t. It’s not anything bad i guess – in fact it’s probably my (very effective) defensive system at work. It’s like there’s an overload of changes – people, situations, culture, work, relationships, family – and all i need is some time off from re-adjusting.
So recently i’ve been feeling rather detached from reality (which in itself is such a trite term, i feel literary guilt using it). I find myself floating in thoughts – just letting them carry me – which is worryingly unlike my usual annoyingly obnoxious, clear and unnaturally controlled inner voice. I’ll find myself zoning out and getting distracted, or i’m there but i’m not really processing everything. Else, i’d be say or do things bypassing the megazoid filter i’ve built through the years. The thing is i’m not distracted by anything in particular. I just can’t focus.
Reading Asleep was so incredibly surreal i made myself stop to eat some solid carbs just so i wouldn’t fly away somewhere.
I know everyone has phases where they feel out of it. I’m just not used to not being in control. It seems like ages since i’ve been able to center everything, make sense of it all, and feel like every part of me is – in that very moment – alive. I think i can only be that whole with the St. Nick’s girls, especially the Mugs. And while i’m in the nehnehchickenwing mode without my appropriate anti-maudlin filters – i’ll just say it: with the Mugs around i’ll be safe because i know we already have a part of ourselves in each other, so i’d never get lost.
Now i shall drown myself for that little piece of schmaltz.
I didn’t find Asleep an especially good read, it was just congruent with my current state. It’s a book that sits on froth where everything looks safe and off-handed and casual, but being the sitter you know there’s something darker underneath right below. Something like that.
I’m unnaturally concerned with the over-usage of the starter ‘I feel’ in this entire post and have been consciously trying to rid of them.
Cannot cannot cannot i really need to get out of this weird cloud stage.
So recently Singapore’s been swamped with evangelists from the church of God the Mother. I’m not sure what made them (or any other evangelical group) think that randomly assaulting someone on the streets, probably on their way to have lunch, is an effective measure in altering anyone’s entire BELIEF SYSTEM.
Guess what. It’s not. And you know what’s more? Preventing someone from achieving their perfectly reasonable desire to have lunch is an ALMOST SURE-FIRE WAY to have them think badly of you – and by extension your beliefs.
The main point is. I’ve had enough. I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF HARD CORE EVANGELISTS. STOP IT. STOP IT STOP IT, IT IS SO ILLOGICAL, PAINFUL AND ANNOYING. AND ALSO THE MOST OBVIOUSLY COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE WAY TO SPREAD YOUR BELIEFS.
I’ve had only the most scarring encounters with evangelists. In primary school, when a group of us were out doing a project, we were somehow hijacked by two Christian evangelists who proceeded to spend one and a half hours teaching us NOTHING substantial about God. All I remember was a grammatically and logically confusing lecture about lambs, seeds and that they were very happy to have our emails (to spam). The entire time was immensely awkward because they were clueless-ly insensitive to Buddhism (we had a devout vegetarian buddhist in that project group). Even Celine, a cradle Catholic, said she felt embarrassed to have her faith forced down on others that way. I have Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking at my door and being incredibly rude about everything it really gets to me like NOTHING ELSE.
I don’t know if i’m a hotbed of belief-shovers or what, but i’ve really had an extraordinary amount of people trying to get me to join their sect – this ranges from the religious to the anti-religious. I’m done with it all. Please just LEAVE ME BE.
Once and for the last time, i’m Christian. I believe in what i believe in and there are reasons why. My faith is a very personal one. I try to keep to the teachings – mostly to the ones about loving others and forgiveness and honestly it stops there. The only form of religious community i need are my friends. To other Christians – stop trying to tell me i’m doing it the wrong way because i will stab myself and sin and you will be the perpetrator. To atheists, i love it when challenged or asked things if you’re curious but if you just want to change my perceptions because my current one doesn’t please you – stop being a hypocrite and shove it.
That’s all i’m asking for. For people to LET ME BELIEVE WHAT I WANT TO AND LEAVE ME BE. I’m good by myself. I’m the BEST by myself. Having all sorts of other things come into play does nothing but confuse and complicate my simple ways to religious belief. But no people can’t let it go.
This was how it happened.
As always they ask you to fill out an innocuous survey, which is a benign sort of trickery. It’s still a trick. First mistake there. I politely told the first one i was busy (i was. eating)(HOW CAN YOU DISTURB SOMEONE WHO’S EATING). She went away. I sat on it for awhile and started to fume. In retrospect it might not have been very fair for the next evangeliser to be on the receiving end of years’ worth of frustration, but yeah. She made me fill up the survey and started to use the technique i’m all too familiar with. And loathe with a passion. She asked me if i read the bible and what my beliefs were: “So you think God is one person and a man right?” and she’d proceed to tell me i’m WRONG (SHFFUUSUKSKSLKGGHHL)(YOUR FACE IS WRONG).
I said yes i do read the bible yes i do believe there is only one God. “Ahh.. but you’re wrong.” And she told me that there’s another God who’s female, with a powerpoint slide on her iPad as a visual aid. THERE ARE TWO GODS. ONE MALE AND ONE FEMALE, she claims. IDRC.
I told her:
a) I don’t actually care if God is female or male. I don’t think about it neither do i believe He is either. He is everything.
b) She is manipulating semantics in the bible (VERY POORLY) to suit her own beliefs. You can’t take the bible literally because if you do, i can very well argue for you that God wants me to purchase a horse and run down every man who eats bread on Saturdays. I told her that what she identified was rhetoric, not God’s hidden clue that He is in fact female.
c) Believing in Christ is about being a better person. It’s about loving God and loving others. It is not about prowling the streets convincing others that God is female.
d) It is ignorant and simplistic to attempt to categorize God especially in mortally ways such as gender. Personally I don’t think we understand enough to explain him.
I asked her:
a) Does it even MATTER? What difference does it make if God is female? Will it make me a better person? Does it change the way I live?
b) So you think i’m wrong? I can have served God in many ways, been a good person all the time, done everything right, but because i don’t think of him in labels of gender, i am WRONG and deserve to go to HELL?
c) Why does it matter to you what I think. Do you truly love me and therefore want me to know the truth about things? How can you when you’ve just met me a second ago. Or is this just part of your need to fulfill your quota of religious responsibility.
Yes I said all that to her. I was hoping she’d be more intelligent so it wouldn’t feel like i’m bullying her or throwing out my pent up frustration at her but she failed terribly. All she did was roll her eyes exasperatedly and tsk-ed around in resignation and whined a bit about how it’s ‘her duty’ and she ‘just wants me to know more’.
I told her that’s incredibly selfish. Responsibility and duty is admirable where it’s due. Maybe you’re responsible for giving your friend a chance to discover faith especially if she needs it or is seeking it. Then yes if you have the knowledge and the ability to help her then it’s a duty.
Duty is not blind evangelizing. It is not a clip-board, an iPad, or spending hours on your foot in public stopping people. So sweet of you to do that and pretend that you’re saving the greater population. You know what, all you’re saving is your own pitiful need to assuage your conscience. At the end of the day you just want to feel good about your own faith and that you’ve done something to confirm your place in your church.
Do you truly think you’ve saved someone? Do you really think that jumping on passers-by on the streets will get your faith anywhere at all? I don’t think you do. You’re just going through the motions and that’s called false faith and it’s the worse kind of faith to have, worse than someone who sits at home and does nothing but blog about it. Because you think you’re doing something great but you’ve just inconvenienced someone and drawn the divide further. For your own need.
Ok i didn’t go that far of course i just asked her why is it fair for me to be inconvenienced at the sake of your need to fulfill your ‘duty’.
I could have gone on forever but there was work so i left her in a miserable mess.
Main point.
PEOPLE. STOP. SHOVING YOUR BELIEFS DOWN OTHER’S THROATS. I don’t care what your beliefs are. You can be Christian, Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu, Illuminati, or even an atheist. Stop needing others to think what you think.
I understand that as a friend you might want someone you love and care about to share your beliefs because you sincerely think they will benefit from it. That is fine. There is no harm in trying to SHARE. But you stop at that. Quit making it your life mission to have them believe what you believe. It’s plain senseless. Think about it.
These are the people that make things Not Okay:
1. The self-righteous religious. I hate it when people with a religion think themselves as higher than others. Just because you found a fitting label to your belief and is backed by a legitimate organization doesn’t make you any more superior than anyone else. Quit judging others by your religious standards because if the only useful skill you’ve acquired from your religion is judgement, you’re pretty bad at it.
Quit telling people they are sinners when they have done no wrong and simply don’t subscribe to your religion.
Maybe religion helps you pave a direct path into being a better person. This makes your life, as a religious person, easier. It DOES NOT MEAN that someone agnostic or atheist cannot achieve your level of goodness. In fact, between a non-religious person contrasted with a religious one both striving to do good, I’d say the non- becomes more admirable. Because he is getting there without being told to nor does he refer to guidelines – he is doing so from pure conscience and the desire to be good. Look.
2. Atheists who do exactly what they hate others do to them. Stop being so eager for others to change their beliefs to atheistic ones, because it is nauseatingly reminiscent of religious evangelists who hanker for your conversion. It’s okay to be upset over those who invade your belief-space. It’s okay to not give a shit about others who believe differently. It’s okay to be curious and challenge them. It’s NOT okay to see atheism as sign of superiority, speak condescendingly of/judge those who aren’t, and hard-sell atheism.
Atheists stop being so smug about being atheists. If there’s any reason i’d detest one it’s not because that they contradict my belief (no, seriously, i don’t care), but when they see atheism as some sort of cool subversive thing they have going. It’s just so much fun to mock religion, and think of myself as better, and to condemn anyone who has a religion. It’s so fun to be a rebellious asshole. Oh please it is so incredibly pre-teen. If you believe in something, stick to it, but please just shut up about it.
The same goes for both religious AND non-religious people. Stop being so damn smug about your beliefs because honestly no one cares. They just want to compare and feel good about themselves. Just focus on believing in it and everyone leave every bloody one alone. Thank you.
YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IS A REAL THING.
NO I AM NOT KIDDING ALTHOUGH SLIGHTLY HIGH. I’m genuinely kind of frightened. With the rash of cannibalism and boys popping to life after being declared dead and then dying again.. It’s freakishly uncanny despite dubious news sources. I keep picturing myself having to activate a machine gun and travelling the world for a Twinkie. It’s depressing.
Also Cracked.com supports this possibility and I on the other hand have complete trust in all that Cracked claims:
I have a strange feeling they will strike full-force on Halloween, for the ironic humor. And my gut instincts are pretty strong, so…
OMWDHQEJ D WE ARE SO DEAD (BUT NOT VERY LOLPUN)
The Avengers in one sentence: I liked it, but it wasn’t worth the hype.
But you know i can’t stop at one sentence. There were things i liked about it (mostly how good Chris Evan’s ass looked suited up), but i didn’t leave thinking: woah. Which i did for First Class just last year.
(I don’t have to disclaim about for spoilers do i.. it’s late enough.)
What The Avengers did right
– They remembered to include Maria Hill. AND THEY GOT ROBIN SPARKLES TO DO IT YAY.
– LOKI? Holy hell this is one place the hype was accurately placed. Even Steve Rogers agrees he grows on you. HE DOES. He’s adorable. I can’t hate him i just can’t. He’s like a bratty little brother run wild (technically he IS that).
– Pepper humor. My self-coined trope for one-liners that are gold peppered all over the place (in this case: every ten minutes). Typical Whedon, although he still does it better in his own space (i.e Firefly – dialogue humor heaven). But in The Avengers, like a typical fanboy marvelling tentatively with a new toy he can’t yet figure out how to play, he sticks in clever little bits of laughs almost as a desperate means to keep it together.. poor guy.
– THE ACTION SEQUENCES. My favorite must be Black Widow right at the beginning with the Russians. But then again i have the whole Bruce Lee kungfu complex it probably wasn’t that brilliant. NO, NO IT IS THAT BRILLIANT. And that little thing she did with Hawkeye when he almost attacked her oh god oh god.
– You can’t go wrong with Robert Downey/Tony Stark.
– Hello, Chris Evans’ ass… Hello, creepy me.
– And surprisingly, my personal favorite when it came to casting was Mark Ruffalo. He’s so damn endearing for some confusing latent reason, which i thought went really well for the whole Nice Guy when un-green thing, even though Bruce Banner is nothing like that in the series.
– THE HULK. He wasn’t this scary back in 08. SCARY AS HELL HERE. I love it.
– Did Joss Whedon stay as close to the plot as fanboys expected him too? From what i can see yes, although i’m not exactly an expert, but.. He DID hint at Tony Stark’s familiarity with Maria Hill and sort-of tension with the Black Widow (or maybe it’s just pre-conception on my part). Sharon Charter’s death was there, fair enough. Hawkeye asking Black Widow if she knew what it was like to have someone control his mind, her replying: “you know i do.” /reference. K so he did keep to his word, which i guess is a happy orgy party for fanboys in the know.
What The Avengers did wrong
– To be frank. The plot was absolute crap. I expected more. I mean it’s Whedon and all.. but then again maybe he works best in his underground fanboy obscurity. Maybe being cancelled and/or producing for netizens IS his style (holy balon- it’s TRUE. Out of all his TV, only the Buffy franchise didn’t get cut.)
– I guess he isn’t prepared for the silver screen just yet. Or maybe epics aren’t his thing. It’s a sweet little movie, in fact i can imagine it as a series! But as a movie it had balls time management. For instance, if he cut out that forty second redundant with Captain America and the police officer who wouldn’t take orders and later on repeated orders into his walkie, he could have spent it developing on characters..
– Which reminds me. They all have so much promise. Steve Rogers’ flashback in the beginning, the elusive past of the Black Widow, Bruce Banner being always angry – I WANT TO KNOW MORE. But nah. Someone just give this guy a TV series already.
– THE ANTAGONISTS ARE SUCH JOKES. Loki is adorable to the point of harmlessness. He was also punk’d by Tony Stark, bullied by Bruce Banner, tricked by the Black Widow, and mothered by Thor. HOW TO TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY. And his last line, whilst cute, made him seem really minuscule.
– The giant bugs were pretty epic, reminds me of Nausicaa, but they were just that.. bugs. Nuisances. Tedious to kill off but nothing really challenging. It was such a bore.
– Even the mastermind alien man was a joke besides being hilariously hideous. The little speech the alien made after the credits? It was really bad.. Is it a build-up to A2? Is it part of Whedon’s home video collection after a drunken college cosplay party?
– Some scenes border on amateur. The argument one, for instance. Seriously.. canon chaos? For a blockbuster? Like i said, he’s not yet ready for the big screen.
– Maria Hill packs a whole lot more kick than that. Simply having her there isn’t enough. It’s not Smulders fault though they just didn’t give her a chance to develop. I shall refrain from snarky Robin Sparkles/Scherbatsky references.
– Where is Doctor Strange. WHERE IS HE. This is my greatest gripe actually.
This is Day 2 of CAP, i miss all the crazy people and their insane love for writing/arts there. It got me thinking.
When it comes to writing, this is the only space kept constant.
By that i mean lengthy, indulgent ramblings. My writings otherwise have shrunk into (presently): nothing.
At first i thought it was distillation. I learnt about economy of words and it’s power at about fifteen, but instead of maintaining the pure-essence level of poetry i’ve come down to a straight zero. It’s very strange and disconcerting, actually.. that i haven’t written (besides a scrap of sapphic poetry) in near to a year. This may be the longest drought yet. My greatest fear is that – following my writing patterns through the years – this isn’t a drought. It’s really just me having ran out of words.
When i first started writing fiction, which was Primary 1, i was undaunted by plot length logic grammar. The main point wasn’t the final product, just the act of writing. So at that age i purchased single-line exercise books in bulk and filled them endlessly with half-novels. Most of the time i have many stories going at once. They were embarrassingly wild, ungrammatical, unoriginal, all-over-the-place pieces, but all the same i’m dead jealous of the myself back then.. because i could actually write without thinking about writing. At times Celine and I co-wrote novels.. they usually steer straight towards farce.
My last and also proudest attempt at novels is also the ONLY long fiction i’ve actually completed. I spent close to a year with it writing EVERY DAY (in place of homework lolz). It was first person, highly influenced by chicklit (but about ten times funnier) (no, seriously), and by God was it enjoyable. It felt so good i wanted to start a second one but it fizzled out within three pages. That was in Primary 5/6.
In secondary school i stopped writing as prodigiously (i mean quantity-wise la), because i learnt about quality control. 14 was the age of consciousness and every idea i had went through a self-issued checklist of shittery before i was allowed to act on them. That was also when i developed – like everyone else – the need to see the end in things. So i switched to prose, because that was the only way i could finish anything.
I found that i liked prose A LOT – especially after discovering descriptive in English class – which truthtobetoldlak i was superb at. On the other hand my plots were utter crap so switching to micro-prose was my way of giving up on long fiction than anything else. Boo, me. Anyway, i focused mainly on prose that centered around minimal plots or single events, compensating with my rigorous attempts at description.
(I’m fully convinced that my A1 English for Os was acquired from my incredibly vivid, one-page long, almost erotic description of the buffet spread aboard a cruise. Eh i’m not even kidding about this. The entire essay was three-half pages and was a shitty as hell story about a woman on a cruise enjoying a buffet, encountering a shipwreck accident, finding herself in a lifeboat, and spending the rest of the time hallucinating about food until she was rescued.. it ends with her eating biscuits. Yeah, the hell is wrong with me right? So yes, i think my food porn gave the examiner his best ever orgasm sitting by his lonely London fireplace with only a goblet of whiskey to bring him through the winter night. That’s how i got the grade.)
Anyway, besides self-consciousness, pretension and the frustrating focus on end results, 14 also brought along the want of experiment. So i tried my hand with scripts (naturally.. taking Drama and all), and found that i was sheer nonsense at it. Yes we do devising for every term assignment and exams and all but we NEVER. HAVE. SCRIPTS. It’s pure improvisation and then adjustments until we perfect it. The furthest i can go is a monologue and even with that i struggle. So i concede my lousiness and theatrical writing.
Then came poetry, because you know, it’s the new shit and all. There was a rash of opprobrious ones when i first started out and they stink of overkill and painful bathetic-ism. I now hide them they way boys hide their porn in multi-leveled folders on my PC and read them when i feel the occasional mix of sadism and the need for some good laughs.
Somewhere in upper Secondary i found the right way to write what i want to write.. and it was frankly quite magical. BUT it lasts only one collection long (enough for CAP portfolio + CAP mentorship portfolio). That was also where my words found exponential shrinkage. They were never really long to start with. My longest poem doesn’t fill up a page. My shortest is two lines. My personal favorite is 16 words. That was during CAP.
In the course of mentorship i was already losing my words. That i had to come up with a decent poem every few months that isn’t skimpy like a Baywatch bikini frightened me into nights of terror sleepless in bed in cold sweat. K not really, but it was pretty stressful – which i deal with poorly (stress, i mean). This came with the additional (and very, very scary) fear that people will actually. read. my. work. It’s okay when it’s just a panel of CAP staff.. but for it to be printed and like.. left in dusty library shelves.. yeah i was pretty much a wreck. It’s k because at last i did manage to churn them out accordingly; but i face them with a very confusing sense of pride with a strong cant towards embarrassment and disappointment.
After that came the As, and i only wrote one in that period of time. It wasn’t even for leisure. It was because i had something to say and it was the only way i could say it. I loved that one a lot. And then from there – nothing nada zilch. I can’t anymore it’s like writing constipation that’s been there for so long it’s solidified into a mess of toxic shit stones. When i try it just comes out pitiful – and when i try it’s not even that i want to write.. it’s more like i’m testing the waters to see if i still can.
Wow i hit middle-age fast.
I want to be a baking competition judge. A renowned one. My word will be the certificate of excellence in the realm of pastry and desserts. They want me on every event. I’ll travel everywhere acceding to their wishes tasting all kinds of baked goods. I would never have to pay for meals again. I’ll eat so much magical wonderful stuff I’d gain two hundred pounds. But it doesn’t matter because at the rate their paying me, I can hire a follow-around personal trainer… or even a few rounds of liposuction.
In my perfect world that would be me in five years.
I’ve always had a problem with Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. It strikes me as assuming, self-righteous, biased, and even hypocritical. In the first place, theboythesongwaswrittenfor (hereby known as Boy) must have chosen girltaylorswiftbitchesabout (thereafter known as Bitched) for a reason. She was either
A) genuinely a worthy girlfriend – in which case Taylor was wrong in wishing they’d break up for her own selfish wishes, especially since she did it by basically being hot during prom, OR
B) a true bitchtart, which says a lot about how dense Boy is, and how he’s attracted to hots basically, highlighted by his turn in affection after Taylor transforms by removing her glasses during prom.
Either way, Taylor and Boy are highly misguided people.
A brief dissection:
You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset
She’s going off about something that you said
‘Cause she doesn’t get your humor like I do
Unless she’s a complete monster devoid of humane reason (in which case see B), there must be a reason Bitched freaked out over Boy’s ‘humor’ which she doesn’t get. Think about it. Maybe Boy’s humor is of the derogatory, sexist, or crude variety. Maybe that’s why Bitched got set off: because he was being a complete asshat – and one who thinks he’s funny at that. And because Taylor is a lovelorn bag of desperation, she’s willing to swallow all of Boy’s douchebaggery and by extension claims she ‘gets’ his douchebag humor.
Essentially, Boy is an ass and Taylor enjoys kissing his ass.
I’m in the room, it’s a typical Tuesday night
I’m listening to the kind of music she doesn’t like
And she’ll never know your story like I do
Oh God NO YOU JUDGMENTAL HYPOCRITE. If we go metatext here, Taylor Swift is in fact saying Bitched would never like Taylor Swift songs (which already makes her significantly more likeable than Taylor Swift). Or perhaps this is another one of those hipster my-songs-are-more-superior-than-yours, if-you-don’t-listen-to-indie-you’re-not-in-my-ranks kind of thing. BITCH PLEASE. Who are you to say that the Pussycat Dolls or Justin Timberlake isn’t any better than whatever is the ‘kind of music she doesn’t like’? ALSO, does music compatibility even MATTER out of 500 Days of Summer and Nick and Norah’s Magical Playlist of Wonderful Indie?
You know what Taylor, NO. No it doesn’t.
And you probably know his ‘story’ because you are a stalker.
But she wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts
She’s Cheer Captain and I’m on the bleachers
Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find
That what you’re looking for has been here the whole time
This verse offends me deeply. The blatant condemnation of short skirts, for one. What makes you think you’re in any way better, just because you’re a T-Shirt wearer? What makes someone who bothers about how she looks like any less than you who enjoys the comfort of casual shirts. Nothing. Nothing, Taylor. Stop it with your stereotypes. Stop insulting anyone who tries to do something with their lives instead of sitting at home on Tuesday night in T-shirts stalking people (which ironically is often what I find myself doing hurhurhur).
And again comes your generalization of cheerleaders. Are you a sucker for B-grade tween made-for-TV movies, Taylor? Are you? Because your entire prejudice against Cheer Captain, obvious from your disdainful description of Bitched – seems to be shaped from watching one a two many chick flicks, in which case can I suggest you take your own advice and try matching your taste in film to something as apparently glorified as your taste in music. The fact that she is Cheer Captain probably means that SHE IS GOOD AT WHAT SHE DOES and has LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL and also, FRIENDS – which she must have acquired from hard work and being proactive. A concept you obviously do not understand because you prefer to ‘dream’ passively.
And you’re on the bleachers. Well boo-hoo poor you. K. No one cares.
Standing by and waiting at your back door
All this time, how could you not know?
Baby, you belong with me, you belong with me
This borders on obsessive, and you being obsessed with someone =/= he belongs to you. That’s the kind of stuff CRIMINALS believe in. Those who end up sending creepy letters and when jilted stab their object of affection with swiss knives and get sent away. Also the fact that you’d stand by and wait at his back door suggests a total lack of self-respect, in line with our earlier conclusion that Taylor is of little opinion of her own – choosing instead to concur with Boy and his crappy degrading humor.
WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE WHO BELONGS TO YOU, TAYLOR SWIFT? If you ‘understand’ and ‘get’ Boy so much, then why don’t you respect his decision and stop making things difficult by posing as a friend when in fact you’re consciously seducing him with flash cards across the road and planning a huge makeover to charm him during prom and VERY POSSIBLY sabotaging his relationship with Bitched the ENTIRE TIME. That just makes you a bad, scheming person, Taylor Swift. Not a deserving, understanding friend who eventually became Boy’s lover.
You used means of beauty (which you very recently dissed as artificial and superficial, because, yknw, you wear T-SHIRTS AND SNEAKERS and is therefore more compatible with Boy) to turn Boy against Bitched, which makes you no different from everything you’ve bitched about Bitched. OH, WAIT. NO. It makes you WORSE because you weren’t Boy’s girlfriend to begin with and secondly: HYPOCRITE.
It’s such a bad song it makes me mad.
So i spent last night finishing Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen. It was quietly brilliant. No gimmicks or moments of exceptional sublimity, but when i was done i knew i read something really, really good.
Then i realized how much i loved everything by Japanese authors – and how much Japanese authors i’ve unconsciously consumed.
Also by that i don’t just mean Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (lolol) (it wasn’t even one of his bests, no not even close) (in fact it’s only famous because he tried his hand at a different style, can i say more Englishy~?. Which i guess made it more read-able to the general public. Hypes..) (try his short stories, in particular The Elephant Vanishes) (After Dark was good too).
It’s, slightly, language. Most are translated and the language takes on a kind of clarity you cannot get from text in English originals. Simplicity, and a stunning flow in narrative. But that’s not all.
It’s mainly the perspectives these Japanese authors take on. Too often i find that books from everywhere else are shaded with pretension. There’s this knowledge that they are writing, creating a form of art, with something they need to tell. I think it’s this awareness of having a sort of power or task or importance that taints their writing with contrition.
This contrition extends to the need to avoid cliché, which usually drives the story into hitting walls – if you are conscious of clichés you cannot transcend it. Many Japanese authors can – somehow. It’s that strange kind of surrealism they have, i guess – a twisted almost perverse way of viewing life they have that gives them the vastness of thought.
They can take life, death, marriage, controversy, love, and deconstruct them to their pure essence, before stringing them together in the weirdest, simplest, but get this – most natural – fashion possible.
It’s also Japanese novels that can make everything seem both depressing and hopeful at the same time – which is really how life is all the damn time.
Even Amélie Nothomb (who is my favorite author of all time gushgushgush), spent her childhood in Japan and could never see anywhere else as home again – i like to think of her as Japanese. I can’t claim to have read Japanese authors intensively, but i guess more extensively than most. Wanted to finish Tale of Genji (because it somehow felt right to start at the very seed of Japanese literature) but i’m not all that disciplined or intellectual – modern texts are easier to sit through.
Of course there’s the usual Natsuo Kirino and Kazuo Ishiguro that everyone reads (Kirino is spectacular with characters) (Ishiguro is good but that distinct Japanese touch i love isn’t very apparent in his works – he might as well be a good Ang Moh writer who writes with a Japanese slant, same goes with Murakami).
Yukio Mishima. He is the only one who can make me sit through historical texts (eughbarf) (i know, coming from a History student.. i don’t deserve that A, really). Kenzaburo Oe, whose short stories i really, really loved. Mitsuyo Kakuta, i’ve only read ONE of her most famous work actually her translated texts are limited but shdamn was she good. Some years ago (when i was taking third lang, which holy damn is SEVEN years ago) i tried Yasunari Kawabata’s short stories and a novel about the mountain, which i remember was good but didn’t really spend time with. So recently he’s been popping up more often so imma check him out. Well ok this is all i can remember now.. which probably means i haven’t really been reading Japanese texts as much as i should given how much i enjoy them.
THAT’S IT. Reading list expands.
I like work.
Not as much as I like freedom, but freedom takes on a whole new dimension now that I’m employed. Granted, I chose a job that was flexible and the most similar to my usual (holiday) routine (walking about, thinking, making strange observations about people), but the days I’m free are wonderful. My productivity level for everything has gone up by at least thrice as much. It’s contrary, I know. But.
Since work started I’ve been borrowing things off public libraries so fast my card can’t take anymore and I’m considering upgrading to Premium. And I have a bunch of books I bought that’s laying there unread because I have to clear off borrowed ones (which will never happen at the constant rate I’m getting and returning them). The only regret is that I can’t finish them in one sitting, which is how I like my reading done. Also I keep intentionally/unintentionally? borrowing sapphic novels I DON’T KNOW WHY but they are really good.
Work requires lots of walking (Celine’s 10km walk around Waterfront when she did roaming shifts) so I’ve abandoned my weekly jogs and will just stick to swimming, which means -> MORE TIME FOR OTHER NONSENSE. Other nonsense being food and criminal minds and art and music and d&d and shopping.
This is the result of having a group of friends who’re as enthusiastic about most every retarded idea as you are.
So after the very, very successful Free Comic Book Day spree (where we wandered to Paradigm Infinitum at Midpoint Orchard, of all outlets – the most obscure tiny shop literally in the middle of everything else, like a hidden away Diagon Alley). It was great because unlike other stores, Pi (yes, 3.142.. obnoxious geekery going on here) actually had a pile (did I say pile? because I mean a MOUNTAIN) of comics and they very subversively ignored the 10 per rule and decided to let us take back as many as we wanted. AS MANY AS WE WANTED (or at least as many as we could carry).
The five of us stood around the table for more than an hour with these few hardcore nerds (they were like the Asian version of Big Bang Theory, I’m serious) playing Comic Book Jenga. All of us lugged home at least 70 comics. I have only read 5 out of them all… ALTHOUGH. Although this is because I’m midway through this bigass Star Trek TOS collection. Which can never be as good as the TV series just saying.
To extend the geekdom, we’ve decided to have Game Night, and the game we’ve chosen is… Dungeons & Dragons! With Celine as DM. I vaguely remember having played this in Primary School, Celine DM-ing. That was back in the days we spent after school hours play-acting EVERY. SINGLE. SCENE. In Harry Potter. VERBATIM. In the school yard in full view of everyone. Wow. I can’t tell if I was brave or just an extreme loser.
Beni, Xin and I, in a bid to be more productive members of the society, raped an arts supply store one day and started this thing where we’d share (and by share we just mean Whatsapp) each other our art pieces and meet up and do art so we don’t ferment and grow into moldy adults. It is KIND OF working out… We’ve yet to actually meet but we’re doing art. And by god are my friends talented. I’m pre-employing them to decorate my room walls in the future. My output is pretty good on free days, one sketch per day SAY WHUUUT. Which. Is something after half a year of nothing.
We’ve also been kind-of-ish doing art at Gloria’s theater workplace. It’s mostly paper mache and sculpting cloaks and glue-gunning and sewing (YES, I CAN SEW. Pretty well at that) life-sized models, but it’s really, really therapeutic. And they have great waffles there.
Rei, Cel and I are also (SOON) (SOMEDAY) (PROMISED) gonna start on our String Trio where we have jamming sessions (proper ones not the half-drugged random choir-uke ensemble in porches) where we will be brilliant and serious business with our harmonizing and shit.
I’m actually pretty proud of us and our productive projects.
And the shopping. Which I justify with the fact that I now have WAGES. WAGES!!! FREE MONEY!!! In a way. So after work I’d go out and spend a bunch on clothes and food and realize I’ve spent more than a day’s worth of salary. And feel sheepish and sign up for more working days and the cycle repeats. I am a joke. Although end-July would be The Great Bangkok Spree with Beni and Cleo so I shall consciously put aside cash for until then.
Q 