Animal Husbandry and Moi

LOL.

I recently discovered that the term "animal husbandry" is hardly as naughty as first impressions might suggest.

Animal husbandry, also called animal science, stockbreeding or simple husbandry, is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock. It has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals. The science of animal husbandry is taught in many universities and colleges around the world.

Hehehe. OK, moment is very much over.

Listening: Earth Wind & Fire (I have to thank Yoong for introducing me to the pure funky groove of the oldies); The Ting Tings; other miscellaneous stuff.

Reading: Monster Blood Tattoo 2 - Lamplighter (thank youuu Tash for the lend!); Sylvia by Bryce Courtenay (I actually tried to read this about 2 years ago, struggled, got completely stuck at ~page 300. This time I read it straight through in 3 days! Maybe my reading tastes have changed? Or maybe I've just developed a fondness for old men writing about often graphic/shocking, sometimes sexual things...eek). I also finished Things We Couldn't Say, whic was a really amazing autobiography of a Dutch girl in WW2...tears galore. Thanks Shirley for the lend.

Watched: Northanger Abbey (courtesy of a "girls' night in movie with mum thing at midnight")

Want to get my hands on: more of Kate Miller-Heidke's music. So far I've only heard Can't Shake It but her sound is beautifully quirky. I'm also utterly LOVING Dance Wiv Me by Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris--does that count as R&B, Amandalim? I would also DIE if someone put an MGMT ticket in my hand; then I would resuscitate myself and go to the concert of course. Since I'm totally going on a rant here, I'll also say I'm eager to get a copy of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's (the whole series), and possibly Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (and you'd have thought I had enough of paedophilic undertones...um yeah), The Golden Ass aka The Metamorphoses (which was, like, written in the 2nd century and is the only Latin novel to have survived in its entirety...how insane is that ? ! ? ! ? !). But before I splurge I should probably read some of those untouched novels still sitting on my bookshelf. I just get overexcited sometimes...

fig. 1. Kate Miller-Heidke

On a side note, Megan, why did you give me Beyonce's If I Were a Boy?! It's giving me weird ideas.

Oh! And I finally ordered Friends. It should be arriving tomorrow/Tuesday, so YAY. And wow, I can't believe Christmas is in less than a month. I can't believe I'm turning 20 in two weeks! Ew, oldness! I also bought a Little Red Riding Hood jacket from Torquay that makes me feel like I just stepped out of a fairytale. I need shoes. I want white heels. I would like to have a homely, family-ish Christmas holiday.

I seriously have flight of thought! This was an entirely self-absorbed, rambling entry. Ah, meaninglessness. Holidays are pleasant. I think the following picture does nicely to encapsulate the random essence of my holiday thus far. TTFN!

My Swotvac Thus Far.

All right, all right, I caved! I just couldn't help it. There was this unseen force compelling me towards the laptop, urging my fingers to type in the letters http://www.blogspot.com/ ...
I figure it's probably a record, anyway; this far into SWOTVAC and no blog post till now! Yay...? This definitely calls for a celebration with...a whole lot of RANDOMNESS! To that end, here's a brief excerpt of the past couple of days of my life...-plays suspenseful music-

"Hmm, does the vagus or hypoglossal supply palatoglossus?"

This is how happy SWOTVAC makes me.

My den of power.

Pretending to study.

The view from my window. Isn't it fabulously exotic? Yes, that is a car under the clothes line, on the grass. We have three cars and a garage that's only big enough for one.

This is for the Agyness-Deyn-wannabe who asked me to take photos of the clothes I bought. Gray's Anatomy is to point out that I haven't completely forgotten about study...

The 3/4 pants.

The dress and cardigan. I think my wardrobe looks better in them than I do.

Study companions.

YAY! Thanks Megan and Mel for many, many, many hours of enjoyment. And procrastination. I find it's still funny the third time you watch an ep.

Awesome book. Also I have non-curvy thumbs. They're so weird. They make people scream when I show them. I love this book. It's great. I've almost finished it.

I forgot to rotate this pic. Ah, me. It's my brother figuring out his new FOUR-BY-FOUR RUBIC'S CUBE. That boy is insane. Look what MHS has done to him.

A cute blue squishy pillow, amongst some bigger, more threatening, scary-looking pillows, wearing a sparkly white summer hat I also recently purchased. Um. Yeah! I'm kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Back to work!

(All the best for exams, everyone.)

The Women

All in all, the movie was not bad! The most interesting aspect of it was, of course, the fact that not a single man was on screen for the entire movie. The only male was the little baby boy that Debra Messing gave birth to in the final scene (MOST HIILARIOUS AND REALISTIC LABOUR/GIVING BIRTH SCENE I'VE EVER SEEN IN A MOVIE. Props to Debra Messing for her Neanderthalean groaning!) Nice storyline, pretty clever jokes that were definitely written for women--only bad thing was no eye candy at all, heh heh (and they say girls don't hit their sexual peak until 30...OK kidding).

After spending two hours in a theatre with 198 other females, and watching a movie dominated by a cast of women, with women supporting actors and women extras and basically everywhere you look on the streets of New York suddenly there are swarms of leggy, boob-endowed people in skirts--yeah, something weird has happened to my mind and I'm in a strangely girly mood (mug of hot drink, spotty PJs, rugged cardigan) and I'm imagining I live in a world populated by only women. How wacky would that be! In any case, I'm really sleepy now because I just did a lecture on embryological development of genital tracts where all the pictures looked like jelly and my English is going all frizzy so I am going to sleep. Guten nacht! <3

So we've been studying endocrinology.

And I thought, what with all the images our lecturers have inundated us with over the past couple of weeks, I can't not write a post about it. Malformed genitalia, overgrown genitalia, wrong sex, both sexes in one, little boys with Herculean bodies (my goodness, how many times have we seen that slide? Isn't it starting to border on slightly dodgy? And are the poor boy's ankles really tied together or am I imagining things?!)--yeeeeeah, for the first time I'm really glad that I sit at the back of the lecture theatre and most of the time my vision is blurry because my contact lenses slide in all sorts of wacky places and I can't be bothered putting eyedrops in because I'll only lament about my poor damaged short-sighted Asian eyes when I'm sixty plus.

Despite all the aforementioned, endocrinology really is reasonably interesting, not least because of the gender-related diseases. I hope I'm not the only one who finds these bits (ew! bits! -giggles like a schoolgirl-) fascinating in an uneasy way. Maybe I am. Maybe I have some deep-seated, voyeuristic, sex-obsessed Freudian complex! Or, maybe I'm just a pervert.

I didn't expect it to be so common. 1 in 500 people have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where genetically they are male (XY sex genes) but their cells don't respond to testosterone and other male hormones. The result depends on how insensitive they are. In some it's only partial, so they develop as intersex, with both male and female characteristics.

Others are completely insensitive, and they have fully female features. In fact, many people with complete AIS tend to grow very tall (180cm), with long limbs, big boobs, ie. the typical femme fatale. Which is why lots go into careers like modelling, acting, athletics, etc. Apparently a number of famous females have AIS. Jamie Lee Curtis? (Or at least my friend Google says so.) And others! Like this lady athlete who underwent sex testing at the Olympics and found out she was genetically male. She was allowed to compete but when she went home she lost her job and her boyfriend. Now they don't do sex testing at the Olympics anymore.

I guess what really struck me about all this was that I hardly knew about the existence (and certainly not the prevalence) of such syndromes before now. And to imagine it--being seriously confused about your gender would completely undermine your personality. The little M and F letters with bubbles/checkboxes next to them are absolutely everywhere. Facebook profiles, enrolment forms, the front page of exams booklets, online surveys. Having to choose your gender would be so different from being born with one. And imagine being a little girl who hits puberty and suddenly starts becoming a man. (Note to self: look up Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex.)

So yeah! See? You can excuse me for blogging a bit about academia, because surely it's worth a thought or twenty. Methinks we are next going to learn about conditions where people are phenotypically male but genetically female--the other way around, I suppose.

Ooh-ooh, yeah! There was also this stuff about how sex hormones influence the way our brains work and our conception of our own gender, but I won't go into that because I'm starting to sound like an overexcited, bespectacled adorable little nerd (ie. my true self!)...=D

Disclaimer: Yeah, I may have got stuff wrong. Don't trust me. Use Wikipedia...=D

Life is sweet when

every song you hear sounds like summer.
you wake up smiling.
the book's too good to put down.
you fall in love with a movie.
you fall in love.
there's no awkwardness with old friends.
surprises happen.
driving with the windows down and breeze everywhere and not sneezing from pollen.
there's no awkwardness with new friends.
your stomach is flat.
a stranger holds the door for you.
you sing in the shower.
it's all done.
the bed is snug and dry and clean and soft.
stumbling upon old photos/letters/notes.
you're greeted with a hug.
you fall asleep smiling.
you take a dare.
all the traffic lights are green.
after twenty minutes, the Rubic's cube works.
MGMT comes on the radio.
it has a happy ending.
rolling down a grassy hill.
all the words fit.
it's a beautiful quote.
you succeed at something terrifying.
dancing.
seeing that there's still good out there, somewhere.

Endurance (A Rant With No Paragraphs)

/start rant/

I hate this time of year! As soon as you start counting down to exams in weeks rather than months, the fun is OVER! And now we're supposed to buckle down and start revising things and practising bazillions of OSCEs and blah. I'm so sick of lectures and exams and exams and lectures. I wonder why we all force ourselves to endure so much stuff that we don't want to do and will simply forget the moment we walk out of the exam hall. Sure, yeah, I want to pass my degree, establish a financially secure career, etc. But I used to be motivated for other reasons, too. I think. I can't remember. I used to think medicine would be my life. But now I'm feel like when I'm studying I'm hardly living--it's all the other stuff you do outside that's really living. It's a sort of Natural Law that you can't stand doing what you're supposed to do, and what you're not supposed to be doing is almost certainly the most entertaining activity in the world at that present moment. But then I wonder--in the future, are we going to look back on all these years spent slaving away at our desks and feel like they were an absolute waste of time? When I'm nineteen, spending a couple of decades studying to become a doctor doesn't seem like so much when I've got my entire life ahead of me. But when I'm old and I may only have a few years left to live, a couple of decades will seem like the Fountain of Life. What I'm trying to say, really, is very simple and stupid and brilliantly enticing: I wish I could throw everything out the window and live a life of whims. I think there's a bit of all of us that just wants to be ungrateful and selfish. In fact I wish it were possible for everyone to throw everything into the air and just live. Why do we force ourselves to do all these things that make us unhappy, bored, irritated, exhausted, deflated? And why am I being all idealistic and impossible again? And, why do I keep asking why? I know I say this a lot, but oh-oh-oh...I CANNOT WAIT FOR HOLIDAYS! SUMMER. FREEDOM! BLISS...on second thoughts, though, I'm not sure that a life of whims would be the way to happiness/satisfaction/meaning, I suppose (as my rational self kicks in). I suppose it's not the sort of life we're supposed to lead. Who knows what that is.

/end rant/

Mood: Tired
Watching: Season Three of Friends.
Reading: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. This book is great so far. It reminds me in some ways of Jonathan's Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy, which is my ultimate favourite-est most awesomest fantasy-comedy-adventure series ever!
Listening: Kelsey by Metro Station. Go cheap catchy dance-y stuff and whiney emo boy voices!

Yesterday, I went swimming! For the first time in, like, almost two years. I was breaststroking most enthusiastically up and down the lane until I popped my knee. From kicking too hard. I can never find enough ways to fail! Anyway, there was a sharp pain on the medial joint aspect which was aggravated by sudden flailing movements (such as those I perform when trying to breaststroke), so I think I may have stretched that medial ligament. Funfun. ALSO, for anyone who doesn't yet know, the women's changerooms at Monash are NUDE BONANZA. Great if you're bad at holding up your towel/like to flaunt your stuff/like to watch other people flaunting their stuff.

Ooh, what else? Oh yes. I think often I judge people too harshly and too quickly. 'Cause I find that most times when I get to know people better my opinion of them rises almost immediately. So, final note: less judging.

Long post, but I blame it on my sleepiness.

Why do I blog?

It's not like I have a whole flock of readers. And yet--it is strangely addictive. It's like picking your bellybutton fluff: the more you do it, the more you want to do it. Ew...I should have used eating Pringles as a less grimy example.

Maybe it's something to do with organising bits and pieces of my life. In any case, it's going to be nice to have posts to look back on after a few months, or even a few years.

Reading: Horseradish, by Lemony Snicket. (OOH-HOO, YES, I finished Monte Cristo! And it was totally worth it. Drool. I now adore plump, deceased French authors.)
Listening: MGMT on repeat. Yu-um.
Watching: Season 2 of Friends.
Mood: buoyant. For now, at least :]

On a less pleasant note, I have decided that I hate arrogance. No--that doesn't do my feeling justice. I looooooaaaaathe arrogance. It has even earned itself a spot on my NAY list! Shock! But honestly--so they may be good people, well-intentioned, clever, with humanitarian views and philanthropic tendencies...BUT GOOD GRIEF. Get off your pedestal. Gosh.

Yes, I am mostly referring to arrogant grads. Oh dear, it's not good to have pent-up anger. Release. Breathe. Scatter negative emotions to the cosmos...

MY LAPTOP HAS NO SOUND

AAH.
AAH.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
Daaaaaaaamn it! Now I can't wag lectures and listen to them at home, nooooooooooooo!

AMS PREFS DUE THIS FRIDAY

AAH.
AAH.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
AAH!

Friday

Listening: Boogie Down by MGMT

Reading: Monte Cristo (STILL. page 870 gargargar!)
Writing: An Unimportant Matter. Redrafting first 17 chapters.

Watching: Friendssss <3

Saw Yaya, Ainslie, Yoong, Shirley, Suz, Weiminn, Mun Yee, Nicole today! And ran into random people around Glenny. Social contact = nice. Wore nice clothes (haven't for a while) and felt nice. We decided not to watch The Duchess and bum around and chat instead. Talked about how Koreans all plastic surgery themselves between highschool and uni. Played "guess whose lips". Ainslie made rum balls. They tasted great. It was great. Saved money. Was called "stingy" by yet another friend. She insisted it was a compliment. Drank a cappuccino--I'm not hooked. Purely for social reasons. Purely.

Chandler is currently my favourite "Friend". He's hilarious.

Had a thought: poor girls who are given guy names because it's supposed to be "modern". Like Hayden Panettiere?! I mean, what if she wants to marry a guy named Hayden? That would creep me out. I'd never marry someone with the same name as me. Yeeeees.

I love randomness.

Synopsis of Me, Now

I have a very strong image in my mind of Brian doing a stripper-esque imitation of a cat, complete with meowing. I am slightly scarred.

Reading: The Count of Monte Cristo (still)
Watched: Little Miss Sunshine (not bad; quirky in a good way)
Watching: Friends Season 1 (thanks Megan, you have got me completely and totally hooked! And possibly my mum and brother, too!)
Listening: Bruises by Chairlift

This morning my mum was looking at me and she said, "I can understand why you would want to drop a size." I don't know if that's something mums are allowed to say or if I'm just being overly sensitive. Now I have to walk around knowing that my mum thinks...yeah. Maybe I should just let it slide.

Tash--do you have a blog? I don't know where to reply your comments! But I think Phillip Pullman and Oscar Wilde definitely do have an amoral vibe, because their writing is threaded with amoral themes, which may possibly reflect their amoral values...in any case I know Pullman wanted to write a secular children's series to rival Narnia (he didn't like its Christian themes), and, well, Wilde sort of defied social convention, seduced a rich man's son and landed in jail for a good part of his life...

I feel like Oscar Wilde's plays contain less controversy than Dorian Gray, though! Perhaps I'm reading it a different way :]

A Lusty Post

Eurgh, that is such a disgusting word! LUSTY. It even sounds raunchy! Anyway, this isn't actually a lusty post. Not really.

I've been wanting to make this post for a while, though! Becausebecausebecause there's a movie coming out in 2009 and it is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's only novel, and I think Oscar Wilde is a quirky genius, and GUESS WHO IS PLAYING THE TITLE ROLE OF THE BEAUTIFUL SEXY IRRESISTIBLE DORIAN GRAY?!?!?!?!

Ben Barnes.

NOW I KNOW WHY I'VE BEEN FEELING BREATHLESS!!!!!!

One of my favourite books + one of my favourite celebrities. I CAN NOT WAIT until this comes out, and I really hope (times a billion) it's not a flop. The first few on-set shots were released recently. And now please bear with me...

Oh yeah, Colin Firth is in it too (as Lord Henry Wotton, the cynical, witty corrupting influence):

Thanks for indulging me! I'm not really this obsessed. I'm just sad that I won't be getting any action now that I'm not going Grampians (joking; Jason, it was a CHURCH CAMP! waa XD).

Still, I can not wait for 2009. Drooooooooooooooooooooool. This may just make my year. =D

Distancing yourself from people is only a vicious cycle. Your expectations go up; your friends are less inclined to fulfil those expectations, because it seems like you don't care anyway; when your expectations are not met, you distance yourself even more and try to convince yourself that you "really don't care".

Also, what gives me the right to have such high expectations of people? It makes me seem like I think I'm perfect.

Harsh words from a close friend, and I thought I'd jot just a few of them down here so I wouldn't forget.

Grampians for two nights - yes or no?

Pros:
- fishing for dinner
- meeting new people, which I haven't done for a while...
- canoeing, cycling, physical activity
- scenic views
- pyramid-shaped cabins (?!)
- cheap (less than $80)

Cons:
- if I go, I will be left with literally no spare time on my holidays for study/relaxing
- don't know anyone there except Megan, Matt Yong, PG
- be able to spend less time with brother and Dad who are both on holidays at the moment
- distance. Grampians is a four hour drive, I hear..

Several things

1. Breathlessness

It's been happening for a few months now: random moments when I feel like I can't get enough air (...no air, no aaair...), and sadly, no, it's not because there chances to be a parade of hot, British men in 19th century costume passing by.

fig. 1. Parade of hot, British men (or rather, one man: Blake Ritson. He looks like a cross between Brendon Urie and Adrien Brody! Strange but cool. EEEEEEEE. You have to excuse me. I just watched Persuasion and Mansfield Park in one sitting. Oh, gawsh. I'm already becoming an old spinster who sits at home with her box of tissues and sniffles over Jane Austen all day. Help! Ah! Ack! Oh, but Blake is so prettyyy XD...and strangely emo-looking for an Austen adaptation?!)

Anyhow, in regards to the breathlessness, after I ruled out the possibility that it was due to me hyperventilating over eye-candy (since said eye-candy was, woefully, not present), I narrowed the causes down to three: asthma, iron-deficiency and hypochondrism (is that a word?).

In essence I've decided I must have become something of an interminable hypochondriac in recent days, because, honestly--my (mild, childhood, now regressed) asthma and my (also mild, non-significant, temporary) lack of iron/B12/folate/good old fashioned lovin' are probably not severe enough to cause me any physical manifestations, per se. And being a newly actualised hypochondriac is providentially in line with my next topic in this lovely rant (gosh, reading Alexandre Dumas has done wonders for making my writing sound all pompous and wordy! I love it!); hence I am led on to part deux...

2. Apathy

I hate the way we're all so subject to our emotions. In fact, what we do is practically a slave to how we feel. I feel bored; therefore, no matter how hard I try, I cannot and will not force myself to study. Or maybe it's because I'm just weak-willed. I think I've grown into more of a person that is happier to simply go with the flow, which can be both a good and a bad thing. Less discipline, more dreaminess. At the moment I am sick to death of study, and unlike neuro or physiology or cardio, the current course content isn't helping in the least to pique my interest, either.

I have a ton of other things I'm spending my time on, in a constant half-dazed state, with little fear of the consequences of slacking off--and that is scaring me a little (in the back of my fuzzy, romantic mind). I look at people around me who appear to be constantly driven, or active, or bright and bubbly, or sociable, or disciplined, and I am amazed at the myriad of different personalities, and also in admiration of their talents.

If I could have my right now just the way I want it, I doubt I would be here at all. I would be studying Literature or mythology or something beautiful and useless, and visiting Rome and Egypt, and reading until my eyes dried up. I don't think I'd choose to be studying medicine at all. And that's terrifying, because med is something I do want, dearly. There's no future in that Other Life. There's also no point in it, no good to come out of it. That is that.

3. Homo Sapiens

I've said that I admire people who can be almost perpetually bright and bubbly, because when I look at myself (and back on scant blog posts) I feel that I, whether unintentionally or intentionally, present as a pretty pessimistic person. (Even though I'm constantly told that I always smile. Dammit--normal people smile when they talk! Don't they?!)

Maybe I'm sceptical because I view people and I see a reflection of my own negative attributes in them, and I feel--disappointed? Not quite disgusted, that's too strong. Apathetic, perhaps. Detached. I don't have that thrive and enthusiasm to meet people that many of my friends posess. I had it in first year uni. To be excited to meet new people, you have to possess a certain optimism in the integrity of human character. You have to believe that there's a more than likely chance that the person you're being introduced to is a nice chap/lass. Hehe.

Anyway, human relationship is probably the most philosophised, agonised, mulled over, argued, analysed and emotionalised topic in the history of mankind. And my contribution matters little, except to me. Perhaps by becoming apathetic to the world around me I'm sort of withdrawing into my cocoon--a protective mechanism, yes, but also formulating a foundation for myself. I need to find a surety in myself and in my future. Do I really know who I am and where I see myself in the next few years? Could I live, alone, one single person in this wide world, and be confident in that? Where am I from? What are my roots? My family: I have a sudden longing to savour their presence before any of them are taken away from me. It could happen any day. And old friends. I've already said this, but dinner and poker at Mel's apartment was the absolute best, except for the argument. But I loved it. It was like a second family.

It's easy to point out people's flaws. I'm great at it. My own, my friends', my family's, those of people who push onto the bus at AMSA. But I know I set my expectations way too high. We're not called to be selfless angels. There's only so much that each person can do. We can't save the world or dissolve heartache or figure out the problems of mankind. Mostly what we just do is simply--exist. And that's enough, I think.

And my own flaws? Let's not go into that today; this post is already far too long! I think I should allow myself one thing, though: to be emotional, sometimes. I'm supposed to write long, mushy blog posts; to overanalyse things; to dream and hope. I am a nineteen year old girl, not a man of steel. Yep, we are the gentler sex, but not weaker for it.

That being said, I still believe you should never allow your emotions to be the prime factor in how you behave. Head over heart. Grr. -goes back to being a grizzly bear-

More next time.

For any HP fans...

...kiss this and you'll get a mouthful of wax. It's Daniel Radcliffe's wax duplicate, in Madame Tussaud's! Freaky. It almost looks hotter than the original.

Spot the difference.

I try collide and the sky descry;
why with fine lies my sigh deny?
fly nigh,
defy.

no coffee for two weeks!

you ain't mah lover no more..

Random Realisations

Because a blog is the one place where you get to be unforgivingly self-absorbed =D These are five things I've recently realised about myself:

5. I sing in the shower, reflexively. Sometime I sing to sleep...

4. I like male falsettos.

3. I am impatient, which I did not realise before and probably need to be more conscious of. I feel annoyed when people speak slowly. And tonight I drove straight through a red arrow light. I was approaching the intersection and I remember thinking, I do not want to wait five minutes for it to turn green again and then I drove and I turned right and I just kept going, straight through. Is that really bad? There were no cars in sight. But argh! What am I becoming, some sort of tryhard rebel?!

2. The person I care about most in the world is my brother. Even though I'm terrible at showing it to him, sometimes.

1. I use the word 'I' far too often.

blinded

We're all wearing rose-tinted glasses and far too many
blindfolds..

(How do you know what's real? We're fickle.
We change our minds like a
part-time crossdresser changing outfits. And
who's really unbiased enough to
know truth, anyway? We all see what we want
to see, think what we want to think.
It's just the way it is. Percepts.
Damn, HP.)

----------;@

Review: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer

OK. I cannot put this off any longer. I am being inundated by references to Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn and Edward (or rather, "OMG EDWARD EDWARD MARRY ME") almost every day. It must be a sign.

Book: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer

The premise for the Twilight series, I have to admit, was cheesy but promising. Next-door-type girl and young, hot vampire-boy fall in love. Only problem? He thirsts for her blood. Needless to say, with my penchant for forbidden-love stories, I was pretty swept up in the first book. It was, despite its unspectacular prose, gripping in that teenage hormonal romance way. If you're not sure what I mean, get on fictionpress.com and find any angsty 30-chapter high school love story penned by a pseudo-emo fifteen year old girl. Page upon glorious page of whining, wondering and wishing!

That's exactly where Meyer's secret to popularity lies, I think. She writes like a lovesick teenage girl. Edward is "perfect", "beautiful" and "flawless". His only personality defect is that he is overprotective of Bella. And by the time I got to the second and third books, my common sense returned to me. When I finished Eclipse, I was irritated to death of all the characters, including Jacob, Bella and (gasp) Edward. The characterisation makes me shudder. Bella claims to be a mature, unselfish girl, but she spends 99% of her time wailing about Edward and wallowing in self-pity. There is hardly a page in the book when she's not thinking about herself. She is not interesting in any way. She does not have talents or flaws. She is "clumsy". Big whoop.

Edward, naturally, is still my favourite character (hawt, what can I say?), but even he began to get on my nerves. After three books, I still haven't figured out why he fell in love with Bella. I think it's because he liked the smell of her blood. Right-o. A bonus, though: he sparkles in the sun.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not slagging Stephenie Meyer. I think she's brilliant at capturing the wild, unrealistic fantasies of thousands of teenage girls across the world. And her writing isn't dreadful. It's just no better than a hundred other stories I've read online. Heck, I've read stories online that are so much wittier, wilier, quirkier, cleverer and more deserving of popularity than hers.

Anyway, I'm not going to be reading Breaking Dawn. I've already read the Wikipedia plot summary, and I have had my fill of gushing proclamations of love, and the fourth and final book is 800 pages long, and that's 800 pages of my life that could probably be better spent, eg. picking wax out of my ears (ouch, that was unnecessarily harsh! I don't mean that!). I apologise to those of my friends to whom I recommended the books during my earlier fangirling days--I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway! And despite everything, yes, I will be going to see the movie when it comes out, just to see Cedric Diggory reincarnated as a sparkling, super-strong, super-hot vampire.

In retrospect, the Twilight series is little more than an online angst saga dressed up in pretty book covers. It's enticing, I'll give it that much, but...sigh. The whole thing could have been done so much better.

Rating: 3.5/10 (extra 0.5 for length and effort)

love lifts us up where we belong

I am trying to wean myself off caffeine. I have decided that no daily cappuccino will be a good thing. It will save me a significant amount of money, and, more importantly, it will help me to control my tiredness in a better way: by sleeping (sleep? what is that?!). So--until I achieve regular, healthy sleeping patterns, cappuccinos are going to stay off my aye list. Farewell, my dear love.

Panic, by the way, was HOT! In every sense of the word (:

fig. 1. Ack! -makes giggling fangirl noises-

Horror

I just realised that there is a huge chance I might collapse/die/go insane during the next five days.

Friday: Uni from 9am till 5pm. Watching CMG concert in the night.
Saturday: Tuition from 9:30am. Leave house at 2pm to line up for Panic at the Disco. Jump happily in mosh pit till late.
Sunday: Church. PLC gathering in arvo, yay.
Monday: Uni. BSF in evening.
Tuesday: Sneaky Sound System!

I AM NOT USED TO THIS! I am a recluse. I am a recluse. I am antisocial...-continues to chant mantra, soothingly-

I'm so excited.

Review: Foundling - D.M. Cornish

I thought I might as well do another one while I'm on a roll!

Book: Foundling (Book 1 of Monster Blood Tattoo), by D.M. Cornish

Set in a painstakingly detailed world of arcane science and alchemy. D.M. Cornish has been building the Half-Continent from his imagination since 1993, filling notebooks with illustrations, maps, character descriptions, etc. There are monsters and multicoloured oceans and somewhat morbid ideas (having strange organs surgically sewn into your body so that you have electrical powers). Cornish's world-building is stunning, almost comparable to that of J.R.R. Tolkien. His maps. Oh my gosh. The detail. The place names (many which are Latin-based!). The artwork.

The story itself, unfortunately, I didn't find stunning. It's good. It's an entertaining fantasy tale. But by itself it's not brilliant. It had a few too many cliched parts for my liking--in particular, the whole 'lowly orphan rises to great adventures' thing. Some good points are the various secondary characters and their quirky names. Anyway, the awesome world-building and flair makes up for it. Thus, I will be reading the rest of the series!

Rating: 8/10

Review: Interview With The Vampire - Anne Rice

I've been inspired by other blogs to try reviewing things. So from now on (sporadically) I'll be giving movies, books and people I see on the street a score out of 10, 0 being unmentionable and 10 being gobsmackingly divine.

I suppose I'll start with the book that Chris recently lent me (:

Book: Interview With The Vampire, by Anne Rice

In a darkened room a young man sits and tells the macabre and eerie story of his life...the story of a vampire gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood.

I agree that the whole vampire genre is nauseatingly overdone, but this book was published in 1976, and is considered the second most influential vampire novel of all time to Dracula. Hm. Good points: Rice's writing is very dramatic, very flowing and descriptive. It's like the reader really experiences the grittiness of being a vampire. Unique ideas in gory, vivid abundance. Not afraid to push the limits. Bad points: It's a horror-tale genre, so yes, it was dark and violent--but I suppose that's more of a personal taste thing. The hints at paedophilia/father-daughter relationships leave you a bit uneasy, but its somewhat mollified by the fact that Rice is a woman, haha. The whole book is sort of in a state of heightened drama, and Rice works her style beautifully, but again, I personally prefer narratives that are understated. Overall, though, I can't deny that this is a chilling and impressive read.
Rating: 7/10

What superpower would you choose?

A perennially favourite question. After much multi-faceted debate with various equally enthusiastic friends (as well as random acquaintances during dissection pracs), I've narrowed it down to two. Just for kicks, and because I adore the sound of my own (online) voice, here they are...

SUPERPOWER #1: MIND-READING

Think Matt Parkman from Heroes. Or Elspeth Gordie from Obernewtyn, although she had every single power, what a hog. The only problem with that sort of mind-reading is (as someone pointed out to me) that what someone thinks at a present moment in time might not be what they truly feel. So perhaps it's not mind-reading I'm after, per se. I want to see everything inside a person's head...? I want to know...their minds...and their...hearts...-begins to laugh manically-

Pros:

- never need to study for exams (can pluck answers out of your colleagues' heads).

- never run out of money (constant access to PIN numbers).

- can get cheap job as crystal-ball psychic in travelling circus.

- can completely dominate poker.

- possible future in CIA, FBI, etc.

- knowing what others are thinking/feeling/desiring.

- knowing what your friends really think of you.

Cons:

- knowing what your friends really think of you. May be problematic if you: 1) tell them you can read their minds and demand to know exactly why you are an 'arrogant cow', which then frightens them all away from you; or 2) keep it to yourself and struggle with the knowledge that you are actually an arrogant cow.

- feelings of guilt after cheating others. Only applies if you have a conscience.

SUPERPOWER #2: TELEKINESIS

Think Matilda, from Matilda by Roald Dahl (I love how Dahl's surname is the name of a lentil used in South Asian cooking). Or Neo when he bends the spoon. Basically, making things move/fly around with your mind.

Pros:

- can scare enemies by making things float in front of them.

- can exercise and burn energy just by making things fly around. No need to get off the couch.

- can impress girls with your skill (if you are a guy). "Undressing a girl with your mind" would take on a whole new meaning...

- can defend yourself against a guy trying to undress you (if you are a girl). Keep heavy objects close at hand.

Cons:

- no major ones, but it's not a very powerful ability. Unless you're so fast you can bend bullets away from you before they hit you. Or stop them completely.

ferrero rocher

Have you ever felt like other people probably deserve something more than you do? If I miss out, what's that to the world? I am just one person. If someone else is happy, isn't it the same as if I am happy? We are both people, equal and alike, and the value of her happiness is equal to mine. So what is it, in the end? It is inconsequential.

THE OLYMPICS ARE ALMOST OVER?! Waa. I haven't watched nearly enough! At least I saw Usain Bolt run the hundred metres =D

fig. 1. Holy cow!

Good times are sitting in a food court writing a list of 100 things to do before we die. 100 anythings, no matter how improbable or financially draining or faraway. I don't think I could ever run out of ideas (:

---

LORD ILLINGWORTH: The world is simply divided into two classes - those who believe the incredible, like the public - and those who do the improbable -

MRS ALLONBY: Like yourself?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Yes; I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.

LADY STUTFIELD: And what have you been doing lately that astonishes you?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I have been discovering all kinds of beautiful qualities in my own nature.

MRS ALLONBY: Ah! don't become quite perfect all at once. Do it gradually!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I don't intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I shan't. It would be most inconvenient. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

- Act 3, A Woman of No Importance

the getting of wisdom.

fig. 1. Me?

I wonder how much of a doormat I am. I had a thought that maybe I'm not strong, or in control of my emotions, or rational, or independent of others. Maybe I'm just letting everyone tread all over me and trying to convince myself that I don't care.

Sweeney Todd was pretty good. Not as good as The Picture of Dorian Gray, but that's because Sweeney was a musical whilst Dorian was a heavily dialogue-based play and it was witty. But Sweeney did have hilarious songs and quite brilliant actors and fake blood. I want to see the movie now! Johnny Depp > random plump dude with curly greasy hair, although random plump dude can sing.

Haven't done a scrap of work all weekend, and I feel good! I went for a twilight walk today, and found out that everyone looks like a potential rapist in the half-dark.

Not gone yet.

I am not giving up on this blog after three posts. To do so would speak terrible things about my potential for commitment.

Anyway, I can't sleep and I'm iron deficient. Funny thing is, I feel--good. Relatively. Absolutely. Yesterday was an impressive feat of endurance: in the city from about 9am to 11pm, and I did not fall asleep on the train home. I conversed and laughed and socialised on four hours' sleep. Mel's housewarming was a lovely reunion. Tanya told me all about her Nigerian boyfriend (note to self: long distance relationships are difficult). We played poker (note to self: buy poker set ASAP). And the apartment (shared with Natalie) is so, so hot! Not sweaty hot. The other kind. It's like an artsy loft. I wish I moved in with her. The city views, the nightlife...ahh. I have to visit some days after uni (:

Came home, read several scenes of 'A Woman of No Importance' and laughed myself to sleep. Dragged myself up for tuition at 9am, blundered through a series of probability questions and made multiple excuses for not knowing the answers. Second student didn't turn up. Blog is turning into a dry, tedious list of my daily activities, noooooo.

So many things to do. BSF homework. Buy a watch. Fix my glasses (have fallen asleep on them too many times). Read up on the visual pathway, woohoo. See my GP about this whole lack of iron and haemoglobin fiasco. And tonight I'm going to watch a play at Monash: Sweeney Todd.

Sometimes I feel like I only live in the same place as my family; I don't see them nearly as much as I would love to.

Frank Woodley

...is hilarious. And since tonight is such a joyful, happy night (might have something to do with the fact that exams are over, perhaps) I thought I'd share a tidbit of his comic genius with, er, myself and any stalkers. This is just a short interview that was in Good Weekend; you might have seen it, and I'm probably blatantly disregarding some sort of publication copyright law by reposting it here. Or blatantly disregarding your taste in humour. Well, I think it's funny. XD~

Frank Woodley
Comedian

Your earliest memory is...
my dad holding my wrists and swinging me around in circles. It makes me sad that unless I meet a 12-foot man, I'll never have that experience again.

At school I...
was very successful at spelling bees. Other words I found more difficult.

My first relationship was...
with a girl called Annie. When we had our first kiss, I held her body away from mine because I didn't want her to realise how much my legs were shaking.

I don't like talking about...
the fact that my Commonwealth Bank internet banking password is "avocado".

My most treasured possession is...
my loved ones, although they're not possessions, are they? Except my dog--is a dog a possession? Oh, and my cousin Harry who I keep in a cage.

My mother and father always told me...
you can be anything you want to be, which led to deep disappointment when I said I wanted to be a spider monkey.

I wish I hadn't...
told everyone what my internet banking password is.

My happiest moment was...
when I was saying goodbye to my wife (who was only a friend at the time) and I lingered subtly on our kiss and realised, "Oh my God, she's lingering too."

At home I cook...
meals I enjoy, but which a passer-by would describe as gruel.

My last meal would be...
an all-you-can-eat buffet and I'd chew really, really slowly and stretch it out for 40 or 50 years.

When I was a child I wanted to...
run away and join the circus. Do children who grow up in the circus dream of running away and joining an accounting firm?

Friends say I am...
a saint, a scientific genius, a brilliant raconteur, an incredible god-like physical specimen, and the only person they know who can speak three different languages fluently.

The song I'd like played at my funeral is...
Well, it's not so much a song but a recording of me knocking on the coffin saying, "I don't think this cremation device is safe."

My greatest fear is...
that I'll get overwhelmed by all the suffering and brutality in the world and become cynical. A bit heavy, but you did ask!

If only I could...
work out a single cryptic crossword clue before I die.

The last big belly laugh I had was...
actually, I don't think it's appropriate to laugh at big bellies.

What I don't find amusing is...
real-life bullies. In comedy--hilarious. In real life--not so funny.

If I wasn't me I'd like to be...
a spider monkey, but thinking about it opens up old wounds (see above).

My favourite work of art is...
the huge sculpture of Bunjil the Eagle that overlooks Wurundjeri Way

I often wonder...
what snakes do when they feel like having a bit of a lie down.

*

I wonder if comedians ever feel pressured to be funny the way we feel pressured to pass exams. I suppose they do! *experiences Newton-apple-falling moment of enlightenment*

Anyhow, did I say I finished exams? I finished exams, and now I have a huge, wonderful list of things that I have needed to do for a long time/have wanted to do for a long time (yeah, well, 10 days of SWOTVAC feels like foreverrr).

Checked off for today:
- bought thank-you gifts
- called tuition students and told them they can start coming to my house again because the amount of loose lecture notes/papers/pages torn out of notebooks floating around is no longer at a dangerous level
- watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Properly. Now I have to read the book. Properly.
- showered (not that I didn't do that during swotvac...hum de dum...)
- spent money (not on textbooks) and relaxed and had social contact (good heavens) and whatnot =]

I could list other stuff, but I can't be bothered, because I'm going to read Dorian Gray. At last. Suddenly my life has colour again!

dryads and naiads dancing around

In the theme of Narnia and Prince Caspian (sort of), I thought I'd bring up C.S. Lewis. A while ago I read one of his books entitled The Screwtape Letters. It's a satire, a Christian satire, in the form of thirty-one letters from a world-wise old devil named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood.

fig. 1. The Screwtape Letters. fig. 2. Prince Caspian. Completely relevant.

In any case, I found the book difficult to get through because it wasn't in story-form. It's nothing like Narnia--no tea parties with goat-footed fauns that look like James McAvoy (I'm tempted to put another picture up--no, I'll resist), no dryads and naiads dancing around. They're just letters, that portray human life with irony and sly wit.

But it was completely worth reading, if only for bits like this:

All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. This is elementary.

This struck me, because:
a) it reminded me strikingly of Sherlock Holmes. ("Elementary, my dear Watson!" Although, did you know, that phrase is actually not found anywhere in Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective series?)

fig. 3. Sherlock Holmes. Again, this is completely relevant.

and:

b) it made me feel somewhat worried.

Worried? Why?

It got me thinking about the sorts of facades we put up. Consciously or unconsciously, we all act a different way around different people. I even talk differently to different friends. (Yeah, I hate that.) I could be all dramatic and tear my hair and cry out which one is the real me?!

...but I think I'll save that for a later date (:

What does worry me, though, is if I feel comfortable treating my friends rudely and disrespectfully--even though it might be in a light-hearted sense--what if I find myself being mean and cynical more often than I am genuine and nice? I have this distorted perception of myself that I can behave however/say whatever I want and the only thing that really matters is the strength of my inner character. But if your outer self is what people see, what influences your friends and what draws people toward you or pushes them away from you--I suppose that's also important (light and salt, hey). And, according to C.S. Lewis, that's going to change who you are within, as well.

The quote also emphasises the power of our actions. Pretend to be world-wise, and in the end you will be a worldly person.

Ooh, I'm at risk of sounding preachy. I shall end here, I think. Lunch smells good. And perhaps finish off with a passage from the book. I like this.

You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word 'real'. They tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, 'All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building'; here 'real' means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had. On the other hand, they will also say 'It's all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it's really like': here 'real' is being used in the opposite sense to mean, not the physical facts (which they already know while discussing the matter in armchairs) but the emotional effect those facts will have on a human consciousness. Either application of the word could be defended; but our business is to keep the two going at once so that the emotional value of the word 'real' can be placed now on one side of the account, now on the other, as it happens to suit us.

Tricksters

Now that I look at it properly (in such pretty cyan blue, on a very aesthetically pleasing dotty background), it is a strange name for a blog. Prometheus, fire-bringer! So grand. So pompous. Perhaps it reflects my personality? I hope not. Plus, I am no Greek Titan. Nor am I male, or particularly excited by playing with flammable objects.

The Titans were a race of really quite powerful deities (not giants, as commonly believed, thanks to the word 'titanic') who were supposed to have ruled before the time of the Olympians (Zeus and Aphrodite and the rest of their posse). Prometheus, a son of one of the twelve main Titans, was a rather clever, crafty fellow who became known for stealing fire from Zeus and giving it to the mortals. In other words, he was a bit of a trickster.

fig. 1. Prometheus, wearing a somewhat compromising robe.

Naturally, this made Zeus angry, and this led to a whole series of events such as Zeus sending man the worst thing possible (yes, it was actually the first woman, Pandora, made 'to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil'...I resent that). And, of course, Prometheus is chained to a rock in the Caucasus where he gets his liver eaten daily by an eagle/vulture. The liver being the only organ in your body that can regenerate itself completely (I think. I should check my lecture notes...).

fig. 2. Prometheus and the eagle. This picture is G-rated, if you have a clean mind.

Mostly, Prometheus is known for his wily intelligence, and his bravery, and rebelliousness. Well, at least, that's what stands out to me. And I've realised: there is something about the trickster archetype that intrigues me (or us? Can I speak for everyone in general?). The person who breaks the rules, who doesn't care what other people think, who may even use their intellect (or other talents) to manipulate others, is fascinating to us. The non-conformist. The hero who steals from the rich and gives to the poor (*hums Robin Hood theme music*). It makes me wonder--what is it about us that makes us so drawn to the whole concept of rebelling?

Humans need rules, structure and routine, or else we would go insane. But there is something tantalising about not following procedure that makes it seem so much more appealing than staying in line. (Otherwise, why would anyone struggle with sin?)

Movies appeal to us because they have heroes who defy societal boundaries to fight for justice/save lives/go on wild car chases that end in glorious explosions. If someone says don't touch we say why not. Rebels are more intriguing than followers. And sadly, procrastination is so, so much more appealing than studying.

And that note brings me abruptly to the end of my spiel. Exams on Monday, and Tuesday, and unfortunately neither one has anything to do with Prometheus =D