Episode 49: Je L'ai Fini!

I finished my portfolio sometime after midday. I think the poems got sloppy towards the end, but what the heck, I wasn't in any state of mind to care too much. Now it's on to the Eliot essay, about which I have absolutely no idea. I have a stack of books on Eliot and modernism, and somehow, miraculously, a thesis statement is going to implant itself in my mind if I stare at the books for long enough. In other news, I've concluded that it is generally not a good idea to have my Amazon UK purchases delivered in several batches. I should just have everything I buy on a particular day delivered together, even if it means waiting longer. None of my orders are missing, and now I even have a duplicate order that I'm going to have to send back at some point before the end of January, so I'm just a bit annoyed over the whole mess, even if it has somewhat sorted itself out. Sigh. I'm a bit annoyed that the Italo Calvino books aren't the editions that I wanted though. They're Vintage Classics editions, but from a different, and in my opinion, uglier printing. So I'm giving one to Eugene for Christmas because he doesn't mind getting a Calvino book. Anyone else want a present from me?

Episode 48: The Start Of A Very Bad Week

This morning, by Philips earphones died on me. Or to be precise, the left side died. I ended up ordering Sennheiser earphones off Amazon UK, which should arrive together with my books on Tuesday. I won't be able to collect them, unless I walk all the way back after the EN121 lecture and collect them before heading to the EN122 seminar. Either that, or I could wake up extra early on Tuesday. At least service was okay. Tom sang two of my favourite songs, Forever and Blessed Be Your Name! Headed back to my room after service to order the earphones, and then I went to Tesco to grab food. Being the lazy person that I am, I have not bought groceries and thus have absolutely no motivation to cook, despite having all the necessary kitchen implements. Since I got back, I've been stuck here trying to churn out poems for my portfolio, with little success. I did manage a series of haiku, which I think are quite decent, and I (pretentiously) reformatted one of the pieces that I originally didn't want to include because I was getting desperate. (That and I can now claim that reading E. E. Cummings inspired me!) I'm now writing a villanelle, which I'm going to claim is influenced by Philip Larkin. I'm terrible, just throwing out random poets whom I've read before as influences and inspiration. Have not done any reading for Week 7, although there is still time to get through Kafka's stories, assuming I finish the essay. I think I will resort to reading the opening and closing chapters of Absolute Beginners, so that I have something to say during Adam's seminar on Tuesday. As for my French homework, I think I'm just going to say I couldn't print it out and that I'll e-mail it, and then go back and write it out, since by then the EN123 essay will be a thing of the past. Sneaky, but it really can't be helped at this point. Sigh. I need a better work ethic next term...

Episode 47: A Trip To Ikea

This morning, just as I was about to leave my room to meet Chernise at Ikea, I received a call informing me that a postman was at the Arts Centre, trying to deliver a package to me. Puzzled, I replied that I hadn't asked for anything to be delivered. I had a sneaking suspicion this was going to be one of my Amazon UK packages, but I hadn't expected the delivery service to screw up now, not after having smoothly delivered four separate packages previously. Apparently, my faith was quite, quite misplaced, and my package has now been sent back to Amazon UK. I can only keep my fingers crossed that the refund for this order will go smoothly because I simply will not order those Italo Calvino books again until I've got my refund for a screwup that wasn't even my fault. Someone from the customer service side has replied to my e-mail though, offering to have a replacement order sent as soon as possible, so perhaps things will work out after all. There's still two more packages that should have arrived by now, yet I haven't received any little blue card telling me to pick them up, so am a bit jittery about those too! Oh well, here's hoping for the best...

Managed to get everything I needed from Ikea, so now the next step towards culinary greatness is buying groceries. Won't be doing that until I get at least the EN124 portfolio done though, which I'm hoping to get at least half-finished by tonight. Was initially flirting with the idea of writing a villanelle and something in terza rima, but I've decided to combine the two as a terzanelle instead. I will write the one in terza rima at some point, since I've never done it before, but I might give the villanelle a miss. All this, of course, is only going to happen after the EN123 essay is done, which I've more or less decided will be on T. S. Eliot, since I hear rumours that everyone else is writing about Yeats, whom I don't really like. I also have to produce a pantoum, since I want to include one in my portfolio for David Morley. Not quite sure what the pantoum's going to be about, but yeah, I'm off to hammer out that portfolio. No idea how I'm going to do the commentary though, since I haven't exactly been reading enough stuff to be influenced by it in my writing. Sigh...

Episode 46: Prioritise? What's That?

Wasted the entire day (and night) trying to figure out how to convert my Christian George and Dangerous Muse downloads from Napster into something that can be played on my iPod. Finally managed this with Tunebite, but really, this has been an utterly stupid use of my time. It's a good thing that my EN123 essay isn't due on Monday together with the EN124 portfolio, or I might as well declare myself royally screwed right now. Recently, I bought a couple of tracks off iTunes that didn't have DRM, all by KJ, who's one of those singers who seem to be perpetually on the verge of releasing a debut album, but really seem to be selling their pretty-boy faces more than the music. I listen to KJ's music, however, because it's pretty dancefloor-friendly, even before being remixed, which is the way I like my pop music these days. Think Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad album. Anyway, it's been almost an entire day of labour, and very little to show for it. Certainly nothing that's going to help me ace EN124! Guess I'll just go to sleep and worry about it all another day...

Episode 45: Liberty

Was originally going to the Learning Grid to study past midnight with Chloe and Michelle, but I ended up dragging Michelle to Liberty at the Arts Centre because I didn't realise until mid-afternoon that the free tickets for the STARs were for tonight's performance. When we got there, I decided on impulse to buy both the programme booklet and an autographed copy of the script. Glyn Maxwell's Liberty is an adaptation of Anatole France's Les Dieux Ont Soif, and it's set during the French Revolution, specifically during the time of the Terror and ending with the Thermidorean Reaction. As I was sitting there, it suddenly dawned on me that the French Revolution was possibly the only part of my 'A' Level History syllabus that I can say I actually enjoyed. Okay, I guess the Italian Revolution was interesting too, but hardly as poetic as the French one in its course. I mean, a revolution against tyranny that itself descended into tyranny? I thought the play was good, especially the choice to end the action just when the Thermidorean Reaction descended on the Jacobins. For what is left unsaid then becomes the rise of the revolution's next powerful figure, Napoleon Bonaparte. Like I said, you just have to love the French Revolution for its cyclical drama. The theatre was really empty though, which was quite saddening. Ah well, at least I didn't miss out on a good play...

Episode 44: Guy Fawkes Night

Just finished bingeing on food from Tesco, including some really bad sushi. Bad in the sense that the rice was hard and clumped together. Before that, I was at a couple's place along Kirby Corner Road, having Bible study. This is the one I was supposed to join Chernise for last week, but couldn't because I had to stay in my room and write the commentary on the Fitt 2 passage. We went over from The Sovereign, which is a pub owned by a couple that also attends Westwood Church. Just checked it out online, and it seems like a really family-friendly place. According to Chernise, it used to be called The Half-Sovereign, and was a really shady place. Andrea was saying how cabs used to refuse to stop at that place, sounded pretty hardcore. I like the double meaning of its new name though! I took videos of most of the fireworks, as photography just didn't cut it. Nothing as slick as the fireworks you get at National Day Parades back home, but it was quite intense, being so near to the fireworks as they went off. I'm glad I went down tonight! Remember, remember the fifth of November...

Episode 43: The Haunting

I think I've overspent! Sigh. Yet I still spent about £12 on snacks while in Coventry with Chermaine and Sarah. Just as well that I couldn't find nice rings in my size at Topman, otherwise I'd have spent even more. We had lunch at Noodle Bar, which was delicious. More authentic Chinese cuisine! Totally going back there again soon. In other news, my Internet connection has been restored, and appears to be stable. So far. Hopefully it stays that way, as I need to get caught up on getting TV episodes from Natalie. I just got back from The Haunting at Tempo. I was a bit boring, to quote Hui Lin, while walking through the haunted house, but it was pretty funny, seeing people that I recognised. It was a pretty cool way to usher people into the club though, that I must say. Didn't actually drink anything (unlike Shen Ting, who dropped by my room just now in a fairly drunken state), but I quite liked most of the music that was played by the DJ, although it seems like the same few songs are the genuine clubbing anthems. I must confess that some of the stuff that I normally wouldn't listen to, I quite like hearing and dancing to in a club. Like 50 Cent's 'Ayo Technology'. Would be cool to dance to one of Gareth Emery's podcast episodes though. Should play one of those if I ever throw a house party. A bunch of us thought of heading upstairs to The Graduate@Cholo to catch the US election results, and against the odds, someone actually opened the fire escape and let us in! We didn't stick around long though, simply too crowded. For what it's worth, I hope Obama wins. Walked back to Westwood with Whitney, and now I'm watching TV on my laptop again...

Episode 42: No Internet!

It's starting to dawn on me just how much reading I've got to get done this week. I'm not even bothering to get caught up on the readings that I've missed over the past weeks, just reading for Week 7. So you'd think that without the Internet, I'd actually get more reading done, but no, that's not happening at all. My Internet access has been cut off since Sunday! There was a half-hour this afternoon when it was back up, but just as suddenly, it was down once again. Quite annoying for a Facebook addict like me. So since I couldn't surf, I ended up catching up on Ghost Whisperer. I've realised that I haven't seen quite a lot of Season 3 actually, as for some reason or other, we stopped recording it. Audrey ended up watching it all online, but the videos she was streaming were really tiny, so I didn't bother watching them together with her. Am hoping that the Internet issue will be resolved by tomorrow morning. You know, sort of an overnight miracle. I even went so far as to buy a new Ethernet cable this afternoon, just to eliminate it as the source of the problem, but it seems that it's really Warwick's campus network that's gone crazy. Since 27 October, to be exact. Sigh. At least I had a nice dinner at Stephanie's surprise birthday party, so the day wasn't entirely crummy. Lots of local food, including Wayne's attempt at making laksa, which was pretty decent, if a little dry. When I get back to Singapore, I'm going to binge on local food for a week!

Episode 41: Brideshead Revisited

I just got back from a screening of Brideshead Revisited. Yeah, I know, I'm probably one of the last people to see the show. In fact, tonight was the final screening at the Arts Centre, so I went down with Chloe and Claire Lim. Not having read the book, I must pay the film the compliment of saying that it made me want to read Evelyn Waugh's novel. Part of the plot is set in Venice, and what glimpses of it were shown have only confirmed my resolve to visit that city at some point during my three years here. At the same time, I must also confess that the character of Charles Ryder reminded me of myself, perhaps more than I would have liked. That hunger to belong in the society of the moneyed and privileged can be very powerful, and undoubtedly, some of the decisions that I've made in my life have been deliberately calculated to bring me closer to that circle. By no means am I ungrateful for the upbringing that I've had, even if I don't display that gratitude as often as would be gratifying to my parents. It is simply that I have seen what there is to be had in this world, and I take it for granted that I deserve a share of it. At what price would I wrest this for myself, you might very well ask, and I would find it difficult to determine my answer. For I don't doubt that I have limits that I would not deign to cross; I have simply not had occasion to clearly define them yet.

Episode 40: Halloween Ball

Just got back from the Halloween Ball, which really wasn't that fun. I hated most of the music, to be frank. I still think the TES is just not really conducive for parties. We grabbed our coats and left half an hour before it ended, so as to avoid the crowd. Anyway, I went online and raided Amazon UK this afternoon! Almost everything I bought was course-related though, so I guess it doesn't really count. I wanted to buy loads of stuff by John Irving and Armistead Maupin, especially because they were Black Swan editions that looked really good. I cancelled my orders on those books at the last minute though. Figured I should probably read some of the stuff that's already on my shelves before doubling the size of my library here. I'm quite upset that I won't be able to buy Vintage International editions off Amazon UK. I suppose that's made up for by the fact that Faber poetry collections will be more readily available than they are back in Singapore. I'm starting to sound like I love owning books more than reading them, but I really do read. Really! Just not as much as I should be, that much I'll concede. I did treat myself to two DVD box sets, The Lord Of The Rings (Extended Edition) and The Ultimate Matrix Collection, both of which I've been wanting to buy. They should arrive by Tuesday, just in time to distract me from actually doing any work during Reading Week. Haha...